The Mastermind

by David Unger

  “Hijos d’puta, huevones. Maricones. Sinvergüenzas. Last week someone cut off the ear of the pygmy rhino. A month ago a red panda was stolen. What’s going on in this country? Do the guerrillas think that torturing animals will overthrow the government?”

  Juancho laughs nervously. He understands that Guatemala is going down the tubes, but not for these reasons. Armed conflicts don’t necessarily spark mischief.

  “What’s so funny?” the zookeeper asks, closing the faucet. “Don’t you believe me, you skinny piece of shit?”

  “Everything is the guerrillas’ fault. The postal worker strike, the pollution from the buses, the eruption of the Pacaya volcano,” Juancho says facetiously.

  Guillermo has never seen a guerrilla, but he has bought the line that those trying to overthrow the government are Marxists on the Cuban payroll. He has seen college students with beards and mustaches drinking beer and cursing the military government at Gambrino’s Lunch or at Café Europa behind the Lux. They are skinny boys with ink stains on their shirt pockets and black pants with cuffs rising up to the ends of their white tube socks. They wear Che Guevara glasses, with thick tortoiseshell frames, even if they have twenty-twenty vision. Their shoes are black and badly scuffed. They are not exemplary members of the human race, but they certainly don’t arouse fear. Most of the time they occupy tables near the Paraninfo where they sell copies of Alero—a literary magazine—or try to get their fellow students to sign petitions protesting the latest government assault in Quiché. Guillermo knows that they are not wholly innocent but it’s hard to imagine these scholarly types living in the mountains and jungles, surviving on plant roots and handouts from sympathizers, and planning raids against fully armed military garrisons. The radical core do their recruiting away from the public eye.

  They follow the zookeeper to La Mocosita’s cage. His wet boots squeak as he walks.

  A dozen people are trying to attract the elephant’s attention, to get her to come nearer. Not in the mood, she lounges in the back of her enclosure, resting on her right leg. The long tears coming out of her eyes flow like strings down her gravelly face.

  The zookeeper picks up a towel from the guardhouse and goes into the elephant cage through a back gate. La Mocosita doesn’t even stir. He moves over to her and gently washes the crust off her face with the towel as if she were a child. She lifts her head in pleasure and lets him rub her jowls. He then looks at the arrow, shaking his head. In one gesture, he breaks it against the surface of her left haunch. She groans forcefully four or five times, shaking her head back and forth. He shoves a clean towel flush against the wound and holds it there, stanching the bleeding until the elephant calms down.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Guillermo says.

  * * *

  They decide to go to Pecos Bill, a hamburger joint on Sixth Avenue in Zone 4 about two blocks from the Hotel Conquistador. As kids they used to go there with their parents on Sundays, spending the whole afternoon swimming in the Motor America Hotel pool nearby and then eating the best hamburgers in the city. The restaurant has a little courtyard in back where the families often sat while the kids played on the seesaws and jungle gyms.

  The restaurant is mostly empty. Juancho and Guillermo need a beer—they are driven by thirst, not hunger. They take a table near the entrance, where they can gaze out at the Esso gas station across the street and, a bit beyond it, the 235-foot Torre del Reformador, which is a mini Eiffel Tower given to Guatemala by the French in 1935.

  To the right is a table occupied by two girls in their early twenties and an older woman—perhaps their grandmother—dressed in a long black Mennonite-style dress and wearing too much rouge and mascara. Her hair is dyed dirty blond. Guillermo glances under the table and sees that the older woman is wearing high pumps. The three look like they have just come from church, maybe Mass at the nearby Union Church.

  One of the girls attracts Guillermo’s attention, a strawberry-blonde with lots of freckles. Later he learns that Rosa Esther Castañeda’s mother was born in Ireland, but had come to Guatemala to study Spanish in the early sixties. She eventually married a local businessman who owned the Chrysler franchise in Guatemala. Rosa Esther took after her mother, while her sister resembled the father—a short, plump man with dark, vivid eyes.

  The waitress comes over as soon as they sit down. Guillermo orders his Gallo and Juancho another Coke. When their bottles come, Guillermo thanks her as he squirms in his seat to make eye contact with Rosa Esther. Their eyes meet for a split second before hers shift away.

