Chasing the Sun: A Novel

by Natalia Sylvester

  “You wised up fast, viejo. Está bien. But I choose the code name. I don’t want to end up with something silly like double O seven. I’ll be Hades.”

  “Hades,” Andres says. “I’d like to speak with my wife now.”

  It takes a few long minutes, but finally Marabela answers with a quick aló and curiosity in her tone, as if she isn’t sure whom to expect on the other line. “They’re telling me to tell you not to play games. That they’ll know if you’re lying.”

  “Have they hurt you? Have they touched you?” Andres asks.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t been through before.” She’s about to say something more when they take the phone away.

  “That’s enough. Time for some of my rules. From now on you’ll talk to her through me. You’ll ask me a question only she would know the answer to and I’ll ask her about it myself.”

  Guillermo had told him this could happen. He’d told him they’d have to choose their battles, and he knows this is not one worth pursuing.

  “Now, back to business,” Hades says.

  “I don’t know how you came up with the number you did. You must have me mistaken for somebody else. But look, I can still come up with some of it. I’m looking through my accounts and I—”

  “You’re lying, Señor Jimenez.” The words come out like a song.

  “I’m not. This isn’t a game to me; it’s my wife’s life. Trust me, if I could I would hand it over, but this is all I can do right now. I’ve put the car up for sale and I’m taking another loan out on the house for so-called renovations. It’s going to take a little more time, but I can have forty thousand soon.” He cringes as he says the number. Hanging on the wall in front of him is a chart depicting the minimum he and Guillermo agreed to offer and a steep slope as it creeps up to the most he can possibly give. He knows it’s low, but it has to be. Today’s goal is to lower the captors’ demands and expectations.

  Hades scoffs. “You’ll have to do better than that. Make it three-quarters of a million and we’ll reconsider. I’ll give you two days to think about it.”

  They hang up and Guillermo plays the tape back, first once in its entirety, then again on and off as he adds his own commentary.

  “It’s not much, but he lowered the price. That’s something.” He keeps his hand on the tape player as he stares at the wall, listening. “Hades. What does he think, that he’s being clever choosing the god who took Persephone as his captive into the underworld? That bastard’s not the only one who knows his Greek mythology.”

  It’s the first time Andres has seen Guillermo so flustered, so discomposed. He can’t help but smile and play along.

  “Not at all a narcissist. It’s not like he sees himself as a god or anything.” He flicks his wrist as he leans back in his chair and lets out a half laugh, thankful for the levity.

  “It’s the most powerless people who get obsessed with power,” Guillermo says.

  Just like that, the moment is gone, having done its job without overstaying its welcome.

  They get back to the tape. This time, Guillermo stops it right after Marabela speaks.

  “There.” He points at the tape player, as if the words are etched in the airwaves. “What does she mean there?”

  It’s nothing I haven’t been through before.

  “She means she can take it,” Andres says, and he feels a familiar fury turning his limbs stiff as stones. The first time Marabela told him about her uncle’s beatings, he’d wished he could’ve been there to set the coward straight. The worst part was that she could never predict when they were coming; they were fueled by nothing more than rage. When hiding and fighting back didn’t help, Marabela said she learned how to leave her own body. She redefined what pain meant in her mind, and in this way she created an ocean between him and how he could hurt her.

  Andres wonders sometimes if this is how Marabela manages to be so distant with him, but for once he is thankful that she can remove herself from almost any situation.

  “She sounds like a very strong woman,” Guillermo says.

  Andres closes his eyes and nods.

  “You did good, Andres. You handled yourself well. And now we know we have two days to prepare for the next call. We’ll make the most of it.”

