"Too
true. Though more than cold, rain." And then, linguistically
reciprocating, the older man added, in second-rate Spanish, "Much
pleasing to return to good Spanish climate."
They
both laughed. The driver couldn't hear the other man laugh, the burly
one. And, judging by his looks and the expression on his face when
he'd climbed into the van, he decided he'd rather not hear him laugh,
anyway.
If
he even knew how to laugh.
Businessmen,
the
driver thought.
Or
a businessman and his bodyguard.
The
van circled the terminal. Now it stopped and another dark-suited man
opened the door and stood aside to let the two men out. The van drove
off, and that was the last the driver saw of them.
The
Mercedes had tinted windows. As they settled into the wide leather
seats, the older man got a call on the cell phone he'd just turned
on.
"Harrison,"
he said. "Yes. Yes. Wait, I need more information. When did it
happen? Who is it?" He pulled a flexible computer screen, thin
as a strip of fabric, from his coat pocket and unrolled it on his
knees like a tablecloth, touching the interactive surface as he
spoke. "Yeah. Yeah. No, no change of plans. Fine."
But
after he hung up, nothing seemed "fine." He pursed his lips
tightly as he watched the floppy, illuminated screen on his legs. The
burly man glanced away from the window to look at it, too. On it
shone some sort of blue map with moving red and green dots.
"We've
got a problem," said the white-haired man.
"I
don't
know if we're being followed or not," she said, "but take
this exit and drive through San Lorenzo for a while. The streets are
narrow there; maybe we can throw them off."
Victor
silently followed her orders. He got off the freeway and took an
access road to the labyrinthine subdivision. His car was an old
Renault Scenic with no computer or
GPS,
so
Victor had no idea where he was going. He read out street names as if
in a dream: Dominicos, Franciscanos ... Nerves made him feel there
was some form of divine intervention responsible for all this. A
memory suddenly popped into his anguished mind: he used to drive
Elisa home in his old car, the first one he'd had, when they were
both students in David Blanes's summer course at Alighieri
University. Those were happier times. Now things were a little
different. He had a bigger car, he taught at the university, Elisa
had gone crazy and was armed with a huge knife, and they were both
fleeing some unknown danger as fast as they possibly could.
This
is real life,
he
surmised.
Things
change.
He
heard the crinkling of plastic and saw that she'd taken her knife
partway out of its wrapper. The streetlights' reflection twinkled on
the blade.
He
felt as if his heart skipped a beat. No, worse. He felt as if it was
melting, or being stretched out like a spit-covered piece of gum,
auricles and ventricles forming one solid mass.
She's
lost her mind,
his
common sense told him.
And
you let her get into your car and now she's forcing you to take her
wherever she wants to go.
It
was all coming clear. The following day, his car would be found
abandoned in some ditch, his body inside it. What would she have
done? Decapitate him, maybe, judging by the size of that knife. Slit
his throat, though maybe she'd kiss him first. "I always loved
you, Victor, I just couldn't tell you." Then
zzzzzzzzzzzip.
He'd
hear it before he felt it, the sound of her slashing his carotid
artery, the blade slicing through him with the unexpected precision
of a paper cut on a fingertip.
Still,
even if she's insane, I have to try to help her.
He
turned down another street. It was Dominicos again. They were just
going around in circles, like his thoughts.
"What
now?"
"Let's
go back to the freeway," she said. "Head toward Burgos. It
doesn't matter if they're still following us. I don't need much
time."
To
do what?
he
wondered.
Kill
me?
But
then she added, "To explain all this to you." She paused
and then asked, "Victor, do you believe in evil?"
"Evil?"
"Yes.
You're a theologian, right? So. Do you believe in evil?"
"I'm
not a theologian," he murmured, slightly put off. "I read
theology, that's all."
It
was true that he'd once wanted to go to seminary school, study
theology, but he'd eventually discarded the idea, deciding simply to
study on his own instead. He read Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Kung. He'd
told Elisa this, and under different circumstances he would have been
flattered that she'd brought it up. But right then the only thing he
could think was that things were stacking up in favor of his insanity
hypothesis. Had Elisa lost it?
"Whatever,"
she said. "Do you think there exists some form of wickedness
beyond what can be scientifically explained?"
Victor
pondered his answer.
"There's
nothing that cannot be scientifically explained except faith. Are you
talking about the Devil?"
Elisa
didn't answer. Victor stopped at an intersection and turned back
toward the freeway, his mind racing faster than he was driving.
