Private House (25 page)

“Almado
has
killed, I'm sure of it. And it's all my fault.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Lorraine. Don't be so Christian, if you'll permit me to say that. You are responsible for Hugo and Almado coming together. But that's all. You should blame Murray, if you're going to blame anyone. He got you all into it. And he was the one— if you look at it from Almado's point of view—who put the idea into his head. He held out the temptation.”

Lorraine pushed her drink away. “You're quite right. I'm feeling sorry for myself, and that's not being Christian
at all
.” She smiled. “You're right about Murray, as a matter of fact. Did I tell you? I don't remember. But he was going to sponsor Almado as an immigrant and bring him into the country.”

“Yes. You told me. That's what I mean. And that makes it more plausible, I must say. It was already a plan. He is just carrying it out in a different way.”

“I was thinking that, too. You see, the money is only a bonus. Of course he'd like it. But that's not really what he's after.”

“All right, but the question is, what do you do? Do you want to go to the police?”

“I don't know. It's seems too much—too much for
me
, anyway. How could the police check? I thought of going to the embassy, but how could
they
check? Where does Almado live? I don't even know that. Besides . . .”

Lorraine's doubt hung in the air for a moment, and then Mathilde said, “Yes, what if you're wrong?”

Now the barman brought Mathilde her drink, and she put her hand around the cold, smooth glass; when the barman went away, she repeated, “That's it, isn't it. What if you're wrong?”

Lorraine nodded. “I suppose I worry about that because I'm also suspicious of my motives. Tonight, in the restaurant, I was thinking to myself, he's a pervert—I'm so angry. What a word! But maybe it is what I feel.”

“Don't be silly. He's a creep—that has nothing to do with sex. He's a thief, I'm sure of that.”

“I wonder what Adamaris thinks of him.”

“I noticed that too—she thought
something
, certainly. They are rivals in
jinterismo
, as they call it . . . ‘riding the tourists.' In some ways, they are the same, after all. They are both out for what they can get . . . all they can get.”

“Because they have nothing themselves. You can't forget that.”

“But now you're making excuses. Look—what can you do? Go to the police. This makes all kinds of difficulties and probably doesn't accomplish very much. You can simply do nothing. Why not? You're not required to do anything . . . except give him the money. So do that.”

“But that's awful. I can't bear that.”

“What do you care about the money?”

“Well—”

“So why make a point of it? But forget that. What about this: tomorrow, we will all look for Hugo, me and you and Bailey— his Spanish is good enough, whatever he says. We'll go to Hugo's place—you say you know where it is. We'll see what we can find. Perhaps he'll turn up, you never know. At least we may be able to prove that he truly is missing.”

Lorraine looked at her and smiled. “You shouldn't say this, Mathilde. Tomorrow is your last day. You want to be with Bailey.”

“It won't take
all
day. And it will settle your conscience, at least. And mine—I admit that. I don't know what's happened, but I agree with you, there's something wrong with Almado. And I don't just mean he's a thief. It
could
have happened—what you say.”

Before Lorraine could reply to this, there was an interruption: Mathilde's cell phone began to ring, inside her bag. It took her a second to think what it was, but then she dug it out and answered, “Hello?”

“This is Adamaris. I am speaking to you from a public telephone.”

“Yes?”

“Are you there?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

“I am—”

“Just a minute.” Mathilde held the phone to her breast and said to Lorraine, “It's Bailey, saying good night.” She got up from the table and moved a little away. But she turned her back and kept her voice low. “Go on,” she said.

“I walked with Almado . . . you remember? From La Guarida—”

“Yes, we could not understand why.”

“I will tell you. I know you don't like him and I was sure, somewhere, I had seen him and the way he talked as we went together, in Spanish you see . . . It was strange. I thought, He is not Cuban, he is Colombian.” Something about this syllable,
Col
, as in Coca-
Col
a seemed perfectly adapted to her mouth, allowing it total expression.

“Colombian?”

