Chasing the Sun: A Novel

by Natalia Sylvester

  Andres doesn’t want to believe her. His mother can’t be talking about Elena, who was never afraid of anyone. She was the one who insisted they sneak out of the house the first time they got grounded, the one who’d call out a waiter on his terrible service or befriend a cop for directions to the nearest bar. He puts out his cigarette and tries to think of something to say until he realizes his mother hasn’t been looking at him. She’s staring off into space, transported by thoughts and memories Andres doesn’t want to imagine. When Guillermo calls for him, he straightens his shirt and leaves the room.

  “You have to expect that they’ll call at any minute, and you can’t afford to miss it when they do,” says Guillermo. He’s emptying white plastic bags of batteries and blank cassette tapes, letting them land with a thud against Andres’s wooden desk, which is so large it takes up almost all the space in the darkroom. The chair Andres normally sits on would be ideal for Guillermo’s body, but Andres is uncomfortable offering it to someone under his employ. Guillermo takes the smaller foldout chair that they brought upstairs from the kitchen, and Andres sinks into a leather seat across from him.

  “Tell me again what happened on the first call. You’re not forgetting anything, right?”

  They go over it one more time—the curtness, the way the phone seemed like it was being passed among several people before Marabela’s voice came on, the demand (not even a hint of a question) for a ransom that Andres knew would ruin him. At this, Guillermo asks him for the third time today if he responded yes or no.

  “I was too shocked to say anything. I kept asking about Marabela, telling them not to hurt her.”

  “Good, good. It’s too early for absolutes. They need to think you’re cooperating as best you can, but that you’re limited financially. Convince them that you’re trying and willing, but that there’s only so much you can do.”

  Andres nods, trying to convince himself that this is true. He’s not sure he could live with himself if he didn’t do everything within his power to get his wife back.

  Guillermo puts his elbows on the desk with his hands together as if he’s praying. Sometimes he reminds Andres of his teachers in primaria. To get a student’s attention, they’d simply stop talking and stare him down until the poor kid realized he was being put on the spot. Realizing that Guillermo has gone quiet, Andres looks up from the piece of lint he’s been squashing with his foot, only to find the man looking him in the eyes, waiting for their gazes to match up.

  “I need to warn you, this isn’t going to be a short and sweet transaction. Even if you had the money and loads more to spare, it’s not in your best interest to pay up right away. If you make it easy for them, you become quick money, like an ATM they’ll keep coming back to until it’s empty. They need to think this is as far as you can go, that once Marabela’s free and you’ve paid the ransom, it won’t make sense to try the same trick with another family member. With every phone call we’ll need to set goals—try to get them to show you proof of life, give you more time, agree not to hurt her, negotiate a lower price. You’ll need to have counterarguments ready for anything they try to pull. Nothing quick and easy. We drive the price down and make them work for it so they don’t think about hitting you up again.”

  “Are you really asking me to drag this out?”

  “I’m asking you to realize that you’ll need a strategy. This isn’t just about Marabela’s safety; it’s about the safety of your family. Think about the way you do business. A client who can barely afford to pay you, who doesn’t make it easy for you to get your money, is that a client you’ll be in a hurry to work with again?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Okay. So you need to be that client. Make them think you’re trying your best to cooperate, but when everything’s over, this is all they’ll be getting out of the Jimenez family.”

  When Guillermo puts it that way, Andres can give himself permission to think like a negotiator without feeling guilty. Marabela wouldn’t want him to put the kids in danger, but perhaps none of that would matter to her in the state she’s in. He imagines her alone in the dark, tied to a water pipe in someone’s dank basement, with nothing but a mattress and a toilet nearby. She has nothing to do but wait—for him, for her captors, for answers.

  He sets down his pen and brings his hand to his face, stretching the skin in all directions. He can barely stand to look at how they’ve transformed the darkroom. “You know what Marabela loved most about this room? She said that in the dark, time slows down. She always kept it quiet, no music or singing to distract her as the pictures developed. She loved the waiting.”

  They don’t talk much after that. Guillermo is good at knowing when to talk and when to listen, and perhaps he senses that words won’t help Andres’s mental state.

  In the kind of darkness where Marabela is being held, he imagines that each second seeps into her, multiplying her fear exponentially as they pass. Every day that she stays there means another day he hasn’t paid, and that’s what scares Andres the most—after all these years, Marabela will finally have proof that she was right about him all along.

  When Andres was eighteen, it was easy for him to think he wasn’t betraying Elena. They’d never made any promises. He was too young to know that there’s a difference between promises you say and promises you live every day. It was almost as if, in the comfortable silences they’d developed over the years, Elena had hidden her expectations, tucked them away in safe little spaces where he was sure to find them when the time was right. Maybe somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he’d have to acknowledge them, but Andres simply got derailed.

