The Adventurers

EPILOGUE AS A PROLOGUE

It was ten years after the violence in which he died. And his time on this earth was over. The lease he held on this last tiny cubicle of refuge had expired. Now the process would be completed. He would return to the ashes and the dust of the earth from which he had come.

The tropical sun threw waves of white-hot humidity against the black-painted crosses on the white clay cemetery walls as the American journalist got out of his taxi at the rusted iron gates. He gave the driver a five-peso note and turned away before the driver had time to say, "Gracias."

The little flower stalls were already busy. Black-clad women were buying small bunches of flowers, their heavy dark veils seeming to shield them from the heat and the world from their grief. The beggars were also there, the little children with their large dark eyes set in hollow black circles, their bellies swollen with hunger. As he passed they held out their grubby little hands for the coins he negligently dropped into them.

Once through the gate there was silence. It was as if some master switch had turned off the world outside. There was a uniformed man sitting in an open booth. He went over to him.

"Xenos, por favor?"

He thought there was a faint expression of surprise on the man's face as he answered, "Calle seis, apartamiento veinte."

The American journalist turned away smiling. Even in death they clung to the routines of living. The paths were called streets and the buildings within whose walls they rested were apartments. Then he wondered about the surprise on the man's face.

He had been in the lobby of the new hotel, leafing through the local newspapers as he always did whenever he came into a new town, when he found the notice he had been searching for. It was a tiny four lines buried amidst the back pages, almost lost in the welter of other larger notices.

He was walking down a path of elaborate private mausoleums. Idly he observed the names. Ramirez. Santos. Oberon. Lopez. He sensed the chill coming from the white marble despite the heat of the sun. He felt the perspiration damp and cool on his collar.

Now the path had widened. On his left were open fields. There were small graves in them. Small, untended, forgotten. These were the graves of the poor. Thrown into the earth in flimsy wooden caskets, left to disintegrate into nature without care or memory. To his right were the apartados. The tenements of the dead.

They were big buildings with red and gray Spanish tiled roofs, twenty feet high, forty feet wide, eighty feet long, of white cement blocks, three by three, and cheating a little on each side so that more tenants could occupy the walls they filled. Each three-foot square bore the name of its tenant, a small cross above the name etched into the cement and the date of death below.

He looked up at the first building. There was a small metal plate attached to the overhanging sheaf, CALLE 3, APARTA-MIENTO 1. He had a long way to walk. The heat began to pour into him. He loosened his collar and quickened his pace. It was almost the time and he didn't want to be late. At first he thought he had come to the wrong place. There was no one there. Not even the workmen. He checked the metal plate on the building, then the time on his wristwatch. They were both correct. He opened the newspaper to see if he had mistaken the date but that was right too. Then he let out a soft sigh of relief and lit a cigarette. This was Latin America. Time wasn't as exact here as it was at home.

He began to walk slowly around the building, reading the names on the squares. At last he found what he was looking for. Hidden in a shaded corner under the overhang on the southwest corner of the building. An instinct made him throw down his cigarette and remove his hat. He stared up at the inscription.

+

D. A. X.

10 Mayo 1955

He heard a creaking wagon on the cobblestones behind him. He turned toward the sound. It was an open wagon drawn by a tired burro, its ears flat against its head in protest at being forced to labor in the heat. The wagon was driven by a laborer in faded khaki work clothes. Next to him on the seat was a man dressed in a black suit, black hat, and a starched white collar already yellow from the sweat and dust of the day. Beside the wagon walked another laborer, a pickax over his shoulder.

The wagon creaked to a stop and the black-clad man clambered down from his seat. He took out a sheet of white paper from his inside coat pocket, glanced at it, then began to peer along the walls at the nameplates. It wasn't until he came to a stop before him that the journalist realized that they had come to open the vault.

The man gestured and the laborer with the pickax came over and stared up at the cubicle. He muttered something in soft Spanish under his breath and the other laborer wearily climbed down from the wagon, pulling behind him a small ladder made of pieces of wood nailed together. He placed it against the wall and climbed up. He peered closely at the cement-block vault.

"Dax," he said, his voice unnaturally harsh in the muted cemetery.

The director nodded. "Dax," he repeated in a satisfied voice.

The laborer with the pickax nodded also. There was a sound of pleasure in his voice. "Dax." He spat into the dust at his feet.

The laborer on the ladder held out his hand. "El pico."

The other laborer handed the small pickax up to him. With a tight expert blow the man on the ladder sent the pickax smashing into the dead center of the concrete block. It splintered in radiating lines tearing through the chiseled lettering in all directions just as the sun crossed the corner of the overhang. The laborer cursed at the sudden sun and pulled his hat down over his eyes. He slammed the pickax into the cement again. This time the stone broke through and pieces came flying down, rattling against the cobblestones.

The journalist looked at the director. He was watching the laborers but it was evident he wasn't much interested in what they were doing. He seemed bored with the whole thing. It was just another job. He turned as the journalist came up to him.

"Donde estan los otros?" the journalist asked in his hesitant Spanish.

The man shrugged his shoulders. "No estan los otros."

"Pero, en la prensa—" The journalist stopped. He had almost reached the limit of his Spanish. "Habla ingles?"

The director smiled proudly. "Si. Yes," he hissed sibilantly. "At your service."

"I saw the notice in the newspaper," the journalist said with a feeling of relief. "I thought there would be others."

"There are no others," the director said.

"But . . . who placed the notice? Surely there must be someone. He was a very famous man. Muy famoso."

"The office put in the notice. The time has long passed for someone to claim the body. There are others waiting for this space. The city is growing. We are very overcrowded. You can see."

"I can see," the journalist said. He hesitated. "Wasn't there anyone? Family. Or friends. He had many friends."

