Of Love and Shadows (36 page)

Francisco had supervised his group in difficult assignments, but not until recently had he anticipated that one day he would use their talents to save his life and Irene's.

It was eight o'clock in the morning when a truck stopped before Mario's apartment building, loaded with exotic plants and dwarf trees for his terraces. Three servicemen, dressed in overalls, plastic helmets, and fumigation masks, unloaded tropical philodendrons, flowering camellias, and miniature orange trees; they connected hoses to the insecticide tanks and proceeded to spray the bushes, their faces covered by their masks. Then, while one man stood guard in the hallway, the other two, at a sign from Mario, slipped out of their uniforms. Irene and Francisco quickly donned the overalls and masks, then unhurriedly joined the driver, and all three drove off without a second glance from anyone. Irene and Francisco spent some time circling the city, leaving the truck and twice changing taxis; finally they were met on a street corner by a grandmother with an angelically innocent face, who handed them the keys and documents to a small automobile.

“So far, so good. How do you feel?” Francisco asked, getting in behind the wheel.

“Fine,” replied Irene, so pale she looked as if she might dissolve into mist.

They drove south, out of the city. Their plan was to reach a certain mountain pass and cross the border before the police net closed around them. The name and description of Irene Beltrán was in the hands of authorities from one end of the country to the other; their difficulty was compounded by the fact that they would not be safe even in neighboring dictatorships, because those governments exchanged information, prisoners, and corpses. In such transactions, there were at times too many dead on one side and too many identity cards on the other, causing considerable confusion when it was time to identify the victims. Thus people were arrested in one country, only to turn up dead in another under a different name, and families who wanted to bury their dead had been known to receive a stranger's body. Although Francisco had contacts on the other side of the border, he knew that they must make their way as quickly as possible either to a democratic country on their own continent or to their final destination—the mother country, as those who fled Latin-American countries grew to think of Spain.

They made the journey in two stages, because Irene was still very weak and nauseated and could not bear many hours in the car, in pain and without resting. My poor darling, you have grown so thin during the last weeks; you have lost your freckles and golden skin but you are as beautiful as ever, even without your long, queenly hair. I don't know how to help you; I wish I could take your suffering and your uncertainties onto myself. Damn the fate that has brought us to this, swaying along in this car with terror gripping our guts. Irene, how I wish we could go back to the carefree days when we used to walk Cleo in the park on the Hill; when we sat side by side beneath the trees and gazed at the city spread out below our feet; when we drank wine, feeling we were sitting on top of the world, free and immortal. I never imagined that I would be driving you down this interminable, nightmarish road with every nerve on edge, jumping at the slightest sound, constantly on my guard, suspicious of everything and everyone. Since that terrible moment when the hail of bullets almost cut you in two, I have had no rest, either waking or sleeping, Irene. I must be strong, larger than life, invincible, so that nothing can harm you, so that I can protect you from pain and violence. When I see you like this, lying back against your seat, eyes closed, limp and half dead with fatigue, tortured by every lurch of the car, my chest tightens with terrible anxiety, with the yearning to take care of you, the fear I may lose you, the desire to stay by your side forever and keep you from all harm, to watch over your sleep, to make your days happy. . . .

As it grew dark, they stopped at a small provincial hotel. Irene's weakness, her faltering step, and the somnambulistic air that had sunk into her bones stirred the compassion of the innkeeper, who accompanied them to their room and insisted on serving them food. Francisco removed Irene's clothing and checked the light bandages she wore as protection; then he helped her into bed. A waiter brought soup and a glass of warm wine with sugar and cinnamon, but she was so exhausted she could not even look at them. Francisco lay down by her side; she put her arm around his waist, rested her head on his shoulder, sighed, and was immediately asleep. He lay completely still, smiling in the darkness, happy as always when they were together. The intimacy they had shared these last weeks still seemed a miracle. He knew this woman's most subtle secrets; the smoky eyes that could turn savage with pleasure, or gratefully moist as they carried out the inventory of their love, held no mysteries for him; he knew her body so intimately that he could trace it from memory, and he was sure that as long as he lived he would be able to recall her smooth, firm geography; even so, each time he held her in his arms he was overcome by the same suffocating emotions he had felt the first time they made love.

