The old man clucked his tongue. “Too close to the town. But so be it, if it is important.”
“It is not important. But I would consider it a personal favor. Besides which, we traded problems, didn’t we?”
The old man laughed. As though this were a signal, the woman came out with a stack of tin plates. Anna rose quickly, took the plates, and laid them out on the floor. The son stood up, moving to join his wife. Together, they brought out platters and bowls. The pungency of tamarind stew and of steamed rice filled the room. It called to the children who came bustling out of the smaller room and threw themselves to their knees. Husband and wife sat themselves on the floor presently, each carrying a small can of water. One was given to Rafael. He thrust his right hand in, swirled the water, took his hand out, and shook droplets off his fingers. He gave the can to Anna who mimicked his action. The others were also rinsing their hands. They would eat with their fingers. The old man ladled the food out, serving the guests first, urging them to eat.
Rafael peered into the tamarind stew. “Forgive me,” he said to the family. “It is nothing but stupidity. But every time I’m served tamarind stew, I have to examine it. Anna, you might find this of interest. I know what happened to the thieves.”
“No one else does,” Anna said as she used her fingers to gather and press the rice on her plate into little balls.
“I used to work with them,” Rafael said. “I was a very talented pickpocket.”
“I thought you were a student.”
“That, too. They sent me to college. Or rather, the King did. Sort of a long-term investment. The idea was for me to go to law school. I would never lack for clients.” He laughed.
“I can’t believe it.”
“He was both wise and foolish. In that kind of a group, he should have expected betrayal. But— anyway, they got him. Cost him all his fingers. They fed it to him in tamarind stew.”
The old man jerked. The children grimaced and started laughing, peering into the bowl. Anna, who was picking busily at a small fish, stopped.
“He ate it?” one of the kids asked.
“They didn’t tell him what it was until afterward. Then, of course, he vowed to kill them. So, they killed him. Then, they had to kill the rest of his men. Broke up the association and placed the teams under new management.Under the head of the police’s theft and robbery division, as a matter of fact.” He glanced at the girl who sat beside him. Her face was scrunched up in disgust. “Don’t listen to me, child,” he added quickly. “I always tell the story so I can have the stew to myself.” He made a grab for the bowl and the children laughed.
“We breed unspeakable men,” the old man said. “This one here”—he nudged the boy next to him—“he’s ten, eleven years old. Time he learned something.”
Rafael studied the boy. “Do you want to?”
The boy nodded. “I want to be like you,” he said.
Rafael turned to the young man. “We will take him—with your wife’s and your consent.”
The two looked at each other. The mother smiled. “If he won’t be in too much danger . . .
The old man cut in abruptly. “How can anyone guarantee that? Even here, there is danger. He could drown anytime.”
“That’s true, Elder,” Rafael said. “There are no guarantees. But since he’s so young, care will be taken, of course. Even then, we can’t be sure. One gives and one gives without reservations. One only hopes for the best.” Rafael resumed eating and waited.
A short silence. “Oh, do let me go, Mother,” the boy cried.
The woman nodded. The father nodded. Afraid to show his pleasure, the boy bent his head and scooped rice to his mouth.
“Let’s hope we can save what we have,” the old man said, after a while. “These plans being discussed in the island—hotels and money, money, money . . . We’ve seen this before in other places. People go insane over the thought of money. And always, the money goes—pfft! No one knows. The governor is a pendejo. Not content with whoring himself, he must have us whore for him as well.”
“We’ll try to stop it,” Rafael said, “or stall it, at least. But it is not unique to this place. People are losing everything all over the country. Too many development plans, too little of which are for people like us. Dams and hydroelectric stations; nuclear reactors—you name it. But what happened to your neighbor, the one with the beautiful wife?”
