From her bed Lena could appreciate the patch of sky visible through her window. She was grateful for her bed baths, and occasionally she asked them to read her poems or play the romantic songs she had danced to in her youth. Imprisoned as she was in her deteriorating body, she was free of the abysmal sorrow she felt for her son. As the days went by, what at first had been no more than a feeling, a fleeting shadow, a kiss brushing her forehead, began to take on increasingly clear outlines. Enrique was at her side, waiting with her.
Nothing could prevent her encroaching death, but Lucia, horrified at seeing her mother wasting away, became her jailer. She even deprived her of the cigarettes that were her only pleasure, thinking they cut her appetite and so were killing her. Daniela, who had the gift of understanding other people’s needs and the kindness to try to meet them, sensed that this abstinence was her grandmother’s worst torment. She had finished high school that year, was planning to go to study in Miami in September, and meanwhile was taking intensive English courses. She dropped in to see Lena every afternoon, so that Lucia would be free to do a few hours’ work. At the age of seventeen, Daniela was tall and beautiful, with the features of her Slavic ancestors. She played solitaire or got into bed with her grandmother and did her English homework while Lena dozed, snoring throatily as the end approached. Lucia had no idea that Daniela gave her grandmother the forbidden cigarettes, which she smuggled in her bra. It was only several years later that Daniela confessed these sins of compassion to her mother.
The slow onset of death eased Lena’s stubborn rancor toward the husband who had betrayed her, and she was able to talk to her daughter and granddaughter about him in the faint whisper she had left.
“Enrique has forgiven him, now it’s your turn, Lucia.”
“I don’t feel resentful toward him, Mama, I hardly knew him.”
“Exactly, daughter. It’s his absence that you have to forgive.”
“In reality I never needed him, Mama. Enrique was the one who wanted a father. He was very hurt; he felt abandoned.”
“That was when he was a boy. Now he understands his father didn’t behave like that because he was evil, but because he was in love with that woman. He didn’t realize how much damage he did to all of us, including her and her son. Enrique understands that.”
“What kind of man would my brother be now, at fifty-seven?”
“He is still twenty-two, Lucia. And he is still a passionate idealist. Don’t look at me like that, daughter. My life is slipping away, not my mind.”
“You talk as though Enrique were here.”
“He is.”
“Oh, Mama . . .”
“I know they killed him, Lucia. Enrique won’t tell me how. He wants to convince me it was rapid, that he did not suffer too much because when he was arrested he was already wounded and losing a lot of blood, and so he was spared torture. You could say he died fighting.”
“Does he talk to you?”
“Yes, he talks to me. He’s with me.”
“Can you see him?”
“I can feel him. Sense him. He helps me when I’m choking. He arranges my pillows, mops my brow, refreshes my mouth with ice chips.”
“That’s me, Mama.”
“Yes, it’s you and Daniela, but it’s also Enrique.”
“You say he’s still a young man?”
“No one grows old after they have died, daughter.”
In her mother’s last days, Lucia understood that death was not an end, was not the absence of life, but a powerful oceanic wave of clear, luminous water that was carrying her off to another dimension. Lena was loosening her ties to the earth, letting herself be borne on the wave, free of any anchor and the weight of gravity; light, a translucent fish driven on by the current. Lucia no longer struggled against the inevitable, and relaxed. Seated beside her mother, she took slow, deliberate breaths until she was filled with an immense calm, a desire to go with her, to let herself be pulled along until she too dissolved in the ocean. For the first time in her life, she felt her own soul as an incandescent light within her, sustaining her, an eternal light that could not be affected by the urgencies of existence. She found a point of absolute calm at the very center of herself. There was nothing to do but wait. To shut out the clamor of the world. She realized this was how her mother was experiencing the approach of death, and this helped banish the terror she had been overwhelmed by when she saw how her mother was being consumed and gradually snuffed out like a candle.
Lena Maraz died on one of those February mornings when the suffocating heat of the Chilean summer is felt from the early hours. She had been semiconscious for several days, her breathing reduced to a sporadic gargle, as she clutched Enrique’s hand. Her granddaughter prayed that her heart would give out once and for all, to spare her from this desolate miasma. Lucia on the other hand understood that her mother had to travel this last part of the journey at her own pace, without being rushed. She had spent the night stretched out alongside her awaiting the final outcome, with Daniela on the living room sofa. To them, the night seemed very short. At first light, Lucia splashed her face with cold water, drank a cup of coffee, and then woke Daniela so that they could resume their posts on either side of the bed. For an instant Lena seemed to return to life. She opened her eyes and stared at her daughter and granddaughter. “I love you very much, little ones. Let’s go now, Enrique.” She closed her eyes, and Lucia could feel her mother’s hand grow limp between hers.
DESPITE THE LIT STOVES, the cold penetrated the cabin and they had to cover up with all the clothes they could find. They put a cardigan over Marcelo’s tartan coat: his fur was sparse and he suffered from the cold. The only one who was hot was Richard, who woke from his siesta sweating and feeling renewed. A feathery snow had begun to fall, and he announced it was time they got a move on.