The next morning, Irene awakened feeling as cheerful as if she were waking from a night of love, but her good spirits could not disguise the waxen pallor of her skin and the dark, unhealthy circles under her eyes. Francisco brought her a large breakfast, hoping she might regain a little strength, but she barely tasted it. She lay staring out the windows, absorbing the fact that spring had passed. Having lain so long in the lap of death, her life had taken on new meaning. The world seemed miraculous to her and she was thankful for its most inconsequential detail.

Early, because they had hours still to travel, they climbed into the car and continued on their way. They drove through the inebriating light of a small village, passing carts of fresh vegetables and vendors with trays of trinkets, and bicycles and broken-down buses filled to bursting. Church bells were ringing, and two ancient women dressed in black tottered along, all mourning veils and widows' prayer books. They drove past a line of schoolchildren being led toward the plaza by their teacher, singing, Little white pony, on this fair morn, carry me back to where I was born. On the air came the fragrance of freshly baked bread and the song of cicadas and thrushes. Everything looked clean, orderly, tranquil; people were calmly and peacefully going about their daily business. For a moment Irene and Francisco doubted their sanity. Were they delirious, the victims of a horrible fantasy? Could it be true that no danger threatened them? Was it possible they were fleeing from their own shadows? But then they felt the false documents burning a hole in their pockets, they looked at their transformed faces, and they remembered the turmoil of the mine. No, they had not lost their senses. It was the world that was insane.

They drove for so many hours along those eternal roads that they lost the ability to focus on the landscape, and by the end of the day one mile faded into another. They felt as if they were marooned on earth from another planet. Only the police checkpoints at the toll booths interrupted their journey. Every time they surrendered their papers, they felt an electric charge of fear that left them sweaty and limp. The guards glanced casually at the photographs and waved them on. But at one post they were ordered out of the car and held ten minutes answering peremptory questions; the car was thoroughly searched, and just when Irene was ready to scream, certain that they had been apprehended, the sergeant gave them permission to continue.

“But be careful, there are terrorists in this area,” he warned them.

It was several minutes before they could speak. They had never felt danger so near, so tangible.

“Panic is stronger than love or hatred,” a subdued Irene admitted.

*  *  *

From that moment on they ridiculed their fear, making jokes to save themselves useless worry. Francisco sensed that he had discovered Irene's only secret. Any form of shyness or embarrassment was foreign to her; she gave herself to her emotions freely, holding nothing back. But somewhere, deep inside her, there was something she was ashamed of. She blushed at weaknesses she considered to be intolerable in others, and unacceptable in herself. And the terror she had discovered in herself was a source of shame that she tried to hide from Francisco. This fear was profound and consuming and had absolutely no resemblance to the fright she had occasionally experienced, the kind of scare against which laughter had been her defense. She had never feigned bravery in the face of simple fears like the slaughtering of the pig, or a creaking door in a haunted house; she was, however, shamed by this new emotion that clung to every pore, invading her entire being, making her cry out in her sleep and tremble when she was awake. At times, the impression of nightmare was so strong that she was not sure whether she was alive dreaming, or dreaming she was alive. Those fleeting instants when he peered into the depths of her shame, her fear, were when Francisco loved her most.

Finally they turned off the main route and followed a road that wound up into the mountains to a spa that had once been famous for its miraculous waters, but, with the advent of modern pharmacopoeia, had sunk into relative oblivion. The building still retained the memory of its resplendent past when, at the turn of the century, it had welcomed the most distinguished families, and foreign guests had come from afar in search of a cure. Neglect had not destroyed the charm of the large salons with their balustrades and wainscoting, period furniture, brass lamps, and fringe- and pompom-trimmed draperies. The room Francisco and Irene were assigned was furnished with an enormous bed, an armoire, a table, and two straight-backed chairs. The electricity was cut off at a fixed hour, and after that any moving about meant carrying a candle. Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped abruptly, as always at such altitudes, and then aromatic thorn logs were set ablaze in the fireplaces. The sharp, pungent odor of dry leaves and manure being burned in the courtyard drifted in through their windows. Aside from themselves and the administrative personnel, the guests were all patients afflicted with various illnesses, or the elderly seeking relief from pain. Everything was slow and gentle, from the guests' footsteps shuffling along the corridors to the rhythmic sound of engines pumping water and curative clay to the great marble and iron baths. During the day, a line of the hopeful crept along the lip of the precipice to the fumaroles, leaning on their canes, wrapped in pale sheets, looking like distant ghosts. Higher up on the slopes of the volcano bubbled hot springs where patients, lost in the amber fog, went to sit in the thick sulfurous vapor. At dusk a bell sounded in the hotel, and its reverberating summons rumbled across the mountainside into ravines and hidden places. It was the signal to return for the rheumatic, the arthritic, the ulcerous, the hypochondriacal, the allergic, and the incurably old. Meals were served on precise schedules in a vast dining room where air currents sang and kitchen odors danced.

