Andean Express (6 page)

“I have your lunch.”

Rocha opened the door and let the waiter enter.

“One
chairo
soup, one large plate of meat, and a cup of applesauce.”

“What time is it?”

“One o'clock, señor. You said you wanted the late lunch.”

“Right . . . right,” Rocha said, then handed the waiter a tip and closed the door.

He ate the soup and devoured the meat and accompanying French fries. As he savored the dessert, he thought again about his tragedy.

My nightmares end tonight. Once I take him out, I'll go back to sleeping like I used to. I'll sleep for hours and I'll dream about quiet lakes and beautiful eyes that love me. About the lush forests of Beni and rivers that look like the sea. All the things I lost because of that bastard—

Moments later, another knock on the door. It was the waiter coming to retrieve the tray.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“No . . . nothing,” Rocha said. “I'm going to rest.”

“Are you all right?”

“I have a fever,” Rocha lied. “But I'm sure that tomorrow, on the coast, I'll feel better.”

“There's nothing like being on the coast,” the waiter said, and disappeared.

Rocha lay down. It was cold and his stump hurt. Sharp, stabbing pain shot up and down his leg. He rubbed the affected area with some ointment, then propped his head on a pillow and tried to picture Alderete, just as he was the day he went to visit the guy in the mining company office to ask him for a job. Alderete was his half-brother. They shared the same mother, an indigenous woman who had been the lover of Nazario's father. Edmundo's father was a carpenter from Oruro who died of a lung infection. Before succumbing to a terminal illness, his mother had advised Rocha to visit his half-brother, who seemed to have a good thing going in the mineral trade. He was an accountant and handled a lot of money. Rocha, who was going through hard times, had become little more than a drunken hobo who wandered from one place to another selling textiles and other odds and ends. He didn't think twice, and as soon as he had collected a few pesos, he headed for Potosí. Alderete worked in an office downtown in a well-preserved two-story building. At first he refused to see Rocha, claiming that he was too busy with work; however, several days later, upon noticing Rocha sitting in the lobby, he decided it would be better to attend to him once and for all and be done with it. Rocha showed him a letter from his mother and a few photographs of Nazario at the age of seven. Alderete read the missive and looked at him with a certain curiosity mixed with arrogance.

“So you're my half-brother. You look really bad.”

“Things are tough over in Caracoles.”

“I can imagine.”

“Our mother is very frail.”

“What's wrong with her?”

“A crippling arthritis. She can't get out of bed.”

“You don't help her at all? What do you do for a living?”

“I'm a street vendor.”

“You don't sell much and then you drink away the rest.”

“How do you know?”

“I can see it in your face. I don't like meeting with guys who have drinking problems.”

“I'm your brother.”

“That was just an accident of life. We don't choose our brothers.

What did you come here for?”

“I want to work so I can send a few pesos to our mother.”

“What can you do besides sell junk?”

“I could be your assistant.”

Alderete laughed and eyed him with disdain. Rocha began to hate him at that very moment.

“An assistant like you, maybe in a tavern.”

“You don't need to make fun of me,” Rocha said, half-swallowing his words. “I can do anything.”

“Desk work, not a chance. Why don't you start from the bottom? It'll take you awhile to rise, but it's the only way. I'm talking about the deep mine.”

“Inside the mine?”

“It's the only way.”

Rocha had no choice but to accept. He became a miner, and that's no small matter. Being a miner is like being a sailor on the high seas. If you're the former, you really have to like underground caves, and if you're the latter, it's the ocean. Two unmerciful passions. At first it was very tough. Rocha sometimes thought he was in hell. He rented a room in a pension where it was so cold that even the rats couldn't survive. It was colder inside than outside. He would hang out at miners' dives and once a week go up the hill to a brothel filled with half-breeds. He drank more and more to rid his mind of the underground agony. Becoming a human mole is part of a pact that man makes with the devil. By the end of three months, he had accepted his lot. He got himself a girlfriend who cooked for him and made love to him in sepulchral silence. When he asked her why she didn't moan, she said it was because she didn't want to startle him. Then came the accident, on a Monday, a month before Christmas. They amputated half his leg in the mine hospital. They sawed it off as if he were a soldier in the First World War.

Deciding he was worthless, Alderete gave him a compensation package that was barely enough to bury their mother. Rocha swore that he would get revenge, but the years took him down roads in which there was no time to remember anything, until one day, just about a week earlier, God had granted him a few happy hours in the midst of that bitter existence. It seemed like plenty to him.

He couldn't help himself and took a swig of
pisco
. It made him feel brave.

Despite his limitations, he had managed to read a book:
Treasure Island
by Stevenson. He thought about John Silver, the one-legged pirate, and at times he identified with him. After the rock destroyed part of Rocha's leg, from the knee down, everything had been a pure tragedy for him, with hardly a break to take a breath. A life mapped by a cruel fate, deprived of the slightest relief. Killing Alderete wouldn't be murder; it would be a settling of accounts. He began to sing:
I'm waiting for you, Nazario; Rocha the cripple is going to do you in.
The movements and vibrations of the train felt like the funereal gallop of a black colt, and he, Rocha, was the horseman. With the money that he would collect from this job, he would travel to Iquique, where a black Peruvian woman who had stopped over in La Paz a long time ago was waiting for him. She was a mediocre stage actress, but had been blessed with a pair of shapely thighs molded in Callao. Since the stage didn't yield much dough, she opted to offer her goods in a brothel in that sandy northern Chilean city. She knew about the accident and the stump.
Love doesn't care if you walk like a lame rooster
, she had written him. After all, the damage was only from the knee down; the rest of him was intact and she was happy with the whole package. For the first time in his life, Rocha had something to look forward to. He wouldn't become a millionaire, but there was a room waiting for him on the outskirts of Iquique. He could spend his last days as a doorman there, keeping an eye on the asses of the neighborhood prostitutes. Ending your life on the coast isn't bad; even with an uneasy conscience, time eventually fixes everything. If Alderete wasn't Lucifer's son, he was at least his nephew, and sending him to the eternal fires of hell was a humanitarian act. It would free the country of a snake that leeched off the happiness of others. Rocha thought he should be decorated for what he was about to do.

