David Corbett - Do They Know I'm Running

El Chusquero squirmed. To keep from having to show Lupe any attention whatsoever and to continue hacking away at his English, he spoke to Roque: “Strangers? No. Not possible. You think I’m stupid-I no have eyes?”

For some reason, Lupe kept at it.- I can see you too are a romantic .

She was either daringly brilliant, Roque thought, or fiercely stupid. The Commander trained his gaze on her. The silence felt like a shroud.

– I think you’re being generous , she continued.- Too generous .

Seriously. We barely know each other . She flicked her hand back and forth, herself, Roque.- It’s the songs. The songs bring the feeling out of me, out of him. Out of you .

Rather than respond, El Chusquero turned his attention to the laptop resting on his desk among the weapons. He’d shown them a website earlier, explaining it to them, feeling it would prove instructive. He’d kept the screen averted since then but now he tapped the space bar so the screen saver melted away, revealing the background slide show, then glanced up at his two visitors with a truculent smile.

The website belonged to an incarcerated colonel named Otilio Rubén Villagrán Pozuelos, under whom the Commander said he had served in Petén during the civil war. The reasons for Colonel Villagrán’s imprisonment were left vague, though it was clear the dutiful El Chusquero considered them a travesty. That didn’t keep the colonel from living in relative opulence-in his earlier tutorial, the Commander had shown them pictures of his old superior’s prison quarters posted on the site: a spacious and freshly painted room with a refrigerator, an entertainment center with cable TV and a stereo, a brass bed, elegantly appointed bookshelves, rugs on the floor, even a few tasteful watercolors adorning the walls. But for the lack of natural light, it almost seemed more a condo than a cell.

The slide show now in progress, however, was horrific. The pictures had been taken with cell phones during a riot inside the prison: one group of cholos cowing another within one of the prison sectors, wielding machetes and dart guns called chimbas; a prisoner trying to escape through a hole in the wall; a cholo grabbing the would-be escapee by the hair, raising a machete to hack at his neck. In the background, torchlight reflected the glimmer of row after row of empty mayonnaise jars, and Roque remembered Happy’s letter, recalled his story of nightlong humiliation in La Esperanza, the Salvadoran prison. Roque’s imaginings of that night could not come close to what he was now obliged to watch. Lupe turned away; this was permitted since, after all, she was merely a woman.

El Chusquero, meaningfully turning to Spanish:- You see the fate of our enemies .

– I am not your enemy , she said.

– You see what happens to those who mock us .

– I would never -

– Don’t contradict me!

Lupe sagely dropped her glance to the floor. A tremor fluttered along the hollow of her throat.- I’m sorry, El Chusquero .

Responding to an impulse from God knew where, Roque began playing softly the opening refrain of “Canción de Cuna”-Song of the Cradle-the Cuban lullaby he used to practice endlessly when he first began playing guitar. It drove Godo crazy, the constant repetition, but then gradually he always calmed down, often despite himself, succumbing to the insidious languor of the melody.

Eyes still trained on Lupe, El Chusquero reached down to a lower desk drawer and took out a small glass cage. At first Roque could not make out what lay inside, except for a quivering shudder of small black forms, two dozen or so, swarming across mounded beds of sand, in the midst of which lay a rubbery lump of hairy flesh, prey of some kind. Gradually he recognized the armored bodies, the glossy pincers, the uniquely coiled tails.

He stopped playing.

El Chusquero, employing Spanish again, so Lupe could not pretend to misunderstand:- Let us call this the lovers’ test. These, you may or may not know, are a particular kind of Guatemalan scorpion. They’re not as deadly as those one encounters farther north but the sting is still quite painful, especially if there is more than one. Right now they are feeding on a tarantula we found out in the firewood. But they can always be tempted to eat whatever we give them . He gingerly lifted the cage’s glass lid.- So here is the test: Which one of you is willing to put a hand inside? You cannot both refuse . He stared at her bruised face.- One must suffer so the other does not. Such is love, no?

For some reason, Roque suddenly became acutely aware of the groaning rumble of flatbed trucks loaded high with sugarcane laboring through the village’s modest zona urbana , that and the sulfurous smell of the cáscaras de café . His tongue and throat had turned stone dry. Still, after a labored swallow:- Why are you doing this?

Before the man could answer, Lupe jumped to her feet, approached the desk and reached out with her left hand.- You are mistaken about us, El Chusquero. I don’t know why you won’t believe me. But if one of us must be the victim, let it be me. A guitarist must look after his hands, no? And we may well need to play and sing again as we make our way north, to earn a little money here and there .

Her face was a mask of stoic indifference. Roque realized she’d understood instinctively what he hadn’t, there was no way to negotiate out of this. He sat gazing at her, feeling unmanned. El Chusquero eyed her too, but with an almost merry suspicion, while the chittering mass of black bodies continued boiling over one another in their glassed-in world.

Suddenly the Commander reached out, snagged her wrist-not roughly, more like the father of a reticent bride.- And what else, for the sake of your lover’s hands, would you be willing to do for money?

For what felt like an eternity neither of them moved, eyes locked, her breathing feathery from terror, his smile gradually draining away. Finally he tossed her hand aside and slammed the glass lid shut.- You think I’m a sadist, a fool. That tells me who you are. What kind of woman you are. You know nothing of me, what I think, what I feel. Sit the fuck down .

Lupe drifted back to her chair, a terrified sigh trembling up from her belly as she clasped her hands in her lap. The Commander watched, saying nothing. Finally, he turned to Roque.- Play something, asshole. And not that weepy little number you were fucking around with before .

Roque formed his left hand around the guitar neck, searching out an intro chord, but nothing came. Every tune that entered his mind seemed charged with some secret insult. Thankfully, he was spared a decision as a knock came softly at the door. One of the henchlings peeked in, a member of the crew of riflemen from the encounter on the road, a young Mayan named Chepito.- El Chusquero, a moment, please . He was small and coiled tight, dressed in a bleached-out work shirt and jeans, a pistol tucked in his waistband.

The Commander took one last look at Lupe, then without comment left the room, closing the door to the hallway behind him.

Roque and Lupe turned to each other as though unsure the other was really there. Before he could say anything, she lifted a finger to her lips, darting her eyes toward the door. Always the wise one, he thought, doubly ashamed. Unable to help himself, he glanced at the scrum of small black scorpions one last time, imagining her hand in there, swarmed, stung, piped with venom. For his sake.

The Commander burst back into the room, a cell phone pressed to his ear. Gesturing curtly, he ordered Lupe and Roque out. Wasting no time, they obeyed.