Still the Same Man (13 page)

The professor put the first aid kit back in the backpack and then pulled out the satellite phone.

“Leave that alone!” said Joanes.

He tried to get to his feet, but the pain stopped him.

“It won’t take more than a minute,” said the professor. “It’s best if you stay still.”

With trembling fingers, he dialed a number and waited.

“The lines are up. It’s ringing,” he told his wife.

She had sat up and waited with one hand resting on her chest. She looked as though all the blood had drained from her face.

The dial tones rang for what seemed like an age. Then the professor had a kind of paroxysm when at last someone answered. He pressed the phone against his ear and covered the other one to isolate himself against the noise of the storm. Clearly anxious, he repeated a name various times, that of their son’s partner.

“Is that you? I can’t hear you too well . . . yes? Is that you?”

The professor told the person down the line who he was and without further ado asked about his son. He repeated the question, spacing out the words to be clear. Then he went silent.

“So, he’s OK?” he asked apprehensively.

Another silence.

“What you mean is he’s going to be OK.”

Another pause. Then, looking at his wife with a great smile, he said, “He’s out of danger.”

Very slowly, she laid back down and closed her eyes.

The professor went on talking for a while, garnering more details about what had happened—the explosion of an air tank during a diving trip; the guide had died; several nearby boats had seen it all happen and someone had requested help over the radio; a helicopter didn’t take long to arrive and rescue the professor’s son and his partner. The professor repeated every new piece of information for the benefit of his wife.

“Yes, of course we’re going to come,” he said. “But we can’t say when. We’re still in Mexico, stuck in this hurricane. Yes . . . good . . . good . . . I’m so grateful. Please, don’t let him out of your sight . . . no. For the time being there’s no number you can reach me at, but I’ll contact you as soon as possible . . . yes? Hello? Can you hear me? Are you still there?”

He looked at the telephone screen. The connection had gone.

“Battery’s dead,” he said.

He went back to his wife’s side. On the way, he dropped the telephone into Joanes’s backpack. The old couple hugged.

“Thank God, thank God,” they said.

A few moments later, the professor pulled slowly away from her. Shaking and trying not to look either his wife or Joanes in the eye, he walked off to the adjacent room, closing the door behind him.

The professor’s wife rifled around in her travel bag and pulled out a pocket mirror, which she proceeded to use to check her appearance. She sighed, then took a hairbrush and calmly ran it through her hair without taking her eyes of herself in the mirror. She behaved as if she were in her own bed, in her own room, and as if she’d forgotten everything that had gone on that night. The color had returned to her cheeks. She looked as though she were about to get up and start walking around the cabin.

“I could do with a cigarette,” she said. “You don’t have one, do you?”

Joanes shook his head.

“That’s a shame.”

“What’s your husband doing in there?”

“He’s crying.”

Joanes glanced over toward the door to the other room in surprise. You couldn’t hear a peep coming from inside.

“I’m sorry about what’s happened to you,” she said, “but it was necessary. You would have done the same, or worse, if you’d been in our place. You’re angry right now, which is perfectly understandable, but with time you’ll forget all about this. You should try to put it to the back of your mind. The storm will soon pass, and that horrible black man and his monkey will be gone. Then we’ll get our story straight, a story where we all come out well. We’ll say the black man tried to rob us and that you defended us. Then you’ll be reunited with your family, and we’ll go and look for our son. Life will go back to normal, for all of us.”

“I’m not angry. I’m furious.”

She gave an understanding nod.

“You’ll get over it. Don’t try to challenge my husband. He knows how to handle things, as you’ve seen for yourself. That anger you feel isn’t enough. It hasn’t changed you. You’re still the same man you were before.”

Joanes tried to get to his feet, but the pain forced him back down again. He took a deep breath, gathering his strength for a second attempt. This time he did manage to get up. He stumbled one or two steps forward and, before doing anything else, bent down to recover his pinky from the floor. He looked at it for a second and put it in his backpack. Then he moved to the bed, took the machete from where the professor had left it, and placed it in his belt. He walked over to the stranger.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Seeing if he’s all right.”

