Eduardo looked at the car door on Olga’s side; the dirty brown cushioned upholstery. Olga’s hand was resting nervously on the windowsill. That slender hand, once, at the penitentiary, had tried to touch his crotch. They had been in a room that allowed physical contact between prisoners and visitors, no double-paned glass smudged with the fingerprints of those trying to touch one another despite the barrier. Sitting at a table beside him, Olga had slid her hand down to Eduardo’s crotch and gently rested it on his penis, light as a little butterfly. She’d offered to console him, said she owed him at least that much. And he had let himself be consoled. And that night he’d cried until he had no more tears.
“You didn’t consider the consequences. But there are always consequences, and it doesn’t matter if you think about them or not. They’re there.”
Eduardo’s eyes had drifted to the left, to a place between the shore and a cluster of pines. Olga glanced in the same direction. A young man was approaching, walking down the hill. In Eduardo’s nightmares, the young man was coming from a forest, half-naked and being chased by ferocious dogs. But that morning, there was no barking, no urgency to the young man’s gait. He walked slowly toward the car with the assurance of the inevitable.
“Who’s that?”
Eduardo gave Olga a look of pity. The past, the future, who knows? He couldn’t hate her for what she’d done. But he couldn’t forgive her, either. Martina had been wrong. Forgiveness was not a path for him.
“Teo’s son.”
Olga shot him a panicked look.
“What’s he doing here?”
Closing the circle, Eduardo thought.
“You can’t leave me with him!”
But he could.
Mr. Who stopped at the open car door. He reached out an arm and pulled Olga’s out of the car. She clung weakly to the frame, like a broken marionette, shouting to Eduardo for help.
Eduardo started the car and drove away slowly, forcing himself not to glance in the rearview mirror.
NINETEEN
Arthur walked into the café across the street from the National High Court. It was ten o’clock in the morning and the bar was lined with judges, lawyers, district attorneys, and plainclothes cops. Public servants who righteously imparted justice, but drank coffee, ate canapés and read the sports papers, too. Some of them went to restrooms and forgot to zip up their trousers or tuck their blouses back into their skirts. Some also occasionally had stains on their jackets, looked as if they’d had rough nights, or told dirty jokes of questionable taste, laughing in an uproarious fashion. Arthur recognized some of their faces, recalled some of their names, greeted a few with a less-than-confident handshake, gave a few nods of recognition across the room, but mostly he felt uncomfortable. He didn’t like these people.
Ibrahim had walked in behind him, his menacing appearance, although tempered by a smart dark suit, catching the attention of those closest to the doorway. They eyed him with wariness, if not outright aversion. He ignored them with a defiant smile that caused the scar on his face to pull taut.
The two of them caught sight of Ordóñez at one of the tables, his back to them.
“Good morning, Warden,” Arthur said.
Ordóñez looked up from the paper he was reading. Given that there was no other news of interest, the media was still fixated on the Calle León arson-homicide. The article Ordóñez had been reading was a two-page spread, its headline resembling a Marcial Lafuente Estefanía western: On the Heels of a Killer. A photo of the suspect accompanied the story. Arthur hardly blinked when he saw Guzmán’s face. It was an old passport photo, with a caption listing various aliases as well as the suspect’s background: ex-DINA agent, then mercenary. Ibrahim saw it, too, before the Meco Prison warden folded the newspaper and asked them to take a seat. He shot Arthur a brief, meaningful look, but said nothing.
“You planning to put me back in your prison, Warden?” Arthur asked Ordóñez as he sat. Ibrahim took a seat across from him so he could keep an eye on the door and his back to the wall. Prison habits die hard, Ordóñez thought to himself.
“What makes you ask, Arthur? Get yourself in some hot water?” Ordóñez tried to reinforce the intended humor with his Italian-entrepreneur smile. He was dressed immaculately, in a pale-colored tailored suit that complemented his shirt and striped tie. The man more resembled upper-management at a multinational than a local prison warden.
“I’m guessing you don’t ask your ex-prisoners to breakfast with great frequency,” Arthur replied, keeping up the friendly tone, but making clear the distance that separated the two of them. Maybe inside Meco Prison, Ordóñez was God, but on the outside the balance tipped a different direction.
Ordóñez adjusted his cuffs, tugging cufflinked sleeves out from beneath his jacket. He cleared his throat and glanced quickly around the room, wondering what those who saw him in the company of Arthur, and especially Ibrahim, must be thinking.
“I’ve got a meeting with Justice Gutiérrez in his chambers in twenty minutes.” He said it as though meeting Justice Gutiérrez in private would somehow elevate his status to that of a public servant to be envied, but neither Arthur nor Ibrahim reacted as he’d hoped, so he simply smoothed his slicked-back hair. “I thought we could have a little chat.”
“Whatever you say.”
“The Armenian escaped yesterday during a prison transfer. He killed one of the civil guards with him and injured another. We’ve managed to keep it under wraps for the time being, but that won’t last—the press catches on pretty quickly. I wanted you to hear it from me. He swore he was coming after you, Arthur.” He tilted his head to one side and gazed at Ibrahim for a few seconds. The man had never caused any trouble inside Meco, but he was the type of prisoner who makes civil servants uneasy. “And I don’t think having Ibrahim around is going to be enough to stop him.”