“Where exactly are we going to get rid of the car?” asked Lucia.
“There’s a bluff less than a mile from here. The lake there must be at least forty feet deep. I hope the track is passable, because that’s the only way in.”
“I assume the trunk is properly closed . . .”
“For the moment the wire has held, but I can’t be sure the trunk will stay shut at the bottom of the lake.”
“Do you know how to avoid the body floating up if the trunk opens?”
“Let’s not even consider the possibility,” said Richard, who had not even thought of it.
“You have to slit the stomach so that water gets in.”
“What are you saying, Lucia!”
“That’s what they did with the bodies they threw into the sea,” she said, her voice breaking.
The three of them remained silent, absorbing the horror of what had just been revealed and certain that none of them would be capable of doing such a thing.
“Poor, poor Miss Kathryn . . . ,” Evelyn finally murmured.
“I’m sorry, Richard, but we can’t go through with this,” said Lucia, who like Evelyn was on the verge of tears. “I know it was my idea and I forced you to come here, but I’ve changed my mind. We have done all this on the spur of the moment, we didn’t make a proper plan, think deeply enough about it. Of course, there wasn’t time for that—”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Richard interrupted, aghast.
“Ever since last night Evelyn can’t stop thinking about Kathryn’s spirit, wandering in torment. And I can’t stop thinking that the poor woman has a family. She must have a mother . . . and my own mother spent half her life searching for my brother, Enrique.”
“I know, Lucia, but this is different.”
“What do you mean, different? If we go on with this, Kathryn Brown will be a disappeared person, just like my brother. There will be people who love her and will look for her all the time. The suffering caused by that uncertainty is worse than the certainty of her death.”
�
�What shall we do then?” asked Richard, after a long pause.
“We could leave her where she will be found . . .”
“What if they don’t find her? Or if her body is so decomposed it can’t be identified?”
“It can always be identified. Nowadays all you need is a tiny piece of bone to identify a corpse.”
Pale-faced, Richard paced the living room clutching his stomach, searching for a solution. He understood Lucia’s reasons and shared her scruples; he didn’t want to condemn Kathryn’s family to an endless search either. They should have talked it over before they got this far, but there was still time to put things right. The responsibility for Kathryn Brown’s death lay with the murderer, but her disappearance would be his fault. He could not take on this fresh guilt—he had more than enough on his conscience about the past. They had to leave the body somewhere far from the cabin and lake, where it would be safe from preying animals and would be found in two or three months’ time with the spring thaw. That would give Evelyn the chance to find somewhere safe. It would be extremely hard to bury Kathryn. Digging a hole in the frozen earth was something he could not have done even if he were well, still less so with his ulcer raging. He raised the problem with Lucia, only to find she had already come up with an idea.
“We can leave Kathryn in Rhinebeck,” she said.
“Why there?”
“I don’t mean the town but the Omega Institute.”
“What’s that?”
“Briefly, it’s a spiritual center, although it’s a lot more than that. I’ve been there for retreats and conferences. It’s set among almost two hundred acres of pristine nature, in an isolated spot, near Rhinebeck. No one ever goes there during the winter months, because the retreat is closed.”
“But there must be maintenance staff.”
“Yes, for the buildings, but the woods are covered in snow and don’t need any special care. The road to Rhinebeck and its surroundings is good. There’s quite a lot of traffic, so we wouldn’t attract attention, and once we entered the institute no one would see us.”
“I don’t like it, it’s very risky.”
“I do, because it’s a spiritual place, with good energy, in the middle of spectacular woods. I’d like my ashes to be scattered there. Kathryn would like it as well.”
“I never know if you’re talking seriously, Lucia.”
“Completely seriously. But if you have a better idea . . .”
By now it was snowing again, and they realized it was high time they disposed of the car before the track became impassable. They had no time to discuss it anymore; they were in agreement that Kathryn’s body should be found, and so they would have to transfer her to the Subaru before they got rid of the Lexus.
Richard gave them disposable gloves, with strict instructions not to touch the Lexus without them. He positioned the car alongside the Subaru and then cut the wire with a pair of pliers. Kathryn Brown had been there at least two or three days and nights, but very little had changed: she still looked fast asleep under the rug. When he touched her she was frozen but seemed less stiff than when Lucia had tried to move her in Brooklyn. Seeing her body brought a sob to Richard’s throat: in the radiance from the snow this young woman curled up like a child looked as vulnerable and tragic as Bibi. He closed his eyes and gulped down lungfuls of freezing air to rid himself of this pitiless flash of memory and force himself back into the present. It was not Bibi, the daughter he adored; this was Kathryn Brown, a woman he did not even know. While a paralyzed Evelyn looked on murmuring prayers, Richard and Lucia began the task of removing the body from the car trunk. They finally managed to turn Kathryn over and saw her face for the first time. Her eyes were wide open. The round, blue eyes of a doll.
