Trash

  ‘He’d put the money in the fridge?’ I said.

  The gardener was laughing again. ‘That’s what everybody thinks. Six million dollars in a broken fridge!’

  He nodded at the house and the police cars.

  ‘And they’re just standing around, I bet. No idea where it’s gone. What a boy! I just wish I’d got to shake his hand.’

  He stopped smiling.

  ‘How did they get him?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. The papers don’t say.’ He threw his cigarette into the grass. ‘I know he had a little girl, so they could have traced her, maybe.’

  Raphael spoke for the first time. ‘His name was José Angelico, wasn’t it?’ he said.

  The old man looked up and stared. Then he nodded. ‘You read about it, huh? You know they found the fridge? I guess they’re asking where he put the cash – that’s what they want. I tell you, boys, I hope he gave it away before they killed him, because I believe that son of a bitch in there’s been stealing for years. Stealing even from me and you – can you believe that?’

  He was shaking his head.

  ‘Vice-president,’ he said, and he spat on the grass. ‘I hope he never gets it back – not a cent of it. And I hope the shock kills him.’

  10

  Olivia’s story – last section.

  ‘José Angelico was my grandson,’ said the old man.

  Gardo held the cup to his mouth again. The old man drank and wiped his eyes.

  He laughed briefly. ‘I have many grandchildren,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you why? Because Dante – you asked about him, Dante Jerome – that’s my son: he adopted thirteen boys and nineteen girls.’ He smiled, but it was a tired smile. ‘I know that sounds impossible, but it was some government programme. You could adopt children then as easily as … hail a taxi. Dante started a school, you see – probably like the one you work in, Miss Olivia. And he had four children of his own, and he found that it was safest to adopt the children in his care. Every time I saw him, I’d say …’ His voice trailed off. ‘Oh my.’ He scratched his head. ‘Little José, little José … What a way to end.’

  Gardo spoke again in his own language.

  The old man groaned, and then he coughed and fought for breath. We waited.

  ‘José was a favourite. One should not, I know, have favourites. But José Angelico … He was the sweetest boy. He was clever too, and he did not sleep – he was always working! “I will be a doctor,” he would say – so many of them say that. But … Oh my, we thought for a while it would come true. Olivia, is this making sense to you?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. It was a lie, because I was totally confused.

  ‘Oh, Gardo … you didn’t bring the letter,’ he said. He looked at the boy. ‘Is there something in it that … is dangerous, perhaps?’

  ‘We think so,’ said Gardo. ‘I thought the police might take it away. My friend was arrested, so we know they’re looking.’

  ‘What about his daughter? Where is Pia Dante?’

  ‘We don’t know, sir.’

  ‘She will have nobody.’ He was lost in thought for a moment, and then he said to me: ‘He wrote to me every year, José. On my birthday and at Christmas. Once he wanted to be a doctor, then a lawyer. Dante would have found the money – he had ways of getting money! So many deals, the boys he put into college – if they were clever, I mean. But little José …’ He winced and wiped his eyes. ‘Not so little any more. I saw him last year – he was a man, of course. He wanted me to see his daughter – she also is my god-daughter. Oh …’ He wiped his eyes. ‘He gave up his studies years ago – he was just a houseboy, you know. Better than many jobs, I have no doubt of that, but we had hoped for better things … I think he lost patience.’

  ‘Patience with what?’ I said.

  The old man paused. ‘You cannot wait for ever. How long they keep us waiting: for ever. We knock on the door for ever? José lost patience, lost ambition, dropped out of the school. He didn’t tell me where he was working. Boy,’ he said, turning to Gardo. ‘Please – we had better do this business. I am so tired.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Gardo.

  ‘You asked me what It is accomplished meant – that was in the letter. Speak truthfully.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gardo.

  ‘Can you remember exactly what he said? Is this why you’re here?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Gardo, ‘I memorized all of the letter. If you like …’ He looked at the door. ‘I can say it to you.’

  We both looked at him. ‘You memorized the whole letter?’ said the old man. ‘By heart?’

  Gardo nodded his head. ‘It is not so long,’ he said, smiling.

  The old man sat back, and Gardo licked his lips.

  ‘Speak.’

  Gardo stood up straight. He put his hands behind his back, and I had a vision of him in a classroom, reciting.

  ‘To Prisoner 746229,’ he said. ‘Cell Block 34K, South Wing, Colva Prison.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Dear Grandfather. It is a long time since I have written to you but you have always been in my thoughts, particularly of late, and you will perhaps be happy to know that on your birthday many glasses were raised in your honour. Not a day goes by without me thinking of you, even though getting to you is so hard now, especially as duties take me away from the city.’

  Gardo paused.

  ‘I think also of Dante Jerome, your dear son – in memoriam. I bring up my daughter to honour his memory and your own. Sir: I am to tell you something important, and it may be that I never see your face again. I tell you that the seed-corn has been planted, but not in the way you expected. Soon the harvest, I hope and pray, soon the harvest because it is accomplished, it is accomplished, it is accomplished. I say it three times, but if I could make a banner – if I could write it in the sky for you to look out on, I would do so. My friend, it is accomplished. I am writing in haste, because nothing is for certain, and I have many reasons to be cautious always, as you said to me so many times. I know they will find me. This letter will lie in a private place, with instructions. If it comes to your hand, then you know I am taken. Ask after my daughter, please – use any influence you have, for I am afraid for Pia Dante now. But the seeds are safe, sir – and the veil of the temple is rent in the midst. If only you could go to Zapanta’s house now: it would make your soul sing.