Arthur considered this piece of news, but seemed unruffled. Ibrahim looked as though the news made no difference to him.
“I appreciate the courtesy, Warden. But I have a feeling that’s not the only reason you asked me to come.” Arthur shrugged. “I don’t exactly think I’m the apple of your eye, and I’m surprised at your concern.”
Ordóñez scrutinized Arthur’s face and saw not fear but simply exhaustion—the constant tension was wearing him down, like a soldier in the trenches, bombs landing and bullets flying overhead, waiting for the order to charge the enemy.
“Indeed, there is something else. I saw the photos of the accident, the day you ran over the Armenian’s daughter and the boy. You probably don’t know this, but there’s a traffic camera at that intersection, on the front of a clothing store. The local police use it to fine pedestrians, and drivers who don’t give pedestrians right of way at the crosswalk. Strange, but during the whole course of your hearing no one actually showed the images from that camera, which could have shed light on a few murky issues. You see, as I said, the camera isn’t in fact focused on vehicular traffic but on pedestrians.”
“I don’t see where you’re going with this, Warden. It was an accident; I served my time and was granted a pardon. Now you want to investigate? Maybe you chose the wrong profession.”
Ordóñez paid no attention. He reached down to the floor for his briefcase and opened it on his lap.
“This is the sequence captured by the camera, just before and after the accident,” he said, setting half-a-dozen somewhat blurry stills down on the table.
Nothing that had not already been shown in court could be seen in the pictures. The first pictures showed Ian and Rebeca, along with other people, waiting to cross the crosswalk. Then there was one that showed the hood of Arthur’s car emerging, a tumult of people, the girl being flung to the right and the boy being dragged by the car until he was pinned against a building front.
“Take a good look at these three,” Ordóñez said, pushing the rest to one side. “Right he
re you can see Ian looking straight ahead, and at his side—though it’s hard to tell since there are other heads covering him—is Rebeca. In the next one, Ian’s turning to the girl, speaking to her. She’s making an abrupt movement, as though trying to get rid of something. Take a good look. Ian’s grabbing onto her arm, holding her tightly, and she’s trying to wrench free. And in the third one, taken just before your car becomes visible, Rebeca is trying to get away, moving backward, and Ian’s grabbing her by the hair. I suspect they knew each other, Ian and the girl. They weren’t there by chance, and if we can trust what the photos seem to imply, she was certainly there against her will.”
“What does any of that have to do with me?”
“I was able to verify that Rebeca went to school that morning, as usual. Her mother dropped her off without noticing anything strange, but midmorning someone came to pick her up and took her out of school. According to the janitor, it was a family member, though that was never proven. In fact, when the girl’s mother was informed of her death, she said that it was impossible, claimed her daughter was at school several blocks away from the accident. Rebeca never should have been there. We might suppose, and it would just be supposition, that the unidentified person who passed himself off as Rebeca’s family member was in fact Ian. And if that were true, why did he pick her up from school? Where was he planning to take her? What was he planning to do with her?”
Arthur had adopted a poker face.
“I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“There’s something here that doesn’t add up, too many coincidences. I know about your daughter’s disappearance, Arthur, and here’s what I think: that there’s a connection between that, Ian’s death, and these pictures. Justice Gutiérrez is a good friend of mine and I’m going to tell him my hunches, and ask him to pull some strings so that the whole case gets reopened. There’s something big here, something much bigger than we realized. I know it. And if I’m right, then the facts will prove that you didn’t kill Ian by accident, that it was premeditated murder. And then your pardon won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. I wanted to warn you first, in case you had anything you wanted to say. If you know anything about Ian’s past, this is the time to let me know.”
Ordóñez’s stainless steel watch twinkled in the light of the chandeliers.
“Your twenty minutes are up, Warden. If you don’t want to be rude to your friend the magistrate, you’d better be off.”
Ordóñez looked at his watch and frowned.
“Keep the photos; I’ve got copies. Maybe when the Armenian finds you, you’ll be more forthcoming with him than you were with me.” He stood and gave Ibrahim a curious look. “And as for you, I don’t know what your role is in all this, but if you’re not implicated, I’d be thinking about getting myself another job if I were you—unless you want the shit that this is going to kick up to stick to you, too.”
Once they were alone, Arthur turned back to the photos and examined them carefully, no longer feigning the look of indifference he’d shown in the presence of Ordóñez. His eyes darkened. He was shocked, and his mouth twisted.
“What’s going on?” Ibrahim asked. He wasn’t upset, just wanted to be kept abreast of the situation. He had no intention of being sent back to jail, not know. “What does all that mean, all that stuff Ordóñez just said?”
It took Arthur a minute to come round. And when he did, his eyes darted back and forth erratically.
“Ordóñez is just speculating,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “He hates me—I’m like a fish that slipped through his fingers. He’s convinced I’m guilty and he wants me to pay my dues.”
Ibrahim looked at one of the photos Arthur was holding.
“Did you kill that kid on purpose?”
