“I came back,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say. He looked around. The kids were asleep in the double bed, three rounded heaps under a blanket.

  Rosa nodded. “Are you okay? Have you eaten?”

  He tried to remember how long ago he had eaten the bread, drunk the coffee. He shook his head.

  He looks half dead, Rosa thought. Sunken-eyed, exhausted. A bruise spread like a squashed plum over his cheek. Where had he been? What should she tell him? She turned to the stove and flicked on the propane. Her hand shook as she struck a match. Then she put on a kettle of water and poured some oil into a pot.

  Alonso stepped closer, watching her chop a clove of garlic into tiny pieces. The knife thudded into his mother’s old wooden chopping block.

  Rosa swept the garlic into the oil and was reaching for the rice when he grabbed her hand, surprising them both. He lifted it and pressed his lips against her birthmark, that little brown oval on her wrist. Then he turned her hand over and kissed her palm.

  “I’ve got garlic on me,” she protested, trying to pull away. She wanted perfumes for him, sweet and wild. Something so beautiful he’d never want to leave again. Not garlic.

  But he drew her to him and kissed her mouth. It was so soft there, so warm. . . . Her fingertips brushed his cheek, and his hands buried themselves in her hair.

  A fire was kindling inside him. He wanted to stay here forever. Holding her like this. Touching her like this. Deeper and deeper. If only she’d let him stay. . . .

  Come inside, Alonso. Come home.

  During the long hours of waiting, Rosa had feared that if this moment ever came, Shark Eyes would come back with it, thrusting himself between them. Instead, she felt only Alonso. Like the sun, his body seemed to draw hers into its orbit. A feeling hot and liquid and almost painful.

  Finally she stepped back, her eyes bright. Alonso felt suddenly lightheaded.

  “Sit down,” she whispered. “You need to eat.”

  He sat, unable to take his eyes off her. She cooked him rice in his mother’s dented aluminum pan and pulled a pot of beans from the refrigerator. Finally she squeezed some oranges and poured him a glass of juice. He swallowed it in four gulps, barely tasting it, and she made more and he drank that, too.

  “What are you doing here?” He smiled at her. She was beautiful. She was a miracle. “Where’s my father?”

  Rosa sat down beside him. “He’s been arrested.”

  Alonso choked. “What?”

  She repeated herself, and then, as gently as she could, told him of her arrival here, of everything Diana had told her. “I don’t know why they arrested him. Diana said the police were looking for you and your father started cursing at them and they . . .” Her voice faltered. “They took him away.”

  Cops? Looking for him? But how? And why? He’d used a fake I.D. to get into the prison.

  He thought of the night he and Rodolfo had pasted all those fliers here in San Juan. Those two drunks they’d seen and laughed at. He felt his hands shaking in his lap.

  He had led the police to his family. He clenched his fists but couldn’t stop their shaking.

  “Where have you been, Alonso?”

  “I went to the mountains,” he said. Suddenly he registered how much time had passed. “But you said you came on Tuesday. What is it now, Wednesday? Thursday?” He sat back, horrified. “Couldn’t you have done something?”

  Done something! Rosa stood and ladled beans onto a plate, then scooped a mound of rice from the pot. As if she’d done nothing! She thought of telling him about Shark Eyes and touched the cut on her neck.

  “Do you realize,” she finally said, “that Livia is an absolute basket case, and Diana’s not much better? I couldn’t get them out of here. They went into hysterics. And while you were in the mountains”—she drawled the word, as if he’d been on holiday—“we had a paro armado! There were red flags up in the market! What was I supposed to do, leave the kids here and walk home?”

  The paro. He had completely forgotten about the paro. A paro armado, and Rosa and the kids alone in San Juan. “No,” he whispered. The food on his plate seemed to move, and the room with it.

  “It’s all right.” Her voice softened. “Eat. You’ll feel better.” She pushed his plate closer.

  Alonso stared at the sticky, steaming hump of rice. Then, suddenly ravenous, he started shoveling in mouthfuls. He didn’t say a word until he was nearly finished and had drained the glass of juice. “Gracias,” he said, abashed.

  On the bed, Diana cried out. Rosa stood, ready to go to her, but Diana fell silent once more. All three children lay unmoving, flat on their backs beside each other like paper dolls.

