They are all such fools.
And he knows that with Khalil and Maryam gone, he may soon inherit another bundle of money, enough to keep him, his children, and his relatives in Lebanon going for many years. The money will come just in time, as he is planning to leave Guatemala and return to Sidon.
Everything is falling perfectly into place.
chapter eighteen. the dog chases its own tail
Ibrahim and Maryam’s ashes — or rather what is assumed are their ashes — are placed in two ceramic urns for burial. If the remains had been found in a mass grave in the Ixil Triangle, international forensic anthropologists would have been called in to lend their expertise to the prosecution of, for example, a former Guatemalan president for the genocide he undoubtedly committed. But this is just the explosion of a car on an abandoned street in a worthless neighborhood. If there had been remains beyond the small splinters of bones and a few chips of teeth, a postmortem might have been required, but the detectives on the case feel it is unnecessary to examine the ashes for organic matter; Fulgencio, the guard at Ibrahim’s factory, told detectives that he saw his boss get into his daughter’s Mercedes. Forensic testing would have proven that the ashes held human remains, but no proof as to who the victims were. And what would a chemical toxicology report reveal? The ashes were so contaminated by oil, gasoline, and burning hydrocarbons that the existence of drugs or poisons would never be found.
There is no reason to extend the investigation. The dead are the dead. It is an open-and-shut case.
The police know that Ibrahim is dead because they have found vestiges of his pacemaker. Guillermo knows that Maryam is dead because he phones her every day and his call now goes directly to voice mail. Still, he wonders why the police department or federal officials are unwilling to do a thorough investigation. Since Samir is the closest living survivor, he is the only one who can authorize an inquiry into their causes of death. For his part, Samir has told the authorities that he is consumed by such overwhelming misery that he wants the matter closed as soon as possible. He insists that sending the remains for examination and analysis in the United States would not bring his wife and father-in-law back to life. The only thing he claims to want is to be at peace, and to forget these horrid killings. In fact, Samir says that as soon as he can, he will travel to Honduras to see his ailing brother and sister-in-law. He is seriously thinking of returning to Beirut or Sidon, to spend the rest of his days with his children, surrounded by the only family he has left. In sum, he wants nothing to do with any further investigation. There are over 6,400 killings in Guatemala in 2009, and the few viable forensic teams are routinely sent all over the country by the president to examine the dozens of newly discovered mass graves, dating back to the early eighties. Confirming who perished in a car explosion is of little national interest.
A bigger issue is whether the municipal police will ask the federal government to convene a grand jury to investigate why Ibrahim and his daughter were killed. Indeed, as soon as their murder is made public, there is substantial speculation as to why they were killed. When Guillermo is interviewed by the detectives, he suggests that there has to be a formal inquest to determine who killed them, and to bring the guilty parties to justice.
He knows he cannot cast a shadow on Samir.
* * *
Four days after the murders, Samir organizes a small memorial service for his wife and father-in-law at the San Francisco Church in downtown Guatemala City. Guillermo knows that his presence is not wanted, but there is no way he will not attend. He is consumed with sorrow and feels entitled to grieve as if his own wife has died.
He drives downtown alone. He sits in the back of the church and stares in disbelief at the two urns placed side by side on a table by the altar. Guillermo is stunned that Samir has chosen to collect their ashes in urns and entomb them in a wall at the Verbena Cemetery, rather than pony up for two stately coffins and a decent Christian burial.
Father Robeleda barely knew the deceased and his comments are of a generic nature, commending the good souls of Ibrahim Khalil and Maryam Khalil Mounier to the kingdom of God. There are perhaps a total of sixty people in attendance: a handful of Lebanese friends; former associates of Samir and some girlfriends of Maryam; the cook Hiba; about a dozen illustrious leaders of the Lebanese community; Maryam’s tennis instructor; some high school friends who have read the obituary in Prensa Libre and El Periódico; a couple of government officials who seem nervous and impatient, including a representative from the presidency who keeps looking down at his watch. Guillermo guesses that he has another three funerals to attend that day and simply wants to get away.
There are also four men — plainclothes detectives? — sitting near Guillermo in the back, off to the side, constantly checking their cell phones.
After the priest delivers the funeral oration and says a few words about the deceased, Samir gets up and begins to speak to the guests from a lectern surrounded by glass vases with sparse flowers.
“We are gathered here today to pay homage to two wonderful people, Ibrahim Khalil and his lovely daughter Maryam, my wife, who were prematurely and unjustly murdered for reasons we may never know. For those of you who didn’t know this extraordinary little family, Ibrahim came from the Levant to Guatemala in 1956 with his brother Leo to seek their fortunes in their adoptive country. They arrived with no money in their twenties, but with the desire to make their mark in the new world. Leo started a photography studio on Sixth Avenue while Ibrahim opened a fabric store in the downtown area, on Fifth. The business began modestly but continued to grow as Guatemalans realized Ibrahim was honest and reliable and worked incredibly hard. A few years later Ibrahim went to Cobán to look at a small café finca he considered purchasing and met Imelda Beltrán, the pretty daughter of a papaya grower. They married in 1965. Their first child died in childbirth, but two years later, in 1970, Imelda gave birth to a lovely daughter. Maryam, whose name means beloved, and was also the name of Moses’s sister, came into this world when Ibrahim was already thirty-six years old, and she became his pride and joy.
“When Ibrahim decided to open a textile factory, he practically gave the old store to Leo, which Leo continued to manage in Ibrahim’s style until — well, you all know what happened to this lovely downtown area. He was forced to abandon the store and moved back to Tripoli, in Lebanon. Now the whole area on Fifth Avenue is a series of cheap Chinese stores and cantinas. It breaks my heart—” Samir gasps for breath and brings tears to the eyes of many of the attendees.
“Imelda died of cancer in 1980, when Maryam was only ten years old. Ibrahim loved his daughter — he doted on her the way any proud father would, and gave her whatever she needed to grow up a loving girl, one without a mother.
“I don’t need to tell you that Maryam was completely devoted to her father and, in fact, had lunch with him every week, especially when Ibrahim began to suffer from vertigo, which made it impossible for him to drive. She would pick him up at the office in the factory by Roosevelt Hospital every Wednesday and bring him to our apartment for lunch. The devotion she showed to Ibrahim was beyond dispute.
“And it was during one of these lunchtime pickups that I lost my wife and my father-in-law in a cowardly attack. As I said earlier, we may never know the motives for their murder, but we do know we have lost two remarkable human beings—” Samir becomes overwhelmed with tears again, and the priest holds him, then escorts him down to his seat in the front row.