maids. He installed me in a room on the second floor, and I expected him to come to me that night. But no such thing. I ate dinner with him, and afterward he said he had papers to go over and suggested I get some sleep. The whole weekend was like that. It was as if I were a houseguest. I considered trying to escape, but the grounds were patrolled by dogs, and I still hoped I could do something for my family… even though I didn’t have much hope left.’ Her voice faltered, steadied. ‘Monday morning I rode to work with him. He was in the air force, and he had an office at the airport. Do you know Guatemala City?’
‘Not well.’
‘There’s a small military airport across from the civilian one, and that’s where the office was. All morning I sat in the reception room with his aide, staring at the walls. Around noon the aide brought me a sandwich and a soda. I ate, waited some more. I was beginning to think the major just wanted me to sit there and look nice. Then about two o’clock he came to his door and said, ‘Debora, I need you now.’ Just the way he’d ask a secretary in to take dictation, just that offhanded tone. I went into the office, and he told me to take off my underwear. Still very polite. Smiling. I was afraid, but like I said, I’d prepared for this, and so I did what he asked. He told me to get down on my hands and knees beside the desk. I did that, too. I shed a few tears, I remember, but I managed to stop them. He pulled out a tube from his drawer, some kind of jelly, and… and he lubricated me. That was almost the worst part. And then he dropped his trousers and came inside me from behind, the way you…’
‘I’m sorry;’ said Mingolla. ‘I didn’t…’
‘No, no!’ Debora’s hands fluttered in the dark, found his face, cupped it. ‘Sometimes I want you to do that, but…’ She sighed again. ‘Let me tell the whole story.’
‘All right.’
‘I thought he’d make love to me roughly. I’m not sure why. Maybe I figured that his good treatment had been to lull me, to undermine my preparation. But he didn’t. For a long time he didn’t even move. Just kneeled behind me, inside me, his hands on my hips. There was a bottle of whiskey on his desk, and after a couple of minutes he had a drink from it. Then he moved a little, but only a few times. He had another drink, moved some more. It went on like that for about a half-hour. Then somebody knocked on the door. The major yelled for them to come in. It was another officer. He looked at me, but didn’t seem surprised by what was going on. After that first look, he didn’t pay any attention to me, just discussed business with the major, something about scheduling, and then he left. It kept on like this for the rest of the afternoon. The major having a few drinks, moving now and again, conducting business. At the end of the day he pulled out of me and masturbated. He didn’t insist I watch, he didn’t seem to care what I was doing. He finished, wiped it up with a rag. Then he drove me back to his house, and that night over dinner he treated me as if I were his houseguest again.’
Mingolla rested his head on her shoulder, bitter, wishing he could take the memory from her.
‘It was the same every workday,’ she said. ‘In the beginning I felt relieved that he wasn’t hurting me, but before long… I don’t know how to explain what I was feeling. Humiliation was there, the fact that I was being used like a piece of furniture. Guilt that it wasn’t worse. The feeling of being a nonperson. Sometimes I’d hate myself for not hating it worse than I did, and sometimes I’d almost enjoy it. I’d have a sense of being freed by it, that once he was inside me I’d go floating off into some other universe, invisible, made different, unique. Then I’d worry that he’d get tired of me and put me back in prison. I remember once when I was worrying about that, I started to make love to him, to take an active part… you know, to give him a better time. But he didn’t want that. He reprimanded me, told me to hold still or he’d punish me. My feelings for him changed, too. Back and forth. One day I’d be repelled by him, I’d dream about killing him. And the next day I’d be thankful that he was sparing me from worse. I’d actually look forward to the office, to the chance to prove myself to him. I’d make bright conversation at dinner, bring him presents. For a while I was actually in love with him, at least I felt something like love. And I think that’s why he finally released me, I think my attachment to him didn’t suit his needs. I was terribly distracted, close to a breakdown, and I’d begun to tell him how I felt. Trying to widen our range of communication. I guess I thought he’d be interested. Like a scientist, you know, I thought he might want to take notes on the disintegration of my personality. But he wasn’t interested. God knows what did interest him.’
She was silent a long time, and Mingolla asked what had happened.
‘One morning I was waiting for him, and two soldiers came instead. They drove me out of town, north toward Antigua. I knew they were going to kill me, throw my body in a barranca. But they just dropped me off by the side of the road. I felt lost, I didn’t know what to do. I walked back and forth, laughing and crying. I didn’t realize they’d left me off at a bus stop until the bus pulled up. I got on the bus… it seemed the only choice. I never saw the major again. Two years later, after I’d gone through the therapy, I tried to find him. But I learned he was dead. Assassinated.’
‘Did you want to kill him?’
‘There was more to it than that. I think I wanted to understand what he’d been trying to do with me… ifit wasn’t just a matter of his own perversity. I’m not sure what I would have done to him. Probably killed him… I don’t know.’
The engines had slowed, and Mingolla could hear the bubbling of the
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘I was… but I was dreaming we were making love.’
‘Aren’t you too sleepy?’
‘Maybe, but we can try.’
He pulled her close, kissed her. Her response was tentative at first, and he wondered if she was testing herself against the bad memory. Soon, though, she lost herself in the foreplay. But when he entered her, she lay motionless beneath him and he started to withdraw.
‘I want you to finish,’ she said.
‘You’re too sleepy.’
‘No, it’s good. Sometimes when I don’t move I can feel you more. I like that.’
He felt irrationally aloft, distant from her, and this gave him an inarticulate concern; but then concern vanished as he heard her voice call to him in the quiet of his mind.
Once she had fallen asleep he lay back, listening to the engines. Something was bothering him, and he realized that he still felt distant from her. He knew if he were to turn and embrace her, the distance would vanish, and he would feel drifty, at peace. But knowing that changed nothing. He had the idea that his insights into her were somehow in error. As were her insights into him. It seemed to him that they had become shifty characters to each other, that their mode of honesty—these sudden bouts of revelation and confession—were smokescreens. Not that they were lies, but rather that by being framed so dramatically they became less than truths, a means of obscuring some truth that perhaps they themselves didn’t understand. That must be it, he decided. That they didn’t understand themselves well enough to practice honesty… or else they were frightened of self-discovery. Self- discovery was an unpleasant chore. He could look back a mere matter of weeks and see what an idiot he had been. Like in Emerald. His role of hard-ass creep, his lovesickness. Roles poorly conceived and poorly acted. And God only knew what sort of idiot he was being now. He turned onto his side, facing away from her. Their problems likely had something to do with how they had begun; though for the most part he had been able to put that behind him, it was always there beneath the surface, always a cause for doubt. He sighed, and the sigh coincided with an enormous swell lifting the
The engines broke down the next night while Ruy was attempting to impress Debora with the fervor of his revolutionary convictions, with his inside information concerning secret matters. The moon, almost full, hung low above the coast, and they were close enough to shore that Mingolla could make out the separate crowns of palms silvered by its light. Ruy was leaning against the wheelhouse door, and inside, visible through his opaque reflection, Corazon stood at the wheel. She turned toward Mingolla, her left eye glinting redly. He tried to read her face, and she held his gaze without a hint of challenge, as if willing to let him learn all he could.