The conversation suddenly changed into anecdotes about the neighborhood as the old man fell silent and the other members of the family took over. The children spoke of their friends, the young man of his sea journeys. Anna noted how deftly Rafael drew out information about the fishermen’s society on the island. His voice did not betray undue interest in anything, merely friendly curiosity, even when the wife talked of those who had joined military-sponsored groups. “They go fishing sometimes,” she said with a wry smile, “but at night. Midnight.” When Anna glanced at Rafael, he explained that the soldiers were smuggling in drugs, using quasi-legal town associations.
In half an hour, simply by listening, Anna had a composite of the village—the fisher folk against those connected with the town government; the young fishermen against those who found easy living with the military camp; and a whole impoverished social stratum against market wholesalers and food distributors. She heard of how the women feared for their children who each year increased both in number and in needs. As the conversation went on, she noticed how Rafael seemed to count every mouthful he ate, chewing slowly and often stopping. The children, though, ate quickly, reaching out for the platters and the bowls until the old man berated them for not letting the guests eat. Rafael shook his head and said he wasn’t hungry.
“Are you afraid we don’t have enough?” the old man asked bluntly.
Embarrassed, Rafael took more of the stew.
After dinner, there was coffee brewed from toasted rice.
“But you are rich,” Rafael exclaimed when the wife handed him a tin cup. “Last time I was here, your coffee was made from old coconut meat.”
The woman grinned. “I made a little money,” she said, “making Festival decorations.”
“Who will be the Festival tribute this year? Do you know?” her son asked, huddling close to Rafael. “Last year, it was a son of the town treasurer. He was walking at the dock between his girlfriend and his ten-year-old brother. Then, a wave rose like this”—the boy lifted his arm, shaped his hand into a cobra cowl—“and hooked him into the sea. It was done so neatly the two with him didn’t even get wet.”
“Really?”
“Pray it takes someone really important this time,” the old man said. He lighted a cigarette.
Anna glanced at Rafael but he ignored her. Instead, he rumpled the boy’s hair.
“And did you see it, little one?” he asked, teasing him. “Were you there? Did you see the sea come out like this”—he curved his arm and let his fingers swoop at the boy’s ribs—“and take this one, that one, this one?” The boy laughed, tried to evade him, and ended up wriggling on the floor. “Remember this or I shall tickle you to the death,” Rafael went on. “Do not believe everything you hear.”
Anna shook her head. Rafael mockingly opened his eyes wide. “I wish someone had said that to me when I was young,” he said.
The old man snorted. “You’re young!”
“Younger than me,” Anna confirmed.
“I’m not kidding. Once this classmate of mine appeared at my dorm room, with a package, some money, and the key to his own room. He said they were on to him and he had no one he could trust. Could I deliver the package to a certain house in a certain town? It was important. Afterward, I could have everything in his room, he said, all his possessions. So like an idiot, I took the package and looked up the town on a road map. Got on a bus, bought a ticket, found the town, found the house, and found Guevarra. In a godforsaken little barrio no one has ever heard of. And guess what the package was? Books and papers. I was intrigued. Stayed three month
s and learned politics.”
“What has that got to do with—”
“When I returned to the university, I made for my classmate’s room. It had been stripped bare. They had gotten to it first. Worse, they’d set a trap. I had to throw myself out a window. If I hadn’t believed my classmate …” He grinned.
A noise came from the outside. The old man tensed. He signaled his son and the young man left the house hurriedly.
“Should they meet you?” the old man asked Rafael, who shook his head.
They waited silently. After a while, the house quivered as someone climbed the ladder. It was the son. He looked at the old man.
“The jeep is there,” he said.
The old man yawned. “It is late,” he said to Rafael.
Rafael gathered himself. “We will go. Come, Anna. We have work to do.”
Their farewells were short. Anna thanked the family and saw how the young man stared at her face, committing it to memory. She shook his hand.
