The woman was short and very attractive. She wore no makeup and let her hair fall loosely. A large lock fell over the middle of her face. In the afternoon breeze, her dress pressed against the smooth curves of her body, but these ceased to be the center of attention when, with a shake of her head, she revealed the scar that slanted from the outside of her right eye down into her cheek.
“No, we’re not going to do any such thing, Bella, because I’m the one who solves the legal problems around here,” the stocky man said. “And this is not the time.”
“It’s never the time,” the woman answered him.
“What we’re going to do is cooperate with the searches. We’re going to help them so that they’ll leave us be,” the man went on, ignoring the last comment. He had a pistol poorly hidden beneath his shirt. “You’re such a pain, you know that? Are you ever going to give up spouting opinions on everything? Somebody needs to give you a good working over. You need to be taught some manners, know what I mean?”
Now it was the woman’s turn to ignore his comments.
“And you, are you ever going to stop speaking for us?” she retorted instead. “Things were already bad enough before the soldiers arrived.” A murmur of approval and the sound of fans being flicked back and forth accompanied her words. “Maybe you don’t know that, because you have a house here but you never sleep in it.” She gave him a hard stare. “Or am I wrong?”
The atmosphere shifted as if a truck full of ice had passed through the middle of the plaza and charged the air with a blast of cold.
“We can demand street lighting, we’ve got a good reason for that now. They never would have snatched the man if there had been lampposts in the streets,” the woman continued.
While Bella spoke, the man made his way through the river of people gathered in the dusk, until he was face to face with her.
“Didn’t you hear me? We are not going to do any of that.” He pronounced the any like a newly sharpened blade. “We’re going to cooperate,” he went on in a more light-hearted tone. “Without even being asked, because that’s who we are, we are cooperators.”
“Don’t think I’m afraid of you, Don Chicho Salém. I’ve got enough experience with your goons. But some of us don’t make our living through robbery or extortion”— here the crowd around her drew back—“and we know what kind of man you are. Don’t count on me. I’m not going to be part of this.”
The woman turned around and headed off into the streets through the gathering night. She walked without hurry and with her back erect. Before she disappeared from view, she heard a shot and then Salém’s voice raised to a shout.
“Who else is leaving? Take note, ladies, that I’m not forcing anyone. Those who are with me, you’re with me because you know what kind of man I am. Don’t you come to me for help when you need it? Don’t I lend you money when you ask? That woman is quite mistaken, and someday she’ll realize her mistake. Probably too late. But, back to business. Who can I count on here?”
Several men raised their hands while some others took advantage of the commotion to slip away.
“Remember, I don’t need you, I’ve got my own people. But don’t think I won’t collect payback for disrespect.” Salém followed that up with a loud chuckle and another shot fired into the air, after which he grabbed his testicles in his meaty hands. “These are enough—and more—for me to do whatever I like, understood? Enough and more. Little prudes like Bella, they’re afraid of the size of my treasure. That’s why they run.” His voice continued to echo through the empty streets.
Hearing him, Bella couldn’t keep herself from saying aloud, “Ay, Don Chicho, aren’t you old enough to know that it’s not the size but what you can do with that thing?” At that moment she tripped on a rock. When she straightened up, she saw a dog sniffing at the dirt. Realizing there was an intruder on its street, the dog raised its head and looked her in the face.
“Your poor little prick, Salém, so pampered and innocent, while you’re so guilty of having such a tiny brain and being satisfied with that. What you need is to stand in front of a mirror and repeat and repeat till you’ve learned the lesson: ‘My little whistle isn’t guilty of anything, it’s no crime for it to be the way it is.’ And when you’ve got that one down, you need to memorize another: ‘I can stop being an idiot, I can learn not to be one.’ With a little will power, anything is possible. Practice makes perfect, Don Chicho.” All this, Bella said to the dog.
The animal ignored her speech, sticking its snout back into the hole in the bag of garbage it had found. Discovering a fish head, it caught the morsel in its teeth and took off down the street, wagging its tail with glee.
