Blood Lake (46 page)

Cut to Canino, responding: “Yes!
Compatriotas!
I am capable of sitting down at the table with
Meester
Bush, or any other
meester
for that matter! But when we sit down to eat with
Meester
Bush, it won't be at any china-plate White House banquet, it will be with a steaming plate of
guatita
, because we are
nacionalistas, señor
!”

What is it with Canino and
guatita
?

Since the power's on and the streets are calm, I suggest that we go to the Teatro Sucre, which is playing
The Color Purple
(movies take a while to reach Cuenca). Stan has never been to a movie here, hee hee. I make him jump into the fray and buy the tickets.

It turns out to be a porno film using the same title.

We only stay for twenty minutes.

It's not all random.

There was always something about those pamphlets. The slogans were so standard and repetitive as to be almost meaningless. Some tactics were staged.

There
is
a pattern.

So far, mayhem has followed me everywhere I go. And who's been to all those places besides me? Putamayo. I'm beginning to pick up that he's a complete fake. The man who never was. He's probably some rail-thin ASN agent with a glued-on beard, flat-lensed glasses, and a pillow strapped to his waist. He's a distraction to dangle in front of me and make me look the other way. The wrong way.

Well, maybe it's time I started actively seeking mayhem, looking for signs, patterns, similarities, body types.

I watch the sun come up over the low clouds, and wait for the day to begin shortly. These mountain folk get up at daybreak.

But soon the pleasure of hot cocoa is curdled by the bitter pain of reading Putamayo's inevitable article dishing out the following lies about Canino's rally: “Two hundred drunken, paid-for Neoliberal Party supporters armed with machine guns attacked the peaceful crowd, and the police had to intervene to protect the people of Cuenca.”

Batting second, Canino's VP candidate Benito Degollar says, “The Neoliberals' counterdemonstration was prepared well in advance with the sole purpose of disrupting the democratic process. When Segundo challenged them, he was attacked. They also assaulted my wife, and when I went to help her I saw my daughter being assaulted as well.” I'd like to ask him how that was possible, since he and his wife were busy piling into a van while the “counterdemonstrators” were being dispersed by riot police on the other side of the plaza.

I'd also like to know how potatoes transmuted into machine guns.

But that's magical realism for you.

“Are you kosher?” asks Jaime in accented English as Stan takes a bite of
quesadilla
bread.

“When they declare shrimp and lobster kosher, I'll think about going kosher,” Stan says.

“Now, what do you know about this guy?” I poke Putamayo's byline with my finger.

“He must be halfway to Macas by now. They say he's got a hot lead connecting the
padre
's murder to the Black Condor Brigade.” Jaime reaches into his bag and flicks a sheaf of newsprint at me. A special late edition of
El Despacho
glides onto the table. There's an old photo of Johnny on the front page.

I think the blood drains from my face, because Stan says, “Filomena? Are you okay? Your hands are cold.”

I can't hide it from him. You'd think I'd get used to it already, but there's no way to control it and the next thing I know he's hugging me close and whispering, “Filomena, what's wrong?”

“I'm angry and frustrated,” I say.

“No, you turn red when you're angry and your pulse quickens. This is—”

“Why did I ever start dating a doctor?”

“So you could learn some good Yiddish curses in case you're ever assaulted by a Hasid.”

I laugh nervously, trying to shrug it off. “Yeah, and someday I'm going to have to introduce the word
schmuck
to Ecuador.”

He cradles me in his loving arms. Ah, just one more day with Stan. Then I've got to get back on track.

We walk up the central arteries of the city, passing by the cathedral on our way to the warehouses and repairs shops of Lucho and Marianita's neighborhood. Students are already gathering in the center for this afternoon's protests.

When we get there, Lucho's got the TV on. With the sucre at 23,000 to the dollar and rising, President Pajizo is trying to entertain us with the following joke: “The Ecuadorian has to learn how to spend money, or else the only thing he'll do with it is indulge his vices. So for social morality, for the future of the race, we have to keep wages low.”

Klunk
.
Oy vey
, that one bombed in New Haven, too.

“
Puchica
,” says Marianita. The mildest curse in the book. “I need a cup of flour.”

I tell her not to worry, I'll go get her a five-pound bag.

“Be careful.”

“Yeah,
preso por mil, preso por mil quinientos
,” says Lucho, quoting an Ecuadorian maxim reflecting our cynical belief that if there's room in the jail for one thousand people, there's room for fifteen hundred.

Stan wants to go with me, but I tell him to stay here. He's seen enough of my country disgracing itself.

But he takes me aside, and says, “Filomena. My grandparents had to worry about death striking them at any moment—from infectious diseases, tsarist policemen, hunger, pogroms—and all I have to worry about is remembering to take out the garbage on Mondays and Thursdays. So I honestly don't know if I'm ready to deal with all this. But I want you to know that if it comes down to it, I would seriously consider walking through fire for you.”

“Jesus, Stan. I'm just going out to get some flour.”

But he won't let go of my hand until I give him a seriously tight hug.

“Besides, honey, I've already walked through fire. Remember?”

“Yes,” he says.

I tell him I'll try to be back before the rioting starts.

