She bowed her head as if someone was saying grace. “Please don’t.”
“But this last week –”
She whirled towards me. “And I meant everything I said.”
Then she crumpled to the floor.
It’s funny, the memories you keep of people. The moments which fix them in your mind aren’t always the most obvious. My last image of Father Ramón is the vision of him in dirty tennis shoes spreading a silver chain above my head. I remember my mother shooing parrots and my father in too large a suit at my wedding and my wife leaning against the kitchen window, tapping at the glass. She was tapping like that to make a bird on the lawn fly away, to save it. But, startled by the noise of her fingers, the cat pounced. “And Agustín wanted to put you down,” she said afterwards, stroking it.
This is almost the last memory I retain of Yolanda. It’s a sight that stops my heart. She is seated cross-legged on the parquet. Her long hands are thrust over her face, her hair falls through her fingers, and the red headband is about to slip off. Lazo’s jug is beside her and she sobs into her lap.
Curiously, I don’t hear the sound of a woman weeping, but of a river breaking over the rocks and the wind dragging its feet through the grass and the slap of a tattered wind-sock. I have this sensation I have led Yolanda along the bank and up a steep narrow path to the airstrip. I see the ice sheeting the mountains and the ancient field beaten from the valley floor and the moist square of earth where the grass has not grown back.
I said something and left.
14
You don’t wake up, look at a blue sky and think to yourself, “What a perfect day to capture Ezequiel.”
It was another morning which began uneventfully. By ten o’clock the sky was overcast. The branches shifted a little and from the window of the car – a Ford Falcon, I think – I watched a duck fly east. The air smelt of fish.
Everyone in the street agreed. Today, or tomorrow, it would rain.
At ten-thirty my mobile bleeped. It was the General. Last night a woman had been arrested near the city’s main water plant. She had been carrying a bottle of urine
“The lab says its contaminated with the typhus bacillus.”
He was calling because he had no one else to tell. He saw no end to the giddying violence. He didn’t ask if I had anything to report.
At eleven I called Sucre. He’d managed three hours’ sleep and sounded exhausted. I waited for him to find his notes. Somewhere he had a list of those who’d broken the curfew in Calle Diderot.
Dr Zampini, presumably on a hospital call. “But we’re checking.”
The owner of the video store. He’d come back at midnight, drunk.
Two women and a man going into No. 459.
I was slow to register. “But that’s the ballet studio . . .”
“They turned up about fifteen minutes after you left with Gomez.”
“In a car?”
“On foot.”
“Description?”
“The man had a beard.”
Lorenzo. The depressed choreographer. Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of him before? I’d love to see a dress rehearsal. The others would, too. He’d be bringing the members of Yolanda’s dance group, the ones who had first wanted to be in Antigone. They would have taken a bus from the centre. Perhaps the bus had been late, or they’d missed an earlier one. That’s why Yolanda had wedged open the door with her ballet slipper. She didn’t want them stranded outside in the curfew.
My jealousy eased, I felt happy.
“When did they leave?”
“They were there when I took away the rubbish. That was about midnight.”
“What about the rubbish?”
“Seventy-six bags we’ve done.”
“That leaves how many?”
“About the same number.”
“When do you reckon to finish?”
“Five, six o’clock.”
At three o’clock, after Gomez relieved me, I drove to headquarters. I intended to return later to Calle Diderot, spending the night in the van. For the rest of the day I would busy myself with my report on the military’s atrocities in La Posta. I wanted to block out Yolanda.
According to the deposition of Maria Valdes, 67, the officers who dragged her into the field were addressed by the nicknames Pulpo and Capitan . . .
But I didn’t see an old woman in a dental surgery, raising her hand to speak. I saw an anchovy scar, an ochre dress snagged on a breast, a flash of calf through a torn leotard, a row of white teeth pressed into a bottom lip.