Varas started to get pressure from the paper, demands to give them something: an article, a scoop, something to justify the pampered schoolboy’s life they were subsidizing, so they said.
“I’m gathering facts,” he said when he phoned his editor.
“Then give us some, because we need something. Congress is about to concede the election to the other candidate, and you spend two weeks scratching your balls, while we pay you to do it. Remember, Varitas, I’m not your rich uncle, and neither is the paper, do you hear me?”
“Go to hell, Eduardo. If I can confirm what I’ve got, you’ll have the story of the year.”
“Don’t be funny, Varas. If you can manage to get the story, the attention span of our beloved public will be a day, at most. Remember, who wants yesterday’s papers? What? You don’t know the song, for Christ’s sake? Yesterday’s papers are good for wrapping fish guts in the market. I don’t care about smoking guns or witnesses. I just want a story and I want it now!”
“And you’ll have it, I swear, but you’ve got to give me more time. Understand? I need time, and you can shove the rich schoolboy’s life up your ass. You’re not giving me anything, so don’t try to bullshit me. I help you make money and I’m only asking for a few more days to fill some holes. Even First Impact is going to want to buy this story from me. I haven’t been sitting still, scratching my belly, like you.” He heard a forced laugh from the other end of the line.
“Two days, Varitas. I’m giving you two days and then you can fuck off for real. Do you get that?”
“Yes, Señor Editor, I do.”
Varas left the house early in the morning, hardly even taking time for the cup of coffee Montenegro offered him. The old man always got up before the first rays of the sun appeared over the river. He liked that initial light of day, whose shimmering quality revealed only the outlines of things.
“Want to say where you’re going so early?”
“Into shit, Don Montenegro, I’m going wading into shit.”
Jaime Montenegro said nothing. The young fellow’s tone of voice made it clear that he was nervous, and if what he really wanted was to wade into shit, he was in the right place, so let him go. The older man took his cup and sat by the rear window. The sunrise was beautiful, with fuchsia and violet sparkles flooding the sky. This was the only moment of the day when Montenegro felt life made any sense. Afterward, neon yellow made everything clear, and reality became obvious. Flat colors, all the same intensity, nowhere to lose oneself in silhouettes. That life didn’t interest him.
Varas walked several blocks, followed by a substantial number of stray dogs. He stopped to buy bread from a store, and seeing how skinny the dogs were, he bought them some loaves too. He carried the bag to the vacant lot where it had all started and sat down on a mound of dirt to think. He started to eat the bread, still warm from the oven, and pulled off hunks to throw to the dogs. He entertained himself that way for a good while until, by chance, he threw a scrap that landed on top of the most distant of the mounds. One dog, the hungriest or most enthusiastic, it was hard to say which, went after it. Varas heard a loud pum, and then a moan. He got up and headed toward the sound. There was a hole, it looked like a small one, but as he pulled away rocks he could see it was wide enough for a grown man to fit through. Down below, the animal was still whi
mpering.
“Hang on, I’m coming to help you,” he yelled into the hole.
However, Varas had the presence of mind to toss a small stone into the depths before descending. It seemed to fall forever until finally it hit bottom. He looked around and saw that the other dogs had left this one in the lurch, which reminded him of one of the first conversations he’d heard, in the barrio, about this vacant lot. He thought he should go down not only to help the dog but because this site right here, this hole, could be the clue he’d been looking for. But before finding out, he needed a flashlight and a rope.
“Listen, doggie, take it easy, I’m not going to leave you there. I’ll be back,” he called into the cavity before setting off down the unpaved street.
