The Exile

by Gregory Erich Phillips

  “No. Don’t worry.”

  And if he found Leila tonight, what would he do then? Would he bring her back here? They couldn’t go home. She would still be in danger and he and the baby too. Those were not thoughts he’d taken the time to work through in his rush to find her.

  Who was that drunkard tonight, and how did he know where Leila was and who he was? He knew about Paulo Varga too—the man Manny told him to avoid at all costs. He recalled the pickpocket and that his driver’s license might still be floating out there somewhere. There was no way to know if the two encounters were connected, but he had to be more careful, even in his excitement.

  With Cristina cleaned and fed, Ashford set out again. Elena looked up with intrigue as they passed the desk. Soon, Cristina was asleep against his chest, soothed by food and the steady rhythm of her father’s gait.

  “Sleep well, niña. You’ll awake in your mother’s arms.”

  The streets were still busy, loud with shouts and honks. But when he came to the hotels at the waterfront, the night was beginning to calm down. Most guests had retired to their rooms.

  There it was, the sign lit against the night sky: Hotel Caribe.

  It was a chic, modern hotel. He could see that the restaurant opened up in back. Cumbia music rang from the beach side of the hotel. It sounded like a radio instead of live musicians. He avoided the front entrance of the hotel and walked around back to the open restaurant. All the guests were gone, and the staff was cleaning up, ready to close for the night.

  Ashford’s breath quickened as he approached. His heart thumped. Even Cristina woke up and looked intently at the scene, sensing perhaps that something important was nigh.

  About half a dozen workers were in the empty restaurant, and he saw that Leila wasn’t there.

  “Hola, señor.” A man in kitchen garb paused from his task of stacking chairs upside down on top of freshly scrubbed tables. “Do you need a room? I can take you to the hotel desk. Oh, que linda bebé.”

  “No. I don’t need a room. I’m looking for someone who works here. Leila’s her name.” He paused. “Or maybe Cristina.”

  Ashford wished he had thought of a better way to ask his question. Still, the man was not impolite or impatient with him.

  “Nobody here by either of those names. Are you sure?”

  “No. She might have another name.” He wondered if he should pull up a picture on his phone.

  “Wait.” It was a girl’s voice. “I think I know who you’re looking for.”

  Ashford looked across the restaurant as a girl in a waitress’s uniform, dark and petite, with large brown eyes, walked toward them. She stopped in front of him, looking him in the eyes, then down at the baby.

  “This is her child, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “I knew it had to be. She looks just like her.”

  “Do you know her?” Ashford’s breaths came faster.

  “Yes. I know her as Marissa. But that doesn’t really matter. You must be her novio.”

  He nodded impatiently.

  “It makes me so happy that it’s you. ¡Qué romántico! When the man came asking this afternoon . . .” She trailed off. Ashford wasn’t sure he understood her Spanish correctly. “She’s in the back. Follow me.”

  They hurried across the restaurant, through to the back of the kitchen, where a few clothes racks stood mostly empty.

  No one was there. The clatter and splash of dishwashing sounded close by.

  “Let me check the ladies’ room.” The girl disappeared through a door and reappeared a moment later. “How strange. I just saw her back here a few minutes ago.”

  Ashford froze. Yes, she had been here. There was an unmistakable sense of her in the air. It couldn’t really be her scent, with the heavy odors of old food, dish soap, and the sea hovering in the air. Still, he did sense something that was unmistakably her, like she had just left the area. She was still close. He knew it.

  “Which way would she have gone?”

  “To the bus stop. I’ll walk you there.”

  “We’d better hurry.”

  They came toward the front of the kitchen, where the full restaurant was in view.

  “Ah, there’s your friend. The one you sent this afternoon to ask about her. Perhaps he’s seen her.”

  “What?” Ashford stopped. “I didn’t send anyone.”

  “Yes, you did. Who else . . .” The girl seemed to realize the truth just as Ashford looked across and saw the drunk from earlier tonight entering the restaurant, trailed by another man. She grabbed his arm and pulled him down behind a sink counter.

  “Where can I hide?”

  “There’s no good place. I can’t sneak you out the back from this way either. Stay here. I’ll try to send them away.” She paused. “Tell her I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for telling that man about her. I didn’t know.”

  Ashford nodded, hoping this would be over quick. Each moment lost would take Leila farther way.

  But the moments ticked on and on. He heard voices from the men out front, then heard the voice of the girl who had hidden him. He knew she would not expose him, but the man from the kitchen, whom he first spoke to, wasn’t as cautious. A voice thundered over the others.

  “¡Un bebé! A baby here in Cartagena!” Then he laughed. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. It was a cruel, wicked laugh that chilled Ashford to the bone. Cristina gasped and looked like she would cry.

  “No, Cristina,” he whispered. “Please don’t cry.” He rocked her close to his face. He could see the fear in her eyes.

  “Is he still here? Where did he go?”

  The voice was closer now—at the edge of the kitchen. This had to be Paulo Varga.

