Hot Sur

by Laura Restrepo

  “Goddamn it, Dix!” he said, his eyes watering with rage and compassion. He was thinking how to punish her when Cleve intervened, because at that time he was still alive and accompanied them on their walks.

  “Don’t punish her, Pa,” he said.

  For Cleve, it was clear that there was something sacred and primitive in that act of the dog, in that ritualistic behavior inherited from her canine predecessors but nonetheless extremely human, this choosing of a victim, hunting her down and sacrificing her, but not eating her. According to him, the splendid aspect of the whole thing was the lack of a practical finality; it was something more complex, the confirmation of an order of things dependent on this gesture of bringing an offering to the master. What motivated Dix? Cleve didn’t know for sure. But Dix seemed sure that in this manner she sealed a pact with a superior being, in this case Rose, who in the eyes of others may have passed as a hydraulic engineer, but who in the eyes of the bitch was a sort of god.

  “Shit, Cleve,” Rose said, “I know what the goddamned dog meant, but fuck, she could have brought me a rabbit or something.”

  “She feels that the rarer the prize offered, the greater the honor rendered,” Cleve said.

  “Fine, fine. Since you seem to be so in tune with the animal kingdom, can you tell Dix that her god only accepts rabbits? And figure a way out of this jam. If we bury Lili without saying anything, we’re going to have to watch poor desperate Galeazzi looking for her cat everywhere. And if we confess the truth, the neighborhood junta is going to insist we put Dix to sleep. They’re going to claim that the next victim will be a child, so your theories will be useless in defending her.”

  Cleve calmed him down, convincing him there was a third way, and proceeded to pick up what was left of Lili, barely a few tufts of hair. Stealthily, he put the remains with the collar and everything on the road in front of Mrs. Galeazzi’s house and smashed it down with a rock that he tossed far away later, so she’d think Lili had been run over by a car.

  “You should have seen Cleve that night, carrying out his sinister plot,” Rose tells me with a mournful smile. “The only thing he was missing was a mask. But I felt bad about the deception. I really felt like shit. Not Cleve. He was different about things. Look, I’m a simple person, someone who likes to observe and not much else; my son, on the other hand, had a lot of things seething inside. I don’t know anything about ceremonies and symbolism; suffice it to say that my most complicated ritual is this white cloud I put in my tea in honor of my mother. What can I say, that’s as deep as I get? Fortunately, Mrs. Galeazzi got another cat; she watches it night and day and doesn’t let it out of the house.”

  Ian Rose is well aware that under certain circumstances his dogs can be horrendous, and not just Dix, but all three of them. Always playful and well trained, they become like fiends if they sense a threat or detect that someone has trespassed into their domain. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, he tells me it’s astonishing to watch them, something admirable even, to see how they crouch and their fur stands on end, how their eyes grow brilliant and their looks askance, how their every joint becomes flexible and their whole anatomy molds itself to the ruthless agility of the hunt. They regress, turning into the wolves they once were in a matter of seconds and begin to behave like a pack, now in attack mode, so the hierarchy changes, with Dix leading the way, an Amazon; the great Otto behind her, a military tank; and Skunko, the little one, a killer expert at going for the jugular. More than once Rose has had to save some careless trespasser, or even some friend who is visiting and makes a sudden gesture or laughs too loud, from his canine guerrillas. Of course, all Rose has to do is pet them on their backs and say “That’s it, that’s it, everything’s fine, toy hounds,” for them to calm down and begin wagging their tails, becoming again as harmless as puppies, exonerating the victim they were just about to tear to pieces. “Let that be a warning,” Rose tells the intruder, or if it’s a friend, he tells him to take a deep breath, brings him a glass of water, and begs a thousand pardons for the fright.

  On the morning after the manuscript arrived, Rose and the three dogs went out into the woods afterward, following Skunko as they always did when in search-and-discover mode, heading in no particular direction. They had been walking for more than two hours when they came across abandoned railroad tracks, half camouflaged by foliage, and they instinctively obeyed that sort of mandate that rails impose, to follow them from nowhere to nowhere else. They allowed themselves to be led, as if hypnotized by the ties slippery with moss, and Rose tried to think of nothing else but how the distance between railroad ties was half a stride.

  “Or maybe I was thinking a bit about my childhood, or Cleve’s,” he tells me. “You see how it goes, old rails bring back memories of childhood, even if we haven’t seen any as children or been on a train.”

  The first sign that the spell was about to break was the fur standing on his dogs, who then pricked up their ears and began to act nervous, as if they smelled something in the air they couldn’t figure out. A bit later, they came upon signs that said, “No Trespassing, Violators Will Be Prosecuted,” and then powerful floodlights that cut into the shadows of the woods with stabs of light. Rose called back his dogs with a loud whistle, and when they abandoned the rails to take up the path again, they came upon a silent patrol car watching from a bend, its windows foggy. Five minutes later, he saw another patrol car, and farther on a third one. “Let’s get home! Home!” Rose yelled at his dogs, to quicken their pace and move away from that guarded zone.

