Nacho busies himself with his translations because money is running tight, and hangs out with his brother and plays chess with Don Felipe. He works on his cooking, reads when he has time, teaches his class, resolves a dispute over a shared wall that is being shared unequally.
Tired of being cooped up in his room in the terrible heat, he begins to take regular walks in the morning and late afternoon. He sees the garden by the tower beginning to bloom, and the playground frequented by groups of children dashing here and there, their parents sitting at tables in the shade. Emil, loose-limbed, itching for action, accompanies him.
“Where did all these kids come from?” he asks. “Jesus. Some of them even have clothes on.”
A few weeks into the heat wave, a rumor spreads that the five stone heads are beginning to crumble, that they burned from the inside and are now disintegrating. Nacho takes a stroll with Emil and Maria’s dog to the gates of the city. The stones heads stand as before, faces vacant and flat as kouroi. At their bases are flowers, rags, blankets, the embers of fires.
Nacho doesn’t know it and Emil doesn’t know it, but these will be the last days of peace.
CHAPTER 24
The unexpected guest—Coffee at sunrise—Nacho asks Lalloo to invent a weapon of war—Nacho and Emil make battle plans—Maria proposes an assassination
ONE HOT NIGHT NACHO ENTERTAINS AN UNEXPECTED GUEST. HE IS FAST ASLEEP WHEN THE guest somehow appears at his bedside. In the dark, outlined against the faint light let in through the slats of the shuttered window, the guest is a silhouette, still as Death. The figure is broad and strong. The man sits at the foot of the bed, which is really a pallet on ministilts, and takes in his surroundings. Sees the modest furniture, the shelf full of books. Smells the air—musty, moldy—says to himself, “Not much for a great leader. A servant’s quarters.”
Suddenly the Little Cripple is awake and looking at an intruder not three feet away.
“Who are you?” asks Nacho.
“Torres.”
“Which one?”
“We haven’t met. But you know my brother. By all accounts, you scared him witless. We haven’t seen him since.”
The man lets out a breath, a semblance of amusement at his brother’s fate.
“What are you doing in here? How did you get in?”
“It’s my tower.”
Nacho is struck by the calmness of the intruder’s voice, a warm baritone. They call him Mayhem, but his voice is silk.
“It was your tower,” says Nacho. “Then the government took it. And then we took it.”
“Well, I’m not here to discuss semantics and origins and property law.”
“Why are you here? It’s late. Or early.”
“Let’s say my family has unfinished business with this property. You and the occupants need to leave.”
“And if we don’t?”
“I’ll kill you all. But I’d rather not do that. This area has a history of bloodshed. There’s been enough war here, enough butchery. I’d rather you left peacefully. What do you say?”
“No.”
“Wrong answer.”
“This is our home.”
“No, it isn’t. This is my home, and you’re squatting in it. Tell me, Nacho. What would you do if you were in my shoes? If the family property had been stolen and was now being squatted illegally?”
“The property was built illegally in the first place through murder and bribery and enslaving the weak. And the land was stolen. If I were in your shoes, I’d thank God I lived a good life, already had a roof over my head, and I’d walk away and live like an honest man for the rest of my days.”
“A beautiful dream. And I admire your courage. But it’s not going to save you. I have an army. We’ll blast you and your so-called home to smithereens. I’m not my brother. I’m smarter and better-organized.”
“Why would you destroy the building? You just told me you wanted the tower.”
“The tower is a mess. I wouldn’t care if it fell down tomorrow. It’s the land. We’re in the center of the city. You know that. This will be my base. I’m a businessman and a politician and a general. I’m going to give you two weeks. There are places out in Blutig, Oameni Morti. There’s a derelict tower in Fellahin, houses maybe three hundred or four if you live cooped up like animals. Take your people and lead them to another promised land. This one’s mine and I’m not sharing it. I don’t want to shed more blood. But I’m a Torres, and whatever horrors my family has visited upon the people over the years, it’ll be nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if you stay.”
