Breaking Lorca

TWENTY-ONE

A couple of days earlier, Victor had made a discovery. One of the waiters at Le Parisien had told him of a three-dollar cinema not far from the restaurant. Victor had assumed such a cheap place would be down-at-heels and depressing. He imagined holes in the movie screen, broken seats, a floor tacky with chewing gum. So he was first surprised, then disbelieving, when the theatre turned out to be a grand place with deep blue carpeting and huge screens. He had never set foot in such a beautiful theatre.

Full of excitement, he purchased a ticket for a science fiction movie, even though he would have to leave before the end to get back for his second shift. The film had a great many explosions and truly revolting wormlike aliens, and Victor enjoyed it immensely. Then came a scene where an unlucky earthling was immobilized upon a table and the aliens did something to him that made him scream and scream. If he lived in the world portrayed in the movie, Victor would be numbered among those alien worms, not among human beings. Clearly, he couldn’t take Lorca to a movie like this. Perhaps a romantic story or a comedy, she might enjoy one of those.

He had wanted to ask her at Viera’s office. Before his discovery of the three-dollar theatre he had not thought he could afford such an extravagance. His pay as a kitchen helper was barely above minimum wage, and the cost of taking a woman to the movies was staggering: after Coke and popcorn you were looking at twenty dollars or more.

But the fantasy had stayed with him and flowered into detail over the following days. Victor saw himself sitting next to Lorca in the darkened theatre, saw the two of them laughing at amusing antics onscreen, felt her fingers brush against his in the popcorn bag. Reflections from the screen cast a silvery glow on Lorca’s hair, and when Victor reached for her hand, she gave his an answering squeeze.

But three dollars. She might think he valued her cheaply. She might think he had no class. Of course, she didn’t have to know it cost only three dollars. He could buy the tickets ahead of time and maybe distract her a little as they entered.

Saturday night, eight o’clock. For once, Victor was grateful that the chef’s nephew worked Saturday nights.

He arrived at the Viera house on the dot of eight. Lorca greeted him at the door, wearing a long patterned skirt and a deep red blouse that was very flattering.

“Ignacio,” she said. “You are so good to come when I have been so awful. I’m very glad you’re here.” Her attire was so colourful, her manner so bright, that Victor’s mood changed immediately from apprehension to confidence.

Viera was in the living room, watching a baseball game. He bounced out of his chair and clicked off the TV the moment Victor came in. “Just in time for a beer, Ignacio. I was about to pour one for myself. Come in, come in, make yourself at home.”

Victor followed him into the kitchen, where Helen Viera was chopping vegetables and tossing them into a pot. “Well, well, it’s our goodwill ambassador from El Salvador,” she said. “This is an honour.”

Victor couldn’t be sure if she was making fun of him, but perhaps that edgy feeling came from the clack, clack, clack of her knife. “It smells wonderful, Helen. I hope this is good enough to go with it.” He handed her a bottle of wine. The man in the store had assured him it would be appropriate with just about anything.

“Oh, we’re humble folk here,” Helen said. “I’m sure it will be more than adequate.”

Viera took the bottle and examined the label. “Graves. Oh, yes, this is a very good wine. We should uncork it now and let it breathe.”

Viera busied himself searching for a corkscrew. Lorca reached into the fridge and opened a beer, handing it to Victor. “He’s forgotten you. Miguel’s head can contain only one thought at a time.”

“Huh,” said Helen. “Just what you want in a lawyer.”

“It means he’s at least honest, Helen. More lawyers should be like him.”

“Lawyers aren’t paid to be honest.”

“You hear how they talk about me?” Viera said in the tone of the beleaguered man of the house. “If I can manage this without breaking the cork, it will be my biggest achievement of the day.” The corkscrew was a complicated tool with arms that lifted like wings as Viera twisted it. After much careful but noisy manoeuvring, he managed to extract the cork. “Hah! Success!” He sniffed the mouth of the bottle. “Oh, yes. We shall enjoy this.”

