We Eat Our Own (7 page)

El Clavo wouldn't be dressed. Shit. Clavo wouldn't be ­
showered.

Andres would cover. He had to. He straightened the lapels on the shirt, shook the fabric to get the smells out, because downstairs, the shirt was a costume. Downstairs was acting. Downstairs he had another name.

• • •

El Clavo was the one who told Andres about the difference between an alias and a pseudonym.

It happened a month after he'd joined the movement, eleven months before he was posted in this house. Andres had been following the M-19 for years by then: the breathless coverage when they stole the sword of Simón Bolívar from that stuffy museum north of the park to symbolize the new populist revolt, the buzz in the neighborhood that half the block was with them, that so-and-so had picked the lock on the display case himself. El Clavo lived in the neighborhood then, too, and he was the one who told Andres he was finally old enough to join. He was the one who whispered: Meet me Monday, and I'll give you a new name.

They met in the back row of the lecture hall at the university. Andres was hot as shit under a polyester shirt that he'd paid half his savings for and worn to blend in with the college kids, too young for the university by two years, then, and it all showed in his face. El Clavo, on the other hand, looked five years too old for the Physiology 101 class he was in, a sophomore with a full beard and voice like a
TV
announcer, dressed in clean shirts and tailored pants his mother had bought him by mail.

Of course, he wasn't called El Clavo then. He was Juan
Carlos, Andres' friend from the neighborhood, who'd been like an older brother to him since they were kids. And that was his first lesson, Juan Carlos said, whispering over the little desk in Andres' lap: When you start calling me by my alias, I'm not your friend anymore. I'm your compañero.

At the front of the lecture hall, the professor drew a diagram: two circles and two arrows, labeled
FLUIDO
and
FLUIDO
. This is all the human body is, the professor challenged. Two fluid sacks that need to remain in balance.

My alias is El Clavo, Juan Carlos whispered, and from the way he jabbed his index finger into the fleshy center of his own palm, Andres knew this was important. Because the alias, from now on, would be Juan Carlos'
real
name, his truth, who he would be until the day he died. He'd probably have a pseudonym, too, once he got assigned, but the pseudonym was the lie: that was the name he'd give the police when they held him down under the water and told him to admit it all. Never the alias. You don't give that away, Juan Carlos said, not even if the water fills your lungs, not even if they put the long blade in.

Andres paused. But what about your
real
name?

What do you mean?

I mean Juan Carlos. Andres shifted against the orange plastic of the seat. I mean the name I've called you since we were kids, cabrón. Come on.

Juan Carlos stared through the center of Andres' Adam's apple, thinking. Settled on: That's a stupid question.

The professor lectured. The fluid density of the human body is 985 kilograms per cubic meter, he said. That's significantly less than seawater.

Andres'mouth was dry. He forced his voice to lower, so he would sound less eager. I want to help, he said. I want to help take back Colombia.

Juan Carlos leaned over across the desk again. We have a new operation starting in a week. If you have any more stupid questions, El Puño, ask them now.

And there it was: his alias, a gift.

• • •

His pseudonym, though, that didn't come until later.

His pseudonym was the name the landlady called Andres when he jogged down the stairs and through the parlor door: Jhon! Jhonito! What a treat! I would have expected your uncle!

The landlady was past eighty. She had blue veins in her hands and blue rings on her fingers, hair dyed the color and crispness of burnt toast. You've done something different today, dulzura, he says, kissing the hinge of her wrist. You've never looked more beautiful.

This was Andres' big assignment, how he would help the armed resistance take back the nation: flirting with a geriatric. He wore green shirts that matched his eyes and carried a backpack full of books he'd never read and convinced her, somehow, that he was the nephew of her renter, Vicente Mosa, a thirty-one-year-old wunderkind shipping magnate who, of course, did not exist.

Did not exist, but there he came, tripping down the dark stairs; there he was, Juan Carlos, transformed by a button-down shirt, apologizing about a call from Kyoto, so sorry, it had made him so late.

