by Glen Carter
Angelica’s eyes flicked to the door. She might be able to run, but what was outside? Maybe others, more dangerous than the little man who apparently meant her no harm – for now. Angelica couldn’t identify what she was feeling. Surreal. Was it the tea? Panic crept closer. “Who are you?” she repeated, wiping perspiration from her forehead. It was all so strange. The dress, the old man, the dirty little house and the fact she didn’t know even her own name. Questions twisted and swirled like sand in a windstorm, stinging her face and eyes.
“My name is Alejandro. I’m your friend, Angelica. Please. Nothing will harm you here.”
It brought her a small measure of relief. She breathed deeply. Angelica. The name again. “Angelica?” she repeated as much for herself as for him.
“It’s your real name, not the name you were given for the American. The name of your birth, like your beautiful grandmother. She was U’wa. Like me. Like your grandfather.” Alejandro frowned, like he had just swallowed something vile. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small brown sack and a packet of papers. He opened the sack and extracted a pinch of tobacco which he rolled quickly and efficiently. The match appeared out of nowhere, flaming against the end of the cigarette. Alejandro drew deep, and then exhaled. For a second he vanished behind a cloud of smoke. It hung like fog in the space between them. Alejandro’s disembodied voice emerged through it, deep and smooth. “Her name was Angelica…your grandmother,” he said, taking another draw. “She was my sister.”
Angelica listened blankly.
Alejandro stopped for a moment, placed both hands on his knees and looked directly at Angelica with warmth he hadn’t yet revealed to her. “I see her in your eyes.”
Her grandmother? What did he mean? Angelica watched him smoke. The sweet smell of tobacco filled her nostrils.
After another moment Alejandro crushed the cigarette beneath his sandal, got up and opened the front door.
Angelica was drawn to the sunlight and when Alejandro stretched his hand towards her she stood slowly and moved towards him.
Alejandro allowed her to find her strength. Carefully he took her arm as Angelica stepped gingerly from the old porch onto ground that was dry and cracked. She stopped a moment to survey her surroundings. They were in a large clearing bordered by tall trees and brush. What lay beyond she couldn’t tell. They walked slowly past a large crumbling shed which was filled with junk hung on rusted hooks and rope. There was a beaten-down pickup truck, its chrome grill dulled and broken.
They made their way along a well-worn path that led into woods next to the main house. Angelica breathed deeply, happy to be shaded from the brutal morning sun. Cooler moist air filled her lungs, made her feel normal for the first time since waking. In the daylight, she guessed Alejandro at seventy or more. He stooped to pick up a stick. “Not far now,” he said, jabbing at the wide sunlit opening at the end of the shady path.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see.”
They didn’t speak again until they emerged from the path into the harsh sunlight once more. They were on a grassy plateau which sloped gently downward towards vast tracts of unbroken forest. From a dozen rooftops, Angelica spied thin trails of smoke which rose from chimneys like silver string. There were people too. Like insects as they went about their business.
“Maradona. Santa Rita. Bellavista,” Alejandro intoned. “They are U’wa, but so many have been killed, who can say how long before we are all gone?” He shook his head. “The Spaniards murdered us by the thousands. Now the rebels soak their hands in our blood, like the oil companies suck the blood from our ancestral lands.”
Angelica listened intently, not wishing to interrupt while Alejandro spoke.
“Coca,” he continued, the timbre of his voice thickening. “Bogito owns the farm there.” Angelica followed Alejandro’s gaze to a squat dwelling situated in the middle of a modest patch of cultivated land far away to their left. “It pays for two of his sons at university in Caracas.”
She didn’t dwell on Bogito’s little farm, fixing her eyes instead well beyond Maradona to a breathtaking range of snow-capped mountains.
He watched her for a moment before changing the subject. “Your grandmother’s people have been here two hundred years. The old house was over there.” Alejandro pointed in the direction of a clearing to their left, bare now except for a broken column of stone that might have been a hearth and chimney, overgrown by tall grass and woody brown weeds.