  They tried taking a shortcut that didn’t work and soon were lost for a good quarter of an hour until they came out to a paved road on which there was a squad of police cars. Officers on foot were blocking the way, and they were under the surveillance of a dozen cyborg-looking guards, dressed in black like Darth Vader but with Mausers instead of light sabers. Above the squad, a huge sign spread from one side of the road to the other, and on reading it, Rose felt a chill: “MANNINPOX STATE PRISON.”

  Unwittingly, he had been walking toward the prison after spending years evading it, avoiding even the mention of it. It was as if a magnet had drawn him to its very doors, or as if that inmate’s manuscript had already begun to assert its spell.

  Downhill from the police cars was a disparate collection of commercial enterprises, clearly geared to the visiting families of prisoners: a generic Best Value Inn, a greasy spoon that served Thai fusion cuisine, a Best Burger, a Mario’s Pizza, a Laundromat, and a faded beauty parlor called The Goddess that featured haircuts, depilation, and massages. A strange name, Rose thought, given that it was so close to hell on earth. There was, aside from this, a stand where photographs could be developed, advertised by a large picture washed out by the sun of a bride wearing yards and yards of tulle. Rose headed into the nearby gas station’s mini-mart, where something caught his attention.

  Aside from the ice cream, soda, magazines, gum, snacks, greeting cards, phone cards, condoms, and other such commonplace items was a group of peculiar objects for sale. Handmade and overwrought, they seemed to come from an underworld that lacked any kind of aesthetic notion or practicality and were displayed separately in their own somewhat dusty cabinet, each one painfully useless. There were embossed leather Bible covers, carved wooden circles that were supposed to be mandalas, beaded medallions with the signs of peace and love, embroidered cell-phone covers, key chains with the signs of the zodiac, grocery bags made of woven polyester. The price tags identified them as craft pieces made by the inmates of Manninpox. Rose examined the objects carefully, one by one, a bit shaken by the fact that those things came from in there, emissaries from that hermetic world that had climbed over fences and walls to reach this side of reality. He was overcome with curiosity about whether any of those objects had been warmed by the hands of María Paz. One of the medallions perhaps? The mandala? Or one of the polyester bags? That blue one with white and red? Could she have made it? Maybe M
aría Paz had soothed the anguish of her days behind bars keeping her hands busy with that series of knots that would calm her nerves and kill some time. That exact bag? It was a one-in-a-million chance, but Rose bought it, paying $8.50 plus tax. He can’t quite tell me why he bought that one and not something else; it could have been the Aquarius key chain, which was his astrological sign, or a cover for the cell phone he had never wanted to own. But he chose that bag to leave on top of Cleve’s bed.

  “It sounds creepy when I say it this way,” he tells me, “but after the death of my son, everything had become some sort of sign for me. Or amulet, or whatever. It was as if everything had a hidden meaning that I was urged to discover. I clung to whatever it was, as long as it allowed me to get closer to Cleve. Do you know what I mean? I can’t quite explain it. In any case, I bought the bag to bring it to him. Of course, in the end I couldn’t quite bring it up to the attic—like I said, too creepy. I just put it away in my sock drawer. I guess I put it there because I started thinking what my son would have said if he saw me come in with such a thing. Are you crazy, Pa? And yeah, I was a bit crazy. More than a bit. After his death, what could you expect?”

  From Cleve’s Notebook

  The Colombian prisoner surprises me. She’s annoyingly intelligent, a mixture of common sense and street smarts that unnerves me. She’s determined to learn how to write, according to her, so she can tell the story of her life. I don’t know what crime she could have committed, and it’s difficult to see her in those terms. Of course, around here you don’t ask that; you don’t pry into why any of them are here. Sometimes they’ll volunteer the information; they get a longing to confess and just let loose. But others are very reserved. So it’s a matter of principle not to meddle; each inmate is simply paying an outstanding debt to justice, and aside from this, each is a human being. Not just innocent or guilty, but a human being, period. But the more I like this María Paz, the more the possibility that she’s a true criminal disturbs me, although it’s more a probability than a possibility. When it comes down to it, I met her in a prison, not in a damned convent. Of course, her crime, if she did commit a crime, could have had something to do with drugs. Colombia and cocaine, cocaine and Colombia, they practically go together. And that would certainly be an extenuating circumstance. Clearly a big capo, a cartel assassin, a corrupt DEA agent, or a banker who has laundered millions would be incompatible with my moral parameters, but a girl who gets three or four years in prison for bringing a few grams of cocaine into the country hidden in her bra? That’s a forgivable sin. Who am I to judge her? Me, who smoked all the dope in the world when I was a teenager, specifically the Santa Marta Gold that came, yes, from Colombia. I’m going to dismiss her for drug smuggling, me, who every once in a while does a few lines myself that I buy in Washington Square Park right under the arch and the noses of the police? But that’s if she indeed was caught smuggling. I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t because of that, and her case is more serious. But damn, she’s so gorgeous, that morena has such a pretty face . . . I pretend, do my best to fake it; it would be gross to use my job to pick up an inmate; forget it, that would be a big mistake, a cosmic fuckup. I think no one’s yet noticed how much I like her, not even her, but who knows? They’re little fiends, her and her friends, their looks full of innuendos; and I feel that they want to devour me with their eyes during class. They’re dangerous seductresses, like Circe, all of them, young or old, skinny or fat, white or black. Me, a momma’s boy, and each of them, hundred-year-old totems. Homer described Circe’s dwelling place as a mansion of stone in the middle of a dense forest, a perfect description of Manninpox. I feel as if the Colombian inmate places a lot of hope in me and it pisses me off knowing I’m going to let her down, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I enjoy reading the exercises she does in class. I feel good sitting here alone in my attic, reading her stories; the crazy things she writes about help me endure the silence of these mountains. I’d like to tell her that she’s the powerful one, that I drink from her strength, that she’s the one who helps me, there from her cell, and not the other way around. Between the two of us, she’s the real survivor. Her stories are somewhat gloomy, but she gives them a human grace that illuminates them, and her Scheherazade voice carries me from night to night. So funny, I write “Scheherazade” and the autocorrect on my word processor changes it to “schemer.” I write “Scheherazade” once more and again “schemer” appears, in which case, I give up, the thing’s right: it is trying to call my attention to the ridiculousness of my choice of words. Let’s just say then that the Colombian girl has become my nocturnal schemer.

