Detour

FORTY-TWO

A, a car backfiring.

B, a gun firing.

C, a firecracker.

D, none of the above.

Joanna was awakened by a series of loud, rapid bursts. In the moment when her heart took up temporary residence in her throat, she devised a multiple-choice test in an effort to divert fear from running rampant. She picked A, a car backfiring, because it was the only choice offering a modicum of comfort and plausibility.

Unfortunately, she was totally onto her act of self-deception.

Car? What car?

She couldn’t help remembering that Maruja always feared that the forces of good—admittedly a relative term in Colombia—would try to rescue her and, in so doing, kill her. That they’d barge in guns blazing and set off a conflagration resulting in her bloody demise. It turned out she would’ve been better off worrying about the menace closer to home.

Joanna heard the bursts again. Louder, sharper, like the cracks of a bullwhip.

She hugged the wall—her one and only friend, if you didn’t count Galina, that is, who’d smuggled her back into the house after her ill-fated escape attempt. The problem with gaining Galina as a friend was that you had to be kidnapped by her first. And there was her annoying habit of remaining blind, deaf, and dumb to the criminal flaws in her housemates.

The door swung open, slamming against the wall, causing little flecks of plaster to fly into the air.

Something else flew into the room. The guard Puento, propelling himself through the door like a man shot out of a cannon. His rifle was slung down off his hip in ready-fire position.

Okay, Joanna thought, I’m dead.

Puento scoped the room with nervous-looking eyes. By the time he located Joanna in the right corner, she’d stopped hugging the wall. She was still firmly attached to it, courtesy of her leg chain. Sitting straight regardless, shoulders back, ready to go with dignity.

She was going somewhere else first.

Puento began unlocking her leg chain, sweat dripping off his glistening forehead and causing him to periodically stop and try to wipe it out of his eyes.

“Qué pasa?” Joanna managed to get out, about the limit of her Spanish vocabulary.

Puento didn’t answer. He was engrossed in the intricacies of putting key into lock, one ear evidently trained on the outside commotion. That was her explanation for his nonresponse, and she was sticking to it. The other explanation would be that he didn’t want to inform Joanna that he was taking her someplace to kill her.

When he finally managed to release her from her chain, he roughly yanked her to her feet.

He dragged her through the door.

The house was in a kind of pandemonium. Panicked guards were racing down halls, springing out of doors, bumping into each other. One of the girls was attempting to load her gun as she ran—several shell casings falling to the floor, where they rolled around, sounding like roulette balls circling the wheel.

Someone was shouting. El doctor, she thought.

The shooting continued. Yes, it was gunfire. A backfiring car or a few tossed firecrackers wouldn’t be causing the house to undergo a nervous breakdown.

Count her among the nervous.

Not for herself anymore—someone else.

Where was her baby?

She was pulled through the outside door. It was early morning, that murky moment between night and day.

“Please . . . por favor,” she said to Puento, “my baby. Joelle.”

Puento remained nervous and unresponsive. He dragged her behind him without looking back. They were clearly headed back to the jungle.

She felt a creeping panic the further they moved away from the house. She had no idea who was shooting at whom. It was happening someplace she couldn’t see.

“My baby,” she tried again. “Please! I want . . .”

And then she heard it.

The sound she found herself listening for now in the middle of the night, the one she’d grown particularly attuned to, like Pavlov’s dogs.

She twisted her head around, even as Puento continued to pull her into the jungle. There. Coming out of the house, the stooped figure of Galina. She was carrying a crying Joelle in her arms. Away from the gunfire, to safety.

“Wait,” she said to Puento, who seemed in no mood to listen. “Stop. Galina has my . . .” She dug her feet into the soil, went limp, turned into dead weight.

Puento looked at her as if he couldn’t quite believe what she was doing. He had a rifle. With actual bullets. She was his prisoner. Didn’t she know what they’d done to her friends?

Puento swung his rifle off his shoulder and pointed it at her head. It wasn’t the first time he’d pointed a gun in her direction—there was that night Joelle wouldn’t stop crying. He’d been making a point then. Now he looked like he just might go through with it. He was clearly spooked.

They were under attack.

Camouflaged bodies were flying past them into the jungle.

“Up!” Puento shouted at her, putting the gun barrel up against her forehead.

Joanna closed her eyes. If I don’t see it, it’s not there.

She would wait till her baby joined them, until she knew Joelle was safe. It’s what mothers do.

Puento screamed at her. The cool muzzle jabbed into her skin.

She heard an explosion, felt blood splattering on her face. When she opened her eyes, it was dripping down her hand. How odd, she thought. There was no pain, none whatsoever.

When she looked up at her executioner, he wasn’t there. He was lying on the ground next to her.

