Green Ice (26 page)

At various times Miguel had reminisced to Lillian about his past life in Bogotá, the revolutionary cause he’d had to abandon. He spoke like a disciple about a man named Santos, Professor Julio Santos.

Then, in the fall of 1972, U.S. Immigration Agents, well supplied with blank warrants, made a random sweep of a block of dwellings in Queens. A hundred and twelve “deportables” were taken into custody. Among them was the Contreras family.

All except Miguel.

Miguel was on the F.B.I.’s wanted list. Gangsters had been replaced; rebels were the public enemies in those days. At post offices the wanted posters, making do with snapshots, looked like pages from high-school yearbooks. If apprehended, Miguel would go to prison. Otherwise he would have turned himself in to Emilia, gladly accepted a free trip home to Colombia. He ran for Canada, stopped off for a night at Lillian’s house in Bethel.

That was the last she heard of him. Until six months ago …

She had just returned again from a few days here, there. The Hotel du Cap at Antibes and La Réserve at Beaulieu. Seaweed baths in Deauville, oxygenation treatments in Paris. Going on impulse. Just enough Capri, a bit of Sardinia, even a weekend hunt on a grouse moor near the village of St. Boswells, Scotland, followed by Holland because someone mentioned miles of lilies blooming in Voglenzang, and that sounded worth seeing. As it turned out, the fragrance was so intense it gave her a headache.

Where to then? Oh, yes, she’d gone to Newport for the America’s Cup trials, then on with a bunch of guests to East Hampton, where she had a summer cottage she’d never seen in summer. Thirty rooms was still a cottage in the Hamptons. She’d wound up in Palm Beach at her father’s house, which was practically on the way anyway. She met his latest and tried to want to stay more than three days.

Usually it was a relief for her to be back in Mexico City, to come to a standstill, flop down, reflect on all the inconveniences that she’d endured, no matter how first class they were. And vow never again. But this time the place she had always depended upon as a base seemed just another temporary atmosphere. Really not all that different from a suite at the Carlton in Cannes or a guest wing in Sussex.

Space, just space, with her alone in it.

The mood would pass, she thought, she had merely taken an overdose of the wrong distractions. She did some bare-handed gardening, made an extremely intricate macramé throat band, enameled some chairs, cooked a huge pot of zuki beans, slept all day instead of all night. The feeling persisted. It seemed similar to the aftereffect of a long ride, the sensation of being still on the go. More honestly, it was the urge to go. Not that, she thought, God, no, she didn’t want to be doomed like so many of her aimless acquaintances. Direction was what she needed, a cause again. Even if she had to settle for a cause that was something less than she’d known before, it would still have to be something extraordinary.

The suggestion came to her one night soon thereafter, when she was in that pastime room off her bedroom. It was such an obviously good idea that she was peeved at herself for not having thought of it before.

At once she set about to locate Miguel, hired someone in that sort of business who found out that Miguel was in Bogotá. In La Picota Penitenciaría for the disturbances and injuries he’d caused during the last election.

She was rather glad to hear that. Miguel was the same Miguel. He had five months yet to serve on his sentence. She doubted his behavior in there would get him any time off.

She wrote him in prison.

He replied.

They corresponded regularly.

She had seen Miguel for the first time again three days ago. Met with him in a shack deep in the Las Brisas
barrio
, practically in the shadow of Argenti’s skyscraper. It hadn’t been a happy reunion, couldn’t be, because Miguel had just gotten word that several of his comrades had been killed for poaching emeralds in the mountains—among them a girl he loved and the man Julio Santos.

“What mountains?” Wiley wanted to know.

“Near Chiquinquirá, ten miles from here,” she said, as though it were a thousand.

The open flesh of the apple had turned brown in Wiley’s hand. At least, he thought, her reason for wanting to be in Bogotá wasn’t Argenti. Where
did
Argenti fit into all this?

Lillian told him Argenti was coincidental, merely a convenience.

Did Miguel know she was staying at Argenti’s?

Yes.

How did she explain that?

Miguel had been amused, believed it might be useful somehow, having someone inside on that level. “I told him that was my reason.”

“He bought it?”

“Why not?” She arched. “Looks can get you almost anywhere. You should know that.”