  Guillermo is handsome, with dark wavy hair. Rosa Esther notices his full lips and dark, probing gaze. Guillermo is beginning to realize that his good looks can make some girls tremble. Juancho, on the other hand, is a string bean of a person. He seems brittle next to Guillermo, like a porcelain statue about to shatter, the kind of man a girl on a mission of mercy might find attractive.

  Juancho orders a cheeseburger from the waitress when she brings them the beer and Coke. As she saunters away, the grandmother has a coughing fit and looks as if she might upend the table.

  Guillermo gets up at once, and brings Juancho’s untouched soda over to her. “Please, drink this.”

  The woman blanches, and waves him off with two bony white hands. She is gasping for air, and is clearly embarrassed.

  “Please, I haven’t touched it. Have a drink,” he says.

  Rosa Esther’s sister stands up and takes the bottle, jams the straw in the old lady’s mouth, and urges her to drink. The woman takes a few sips, then pushes the bottle away.

  “Something got caught in my throat, I couldn’t breathe. I’m so sorry. We were just leaving. Let me buy you another Coke—”

  “Don’t worry about it. ”

  “That was so sweet of you,” Rosa Esther says, standing up and rubbing soft circles into her grandmother’s bony back.

  “Are you okay now?”

  “Yes, thank you, young man. May the Lord bless you . . . I don’t even know your name.”

  “Guillermo Rosensweig. And my friend over there is Juancho Sánchez. If we can be of any further help—”

  “You’ve done more than enough,” the old woman says. “Girls, don’t just sit there. Introduce yourselves and thank the young man.”

  “Ay, abuelita, give us a chance.”

  The two girls introduce themselves as Rosa Esther and Beatriz Marisol Castañeda. Juancho stands up and waves shyly, and then everyone sits back down. There’s a sense in the empty restaurant that there’s been a bit too much commotion for a Sunday afternoon.

  Guillermo is smitten with Rosa Esther’s milky-white skin, the ethereal air around her, her blue eyes like shallow pools. She seems to almost float lightly above her seat as she sits between her grandmother and sister. Her hands are thin and delicate, blue-veined like her grandmother, barely visible under her long-sleeve white blouse.

  About five minutes later, the three women get up to leave. Guillermo, who has been stealing glances as he talks to Juancho, feels a sharp pang in his chest as Rosa Esther turns around, waves to him, and mouths a thank you. She is the last one to walk through the screen door to the parking lot, and Guillermo notices how white and shapely her calves are. He quickly jumps up and goes bounding after her.

  “Rosa Esther, wait.”

  She turns around and manages to hold the door open for him. Her blue eyes sparkle like bits of cobalt.

  “I don’t know how to say this—”

  “You would like to see me again,” she slips in.

  “How did you know?” He is surprised by her gumption.

  She nods, raising her eyebrows. “It’s all over your face.”

  “Can I have your phone number?”

  She shakes her head. “I am not that easy.”

  “So how can I see you again?”

  “You can’t.”

  He looks at her confused, in desperation, thumping one foot. “I want to see you again,” he says insistently, a bit uncomfortable that she is
forcing him to be so declarative.

  She nods a knowing smile. “I go to the Union Church every Sunday. Maybe one day you’ll stop by and share the Mass with me.”

  It’s a strange request, totally unexpected, and his “Okay!” is equally odd, as if he doesn’t quite know how to respond.

  He has never gone to church to pray or to seek any sort of solace. He really doesn’t believe in God or His son. It is all a bunch of idiocy. But it would be a greater folly not to go now that she has invited him so openly.

  Sure, he can give religion a second chance.

  chapter four

  love & marriage: a horse & carriage

  Guillermo seems to fall in love with the idea of Rosa Esther. The following Sunday, he puts on a suit and white shirt, borrows his father’s car, and drives over to the Union Church near the Plazuela España. He luckily finds a parking space around the wide circle. It is just before noon.