"I'm
a Catholic, Elisa," he added. "I believe that there is an
evil, supernatural force that science will never be able to explain."
He
waited for some kind of reaction, wondering if he'd put his foot in
his mouth. How could he possibly know what a mentally disturbed
person wanted to hear? But her response left him ill at ease.
"I'm
glad to hear you say that; it means you'll have less trouble
believing what I'm about to tell you. I don't know if it's about the
Devil, but it's definitely a force of evil. An inconceivable,
mind-boggling, sickening evil that has no scientific explanation..."
For a second, he thought she was going to burst into tears again.
"You have no idea, no idea, the degree of evil I'm talking
about, Victor. I've never told anyone; I swore I wouldn't. But I
can't take it anymore. I have to tell someone, and you're the one I
chose."
He
would have liked to respond with the easy self-confidence of a
Hollywood heartthrob and say something like "You're doing the
right thing, babe!" Though he didn't like movies, he felt his
life had suddenly turned into a horror flick. But he couldn't
respond. He was trembling. It wasn't a figure of speech, an internal
shiver, or any kind of tingling. He was literally trembling. Though
he gripped the steering wheel tightly, his arms shook as if he were
sleeveless in the Antarctic. Suddenly, Victor doubted his theory
about Elisa's insanity. She spoke with such assurance that it
terrified him to listen to her. He realized it would be worse, much
worse, if she wasn't crazy. It was scary to think she might have lost
her mind, but if she hadn't, Victor didn't know if he could face up
to whatever she was going to say.
"I
won't ask you to do anything besides listen to me," she
continued. "It's almost eleven. We've got an hour. After that,
just put me in a taxi, if you ... if you decide not to come with me."
He stared at her. "I have to be at a very important meeting at
twelve thirty tonight. I can't miss it, no matter what. You can do
whatever you want."
"I'll
go with you."
"No
... Don't make that decision before you hear me out." She
stopped and took a deep breath. "After that, feel free to kick
me out. And forget everything that's happened. I swear I won't hold
it against you if you do..."
"I...,"
Victor whispered, and then coughed. "I won't do that. Go on.
Tell me everything."
"It
started ten years ago," Elisa said.
Out
of the blue, Victor suddenly became very sure of something.
She's
going to tell me the truth. She's not crazy. She's going to tell me
the truth.
"It
was early summer, at that party in 2005, the party where you and I
met, remember?"
"The
orientation party for summer school at Alighieri?"
When
she met me and Ric,
he
thought. "Of course, I remember, but... nothing happened at that
party..."
Elisa
stared at him, her eyes wide. Her voice faltered. "That was
where it
all
started,
Victor."
PART
TWO
The
Beginning
We're
all ignorant, but we're not all ignorant about the same things.
ALBERT
EINSTEIN
04
Madrid
June 21, 2005 6:35 P.M.
IT
had
been an eventful afternoon. Elisa had almost missed the last bus to
Soto del Real after an absurd argument (yes, another one) with her
mother about her messy room. She got to the station right when the
bus was pulling out, and as she made a run for it, one of her
tattered sneakers had come off. She'd had to beg them to stop and
wait for her. The passengers and conductor glared at her
reproachfully as she boarded the bus. It occurred to her that their
stares had less to do with the few seconds they'd been forced to wait
than they did with her appearance. Elisa wore frayed, ripped jeans
and a tank top with a grimy neckline. Her long hair hung down to her
waist, accentuating how conspicuously greasy it was. But she was not
entirely to blame for her unkempt look. For the past few months,
she'd been under incredible pressure, the kind that only college
students during finals week can relate to. She'd barely even thought
about necessities like food or sleep, and looking presentable figured
nowhere on her list of priorities. She'd never cared about her
appearance or anyone else's. It seemed like such a stupid thing to
worry about.
The
bus stopped twenty-five miles outside Madrid, in a pretty spot near
the Pedriza Mountains, and Elisa walked up a road lined with hedges
and almond trees to Alighieri's summer school, having not the
slightest idea that two years later, the same place would hire her as
a professor. The sign on the entrance had a worn profile of Dante
and, underneath it, one of his verses:
L'acquea
ch'io prendo gia mai non si corse.
Elisa
had read the translation in one of the university brochures (she
spoke perfect English, but that was as far as her language skills
went).
The
sea I sail has never yet been passed.
That
was the school's motto, though she realized that it could apply to
her as well, since there was no other course in the world like the
one she was about to take.