Love Under the Shadows of War

 By the time Carlos Borromeo entered his office that morning, she was already there, waiting for him. She rose as he approached, and when they shook hands, her grip was firm, immediately commanding.

“Lyanne Smith,” she said, introducing herself. She had long, reddish-blonde hair braided neatly down almost to her hips. Jerelyn’s gray-green eyes held both intelligence and defiance. She wore no makeup, just a long blue skirt and a traditional local white blouse embroidered at the neckline. Her impeccable Spanish caught him by surprise, clear, deliberate, touched with the faint lilt of an accent that could only be from Spain.

For a brief moment, he was silent, caught between admiration and professional composure. Then, regaining his voice, he asked, “Welcome. How can I help you?”

Lyanne gave a small, knowing smile, half amused, half challenged, and began to tell her story.

She explained that she was a volunteer working with survivors of the earthquake, and that her team, arriving from Canada, had been detained at the airport. “We are all free now. We were released shortly after,” she said, noticing his reaction.

“I’m glad,” he responded. “If there is no problem, what can I help you with?”

Lyanne, still amused by his response, continued. “Ho! There is a problem all right. I have no work permit. They restricted my ability to work.”

“Why?” he interjected, cutting her off.

“When the soldiers were reviewing our luggage,” she continued, “one of them found a book my colleague was carrying, and it triggered a reaction from the soldiers.”

“What book?” he asked, though he already suspected the government’s paranoia.

“The Second Sex,” she replied calmly. “By Simone de Beauvoir.”

He couldn’t help but laugh softly, not at her, but at the absurdity of it all. A book treated like contraband. “And where is your colleague now?” he asked.

“She’s at work,” Lyanne answered. “She received her work permit without restrictions. I did not.”

Now more amused than anything, he asked, “Why would they restrict your permit while the ‘transgressor’ wasn’t?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Why don’t you come back tomorrow afternoon, after I’ve spoken with the authorities?”

At that moment, Carlos believed a simple phone call would suffice. He knew several clerks at the ministry, and most issues could be untangled with a mix of patience and persistence.

After calling the ministry, Carlos learned from the clerk handling his inquiry that the medical team’s luggage had indeed been inspected. When officials discovered the book, they detained the group, separating the owner of the book from the rest of the team.

Tension escalated when the book’s owner was escorted away for questioning. Lyanne, acting as the team’s spokesperson, refused to let her colleague face the interrogation alone, arguing that her friend needed an interpreter. As Lyanne followed the soldiers escorting her colleague, an armed guard stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

Though she protested, her objections were ignored. For a tense hour, the situation teetered between bureaucratic farce and genuine danger, until finally, the team was released without further incident.

Yet the incident left its mark. Despite being released without conditions, the ministry punished Lyanne by restricting her work permit, labeling her a “person of interest.”

The clerk who relayed this information told him there was no point in arguing. The matter required a personal appearance, he hinted, suggesting that what the government really wanted was an apology and that the general manager was going to receive them next morning first thing.

Carlos visited the volunteers’ residence to let them know the change of timing. He found them gathered around a long wooden table, just about to share supper. They welcomed him warmly. Lyanne, smiling with quiet confidence, gestured to an empty seat beside her.

That evening, under the dim light of a single bulb, surrounded by laughter and the scent of beans and tortillas, rice and beans, and, of course, local beers, they shared a simple, comforting meal.

The next morning at the ministry, a clerk greeted them: a small man whose shirt collar seemed two sizes too large, and whose aftershave failed to mask the scent of cheap alcohol. He offered them a waiting room, explaining that the meeting had been postponed by two hours.

They chose instead to walk to a small cafeteria nearby, where he invited Lyann to try a local drink, horchata de morro, a sweet, nutty beverage made from the seeds of the morro tree (Crescentia alata), also known as jícaro or winged calabash. She examined the milky drink with childlike curiosity before taking a sip. Her face lit up in surprise.

“It’s delicious,” she said, laughing softly. “Like nothing I’ve ever tasted.”

Her delight amused him. The time passed quickly, and soon it was time to return for their appointment at the ministry.

The same overly polite clerk greeted them again. He retrieved a folder from his drawer and handed Lyanne a stamped document, the very permit that had been denied to her at the airport.

Carlos asked about their scheduled meeting with the manager, the clerk smiled.

“No need,” he said, with mock modesty. “I spoke to him personally on your behalf. He approved it.”

