“Why are you telling me this? Your daughter’s death was an accident. Arthur was drunk, he didn’t know what he was doing. And believe me, if there’s one thing he regrets about that day, it’s her death.”
“I don’t care,” the Armenian said, cutting him off. “I couldn’t care less if he was drunk or sober. I’m not one of those crazies who goes around wreaking havoc for no reason. I think things through.” He pointed a finger at his temple, as though his hand were a gun about to blow his brains out. “I know who I am and I know what I’m doing, even if it’s not right. It’s just the way things are. But you…”
“What about me?”
“I like you, Ibrahim. In fact, I admire you. We’ve been in and out of jails together for years, and I’ve never seen you lose your way. Everyone fears you, and what’s more, they respect you. I do too. I know your history; I’ve heard the stories they tell about when you were with the fundamentalists. You’re a man with scruples, in spite of it all.” The Armenian made as if to touch the jagged scar that crossed Ibrahim’s face, but the man’s look stopped him just in time. “That’s why I don’t understand what you’re doing protecting Arthur.”
“I don’t know what you think you know, but what you’re talking about is ancient history. And either way, it’s none of your business.”
The Armenian thought he had a knack for seeing what others were hiding. People could be manipulated; he gave them what they needed and in exchange took what he wanted. So-called honorable people used men like him to satisfy their depraved urges. They were always seeking a little danger to liven up their boring, petty lives. All those spoiled señoritas he saw shopping their lives away in the boutiques on Calle Serrano, with their giant cars and their filthy rich, fat, old and balding husbands. They were always wanting it up the arse, or needing a line of coke, or a private fight put on for their own personal viewing pleasure, or needing to gamble, or to have an orgy. Depravity was acceptable to them as long as it was a game—a little bit of pain, a few drops of blood, some dirty talk whispered into an ear. But if he actually showed them what an animal he was deep down, they’d shit themselves. Ibrahim wasn’t like them, though; and nor was he like him. It disconcerted the Armenian not to be able to figure out who Ibrahim was, what his weaknesses were, how to get to him. How come Ibrahim had never felt afraid of him, the way others did?
“You’re right. You must have your reasons for protecting the son of a bitch. I hope they’re good enough because I’m going after him and anyone else who stands in my way, and I wouldn’t want that to include you. In fact, I was hoping to convince you to help me. That’s why we’re having this little talk. I want you to hand Arthur over to me. That’s the only reason my little tattooed friend here isn’t kicking the shit out of you right now.” The kid fixed his watery eyes on Ibrahim. He looked like a shark about to attack. “I know Arthur’s wife is locked up in a residence outside Madrid. I’ve seen you visiting her. I don’t know why, but I suspect she matters more to you than she should.”
Ibrahim’s face clouded over. The Armenian could almost hear the man’s teeth click as he clenched his jaw.
“If you go anywhere near Andrea I will break every bone in your body.”
“Relax. I don’t want to hurt her. But I will if you force me to. You can’t protect her forever. Andrea—that’s her name, right?—only cares about finding her little girl, Aroha. And maybe the punk Arthur hired is good—I’ve heard some terrible things about him. But believe me, he’s not going to find her. If you want to find out about pretty girls who disappear, I got a few friends who could help you. An exchange of information. That’s all I’m asking. It’s either that…or this,” and he pointed to Humala, the tattooed goon who was giving him an icy stare and canine smile. “Think it over, Ibrahim. The offer won’t last. I’m sort of in a hurry to get this over with and disappear.”