  It’s time, Rosa thought. A chill crept over her. But he was so tired. She couldn’t tell him now. She should wait . . . maybe tomorrow . . .

  But by tomorrow the kids would be awake, and then what? Then she’d be back in Miraflores, suffocating on the Malecón. If she didn’t tell him now she never would.

  She put her hands on the table, one on top of the other. “Alonso . . .”

  He should know. He deserved to know.

  “I never told anyone what really happened in the Cesip that day.” Her thumb slid over her birthmark, but she held it still. “When the Senderistas came through the back door . . . When they walked in, your mother was already leaving. She was going out to look for you.”

  Don’t, Alonso thought. He felt so tired he could barely see. I already know what a bullet does to a person’s head.

  “I was by the lab,” Rosa went on. “And I just sort of stood there. Like I was frozen. Your mother came running back and she pushed me. She made me get away first. One of them was already aiming at her—” Rosa broke off and looked at the ceiling. “She could have gotten away, Alonso. I mean, if she hadn’t come back for me.”

  Rosa blinked, about to cry.

  Please don’t, Alonso thought. He didn’t think he could take it if she cried. It wasn’t you, he wanted to say. Sooner or later, they were going to kill her anyway. Because she wouldn’t let them have the Cesip. Because of who she was.

  Rosa put her face in her hands. “I don’t know why she came back,” she moaned. “I wish she’d left me there!”

  Alonso tried to find his voice. To explain. He knew what he wanted to say. What Rosa had to understand. They killed everyone who got in their way. His mother. Don Fermín. Everyone.

  He pried Rosa’s hands from her face. “Rosa, she loved you! My mother loved you!”

  Rosa hunched over his hand, her shoulders heaving.

  Oh, God, he had to make her see. She had to understand. But as her tears splashed his arm and her fingers wove through his, Alonso’s throat seemed to close. And as he thought of his mother, and how much she’d loved them all, he couldn’t help himself. He put his head down on the table and wept.

  Raggedly. He cries like a man, Rosa thought. Not a child. He sobbed as her father had, the day of the funeral. Her own tears dried as she watched him.

  Tentatively, so softly that at first she barely touched him, she began to stroke his hair. It was thick and black and straight. She had always loved his hair, so different from her own.

  Alonso didn’t hate her. He didn’t even seem to blame her. But she found with a kind of numb surprise that it didn’t make much difference. Because Alonso could love her, but he couldn’t absolve her. He couldn’t heal the part of her that had been maimed inside the Cesip.

  Of course Magda had come back for her. She loved you! Magda wouldn’t have been Magda if she hadn’t come back. Rosa might spend the rest of her life wishing she hadn’t frozen, but she had. Whether anybody else blamed her, whether they offered some kind of cheap grace—it’s not your fault—it didn’t matter.

  W hat mattered, maybe, was to live a life worth the price M agda had paid.

  Alonso cried and cried, as if he might never stop. His sleeves grew damp from his tears. Finally, his sobs subsided to a weak moan and he looked up, his lashes spiky and wet.

  Her eyes looked dark, almost black, in the weak light cast by the kerosene lamp.

  “You’re exhausted,” she whispered.

  Drawing a shaky breath, he nodded. She blew out the lamp and stood. Like a child he followed her, let her remove his sneakers and sweater and lay him down on the bed beside his brother and sisters. She kissed him and his longing for her returned, so hot and sharp that if he could have spoken it would have been to beg. She brought over a chair and sat down, taking his hand once more.

  Her hand followed him into his dreams, and remained with him all night.

  EIGHTEEN

  Thump, thump. Darkness swathed the shack. Thump, thump, thump. Someone was banging on the door.

  Alonso let go of Rosa’s hand. Peering outside, he saw a night writhing with fog. A shadow of a face, hidden behind a black ski mask. Yellow eyes glowed through the slit.

  The ski mask spoke. “People’s Trial in the market. Bring your family out.”

  Alonso tried to speak, but fog swirled into his mouth. Maybe he no longer had a voice. Maybe he had wept it away, the night before.

  The yellow eyes narrowed. “You see the price of weakness.”

