Hard Red Spring (15 page)

Someone knocked timidly, and Mr. Ubico stood up. He was short, much shorter than Father. Evie watched him walk to his office door, moving easily, without the gun today. Judas. With his head still lowered, Judas mumbled something in Spanish. Evie sat patiently through their hushed conversation. Judas, no doubt, telling him where her parents had gone, how to send her back, returning everything to normal.

On Mr. Ubico's desk sat a mechanical bank that Evie had been resisting for several minutes. Now she pulled it near. On its small stage, a jaguar and a deer stood frozen in the violence of their next transaction: the deer reared up, antlers cocked forward in the direction of the leaping jaguar. Evie found a peso among the clutter of papers, put it in the jaguar's mouth, and pulled the lever. With this, the jaguar shot forward and the coin hit the deer with a fantastic
ping
and ricocheted across the room.

In his corner, the startled bird jumped down to the floor of his cage and began to turn circles, over and over, drawing his tail feathers up from the floor through the bars.

The exchange didn't last long. Evie heard the door close and again the
squeak, squawk
of Judas's exit, leaving her, Magellan, and Mr. Ubico alone. She had to remind herself not to be afraid of Ubico. He had helped her father recently. And he would help her now. If she heeded Judas's advice, he'd take her to her parents.

“You like my bank?” Mr. Ubico asked with unmistakable pride. He fished in his pocket for a coin, and gave it to Evie. “You can't do it with pesos, only pennies. They have different weights.”

Evie took the penny and tried again. This time, the jaguar shot forward and deposited the penny into the hole in the deer's chest.
Crack, ping!
The sound, the exactness, the reliability of the action pleased her.

“Do you . . .” Mr. Ubico asked again, sitting down behind his desk, “do you know what happened, Evie?”

Evie picked up the bank and found the hinge in the jaguar's paw, where
the coins could be retrieved. She studied it, amazed. It looked like the deer got the money, but somehow it ran right through its body and the jaguar got it back.

“What do you think happened? You must tell me everything you know.”

Evie clicked the heels of her white leather shoes together under the pew. She looked down at the heart-shaped buckles, focused, resisting.

“Do you know? I'll need your help if we're going to catch the murderers.”

She allowed herself to nod to Mr. Ubico's question. Yes, she knew why she was here, she knew more about it all than her parents had. She set the same coin in the jaguar's mouth and pulled the lever.
Crack, ping!
The bird shrieked in response. Evie had never heard its voice before. It was terrible, like a train braking. Wheels locking, steam rising, people running.

Squeak, squawk, squeak, squawk, squeak, squawk, squeak, squawk.
Another knock. Ubico ignored it. “I need your help, Evie. Can you help me?” More knocking, louder this time, more insistent. Clearly annoyed, Ubico glared at the door, but did not rise to answer it. Instead, he shifted his black eyes to Evie, awaiting her answer.

For the first time, she began to doubt Judas's advice.

T
wo best friends sat in a rooftop café popular for its view. From here, two volcanoes, Fuego and Agua, dwarfed the crumbling colonial skyline. Antigua, the old capital, lay on the other side of the range. Two hundred years ago, it had been destroyed in one week when a powerful earthquake triggered an eruption from Fuego. Lava poured through the devastated streets and was quickly followed by another earthquake—an aftershock—that cracked open Agua's dormant crater lake, flooding what remained of the town. After that, the government moved the capital here, to Guatemala City, still outrageously, terrifyingly within sight of both volcanoes. Now Fuego smoked perpetually, while Agua loomed in slumber. Dorie hated the view and tried her best to ignore it, though she put up with it since there were so few decent restaurants in the city. Today, however, the volcanoes kept drawing her gaze. She found herself imagining the fiery lava, then the flood washing down in a mockery of relief.

“So, where should we start?” she asked, shifting her attention to her book. “How about with the theme of deception?”

Marcella nodded, her heart-shaped, honey-colored face sinking as Dorie awaited her response.

“But what of the husband? I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about him. Do you think his lies were protective or manipulative? I guess they could be both. I shouldn't assume their mutual exclusivity. Right?”

Dorie stared at her friend and the silence grew uncomfortable. Embarrassed, she began to believe what she had long suspected: the book she'd chosen was insultingly terrible. Educated Marcella could not be bothered with its frivolity.

Finally, Marcella shook her head. “I'm sorry, Dorie. I didn't finish the book.”

In ten years of these discussions, neither woman had ever come unprepared. Dorie faltered, tried to salvage a bit of dignity. “How far did you get? Maybe we'll just do a scene study? The dinner scene?” Yes, the dinner scene was almost literary. “Did you get that far?”

“I didn't even start it.”

Dorie placed the book facedown on the table. “I'm sorry, it really is a silly book,” she confessed. “I can't find any good English books down here.”

“That's not it.” Marcella waved a jeweled hand in reprieve. “This week's been hard. I had to fire my girl.”

“What happened? Did she steal something?” Dorie, unable to bear the thought of some barefoot Indian fingering her things, didn't even have a girl.

