Shooting Down Heaven

by Jorge Franco

  “To do what?” she asked, her whole body tense.

  “To proceed.”

  None of the bodyguards had ever asked her for instructions. At most, some household task—the groceries, an order to take Julio and me somewhere or pick us up, the simple matters of everyday life. What Dengue was asking for now had to do with things that Libardo normally dealt with. She said, “Do what he would have done.”

  They went back to the building and two men took each floor. Another man kept a gun pointed at the doorman. They entered each office by whatever means were necessary, depending on the reception they got. They forced anyone they encountered to get down on the floor; they shot two people in the hand who tried to go for the phone; and another man who tried to run ended up getting shot in both legs. They ransacked every room they entered, searching wildly, suite by suite and floor by floor, for a man they already knew they weren’t going to find. An hour later, they left in defeat; an hour after that, the police arrived, and according to the news reports, six people had been wounded but none were killed.

  Given the uproar, there was no way the country wasn’t going to find out that Libardo had disappeared. But nobody paid much attention. Ever since the war between Escobar and Los Pepes had begun, everybody had grown accustomed to each group displaying the other side’s casualties like trophies. Especially the people who’d taken my father.

  We didn’t sleep that night. We were still hoping we might get a phone call. It had happened before with a few who’d gone missing and were later traded for money or people. That’s what Benito, who’d set up in Libardo’s study to organize a search, reassured us. Later, my grandmother arrived alone. She didn’t intend to tell her husband anything until we knew for sure what had happened. She blamed all of us, but she lashed out at Fernanda.

  “You left him alone,” she told her. “You left him alone right when he needed support most. You made him worry wherever he went. You poisoned his sons against him and made his life more difficult.”

  Fernanda replied, “Out of respect for Libardo and for my children, shut your mouth.”

  “I’m not going to shut up. He’s my son.”

  “Gran, we still don’t know anything,” Julio said, trying to calm her.

  “So go screech at somebody in your own home,” Fernanda said, “but you’re going to respect mine.”

  She went up to her room and called down to me and Julio. She started weeping on the bed, and my brother and I sat on either side of her, awkward and sad. I was the one who should have been sandwiched between the two of them, sobbing. I was the youngest; they should have comforted me, but I was the first one to reach out my hand and place it on Fernanda’s back. I let it rest there, not moving, just so she’d feel that she wasn’t alone. She’d stayed strong till our grandmother arrived; she’d cried but hadn’t collapsed.

  But then the situation overcame me. Fear advanced. I lifted my feet onto the bed because I could no longer feel the floor. I leaned against Fernanda, clung to her. I stuck out my arm and sought Julio’s fingers with my other hand. He hesitated but finally took it, and also moved closer to Fernanda, and we all became a single body with three wounds.

  37

  The cabin was still in darkness, though the clinking of glasses and cutlery and the murmurs of the flight attendants preparing breakfast for the first-class passengers could be heard. It smelled like coffee and confinement; the dry air was scratchy, and more than one passenger had red eyes from sleeplessness and fatigue. Charlie was resting in the fetal position, her head on Larry’s shoulder. He was following their route on the map, with the feeling that the plane was not following the line progressing across the screen. Time was going at a different speed, as if they were moving slowly to a swift beat, and the strange sensation of flying against the clock became increasingly surreal as the end of the trip approached. They were flying over some islands in the Caribbean, Saint-Martin and Antigua—it had to be those two. Larry knew the hours were ticking down till he’d have to return to his seat, arrive in Colombia, end his encounter with Charlie.

  Larry and Charlie—sounds like a movie title . . .

  That was what the whole experience felt like: an airplane movie that would end before they landed.

  Charlie lifted her tousled head and looked at Larry, dazed, and saw him staring at the map on the screen.

  “How long to go?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  “An hour,” he replied.

  She looked at her watch and tried to shift in her seat but found she was tangled in the blanket. She kicked until she managed to wriggle free.