  They had never become official. They had never slept together, had barely moved past holding hands to kissing and groping, which felt very familiar—and, Andres had to admit, not nearly as exciting as he had imagined. He didn’t mind waiting for Elena because when he tried, he couldn’t actually imagine himself wrapped between her legs and entering her. He loved her so completely and purely that it felt sinful to desire her. Not knowing any better, he took this as a sign that they just weren’t ready.

  When he met Marabela, Andres experienced for the first time what it was like to feel insecure around a woman. She barely looked at him; she shook his hand and kissed his cheek and picked up the conversation he had interrupted right where it left off. The tips of her hair swayed gently with the wind as they walked, the rest of it held in place by two braids that stretched from her temples to the back of her head, where she’d tied them together with string. Nothing about Marabela seemed proper, or calculated, or staged for appearances. Andres was instantly aware of Marabela’s impression of him: privileged, with his khaki pants, leather belt, and crisp linen shirt. He tried slouching a little as they walked around the campus toward his car.

  The girls had just gotten out of class, where they’d been discussing the power of the media, something about the vicious cycle of bias and elitism. Elena thought their professor was being too idealistic by assuming we could ever get close to the truth without bringing our own experiences to it.

  Marabela put her hand on Elena’s shoulder and shook her gently. “Think about it. What experiences are publishers bringing into the dialogue, what interests? If the press has always been controlled by the same wealthy families of the past century and a half, what reason do they have to promote progress?”

  “Not all publishers are like that,” Andres said. “Nobody handed our fathers their company. They created it.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Marabela said. “Your fathers are different. I admire them more than most publishers, even if I’ve been a little disillusioned with them lately.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Elena said.

  “You haven’t noticed?” Marabela’s tone was casual, but still sharp with criticism. “They do great work but . . . those celebrity news and society pages? They’re obviously advertising magnets and they’re taking up space that should be devoted to real news.”

  “The
stories are there because the readers are. We don’t create the demand,” Andres said, repeating his father’s words.

  “No, but do they really need to be so blown up? A bunch of dressed-up housewives hold a gala for charity and they make headlines? Por favor,” Marabela said, rolling her eyes. “If I’m ever sent to shoot one of those . . . I think I’d want to shoot myself, you know?”

  “People like seeing themselves in the paper,” Andres said. “I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.”

  “Of course you would say that,” Marabela said. “All I’m saying is, if your fathers are only interested in business, there are many other industries where it’s easier to pursue money without compromising truth.”

  Andres could hear the insult behind her words, but it was hard to be offended when her tone was so nonthreatening, as if she were pointing out a dirty spot in a clean kitchen, suggesting that someone mop it up.

  They had several encounters like this, in which Marabela dominated the conversation and Andres struggled to gain her approval. Agreeing with her was about as useless as disagreeing with her, because she either looked down on him for being so easily convinced or respected him for having his own opinion, but never in the moments he predicted. She had a way of making him want to change who he was.

  He’d always admired Elena’s sense of duty, but Marabela was free of familial obligations. She often joked that she had the perfect family because they’d taught her to live moment to moment and depend on no one but herself. These were foreign concepts to Andres. He’d always had a plan, a place waiting for him in the Jimenez-Duarez partnership.

  They were waiting for Elena after class one day when Marabela asked Andres what he planned on doing with his father’s newspaper when he took over.

  “What do you mean?” he said. It seemed like a rhetorical question. When he took over his father’s company, wouldn’t it make sense to keep doing whatever had worked for the newspaper for the last forty years?

  “What will you do with it? Wouldn’t you want to do something different and create your own legacy?” Andres felt like she was sizing him up. Maybe she wasn’t as apathetic toward him as he’d assumed.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’d be better if I didn’t follow in his footsteps at all. It’d be nice to do something on my own. To start something that isn’t already completed.”

  In truth, Andres had never thought of this—the words just came out, sparking a glint in Marabela’s eyes and the hint of an approving smile. He knew by then that he’d finally said something right, and as he took the time to think about his idea, he realized it was exhilarating. For the next few weeks, this was all he could think about: the possibility of a life unlike any he’d ever imagined. He loved the unpredictability of it, loved the empowerment that came with knowing that all he needed to create change was to give himself permission. No one—not his mother, his father, or even Elena—could inflict their expectations on him if he simply ignored them.

  And that’s just what he did. Little by little he stopped visiting Elena at school and started calling Marabela for dates. Now that he knew whom she wanted—a man who stood for something, most of all himself—he found new confidence. Mimicking her desires, he became brave and generous, the type of person who listens to everyone but sticks to his own convictions.

  He’s never noticed how much time needs to be filled, how many moments in between moments spring upon him, when one spends the day at home. Perhaps this is what Marabela meant when she’d say being around for the big moments wasn’t enough. He misses the mundane with her, the nothing’s-out-of-the-ordinary that they haven’t shared in months.

  Late in the afternoon Guillermo leaves to grab a bite, running into Lorena in the living room on his way out. They hug like old friends who don’t remember each other’s name, eager and reminiscent but struggling to define their relationship. Andres imagines it must be odd to become fond of a person and yet hope you’ll never see him again in your lifetime.

