Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012

Eliécer Cárdenas is one of Ecuador’s most respected literary authors. He has won numerous writing awards, and his 1979 novel, Polvo y ceniza (Dust and Ashes), about a real-life bandit hero who prowled the border between Ecuador and Peru, is considered one of the canonical Ecuadorian novels of the twentieth century. Readers can find extracts of that novel in the appendix of translator Kenneth Wishnia’s academic study, Twentieth-Century Ecuadorian Narrative (Bucknell UP, 1999).

Translated from the Spanish by Kenneth Wishnia

He saw her again after — what, three or four years? It was her all right, unmistakable with her cinnamon-colored skin and features that reminded him of the native princess in a marvelous mural by Diego Rivera that he once saw in a magazine. She was about to enter the building that he had just left a moment before. She was wearing a pair of sheer white slacks and a lilac-hued blouse cinched at the waist. Then her unforgettable profile got lost in the crowd going in and out of the revolving doors.

He resolved to follow her and speak to her this time, although he had only caught occasional glimpses of her over the course of his life. He had seen her for the first time when he was already married and she was quite young. He saw her riding a bicycle along the paths in a park and, struck from afar by her radiant adolescent beauty, stopped to look at her, putting off some task that he doesn’t even remember, to wait among the trees for her as she reappeared, riding toward him on her girl’s bicycle. As she crossed his path a second time, she gave him a smile that was full of mysteries and prophecies. Unable to follow the girl, he decided to preserve her image in his memory.

He saw her again a year or two later. By then he had corrected the mistake of his first marriage with a no-fault divorce that cost him the apartment he had paid for on the installment plan and the secondhand car they had used to handle the distance between their brand-new home and their jobs. They had no children. Fortunately, their relationship had come apart before they seriously considered bringing children into the world. He was drinking an espresso and meditating bitterly on the fleeting nature of what people call love, which at that stage, with his disastrous marriage weighing on his shoulders, seemed like some kind of polite lie or magical spell whose purpose was to ease the despair, boredom, and monotony that followed the brief delight of infatuation, which took a wrong turn when they decided to spend their lives together, when he saw her through the window of the café walking along the sidewalk. He recognized her immediately. She was one of those women you don’t easily forget; her movements were feline, confident, and vaguely threatening, and she was fully aware of the men gazing at her, but remained in command of her own carefully crafted solitude. He paid for the coffee and ran after the woman who, simply by reappearing before his eyes, produced an emotion in him that he didn’t expect to feel anymore, but there it was once again. As he followed her from a safe distance, he realized that she was no longer the young girl of a couple of years ago, but a full-grown woman who carried herself proudly, with a spring in her step, in complete control of who she was. He imagined her with a boyfriend or a lover, and when she stopped to look in a store window, he slowed down and looked at her, waiting for her to notice him. She responded with a slight but radiant smile, and he kept walking past her, thinking that it wasn’t worth the trouble of getting involved with such a splendid girl while the splinters of his broken marriage were still digging into his flesh and, well, because he still had some hope of getting back together with the woman who had been his wife.

Many years passed, and he forgot about the woman he had seen a couple of times so long ago. He traveled overseas on business and managed to grow quite bored with Amsterdam, although as a consolation he became a fan of cold beer and solitary walks, which gave him the opportunity to admire all the young blond women with the whitest-white, velvety-smooth skin that they showed off with such determination while strolling around the tulip-filled parks, their shadows stretching off to infinity in the late-afternoon splendor that reminded him of the golden polish on an antique and princely set of silver dinnerware.

He returned to his native land and got married again, and this marriage lasted long enough to produce two children who transformed his home life into a peaceful, all-encompassing haven: placid, maybe a bit monotonous, true, but that was the trade-off for stability. Any marital disagreements they had were barely noticeable as they dropped the kids off at a day-care center that was run like a tiny sovereign state for children. It consumed a good part of the couple’s budget, but they felt it was worth it for the good of the children, who were attended on like demanding little monarchs. His wife worked very long hours and rose up through the ranks to an important managerial position, from which she toppled when Pedro, one of their little ones, died at the day-care center due to an unexplained respiratory failure that the specialists attributed to a congenital condition. There was nothing they could do about it. The child was destined to pass away suddenly and unexpectedly. His mother found it impossible to continue her career, as if quitting her job was the price she had to pay to protect her surviving child. It was an irrational decision, made so abruptly that it muddied their relationship to the point that, without knowing exactly how it happened, it led to their separation. He felt bad for her, since she had abandoned her dreams of success and had lost him as well due to the sudden death of their little one. It wasn’t fair. But who ever said life was fair?

