Human Solutions

by Avi Silberstein

  Maca nodded. I began to walk away, but she hurried after me.

  “You’re coming back, right?”

  “You can do this without me,” I said. “You did it yesterday at the rehearsal. Everyone knows what they’re doing—you just have to be there for them.”

  “Come back, though,” Maca said.

  FIFTY

  My knapsack was hiding backstage, under a platform—I picked it up and hefted it over my shoulders. I silently made my way around to the back of the Church, down the narrow set of stairs that led to the interrogation room. It was locked, as I expected it to be. I fished around in my knapsack until I found the tape recorder. I turned it on and heard Tibor’s voice.

  “Hi there, Uncle Peter. If you’re listening to this, then our escape plan is already in motion. Soon enough I will be long gone from this godforsaken place, and you’ll have to watch your back for every minute of every day, because you’ll never know when I’m going to return for my revenge. In other news, I took great pleasure in killing your dear friend Dr. Koehler. Let me tell you about the look on his—”

  I opened the slot at the bottom of the door and slipped the tape recorder through, pushing it off to one side. I made sure to leave the slot open, so you could just hear Tibor’s voice leaking through. I went back upstairs—on-stage, the children were growing pretend vegetables, building a hospital, etc.

  Backstage, there were children running around excitedly, putting on costumes and whispering to each other. There was a panel in the very corner with all the light switches for the church. I flicked them all off with a swipe of my hand, then on again, then off, then on, and one more time, off and on. There was a murmur among the colonists, and those who were on stage paused for a moment. Then things returned to normal.

  I peeked around the curtain. Uncle Peter was frowning—he looked confused. I waited a few moments and then repeated the procedure. Another murmur, and, once again, the children bravely continued with their performance. Uncle Peter put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up. He marched angrily down the aisle and to the staircase leading down to the basement. I followed him down the stairs and caught up with him just as he was approaching the interrogation room.

  “Go back upstairs,” he ordered.

  “I did it!” I said.

  He turned to me—slowly. “Did what?” he said, menacingly.

  “Listen,” I said. He paused. Tibor’s voice floated up from the open slot at the base of the door. My heart was beating furiously, and I tried to convert that anxiety into anger.

  “I cracked him,” I said. “He’s confessing—don’t worry, I’m tape-recording it.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Uncle Peter said. He pulled a key out of his pocket and twisted it in the lock.

  He swung the door open and stepped inside. I pushed him into the room with both hands, as hard as I could. He stumbled onto the bed, and I yanked the door shut. The key was still in the lock, and I turned it until I heard a click. Then I pulled a hammer out of my knapsack and swung it, neatly snapping the key in two, leaving one end still in the lock. I slid the slot shut and pressed my ear against the door. There was a moment of quiet, and then there was the muffled sound of pounding on the door. The room was too heavily soundproofed for me to hear much. I leaned against the door. There were things I had to do—and fast—but there were also some things I had to say. The yelling stopped, and I squatted down by the slot and opened it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Uncle Peter said.

  “Keep your hands off the children,” I said.

  “This is boring me—close the slot, and leave me in peace. The guards will come by soon. I’ll come out, and then you and I can have a longer chat. Maybe in this very room.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure I’ll want to return from Santiago just for that,” I said.

  “Santiago—ha! The guards have strict orders to never let anyone out of the Colony.”

  “Unless …?” I said.

  He grew silent.

  “On another note,” I said, “guess who helped Tibor kill your dear friend, Dr. Koehler?”

  “You have no idea,” Uncle Peter said. There was a lack of certainty in his voice that I had never heard before.

  “It was me!” I said. “Now isn’t that an interesting turn of events?”

  “You’re lying,” he said, angrily.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “First thing you do when they let you out of there, is go to the kitchen, find yourself a fork, and then put out your other eye—because you just lost another goddamn race.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  I went back upstairs.

  “Where were you?” Maca said, hitting my leg.