“I must not say that. But I thought, He is not Cuban. I knew something was going on. You understand? He left me in Centro, he didn't want me to come with him, but I followed. He walked to the Malecón, very far. He found a boy, a black, and picked him up. They are in a coco taxi. I was close enough to hear them and he told the driver, Aguacate and San Isidro, which is in Belén. I thought you would like to know this.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Mathilde thought a second. “Aguacate and San Isidro?”

“Yes. Is it all right that I called?”

“Yes. Thank you. Call me tomorrow.”

Mathilde pressed the hang-up key and turned back to Lorraine. “I should go.”

Lorraine smiled. “I think you should, too.”

“But we've agreed, about tomorrow?”

“All right. If you're sure.”

“I'm sure. And you should go to bed. You must promise me.”

“I promise.”

With that, Mathilde gathered her things, gave Lorraine a kiss, and walked straight down the steps from the lobby and left the hotel.

It was pitch black outside, or very near. A young man walked down Armagura Street, watched by the bored policeman.
He vanished. Mathilde turned the other way, down San Ignacio; but only as far as the cross street with the water tank. Even in the dark, it stank, but perhaps the street was less muddy. Despite the hour, people were still hanging about. Three women in their nightdresses, their hair up in curlers, were talking together by the fence on one side of the road, while a fourth, a cigarette dangling from her lower lip, filled her bucket, resting her foot on the tap as the water ran in. And the bicycle taxi was where it often was, up against the fence, but the driver was nowhere in sight. Small boys were playing marbles in the centre of the road; they were no more than nine or ten—up late on Saturday night— but an older boy, tall, in flip-flops, floral shorts and an orange basketball shirt was standing to one side, watching. Mathilde got a peso from her bag and went over to him. “Where is the man who runs the taxi?”

He looked uncomprehending, then shrugged. “Asleep.” He shook his head. “Over.”

“Fifty pesos—tell him.” And she flipped the coin in the air. “For you, if you find him.”

His eyes went wide. “Fifty pesos. . . . Where in the taxi?”

“Aguacate and San Isidro. Tell him. But hurry.”

He took two steps away, and then turned, sliding another step. “Wait,” he said. And then he went over to the women talking by the fence. He said something to them and they glanced at Mathilde, and the woman by the tank looked her way too, and took her cigarette out of her mouth and called something to the others. Mathilde watched; the boy seemed to be arguing. And then he himself went to the bike, and pushed it around, away from the fence, into the street. A short, dumpy woman now detached herself from the others and came toward her, wiping her hands on her
sides. She had a dark face, her small features crumpled into her fleshiness.
“Señora,”
she said.

“Buenas noches.”

She smiled then. “
Sí
. . . . Fifty pesos?” When Mathilde nodded, she held out her hand, and nodded her head to the boy behind her. “He take you.”

Mathilde hesitated. She didn't exactly distrust the woman—still: she took fifty pesos, in ten-peso notes, out of her bag . . . and counted two into the woman's hand. She held up the others. “When I am there.”

The woman didn't like this; her features contracted until she looked like an angry pug. Yet she said nothing; only turned and spoke sharply to the young man, who brought the bicycle taxi around. Mathilde didn't look at the woman: she got into the taxi, which was like a rickshaw, and the boy said, “Okay?” and then he said something to the dumpy woman and started heaving at the pedals, and then stood up on them. They rolled ahead.

