Shooting Down Heaven

by Jorge Franco

  “I’ve got something to tell you too,” he said.

  She looked at him with interest, with those eyes that said everything and nothing.

  “I’m Libardo’s son,” Larry said.

  Charlie shrugged and smiled in confusion. “Who’s Libardo?”

  Larry searched for an answer in the tangle of his former life, looked for it in truth and falsehood, in the words he’d always avoided. Charlie kept looking at him with those eyes that said nothing and yet said everything.

  “A capo,” Larry said.

  32

  You haven’t answered me, Larry,” Fernanda complains. “What’s the question?”

  “When did you realize what your father did?”

  “Julio’s First Communion,” I tell her. “I got really bored and started watching people, what they were doing, the way they laughed, what they were talking about, and I noticed it was all just like people said they were—the capos.” I manage to say it. “The way they got portrayed in movies, the way people talked about them at school and at the club. And, well, seeing how Dad always carried a gun and how he used to get violent.”

  “But you were so little,” she says remorsefully.

  “Yeah, but that was when.”

  “Did it worry you?”

  “It made me sad.”

  She offers me more coffee so we can keep talking, and I stop her with a gesture.

  “You should rest a little too,” I say.

  “They’re still setting off fireworks,” she says.

  “What’s that about?”

  “It’s because December starts today.”

  It’s because they’re crazy, I think, because we’re still sick. Those fireworks are just bullets in disguise, a ritual venerating Colombia’s wars.

  “Let’s go to sleep, Ma, please.”

  Her cell phone vibrates on the table. She looks at the screen.

  “It’s Pedro.”

  “Don’t answer,” I say.

  She runs her finger down the bridge of my nose, as if she were a blind person testing its shape.

  “You don’t look like him,” she tells me. “You look like me.”

  “I know.”

  “Julio’s more like him.”

  “I know.”

  “But you’re not like me,” she says.

  “What are you like?”

  “I’m the worst.”

  Sleep rebuffs me. These aren’t things a son wants to know about his mother; nor is it fair for a mother to say them to her child. Nobody wants to hear these things.

  “Don’t say that, Ma.”

  “I’m a disaster, Larry.”

  The cell phone quivers again on the table.

  “It’s Pedro again,” she says. “If we don’t answer, he’s going to keep calling till the battery’s dead.”

  “Turn it off.”

  “No. Julio was going to start off from the farm at daybreak, and I want to keep track of him.”

  “You are a good mother, see?” I say.

  “I’m not judging myself as a mother, but as a person,” she says, “though I haven’t been the best mother either.”

  “Stop it, Ma.”

  “I married Libardo knowing who he was and what he did. And I had you two knowing that he wasn’t just still the same but actually even worse—he’d become more powerful, and I knew everything he’d done to achieve that. I had you knowing that people would point at you, exclude you, that you could never be like everybody else and would never have a normal life.”

  “I’ll take that coffee, Ma.”

  She puts the water on to boil and rummages for the coffee in the cupboard. She asks, “Do you think God sets off fireworks?”

  The white light of the kitchen makes us look pale, gloomy, tired; it emphasizes the lines on her face and the slackness of her thighs.

  “God’s too old,” I tell her.

  She laughs. “The only old person around here is me.”

  While the coffee’s brewing on the stove, I pad barefoot over the tiles of the kitchen floor. In London I walked on old rugs, wearing socks or slippers to fend off the cold.

  “What about Libardo?” she says. “Did he ever ask you what you thought about what he did?”

  “Luckily, no,” I say.

  “Why luckily?”

  “Because I wouldn’t have known how to respond. Remember how furious he got that time I told him we were going to get killed because of him?”

  “You had him in a corner,” Fernanda says. The coffee rises to the upper chamber with that gurgling sound that makes a person feel at home. “I think he never asked because he was ashamed.”

  “Ashamed of what he did? I don’t think so.”

  “He must have been afraid, then,” she says. “Afraid of your answer.”

  “I think he never asked because he didn’t care.”

  “Of course he cared. Everybody cares,” Fernanda says. “Rejection’s the most painful thing of all.”

  She offers me cookies from a tin. I take one just to be polite, because what I really want to do is vomit. A bottle rocket zips right past our window, and the whistling and sparks make us jump out of our chairs.

  “It’s him,” Fernanda says.

  “Dad?” I ask, bewildered.

  “Pedro,” she says.

  We look out the window, and sure enough, there’s Pedro the Dictator, looking up at us and laughing. He gestures for me to come down. I stick out my hand and give him the finger. He hasn’t changed, I tell Fernanda. Here nobody’s changed, she says.

  “How’s Maggie?” she asks.

  “Ma,” I whine.

  “What?”

  “I told you we broke up a long time ago.”

  “Really? I don’t remember. What happened?”

  “Ma,” I whine again, and say, “I’m tired.”

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” she says.

