JUSTINE PEDALED PAST us at high speed on her tricycle through the dining room and living room and toward the balcony, disappearing through one of the French doors and reappearing through the other. She whizzed past the kitchen and began the second leg of her journey, heading toward my bedroom, where she turned around and started towards us again. She repeated each lap with an expression of intense concentration, and pedaled on unendingly.
I wistfully eyed her newly cropped hair. She had woken up, seen my pixie cut, and insisted on having hers done the same way, despite our best efforts to dissuade her. So once again Leslie had deftly wielded the kitchen scissors, and Justine’s beautiful red curls had dropped to the floor.
Her determined little expression suddenly changed. Behind the locked iron gate was a stranger with a police radio in his hand and a gun tucked into his belt. He was one of several men who passed his days parked outside the property. “You must come with me. Ahora mismo,” he said to me curtly, in a voice that forbade contradiction.
“Momento,” I pleaded, taking a step toward the bedroom to change out of the shorts I was wearing.
“Now!”
Justine abandoned her tricycle and flung herself against me. Rosa hurried over to comfort her. I tried to assure them that I would be back soon, but my voice quavered, and Justine burst into tears. Rosa pried her away so I could untie my apron and grab my flip-flops. I opened the gate with trembling hands and followed the policeman downstairs.
The usual vendors were working the intersections, flogging fruits and vegetables. A deaf and mute beggar grinned, recognizing me. I always slipped him some pesos, but today I stared straight ahead. Apart from the fact that I had no change, I was consumed with dread. What was awaiting me this time at the offices of the secret police?
When the car passed the main station, I nervously asked the driver where we were going. My question was ignored. Soon we pulled up in front of an imposing building, patrolled by uniformed guards. Inscribed on the top were the words: Palacio de Justicia. I was being brought to the courthouse on a Sunday evening. We exited the car, and I uneasily followed the officers up a broad marble staircase.
This once-grand building was now in a state of significant disrepair. I followed the officers out to a dilapidated garden courtyard lined with marble benches. Along the perimeter were a series of vacant offices. The men led me down a long corridor toward a crowded cell at the far end of the building. As we approached, I realized with horror that the cell’s occupants were female.
It was a scene out of the Middle Ages. Sick, desperate women filled every inch of the cell’s filthy concrete floor. Some were lying on the bare cement amongst piles of empty bottles, plastic bags, and discarded clothing. Most were sitting with their backs against the walls, staring blankly at us as we approached.
I stopped abruptly. The idea that I was about to be tossed into this awful pen froze me in my tracks. The police urged me forward. I continued to walk toward the cell, each step feeling heavier than the last. Then at the final moment the officers made a left. Instead of unlocking the cell and ordering me inside, they led me past it.
I was brought to another cell instead. This one was full of men. A grimy, bedraggled figure was leaning against the bars, his head drooping, with dirty, unkempt hair covering his face. As he heard us approach, he looked up. It was Danny.
His jaw dropped when he saw me. “Jesus Christ!” He leapt to his feet and pressed his face against the bars. “RB?”
As I stared back in shock, two more figures hurried out of the shadows behind him and shuffled toward the bars. I realized they were Carmine and Roger. “What are you doing here?”
I hardly recognized my workmates. Carmine and Roger both had scraggly beards and were utterly disheveled. The rest of the clerks quickly followed, separating themselves from the other prisoners and crowding around the bars. Their clothes were filthy and hung from their bodies. An overpowering stench of body odor wafted out of the cell. I could not believe the conditions they were being held in. What had happened to the clean clothes I sent them? And to the shampoo, soap, and razors?
“We were transferred here a few days ago,” Danny said. “They told us we were going to be fined and released. But we haven’t heard anything since.”
“But I—I sent soap and clothes, and underwear—”
“Nobody’s given us anything.”
“What about food?”
Carmine, looking ill and shriveled up without his dentures, muttered, “We’re getting a little … ”
I felt like screaming. I thought of Rosa, Leslie, and myself slaving away in that hot kitchen day after day, sending in huge parcels of food—all so we could feed a bunch of corrupt guards and their families. All our work, for nothing. All our money wasted. My heart broke to think that the guys were being held under such deplorable conditions. They must have felt totally abandoned.
“When are we getting out?” Danny asked, his voice trembling with desperation.
“Soon! Tony’s working with the local police. We’ve been sending you everything you’d need! I can’t believe this—none of it got to you? Nothing at all?”
“You have to include money for the guards.” Roger, who was always so meticulous about his appearance, now looked like one of the beggars who swarmed the cars on Maximo Gomez. “If you don’t include the money, they won’t pass it on to us.”
My eyes darted around the desperate faces pressed up against the bars. “Where’s Remo?”
Roger shook his head sadly. “Nobody knows. He freaked out when he saw the cells at the main police station. I guess he’s claustrophobic. It took four guards to take him down. He only stopped struggling after the injection—”
“Injection?”
“Big fucking needle, right through his pants,” Carmine continued. “He went down like a stone, and they dragged him off. We haven’t seen him since.”
The officers, having decided I’d seen enough, took me by the arm and started to drag me away from the bars. Carmine reached out with shaking fingers and grabbed my hand. I could feel layers of grease and dirt on his skin.
“Please,” he begged, “you got to get us out. We’re going crazy in here!”