A veil came across the man's eyes. "The dead are alone."

A muttered cry came from the laborer on the ladder. They turned to look up at him. He had broken through the cement facade and through it could be seen the discolored, termite-ridden wood of the coffin. Now, using the edge of the pickax as a lever, he pried out the remaining pieces of cement from the vault. He lowered the pickax to his assistant and brushed away the final crumbs of cement with his hand. He reached inside the vault and began to pull out the coffin.

The journalist turned back to the director. "What will you do with him now?"

"He will go to the fire," the director answered. "It will be very quick. By now there is nothing left but bones."

"And then?"

The director shrugged. "Since no one has come for him, the ashes will be placed with others in the cart and sent to fill in the land we are reclaiming from the swamp."

The coffin was lying on the narrow strip of cement next to the building. The director walked over and looked down. He brushed his hand over a small metal plate on the cover. He checked the lettering on the plate with the paper in his hand. "Verificado," he said.

He looked up at the journalist. "You want to look in the coffin?"

"No." The journalist shook his head.

"You do not mind then?" the director asked. "When there is no family to pay, the men are allowed to—"

"I understand," the journalist said quickly. He turned away as the men began to lift the coffin lid. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He heard the soft murmur as the men discussed what they found and how it was to be divided. Then there was a muttered curse and the sounds of the lid being nailed back.

The director came back to him. "The men are very disappointed," he said. "There was nothing but a few gold fillings in his teeth and this ring."

The journalist looked down at the ring in the man's hand. It was encrusted with grime.

"I have taken the ring," the director said, "and let them have the fillings. The ring is valuable, no?" He took a grimy handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned it, then held it in the palm of his hand.

The journalist looked down at it. It was gold with a crimson facing stone. He picked it up and read the familiar lettering. It was a Harvard class ring, year of 1939. "Yes," he said. "It's valuable."

"Ten U.S. dollars?" the director asked.

It took a moment before the journalist realized that he was being offered the ring. He nodded. "Ten U.S. dollars." He took the bill out of his pocket.

"Gracias," the director said.

The journalist put the ring in his pocket. They turned toward the laborers. The coffin was already on the wagon.

The director looked at him. "Vamonos. We go now to the fire." He climbed up on the wagon and gestured to the space on the seat beside him.

The sun was hotter now than it had been when he first came into the cemetery and even the faint breeze afforded no relief. The journalist's shirt was wet through to his jacket. They moved through the cemetery in silence. It was almost twenty minutes before they reached the flat dull-gray building that served as the crematorium.

There was a faint smell of smoke in the air as the journalist climbed down from the wagon. He followed the director and the two laborers as they carried the coffin through the wide entranceway.

Once inside he was surprised to see there was no roof; only the sky and the hot sun above. There were six stone open-topped furnaces placed in a circle within the walls of the building. Over each the air shimmered and danced with the heat contained within. A man in a dusty ash-covered gray coat came up to them. "Verificado?"

The director nodded and gave him the slip of white paper. "Verificado."

"Si," the man answered. He gestured to the laborers. "A las uno."

The laborers walked to the nearest stone furnace and slid the coffin into it. They turned and left the building.

The director took the journalist's arm and they moved over to the furnace. The coffin rested on smoke-blackened steel bars; underneath was what seemed to be a fine wire netting. "For the ashes, no?" the director said.

The journalist nodded.

The man in the gray coat was watching.

The director tugged at the journalist's sleeve. "He expects ten pesos for his work. It is the custom."

The journalist reached into his pocket and held out a bill.

The man's teeth flashed whitely in his swarthy face. "Gracias."

He gestured toward them and, still following the pressure on his arm, the reporter moved back until they were against the far wall. Then the man in the gray coat began to pump the bellows.

There was a faint rumble in the furnace at first, then the rumble turned quickly into a roar. It felt as if thunder were confined in the little box, but still there were no flames visible. The coffin seemed merely to shimmer in the waves of hot air. Then suddenly the man pulled a lever and for a moment it seemed as if all the fires of hell suddenly leaped up.

The journalist felt the intense blast of heat against his face, but only for a moment, then the flames were gone and the coffin seemed to disintegrate into gray dust and settle slowly into the furnace.

The director tugged at his sleeve. "We will go outside and smoke a cigarette. Before we are finished, he will bring the ashes."

The hot sun seemed cool compared to the heat he had felt inside. He offered the director a cigarette. The man took it in that delicate manner some Latin Americans have and quickly offered a light to the journalist's cigarette, then to his own. They smoked in silence.

The director was right. They hadn't finished their cigarettes when the man came out with a small gray ceramic urn. He looked at the director.

"The urn is five pesos," the director murmured apologetically.

The journalist found a five-peso coin in his pocket. The man nodded his thanks again and offered the urn to the director.

"Now we go to the wagon," the director said. He led the way around to the back of the building. There a small wagon stood, with a sleepy-eyed burro before it. It was filled with dirt and refuse and flies were buzzing around it. "We empty the ashes here."

The reporter stared at it. Something inside him was suddenly sick. "Is there no other place?"

The director stared at him. He nodded. "There is a farm across the road. For five pesos the farmer will let us scatter the ashes there."

"We will go there."

He followed the director across a field, then over the road. It was a field of potatoes and the farmer who appeared seemingly came from the ground in which they were growing. He vanished as quickly as he received the five-peso coin.

The director held out the urn. "Senor?"

The journalist shook his head.

"You knew him, senor?" the director asked.

"Yes," the reporter said. "I knew him."

The director removed the cover from the urn and with a practiced twist of his wrist scattered the ashes to the wind. Silently they watched the wind scatter them across the field.

"It's all wrong," the journalist said suddenly. "It's all wrong."