There was a period following the breakup of his second marriage when he started to see the mystery woman more often. One time it was at a movie theater. She had gone to see the same film and they exchanged looks in the lobby, their faces lit up by the glow of the marquee. Shortly after, he spotted her on the corner while he was riding the bus. It was only a fleeting vision, but clear enough for him to realize that she was as magnificent as ever and that all those times he had seen her, she had never been with somebody else. She was always alone, as if she didn’t need anyone by her side. She stood out like a single flower against the dull gray background of a vacant lot. Sometimes he thought about her. When he found himself in the tiny apartment he rented after his second divorce, lying on the bed with his shoes off and his hands clasped behind his neck, he would entertain himself by imagining the long-awaited encounter with this mysterious woman who, he supposed, was some kind of high point or milestone in his life.

He wasn’t particularly religious, but since he was on his own again he occasionally flipped through a Bible that someone had given him in the hopes that it might bring him some comfort, and he read some verses that said that there is a time for everything: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to sow and a time to reap. Would there be a time for him to be with this mystery woman who kept turning up with the randomness of a winning lottery number? He saw her again during this period, three or four more times. They even said hello when they saw each other, as if they were friends, but he always walked right on by, regretting that he didn’t have the courage to stop and talk to her. She must have thought he was a strange and timid little man.

He started to dream up stories about this woman: that she was always alone because her lover was a jealous millionaire who insisted that she visit him on the weekends at some luxurious hotel in the country or at an exclusive beach with a dock full of yachts. Or, he imagined that she had sworn to become an unsolvable riddle to all men because of some horrible betrayal during her adolescence. Or that her mother or her father were invalids, and that caring for them had used up her ability to show affection for others. He preferred to stick with the image of the millionaire lover: that way, he could feel like he was playing a small, tangential role in the beginning of a risky but worthwhile adventure. Three years after that string of chance encounters with the woman, he saw her once again. She was leaving a clothing store, carrying the kind of bag used for feminine garments and accessories. Her movements were light and silky, flowing like a creature who was not of this world. She seemed so distant and unreal that for a few seconds he felt as if she were a product of his imagination. Her hair was styled in the latest fashion, shimmering with an iridescent glow that made him think of the black marble dome of a Hindu temple in one of those exotic tourist brochures. He chose not to approach her, as always. What could he possibly say to her? That they knew each other on account of a bunch of completely random encounters? Should he play the fool by introducing himself and offering his hand like some kind of pretentious Casanova? But time is unforgiving, he thought, and he was afraid that they might both be old and gray before they met again and finally had the opportunity to talk. Would there even be another opportunity? The chance meetings were just that, unlikely to be repeated.

In reality, he had given up hope of seeing her again during the two years that had passed since the last time he saw her leaving a women’s clothing store. He imagined, in his fantasy, that she had finally gotten tired of the putative millionaire lover and had left him, or that her sick mother or father had died and that she had finally decided to live her life freely, after putting it off for so long. Later he thought, more realistically, that the laws of chance were just playing their own mysterious games. After his second divorce, he never committed the imprudent act of getting married again. A few relatively short-lived relationships served to alleviate his loneliness and to satisfy the sexual needs of a man approaching his mid forties. I wonder how old she is? he sometimes asked himself, when he thought of her at all. Thirty? Thirty-two? She wouldn’t be as fresh and attractive as before. Beauty was fleeting by nature, that’s what made it so special.

So that when he saw her again, he felt a tremendous urgency, because this could easily be the last chance encounter he would have with this woman whom he had seen growing from adolescence to the fullness of womanhood in widely separated bursts, and who was now beginning her inevitable decline. He ran inside the building and headed for the elevators, but decided to take the stairs instead, figuring he wouldn’t miss her that way, no matter what floor she was on.

He climbed the steps eyeing every female shape going up or down, hoping to find the woman he was looking for. Panting for breath, he reached the top floor, which wasn’t really a floor but an empty terrace made of lumpy concrete that was crumbling in spots. She must have gone into one of the building’s many offices, and trying to find her by checking each of the offices would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. He decided to go back down the stairs and wait by the entrance. She had to leave the building at some point.