It seemed like a dream to her. She needed to sit, but at that moment Alejandro took her hand again and gently pulled her forward. Angelica was content to follow. Every step, every word, seemed to lessen the anxiety she felt. After a hundred yards or so, Alejandro stopped once more.
Angelica tried to make sense of what she was looking at. She turned to Alejandro, waiting for an explanation. He said nothing, though Angelica sensed a darkness in his mood that had not been there previously.
They stood on the edge of a field containing a hundred or more blackened and cracked tree stumps. Grey dirt at her feet, the whole scene made Angelica think of giant stubble on the face of a corpse.
Alejandro continued his silence. He’d become so quiet and somber that Angelica wanted to ask him the reason for the change in his mood. For some reason she felt sorry for the old man. If any of what he had said were true he was her grandmother’s brother – her great uncle. How unreal it was as Alejandro marched away, leaving her alone.
Angelica didn’t see the grave markers until they stepped through knee-high grass into a small clearing not far from the destroyed tree stumps. She felt dread at the sight of them, wanted at that moment to tell Alejandro it was time to return to the house.
Alejandro let go of her hand and gently knelt at one of the alabaster slabs. He ripped a handful of tiny invading weeds and touched the marker like it was living flesh. Alejandro spoke to it, breathless words in an urgent whispered cadence that made Angelica feel like she was intruding on his privacy. Occasionally he stroked the grave marker with what Angelica saw was deep love and respect. When Alejandro looked up at her, his eyes were red. “Come meet your grandmother,” he said as he reached out to her. “She died when you were just a baby.”
Confused, Angelica bent slowly, grimacing at the pain which stung her knees. She leaned forward to look more closely at the names which were barely readable. Luis Mendoza. Angelica Gabriella Mendoza. The date of death was the same for both of them: June 23, 1973. Accident, or fire, or something else. Angelica was curious. She looked at Alejandro for explanation.
Overhead, a low flying crow squawked at them, ebony wings flapped against a darkening sky, and Alejandro looked sourly at the second grave. “The remains of your grandfather,” was all he said.
“They both died…the same day?” asked Angelica.
Alejandro remained silent, watched as the crow disappeared behind distant trees. “The weather is moving in. Time for us to go now.” With that, Alejandro got up and walked back in the direction they had come.
Angelica had to quicken her step to keep up with him, across the plateau and to the shady path which was much darker now beneath a canopy of blackening cloud. When they entered the tunnel the temperature plummeted. Angelica rubbed her bare arms, shivered slightly as the first raindrops began to tap, tap, tap on the thick foliage above their heads.
“We could stay here and wait it out, but she must not be left alone. She pains at this weather.” Alejandro slowed for a second so Angelica could catch up.
What the hell was he talking about? Angelica was tiring of this. “Who?” she demanded. “Who do you mean?” Angelica took hold of his arm. “Tell me. Please.”
Alejandro stopped dead in his tracks. Looked at her with the gentle impatience of a loving father. “She doesn’t like to be left alone…not in this.”
“Who?” Angelica demanded again. “Who doesn’t like to be left alone?” Tell me, damn you!
Alejandro waited a moment. His raven eyes fixed
on hers. “Eva,” he finally replied. “Your mother.”
Angelica froze. Like cement hardening around her ankles. But before she could speak, Alejandro abruptly turned, dashing quickly along the gloomy path until he disappeared into the downpour.
TWENTY-FIVE
Alejandro led her into the room, to the foot of a small bed where a slight form was covered by blankets, unmoving. “She eats so little she vanishes,” he said sorrowfully.
The darkness settled over her like a harbinger of death. Angelica immediately sensed the neglect. She was horrified.
Thick curtains, like funeral shrouds, covered the room’s only windows. A smell of sickness invaded her nostrils, so dour she wanted to retch.
“My God, open the window.” Angelica coughed, bringing a hand to cover her mouth. “She has to have fresh air. At least you can do that.”
Alejandro’s eyes hardened. “You don’t understand. Everything possible I have done. But she is very sick.”
