Daniel Alarcon - Lost City Radio

Norma huddled with Victor, who was now completely awake. It was cold for October, cold enough that they could see their breath. Victor blew clouds of it, and seemed charmed. Of course, he’d never seen his own breath before. Manau was shaken, but he took off his jacket and draped it over the boy.

Meanwhile, the soldiers busied themselves remembering names of people they had known. The younger one had dropped his cigarette before he saluted. Without it, he was still a boy, with big, red cheeks that made his face almost perfectly round. He ran to the oil drum by the side of the road, where he had stashed his bag. He returned with paper. The first soldier propped his rifle against the car. Apologizing for the delay, he spread the paper on the hood. He chewed the edge of the pen for a moment and began to write.

“May we wait in the car?” Norma asked. “It’s very cold.”

Again, the apologies: “Yes, yes, of course.” He turned to the younger soldier. “Get the door for Miss Norma.”

In another time, it would have been impossible to conceive of this, but now Norma let it happen: the young soldier opened the door for her and bowed deeply. When he had closed it, she accepted his docile, childlike smile the way she imagined a queen might: benevolently, as if she expected nothing less. Everything had changed. They had taken Rey to the Moon on a night like this. How many others?

Manau sat in the front seat, blowing on his hands. Victor was the only sensible one among them. “Why are we going to the radio?”

“We’re going to read the names,” Norma said.

“Where else do we have to go?” said Manau.

Victor looked at Norma, and when she nodded, he seemed satisfied.

A moment later, the first soldier knocked on the front window. Manau rolled it down, and a column of cold air filled the car. “It’s our list,” the soldier said, “for Miss Norma. And this”—he pointed to a second page, where he had written his name, his rank, the date, and the time in a crooked, childlike script—“is a pass I wrote. You can show it to anyone else if they stop you.” He smiled from ear to ear. She thanked him again. “Miss Norma,” he said, bowing. “A pleasure.”

They drove on through the sleeping city, through its vacant streets. The boy began to ask a question, but then seemed to think better of it. He was beyond surprise, and too tired to notice anything in the darkened streets. Every now and then, the car hit a pothole, and the windows shook, and the frame rattled, but a moment later, it had passed, and Victor could close his eyes again. Norma held him; the car had warmed, but the boy shivered in his sleep.

The security guard didn’t hesitate to let them in. She was Norma, after all, and this was still her radio station. He let the three of them pass with a deferential nod and then led them to the lobby where the boy had first presented his note. The lights were low, and it seemed they had stepped into the crypt of a church. Just as I remember it, Norma thought, as if she were returning to a childhood home. She had been here just the day before, but this is what life does to you: things happen all at once, and your sense of time is exploded. But what exactly had happened, and how? A boy had come. When? It began on Tuesday, she remembered, and now it was…She didn’t know. Whom could she ask? Everything was foggy: there was a list, she’d had a husband, he was dead or gone. He was IL, or he was not. The war had ended, or perhaps it had never begun. Was that it? Was that all? She held the boy’s hand tightly. Norma felt sure he had grown in these last few days, hours, and, at the thought, her heart was off at a gallop. It was a struggle just to stand. The security guard, she realized with some surprise, was still talking, had never stopped talking, though his voice hadn’t registered at all. She resolved to smile but made no attempt to listen. He was an old man with a shiny bald pate and pockmarked skin. He rubbed the boy’s head and pinched his cheek. He was thanking her effusively, and Norma couldn’t help but wonder what she had ever done for him.

With his key, he activated the elevator. The doors closed, and he bade them good-bye with a wave. They were inside.

“I’m tired,” Victor said. “I want to sleep.”

“I know you do.” Norma held him close. She was torturing the boy by keeping him awake, she knew she was — what was it she hoped to accomplish that could not be done tomorrow? “We’ll sleep soon,” she said, but it sounded less like a promise and more like a wish.

The overnight deejay was easy enough. She couldn’t remember his name, but they had met before. Many times. He knew who she was, of course. He had a young face and unnaturally white hair to go along with it. Norma put her hand on his shoulder. He was easy to lie to: the words were coming on their own now. Yes, Elmer had approved it. Yes, it’s fine. Yes, a special show. Call him? Of course, if you’d like, but he’s probably sleeping. You could use a rest? Couldn’t we all. A little laughter — she didn’t even have to force it. And have a great night. Yes, a pleasure. With Manau and Victor watching, she had an audience for all this lying, this manipulation of the truth; they were with her. Without even looking behind her, she could feel Manau nodding on her behalf.

But the displaced deejay didn’t leave. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“Yes?”

“May I sit in?” He smiled meekly. “It would be an honor, Miss Norma.”

It felt cruel, but the truth was there would be no room. “You understand,” she said.

“Of course,” he said, turning red. “Of course.” He slinked away, and Norma wanted to embrace him. Her eyes stung, and every part of her was sore. A waltz was playing: it was a woman, of course, and she sang about a man.

WHEN THE IL finally returned three years after the war had ended, it was a surprise to everyone but Zahir. He’d been waiting for them since the day a platoon came and took Adela’s man and two others away into the forest. Of course, Zahir knew nothing about the dispersed remnants of a once-mighty insurgency, so he couldn’t have known they were coming: it’s just that he had seen this man pass his son off to Adela and disappear into an army truck, the point of a rifle at his back. He’d seen the desperate way the man had looked at his son, the way the child clutched at his mother, and the way this woman began to sob. Such things do not go unpunished. The two other men said good-byes as well, and Zahir could scarcely remember what he had accused them of in his reports — oh, yes: he had wondered why they spent so much time in the forest. He had reddened at this thought: they were hunters.

It was not the IL Zahir was expecting, not specifically, but some form of castigation, celestial or otherwise, for his role in the war. Before that moment, it had seemed that his monthly reports were filed away and never seen again, that all his effort amounted to a simple exercise with no bearing on the war or on anything else. Then, that day, it became clear: he was not innocent. Three men died. That is, he could guess they had died: three men disappeared because of him. Because he had, on a whim, invented a story about a man he barely knew. Because he had padded his report with musings about what a villager might do in the forest with a gun besides hunt. Something would come to disturb his otherwise comfortable life. In the days after the platoon came, all guns and stern faces, the village continued listening to the radio, now broadcasting reports of victory marches in the city. Celebrations. It rained heavily that week, and they could see helicopters whirring below the purple clouds. They could even hear the rumble of distant explosions. Was the war really over? It was hard to know what to believe.