It took Arthur a few moments to respond. And when he did, it wasn’t with words. His oily, evasive look was almost transparent, and that was enough.
After a sharp intake of breath, Ibrahim exhaled slowly through his nose.
“You’ve been lying to me all this time. You told me it was an unfortunate accident. You said it over and over.”
“I couldn’t tell a soul…If you’d seen what that bastard did to Aroha…”
Ibrahim scratched the scar on his face. From time to time it stung, as if the wound had reopened. Now was one of those times. If a man betrays you once, he’ll do it twice, three times, as often as he can. Traitors have no honor, no moral code, no respect. That’s why they have to be rooted out; they’re like a malignant tumor, bringing fear, weakness, and lies. That was what his father had written, before he was killed, and every night his older brother had read him that letter, those very words, holding a flashlight under the sheet. We cannot befriends with those who consider us innately inferior. A dog is not man’s best friend, only his best and most faithful slave. That’s how Europeans see us—as dogs—and that’s what they expect from us. Not friendship, or collaboration, or loyalty. Just blind obedience and the gratitude of a servant who’s been tossed a few crumbs. That’s why we must fight them to the death.
“Does all this have something to do with the fire at the antique dealer’s? I saw the picture in the paper. The man accused is the same guy you hired to find Aroha.”
“Guzmán didn’t kill that old man.”
“Then who did? Why is it you’re always in the middle of everything?”
Arthur shook his head, exasperated. His red mane of hair was like fire when the sun hit it.
Ibrahim closed his eyes. He was back in Algeria, on the outskirts of Algiers, in a public square. There was a large crowd gathered around some sort of ruckus, and people were hooting and shouting their heads off. It was early 1963. Elbowing his way through the crowd, scurrying beneath people’s legs, and crotches that stank of sweat and dried urine, Ibrahim made it almost to the front. Three men were being flogged. They were tied, shirtless, to whipping posts. All three were ex-soldiers from the French auxiliary forces, born in Algeria, and had borne arms in the service of France. And then France had scuttled off with her tail between her legs, abandoning them to their fate, as they did to thousands of others who were being massacred all across the country.
The poor wretches were no longer even moaning, despite their savage punishment. There comes a time when any protestation, any begging for clemency, is useless. Their backs were literally flayed, skin falling from their bodies like onionskin paper with each lash of the cane. Someone in the crowd took out a machete and carved into their bare flesh the word vassals. Everyone applauded when the “artist” raised his arms aloft, machete in hand as blood ran down his forearms, as if it had been stroke of genius. Ibrahim did not laugh. His stomach roiled and he vomited, to the glee of those present. But they didn’t know that the poorly stitched and still seeping wound across his face had been made by someone with a very similar machete. A paratrooper’s machete, used to scar brothers in faith.
When he opened his eyes, Arthur was still there. That could have been you—or your father, or your brother, or your mother. Men with fiery hair and green eyes, who didn’t get out in time. One of the men who was martyred there could have been you, and the one carving your flesh with his father’s machete could have been me.
“Just tell me one thing. Tell me it was worth it.”
Arthur grabbed his forearm, hard. Ibrahim wanted to throw up, but stifled his gag reflex.
“Listen, Ibrahim. I am so close to finding Aroha. Closer than I’ve been in four years. I want my daughter back and I’ll do anything to get her—anything. Protect Andrea, that’s your job. I don’t want that degenerate Armenian to even think about laying a finger on her. Leave the rest to me. This will all be over soon.”
This will all be over soon. That was what Ibrahim had said to the nearest of the three men being whipped, back in early 1963. He’d gotten up close and whispered into his ear. But the man couldn’t hear—he was already dead.
* * *
—
Ibrahim continued visiting Andrea and she’d grown accustomed to his presence. He no longer had to invent excuses to go see her, no longer had to pretend Arthur had sent him to keep her company and nourish her hopes that they’d find her daughter.
In the afternoons, they’d take long walks through the woods by the residence. People would see them together, sitting by a fence, chatting away among the cork trees or simply walking through a yellow field, side by side, in silence. Those first walks soon became habit and Andrea looked forward to them with ill-concealed impatience. Ibrahim’s presence had unwittingly broken the monotony of her indolent everyday existence. And so the two of them had had the opportunity to rediscover each other, to reinvent themselves at will.
Ibrahim spoke to her about poetry and Sufi philosophy, about the music that his virtuoso father once played, about how a man like him, fighting tooth and nail just to stay alive, could still, at times, feel close to immortality.
Andrea hung on his every word, although every once in a while he thought she looked pensive. When Ibrahim tried to steer the conversation toward her past, she gave him a look, and clammed up. But slowly the distance between the smile on her lips and the one in her eyes was melting; the wall she had erected was beginning to crumble.
That morning they went head-to-head in a dialectical battle of the wits, speaking French speckled with Arabic at head-spinning velocity. When they engaged in verbal duels, that was the whole idea, and each of them found the other to be a sharp and entertaining opponent, quick of mind and word. They’d laugh out loud, let fly a sentence or paragraph, and the other would fire back with equal speed. A nurse acted as judge without understanding the rules of the game, so she simply smiled like a fool, gazing back and forth between the two of them.
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