Chicho Salém had organized his men and a few volunteers to search the barrio one house at a time. The idea was to find the missing man and turn him over to the authorities. Salém had a rough map of Poso Wells and gave his men orders to mark every house that had been searched with a coded sign. One of his men and one volunteer went on every search. There was a tacit agreement to let them in, as much to avoid problems with Salém as to get rid of the soldiers. Nobody wanted trouble with Don Chicho. There were too many rumors that no one needed to back up: That his prowess as a lawyer had more to do with physical force and arms than with eloquence before the bench; that he’d never lost a case; that all the judges and magistrates were on his payroll; that it didn’t matter who was in power, because he always had the necessary contacts; that his influence extended from the coast to the mountains, where the drug trade, arms traffic, and money laundering made up still more of his many lucrative activities; and that activism on behalf of the poor in the southern reaches of Guayaquil was just another of his many masks. In spite of the fear sowed by all this, some people began to say that things were looking pretty slippery when they saw that the signs marking the searched houses were not all the same. But nobody offered explanations, and since so many foolish ideas circulated from mouth to mouth, in the end people decided to forget about it. Time passed, the searchers found nothing, the soldiers remained, and, to top it off, a crime wave had all the inhabitants of Wells on the edge of desperation. There was no police station in the barrio, and the majority of the victims would not go near one, anyway, to report the thefts of televisions, radios, and stereos. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody knew anything. Even a generator had disappeared. If you don’t see anything, what can you say?
Varas came back with a flashlight, thirty feet of rope, a hammer, a long metal pole, and a machete. There was no one around. A few blocks away, he could see the pack of dogs that had accompanied him in the morning. He got to work. First he hammered the pole into the ground, and when he was sure it was secure he tied one end of the rope to it with a series of sailor’s knots, and the other end to his waist. He stuck the machete in his belt and the flashlight in his pocket. He lowered one leg into the hole, seeking support along the wall. Since the surface was not completely smooth, he was able to find some grooves to make use of. He brought his other leg inside and began the descent. Once he was completely inside, the stench nearly overpowered him: garbage, dampness, mold. He continued his descent and found the walls becoming softer and more porous. It was like sticking his hands into flan. He slipped, and in a desperate effort to break his fall into emptiness, he clung to the wall and found it sticky. He discovered that this made the descent easy. He pressed with his shoulders, with his stomach, and kept going down. He couldn’t imagine what type of material was making this possible but there was no way to find out. He’d never been anywhere so dark. Dark, dank, suffocating. When the rope began to stiffen and he still had not touched bottom, he thought of jumping, hoping the bottom was not very far. Or else, climbing back up. Before he had time to decide, his feet hit a flat surface. Once on solid ground, he managed to separate his arms from the wall. The right side of his face and the whole front of his body were covered in sticky slime. He was confused. The darkness had disoriented him, leaving him unsure where he was or in what kind of shape. When he settled down—for he felt great anxiety and a need, rather irrational, to get out of there as quickly as possible—he reached into his pocket for the flashlight. Even in its beam, he couldn’t see much. He kept the light in his left hand and, semi-consciously, the machete in his right. He followed what seemed to be a tunnel, downhill.
“Doggie, doggie, where are you?” His words sounded outsized down here. “Psst, psst, hurry up, I don’t think you want to stay here, do you?” He was talking mostly to himself as he made his way along the corridor.
After a few steps, the darkness began to do a job on his mind. It was like walking through a nightmare with his eyes open, and it brought back every fearsome dream he’d ever had. He not only saw but heard hundreds of rats come charging down the passage toward him, attacking, overwhelming him, knocking him down. Their teeth tore burning gashes in his skin, yet all the while—perceiving and smelling and seeing this—he continued down the corridor. He felt the ground under his feet sliding away, felt himself falling into an endless well. He felt he could not resist the vertigo of his fall, but still he went on as if none of this were real. At some point the narrow tunnel emptied into a much wider one. Varas stopped and shone the flashlight around him. He saw a few caverns, not very deep. He tried to breathe slowly to regain his control. He went on.
“Doggie, doggie, come on out, right now. This is getting serious.”
He spoke just to calm himself, not even aware of what he said. But they were words, and the words sheltered him. His leg brushed against something that wasn’t dirt, nor was it the slime of the walls. He lowered his beam of light and saw something long and covered with mud. He kicked it and heard it complain.
“Let’s get out of here. Come on, right now,” he said, nearly in a whisper.