At five I telephoned Sylvina. She was excited. Fifteen people had subscribed for Sunday’s presentation! Because of tonight’s party given by the American Chargé d’Affaires she wouldn’t be back till late. Patricia promised that several ambassadors would be there and, with luck, some generals and their wives. I sensed her hands winnowing the air at the prospect of new clients. “I tell you, Agustin, we’re going to be rich.”
So, anticipating this, she planned to rearrange the apartment and change the colour of her hair.
“And I’ve bought you a polo shirt.” She described it, navy blue, sleeveless, from a store in the Bullrich Arcade. “Marina said it’s time I spoiled you.”
I drank a Coke. Midway through my report I had broken off to write to Lazo, to say that I had repaid his daughter and discharged my promise. Then I asked him for copies of his dental records – in case, as was my hope, we found Tomasio’s body.
At six fifty-five the telephone on my desk rang. It was Sucre, his voice hoarse. “Sir, I think you should come.”
Sucre had isolated three tubes on the table. Also, two pillboxes and ten crushed cigarette packets. The stench in the basement dispersed the moment I saw them.
The tubes had been rolled up to the mouth. I flattened one out. Dithranol. The brown pillboxes had contained Methrotexate and Cyclosporin A. The cigarettes were Winston.
“Which house?” Even before Sucre answered a numbness invaded me.
He smoothed out the neck of the bin-bag, inspecting the label he had taped there.
It was seven-ten. I didn’t have time to stop and think. My first impulse was to warn Yolanda, but the class had begun on time. Gomez, sitting in a green Renault, confirmed fourteen girls inside, plus Laura. If I warned their teacher it would create panic among her pupils and alert Ezequiel in the flat above.
I told Sucre: “Find out how long the place has been rented, who the landlord is, whether there’s a ground plan. Get everyone from Calle Perón to the Banco Wiese car park in Calle Salta.”
I telephoned Marina. Today was Tuesday. Her turn to collect the girls. No one answered. I tried Sylvina. She had said she was going to the hairdresser. No answer.
Twenty minutes later I addressed the unit over the radio. There was no time to speak to each officer individually, so I told them to listen carefully. I had, I said, been inside No. 459.
The house was divided into two. Downstairs was the ballet school. Our suspect may be in the first-floor apartment. There was no access from the studio and the ballet mistress didn’t know who lived upstairs. Probably our suspect relied on a staircase at the side or back of the building, but I hadn’t seen it.
Once they were over the wall, they were not to open fire unless they were fired on first. Anyone found inside must be captured alive.
“There’s a dance class in there. I want to wait until the class is out.”
Before leaving, I again telephoned Marina and Sylvina, but there was still no answer.
At seven-forty-five I drove to Calle Diderot. Apart from my team I had told no one.
Not a day goes by when I don’t return to that scene.
Dusk is falling. I park in the cul-de sac. There’s a bright light shining in the upstairs apartment and I train my glasses on the yellow curtain. Behind the cartoon elephants a shadow blurs back and forth as if addressing an audience. The shape disappears, and the only movement is the curtain being sucked in and out by the draught.
/> Gomez, in his gardener’s overalls, halts his barrow beside the car. The directional mike is hidden in the rake. For thirty minutes he has pointed its laser at the first-floor window, picking up vibrations from the glass.
“Meeting broke up a few minutes ago. He’s now watching television.”
“Who else is up there?”
“Four others. They’re resting in a room at the back.”
“And the dance class?”
“Just now a lot of clapping, but no one’s come out yet.”
He trundles his barrow away. Sucre gets in beside me.
Neither of us say anything. Such a long time I’ve waited for this moment, but I don’t feel tired. I’m concerned for Laura and Yolanda. I must get them out.
The clapping means the lesson has finished. I fiddle with Laura’s hairclip, trying to imagine my daughter waiting her turn in the shower. The older girls will have lit cigarettes. They will be lying exhausted on the floor, their feet against the wall, higher than their heads. They will be looking at the ceiling. At Ezequiel.
Will he have guns, explosives? Will there be a secret escape route? Will he let himself be taken alive? Or will he want his world to die with him?
There’s nothing to do but wait.
