or saint? Who were we to ever judge another when we could not know a single experience of anyone, let alone all the experiences that shape a life?
“Do you think Ana will marry Carlos?” I asked.
Gracia frowned. “I’m worried for her,” she said. “For instance, with the birth control.” We crossed the street, Gracia charging ahead in her espadrilles. “I’m afraid she won’t use anything or something will go wrong with those flimsy condoms. I can just see it.”
We entered the store, the shelves behind the counter crammed with medications. Many could be bought without a doctor’s prescription. Gracia fished inside her bag, produced a thin pastel box, and gestured for the clerk to assist us. He asked how many we’d like. Gracia and I exchanged glances and burst out laughing. “Three,” she told him. To me she said, “That should have you covered for a few months.” I paid for the supply out of my Christmas money, about thirty U.S. dollars.
On the sidewalk I opened one of the boxes and peeked inside. “Good luck,” Gracia said. “And if Manuel doesn’t come to his senses and forget this idea of sexual sin, then I suggest he enter the priesthood like his brother.”
At home, bedroom door latched, I read the pill package three times. I couldn’t take them for another two weeks, which felt as far away as Christmas, and so stuck the pack in my purse pocket where the maids or Inez weren’t likely to stumble across them. I didn’t mention the pills to Manuel during our phone call that night, either. Instead I asked him if Emilio could obtain more solid information. “I know my brother can come off as arrogant sometimes,” Manuel said, “but I promise he’s not bluffing. He has all sorts of connections with political groups, government. I know how important finding out the truth is to you. It would be for me, too.”
Moments after we hung up the phone rang again, and I expected to hear his voice. He likely had forgotten to mention something, or to tell me again that he loved me, which he had not said since the rally.
But whoever spoke sounded gruff and robotic, hardly human. “If you want to keep your nice life on the hacienda, Mercedes Martinez, you better stop hanging out with La Maria Juventud.” He stopped then, breathing raggedly—the armed guerillas of my nightmares suddenly transfigured, real. The alien, electronically altered voice somehow reminded me of the man with the karaoke machine from earlier, but this was someone who knew about me. The blood rushed in my ears. I saw myself standing on the edge of a jungle precipice, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. “You can tell your lover boys Manuel and Emilio they’re going to die,” he said, and clicked off.
The phone was a brick in my hand. My breath jolted—I needed to move, to walk. The caller had known me—did I know him? Might he have been one of the jefes, or even Fidel, disguised, delivering the threats at my father’s demand? I roamed downstairs into the darkened living room and lowered onto the tile, the coolness rising to the bottoms of my feet as I leaned back against Papi’s chair. I yearned for the dogs, their furry muzzles and solid warmth; they slept on an old mattress on his balcony. I remained as the terrorist had wanted me: paralyzed by fear, and alone. Until a chain jingled, and Angel slowly hopped down the stairs on her three legs, climbed into my lap. Calmer now, I crawled into bed.
But I slipped in and out of sleep, only to awaken in a sweat. I saw myself ripped out of a crowd, hauled into the back of a camouflaged Jeep, beaten with a rifle butt in an encampment shrouded with leaves. In some dreams I was abducted alone; in others Manuel and I were together, sometimes Emilio as well, jostled by masked men. The guerillas swept their guns in our direction, as if spraying hoses, yelling, and I heard again the voice on the phone. My dreams possessed the sensory sharpness of visions: the sweaty stink of the guerillas’ body odor, mixed with damp earth and the smoke of campfires, the snaps and swishes of the jungle.
In one I was marched to a drop-off to be killed. I could see across and down to the next mountain slope. It appeared bottomless. Even in the dream I realized this was a view I had experienced as a child: on a visit to Costa Rica we had once taken a zip-line rainforest tour. Nowhere else did such giant, ancient, exquisite trees exist. I wept with shock that this was the simple, final end, but also with joy at sight of the trees, each as magnificent and breathtaking as a view of Earth from space.
The guerilla told me to look ahead, to not turn around. I felt the barrel of his gun press into the back of my skull.
In none of my dreams did anyone come for us.
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