The Good Cripple Read online

  From the other side of the street the Alfa Romeo appeared, followed by a beat-up Number 14 bus that was honking at it and finally passed it, leaving a blue cloud of burnt diesel in its wake. Half a block lower he parked the Alfa Romeo, as expected, in front of a store named El Volcán, which sold paintings. The old man got out with the black garbage bag that was supposed to hold the half million dollars. The Sephardi saw him look both ways before crossing the multicolored current of automobiles. When the moment came, the old man made it partway across the street to the center island, where he halted to let the vehicles that the light signal had just vomited up the street go by. While the cars passed, the old man looked around and the Sephardi averted his eyes.

  The old man managed to cross the other half of the street. On the corner, at Farmacia Fátima, was a municipal trashcan. The old man walked casually over to the barrel and dropped the bag inside. Then he looked around once more, turned, and prepared to maneuver back across the four-lane street.

  The Sephardi moved slowly toward the trashcan, glanced inside, and kept going to the next corner. When he returned, the Alfa Romeo had already pulled away and was disappearing in the traffic headed towards the Plazuela España. He retraced his steps to the trashcan and stopped nearby, as if he were waiting for someone, one shoulder leaning against the wall.

  According to the plan, the Sephardi would wait, keeping an eye on things, until the jeep drove past to pick him up. It was Wednesday, and they knew the sanitation truck came by only on Mondays and Fridays. Though it is unusual for Guatemalans to dispose of trash in a trashcan, an employee of the pharmacy emerged just them with three plastic bags full of garbage and tossed them into the barrel. The Sephardi wasn’t sure what to do, but the girl smiled when she saw him and went back into the pharmacy. He did nothing, and kept leaning against the wall pretending he was waiting for someone.

  According to the plan, when the jeep appeared down the street, he would take the bag out of the trashcan and El Horrible would open the back door of the jeep to let him in.

  And, according to the plan, the Sephardi would get in and the jeep would continue on towards Liberación and Avenida Roosevelt before turning off onto the Calzada de San Juan.

  A KLM 747 flew over Calle Montúfar at that moment, and the Sephardi raised his eyes. The roar made his clothes flap and rattled his eardrums. The jet seemed to be falling rather than flying. It was hard to believe it was going to land at Aurora, but no explosion could be heard after it disappeared from sight beyond the Moll and shortly after that the noise stopped.

  They say that a chimpanzee, in order to figure out how to reach a piece of fruit with a stick or branch, must have both objects in sight at the same time. At that point something similar happened to the Sephardi, for as he saw the airplane descending and––though only out of the corner of his eye––the trash can that contained the half million dollars, the plan he himself had come up with became a different plan, which suited him better. He had an absurd, fleeting vision: he was stretched out in his swimsuit, sunbathing next to the swimming pool at the Minzah Hotel in Tangier. It was a place he’d been dreaming about visiting for a while, but this was November, and it would be cold in Tangier, he reflected.

  The Tapir’s idea was to kill the captive once they had the ransom. The Sephardi did not agree with this and had protested, but the Tapir reminded him that he was the one who had footed the bill for the operation, and that since Juan Luis knew everyone in the group except Carlomagno who was only an errand boy, and the Sephardi, who was the technical adviser, the rest of them couldn’t afford the luxury of being recognized. The discussion had ended there.

  The Sephardi thought of Tangier again, but this time he imagined himself in a room; he saw a date palm silhouetted against a low, cloudy winter sky through a very high Moorish window darkly framed by Moroccan shutters.

  As the image in a kaleidoscope changes, so the plan changed in the Sephardi’s mind, and he suddenly decided that, as the one who had made the plan, procured the supplies and pulled off the capture almost single-handedly, he deserved more for his work than the Tapir was planning to give him.

  The jeep appeared. It came around the corner very slowly and rolled along the edge of the sidewalk. The Sephardi stepped away from the wall and stood up straight.

  Bunny stopped the jeep next to the Sephardi; El Horrible opened the back door.

  “What’s going on,” he said. He seemed nervous or angry.

  “He went right past,” said the Sephardi. “Maybe he’s going around the block. There’s a lot of traffic and he must have had trouble parking.”

  The Tapir rolled down his window.

  “Stay there,” he ordered. “We’ll go around one more time. He may have gotten stuck in traffic on Liberación.”

  Bunny said “Old pendejo,” and drove away.

  The Sephardi followed the jeep with his eyes and managed to catch sight of El Horrible turning his head back to look at him with an expression that seemed distrustful.

  “I’m going to give it to you,” the Sephardi said to himself.

  The jeep turned at the shopping center and the Sephardi went back to his position against the wall. The traffic grew worse from moment to moment. Now the flow was so dense that the cars barely moved and pedestrians could cross from one sidewalk to the other between the bumpers, risking only that some distracted driver who might crush their knees.

  The jeep exited the shopping center at Avenida 11 and went a block farther north to turn. El Horrible was nervous.

  “Listen,” he said. “What if that bastard is just trying to string us along?”

  “Who?” asked the Tapir.

  “The Sephardi.”

  “Stop imagining all this crap,” said Bunny.

