Useful fools, p.5
Useful Fools, page 5
It was Gabriela who had set the roller coaster going. A little hug was all it took, and Rosa was sobbing into Gabriela’s neck, getting Gabriela’s beautiful straight hair all wet and sticky. But then they’d watched a Cantinflas movie on television, and Rosa had begun laughing uproariously at the Mexican comedian’s antics. The others had watched her with worried eyes, but she couldn’t stop laughing. And then she had gone to bed, and that was when the voice began.
A whisper. Barely formed. Rosa . . . Quietly, drifting like mist. Rosa . . .
Rosa hadn’t been able to tell if the voice was inside her bedroom or inside her head. She’d started crying again and couldn’t stop, a windup doll streaming sobs and tears. And the whispers had gone on and on. Rosa had tried to get a grip, to pray on the rosary her grandmother had brought. Polished mahogany spheres on a silver chain, with a silver cross and a finely muscled Jesus in agony. She had wept her way through one Our Father and three Hail Marys, and finally Papá had given her a tranquilizer.
“Pablo.” Mamá was in the bedroom. “I think she should come with us.”
Hangers scraped on a closet rail. “She’s not going back there,” Papá said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’ll help.”
Rosa heard her father’s abrupt refusal, her mother’s soft reply. “She needs to go, mi amor. She—”
“Carajo, Charo!” His voice slashed across hers. “This could have been her funeral!” The closet door slammed. “God, what was I thinking?”
When Mamá spoke, after a long pause, her voice was careful, as if she were picking up broken glass. “They were after Magda, Pablo. Not Rosa.”
In the silence that followed, Rosa suddenly knew. This wasn’t up to her parents. They didn’t know. They couldn’t know why she had to go.
“Pablo, don’t you think—?”
“NO!” he shouted. But Papá never shouted. Rosa got to her feet.
Dizziness darkened the room around her, but she forced herself to stand, swaying slightly, until it passed. In the bedroom, Papá was pulling on a white shirt. A dark suit lay on the bed.
“I am going to the funeral,” Rosa announced. “I’ll get dressed now.” She turned and walked to her room.
In her closet hung a black gabardine skirt and a black silk blouse. She’d worn them last spring for the funeral of her grandfather’s sister. Tía Mercedes had been ancient, the oldest living Alcázar. Fifteen years older than Rosa’s grandfather, with wrinkles beyond counting and blue eyes gone silver with age.
She touched the skirt, smelled the light, toxic perfume of mothballs. No one was surprised when Tía Mercedes died. Sometimes they talked about her at family lunches. A bit nostalgic, maybe, but without real pain.
She turned from the closet to find her parents watching her. Papá sat down on the bed and began buttoning his cuffs. “Mi amor,” he began gently.
Rosa cut him off. “I am going to the funeral,” she repeated. A chill was spreading inside her, sharp and clean, driving the clouds from her mind. “If you leave without me, I’ll take a micro to Salvador.”
Her father blinked. “You’ll do as I say.” Beneath the sharp edge of his voice, Rosa sensed his longing. He wanted her to thaw, to cry as she had the day before. He wanted to comfort her.
But she didn’t want comfort. She didn’t want him or anyone else to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that everything would be all right. She pulled the blouse from its hanger. “Don’t try to stop me, Papá.”
Her father stood up, his neck bright red.
“Enough, Pablo.” Mamá broke in curtly. “Enough. Rosa’s coming with us. Now come and finish dressing.” Mamá turned and went back to their bedroom. Papá stood, stroking his moustache, but Rosa knew it was decided. Mamá rarely used that tone, but when she did, there was no appealing it.
As her father left the room, Rosa pulled off her sweatshirt and slipped into the black silk blouse.
They drove to Salvador in silence, Mamá sitting in the backseat with Rosa. As they approached the Cesip, she reached over and held Rosa’s hand. Staring out the window, Rosa saw the blue walls. Still standing, but blackened and covered with dust. Part of the roof had caved in.
On top of Magda. Rosa shivered.