  He takes a deep breath before entering the church. When he reaches the back pews, he happily realizes that the services are about to end. The pastor has finished his homily on a piece of scripture and is preaching that only through God’s grace, not through good works, can salvation be achieved. The only way to receive this grace is to accept Christ into your heart as the only true God; only in this way will the sinner be forgiven his sins and be born again. He concludes by saying that one day the Lord Jesus will return to this godless land and the final and complete resurrection of the dead will occur. This will lead to the establishment of a new heaven and a new earth and the elimination of suffering, evil, and even death in this new glory and the holiest of holies—as things were before the fall. The saved will share in the everlasting glory while those who fail to accept Jesus will suffer eternal punishment. The righteous will be part of an endless banquet while the damned will fight for morsels of food.

  Guillermo has heard these things before, but this pastor—obviously not Guatemalan—says it with a kind of fatalism that seems almost admirable. He is pleased not to have heard another wishy-washy speech about how Guatemalans need to reach out to the poor. The sermon is in English, and clearly the majority of the seventy-five or so parishioners are comfortable with English and Anglican culture. This could be a service anywhere in Europe or North America. Looking over the crowd, Guillermo sees just a few people—including Rosa Esther’s sister—who are authentically Guatemalan. Everyone is applauding enthusiastically.

  To Guillermo, this sermon only underscores how simply Jesus Christ brings salvation to believers. It is all a bit too easy. He smiles as he stands in the back of the church, watching the parishioners hug one another as they make their way out. He too could believe in Christ if it meant he could kiss Rosa Esther over and over again on the mouth. He is not beyond duplicity.

  Guillermo cranes his neck but doesn’t see her. Beatriz Marisol is there with her grandmother; Rosa Esther is nowhere to be seen.

  More than disappointed, Guillermo feels betrayed. Why would she suggest he come if she weren’t planning to be there? When, with much embarrassment, he asks after her, Beatriz Marisol tells him she was there for the nine o’clock service but volunteered to accompany the children’s church to the Aurora Zoo.

  “And your parents?”

  Marisol drops her eyes. “They’re dead. We have an uncle, Lázaro, who lives in Mexico City. Otherwise we are alone, ” she says somewhat melodramatically.

  Guillermo can only say, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It happened long ago.”

  * * *

  Guillermo returns to the Union Church the following week, arriving a half hour earlier. Once more he wears his only suit, from his high school graduation. He wants to look the part, though he is only there for one reason.

  This time he sees Rosa Esther from the church doors, where he waits out the service. She looks lovely in a long white dress with little violet and yellow flowers and a buttoned sweater.

  When she comes out of church with her grandmother and sister, he approaches them to say hello. He’s a bit giddy. She doesn’t seem surprised to see him.

  “Ah, the gallant boy from Pecos Bill,” the grandmother says.

  “Yes, it’s me. I’ve come to ask your granddaughter if she would join me for coffee and dessert at Jensen’s across the street.”

  Rosa Esther begins making excuses, but her grandmother interjects: “Do you have your own car?”

  “Yes,” Guillermo answers, pointing behind himself with his thumb.

  “Please take her from us. She’s been too much of a recluse lately. Try to cheer her up.”

  It is over croissants and tea at Jensen’s that Guillermo learns her parents died in an Aviateca flight that crashed in the jungles of the Petén when she was six and her sister four. Her grandmother volunteered to raise the young girls. Guillermo pretends to listen attentively but his one desire is to unbutton her white dress and lick her equally white flesh.

  * * *

  So this is how the courtship of Rosa Esther begins. Guillermo realizes that she is no Perla Cortés and he won’t be able to put his hand under her dress so easily. He has to embark on dating—traditional Guatemalan-style dating. Formal, polite, and virginal.

  Guillermo is attracted to her inaccessibility and emboldened by her grandmother’s approval of him.

  What does Rosa Esther see in Guillermo? She is attracted to his boldness and has always had an innate desire to tame wild stallions. She is up for the challenge. She has also grown bored of her life with her sister and grandmother and wants to escape.

  At the moment there is a surge of violence in Guatemala. The country is gripped by its worst years of armed conflict—the massacres, the forced conscription of Indian villagers, the wholesale emptying of towns, the militarization of the countryside, the killing of student and union leaders in the capital, and the president’s daily rants.

