The Exile

by Gregory Erich Phillips

  She gasped. She tried to cry, but the shock knocked the breath out of her lungs. In one motion, Paulo wrapped his long arm around her and ushered her through the side door into the house.

  She was standing in the center of the bare room, with Paulo at the side door and his secretary now guarding the front door. Raindrops thundered onto the aluminum roof. Ghastly women’s faces looked down at her from the walls. She would have cried to the girls for help, but no one would have heard through the pounding rain. They were surely all running away from the place now.

  “La Alta, I knew you’d come.”

  She’d been such a fool, walking right into his trap. She took a deep breath. Her knees started to steady. She clenched her fists.

  “You’ve been so cruel to me, running away, hiding.” He began to pull paints and brushes out of a crate. “I never wanted to hurt you. You were wrong to be afraid of me.”

  She still had the knife in the inner pocket of her jacket. But he probably had a weapon too and would know better how to use it.

  “But what’s past is past. I can forgive. Now, you’re here and we can finally start. I’ve actually started already.” He propped a mounted canvas on the crate against the wall. It had a blue background and the shape of a woman’s shoulders and bust in a colorful dress—some old-fashioned folkloric costume. But where the head should have been, the canvas was blank. It looked grotesque.

  “Put this on.” Paulo thrust a colorful mass of coarse fabric into her hands. It was obviously the dress in the picture. Was this the kind of clothing he thought made a girl look pretty?

  The idea of her face filling that hole horrified her.

  “I’m not putting on your fucking dress.” She threw it down. He could rape her, he could kill her, but she wasn’t going to indulge his fetish. She would not stand here and let the nightmare come true.

  Paulo grabbed her wrist. She let him and looked him in the eyes, refusing to grimace from the pain of his clutch.

  “You are the daughter of a whore. How dare you.”

  “I am the daughter of Manuel del Sol.”

  “The daughter of a coward, a traitor. That’s even worse.”

  She resisted the urge to hit him with her free hand. That was what he would expect her to do. He was too strong for her. Her wrist was being crushed, but she would not show him her pain. She kept staring at him, matching the hatred in his eyes with her own. She doubted any woman had looked at him like this before.

  He would let go of her wrist and that would be her chance, maybe her only chance.

  She knew he had let go when the blood rushed back into her hand through the bruised veins. He was still inches away from her. She lifted her knee as hard as she could into his crotch. He wailed and crumpled to the floor.

  She rushed toward San Juan el Bautista at the door. He instinctively stepped out of her way.

  “You’re fucking useless,” she heard Paulo say to him as she fled out into the rain.

  She ran away from the house. She wouldn’t have much time. She had to get across the bridge into the main part of town where there might be safety in crowds. The girls were long gone. The streets, busy half an hour before, were empty now as the rain pounded down.

  Leila reached the edge of the bridge and saw that the bearded man who had sent her on was still there, standing in the downpour as if he didn’t care. He saw her coming and started walking her way.

  She stopped, panting. What a trap Paulo had set for her. That was the only bridge off the island. She turned and ran toward the beach. It was probably half a mile to the jungle park where she could hide. That might be too far. If only she had started that way first.

  Paulo shouted her name behind her. His voice sounded far away, but when she heard footsteps splashing on the pavement, she knew he was gaining on her. Her lungs burned.

  Fear and pain worked to cloud her thoughts. She forced herself to think, calling up the instincts of her childhood. If she could not outrun him, she had to hide. If she could not hide, she would have to fight. He may have been faster and stronger, but desperation was a powerful equalizer.

  She reached the sand of the deserted beach. She couldn’t hear the steps behind her through the rain and her own sharp, painful breaths. But she knew he had to catch her soon. The storm clouds had turned the afternoon as dark as evening. The rain plastered her hair to her cheeks and her jeans to her aching legs. There was nowhere to escape. She would never make it to the darkness of the jungle park. He was too close behind her.

  Leila reached for the knife inside her coat. She pulled it out and whipped around in the same motion. Paulo crashed into her. She fell to the sand as she worked the blade out of its sheath, too slow to swing at him before he realized what she was doing.

  He lunged for her arm, but she was able to twist away. From the ground, she slashed back at him with the knife, but he hopped away from her, then kicked, knocking her down into the sand. The knife slipped out of her hand.

  “I know that knife, you thief!” Paulo jerked her up to her feet, then threw her down toward the water. She landed in the windswept surf, feeling her head submerge briefly as it fell back against the packed sand. He splashed in toward her, lifting her up by the shoulders as she tried to kick and swing at him.

  “I only wanted to love you!”

  With her wrists in his grasp, she tried to swing an elbow at his cheek, but it only tapped him meekly. He responded by punching her in the stomach. She buckled over, the wind knocked out of her. Her hands and knees hit the wet sand.

  “Please, Paulo. For the love of God!”

  He grabbed her waist from behind, then slapped the back of her head. “I’ll forgive everything if you just let me love you.” He pulled her up close against him, then threw her face first into the water and crashed in after her.