Helen Viera shook her head, the corners of her mouth turning white. Victor saw how Viera’s relentless cheer could grate. Was it natural to him? Or had he learned it as a counter to his wife’s attitude, to Lorca’s high-voltage outbursts? Of the responses available to a man at close quarters with such women, relentless cheer may well have been the best.

Helen shooed them out of the kitchen, and they sat in the living room in a sudden shy silence. This Viera rushed to fill with a not very interesting story about an immigration officer who had been found to be corrupt. Lorca sat staring into her drink, swirling her glass slowly as if she had lost something in it.

“I wonder where Bob is,” Viera said when the room was once again silent. “Lorca? Did you hear me?”

“I’m sorry. What did you say, Miguel?”

“Michael,” he corrected her. “I said I wonder where Bob is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is Bob?” Victor asked brightly, as if the prospect of meeting someone with that name were a particularly happy one. In fact, he was a little deflated to learn he was not the Vieras’ only guest.

“Bob?” Viera said. “Bob runs the support group Lorca goes to. I haven’t met him yet, but I hear only good things. Tell Ignacio about him, Lorca.”

Lorca didn’t look up.

“Lorca? Can you tell Ignacio a little about him?”

“I don’t want to right now.” Her voice, so cheerful just moments ago, was now husky with dismay, as if she were ashamed of having been happy.

“Oh, come on, little sister, cheer up.”

Victor stared at his shoes, which he had spent a long time polishing. They were second-hand-all his clothes were second-hand, sifted from the musty counters of Salvation Army outlets-and the shoes pinched his feet. He wanted to take them off, but then they would see the holes in his socks.

The doorbell rang and Lorca sprang up to answer it. The next few moments, when Victor recalled them later, were a mosaic of discordant images: Lorca flying to the door, a red blur in her rush to answer it, the door opening, and a broad, ungainly man with a profuse brown beard taking up the entire living room, booming out greetings, shrugging off an overcoat the size of a tarp. He shook first Viera’s hand, then Victor’s, squeezing his fingers in one hairy fist, gripping his bicep with the other. Comrade! the gesture seemed to say. Courage!

“Bob Wyatt!” he boomed. “Glad to know you, Ignacio!” Then, turning with an uptilt of the beard and a ferocious sniffing: “Oh, something smells fabulous! Who’s in the kitchen! Who’s in that kitchen cooking up a storm! There’s some culinary artist doing very creative things in there, and I want to meet her.” He seemed to be everywhere at once, the great smooth boulder of his back turning this way and that, like a bear’s. Now he was in the kitchen booming out compliments to Helen before he’d even been introduced. “Bob Wyatt! Lorca’s friend from TVA! Great to meet you! Boy, this is a treat for me! I’m the worst cook in the state! I spend my life in restaurants-if you can call ’em that-places run by guys named Aristotle and Cosmos. Terrible!”

Victor had never met such a loud man; not even his uncle was so loud. Confidence blasted from every inch of him-from the heroic bush of his beard to the size-thirteen cowboy boots on his feet. And that wall-shaking voice, somewhere between trombone and timpani.

“How was your trip to Washington?” Lorca asked when he was settled into a chair with a beer.

“Splendid!” he cried. “Absolutely splendid! Tick, tack, tock! Everything turned over like clockwork. I wish every meeting went that well. I could retire and go fishing!”

Victor pictured him catching a salmon in his great paw.

“What were you doing in Washington?” Viera asked.

“Groundwork. Project we’ve got coming up. You know about the certification hearings? Aid to El Salvador?”

“A little. Military aid, right?”

“Right. Every six months the administration has to satisfy Congress that El Salvador’s making progress in land reform and human rights. If they fail, that’s fifty million dollars the El Salvador military doesn’t get.”

“It’s not the President who decides?”

“Nope. It’s the Appropriations Subcommittee of the House Foreign Relations Committee.” The words rolled easily off his tongue, as if the corridors of power were his home address.

“You sound like you know your way around,” Viera said. “You go there a lot?”

“Nah. Not anymore. Used to. Used to be an organizer.”

“Organizer?” The English word was a new one to Victor.

“Labour organizer. Political side. Getting people out to vote. Believe me, it was just as glamorous as it sounds. I was working the phones night and day.”