  But Guillermo and Rosa Esther are soon locked in a state of courtly love, immune to the chaos, engaged in what could be described as “spiritual dating.” They kiss, sometimes for two or three seconds, never deeply, and certainly never touching tongues. But under it all there is a passion stirring, like water on the verge of boiling.

  More than fearing the qué dirán, Rosa Esther’s religious upbringing doesn’t permit her to venture beyond certain forms of mild petting. So Guillermo thinks. But Rosa Esther knows what she is doing—she is an expert fisherman who knows that patience, above all, helps reel in the big fish.

  This foreplay goes on for five months. But when Guillermo is granted a full scholarship to attend the master’s program in corporate law at Columbia University in New York City, he realizes that something has to change. He wants to take Rosa Esther with him, and the only way that that can happen is if they are married.

  When he asks Rosa Esther’s grandmother for her hand in marriage, she grants it instantly, knowing full well that she is condemning Beatriz Marisol to a life of unconditional devotion to and caring for the grandmother.

  Rosa Esther apparently has no say in the matter. Or does she?

  * * *

  Juancho is the one most surprised by the liaison. “Why Rosa Esther?”

  “I love her.”

  “You do?”

  “I love looking at her and seeing how she despises filth.”

  “Is that enough to sustain a marriage?”

  Guillermo looks at his friend with a condescending sympathy. They are so different. “She is the perfect wife for a young lawyer. She will give birth to my children and she will see to their education and pleasures, without requiring much from me. And she will fuck me any time I ask her to.”

  “Is that enough?” Juancho repeats.

  “If it isn’t enough, I know the places to go to get it.” Juancho shakes his head as Guillermo gives him a hug, whispering, “Don’t forget, I’ll be a lawyer. If it doesn’t work out, we can always get divorced.”

  * * *

  And marry they do, in a small, quiet Lutheran ceremony in August of 1983 at
the Union Church. Günter Rosensweig does not understand a word of English so he hardly follows the service, and neither does his wife Lillian. Guillermo’s sister comes all the way from San Francisco with her lover and raises more than a few eyebrows by holding her partner’s hand throughout the service.

  Guillermo’s parents behave as though they are not gaining a daughter but losing a son—a son who will never be the proprietor of La Candelaria, a son who is leaving Guatemala to study abroad. The lamp store has become a failing enterprise now that the middle and upper classes have abandoned the downtown. Soon there will be no store.

  Guillermo is happy to be going to New York. He feels he finally holds the reins to his own future. He has direction and knows where he will be in a few years’ time. And Rosa Esther is also happy because she has married a man in the eyes of God, as her dead parents would have wanted. She can also see that, while she is not exactly looking forward to living in New York City, Guillermo’s degree will bring them a life of leisure and luxury when they do return to Guatemala.

  * * *

  Guillermo is fascinated by the whiteness of his wife’s skin, by her hard, perfectly shaped pink breasts, by her flat stomach. The first night they make love at the Camino Real Hotel in Guatemala City, they do it missionary style. She complains when he tries to enter her, but after some kissing and rubbing, she welcomes him gently. They make love twice that night, in the same position, each feeling a sense of conquest over the other.

  In the morning there’s no blood on the sheets. He is certain Rosa Esther is a virgin, and the lack of blood surprises him, but not enough to question her. He has heard of situations in which riding a horse or using a dildo breaks the hymen, so he feels no need to embarrass her or make an issue of it.

  He has a strange dream around daybreak on the first night of their honeymoon at Casa Santo Domingo in Antigua. He sees himself lying in an enormous nuptial bed with Rosa Esther. The mattress and box spring are on the street in front of the Plazuela España, and cars are whizzing by. He assumes they are about to make love but he isn’t able to get an erection—he feels no sexual desire. He knows she is naked under the sheets; he can see her legs spread apart. People are streaming by. He asks her to help him bring the mattress and box spring upstairs where they can have some privacy. She shakes her head and gets up, telling him that this is his duty, not hers. He is a bit taken aback, but decides to comply, and carries the bed alone upstairs.