Pacazo (57 page)

The Panamericana, gas station and hotel, and standing at the university gates is a police officer. He smiles at me as I approach. I have never seen him before and there is a rumor, Manco willing to parley. Pizarro sends two Christian natives as envoys, a black attendant, a pony as a gift. The officer frowns. Manco kills them all, even the pony. I stop and the officer comes toward me and Pizarro himself rapes Cura Ocllo. Then he has his secretary rape her. He ties her to a stake, and his Cañari cohorts beat her, fill her body with arrows.

The officer takes hold of my elbow gently, the way a friend might. Pizarro puts her ravaged corpse in a basket, floats her down the Yucay River so that Manco will find her, and the officer asks to see my identity card. I say that I am a foreigner. He asks to see my foreign resident card. I tell him it has not yet come through. He asks to see my passport, and I say that I misplaced it three weeks ago, that for three weeks I have been planning to go this very day to the police station to report its loss.

The officer smiles again but now there are footsteps, now there is a voice: Dr. Guardiola, asking if he can be of service. The officer tells Dr. Guardiola that his assistance will not be required. Dr. Guardiola claps me on the shoulder, says that he will nonetheless be pleased to accompany us until all things have been clarified.

The officer shrugs, lets go of my elbow, tells me that foreigners are required to carry identification. I say that I have never met one who did. He asks me if that matters. Before I can answer he says that I should not have waited so long to report the loss of my passport, should not have waited even a single day, and I agree, I agree, I agree. I ask if arrangements might be made, and the officer nods.

- What need is there for arrangements, says Dr. Guardiola, if everything is clear?

The officer looks at Dr. Guardiola, then back at me. Finally he shrugs, says that he will give me twenty-four hours to report the loss, that otherwise further problems will result. The three of us shake hands and the officer walks away.

Dr. Guardiola pulls me in through the gates, says that I should never pay bribes, that bribes only make things worse. I thank him for his help, and say that I agree if only in principle. I walk him to his office on the far side of campus, thank him again, and he asks if I can join him for a prayer retreat this weekend.

I ask if he saw the footage of Somalis eaten by hyenas. He says that he did. I say that God is at very best a ten-year-old boy standing over an anthill with a magnifying glass.

Dr. Guardiola shakes his head, says that he is very sorry. I say that it is not his fault, turn and walk and the police officer, why didn’t he ask for my name, my address, my telephone number?

One answer only: he already knew who I was. Perhaps the Resolvers have come to trouble, and the boys gave him my address. Perhaps Reynaldo has been caught with my passport and the police are looking to take advantage. It does not matter much either way, will be settled this afternoon at the station, and now there is far movement, people at the deer pen, a covered truck. I go to see. The fencing has been repaired, and the chemist who replaced Reynaldo nods and smiles at the four deer that dash down a railed gangplank into the pen, shouts as a fifth bounds over the rail and is gone.

- Where did the deer come from? I ask.

The chemist stares at me, remembers.

- From the deer people, he says.

I nod, and he begins shouting again.

Two classes come, go, to my office and Arantxa is waiting. I smile as if I had asked her to meet me. She asks if I have a moment, and sits down in the only chair beside my own.

I put away my materials and coursebooks and tell her that after lunch I must go to the police station to report the loss of my passport, that I will be back as soon as possible, that I do not know what time that will be. She opens her mouth and closes it and rubs her eyes. I go to my filing cabinet, begin gathering the documents I will need, and she was surely about to ask how and when my passport was lost, then realized she didn’t care.

- You haven’t contributed anything to the resource bank in over a month, she says. You haven’t finished the observation forms. Final exams are next week and your students are so worried that they have come to ask for extra grammar tutoring.

I close the file cabinet, tuck the folders into my briefcase, look at her and she looks back.

- Something is wrong, she says, and I wish you would tell me what it is.

- Nothing is wrong. What could be wrong? I am just very tired.

- Do you need help with Mariángel?

- That’s not it. I’m not sleeping well, nothing more.