A reminder, not a barb, he thought. Nevertheless, it stuck. “I take it we’re meeting Miguel.”

“We’re supposed to be in Leiva by six.”

Wiley looked away, across the slopes. Semitropical foliage, weeds and vines, the trees not tall but numerous, vast clumps of bushes, snow on peaks off to the right. The sun was on its way down, a few hours from the horizon but on its way. The air had been still. Now a breeze came, all at once an isolated puff, strong and cold. Wiley tightened. “I don’t like it,” he said.

“Look, darling, I’m not asking you to conspire in a huge, ugly complicated lie. All you have to do is leave one thing out, not mention one simple little thing.”

Of course that wasn’t the reason Wiley had misgivings. More of the picture was fitting into place now. What he was getting into. What she was getting him into. With Lillian, would he always have to be filling things in? He remembered how conveniently she had exonerated her tendency to omit. No excuse for it. Well, he could get out right now, walk down the slope, not even look back at her, retreat, eventually reach Tunja and then someplace else. However … even if he could leave Lillian just like that, it would be the wrong move, he thought, considering the possibilities that might lay ahead. Strange, this countryside didn’t appear capable of yielding up anything as precious as emeralds.

He sliced away some of the apple’s face so it was fresh again. Took a bite. She had nibbled hers to the core between words. He told her, “Let’s hope I remember to call you Penny. It was Penny, wasn’t it?”

“Lillian’s okay now.” She slapped the gearshift into low to get them under way again.

“What about a last name?”

“I’m using my mother’s, my middle—Mayo. See? No lie, I’m just omitting Holbrook.”

“And who am I supposed to be?”

“My man.”

She said it as though anything else wouldn’t be the truth.

19

They bivouacked on the hillside in a stand of trees, where they wouldn’t be spotted from the air.

Miguel had chosen the location. He and his two comrades had cleared the area and made a firepit of loose stones by the time Lillian and Wiley arrived.

Miguel wasn’t pleased when he saw the jeep, so obviously a painted-over army vehicle. The first thing he wanted to know was whether it was stolen. Lillian assured him it wasn’t, but it still bothered him. He drove it into some thick, tall brush and covered it with branches.

Supper was already on, simmering.
Locro de choclos
, a thick potato soup with whole ears of corn in it, salt and lots of pepper. They ate it as the sun dropped out of sight, and afterwards, when it was surely night, Miguel, Lillian and Wiley went up to the farmhouse.

It was an adobe place, two rooms, a large everything room and a small bedroom. Because it was situated on such a steep hill, the bedroom was on a higher level. The bedroom had been an addition in 1874. There was a wood floor. The owner, Frederico Lucho, was proud there was a wood floor. When he was five he had helped his father put in the floor, handed his father nail after nail. Frederico Lucho was now seventy. He looked ninety but he moved like forty. He had no children. There had been many tries, three wives, one that ran away, two that died, so Lucho believed it was his fault that he had no children. But he never admitted that to anyone.

Wiley found him immediately likable.

They sat around the only table. The light was from two kerosene lamps with round reflectors. There were three votive candles in red-glass containers on the shelf next to a small crucifix. Lucho placed four enameled tin cups on the table and a half-full pint bottle of
aguardiente
. He poured some of the clear liquid into each cup, equal measures, careful not to waste a drop. Wiley read the label.
Aguardiente
meant
ardent water
but translated literally another way it was “to water the teeth.”

Lucho grunted for a toast.

They tossed back their drinks.

A gulp that was like a blue-hot coal going down let Wiley know precisely where his stomach was and stopped his breath for a moment. It must have been two-hundred proof. After a while he could taste what he swallowed, anise flavor. He glanced across at Lillian. Her fixed smile was supposed to offset her watering eyes.

Miguel told Lucho, “According to the boundary markers we are camped outside your line.”

“Thank you,” Lucho said.

“And there will be no weapons on your property, as we promised, not even a machete.”

The old man nodded.

“If troops come and there is trouble you are to say we forced you to cooperate.”

“How long will you be here?” Lucho asked Miguel.

“Are you nervous?” Miguel asked.

“A little.”

“Four days, perhaps five,” Miguel told him, “depending upon how it goes.”

