“There's a place just across the plaza. It will calm you,” he says.
Aida looks towards Sylvie, Benoît and Ralph, who have just been accosted by a reporter. Benoît immediately starts in about his son, but the reporter tries to steer the tape recorder towards the other two, eventually gluing it to Ralph's nose. “They'll want to interview you next,” Carlos says, taking Aida gently by the arm. “Come.”
He leads her through the crowd and around the far side of the plaza. “There are so many people,” Aida says as they go, feeling like she has to fill the quiet between her and this near stranger. But it's also true. She and the other families were amazed, on arriving, to see that the crowd is at least twice as big as yesterday. Aida assumed the opposite would happen, that reading Danielle's stories about the kidnapper in the newspaper would turn people against “Enrique.” He's a murderer, isn't he?
At the first side street Carlos veers right, and she follows without much thought. Normally, Aida analyzes her options in great detail before coming to a decision. Or she lets André make one for her. But the analytic rules of home have stopped making so much sense. She's on some kind of adventure, almost like she's left her normal self behind in Toronto and become someone else since reading Danielle's letters.
They make several more quick turns and end up in an uncharacteristically quiet lane where only foot traffic can pass, and where the vendors gathered on the sidewalks are less aggressive. “Here we are,” says Carlos, as they enter through a tall, colonial-style doorway. Inside, it might be the
1950
s. High old windows let in the sun, which lands in diffuse streaks over a dark wood counter that runs the length of the narrow café. Below a mishmash of framed photos and artwork, two baristas with mustaches and short-sleeved white shirts slam grounds out of hand cranks while their espresso machines steam and sputter. It smells like roasted beans and cigarettes and Aida is transported back to Havana. She's shocked to find anything like it in El Salvador, which, outside the central plaza, seems to be populated by greasy food stands and chain stores.
“
Lindo,
” she says, amazed, walking along the bar. She gets smiles from the mostly older, male clientele, their newspapers laid out ahead of them. Aida wonders if anyone will recognize her from the photos that have appeared in the press.
Carlos is gracious. He chooses seats at the bar and orders two coffees, pulling a napkin from a dispenser for her. He tugs at his cufflinks several times, alternating left and right, looking straight ahead at nothing in particular. Aida wonders why he's brought her here if not for the reasons Marta has implied â for his career, or because he thinks she's young and stupid enough to sleep with any middle-aged man who shows her some attention.
The barista brings their order.
“You speak good Spanish,” Carlos says to her, sliding a cup her way.
“My grandparents lived in Central America. They wanted me to learn.” Aida enjoys invoking her grandparents.
“You're from a close family.”
“Close to them, yes. They're gone now.”
“I'm sorry.”
Aida doesn't like the loaded pause that follows. “I have three languages, actually. French too. In Canada, the French is nothing special. Mine's not as good as it should be if I'm going to live in Europe.”
“You live in Europe?”
“No no.” Aida decides to switch to Spanish. She's eager, suddenly, to show off her skills. “Not yet. I'm likely to move to France soon.”
“Ah! A very special country.”
“You've been?”
“Of course. France, Spain, North Africa. I've travelled a lot â less now.” He smiles. “I hate to fly.”
Aida is puzzled. She can't see how a guerrilla who lived in the mountains during a long war, as Marta says Carlos did, could be so cosmopolitan. When did he do all this travelling? She continues to struggle with the concept of what a “guerrilla” was. Carlos and Pedro, Marta's driver, are such opposites, yet supposedly they fulfilled similar functions in the war. Aida has nothing to help her judge their sameness or difference. Could Carlos be making up it up? She gives him a look that says she's impressed, while retaining a private doubt.
“So. Have any of you had any problems yet â with the police, for example? Or your embassy? From anyone?”
Aida, who's sipping her coffee, stops abruptly.
“Marta has spoken to you about me,” Carlos says, resting his face on one palm, like Marta's cautionary tales tire him out. “She has told you to distrust me.”