He tried pushing the thing again, this time more gently, but nothing happened. Then he squatted down and shined his light on the dirt. Something moved, something that looked like a tangle of hair. He didn’t remember the dog being that hairy, he thought it was more of a mangy mutt, the kind with more skin than hair. He kept shining the light, thinking he recognized the protruding ribs. He was about to lower his hand to pat and reassure the animal, but something held him back, so he kept exploring its body with his light. And then, more from surprise than anything else, he let out a cry and dropped both light and machete. It was an unconscious reaction for which he was instantly sorry. He reached out to grab the light and shine it on the shape once more. This time he met the gaze of the woman below him, who seemed barely aware of his presence. Right after that, he felt a tongue licking his face.
IV
The Scar
Bella Altamirano entered the shop called El Descanso, owned by Rosa Quintero, her best friend. She greeted Rosa with a kiss that the shopkeeper returned automatically while wrapping up some herbs in newspaper and counting out the money a young girl was paying for them. Before putting the coins in her till, she lifted her head and offered Bella a smile. Inside the small windowless room, the air always smelled like diesel and carried the hum—more of a fly-buzz really —of the small generator that powered the refrigerator and a single low-wattage bulb hanging from the ceiling. When Bella came in, Rosa was behind the worn counter of her store—a plank of battered plywood placed across cases displaying all of her merchandise, clean and orderly, protected by translucent glass stained by dozens of fingerprints.
Bella did not return the smile. She asked for some oatmeal and a can of powdered milk.
“What’s eating you?” her friend asked.
“Nothing, just that I used up all my Quaker and I need some more to make soup.” As she spoke, she opened a straw bag for Rosa to place her requests.
“Listen, sister, haven’t I know you since we were six years old?” Rosa put the groceries into the bag and noted them in a ledger that included Bella’s tab.
“No, don’t write it down, I’m going to pay cash.”
“Now you’ve
really got me worried. You’re hiding something, but it’s louder than a donkey braying in a canyon.”
“It’s nothing,” Bella said, eyes glued to the floor.
“Your scar is turning purple,” Rose replied gently.
Bella smiled thinly, put the bag on the floor, and leaned toward Rosa.
“Can you believe I forget it’s there?” she said while trying to see it out of the corner of her eye. As she did so, the scar lost the color Rosa had described.
Rosa rested her forearm on the counter, leaning toward Bella too.
“Is it Salém?” Rosa lowered her voice still further. “Do you think he might do something to you? Disappear you like the other women?”
“No, Rosa, Salém has been making threats for years, you know that better than anyone, but he’s not going to dare touch me. One of his disguises is that he’s a protector of women. How can he attack me or, worse, make me disappear? No, the disappearances aren’t his work.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because women are one of his best businesses, and if there’s one thing Salém knows how to do it’s bet on the winning horse. Does he help mistreated women out of Christian charity? Go check out his foundation’s books. If he takes care of you, he collects from you too.”
“Well, calm down little sister. It’s one thing to clear the first hurdle and another to finish the race.”
The two women grew quiet. During the silent interval accompanied only by the buzz of the generator, Rosa opened the refrigerator and took out two orange sodas. She uncapped them and started to drink from one while offering the other to her friend. The thin film of frost disappeared as soon as the bottles came in contact with the muggy atmosphere of the store. In the shadowy room, with her friend at her side, Bella recovered some of her ease and the illusion that everything could be as it had been before. But it was just an imperfect remnant, really, moments like this one in which she managed to forget about her scar. She had learned it was not necessary to disguise it with mother-of-pearl creams or musk rose oils, which in any case didn’t work as advertised, nor to try to cover it up with endless layers of makeup, which didn’t hide it but did stain her clothes. Nor did she part her hair to one side or straighten it to drop like a waterfall over her cheek. Well, sometimes out of habit she did the latter, but it was no longer from some tyrannical sense of duty to try to be the person she remembered. The wound, which had turned pink on scarring over, was the mark left by the only romantic relationship Bella was known to have had. The scar seemed to lead its own life: sometimes it was like the trace left by a crab on the seashore, but when she was angry it widened and turned a shade of violet. Then her face was like that of a broken and poorly mended doll. It was impossible to look at her without staring at the wound.
Poso Wells Page 3