  It was time for the final act. A girl walked across the stage—her sign read “Act Eight: Punishment.” The band launched into a dissonant melody, and most of the children who were in the play walked onto the stage. They sat on the floor and pretended to talk amongst themselves, ignoring the audience. Maca entered stage right. She was dressed in black, and, in her hands, she held a small blackboard and a paddle. She prowled around the stage before smacking the paddle on the ground. The music stopped abruptly.

  “I’m Aunt Petra,” she said, “and sometimes I get a little bit grumpy.”

  Someone in the audience tittered. Everyone else craned their necks to look at the front row. They wanted to see how Uncle Peter would be taking it.

  This was what lowering the worm stick looked like. I wanted the colonists to take a bite—they would finally see it wasn’t a real worm at all but a rubber one.

  “Now let me see here,” Aunt Petra said, peering at the blackboard. There were names written on it. “Juanito!”

  The children grew silent. One of them stood, timidly. He had his hands in his pocket, and his head was down.

  “What have you done, Juanito?”

  “I … I … nothing, Aunt Petra.”

  “Your name is on the list—you must have done something!”

  I found Claudio backstage, watching through a gap in the curtain. “We’re leaving the Colony,” I said, “right this very minute.”

  He breathed in sharply and grabbed my hand. I led him out the back door of the Church and down the empty roads of the Colony.

  Aunt Petra was going to spank Juanito with the paddle, and she was going to spank another child as well. The children were then going to realize that, if they refrained from putting each other’s names on the blackboard, nobody would get punished. A little girl was going to walk up to Juanito and say, “You are not alone—we’ve got to work together.” And Juanito would agree. As in Ernesto’s monster story, the children were going to try to hug the evil out of Aunt Petra. When that failed, they were going to tie her up and throw her out of the Colony.

  Ernesto was waiting a short distance outside of the goat barn, jostling around a worm stick to keep the attention of the small group of chickens that clustered around him.

  “Time for your walk,” Ernesto said, handing me a worm stick.

  I led the chickens up to the goat barn—Claudio and Ernesto stayed behind. As I approached the barn, the chickens began clucking loudly and flapping their wings. A guard came out from his post to see what was going on. It was the same guard who had made Tibor drink milk straight from the goat’s teat.

  “Nice day,” I said to him.

  “Why aren’t you at the play?” he demanded.

  “I was at the play,” I said, “with Ernesto. One of us had to walk the chickens. I’ve seen the play at rehearsals a dozen times, and he hasn’t seen it yet. Play or no play, these chickens got to have their walks.”

  I got closer to the goats, and the chickens began ignoring the worm sticks. Suddenly, one of them broke into a run, and the others quickly followed suit. The guard waved his arms and tried to get in their way, but the smell of the goat barn was much too alluring. One by one, the chickens flapped their wings and sailed over the electrified fence and into the barn. The goats began bleating uncomfortably at their unwante
d guests, and the guard looked around helplessly. Tibor was lying on a pile of hay in the corner of the barn, pretending to sleep.

  “Last time this happened, the goats all panicked and broke out of the barn,” I said.

  “God damn it!”

  “You turn that fence off, and I’ll get in there and corral up the ladies,” I said. “I’ll have them out of your hair in no time.”

  “You’ve got five minutes,” said the guard, hefting his gun. “Then I’ll start shooting them.” He returned to his post and yelled that the fence was off. I climbed over the fence and floundered around in there for a few moments until the guard swore at me and came into the barn himself. I picked up one of the chickens, turning my body so I was facing Tibor. I pinned the chicken’s wings down the way Ernesto had shown me. I asked the guard to come over, and I made a move to hand him the struggling chicken. He slung his gun over his shoulder and held his hands out.