  “Did you sleep?” Larry asked.

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  “My head hurts.”

  “I’ve got some pills in my bag.”

  “No,” she said, and grabbed his forearm. “Don’t leave.”

  Larry placed his hand on hers and said, “We’re both afraid to get there, huh?”

  Charlie nodded, untangled the knot of their hands, sat up, and said, “Wait for me just a minute. I’m going to freshen up.”

  She staggered to her feet.

  She gazed at herself in the mirror. There was nothing left of the woman who’d left her apartment on King’s Road. She looked more like the Charlie who used to drink until she passed out. The one who, in front of the mirror, used to work to disguise the addiction nobody knew she had. There in the plane, though, she had little desire to do anything for that Charlie. She just washed her hands, swished some water around to relieve her parched mouth, and tidied her hair a little.

  When she returned to her seat, she was startled, breathless, to find that Larry wasn’t there. In his place, he’d left the blanket neatly folded.

  38

  Daylight streams in through the blinds and fills the room where Fernanda has set up two cots for us, even though we no longer live with her. It’s been confirmed now: living with Fernanda is impossible. It seems that even she realizes it, and prepared this room for us merely out of obligation. Everything in here lacks any indication of real desire, like a movie set to which Julio and I, the actors, will have to give meaning. Every object is there to fulfill a requirement, but our mother is nowhere to be found; nothing in here reflects her love.

  With the daylight now illuminating every detail, I toss and turn in bed, trying to digest the surprise, the explosive announcement with which Fernanda sent me to bed. A sister. A half-sister, she clarified, launching into, or continuing, a withering diatribe against the young girl who, like me, was Libardo’s daughter. A little sister, eleven years old, that woman’s daughter, Fernanda claimed, giving me the news with tears in her eyes as fireworks continued to boom around us. Didn’t you know, Larry? Julio never told you? And why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known? I told you about that bitch, Larry. Yeah, Ma, but the daughter . . . I wasn’t sure, Larry. I ran into that woman in the supermarket one day and she was with a little girl, pushing her in a stroller, and it had been three years since your father . . . well, and I tried to get closer to see the baby, but she recognized me and took off in the other direction.

  Fernanda put her face in her hands and wept gently. A long while. I was wide awake now. I wanted to know everything—what she was like, whom she resembled, whether the girl knew about us, about me and Julio.

  “But how do you know she’s his daughter?” I asked.

  “Your grandmother confirmed it.”

  “Gran knew?”

  “Worse than that,” she said. “She accepts her, welcomes her, has photos of that little brat all over the place, talks about her constantly.”

  She said it angrily, with that same old jealousy she hasn’t managed to overcome despite having been a widow for so many years.

  “So you haven’t seen her again?” I asked.

  “To be honest, Larry, I never met her. All I saw that one time, in the stroller, w
as a sleeping bundle.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  “Don’t even think about it, Larry.”

  With that warning, I retreated to the bedroom to imagine my life with another sibling. It’s ironic that I’ve returned to Colombia to collect my father’s remains and found somebody I didn’t know existed who carries his blood, my own blood. It seems like a prank Libardo’s playing, or a message, a legacy—or it’s nothing, simply the result of an indiscretion. Though what the hell do I know about what Libardo felt or thought.

  But all at once I recall that he wanted a little girl. A daughter. He told us so several times, when he was drunk and feeling sentimental. Little girls bring joy to a house. He even wept with yearning for the daughter he didn’t have, that he hadn’t yet had. Life denied her to him—though he was a father, he never met her. And she never met him either. She will make her way without her father’s shadow darkening her path.

  There is one more listless explosion in the street and, inside, the sound of a door closing. Fernanda shutting herself in her room? The wind slamming doors in the early dawn? I hear footsteps in the hallway, a gait I know by heart. I hear him speak to Fernanda and my heart starts racing. The only man I love. My guide for many years, my shield, my buttress.