The man was still unconscious. Joanes took one of the bottles of water and poured a little on the man’s face. He waited, then poured some more on his face and neck. The man groaned, opened his eyes, and then closed them again.

“How are you doing?” asked Joanes.

The man tried to move but discovered that he was tied. Gagged, he could do nothing but groan. Joanes thought then that he seemed even older than he had before.

“Can you hear me?”

The man nodded.

“When you’re with your monkey and you don’t want him to come near you, how do you do it?”

The man opened his eyes wide and turned his head, looking for Gagarin. He seemed to calm down when he saw him safe and well. The chimpanzee, still holding on to the remains of Joanes’s ring finger, was picking things out of his fur with the tips of his own fingers, inspecting them, and then popping some of them into his mouth.

“How do you keep him at bay?” Joanes repeated.

“Why are you asking him that?” asked the woman.

“Did you not see what that animal just did to me? I want to know how to keep it under control.”

And turning to face the man, he added, “Don’t worry. I have no intention of hurting him.”

The man gestured at the cane with his chin.

“The cane? That’s what you use?”

Another nod.

Joanes took the cane and examined it. It was thick and hefty, and decorated with geometric carvings that made it look like a ritual weapon, an instrument used in sacrifices. There was a shackle fixed at the upper end and a spike at the other.

“Good,” he muttered, and he proceeded to untie the chain from the man’s waist.

Next, he picked out a kiwi from their small food store. Kiwi and cane in hand, he moved slowly toward the chimpanzee.

“Hello, Gagarin.”

The monkey flashed him a fleeting look, more interested in his preening.

“Do you want this?”

The monkey looked at the fruit but didn’t move.

“Come on. I’m sure you’re still hungry.”

Joanes split the kiwi open, sinking his fingers into it, and showed the monkey the two juicy, dripping halves. The monkey gingerly stretched out his arm and took the fruit. He let the remains of the finger fall to the floor and starting munching.

Joanes gripped the cane with his healthy hand, supporting himself with the remaining fingers on his other hand, and used it to strike the chimpanzee with all his might. It hit the animal on the back of the head. The cane vibrated as if it had smashed against the concrete floor. The chimpanzee dropped the fruit and collapsed, stunned but still conscious.

The professor’s wife muzzled her mouth with her fists. On the floor, the monkey’s master screamed through his gag.

Joanes raised the cane into the air once more, this time striking the animal on the back. The third blow hit him again on the head. The animal stopped moving.

The creak of the door to the other room opening interrupted the stunned silence. Nothing about the professor gave away what he’d been doing in there.

“What’s going on?”

“Settling some unfinished business,” replied Joanes.

He pulled the chain through the shackle at the end of the cane until the tip of the stick was right against the animal’s throat. Then, holding the chain taut, he hooked one of the links onto the spike at the other end. This way, if he kept a tight rein on the cane, the monkey couldn’t get anywhere near him. Next he picked up his ring finger—of which only a few picked bones remained—and put it away alongside his pinky.

“Dump out my backpack,” he ordered the professor.

“Why?”

“Just do what I tell you.”

“I’d like to know—”

“I just want to be done with this, once and for all. I know what I’m doing. Please, do what I say.”

The professor tipped the contents of the backpack onto the floor.

“Now put it over the monkey’s head.”

Without taking his eyes off the chimpanzee’s teeth for a single second, the professor covered its head with the backpack and closed the zipper as far as he could. The result was a kind of crude hood.

“And now find something in among our friend’s things to tie the monkey’s hands.”

The professor used a pair of black pants. He finished just as the chimpanzee began to rouse. Joanes held the cane tightly.

“You see? Your pet is just fine,” he said to the man, who was sobbing with his face against the floor. Bits of trash had gotten stuck in his hair.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this. But I didn’t have any choice,” said Joanes.

Then he added, “Do you want your monkey back?”

The man looked at him with tear-filled eyes. A thread of snot hung from his nose.

“You love him a lot, don’t you? You have no one else.”

The man nodded.

“You love him as if he were your son.”

Another nod.

“And you loved Lolita in the same way, like a daughter. That’s why losing her hit you so hard. I imagine you don’t want to lose Gagarin as well. That would be too much. You’d wind up alone, with nobody to care for.”

