Vengeance: Mystery Writers of America Presents

THE GENERAL

BY JANICE LAW

Even after he went into a comfortable, if still bitter, exile in the north, the General hired only men from his own country. He trusted the loyalty of those who had been comrades and subordinates and the poverty of the others. Of the two, he regarded poverty as the surer thing, but the General was never without a sidearm, and the inner recesses of his handsome house — a glossy, glamorized version of the old stucco mansions of his homeland — held a small arsenal. He had enemies, some persistent, who had fled north a few years ahead of him. That political power was fleeting was a basic tenet of the universe.

Power of other sorts — the power of money, influence, personality — had proved more durable. Overseeing his silent, well-trained indoor staff and the ever-changing retinue of gardeners, pool attendants, and chauffeurs, the General felt as close as he was ever going to be to his old life of unquestioned authority. Dismissing a gardener for an ill-raked path or sacking a cook for a soup too cold or too hot satisfied impulses that he’d feared he was leaving behind when he boarded the plane, late and secretly, on the night the government fell.

But the north, with its labyrinth of immigration laws, had given him new levers to control his employees, and the General used them all, partly to avoid familiarity and partly for pleasure, because the General had loved only two things: power and his young son, Alejandro, a slim, dark boy of eight who reminded the General strongly of his late wife. Not that there was anything effeminate about the child, who played noisy soccer games at St. Ignatius and who could set the kitchen staff laughing the moment he returned from school, but from his earliest years, Alejandro had been thoughtful, and what he was thinking was not always transparent to his father.

Like his mother, the boy kept his own counsel, and he could be as quiet as he was noisy, spending hours reading in his room or playing one of his squeaking video games or frolicking in the far reaches of the garden and learning ungrammatical Spanish from the gardeners. He looked like his mother too, being rather pale, with eyes neither brown nor green, but a speckled amalgamation of the two. He had her nose, already quite large and angular; her full mouth; her thick, glossy black hair.

Watching him run joyously about on the playing field, the General had moments when some angle of jaw or cheek or hairline brought Maria back with a sharp, unwelcome ache. Aware of her own innocence, she had been as fearless as the boy, and she had paid for her carelessness when a motorcycle roared up to her limousine and the pillion rider loosed a burst of fire. The assailants had expected the General to be in the car, and though he’d escaped, he had known that his days were numbered.

Eventually, he fled north, where he had contacts, protection, assistance of useful kinds, and money. He hadn’t gone into either the army or politics to remain poor. Now he lived in luxurious retirement; in exile, true, and with greatly diminished powers, but with vastly enhanced safety and comfort. Alejandro would grow up to be a citizen of this new and often enigmatic country, where power of many sorts would be available to him. The General had no doubt of that.

So he was as content as a man of his past and temperament could be. He raged sometimes — though never at Alejandro. The General was known to strike his kitchen staff and even his young and pretty mistress, who lived in an apartment a mile away from his home, but he did nothing worse. The past was gone and buried, and all that he had done and seen and ordered — for the good of his country and his party — was put to rest.

With wealth, a gated acreage, state-of-the-art alarms, and armed guards, the General could be confident that his life would run smoothly. It was therefore surprising that he allowed one irritant: Manuel, the gaunt, silent head gardener whom it had pleased the General to hire after precipitously firing the last one for burning the perfect turf with a carelessly placed glass tabletop.

Manuel was, naturally, one of the General’s countrymen, an old, dark, sad Indian without papers. The General preferred illegals, whom he could pay next to nothing. But although his salary was minimal, the elderly gardener was permitted to live in the shed at the back of the yard.

Why the General arranged this is unclear, since he was cautious to the point of paranoia. Yet to save a few dollars on Manuel’s salary, dollars that the General could well have afforded, having left the capital with a suitcase full of gold bars, he allowed a stranger, and a mysterious one at that, to live within his gates and beyond his immediate oversight.