Once in the darkness away from the houses, Rafael began to walk swiftly. He cut through an adelfa hedge, saying Anna should try to be as quiet as possible. When a twig snapped in her hand, he said hush under his breath. Soon, she felt a path under her feet—a strip of earth worn bare and hardened by many footsteps. It led under the coconut trees and from there through a wasteland of thorny weeds that clung to her pant legs. Beyond, two houses loomed, light from their open windows slicing the dark. Anna heard voices, laughter, the clink of glasses, remnants of the day’s festivities. Then more houses. They had reached the edge of the town. Rafael tensed; he seemed to glide on cat’s paws, his head turning now and then to check the night, to see if she had managed to keep up. The houses began to crowd together now and their path became filled with more and more light.
Rafael shivered, dodging the windows’ illumination. Anna tried to walk in his footprints, peering about her. She could not tell where they were.
The distance between houses grew longer. A cloud overhead must have passed on for there were moon shadows now. Rafael straightened his body. He walked easier, with more confidence. Seeing him thus, Anna also relaxed. She heard the surf and soon saw a white line moving on the horizon. It was the sea, the foam of a wave shimmering in the moonlight. She kept the white line in sight, thinking of how vast the water was, the ocean of typhoons with the ironic name Pacific. She was recalled to the present when she slipped on a pebble. She heard the harsh intake of her breath but Rafael was beside her immediately, clutching her arm in warning. He pushed her forward gently. Something stirred in the shadows; a man slithered past, his eyes snaring them. He nodded. Behind him was a low wooden fence. Rafael swung a leg over and waited for her. Then they were walking through a backyard, toward a closed door.
It opened outward and, in the sudden light, Anna had to blink. She saw the tiny flame of a wick floating on oil in a coconut half-shell. Against the far wall, a young man stood, his hands held behind him. When he saw Rafael, he sighed, moved away from the wall, and brought his arms forward. His right hand grasped a .32-caliber pistol.
“We’re nearly done*” he said. He crossed the room and locked the door.
“The jeep?”
“Half a block away. No problem.”
Rafael nodded. The man motioned for them to follow. He led the way to the kitchen, then to the dining room. They were well past the doorway before Anna noticed another man sitting on a tall wooden crate, his right leg propped on a smaller one. Between his knees was an M-16. The man stirred at their appearance and raised his chin in greeting.
“Nearly got you, eh?” Rafael addressed him.
The man cursed quietly. He jerked his head back, toward the doorway opposite. “It’s all in there,” he said. “I have to head back.”
“Let’s get to work,” Rafael said. He pulled Anna back a little and, bending his head, whispered: “Don’t you tell him I made you do this!”
“Do what?” But Rafael was already pushing her ahead. It was yet another room, empty except for a few crates and Styrofoam iceboxes. The latter were painted with soda ads: Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, Mirinda . . .
The two men in the room, both young enough to be teenagers, picked up one of the iceboxes and carried it out.
Rafael took a claw hammer from among the scattered tools on the floor, looked at the man who’d guided them to the room, and raised his eyebrows. At the man’s nod, he proceeded to pry nails off the top of a crate.
“That’s the last,” the man said. “The rest are blinds. Probably full of Coke.”
“Bring an icebox, Anna,” Rafael said.
She grabbed one at random and carried it to Rafael. He was lifting the upper side of the crate. He whistled. Underneath, laid in two rows as neat as eggs, were hand grenades.
“Frags,” he said. “Vietnam type. Probably stolen.”
“From whom?” Anna asked, wondering who would have such an arsenal.
“Who else gets American supplies?” Rafael barked a laugh. “Line the box.”
She found old newspaper sheets in a closet. Rafael and the man were examining one of the grenades. She heard the word “lovely” muttered several times. Hurriedly spreading paper at the bottom of the icebox, she looked at Rafael impatiently.
“Don’t try to steal one now,” Rafael said, handing her the first grenade. “At the bottom, carefully and neatly.”
She put it down, held out both hands for the next. They were fragmentation grenades, slick and precise, she thought. They would not explode by accident. She watched her hands arrange the monstrous eggs in the box and thought of how much havoc they could cause.
“It is only a thing,” Rafael said as he passed another grenade to her. “Remember that, you with your madness . . .”
