Now Abraham lowered his head and began to cry.
“Who were they?” he asked after a while.
“That doesn’t matter. They weren’t anybody to you. You don’t need to know what they were called or who they were. It’s enough for me to know. You, Abraham, are not really responsible for what happened tonight. You didn’t have any choice but to act as you did, because you had to protect Gagarin. And you love him as if he were a son, isn’t that right?”
Abraham nodded.
“He’s the only friend I have.”
“Of course he is, Abraham. You had to defend him. You did well. You fulfilled your duty.”
And with that, Abraham burst into tears again. Joanes stretched out his legs in an effort to get comfortable. He was trying not to think about the pain in his hand and nose.
“Why not tell me a bit about yourself,” he said, “while the storm blows over.”
Abraham looked at him, uncomprehending, his eyes full of tears.
“I want to know all about you, Abraham.”
“Why?”
“Because now, Abraham, you are someone very important to me.”
And he repeated, “Very important.”
A moment later, Abraham began to talk.
“Louder. I can’t hear you.”
Abraham began again.
Above them, the hurricane continued its northward course, transforming the thermal energy it had drained from the Caribbean Sea into kinetic energy, consuming itself in the process. It pressed on anxiously toward the Gulf of Mexico, into which it would flow hours later, gaining even more force, puffing up like a magnificent male in mating season.
The air was still unsettled in the morning. The clouds looked like they were resting on top of the trees. It was raining and windy, though not like the night before. At around noon, a jeep came by, careening down the track that led to the cabin. It stopped when it reached the building, and all four doors of the vehicle opened at once. The owner of the English Residence got out, escorted by three relatives, and looked at the place, frowning.
They couldn’t see Joanes’s car anywhere. The door to the cabin was wide open. They went in. Inside, the place was wet and covered in dead leaves and trash. They saw a bed frame with one leg missing, a soaking mattress, and the remains of a fire. In the middle of the main room, a load of boards were heaped one on top of another. When o n e of the relatives asked about them, the owner of the English Residence said that they used to shield the windows, and that some son of a bitch had ripped them off. The wind and rain had breezed in and swept the cabin clean.
The hotel owner said that nobody would spend the night in a place like that, least of all on a night like the one they’d just seen. His relatives agreed. They all took it as a given that the Spaniards, on seeing the state of the place, would have moved right on, looking for a better option.
Even so, the hotel owner was hesitant to leave without at least checking for signs that they’d been there. He inspected each and every one of the rooms but came across no more than some sodden trash. Before climbing back into the jeep, he took a second to study the vegetation around the cabin. He didn’t see a thing, not a single clue, and he said a silent prayer in the hope that the man and those elderly folks were safe and well.
From where he was, in the middle of the thick vegetation, Joanes couldn’t make out the sound of the jeep’s motor. Now both his hands hurt, the maimed one and the other, which was riddled with splinters from where he’d wrenched the boards from the windows.
He was in a small clearing, leaning against a tree. His right hand was resting on the handle of the machete, which he was carrying in his belt. The chimpanzee was crouching on the ground at his side.
In the middle of the clearing, spurred by the threat that if he tried anything, the monkey would die, Abraham had just finished digging a grave. The earth oozed moisture — a black, fragrant mulch that kept slipping back into the hole. Abraham was covered in dirt, as if he’d been rolling around in the mud. On his face, only his eyes and teeth were visible. He worked on his knees, his sole tool being a dented aluminum plate that he’d selected from among his odds and ends and was using as a shovel.
They’d had to wait for sunrise before setting to work. By then, they’d already wrenched the boards from the windows. Earlier that morning, before doing anything else, they’d removed the dead bodies from sight, hiding them for the time being in the undergrowth.
The next step now was to move the car off the cabin track and stow it in some hidden corner on the road. Joanes had already guessed someone from the hotel would turn up in the morning. He put the woman’s wheelchair in the trunk. He also stored the elderly couple’s luggage and the things the owner of the English Residence had given them. He’d get rid of all that later on. Finally, he grabbed his own meager luggage.
He told Abraham to wait for him in the cabin. He didn’t bother to tie him up, since the easiest way to stop him from running off was to keep ahold of the chimpanzee. And yet, driving and watching over the monkey at the same time would have been too tricky, and in any case the chimpanzee would have been too conspicuous if they’d come across anyone on the road. Once the cabin was out of sight, he tied the monkey’s chain to a tree and left him there.
When he came back a while later, he had a little scare. The chimpanzee wasn’t moving. It was resting against the tree trunk with its head slumped to one side. Joanes thought it was dead. If that was the case, he would have no way of controlling Abraham. He nudged the chimpanzee with one end of the cane.
“Come on, Gagarin. Don’t fail me now.”
He nudged him again.
The chimpanzee slowly stirred. The hood covering his head moved from one side to another. Joanes let out a big sigh of relief.
When he was just a couple of paces from the cabin, Joanes stopped and called to Abraham. He ordered him to come out with his hands above his head.
“You’re not going to give me any surprises, are you, Abraham?”
Abraham shook his head.
“That’s what I like to hear. Now walk here in front of me. Not too fast. Not too slow.”
Together they went in search of an appropriate place to bury the professor and his wife. The monkey followed them, attached to Joanes by the chain and cane, tripping over the roots of the trees.
Abraham stopped several times as he dug the grave, encumbered by great sobbing attacks. Once or twice he vomited a few gloopy threads of bile. He told Joanes that he couldn’t get the faces of the professor and his wife the moment they died out of his head, that he’d never forget them, and Joanes responded by saying that that was exactly what he had to do. He, Abraham, from then on, was a container for the memory of the last moments of those elderly people’s lives. Abraham was silent for a few seconds and then began to mumble about something the professor had done before dying. Joanes pointed the machete at him and ordered him to be quiet.
“It’s enough for you to know and remember what happened,” he added.
When the time came to lower the bodies down, Abraham got out of the hole and took a few steps back. Pushing them with one foot, Joanes rolled the professor and his wife into the grave. He enjoyed the slight resistance their bodies gave. He’d stripped them of their wallets, watches, and wedding rings beforehand. She wasn’t wearing any other jewelry. He told Abraham to cover them up.
The pain in his hand observed a cruel, arcane logic. It came and went in waves. At its most intense, Joanes felt like he needed to run, to do anything that might distract him from the pain. Instead, he vented some of it by ordering Abraham to work faster. Abraham looked at him, his eyes red from exhaustion, tears, and the earth that had gotten in them, but barely changing his pace.