In front of the main building, Bill’s pickup was empty, the volunteers scattered.
As Vicki and Alison arrived, Bill broke off conversation with a tall, bearded German to raise five fingers.
“Okay, okay! Make it ten, and I’ll be there,” Alison called, steering Vicki into the building.
Vicki found her duffel bag deposited just inside the door. Through a door to the right was an office where she could see the two center administrators working.
“They did tell you it’s a hundred dollars a week?” Alison demanded anxiously as they entered. “I know it doesn’t seem fair to pay for the privilege of working like a dog, but it’s what keeps this place going.”
“I know. . . . It’s fine, really.” Counting out the first week’s stipend, Vicki handed it to Rosario.
The man accepted the cash without a word, while his wife unsmilingly wrote down the deposit in a well-worn ledger.
“Don’t mind them,” Alison said when they emerged into the hall. “Rosario and Beatriz believe in the mission, but I don’t think they really like all these gringos coming and going—or being here at all. It’s a bit isolated for a couple university graduates, especially if you can’t just take off the way we can. They’d like to go back to the university and teach, but they were assigned here by the minister of environment, and it isn’t like there’s a lot of paying jobs in this field.”
Grabbing her duffel bag, Vicki glimpsed a dispensary and rudimentary vet clinic before Alison hurried her up a staircase.
“Cesar seems happy enough. Not that he’s been here long. He just finished his class studies, and this is his residency. He’s smart and hardworking, but . . . ” Alison sighed. “We’re sure going to miss Holly.”
The second floor was living quarters. On opposite sides of the hall were bunk-lined barracks for male and female volunteers. Not even the open screens could blow away a certain locker room smell.
Alison wrinkled her nose. “Some of our back to nature types seem to feel that natural body odor makes them more appealing to the animal life. Count your lucky stars you don’t have to bunk in here. Come on.”
Vicki followed her through an open door between two bunks. A concrete floor divided rows of stalls, and Vicki was thankful to see showers and actual flush toilets. Living wouldn’t be as rough as she’d prepared for.
“We pipe water from the hot springs, so the showers are reasonably warm. For laundry you’ll have to settle for a scrubbing slab out back. Electricity is available three hours every night when the generator is booted up. Enough for everyone to charge their laptop batteries. What we need is solar panels, though with the rain we get, that’s probably not practical.”
Alison opened another door at the far end of the bathroom area. On the other side was a tiny room, the reason they’d entered through the bathroom immediately apparent since the only other door was set in the outside wall.
She pushed it open to show a staircase leading down. “The royal suite for resident WRC staff. It’s a little awkward. Rosario and Beatriz’s quarters are right through that wall, hence no proper door. But at least it’s private. Just be sure to put the bar across at night.”
Vicki looked around. Resident staff? Then this must have been Holly’s room.
“I think that should be it. And now, I’d better go. My ten minutes are
so
up.” Snatching up a duffel bag from a bunk bed, Alison took the back stairs two at a time.
Leaving her own duffel bag, Vicki followed at a less dangerous pace and thanked Bill. As soon as he left, she was back up the stairs. If Holly had left a clue anywhere, her living quarters would be the most likely place.
The room was the size of a closet and had perhaps originally been designed as such since there were no windows except a screened slit over the outer door. Besides the bunk bed, there was a shelf with a bar underneath for hanging clothes, a wooden chair, and a packing crate, painted white and fitted inside with shelving that did double duty for storage as well as a stand for a Coleman lantern. The walls were empty.
Leaving both doors open improved the lighting. Vicki pulled the crate away from the wall and stood on the chair to check that the shelf and crate were empty before turning her attention to the bunk. She climbed up, shaking out the sheets and blanket and removing the pillowcase, then turned the mattress on its edge.
Nothing.
Tossing the bedding down, Vicki scrambled after it. The bottom bunk was already stripped, clean sheets, blankets, and pillow stacked neatly for its next occupant at the foot.
Vicki was bracing herself for another disappointment when she saw what poor lighting and shadows had hidden. The inside walls of the bunk were not empty like the rest of the room. There was a calendar, tacked-up paper items, a daily schedule, and a list of center regulations. But there were photos and other papers taped there as well.
Pulling the mattress free, Vicki checked underneath with new hope. Maybe something had fallen underneath—even the missing PDA. But the camp’s cleanliness extended to here, and there wasn’t more than a thin coating of dust under the bunk.