  The voices breach the walls as if they were made of cardboard. Fernanda says, he’s in your room, she asks if he’s hungry, if he’s had breakfast. Julio doesn’t answer or maybe gestures. Instead, he opens my door and asks tenderly, “Little Bro?”

  “Big Bro,” I say, and he turns on the light.

  We don’t fool around with hugs or airport mushiness; he bumps his fist against mine. Fernanda yells from her bed, shut my door, Julio!, and he obeys. He must have gotten up a long time ago to make it here at dawn—it’s a two-hour trip or longer—but he still smells clean, unlike me, who smells like shit.

  “How did it go?” he asks.

  “All right, but I haven’t slept a wink.”

  “You picked a bad day to arrive. La Alborada.”

  “It’s not just that,” I whine, and ask, “Are you going to sleep a little?”

  “No, I’ve slept enough. At the farm I go to bed at eight.”

  He sits on the other bed, leaning against the headboard. With one foot he removes a shoe, and then with the bare foot removes the other. He whispers something I don’t catch. He points to the wall between us and Fernanda. I can’t hear you, I say. I said did you talk to her, he hisses. About what?, I ask. About everything, he says. She told me about Dad’s daughter. Oh, he says. Is it true?, I ask. I think so. Do you know her? No, I’ve just seen photos. What’s she like? Julio shrugs. Who does she look like? A little bit like Dad. What’s her name? I don’t know, I don’t remember, I think Valentina or something like that. Aren’t you interested in meeting her? I’m really busy, Larry, I’ve got a lot of work at the farm, things have been really rocky, and I have to be on top of everything. But she’s our sister, I say. Apparently so, he says, though he doesn’t sound terribly convinced. A feeble rocket seems to announce the end of the festivities. Goddammit, that’s enough, Fernanda shouts from her room. I tell Julio she’s been complaining about the fireworks since I arrived.

  “Well, she was friends with the guy who came up with all this,” he says.

  I don’t understand. I sit up, and Julio sees in my face that I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “La Alborada,” he says. “Don Berna was the one who started it. Do you remember him?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Hang on to your hat, then,” he says. “She met him when Dad was alive. Then this war kicked off between two street gangs, Berna’s guys against the Double Zeroes, and one November 30 the bloodbath ended up turning into a celebration with fireworks. And now they claim it’s about welcoming December, the jackasses.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say.

  “It’s pointless anyway,” he says.

  “I had to endure the whole thing, from beginning to end.”

  “December gets on my tits,” Julio says. “Luckily, on the farm it’s like nothing is happening. Well”—he laughs—“actually everything happens there, but fireworks aren’t allowed so bullets can’t catch you by surprise.”

  “Are you going to stay a few days?”

  “No. I’m going back today. Tonight.”

  “What about her?” I gesture toward Fernanda’s room. Julio shrugs to indicate he doesn’t care.

  “I’ve spent plenty of Christmases with her,” he says quietly. “And New Year’s Eves. And do you know what we’d do?”

  “I was always with you on Skype.”

  “You were with us for a little bit, kid, but she couldn’t wait to hang up so she could get on the computer and sit there playing whatever with people from all over the world.”

  “Playing?”

  “Cards. Poker. I don’t know what all,” he says, unable to mask his rage. “Every so often I have to top up her credit card. She doesn’t give a shit how much money she’s throwing away.”

  I feel my chest crack open, and pain and nausea rush in. It hurts to imagine Fernanda the way Julio describes her, and it hurts even more to hear the tone he uses to talk about her.

  “Doesn’t she ever win?” I ask.

  “Drinkers get drunk, and gamblers lose,” he recites, and then asks, “How long are you staying?”

  “I’ve got a ticket for January 2.”

  Julio snorts.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he says.