There was no physical danger, of course. The General’s two bodyguards, Hector and Jesus, were always vigilant. One or the other was perpetually on duty, and at some point, it would surely please the General to throw the old man into the street. Yet from a strict security standpoint, Manuel’s residence in the garden, even briefly, was unwise.

If asked about this, the General would have said that Manuel was a wonderful gardener who would get the place into shape. The orchids, the lilies, the flowering cacti, the bananas, the bamboo, all the various ornamentals and tropicals thrived under his care. Every time the General went into his garden, he was reminded of his patio back in the capital and of evenings sitting with friends under the palms.

But, as with so many aspects of the General’s life, the situation with Manuel was complex. Even in retirement, the General had considerable business dealings and still retained influence back home. He was absent a good deal, and Alejandro, who was lonely, had taken a great liking to Manuel and a great interest in the operation of the garden.

At home, the General would have put a stop to that at once. The son of the General was not training to be a gardener. But here, things were subtly different. The boy missed his adored mother and none of the housekeepers or cooks had won his heart to the degree the old gardener had. When the General was away, the boy spent hours down in the garden shed talking to Manuel and learning the mysteries of propagation and pruning.

One evening the General asked Alejandro what he and Manuel found to talk about, the old man being, as the General knew, quite illiterate.

“We talk about the plants,” said the boy.

“Nothing else?”

“This and that. He comes from the highlands.”

The General pricked up his ears at that, and it came into his mind to fire Manuel instantly.

“He says,” Alejandro added, “that you were a great man at home, and one day I’ll understand the sort of man you are.” The boy gave a smile of such trust and sweetness that the General was disarmed. There were, after all, some good people in the highlands, faithful, sensible souls. Even there.

Just the same, he began to take a greater interest in Manuel and in what Alejandro was learning in the garden. He had the boy show him which plants he had pruned and how the small orchids — propagated, as even the General could see, with delicate skill — were progressing. Sometimes in the evening when Alejandro was in bed, the General would wander through his garden, smoking a thin cigar, thinking of this and that, of days in the capital when his power was supreme, and of earlier days in the mountains when his word, his every impulse, was law.

Often as he strolled along the immaculate paths, the General found his way past the plots holding chilies and cilantro, yams, jicamas, beans, tomatoes, and corn to the little potting shed. There was a pipe for water, and some fastidious former owner had installed a small toilet. Manuel or one of his predecessors had acquired a hot plate and a barbecue, and on some nights the General smelled bracing, peppery concoctions or, more rarely, the scent of meat or chicken bathed in herbs.

It was on these nights that the General thought of the back-country, so terrible and beautiful, and of what he had done and ordered there. Sometimes, the smells were so intense, so delicious — as if they were the scent of memory rather than the cookery of an impoverished gardener over a few charcoal briquettes — that the General imagined a single mouthful of such food would restore him to his old headquarters deep in the past.

I’m getting old, thought the General one evening. He felt that it would be wise to fire Manuel that night, that very moment, and yet he did not. In fact, he found himself drawn more and more to the night garden and to the shed, which always seemed dark to him, though he knew for a fact that it was wired for power, and he sometimes saw a faint light emanating from it when he looked out his bedroom window at night. He told himself that he could have the power cable disconnected, just as he could fire Manuel. There were always gardeners in need of work.

One day, Alejandro had an orchid to show him, a minuscule cluster of green leaves. It was a hybrid, the boy said. A new one. If it turned out to be as beautiful as he hoped, it would be named for his mother.

The General looked at his smiling face and said, “What a splendid idea.”

Nonetheless, when Alejandro went off to school, the General felt grumpy and out of sorts. Who was this gardener to remind him of Maria? He stepped onto the terrace and studied his lush foliage. The original garden had been too tidy and suburban for his taste. Now, without its ever looking sloppy or unkempt, the garden reminded the General of his native thickets and jungles. Though the birds’ songs were different, there were moments when he felt at home, when he felt returned, almost. He traced the beginning of those moments to when Manuel had taken up residence in the garden.