It's no trouble, Vicente, the landlady said, Jhon was keeping me company.

She squeezed Jhon's kneecap with one blue-veined hand. It felt like the last lurch of a heart.

Maybe if Jhon spent less time with you, he'd keep up with
his work for me, eh? Vicente winked at his nephew, hiked his slacks to his ankles so he could cross his legs as he sat. I noticed you didn't finish painting the trim upstairs. Is this a summer job, or did you think it was a dating service?

There was no trim to be painted, but Jhon didn't say anything. They visited with her for an hour, Jhon chattering about the night classes he was taking in the university this summer, Vicente ribbing Jhon for how little help he'd been with the renovation on the upstairs apartment. The landlady squinted back and forth between them with an unflagging grin. Every time her gaze turned from nephew to uncle, Andres thought: Has she noticed? Juan Carlos was twenty, only three years older than Andres, and full beard or no, simple nearsightedness couldn't overlook that.

But then, miraculously, the visit was over. Vicente glanced at the clock and cursed a conference call he'd forgotten to reschedule. Vicente helped the landlady up off the couch, and Andres stood too, waited quietly for the old woman's knees to straighten and for Vicente to kiss his goodbyes. He studied his own hands as he waited, the fingernails he had to remind himself to keep short and very clean. Because Jhon wouldn't touch his expensive books with hands like Andres had; Jhon didn't live the type of life that puts a stripe of grime around each cuticle every day, or makes dark calluses roughen over the heels of your hands. It might have been crazy, but Andres was superstitious. He was sure that when he took the landlady's hand in his and kissed her soft, pale knuckles goodbye, that somehow she would notice these small things. Somehow, these things would give them all away.

She would call the police and stammer an address.

They would find the compañeros upstairs, gnawing toothpicks, all unmasked.

He could imagine it too easily: Marina, La Araña, still lying naked on the bedspread under the curling breeze. Marina's eyes lighting up with fear; Marina's wrist bending, the Kalashnikov sunk like the head of a sleeping husband into the pillow beside her.

Andres could see it: the barrels of the police rifles, rising to meet her.

• • •

He was surer of it every day, every time he went into the house: they were so close to being caught.

This is why Andres cooked the Patient steaks, well done, the meat firm as a tensed muscle. He roasted plantains and froze the peels so that the fruit fly eggs hidden in their skins would die, so Jhon Mosa could put them in the compost heap to fertilize the tomatoes. The tomatoes ripened in a week. He sliced them over a green salad and put them in a bowl for the Patient.

He did these things to protect them, in his way: if the ­Patient lost hope, it would not be because of El Puño. If the Patient heard the landlady come and beat his fists against the floor until she noticed, it would not be because the M-19s were simply thugs.

When Andres opened the door under the bed—the first time in three days—the Patient was sitting upright on his mattress, staring at the clock with a kind of furious thirst. He'd taken it off the plantain crate they gave him for a nightstand. He gripped it in both his hands, holding the thing at eye level like a shelled fruit that would split and leak if he threw it down hard enough.

How many days has it been? the Patient said.

You aren't counting them anymore?

The pen dried up.

When?

I forget how long.

You should have told me.

I should have. The Patient laughed strangely, repeated, I should have. But maybe I didn't really want to know.

The Patient hadn't asked for the clock. Andres was the one who convinced the compañeros that he should have it, that the man needed some kind of dignity. Marina told Andres it was a fucking terrible idea, and fought him over it for hours, and then finally grabbed a knife, pried the clock open, tossed the alarm mechanism down onto the card table as hard as she could. It flashed under the ceiling bulb like a tooth punched out. If you're so worried about being humane, she said, maybe you should find another line of work, Puñito. Marina was still sleeping with him, every day and sometimes twice. But when she did it, now, she left her cigarette burning on the window ledge, her eyes roaming to the corners of the room.

