Thomas Cook: The Crime of Julian Wells

I was busily going on about this when Loretta finally stopped me.

“Julian said something about goodness,” she told me. “I hadn’t thought of it before, but it was actually the last thing he said to me.”

She had gone down to the sunroom, where she found him in his chair, with the map of South America spread open on his lap. She asked him what he was doing and he said that he was remembering a place where he learned something about evil.

He had a pen in his hand, she said, the point touching the map, where, as she later saw, he’d circled the village of Clara Vista.

She asked him what it was that he had learned. His answer was surprisingly simple, though ultimately unrevealing. “That goodness is evil’s best disguise,” he said and added nothing else.

“Goodness is evil’s best disguise,” I repeated as we moved ever deeper into the Paraguayan jungle from which El Arabe had made his many cruel pronouncements. I found myself imagining that his house was similar to the ravaged abode of Mr. Kurtz, surrounded by a fence of bare wooden poles topped with dried-out human heads.

El Arabe’s home was not emblematic of the dead soul who lived inside it, however. In fact, it looked more like a small woodland cottage of the sort one might see in more temperate climates. The vines that would otherwise have hung like thick green drapery from the roof had been cut back, and no vegetation crawled up the walls or slithered up the supporting posts of the side porch. For this reason, the cottage appeared curiously European in the way that any sense of wildness had been clipped away.

I could see three wicker chairs and a brightly colored hammock that took up almost the entire width of the porch. The windows were large, and their orange shutters were open; inside I could see unexpectedly feminine curtains, white and lacy, softly undulating in the warm, lazy air.

The house itself was built from concrete blocks, painted to a glossy sheen. There was no front porch, just an earthen walkway leading to a door bordered by an assortment of plants potted in identical terra-cotta pots. A short storm fence stretched around the back of the house. Over the fence, I could see an old woman busy at a clothesline, hanging T-shirts, jeans, and a few oversized dresses with large floral patterns of the type I’d seen on the women in the town.

I glanced toward the front of the house. So the moment has come, I thought. I looked at Loretta. “Ready?”

She nodded. “Ready.”

And thus did we close in upon the Inner Station.

We had gotten only halfway up the dirt walkway that led to the house when the door suddenly swung open and a short, round man stepped out into the bright sun. He was perhaps seventy years old, but with jet black hair, quite obviously dyed, combed straight back and glinting in the sunlight.

“So the Eagle has landed,” he said with a laugh.

He was wearing light blue Bermuda shorts and no shirt, and his nearly hairless belly shook with quick spasms as he laughed. “Welcome to my house. As we say, and I hear often said also in the American movies, ‘ Mi casa es su casa .’”

With that, El Arabe thrust out his large hand. “I am a great fan of American movies and John Wayne. Come, you will see.” He stepped aside and waved us in. “Please, come, come. I will have my housekeeper make drinks for us. You like mai tai? Margarita?”

I could not imagine having a drink with this man, and yet I could find no way to refuse it. He was my last contact, the end of the line, and if I learned nothing further, I could go no further.

“Whatever you have,” I said, and glanced at Loretta.

“Yes,” she said with a quick smile. “Whatever you have.”

“Ah, good, we shall have drinks, then,” El Arabe said as if he was certain we would refuse them and now felt relieved that we hadn’t. He walked to the window and called out to the old woman in the back, “ Vaya. Los invitados quieren algo de tomar. Margaritas para todos, por favor. With that he turned back to us. “She is slow, poor thing,” he added sorrowfully. “But in time the drinks will come.” He swept his arm out toward an adjoining veranda. “Out there it is cool. We sit and talk and wait forever for the drinks.” He laughed heartily. “You like my house?”

The living room was small, and El Arabe had decorated its walls with pictures not only of John Wayne but perhaps twenty other American movie stars, their studio photographs in cheap plastic frames. I caught Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Alan Ladd, and John Wayne as I made my way outside.

“No women,” I said to him as I stepped out onto the veranda. “I would have expected, say, Veronica Lake or Ava Gardner.”

El Arabe waved his hand. “I am a man of action,” he said with another broad laugh. “I admire other such men. Men with, what do you call it, the steely stare.” He laughed again. “I would wish to be the strong silent type. The Gary Cooper. But, as you see, I talk too much.” He grinned impishly. “And I am not tall.” He indicated the wicker chairs. “Please, rest. It is a long way from Buenos Aires. Did you fly?”

“Yes,” I answered. “But once in Iguazu, we rented a car.”

“Iguazu, yes,” El Arabe said. “So not a long drive this morning. Was it easy to find your way?”

“There aren’t many roads, so it’s hard to get lost,” I said.

“Not many roads,” El Arabe said. “Not like in America, with the many, many highways.”

“No, not like America,” I said.

Out of the blue, El Arabe asked. “So, my English is good, no?”

“It’s very good,” I told him.

“From the American movies,” El Arabe said. “I watched them when I was a kid. I still watch them. I like to practice all the time my English. But here it is hard. Here there is nothing. I am surrounded by such ignorant ones. They vote always for the Reds.” He leaned back slightly. “Do you speak Spanish?”

“I’m afraid not,” I answered.

His gaze slid over to Loretta. “And you, senora?”

“Only enough to get by,” Loretta said. “My brother spoke it quite well.”

“Your brother, yes,” El Arabe said. “You have come to speak of him. I understand this from Leon. He has died, your brother.”

“Yes,” Loretta said.

“So young,” El Arabe said sympathetically. “Unusual in America. But here, they die like flies. We know death. We know pain. It is never far from us. At night we hear its voice in the undergrowth. There is much devouring one of the other here.” He turned to Loretta. “As your brother knew.”

El Arabe looked like an actor who’d blown a line, and who, in doing so, had skipped ahead in the play, dropping five pages from the script and thus arriving too early at a place too far along.

“Margaritas!” he called, and looked back at us. “She is slow, as I said. But she is good at the few little things she does. In Buenos Aires, they would not tolerate so slow a servant. But here, time has almost stopped, and we move slowly, like the sun.” His grin was rapier thin. “I am also philosopher. I have many thoughts. But no one wishes to hear them.” He laughed. “The world would have to change too much to give me honors. El Arabe is despised. El Arabe is a murderer, a rapist, a torturer.” For the second time, his gaze hardened. “But who did I do these things to, eh? I will tell you. To people who would have done the same to me, to you.” He waved his hand. “Even now, they wear the T-shirts with the face of Che. Who was a murderer, this famous Che, with the movie-star face and the movie-star fame, a man who would have caused the deaths of millions.”

He didn’t wait for this to settle in before he surged on, his eyes fiercely widening as he continued. “And you have read what Castro said to Khrushchev?” His gaze leaped from me to Loretta, then back to me. “You have read this? During the crisis with Cuba? With the missiles? He told that fat old Russian to kill all the Americans. To drop all the bombs. He said he would sacrifice Cuba for such an annihilation.”