Open Pit (26 page)

“
Qué tienes?
” yells Pepe, pointing his gun at Pierre.

Cristóbal comes jogging into the clearing with his gun in one hand. His hat is off and he's still tugging down his balaclava, the eyeholes not quite in place. He's obviously been asleep.

“Where is she?” says Pepe, turning towards his cousin, but Cristóbal just stands there. Delmi looks at the ground.

“My head, my head, my head,” says Pierre.

But Pepe is suddenly ignoring him, his gun going down to his side. He seems to realize something. He tears out of the clearing back in the direction he and Danielle have just come from. Cris-tóbal hesitates a split second before running out after him.

The moment they're gone, Danielle watches as Pierre stops moving and takes his hands from his head. He sits up, alert and apparently not in pain. If she had a gun, Danielle would shoot him for his stupidity. “What are you doing?” she says, but he ignores her. He's breathing hard from his performance.

Delmi stands, her rifle up, her eyes darting about in confusion while they all listen as the men run further off, through the trees, branches snapping and the thumping of their steps growing fainter.

Cristóbal catches sight of Pepe in the place where he must have been with Danielle just now, judging from the papers strewn on the ground. Pepe is standing over Rita, yelling at her not to move.

Rita is on her knees, holding Pepe's satellite phone. Rita looks hopefully towards her husband, which makes Pepe turn too. Cristóbal catches his cousin's eye and something passes between them, but Cristóbal doesn't have time to understand what it is because in that flicker of hesitation, Rita drops the phone and runs from them both before either can stop her. Pepe follows, making a grunting sound, pushing branches out of the way, and Cristóbal chases just behind. “
No, Primo. No,
” he says.

Danielle hears the noises becoming louder again: they're coming back. Her heart beats in an unusual, unhealthy rhythm. The pine smell in the air is suddenly cloying, sickening. She sees Rita rush into the open space of the campsite and pivot on the heels of her boots as she pulls up her rifle. She's shooting back into the trees. Loud, fast, echoing shots that hurt Danielle's ears. Rita looks unpracticed, one hand unsteady around the muzzle. Everyone takes cover. Danielle is down low, her face against some pebbles, her legs stuck into some bushes.

More shots snap, this time coming from the trees. And then Rita's gun rattles, going off several times more in reply.

Cristóbal finally reappears. Everyone is on the ground except Rita, who is standing, shaking, holding her gun, the hair at the bottom of her mask sticking out, seemingly electrified, her eyes like saucers. But she isn't hurt. Danielle, still hugging the earth, is strangely, hugely relieved. She has time to wonder what the relief means about her feelings towards Pepe and Cristóbal, and even Rita — despite everything, she doesn't seem to want them dead — before Pepe breaks through into the clearing. Cristóbal has already gone to stand in front of his wife, looking her over as if searching for holes. He shakes his head slowly but determinedly at his cousin until, eventually, Pepe lets his weapon down.

Delmi takes this as her signal to get up from the dirt and begin to push the hostages with the tip of her gun, forcing them to return from wherever they've crawled or run to and get back onto their tarps. When she reaches Antoine, he won't move. “Get up,” she says, adding one of her reflexive giggles. She pokes him again.

Danielle, on her scraped knees now, feels herself melting back towards the ground: there's blood.

“Get up!” Delmi says, more loudly, but Pepe walks over quickly and pushes her away. He puts his hand on Antoine's back. He's been shot there. There's a lot of blood.

Pierre panics. He gets up and starts to run. Cristóbal goes after him, grabbing him after just a few unrushed steps on his long legs and bringing him back. Cristóbal does not raise his gun. He doesn't need to. Pierre looks like he's had all of his bones removed. When Cristóbal lets him go, he falls to his knees and crawls towards his friend like an insect.

Pepe turns to Danielle and tells her to translate. “He's dead. It was an accident.” His voice is even, despite his heavy breathing, despite the blood. His face is as closed as it was on that very first day, when he lined them up against the bus and let them believe he was about to shoot them all. “We will bury him and then we will move at sunset, like normal.”

Danielle can't say this the first or second time she tries. “He's dead,” she finally articulates. Two words like small fires igniting in her mouth. Martin promptly throws up. Tina tries unsuccessfully to hide under her own hair and shakes where she sits.

Pepe takes away Rita's gun and orders Cristóbal to tie her hands. The cousins, who, moments ago, were struggling for control, who might have killed one another over Rita, work in concert. Cristóbal seems to understand that his wife has betrayed him. He pulls her hands tightly behind her back. Rita is as silent as if Pepe has cut out her tongue. She and Danielle exchange a look. It's not regret, but it's not gloating either. Rita seems shocked to be alive. As soon as she's tied up, Pepe pushes her to the ground onto her stomach and orders Delmi to keep guard. Then he rushes back out through the trees.

Danielle wants to hope that Rita at least managed whatever she was trying to do — make a call out, likely, remembering Rita's words to Pierre that night: “
El teléfono
. . .
distráelo.
” Distract him. Danielle hopes Rita was prepared with the right phone number, a name, whatever will guarantee her precious transit across the border. If so, the shooting might not have been for nothing. They could all be freed. But Danielle is quite certain there wasn't enough time. And anyway, such an unlikely success won't change what has happened to Antoine. There's no going back.