The officers led me back to their car. My fear was fading rapidly. Instead, I was filling up with a righteous fury. How could they get away with this blatant abuse of power? Our clerks were being brutally persecuted, and for what? And Remo? He had done nothing to warrant this cruel fate. As we drove away, the officers chatted casually in the front, completely unaffected by the horror we had just witnessed.
I knew where we were heading now. A guard opened the gate and we pulled into the awful dusty courtyard at the main police station. They parked next to Roger’s impounded Cherokee. The men led me up the stairs, through a maze of corridors and to a small waiting area outside an office. One of the men knocked on the door. I heard the unmistakable sound of General Hernandez’s voice on the other side.
“Adelante!”
He was leaning back in his chair, chatting casually on the phone, feet up on the desk. Dressed in his street clothes, he had the air of a man without a worry in the world. He indicated to a chair and I sat down. Hernandez waved the officers away, leaving me alone with him.
Hernandez ignored me and continued to chat. His office was bigger and better furnished than that of his colleague, Colonel Rivera. Several framed diplomas hung next to a well-stocked bookcase; a set of crystal glasses and several bottles of expensive liquor stood on a polished mahogany cabinet behind his leather chair. Above that was a matching shelf with two FBI baseball caps on it.
I couldn’t decide whom I hated more—the FBI, with their lies and trumped-up charges, or the Dominican police, who were working the situation to their own advantage with complete disregard to the human cost. I watched with mounting anger as Hernandez sipped his coffee and chuckled into the phone at some amusing anecdote.
I laid into him before the receiver was even fully down. “Your men have been stealing thousands of pesos of supplies and food from us!” I spat. “Our cook, Remo Grayson, was beaten and drugged by your men!” His complete lack of reaction only served to egg me on. I reeled off the catalogue of injustices I had witnessed, sparing no detail. I finished with what was supposed to be my coup de grace. “I will get the American Embassy involved if this situation does not improve … immediately!”
The general took his feet off his desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a tape recorder. He placed it on the desk between us and pressed play. The room filled with the familiar sound of me taking bets. Was he trying to remind me of my involvement in the operation, or that I could be sharing the same fate as my colleagues?
Regardless, my anger quickly evaporated and once again, fear took its place.
Hernandez clicked off the machine. “One of your friends must have told the FBI that you work for Information Unlimited, because they are adamant about interviewing you,” he said smoothly. “I assured them that you are only a model, but they still insist on seeing you.”
Suddenly my chest felt tight. He stood up and poured two glasses of Johnny Walker Black Label, placing one in front of me. “Prisons are difficult places for women in the Dominican Republic, especially foreign women,” he said gravely. “They are repeatedly raped, and even forced into prostitution. Once the guards have tired of them, they are taken to the male prisoners, and offered to the highest bidder. I’m astonished that the FBI is so anxious to have you detained, when they know how difficult it would be for you to prove your innocence under our laws.”
I stared at him dumbly. He was threatening me with gang rape. Hernandez removed the cassette from the recorder. “Know your friends, Marisa. Keep them close,” he said, dangling the incriminating tape in front of me. “I have kept this from the FBI. Your anger should be directed at them, not at me. They are responsible for the incarceration of your friends.”
He slid the tape into a drawer and produced another. A jarringly cheerful and upbeat merengue song filled the room. Walking around his desk to my chair, he pulled me to my feet. I could smell his cologne, heavy and sweet. He trailed his fingers across the nape of my neck.
“I like your hair short,” he said. “It shows off your beautiful blue eyes.”
I felt my body go rigid. One of the general’s hands slipped to the base of my back and he pulled me closer. He slid his other hand into mine as if initiating a dance. He began to swivel his hips to the music, while I stood limply opposite him. I felt his body moving against mine while I just stood there, acutely conscious of the threat that hung in the air.
“Why so sad?” he asked gaily. “I thought it would make you happy to see your friends.” The song ended and he let go of me abruptly and took a seat on the edge of his desk. I slid limply into the chair. Hernandez reached for the phone and called for a guard.
“It’s Sunday night,” he said. “You should be home with your daughter.”
“LESLIE’S GONE,” ROSA SAID as soon as I walked in the door. She had taken her chance, fleeing as soon as the secret police had driven off with me. Rosa had given her some money. Of course I was sad. I would miss Leslie terribly, but it was the right thing for her to do. Now that she was free, perhaps she might find a way to help us.
Rosa and I sank back into our tiring routine, but instead of elaborate meals we stuck to simple sandwiches, sent along with generous “tips” for the guards. On January 19, I baked a cake for Danny, as I always did for the clerks on their birthdays. That evening I sent along thirty slices of chocolate cake to the Palacio de Justicia—plenty for the guards and our clerks—with enough money to ensure it got through.
I was still putting things away in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock. It was almost eleven at night, and I had no intention of answering it. Rosa had gone to bed long ago, and I was exhausted. The bell rang again. And again. I crept to the balcony and peered over the edge to the courtyard below.
I couldn’t believe what I saw. Roger’s red Cherokee was parked downstairs next to my Daihatsu. They’d let him go. I ran to the door, elated at this unexpected breakthrough. I wrenched open the door and my stomach flipped.
General Hernandez was standing on the other side of the gate.
“Open up.”
I remained rooted to the spot, paralyzed with fear. He took his gun out of its holster and pointed it at me through the wrought-iron bars.
“Open the door, Marisa.”