As Lyann and Carlos left the ministry he said, “that performance was for our benefit.” “A way to make it look as though he did us a favor, so that one day, when he needs something, I’ll be the one in his debt. It’s how things work here. It’s a façade of legality built on the exchange of favors.”

Lyanne frowned, struggling to process the cynicism of it all. She understood the logic, but not the moral surrender it required.

Afterward, Lyanne invited Carlos to have lunch at her house. The meal was modest, and the conversation rich and easy.

By the time it was his turn to leave in the mid-afternoon, she walked him to the door. A brief silence followed, heavy yet gentle. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. A simple gesture, but one that lingered long after. “Thank you for your help,” she said softly.

Weeks passed, and life settled back into its routine, files, meetings, and the constant, dull pulse of a country at war. Then, one afternoon, he stepped out of his office and froze. There she was.

Her presence startled him, and a rush of emotions struck him, happiness mixed with anxiety, desire entangled with restraint.

“Ho! Hi, what’re you doing in my office? Did they revoke your work permit?” he asked, smiling, trying to sound casual.

Lyanne laughed softly. “No, no, they haven’t bother me since you interceded for me. I saw the sing of your office from the bus and got off to say hi.”

Their visit was lively, and after a few minutes of talking, Carlos suggested going out to eat. The restaurant had a small group of musicians singing old Mexican ballads. At one point, he dedicated a song to her.

Lyanne’s eyes sparkled with surprise. She blushed slightly, then laughed, that open, melodic laugh that always seemed to disarm everyone around her.

“No one has ever done something so sweet for me,” she said softly.

He drove Lyanne home that night. The city was dark and quiet, the streets glistening faintly from an earlier rain. Neither of them spoke much during the drive. At one point, she rested her head on his shoulder; words felt unnecessary.

As soon as they entered the house, their bodies fused in an embrace that lasted all night. 

There was passion between them, fierce, consuming, but beneath it, perhaps, was desperation. They were two people seeking warmth in a world growing cold, finding solace in each other’s arms, even if only for minutes at a time.

They learned to live in fragments: a kiss behind a doorway, a shared coffee between meetings, an hour stolen from duty and conscience. Sometimes, when her colleagues were away on assignment Carlos stayed at her house. Other times, he visited the field camps where she worked, under innocuous pretexts.

Those were moments of fragile happiness, threaded with danger and secrecy, their own small rebellion against the world around them.

The inevitable approached. Lyanne had to begin preparations to return to her homeland. She needed to complete her doctorate in nursing and had been offered a professorship at Trent university.

Carlos knew her contract as a volunteer during the war was  ending. Carlos took her on a road trip. They needed time, time to talk about what would happen next. The moment for decisions had crept up quietly, and they could no longer pretend their situation had no end. Nearly a year had passed since that first night at the restaurant.

They moved through the landscape like tourists, pretending, for once, to be an ordinary couple. They walked openly, holding hands in daylight, laughing without having to hide. They ate ice cream in public squares, climbed the historical pyramid, and wandered through the shaded ruins. They laughed, truly laughed, without caring who saw them. They could be together without glancing over their shoulders.

But that freedom carried its own kind of sorrow because they knew their time together existed only in brief, stolen fragments.

At one point, she turned to him and asked softly, “Come with me to Canada.”

Carlos hesitated for few seconds and then refused. At the time, the reasons sounded noble: he had responsibilities to care for, a career, a job helping people. Carlos knew that in any other place he would have to start from scratch, and he would never again hold the professional role he had carved for himself in his homeland. Love was not enough to change everything he stood for. 

Carlos understood that saying no meant more than refusing to leave. It meant accepting that their story, as beautiful as it had been, was drawing to its inevitable end.

They saw each other once more, but not as lovers. Lyanne went to his office as a client, to process her exit visa. When it was done, she extended her hand, formally and composed. Carlos took her hand with the same, apparent formality, feeling the weight of a farewell that would never be undone. They never saw each other again.

The time passed, the war ended, Carlos’ life shifted several times. He grew older, Lyann, in his memory, never grew older. She’s still climbing barefoot the pyramid or running through the gardens laughing with her hair flowing on the tropical breeze. 

Until that afternoon when letter arrived after bouncing around from the different addresses Carlos had lived in since his youth. It was the solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. It was as if the universe was in unison with the disturbing news the letter was carrying. The news shook his, until then, quiet existence in the retirement home where he had been since his stroke.

“How could that happen? Why was I never told?” Carlos said aloud without expecting answers from anyone. The personal support workers nearby were accustomed to his loud outbursts but this time he began to roll his wheelchair towards the door and that scared them.