“I wish she had stolen something,” Marcella said. “No, something much worse.”

Dorie suppressed a shudder, could not help thinking that the situation involved Tomás. But no, he was too principled for that. But then again, of course, he wasn't.

“I knew we should have gotten a girl with experience. This one, you know, we plucked right out of the mountains. They're cheaper that way, since they don't know about the Maids' Union. But now we've learned our lesson.” She paused, collected herself, and said, “She was going to the bathroom in the bushes.”

Dorie's eyes widened, shock and relief.

“I don't think she's used a toilet before, she may not even know what it is. She just cleans it. She waits until we leave and goes in the bushes. A few days ago, I went to cut some flowers and I stepped right in shit. Barefoot. And I lost it. I slapped her.” Marcella sucked deeply on her cigarette, extending the ashen tip but not tapping it loose. “Actually, I more than slapped her.”

Dorie turned from her friend to the view. She registered the odd illusion of Fuego smoldering on the horizon, while she breathed in curls of cigarette smoke. Marcella did a lot of things now that she would never have done a year before. Beat her maid, show up to lunch already slightly drunk, without having cracked the book. She smoked so carelessly that Dorie often found herself following the lengthening ash at the end of Marcella's cigarettes rather than her words.

“So she went back to the mountains?”

“I don't know. I just threw her out the door in a fit. She's never been out of the house, she barely speaks Spanish. She doesn't even speak Quiché, but one of those obscure Indian languages. She certainly doesn't know how to get to the train station.” Marcella stared out over the charmingly disheveled city. “And the worst part is, I didn't even feel too bad about her until just now. But telling you and seeing your face. You'd never have done that. You're so
good—
”

“Nonsense.” Dorie cut her off. “I'm awful, too,” she heard herself say. She struggled a moment, impaled on her own words. She was, after all, faithless. And compounding that, she had been careless. For this, her situation had become so dire that she hadn't the energy or the moral license to scold Marcella for beating her maid. What's more, she could not even muster surprise. She'd become resigned to how things went in Guatemala, simply out of despair.

“Yes. I guess you are awful, Dorie.”

In less than a year, Marcella had gone from being the most fun person Dorie knew, to the most trying. Dorie eyed the rainy season clouds in the distance, hoping her new friend would arrive soon. A possible antidote to Marcella's poisonous, cryptic talk. For the first time since arriving in Guatemala, Dorie had sought a new friend. A new perspective, a fresh dynamic, might be all they needed to have fun again. And at that moment, mercifully, she arrived at the café patio. Dorie and Marcella smiled up at the woman in slacks and a straw coolie hat tied with a crude piece of twine under her chin. Despite her peasantlike attire, she radiated the effortless beauty and confidence of a woman cultivated in parlors and music halls.

Naomi the American nun removed the enormous hat from her head. Her shaded beauty, now exposed to the sun, deteriorated with the revelation of tiny pockmarks infesting her cheeks. With her newfound peripheral vision she looked stiffly about and noticed, for the first time, the fourth person in their group: an Indian, seated slightly behind Dorie so as not to be mistaken for a customer. Startled at the oddity, so suddenly at such close proximity, Naomi could not suppress her surprise.

“Jesus Christ.” She yanked the twine loose from her throat. “Who's this?”

“This,” Dorie lied, “is my maid, Emelda.” In fact, Dorie herself had practically forgotten Emelda, who had been seated in this manner by Marcella. Feeling terrible for not having cared before, Dorie moved her own chair and motioned for Emelda to scoot in. The girl hesitated, then obeyed.

Naomi stared at the silent Indian girl, registered her otherworldly blue eyes, the black braided crown of hair, the bottle of wine, the three wineglasses—two half gone, the Indian's full, heavy, and gold. She came to a decision about it all very quickly.

Yes, she offered a new perspective. But possibly one Dorie could not endure.

“Hello, Emelda,” Naomi said to the girl, then turned skeptically on her hosts. “You let her wear her Indian costume? You allow her to drink?”

“Oh yes!” Dorie joked, hoping to lighten Naomi's unexpected gravity. “We've been convinced by the Communists. In fact, she doesn't even work. I'm just paying her a wage as reparations for the suffering of her people over the past few centuries.”

Marcella bubbled with laughter. Emelda looked more uncomfortable than ever, seated at the table. Her pale eyes seemed worried, reflecting the coming weather. Dorie had to remind herself that every time she tried to change the dynamics in Guatemala, she just made things worse. She had poured the third glass of wine automatically when they arrived, making Marcella laugh then as well. Naomi now frowned.

“It's fine,” Dorie told her, “Emelda doesn't speak English. Don't let her eyes fool you, she doesn't even speak Spanish.” She watched this statement have no effect and decided to switch to more traditional social tactics. “The rain's coming,” she declared. “We'd better order our lunches.”

