Free The Boat by Nam Le

somehow suggests violence. Hail Mary, full of grace ...
    When I was your age, he says – even younger – I too had to eliminate my friends. He pauses. His voice has changed; it is softer now, damper. I did not mark your friend as a hit, he says. But I chose you to make the hit.
    I bow my head, not knowing what to say. I remind myself that, of course, I already knew this. I think of the World Cup story, and wonder distantly if El Padre's face looked then as it does now: like a gangster in an American music video.
    He continues speaking. As he speaks, it seems that his words harden into deep noises. Afterward, he says – he is saying – afterward, I learned to not care so much about the death-only the details. Death is just a transaction. A string of consequences.
    I nod. I am becoming heavier. His words are weighing me down. My body is a rock in this chair.
    Take me, for example, El Padre says, looking at me carefully. If I die, do you know how many deaths will follow? He tells me the number. I do not know whether he is saying it with pride or sorrow or disbelief.
    But part of me is capable of thinking that this is an extraordinary thing. That one life can hold so many others up. That the other lives can be ignorant of this. It reminds me of a game of wooden blocks I used to play with my parents, where the push of a single piece could bring the whole tower crashing down.
    El Padre watches me and I watch him back, and when the realization comes through the hot swamp of my mind it comes with no satisfaction. You are no Hernando, a voice says in my head, and at that moment I know it to be true. Then another voice says, You are no El Padre. And as it speaks I watch him – this man sitting in front of me with a head of gleaming corn-rows, in this warm atrium of candles – I watch him, in control, alive, and absolutely alone in a power he cannot share.
    I understand, I say.
    You have been a good soldado , he repeats. He takes a deep breath. You understand that you cannot continue in your job, however?
    Yes.
    And I will require the weapons back.
    Of course.
    I will send Damita to tell your friend who waits in the alley. She knows where they are?
    I pause. Hail Mary. Then I say, I must tell my friend myself or she will not go.
    He watches me impassively.
    The weapons are at our moco , I add.
    He thinks, and then nods. Then go with Damita, he says. To the alley – no farther. And come back afterward for a drink.
    In the front yard outside, before we reach the gate, Damita says, He likes you.
    I laugh shortly, the first time tonight. There is something about the coolness of the air that brings me back closer to myself. It is almost over, I tell myself.
    No, he does, she says. I can tell. He always acts that way, the first time. She gives me a sidelong look. Her face is the kind they put on the cover of shiny magazines. The first time I met him, ay! I heard the same speech! If two women fight, I shave their heads , she mimics, then laughs, a quick darting laugh that makes me imagine sparks from a fire racing into a night sky.
    She stops at the gate to have a cigarette with one of the guards. Stand where I can see you, she says, waving to me like a schoolgirl stepping down from a bus.
    At first I cannot find Claudia, then I hear her harsh whisper from the opposite alley.
    Just come out, I say. They know you're here.
    She comes as far as the corner, her forehead and kneecaps glowing white under the streetlights, and I walk to meet her there. She frowns – it makes her face look angry.
    He is letting you go?
    I don't know, I say.
    She begins to cry – and I realize it is the first time I have ever seen her cry. Not even after her mother tried to kill herself did I see Claudia's face like this. It is all soft.
    Hernando is dead, I say. I have to force myself to say it rather than ask it.
    I know.
    Hearing her say it severs something deep within me. For a moment it is as though I have lost contact with myself. I force myself to