“I only wish we were here on our honeymoon,” mused Irene, who was enchanted with the place and hoped the contact who was to lead them to the border would not come too soon.

Weary from the long ride, they held each other close in the elemental bed that was their fate, and immediately lost all notion of time. They were awakened by the first light of a radiant morning. Francisco was relieved to see that Irene looked much improved; she even proclaimed that she had a truck driver's appetite. They dressed, after making love with joyous restraint, and went outside to breathe the air off the cordillera. The continuous stream of guests on their way to the thermal baths began very early. While others were concentrating on their cures, Irene and Francisco used their available hours to cherish each other with stolen kisses and eternal promises. They cherished each other strolling the rugged paths on the volcano, they cherished each other sitting on the fragrant humus of the deep forest, they cherished each other whispering amid the foggy yellow spirals of the fumaroles, until at midday a mountain guide wearing rough leather boots, a black poncho, and a wide-brimmed hat arrived, bringing with him three mounts and bad news.

“They've picked up your trail. We must leave right now.”

“Who was it they caught?” asked Francisco, fearing for his brother, or Mario, or some other friend.

“No one. The manager of the hotel where you stayed the night before last was suspicious, and reported you.”

“Can you ride, Irene?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling.

Francisco bound Irene's waist firmly with a broad sash so she could more easily bear the swaying of the ride ahead. They lashed their few belongings behind the saddles, and set out, riding Indian file along a barely visible path formerly used by smugglers that would lead them to a forgotten pass between two border checkpoints. When the trail disappeared completely, swallowed up by an indomitable nature, the guide took his bearings from marks carved on tree trunks. It was not the first time—nor would it be the last—that this tortuous trail had been used to save people fleeing for their lives. Larches, oaks, and manius watched over the travelers; in some places their foliage met overhead, forming an impenetrable green dome. They rode on for hours, without stopping, and without meeting a single human being. They were alone in a damp, cold solitude like a tunnel, a green labyrinth in which they were the only adventurers. Soon they were riding past large patches of snow still unmelted from the winter. They rode into low-hanging clouds, and for a while were enveloped in ethereal foam that blotted out the world. When they emerged, there suddenly lay before them the majestic spectacle of the cordillera snaking toward infinity: purple peaks, white-crowned volcanoes, ravines and gorges whose sheer, icy walls would melt in summertime. From time to time, they glimpsed a cross marking the site where some traveler had given up the ghost, dwarfed by desolation; at those places the guide crossed himself, reverently, to appease that spirit.

The guide rode first, then Irene, and Francisco brought up the rear, never taking his eyes from his beloved, alert for any sign of fatigue or pain, but she showed no weariness. She had given herself to the slow rhythm of the mule, her eyes drinking in the wondrous landscape around them, but weeping inside. She was leaving her home. Next to her heart, beneath her clothing, she carried the small packet of soil from her garden that Rosa had sent so she could plant forget-me-nots on the other side of the sea. She thought of the magnitude of her loss. She would never again walk the streets of her childhood, or hear her language spoken as she loved it; she would not see the outline of her sweet land's mountains at dusk; she would not be lulled by the song of its rivers; gone would be the aroma of sweet basil in her kitchen, of rain evaporating from her roof tiles. She was not only losing Rosa, her mother, her friends, her work, and her past. She was losing her homeland.