Corner of the Dead

Chapter 4

[ 93 ] C H A P T E R 4 K A R L W R O T E T O M E for many years after I left. His envelopes were blue. I remember some of his letters by heart. To remember by heart is to remember by feel. This is the worst way to remember. I saved this one. I received it the day after I married Richard. Lisette, I will be going to Lake Titicaca in a week, remember on the hammock we spoke of this. Maybe you will join me. I am only joking. The garden is doing well. You would be very pleased with the tomatoes although no one here likes tomatoes. They prefer apples. The greenhouse of plastic sheeting works. I only need to remember to water every day. Blanca will do it while I am gone. I am writing to you from the hammock at night. This means it is safer here. I am hopeful change is going to come. I have always said what we saw, which was the worst of it, could not go on. Love, Karl Then, I was filling in blanks on application forms. And when acceptances arrived I agreed to spend the next three years in a [ 94 ] law school that looked like a toaster with a view of the overpass on Amsterdam Avenue. The books that came with the toaster were maroon and navy and had simple names. A story in one called Property went this way: A man and his neighbor argue over a tract of land called Blackacre. There is resolution and a rule to be applied the next time there is a disagreement. The nightmares with the disembodied heads began. At night I was surrounded by blood-streaked stalks of corn. The setting was like Blackacre described in my law books. But every place was Perú. I walked across a podium. A man in a robe that reached to the floor handed me my degree . It was wrapped in a cylinder and tied with black cord. The dogs had hung from black cord. The man’s gown was black. I tripped but caught myself. I made it back to my seat. To calm myself, I said you are home now, this is New York, you are safe. I gave the cord to the student next to me. He did not know why and I didn’t know how to answer when he asked. I put on a navy suit and white pressed shirt and black pumps. The office I went to had a door with a nameplate. It was my name. By the end of my first day, the starch in my shirt chafed my neck. But the noose had gone to Pablo. It could have also been true, but I didn’t know for sure, that this was what they did to Enrique. And if not to Enrique exactly this way, then to all the other Pablos that had been hanged, along with and like the dogs—from trees, the eucalyptus and pine, even from the willows. ...