Chapter 23 Erundina
Erundina
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, or at least so it felt to Roberto as he stared at the collapsing cell tower. All he could do was gape at the flaming wreckage at the top of the hill as he tried to process what had just happened.
He realized he still had the phone clasped tightly in his hand. He shook his head like a wet dog, trying to clear his mind.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” he shouted into the device. “Is anyone there?”
But there was no answer, and although he walked about holding the phone up in the air, he couldn’t get a single bar of signal.
The storm hadn’t just made the island inaccessible by sea and air; all communications were now impossible too.
He put the phone away—it was little more than an expensive paperweight now—and rubbed his eyes.
Think, Roberto. Think.
The chances were pathetically slim. Outside assistance was out of the question. It was up to him and him alone to save the situation. Unless the Freires could be convinced to lend him a hand.
But to achieve that, he needed some kind of winning card to play. Something that would leave them no choice but to come in with him, whatever it was that he decided to do.
As he rubbed his aching neck, his fingers caught in the little chain on which the church key hung.
At that moment, a realization struck him with blinding clarity.
He broke into a run as a plan took shape in his head.
There were a thousand things that could go wrong and a thousand things beyond his control.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than just doing nothing.
Coming to some buildings, he moved along, hugging the walls, advancing from one pool of darkness to the next in the gloom of the night.
He dared not turn on his flashlight for fear of alerting someone to his presence.
Instead, he moved forward, stumbling and cursing, praying not to catch his foot and fall.
At last, he found smooth cement underfoot, and the walking became easier. Now it was just a question of heading down to the village, which shouldn’t be too hard. He only had to follow the slope down toward the shore.
Before he knew it, he was in the village, which in the summer would be so vibrant but now was as dark and silent as a tomb.
Feeling his way along a wall, he mentally counted the steps and then ventured across the street, feeling absurdly exposed.
He stumbled when his feet met the steps of the church.
He felt about on the door until he found the lock. He took the key from the chain around his neck and inserted it, entering the church and closing the door with some relief.
A dim light came from a few votive candles by the altar. A gentle stream of air coming in through a slightly open window shook the wicks, making everything quiver strangely, like in an old movie. As he’d expected, there wasn’t a soul inside.
He went around the altar, passing by some wood carvings adorning the walls and a pile of religious banners folded neatly in a corner.
And there, at the foot of the altar, were the two sturdy duffel bags.
Roberto undid the zippers. By candlelight, the wads of euros, dollars, and Swiss francs lay silently, oblivious to the madness raging outside. Benjamin Franklin looked out at him from one of the bills, with that ambiguous expression reminiscent of the Mona Lisa’s, like a friend who’s in on a joke.
With a couple of tugs, he closed the zippers and slung a bag over each shoulder. They were extremely heavy, and he grunted as the straps dug into his shoulders. Haltingly, he went back down the aisle, opened the door, and peered cautiously outside.
There was nobody around, or at least he could see no lights moving in the vicinity.
Taking a deep breath, he went out and locked the door behind him. The first part of the plan had gone perfectly. Everything was going well . . . for now.
Carrying the bags proved far more difficult than anticipated.
He was soon panting under the extra weight, and every time one of his feet came to a treacherous puddle, he staggered and almost fell.
He was also moving in complete darkness, and a couple of times, realizing he’d gone off course, he had to retrace his steps.
Only when he felt he’d gone a safe distance from the village did he turn on his cell phone flashlight.
He was able to move faster now that he could see a little, although he had to stop every now and then to catch his breath.
When he came to the sign for the old church, he breathed a sigh of relief. Making one final push, he negotiated the narrow, fern-choked path, until at last he was at the graveyard.
In other circumstances, he would have been genuinely scared at the thought of entering a lonely graveyard in the depths of night. But just then, it barely registered. He had more pressing problems.
Initially he had planned to hide the bags in one of the planters positioned along the top of the high graveyard walls, but he soon saw that wouldn’t work. The actual greenery in the planters was minimal, given that it was winter, and so the bags would be easy to spot.