Two green trucks were parked in front of the Cesip, an armored troop carrier and a large flatbed with canvas enclosing the back. A group of men in olive drab stood behind the flatbed, long black rifles slung across their backs. A man inside the truck was shouting at them.
“Soldiers,” Rosa whispered.
Her mother nodded. “The Army. Special Forces.”
“Why?”
Papá answered. “Because when Sendero kills a community leader, they usually mean to take over the community themselves.” His eyes caught Rosa’s in the rearview mirror. “The war has come to Salvador.”
Rosa turned to watch as the Toyota toiled up the hill. The man in the truck, who wore a beret and seemed to be in command, jumped out. He strode toward the wreckage of the Cesip with his men following.
The Toyota passed Alonso’s house, with its flat roof and its black metal rebar stabbing the air, waiting for a second story to be built. A police car was parked out front, and two cops in camouflage flanked the front door.
At the top of the hill, outside the church, stood a big black hearse. Cars swarmed, trying to park, squeezing as close as they could to the churchyard’s whitewashed walls. People were pouring from the cars and through the gate. Three children in dirty sweat suits watched, openmouthed.
They’ve probably never seen so many cars in their lives, Rosa thought.
A man slammed the door of a shiny gray sedan and approached the children. Pointing at his car, he spoke to them briefly. The children nodded and smiled and sat down on the car’s rear bumper. They were bouncing with excitement, and the man looked satisfied as he walked into the churchyard.
Papá parked a meter from the children’s dangling legs. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Hey, señor,” one of the little boys called. “You want us to watch your car? For one sol we’ll make sure nobody touches it!”
His sister jabbed him with her elbow. “Shut up, silly. That’s Dr. Pablo. Hola, Dr. Pablo. Don’t worry, we’ll watch your car. For free.”
“Gracias, hijita.” Papá cleared his throat. Above the white collar, the blue knot of his tie, his Adam’s apple jerked. Rosa watched as he tried to lock the door. The key jammed and he struggled with it, choking out a few words and then slamming his fist on the roof. He slumped over with a ragged cry. He was curling downward, arms folded across his chest, sobbing.
He’ll fly apart in pieces, Rosa thought. She looked away. He has to hold himself like that or bits of him will go flying. The way Magda did.
Mamá was getting out on the other side of the car, pale and elegant in her black dress. When she saw Papá double over, her expression changed, darkening with a tenderness so intense it made Rosa’s throat ache. She watched him for just an instant, and then gave the children a bright smile. “Thank you,” she said. “That would be very kind.”
The children beamed as Mamá took over. She handed Papá a handkerchief, laying one hand on his elbow and beckoning to Rosa with the other. Then, holding them both, she walked toward the church.
Mamá’s hand felt good on Rosa’s elbow. It didn’t crowd her with feeling, just kept her steady as she walked her tightrope. One wrong step and they’d all go crashing down to the ground. But if they could just stay cool, if people would just not get so emotional, she’d keep her balance. She’d be fine.
At the gate, Rosa stopped, startled. Padre Manuel’s churchyard was jam-packed with people. It looked like a carnival, a block party. People were waving signs and flags. Banners from two or three different political parties. Hand-lettered placards. THOU SHALT NOT KILL, one read. NEITHER WITH HUNGER NOR WITH BULLETS. Big black boxes hung from the churchyard walls. Loudspeakers, so the funeral Mass could be heard outside.
Mamá nudged Rosa and her father through the gate, and they picked their way along the edge of the churchyard. The noise of the crowd blurred and mixed up together. Every now and then a single voice rolled toward them. “Mario said he was coming, but . . .”
“It was dynamite. . . . They spent all night picking up her pieces. . . .”
Then, abruptly, hundreds of angry voices began chanting. “Sendero, murderers, go to hell!”
Not everyone shouted. In one corner, near the gate, a tall, gray-haired man was talking to some reporters. Rosa knew him from television. He was a senator.
“Who are all these people?” she asked her mother. Mamá was still holding her elbow as they squeezed along the wall, heading for the big wooden doors of the church. “Did they all know Magda?”
Mamá shook her head. “It was in the papers, on the news. Some people want to express solidarity.” She looked at the tall senator, but said no more.