  His weight came down on top of her. He grabbed her arms but then released one of them as his hand groped and tugged at the buttons at the front of her jeans. She threw her free elbow back but missed.

  Noises blared in her ears: his shouts, her cries, the waves, the rain, thunder.

  She never heard the shot.

  Then his grip was no longer as tight. He fell onto her, but his weight was without force. She flipped him off of her and he lay in the surf, his face cast in confusion and hate. Blood seeped into the water.

  San Juan el Bautista stood over him, a gun in his hand, wheezing from his run.

  “¡Maricón! I’ve wanted to do that for twenty years.”

  Leila scrambled to the dry sand. Still on her knees, lacking the strength to stand, she looked back toward Paulo, who tried to lift his torso. The plume of blood from his side expanded and dispersed in the stormy waves. His mouth opened, but he couldn’t speak. His expression was shocked, unbelieving, furious. He hovered for a moment, then fell back, and the flame was gone from his eyes.

  “You’d better go while you can.” San Juan el Bautista’s voice sounded distant against the crashing surf.

  “What will you do? You’ll go back to prison for this.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. He had many enemies. I won’t be the first they’ll think of.”

  He reached down for Paulo’s foot and gave it a push. The waves took his body for a moment, but the next one brought it back.

  Leila found her feet.

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.”

  She started back on the beach in the direction she’d come.

  “You should know . . .” Juan started to say.

  “Yes?”

  “Never mind. Get out of here before anyone comes.”

  She walked away. Her legs felt like jelly, her lungs breathed in knives, and the bruises of Paulo’s violence began to smart all over her body. Rain still fell hard, simultaneously chilling her skin and soothing her pain.

  Leila stopped one more time after walking about thirty yards. She looked back. San Juan el Bautista talked inaudibly as he shoved again at Paulo’s body, which t
he sea seemed intent to leave on the beach. His gun hung on his hand by the trigger.

  She turned and hurried as fast as her battered legs would take her away from the gruesome scene. The man on the transversal bridge was gone when she got there.

  45

  LEILA AWOKE FROM one of the soundest nights of sleep in her life. The discomfort of a wooden bed didn’t bother her. She had slept on worse. She sat up and looked around. This little church comforted her now, just as it had once before. She stretched her legs and arms, waiting for the pains from yesterday’s fight to make themselves known in her limbs. It didn’t feel as bad as she’d expected.

  What a day that was!

  Exhausted, soaked, and sore, she had left Isla de Manzanillo in an emotional daze. Not knowing where else to go, she had walked to Alejandra’s apartment. Alejandra had been at work, but her grandmother had let her take a shower and had rubbed some aloe vera on her bruises.

  Despite Alejandra’s grandmother’s offer to let her stay the night, Leila had kissed Alejandra’s baby daughter and left. Perhaps in the coming days she would get in touch with her friend, but she didn’t have the strength to answer any questions now, and Alejandra would be curious. This morning, it was better to wake up alone. So, she had come here to the church that once gave her a little hope after all had seemed lost.

  Hope should have been abundant now that fear was gone. Paulo Varga was dead; he would never haunt her again. But the new circumstances of her life still needed some piecing together. After all, she was still here, so far away from her real home. The man she loved was still far away across the sea. Her own daughter—the bones of her bones, the flesh of her flesh—still seemed lost to her forever. The cloud of fear had been lifted, but hope would take more time.

  Leila sat up in the pew when she saw the light start to come in. A sharp ache ran up her left leg when she put her feet on the floor.

  She waited, listening for the sacristan to come in, just like the last time, and turn on all the fans. She watched for the woman with the lace on her head to enter first and walk to the front. Each entrance happened like clockwork. She liked this church. But she didn’t want to stay for Mass this time.

  As the church started to fill, she slipped out by the side door. Her bag of things was damp against her shoulder. Later, she would lay out her waterlogged jeans and jacket in the sun to let them dry. She reached into her shorts pocket for her dwindling bills and coins. She could afford a little breakfast. By tonight, if everything went well, she would start earning tips again. She walked up the block toward a café she’d spotted the last time she was here, intent on a cup of coffee and a roll. There was enough time before the end of Mass—and hopefully a call from her family.

  The morning was warm and fresh. The air was clean after yesterday’s rain, still evaporating from the stones in the early sunshine. The flowers in their pots opened brightly. It would be a hot day with the pleasantness of recent rain and a Caribbean Sea breeze. As a girl, these kinds of mornings used to inspire her to dream about all the possibilities life could hold. It was that way again today. Just like in her childhood, her dreams seemed impossible. If those dreams could come true—and they did—then why couldn’t these?

  Without fear, she could dream about so many new possibilities. A job could mean more than cash in her pocket. It could really be the start of something. Maybe she could transition from waitressing into real estate here, just like she did before. Once she was established, perhaps she could appeal the revocation of her US visa. She didn’t know how that worked, but it was something she could actually think about now.

  She didn’t have to be so lonely anymore either. She could meet friends without being afraid of them giving up her secrets. She could establish contact with Ashford. If today’s call didn’t work out—she didn’t know if the church could even take a foreign call—then she could email him without feeling afraid. Even in separation, some contact would encourage her in immeasurable ways.