Dorie had met Naomi in the imports store the week before. Usually wary of nuns—both Dorie and Marcella were technically Catholic—Dorie had invited Naomi to lunch, in gratitude for some advice she'd given and in desperate need of a third to make book club enjoyable again. Naomi embodied everything Dorie wanted to be herself; she was strong, independent, opinionated, and managed to be all of these things without a trace of snobbery. Seeing the book in Dorie's bag, she claimed to have read, and liked,
Burning Hearts
years ago.

But that was last week. So much had changed since then. It became tiring for Dorie, pretending she cared about this lunch, about making new friends, about bad books that fed her basest desires. She had cared last week, when friends and books proved her only escape from this filthy capital. At the time, friendship with Naomi seemed like a refreshing possibility. But now, nothing at this lunch mattered. It was something to get through without cracking, without bursting into maniacal laughter or tears.

Marcella, it seemed, had other concerns, too. Possibly she sensed competition and resented the introduction of a third. She had not uttered a word since Naomi had arrived. Sitting in her patented pose of polite skepticism, she watched the glass of untouched ice water sweating profusely in front of her.

“You certainly have your work cut out with all the problems down here.” Dorie tried to jump-start the conversation, fanning herself. Everyone could agree on the sad state of Guatemala. Communists, capitalists, pagans, foreigners—no one here was happy.

“Indeed.” Naomi pantomimed exhaustion, though she clearly held vast reserves of energy. “Dorie tells me your husband's in United Fruit?”

Marcella barely nodded.

If it all worked out as Dorie hoped, this may be her last lunch with Marcella. It may be the last time she ever saw her best friend.

“So you're both in politics,” Naomi concluded with a smile.

“Unfortunately,” Marcella said, her first word since Naomi had arrived. “This new government is making everything political.”

“They're making everything political, or finally acknowledging the fact that everything always has been political down here?”

Dorie sat back, pretending to listen as she planned her future, away from all this. Away from the Communists, the Indians, the Church, the suits. In Brazil, things were much more civilized. She imagined scrubbed cobblestone streets, white office buildings, bright colonial churches—what she'd imagined Guatemala to be like before she arrived.

“Always?” Marcella asked with faux sincerity. “How long have you been here?” She did not wait for the obvious answer. “My family has been in Guatemala for over a hundred years and I can assure you that before Jacobo Arbenz took office not everything was political. The natural order ruled.”

“Natural order?” Naomi took up her menu.

“In nature, there's a food chain. Someone's always on top and someone's always on the bottom. To try to put that under government control is against nature.”

“Nature?” Naomi asked, perplexed, turning the word in her mouth like a bite of fruit gone mealy. “Is that how you want to live? In nature there is no such thing as murder or theft, and there certainly is no such thing as property. Nature, my dear”—with this, Marcella straightened—“doesn't suit your argument. Under the rules of nature, I could grab my knife right now, lunge across this table, cut your heart out, and eat it—all to no consequence.”

The statement cut through Dorie's reverie and the women floundered a moment in silence. Naomi had professed this scenario with such sincerity that Dorie wondered if she'd missed a joke.

“According to nature,” Naomi pressed, “we should not be having this lovely lunch.
Nature
would have your people and ours”—she motioned to Dorie—“separated by an ocean.”

Dorie braced herself for Marcella's response.

“Hispanic,
my dear
, is white. Of Spanish descent. Last I checked, Spain was a part of Europe. Dorie and I are as natural together as sisters.”

Yes, Dorie realized at the moment. Naomi was strong, independent, opinionated. Just like Marcella. She should have known this would never work.

With that, the waiter arrived to take their orders. Questions about sides and cooking methods brought them all back to civility. Dorie ordered for herself and Emelda, remembering too late her new rule of letting things be. She could not imagine Emelda managing a knife and fork; the girl could barely sit in a chair. Of course, she'd just embarrassed herself and Emelda further. She tried again to change the subject. “Speaking of property,” she said, “have you heard about the latest with the Fruit compensation? It's too comical to believe. Marcella, tell us.”

Not much of a subject change, but in Guatemala there was only one subject. They all welcomed the suggestion, abandoning the quarrel about race. Marcella seemed satisfied to have the last word, and surely Naomi sensed a sore spot in Marcella she would wisely, compassionately let alone.

“Oh, what now?” Naomi laughed, making up. Everyone in Guatemala, politics aside, could find amusement in the legal battle between a small, self-righteous foreign government and a powerful American business.

“Tomás is up to his neck in this thing right now, with this whole land redistribution. The Communists took a hundred acres of fallow land from Fruit this month, you know, to give to the Indians or whatever. They're supposed to pay Fruit for it, at least, but get this: the government will only pay them as much as they claimed it was worth on their taxes!”

All three of the women laughed at this, genuinely, the Indian girl joining in hopefully with her own silent chuckle. From there, conversation went smoothly enough until three steaks arrived, already cut up. Naomi had ordered a ham sandwich.

“Shall we discuss
Burning Hearts
?” Naomi asked between bites. “I liked the image of fire. How it consumes the lovers, leaving nothing. Not even hope, not even a memory of happiness.”