Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (36 page)

‘How did you know where to find me?' Arturo asked.

‘It wasn't hard. We followed the road. It has taken us weeks to walk here. We've been training for it. There aren't too many doctors from the city in these parts, word travels fast. We've been here for a couple of days, watching you.' Carlos looked no older than eighteen. He had the naive enthusiasm of youth written all over his face, a look that had only recently been washed from Arturo's own features. He spoke with a cultured voice, not dissimilar to Arturo's. He was certainly not a product of these parts; Arturo recognised another pampered city boy when he met one. Arturo hesitated for a moment.

The young man smiled warmly, shrugged his shoulders and then nudged him with his gun. ‘I'm under orders,' he said, diffidently. ‘We need everything you have.' Arturo showed him to the medicine chest in which his meagre supplies were kept. Useless potions, he thought, as he watched Carlos empty the contents. What good are they to the likes of Doña Gloria or Doña Nicanora? How will they bring Don Bosco back from the dead?

‘Where did you get the uniform?' Arturo asked, as he packed his paltry belongings into a small bag, just as Carlos had instructed him to do.

‘It isn't real,' Carlos said proudly. ‘It's a good copy though, isn't it? We made one for each of us, to look like the real thing. So that people would think we are regular army.'

‘Are you at the university?' Arturo asked. Carlos looked unnerved by the familiar manner in which Arturo was addressing him, like an indulgent older brother. He nodded.

‘What are you studying?'

‘History. I'm at the end of my first year,' Carlos replied. Then, as if embarrassed by the inexperience in his voice, said, ‘I am through with that now. I am ready to do real work.'

‘Real work?' Arturo said. ‘And what is that? Are you perhaps thinking of training to be a barber?'

Carlos looked uncertain whether to laugh at the joke or to be angry at the insult, and so he lightly prodded Arturo with his gun again. ‘We must go now,' he said.

Arturo picked up his bag and took one last look at the room that had been his home for the past few months and said a silent goodbye. He wondered whether the room would miss him. It already looked as if it had never known he had lived there.

It did not take long to reach the clearing in which the impromptu camp had been set up. It was only half an hour's walk from the clinic and close enough to the road that it could easily be seen by anyone who chose to venture along that bit of track, which fortunately they did not. Arturo thought it seemed rather an inept place to hide. Two young men were standing in the clearing, their backs to Carlos and Arturo, guarding a sleeping body that Arturo immediately recognised as Claudia. As he approached, the memory of a love, slightly faded and yellowed at the edges but achingly familiar, caught him at the throat.

‘Is she hurt?' he asked Carlos as he made his way past the young guards, knelt down beside Claudia and started to take her pulse. All three men instinctively put their hands to their guns. Claudia opened her eyes and smiled.

‘Did we give you a surprise?' she said as she tried to sit up, wincing as she did so. ‘It can't have been that unexpected. You knew we would be coming soon.'

‘I wasn't sure what I was expecting,' Arturo replied. ‘I certainly didn't think you would be accompanied. Not in this way.'

Claudia looked at the three young men, their guns trained nervously on Arturo. ‘They're harmless,' she said.

‘I don't understand this. Claudia, what is it that you are involved in?' Arturo whispered.

‘Don't you know anything about what is going on in the world, Arturo?' Claudia said. ‘Things are happening out there. The people of this country are no longer willing to accept the old ways. They're taking control.'

‘With your help?' Arturo asked.

‘You can't stay locked in your safe little haven for ever, Arturo,' Claudia said, the harsh challenge in her voice bringing back memories of the thrill of the fear that she used to instil in him. But now her words had a different quality from the seductive tones of her youth; they had a harsh, sharp ring that echoed painfully in Arturo's heart. He slowly opened Claudia's shirt to reveal the wound, exactly where he knew he would find it.

‘Can you fetch me some boiled water?' he said looking up and addressing Carlos directly. Carlos looked at Claudia, who nodded, and he immediately left.

‘Can we be alone for a moment?' Arturo said to Claudia, as the two other men remained, their guns still trained on him. Claudia signalled with her hand and they too vanished into the forest.

‘Are they your students?' Arturo asked. ‘This is certainly an interesting way of teaching them. Isn't it against college rules?'

‘Don't be so precious,' Claudia said. ‘They're not children, Arturo. They know what they're doing.'

‘Do they? Do you? Do any of us?' Arturo asked, as he examined the wound, frowning as he did so. ‘You need help,' he said at last.
‘It isn't too deep, but I think it's infected and you've lost blood. I need to get you to a hospital. You have a fever.'

‘Well, you're not much use, are you?' Claudia said taunting him. ‘I thought you were supposed to be a doctor. That's why I came to you.'

‘So you didn't come because I'm a friend?' Arturo said. ‘There is nothing I can do for you here, Claudia. I need to get you to the nearest hospital. I'll take you to Puerta de la Coruña.'

‘Puerta de la Coruña,' Claudia said, laughing bitterly. ‘I'm not on holiday, Arturo. I haven't come to you because I want you to show me where I can buy postcards. Don't you understand how serious the situation is? You once swore you would always be there for me if I needed help. Well I need your help now.'