Mathilde sat upright, her hands pressed over her bag on her lap. Away from the intersection, where there'd been a little light, it was very dark. It was a strange, clear dark, not murky, but like black water, transparent but impenetrable, so that glimpses of faces and figures flashed like reflections: quick, bright, and then gone. She was blinkered, in any case, by the hood that arched over her, and so jolted and jarred that everything was jumping around. The boy, bent over, laboured. And Mathilde found herself leaning forward as well, urging him on. Sweat glistened like dew in his hair, and on the back of his neck. He panted and gasped. His arms, bent and tensed, gripped the wheel. She smelled him. Yet she didn't turn her head away, for he became the scent of the night, flowing past her. She closed her eyes. She felt her hot cheeks, as the breeze cooled them. And then she was looking at the curve of his back, and she had a
sudden desire to reach under the filmy cloth of his shirt and run her hands up, over the smooth skin and hard muscle. He had revived her desire, it filled her again, yet it was not desire for him, or even for Bailey, but the heightening of all her feeling, so that she was now joined to the night, and became one of its creatures. Now she did not feel afraid. She leaned forward, the curve of her body making a parallel to him. And then she leaned back, remembering that she had a small flashlight in her bag; she took it out and pressed it on. She leaned forward again, and with her left hand touched the boy's left shoulder, her fingers curling over it and squeezing. He turned his head around. She pointed the light up, not to get it into his eyes, flashing it around the inside of the hood, and he nodded,
“Sí, sí,”
and let go of the handlebars with his right hand and reached back to take it: but that was impossible, they hit a bump and swerved; he had to get his eyes back on the road; and so Mathilde leaned forward as far as she could, right over his body, reaching up and pointing the light.
“Gracias! gracias!”
This was hissed under the violence of his breath, a violence that only increased her excitement. The night was so pure and huge. The light tore it into bright strips, the glint of rocks in the road, of water in a hole, a black man sitting with a bottle in a doorway with his feet stretched out on the sidewalk. But finally the boy was easing up, sitting back, even taking one hand off the handlebar and rubbing the top of his thigh. He turned around. “Here?”

“What is this?”

He pointed down. “San Isidro . . .” And then he pointed away. “Give me,” he said, and held out his hand for the light. “Aguacate.” He pointed the light around, flashing up the side of a building to find a street sign but he couldn't; so he said, “Aguacate,” again. He stopped then, his feet sliding off the pedals and touching the road.

Mathilde got down. Her face was flushed and her whole body was humming, flowing into her mind. She gave the boy the money. “You come back?” he said.

“No. You should go.”

“You don't come back?”

“Go, go.”

She waved him away: with him, she felt very conspicuous—though there seemed to be no one about. The boy pushed the bicycle around, and gave her one quick look and then pedalled away, along San Isidro: the street ended at the Malecón, or what the Malecón became as it curved around the harbour. She watched him, thinking that it was probably the easiest way to go back. And then he was gone in the dark. But Almado might come the same way; he might already have done so. How long had it taken from the hotel? How long might it take from the Malecón? But she wasn't sure, she didn't know the streets well enough, and there was nothing to do but wait and see. She stepped back, against a wall. What a slum. She thought of Paris: the apartments they jammed the Africans into, that burned down and made a scandal. There was a door down there that led inside but there was no light, no sound. Well, it was late. Even for here. Not so late, though. She could hear cars passing, there was a big street just behind her, and one ahead, she forgot what it was called, another big old ruined street. She was still holding the light in her hand but she didn't turn it on. She didn't need to. Maybe her eyes were used to the dark or she was turning into a cat because she could see very well. In this strange dark, people were ghosts, shadowy, grey. A man passed on the far side of the street; he didn't look her way, but what would he think if he had? She wondered if they had streetwalkers here, but they didn't seem to work like that, though that's what she looked like,
standing near a corner, waiting for a man. Yet she didn't have to wait long; abruptly—but at first rather faintly—she heard the rough, high-pitched buzz of a scooter . . . it must have suddenly turned in her direction . . . and then its odd carapace appeared, weaving down the street, its tiny headlight sweeping across the wall of the building behind her, but so feebly that even if it had fallen on her directly she would still not have been seen. It pulled in. The engine sputtered, then idled shakily. Dust rose in the beam of the headlamp: it was hard to see through it. Someone got out, shadowy and shapeless. But as the driver of the scooter gave the engine two quick bursts of gas, and wheeled away, the swinging light flashed across a young black man, his head turned slightly back, his eyes wide and bright; and the larger shadow beside him, shrinking into the dark as the taxi disappeared, resolved itself. Almado, she thought. The whine of the taxi's engine vanished. The street fell silent. The shoes of the men scuffed in the empty dark. They were walking toward her, then past her, on the opposite side of the street. The street was so narrow. Mathilde felt her shoulders tense. She dared not move. She had to let them get well ahead. And then they disappeared into a patch of deeper blackness. She started after them, hurrying, and spotted them again: fell in. But two minutes later, they were gone.