“What am I going to do now?” Guillermo says aloud. His nose is no longer dripping, he suspects. He can’t be sure because the rain is splattering his face and his suit is damp. He feels he will never again be sure of anything in his life, now that Maryam is dead.
“You have nothing to do here, Mr. Rosensweig. You should go home. We may want to interview you later this afternoon or evening since you obviously knew the victims well.”
“There must be something I can do,” says Guillermo, wondering if he can help shovel the cinders on the seats into separate urns. He has always believed there are things to be done, that nothing in life is final, save for the death of his parents. “What am I going to do at home, alone?” He thinks of his children and Rosa Esther in Mexico City enjoying their lives. He feels nothing. The memory of them stirs no feeling in him.
“Samir Mounier was just here,” the detective repeats. “He’s the husband. The next of kin. He identified the car, since there are no bodies to speak of. Maybe he could use your help.”
“Fucking Samir,” Guillermo cries. “How do you know he isn’t the one behind all this?”
The detective smiles. Nothing is more absurd. The grieving husband is so decrepit he could hardly pick up a broomstick.
The policeman starts talking: “You’re a man in mourning, Don Guillermo. You will do what grieving men do. Be a man, a decent man, and go home.”
Guillermo turns to look at him without his cap. He notices more clearly that he has a pointed head and, yes, cabbage ears. Then he glances at the detective, who may as well have been talking to him in Urdu or Tagalog.
“But I don’t want to go home. Isn’t there anything I can do?”
“You are going to let the husband handle the details. And like a good lover, you are going to cry. And then you are going to cry some more. And when you are done mourning the death of your lover, you are going to join with us and get the bastards responsible for this crime.”
The words la petite mort come to Guillermo’s mind. This is anything but la petite mort, something he will never again experience with Maryam. This, he realizes, is the real thing. Pure and simple murder.
And cry he does, realizing that one of Guatemala’s most common mistakes has happened to him. Through a crazy turn of events, his love Maryam Khalil has been killed when the target had to be her father.
Unless, of course, Samir—
It cannot be.
He wouldn’t be such a bastard. Would he?
chapter seventeen. tying up loose ends
Samir Mounier is the only person who knows what has happened. And because nothing of what has happened has managed to betray his strategy, he proceeds on course.
He had invited his niece to visit him so she would bear witness to his grief at his wife’s infidelity, to help give him some solace, and to get under Maryam’s skin, since she disliked her immensely. And if she had minded her business and not offered to accompany Maryam, she would still be alive today to help him plan his father-in-law and wife’s funeral. That she has also gone up in flames doesn’t really change anything.
She will not be missed. With her parents Saleh and Hamsa in a nursing home in Tegucigalpa, and Verónica a spinster living alone, her disappearance from Honduras — the country with the highest homicide rate in the world — is sure to raise no suspicion. Tegucigalpa is a city where bridges lead to nowhere. Her incineration is only a minor occurrence — dozens of people vanish in Honduras every week and nobody cares.
The most Samir will be required to do is fly to Tegucigalpa and close up his niece’s apartment. If he were decent and had the time, he would also stop by and see his brother and his brother’s wife in their nursing home one last time. But what would be the point? They’d have no idea who he is, and if they end up being wards of the state in a hideous urine-infested facility, then so be it.
No one will miss Verónica. The thought makes him smile. The Guatemalan police have no idea what actually happened. They suspect absolutely no foul play. The only danger is if they discover any evidence pointing to a third person in the car. In truth, no one gives a damn about my niece. Certainly not me, Uncle Samir. And even Ibrahim and Maryam Khaliclass="underline" they are today’s news and tomorrow’s old papers.
He had seen the mass of twisted metal that remained of Maryam’s Mercedes at the crime scene. He is no scientist, but he suspects there will be no forensic evidence to cull from, no DNA that could possibly prove three people had died. Guatemala is years away from genetic testing, but DNA cannot be recovered from cremated remains anyway. All the pieces of jewelry, the few chips of gold from fillings, will be traced back to Maryam because the truth of what happened is too complicated to investigate.
It was wise of him to give Hiba the morning off and ask her to come in at twelve thirty to make lunch. For some reason, he had assumed that Hiba’s presence would have inhibited conversation between Verónica and Maryam in the morning, thereby delaying his wife’s departure to pick up her father.
The fact that Hiba came in later in the day would awaken no suspicion.
Samir has no trouble faking his grief. He has lost his wife, his beautiful young wife, and the texture of his life will have to change in the eyes of the world. He can fabricate real tears just thinking of his dead mother or father, but to look at him, no one would know that he is feeling absolutely no grief as he cries. He doesn’t need to plaster gloom all over his face, it is naturally disfigured by a lifetime of disappointment and the distortions of age. Adding a heap more sorrow will not change things at all.
He calls home and tells Hiba matter-of-factly that the madam is dead, and to please go home. He is surprised by the maid’s display of sorrow over the phone. “There is nothing else you can do,” he snaps at her. “I will call you when I need you again.”
When he arrives back to his apartment, he unlocks Verónica’s door and gathers together her few belongings. He examines each piece for a label or marking that might identify them as hers, and finding none, he puts her clothes back into her suitcase. As he drives to the San Francisco Church downtown to make funeral arrangements with Father Reboleda, he stops by the edge of the small park bordering the Simón Bolivar Plaza on Las Américas Boulevard and places the suitcase on the sidewalk. Poor Indians are taking down their food stands for the day, and the contents of the luggage will easily find their way into a needy family’s hands.
The beauty of living in a country as corrupt as Guatemala is that evidence can vanish as easily as smoke. Scarcity creates a society in which the truth of any situation can be variable or even paradoxical, and very few people will care. It happens all the time.
Samir has a mordant smile on his face as he drives downtown. Everything has gone smoothly enough. The killers seem to have been as discreet as they were paid to be. He can’t imagine the explosion traced back to him. The detectives, God bless their souls, will come up with enough believable theories of who was behind the killings.
He is well aware that Ibrahim has at least three or four enemies who would want him dead. Crooked textile suppliers, fellow members of that idiotic presidential oversight committee he was on, and even Guillermo Rosensweig, if he felt the man was an obstacle to his plan to steal away his daughter.
No one will suspect Samir. As a former leader of the Lebanese community, his reputation is sterling. He is an ideal citizen. Yes, he knows he will have to get rid of his jovial smile before he meets the priest. It is, in the end, a small price to pay.