Shadows Across America

by Guillermo Valcarcel

  Ari stepped back, nervously saying, “Are you OK?”

  Ari had woken up and followed the lights. Now she was looking at him with a sleepy but alarmed expression. “Ethan? What’s wrong?”

  As though coming out of a trance, Ethan wanted to explain himself and reassure her at the same time, but the words seemed to have a mind of their own.

  “I . . . it was a dream, just a dream. She . . . she’s alive. And I’m going to find her. I—I . . . I know it’s not right, but I’m going to find her. I have to . . . I’m going, Ari. Forgive me, please, or come with me. I’m going to find Michi.”

  3

  The Lost Children

  Like an automaton, Ari ran the faucet; wet the toothpaste on the bristles, even though Ethan had told her a thousand times that it wasn’t necessary; and brushed industriously for a few minutes. As she stared into the mirror, she got lost in the ritual, and her mind wandered. Memories came to her like in a daydream as she was lulled by the sound of the running water. She recalled all the times Ethan had come up behind her and turned off the faucet. Ari knew she should save water. She knew all about recycling and being environmentally conscious, and she did everything she was supposed to, except for when she brushed her damn teeth. But Ethan was always there to remind her. It had become a running mini-argument, like a constant drip, drip, drip falling in the same place in a relationship, eroding it away. Ari just wanted Ethan to leave her alone, to let her have her fucking bad habit. To leave her be while she let her mind wander for three goddamn minutes.

  Now she stared at the stupid faucet and calculated how much water she was wasting. Even though Ethan had gone, she couldn’t even enjoy this little indulgence. His absence filled every corner.

  The definitive breakup had occurred on the same day Ethan had woken up so strangely in the middle of the night. Ethan had tried to explain, making her promise that she wouldn’t tell anyone and then telling her about his nightmares. He’d told her about his irrational hunch, a kind of conviction that the girl was alive and communicating with him. He was determined to go look for her. He hadn’t asked her to believe him, but he had wanted her to come with him. She’d made an effort with the first part, but it was impossible. She hadn’t even considered the second. Someone had to maintain some degree of sanity. She had tried to reason with him, suggesting that he see a therapist. Maybe the help he needed was with getting over the trauma of the news, not doing something in real life. But Ethan had reacted in a way she’d never seen before: he’d turned her doubts back on her, reminding her of every time she’d lost control. Suddenly he’d been judging her. He’d never rubbed old flaws in her face before. It had been then she’d seen just how lost he was. Ari had known that if only she kept her composure, she’d be able to win the argument, but she hadn’t cared about winning. But Ethan hadn’t let up, insisting she was difficult, impossible to live with.

  “Of course I’m difficult!” she had yelled, finally taking the bait. “So what? You knew that before you decided to move in with me. Don’t start complaining now. I’m the addict; I’m the irresponsible one. But I’ve never fucked with you. I go to the meetings, and you just sit there watching TV and ask me how they went. I haven’t gone off to meet a lover. Let the past stay in the past!”

  “I’ve helped you with everything you’ve ever needed. Do you want me to start coming to the meetings again?”

  “I want you to shut the fuck up!”

  Ari wanted to forget their argument. He was the last person she wanted to act like that with. And again she felt the fear that came with passing a point of no return.

  “I think it would be better for the both of us . . .”

  “Stop it. I’ve never been jealous—don’t make me out to be something I’m not. You’re going to leave, and I’m not going to stop you. You can explain it however you like. Michelle calls you asking for help, and you run back to her like a good little doggy.”

  “That’s just your point of view.”

  “Yes, it is, and you’re right, as always. I’m going for a coffee. I don’t need this. Do whatever you want, but you’ll be doing it on your own.”

  She’d gone to a diner to clear her head, and Ethan had started looking up flights. Later that morning they’d sat down again, and she, after thinking it over in a calm, measured way, had explained the situation the way she saw it. From her point of view. She’d gotten used to reacting to him. For better or worse she was always responding to him, whether as a companion or an antagonist. Now that role was over, and she had to plan for her future, which bore no relation to what he wanted to do.

  Ari had told Ethan that she’d look after the business while he was gone. If Bear couldn’t help her, she’d do it herself and hand it back to him when he got back. She’d use the time to find a new place to live. Then she’d change careers. She didn’t mind being a waitress if it meant that she could continue her studies. She liked the idea of moving close to Sasha so she could see her sister every day, especially now that she was about to become a teenager. She wanted to be there for her at such a crucial time; it was something she’d been thinking about for a while now, although she’d never brought it up. Most of all, she had concluded, Ethan had to understand that this wasn’t an ultimatum. It had nothing to do with what he decided, even if it was to stay. In fact, she wanted him to go on his trip. It would give her the time she needed to deal with things quietly and make sure everything was done properly.

  That was when Ethan had understood how things really were. He had remained quiet and hadn’t even dared to touch her. He hadn’t touched her again until the day he’d left. They’d taken turns sleeping on the couch, and he hadn’t had any more dreams. He’d bought a ridiculously expensive ticket to fly in a couple of days, and she’d approved of that too. There was no point prolonging things just to save some money when a girl’s life was supposedly at stake.

