Breaking Lorca

self this single glance across the lake and kept moving. But then he rounded the bottom of the lake and noticed a waterside gazebo. A moment later he was sitting on a bench inside the gazebo, and telling himself he would stay just five minutes. Five minutes to enjoy the moonlight rippling on the water, the satin glow of the lamps among the trees.

He stayed for over an hour.

When he rose to leave, his legs were damp and stiff. I’m like a man who haunts the scene of his crime, he thought. But that was not quite accurate, because his crimes against Lorca had been committed in another country.

Later, as he lay in his narrow, tumorous bed at the Royal Court, he could not remember what he had been thinking for that hour. What had passed through his mind as he stared across the water? What were his thoughts as he gazed at the moonlight on the willows? He could not remember. He remembered Lorca’s trembling shoulders and her broken tooth. He remembered her harsh voice and her unshed tears.

Victor switched on his ceiling light, tugging on a length of string he had rigged above his bed for the purpose. He reached under his mattress and extracted from among the bedsprings a wristwatch. It was a Bulova heavy with features he did not understand, dials within dials. He read the inscription on the back: To M. from J.

He switched off the light.

The watch dial glowed in the dark.

“I am sorry.”

The loudness of his own voice startled him.

“I am sorry,” he repeated more softly.

The dial glowed as if he held a part of Lorca’s life throbbing in his hand. Maybe it would be all right to call the Vieras, an inner voice suggested. Nothing wrong with that. Just to see what they’re up to, he told himself.

Just to see how she’s doing.

TWENTY

Victor stopped by Mike Viera’s office unannounced. He was surprised to see Lorca sitting behind the receptionist’s desk. She was busy on the phone, and Viera’s door was closed. Victor sat in the tiny waiting area and watched her over top of a Sports Illustrated. She was arranging a meeting between Viera and another attorney, speaking quietly into the phone. Instead of her usual faded jeans and work shirt, she was dressed in a neatly pressed blouse and skirt. Except for the chipped tooth, she looked like any other professional New Yorker. Should I ask her now, he wondered? Or is it too soon?

“The Frisbee champion,” she said when she hung up. “How are you?”

“I am very well, Miss Viera. How are you?”

She shrugged. “My brother has chosen to enslave me.”

“You look like you’ve been doing this all your life. Very professional.”

Before he could say anything more, the office door swung open and a woman came out. She was perhaps thirty, with heavy eyebrows that gave her a sad appearance. Her complexion was pebbled from burnt-out acne. She said to Lorca, “I have to see him again next week. I have to bring my mother.”

Lorca reached for a calendar. Mike Viera waved for Victor to enter.

“Come in! Come in, Ignacio! What a pleasant surprise,” he said, shutting the door behind them. “I wanted to ask you to come to dinner next week. I was afraid after Lorca’s distressing episode in the park we would never see you again.” He gestured for Victor to sit on the couch.

“I enjoyed our picnic,” Victor said. “It was a wonderful afternoon.”

“So you’ll come for dinner on Saturday?”

“I would like to, very much.”

“Good. It’s settled. Eight o’clock.”

“Eight o’clock, Saturday.” Yes, he thought. I should ask her now.

Victor sat down on the vinyl sofa, and a stack of files slid to the floor. He knelt and tried to balance the files into a loose pile against the wall.

“Leave them, Ignacio. It’s nothing. Tell me how you like my new receptionist. The old one called in sick too often.”

“It looks like you have a perfect arrangement now.”

Viera emptied a full ashtray into the wastebasket and lit himself a cigarette. He took a drag and contemplated the stream of smoke as he exhaled. “ To be honest, I am already a little regretting my decision to hire Lorca. She scares the clients, I think.” Viera stared up at the ceiling, as if debating whether he should go on.

“But she looked like she was doing very well to me.”

“Today is a good day. Three days ago it was a different story. At home, maybe nine o’clock, I go to ask her something and I can’t find her anywhere. I look in the basement, I look in the garage, even in the crawl space above the garage. Finally, you know where I found her? Under the bed. She was hiding under her bed, shaking like a leaf. Some boys had been letting off firecrackers on the street.”

“At the little school, the first thing they do is destroy your nerves. Stop you sleeping. Scream at you all the time. It makes the interrogation worse.”

“It makes life worse.”

“They frighten me also, firecrackers. It sounds like the war.”

There was a silence. Viera stubbed out his cigarette. “My sister used to call me a coward. You too must think I’m a coward for running away from that war.”

“I am no judge of cowards. Only a madman would run to that war.”

“Hah! You are a subversive, Ignacio.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

Viera sighed and swivelled to look at the hideous view of Seventh Avenue behind him. “Lorca has told me very little of what they did to her at the little school, but I am not blind. Did you notice the scars on her arms? And that tooth? You know some stinking guard punched her in the face? That’s how that tooth was broken. Can you imagine, Ignacio? Can you imagine yourself ever, under any circumstances, punching a woman in the face?”

No, he wanted to scream. But I was terrified. They would have killed me.

“I am not a violent man, but if I had before me the man who did this to my sister, I would kill him.”

“I would not blame you.” Suddenly Victor needed to be anywhere but this office.

“School. What an obscenity, to call that place a school.” Viera swivelled back to face him again. “Well, I don’t have to tell you. They must have done terrible things to you also in that place.”

Victor got up and in his nervousness managed to knock another stack of files to the floor. “I had better get back to work before I destroy your entire place. And someone has to make chocolate mousse for the rich, no?”

“Wait. Please, Ignacio. I’m trying to find ….” Viera was shuffling through papers on his desk, lifting up files, clipboard, legal pads. “Here it is.” He snatched up a creased yellow brochure and thrust it across the desk. “Have you ever heard of this place?”

Victor read the front of the brochure. You are not alone, it said. If you have been abducted, detained, physically maltreated, or tortured, the Torture Victims Association can help you.

Viera said, “I finally talked Lorca into going. She practically spit in my face the first time I suggested it. ‘A bunch of crybabies,’ she called it. But you know, even after only a few meetings, it seems to be doing her a lot of good.”

“She talks to these people?”

“They are victims, the same as her. Same as you. People who were jailed and beaten and God knows what. It does them good to talk, I believe. To know they are not alone. And Lorca has decided she likes very much the man who runs the place. Bob, I think his name is. Bob something.”