Vengeance: Mystery Writers of America Presents

“Evil men murdered your mother,” the General said. “She was too trusting. She went out in the car when I had warned her —” He broke off, moved in spite of himself. Though there had been threats, she had never understood the hatred against him. Of necessity, he had kept her innocent of his life, and that innocence had killed her. To prevent Alejandro from meeting the same fate, the General had fled to the north, even though his prime impulse had been to seek revenge.

“A lot of people were killed at home,” observed Alejandro.

Well, what had the General expected? There were stories in the Yankee papers, perhaps even in Alejandro’s school lessons, for the General suspected that even St. Ignatius, chosen for its tradition and rigidity, was infected with new and liberal ideas. “Most of them deserved to die,” he said. “The men who murdered your mother — death would have been too good for them.”

“They got away, didn’t they?”

“Things fell apart. We had many enemies. It was me they wanted to kill, because I defended our country.”

He spoke passionately, and as if to console him — for the boy had a tender heart — Alejandro said, “I know. I know you were a great man at home. When I am older, I will study your career. You will be in history books.”

The General was pleased; then it struck him that this was a strange phrase for a boy to use, even a bookish boy. He remembered again that Manuel had told the boy that his father had been a great man at home and that one day Alejandro would understand the sort of man he was. Not if I can help it, thought the General.

Still, he did nothing about the old man’s residence in the garden, which bloomed ever more luxuriantly. I am getting old, thought the General, I am succumbing to nostalgia. He sat out on his terrace smoking and listening to the night sounds and imagining himself back in the capital. Or, and these were moments he both loved and feared, he sat in the darkness with only the torches lit and envisioned the highlands with the moon rising over the jungle trees of Santa Lucia de Piedras, and he saw himself turning toward the interrogation rooms. He’d always liked to work at night. Certain things do not belong with daylight.

Possibly, neither did Manuel. The General avoided the garden during the heat of the day, and even at night, when, courting a confrontation, he walked around the vegetable patch and passed the shed, the old man remained as invisible as if he were a figment of the General’s imagination — or of Alejandro’s.

But the latter idea was disturbing, for why should Alejandro have any knowledge of the villages of the hinterlands, villages he had never seen? Why should he imagine an old man who offered him the promise of seeing the General as he was? No, this was a warning, and the General had just resolved to fire Manuel and make the shed uninhabitable when Alejandro raced inside, crying that his friend had taken ill, that he must have a doctor.

“He is probably just drunk,” said the General, and saw the shock in his son’s eyes. Then there was nothing for it but to go down to the garden and see for himself.

Alejandro ran ahead, his anxiety for Manuel all too apparent. Perhaps the gardener really was sick; perhaps he could be sent to the hospital, or even home. The General gave a tight smile at that and entered the shed. The afternoon light came in over the potting bench, stacked with clean terra-cotta pots and shining trowels and containers of soil, sand, and peat moss.

The old man, very thin, very gray, was lying on a small cot in the shadows. The General saw at once that this was serious. “Get out of here,” he told Alejandro. “It may be contagious.” Then he took out his cell phone and dialed for an ambulance. “We will get you a doctor,” he told the old man in Spanish.

One hand, brown, cracked, and callused, moved on the covers, a gesture of gratitude — or indifference.

“Should we notify someone?”

Again the gesture.

“At home?” In his interest and anxiety, the General leaned closer and whispered, “Where is your village?”

There was a long silence; the dark eyes, dilated by pain, studied his face. The General had almost given up when, in a whisper, his eyes closing, Manuel said, “Santa Lucia de P …”

The General took in a breath and stood up, but the old man had lost consciousness and did not seem to notice his agitation. In a few minutes, emergency medical personnel arrived with their screaming ambulance and carried Manuel out of the garden. When Alejandro pleaded to go with him — young as he was, he understood the necessity of insurance — the General realized that he would have to become involved.

The doctors kept Manuel in the hospital for a week, gave him intravenous fluids and antibiotics, took X-rays and ran expensive blood tests. They cured a variety of small illnesses common to the General’s countrymen, but they could not touch the cancer that was taking his life. At the end of a week, the old man came back — ghostly pale and thin, scarcely capable of walking — and returned to his bed in the shed.

“We will have to send him home,” said the General. “To his own family. A little money too,” he added, to soothe Alejandro. “They will be able to take care of him better there.”

“He has no one,” said Alejandro. “His son is dead.”

“He will have relatives; everyone has relatives.”

But Alejandro shook his head, and knowing Manuel came from that ghost village, Santa Lucia de Piedras, the General did not argue. He wanted to close the discussion; even more, he wanted the gardener gone, and he walked into the garden. When he opened the shed door, he saw at a glance that the old man was dying. What is one more casualty of Santa Lucia de Piedras? the General thought, and considered calling a cab. He could have Manuel at the airport before Alejandro returned. But there were no papers; and after employing Manuel all this time, the General might have trouble with the migra. No, unless he took drastic action, he was stuck with the old man until he died. This knowledge spoiled the garden.

The General began to avoid the terrace in the evenings, and he closed the broad wooden shutters of the windows overlooking the rampant tropical foliage. Alejandro remained faithful. He visited Manuel twice a day, before he went to school and as soon as he returned home on the bus from St. Ignatius. He was forever begging the cook for special broths and bits of meat and even for the bottles of wine that appeared to be Manuel’s preferred painkiller. All this the General saw with dread — and with anger, too, at being reminded of Santa Lucia de Piedras after so many years and in such a manner.

Now it seemed to the General that he had been right from the start, that Manuel’s skill in the garden had returned him to his days of power and command, back to nights in the interrogation rooms, back even further, to a day of sun and blood and the smell of gunpowder and diesel fuel, back to Santa Lucia de Piedras, to what was now beyond explanation. The gardener had no right to awaken these ghosts, and when Alejandro reported that Manuel was feeling a little better and talking about some work in the garden, the General decided to act.

He waited until the boy went to school, but though he checked the garden periodically from his window, he saw no sign of the old man. Perhaps Alejandro had been wrong. Perhaps Manuel was worse; perhaps he was already dead. It was late afternoon before the General saw a thin, white-clad figure with a straw hat moving through the trees.

Manuel was using his machete as a cane, leaning heavily on it and sometimes grasping at branches to stay erect.

The old fool, thought the General. He thinks he can show me that he can still work. He’ll be asking for his pay next. If he’s well enough to work, he’s well enough to be on the first bus south. Whatever it costs will be worthwhile.

In a rush of anger, the General went out onto the terrace and crossed the lawn toward the pool. Manuel’s high cheeks were flushed, and his dilated and unfocused eyes were fathomless. He staggered a little when he saw the General, then straightened up and stared directly at him. In Manuel’s shadowed eyes, the General was surprised to read rage and desperation without the slightest trace of fear. We have both come a long way from Santa Lucia de Piedras, the General thought, and he smelled blood on the hot afternoon breeze.

“How fortunate that you are out of bed,” the General said. “I won’t be needing you in the garden anymore. For Alejandro’s sake, I will make arrangements to send you home.”

“I will never leave you, General,” Manuel said. His voice was low and hoarse, the voice of the rebels and criminals of Santa Lucia de Piedras, the General thought. He had done his duty. They had no right to haunt him.