Arturo could feel the irresistible pull of Claudia's magic working on him. It was true, he had made a commitment to her in his youth, before he knew anything about the realities of the world that lay beyond the confines of his parents' garden.

‘This is a bullet wound. How did you get it?' he said, gently bathing the wound with the water that Carlos had put in front of him.

‘I'll explain on the way. It's nothing. We have to go now. Just give me some antibiotics and I'll be fine. Are you ready?'

‘For what?' Arturo asked.

‘To come with us.'

‘Where to?'

‘The border. It's not far from here. We have worked it out. It's only another couple of days' walk through the swamp and we'll be there. We have friends waiting for us,' Claudia replied, the heat of her fever now chilled by the coldness of her voice.

‘Are you mad?' Arturo said. ‘Claudia, you have no idea what
you're talking about. The forest is impenetrable in that direction. This is too desperate. What are you running away from?'

‘I am not the one who is running away, Arturo,' Claudia said. ‘We can make it with your help. You know the locals by now. The people here trust you. We will take one with us as our guide.'

‘Even the locals never go into the swamp, Claudia. They know better than to do so,' and as he spoke the image of Don Bosco's half-submerged body reappeared in his mind.

‘What about the young man who has been helping you at the clinic?'

‘Ernesto?' Arturo said. ‘He may be local, but he has never been far into the swamp.'

‘Arturo,' Claudia said, her voice now turning icy. ‘Why are you being so difficult? When are you going to stop playing games? When are you ever going to grow up and stop trying to please your father? Wake up to what is real in the world. You have the chance to do something useful with your life, at last. Why do you think I sent you here? Not because I thought your little box of pills would do any good for anybody. It was me who asked my mother to help your father find you this post. Do you know why? So that when the time came we would have a place to hide and a way to get out. We will need a doctor with us, even though you are useless,' and as she said this there was the slightest hint of familiar teasing in her voice.

‘What is all this for, Claudia?' Arturo said softly. ‘What are you doing this for?'

‘Do you really think you can help the people here with your injections, Arturo? Do you really think people like you will make any difference at all to the lives of the majority of people in our country? So you spend a year here and then what? You know you
will never belong here. You will never be a part of these people's lives. They are different from us, Arturo,' and as she said this Arturo heard the echo of his mother's words in Claudia's. ‘You're just playing at living, Arturo, with your infatuations and flirtations with the local girls,' she continued with bitterness. ‘You're fooling yourself. When your year here is up, what is there for you if you don't come with me now? You'll return to the city to live the life of the pampered middle classes like your father, with your private practice and your wealthy patients and your housemaids. And you will be using these people here to justify it all to yourself. You will tell yourself you deserve it because you once spent a few months in some piece of forgotten swampland trying to help the poor. They don't even want you here.'

Arturo stood up, reeling from the punch of Claudia's words.

‘And what good do you think you can bring to the people of this town?' he asked. ‘What do you know of their struggles, Claudia? Tell me, exactly how will your fight help Doña Nicanora save the shop in the plaza? How will it help Doña Gloria stop her soul from tormenting her? How will it help the town find the barber they did not realise they loved so much until it was too late? Will your fight help the people here to sort out these troubles?'

Claudia looked at Arturo as if he were the one with the fever. ‘It's no good is it, Arturo?' she said at last. ‘You just don't get it, do you? You never have and you never will. You're lost. But Arturo, if you won't come with us willingly, I have the power to make you.' And she clapped her hands and the three young men stepped out of the trees, their guns pointed at Arturo's head. He took a step backwards. In the far distance he could hear a very familiar sound: the slow rumble of wheels on the dirt track.

‘Claudia,' Arturo said, ‘you're too sick to make it to the border.
And even if you weren't, I wouldn't come with you. This is not my fight. This is your battle with yourself and your mother. I will help you as I promised, but not in the way that you want. I will take you to Puerta de la Coruña, to the hospital, if you choose to come with me. But you have no power to make me do anything against my will, guns or no guns. Maybe you're right. Maybe this is the way. But it isn't for me. If you want to instruct your students to shoot me in the back as I walk away, then so be it. It's your choice. I'm going now, to find a friend who can help you.' As Arturo turned to make his way out of the clearing he heard the click of three rifles preparing to shoot, and then he walked down the track to meet Ernesto.

Ernesto was uncertain whether the figure walking towards him was the doctor or a form borrowed by the
kachi kachi
in the night to trick him. It had appeared as if from nowhere, and was approaching, waving, with a small bag slung over its shoulder. It looked like the doctor, but it had an alien quality to it, a confidence and assuredness in its step that he had never seen in the doctor before. It was certainly the doctor's voice calling him.

‘Ernesto, Ernesto, am I pleased to see you,' Arturo said as Ernesto slowed the vehicle down. When he stopped, Ernesto thought he could detect a film of tears in the doctor's sad eyes.

‘Where are you going so early in the morning?' Arturo asked as the vehicle came to a halt beside him.

‘Puerta de la Coruña,' Ernesto replied. ‘I was looking for you to see whether you would come with me. I am taking the Gringito there, except I can't find him. And I need to buy beer and fireworks for the fiesta of the Virgin, to bring Don Bosco back.'