I feel the relieving breeze from the sea and hear the bottle boy yell out from the next street. The maid from the house opposite the studio is beating a carpet against the railings. Elsewhere, people are putting on their make-up, going to a birthday party, meeting for the first time, falling in love.
Against the fatigued sky the branches of the jacaranda are blots of ink. A bird flies down to a lawn which is being watered by a sprinkler. On the porch, darkened by the spray, a dog wakes up and shakes itself. The bird returns to the tree, a branch sinking slightly under its weight. The light is fading fast.
In the café beside the studio a tubby fellow with curly fair hair caresses a young woman’s ear. They kiss. Their job has been to monitor my side of the street; also to protect me. They have been there since three this afternoon. Behind them, Clorindo, in a grey pigskin jacket, buys some cigarettes and gets into an argument about change.
At eight, there’s a hoot. Dr Zampini parks in front of his house. The door opens and a wedge of orange light reaches down the path, pulling him towards his wife. She stands on the threshold, her hair freshly sculptured, her arms raised in welcome.
“Here they come!” whispers Sucre.
The door in the green wall opens, and out of it troop the girls. I count them, holding my breath until I see, second to last, Laura. Yolanda follows, in a long T-shirt and the black gauze skirt she was wearing when I first met her. She stands on the pavement giving the ballet mothers her pleasant “hello” wave. When she lifts an arm, rubbing it against her headband, I can see that her neck is shiny. Sucre can’t keep his eyes off her.
Laura leans against the whitewashed trunk of the jacaranda, watching the other girls leave. Marina is late. Suddenly I realize that no one’s collecting my daughter. She is alone, without even Samantha to talk to. Later, I learn that Marina, on Marco’s say so, has removed Samantha from the class in reaction to news of the Miraflores bomb.
One by one the ballet mothers leave. Eventually only Laura remains.
“Oh God,” says Sucre, “she’s going back inside!”
Yolanda is saying, “Why don’t you wait in the studio?”
Laura gathers up her Adidas bag and heads for the door. I’m reaching for the handle when there’s the sound of a car horn and Sylvina jerks our grey Peugeot to a halt outside the door in the wall.
My wife is dressed for her party. I can tell, thank God, she’s in a hurry. She throws open the passenger door and shouts across the seat. Yolanda, hands pressed between her knees, stoops to the car window.
I hear Sylvina’s words, “Good luck tomorrow.”
“Come on, come on,” I’m saying.
Sylvina checks herself in the driver’s mirror. A quick hand through her hair, set in a new style. More lipstick, she decides. Leisurely, she applies it. Yolanda, embarrassed, seems to think she ought to wait. She sinks to her haunches and says something to Laura, touching her shoulder through the window.
“Get on with it.”
At last the car starts. They wave goodbye. Sylvina drives past, running her tongue over teeth and lips.
A desire rises unsteadily within me, like a rage. I want to leap out, scream, run as fast as I can down the street to prevent Yolanda stepping back inside that door. Unaware of my thoughts, unaware of the eyes upon her, she removes her headband. With it she dabs her temples, her cheeks, then stretches it back over her hair. With a toss of the head, she disappears through the door.
The street is empty, frozen.
“Look, sir. Upstairs!”
Upstairs, the curtain parts; against the yellow folds the outline of fingertips, a cheek.
“That’s him, isn’t it?”
At first I move the focusing-wheel the wrong way, so that he dissolves into the curtain. Then I have him.
The head swivels as if in pain. Through thick spectacles two black, bright eyes sweep the street. About the throat, loosely knotted, there’s a scarf. A hand appears and begins absent-mindedly to scratch at the back of the neck.
The car radio crackles. “Men in position.” Sucre, his voice edged with terror, fears a blackout.
But I wish to prolong the moment. I know my life is about to change. In a room behind the green wall Yolanda will be undressing. She’ll be turning on the shower. I can see her soaping her legs, her breasts. I see her squeezing the flannel, wetting it, reaching over her shoulders to scrub her back. She screws shut her eyes and lifts her face to the jet. Cymbals and pipe music sound in her head. Everything is ready for her dance tomorrow. I hear her humming through the falling water.
