Page 59 of Shadow Man
I feel a gentle touch on my shoulder. It’s Gabriela reaching down to comfort me.
“Is there any news?” I demand, wiping my face. “Will he be okay?”
“We will know more soon.” She holds her hand out to me. “Come.”
“I can’t,” I say, shaking my head at her. “What if he dies?”
“What if he wakes up?” she counters, a smile twitching at her mouth. “I give you my word; you will be the first to know the outcome of all scenarios. But you must eat... You cannot find subsistence from sitting on a hallway floor.”
It sounds like something my mother would have said to me. Perhaps that’s why I find myself scrambling to my feet.
“Your English is amazing,” I tell her as we descend an extravagant white marble staircase together. Everything about this house is insane, like billion-dollar insane. It’s like the Palace of Versailles has been dismantled and rebuilt in the middle of the Amazon.In contrast, there’s a neat, understated elegance to Gabriela, from the long gray hair swept into a neat chignon at the nape of her neck, to her linen pants and shirt that fit her willowy figure like black linen bark.
“It was a necessity to learn,” she tells me.
“Vi said you were a nurse?”
“Viviana likes to play hide and seek with the truth when it suits.” Her eyes start twinkling at me. “I have no formal medical training, but I’ve been required to familiarize myself with the rudiments over the years. Not everyone wishes to visit hospitals for treatment.”
“People like Joseph Grayson, you mean.” I’m fighting the urge to run back upstairs, and curl up outside the wooden door like an animal shut out in the cold.
“Quite.” It’s her lips that are dancing with all the ambiguity now.
“You have a beautiful house,” I lie, glancing about.
“There is no need for such insincere flattery,” she says, with a laugh that sounds like love as she slips her arm through mine. “It is as monstrous and obnoxious as the man who built it.”
“Then why do you live here?” I say, frowning at her.
She shrugs. “Because it is discreet. Because no one bothers me or my girls… There are no ridiculous cartel taxes to pay, no inquisitive authorities demanding access. It is just us and the wildlife, although the bellbirds and cicadas can be quite raucous at this time of year.” She gives my arm a squeeze.
Girls?“What do you do here?” I ask her, as she gently guides me down another white and ochre hallway toward a set of gilded double doors. There’s a loud chorus of chatter coming from the other side.
“We save and we heal,” she says, pushing them open, and then standing aside to let me enter. “I do not mean to be so enigmatic, but sometimes the eyes explain better than words.”
Intrigued, I step forward. The room is like some kind of dining hall or canteen, but it’s unlike any I’ve ever seen before. Firstly, it’s the size of a soccer field, with life-sized golden cherubs presiding over the architrave and Michelangelo-inspired paintings spanning the entire length of the domed ceiling, studded with a perfect central line of crystal chandeliers.
Making up for the car crash of pretension are the twenty or so women—the same age or younger than me—sitting in regular clothes and eating their lunch like regular people at a long wooden table in the middle of the room. They all turn to stare when they hear me enter.
“I love my country very much, Anna,” I hear Gabriela say, following me inside. “But some of our laws hurt us more than they serve us.” She leads me over to an empty space at the head of a table and motions for me to sit.
Right away, a bowl of piping hot soup and bread is placed in front of me. Gabriela sits down opposite and flashes her motherly smile again. “Please eat, and I will do my best to explain. It’sAjiaco,” she says motioning to my bowl. “It’s a traditional chicken and potato soup that I think you might enjoy.”
I glance toward the open door, a familiar knot tightening in my stomach. “I really don’t think I should leave—”
“I insist,” she says firmly, pouring me a glass of water from the jug on the table and then wetting a napkin with it. Taking each of my hands in turn, she wipes away the worst of the blood and dirt from my skin. “There is no judgement here for the rules that you and Viviana have broken these past few days, but I do take offence to a starving woman refusing my food.”
Her steely gaze doesn’t let up until I’m shoveling chunks of bread into my mouth. It’s still warm and crusty on the outside and as soft as a marshmallow on the inside.Shit.I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, and I can’t help letting out a moan of pleasure. Food has been such a chore these past few months, and now my taste buds are coming back to life as well.
“You’ve hurt yourself,” she exclaims suddenly, noting the deep cut on my arm. “I hadn’t noticed with all that man’s blood on you. Let me take a look at it once you’ve eaten.”
I smile at her gratefully. I’d almost forgotten about the wound. The dull ache had somehow merged with the one in the area where my heart used to be.
Swallowing down the bread, I take a sip of water. “Who are these women?”
“Another consequence of the cartel way of life,” she says, following my gaze. “Prostitution in this country is legal in so-called government “tolerance zones”, but, like everything, the cartels found a way to corrupt the law for their own gratification. Brothels in the larger cities such as Cartagena and Bogotá are heavily monitored with regular sexual health screenings, but out on the cocaine processing plants where many of these girls were forced to work, the same practices don’t exist. Many of them were raped, abused, held against their will… Trafficked. We found them; we negotiated for them. Here, they are safe. Here we can heal their scars—the ones you can see and the ones not so visible.” Her eyes are burning a hole in my face. It’s as if she knows I have my own horror story to tell.
The spoon slips from my fingers and hits the table with a clatter. “Why don’t they just go home to their families?” I say, setting it to one side, my appetite now gone.