  But when Bear had regained consciousness, they’d talked, and he’d repeated Ethan’s story so exactly that it had only made Ari more confused. She hadn’t known what to believe. The idea of Ethan’s departure had felt like a relief but had begun to hurt more and more as it had neared. Organizing the trip in such a short period of time, Ethan had spent the last few days in a state of nervous panic. He had had no time to get an international gun license and especially not a permit to carry his own. He’d been afraid of getting stranded. By the end, Ari had preferred to stay at the office rather than go home. She’d felt as though she’d already left it behind. She’d become the serene counterweight he needed, staying friendly and active, but on the last night, when the departure had been inevitable, she’d felt as though her life had been falling apart from the inside.

  Candy had offered to take him to the airport, and Ari had happily agreed. When they’d last seen each other, she’d offered him her cheek and given him a quick hug, wishing him luck. As she’d watched them drive off, she’d felt a sudden emptiness and collapsed into tears. Utterly distraught, she’d wandered through the rooms, looking for something she’d never find until she’d eventually decided to do what came naturally to her.

  To outside observers, Ari seemed to exist to solve problems and improvise solutions. They assumed that it was an innate talent, but that wasn’t true. It was a virtue she’d acquired in order to survive with her little sister. Optimizing nonexistent resources, making sure they had enough to eat or somewhere to sleep. In any given situation, she could now envision a way out or at least a suitable reaction. So she employed these skills to help deal with the breakup while also keeping the business going while he traveled the world chasing shadows.

  That morning after he left, without thinking, without really knowing why, she’d sat down in front of the computer and started to do research. She hadn’t thought about this at all while Ethan had been there, but she wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity just because he’d left. She’d begun with search terms like kidnapping, Central America and disappearances, Central America. The first results had contained descript
ions of crimes they were already familiar with, carried out by gangs, especially the Mara.

  Since the nineties, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, which was made up of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, had been dominated by Mafia-like gangs known as the Mara; their violence reached levels unheard of in other criminal groups. Their members, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands, recruited destitute teenagers and street children. Rites of initiation could be performed by children as young as ten, sometimes even younger. Their life expectancy was similarly short: few of them lived past the age of thirty. Their lives were summed up in a common tattoo: three points of a triangle representing “my crazy life,” the fate that awaited every member of the Mara: prison, death, or the hospital. The very term was associated with the marabunta, huge swarms of predatory ants that invaded and devoured everything in their path.

  Their power rivaled that of entire provincial governments, making them, like Mexico in narco territory, failed states. Their income was based on extorting businesses, families, and transport networks, supplemented either by drug trafficking or through taxes levied on drug dealers operating in their territory. Struggles over different neighborhoods led to constant battles in which the security forces were reduced to the role of referee. Central America had become the most violent region in the world without a war ever being officially declared. Ari had also learned that kidnappings—another source of income—when not organized by the local gang, were at the least authorized by them.

  Now, several days later, she was going out every day but wasn’t opening up to anyone. She had plenty of company, especially male company, but it wasn’t loneliness she was feeling. It was absence, grief. She knew both emotions well. Loneliness wasn’t unique; it was generic and related to fear. An abstract pressure that got stuck in your throat and crippled your self-esteem. Absence was a deep wound in your chest caused by something specific and unique, something you knew well, and the pain that came with it was harsh and cutting. You were forever fooled into thinking that the person had come back, like phantom limb syndrome. Ari, who had watched her mother die of an overdose when she was fourteen, had suffered from them both but was upset to find that she was still so susceptible.

  The mountain chains between the tropics and the equator formed undulating, leafy profiles, like gods sleeping under a blanket of vegetation. On top of these mythical creatures, which were known to shed whole hillsides during torrential rain as though they were sloughing their skin, the presence of humans seemed like an anachronism. The local inhabitants, inconsequential creatures, had struggled through centuries of injustice. The poorest people living on the richest land.

  After cresting one of these peaks, the Beast drove to a village he’d kept under surveillance for weeks on a client’s orders. He drove down the narrow track around the volcano; there was barely enough space for the truck to get through. He parked in the extra space set aside for braking around a curve, a semicircle of dust and gravel added next to the road overlooking a deep canyon. Under his wheels, hundreds of feet below, was an even mat of jungle interrupted by the occasional zinc roof and small plantations belonging to subsistence farmers. From his precarious vantage point, he leaned on his seat, smoking as he surveyed the land, keeping an eye on the huts spread out along the asphalt and barely walkable tracks. Wood-and-corrugated-iron or at best adobe shacks with one or two rooms separated by a chipboard screen, with holes in the walls for windows, hinged sheets of metal for shutters, wood ovens outside, and altars with crucifixes at certain strategically prominent points. Jesus, protect this home. Domestic animals moved around freely; hens scattered from the road every time a car came by. The locals walked to the store or farther down to the school, frustrated by the lack of opportunity but well adapted to their lives. A motorbike drove up the hill carrying a fat man and three kids, one in front and the two others behind, casually clinging on in their distinctive way. The Beast looked at all this and chuckled to himself. He despised them, but he found their poverty amusing.

