Vengeance(95)

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.”