Suddenly, he heard commotion in the corridor. He picked out the loathsome voice of Alderete. The arrogant tone was still there, even more overbearing than before. Rocha had been advised not to leave his cabin at all, even to go to the bathroom, which is why he had to make do like when he was in the military. The person who hired him had told him that he would get a signal to go out and that he would have a few minutes in which to finish off Alderete. Time was the enemy; Rocha was a cripple on crutches, not an athlete. His hands, however, had acquired the strength that his legs had lost; they were like a pair of pliers, and when he used to choke people during bar fights, the victims would be unable to breathe for several minutes. Rocha studied the damp rag with which he would cut off Alderete's oxygen. He would have to act fast when he got the signal: three knocks on his door. He wasn't a first-class assassin but he was the only one available on the market. Now all he had to do was wait until dark.

F
ather Moreno was sitting up in bed
drinking cinnamon tea. He had lowered the curtain and was dabbing his face with a damp cloth.

“I closed the curtain because of all the dust.”

“Good idea,” said Ricardo.

“At this altitude, what I eat doesn't go down well. Cinnamon tea helps my digestion. You're young, I imagine you don't have this problem. Youth takes care of everything. Is this your first trip to the coast?”

“My parents have brought me every summer since I was seven years old.”

“You're lucky. I've never seen the ocean.”

“It's an unforgettable experience.”

“Better late than never.”

Ricardo washed his face, then dried it with a towel which he'd placed next to the sink and climbed up to his bunk. He closed the curtain, turned on the light above him, and set about to read a chapter of Stendhal's
The Red and the Black
. The brisk swaying of the train and the heat of the cabin put him quickly to sleep. He was awakened by the murmur of a conversation.

“Are you crazy?” exclaimed Father Moreno. “That boy is on the top bunk!”

“So what? He's probably taking a siesta.”

“I didn't tell you to come!”

“I wanted to see you. In second class the heat is unbearable. Besides, I can't stand all the crying babies.”

“I'm a Franciscan, Carla Marlene! Have you forgotten that?”

Carla Marlene couldn't contain her laughter.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“Quiet, he might wake up!” Father Moreno rasped.

Carla Marlene ascended a couple of rungs on the ladder to the upper bunk. She raised the curtain slightly, but Ricardo pretended to be sleeping. She descended cautiously.

“There's nothing like a little nap on a train,” she said.

Ricardo held back for several moments and then, with great care, raised the curtain that covered his bunk. To his surprise, he saw Carla Marlene lifting the Franciscan's robe. She unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants. Father Moreno lay back and closed his eyes. Carla Marlene slipped her head underneath his robe and her hands started to rub the Franciscan's calves. Ricardo could hear the contortionist whispering but couldn't make out the words.

Fantastic! She's giving him a blowjob!
he thought.

Carla Marlene, partially covered by the robe, looked like a puppeteer at work. Ricardo was able to glimpse her legs and elbows, which stuck out like the claws of a crab trying to comb through a mound of sand. With the passing minutes, Moreno entered into ecstasy, and the mattress started to shake. He opened his eyes and his dilated pupils appeared to be gazing at heaven; he breathed heavily while grinding his teeth. He was transformed into an erotic chipmunk, while Carla Marlene stamped her feet like an aggrieved old maid.

A minute later, Father Moreno stood up as if he had received an electric shock. Carla Marlene exited the robe with the satisfaction of having done her duty.

“It's hot as hell in here!” she said.

“He didn't wake up?”

“Don't worry. If he wakes up, he'll think that I've had confession and am ready for Holy Communion.”

“Don't be blasphemous!”

“Will you take care of my doggy tonight?”

Father Moreno pulled on his pants. “Don't even think of me going with you to the freight car. It's not right for me to be seen with you. The inspector will suspect there's something odd about my concern for that dog.”

“Once we've crossed the border, will you take off your habit?”

“Not so loud!”

“Nobody on the train suspects anything.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Ricardo, who had calmly witnessed this scene of medieval fellatio, hadn't been mistaken in his suspicions about the priest fellow. From the beginning he seemed like no ordinary cleric. It wasn't only his resemblance to a retired wrestler; it was the way he talked. His speech wasn't resigned like that of the impoverished followers of Saint Francis.
Who is this Moreno guy?
Carla Marlene had sucked him off in a position that looked very uncomfortable. It was no problem for her; since she was a contortionist, she could probably have done it upside down, with the little dog resting under the soles of her feet.

“Don't let them see you leave.”

“They'll think I was messing around with the boy.” Carla Marlene unlatched the door and leaned out cautiously. “Bye bye,” she said, and disappeared.

Father Moreno lay back down. She had left him happy. He softly whistled a Cuban bolero and gradually fell asleep. His expression was beatific. His nap was well-earned.