The ongoing rain had also turned the channels along the edges of the planters into small rivers. The bags were waterproof, but he didn’t know if they would withstand prolonged immersion.
He dropped the bags to the ground, feeling his strength ebbing, and leaned against the wall. His eyes wandered across the graveyard, when suddenly he had an idea.
Setting off again, he moved forward between the tombs, looking for one with neither fresh flowers nor signs of having recently been tended. At the far end, by the back wall, he found just what he was looking for.
It was an old grave, moss covered and apparently untended. The lettering on the headstone, though faint, announced that one Erundina Quintáns lay there, having passed away at the age of ninety-five—something of a record in that graveyard. But the best part was the date: She had died in 1924.
It was perfect. He got down on his knees and dug his fingers into the earth, searching for the edge of the tombstone. It was not especially thick, chipped all over and missing one whole corner.
He stood up and looked around with the cell phone flashlight.
He was delighted to find a broken branch, torn off in the wind, lying a short distance away.
Ignoring splinters, he set about hastily yanking off leaves and twigs, until he was left with a fairly straight stake about six feet long.
It was not the most sophisticated tool in the world, but it would have to do.
With that improvised lever in his hands, he went back to Erundina’s grave, jammed one end under the corner of the tombstone, and brought his whole weight down on the other end.
The branch creaked alarmingly, and for a moment he thought it would snap, but the wood, still green, flexed a little. He brought his weight down again, and this time, with a creak, the stone slab lifted up an inch or two.
Roberto felt his energy flooding back. Little by little, using the lever, he managed to get the tombstone off, until the deep hole below was revealed. He clambered down inside.
Time, the damp climate, and insects had combined to do away with the coffin, as well as the flesh of the woman buried there.
A little over six feet down, all that remained were a few yellowish bones mixed together with scraps of half-rotted cloth, bits of wood that crumbled at his touch, and a few rusty nails.
At the top, the skull of the grave’s occupant stared up at him from empty sockets, with a laugh frozen for all eternity.
“I’m so sorry, Erundina,” he whispered, feeling like some grave robber in Victorian London. “It’s an emergency. I hope you understand.”
Clambering out again, he dragged the duffel bags over and dropped them inside. With clenched jaw, he heaved the tombstone back into position. The old mortar had cracked, making it far more maneuverable.
Standing up, he cast a critical eye over his work.
He pulled a couple of strips of moss from the wall and laid them along the edges of the grave, in the spots where he’d jammed the lever underneath.
To finish, he scattered a few sticks over the top, until the grave looked just as untended as before.
Of course, it wouldn’t pass a thorough inspection, but he doubted anyone was going to be checking the condition of the graves anytime soon.
His plan was coming along. Now he was the only one who knew where the money was.
If the islanders wanted to get their hands on it, they would have to accept his conditions and help him avert the massacre that was about to be unleashed.
That was the ace up his sleeve, his advantage over both families.
The only problem now was that he was utterly worn out.
Every single muscle in his body ached. He had spent half the day running up and down the island, in a state of constant worry, and his body was warning him that he’d reached his limit.
A gurgling in his stomach reminded him that it was almost ten o’clock at night, and nothing solid had passed his lips for hours.
He had vomited up his lunch at the foot of the decapitated corpse.
Before anything else, he needed five minutes’ rest. The whiskey he’d drunk with old Ramón Docampo felt prickly in the pit of his stomach, and his limbs were starting to go numb.
He spotted a small lean-to at the back of the church. It had a rickety wooden door with rusty hinges. Without a second thought, Roberto went over and, mustering the last of his strength, kicked open the door. The latch came off with a pop, revealing a dark, dusty interior.
It was full of garden tools and coils of moth-eaten rope. In one corner, covered with mouse droppings, a pile of old esparto grass sacks had been gathering dust for decades. Roberto dropped down on them with a groan of satisfaction. His eyes were heavy as lead, and he could no longer think clearly.
“Just five minutes,” he promised himself. “Just five.”
He rested his head on the sacks and, before he knew it, was fast asleep as the storm continued to rage outside.