  We sit in silence, hearing a noise from her room. As if she’d bumped into something, or dropped something. What’s up since Maggie?, Julio asks. Nothing, I say. Are you going to get back together? No. You haven’t met anybody? Yes, I say, but I don’t know. What don’t you know? I don’t know what’s going to happen, don’t even know if I’m going to see her again. Does she live there? Yeah, but she’s from here, and I don’t know if she’ll go back to London, I say, though I don’t dare tell him that I met her on the plane. What about you?, I ask. Bah, he says, there’s nobody good in that town, just whores, nobody worth dating.

  “What are you talking about, boys?” Fernanda surprises us, leaning in the doorway. She’s got on a short robe now, more modest than the T-shirt she wears to bed.

  “Just catching up,” Julio says.

  “You’re going to need hours,” she says.

  “Well, we’ll do what we can today,” Julio says. “I’m going back tonight.”

  “What? What about your father?”

  “That’s this morning.”

  “Yes, but . . .” Fernanda hesitates. “Weren’t we going to have a mass for him?”

  “Another one?” Julio complains.

  “That was when we didn’t know anything,” Fernanda points out. “Now there should be one for his death.”

  “He was always dead,” Julio says.

  Fernanda sits on the foot of my bed. She sniffs as if she’s been crying or is about to. I wonder who will want to attend a service for Libardo, all these years later.

  “Did you tell Julio what I told you?” Fernanda asks me.

  “About what, Ma?”

  “That I’m not going to see your father. You two can go get him, not me.”

  Julio, indifferent, shrugs again.

  “Is Gran going?” I ask.

  “I asked her not to,” Julio says. “There’s no need for her to go. Plus, she wants to keep him.”

  “What?” Fernanda exclaims, horrified.

  “She wants Dad’s remains to stay at her house.”

  Fernanda’s face, hands, and posture express her thoughts clearly. “Oh no,” she says. “She’d better not even think about keeping him.”

  “Yo
u want him here?” Julio asks.

  “Of course not,” she says. “He needs to rest with the other dead, he needs to be in a cemetery. We already decided that.”

  “Well, talk to Gran about it.”

  “You know I don’t talk to her.”

  Fernanda gets up and cranks the window open to look outside. Heathens, she says when she sees that people are still setting off fireworks around Medellín, and adds, there will be a mass and Libardo’s going to a cemetery. Period. But who’s going to go to the mass, Ma?, Julio asks. Anyone who feels like it, she says, still looking outside. Defeated, Julio closes his eyes, still leaning back against the headboard. Something explodes in the distance, and Fernanda says again, heathens.

  39

  From that day on, everything changed for us. First of all, there weren’t four of us sitting around the table anymore, just three. Our habits changed; routine turned into apprehension, and sleep into insomnia. Gone was our sense of calm and safety. It changed our appearance, our gaze, our appetite, our character, even our digestion.

  Fernanda attempted to soothe us with a lie: “As long as they don’t find him dead, he could still be alive.”

  But things didn’t work that way in Libardo’s world. There, death was a message to the enemy. The way a man died was a message, a warning. Disappearance was the worst punishment of all: perpetual uncertainty, preempted mourning. We told Fernanda that, but she kept saying that she’d believe it when she saw him dead. That was the only thing she agreed with our grandmother on. Whereas our grandfather, wandering lost in who knows what labyrinth in his brain, one of the few times he spoke, said, “The man must be buried deeper than a cassava root.”

  The doctor put me and Julio on bromazepam, which sometimes made us giggle uncontrollably. Fernanda had already been taking all sorts of things for years—her body was used to it—whereas for us, in addition to the laughter, it caused extreme thirst and lethargy. Only two things in our lives remained intact: our classes with our teachers at home and the telephone that kept ringing every hour on the hour. Regarding the classes, Fernanda insisted we mustn’t fall behind; no matter what, we couldn’t fail our last year. And as for the phone, she wouldn’t let anybody change the number or unplug the devices for even a moment.