On My Way to Paradise (14 page)

"How do they say she died?"

"No one will say."

I went from house to house, asking how my mother had
been killed. The only answer I got was from an old gray-headed
woman: "She didn’t lose her virtue. She tried to fight those
rapists off, and that counts with God. No virtue is lost if you try
your best to fight them off!"

Even in her forties my mother had been a desirable
woman. I was sure her killers had abused her. With so much blood
around, I feared they had not left her in one piece.

I armed myself with a revolver. For weeks I stalked
the streets at night, evading military police who’d come to squash
the rebellion, searching in bars and alleys, hoping to find someone
who wore the uniform of Quintanilla’s soldiers. Every time I saw a
scruffy teenager I imagined he’d been with Quintanilla, wondered if
he was responsible for my mother’s death. I never found the men I
searched for, and was never able to spend my rage by putting a
bullet in someone.

Even as I remembered this incident, my fists
tightened and my anger burned. I sweated and trembled with rage.
This scared me: I hadn’t felt such fierce emotion since my youth.
It seemed to validate my theory that I had gone insane.

I thought of Arish. If he’d lived in Guatemala during
the revolt, he would have raped my mother and strewn her pieces
around the house. I told myself I should be glad I’d killed him,
but my chest burned with guilt.

I felt the fly flapping in my head and wondered when
I had gone insane. It seemed only right that I should be able to
remember the precise moment. Had it happened at Flaco’s death? I
had been shocked and saddened, but I couldn’t remember feeling any
different in the head. Did it happen when Arish attacked me? Or
when I found that Panamá would extradite me? Had it been when I
first saw Tamara staring at the ceiling like a zombie? So many bad
things had happened, one of them must certainly have been the
trigger.

But I could not recall when the fly had entered my
head. Even now I was on my way to fight a war I knew nothing about
while an assassin waited for an opportunity to strike. In fact, I
lay in this tube weaponless, open to attack at any moment. The tube
was like a giant drawer to a cabinet; anyone could open the drawer
to strangle me. I was in more danger now than ever.

My hands began to shake, and I wanted to escape the
tube, but my foot was anchored to the floor. I tried squeezing to
the bottom of the tube to release the brace, but the tube was too
narrow and I couldn’t reach the buckles that strapped my foot. I
kicked at the brace. When facing Arish, I hadn’t had time to
contemplate my circumstances, and so had not been afraid. But now a
wave of terror filled me. I struggled to free myself, gulping air,
sweat streaming down my sides.

I recalled the words of the metaphysicist Pío Baroja,
"It is characteristic of Nature that when it intends to destroy
you, it does so thoroughly." Certainly it seemed that Nature had
led me to this place with unerring calculation—stripping me of my
position in the community, snatching away my hopes for the future,
sucking the life from my best friend. As I considered all the bad
things that had happened to me, it was almost as if a voice
whispered in my ear, saying: "Just remember, no matter what bad
things have happened, the worst is yet to come."

The certainty that this was true filled me with
wonder and dread. A pure terror pierced me, and I lay like a moth
pinned and flapping on a board. All my twisting and shouting would
come to nothing. I could kick my legs, but there was nowhere to
run.

My leg ached from straining at the brace. I
remembered the mean dog that had stepped in Rodrigo’s trap. He had
twisted off his own foot, extricating himself with as little
personal loss as possible. It was a grim choice to make. Yet, like
the dog, I knew it was the only choice to make. I’d lost my home in
Panamá, my good name, my best friend—and something more. I had lost
my grip on reality, my own understanding of who I was. The sum of
these losses was overwhelming, yet I resolved to keep my life.

The radio started a song, and to the blare of the
trumpets I repeated the litany, "The worst is yet to come; the
worst is yet to come," and filled myself with a new toughness. I
clenched my fists and pumped my arms, strengthening them. I felt
powerful and vicious. Almost I hoped Jafari’s assassin would come.
For if he opened the convalescence tube, he’d be within my
grasp.

When I calmed, I noticed two buttons on the ceiling
above and behind my head. It was a stupid place to put the buttons.
One said, "Call for Assistance"; the other said, "Push to open." I
touched the
open
button and a latch sprung behind me. The
cot rolled out, and I found myself a meter off the floor in an
empty operating room. I sat up and removed my foot from the
brace.