* * *
—
Ibrahim’s father had taught him that the tasawwuf is the invisible channel connecting man to God, the thing that explains His relationship to Creation. Just like the notes he played on his ney when he felt lost. It wasn’t anything he could put into words, but when he felt sad and confused he’d turned to his flute and use its music to lead him back to the words of Mustafa al-Alawi. “Inside of every human is a piece of flesh that, if it is strong, means all is strong, and if it is corrupt, means all is corrupt. And that organ is the heart.” His father said he had the heart of a Rabat warrior, and that was why he suffered, because he knew his true nature. He could hear the old man’s words now, along with the notes of a ney; he saw them move his withered body, almost made of air. “I pray for you,” he used to say, his eyes searching for a path no one could find. “I pray for your heart both dark and light. For you to overcome your struggle; all men must find their way and not wander aimlessly through life.”
He thought now of his father’s grave, that little burial mound of stones atop a hill, where wildflowers were whipped by the hot winds of the sirocco. Under the leaden clouds that pulled the sky closer to earth. A timeless sky, an earth beyond the bounds of history. He missed that infinite tranquility, missed something as simple as a blade of grass in the palm of his hand fluttering in the breeze like a drunken dragonfly.
Algeria was always inside him, wherever he went. An Algeria full of sorrow, and stained red: the first man he killed, shooting him in the back by the Monument to the Martyrs; the bomb that went off close to Rue Hadj Omar by the Ottoman palace that the French used as a town hall; the tourists shot outside the National Bardo Museum; beating up informers at the hippodrome while keeping one eye on the horses to see if his bets came in. And every time he killed or beat someone he felt his heart rot a little more, but he couldn’t rid himself of the hatred that was making it atrophy.
There were no words or thoughts to heal him. Every time he attacked a man or woman, he saw the grinning redheaded face of Luis Fernández, saw his mother being held down by thugs, felt his flesh being ripped apart by the sharp blade of the machete. And his thoughts clouded, and he turned into what was expected of a man like him—a killer, an assassin, a degenerate, a retrograde sectarian. His victims thought they knew him. They thought they knew the man who was killing them, and why.
That was a thousand lifetimes ago. But now flags no longer waved, anthems no longer moved him, he was no longer searching for God. He expected nothing of men, nothing of himself, and the memory of his father’s teachings was nothing but dust on his hands and sadness in the mirror. And a face that was still staring at him.
The ney was the one thing that brought him peace.
When he extracted it carefully from its leather case and showed it to Andrea, it looked like exactly what it was—a hollow reed with six holes on the top and one for the thumb. A humble shepherd’s instrument that dated as far back as early man. Ibrahim encouraged her to try it. He showed her how to place her fingers, explaining that each hole corresponded to a different note. The mouthpiece came out at an angle, and the tip of it went between your teeth so you could use your tongue to guide the air.
Andrea gave it several tries but couldn’t manage to make a single sound. Stubborn as a mule with a new rider, the instrument refused to budge.
Ibrahim smiled. It looked so easy, when in fact it took a lifetime to learn to play the instrument, to master the technique. He could reach three octaves and produce all sorts of different low, deep tones. When he took the ney in his hands, the notes seemed to flow out effortlessly, like magic.
Andrea felt her heart lurch, surprised at the mournful tune that seemed to come not from the music but the musician. As the notes were played, one after the other, they seemed to form a cloak enshrouding Ibrahim, a wayward angel who’d gotten lost along the way. The sound calmed him, transporting him to an oasis of peace where sorrow and weariness disappeared. Even the jagged edges of his scar seemed to soften.
Slowly, she realized that Ibrahim was speaking to
her through the music. He was telling her things that couldn’t be said with words, and she understood. She understood him. He told her of a long journey in which heaven and hell were indistinguishable, a place where memories and desires were one and the same. Without looking at her or touching her, concentrating only on the sound and not his fingers, Ibrahim took her in his arms and carried her to a meadow from which they could see the Sahara’s sea of sand, its shifting dunes dancing in the wind, all the way from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea—a continent of desert, as dry as the scar that deformed his face. And as beautiful.
He spoke to her of a man’s love.
“Stop—please,” Andrea begged, hands clutching her belly as if pregnant with memories about to be born, memories that were now kicking to make their presence known.