He still had a number of business matters to attend to that morning, but he shrugged his shoulders and resigned himself to spending a few hours waiting for her. He was prepared to spend the whole morning waiting outside the building if need be. But as he rushed downstairs, he grew worried about the possibility that the woman might have left the premises while he was looking for her on the upper floors. In the end, he planted himself by the doors like a nervous spy on his first day on the job and began to scrutinize the people leaving the building.

After a good three-quarters of an hour, it occurred to him to ask the uniformed doorman if there was another exit to the building. He answered that yes, there was another exit on the side street. All hope of seeing the woman vanished in an instant: She could have left by the side door. And he might never see her again, he thought. That day’s chance encounter with the rare milestone in his life that she represented could have been the last. But he didn’t lose heart. If she entered the building and he didn’t see her leave, it was possible that she worked in one of the offices, or at least had some reason to visit one of them. Studying the directory of the building’s occupants, he saw that it listed all kinds of businesses: legal counseling, doctors and dentists, several real-estate agencies, consulting services, even an employment agency. Where to start? Even though he was falling behind in his work, he decided it could wait while he conducted his investigation. If only he knew the woman’s name, at least, he thought that night when he got back from the pub where he usually ate. If he knew her name, it would be as easy as pie: He’d simply ask for her by name in all the businesses and offices in the building. Or even better, look her up in the telephone directory. But identifying someone whom he knew absolutely nothing about was really a job for a professional investigator, way too much work for a man who was actually pretty lazy when it came to doing anything beyond the demands of his day job. Maybe he should trust his luck and hope that he might run into her again someplace? He shook his head and decided to make himself a cup of weak coffee so it wouldn’t keep him awake. He had run into her at least seven or eight times by chance, and he was sure that the laws of chance or coincidence wouldn’t help him anymore regarding the woman he had carelessly allowed to slip past him for so many years.

He decided to begin his investigation at the employment agency, and immediately realized how ridiculous or suspicious he must have looked walking into the place and asking about a person whose name he didn’t know who fit such-and-such description. After recovering from this momentary embarrassment, he snuck a peek at all the women working there, another waste of time, since they were all wearing uniforms, and the woman he was looking for wasn’t wearing one when he saw her enter the building the day before. They told him that a lot of people came by the office every day to drop off photos and resumes, looking for work. Could he possibly see the applicants’ photos? he dared to ask, and immediately regretted it when they answered, with some disdain, that it was impossible: That information was confidential.

He limited himself to a few timid glances at the female employees working in the offices and waiting rooms next to the employment agency. And with a heavy heart, he realized that this method was getting him nowhere. Describing a woman’s physical appearance fifty times over in every office in the building was complete idiocy.

After work that day, while sitting in his armchair by the picture window staring at the cold, flickering light outside and pondering the situation, he remembered that when the police are looking for an unidentified suspect they sometimes use an Identi-Kit or a sketch artist. That could be the answer. The next morning he impatiently went about his normal routine, but at lunchtime he didn’t go to his usual pub, he went to the park where all the street artists go who specialize in drawing portraits of the passersby. A skinny guy with long hair who was making a charcoal drawing in the shade of a tree seemed just right for the job. He approached the artist and told him what he wanted. The guy ran his hand through his long, stringy hair and said that it would be a bit complicated, but he’d give it a try. The man had to pay in advance for the portrait of the mystery woman, and spent the next half-hour trying to recall her features as accurately as possible. The artist sat there patiently changing the details that didn’t square with the man’s memory, until he ended up with a drawing of a face that only looked a little bit like the woman he was looking for. Out of curiosity, the artist asked if this was a case of a missing person, or if the subject of the drawing had died. No, it was just for sentimental reasons, the man answered with a lazy smile that he figured must have looked phony to the other man. He took the portrait and went back to work.

Have you seen this woman? He repeated the question over and over on each floor of the building he had seen her enter. The answers were always vague. Some of the people he questioned even tried to avoid speaking to him and quickly moved away. They must think I’m from the police, he thought. A few shook their heads doubtfully: They thought they might have seen a woman who looked like the one in the portrait, but that was it. Even the doormen and janitors couldn’t offer more specific details. A drawing isn’t as good as a photo, one of them said to him. He looked at the portrait for the millionth time and saw that it was true. The portrait captured the features of someone he had brought forth from his imagination. Frankly, it could have been anybody, or nobody.

But the failure of the people in that building to recognize the sketch didn’t discourage him completely. Maybe somebody else would recognize her, and so — his hope surging like the brief, weak flame of a single matchstick — by some stroke of luck he might still meet her, and he wasn’t going to miss that opportunity.