“Go inside, Evelyn. It’s better you don’t see this,” Lucia told her, but the girl stood rooted to the spot.
Kathryn was a slender, short young woman with cropped, chocolate-colored hair and the look of an adolescent. She was wearing a yoga outfit. There was a black hole in the middle of her forehead, as precise as if it had been painted on, and some dried blood on her cheek and neck. They stared sorrowfully at her for two long minutes, trying to imagine what she could have been like in life. Even in the contorted position she was in, Kathryn retained some of the elegance of a dancer at rest.
Lucia took hold of her legs, while Richard grasped her under her arms. They lifted her and struggled until they succeeded in transferring her to the Subaru. They pushed her into the trunk, covered her with the same rug, and put a tarpaulin on top in case the trunk had to be opened for any reason.
“She died of a single shot from a low-caliber pistol,” Lucia said. “The bullet stayed lodged in the brain, there’s no exit hole. She died instantaneously. The murderer is a good shot.”
Still shaken by the vivid memory of the moment when he had lost his beloved Bibi more than twenty years earlier, Richard was crying without noticing the tears freezing on his cheeks.
“Kathryn must have known her killer,” Lucia added. “They were face-to-face, possibly conversing. She was not expecting the bullet. You can tell from her challenging look, it’s obvious she was not afraid.”
Evelyn called them over. She had overcome her paralysis and was cleaning the marks off the trunk of the Lexus.
“Look,” she said, pointing to a pistol in the bottom of the trunk.
“Is that Leroy’s?” asked Richard, carefully picking it up by the barrel.
“It looks like it.”
Holding the weapon between his thumb and index finger, Richard went back inside the cabin and laid it on the table. If the bullet had come from Frank Leroy’s pistol, they now had to face yet another unwelcome decision: Whether or not to hand over the firearm to the police. To protect a guilty person or perhaps incriminate an innocent one.
“What shall we do with the gun?” Richard asked Lucia once the two women had joined him in the cabin.
“I say we leave it in the Lexus. Why complicate our existence still further, we have enough problems as it is.”
“It’s the most important proof we have against the murderer. We can’t throw it into the lake,” Richard objected.
“Well, we’ll see. The most urgent thing right now is to get rid of the car. Are you up to it, Richard?”
“I feel a lot better. We need to take advantage of the light, it grows dark early.”
THE TRACK THAT PROVIDED the only access to the bluff was almost invisible in the snow, which made everywhere look the same. Richard’s plan was to take both vehicles, tip the Lexus over the cliff, and return in the Subaru. In normal conditions it was possible to cover the short distance on foot in twenty minutes. The snow was a hindrance but had the advantage that it would cover their tracks within a few hours. He decided he would go first in the Lexus, carrying a shovel, and Lucia would bring up the rear in the other car. She argued it would be more logical for the Subaru, which had four-wheel drive, to clear the path. “No, let’s do it my way, I know what I’m doing,” said Richard, impulsively kissing her on the tip of her nose. Taken by surprise, Lucia gave a little yelp. They left Evelyn with the dog and instructions to keep the curtains closed and to light only one lamp if necessary. The less light the better. Richard calculated that if all went well they would be back within the hour.
The tree branches were bent toward the ground by the weight of snow. Guided by the distance between them, Richard drove slowly along the twisting track that only he could make out because he had traveled up it before. Lucia followed behind. On one occasion they had to retreat several feet when they lost the trail, and a short distance farther on the Lexus became stuck in the snow. Richard got out to dig around the wheels with the shovel, then instructed Lucia to push with the other car. This was not easy, because it kept skidding. It was then Lucia understood why the Subaru had to go behind: it was hard to push, but it would have been almost impossible to pull.
This maneuver cost them half an hour, while the sky grew darker and the temperature dropped.
Finally they came out to where they could see the lake, an immense silver mirror reflecting the gray-blue sky with the intense stillness of a painted Dutch landscape. The track came to an abrupt end, and Richard got out to explore. He walked this way and that, observing the bluff, until he found what he was looking for some thirty yards from where they had come to a halt. He explained to Lucia that this was the exact spot where the water was deep enough, and that they had to push the Lexus themselves, as it would be very dangerous to drive the car that far. Lucia again understood why Richard had wanted the Lexus to go first; the space here was so narrow it could not have gotten around the other car. Pushing the Lexus proved complicated: their boots sank into the soft ground; the wheels became stuck in the deep snow and they had to clear them with the shovel.
To Lucia, the bluff did not look very high, but Richard insisted this was deceptive: from that height the impact and the car’s weight would smash the ice. Thanks to the mildness of the winter up until then, the ice on the lake’s surface was not yet thick. They managed with difficulty to line the car up perpendicular to the shore. Richard put it into neutral, and between the two of them they gave it one last push. The car moved slowly forward and its front wheels plunged over the abyss, but the rest got stuck on the edge with a dull thud. The Lexus was left swaying on its chassis, with three-quarters stuck and the rest dangling in midair. They pushed again with all their might but could not budge it.
In the Midst of Winter Page 20