  “Don’t forget he’s half Jewish,” the Horrible insisted. “He’ll fuck us over if he can.”

  The jeep stopped at a corner.

  “What if I get out here so I can keep an eye on him from behind?” said El Horrible.

  “Stop fucking with us, Horrible,” said the Tapir. “Don’t get all paranoid now.”

  Bunny came around the corner, accelerated down the relatively empty avenue to the light, which was green, and turned again, slowly, to wedge back into the almost immobile traffic on Calle Montúfar.

  El Horrible glimpsed the Sephardí, who was still leaning against the wall.

  “Something’s fishy here.”

  “Put a lid on it,” replied Bunny. “Stop making me nervous, will you?”

  “Keep your eyes wide open,” said the Tapir

  The Sephardí watched the jeep approach. He stepped away from the wall with a slight smile; the hand inside his pocket pulled the pin from the grenade and he started counting.

  The jeep was moving slowly, its right-hand tires almost grazing the curb.

  Everything is relative, the Sephardi thought. Time, which for him could still be a distinct thing, divisible into fractions by a drop of water or grains of sand or a voice, was about to become something else entirely for the three men who were approaching in the jeep at ten kilometers per hour, or maybe even slower.

  The Sephardi raised his eyes an instant and his gaze was lost in the blue sky and then came down to focus on a precise point: the center of the jeep’s windshield at the level of the rearview mirror. He took one step to the side, pulled his hand out of his pocket, tilted his body back slightly, raised his arm like a baseball pitcher, and when his count reached twenty, threw the grenade.

  Bunny, who may have been the only one to decipher his movements braked sharply at that moment; he saw the dark object, the grenade the Sephardi had thrown at them; he saw it in detail, with a sense of unreality, and quickly ducked his head.

  The grenade broke through the windshield which ceased to be a transparent medium and become something opaque and almost milky. A fraction of a second later came the explosion.
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br />   The Sephardi took stock of the situation. Apparently, no one had seen the connection between his pitching movement and the explosion that had occurred thirty meters down the street. People were now beginning to congregate around the jeep, their initial fright past.

  At that point, the Sephardi proceeded calmly over to the trashcan, pushed aside the bags with the pharmacy’s garbage, and pulled out the black bag of money. He’d walked only half a block toward Liberación when he heard the siren of an IGSS ambulance.

  He went to catch the bus in front of the Aurora zoo. He got off at El Trébol to transfer to the bus for Mixco, where the abandoned gas station was.

  Now he had to decide what to do with Carlomagno. But for some reason, the Sephardi, seated in the last row of a Veloz Antigüeña, couldn’t manage to concentrate. It wasn’t that he was nervous. He’d taken the sports bag with the money in it out of the trash bag, and as soon as he had the chance and no one could see him, he opened the zipper to grope through one of the packs of hundred-dollar bills. He carried the bag between his legs and looked out the open window.

  He got off at the little station in Mixco and walked down the dirt road out to the gas station, which was on the outskirts of town. When the old orange and blue sign of the abandoned Gulf station appeared beyond some cypress trees at the end of the road, the Sephardi shifted the bag to the opposite shoulder in order to have his right hand free, and kept on walking.

  Carlomagno was in the office, his feet up on the old desk, listening to news radio La Mosca. It was three minutes to noon when the Sephardi walked in the door.

  Carlomagno took his feet off the desk.

  “I was starting to get worried,” he said. “Did something happen?”

  The Sephardi took the pistol from its holster, pointed to the radio, and told Carlomagno to be quiet because he wanted to listen to the news.

  Carlomagno obeyed, leaned back in his chair, looked at the pistol, which was not aimed at him, and then riveted his gaze to the sports bag that was hanging from the Sephardi’s left shoulder.

  A broadcaster with the voice of a bugle delivered the news about the accident on Calle Montúfar. Two of the passengers in the Montero jeep had died before reaching Roosevelt hospital, and the third was unconscious and in critical condition when admitted.

  Carlomagno stood up.

  “What happened to them?”

  “Cool it,” the Sephardi said, aiming at his chest with the automatic.

  In fact, Carlomagno looked calm, even bored, like an actor who’s getting tired of rehearsing an easy scene for the theatre.

  “You heard the news,” said the Sephardi. “I don’t know what happened. But you and I are going to make ourselves scarce.”

  “Then point that thing somewhere else.”

  “Calm down. If I wanted to blow your ass off I wouldn’t be talking to you. But I’ve never understood how your head works and I want you to pay attention to me. And be careful about any sudden moves.”

  The Sephardi placed the sports bag on the desk, opened it with one hand, and slowly withdrew five packs of hundred-dollar bills. Then he closed the bag.

  “Qué de a huevo,” said Carlomagno. “If the others have gone up in smoke then we each get half.”

  “Uh-uh,” the Sephardi shook his head. “That’s your share.”

  “Don’t be like that, vos.”

  “Don’t you be a pain in the ass. I’m making an effort to be fair, all right? You don’t have to leave the country, and life is cheap here. I can’t live here, and where I’m going life costs twice as much, maybe three times.”

  “You really are one hell of a ….” said Carlomagno with resignation in his voice. He took the packs of hundreds from the desk and put them in the pockets of his aviator jacket.

