In Flames (12 page)

“No, señor, they're good soldiers, they want to end slavery. But kill you, that's only defeat.” The explanation came a little too glibly,
end slavery,
a well-worn slogan from a revolutionary pamphlet. I hadn't studied political science at Princeton, so I couldn't identify an original source. My expression betrayed skepticism. “Believe me, señor, these men were offered money for the rest of their lives, by your government, if they laid down their arms. They agreed. In U.S. news, great talk about rebel surrender, and even the American president announced it. Congress gave the government here money, but the money never reached these men, and they returned to the forest. Save your strength for the forest, señor.”

“Listen, I have to talk this out, get things straight, if I'm going to take another step.”

“I have much to do here, señor.” He made a small gesture with his hands, again like a priest, a quick blessing, dismissive.

“And if I refuse to go on, then what?”

“Don't do that, be prudent. I have to go.”

“Stop, Padre, stay right here.” A sense of older grievances moved me. “If I'm going to die, then I want you to hear my confession, like when I was a kid, and it's Saturday. All that comes back now, I want a good death here.”

“Please, no, you're exaggerating.”

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been I don't know how long since my last—”

“Stop it, stop making fun.”

“I'm not fooling around, I'm serious. You won't allow me the chance for a good death?”

“I told you, I'm not a priest any longer, I'm excommunicated.” His tone was obstinate. “You say you're Catholic, then you know what that means. I observe only Santería now.”

“Once ordained, you always have priestly powers in acute situations. Like in death. Like for me now. Confession, extreme unction, baptism—you don't lose those powers, Padre. I saw you at police headquarters, pretend you're back there. Or will you send one of your men out to bring me a real priest, up here to the mountains?”

“You're not in danger of death, señor, not now.”

“But we don't have much time, do we—you can't refuse me.”

“Señor, you're in no danger, believe me, you won't die.”

“Yet. Okay, it's been longer than I can remember since my last confession. I used to go to Mass at Catholic school, but not after. I don't remember the last time I received communion. I drink a lot, and I screw around with women, and I spied on you and betrayed you, and then I let you go, that was wrong too, I had a duty and I failed. There's so much, I can't remember everything. A perfect act of contrition, that's what I have to say now, right? Not just be sorry, but promise I'll never do any of it again.”

“You're mocking faith.”

“I'm not joking. If I'm ridiculing anyone, it's me. Dying is a strong truth serum. But it's funny, when you think about it, me asking absolution from the man who's going to kill me. Before my time runs out, and you never get the money, maybe you should let me finish my act of contrition.”

“Enough, I don't want to hear any more.”

“Okay, you won't hear, forget it. Anyway I'm feeling some peace, even aspirin makes me not give a damn. But tell me something, Padre, what attracted you, how did you end up in this? Nobody kidnapped you, did they?”

El comandante
no longer appeared upset. The question seemed to calm, almost attract him, as if an opportunity presented itself, and he began to speak differently, a near-whisper, his turn as penitent, a moment intense and confiding. “Anger drove me, señor, and I know anger is a sin too. But if you look at what we have on this island—or don't have—anger is only human. I was ashamed of so much here.”

“Of excommunication?” My life depended on this man, this prayer warrior. I had to find a common chord, a human feeling in him that I could touch. When the commander was among his men, he couldn't speak openly about himself, and certainly not in his avenging angel role, the Santería magician. But if I could get him to unburden himself, a debt might be created, a favor earned and returned.

