David Unger - The Mastermind

She thanks the pastor and leaves, knowing she must act on her own, without blessing or benediction.

* * *

Rosa Esther hatches a workable plot with her uncle. For Easter, she will be taking the kids to Mexico to visit him and her older cousins. They will stay a few days in her uncle’s home in the San Ángel area and then go swimming for another couple of days at a luxurious hotel in Cuernavaca. She knows that Guillermo will not want to accompany them, since he isn’t able to get away from work for ten days. Besides, he would not pass up the opportunity to visit freely with his new whore.

The kids are only told that they will be visiting their great uncle and Rosa Esther’s cousins. And everything seems normal. Ten days in Mexico with her only other living relatives.

* * *

Guillermo goes to Aurora Airport to meet Rosa Esther and the children when they fly back from Mexico.

“Where are the kids?” he asks, when he sees Rosa Esther coming out of the baggage pickup area on the lower level with a man pushing her two bags on a four-wheel cart. Guillermo has no idea what is going on, but is not to any extent suspicious. He knows nothing about his children’s school calendar. Maybe the cousins are hitting it off and want to spend another week together.

“I thought they might stay in Mexico a little longer,” Rosa Esther says, kissing him on the cheek.

The only problem is that Guillermo’s ego is a bit bruised for not having been consulted. “And you made this decision without me?” he asks as they make their way to the car in the parking lot.

“Guillermo, if you cared for Ilán and Andrea as much as you think you do, you would never have taken up with that whore.”

“That what ?”

“Your Muslim whore. I know all about it. I read your disgusting text messages to her. Is she your princess? Does that make you her prince or have you been elevated to king or ayatollah?” Rosa Esther’s face shows no emotion. No hurt, no resentment; an almost cold-blooded dispassionate expression is stamped upon it.

There’s no point in denying the affair at this point. The proverbial beans have been spilled. He will have to deal with the fallout. “What do you want from me?” he asks.

“A separation to start, followed by a divorce. And your agreement not to contest the custody of our children. I want half the money in our bank accounts and I want you to sell the apartment. We can share the profits. I don’t want you living there with that whore.”

“We bought that apartment with the money we made from selling the Vista Hermosa house that I paid for with my parents’ inheritance. In truth that apartment should be all mine.”

“Well, it isn’t. And no judge in Guatemala will let you keep what is now common property, especially when I present proof of your affairs. I deserve the full value of the apartment, so I believe I’m being very generous with you. Plus, I want you to send me sixteen thousand quetzales each month in child support until both of the kids are out of college.”

“And where are you planning to live?”

“In Mexico City.”

“And what do you expect me to live on, after I wire you that money?” he asks contemptuously. “Water? Air?”

“To be honest, Guillermo, I don’t care what you live on. Hummus, for all I care. And I don’t deserve your scornful tone. You are the transgressor. You might have considered being a bit more forthright with me about your whore, and maybe the terms of our separation would have been more favorable.”

“Maryam is not a whore.”

“The whore has a name,” she says sarcastically.

“She does. And I think her name’s beautiful.”

Rosa Esther is about to slap him, but holds back. “You disgust me.”

“It sounds as if you were planning to leave me all along.”

“Oh, Guillermo, talking to you is pointless. You’re always the lawyer. You have piles of arguments and briefs and you know how to use them. What I wonder is, when did you lose the thoughtfulness, the humanity you had when I first met you at Pecos Bill? You’ve become so crass, and a coward on top of that! I’ve given you two beautiful children and you’ve given me nothing but heartache and a venereal disease that makes my face break out in a rash every few months. Thanks for ruining my life.”

“Nice,” is all he can say. She’s still bringing up the herpes stuff that occurred nearly twenty years ago.

And before he can say anything else she adds, “Tell me, when did I become your enemy?”

“You’re not my enemy.” He feels unjustly accused. And unjustly forced to respond.

She laughs heartily. “Oh, but I am. I know you have other enemies that you consider much more important, like the president and his wife, liberal journalists, tax reformers: anyone who can stand in the way of achieving your state of total freedom. Well, you are now free to fulfill your dreams. And the price that I am extracting from you is cheap. Very cheap. You won’t lose your children forever: you will be free to visit them in Mexico. And they can visit you in Guatemala as long as you are not living with that whore. There won’t be any talk of kidnapping, or of you trying to block my leaving. You can have this poor excuse of a country all for yourself. Is that clear?”

Guillermo fumes. From a legal point of view, he knows that Rosa Esther is being uncommonly accommodating. He’s well aware of Guatemalan statutes regarding divorce and culpability. He knows when he’s been beaten and also when he has been given a pass, a good settlement. What upsets him is that there is nothing left to negotiate with her, not even her refusal to accept the fact that anything good, other than the children, has come from their marriage.

He cannot say anything in his own defense.

Rosa Esther is through talking. “Could you start the car? I want to go home.”

* * *

So they drive home together like a civilized, uncoupled couple. Rosa Esther moves into Andrea’s bedroom, full of posters and pictures and pink stuffed animals. She stays in Guatemala for two weeks, packing up the kids’ things and saying goodbye to her sister — who promises to visit her within the month — and all her friends before flying off to Mexico.

There are no big blow-ups; there’s no more terrain to contest. In fact, there is no need for lawyers. Rosa Esther has brought her own divorce contract from Mexico and only needs Guillermo to copy the terms on the Guatemalan writ for divorce so that their separation can become official.

Pastor Huggins is more than willing to prepare a legal Unitarian divorce in which both parties are rendered guiltless as subjects who have come to realize that they have irreconcilable differences. Rosa Esther does not want to create a scandal by accusing him formally of infidelity. Since divorce is illegal in Guatemala, she is willing to have their marriage annulled under the proviso that they were never in love, and that their marriage was only contractual in the eyes of man, not sacred in the eyes of God.

Guillermo, naturally, agrees.

Every night, while Rosa Esther is finalizing her affairs, he calls the children on Skype. The phone conversations end up with Andrea in tears, but Ilán is more stoic, as if there has merely been a soccer trade or the aging star of the team has been axed. Guillermo promises frequent visits to Mexico City. He does not want to lose them, or so he says.

When Guillermo tells Maryam what has happened, she is very much surprised. All along she has assumed that she would have to be the one to take the first step if there was ever a chance for her and Guillermo to be together. Now Rosa Esther has acted and Maryam gives her lover the necessary space to figure things out. It is a difficult period because so much has to be done quickly, and there is no time to get together.