The lights snap on in the street. I look down Calle Diderot one last time. The bottle boy bicycling round the corner. The maid whacking her cane against the carpet. Just now, after the spear-shot of recognition when I saw the face at the window, a wave of calm rolled through my head. The hush ebbs, and I hear the slow handclap of I don’t know how many thousand dead.
Sucre again. “We’re ready to go.”
I put down the hairclip. I pick up the handset.
15
There really is very little more to say. I gave the order, after which seven of my men climbed over the wall. Finding no outside steps, they smashed into the studio through the sliding panels, and in the kitchen knocked down a door leading up a short staircase to the first-floor apartment. Ezequiel is sitting under a sunlamp with the Critique of Pure Reason still in his hands. The television is on. He was watching the boxing.
Sucre radioed me. “It’s him.”
The rain had started. I come in from the car and run across the patio. Yolanda is struggling on the parquet with two of my men. There is glass everywhere. Oblivious to her screams, a third man is pointing a pumpgun at the ceiling.
Yolanda, aware of another presence, looks up. Shock has blackened her eyes and left her cheeks purple and grey, the shade of an artichoke leaf.
Her eyes grab me. “Agustín! Help me. These bastards–”
“Let her go.”
Gomez tried to say something.
“Shut up,” I said.
He releases Yolanda and she runs to me, throwing her arms around my neck, sobbing with relief.
I stroke her head. “Thank God you’re safe. You don’t know who we’ve got upstairs.”
Behind my head, her arms stiffened. Extremely slowly, she disengaged herself.
“What’s going on?” she says in a confused voice, her jaw at an angle.
I hold both her hands. The veins in them stand out as she strains to pull away. “Don’t be frightened. These are my men.”
She glares at me. Some savagery has transformed her eyes and there shoots into them an expression I had seen on Laura’s face. She stares into a middle distance that doesn’t exist, in which I do not exist.
She tears free one hand, punches the air and screams, “Don’t you dare harm him! You’ll pay with your life if you harm him!”
“Yolanda–” As she whirls away from me I feel the bite of truth.
“Viva El Presidente Ezequiel!”
Gomez seizes one of her arms, Ciras the other as she tumbles towards the floor.
Somehow I stepped past her, through the kitchen, up the steep, uncarpeted staircase, towards the dull nickel of my triumph.
He sat in his velvet-covered chair, a sick man wearing the yellow alpaca jersey which she had bought him. Sucre and Clorindo kept their guns on him.
He looked from Sucre to me and back to Sucre, who said, “Stand up before the Colonel.”
Obviously in agony, Ezequiel slowly rose to his feet, watching me intently. Neither of us knew what to do. He offered his hand and when I shook it, conscious of a rough-textured, vegetable skin, he flinched.
Sucre, encouraged by this contact, searched for a weapon. With care, as if he might not be dealing with someone of flesh and blood, he patted his hands down our prisoner’s legs.
Ezequiel, still holding my hand, was calm. With his free hand he tapped his forehead. “You’ll never kill this.” He spoke with an insane clarity. His eyes were dark and unblinking, the black dots in their centres like shirt-buttons. He was, I think, fully expecting to be shot. I had not even drawn my gun.
From a room at the back, I heard women screaming. Edith and someone else, shrieking for me not to touch him. Downstairs, Yolanda’s screams renewed themselves. Gomez must then have gagged her.
Since I wasn’t in uniform I introduced myself, addressing Ezequiel as “Professor”. For the second time in our lives I asked for his documents. Gingerly, he emptied his pockets. He produced a spotted handkerchief, crinkly with dried phlegm. “I have none.”
He did not appear distressed. I reasoned that someone who has caused so much havoc, so many killings, is not going to be worried by final capture.
“How many others?” I asked Sucre.
“Three next door – two females, one male – plus Edith Pusanga. Sanchez and Cecilia are covering them.”
The Dancer Upstairs Page 26
