David Unger - The Mastermind

The following day he takes a bus from the Radisson along with twenty other passengers. At the border crossing, the Guatemalan immigration officer barely looks at his passport because he is clearly a member of the upper class and scrutiny is saved for Salvadorans trying to make their way north to the US. On a first-class bus no one would fit that bill. The agents must be so accustomed to having dozens of illegals crossing through the brush that Guillermo does not look the least bit suspicious.

He spends the night at Las Palmeras, a hideous two-story motel on the Guatemalan side of the border that is no better than a truck stop. The noise in the lobby is overwhelming: tinny ranchera music, loud talking, and the sputtering of drunks from the bar. He asks for a quiet place in back, and as soon as he enters his room of fluorescent lights and chipped furniture he realizes he is ravenous. He is sick of eating pupusas and goes to the motel restaurant where he orders corn and potato tamales with chipilín. He hasn’t eaten real Guatemalan food for months.

After dinner he goes back to his room to compose a letter in which he tells his wife and children that he is, in fact, alive. For reasons of security, he cannot reveal where he is living and begs them not to share the contents of this letter with anyone should it by chance awaken the interest of his enemies and jeopardize his survival and their security. He tells them how much he loves them and how sorry he is for all the damage he’s caused them. He acknowledges that he has been a poor father, someone who has abdicated all his parental and conjugal responsibilities to pursue his own wayward agenda. And he apologizes for having vanished as he did, in such an abrupt fashion, but explains that he’s not at liberty to tell them what transpired and why he felt it necessary to disappear.

He wipes away tears as he writes.

He has no idea whether his children harbor any strong feelings for him anymore, but he promises that one day he will try to earn back their love, if not their respect. In time, he writes, he will make things right, though he knows he has made this promise before. He has no idea how they are surviving financially, but he begs Rosa Esther not to attempt to claim his money and properties because it might awaken suspicion. He hopes the four thousand will be of some help. He honestly doesn’t know if, with the passage of time, he’ll be able to reclaim his property. He reiterates how much he loves the children and how sorry he is for the mess he’s made.

As steeped as he is in loneliness, he cannot see that his words of reconciliation are just another illusion. Even so, he avoids claiming he is an altogether different man, and writes that he has learned something from his mistakes, blah blah blah .

It is sizzling in his room. He puts on the poor excuse for an air conditioner. It rattles like a car about to explode.

Guillermo collapses onto his bed and falls immediately to sleep on the shitty straw mattress. He wakes up a half hour later and spends the next hour tossing and turning, trying to ignore the rumble of trucks and sound of mariachi music. At one a.m. the border crossing finally closes and the noise, the loud talk, and the flashing of lights finally die down.

At eight in the morning he eats two fried eggs, black beans with cream, plantains, and delicious blue corn tortillas at the motel restaurant. Then he walks down a noisy, dusty street to the tiny Banco de Guatemala and exchanges four thousand in cash for an official bank check. He takes the check and places it inside the envelope with the letter. At the post office next door he sends the letter special-delivery to Mexico. He knows he is taking a big chance: the letter could be lost or confiscated, the check could be stolen. Even if it weren’t cashed, it would be lost forever. But this is all he can do.

He returns to the motel, gathers his things, and catches a bus back to San Salvador.

* * *

Easter comes early in April of 2010 but already the heat in San Salvador is oppressive. The spring rains have failed to arrive, a pattern dating back to the deforestation during the years of civil war. Not that forests would do much to cool things down, especially in a city that is increasingly crowded and polluted. There is a density to the air that makes breathing difficult.

It has been an unexpectedly kind spring for Rafael Ignacio Gallardo né Guillermo Rosensweig and his depression is once again lifting. His consulting business is doing well and making good money: he’s no longer dipping into the cash he brought from Guatemala. His clients recommend friends because, unlike many other advisors, Guillermo is dedicated to exploring possibilities and finding solutions, not whining about problems. He concentrates on getting them to focus on achieving their goals, however small. And he is honest to the core, something unusual in downtown San Salvador, where it seems like every other person is a huckster.

Guillermo acknowledges something else about the structure of his life: after all the turbulence in Guatemala, he is happy to simply go to his office, keep a low profile, and help his clients without major distractions or drama. He is no longer driven by the messianic desire to right the hundreds of wrongs in his homeland.

He lives in relative peace except for the times that the memory of his love for Maryam clutches his heart and won’t let him go. Over time these memories come less often but are no less gripping. There are evenings when he falls asleep in a deep rapture, remembering their times together, the happiness they shared, the dreams they discussed. He often ends up masturbating, imagining he is entering her as she begs him not to come yet.

In quieter moments, he remembers their pledge to meet in the main square of La Libertad on May 1—in a month’s time. He feels unsure about whether he should go. His fear of disappointment disquiets him. He feels that if anything could send him back into the depths of despair again, it is the realization that a dream, no matter how extravagant or far-fetched, might never come true.

The odds overwhelmingly favor it: Maryam is almost certainly dead.

But what if by some miracle she’s not?

What if she somehow survived the explosion, is alive, and has built a new life for herself, as he has done?

May 1 falls on a Friday, which complicates things for Guillermo because La Libertad is on the coast and thousands of city dwellers will be going there for the three-day weekend. There will be highway blockages and lots of chaos, demonstrations, and parades to celebrate International Workers’ Day.

Luckily, the day dawns cloudy and rainy. This will deter many families from getting up early and heading to the beach. By eight a.m. it is still as dark as night, and the rain is falling in steady sheets, pattering roughly on windows and roofs. No one will head for the seashore or the parades in this weather.

An hour later the rain is still coming down hard. Guillermo realizes he needs to hurry now if he’s to make it there on time. He takes bus 34 from in front of his building to the Terminal Occidente to catch one of the buses that leave every ten minutes or so for La Libertad. He figures that if he catches the ten a.m. bus he will arrive on the coast by eleven, in plenty of time to explore the town and get to the appointed spot — in front of the central church on the main square — by noon.

The downpour delays the bus’s departure. The streets are crowded, mostly by people trying to dodge the buckets of rain. The bus moves slowly through the San Salvador streets, on its way up to Santa Tecla, a town appended to the capital by the thousands of Salvadorans who left the countryside during the civil war of the 1980s. The bus stops for ten minutes or so on the corner of the central park for passengers to embark and disembark, and then barrels toward the coast.