  Ashford held Cristina close and knew from the look in her wide, terrified eyes that she wouldn’t cry. Even the smallest children know the look and sound of evil. Her infant instincts knew better than to cry out in the nightmare, when the monster still didn’t know she was there.

  Ashford heard the man’s breath now, across the wide double sink. He listened. They were both there, the second man’s breath coming quicker and, with it, the scent of beer. Then they passed, and across the gap he saw them on the other side of the kitchen, walking toward the back. This was his chance.

  Cradling Cristina in front of him, he ran low through the restaurant and out into the darkness as the remaining waitstaff looked on in surprise. He heard the waitress’s voice once more as he hurried away.

  “I told you he had already gone.”

  Back in his room at Casa Azul, Cristina fell asleep almost immediately, having forgotten her waking nightmare. Ashford wept. It was the first time since Leila’s disappearance that he gave in to his tears. He had tried so hard to stay strong for Cristina, but his strength had reached its limit.

  Leila had been so close, but now she was truly gone. After tonight, she would hide better. He didn’t have the remotest idea where he would start searching next. How could he hope to outsmart Paulo Varga and his men? He would even have to outsmart Leila herself, since she had no idea he was looking for her.

  He missed her with every bone in his body and every beat of his heart. He couldn’t bear the thought that she might be lost to him forever.

  41

  THE LIGHT OF dawn filtered into the church. A glow lit the high windows above the white arches of the nave and the four long, narrow windows behind the altar.

  Leila awoke, her body aching after sleeping on the hardwood pew. She had changed into the jeans, gray T-shirt, and leather jacket that she had arrived. Her uniform from the restaurant at Hotel Caribe made a pillow beneath her head. She had saved it only for this and would now discard it.

  The light began to illuminate the features of the church—dark pews against bright-white columns, walls, and ceiling. The beginning of a new day.

  Another day without hope. Another day without love.

  As her eyes blinked open, she looked up at the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that she had slept
under after leaving the restaurant in the middle of the night. The face of the statue had gentle, sad eyes, but the plaster made them look glazed over.

  Leila felt that way now. She was growing numb to the endless parade of sadness. She couldn’t cry anymore. She wanted to. She wanted to feel the viscerality that tears could give to her sorrow.

  Her eyes remained on the statue of the sad mother. Stabat mater, doloroso. That was her life now, a mother whose sorrow was becoming her identity.

  Leila thought of her own mother, who died before Leila could make many memories of her. Paulo had told her once that her mother died of AIDS, and that was possible, even probable, although her death occurred long before the disease had a name in the slums.

  A legacy of sadness had been passed down from one young mother to another. Leila had often longed to talk to her mother in her quiet hours. She ached to feel a spiritual connection with her now. She would have liked to try to pray with Mother Mary, here at this beautiful statue, as so many others did. Her father told her that kind of communion with the dead was not only possible, but essential. She knew it comforted Manny to think of his lost loved ones in the communion of saints. Leila longed to believe it, now more than ever.

  It grew ever more likely that her own daughter would also grow up with no memory of her mother. Leila’s heartache would be passed on to Cristina more easily than her love. Of all her worries during the early days of her pregnancy, this never once crossed her mind: to bring a child into the world with so much love, only for the bond to be severed. It would take a miracle to bring their family back together now.

  Leila had survived without a mother. So would Cristina. But it shouldn’t have had to be that way. Everything she ever did, all her work and plans and goals, had been toward one thing only: to give her child a good life. That was why she chose loneliness for so long, trying not to love until she was ready.

  She always knew her opportunities were not to be taken for granted for a single moment. Her own mother had lacked those chances. The gift of life was all she could hope to give Leila. But Leila’s daughter should have gotten so much more. They were that close to having a wonderful life together.

  Everything was lost. Everything was wasted.

  She couldn’t even bring herself to cry about it.

  Yes, Cristina would be okay. Ashford would be a good father and give her all the opportunities an American girl should have. She had no doubt Ashford’s heart was broken for her now, but years would pass instead of weeks. One day he would marry again . . . no . . . he would marry for the first time. He deserved that—another woman who would be a good replacement mother for Cristina. There would always be a hint of sorrow in her, but she would not know everything she had missed out on from losing her real mother. She would never feel the great love her mother had for her.

  While Cristina would be fine in the end, Leila would never recover. She knew that for a fact. Perhaps she would continue to escape from Paulo, but she was starting to feel like it wasn’t worth being afraid of him anymore. She was already beaten. The people who hated her—Samantha, Paulo—had won. Her life might as well end now.

  She once asked her father how he managed to go on, after losing his wife and child. How did he ever learn to love again? The difference for Manny was that death had forced him to start over. It wasn’t that way for her. While Ashford and Cristina lived, she would never be able to move past her love for them.

  Manny said love was always worth it. He must have been wrong. Yet as she tried to imagine her life before meeting Ashford—tried to wish she was still in her comfortable apartment in Phoenix, with a lonely, simple, and prosperous life—she couldn’t bring herself to wish none of this had happened. She had many regrets. So many little things drove her crazy wondering if she could have done this or that differently to avoid starting down the road that had led her here. But she could not wish she had never met Ashford and known his love. She could not wish to not have brought Cristina into the world. Those were bonds she could only regret in their loss.