It would have seemed a simple matter for the General to question the old man directly, but this he did not do. First, he was confident that the man would lie, on principle, if not out of fear, and second, it was surely beneath his own dignity to investigate one of his servants. If he had real questions, he would let Hector and Jesus handle the business; they would soon discover anything he needed to know about Manuel. Anything.

The awareness that this might be done consoled the General. In his mind, having the power to do something ran a close second to actually doing it. Besides, Alejandro was often alone, and the General preferred for him to have a companion within the compound instead of running wild among the neighborhood boys with their motorized scooters and skateboards and their delight in surfing rough water.

Already the boy’s English was full of slang and his Spanish corrupted. There could be no harm in the old gardener, and the General thought himself well enough protected by asking the occasional question.

“Manuel must be very patient,” the General said one day. “He teaches you a great deal.”

“He had a son once,” Alejandro said. “A boy like me.”

“And where is his son? Back home or here?”

Alejandro shook his head. “He did not grow up. He is dead.”

“Ah,” said the General. That explained much. Alejandro looked reflective, even melancholy, and the General thought it well to add, “So many children die back home. The peasants are ignorant of even the simplest care.”

Alejandro did not answer this observation, and some delicacy kept the General from pressing him.

Another time, he asked Alejandro where Manuel came from.

“The highlands,” Alejandro said. “He picked coffee and then he made gardens for the plantation owner.”

“Do you know what village that might be?” The General kept his voice low. There were lots of coffee plantations, and he did not fear the answer. It would be too much of a coincidence. Still, even the idea was unwelcome.

Alejandro shrugged — a nasty habit he had picked up from the boys next door.

“Answer your father.” Unintentionally, the General spoke so sharply that Alejandro flinched.

“I don’t know.”

“I was just curious,” the General said, to pass over the moment.

“I can ask him,” Alejandro said.

“It is not important,” said the General, though now he greatly desired to know, to know that it was not Santa Lucia de Piedras. But he did not want to disturb Alejandro. There were surely other ways to find out.

One day, quite spontaneously, Alejandro said, “I think Manuel is very sad.”

Sorrow was always a danger, and the General thought again of firing the old man. “Perhaps he would be happier in another job.”

“I hope he never leaves us,” his son said quickly. Oh, the boy was careless like that, just like his mother. The innocent are careless, the General thought, trusting. He felt a moment of fear — and then of anger. His son would have to learn caution. It would serve him right if he fired Manuel, but, weakened by his love for the boy, the General said, “I would be very sad if I lost you. The death of his son is why Manuel is sad.”

“I think that is true. He can never forget what happened,” said Alejandro, but his face told the General nothing.

“The child was ill, wasn’t he? There was no one to blame.”

“I don’t know,” said Alejandro. “Mother —” He started to speak, then stopped. The General looked at him sharply.

“Mother didn’t die of illness.”

“Evil men murdered your mother,” the General said. “She was too trusting. She went out in the car when I had warned her —” He broke off, moved in spite of himself. Though there had been threats, she had never understood the hatred against him. Of necessity, he had kept her innocent of his life, and that innocence had killed her. To prevent Alejandro from meeting the same fate, the General had fled to the north, even though his prime impulse had been to seek revenge.

“A lot of people were killed at home,” observed Alejandro.

Well, what had the General expected? There were stories in the Yankee papers, perhaps even in Alejandro’s school lessons, for the General suspected that even St. Ignatius, chosen for its tradition and rigidity, was infected with new and liberal ideas. “Most of them deserved to die,” he said. “The men who murdered your mother — death would have been too good for them.”

“They got away, didn’t they?”

“Things fell apart. We had many enemies. It was me they wanted to kill, because I defended our country.”

He spoke passionately, and as if to console him — for the boy had a tender heart — Alejandro said, “I know. I know you were a great man at home. When I am older, I will study your career. You will be in history books.”