  Over the guard’s shoulder, I saw Tibor stand up and dig out a broken two-by-four from his pile of hay. “Be gentle with her,” I said. Just as the guard was about to close his hands over the chicken, I released her wings and she flapped them frantically in the guard’s face. Tibor stepped forward and swung mightily at the guard’s head. The impact knocked the guard off his feet. A trickle of dark, viscous blood crept down his face, and he looked like he was out cold. I took a length of rope out from my bag and passed it to Tibor, who knelt beside the guard and tied his hands and legs.

  “Stuff this in his mouth,” I said, handing Tibor a sock. He went over to one of the goats and rubbed the sock on its underside.

  “There,” he said, rolling the sock up and cramming it into the guard’s mouth.

  I produced a small container of chicken feed from my knapsack and poured some out onto the ground. The chickens waddled over and huddled together, happily pecking away at the food. When they were finished, I shook the container at them, and they followed me eagerly as I backed out of the barn and down the road. Tibor dragged the guard over to one of the birthing stalls and re-electrified the fence.

  Ernesto and Claudio emerged from behind a tree. I pulled another length of rope from my bag and told Tibor to turn around.

  “In case we come across a guard,” I said, tying his hands.

  We walked as quickly as we could back to the library and locked the chickens back in their coop. Then we went around to the back of Uncle Peter’s office. The window out back was high off the ground. I handed Claudio the hammer and managed to get him sitting on my shoulders. We teetered over to the wall, and Claudio used it to steady himself while he shakily stood up.

  “Now break that window,” I said.

  He tapped it gently—nothing happened.

  “Come on, boy!” Tibor said.

  Claudio cocked his arm back and smashed the hammer through the window, sending a shower of glass into the room.

  “Knock in the rest of the glass,” I said.

  He did as he was told, and, after some urging, he hauled himself up and through the window frame. We went around to the front of the office, and Claudio was there, holding the door open. Uncle Peter’s desk was neat and uncluttered. I shrugged my knapsack off my shoulders and handed it over to Ernesto. He rummaged around inside it until he found the tape player and a set of well-labeled tapes. He put these down on the desk and moved the phone to the center of the desk.

  “Come here, old man,” I said, pulling Ernesto towards me.

  “You would have made a fine librarian,” he said, his voice muffled into my chest.

  “I’m going to miss you,” I said. My throat caught—I was reminded of my father dying in the hospital and the way I looked at him carefully every night, thinking that I was seeing him for the last time. “Now have a seat, and wait for that phone to ring. Shouldn’t be too long.”

  Ernesto sat down at Uncle Peter’s desk and put his feet up. I herded Tibor and Claudio out the door and into the road.

  FIFTY-TWO

  A nervous energy overtook me as soon as we stepped outside. I felt it inside me—that familiar cannonball in the stomach. Tibor seemed like he was doing okay—the man had survived a concentration camp and killed a man, and I did not worry about him much. Claudio was a different story. We walked quickly and silently, until we could just see the gate that was the only way in and out of the Colony. Claudio took my hand—I shook it loose and stopped walking. I squatted down in front of him and looked at him firmly.

  “Now, listen,” I said, “and listen carefully. Are you feeling afraid right now?”

  Claudio nodded, avoiding my eyes.

  “Is your heart going fast? Are you breathing harder?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can you remember the last time you felt excited?”

  Claudio shook his head.

  I tried to remain calm. “Have you ever felt so excited that your heart started beating faster?”

  “Yes,” Claudio whispered.

  “So excited that your breathing started getting harder?”

  “Yes,” he said, louder this time.

  “I’m going to ask you one last question. The first time you rode a bike downhill—” I said, “how did that make you feel?”

  Claudio closed his eyes. “Afraid,” he said. “And excited.”

  “They’re not as far from each other as we think they are. So here we are, moments away from freedom, on our way to go see your mother—now, doesn’t that sound exciting?”

  I put my hand on Tibor’s shoulder and all three of us walked over to the guard post. I thought of how I had snuck Señor Reyes out of the country. “At my signal,” I said, “when I blow my nose—all of us start talking at once,” I said.

