“I’m not sure I understand,” he said weakly. He could barely hear himself over the blaring horns, the squeal of brakes. “How could I help? What happened at that place, the little school, I cannot talk about it. No one can talk about it. I have nightmares all the time.”
“So does my sister. She wakes up screaming. Sometimes she thinks she has been driven insane! But you seem so well, Mr. Perez. She needs to know this is possible. She needs to know things will get better.”
“Yes, they will get better for her, I’m sure.”
As suddenly as a child’s, Viera’s expression changed from eagerness to dismay. “You don’t want to do it. All right, that’s fine, I understand. I shouldn’t have asked. A thousand apologies.” Viera glanced at his watch. “And now I must be getting home. Good luck to you, sir.”
“No, wait. Please.” Victor grabbed at the lawyer’s sleeve just as he was stepping off the curb. They were jostled by a man with a furled umbrella, then a woman on roller skates. They had to step back onto the sidewalk in the lee of a mailbox. “Of course I will come with you,” Victor said. He could hardly keep his voice steady. “I would be honoured to meet your sister.”
SIXTEEN
“Darling! Come meet our visitor! I have someone here who knows Lorca from El Salvador!”
Viera had driven him across town and through a tunnel to Queens and his home. Assessing the neighbourhood as they drove in, Victor had thought it displayed neither the power of a big city nor the quiet of a small town. The rows of houses had no cheer to them, the strip of ugly storefronts no charm. It was not a place anyone would
A small blonde woman came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Helen Viera’s face had once been pretty-perhaps not so long ago-but plumpness and unhappiness were rapidly claiming that territory. The eyes were cold as chips of Wedgwood, the corners of the mouth turned down in a near grimace. Victor had been expecting Mrs. Viera to be a Salvadoran, but she was American, though not from New York by her accent.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, neither friendly nor hostile. “You’re early,” she said to her husband.
“My last appointment cancelled.”
“Uh-huh. Was Alicia off sick again?”
“Yes. She sounded bad, though. I don’t think she is faking.”
“That girl’s stealing your money, Michael. She’s robbing you blind.” The pale, puffy features broadcast unhappiness. It occurred to Victor that Helen was not just Viera’s wife, she was Viera’s green card, and years of dismay had been entailed in their transaction of marriage.
The lawyer’s apparent cheerfulness increased in proportion to his wife’s misery. “Helen, you remember we were saying how nice it would be if Lorca could meet someone who understands her difficulties? Mr. Perez knew her in El Salvador.”
“Really? I’m not sure anyone can understand that sister of yours.”
“But Mr. Perez was in the same jail,” Viera said. “He was in the little school. I thought perhaps the connection-”
“You look a lot better than Lorca, that’s for sure.” Mrs. Viera was the second person to say so in as many hours. Would Lorca notice it too? “Dinner’s ready in fifteen minutes,” she added. “Will you be staying, Mr. Perez?”
“You are welcome to stay,” Viera said. “I should have asked you before.”
“Oh, no, no. I wouldn’t want to be any trouble. Thank you, though. A thousand thanks.” Victor’s voice quavered, and he wondered if they heard. She was blindfolded, he told himself. She saw nothing. She cannot recognize me or my voice. I didn’t utter more than half a dozen words in her presence.
“Darling, is Lorca upstairs?”
“Of course she’s upstairs. Where else does she go?” Mrs. Viera retreated to the kitchen.
The house was a small semi-detached in Queens. The rooms were badly proportioned, the windows small. It was three times the size of the house Victor had grown up in, but far uglier.
“Lorca!” Viera called up a short flight of stairs that led straight off the living room. Victor followed him up the steps. “Come down, Lorca! You have a visitor!”
Sweat broke out on Victor’s forehead; he had a sudden need for a bathroom. She was blindfolded, he re minded himself. She saw nothing. She cannot know my voice.
“Perhaps she didn’t hear. We’ll knock on her door.”
The upstairs was tiny: two bedrooms, a bathroom, a closet. The hallway was narrow, the doors hollow-core. The clatter of plates from downstairs was audible, the sound of an oven door slamming; obviously, Lorca Viera would have heard her brother’s call.
“Excuse me,” Victor said. “Would you mind if I use your bathroom?”
“Of course not. Please.”
In the bathroom, Victor’s bowels moved quickly and forcibly. His relief was tempered with embarrassment, and he prayed that Lorca Viera would be out somewhere, that there would be no answer to her brother’s continuous tapping on her door.
“Loud knocks frighten her,” he said confidentially when Victor rejoined him. He leaned against the wood. “Lorca, there’s a man to see you! A fellow prisoner from the jail ….”
No sound from within.
“Lorca? Mr. Perez was kind enough to come all the way out to Queens. The least you can do is say hello.”
“Maybe this was not a good idea,” Victor said. “I should go, I think.”
Viera shook his head, speaking insistently at the wooden door. “Lorca, dear. You have to see people sometime. You can’t stay cooped up like a pigeon.”
“Go away, Miguel. Leave me alone.”
The ugly voice made Victor’s heart shrivel. Memories crawled in his belly like worms.
“Lorca, please. Won’t you at least say hello to Mr. Perez?”
“No. Leave me alone.”
The wires, the dial, her screams. Suddenly Victor was terrified she would recognize his voice, even though he had said almost nothing to her. Even though it had been in Spanish. “I should not have come. No one wants to remem ber that place,” he said, and backed toward the stairs. “I will go. You don’t have to drive me, I will take the subway.”
“No, no. You must stay for dinner.”
“You’re very kind. But it’s better that I go.” He started down the stairs. As he did so, the door was thrown open and Lorca Viera stood in the opening with black accusatory eyes. It was the first time he had seen her eyes.
“Where is this Mr. Perez?” She glared at him as if she would spit. The black eyes looked him over, taking in his cheap jacket, his wrinkled pants. “You were at the little school?”
“Yes,” he answered in English. “I was at the little school. We never spoke. We were in different cells.”
“There was a Perez there,” she said in English. “They shot him.”
Victor looked at his feet. “I heard the same about you.”
“How could you even know my name?”
“Later I shared a cell with others. They told me your name. But they said you were shot.”
“Unfortunately, I did not die.”
“In my case, they shot the wrong man.”
“Bravo. So what do you want from me? You want to fuck me or something?”
“Lorca ….” her brother put in, but she went on bitterly.
“I got news for you, Mr. Perez. I was not raped in the little school, you know? So if you imagine maybe the guards fucked me so often I got a taste for it, you’re wrong, okay?” She had begun to shake from head to foot. The claw-like hand was white and trembling where it gripped the edge of the door.