“You’ve already shed blood. The Chinaman.”
“It wasn’t me. One of my officers was out of control. I apologize.”
He waits for Nacho to respond. Waits and waits, but the Little Cripple remains unmoved. He sits coolly in his skeletal bed, stays fixed in tranquility. They look at one another.
Torres says, “I hear you’re a chess player. This is the equivalent of checkmate.”
Nacho stays silent. Torres pushes open the door and leaves with a light step that belies his bulk.
As the last echoes of the intruder’s footsteps fade into the night, Nacho wrestles his way out of bed. He tousles his hair, rubs his eyes. The whole exchange took barely two minutes, and he wonders if he was dreaming. But his door is ajar and the faint smell of cigar smoke lingers, the scent of dictators the world over. How did he get in?
Nacho gets dressed, hobbles down the stairs, makes out a few stars in the blackness of the night and looks around. The guards are all gone. Nowhere to be seen. He peers up at the higher floors of the tower. A few lights are on, but where are the sentries, the lookouts with their binoculars? He thinks, ‘The heat has lulled us into a long sleep. We’ve forgotten our enemies. We’ve forgotten everything. We’re in Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, and our boat is drifting miles from the shore.’
He wanders the perimeter of the tower. A mangy dog stares at him and lopes away. A mouse scarpers through a hole in the wall. The children’s playground, its surfaces shining in the dark, assumes pure form, like a display of modernist sculptures in bronze and stone.
He goes back to his room, puts a pan of water on the stove, and makes coffee. He drinks it from a chipped mug someone gave him years ago, and sits at his window, watching for the first rumors of light. He thinks of how unutterably beautiful the dawn is, clasps his hands as if in prayer and rests his shaggy head on his fingers. The Torres family again. The great hundred-headed snake in Eden.
The day crackles to life but quieter than normal because it’s a Sunday and the traffic is leisurely. The first thing Nacho does is find out who was on guard duty the night before. The two men are nowhere to be found.
“Torres must have captured them,” says Emil, sitting at Maria’s table. They pick at a huge platter of eggs fried in olive oil that Maria brought in, forking them onto their plates and mop-ping up the yolk with hunks of bread.
“Or paid them off. How did Torres know which room was mine?”
“Maybe he’d been spying on you.”
“No. He’s a Torres. It doesn’t matter that he can speak in complete sentences. If he wants something, he’ll just break down the door. So maybe somebody told him.”
Later, the brothers hear that the priest has gone missing. Nacho knocks on Don Felipe’s door. No answer. He returns to Maria’s room and says to Emil, “How did Torres know I play chess? Don Felipe’s the only person I play with.”
“Maybe the chess set was on your desk.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You think Torres got to the priest? You’re full of conspiracy theories today. I thought the old man was your friend.”
“No. Not really. I don’t trust him.”
“Who do you trust?”
“No one outside this room.”
In the evening, Nacho and Emil pay a visit to Lalloo. He answers his door looking disheveled. Even with three fans blasting away behind him, he’s covered in a patina of swe
at that makes his scrawny torso glisten. He wipes his forehead.
“Hello?”
“Can we come in? Get out of the heat?”
“Yes. But there’s nowhere to sit. The floor’s OK?”
He lives, like Nacho, in one room. Every surface—the bed, a table, and a chair—is covered with wires, springs, widgets, remote controls, screws, nails, washers, metal disks, and cannibalized parts of gadgets, things for which no name has yet been invented. A large rag stained with grease and oil lies in the center of the floor, and Lalloo drags it to a corner and motions for the men to sit on the floor.
“We need you to invent something,” says Nacho.
Lalloo looks fearful, drops his gaze to his knees.
“We don’t know what it is we want you to invent,” Nacho goes on. “We’re desperate. In two weeks Torres Junior comes with an army to kick us out of the tower. We have no defense. Few guns. Just the ones the last Torres army left behind and a couple of ancient muskets. Even fewer men who know how to use them. Even fewer with the courage to fight. Your father was Naboo Lalloo, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you want to invent things the way he did?”