And some people want to be on television, Rosa thought.
A slender, bearded man approached, spreading his arms wide. A socialist congressman, one of her father’s oldest friends, he gave Papá a fierce hug, then kissed Mamá and Rosa.
As he did so, one of the reporters mobbing the senator glanced in their direction. “It’s her!” the reporter exclaimed. All the journalists turned to look. They gave an excited cry and swooped toward Rosa. Microphones aloft, they surrounded her and her parents, pinning them against the wall of the church.
Rosa shrank backward. “No interviews,” Papá barked. The bearded congressman tried to talk to the reporters, but they clamored in protest. One began shouting questions. “Rosa! Did you see them? Can you identify the killers?” The other reporters took up the cry. “Rosa! Tell us what happened, Rosa!”
Rosa pressed against the wall, trying to melt into it. To become one of the pebbly little bumps under the whitewash. Papá was shouting at the reporters. Mamá’s shoulders were stiff. A television camera was looming above them like a locomotive bearing down. Camera lenses blinked and shutters clicked. Rosa closed her eyes. Oh, God, she thought. Please.
Abruptly, the din seemed to lessen. She opened her eyes to see Padre Manuel standing on the steps of his church. He wore a white cassock, with a rope around his waist. A polished wooden cross hung from his neck. The Archbishop stood beside him, tall and slender and swathed in satin. The two gazed at the crowd, and as they did so, the silence became complete. Padre Manuel walked down the steps toward Rosa, nodding gently as the journalists fell back. His homely face was ravaged with grief, but as his eyes met hers, Rosa saw only love.
Oh, no, she thought desperately. Don’t look at me like that. Her eyes stung as she tried to look away.
“Come inside, child,” he said, taking her hands. The crowd stepped back, and Rosa walked into the church with Padre Manuel and the Archbishop.
Inside, the church was cool and shadowed, thick with a sweet musk of incense. A hush hung in the air, though hundreds of people crowded the benches. Padre Manuel led Rosa up the center aisle. Her neck burned under the stares. She kept her head down, trying to wipe away the tears. But they wouldn’t stop. They just kept rolling down her cheeks and she kept smearing them away, her hands wet and nowhere to dry them. Not on the gabardine skirt. Not on the silk blouse.
In the front of the church, she sat down on a roughhewn wooden bench. A shining casket lay in the sanctuary before the altar. Across the aisle sat Tomás and his children, along with Señorita Ana, a few neighbors, and a group of nuns. The nuns wore skirts and blouses. Simple crosses and close-cropped gray hair.
Papá handed Rosa a handkerchief and slid his arm around her. It felt heavy on her shoulder.
Across the aisle, Tomás was staring straight ahead, his shoulders rigid. Diana was curled on his lap, sucking her thumb and looking younger than her four years. Livia was crying. She was just nine, but nobody was holding her. Sitting between her father and Señorita Ana, Livia cried alone, her feet not reaching the floor. Somebody should hold her, Rosa thought. Livia needs someone to hold her. But Señorita Ana was holding Gustavo. Her head was bowed, and her hair brushed his as she prayed and held him tight.
Rosa stared at Alonso’s high-cheeked profile, and he turned to look at her. Blank-eyed, as if she were a stranger, and then with a twitch of recognition. But when she wiped her cheeks, trying to get rid of those stupid, endless tears, his expression froze. He turned back to Padre Manuel, who opened his Bible and began to read.
“ ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower,’” Padre Manuel said.
Rosa’s thoughts flew to Alonso, to the way he had turned from her. He hates me, she thought. She forced herself to listen to Padre Manuel.
Alonso sat very still, watching the priest speak. He hates me, Rosa thought again. The certainty made her heart grow very still, as if it might simply stop beating. Alonso hates me.
“‘This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’”
No wonder he hates me. His mother laid down her life for me.
Padre Manuel closed his Bible and looked up.
“One April morning, ten years ago,” he said, “a young mother climbed on a micro to take her baby to the Children’s Hospital in downtown Lima. The child was desperately ill, bled so dry by dysentery that he cried without tears.