  The others nodded.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” said the guard, stepping out.

  “It’s me, Javier,” I said. “I’ve got the Jew with me. And Uncle Peter’s newest soon-to-be Sprinter.” I cuffed the top of Claudio’s head. He whirled around and gave me a credible scowl.

  The guard held up a hand to silence me. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

  I took a step closer to the guard and motioned for him to lean forward.

  “I don’t want to say this too loud,” I whispered, “for fear of startling the Jew—but Uncle Peter wants me to let the boy have his first kill.”

  The guard straightened up. “You mean the boy’s going to—”

  I shushed him and leaned forward again. “Have some decency,” I said. “Even a Jew doesn’t deserve to know that he’s going to be killed by a boy.”

  The guard shook his head. “I can’t let you through,” he said. “You know the rules—nobody leaves the Colony.”

  I faked a yawn. “Tell you what,” I said. “I just came from Uncle Peter’s office. He’s there right now—why don’t you give him a call and see what he says?”

  The guard reached into his office and pulled out a telephone. He held the base with one hand and the receiver with the other. He dialed the number for Uncle Peter’s office.

  “What is it?” Uncle Peter’s voice crackled through the lines.

  “Uncle Peter,” said the guard, “I’m stationed at the front gate—there’s a man trying to get the Jew and a boy out of here. He claims you’ve given them permission to walk out the gate.”

  “Javier is following my orders.”

  “With all due respect,” said the guard, “you told us to never let anyone out of the Colony.”

  There was a short pause. I could imagine Ernesto changing from one tape to another.

  “You will do as I say, or you will be severely punished!”

  “But Uncle Peter, you’ve instructed us to keep anyone from leaving the Colony.”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “I’m not talking just to hear the sound of my own voice!”

  “I’m listening, Uncle Peter—it’s just that you’ve told us one thing, and now you’re telling me something else, and I just d
on’t—”

  “Stop it with your stupid blabbering! Are you going to make me repeat myself? You are nothing but a clod of dirt!”

  There was poor Martha S., standing in the dining hall while Uncle Peter viciously attacked her. The phone connection went dead. The guard turned to look at us.

  “You can go,” he said. “But the boy stays.”

  “Uncle Peter said I get to kill the Jew,” Claudio said, staring hard at the guard.

  “What?” Tibor said.

  “Call him again,” I said. “I’m in no hurry.”

  The guard picked up the receiver and tapped it against his jaw.

  I pulled my handkerchief out of my pocket and loudly blew my nose. Tibor and Claudio began talking to the guard—Tibor pleading for him not to let us out, Claudio asking to borrow his gun. I jumped in, telling the guard we’d be back in no time.

  The guard yelled at us all to be quiet. He put the phone back in its cradle.

  “It won’t take long,” I said helpfully.

  The guard shook his head and opened the gate. I pushed Tibor roughly through the opening. Claudio followed behind. The gate slammed shut, and we walked in a line down the road.

  “Don’t anybody turn around,” I said.

  The road was dusty and dry, and we marched in silence for a few minutes. I took long, slow breaths. We walked single-file—like grandfather, father, and son, like elephants marching trunk to tail. I turned around to look at Claudio. He was somewhere between laughing and crying.

  I put my hands on Tibor’s shoulders and squeezed. A gust of wind blew past us, stirring up a dust cloud. A bud from a eucalyptus tree dropped onto the road from overhead. We rounded one corner and then another. There was a vehicle parked in the distance. I squinted—Julio and Rodolfo seemed to be playing cards on the hood of the car. They had not yet seen us.

  “Only way to do this sort of thing,” Tibor said. “You walk in, you walk out.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  We made it to Santiago in record time, stopping only once to buy a sack of sandwiches from a roadside stand. Claudio fell asleep, and we dropped Tibor off at a friend’s house. He would need to vanish—I would help.