It's not that easy.

First, there's no flour. So I have to hunt for a place that's willing to haggle for a pound of flour in a plain brown wrapper. Then I remember my plan to actively seek out mayhem. The protests in the central square should do nicely. And sure enough, when I get there, the students have already started ripping up cobblestones and dousing tires with gasoline at all the principal intersections. Every one of the participants seems to have come prepared with motorcycle helmets, and bandanas around their necks, ready to transform them into breathing masks at a moment's notice.

I withdraw to a safe vantage point down a side street. Bankers are hurriedly trying to close up shop for the day before the tear gas starts to fly.

The police don't waste any time as the quaint, wedding-cake-white colonial facades of Cuenca are blackened by the thick, skunky carcinogenic smoke of burning rubber. And the old plaster walls shake as the police drive two lumbering antiriot tanks through the streets, a brand-new gleaming one and a battle-scarred hulk that inspires far more dread with its toothless grimace than the faster, sleeker model.

There's no one else left on the side street, except for an old lady and a pregnant woman who are obviously not part of the protest, just too slow to get out of the way. You'll never guess what happens next. The goddamn police tank stops at the corner, swivels its dented turret around and fires a tear gas canister right at the two helpless women.

Tear gas explodes around them, and the pregnant woman is enveloped by the suffocating fumes. I rush over to support her and pound on the door of the nearest house. An Indian servant woman opens the door and lets us in.

“Five months in the womb, and the police have already gassed her,” says the pregnant woman, holding her abdomen.

Our impromptu hosts serve us tea with lemon, crackers, and cheese. Good old Ecuador, dispensing South American hospitality in the middle of an antigovernment riot. After a while, I check on what's happening out in the street, hoping to recognize signs, patterns, and body types. The central square has settled into a stalemate. The students are congregated at the southwest corner of the park under the protective pillars of the cathedral, while the police are gathered at the northeast corner, firing off gas grenades and placing bets on who can knock the head off a statue of a long-haired Apostle from this distance.

I'd tell you what time this is all happening, but the big street-clock was smashed several hours ago.

Then I see a distinct shape scurrying across the square, crouching low: It's Peter Connery, taking action shots of the student protesters with a 35mm camera. How on earth did he end up here? Last time I saw him, he was headed up the Río Daule to keep a date with the North Guayas Militia.

But as I'm watching, a protester grabs him and throws him against a stone pillar. A big, scruffy student smacks Peter in the head and tries to take away his camera. Four more of them gang up on him, punching and kicking.

I wouldn't necessarily do it for a simple beating, but Peter is still fragile from the hit-and-run, and they just might kill him.

“Jesus—!'

“Don't—!”

“
Señora
—!”

But I'm already halfway across the square, closing the distance, flying furiously into the gang of cowards, telling them to save their anger for the police.

“Fucking CIA—!”

“CIA agent—!”

“He's not—!”

“Fucking taking pictures of us—!”

“I know him!”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Leave him alone!”

“Fuck you—!”

“Shit—!”

“The tanks are coming back—!

“Exploiters of the people—!”

They smash his camera against the brick wall, and retreat.

“You let them get the camera!” wails Peter.

“You're welcome.”

“You were supposed to contact me.” His scars are healing, but he's still red and raw in the spots where the skin was nearly torn off his face.

“I got sidetracked.”

“Putamayo's gonna blow the whole thing any day now and you got sidetracked? He's still in Cuenca, right?”

“I've heard he's heading for Macas.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing here—?”

“Look, this isn't a very good time. Can we talk later?”

Peter checks his watch. “Sure. Meet me at the Teatro
Sucre,” he says. “We can talk in the dark. They're showing
The Color Purple
at eight o'clock.”

“I've seen it already—”

But he dashes away through the arches before I can say anything else, slapping the flagstones with flying feet. I quickly get myself under the protective pillars of the cathedral. A few of the more daring students run out into the street, throw rocks at the nice new police tank, and run back. The next thing I know there is the unmistakable
pop!
of a bottle breaking and the front of the tank ignites in bright orange flames. Someone has scored a direct hit with a Molotov. The flames are superficial and soon wither, but it's enough to get the gunnery crew to throw the tank into gear and start bearing down on us.

Fleet-footed streams of students nearly knock me down trying to run away. I stay flat against a pillar and wait for the tank to pass so I can run the other way and head for home already. Then two students on either side of me and near enough to singe my hair light up twin Molotov cocktails, and I revise my plans, jumping out into the street and crossing directly in front of the moving tank to the edge of the park, thinking if only I had Peter's camera it'd be a Pulitzer Prize– winning shot for sure if one of these guys goes up in flames.

I stay low enough to chew on the grass, wrap my scarf around my nose and mouth, and get ready to pounce.

But the tank stops right in front of us, cops are swarming through the park, and the guys lose their nerve. Damn! I could have used the diversion. Thick white clouds of gas are wafting into the cathedral, everyone's eyes are tearing, and the two guys stand there holding lit Molotovs while a third
compañero
is advising them, “Put them out, put them out,” which they manage to do, blowing my Pulitzer but saving their own lives, which is something.