 I lowered myself to the floor, careful not to
put any weight on my bad leg. The floor vibrated slightly, and I
could feel that the ship was spaceborne. The whole room smelled of
new plastic and sterile surfaces. It was spotless, empty. I
expected a nurse or a doctor to come in at any moment and tell me
to get back into bed.

I left the drawer ajar so I could hear the music
pumping into the convalescence tube. I found a crystalline-display
note pad above my convalescence tube, and by thumbing the button on
the pad I found I was to be released at 20:15. A clock beside the
message showed the time—20:07. The glue in my leg had set.

When I’d brought her on ship, Tamara had certainly
been too ill to check into a cabin, so I decided to search for her
in the convalescence tubes, hoping to learn her condition. Only one
tube appeared occupied, and the note pad above it listed the
patient as male. I opened thirty other tubes, and found them all
empty. When I was half done, the music on the radio stopped and an
announcer said, "This is Carlos Carrera with Panamá City’s current
news."

I quit searching tubes, surprised to learn the salsa
music came from Panamá.

"Police in Colón have identified the corpse of a man
who was dug up in a banana field this afternoon as ‘Flaco’
Alejandro Contento Rivera, a resident of Colón and former friend of
the desperado Angelo Himinez Osic.

"Reports say Rivera was stabbed in the throat, just
as Osic’s earlier victim, the notorious Arish Muhammad Hustanifad,
had been. Rivera is known to have possessed much hard currency
before his death, and police believe Osic murdered him for money.
Osic may have used the currency later in the day to bribe the
mercenaries on Sol Station who helped him flee justice.

"In this second murder, police have uncovered an eye
witness ..."

A female interviewer with a high voice like the
twitter of a parakeet introduced the Chilean woman I’d met in the
banana fields. The Chilean said, "Flaco, he was talking to me in
the tent, then he went outside for a minute. I heard him scream,
and I ran outside and saw that Devil, Osic, standing over Flaco,
holding a knife. I screamed and Osic ran away. I got scared and
started packing up to leave, but then Osic, he came back with a
shovel and threatened to kill me. He took a whole bunch of money
out of Flaco’s pockets, then he buried him and told me he’d kill me
if I ever told. I have been too frightened to speak about it. I
have been scared to death."

The interviewer chirped, "Are you certain it was
Osic?"

"Yes, I’m certain. I got a good look at him!" the
Chilena said.

Carrera announced, "Besides Panamá and West
Islamidad, three other nations have joined in demand for Osic’s
extradition back to Earth, asking that he face charges for planting
the bomb that devastated Sol Station, killing seven people and
injuring thirty-six.

"Police who had been searching Lake Gatún for the
injured woman last known to have been living in the home of Osic
have shifted their search to the banana field where Rivera was
buried. An eye witness saw Osic and the woman "

I slammed the convalescence tube closed so I could no
longer hear the radio. The news sickened me. I have never trusted
the news media, and the things I’d just heard reaffirmed my
paranoia. I was consoled by the knowledge that I had been right to
flee Panamá. With media coverage like that, I’d have been lucky to
live long enough to get the firing squad. But as I considered, my
mood brightened. The police were searching for Tamara’s body:
Whatever else had happened, Tamara had escaped unnoticed. Jafari
and the Alliance might well believe Arish had killed Tamara and
disposed of her body, then had been killed when he returned for me.
I could hardly believe it—Tamara could well be safe!

I opened the tube again and switched radio stations
till I found some good music, Los Arpones singing "My Heart Cries."
The thought that Tamara may have totally eluded the Alliance lifted
my spirits so sharply that I wanted to dance. I was opening another
tube, when a woman entered the operating room.

I jumped away from the tube. She was a chimera with
chocolate-colored hair of a shade I’d never seen before. A silver
kimono with red dragons appeared to be her only clothing, leaving
her tan legs bare. Her shoulders were broad and muscular in a
feminine way, the way a gymnast’s body is firm. She carried a white
shirt draped over her arm, and a bowl of green soup in her hand. I
thought she must be the nurse.

