They broke his guitar? my mother asked when the uniformed men came, their shirts wet at the armpits and their leather shoes splashed with mud. Of course by that time we already knew.
Why? one of them asked. Would you like it? He looked surprised. Maybe –
He stopped talking at his partner's look.
That evening it rained again, heavily, the air a mix of gray and green before the night came down. A couple of neighbors visited — my mother exchanged soft words with them at the front door — then afterward no one else came. All night she did not speak and I did not know what to think. She sat on the brown carpet in the main room, in the dark, with my father's notepapers and sheet music. The gaslight from the kitchen made her face seem misshapen. For hours I sat on my parents' bed with the door open, watching her arranging the papers in careful piles, calmed by how her fingers moved individual pieces from pile to pile, without pause, as though following some special sequence. I watched her fingers and her strange face, and I watched the rain leaking from the thatched kitchen ceiling behind her, and I waited for her to tell me what would happen to us.
He had been a musician, a teacher at an elementary school. His death had been a mistake — everyone told us this. What no one told us was that he, too, had made a mistake: to challenge his attackers — to even draw attention to himself — when he had only his mouth and his hands for protection. What no one told us was that in this city no death is entirely a mistake.
The rain did not stop for two days. My mother stayed cross-legged on the carpet, which, in the rain-dimmed light, changed color to dull orange. She wore the same gray dress and did not eat. On the third morning, a car with mounted speakers drove past and announced that Andres Pastrana Arango had won the presidential election. I remembered that my father liked to call him the hippie candidate. I took some money from my mother's purse and went out into the street to buy some food. I played football with some kids.
That night, when I put two mangoes and a bag of boiled water in front of her, my mother saw me again. She told me to sit by her. We sat in silence. Then, in the dark, she leaned toward me and kissed whatever part of my body was closest to her, the outside of my knee, she kissed it twice, then two more times. And then she spoke my name, Juan Pablo, she said, and I looked at her and she said, You must say nothing of it, and think nothing, for you are a man now. I said, Mother? but her only answer was my name, spoken again like a chant, Juan Pablo, Juan Pablo, Juan Pablo.
***
THERE ARE BLACKOUTS EVERY MONTH in the barrios, sometimes for days in a row. As Claudia and I enter the barrio where El Padre's headquarters is based, the entire mountainside stops humming and everything turns black. In the sudden dark, ghosts of light dance at the edge of my vision like memories, trapped at the back of my eyes. There are no stars. Gradually the glow of city rises over the black line of mountains, and beneath the clouds the effect is one of torchlight smothered by gray blankets.
We continue up the hill in the half darkness. Dim lights begin to shine onto the street from candles placed in windows. At last I see a high lookout on the hill that must be my destination: two youths stand outside the gate holding mini Uzi submachine guns. Even from this distance I can see that they are nine millimeter with twenty-five-round clips. The house is two-storied, with a balcony on the second floor overlooking the hill. Another guard patrols the balcony. The shadow of yet another glides and starts behind dimly lit windows. On the perimeter, the outer wall is topped by shards of glass of different shapes and colors, and shimmers in the candlelight.
From the midst of the slum, the house rises like a palace.
Stay here, I say to Claudia.
To my surprise, she does not argue. I will wait here, she says, and then pulls back into the shadows of an alley.
At the gate, I say my name and am searched roughly, professionally, and then escorted to the house by one of the guards. He opens the front door, gestures for me to enter, and returns to the gate. Inside it is dark, and the air is heavy, as in one of those houses where the windows have been left closed through the heat of the day. It smells as though someone has been smoking a spliff laced with cocaine.
You are Ron, a female voice sounds out from the corner, where a triangle of light slants down at an angle. I see someone coming down some stairs, her pointy boots first, her tight jeans, and then her bare stomach and then her tank-top breasts and then her face and her tied-up hair, all white and amber in the light. She is extremely beautiful.
Yes.
Xavier is waiting for you, she says. She comes directly to me and takes my hand. Her touch is warm and smooth, and the tips of her fingers lightly trace a circle on my palm. Here is a chica, I think, who would fuck me as soon as slit my throat.
Upstairs, El Padre is sitting at a large wooden desk. Behind him are bay windows overlooking the balcony. The room is filled with candles-candles placed on every flat surface, in every window, like in a basilica. I glance around, almost expecting to see a statue of a crucifixion. It is ten o'clock at night and El Padre is wearing a suit with an open-necked shirt. Even sitting, he is tall and broad at the shoulders, and, consistent with the rumors, his complexion is light, but mainly I notice his hair, which is braided into cornrows. I find this surprising. There is oil in his hair — it holds each individual braid as tight as a cable-and the oil glistens in the candlelight.
Sit down, he says.
The wooden planks creak under my weight as I walk to the chair in front of the desk. He is looking through some papers. Aside from his hair, he looks like he could be any businessman leaving the office at the end of the day. His features seem somehow strange to me — then I realize that even though his skin is fair, he has the wide nose and thick lips of a black man. His eyes, also, are black. I watch the play of candlelight on El Padre's braids, on his fair skin, on his slow-moving hands. He gathers up a pile of papers and taps them on the table to align them, then pulls a pen from his breast pocket and signs the top sheet with a gesture that makes plain his disgust. He puts the pen away. Then he looks up at me with cold, snake eyes.
So we meet, he says.
Yes.
His eyes flick to something behind me. I remember from when I first walked in that there are two others in the room: the chica and another guard who carries a rifle and has a joint in his mouth. El Padre looks at me again.
You know, Ron, you will never become an agent. His voice is soft.
Because I'm too dark?
Because you think you are smarter than your superiors.
I do not say anything.
You were given an assignment and you refused to carry it out.
I did not find the target, I say quietly.
He pauses. A good soldado does not choose which orders to obey from his general, does he?
No.
He swivels around on his chair, leans back and speaks out through the bay windows as though addressing the night. I am your general, he says. I must look after an entire army. If two women fight, I shave their heads. If somebody cheats me, I shoot them in the hand. If a soldado fails me, or betrays me. . what choice do I have?
I watch as a gecko runs along the top frame of the window. It stops, testing the night air with its tongue. El Padre turns back around to me and frowns.
You have been getting high on the sacol, he says.
I recognize the insult. I do not do that stuff anymore, I say. It is for children.
The heat from the candles on the desk, the scent of wax, the smells of marijuana and cocaine from the guard's spliff — all combine and condense in my head.