Chapter 29
29
NOVEMBER 2016, DAY 1,232
Are you OK Hector?
Yeah I’m fine. You?
Where are you?
DF.
DF?
Mexico City. My friend Efrain had a birthday party here last night.
Ah, happy birthday Efrain.
I’ll tell him. Thirty-five yesterday. An old bastard like me. We’re about to go get some breakfast. You OK?
It was a cold Sunday afternoon in November. The library was closed, Karin was in Geneva, and Espen and Morten were huddled on the sofa, legs stretched out and entwined in front of them, drinking a bottle of red and watching a movie on a rare day off. Cecilie sat at the long wooden table in a silent conversation with someone on the other side of the world, her own glass of red perched proudly next to her own new MacBook. She didn’t have to use her brother’s any more. Espen and Morten punctuated her quiet conversation with chuckles at the television.
Cecilie lingered on Hector’s words.
I’ll tell him.
That would mean that she was an acknowledged friend of Hector’s. In his life.
As Cecilie looked out of the window onto the snowy expanse of their garden at the foot of Mount Storsteinen, she floated through the howling wind and grey clouds to a sunny November morning over Mexico City. She paused for breath atop mighty Aztec pyramids before continuing until she could see the green, white and red of the giant flag rippling in the Zócalo and smell the tamales and tacos from the street vendors around the vast plaza.
Ceci?
She didn’t reply.
Ceci, you OK? Wanna FaceTime? Efrain’s brother has wiffy here.
The sun burst through slats in the window and warmed Hector’s face – the thought of seeing Cecilie’s while he was hungover already felt like something of a tonic, so he lingered on the sofa in Efrain’s brother’s apartment.
A squeeze of fresh lime from a street food vendor burst into the sky and Cecilie snapped out of her dreamy state and back into the warm toasty living room within the safe confines of the Arctic Circle.
Oh no, it’s OK, you get going, sorry. I forgot it was the boys’ night out. I just wanted to check you were OK, I was worried. But you’re OK.
Worried?
About something I just read on the news. Nine severed heads, thirty-two bodies…
Hector leaned back into the sun-dappled sofa and looked up at Efrain, his brother Raymundo, and their friends, all heading out of the apartment door. Efrain gesticulated at him to vamos.
Hang on, Ceci…
‘Guys, I’ll catch you up, I need to make a call.’
‘Eh cabrón , you gotta eat!’ said Efrain, looking disappointed.
‘Checking your mamá’s porn hub out again, Hector?’ Efrain’s brother, Raymundo, said, laughing. Efrain winced. Hector ignored them both and looked back at his phone.
‘Order me huevos al abanil and a nopal juice. I’ll be right there,’ he lied.
Efrain felt bad for his brother’s careless comment to a motherless son, so he smiled and nodded compliantly.
The door slammed. The air smelled stagnant under the vaulted ceiling of the Centro Historico apartment, but it was silent, he could talk. Hector lit a cigarette and messaged Cecilie back.
OK I’m here. What’s up? I can call you… ?
Cecilie didn’t want to say it out loud in front of Espen and Morten. She typed furiously.
It’s just, I’m scared for you.
I keep reading horrific stories. Things happening in Mexico.
OK so where did these things happen?
Hector put his feet up on the coffee table in front of him and inhaled as he looked at his phone. Perhaps it was best this conversation wasn’t voice to voice or face to face; Hector didn’t know how to be calming about something that fizzed away murkily in the back of his mind like a constant feeling of impending doom. Like the thwack, whack, whack of Benny’s rolled-up comics on the back of his head in the bottom bunk.
Somewhere called Zitlala?
OK well Zitlala is nowhere near Xalapa. It’s, like, seven hours away. That shit doesn’t go down near me.
Again, Hector was lying. Two weeks ago, a taxi driver was decapitated and his severed head left on the dashboard of his abandoned car, right near the city centre. Hector thought of the nopal juice he had ordered, and his mouth went dry with thirst and fear. But Cecilie was reassured and took heart as she looked across the room at Espen and Morten, laughing on the sofa.
Ah OK. I just seem to be reading more and more stories about violence and massacres and mass graves, I just wanted to check you were OK, that none of this world touches you .
Hector felt relieved that she hadn’t read the story about the taxi driver, just 200 metres from his grandfather’s home.
Hector thought of the axe.
I hear about this shit all the time at the paper, but trust me, these guys keep among themselves. I don’t mix with them, no amount of money is worth that.
Hector thought of the deliveries he used to make for Benny. Of the times Benny knocked at his door, or let himself into Hector’s apartment, sitting, waiting in the dark, asking for a pair of helping hands.
‘It’s good money, Zapata. You’ll get you a proper place to live, a ranch like me.’ When he’d said this, Hector wondered where Benny had moved to, since where he lived had become a closely guarded secret. But Hector didn’t actually want to know. He didn’t want to sully his visits to Sister Miriam at the Villa Infantil with chit-chat about Benny, which grand hacienda he had bought, or what his latest business venture might be. And Benny’s unannounced visits to Alejandro’s house on Calle Bremont, or to his apartment in the tall building on Benito Juárez, had got less frequent as the years went on. He couldn’t remember the last time Benny Trujillo let himself into the apartment and sat waiting in the dark. It hadn’t happened since Pilar had moved in anyway. Hector knew that every time he said ‘Thanks, man, but I’m OK…’ and turned down Benny’s offers of work, he was making himself more of a foe. But saying no to Benny put Hector in less danger than saying yes to Benny. And their relationship had always been about survival.
Hector leaned his head back against the sofa and looked up at the fan on the high ceiling of the Mexico City apartment.
Don’t worry princesa, I’m fine. Hungry and hungover, but fine.
Cecilie let a sigh of relief out at the screen of her laptop. Relieved that this was a world Hector didn’t inhabit, relieved that he had been on a boys’ night out and his girlfriend must be miles away back at home.
Phew, well that’s OK
Cecilie took a large sip from her glass. Calmness flooded her as Merlot travelled to her bloodstream.
You go get breakfast, nourish yourself Hector!
OK, me voy.
Hector?
Síííííííí…
I love you.
I love you too.