  So, was love worth it?

  Leila remembered a night, only two years ago, though it could have been from a different lifetime. That night she went home from work late, after unexpectedly catching Ashford’s eyes in the parking lot while he waited for his mother. That was the night she dared to ask herself if life could mean more. In many ways, that question was the start of all this. She didn’t want to go back to loneliness now that she knew how much life could mean. But how could there be meaning anymore without them?

  She stood up, stretched, then found the restroom to wash her hair and tie it back as best she could. The old uniform went into the wastebasket. She returned to sit in the same pew.

  Somehow, today, she would go on. This day would pass and so would the next. The instinct to survive and protect herself would drive her to find another place to live and another place to work. The smart thing would be to leave the city, to take a bus up the coast to Barranquilla or even Santa Marta. She could start over someplace where Paulo would never look for her. But what sort of life would she be starting? What would be the point? How would she grasp for hope? Survival alone wasn’t enough.

  She heard the doors around the church starting to open. A man’s footfall sounded on the stones, and then a fan was switched on. She turned and watched as he turned on eight or ten more fans around the sanctuary. An old woman with black lace covering her head puttered down the center aisle and sat near the front of the church. Soon, people in groups began to enter, and in half an hour the church was about a third full. A few of the men gave Leila a second glance, even though she knew she must have looked like a mess. But for the most part, she went unnoticed—the first one there for the first Sunday Mass, no one suspecting she had been there all night. Her anonymity was her disguise, but she was weary of it. She craved identity, a name, people to love.

  A family of five filled up the rest of her pew. The mother looked at Leila, smiled, and offered a friendly “Buenos días. Paz de Cristo.” Leila smiled. The small gesture was a little drop of salve for her parched and chafing heart.

  She hadn’t planned on staying for the Mass, but after the greeting from the woman in her pew, she wanted to. The liturgy was familiar and comforting. The Scripture readings were full of hope. Most comforting of all was the community that surrounded her with a spirit of companionship and love. Maybe in time she could become part of something like that again. She imagined coming here and being known: smiles, kisses on the cheek, ‘Paz de Cristo,’ ‘Y con tu espíritu.’ It was in such small ways that one learned to build their life again after everything had been lost.

  42

  THE DAYS WERE beginning to run together for Ashford. The monotony was unbearable. It felt like he had been in Cartagena far longer than three weeks.

  His Spanish grew better, and his skin grew darker. It was a different kind of sun here, so close to the equator, and he noticed how different his tan was than in Arizona.

  Since the night at Hotel Caribe, there had been no trace of Leila, not even a clue to point him in the right direction. Before that night, he had been methodical in his search, checking off likely hotels and restaurants from his list, narrowing down the places where she might have found work. That plan had now been thrown out the window. His search had expanded to other parts of the city. He had talked to social workers and immigration officers, but nobody had seen her or heard anything about her—at least, not that they were willing to admit to him.

  He couldn’t help questioning the usefulness of what he was doing. How long could he keep going on like this, spinning his wheels? His money was almost gone. Soon, he would have to ask Manny to send more if he was going to stay.

  That was the question he hadn’t wanted to ask. How long should he stay? The question was necessary now, for Cristina’s sake more than his own. He took good care of her but knew this was difficult for a baby in such a key time of her development. Was it time to go home and regroup?

  Today, Crist
ina was stuffy. She seemed sensitive to the recent shift in the weather. According to Elena, the summer rains would start soon. Neither of them were used to this humidity after the dry heat of Arizona. Ashford reached his handkerchief up to dab the baby’s nose as they walked back toward the hotel. It was nothing more than a cold but another reminder that this wasn’t a suitable way to raise a child.

  A few days before, he had contacted the local hospital to ask about work. He could stay for ninety days without a visa; after that, he would need a work permit. He had meant the hospital call merely as an exploration of options, but they were eager to bring him in for an interview. He declined.

  He also emailed an agent from Doctors Without Borders, who responded with equal eagerness. There was a pressing need for qualified nurses at the city hospital and in the fieldwork going on in the poor barrios in the southern part of the city. The thought of working was enticing, especially here, where he knew his abilities would be put to good use. But how would that help him find Leila? The purpose of his being here wasn’t to carve out a life for himself in Cartagena. It was to find Leila. After weeks of failure, the singlemindedness of his task became exhausting. His search had lost its focus.

  There was another problem with the idea of working. It would force him to find childcare for Cristina. He wasn’t willing to do that. In all these weeks, he hadn’t let her out of his sight for a second.

  Returning through the lobby of Casa Azul, Elena looked up from the desk but didn’t greet him. After all this time, Ashford and his baby had ceased to be interesting to those who saw them every day.

  He had almost left this little inn twice: first out of fear for his own and Cristina’s safety, then because he thought it was time for cheaper lodging. He had talked himself out of the first fear. After the night at Hotel Caribe, Ashford realized how useless it would be to hide. The drunk had made that clear to him earlier that same night. Everyone around here knew who he was. He couldn’t search for Leila from the shadows.