Angelica shuffled to the window and shook the curtains apart, releasing a blizzard of dust so thick she held her breath. Light washed over them. Angelica grunted from the strength it took to pull the window open, allowing fresh wet air to blow into the room. She swayed and would have fallen except that Alejandro took her arm and helped her gently into a chair next to the bed.
Angelica took a moment to decide what needed to be done. “Clean up that mess in the kitchen and bring food,” she demanded.
“She doesn’t eat…she sleeps–”
“Now!” she ordered, sending Alejandro from the room.
A single blanket covering the frail body rose and fell nearly imperceptibly, making Angelica wonder where the woman found the strength to breathe. She reached across the bed to pull back the blanket, allowing fresh air to reach her face. The woman was pale and drawn with dark circles around her eyes, sunken cheeks. Long dark hair, streaked with grey, spilled onto the pillow, framing the soft features of her face. Her lips were drained of blood but even in their greyness Angelica could imagine them generous and flush as cherries. The woman might have been beautiful once.
After a moment, Angelica reached beneath the covers and took up one of her hands, gently rubbing her long, finely sculpted fingers. Was there familiarity in them? Angelica let go of the woman’s hand and spied the small mirror and hair brush that sat like abandoned artifacts on her night table. Tentatively she reached for the mirror and brought it to her face. There might have been a resemblance, but Angelica couldn’t say for certain. She was full of doubt, unwilling to accept anything Alejandro had told her. He was a crazy old man, she decided, taking advantage of her vulnerability. What was he trying to accomplish with his fanciful lies? Were they for cruelty or profit? A way to control her while ransom was being demanded? Who would pay it? Who would be looking for her?
Exhausted, Angelica wept. Tears streaked her face as she sobbed quietly into her hands.
TWENTY-SIX
Jack couldn’t shake it, no matter how tightly he squeezed his eyes shut. A kind of looping videotape, a vignette of dust, smoke and bodies, moving towards him, heaps of grey bloody flesh, crawling forward, moaning through shapeless mouths and begging for mercy. The images burned like acid on silk.
There were noises outside his hospital room: a doctor being paged, trays clanging on a lunch trolley. Jack opened his eyes and stared vacantly at the feeding tube which snaked from a bag of colourless liquid into his arm. The drip punctuated time, like a funeral march. A thick soft bandage was wrapped tightly around the top of his skull, and for a moment Jack thought about the Mexico earthquake, the old guy with the head wound who went into cardiac arrest while they were shooting video inside the makeshift hospital. While a doctor pumped the man’s chest, Jack checked his watch to see if they were going to make deadline. Kaitlin punished him with her incredulity.
At the time, he guessed, he would not have even registered on the humanity meter, but then again, if you weren’t careful, those stories stuck to you. Like the Sudan, where in one village the hacked corpses were piled higher than him, the ground red, and still wet. When he got back to camp that day, his boots were covered with dried blood. He didn’t judge the butchers responsible because that would have meant laying bare his humanity. How could you do that, when the rivers were filled with bloated corpses? You did what you had to and then got the hell out.
A couple of times during the night they had to change his hospital sheets because of the sweats that soaked his bed. The second time, a nurse brought a cloth and a basin filled with water. She hummed soothingly, the trickle of water reminding Jack of home and those hot summer days when he dipped his feet in pools left by the low tide. He was thankful for the human touch, the warm, damp cloth on his neck and chest.
“You were lucky,” the nurse whispered. “In my country no one is so lucky.”
Jack was woozy from sleep and the narcotic, and for a moment he wanted to touch her cheek, to tell her everything was going to be fine. When he woke that morning he wondered whether he’d dreamt it.
Alone, Jack stared through the window of his hospital room. Carmichael told him he’d been cleared for travel and they’d be heading stateside before the day was over. “I’ll be collecting O’Rourke’s things,” he’d said before walking out the door.
For the hundredth time Jack thought about her. In his mind he watched her walk away from the table. How many minutes later did the explosion happen? Two, three? Then there was the flash of light and the deafening concussion. The sirens were muffled at first and then so loud his ears hurt. Wetness. A warm bloody webbing on his dusty face. Jack had no idea how long it took to find him. He remembered the lights, the stifled voices. Uniforms stumbling through black smoke and stepping carefully around small gas-fed fires. Muerto. That’s what he heard them say again and again as they picked through the rubble. Then they found him, placed him on something hard. A gloved hand forced itself into his mouth, feeling for something – maybe his tongue. Someone jabbed something into his arm and stupidly he tried to pull away. That’s when they strapped him down.
