Breaking Lorca

TWENTY-THREE

They went to a McDonald’s, where they shared a Coke and french fries and talked for two hours, nearly three.

They talked about the strange and frightening city they had moved to-though not nearly as frightening as San Salvador. They talked of their experiences in North America: the confusing manner of the gringos-alternately so warm and then so cold-that made trust difficult, friendship impossible. They talked about the native Hispanics who seemed to look down on Latin people not born in the United States. They talked about the angry stares of store clerks when comprehension was not immediate. The sensation of complete mutual understanding was new to Victor, and it thrilled him.

When they stood once more at the top of the subway steps, the rain had stopped and a warm breeze blew out of the south, tossing Lorca’s hair into a tangle. “The air feels so good now,” she said. “So clean and fresh.”

Victor leaned close to kiss her.

“No,” she said, and with a sudden movement pushed him away. “I don’t want to be kissed.” Then she turned and hurried away from him down the subway stairs, her quick, light steps echoing after.

For days, Victor felt the imprint of her hand on his chest with a mixture of shame and anger. A kiss would have felt like forgiveness. I am in love with her, he told himself tentatively, testing the words.

He stood in front of the pay phone for a full half-hour before he managed to put a coin in.

“No, not a movie this time,” she said. “There is somewhere special I would like to take you.”

“Special? Special how? Where do you mean?”

“Don’t panic, Ignacio. It’s not expensive, and you don’t have to get dressed up.”

“But tell me what it is.”

“You will see.” That was all she would tell him, despite his repeated entreaties. “You will see soon enough.”

He asked her yet again when they met up, outside a dough nut shop in Penn Station. Victor had arrived twenty minutes early and had worked himself into a state of high anxiety by the time Lorca got there. She had taken some trouble over her appearance; she was wearing makeup and a light perfume. She smiled upon seeing him, and yet again he was shaken by the black spark of her broken tooth.

“Tell me now. Where is this secret place you are dragging me to?”

“It’s a church.”

“A church? You want to go to church on a Saturday night?”

“A special church. You will see when we get there.”

It certainly didn’t look special. Our Lady of the Assumption was hidden in a shabby block of West Thirtieth Street. The structure had once been white limestone, but a hundred and twenty years of New York soot clung to the facade in a black film. In a niche by the side entrance, a statue of the Blessed Virgin spread her arms in welcome, though one of her hands had been snapped off at the wrist.

Lorca opened the side door and waved him in.

The basement was all curling linoleum and water-stained walls. Alcoholics Anonymous posters hung next to childish drawings illustrating the alphabet. Another poster showed a cute little old lady raising her fist above the words, Seniors, Rock the Vote! A battered aluminum urn was set up on a trestle table, and the place stank of burnt coffee.

Seven or eight people slouched uncomfortably in rows of metal folding chairs. They were mostly women, all Hispanic, and Victor suddenly realized with panic where he was. “Lorca, no. I don’t want to be here.”

“I didn’t either, Ignacio. Not at first. But it has helped me a lot.”

“I cannot. It’s too much. I don’t know any of these people.”

Lorca took his hand and towed him toward the chairs, but he pulled away. She shook her head. “Really, Ignacio, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Why should you be so scared?”

Because somebody might recognize me, he wanted to scream.

“Everyone is afraid the first time. Just sit quietly. No one is going to bother you.” She took his hand in both of hers. “Please stay, Ignacio. Won’t you stay with me?”

There were only eight people in the place, and none of them looked familiar. My hair was shorter then, he told himself. And I wore a uniform-at least, until I joined the special squad I wore a uniform. Civilians see only the rifle, the sunglasses. They don’t see your face. I don’t look like a soldier now.

A voice boomed out across the basement. “Ignacio! You made it! Good going, Lorca!” Bob Wyatt’s massive frame blocked the doorway, and then he was rolling toward them, hand extended. “Glad you could come.”

“He is not happy about being here,” Lorca said. “He wants to run away.”

“Oh, everyone wants to run away the first time.” Wyatt squeezed Victor by the shoulders and eased him down toward a chair. “Sit down, sit down, take a load off! Just relax and you’ll be fine.”

Wyatt’s entrance had caused a stir. The others in the room had turned to look at them. One woman-a Salvadoran by her heavy features-was staring with intensity at Victor. The man beside her whispered something to her, but she kept her eyes fixed on Victor.

“Evening, all! Sorry I’m late!” Wyatt strode up to the makeshift stage, waving a sheaf of papers. “Some preliminary announcements!” he hollered, and launched into a list of scheduled events that meant nothing to Victor, until he got to the matter they had discussed at the Vieras’. “The congressional hearings are just two weeks away. We need more witnesses. Remember: nothing but good can come of testifying-good for you, good for your country, good for my country.”

“Not so good if you end up dead,” a man with a patch over his eye commented wryly.

“True. That would be a negative thing. But you don’t have to worry about that. I’ve checked out the security arrangements myself. You’ll be completely safe. Any more volunteers tonight?” He aimed his beard first at one side of the room then the other, but there were no takers. Lorca stared resolutely at the ceiling. “Well, all right. No one’s going to force you, that’s for sure.”