“Señor, of course I'm not ashamed of excommunication. But of what I was preaching in church. Sell what you have and give to the poor? Suffer little children? In San Iñigo, that's sick. Monsignor Mendoza and his bishop dine off Chinese porcelain, drink imported wine, eat fresh meat from America. Our cathedral drips gold and silver stolen in the Andes and Mexico five hundred years ago, and all that gold and silver has the same purpose today, dazzle our poor with earthly displays of heavenly splendor waiting for them once the misery of their indentured lives is over. And the little children,
angelitos negros
, you've seen them, our young cripples. True, people here aren't starving to death. They grow cassava, and they can suck sugarcane all day, they won't die, they just rot their teeth. They're chronically undernourished, but they're not starving. A starving man is a bomb ready to explode, set to do anything for food. But an undernourished man is only weak, too weak to fight. Good health is a powerful weapon, how foolish to give your enemy good health. It's like giving a rival knowledge, and he turns around and outsmarts you. But power always believes it's blessed, that it has a greater soul and earned everything it can grab.” The commander spoke immoderately, the way an alcoholic drinks, and I knew something about immoderate behavior. The charismatic eyes swelled with water about to run uncontrolled. I listened closely to him, survival thoughts stirring, and to my surprise I was feeling no little empathy for Cardenio Morena. He'd been unable to talk freely for a long time, and this may have been the only way he could unburden himself, to someone who might already be as good as dead, and who would never repeat a word. Do men about to be executed usually end up comforting their executioners? “Padre, I hope you don't blame me for all this.”

“No, señor, not you.”

“Then you've absolved me, thanks, that's what I was hoping for. Now, who gets to absolve you?” He didn't answer me. “Look, I can see how the oil company, from your point of view, maybe it looks like a legitimate target for funds. But me? Listen, I'm sorry, but I'm nobody. That's part of my confession too. You're right, I'm a clumsy novice, a cheap little informer, briefly—I admit that much, but the woman was only my lover, nothing more, I'm not her husband.”

“I know, I buried her husband. Perhaps we should have taken her instead. That was the original idea, like I said, and I suppose you figured that out before. It was she who—”

“Lied? About me, to save herself. Yeah, she's like that, I was warned. And I was stupid.” I nearly added,
and you know what it's like when you're obsessed with a woman
…Memories returned like tiresome obstacles that had to be avoided in a game of blindman's bluff. “Maybe you'll feel better, Padre, if you take one of my Prozacs.” I persisted with
Padre
, as often as I could, the sound reassuring. A father won't usually kill his own child, unless he's an ignorant peasant and has too many mouths to feed. I knew the mad risks Padre Cardenio had taken to feed his daughter in Cuba. He was a caring father. He didn't practice child sacrifice.

“Thank you, señor, but these are your medicines, not mine. I fall asleep without problem when I'm not on duty. The only sound that wakes me is my own name or a noise that might be dangerous. It's the one peace we get here in the forest, an animal instinct still in us. Only don't worry, you'll be home again soon.”

“Where are we going, Padre?”

“Someplace safe. We'll get there before nightfall. You can sleep then. We won't force you to walk all night, every night, we're not barbarians. We don't torture, this isn't Guantánamo. We believe in God. And His saints.”

“Do God and the saints make you kill innocent people, is killing some kind of moral duty, is this what you believe? Then that's some God you got. Sure you don't want a little peace now?”

“No pills, señor, thank you. I'm on duty. I have to take care of you. And my men.”

For a few minutes a bond of friendship seemed to grow between
el comandante
and me, but that moment had passed. When a confession ends, penitent and priest separate, and when they pass in a street outside the church, they pretend not to know each other. I believed—felt certain—
el comandante
was figuring the time till nightfall, counting the hours remaining before his God and ghostly saints made him kill an innocent nobody.

“We move out now, señor.”

Even in daylight, as jungle canopy grew thicker, forest darkness intensified, spreading like a great oil spill, chaos on the forest floor turning more threatening and oppressive.

Into this murk no colorful sunsets brought relief or diversion. Nothing was illuminated. No point in asking or even trying to figure out exactly where we were. I went on working side by side with my captors, slashing vegetation, and this kept me from dwelling on inevitable death. It was like waiting for a hurricane, you know it's coming, an unstoppable force of nature, and little you can do about the storm except find distraction or flee. But how to escape from the middle of a mountain rainforest, from which the good Dr. Sanchez seemed to think I'd walk back out of on my own.