Anna flushed. So, he knew. She bent her head, pretending to be busy. Quite by accident, through Adrian’s tattling, she had discovered Colonel Amor’s warehouse. Adrian himself had no idea what was in the warehouse but Anna had perked up the minute the name of the client corporation dropped from his lips. It had been common knowledge among detention inmates that the military used that corporation as cover. She had hung around the vicinity of the warehouse, listening to corner-store gossip. And when she learned what was stored within, something had snapped in her. The thought of all those bodies piled atop each other, waiting, unburied, had haunted her. She had prayed for a typhoon strong enough to pry off the warehouse’s roof to reveal the truth within; an explosion perhaps; a fire; some accident—an explosion ... It had been conceived as a joke at first but, later, she had been amazed by what guile she was capable of. She had found a mail drop, written to the address Manolo had bequeathed her. Two months later, the package arrived, complete with detailed instructions. A child could have done it.
And the joke had become a reality—a spectacular cracking asunder of the rotting timbers of the warehouse, an eruption of a lava of dead flesh: limbs, heads, torsos zooming like torpedoes through the air to land on sidewalks, rooftops, patios. They had punched through windows to skid along tables, demolishing the dinners of the unwary; to settle on sofas among the living who were watching television; to snuggle on the bed sheets, disturbing lovers ... a necrophiliac visitation that had driven the neighborhood hysterical.
Thinking of it, of how it must have been, she had laughed quietly, the laughter painful in the pit of her belly. Until, of course, that evening she had returned home to find her street cut off by police barricades. Her heart drumming, she had edged against building walls, her eyes hard and dry in her skull. But under the streetlight, underneath a policeman’s cap, Rafael’s face had beamed at her. He had signaled with his hand, his mouth working at assuring noises as strangers passed. Only then had she calmed down and walked home to find Guevarra dressed in a colonel’s uniform in her living room. The instant she walked in, he had pinioned her with his eyes and had demanded the name and address of Manolo’s contact. On the floor by his feet were the wrapped remnants of the plastique she had used.
That
was how she had broken her vow to Manolo and traded her joke—oh, what fun it had been!—for a truth. She had said to Guevarra’s anger: here, the name, the address, the code, all in my head where the Loved One couldn’t reach them, yours if you will tell me what happened—ah, the poor rabbit—what happened to him, where, why, and how;for she would have a funeral for the poor rabbit, though it be only a scattering of ashes in a cramped rose garden. And she had thought all the time that Rafael had not known about the joke, that it had been a secret between her and Guevarra.
“Did you layer the others?” Rafael was asking the man in the room.
He nodded. “With paper,” he said.
“No good,” Rafael said. “Open that crate.”
The man complied. It was filled with bottles of Archangel Beer. Rafael scratched his head.
“I wonder if beer and grenades are volatile.” He laughed, squatted down, and began handing the beer to Anna. “Layer the top with these. Two layers, maybe. How many iceboxes are in the jeep?”
“Two.”
“All right. The two underneath, this one on top. In case someone wants to check. Anna, make sure the—things aren’t visible.”
“All right,” she said, trying to align the bottles. She was sweating.
“That’s fine. Masking tape? No. Too suspicious. As is, then. Call them. We’ll leave shortly.” He turned to Anna. “Come.” He patted the floor beside him. When she was seated, he slid his right trouser leg up. Tied to his shin was a butterfly knife. “Know how to use this?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see.” He loosened the knife from its thongs and handed it to her. She rose to her feet, feeling the knife’s weight. It was perfectly balanced. She looked at Rafael. The knife twisted in her hand; a tiny click and the hilt unlocked. She flicked her wrist and the hilt broke apart, the six-inch blade rose, and half of the hilt circled to her palm to join the other half. It slid into place. Another click and the lock snapped in. The dagger was ready.
“Held down, waist level,” she said, reciting a catechism, “for the thrust. Held over the shoulder, by its tip, for the throw.” The knife flew and hit the wall opposite; it quivered on its tip but held. Embarrassed, she retrieved it, noting the blade had gone in two inches.
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