Jack had a hard time sorting it out, especially the disturbing belief that Kaitlin was keeping something from him in the moments before the bomber struck.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Branko Montello cocked his head to catch the sliver of sunlight slashing the Michelangelo and brought a lingering hand to his chin as if he were realizing its brilliance for the first time. He felt something he didn’t recognize, a quality that wasn’t part of the repertoire of feelings he’d mastered so he could live among other humans. The thing he felt now was unfamiliar. It might have been humility in the presence of such genius, though Montello cast the notion aside like a prince presented with pauper’s clothing.
He was oblivious to everything except the paintings aligned on the walls of his inner sanctum, a place were no one was permitted, except a few hand-picked household servants. Montello understood their fear of him, nurtured it. Sometimes you needed fear to survive, though arrogance and cruelty he found much more comfortable, and thankfully those things were the dominant parts of his being.
Montello picked up his cup, grimaced at the light ring it left on the polished wood and made a mental note to tell Suarez to fire the new maid. He strolled to the large window, squinting through the sunlight that glistened off the morning dew, an ocean of moisture that formed one droplet at a time on manicured gardens and grass that stretched farther than he could see. He dropped his eyes to stare at Nestor. The old gardener looked up and then quickly averted his eyes to the task of emptying a wheelbarrow. Branko Montello smiled to himself, a smile that had all the warmth of a man encased in ice.
Montello wore a fine black suit – tailored perfectly to fit his tall slender physique – and a white silk shirt which was open at the neck. There was aristocracy in his long narrow face, his high forehead, and aquiline nose. Dark flat eyes seemed orphans of the blood and flesh that made up the rest of his face. He turned from the window and without moving swept th
ose dark pits across the gallery of art. The Picasso had been his only indulgence to the century in which he was born. He preferred the early masters: Leonardo, Donatello, Lorenzo and even Botticelli who foolishly surrendered his talent to the zealot monk who condemned his vanity to fire. Those Renaissance masters had had a rich patron. The Medici brought them perspective through Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi, the heretic, had brought Florentines their great puzzling dome. Montello was proudly a patron too, a protector of the genius that hung on the walls of his study, most of which had been stolen and was now hunted by Interpol and half a dozen other investigative agencies. Paying for fine works such as these would have made him a pimp and the great masters nothing but whores. Montello hoarded for good and honour, he thought, as he drained his cup and moved to a thick leather sofa the colour of oxblood.
He was only thirteen years old when he killed for the first time. Quemarropa. He could still feel the gunbarrel against the man’s head, still hear the mewling sound that came from the body after the bullet punched into his skull and splattered Montello with blood. The other sicarios watched from their hiding place across the street and howled with approval when the man collapsed onto the sidewalk. Montello felt nothing, except regret that he had done it for food. He was no better than the other urchin assassins who roamed La Terazza killing for Escobar. Montello promised himself then that others would do his bidding.
In time his power came. Slowly at first. When he put a bullet into the head of a police chief, Pablo noticed – and invited him into his world.
Montello shifted easily into Pablo’s existence, a world of hatred and beauty where Montello was awed not by the exotic cars or the horses or Escobar’s many whores, but by the works of art that hung like medallions of gold around the necks of gods.
Escobar had explained it to him this way, “Art moves across borders easier than cash. Customs agents don’t know fuck about the value of a good piece of art. So sometimes I take what’s owed me in paint and canvas. Simple.” To Escobar art meant currency. His homes were lavishly styled in works by the great masters, but Pablo was a rough man who got his start stealing tombstones and reselling them. What did he know about art? Montello had absorbed more about light and brushstrokes and perspective in one afternoon wandering the hallways in just one of Escobar’s villas than his mentor would have learned in a pathetic lifetime.