Aida blushes. She doesn't want Carlos to think she adopts Marta's views wholesale. But how can she ignore the warnings? Why does Carlos care about her embassy? It's becoming more difficult by the minute to know what to believe. Aida becomes flustered trying to decide what to say. “She just told us it would be good for your election plans to get us on your side.”
Carlos looks her square in the face. Above them, the clock strikes
1 PM
. The demonstration is starting. The others will be worried.
“Marta doesn't believe in what our new political party is trying to do.” Carlos's face has changed. Something hard has come into his eyes. “But we are not looking to sell El Salvador out. I am not looking to sell you out.”
“I'm not that interested in politics, actually.”
He seems relieved to hear her say this, and Aida relaxes. She's already decided that Marta's preoccupation with this man's agenda is just another version of Neela's tirades against the corporate world. Marta might even be worse. She's paranoid, especially about the police. She literally scoffed when she heard that Hernández and the anti-kidnapping unit got the delegation's bus driver to confess to being involved in the abduction. Like that's so meaningless. And this morning Marta barely glanced at the police sketch in the newspapers showing the woman whom the driver claims hired him to betray Danielle and her group. For Aida, these developments are the only signs of hope so far. Marta was far more interested in Danielle's stories in the newspaper. “In these situations, the person will use whatever they can to get their message out,” she said, hugging Aida. Marta is all about the message.
The conversation shifts to Aida's
MBA
, then to which global markets are predicted to grow in the near future. The coffee is delicious and comes with a small cookie that Aida enjoys. Odd for her, as she rarely permits herself sweets. She's having a good time, she realizes. Her first really good time since arriving in El Salvador â maybe longer. She can practically forget the worry she's causing the others, or even, for a minute, that her mother is being held against her will somewhere within these borders.
“Our party sees the Central American republics as a lesson in unrealized economic potential, especially El Salvador,” says Carlos, referring to Aida's claim that the European Union is a model for growth and integration. Aida isn't sure why, but she hasn't mentioned André as part of her possible future there.
“But this country is so small. It seems like it doesn't have what it would take to compete these days,” she says. “There are so many producers geared towards agricultural export â what would its niche be?”
Carlos smiles wearily. “The World Bank talks a lot about niches, doesn't it? With good reason, I suppose. But growth is much more complicated than that in countries on the isthmus. Not every place can follow the same formula.”
Aida is annoyed, suddenly. “I haven't studied Latin America specifically. That's not my purpose in being here.” It's like Carlos thinks she's too immature to try her on specifics. He can't know how hard it is to even be admitted to an
MBA
these days, let alone finish. She dabs her mouth and refolds her napkin in her lap.
“Of course,” says Carlos. “You're here for your mother.”
“For her and for myself.”
“
Cierto. Cierto,
” he says, reassuringly.
But Carlos doesn't probe into what Aida is getting from the trip. Part of her wishes he would. She's had so few people to tell, to help her decide whether she might also be experiencing a period of growth.
“I was sorry to read that whoever has done this forced your mother into writing those terrible articles.” Carlos goes on, his voice concerned. “It is not her fault, you know.”
Aida nods, but her alarm bells are going off again: Carlos seems to know exactly what she needs to hear. Reading the second story by Danielle really was awful. And not just because of the possibility of being rejected by the other families. The reports are giving Aida vertigo. Her emotions, which formed such a tight ball in Toronto, are becoming brittle, snapping regularly and painfully now. One moment she's raging against Danielle for helping the kidnappers. The next she despises “Enrique,” convinced that every word of the articles is made up. That feeling is nearly always followed by intense foreboding: there's just today and tomorrow, after all, before Enrique has promised to kill a hostage if Mil Sueños doesn't close. He could easily decide that Danielle knows too much, that she will be the first to die. The prospect that Danielle truly hasn't had a choice about whether to write for him lifts Aida's spirits so much she suspects Carlos of trying to manipulate her. “Why do you even care about this case at all?” she asks, and she's surprised to hear in her voice some of the bitterness she's accustomed to experiencing around Danielle. She sips her coffee and feels childish. Down the way, one of the baristas lines up several tall glasses, pours foamed milk into them, drops smaller amounts of dark espresso into the middles, and takes them to three men at a small table near the doorway.