  Interview with Ian Rose

  Not far from the prominent, white, well-lit sign that announced “MANNINPOX STATE PRISON,” Ian Rose saw another more modest sign that said in Spanish, in faded letters, “Mis Errores Café-Bar.” Cleve and his dogs had ended up right in front of the café frequented by Cleve. Shit, Rose thought, it’s as if everything is predetermined. He walked toward the entrance and went in like a detective walking into the scene of a crime, as if he were afraid to disturb any fingerprints that his son might have left floating there. The place was deserted and desolate, and did not reveal much. On top of the Formica table hung semicircles of plastic red lamps befouled with flies, and the blue oilcloth covering on the benches was coming apart at the seams, exposing the foam rubber guts. Rose asked for a Diet Coke at the bar and water for his dogs, and felt the urge to order an espresso for Cleve. That’s what his son always ordered, an espresso, to which he added a pinch of sugar.

  “Look at them,” the bartender said, signaling with his chin to the women in the beauty parlor across the street from Mis Errores. “You see them. They don’t only do your hair, brother; they give you a cut too. Take a look at the tall one. Before she worked there, she did time at Manninpox. And she’s not the only one, you know. There have been several of them who didn’t know where to go once they were granted their freedom, or why to go; they didn’t have a job or a home, or family that loved them, or dogs that barked for them. So they stayed around here, right where they were released, getting together to share a room with a monthly rate at the Best Value Inn, and if they’re not too worn down, they latch onto The Goddess to work as manicurists or masseuses. And I don’t have to explain the kind of massages they offer, you know what I’m talking about?”

  “I really couldn’t care less,” Rose said, fixing his eyes on his glass and swirling it to make the ice click, to signal that he had no interest in chatting.

  “Do you want to see the prison?” The guy did not drop the subject. “You can’t see it from the road, but you can see it from the roof here. It’s quite a sight, I assure you.”

  Rose told him he wasn’t interested, but the bartender persisted, trying make Rose feel at ease by telling him it wouldn’t cost anything, that he used to charge, when he had the binoculars for clients to use, but not anymore.

  “I used to charge the tourists,” the guy kept saying, although Rose avoided eye contact. “Many people drive up here just to see the prison, and I’m not just talking about the family members of the prisoners. I’m talking about normal people, tourists who feel cheated when they realize that Manninpox is hidden behind all those trees. Installing the binoculars on the roof was my friend Roco’s idea, a great idea, I tell you, and we made some extra money from it. We charged one buck for three minutes of viewing. I’m the owner of the bar, the very person you see here, so I supervised everything and bartended while Roco took care of the fees and timing the customers with the binoculars. This new feature put my place on the map, it filled up, and people bought more drinks and food. A great show. And if you were lucky, you could even see the prisoners when they took them out to the bus to go to court. The human side, you see. They were led out single file, each one of them cuffed at the wrists, ankles, and waist as well as chained to each other. Quite the scene, I tell you, not even Houdini could have escaped such a thing. They could barely
walk, looked like ducks advancing with little hops. They call it a fish line, and from the roof you could see everything as if from a box seat. Not anymore, that’s when we had the binoculars. I remember one prisoner in particular, a young woman, very good-looking, who cried and whose nose ran and she tried to wipe it with a hankie she had in her hand, but of course, she couldn’t because of the chain. I swear, I’d have released her if I could, at least to let her blow her nose. The binoculars were German, very good ones, I had bought them secondhand, but they were in perfect shape and came with a pigskin leather case and everything. But the authorities forced us to stop, threatening to arrest me if I kept peeping at what was happening in the prison, and they fucked the business. But if you want to go up on the roof, go right ahead. You can see the building with the naked eye. You lose the human angle but can appreciate the architecture. Manninpox was built between 1842 and 1847 under the guidance of Edward Branly, a genius of his time; you won’t see anything compared to what this man could dream up, at least not on this side of the Atlantic.”