  The news show ended and the song Muevelo by El General, the punta-rock hit of the moment, began to play. The Sephardi put his pistol away.

  “Get your stuff together. You’re hopping the next bus to Xela. Spend two nights at the Bonifaz, in case I have to contact you, and after that you decide where you’re going.”

  When Carlomagno was ready with his tourist bag, which held two changes of clothing, the money, his automatic, and four clips of ammunition, the Sephardi walked with him as far as the gas pumps and they said goodbye.

  “What are you going to do with the hostage?” Carlomagno wanted to know.

  “Let him go,” answered the Sephardí.

  “Good idea,” said Carlomagno.

  The Sephardi went back to the shed where the cots were and began preparing to leave. He took a Samsonite out from under his cot, lifted the lining that hid the false bottom and carefully placed the bills in there. Then he filled the suitcase with clothing and other personal effects, and two or three cheap novels. From a drawer of the dresser he’d shared with the other members of the group, he took his papers. He checked through his passport page by page, which was unnecessary since it was in perfect order. The thought that within a few hours he would be in another country, among different people, seemed impossible to believe. It was a Guatemalan passport, issued two years earlier by the consulate in New York with valid visas for the United States, France and Spain, and entry and exit stamps from several countries such as El Salvador and Belize, Morocco and Senegal. It was an object charged with memories and it brought a slight churning sensation to his stomach, connected to the word “journey.” And that feeling was heightened, as a spice heightens the flavor of a dish, by the fact that he didn’t know anything more about his next journey than its point of departure, since his immediate destination would depend only on the day’s schedule of flights. Last, he took a look at his photo, which was not at all flattering. He closed the passport and put it away in an inner pocket of his jacket, which he buttoned, for fear of losing it.

  III.

  Immediately after the kidnapping, Juan Luis married Ana Lucía. With the consent of his father––who felt so guilty that he chose not to take him at his word on reimbursing the ransom money––he left the country to embark on a course of study—what or where, he didn’t know. He ended up taking a course in filmmaking in New York City, but after two years he realized it would be impossible for him to make the kind of film he wanted to, and he abandoned that field and devoted himself to writing stories. The couple were fortunate to have an income of a little over a thousand dollars a month, but since in New York City that sum was barely enough for them to live on without having to work, they decided to move to Spain where, at that time––the early 80s––you could still live well without much money. They settled in Madrid, where Ana Lucía knew some people, in a rather small apartment on Calle Mayor.

  That autumn they went to Andalucía, and were so enthused by the traces of the Islamic world they saw there that they decided to take the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier. Though the city itself disappointed them, after the trip Juan Luis couldn’t stop thinking about going back and spending more time there. Among other things, he said, life was much cheaper in Tangier than in Madrid and they could rent an apartment that was less cramped. Moreover, in Morocco it would be much easier to get the cannabis he’d become accustomed to smoking on a daily basis after his amputation. Furthermore, during the week they’d spent in Tangier he wrote a story which he was quite proud of. He sent it to the magazine Bitzoc, in Mallorca, and the story was published.

  Therefore, that winter, just before Christmas, they went back to Tangier in the intention of settling there for a while. They rented a small house with a little orchard in Achakar, near Cape Spartel, about twelve kilometers from Tangier.

  He knew that Paul Bowles lived in Tangier. More than once he lurked around the Zoco Grande post office looking for him, and when he finally saw him for the first time, inside, near the post-office boxes, he recognized him immediately but didn’t dare approach him. He simply walked by, almost brushing against him, as if some strange force were preven
ting him from stopping to talk to the man. Instead, it made him keep going, and then, once he was back out in the street, walk away very quickly, in great excitement, as if he’d narrowly escaped some grave danger.

  Once he had something substantial, he would work up the courage to speak to him, he told himself, to justify his timidity. Though the master’s hospitality was legendary, and though Ana Lucía had offered several times to accompany him on a visit to Bowles’s apartment, Juan Luis hadn’t even dared send him a note or a letter.

  They spent almost three years like that, over the course of which the cost of living in Tangier rose so much that the Lunas, who were still living calmly and enjoyably, began thinking about going back to Guatemala. Nothing Juan Luis wrote during that time struck him as valuable enough to make him overcome his fear and show it to the great writer.

  They had made several long trips to the south, visiting towns and cities from Tizint to Figuig, from Taza to Foum Hassan. It was hard for him to believe that in three years of living almost exclusively for each other they’d never grown bored, and he secretly attributed this fortunate phenomenon to the air of the country, which affected him like a drug, more than to his own virtues or those of his spouse.

  “It’s rained much more this year than it used to,” said Ana Lucía.

  Juan Luis had said the same thing a week before, when the humidity made his plastic foot start bothering him so much that he was afraid the pain in his ankle would keep him from walking.

  “I hope your foot isn’t going to give us any more trouble,” she said absently. “The roof is in terrible condition, cariño. Know what? I’m starting to get tired of Tangier.”

  “We’re in Achakar. Anyway, the people need the rain.”

  “I’m getting tired of Morocco. Don’t you feel like traveling again?”