“I know who you are.” The accusation shot across the room like an arrow. Victor had no doubt who had said it, and to whom. The woman was still staring at him with black, venomous eyes.

She had spoken in Spanish, and Victor answered her in Spanish. “Well, I don’t know you.”

“You were not a prisoner. You were a soldier.”

“Hold on a second, there,” Wyatt said. “Can we just finish with the announcements first?”

“I was not a soldier. I was an administrator in land reform.”

“You were with the Guardia. You came to our village. You killed people.”

“It was not me. I was never a soldier.” A thick sweat had broken out on Victor’s brow. They can tell. All of them know.

“Please, Yvonne,” the woman’s husband said. “Leave the man alone.”

“I will not. He is Guardia.”

“Why would a soldier come to be among people like us?” he asked her gently. “I am sorry, sir,” he said to Victor. “My wife was mistreated by the Guardia. For this reason, now, she sees them everywhere. Even in the United States.”

“I am not mistaken! I have seen this man in uniform! He came to our village in Chalatenango!”

Victor had never been to Chalatenango. “I was not a soldier. I was a prisoner.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself to this woman,” Lorca said softly.

“They came in the middle of the night,” Victor continued. “They took me to this place, blindfolded-always I was blindfolded. I get there and the Captain kicks me.” He pointed to his crotch. “Kicks me harder than I have ever been kicked in my life.”

“If you were blindfolded,” the woman said, “how do you know he was a captain?”

“I don’t know. Someone called him Captain. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Of course you don’t,” the woman said. “Because nothing you say is true. If you were a prisoner, tell us what jail you were in. Tell us what they did to you.”

“It used to be a school. A little school. They threw me in a cell by myself. They fed me meals full of salt, meals full of bugs. They stopped me sleeping. Day and night, they threw buckets of cold water on me.”

“It’s true,” Lorca said to the room at large. “This is exactly how it works at the little school. I was treated exactly this way.”

“You know this man? You were at the same place?”

“I was with him in the little school. What he says is true. It is exactly how they treat new prisoners.”

“Oh, yes? What else did they do to you, then?” The woman shook off her husband’s restraining hand. “No, let the poor suffering prisoner tell us himself.”

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Bob Wyatt put his hand up for order. “Nobody is forced to talk here. Ever. I don’t care who it is. Many of you were forced to talk in the past, and that is the last thing we want going on in this group.”

The woman shrugged. “A convenient arrangement if you happen to be a soldier.”

“Don’t say that again,” Lorca warned the woman.

“Mother of God, I’ll tell you what they did to me.” Victor leapt up. “They played Submarine with me, all right? That’s what they did. Held me underwater in a tank full of shit. Does that make you happy? They beat me on the head. Here, you want to see the scar?” Victor bent forward to show the woman the crooked white scar at his hairline. He found there were tears in his eyes. “They shocked me with wires. Put wires on my fingers, my teeth, my ears-and here.” He pointed again to his crotch.

“You don’t have to talk,” Wyatt put in again. “No one here has to talk against his will.”

But Victor couldn’t stop. It was as if real memories were flooding through him. “Over and over they would shock me. Over and over they would say, ‘You ready to play ball now? You ready to play ball?’ Over and over they would say this, and apply the electricity. It felt like an earthquake in my flesh. It felt as if my flesh split open to the bone.”

There were scattered murmurs of recognition among the crowd. Lorca had covered her mouth with her hand.

“You think you will not cry,” Victor went on, weeping openly now, “and you do nothing but cry. You think you will not scream, and you do nothing but scream. I would have told them anything. Anything they wanted. But all they wanted was for me to play a part in this ceremony-a big ceremony in front of the Presidential Palace. ‘See! This is land reform! We are giving all these men a piece of land!’”

“So they tortured you,” Bob Wyatt said, “to make sure you wouldn’t give the game away?”

“And because I had encouraged others to apply for deeds under the law. They said they would bring me my own deed within the next few days. I knew what that meant.”

“What did it mean?”

“They come and kill you,” the man with the patch over his eye said. “I knew of a man who was killed this way. The Guardia showed up in the middle of the night and shot him in front of his wife and children, then they stuffed the deed in his mouth.”

“God,” Wyatt said. “The committee needs to hear about this.” He produced a box of Kleenex from somewhere and held it out to Victor.

The woman who had made the accusation was sulking now, arms folded tightly across her chest. Victor was astonished at the lies he had told, the amount of detail. He had not planned it. It was as if sheer wanting to have been on Lorca’s side had convinced him it was so.

Lorca was looking at him, her mouth open a little and an expression in her scorched-out eyes that Victor had never seen before.

“You think you did something wrong, don’t you,” Wyatt said. “You think by playing along with them, by playing their game, you committed a terrible evil.”

“I did,” Victor said bitterly. “It was a terrible evil. You don’t know.”

“No, Ignacio. You did nothing wrong. Nothing. It’s the people who did these things to you-the Guardia-they are the evil ones. Not you.”

Around the room, pale, shaken faces nodded agreement. As Victor lowered himself to his seat, Lorca put her arms around him. Her breath was hot and moist on his neck.