But Ibrahim didn’t stop. He couldn’t, because that music wasn’t his. It wasn’t coming from his lungs or being played on his ney. The music was sama, the language of time, of memory, the sound of understanding and acceptance. There was no way for him to stop it; he could only accept it, as a bridge between their two souls, which were lost in time immemorial. And all they could do was dance, whirl like dervishes, spinning together to infinity, turning back to what they really were, free of all that imprisoned them. His notes became cries, borne of his wounds. Andrea could hear him shout, beg, swear and pray; she could hear him being tortured, and no matter how she covered her ears, the pain was there, shouting out until finally it began to die down and grow distant like the song of a bird as it flies away.
When Ibrahim stopped playing, when the air in his lungs had nothing more to say, he was exhausted. They’d lost track of time. It was getting dark and Andrea’s room seemed to shrink as a faint darkness filtered in through the window. In the distance was the outline of the mountains, the silhouette of a nearby forest. Slowly, stars began to twinkle. A long lock of hair fell across Ibrahim’s eyebrows and nose and droplets of sweat ran down his forehead along his wrinkles, while his lower lip trembled. He didn’t dare look at Andrea, sitting across from him on the edge of the bed with her hands in her lap. He remained silent a few seconds, his mind blank. He needed to recharge, having emptied himself so utterly. Ibrahim was breathing deep, enjoying the fleeting sense of quietude, the purity of the silence, the sense of tranquility, aware of the fact that when he opened his eyes he’d have to look at her, knowing the questions he’d see in her eyes.
Andrea got up and walked, silent as a barefoot shadow, to the window. Her fingers moved with the soft swaying of the gauze curtain.
“Who are you? Why have you come into my life?” she asked the horizon. And in the horizon was Ibrahim.
He looked away and his eyes fell upon a portrait of Aroha that Andrea had placed at the side of her bed. She was just a girl then who knew nothing of what was to befall her three, four, five years later. She had the arrogant naiveté of those who aren’t afraid, because they don’t know any better. I could have been your father, he thought. And that thought bled into others like an inkblot. For years after Andrea left Algiers, he kept going to a small plot of land not far from Annaba, where he’d sit on the rocks and hatch plans—the house he was going to build for them, the children they’d have, the sort of things that form the foundations of a perfect future. He was so confident that it never even occurred to him that things could turn out any other way. He was different from the rest and had been since he was a boy.
The people of Annaba were taciturn, pessimistic, their souls bent double by toil and hardship. He was not like that. Where others saw only sweat and suffering, he saw the honest toil required to build a better life. He’d planned far in advance which crops he’d plant, how he’d till the soil, where he’d buy his cattle, where he’d build the barn. He even got hold of catalogs that pictured huge tractors from the United States that could help him be more productive on the farm. Over the course of those years, he pictured himself working sun-up to sundown, strong and sturdy, convinced that each imaginary whack of the hoe would bringing him closer to his dream. He swore he’d never resign himself to his destiny, never give in to the fate of losing her.
But time passed, the plot of land was sold to some Egyptian businessmen who used it to build cheap apartments, and he forgot about his promises—or buried them under the brick and cement.
“I know a man who can help us find out where your daughter is. Someone besides Guzmán.”
Those words rekindled the flame in Andrea’s eyes. And as he spoke them she felt a chill run through her entire body.
“What man?”
Ibrahim spoke to her of the Armenian. Of his six-year-old daughter who had died in the accident, of the sort of man he was.
“But he’s asking a very high price…”
“I have no money, but if you speak to Arthur, he’ll pay any price.”
Ibrahim corrected Andrea, eliminating her confusion. “It’s not money he’s asking. He wants me to hand Arthur over to him.”
The chill Andrea had felt turned to ice.
“Do it.” Her voice had changed, as though it wasn’t her who was speaking. But it was.