He had the portrait laminated in plastic so it wouldn’t get damaged, and started to carry it with him wherever he went, along with the folders containing his professional documents. Sometimes, in some of the places he went, he ventured to show them the portrait to see if any of his business contacts might know the woman. He would explain that it was a distant relative who had disappeared, but the family hadn’t given up hope of finding her. A photo would be much better, they invariably told him. Didn’t the family have a photo of her? Sometimes when he showed the portrait to people he had already talked to, their reactions were more confused: They looked at him as if he were touched in the head, an eccentric old fool who wandered around showing everybody a woman’s portrait and asking if they knew who she was.

But his determination never wavered. And when a successful business deal brought in some extra money, he decided to spend the money on a bunch of classified ads in all the big newspapers, reproducing the woman’s portrait along with a brief notice asking anyone who could provide information about her to contact him by phone. He used his office number because he wanted to be absolutely sure that he wouldn’t miss any calls, and he started to neglect his work, staying glued to the phone in case the next ring brought some news that would finally bring him face-to-face with the mystery woman.

And it worked. He started getting calls. But to his great disappointment, most of them came from liars and jokers. Some of them even tried to wheedle money out of him in exchange for some supposedly useful piece of information. He dismissed them out of hand. Others provided him with a street address where they said he would find the woman, and he went to the places in question, taking the laminated portrait with him. At one address, he came across a half-crazy woman who claimed that she was the woman in the portrait; she also thought that he was a theatrical agent offering her a contract. In the remaining cases, people gave their opinions about how this neighbor or that acquaintance looked something like the woman in the portrait. They treated him like someone important, someone trying to solve a mystery that was worthy of column space in the newspapers because of an urgent need to identify the person in the enigmatic portrait. Holding on to a slim hope, he followed up on all their suggestions, but nothing came of it: The women in question didn’t look anything like the one he was looking for. And so the sketch proved useless. He had wasted his money trying to find her with it.

Time flowed on, and coming to grips with this reality, he gradually resigned himself to the fact that he would never see the mystery woman again. He had tempted fate by trying to find her, given that all of his encounters with her had been the result of pure chance; although it had happened many times, in the end each one was by pure chance. He couldn’t bring himself to tear up the portrait or get rid of it, which had been his intention when the search he had undertaken led him nowhere. He simply left it in a drawer and forgot about it. He had been obsessed with that woman, but in the end he understood that there was no possibility of having any kind of relationship with her. She would remain forever what she was: a mystery.

But the unexpected happened, and how. He bought a car, which he was driving one rainy afternoon on a busy street. His brakes failed and he started to skid and before he knew it he felt the shock of crashing into a smaller car that had swerved out of its lane and come zooming towards him. His car was knocked sideways by the impact. It spun around several times before coming to a halt, leaving him bruised by the impact, with an absurd, otherworldly feeling that he couldn’t possibly be alive. Although his seat belt was still attached, he let himself be carried off by a lazy indifference to his fate. He closed his eyes, took stock of the situation, and, gradually realizing that the various injuries he felt from the multiple impacts were actually minor, he let someone help him out of the car. Then he heard the wailing sirens of several ambulances rushing to the scene of the accident. And he realized that he had been sitting there, dazed but calm, for quite a while. Supported by the person who had helped him out of his car, he saw in the leaden twilight and the slashing rain that the paramedics were carrying stretchers from the car that had crashed into his, which had been reduced to a twisted pile of scrap metal giving off the pungent odor of leaking gasoline. Then the stretchers passed by and he was thunderstruck: In spite of the semidarkness, he recognized the unmistakable face of the woman he had fruitlessly searched for after having so many chance encounters with her throughout his life. It was her. Still slightly dazed, and trembling, he approached just as the stretcher was about to be loaded into an ambulance. One of the paramedics asked if he knew the victim.

Still reeling from his devastating encounter with her, he confirmed that he knew her with a vague gesture.

“She’s dead, and her companion too,” said the paramedic, shutting the rear door of the ambulance.

A pair of policemen emerged from the crowd of spectators gathering in the rain to gawk at the accident and asked him to go with them. Overwhelmed by all the commotion, and his painful bruises, he let himself be led away, quietly, all the while thinking about how the laws of chance are part of the strange architecture that destiny designs for us.

Copyright © 2012 by Eliécer Cárdenas;

translation Copyright © 2012 by Kenneth Wishnia