  DAY 8

  He leaves early in the morning, hours before Guillermo arrives, feeling like he’s trying to run away from a problem that can’t be outrun. It’s quiet and dewy on the road. The sun has barely started to rise and, without its brightness, the stretches of farmland look as dull as the American sitcoms Andres used to watch on his parents’ first color television. He speeds down a lonely two-way road, and every once in a while he turns his head to watch the rows of corn pass him by. For a moment he’s mesmerized by them—that straight tunnel of light through a crowded field that becomes the next row, and the next row, and the next as he speeds by. They appear identical when in fact they’re like the frames of a strip of film; no one would know they were moving save for the flicker, when things have shifted from one frame to the next.

  The facility where they’ve tucked Elena away is twenty-five miles outside the city. He doesn’t know what to expect from it, but he’s grateful it’s not one of the state-run mental hospitals. There are only three in all of Lima, and he’s heard they’re run-down and overcrowded, the kind of places where people don’t forget their problems but rather go to be forgotten. He assumes this private rehab clinic—Comienzos Pacificos, they call it, Peaceful Beginnings—is for people with enough money to pay for both quality and privacy.

  It must be convenient to think she’s safe there, so far from the source of her trauma. No one knows he’s going to see her, and he’s not even sure if the staff will let him come in, but he has to try. In the passenger seat sits a bunch of flowers, the plastic wrap crinkling from the wind. He bought them off the side of the road from an old woman who smiled so wide he saw the bottom row of her teeth.

  Andres rolls up the window and takes his frustration out on the accelerator, arriving at the facility sooner than he expected. The building is a boxy, utilitarian structure with neat rows of windows covered by ornate metal bars and a navy-blue awning hovering over the main entrance door. A stone-covered sidewalk winds through a lush, manicured yard with palm trees scattered about, and to the side there is a gated area with several white benches and what looks like a basketball court without any hoops. The court is framed by two gazebos that have small, round tables underneath them.

  He enters through a wooden door accented with several square panels of glass, its polish almost shinier than the windows. Everything creaks as he walks inside—the hinges, the doorknob, even the heels of his shoes against the linoleum—and he gets the sense he’s in a vacuum, a sterile place where sounds and scents are cast out as quickly as they’re detected. The walls are covered with posters depicting happy scenes of family picnics and children running into their parents’ arms at the beach. Except for a couple of small tables full of magazines and old newspapers, the lobby is arranged very much like a church; an aisle cuts through the center of rows of chairs, leading up to a large reception station shaped like a semicircle and pushed completely against the wall. To the left is a long window to a living area that Andres assumes is where patients gather. There are several plants, tables, and couches, and a large television set hanging from a tall corner of the room.

  Andres approaches the reception area, but the woman enclosed in it is so busy scribbling notes in a manila folder that she barely looks at him. He lets his keys tap against the desk as he rests his hand on it. She looks at him, smiles, but doesn’t speak.

  “I’m here to see Elena Duarez. I’m her cousin.” He lies, hoping that the blood relation will make a difference.

  “Visiting hours aren’t until eight,” the woman says.

  “Please. I just want to check in on her. I won’t bother anyone. Besides, I know she’s never been one to sleep in,” he says, tilting his head toward the door as he smiles.

  The
woman nods and exhales, as if she’s just grateful to be understood. For now the building is still; the only real sounds are the light rattles of the vending machines in an alcove adjacent to the guest area and the steady steps of staff members preparing for whatever commotion the day may bring. Of course the receptionist would want to preserve the peace for as long as possible. She taps her pen against the desk, considering his request, then stops, decided.

  “Fine. But only because she’s one of the quiet ones,” the woman says. Her tone softens as she adds, “It’s hard to tell the difference between her good days and her bad days.”

  She gets up and lets herself out of the enclosure through a small door that blends into the furniture. With small, hurried steps, she walks completely around the desk, passing Andres and signaling for him to follow.

  “This way,” she says.

  They pass by a cluster of folded chairs leaning against a wall before turning into an arched threshold that leads to a long, narrow hallway. Not a single door is open, and Andres is tempted to look through the square windows as they pass, but the receptionist walks too fast for him to catch sight of anything. He’s mesmerized by the lightness in her steps and finds his own legs inadequate as he tries to control his heavy strides.