She stopped just inside the door. "Are you looking
for something?" she asked, nodding toward the convalescence tube
I’d opened.

"I had a friend with me when I came in. I thought
she’d be here."

"No women were brought in with you," she said. "Most
of your friends from Sol Station are on another module of the ship.
You won’t be able to visit until we reach Baker. No one is allowed
to pass between modules."

I looked in the chimera’s eyes—dark brown with
strange streaks of silver in them, like webs of light—and I knew I
had never seen her before. She hadn’t been one of the mercenaries
at Sol Station. She said in a joking tone, "Our beloved employer
regrets that for modesty’s sake you must wear this fifty-nine grams
of clothing," and she tossed a pair of white underwear and a white
kimono onto the bed beside me and smiled a tight-lipped smile, as
if struggling to be pleasant.

"Our employer regrets what?"

"I think the Japanese originally planned to hire only
men, and you’d have flown naked. Fifty-nine grams times 10,000
mercenaries is a lot of extra weight—so they regret paying to haul
it." She handed me the soup, then pulled two convalescence-tube
drawers open all the way, sat on one of the beds, and motioned for
me to be seated on the bed across from her.

I felt embarrassed. My hospital gown was too short,
so my privates felt exposed, and my gown was open in the back. I
picked up the clothes and started looking for a place to
change.

"It’s okay," she said, "I’ve seen sweet potatoes
before." She jutted her chin, motioning toward my privates. I
decided it was okay, and pulled the underwear on. She averted her
eyes by looking at the ceiling.

When I had put on the kimono top, she said, "You
missed the orientation meetings yesterday, so I thought I’d fill
you in. I’m Abriara Sifuentes, commander of your combat team. There
are five of us on the team. You’ve met some others: My big brother,
Perfecto. You’ll get to meet Zavala soon enough. Mavro’s on our
team. You look surprised."

"I had thought you were a nurse," I said.
Mavro,
the Whorehouse Rat
. I remembered the little man with the
tattooed tears. My stomach turned at the thought of being in a
combat team with him. In my drug-induced delirium I’d been sure he
was out to kill me, and first impressions die hard. The big
chimera, Perfecto, on the other hand, seemed like a good person. I
looked at the soup. Out of mere politeness I said, "I’ll be happy
to serve under your command."

Abriara laughed. "Some would think it a slap in the
face."

"How so?"

"There are 700 combat teams on this module, and yours
is the only one led by a woman. Truthfully, I’m not as qualified to
lead as either Mavro or Perfecto. You’ll be the subject of much
ridicule. You may not be able to suffer such a blow to your
machismo." She waved her hand as if to dismiss the problem, an
overly animated gesture typical of Chilean women.

"You don’t really expect trouble from one of us?"

She shrugged. "That depends—will you give me
trouble?"

I laughed. "You can’t be serious. Who cares about
machismo? That’s so old-fashioned! I can’t imagine any of us giving
you trouble." I couldn’t keep from gazing into her eyes, the silver
webs of light, they were mesmerizing.

Abriara appeared concerned. "You treat it as a joke,
don Angelo, as a man of your background would. But to men here on
ship, machismo is no joke. Many of them were culled from prisons in
Peru and Colombia, where men who have been stripped of everything
else cling to their dignity. You’ve seen Mavro’s tattoos—a symbol
of bravery he got for murdering two boys in the ghettoes of
Cartagena. You’ve never been part of his world, or you would know
that to him machismo is no joke. And Zavala, he’s young and eager
to prove himself.

"And I must warn you that among the chimeras we feel
something very strongly, something akin to machismo." She struggled
for a definition. "Call it ... pride of position. Torres created
chimeras for his soldiers—and only males were created to fight,
though we women learned to fight since. But the men still jealously
guard their role as warriors: They allow us to fight, but never
with rank or title. Never has a female chimera commanded a male in
battle. And I do not know how Perfecto will react. He may respect
my skills, but it won’t be enough to control him. We have another
bond that I hope will prove stronger: We were both baptized
Catholic. He might treat me with dignity for fear of God."