From his spot on the floor where he sat naked, arms folded across his knees, Samir said, “I have been thinking about what we discussed before, what to do from here, who to trust. Even if the priest links us up with this American he knows, we still have to get across the border. Without money, that’s impossible, unless we stay with our original plan. That fee is already paid. And no offense, I understand you are grieving, but there is one less among us now. They can hardly complain. Perhaps they won’t even make us hand up the girl. It’s possible, you know.”
Roque glanced over his shoulder as he lathered his hands. The Arab was chewing on his thumb, worrying it like a bone. “You’d do that?”
“Let me tell you something, I have never wanted harm for that girl. Never. I just accepted things as they were. I understood I had little control of my fate. The same is true for her, so which of us is free to weep?”
Like that’s the issue, Roque thought. “You said you’d lost confidence in the
“They can’t be expected to foresee everything or protect us from every evil. Who knows who those men on the road were?” He inspected the reddened horn of his thumb. “Maybe they were El Chusquero’s, maybe they were Mara Dieciocho, maybe they were police or soldiers or just common thieves.”
Roque gripped the edge of the washtub, looking down into the water murky with soap scum. “I won’t agree to handing Lupe over. I was against it before but now, no, it’s impossible. Not with my uncle… It’s bad enough I failed him, I can’t fail her too. His ghost will haunt me the rest of my life.”
Samir chuckled. “So you’re one who believes in ghosts now.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You think I don’t understand how you feel? Let me tell you something, I too suffer the loss of your uncle. He was a very kind, very hopeful, very brave man. I see his son in him, him in his son. I know, I know, they are very different too but I see the similarities. I will miss him-yes, as little as I knew him, I will miss him. And I think I know enough about him to guess that he would also not want to know that by refusing to honor our promise, we have condemned my wife and my little girl, Shatha, to the misery of their life in Al Tanf. They will die there. It is only a question of when.”
We all have to die someplace, Roque thought. “I’m sure he would’ve felt for your wife and child. But he expressed to me a particular concern for Lupe.”
“That is the choice, yes? Lupe or my family. Obviously, my choice is clear. And not because I am heartless. Should you become a husband, a father, you will feel what I feel.”
“You know,” Roque said, turning around so his nakedness faced the Arab’s, “when I was waiting in Arriaga, I heard that it’s not just evangelicals making inroads down here but Muslims as well. Not so much here in Oaxaca but farther south, Chiapas, in the mountains. Mosques have been cropping up more and more the past few years, that was the gossip anyway, teaching Arabic to Chamula kids who don’t even know Spanish yet. Maybe you could come back here with your family, settle in the hills, teach. Life could be worse.”
Using his shoe, Samir crushed a furry red spider crawling toward him on the cement floor. “That is always easy for the other man to say.”
“It’s better your family stay in that camp?”
“Given everything that’s happened, you honestly believe I would want my family here? Would you bring yours?” He scraped the spider’s remains off his shoe. “Sure, why not? You’d be closer to your uncle’s grave.”
“Don’t mock.”
“Don’t make such ridiculous suggestions.”
Roque turned back to the tub, glancing down into the scummy water again, his reflection a misshapen blur. Finishing up his wash, he soon heard the soft wheeze of the Arab’s breath whistling through his teeth. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Samir still sitting there, legs tucked up, arms locked around his knees but his head had dropped. He’d fallen fast asleep.
ROQUE PULLED JEANS AND UNDERSHORTS AND A T-SHIRT FROM HIS knapsack, dressing like a backdoor man slipping out before daylight, Samir dozing away. The clothes weren’t clean but they’d serve until Dolor was done with the wash. Standing for a moment in the doorway, he watched across the parched hardpan of the churchyard as the tiny Mixtec woman pinned up the damp wrinkled clothes, shirt sleeves and pant legs bucking in the wind.
He idled through the rectory with its concrete floors, coarse plaster walls, bare plank ceilings. It was the stillness, though, that struck him. Lifting his head he silently prayed not to God or any of the saints or angels but to his uncle and his mother. His prayer was brief: Help me. He felt weak and lost and, in that moment, a little dishonest but there was no harm in trying, he supposed.
Then he caught the muffled keen of Lupe’s sobs beyond a thick wood door.
A smallness inside him wondered what she had to cry about. What secrets had she and Tio shared during their trek from Tecun Uman to Arriaga? He wondered if they’d talked about him. What a needy little shit you are, he thought. Was that your uncle’s job, be your pimp?
He eased toward the door, pressed his ear to the wood. Knocking quietly, “Lupe?”
No answer, just snuffling. The door clicked open. Through the gap he spotted a narrow bed of wood planks, a thin straw tick for a mattress. He didn’t see Lupe till he edged his way in, easing back the door. She closed it quickly behind him, standing there naked.
Her damp hair hung tangled across her shoulders, down her chest and back, her breasts peeking through the uncombed strands. Her face was streaked with old tears, fresh ones welled in her eyes. She stepped into his arms, laying her head upon his chest, hands listless at her sides. He held her, pressed his cheek to her drying hair, thick with the fatty smell of the soap. They stood like that until she laced her fingers in his, guided him to the bed, attended to his zipper, pulled off his T-shirt. Neither of them spoke. This isn’t love, he told himself, this is grief, her eyes told him that. And yet touch had never felt so familiar, so necessary. She made room for him and they lay side by side, straw rustling inside the tick as they settled in. Bits of straw poked through the burlap like a hundred pinpricks but when he reached out her skin was smooth and warm and met his sore hand, raw with blisters, with a welcoming tremble. All those times he’d fantasized about sharing her bed, catching her off guard with his know- how, the deft little tricks Mariko had taught him, that all felt obscene now. Open the fuck up, he told himself. No more moody loner, no more hotshot with the sad guitar. Let her in.
She kissed clumsily and the thrill of that startled him. He could taste on her breath a hint of the lemon slices Dolor had stirred into the pitcher during their afternoon meal, along with the vague tin taste of the pitcher itself. He could smell, beneath the mask of soap, a lingering tang of sweat and her growing wetness. She slid beneath him, lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips, guided him in. No foreplay, no romance, this wasn’t about that. He opened her slowly, shallow at first, deepening his movements bit by bit, rocking his hips gently until the two of them felt locked together. A sense of having found something, not blindly, foretold. He let the sadness come in waves and he rode them toward her, one by one, and she wept out loud as she came, pulling him tight, locking her legs around him, pushing her body hard against his, a dozen rough little jolts or more, jabbing in time with her sobs, then finally she dropped back on the burlap tick, covered her face with her hands. He wanted to tell her no, please, let me see your face, but before he could, she whispered:-
Thirty-Five
A DOZEN SQUAD CARS JAMMED THE STREET ON THE HILL ABOVE the sugar refinery, strobes flashing blue and red in the afternoon fog, plus another half-dozen unmarked sedans, a canine van, the coroner’s wagon. The TV crews were being held back for now but they’d get cut loose soon enough. All we’re missing, Lattimore thought, is the caterer.
He was standing on the porch with the detective from Crockett, one of just two on the local force; they rotated in and out of patrol on a quarterly schedule. This guy’s name was Dunn-chunky, a workhorse, black loafers, blue suit. They were waiting as a uniform marched up the drive, carrying the pictures requested from Rio Mirada