  ‘Your loving godson, José Angelico, bless you, your wife, all your many children and their memories, and all of us so lucky as to be born in your light.’

  Gardo stopped, and I could see that the old man had gone pale. His eyes were closed and he was very still. His mouth was open, and I thought for a dreadful moment that he was having a heart attack, or was about to. I could see his chest rising and falling. Gardo took up the glass of water.

  ‘No,’ said the old man. ‘What he says is impossible.’

  ‘That is the letter, sir.’

  ‘There was something else,’ whispered the man. ‘He said there were instructions.’

  ‘Sir?’

  He managed to open his eyes, and all at once his face was changing colour. His face was damp again with sweat, and he turned to Gardo and reached for him. He held the boy’s arm. ‘Was there something else? A slip of paper?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Of course there was. There always was. Did you bring that?’

  ‘No. I memorized … some of it.’

  ‘Why only some of it?’

  ‘Because it …’

  ‘Because it was too long? Because it made no sense?’

  Gardo was nodding.

  ‘It was just numbers and slashes, wasn’t it? Boy, you are chosen.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was just numbers, starting 940.4.18.13.14. Then I think 5.3.6.4 – I can’t remember any more.’

  Gardo paused, and the old man whispered, ‘You don’t know what it means. You’ve got the instructions, Gardo – you’re holding a key … The numbers are a code.’ He spoke in his own language; he was fidgeting in his chair, trying to stan
d.

  ‘You did right not to bring the letter,’ he hissed. ‘Oh, my boy, you are – you are an angel. You are a young, sainted angel. It’s a code that we used, José and I – other boys too. It’s what you call a book-code, simple when you have the book. We played games with it, but it was also for special things. Those numbers … they correspond to letters on certain pages – I must get my Bible. If you know where to look – if you know the rules … the code is so simple.’ He spoke in his own tongue again. He was standing now, leaning on the table.

  ‘What’s he saying, Gardo?’

  ‘I need my Bible. My Bible is the book we used.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. The door had opened: a guard was standing there, watching us.

  ‘Of course you don’t. How could you? I’m explaining nothing, Olivia – the boy must have my Bible, and I think it will … oh God. I can’t … It might reveal where the seeds have been placed. If he is serious, and he must be serious! He would not … trifle – he wouldn’t write in that way unless it was true.’ The guard walked towards us. The old man didn’t notice. ‘It is accomplished was the phrase we used – it’s the words of Christ, yes? – the best translation. You read your Bible? In St John, at the crucifixion: It is finished – accomplished – and we used it, flippantly perhaps, referring to the finding of … the restoration of all that had been stolen. That is what we spent our lives hoping to accomplish. Do you see now?’

  A light was dawning, even on me. I said: ‘Are you saying that José found some money—?’

  He cut me off and turned to the guard. ‘I need my Bible, sir. It’s by my bed.’

  The guard said, ‘It is the end of the visit, sir.’

  ‘I need my Bible, though,’ he repeated.

  The guard nodded, but did not move. He said something in his own language again.

  The old man said, ‘Please, I have to give my friends something. They have come all this way.’ He spoke in his own language, and the guard looked at him steadily. When the guard spoke again, it was brief and terse.

  The old man looked at me. ‘He cannot help us now,’ he said. ‘He says that the visit is over, and nothing must leave the prison. But he says that he will help us. His name is Marco, and he says you have to go.’

  ‘Can’t we take the Bible?’ I said to the guard. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘He says he will give it to you later. His name is Marco, and I have told him that it’s important. He has promised. You have promised, haven’t you?’

  The guard nodded, and ten minutes later I was outside the prison gate, with Gardo by my side. We waited, but nobody appeared with a Bible, and the guard had gone. He had spoken in a low voice to Gardo, and Gardo had spoken earnestly back, and they had shaken hands.

  ‘He said it is impossible to give it now,’ Gardo told me as we looked for a taxi. ‘But he says he will bring it to Behala.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t ask? What did you say to him? Is this … I don’t understand what’s going on. Will he bring it?’

  ‘He will want money,’ said Gardo softly. ‘I think he will want a lot of money, but he will bring it. This is very dangerous now, for you also. He could betray us.’

  The following morning, many things happened, and this is the end of my story.

  Gabriel Olondriz died peacefully in the prison hospital. His death was reported in many newspapers. I assume the prison guard – the one who had the old man’s Bible – realized at once that he had in his possession a precious relic of a famous old political soldier. That meant the price of the Bible could only go up. Perhaps he had overheard the old man, and understood part of the story. Perhaps he had simply seen the light in the gentleman’s eyes, and knew by instinct that there was a fortune to be made.

