Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The - Junot Diaz [91]
For once they did not talk about Trujillo. Can you believe how long it’s been? he asked her in amazement during their last Saturday-night tryst. I can believe it, she said sadly, pulling at the flesh of her stomach. We’re clocks, Abelard. Nothing more. Abelard shook his head. We’re more than that. We’re marvels, mi amor.
I wish I could stay in this moment, wish I could extend Abelard’s happy days, but it’s impossible. The next week two atomic eyes opened over civilian centers in Japan and, even though no one knew it yet, the world was then remade. Not two days after the atomic bombs scarred Japan forever, Socorro dreamed that the faceless man was standing over her husband’s bed, and she could not scream, could not say anything, and then the next night she dreamed that he was standing over her children too. I’ve been dreaming, she told her husband, but he waved his hands, dismissing. She began to watch the road in front of their home and burn candles in her room. In Santiago, Abelard is kissing Lydia’s hands and she is sighing with pleasure and already we’re heading for Victory in the Pacific and for three Secret Police officers in their shiny Chevrolet winding up the road to Abelard’s house. Already it’s the Fall.
ABELARD IN CHAINS
To say it was the greatest shock in Abelard’s life when officers from the Secret Police (it’s too early for the SIM but we’ll call them SIM anyway) placed him in cuffs and led him to their car would not be an overstatement, if it wasn’t for the fact that Abelard was going to spend the next nine years receiving one greatest shock of his life after another. Please, Abelard begged, when he regained his tongue, I must leave my wife a note. Manuel will attend to it, SIMian Numero Uno explained, motioning to the largest of the SIMians, who was already glancing about the house. Abelard’s last glimpse of his home was of Manuel rifling through his desk with a practiced carelessness.
Abelard had always imagined the SIM to be filled with lowlifes and no-reading reprobates but the two officers who locked him in their car were in fact polite, less like sadistic torturers than vacuum-cleaner salesmen. SIMian Numero Uno assured him en route that his ‘difficulties’ were certain to be cleared up. We’ve seen these cases before, Numero Uno explained. Someone has spoken badly of you but they will quickly be revealed for the liars they are. I should hope so, Abelard said, half indignant, half in terror. No te preocupes, said SIMian Numero Uno. The Jefe is not in the business of imprisoning the innocent. Numero Dos remained silent. His suit was very shabby, and both men, Abelard noticed, reeked of whiskey. He tried to remain calm — fear, as Dune teaches us, is the mind killer — but he could not help himself. He saw his daughters and his wife raped over and over again. He saw his house on fire. If he hadn’t emptied his bladder right before the pigs showed up, he would have peed himself right there.
Abelard was driven very quickly to Santiago (everyone he passed on the road made sure to look away at the sight of the VW bug) and taken to the Fortaleza San Luis. The sharp edge of his fear turned knife once they pulled inside that notorious place. Are you sure this is correct? Abelard was so frightened his voice quaked. Don’t worry, Doctor, Numero Dos said, you are where you belong. He’d been silent so long Abelard had almost forgotten that he could speak. Now it was Numero Dos who was smiling and Numero Uno who focused his attention out the window.
Once inside those stone walls the polite SIM officers handed him over to a pair of not-so-polite guards who stripped him of his shoes, his wallet, his belt, his wedding band, and then sat him down in a cramped, hot office to fill out some forms. There was a pervasive smell of ripe ass in the air. No officer appeared to explain his case, no one listened to his requests, and when he began to raise his voice about his treatment the guard typing the forms leaned forward