Replacing the mattress, Vicki turned her attention back to the walls. The photos were all computer printouts from a digital camera. Mostly of the center itself—perhaps why they’d been left up. Shots of volunteers washing dishes in the kitchen shelter. Splashing in
Pozo Azul
. Cesar and Holly splinting the front leg of a jaguarundi. The one Holly had sent to the zoo?
More photos were taped to the bottom of the upper bunk. As Vicki stretched out to look at them, her throat tightened again so that she had to swallow. Just above where Holly’s head would have laid was a photo she recognized—a close-up of the two sisters, wind-tousled and sunburned, arms around each other’s shoulders. Another tourist had snapped it for them in Cancún.
Vicki’s gaze traveled to a second picture tacked right beside the smiling faces, and she stiffened. It was the same printout Vicki carried in her new laptop case, the photo she had seen framed on two government office walls. Then this was the copy that clerk at the national archives had made for Holly. And her sister had thought it important enough to tack up where she’d be staring at it every time she lay down to sleep.
A sheet of computer paper surrounded with snapshots of Lake Izabal and the Sierra de las Minas mountain range, and close-ups of the center animals was titled “This Is My Father’s World.”
Leaning close, Vicki read the lyrics, slowly, curiously. If she’d ever seen the entire song that had played such a role in her life, she had certainly never taken notice.
.
This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father’s world,
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father’s world,
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
The battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and heav’n be one.
.
“Ms. Andrews?”
Vicki sat up so quickly she banged her head against the wooden planking that supported the bunk above her.
Standing in the bathroom door was Johanna, one of the German volunteers she’d met. “If you would please speak to Beatriz about the kitchen assignment. I cannot pluck chickens. I am a vegan. I do not touch animal products.”
The rest of the daylight hours were too busy for Vicki to even think. No sooner had Beatriz sourly exchanged Johanna’s chicken duty for swabbing out cages than Vicki was called to translate Cesar’s instructions to a German veterinary student helping suture a barbed wire tear on a howler monkey. Tripping over the medical terms, Vicki made a mental note to spend a few hours with an English/Spanish dictionary.
Above the leaves and vines of the cloud forest canopy, the sky faded from overcast gray to black with equatorial suddenness so that by the time a cowbell signaled supper, served on the plastic tables of the open thatched shelter, the generator was lit. Fluorescent tubing suspended from the rafters illuminated beans, rice, and tortillas but also drew legions of insects. Brushing yet another moth from her plate, Vicki wasn’t sure she wouldn’t prefer eating in the dark.
After supper, laptops and playing cards came out, the former plugged into a selection of power bars. The Germans formed a tight group, laughing and talking loudly, and the Guatemalan staff disappeared. Vicki took her turn uploading e-mail to the camp laptop to be transmitted by radio phone in the morning, then headed back to her room.
There a single twenty-five-watt bulb dangling overhead was now operational. By its dim light Vicki made the bed and unpacked her few belongings. Last of all she picked up the box cradled at the bottom, still swathed in the sweatshirt with which she’d safeguarded it.
As Vicki unwrapped it, she found herself shaking.
No, I can’t do it yet. I’m not ready
.
With violence she pushed the box under the bunk as far as it would go. Grabbing the sweatshirt, she tugged it over her head and flung herself out the door and down the stairs. Even with the sweatshirt, the mountain night had grown chilly. Vicki walked quickly, her feet seeking out the gravel paths, not even sure where she was heading, only spurred to get away from the raucous laughter of the volunteers, the fluorescent lighting, the generator’s rumble. The animals were quiet as she slipped past the cages, presumably asleep, so that Vicki heard only an occasional stirring or rustle of feathers.
I should have brought a flashlight
, Vicki thought, for once she was out of sight of the generator lights it was as dark as a cave. Now she understood those white-painted rocks edging the paths, their pale glimmer on either side of her feet guiding her cautiously forward. Only as a rush of water grew to thunder did Vicki realize where she’d been instinctively heading. Stepping out onto the solid footing of the rock outcropping, she went no farther though she could see phosphorescent blotches winding down the cliff. Instead she stood looking out on the night as she had—was it just three weeks before she’d first looked through the barred windows of Casa de Esperanza onto a Guatemalan night?