“When she finally reached the hospital, she found a young pediatrician who had been on call the night before and was about to go home. ‘Do something,’ she begged. And instead of leaving, the doctor looked past all the causes for despair and found reason for hope.”
Papá’s grip tightened on Rosa’s shoulder. The priest looked down at him, his sad eyes filled with the same love she had seen on the church steps.
“Side by side, the doctor and the mother fought for the baby’s life. For two days, they held death at bay. And then the child died.”
Rosa felt her throat closing. She tried to listen, to breathe. Papá had told her about Magda’s two babies who had died, both within a month of each other, but Magda herself never talked about them. Why was Padre Manuel talking about them now? How must Tomás feel, with the priest heaping sorrow upon sorrow?
Padre Manuel’s voice rose. “Crucified though she was by grief, Magda turned to the doctor and said to him, ‘I must bury my son. But when I am done, I will come back. And you will help me do something to stop all this dying.’
“A month later, the Cesip was born.”
Rosa knew the rest of the story. How Papá began working with the Mothers’ Club. How the families paid dues, held cook-outs, raised money any way they could. How a delegation of mothers from Salvador marched on the Ministry of Health to demand help. How the whole community worked together to build the Cesip. And when it was finished, Salvador had a real clinic, where children got checkups and vaccinations and saw doctors when they were sick, just like children in Miraflores or New York.
“The Cesip,” Padre Manuel said with a desolate smile. “A little blue building where hope lived. And the babies stopped dying in Salvador.”
Rosa understood what Padre Manuel was saying now. It was obvious. Magda’s courage. Her faith. But I’m afraid, Rosa thought. We’re all afraid.
Padre Manuel spoke on and on, his head bowed. Finally he raised his eyes and gazed at the congregation. “We have two commandments given to us, greater than all the rest. These two commandments are Magdalena’s legacy: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself!”
As the church rang with the priest’s final words, the Archbishop stood, and Padre Manuel turned to the altar. The Eucharist seemed to Rosa to last for hours—the endless swaying line of mourners approaching to receive the Host, the flat wafer dry in her mouth, refusing to dissolve so she could swallow it. Throughout the long sacrament, the church remained nearly silent, save for a few sniffles and Livia’s soft sobs. Finally Padre Manuel beckoned to the congregation, and eight men stepped forward to hoist the casket onto their shoulders. The Archbishop and Padre Manuel, followed by the altar boys with their crosses and incense, walked down the aisle from the church. The casket bearers followed, and then Tomás stood and led his family out.
Though Rosa’s eyes never left Alonso, he did not look at her again.
FIVE
Alonso’s foot connected and the ball flew. A black-and-white sphere, hurtling through the mist in the churchyard. The goal was an open mouth, waiting.
Arms raised, the priest flew straight up in the air. Like some kind of jump jet in a clerical collar. Thwack! Padre Manuel caught the ball and winced. For a moment he stood there, breathing hard and twirling the ball between his palms. Then he drop-kicked it back to Alonso.
The priest caught it every time. Those big hammy hands seemed to pop up in front of the ball no matter which way Alonso kicked it. Like Padre Manuel could read his mind or something. It drove Alonso nuts. But it felt good, too. Knowing that Padre Manuel would catch it no matter how hard he kicked.
He ran up to the ball, swung back his leg, and let fly.
Padre Manuel dived sideways. Tiny lines crinkled around his eyes when the ball slammed into his palms. Ouch.
Alonso could hear the kids somewhere behind him. Livia and Diana had some kind of doll game going. Gustavo was pushing a yellow dump truck down the church steps, laughing as it clattered to the ground.
Padre Manuel kicked the ball back.
Sometimes Alonso imagined Senderista heads flying through the air. He knew he shouldn’t think that, not in a churchyard. Not in front of a priest. But it didn’t matter. Mostly Alonso didn’t think at all. He just kicked, as hard as he could.
“I have to go to Spain for a while,” Padre Manuel said.
Alonso toed the ball, positioning it. Then he reared back and walloped, sending it rocketing into the goal. The net flared as the ball punched into it.
Padre Manuel was walking toward him. “I have to go back to Spain for a while,” he said again.