  Not with stones, Alonso thought. He shut his eyes and started to tremble. Please God, not with—

  “Mamá!” A high-pitched voice cut through the fog. “Did you see?”

  Alonso opened his eyes. He was lying in bed, sweating. Livia lay beside him, the blanket framing her face like a monk’s cowl. Her eyes twitched, a ghostly flicker behind closed lids. She was dreaming, talking in her sleep. They’d both been dreaming.

  Alonso sat up and looked around.

  Sunrise lit a gray glow behind the esteras. His mother’s jeans lay folded on a chair beside the bed. Diana and Gustavo slept with their arms outflung. Rosa was snoring lightly, her mouth open.

  Alonso steadied himself, watching her.

  One of her curls lay above her head, a brown spiral cast upward on the pillow. She’d be so embarrassed if she could see herself.

  Leaning across Livia, he felt Rosa’s breath, the intermittent warmth against his cheek. He bent closer, closer. He was kissing her. The soft snore stopped. Rosa’s lips curved. When he finally opened his eyes, she breathed his name.

  He wound that lone, upflung curl around his index finger. “We should go,” he whispered.

  She nodded. “Go find a taxi. I’ll get the kids ready.”

  He went out into the early morning light and followed the road out of San Juan. The paro was over and everything was the same. Down on the avenue, trucks and micros sped past, diesel fumes hanging in their wake. Men clustered around the newspaper kiosk, reading tabloids clothespinned to strings. Some of the tabloids had pictures from the paro. A burned-out bus, a market hung with red flags. Others had pictures of half-naked showgirls. As if nothing had happened at all.

  A combi passenger van skidded to a stop in front of him. “Get on, get on!” The ticket boy hung like a monkey from the van’s open door, trying to wave Alonso aboard. Alonso shook his head and the combi roared off. Finally a little Volkswagen sputtered by, a dull gray one like Padre Manuel’s, but with a red taxi sign stuck to the windshield.

  He was afraid the driver would ask for the fare upfront, but the guy didn’t even blink. He just nodded and drove up the long hill into San Juan. As Alonso stepped from the car, Diana tumbled from the shack. She threw herself into Alonso’s arms and Gustavo came running behind her, screaming with delight.

  “WONZO! WONZO!” Alonso carried them inside, laughing and choking. Gustavo clung to his neck while Diana covered his cheek with kisses.

  Rosa had stuffed some clothes into a couple of bags and put on his mother’s blue sweater and jeans. “Come on,” she said to the kids. “Help me carry these to the car.” She tipped her head at the bed. “You’ll have to carry Livia, Alonso.”

  Livia sat at the edge of the bed, rigid and silent.

  Rosa stepped through the doorway and the little ones dashed outside with her. Alonso could hear them, their sharp little yaps of excitement, as he approached the bed.

  “Livia,” he murmured. She seemed very pale. Shrunken, as though something had been drained from her. “It’s me, hermanita . Alonso.” Livia twitched, as if in pain, and collapsed downward over her knees. Both arms went over her head.

  His mother’s little flower.

  She shut her eyes as he slid his arms beneath her. She seemed to weigh less than Diana.

  Rosa was already in the taxi’s front seat, with the kids bouncing in the back. He put Livia on Rosa’s lap, and she pressed her face against Rosa’s neck as Alonso climbed in behind the driver. Then, with a little gurgle, the Volkswagen turned around and rolled down the hill.

  It was a long ride to Miraflores, even in a taxi. Diana and Gustavo exclaimed at the cars and trucks, the purple and red and white micros. Rosa gazed out the window, stroking Livia’s hair. She didn’t say anything until they reached Miraflores. “This way,” she murmured to the driver.

  The Volkswagen rumbled onto a side street, a little canyon cut between high stucco walls. Open sky lay ahead, with a tang of brine and seaweed in the air. At the end of the street, the taxi turned onto the Malecón. Beyond a narrow, grassy park, Alonso saw the green and rippling immensity of the Pacific.

  “There.” Rosa pointed at an apartment building with peeling paint. “That’s it.”

  Clambering from the backseat, Alonso heard a loud and very Spanish-sounding curse above their heads. “¡Coño!” He squinted against the bright sky. Above him, looking down from the third-floor balcony, he saw a man in black. A squat man, with a white clerical collar.