The road, it's about two miles away, where the river crosses it. The river was my guide, head back for the river. A wild logic of little choice, either die in the jungle trying to escape or let them kill me.

An hour or so before sunset, the forest began opening up, our labors less strenuous as the jungle became more like a great house surrounding us, a series of rooms, a succession of narrow galleries and crawlspaces and hallways all linked but individual, endlessly rambling as if in a mansion full of doors, windows, screens behind which—and I could nearly feel this—ghosts held vigil. Here the mountain rainforest seemed spiritual, a chain of sacred places, mysterious atmospheres and silences broken by strange cries, vast spaces appearing abruptly below the canopies, revealing what seemed like holy dwellings reminiscent of vast ruined cathedrals, secret churches occupied by strange spirits long dead. This cascade of sensuous impressions, too great in variety ever to know completely, overwhelmed me. Here we came—captive and captors—almost as visiting worshippers, pilgrims shuffling under vaults and around pillars below the stained glass windows of a vernal Chartres. I was startled by what I was thinking, amazed as I observed my captors with a feeling of—certainly not comradeship but an undefined curiosity, a calm, almost peaceful feeling, and I had to catch myself from falling into a trap, I had to be careful not to get fooled into reversing the natural proportions of things, not be deluded into accepting captivity and a sentence of death, as if death were a liberation from suffering.
Death was no blessing
…In a silent churchlike nave we paused for several seconds and stood in silence. And I realized that what looked like another stretch of forest darkness in front of us—I was too close to see its fullness—was really a continuous great wall of bark, a single immense tree, its circumference so large, fifty men linking arms couldn't encircle its base. The behemoth pierced the jungle canopy, and light beams sprayed around us, drifting in a late afternoon slant, melting the air in a thick amber hue. A macaw's cry broke the spell. I couldn't see the bird, but its squawks snapped me back to reality.

El comandante
raised his hand. “We sleep here…”

They gave me a plastic sheet to stretch out on the moist ground, the same bedding they used. They brought out more dried meat and hard cracker, fresh fruit and water. But no food was cooked, no fire lit, as smoke would be a giveaway. We ate and drank in silence. And I wondered how many of them would stay awake through the night. I believed—I wanted to believe—we'd been walking parallel to the river all that time, and if I returned to the river, undetected—again, my insane logic—I'd follow it to the magic road that was two, by then maybe three or four miles away. Perhaps hopeless, but in my impossible situation, I saw no other choice, madness passing for a plan.

We finished eating, and the yellow-face man came to me with my meds box in one hand, and the spear with a machete-like blade in the other. I looked up at him cautiously. “Where's Padre?”

“
El comandante
is busy.” He held out the meds with a display of courtesy, as if to reassure me,
Nothing personal, señor, once this is over, we'll share a drink and be friends
…Perhaps this was the sort of gentlemanly behavior displayed whenever
el comandante
was present, proving they weren't really barbarians, but disciplined soldiers fighting for a good cause, believers in God and saints and ideals like freedom from slavery. “Please, señor, take a medicine, help you sleep.”

“I don't need help sleeping, I'm exhausted.” A good night's rest might have been what I needed, but the last thing to try if I wanted to avoid permanent sleep.

“
El comandante
insists. An order. Take one, señor,
por favor
.” He extended a package of sedatives, and I recognized it as the tranquilizer Librium.

“Okay, one's enough. They're not strong. And I'm very tired.” This little baby would knock me on my ass, tired or not, and I already felt as if I'd been playing tennis with the club pro all morning and afternoon, before a ten-mile run on sand. But to appear compliant, a cooperative captive, not a truculent troublemaker, not someone they had to keep a constant eye on, I took a capsule and put it directly in my mouth, slipping it under my lip where I hoped it would be slow to dissolve, and simple to spit out, which I did as soon as he looked away. All the Prozac and Librium in the world wouldn't give me peace, meds would only dull my brain, and lull me to death. I regarded my benefactor with as grateful a look as I could muster. “Gracias, you're very kind to me.”