She doesn’t believe me. Perhaps she never has in regard to anything. She is breathtakingly sad, says that if I wish to continue teaching here I will need to reconsider my behavior, stands and goes.

The walk down the path, across the parking lot, I have been this tired before and Karina will be waiting: we eat lunch together daily. Yesterday after dessert she helped me to hang flyers. We speak little but smile a great deal and it is working or appears to be.

Out through the gate. There are no mototaxis waiting. I lean back against the wall, and the police officer from this morning stands suddenly before me. He is not smiling. He takes my elbow again.

- Come, he says, and leads me toward a squad car parked up the street.

- Of course, I say, but first I am going home for lunch.

His grip on my elbow tightens and his pace does not slow. We reach the car, and he opens the passenger door, points inside.

- If you don’t mind, I say, I would at least like to see my daughter briefly. She—

- Stop talking, and get in the fucking car.

As we pull away, I remove the folders from my briefcase, shuffle my papers until the edges are perfectly aligned. I say that I hope this will not take long. The officer does not answer.

Along and along and then slowing, into the market. The stalls to either side, their blue tarp roofs and loaded counters, their plastic goods and video cassettes and shoes. Old women selling charcoal. A locksmith’s cart. No mangos anywhere the wrong season of course but somewhere inside perhaps grapefruit and tangerines. Perhaps pomegranates. Perhaps peaches.

Out onto Sánchez Cerro and the long white wall: the police station is only one part of a compound that takes up the whole block. To the entrance, past it and around to the parking lot gate. There we wait. The guards bear machine guns. The gate opens and we enter. This is not a part of the station I have seen before. We park, and the officer leads me in through a side door, around to a very small room with one chair, tells me to wait there for a moment, tells me to make myself at home.

I open my briefcase again, take out the folders again, look at the paperwork pointlessly. I try the door handle. I put the folders away, lean back. There is a smell to this station: mildew and ink, polyester and steel, sweat. Months since I have smelled it, more than months, a year at least, and Pilar. The forms filled in late the night she went missing. The waiting, the slow hot stream of waiting with Mariángel on my chest. Thin sleep ruptured at each siren, the officers’ insistence that I leave and my constant refusal. Two days unmoving. At some point Pilar’s parents had come from Chiclayo, brought us things to eat and drink, were careful to take Mariángel from me only at moments in which my hands went weak. When Mariángel and I went home, they stayed with us. Ministering, I believe, is the word for what they did.

More days of waiting, and viciously the news. Pilar’s body, broken and torn and the dogs, my rage and the fight. The casket, closed. I lack documents I will need, I am sure of it, and the door swings open. It is the officer who drove me here.

- A small change, he says. You will first go and report your lost passport. He says that it is perfect in a way.

- Who says what is perfect?

- I will be near you all of the time. When you are done, you will come back to this room, and I will follow.

I nod, stand, walk out into the hallway. The officer points to a door at its far end. Out through it, the officer close behind me, and now we are standing in the station’s central lobby. Nothing has changed: it is still straight lines and bad light. He takes me across to an office near the entrance and disappears.

The officer here sits at a wooden desk, and above her is a fan that does not spin. She stares at her typewriter, types with great slowness, shakes her head. There is a bench and I sit down and listen to the typing. Hanging beside the window is a calendar, and I count to make sure, and yes: Reynaldo has had the two weeks he asked for.

The far wall looks built of tiny open tombs, each niche stuffed with paper. The officer swears, pulls the page out of the typewriter and throws it away, asks what I am doing in her office. I tell her that I have lost my passport. She consults a chart, says that the administrative fees come to twelve soles. I bring out my wallet, and inside there is a bill folded oddly, lengthwise, and I remember: the hair I found on the body. I take the hair out, turn it in the light. Light brown from some angles, auburn from others. The officer clears her throat and the hair falls to the floor. She is holding out a set of forms. I take them, look for the hair, sweep my hand back and forth, find only dust. The officer asks what I am doing. I stand, apologize, pay the twelve soles. She tells me to fill out the forms as well as I am able.