“I thought a week or two.”

Lucho smiled. His front teeth were worn down, upper and lower, Wiley wondered if it was from ardently watering his teeth as the bottle said. Actually it was from gnawing corn.

This was the best chance Wiley had had to study Miguel. He was smaller than the man Wiley had pictured. About five eight, and thin. Not weak thin. Tensile, sinewy, as though capable of springing at any moment. He had the blackest black hair, thick and tight. Full lips and a slightly broad nose. Quick eyes, a dark brown that made the whites appear whiter. His voice was deeper and he spoke more slowly than one would anticipate.

“Let us discuss the split,” Miguel said. “How much do you want?”

“I have thought much about that,” Lucho said.

“Half?”

Lucho drew his brows together. “No. It would not be good for me. I thought it would be good, but already I am uneasy.”

“How much, then?”

“I will take help. One cannot be killed or go to prison for receiving help.” Lucho said.

“Explain what you mean.”

Lucho gazed upward as though to read the ceiling. “Most growers have children and many grandchildren to help with the picking. I have to hire from the village.”

“We are not farmers,” Miguel said.

“Anyone can pick a bean,” Lucho said. “I will give up my share for five-hundred hours’ work. You have people, do you not?”

“Yes.”

“Ten hours a day, five people for twenty days,” Lucho said, “that is what I want.”

Miguel lowered his head, shook it slowly.

“I will take four hundred hours,” Lucho bargained.

“It is only that I find it incredible,” Miguel said. “I tell you what. If everything goes right, we will give you two thousand hours.”

That delighted Lucho. He wanted to pour another round of
aguardiente
. He poured into the cups of Miguel and Wiley till the bottle was empty. It was the thing to do. Lucho shrugged at the empty bottle. Wiley pushed his cup to Lucho and said, “I have an ulcer.”

Lucho didn’t believe him.

Wiley had to drink it. He found this second shot not half so bad.

Lucho turned out one of the lamps.

He and Miguel shook hands to close the deal. Lucho was unsure about shaking hands with the
norteamericanos
. Wiley extended his hand and Lillian offered hers. Lucho, embarrassed but pleased, gave them each a single shake.

They returned to camp and Lillian made some Red Zinger herb tea. They sat near the fire. “Where are you from?” Miguel asked Wiley.

“Originally?”

“Yes.”

“Connecticut. How about you?”

“Pensilvania,” Miguel said.

Kidding, Wiley thought.

Miguel spelled it for him. “It is a small mountain town about a hundred miles west of here. The people there are mostly Piajos Indians. I am at least three-quarters Piajos.”

Evidently it was something to be proud of.

“The Piajos fought the Spaniards for over a hundred years, long after most of the other tribes had given up. They are still known as fighters. It helps to be a Piajos.”

“How many Indian tribes are there in Colombia?”

“Close to four hundred.”

“That must cause problems.”

Lillian reached around and sharply punched the back of Wiley’s arm. He assumed that was for getting too close to politics.

“Colombia has had nine civil wars,” Miguel said. “Not revolutions—civil wars, the people fighting the people. Meanwhile, Bolivia has had seventy revolutions.”

“Seventy? I thought it was more,” Wiley said, sounding knowledgeable.

“What this country must have is an incident,” Miguel said.

“Like Pearl Harbor.”

“In effect. Something that will demonstrate to the people that those who hold the dollar over their heads are not invulnerable,”

The dollar over his head, Wiley thought. “Che didn’t accomplish much in Bolivia.”

“Che Guevera was stupid,” Miguel said. “The only thing Che could do at that point was die. He was sold out.”

“Tania was a double agent.”

“Or a triple,” Lillian put in. “Probably she was also working for IT and T.”

Miguel laughed, a rather involuntary laugh, sharp and cut short. He was mourning his girl friend and Professor Santos, and although he was functioning well, dejection was just below the surface. “Che didn’t fit in any place after the fighting was over in Cuba. He was an embarrassment to the Russians and to the Cubans,” Miguel said. “They knew guerrilla warfare in Bolivia was not feasible, but they did not even try to convince Che of that. Actually, they encouraged him. Besides,” Miguel added, “Che was not a good guerrilla fighter.”