Río Limbo ran through the highest of the Sierra Cabral mountains then plunged four hundred metres into the gorge below. In winter months, thick mist would descend on these narrow mountain roads, rasping rains sweeping them away like bad ideas. But it was a calm blue afternoon and Valentín knew the way by heart.
The jungle canopy kept out the day, only little jewels of light visible in the interstices. Valentín’s mind was swimming as she drove, her head a cumbersome weight. She was coughing continually now, swallowing down blood. There was a strange release of pressure and distantly she thought she might be wetting herself.
In the back seat the two men wearing ranchero hats had said nothing the entire time. One was tall and stocky. The other was short and skinny.
‘There it is,’ said Skinny.
Up ahead, the structure came into view. The dummy airport had been built years ago for special police-response drills but spending had ballooned and governments had changed. The building had been left to the elements ever since.
When the road ran out Valentín stopped the car. Weeds had broken through the concrete of the runway. The jungle clutched the terminal greedily, its windows cracked, wind howling through. Lakes of rainwater had collected, green with makeshift life. The simulation airport had only been abandoned some fifteen years yet now looked like an ancient Mayan ruin – wildly overgrown and heaving with the richness of human absence.
Valentín got out of the car, the two men behind her.
‘Ready?’ said Stocky.
‘First things first,’ she replied. Sitting on the bonnet of the car, Valentín lit up and tried not to cough up blood. In the distance, she could hear the quiet, constant roar of the falls. The jungle was screaming and whirring and ticking as it always did. Beyond the waterfall colossal, flossy clouds were turning pink in the late afternoon. She recalled what she had said to Iwata. Over here or over there. Everybody dies. She hadn’t been wrong.
Valentín finished her smoke and nodded. The men opened up the trunk and dragged Iwata out. He was blindfolded, his face bloodied. A large cardboard sign hung around his neck, a message scrawled on it:
La boca es la puerta a la catástrofe.
– La Familia Cabral
The mouth is the gateway to catastrophe.
Skinny and Stocky had worked Iwata over before putting him in the car. There hadn’t been any anger in the beating; they were just two plumbers polishing their tools.
Valentín spat and took out her gun. ‘Might as well get this over with.’
‘Where do you want him?’ asked Stocky.
She pointed to a large tree at the edge of the jungle. The two men dragged Iwata over to it and propped him up. His head lolled and Stocky patted him on the cheek.
‘Sleep with the angels.’
Valentín fired and the bullet hit Stocky in the forehead, his eye socket withering. She swung her aim to Skinny and pulled the trigger once more. And again. She was firing, but there were no shots. With her gun raised overhead, Valentín bellowed and charged.
Skinny reached for his own gun now but Iwata booted his wrist hard and the gun flew into the undergrowth. He responded with a savage left hook to the temple and Iwata slumped. Skinny span in time to block Valentín’s blow. Then he was on top of her, hammering down blows with her jammed gun, the jungle screaming like schoolboys egging them on.
It was over quickly.
Skinny rolled off her. They were both panting in the sweltering dusk. Valentín began to laugh. Her mouth was cartoon gore, all missing teeth and strings of gum, her nose caved in.
‘I fucking knew it.’ He shook his head. ‘Once a pig.’
Valentín whispered something.
‘What?’
‘What are you saying?’ Skinny lowered his head to her mouth.
With the last of her strength, she grabbed him by the hair and stabbed him in the jugular with Morel’s knife. Skinny’s eyes bulged as he tried to pull the knife out, thrashing for the life spurting out of him. He fell on her, spasming. Then there was stillness.
Iwata opened his eyes. He crawled over to Valentín and dragged the body off her. ‘Valentín. You’re hurt. You need a hospital.’
‘I need a smoke. Help me.’
Iwata lit a cigarette for her and perched it between her ruined lips, holding it in place while she sucked feebly. ‘Is that a waterfall I can hear?’ he asked.
‘The most beautiful one you’ll ever see.’ She gurgled blood.
‘I’ll get you water.’
‘No, just stay.’
‘Okay.’ He took her hand.
‘Iwata, I know what you’re thinking,’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘You’re thinking, how could I work for them?’
‘That’s not what I’m thinking.’
Valentín’s breathing became wet and abraded. Her pain had been replaced by a soft dizziness. It was as though she were not lying in the wet mud but instead running – running flat out in someone else’s body, about to make a leap of uncertain distance.
‘Iwata … the knife. Please bring it to me.’