The General was pleased; then it struck him that this was a strange phrase for a boy to use, even a bookish boy. He remembered again that Manuel had told the boy that his father had been a great man at home and that one day Alejandro would understand the sort of man he was. Not if I can help it, thought the General.

Still, he did nothing about the old man’s residence in the garden, which bloomed ever more luxuriantly. I am getting old, thought the General, I am succumbing to nostalgia. He sat out on his terrace smoking and listening to the night sounds and imagining himself back in the capital. Or, and these were moments he both loved and feared, he sat in the darkness with only the torches lit and envisioned the highlands with the moon rising over the jungle trees of Santa Lucia de Piedras, and he saw himself turning toward the interrogation rooms. He’d always liked to work at night. Certain things do not belong with daylight.

Possibly, neither did Manuel. The General avoided the garden during the heat of the day, and even at night, when, courting a confrontation, he walked around the vegetable patch and passed the shed, the old man remained as invisible as if he were a figment of the General’s imagination — or of Alejandro’s.

But the latter idea was disturbing, for why should Alejandro have any knowledge of the villages of the hinterlands, villages he had never seen? Why should he imagine an old man who offered him the promise of seeing the General as he was? No, this was a warning, and the General had just resolved to fire Manuel and make the shed uninhabitable when Alejandro raced inside, crying that his friend had taken ill, that he must have a doctor.

“He is probably just drunk,” said the General, and saw the shock in his son’s eyes. Then there was nothing for it but to go down to the garden and see for himself.

Alejandro ran ahead, his anxiety for Manuel all too apparent. Perhaps the gardener really was sick; perhaps he could be sent to the hospital, or even home. The General gave a tight smile at that and entered the shed. The afternoon light came in over the potting bench, stacked with clean terra-cotta pots and shining trowels and containers of soil, sand, and peat moss.

The old man, very thin, very gray, was lying on a small cot in the shadows. The General saw at once that this was serious. “Get out of here,” he told Alejandro. “It may be contagious.” Then he took out his cell phone and dialed for an ambulance. “We will get you a doctor,” he told the old man in Spanish.

One hand, brown, cracked, and callused, moved on the covers, a gesture of gratitude — or indifference.

“Should we notify someone?”

Again the gesture.

“At home?” In his interest and anxiety, the General leaned closer and whispered, “Where is your village?”

There was a long silence; the dark eyes, dilated by pain, studied his face. The General had almost given up when, in a whisper, his eyes closing, Manuel said, “Santa Lucia de P …”

The General took in a breath and stood up, but the old man had lost consciousness and did not seem to notice his agitation. In a few minutes, emergency medical personnel arrived with their screaming ambulance and carried Manuel out of the garden. When Alejandro pleaded to go with him — young as he was, he understood the necessity of insurance — the General realized that he would have to become involved.

The doctors kept Manuel in the hospital for a week, gave him intravenous fluids and antibiotics, took X-rays and ran expensive blood tests. They cured a variety of small illnesses common to the General’s countrymen, but they could not touch the cancer that was taking his life. At the end of a week, the old man came back — ghostly pale and thin, scarcely capable of walking — and returned to his bed in the shed.

“We will have to send him home,” said the General. “To his own family. A little money too,” he added, to soothe Alejandro. “They will be able to take care of him better there.”

“He has no one,” said Alejandro. “His son is dead.”

“He will have relatives; everyone has relatives.”

But Alejandro shook his head, and knowing Manuel came from that ghost village, Santa Lucia de Piedras, the General did not argue. He wanted to close the discussion; even more, he wanted the gardener gone, and he walked into the garden. When he opened the shed door, he saw at a glance that the old man was dying. What is one more casualty of Santa Lucia de Piedras? the General thought, and considered calling a cab. He could have Manuel at the airport before Alejandro returned. But there were no papers; and after employing Manuel all this time, the General might have trouble with the migra. No, unless he took drastic action, he was stuck with the old man until he died. This knowledge spoiled the garden.