  Diana scrambled from the Volkswagen as Alonso lifted Gustavo out. “Hold his hand,” he told Diana. He stepped around the car to take Livia from Rosa’s lap.

  He was straightening up with Livia in his arms, and Rosa was stepping from the car, when he saw them. Three adults, running out the front door of the apartment building and slamming to a disbelieving halt.

  “Mamá!” With a sob, Rosa ran into her mother’s arms, mumbling that she was sorry, she was so sorry. . . .

  “Coño,” Padre Manuel murmured.

  Dr. Pablo devoured Rosa with one look. Then he glanced at the little ones and stared hard at Alonso. He was morphing from father to doctor before Alonso’s eyes. He looked down at Livia, huddled in Alonso’s arms, and his expression changed. “Give her to me,” he said quietly.

  Alonso’s arms tightened, clenching Livia to his chest.

  “Alonso.” Dr. Pablo touched his shoulder.

  Alonso looked down. Diana stood at his side, gripping Gustavo’s hand. She was sucking her hair again, eyes wide. She had not asked him, yet, where their father was.

  Alonso loosened his hold and Dr. Pablo took Livia. Padre Manuel began to shepherd them all inside, through the glass doors and into the elevator and upstairs, to a carpeted living room that looked out over the sea. Alonso wanted to hold Rosa’s hand, but she was in her mother’s arms now—out of his reach.

  He turned to the priest, who was gray with exhaustion but beaming. “Padre.” The priest reached out an arm to pull Alonso into a hug, but he sobered as Alonso shook his head.

  “We need to get my father out of jail,” Alonso told him.

  The Clínica San Martín was painted the pale green of sour apples, with six stories of windows that caught the sun like dozens of glassy eyes. As Padre Manuel pulled into the parking lot, Alonso stared in wonder. It had taken the priest one call to the Archbishop to get his father out of jail and into the best private hospital in Lima.

  The room where Alonso’s father lay smelled of plaster and Lysol. Sunshine, pouring through a window, mottled the floor. Near the window stood a bed with its head cranked up. A sheet covered the body in the bed, but when Alonso saw what the cops had done to his father’s face, he nearly turned and ran.

  Shredded lips. Broken teeth. One ear a swollen red balloon. One hand groping unsteadily toward Alonso while the other, swathed in bandages, lay unmoving on the sheet. Swallowing, Alonso stepped forward.

  “Hijo.” His father’s voice was hoarse. “Are you . . . the kids . . . ?”

  Alonso slipped his hand into his father’s. “We’re okay, Papá. All of us.”

  His father’s eyes were black slits behind bloated lids. “Where did you go? Were you with Rodolfo?”

  A cold fear splashed over Alonso. “Is that what you told the cops?”

  “I didn’t tell the cops anything,” his father retorted. “Where were you?”

  Alonso glanced at Padre Manuel, and the priest stepped out to the hall, speaking in a low voice to a nurse in white polyester. Alonso replied in a whisper. “We went to the mountains. We were with them.”

  “Them?” His father gasped. A hurting sound, like he’d taken another blow to the gut. “You went and—”

  Alonso began to stammer. “I didn’t do what they wanted me to. They . . .”

  But his father was looking away now, like he couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. Out the window, straight at the white light.

  Alonso clenched his jaw. “I’m sorry about the cops, Papá.” He turned for the door. “That was my fault.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t stay. They know where we live.”

  “Do they know you’re in the hospital?”

  Alonso shoved his hands in his pockets. “The Party has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears, Papá.”

  “Don’t believe everything they told you. They’d have said whatever it took to convince you.” His father shook his head, incredulous. “The son of Magda Rios. They reeled you in like a fish, Alonso.” His father sat up, wincing. “You see that, don’t you? Or do you think it was you they wanted? Alonso Carhuanca?”

  Balling his fists in his pockets, Alonso stared at his father. He imagined tabloids, hanging from newspaper kiosks. He imagined headlines. SON OF MAGDA RIOS JOINS SENDERO LUMINOSO.

  No wonder Comrade Felipe had been so glad to see him. Orchards of red flags. No one hungry. Victory was inevitable. Even the sons of the victims knew it. Even the son of Magda Rios.

 

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