Ibrahim looked at her, perplexed, although the perplexity was only partly authentic. Why did he want a decision he’d already made to fall to her? What was he trying to do? Justify it? Share it with her to create a stronger bond? Sometimes love is twisted, sometimes it corrupts the one who loves, bringing untold misery to the beloved.
Andrea looked the other way, as though listening through her eyes and refusing to hear. The wheels of her mind had stopped turning—what Ibrahim had said had broken the chain that kept her brain from functioning.
Ibrahim pressed on. He needed to be sure that she understood what was at stake. He wasn’t doing it for himself, but for her.
“Is this really what you want?”
Andrea pressed her hands to her throat, as though it were riddled with holes through which her good judgment was leaking.
“I want my daughter back.”
TWENTY-ONE
The gate was open and there was a moving van parked in the driveway, its back doors open. A couple of workers were loading up boxes they’d brought out from the house. Olsen’s widow stood supervising the entire operation with her arms crossed, instructing them just where to place each thing. She was in a hurry to finish up as quickly as possible. Her children sat in the car, which was parked beside the moving van, and the Yorkie’s head poked up between them.
“So you’re leaving.”
Olsen’s widow looked toward the voice, startled. On seeing Guzmán leaning with one shoulder against a desiccated pine tree, she slumped in disappointment.
“You again?” she asked uneasily. “We had an agreement. You said you’d never bother me again.”
Guzmán glanced around and his eyes rested for a moment on the car, loaded up with suitcases, kids and dog in the backseat.
“Things have changed a little.”
Olsen’s widow raised a hand to her throat, as though taking her pulse. She looked worse for wear—a lot worse, Guzmán thought. She’d lost weight since the last time he saw her and her clothes were disheveled, as was her hair. She looked low-class, almost like she was doing it on purpose in an attempt to go unnoticed. If anyone had said that she was once the envy of all at high-society soirees and receptions—the most beautiful of the beautiful people—whoever was listening would have thought it was a joke.
She stepped away from the van so the workers couldn’t hear.
“I already told you everything I know. Why don’t you leave me in peace?”
Guzmán lit a cigarette with a match. Nobody used matches anymore, but he liked the sound of the phosphorous as the tip scratched against the striker, liked the little orange and blue flame it made. He was convinced that cigarettes tasted better if you lit them that way. Fanning his hand to extinguish the flame, he tossed the match to the ground.
“Actually, you didn’t tell me everything you know; that’s why I’m here. It seems we still haven’t finished our conversation.”
Olsen’s widow’s eyes darted back and forth. She looked like a cornered animal. Perhaps the realization that she had no way out was what led her to give in. Finally, she suggested they go into the house. She didn’t want to upset the children. Guzmán followed her, under the watchful eyes of one of the workers, who looked as though he was puzzling over where he’d seen that face before.
The living room was almost stripped bare. There were belongings piled up against one wall, and blankets and a dolly. There were light marks on the floor, unfaded spots where chair legs and table legs and pieces of furniture had recently sat. When houses are abandoned quickly, the furniture leaves telltale signs in its wake—like the trail of a storm, or a disaster.
Olsen’s widow slipped her hands into the pockets of her tight jeans and turned to face Guzmán with her jaw clenched.
“I’ve read the paper and seen the news. If anyone recognizes you and sees you talking to me, it’s going to bring me a lot of trouble—and I’ve already got enough of that as it is.”
Guzmán had read the paper and seen the news too. He knew he was being accused of the fire at Dámaso’s antique shop. He’d been forced to leave Madrid quickly, and hadn’t spent more than one or two nights in the same place since. Still, he didn’t feel nervous or concerned. In a way, he’d almost been expecting something like that to happen. Someone had laid a trap for him. It could have been Arthur, or any of the cops he’d contacted to ask for help who saw him as a threat from the past, or even someone associated with the film club Dámaso was running. The old man had warned him. If he kicked the wasps’ nest he was going to piss off a few wasps—and it seemed some of them were very important wasps.
Breathing Through the Wound Page 42