  A little farther down the slope, one of the makeshift shutters opened, and his gaze was met by the tough, wizened face of a local whose expression was part question, part challenge. He cursed his carelessness and sat up, throwing away his cigarette. He was upset with himself: he’d been sloppy and had allowed himself to be seen. It was an unacceptable risk. He had to make a quick getaway and avoid the area for the next few months. It wouldn’t be difficult. Once his job was over, he would be glad to be rid of this filthy land and its starving people. As soon as he picked up the package, he’d have to change his license plates, paint the truck a different color, and maybe get a new trailer. It wouldn’t be any trouble; he knew exactly who he needed to talk to before he got to the border. While he settled in to start the engine, their eyes met again: the man was thin and scrawny with no obvious muscles but also not an ounce of fat on him. He was pure nerves and fiber, a patriarch with a tough, unwavering hand, or so his greenish tattoos suggested. He leaned on the window frame, asserting his status. Here was someone who’d been raised in a school of hard knocks with the taste of his own blood in his mouth. The local alpha male, here to mark his territory in front of this outside presence. The Beast had been singled out.

  The Beast wasn’t stupid. He sized up his chances realistically. He thought that he probably had nothing to fear from the jungle-hardened man. In theory, he kept telling himself, he should be able to handle him easily enough, but still, the man was probably younger than he looked. His appearance reflected what he had been through over the years, not the years themselves. The Beast understood that well enough. He knew that someone with so few possessions and probably a small family also had nothing to lose trying to defend them. He pulled away, making sure to seem like a casual onlooker, nothing to write home about, and drove down the hill. He could feel the keen gaze still on him and knew that it would remain there until he’d disappeared into the undergrowth. Annoyed and frustrated, he hid in a lot near the school that would give him access to his target without him being seen. He allowed his anger to build, telling himself that it was because he’d been forced into an unforeseen change of plans, not because he’d been humiliated. He reached into the back seat for his latest trophy, a pair of red shoes spattered with dark-pomegranate stains of dried blood. Just the feel of them turned him on. His body swelled with pleasure, and he felt his indignation fade away.

  When Ethan closed his eyes, exhausted by the stress of the past few days, he saw what he’d left behind at home, the traumatic ending of something that shouldn’t have ended. When he opened them, jolted awake by the announcement they’d be landing soon, he found himself back in the present, heading for a country that in many ways was a whole new world, one he wasn’t sure he belonged in. It was a strange, unsettling place where he’d have to speak in his second language, which he associated with some of his worst memories. Nothing of what he’d been through over the past few hours existed in this new place, but he still wouldn’t be able to get away from Ari. He couldn’t get her out of his system, though he feared that she could get him out of hers. And now the pain, the emptiness in his guts, mingled with the tension he felt at the prospect of seeing his ex-lover. For a few moments, he thought he might throw up before they landed. But he held on. The immigration official stamped his passport uninterestedly and wished him a pleasant stay, while in customs he put his suitcase through an x-ray machine being run by a pair of policemen so engrossed in their conversation that they almost forgot to take his declaration form.

  When he walked into arrivals, amid dozens of travelers, she stood out like a film star, standing behind the velvet rope with a childish fixed but exuberant expression. She looked like a potential model completely unaware of her good looks, exuding a grace and style that didn’t go unnoticed by any of the men around her or fail to attract the enmity of their wives. Michelle’s patterned dress flattered her curves. She was pretty as a pagan virgin in sandals finished with ribbons wrapped halfway up her shin; her t
oes poked out like cute little trophies while the platforms underneath camouflaged her short stature. She was radiant, oozing sensuality with a raised hip to one side and her head slightly tilted to the other in an innocent, flirtatious pose. Her long dark hair fell down over her shoulders, framing thick, pouting lips; thin, impeccably shaped eyebrows; and dark almond eyes staring into space. When Michelle saw Ethan in the crowd, there was no perceptible change in her expression other than tiny tics that only he knew how to interpret: her pupils came alive with a spark while her lips formed a smile of cryptic sweetness. Everything about her suggested hope, anxiety, and a sincere welcome. Ethan suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline, a shiver down his back that turned into a weakness at the knees. Like a little kid, he thought. Michelle took a step forward; she wasn’t about to run to him or make a scene. She maintained the dignity he’d always remembered as one of her distinctive traits. Still attracting the full attention of the arrivals hall, she latched on to Ethan with seductive confidence and pulled him to a stop. Then he heard the full, deep voice for the first time in six years.

  “Ethan, this means so much to me. Welcome.”

  Somewhat hesitantly, he moved closer to her, and her unmistakable aroma filled the space around him, blocking out the airport with a torrent of feelings. A pair of cool, slightly moist lips brushed his cheek before she wrapped him in a warm, tropical hug. The embrace was emotional and lasted several seconds. Her hands rubbed his back, and her head nestled into his neck as she breathed into his chest.

  “Hello, Michelle.”

  “It’s amazing to see you again.”