  “We were just about to have lunch outside. Why don’t you join us?” Lorena says. Without Andres having to ask, she had the girls make chicken sandwiches and set the table in the backyard. The change of scenery is a nice touch. Lately he’s been eating his meals alone at the dining room table, staring at Marabela’s empty chair.

  Guillermo insists that he was hoping to go for a walk and wishes them a good meal. The sandwiches taste as if his mother made them. Something in the way the bits of celery are cut, or how the chicken is shredded into smaller pieces, reminds Andres of home. He pictures his mother looking over Consuelo’s and Carla’s shoulders and finally stepping in to demonstrate how it’s really done.

  “Thanks for this,” he says when he’s nearly finished.

  “I assumed it’s still your favorite.”

  “You assumed right.”

  She sits back in her chair, her sandwich half eaten, and sips from a glass of wine. “I remember how fickle your taste in food used to be when you were younger. But we all get set in our ways as we age.”

  They linger at the table even after the plates have been picked up and their drinks refilled. He doesn’t know if it’s Guillermo’s absence or the couple of beers he’s had, but for this short meal Andres feels tranquil, or, at least, something close to it.

  “The kids are home from school,” he tells her when he senses a heightened energy coming from the kitchen.

  Lorena straightens out her blouse and gives Andres a light nod to show she’s ready. Something like timidness seems to spread across her face. There was a time when Andres thought his mother’s spirit was impenetrable; suddenly he’s not so sure.

  “Will they remember me?” Lorena says.

  He smiles and raises his eyebrows in their direction. “Why don’t you ask them?”

  Ignacio and Cynthia are in a good mood today, if the hurried sounds of their footsteps are to be trusted. They seek out their father, passing through the kitchen and the dining room before catching him waving to them through the sliding glass door.

  “Look who’s here,” Andres says when they step outside. They stand one in front of the other, Ignacio’s hands resting on each of Cynthia’s shoulders. Lorena pushes her chair back and stands up, catching herself just before moving toward them.

  “Where are your manners? Say hi to your grandmother,” Andres says.

  Cynthia springs forward and leaves her brother’s side. She embraces Lorena without hesitation, as if she’s rehearsed this or seen it in movies so many times, the yearning comes naturally. Rather than join them, Ignacio waits. He leans into her for a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “You’re here,” he says. “What made you—”

  “Time, sweetheart. Too much time.” She deflects his question with the same air of casualness Andres rehearsed for years. The kids learned quickly not to ask after their grandparents, and though Andres knows they deserve better, he hopes the lesson still stands.

  His mother pinches Ignacio’s chin lightly with two fingers, careful not to let her touch overstay its welcome. “I always knew you’d grow up to look like your grandfather. I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.”

  Andres contemplates his son, trying to find the resemblance. The boy is a living replica of Marabela. His mother’s eyes must be playing tricks on her. Clearly, she sees what she wants to see.

  The phone finally rings at a quarter to midnight, and Andres picks up almost instantly so it doesn’t wake the children. This doesn’t give him much time to prepare or even take a calming breath. He clears his throat before speaking, giving Guillermo an extra second as he scrambles to record the conversation.

  “¿Aló?”

  “Buenas noches,” the man says with feigned politeness. “I hope you have better news than the last time we spoke. What do you have for me?”

  Andres looks down at a card he’s written and rehearsed so many times its corners are curling. “Yes, last time was an atrocity, for both of us. Trust me when I tell you it’s not something I’ll le
t happen again. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I want this to go as smoothly as possible. I’m willing to cooperate if you’ll do the same.”

  “Enough with the games and speeches. Where are you with my money?”

  My money. My money. Andres squeezes the card between his fingers until it hurts. He thinks of Marabela and the closeness of her face on Sunday mornings, the smile that became his world.

  “I’m working on it. But the sooner I can go about my everyday business instead of waiting for the phone to ring, the sooner I can get it.” He’s careful not to say waiting for your call. They’d agreed that could come off as antagonistic. “Let’s agree to make this simpler for everyone.”

  “Go on.”

  “I have a separate phone line in my house. Call there instead so I always know it’s you.” He gives the man the number, not knowing if his silence means he’s writing it down or ignoring him. He waits for any reaction but eventually continues. “If you tell me when to expect your next call, I can make sure to be home and make better use of my time otherwise.”

  Again, no yes or no. Guillermo signals for him to keep talking.

  “So I’ll always know it’s you, and not some frauds pretending to be you to get the money, you’ll have to use a code name. And I’ll need to talk to Marabela first. I need to know she’s alive and safe. I won’t discuss anything more until I hear her voice.” He finally stops and takes a moment to breathe, his heart pounding in his chest. “This is in everybody’s best interest. Do we have an agreement?”

  The man explodes into laughter, as if he thinks this is all very cute. As if he knows Andres is powerless, and he’s only entertaining the thought out of boredom.