“No.”
Nacho glances around the room.
“It looks like you’re inventing something already.”
“This is just a hobby. I’m not an inventor. I really can’t …”
“We need a weapon of war. Come with us.”
The three men walk down the exterior steps of the building, all the way down to the plaza. The evening heat is oppressive, but they ignore it. They walk the perimeter of the plaza and in his mind Nacho sees a chessboard, visualizing the ranks of soldiers massed against him. The infantry at the front, expendable pawns. The big guns ready to boom at the back.
“What do you see?” Nacho asks Lalloo.
“A playground. A piece of land. Some shrubs.”
“Look closer,” says Nacho. “Think of it as a battlefield. We’re inside the tower. They’re out here. What do you see?”
“I see nothing. I’m telling you.”
“Look harder,” says Emil.
“The only advantage we have,” Nacho goes on, “is that we know the land better than they do. And we’ll be looking down on them. We have gravity on our side. If they attack, we have to be ready and we have to have a plan.”
“I’m an electrician,” says Lalloo.
“But you have genius in your blood,” says Nacho.
“Is there going to be another Trash War?” asks Lalloo.
“Yes,” says Nacho. “If we want to stay here, we have to fight.”
“I can’t. The wars destroyed my father.”
“Your father is a legend,” says Nacho.
Lalloo begins to shake. “The Trash Wars destroyed my family. My father went mad. Began drinking. He died alone in misery. I’ll leave this place.”
He seems to be about to break into tears, so Nacho nods to him.
“It’s OK. We can come back later. But we need your help.”
Back in Maria’s room the brothers sit at table and ponder what to do. The little dog wanders in from the salon and begins yapping, and Emil picks it up, tries to soothe it, fails, and kicks it out the door.
“There y’go, hell hound. Run around. Do your worst. Go bite some kids.”
“What are we going to do?” says Nacho.
“Make coffee.”
“Where’s Maria? She may have some ideas.”
“She’s out shopping or something. Gone to buy new heels or some more pointless trinkets for the sideboard. She’s bourgeoisie. Needs all this stuff.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Stores are open on Sundays. You’re medieval, Nacho.”
“I need to get out more. What are we gonna do?”
“Set up a booby trap,” says Emil. “Plant mines. Torres arrives and boom! All his men die and we live happily ever after.”
“Our own people would set off the booby traps. We can’t cordon off the plaza. Kids play there. People go to work.”
“OK. Call all your contacts. Build an army from Fellahin, Minhas, Oameni Morti, Sanguinosa, Agua Suja. There are millions of damnificados. Bring them together.”
“Why would they risk their lives for us? Half of them are starving. And how are we going to win a pitched battle against a real army? The streets would run with blood.”
“Call your bigwigs. That ambassador you worked for. Ask them for help.”
“The ambassador’s an old man. He’s retired. He sits on his veranda sipping mojitos while his grandkids tickle his toes.”
“You have other contacts, right?”
“Low-level bureaucrats. They can’t touch Torres.”
“What about the cartels? They’re armed,” says Emil.
“You mean like the Iberians? The guys you stole the horse from? Why would they protect us?”
“OK. How about Las Bestias?”
“Who?”
“Las Bestias de la Luz Perpetua. They’re still in Spazzatura, aren’t they?”
“They’re farmers and tinkers. The sons and grandsons of warriors. Why would they …”
“I get it. Why would anyone help us?” says Emil.
The water whistles in the kettle and Emil gets up, makes two cups of coffee. Puts a heap of sugar in both with a wooden spoon. Stirs. Brings them slowly, the steam still rising. Puts them on placemats at the table—Impressionist miniatures, a Degas dancer and a Monet river.
“Nacho,” he says. “I can’t think of a single way a bunch of damnificados can defeat a trained army. Ask me, we’re going to lose. But maybe you should do what you always used to do, which is get over to the library and do some research. Find out how the underdogs beat the odds throughout history. I don’t just mean the Trash Wars. I mean all over the world. How did those outnumbered white men beat the Zulus and all that.”