Iwata cleaned the blood off before placing it in Valentín’s hand. She smiled at the feel of it, the slight weight of it. She wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t. Not yet.
‘Iwata, listen to me. It won’t take them long to realize what I’ve done. They know who you are. The border roads are controlled. The US Consulate will be watched. There’s only one way out. You’ll have to try and cross with the migrants.’
‘Valentín.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Stay with me, don’t close your eyes.’
‘Let me be.’ She squeezed back weakly. ‘And it’s Astrid. My name is Astrid.’
With nothing else to say, Iwata closed his eyes. After a while there was the distant crack of thunder. Far above, the clouds lit up like foxfire.
When he spoke again Valentín didn’t reply. Though she was warm, Iwata felt no pulse. He folded her hands in her lap as though she were waiting patiently for a late train. For the second time, he carried her. He didn’t know why but it felt right to sit her up by the tree.
Iwata got into the car and took a last look at the jungle clearing, three dead bodies in its long grass. Then he started the engine and descended the mountain road. Out of the window he saw the pearl thunder of the waterfalls. The escarpments around it were like islands in a vertical sea, the water evaporating before hitting the rocks below, falling for ever.
Eight miles outside of Ciudad Cabral Iwata turned on to a dirt track for hunters and got out of the car. In the distance the city stacked up like some forgotten game of mahjong. The brittle grass scratched his shins and the yipping wind was cold, but Iwata was numb – nothing more than footsteps in the desert.
Finding an abandoned hunter’s cabin, he hunkered down under some old rags. He had no thoughts; he’d reached his limit.
At 1 a.m. Iwata emerged from the cabin wearing a poncho he had fashioned from an old blanket using a piece of glass. He used rainwater to clean the blood from his face. The cold enraged his injuries, now indistinguishable from one another, but he knew he couldn’t afford to stand out any more than he already did.
Shivering, he started walking.
The northern side of Ciudad Cabral was a city of trucks and depots, the final link in the supply chain to the United States. Millions of tons of product, declared or clandestine, passed through this place every year. Machinery, food, livestock, fuel, lubricants, heroin, marijuana, humans – nothing stayed for long.
Massive rigs rumbled in and out of compounds. The roads were too wide here, too well lit, too many people working in the night. Iwata stuck to shadows like a goldfish hopping from puddle to puddle.
At 4 a.m. he reached his hotel. Someone had celebrated their quinceañera during the night. Paper cups rolled through the empty plaza, sounding like impish laughter. Iwata imagined the celebrated girl asleep in her bed, her dreams whirling with the infinite possibilities of her future. She’d be warm and safe and loved.
But thoughts like these always led to Cleo. Always led to Nina. She’d be going on six now. Not that she would ever be going anywhere. Her ashes were contained beneath a stone monument on the other side of the planet. Cleo’s name was etched next to Nina’s. Iwata’s name was there too, his characters painted red. One day the paint would be washed away and they would be together again. Maybe one day soon.
Iwata slipped into the shadowy doorway just in time. The large black SUV was moving slowly through the barrio, creeping through the narrow streets, orange streetlight washing over it. Iwata didn’t move, he just watched. It looped around the boarding houses, a flashlight flicking on and cutting through the shadows. The engine sounded like a languid tiger.
When it finally drifted away Iwata headed over to his hotel. He entered through the back and climbed the stairs. The door to his room was wide open, the room ransacked. His things were gone. His passport too. Iwata lifted the loose floorboard and found that the money was still there. He snatched it up and hurried out of the hotel. As he crossed the street, he saw an A3 poster stuck to the streetlight. It was his own face blown up, copied from his passport. Beneath it there was a phone number and a single word:
BUSCADO
SOUGHT
The poster had been plastered on every other streetlight he passed. Head down, Iwata hurried through the empty blue-grey streets of Ciudad Cabral. He frequently hid in doorways, alleys and telephone booths.
The north-east of the city was the closest point to the border. The stalls here were all open, catering exclusively to migrant needs, their prices extortionate. Backpacks. T-shirts. Hats. Coats. All of them black or camouflage-print. There were also playing cards, sunblock, snakebite kits, condoms, writing paper, sanitary pads doubling as insoles for shoes. Contraceptive pills were advertised on a piece of cardboard:
ATTENTION FEMALE MIGRANTS – 80% OF YOU WILL BE RAPED DURING YOUR CROSSING. PROTECT YOURSELVES
Iwata bought a hat and some plastic sunglasses, then continued north, staying on the backstreets.