Behind him, two sliding doors parted and Helen Viera appeared. “Dinner’s ready,” she said. “What are you all talking about? Everyone looks so serious.”

“Just politics,” her husband said. “Nothing you have to worry about.”

Helen’s face hardened at this brush-off, and Victor felt a sudden sympathy for her. She was the outsider in the family, not Lorca. “Don’t let it get cold,” she said, and retreated to the kitchen.

Viera rose. “Gentlemen, we have our orders.”

They seated themselves around the dining room table while Lorca and Helen brought in the food. There was baked ham, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and some other vegetables Victor didn’t recognize.

“Tremendous!” Bob shouted. “Absolutely tremendous, Helen!”

He would be the kind who always remembers people’s names-also the kind to use the first name on first meeting. But even Helen slowly warmed under the onslaught of his bonhomie.

The wine was poured, they clinked glasses, and then the next few minutes were filled with the passing of dishes and jokes about how much Viera and Bob put on their plates, and how little Lorca put on hers.

“You couldn’t keep a rabbit alive on that,” Bob said. “Six, seven days, you’d have one dead bunny.”

“Oh, Lorca has to make her little points,” Helen said.

Bob smiled, ducked his head to his wineglass to avoid the sudden chill. His bearish hide was apparently not too thick to sense female hostility.

“I am not making any point,” Lorca said. “I am simply eating what I can. It’s not to make any point.”

“Sure, Lorca. I believe you.”

“Why do you say such things? The meal is good, and now you accuse me of something.”

“Good wine,” Viera said. “Good choice, Ignacio.”

Victor felt his cheeks redden.

“God, I meant to bring some wine myself,” Wyatt said. “Left it too late, and then the damn store was closed. The one near me, anyway.”

“Don’t think about it. We have plenty to drink,” Viera said. “But these Appropriations people-the committee. You talked to them in Washington?”

“God, no. Not the committee. The hearings aren’t till June. But I want them to know we’re coming.” He took a sip of wine, his ease implying that Bob Wyatt was a force to be reckoned with around Capitol Hill. “I’ve been hustling administrative assistants, smoothing the way for people from TVA-people like Lorca, if she’ll come-to testify at the hearings.”

“I will never do this,” Lorca said quietly.

“Testify?” Victor’s heart was racing. “A person could get killed, testifying against the military. The Guardia is not going to let-how much? fifty million dollars? — get away without doing anything to stop it.”

“I understand your concern, Ignacio, believe me I do. It’s not unfounded. But the fact is, you’re not in El Salvador anymore. You’re in the United States. We do some bad things around the world, real bad things. God knows, we have a habit of backing the wrong people. But in our own yard? Different story. They’re not going to let anything happen to any witnesses. No, sir.”

“I am sorry to disagree with you. The Guardia will not stand by and do nothing. I know them. They will not let such hearings take place. Such testimony.”

“They’ve already taken place, Ignacio. They’ve held three of these hearings over the past eighteen months. True, it hasn’t stopped any actual military aid. Not yet. The hearings are loaded with so-called experts from the State Department. Those guys will lie through their teeth to get what they want, they’ll say anything. Anything! They get up there and testify that the number of killings has gone down since the last hearing. That the number of disappearances has gone down. And actually, they usually have-just prior to the hearings. I mean, they’re not stupid down there. And the only people testifying from the other side are organizations like Amnesty. I mean, bless their hearts and all, I love those people, but they just roll in with their own facts and figures and it’s like, believe the expert of your choice.”

“And you want Lorca to testify.”

“I will not,” she said.

“Oh, not just Lorca. I want every Salvadoran I can find. Every man, woman and child whose rights were abused down there. We have three Salvadorans in our group. One of them witnessed a massacre in her village-horrific story, horrific-and another had to watch while her husband was set on fire right before her eyes. They broke his legs and set him on fire, can you imagine?” He put his fork down with a clank. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m spoiling this wonderful meal with this stuff.”

Lorca was not even picking at her food now.

Victor tried to change the subject. “They say the Yankees have a good chance to win the pennant this year. What do you think of the team so far?”

