Before Anne could close the door on Carlos, her husband appeared behind her. Ever since leaving the note, he had been anxiously awaiting this visit.
“Let him in,” he demanded, pulling the door out of her hand. No apology or explanation for his rude behavior.
Carlos edged into the room, trying to avoid Anne’s angry look.
She turned it on her husband. “I don’t want him here,” she hissed.
Ignoring her, Matta hustled Carlos toward the studio. “We have business,” he said over his shoulder. “It won’t take long.” They went inside and closed the door.
Back in early September, when the aerogram arrived, she had begun to fear that his reckless dream—her nightmare—was becoming a reality. He sometimes received air letters from his relatives in Chile, but this one bore a Peruvian stamp and was postmarked Lima. Unfortunately, he was with her when she picked up the mail from the hall. He was expecting it and quickly snatched it away. He said it was from a cousin, someone he hadn’t heard from in a long time and had been worried about. She didn’t challenge his lie but dared to hope the letter told him the plan wouldn’t work, that the drugs were not available, so he should forget the idea.
Three weeks later, another aerogram came, this time from Colombia. Anne happened to be returning from the store when the postman arrived or she wouldn’t have seen it, because her husband was waiting by the door. The postman was nearly at their building when she caught up to him.
“Anything for us?” she had asked him, and he said “Yes, one for your husband, from overseas.”
“I’ll take it,” she said, and reached for the envelope.
Matta saw them, and called out, “Let me have it, it’s addressed to me, isn’t it?” He took the letter and disappeared upstairs.
But she had seen the stamp and the postmark, and remembered what they had said about getting the goods to Cartagena—isn’t that in Colombia, where this Carlos person would handle the transport? So it was going ahead after all.