When I am done she asks me to wait in the lobby. It could be minutes or hours. I sit and wait. The officer who drove me here has not reappeared. I walk, and count dead spiders in the corners. I sit again, and wait.

Now there is shouting from an office on the far side of the lobby. I stand and walk. The door bears no sign, and inside there are no citizens waiting or filling in forms, but there is a television, and six officers yelling and pulling at their hair. They look at me in the doorway and extend their arms to me. They shout that the unthinkable has happened: Norway has beaten Brazil.

One of the officers shouts above the rest, calls for an end to the shouting. The others silence in deference to rank or volume. Everything is okay, he says. Everything is fine, because Brazil has already amassed enough points to qualify for the second round.

The other officers consult one another, and agree that this is true. The discussion turns to an earlier match, Chile tying Cameroon and thus passing through as well. The officer who shouted loudest crosses his arms and looks at me. Then a woman’s voice calls something like my name.

It is the officer who took my fees and forms. She is beckoning, and still this other officer stares. I nod to him, cross the lobby, am given a thin sheaf of papers documenting my loss and a receipt for the twelve soles. She says that tomorrow I must travel to Lima, go to my embassy, begin the process of obtaining a new passport. I promise that I will, and thank her. She turns away, begins typing very slowly once again.

I step out into the lobby. The officer who drove me here is leaning against a near wall and pretending to read a newspaper. I could perhaps beat him to the entrance, but the other guards are there, and I can think of no reason to run: Arantxa knows where I am, will trace me as necessary.

The officer does not look up when I walk past, but I hear the newspaper snap as he folds it. Across the lobby to the door, his footsteps in perfect time with mine. Now the hallway, and the small room.

- So far you have made good decisions, he says. Soon you will be happy that you did. For now you may relax. He will be here in a moment.

This time I do not bother to ask. The door closes and I am alone. I wait. Karina, but the door opens again. The officer who enters is tall, heavy-set, and I recognize but do not quite remember him. Short hair, light brown eyes. He smiles. I look at his badge. He covers it quickly, then laughs and lets his hand drop.

- I am Reátegui, he says. I assisted the lieutenant on the case of your wife. I helped you with some of the paperwork.

- Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you very much.

He leans forward, lowers his voice.

- Do not be afraid. There is no reason for you to be afraid. You should in fact be very happy.

- That is what your colleague said.

- He was and is correct.

- In that case, I am as happy as you wish me to be.

- You do not look happy enough. But that is about to change.

Reátegui takes a pen and a slip of paper, writes something, folds the paper and slides it across the desk. He waits, and stares, and nods. I take up the paper, unfold it and read: Ten Thousand Dollars.

- I don’t understand.

- That is how much it will cost.

- For what?

- For ten minutes with the taxista.

- You caught him?

Reátegui smiles.

- The press know nothing of it yet, but that could change at any point. The commissioner arrives this evening and the process will begin. Tomorrow your taxista will be sent to Río Seco to await trial. This is the one chance you will have to be alone with him.

- And you had me waste an hour declaring the loss of my passport?

- To give you a true reason to have been here today, should such a reason ever be required.

I nod. My chest has filled with calm, a vast dark sharp-edged calm, obsidian, but the bird god, but Sarita, and I ask for proof.

- You remember the last woman? Many people saw her get into the taxi, and one old lady got a very good look at the driver. Perhaps you have seen the sketch on television. It wasn’t easy to find him, but this morning at last we did. The license plate of his taxi wasn’t the one you gave us, but it was the same vehicle: we found blood traces from all four victims, including your wife. He has no alibis for any of the killings. He owns a pair of shoes that matches footprints found at the final scene, and his—

- I thought that something happened to the fooprints.

- What?

- The footprints. Something happened.

Reátegui scratches his face. He says that in truth he should not be discussing evidence with me at all. He says that I am welcome simply to return to my home if I so desire. He says that he has gone to great and excessive lengths to provide me with this opportunity, that he is running substantial personal and professional risks in so doing, that—