  They stop at room 382. The woman rises up on her toes and looks through the window. Satisfied, she lets Andres take a look.

  The first thing he notices is the tiles, four-by-four-inch squares that repeat themselves across the entire upper half of the walls, separated by a thin line of bleach-white grout. These tiles look shiny and cold, the type you’d see in a bathroom. In the center of the room is a small bed that sits on an accordion-looking frame; the metal, painted beige, can probably be cranked to rise and lower like a construction crane. Finally Andres’s eyes wander to the corner, to a plush brown armchair where a woman sits, curled into her gown. Elena looks surprisingly at peace; the stiff linen covering her body seems to float over it, barely touching her arms and legs. Her skin is freckled and pale, and her nearly blond hair is longer than he’s ever seen it.

  Even in this unlikely and foreign setting, Elena still looks like she did when they were teenagers and Andres used to read to her from his favorite books. They’d made a deal back then that they would take turns—reading the first chapter of a book they loved as a way to convince the other to read the rest. He always knew when Elena was enjoying it because she’d bring her knees to her chest and rest her head on them, her eyes staring past Andres to whatever world he was creating in her mind. Sometimes she’d pull on the bottoms of her pant legs and wiggle her toes—a dead giveaway that she was excited to find out what happened next. Andres would stop, smile at her, and she’d urge him to keep going.

  Two things occur to him too late. One: That the flowers were a stupid idea for a gift (a book would’ve been much more thoughtful). Two: Will she even want to see him? Will she want him to see her like this?

  “Try not to sneak up on her. Knock as loud as you can, and if that still doesn’t get a reaction from her, make noises as you get closer,” the lady from the front desk tells him as she twists the doorknob open. This turns out to be easy—the cellophane from the flowers announces his presence before Andres does. He feels like one of those annoying people at a movie theater, trying to open a candy wrapper. As he walks closer, he imagines every possible scenario when she sees him, from her breaking down and crying to her yelling at him to leave. He can’t decide which would be worse.

  She turns and looks at him, her eyes lazy and distant as if she’s not really seeing him, but then the spark of recognition sends a spasm through her body and she sits up and pulls her gown closer to her neck. He can tell she’s embarrassed, that she wishes she could hide. She tucks her hair behind her ears and runs her fingers through her splintered strands, all the while looking behind Andres as if to make sure no one else is coming.

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” Her voice is a cracked whisper.

  “I wanted to . . . I had to see you. It’s just me. No one else came along.”

  With her arms still crossed over her chest and her legs folded underneath her, Elena turns away from him and brings her fingers to her lips. They’re dry with small spots of blood from the cracking, and dark circles sink into the skin beneath her eyes. Her movements are small, sporadic, but somehow still graceful and calculated. If Andres didn’t know any better, he’d think Elena was acting a part in a movie, the introspective heroine who sits quietly in the corner of the room, her obvious sadness only adding to her beauty, as if she understands something about life that no one else can know.

  He studies her and is surprised by the smallest details he never knew he remembered until now. Her face is a map of nuances only he knows where to find: a scar, just where her hairline meets the tip of her ear, from the summer she got hit by a rock kicked up by a truck as they crossed the highway toward the beach. The slight dimple beneath her lower lip and her chin, which disappears when she smiles and gives her away when she’s forcing it. Even her long neck exposes a mark left over from the time they both got chicken pox when they were seven. After so many years of not seeing her, Andres finds it hard to look away. Theirs is a history time cannot erase. He could stare at her for hours and find the stories of their past written all over her body.

  He clears his throat but all the things he’d planned to say are gone. “How are you feeling?” A foolish start, he realizes, and continues. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to know where to begin. I heard you were here and I had to see you. I didn’t give it much more thought than that.”