“You mean Rorke’s Drift?”
“Whatever it’s called.”
“They had guns and the Zulus had spears.”
“I don’t care about the details. Just find out how the under-dog won.”
Nacho sips his coffee and burns his lip.
Emil says, “Lalloo isn’t going to come up with anything. What does that leave us with? It has to be you. You’re the leader. But then you have to ask yourself, is it worth everyone dying? I have a job waiting for me at Ferrido, building boats. I’m a train ride away from safety. And you can go anywhere—you’re a translator. You don’t need to be a war martyr.”
Nacho blows on his coffee this time and feels the sweet hot liquid on his tongue. His face turns weary, his years suddenly appearing in every pore of his skin where once he was childlike.
“I know. Maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it. It’s the people. Damnificados.”
“They’re just people. Let them solve their own problems. They’ll find a way.”
The door opens and Maria prances in like a sixteen-year-old beauty queen, in boob tube, heart-shaped sunglasses balanced on her head and eyelashes like a pair of combs glued to her lids. She flashes a mirthless Italian smile at them, drinks the rest of Emil’s coffee in one gulp, kisses him on the mouth, and disappears to the bathroom. She returns a minute later, perfumed and refreshed.
She makes more coffee and sits at the table, her hand on Emil’s leg. The brothers tell her what has happened and she shrugs.
“This is Favelada. Everything can be bought. Everything has a number attached, including Torres. Hire a sicario. No. Hire ten sicarios. Tell them the number on Torres’s head. The first to bring you Torres’s finger with his family ring still on it gets the money. What my grandfather used to say: non c’è niente di più facile che uccidere qualcuno. There’s nothing so easy as blowing someone away.”
Emil nods.
“Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
Nacho says, “How would we get to Torres? He probably lives in a fortress.”
“Probably,” says Maria, c
radling her coffee in two hands.
Nacho shakes his head, thinks, ‘I’m not a man of war. I have no gift for it.’
CHAPTER 25
Nacho and Emil go on a scouting mission—Abandoned zoo—Derelict factory—Ruined mansion—He ll—Dilapidated tower—Warning the damnificados—Troubadour—Wheelbarrow and the dog—A note—Research—A visit to the priest’s quarters—Cesare Baldini
WITH EMIL BY HIS SIDE, NACHO SCOUTS FOR ALTERNATIVE PLACES TO LIVE. THEY TAKE TAXIS way out west of the city, beyond the garbage dumps and the disused silver mine, that great gouge in the earth. They wander an abandoned zoo and gaze at the yawning concrete enclosures, rusted cage doors banging against their jambs, layers of ivy toppling over the dens like waterfalls.
“Could we live here?” asks Nacho.
“In cages? This is Hell on Earth.”
They walk the cracked stone passageways looking for a base, a center where a man can rest his head. As they walk, they read the fading plaques and the loopy graffiti scrawled on the enclosure walls, and hear the leaves rustling where once monkeys cavorted.
They find the exit and catch a bus to Oameni Morti. They take a short walk through a valley overlooked by a shantytown, the wooden houses all askew but strangely beautiful in the sun. They come to an abandoned garment factory, a giant rectangle with a tin roof. Signs say ‘Keep out’ in six languages, but they go in anyway, squeezing between locked iron gates. The entrance—a huge door—is padlocked, so Emil vaults a fence at the back of the building, scrambles to the roof and breaks in via a broken skylight. He returns two minutes later.
“It’s a bat colony,” he tells Nacho. “You can’t see the ceiling. That place will be diseased for a thousand years.”
They move on.
They catch a ride in a baker’s van to Agua Suja, and then another in a farmer’s truck to the outskirts and get out at the ruins of a mansion-turned-gold refinery. Weeds clamber up the walls, and the roof is in pieces, great holes through which pigeons flit and flurry.
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