The General began to avoid the terrace in the evenings, and he closed the broad wooden shutters of the windows overlooking the rampant tropical foliage. Alejandro remained faithful. He visited Manuel twice a day, before he went to school and as soon as he returned home on the bus from St. Ignatius. He was forever begging the cook for special broths and bits of meat and even for the bottles of wine that appeared to be Manuel’s preferred painkiller. All this the General saw with dread — and with anger, too, at being reminded of Santa Lucia de Piedras after so many years and in such a manner.

Now it seemed to the General that he had been right from the start, that Manuel’s skill in the garden had returned him to his days of power and command, back to nights in the interrogation rooms, back even further, to a day of sun and blood and the smell of gunpowder and diesel fuel, back to Santa Lucia de Piedras, to what was now beyond explanation. The gardener had no right to awaken these ghosts, and when Alejandro reported that Manuel was feeling a little better and talking about some work in the garden, the General decided to act.

He waited until the boy went to school, but though he checked the garden periodically from his window, he saw no sign of the old man. Perhaps Alejandro had been wrong. Perhaps Manuel was worse; perhaps he was already dead. It was late afternoon before the General saw a thin, white-clad figure with a straw hat moving through the trees.

Manuel was using his machete as a cane, leaning heavily on it and sometimes grasping at branches to stay erect.

The old fool, thought the General. He thinks he can show me that he can still work. He’ll be asking for his pay next. If he’s well enough to work, he’s well enough to be on the first bus south. Whatever it costs will be worthwhile.

In a rush of anger, the General went out onto the terrace and crossed the lawn toward the pool. Manuel’s high cheeks were flushed, and his dilated and unfocused eyes were fathomless. He staggered a little when he saw the General, then straightened up and stared directly at him. In Manuel’s shadowed eyes, the General was surprised to read rage and desperation without the slightest trace of fear. We have both come a long way from Santa Lucia de Piedras, the General thought, and he smelled blood on the hot afternoon breeze.

“How fortunate that you are out of bed,” the General said. “I won’t be needing you in the garden anymore. For Alejandro’s sake, I will make arrangements to send you home.”

“I will never leave you, General,” Manuel said. His voice was low and hoarse, the voice of the rebels and criminals of Santa Lucia de Piedras, the General thought. He had done his duty. They had no right to haunt him.

“If you give me trouble, you will wind up in the gutter,” the General said. He raised his voice so angrily that he did not hear the familiar wheeze and grunt of the school bus stopping.

“Give me back my son,” said Manuel.

“You have no son.”

“He was ten years old, a mere boy, no bigger than Alejandro.”

“I know nothing of him.” But the General remembered the bodies in the plaza, men and women and other, smaller corpses — they had spared no living thing, not even the chickens and donkeys. And what did a few peasants more or less matter? The hills were full of bandits and rebels.

“I was gone on the day of the massacre,” said Manuel. “I came home to find them all dead.”

“It was war,” said the General. “It was an accident of war.”

Now Manuel gave a thin, ghastly smile. “You drink blood,” he said.

“That’s enough.” The General slipped his hand into his pocket for the stubby handgun that never left his side.

Manuel took a step toward him. He was so unsteady that he lurched against one of the ornamental planters beside the pool. “Give me back my son,” he cried in a voice fit to wake the dead. “Before I die, give me my son.”

He took another step, and it seemed to the General that the old man was covered in blood, that he had risen from the wet red ground of Santa Lucia de Piedras or from the filth of the interrogation room, that he was advancing irresistibly. The General raised his pistol, and, though he heard a cry at the very periphery of his awareness, he fired.

Manuel’s hat was flung off; his white shirt blossomed red, and he collapsed at the edge of the pool, his blood spoiling the pure aquamarine of the water. He looked past the General and struggled to say one last thing, his throat already rattling: “You see now what your father is.”

And the General knew, even before he turned around, that Manuel spoke to Alejandro.