  With this, she seems to remember who she once was, and her fragility melts away. “Para variar. Sounds like nothing’s changed. You didn’t give plenty of things much thought.”

  He shakes his head side to side. The words are a painful relief.

  “Why are you smiling?” she says, more curious than annoyed.

  “Because you’re still you.”

  She looks at him then, her eyes narrowing, and he meets her gaze. He can’t believe how comforting it is to find her again.

  “I’m sorry, but . . . I missed you. You’re my best friend even if you no longer consider me yours. Even if too many years have passed.” He’s nearly breathless, having spoken so quickly without thinking. When she still hasn’t answered he begins counting his breaths as they slow back down.

  But she seems unaffected. He begins to doubt she even heard him. “Ele?”

  “I stopped hurting for you a long time ago. You can’t miss what you’ve let go of.” She speaks in a gentle whisper, but her voice strikes him with such force that he plops onto the bed behind him, his hand on his chest.

  “I deserve that.”

  “You do.” As usual, Elena never misses a chance to assert she’s right.

  They sit in silence for five, maybe ten minutes. When he looks at her, he knows she’s aware of his stare because every once in a while she changes positions, as if he were an artist deciding which angle best to draw her from. He wonders how long he’ll have to suffer her silent punishment, and finally decides this was a mistake. What if his being here is the most painful thing of all?

  He leans toward her, stops short of kissing her on the forehead, and whispers, “I’m sorry. I’ll go now.” As he gathers his jacket and sets aside the flowers, he feels a loose grip around his wrist.

  “Don’t. Just wait. Please.” He can see now that every muscle in her face is fighting not to cry. “It’s too hard and I’m so tired.”

  “What is?”

  Elena takes a deep breath and looks to the ceiling. “Hating you. Missing you. You make everything so damn difficult,” she says, pretending to laugh through her tears. He kneels at the edge of her chair, resting his hand on her ankle. She sits up and embraces him so completely it’s like her whole body has been lifted onto him. She’s practically weightless and it feels so natural that they just rock slowly side to side in silence.

  When they finally pull apart, her eyes wander to the
flowers he brought.

  “Para ti,” he says.

  She takes them and sniffs them one by one—first the yellow daisies, then the pink alstroemerias, which look like miniature lilies with freckles sprinkled along their centers. On the table next to Elena’s bed sits an empty ceramic vase, and the two of them unwrap the flowers and arrange them together. It reminds him of how they used to do puzzles together, finding the perfect place for each piece.

  “I’ll get some water for them before I go,” Andres says. “And I’ll come back with more before a single petal has wilted.”

  On the drive home, as Andres pulls into the garage, as he sits at the dining room table waiting for Consuelo to bring him his breakfast, he thinks of Elena and everything she’s been through. He wonders if her pain is unique or if it’s like a set of mirrors that face each other, trapping their subjects so that their images multiply, each less vivid than the next.

  4

  WHEN ANDRES WALKS into the darkroom, he can tell somebody’s been there who shouldn’t have. Even though nothing looks like it’s been touched—the stacks of papers on the desk are still in the same order, the cable is still wrapped around his headphones in tight spirals—

  Andres’s chair gives it away. It’s facing the office door, as if someone leaped straight from the desk to the exit, and Andres is not the type to leave in such a hurry. He takes a closer look at the headphones, which sit on top of the cassette player containing the tape from last night’s call. The tip of the cable is folded into itself, as if someone wanted to tie a knot but stopped himself.

  He crosses the hallway and walks into Ignacio’s room without knocking. The boy starts to protest from his bed, where he’s lying faceup, reading a magazine that he’s holding with his arms stretched toward the ceiling. His shoes are still on and his feet dangle awkwardly off the side of the bed. Andres imagines his son dashing from the darkroom and jumping onto the bed, trying his best to act casual, as if he’s been lying there, looking terribly uncomfortable, all morning. He doesn’t appreciate the charade.