“I am interested â” Carlos begins, but he hesitates, as if he's waiting for an answer to come to him, “â for my work. As I've told you. Despite what Marta thinks, I have not decided to become a candidate for office yet. I still have a job monitoring the police. How they respond to a kidnapping with foreign hostages is directly relevant to my mandate.”
Aida listens as Carlos describes the particulars of the
Consejo Policial,
which he helped establish after the war. He doesn't go any further back in time than that, which only makes Aida more curious. Who was Carlos before? Marta said El Salvador owes him a debt. For what? What kind of soldier was he? Did the person sitting across from her actually kill people? What kind of people? Aida doesn't dare ask. “Do you have kids?” she says instead.
Carlos looks startled, like the question is off-putting. “I â yes. I have five. All grown now.” Grown. Like her, he means. In this man's eyes, she is a child playing dress-up. Aida straightens her shirt and without quite meaning to, stands and puts her napkin on the bar. “I have to get back,” she says, feeling rattled and, ridiculously, jealous of these children of a man who's made so much of his life. She is also ashamed, suddenly, of her suspicions of Carlos, realizing they have more to do with the vacuum of knowledge surrounding the man Danielle mentioned in her letters to Neela: Adrian. Aida is eager to return to Ralph, Sylvie and Benoît, to get back to her old self, to her role as the daughter of a hostage. She says her goodbyes.
“
SÃ, sÃ, sÃ,
” says Carlos, confused. He passes some money to the barista and hurries out after her, insisting on accompanying her back. On the way, he stops to speak to the most senior-looking policeman in sight, pulling him aside and making a show, Aida thinks, of speaking to him. She assumes Carlos is telling him to avoid any problems with the families. It's a bit much. Maybe the others are right to avoid someone who performs helpfulness so often for others.
Then, just as they're parting, Aida changes her mind. She is sorry to leave him and feels herself reach out for a hug. Carlos hugs her back. The moment is exciting, surprisingly emotional. But it's brief. Looking up, Aida spots Marta on the top of the cathedral steps, glaring at her. In the space of mere seconds, her host's face switches from panic to relief to anger. Aida sees Marta signal to Ralph, who is also above the crowd, with Sylvie and Benoît. They all look over and, Aida can see, breathe a collective sigh of relief to find her there, but it's mixed with disapproval. Aida doesn't wave. She says goodbye to Carlos before winding through the crowd towards them.
11:45 PM
. 75 KM south of the Salvadoran-Honduran border
They've been walking five hours when Danielle hears her new favourite sound in the world: Pepe stopping and turning, the regular pace of his footsteps interrupted, becoming noisier, resounding against the rough ground, bringing his boot heels across some pebbles, the whistle of his breath changing, indicating annoyance and clout, coming closer. And then the crackling of brush. This is the beautiful sequence, the signal that they can rest, and the hostages know it as well as they've ever known the sound of a school bell signalling lunchtime, or the scrap of theme song that says the commercials are over and their favourite
TV
show is back. In her excitement to begin the break â tonight they've done their hardest hike yet â Danielle nearly trips over Delmi. “Sorry,” she says.
Delmi turns and shoves her indignantly anyway. Danielle tells herself to let it go. The smaller injustices are not worth her time. But the shove sours the happiest moment of her night.
They all gather in a small group until Cristóbal takes the painfully long, suspicious look around that he always takes, while they stand on their sore legs wanting to collapse. When he gets back he motions for them to move again about twenty feet more, under some trees where there's less moonlight. Even there, Danielle is surprised at how brightly it shines. It reminds her of nights in Algonquin Park, where she lived for a time with an entomologist she thought was the answer to all her problems â he turned out to prefer the company of Ontario's multiple species of beetle. That was her last summer away from Aida. Before Danielle's parents died.