Ruben nodded. Roxane Coss had given up her evening gown days ago and was now wearing a pair of tan slacks that belonged to his wife as well as his wife’s favorite cardigan, a navy sweater of extremely fine baby alpaca he had bought for her on their second anniversary. He had requested a guard accompany him upstairs. He went to the closet himself and brought the sweater down to the soprano. “Are you cold?” he had asked, and then draped the cardigan gently around her shoulders. Was it a betrayal, so quickly giving up the sweater his wife loved? The clothing conflated the two women for him in a way that was extraordinarily pleasing, his beautiful guest wearing the clothes of his wife whom he so dearly missed, the traces of his wife’s perfume still lingering inside the ribbing of the sweater so that he could smell both women there when he passed the one. If this wasn’t enough to ask, Roxane was wearing a pair of familiar slippers that belonged to the governess, Esmeralda, because his wife’s shoes had been too small. How delightful it had been to put his head inside Esmeralda’s tiny, meticulous closet!
“Are you going to tell her you love her?” the contractor asked. “It is your home. I would certainly defer to your right to go first.”
Ruben considered his guest’s thoughtful invitation. “It’s a possibility.” He was trying not to stare at Roxane. He was failing. He imagined taking her hand, suggesting he could show her the stars from the wide stone veranda that wrapped around the back of the house, that is, he would have if they had been allowed to go outside. He was the Vice President, after all, that might impress her. At least she was not a tall woman. She was a pixie, a pocket Venus. He was grateful for that. “It might not be appropriate, given my position here.”
“What’s appropriate?” Oscar said. His voice was light and unconcerned. “They’re bound to kill us in the end. Either the ones inside or the ones outside. The shooting will start. There will be some terrible mistake, you can bank on it. The ones outside can’t let it look like we were not mistreated. It will be important to them we wind up dead. Think of the people, the masses. You can’t have them getting the wrong idea. You’re the government man. You know more about these things than I do.”
“It does happen.”
“Then what’s the point of not telling her? I, for one, want to know that in my last days I made some effort. I’m going to speak to the young Japanese man, the translator. When the time is right, when I know what I want to say. You can’t approach a woman like that too quickly.”
Ruben liked the contractor. Although they had never met before, the very fact that they both lived in the same city made them feel like neighbors and then old friends and then brothers. “What do you know about women like that?”
Oscar chuckled and put his hand down on his brother’s shoulder. “Little Vice President,” he said. “There are so many things that I know.” It was big talk but in this place big talk seemed appropriate. While he had lost every freedom he was most accustomed to, a new, smaller set of freedoms began to raise a dim light within him: the liberty to think obsessively, the right to remember in detail. Away from his wife and five daughters he was not contradicted or corrected, and without those burdens he found himself able to dream without constant revision. He had lived his life as a good father but now Oscar Mendoza saw again his life as a boy. A daughter was a battle between fathers and boys in which the fathers fought valiantly and always lost. He knew that one by one each of his daughters would be lost, either honorably in the ceremony of marriage or, realistically, in a car pointed out towards the ocean well after dark. In his day, Oscar himself had made too many girls forget their better instincts and fine training by biting them with tender persistence at the base of their skull, just where the hairline grew in downy wisps. Girls were like kittens in this way, if you got them right at the nape of their neck they went easily limp. Then he would whisper his suggestions, all the things they might do together, the wonderful dark explorations for which he was to be their guide. His voice traveled like a drug dripped down the spiraling canals of their ears until they had forgotten everything, until they had forgotten their own names, until they turned and offered themselves up to him, their bodies sweet and soft as marzipan.
Oscar shuddered at the thought. As he was ready to play the part of the boy again he could see the lines of boys forming around his house, boys ready to assuage the awful grief of his daughters now that their father was held hostage. Pilar, how awful this must be for you. Isabelle, you mustn’t stay shut away. Teresa, your father wouldn’t want such suffering. Look at this, I brought you some flowers （or a bird, a skein of yarn, a colored pencil. IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE）。 Would his wife have the sense to lock the door? She would never have sense enough to believe that the boys meant them any harm. She believed their lies now just as she had believed him then, when she was a girl and he had come to call while her father lay dying from cancer.
What was he thinking of, chasing after an opera singer? Who were those two girls anyway, Beatriz and Carmen? What were they doing here? Where were their fathers? Probably gunned down in some countryside revolution. What could such girls do to keep the boys away without fathers to protect them? Everywhere in this house there were boys, those awful, surly boys with their greasy hair and bitten fingernails, hoping to touch a breast.
“You look bad,” the Vice President said. “All this talk of love isn’t agreeing with you.”
“When will we get out of here?” Oscar said. He sat down on the sofa and dropped his head onto his knees as if dizzy.
“Get out of here? You’re the one who said we would be shot.”
“I’ve changed my mind. No one is going to kill me. I may kill someone, but no one is going to kill me.”
Ruben sat down beside him and leaned his good cheek against his friend’s broad shoulder. “I won’t complain about your inconsistencies. I like this talk better anyhow. Let’s assume we’ll live.” He sat up again. “Here, wait here. I’m going to the kitchen to get you some ice. You won’t believe how much better ice can make you feel.”
“Do you play the piano?” Roxane Coss said to Gen.
He hadn’t seen her coming. His back was to the room while he watched the garúa from the bay window. He was learning to relax as he watched it, to not strain his eyes. He was beginning to think he could see things. Mr. Hosokawa looked at Gen expectantly, clearly anxious to know what she was saying, and for a minute Gen was confused as to whether he should answer her or translate first as the question was directed to him. He translated and then told her no, he was sorry to say he did not.
“I thought you might,” she said. “You seem to know how to do so many things.” She looked towards his companion. “What about Mr. Hosokawa?”
Mr. Hosokawa shook his head sadly. Until their capture, he had thought of his life in terms of achievement and success. Now it struck him as a long list of failures: he didn’t speak English or Italian or Spanish. He didn’t play the piano. He had never even tried to play the piano. He and Gen didn’t have a single lesson between them.
Roxane Coss looked across the room as if she were looking for her accompanist, but he was already half a world away, his grave now covered by an early Swedish frost. “I keep telling myself that this is going to be over soon, that I’m just taking a vacation from work.” She looked up at Gen. “Not that I think this is a vacation.”