Andres tried not to think of her as he extended his arm and lowered the bowl into the Patient's room. He kept the barrel of his rifle fisted in his other hand, the tip of it wagging over the edge of the trapdoor. He felt the Patient's gaze turn up to regard him, two satellite dishes finding a thread of signal. Thank you, he said. The food you bring is always better.

I brought you something else, Andres said. Hold on.

Maybe it was too much: checking out library books for the Patient, giving him clocks and pens, treating him like a human being. Andres told himself he did it because the revolution was about the people, not just kids in a safe house playing with grenades, and the Patient, prisoner or no, was a person, too. He told himself that, but when Andres retrieved the record from the depths of his rucksack, the feeling that tugged through him was not righteousness; it was guilt. He slid the record out of the sleeve and the vinyl flashed in the light from below.

How did you find it? the Patient wondered.

There's a classical music shop on Avenida Colón. It was in the phone book.

And you're sure it's No. 3?

Yes.

The 1936 Weingartner?

Andres squinted at the cover of the record. The script curled over a water-stained photograph of a man's back in suit and tails.

It has to be the Weingartner, the Patient pronounced. Only the Weingartner understood the overture.

Andres heard the quaver in the man's voice, felt an itch at the back of his neck, that he knew signaled an impulse to apologize. He resisited it. He coughed a quick Hey, forced his wrist to reangle the gun.

The Patient stared back. He pursed his lips and let the silence stretch between them, full of questions. Then his eyes dropped to the salad. It is good, he said. The music, the food. Thank you.

Andres eased up on his grip. The Patient raked his fork once through the lettuce and took a resigned bite. When they first kidnapped him, Andres was struck by how slowly the man ate and drank: like a connoisseur with a brandy snifter, chewing the water out of the canteen like it was bread. It never occurred to Andres until he tried the water himself: the old pipes tinged everything with a flavor like roots and copper wiring, like blood. The Patient must have been terrified of poisons.

The Patient's voice still astonished him, its strange soprano turns.

Do you have to take it back with you?

What?

The record player. The record. I'd like to play it when you're gone.

You can't.

Please. You're the only decent one. The Patient set the bowl down and sat up straighter. You're the only one of them I can ask these things.

No, Andres said, too firmly, overcompensating. The compañeros think—I think—It's not allowed.

It was horrible: the way the Patient's eye sockets filled with shadow as he looked up through the door.

I won't play it too loud, he said, I promise. Gum up the dial. Put it on the lowest volume. I promise I won't try to fix it. I won't try to alert anyone.

Andres adjusted his grip on the rifle. Pass me up your waste.

It will help me sleep. I haven't been sleeping.

You'll figure it out.

How many days has it been?

I gave you a pen to keep track.

I told you. It stopped working.

Fifty-one.

The Patient sat up on his heels, empty-handed. Let me ask you. Do you know what it feels like not to sleep well for fifty-­one nights?

The barrel tapped on the ledge. Andres' wrist did it. Andres' teeth were clenched tight together and his eyes were full of tears.

Andres' voice spoke without his consent: Prisoner, it said. Pass up your waste now.

The Patient exhaled. The bucket was in the one corner of the room that you couldn't see from the little door above, as far from the books and the clock as he could get it. Andres could hear him struggling with the lid, making sure the edges were all sealed. He wondered why the Patient never tried to throw it in his face.

Thank you, Andres said.

Thank you. The patient laughed. Well, sir, you're very, very welcome.

Andres closed the trapdoor, fastened the locks, pulled the rug and the bed back over. He dragged out the record player and slipped the Beethoven out of its sleeve and onto the tray. The needle hovered and sank.

• • •

A five-part chord, repeated twice. A quarter note each. Two guillotines falling.

He tried to explain it to the compañeros. He hauled the record player out of the Patient's room and yelled at them to shut up, unwound the long cord and played those two notes again, again. Listen, he said. The violins are so sharp. Do you know what that's supposed to symbolize?

Juan Carlos picked up another dart and whetted it between his teeth.

It's the sound of heads falling in the basket, Andres said. Traitors to the cause. Do you get it?