  I go back to the window. Pedro’s gone. Peace at last. I didn’t pay much attention to the kitchen earlier. Something about every object confirms that Fernanda’s changed, but I can’t figure out how. There are dirty dishes in the sink, sugar scattered across the counter, a wineglass with lipstick on the rim, a burnt slice of bread in the toaster oven. She doesn’t have domestic staff anymore to keep her house sparkling. Now it’s Fernanda against the world and against herself. I hear her laugh loudly in the bathroom. What?, I ask, in case she’s said something to me. Maybe she’s laughing because I didn’t understand, because I couldn’t hear her, but no, she keeps laughing away, and I start feeling frightened. Ma, I call to her, and she comes out of the bathroom, talking on the phone. You’re crazy, she says, and hangs up. That was Pedro, she tells me. I sit back down, relieved—for a minute there, I thought she was the crazy one. Is he finally going to leave us alone?, I ask, and Fernanda says no, they went off somewhere and he’ll come back later. Later?, I ask, it’ll be daytime later. Fernanda shrugs, sits down, and sips her coffee, still cheerful.

  “How are Gran and Grandpa?” I ask.

  “Ha,” she says. “Speaking of crazy.”

  “Please, Ma.”

  “She doesn’t tell me anything—I get all my information from Julio, who goes to visit them sometimes. Supposedly she’s been deeply affected by Libardo’s reappearance.” Uncertain that she’s been clear, she attempts to clarify: “You know what I mean. She’s been crying a lot, Julio says. And your grandfather’s getting worse, as you know.”

  “I want to see them.”

  “Go right ahead,” she says, making no effort to hide her irritation.

  They’re all we have left of Libardo. The only living thing, and not for much longer.

  “I’m sure they’ll go to the memorial service,” Fernanda says.

  “When is it?”

  “As s
oon as they hand over the remains. You and Julio are going to go claim them.”

  “What about you?”

  “No, honey,” she says, and shakes her hands. “Father Diego’s expecting my call; he’ll set up the service when we let him know. It’s the only thing I have left to do.”

  “I ran into some of Dad’s friends in a karaoke bar,” I tell her.

  “In London?” she asks, intrigued.

  “Here,” I say, “a few hours ago. There’s this one named Nelson. I don’t remember him, but he recognized me.”

  “Nelson Vargas?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Would you believe,” she says, “I got to know your father better after his death than I ever did when he was alive. You can’t imagine the stories that came out, and documents, photos—one surprise after another.”

  “Yeah, you told me.”

  “Not everything,” she says, “but I’m not going to ruin your night. These fireworks are enough for that.”

  Fireworks or not, they’re not going to ruin my life. I don’t want to hear any more stories. We’ll bury Libardo, as God intended, and that’ll be that. We’d already settled our burdens, everything in its place—grief, guilt, rage. I’m not going to let Fernanda bring Libardo back to life to make us miserable.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” she says.

  “Again?”

  “I’m getting a cigarette.”

  Another burst of explosions rattles the early hours of this first day of December. Fernanda curses on her way to the bathroom. Another burst follows, and then another and still more, as if the approach of daybreak were a challenge to those who don’t want the party to end. Or as if Libardo himself, on purpose, had decided to come back on a night of fireworks.

  Fernanda returns with a cigarette and goes over to the stove to light it. “What are you thinking about?” she asks.

  “About how death fills the dead with life,” I tell her.

  33

  Three weeks after El Rosal burned down, they set fire to another farm of ours near San Onofre. It was smaller, but the size didn’t make the attack any less serious. The message was clear: all-out war. Actually, that’s what Libardo had declared before he realized he’d be the one to lose that war. There was no longer any possibility of negotiating. Their demands, rather than diminishing, increased day by day. They wanted more money, more property, more enemies identified. Not to mention the pressure from the government as it started to expose Escobar’s secret networks. Politicians, businessmen, athletes, military officers, and even artists and priests were unmasked to the authorities and the media. Everybody knew Escobar had such ties, but some of the new revelations were shocking. And in the eye of the hurricane was Libardo, an ally in Escobar’s shadow who’d rarely been mentioned before. His photo started appearing in the newspapers and on television, with claims that made me sick. The man who’d greased the wheels of Pablo’s war machine, the strategist, the man who killed without ever touching a weapon, the chess master of terror, Pablo’s kindred spirit, his shadow.

  “It’s actual, pure, outright filthy horseshit,” Libardo told us. “They’re demonizing me. People are going around pointing fingers right and left. Everybody’s bored with Pablo’s death, so journalists are making up stories to get attention. These motherfuckers think they own the world because they’ve got a goddamn typewriter, but I’ll shove those preening bastards’ typewriters, cameras, and their lies right down their cocksucking throats, the goddamn pricks.”

  “Libardo,” Fernanda said, her tone calmer. “Tell the boys the truth.”

  “But everybody knows the truth,” Libardo replied. “They know”—he pointed at us—“because I’ve never lied to them, right, boys?”