Galina caught up with them. Somehow she managed to avoid looking at Puento’s bloody corpse. Joanna wished she had done the same. Galina gently lifted Joanna up from the ground.

One of the girls materialized like magic from the black edge of jungle. She stopped to make the sign of the cross over the prone body, then stared at Joanna with an expression of palpable hatred.

Murderer, her eyes said.

She must’ve caught Joanna’s act of nonviolent resistance. It had cost Puento his life.

She motioned them into the jungle, jabbing her rifle hard into Joanna’s back.

They hid in a grove of giant ferns.

Galina gave Joanna the baby. Shhh, Joanna whispered, rocking her gently. She could feel the tiny thudding of Joelle’s heart against her own.

She wondered if Galina was thinking back to another jungle, to another mother and child who’d never really made it out alive.

The gunfire eventually sputtered, flamed out.

After twenty minutes of waiting, some of the FARC soldiers straggled back from what must have been the scene of battle. They looked shocked. For some of the younger ones— the fresh-faced kids from the boonies—it might’ve been the first time they’d ever fired their weapons in anger.

When they shepherded Joanna and Joelle back to the farmhouse, their mood was black. Joanna was rechained to the wall, Joelle pulled from her arms. She could hear arguing going on through the door of her room.

She fell asleep listening to its surging rhythms, like the sound of angry surf.

WHEN GALINA CAME IN FOR THE MORNING FEEDING, SHE WAS PALE and tired.

“What happened last night?” Joanna asked.

“A USDF patrol,” she said, shaking her head. She seemed to be having a hard time meeting Joanna’s eyes.

“How many were killed? Besides Puento?”

“Four,” she said.

“I don’t care about Puento. He killed Maruja and Beatriz—I know he did—him and Tomás. He got what he deserved.”

“They care about Puento,” Galina said, still averting Joanna’s eyes.

“What were they arguing about last night?”

“Nothing,” Galina said.

“Nothing? I heard them. El doctor—some of the others. What’s wrong, Galina? Why can’t you look at me?”

“They’re angry,” Galina said.

“About Puento?”

Galina shrugged. “Not just Puento. They think . . . you brought the patrol maybe.”

“What does that mean? How could I have possibly brought the patrol?”

“They think they came looking for you.”

“For me? That’s ridiculous. How would they even know I’m here?” Joanna found that she was talking faster than normal, that her voice had taken on a slight air of desperation.

“Some of them . . . they’re only boys. Almost children. They think maybe you’re unsafe.”

“What happens when you’re unsafe, Galina?”

Galina didn’t answer. Instead, she reached down to slick back a stray hair on Joelle’s head.

“What happens to you when you’re unsafe?”

Joanna noticed Galina’s hands were shaking.

“Were Maruja and Beatriz unsafe? Is that what they decided?”

“I didn’t know about Maruja,” Galina whispered.

It was the first time she’d mentioned either of their names since Joanna discovered the bloody stain on the mattress. The first time she’d acknowledged out loud what had happened to them.

“I didn’t know about Beatriz,” Galina continued. “I’m sorry. It had nothing to do with me. I would never have . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Joanna stood up, using the wall for support. She needed it.

“Are they going to kill me?”

Galina looked up, finally met her eyes. “I told them you’re an American . . . Doing something to an American would bring more trouble.”

“Doing something? Killing. You mean killing an American. What did they say when you told them that, Galina? You’re right, Galina? Thank you for reminding us?”

Galina lifted her hands together—fingertips touching. Make a steeple, Joanna’s mom used to say. Make a steeple and pray.

“Promise me something,” Joanna whispered.

“Yes?”

“You’ll find her a good mother.”

JOANNA SPENT MOST OF THE DAY TRYING TO MEASURE HER LIFE. NOT too bad a life, she decided, but nothing exceptional either.

The thing she regretted most of all was not getting to raise her daughter. She thought she would’ve made a spectacularly good mom. It was that life she saw hurtling before her eyes—the one missed. Strolling on a carpet of leaves in Central Park on a fall afternoon, taking a spin on a hundred and one merry-go-rounds. All those mother-daughter chats they’d never have. Things like that.

That would’ve been lovely, she decided.

Toward the end of the day she noticed a tiny stream of amber light peeking through the boarded-up window. A small piece of wood was missing now, blown off in yesterday’s fusillade.

She put her face against it, drinking in the smells.

Nightshade. Peat. Chickenshit.

She put one eye there.

Galina was standing outside with someone. She could only see half of them. But she had the strong sensation she knew the other person. Those brown shoes. The tan cotton pants with a sharp crease down the front.

Yes, she thought. Of course.

What was he doing here?