Now the man was shaking his head.

“And I’m going to give you back your monkey, and the two of you can get out of here. I know it’s late at night and it’s raining, but I don’t think you mind, right? Just a little drizzle, as you say. Do you want to get out of here with Gagarin?”

The man nodded again.

“Excellent.”

And turning to the professor, he said, “Untie the cuff and gag. I can’t do it with my hand like this.”

And then to the man, “Now, you’re not going to give Gagarin another of those orders, right? Because if you did that, I’d have to hurt you both, a lot,” he said, pointing to the machete. “And neither of us wants that.”

The man shook his head several times.

“If you do that, I’ll split your monkey’s head in two.”

More shakes of the head.

“Excellent. Whenever you’re ready, come in here with me, please.”

With that, and under the steady gaze of the elderly couple, Joanes retreated to the bathroom with the chimpanzee, which hobbled along behind him.

“What’s going on?” asked the professor’s wife.

“I don’t know. I think the kid’s lost it.”

“And is that any surprise?”

The professor didn’t answer. He untied the man as he’d been ordered to do and withdrew a few steps, putting himself in between his wife and the stranger, who got to his feet and looked around, disoriented. He massaged his wrists and felt his head.

“You ought to do what he says,” said the professor.

The man nodded and followed Joanes, his back stooped.

The elderly couple kept their eyes on the entrance to the bathroom. The wind veiled whatever words were being spoken in the dark and almost in whispers inside.

“Did you say anything to the kid?” asked the professor.

“No.”

“What were you two talking about?”

“We weren’t talking about anything.”

“Why did you let him take the machete?”

“What could I do?”

Soon after, Joanes left the bathroom, the chimpanzee still in tow. The elderly couple looked at him expectantly, but he simply walked past them in silence, not even catching their eye. He picked up the flashlight then went into the little room were the professor had gone earlier, and he closed the door.

Joanes switched on the flashlight and put it on the floor. He studied his maimed hand, the empty space where his now severed fingers had been. If he kept it still, he only felt a kind of faint, throbbing pain, as if his arm stretched out many, many feet ahead of him and he were looking at his hands through a telescope. If he tried to move it, it was a whole other story—the pain was lacerating, almost unbearable. The monkey had collapsed on the floor against a wall with his head down.

Not much time had passed when he heard a scream in the other room. The chimpanzee jumped, forcing Joanes to hold the cane firmly.

It was the professor’s wife. The scream only stopped when the last drop of air had left her lungs. Straight afterward, through the sound of the wind, strangled voices and hard thumps could be heard. Then, for a moment, nothing, and the storm suddenly roared doubly loud.

He heard more blows. And then a noise like something falling to the ground. After this, a pause and then another scream, once again coming from the professor’s wife.

Joanes left the cane on the floor; this forced him to relinquish control of the chimpanzee, but he had to take that risk. In any case, in its current state, the monkey didn’t pose much of a threat. He clutched the machete firmly. The door boomed when someone knocked on it from the other side.

“Sir?” said the man, shouting to be heard over the wind.

“All done?” shouted Joanes.

His voice sounded exceptionally loud in the tiny space of the room.

“Yes, sir.”

There was a pause, and then Joanes asked, “Sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now I want you to cover them up. Use the blankets on the bed.”

Another pause.

“Is Gagarin all right?” the man wanted to know.

“Do what I tell you!”

A moment later the man was knocking again.

“I’ve done what you asked,” he shouted.

“Now I want you to go into the bathroom, and I don’t want you to move. Once you’re inside, shout so I know you’re there. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I see you when I open this door, I’ll kill your monkey. Understood?”

“But you promised me that—”

“I don’t give a shit what I promised you! I see you, I kill it.”

A second later the man said, “OK!”

A few moments passed, and he heard the man calling that he was in the bathroom. His voice sounded far away. Joanes decided it was best to leave the monkey where it was. Then he picked up the flashlight from the floor and took a deep breath. But he still didn’t leave. He stayed there unmoving, his hand on the door handle, allowing himself a few more seconds, making the most of the refuge afforded him by those four walls.