  As always, Julio and I looked at each other. Then we looked at Fernanda, trying to read her expression, and at Libardo to see if he was going to explode, thump the table, hurl a glass, or cry, or scratch his head. People might think they know their parents as well as their parents know them, but Julio and I lacked the life experience to know ours, to understand why they did what they did, why they were the way they were. Libardo’s real life was difficult to disguise. There was no way to hide the guys who watched his back, the briefcases full of money secreted around the house, the cars he switched out every couple of months, or the threats he made, and he’d never denied his admiration for Escobar.

  “Right, boys?”

  Julio and I nodded. Fernanda still wasn’t satisfied.

  “Tell them the truth,” she said again.

  “What truth, Fernanda? Everybody who knew Pablo knew nobody made his decisions for him—he liked to control every last detail. He made the decisions, the plans, he was the brains. The boss gave orders, and we obeyed, simple as that. And anyone who didn’t obey . . .” He paused and eventually went for an easy explanation: “You know what happened.”

  He sounded sincere, but something seemed off. When you’ve lived a murky, tangled life, when you don’t tell lies but you don’t tell the truth either, a blanket of doubt will always settle over you. That was what Libardo’s life was like. What he said about Escobar may have been true—after all, he was now dead, and his family was far away—but it was what they were saying about Libardo on the news that was keeping us awake at night.

  Fernanda didn’t push any further. Her expression didn’t change, and she seemed unconvinced, but she didn’t insist. Julio chose to believe him. Like Libardo, he knew that if we didn’t hang together in such times, we’d be lost. Libardo said the same thing in other words, which happened to be pretty sensible.

  “It’s like this, boys.” He looked at Fernanda and added, “And this goes for you too. Either you believe me and are with me, or you shillyshally and play for the other side.”

  Fernanda spun around. “How am I supposed to believe you, Libardo?”

  “The way you’ve always believed me.”

  “Until that hussy showed up.”

  “Oh, here we go.”

  “How am I supposed to believe a liar?”

  Libardo came over to us, and she stayed back, muttering to herself.

  “I’m going to send more men to Caucasia so they don’t do the same thing to Sorrento they did to the other farms,” he told us. “I’m not going to let them burn it too. I’m going to face them down and make them regret what they’ve done to me.”

  Fernanda said, I’m leaving, and he stared after her till she disappeared from view. I don’t know if her story about the other woman was true, but the expression that lingered on Libardo’s face was that of a man in love. He may have had another woman, but Fernanda had Libardo’s heart.

  “She doesn’t give a shit about the farms,” he said.

  “Pa,” Julio said, “it doesn’t matter anymore what she thinks or we think.”

  “I know, son,” Libardo said, “but they’re not going to get to me that easily. They’re coming at me from the sides, trying to hem me in, but they’re not going to nab me without some major effort.”

  The telephone rang. We stayed quiet, and it stopped after four rings.

  “Pa,” Julio said again, but his emotions got the better of him. His eyes welled up and his chin quivered. Seeing him like that, I fell apart.

  In my eyes, Julio was the sensible person in the family, the one worthy of emulation. He was still a teenager, but Libardo and Fernanda often seemed more childish than either of us. He was my older brother, my only brother. Or he was more than that. It was distressing to see him stammering, scared to death. Libardo, too, crumbled when he saw his son sobbing. Once again, it seemed, we were going to end up in each other’s arms.

  “The three of us are men,” Libardo said. “Tough men. They’re never going to take us down.” He sucked in breath between each sentence. “Three warriors.”

  I sensed that the hug was imminent. We were so close, we coul
d feel Libardo’s spit spray as he spoke. I wanted to run away, but Libardo’s overflowing emotions forced me to stay, to be tough, a warrior, as he said.

  “Three stallions,” he said.

  The tower that Libardo insisted on keeping upright began to sway. The large hands gripping us weren’t strong enough to support us and him too.

  “Three lions, three . . .”

  Three somethings—he never actually said because he knew we sensed what was about to happen. He didn’t even have the energy to give us a hug. His hands on our shoulders was the best he could do. If Fernanda hadn’t come back, the three columns that kept Libardo’s tower standing would have toppled right there in front of her as if they were made of cardboard.

  “Libardo,” Fernanda said, leaning against the wall with the phone in her hand.

  “You were there,” he said, though it was unclear whether it was a question or a statement.

  “Estrada called,” she said.

  “Who’s Estrada?”

  Libardo had met him, but he’d stopped bothering to remember any names that weren’t part of his war, ones he mentioned every day, ones that obsessed him and kept him up at night.

  “The headmaster,” Fernanda said, and looked at us with an expression of anger, or sadness, or something equally scary. “Julio and Larry can’t go back to the school,” she added.

  “What?” Libardo asked.

  “The parents and teachers had a meeting and decided it was best if the boys don’t go back.”

  “They kicked them out?”

  “No. They’ll hold their spots till things get better. In the meantime . . .”

  “They’re kicking them out? They’re putting them out on the street after everything I’ve done for that fucking place? I’ll go after the bastards who don’t want my sons to go to school.”

  “He said it was for their safety.” Fernanda gestured toward us. “And the school’s. They don’t want to have the bodyguards around, they say that . . .”