  I never saw the guard again, because I finish here – things moved fast and I have never been so frightened.

  When I got home, I went out to dinner as planned, and despite everything I’d seen, I slept well. In the early morning, however, three policemen came to my hostel, and I was asked to accompany them to a police station. My friend Mr Oliva had faxed everything to his security chief, and someone efficient put Gardo and me into some computer. I had given our Behala address, and that address must have tripped the alarm. Of course, Behala was under surveillance, and any activity from the dumpsite – anything strange – was going to ring bells and alert people.

  They were there on my doorstep, three of them. I was terrified – I had no idea what to do. I got a message to Father Juilliard and he came straight away, thank God, and contacted my father. The police warned me that they would find out everything: I protected the boys as best I could, hoping to God they wouldn’t be taken again. I guess I was lucky that I had understood so little. I did not mention a Bible, and I said that Gardo and the old man had spoken in their own language – that as far as I knew, they’d been talking about a house, grandson to grandfather.

  Because of my father, somebody from the British Embassy arrived, and argued very strongly that I was naïve and innocent. I had also broken no law. No charges could be brought – the official kept repeating that, gently, persuasively.

  After some time I was released and my passport was returned. I took advice and I was on a plane out of the country the same day.

  * * *

  And that is my story, and thank you for letting me tell it. I left part of my heart in your country, boys, and now I can never go back. I say to myself, so what did you learn? What did you learn from the Behala dumpsite, and how has it changed you?

  I learned perhaps more than any university could ever teach me. I learned that the world revolves around money. There are values and virtues and morals; there are relationships and trust and love – and all of that is important. Money, however, is more important, and it is dripping all the time, like precious water. Some drink deep; others thirst. Without money, you shrivel and die. The absence of money is drought in which nothing can grow. Nobody knows the value of water until they’ve lived in a dry, dry place – like Behala. So many people, waiting for the rain.

  I said goodbye to so few and I can never go back. That is a pity, and it feels so wrong, because in Gardo, Raphael – and maybe most of all Rat – I left part of my heart, and writing this only makes me long to see you again, and this page is wet with my tears, boys.

  Goodbye, and thank you so much for using me.

  PART FOUR

  1

  This is Rat once again, aka Jun-Jun, and I tell the part where I was the leader. Where it gets bad, bloody and oh so dangerous!

  It was soon after Gardo got back, with me and Raphael waiting for him by the canal, the sun going down. He got back, and the police came in. Almost before we had time to talk, we heard the siren, and oh my God, it was a river of blue! If they’d come slow and quiet, OK – maybe they’d have got us, but oh God, thank you again that they love to make a noise and have to show up like some carnival, sirens blasting out over the town. We just did the obvious thing: soon as we saw them, we made off, no time to say goodbye, just a half-minute to grab my money, and out we went. Behala’s a mile wide, and there are so many ways, so I led them down to the docks, we got a garbage barge across the bay, and then walked.

  Gardo has a friend of an uncle or someone who has a store selling dry goods, and we slunk in there and slept over, wondering what on earth we should do, now we were really on the run.

  That’s what it was for us: on the run, wanted men with no place to go! We had the letter still, and the map – and Gardo told us all about the Bible-code, or what he understood of it. We told him about the fridge of money and Zapanta’s house, and we sat there thinking and thinking, wondering how we’d do what we needed to do – everyone sure we needed that Bible, and nobody knowing what the next step could be.

  I had the idea right then, because it was clear to me we had to stay safe. I said we should lie low in one of the big tourist areas where so many street kids work and beg.
There’s a great gang of them there, and I’d spent some time in it after my station days. So that’s what we did: we went up to the strip joints around Buendía and found a spot by a cheap hotel. We put ourselves on the edge of the crowd and tried not to draw attention. I cut off Raphael’s hair, just in case anyone came looking – made him look like a little madman, though he’s cute enough still – cute enough to beg from foreigners, though he wouldn’t do it.

  I said you got to, he said no. I said my money wouldn’t last, and Gardo told me to shut up. So I sewed the cash into my shorts, and looked after us all with it, eating on the street and smoking to look rough as we could. We stuck together and stayed in the dark – stayed with the street boys for a night in the ruin of a place they used, but none of us felt safe. They weren’t mean like the station boys, mainly because there’s so many coming and going, but I think we were just so used to being a three. The crowd made Raphael nervous. We found a tiny room instead, high up in a stack of old shacks over a laundry. It wasn’t much bigger than a coffin, but it was better than no doors, no windows, and the rent was low. We could just about sit up straight, so there we went and whispered our plans.

  I made one little change, which Gardo laughed at me for – but wasn’t I the hero in the end? I have never liked being nailed up inside a house, and I did it for Raphael too, who still wasn’t sleeping good: I got an old tyre lever, and loosened part of the roof. Emergency exit, just in case – because we knew things were getting hotter and hotter. We knew this was real, scary heat, all around us – even in the weather there was a wind, and the freak typhoon hovering over the sea, and we all felt something big was coming. There was no way back from it now, and for the boys it meant they couldn’t even see their people again – I heard them whispering and wondering, and Raphael cried at night for his auntie and his cousins.