  Yes, there was a little bit of hope now. Her mind felt clear too as she realized how paranoid she had become. Everything was different compared to yesterday. Even the searing pain all over her body hardly bothered her.

  She savored her cup of coffee and her breakfast roll, able to enjoy the simple luxury as more than mere sustenance. She took her time spreading butter on her roll. Delicious. She looked around at the people coming in and out of the café, feeling a desire to know people here and make friends.

  The sun was bright against the white outer walls and red trim of the church as Leila returned from the café. There wasn’t much movement about with Mass still going on inside. The red-brick square glistened, as did the green leaves of the shrubs in the courtyard, healthy and vibrant after yesterday’s rain. She paused at the iron fence at the edge of the churchyard.

  Did she see this? Was she hallucinating?

  The whole field of her vision glowed, brighter than the sun would have made it. For a moment, she couldn’t move. What her eyes saw, her brain told her she couldn’t possibly be seeing. Was it a mirage of the sun? Was she dreaming? She grabbed at the fence to steady her shaking legs.

  Her vision returned to normal, and he was still there. It was real. She ran into the churchyard as he leaped up from his bench.

  “Ashford! You’re really here.” She rushed into his arms, still half-unbelieving until she felt him against her, surrounded by his familiar arms and lips, and Cristina—so much bigger now—gathered between them in one embrace. Her tears poured. Her heart thumped wildly.

  This man. This child. Where to caress? Where to kiss? She devoured them with her hands, lips, and cheeks. She was blown away by joy. They were both here . . . now. It was so far beyond anything she had dared to dream.

  Finally, she pulled her face away from the delight of them, her lost family, and tried to wipe the stream of tears off her cheeks. Leila and Ashford looked at each other for a long moment—smiling, laughing, crying. There was so much to say, but at the same time, nothing that needed saying.

  His tears told her how much he had suffered from their separation too. His skin color told her that he had been in Colombia for a while; that meant a great deal. She understood from the way the baby looked at him how deep the bond was between him and their daughter, who had gone through everything with him. Most of all, from all these signs, she understood how deeply Ashford loved her. Many men would tell a girl the lengths they would go to prove their love. Maybe some of them meant it, but few were forced to show it. Ashford had literally crossed the sea for her, giving up everything and putting himself in danger. Everything she went through was worth it to know that. Her heart felt so warm and full.

  Ashford loosened the strap that held Cristina to his chest and handed the baby to her. Leila took her daughter into her arms, squeezing her against her chest as she kissed her. The confusion in the baby’s eyes had only lasted a moment, and now Leila knew her fear of forgetfulness was unfounded. Cristina knew her mother. Leila’s spirit was whole again.

  A few minutes later, they were sitting together on the bench. Leila couldn’t stop looking into Ashford’s eyes.

  “Look, you’re here! And you brought Cristina too. It’s almost too wonderful to believe. But somehow I knew all this time . . . I knew you wouldn’t let me go.”

  “I had to find you.” A brief cloud passed over Ashford’s expression. He took her hand. “I hate to ask at a moment like this, but are we safe here? I was careful. I don’t think I was followed this morning, but . . .”

  Leila lifted a finger and placed it on his lips. “There’s no more danger. I’ll tell you everything later; I don’t want to talk about it now. Just know that the danger’s gone. There’s nothing left that can get in the way of our love. Not Paulo. Not Samantha. Nobody and no thing. We can build our lives together again, starting today.”

  They hugged tightly. Leila leaned in to smell Ashford’s neck—such a delightful remembered scent.

  “Do you think I’ll make a good Colombiano?”<
br />
  Leila’s eyebrows shot up. He had asked the question in Spanish. Pretty good Spanish. She loved it.

  “I don’t know if they’ll let me go back,” she said. “You might have to stay. It’s amazing to me you’d want to live here.”

  “Wherever you are is where I want to be. We’ll see what can be done. Maybe we’ll be able to go back to Arizona in time. If not, I’ve come to like Cartagena. Would you believe I practically have job offers? I can have a work visa in no time.”

  “Being a nurse will be tough work here.”

  “It will be good work. That’s what I want.”

  “That’s one of the things I love so much about you.”

  She pressed her face into his neck, closing her eyes.

  “What should I call you now?” he asked. “Is it still Leila, or are you Cristina here?”

  “Leila, of course. I’ll always be your Leila. That’s the name you’ve loved me as, so that’s who I am. Besides,” she said as she sat upright and looked at the baby in her lap, “the name ‘Cristina Cohen’ is already taken. And I’ll be a Cohen soon, won’t I?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Let’s get married right here at this church . . . this afternoon, if they’ll let us.”

  Ashford took her face in his hands and kissed her.

  “Leila Cohen. I love the way that sounds. Though nobody here will be able to pronounce it.”

  They both laughed.

  “My bride.”

  “Darling, I’m going to make you so happy.”

  Manny had once told her that love was worth anything and everything. It had taken a lot to make her believe him, but now she knew he was right. Love was always worth it.