12:45 PM
. San Salvador

Aida argues with the taxi driver, but he refuses to take her any closer. She wonders if she's using the right words. “
Me voy a la catedral,
” she repeats. I'm headed to the cathedral. The young man glances into his rearview from under a cap decorated with a stylized image of the blessed heart of Jesus wrapped in a thorny crown. He tells her firmly that he can't risk his car by getting any closer, that she'd be smart to let him take her someplace else and that otherwise she should pay up and get out. Aida counts the fare they agreed on, hands it over and slams the door. Four blocks to go. She assumes the aggressive look on her face — like an indifferent scowl — that she's learned deters harassment from men, and starts walking. Quite a lot of people seem to be moving in the same direction. Two come to a stop in front of her.

“Hey,” says one of them, a girl about Aida's age, her hands stuck into the back pockets of low-slung jeans. “Sorry about your mother. We are really grateful for her writing.”

Aida just looks at her. How dare this person lump Danielle in with the kidnappers' cause? “She didn't have a choice,” Aida replies, altering her course to go past the girl and her friend.

But the young woman steps back into her path. “Salvadorans need to read what she's said about that man. Especially our parents. They don't get many chances to express their feelings about the war.”

Aida sidesteps her yet again. “Half of it's probably not even true.”

The girl looks like she'll laugh. She swings out one elbow to indicate the crowd. “True enough for all of these people.”

Aida hurries on. How can anyone be so delusional? Probably that girl also buys Marta's logic that the violence of the abduction is comparable to the supposed violence NorthOre's mine is causing. Which is insane. A gold mine is a business, not some random act of criminals. Aida continues to berate the girl inwardly until the cathedral comes into view. And then her breath goes out of her in amazement: there must be a thousand people crowding the plaza, maybe more. The girl's words echo back:
true enough for these people
. Aida wonders if that's how things are measured in El Salvador — in increments of truth. She can't remember ever being surrounded by so many bodies, except once, as a teenager, when her friends dragged her downtown for an appearance by the Spice Girls. Not exactly the same scene. Haven't they heard that the very committee that organized the rally is now implicated in the kidnapping? Aida can only conclude that people feel a personal connection with Marta Ramos, the woman who'll hug you like you're her best friend and fight for whatever cause you throw at her. A sentimental reaction to her arrest must be drawing them here. Aida has to compel herself to mix with them.

Suddenly, several people block her way. Reporters. She tries to avoid them, veering right, but they're like a swarm of mosquitoes. Their microphones prod her as they did at Neela's vigil in Toronto. Except Aida doesn't have Neela or André to shield her now, and she's cornered into doing several short interviews with Canadian and Salvadoran outlets before she can move away. “How do you feel about the kidnapper breaking his promise to release a hostage?” one asks. “What do you make of the arrest of Marta Ramos?” shouts another. “Which of the hostages do you think the kidnapper has chosen to die first?” Aida turns to glare at the reporter who's blurted out this question, a man not much older than she is. He wears an innocent expression of curiosity. Finally, she breaks free, but the question lingers.

She hasn't gone far when a police officer asks to see
ID
. Several curious people gather to stare as Aida produces her passport. The officer orders them all to back off and scrutinizes the picture, then pulls up his radio, presumably to check with someone more senior, let them know that one of the family members is on hand. Chances are such a person will order him to send her home, so Aida straightens her back and interrupts the call loudly, explaining that she's here to meet Carlos Reyes. He's already warned the police not to interfere with her movements, and she will be forced to report anyone who causes her to be late. Her bullying seems to work. The officer puts down his radio and gives her back her passport.

On two sides of the plaza fronting the cathedral, police cars are parked end to end, like opposing teams. Two officers stand in front of each car, legs slightly apart. Aida isn't particularly bothered by them. Actually, they reassure her. The crowd itself feels like the unruly element here. As she presses forward with difficulty, she sees yet more people pouring from two dilapidated school buses. The passengers wear cowboy hats and patterned dresses and carry cooking pots. Real
campesinos,
like the ones Aida has seen in pictures.

Far across the way, on the cathedral steps, Aida sees some people clustered together where she knows the microphone stand will eventually be placed. She strains to see if Marta has arrived yet — part of her hoping she has, as this will prove that Marta has been released from custody. But another part of her resists this scenario. Marta won't be fooled like that officer. If she has the slightest inkling that the demonstration might get out of hand, she'll make Aida leave. Which only makes Aida want to stay as long as possible. She's embracing spontaneity, breaking from the habits of acting, of feeling, that have locked her and Danielle into an impasse at home. She's staying, no matter what anyone says.

When the embassy called last evening with word that the kidnapper had faxed a map and instructions for how to locate the remains of “Enrique's” family on the grounds of
Mil Sueños,
Aida was ecstatic. She'd left Marta's by then. It was too lonely there after her phone call with Carlos. When Ralph rang to see how she was doing, she jumped at the chance to spend the evening with the other families. Staying with them felt natural.

They only had an hour to celebrate, however, before the embassy called back with bad news: the kidnappers were refusing to release anyone and were now imposing their own Thursday deadline to match NorthOre's. Benoît, who'd taken the call, picked up the phone to throw it across the room in frustration. Only by rushing over with her freckled arms up was Sylvie able to stop him. Aida slumped into a chair beside Ralph: no one was coming back.