“Oh, sports,” Helen said. “I don’t know what’s worse-torture or sports.”

Victor rifled through the contents of his mind to come up with another topic. But Wyatt, chomping his food and gulping his wine, got in ahead of him. “God, that’s good ham, Helen. I haven’t had ham that good since some faraway Easter of my youth. But let me just say one thing-” Now he tipped his great bulk toward Viera and Victor. It was like being addressed by a mountain. “Just let me say that if I can get those two to testify-those two women I mentioned-and Lorca,” he added with heavy emphasis, “it’ll toss one big fat monkey wrench into the works of that committee, you bet it will. They won’t be able to ignore testimony like that. Call me an optimistic fool, but I think we can stop that military aid. I think we can stop it on the fifty-yard line.”

“They will not let Lorca testify,” Victor said. “Or any of the others. They will not. You don’t know them.”

“All right. You’re raising a cogent point there, Ignacio. Very cogent. Part of the reason for my trip to D.C. was to organize security. You would not believe the red tape that involved. It all has to be approved by the State Department, of course.”

“The State Department? But you said the State Department favours the military. They provide the liars and experts, no?”

“The State Department employs twenty thousand souls, Ignacio. Not all of them have a stake in seeing your country ruled by a gang of thugs. I assure you, every precaution will be taken to ensure the security of our witnesses.”

“Perhaps Ignacio should testify,” Viera said. “Did you know he was a prisoner in the same place as Lorca?”

“That so-called school?” Bob turned to Victor and laid a heavy hand on his forearm. “Well, damn, Ignacio. Maybe you should trundle on down to TVA sometime. Come with Lorca one night.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I just want to forget.”

“Can we please stop talking about torture and murder and the military,” Helen said. “I mean, there is a limit. There really is.”

“Okay, that’s it. That’s all,” Bob said, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “Our Blessed Lady of the Table has spoken, and I for one have no intention of violating her wishes.” For the next twenty minutes or so, Bob devoted himself to getting back into Helen’s good graces. He suggested she think about teaching a cooking course at night school, probed her about her childhood in Minneapolis, asked if she had any sisters as attractive as her. My God, Victor thought, you may be dangerously naive, but you sure are a first-class politician.

Viera, too, appreciated his efforts, as men do whose wives are difficult. The lawyer became relaxed and thoughtful-something he could not do when straining to surround everyone in good humour. Gradually Bob steered the conversation back to Washington, and Helen was so charmed she pretended not to notice.

Wyatt told them which congressmen were on the committee, who was likely to vote in what direction, and what other organizations would be likely to produce witnesses. His enthusiasm and absolute belief in the justice of his cause were hard to resist. Lorca eyed him with furtive admiration, and Victor felt a good deal of admiration himself. But as Wyatt talked on, a familiar sense of dread spread inside him like ink. The powerful presence of the man, his booming voice, his big gesticulations-even though he was a vastly different person from Captain Pena-Victor felt a similar loss of control in his presence. Once again, one fate was being sideswiped by another.

Apple pie was brought in, eliciting another fountain of hyperbole from Wyatt. Once or twice Lorca smiled at Wyatt’s remarks, flashing her broken tooth then dipping her head to conceal it. Victor felt the sting of jealousy. Yes, she really admired this man, perhaps even had a crush on him. It would not be a good time to ask her to the movies; Wyatt completely dominated the room.

This was Victor’s fantasy as they sat on at the table: If Bob did not interfere, he would gradually become closer and closer to Lorca. Eventually, he would apologize to her for the hideous things he had done to her. He would get down on his knees and beg her forgiveness. And, all things being possible in fantasy, she would forgive him. Just imagining such a moment sent a thrill of relief through him.

And then? Well, his fantasy grew cloudy beyond that point. But things were going well between him and Lorca. Things were going very well, and there was every chance that eventually …. But now this half-trained grizzly beside him was diverting the flow of events into another direction entirely: Washington, congressional hearings, sworn testimony. It boded ill for Victor, very ill, and he said a fervent prayer for Wyatt’s non-existence.