Hard Red Spring (30 page)

Cortez clapped, jumped from foot to foot as he translated the Spanish broadcast. “
Pan y patria
,” he chanted with the radio voices. “
Pan y patria
.”

“What's
pan y patria
?” Dorie asked.

“It's bread!” Cortez beamed. “Bread and country! The battle cry of the counterrevolution!”

The cook brought back telegrams from town, one for Marcella and two for Dorie. She opened Tomás's first, anxious for a response to the one she'd sent him the moment they arrived in Xela:
Te amo
. And now she opened his reply:

Guatemala will be the new Brazil
.

Dorie stared at the words, wondering what they could mean. Next to her, Marcella ripped her telegram in half and threw it into the cold fireplace.

“A love letter. From Tomás.” She sighed, placing her fingertips on her throbbing temple. “It's damned ridiculous. I know he's not there, that he's
having all his messages forwarded to and answered by Jim. But he thinks I'm an idiot.”

Dorie crumpled her message in her trembling fist. “If he's not in the city, where is he?”

“Miami,” Marcella said. “I saw his plane ticket.”

Cortez nodded. “I dropped him off at the airport before picking up you two.”

Why the hell would Tomás be in Miami, with all the developments in Guatemala over the past week? And if he was there, why would he pretend not to be? Jim could not have written that telegram. Of course, Marcella was lying. She often did now, for no apparent reason. But Cortez? Could Dorie not believe anything anyone said anymore?

There was nothing to do, Jim insisted to Dorie via the second telegram, but for the party to relax, to stay in the villa until this all died down. But Dorie found relaxing impossible, with
The Voice of Liberation
playing all day, relaying stories of uprisings throughout the country that Cortez insisted on translating. Over the course of the day, anxiety gnawed away at all her hopes. She began to suspect that even if everything happened in their favor, Tomás would still come up with some excuse for not eloping. He'd lied to his lover, his wife, and his best friend. Considering this, the idea that he'd snuck off to Miami without telling her became quite plausible. In the middle of the night, Dorie slipped downstairs and retrieved Marcella's note from Tomás, or Jim pretending to be Tomás, from the fireplace:
My love, my white bird
, it read,
to lose you would be to lose life itself.

Something she could not imagine either Jim or Tomás putting to paper.

~~~~~

According to
The Voice of Liberation
, the rebels were a day and a half away from the Presidential Palace. As Marcella and Cortez cheered the news of their army's progress, Dorie sat immobile, thinking how heartless she had been toward Jim. He had been nothing but kind and protective of her, and she had repaid him with deception. He would never deceive her. While Tomás took secret trips, orchestrating fake messages to hide his whereabouts, his lies about his family, his heritage, his work. Everything in this life, he said so himself, attained through deception.

And poor Jim, receiving love letters from her, intended for Tomás. If he hadn't figured it out before, he certainly knew now. She envisioned a mob of armed Indians descending on the embassy. The fact that the United States had been against Arbenz the whole time probably didn't matter much in a
scene of mass hysteria. He'd die, thinking she didn't love him. She did. She loved his smile, his blind confidence, his insistence that he could shape history down here.

~~~~~

She awoke on the day the rebels would be arriving in the city and spent a half hour in the bathroom vomiting. When she finished, she discovered Marcella blocking the hallway, waiting for her. The Communists' truck in the fields groaned up a hill. They both listened a moment, watching each other.

“Are you sick?” Marcella finally asked. “I heard you in the bathroom.”

Dorie nodded. “I think the egg liquor's gotten to me.”

“I've heard you,” Marcella said evenly, “every morning since we got here.”

No reason to panic, Dorie told herself. People were bound to find out. “I haven't told Jim yet. I haven't told anyone,” she managed.

“But you told Tomás.”

“Why would I tell Tomás before Jim?” The silence unnerved Dorie and she thought of ways to answer her own question.

“Do you think I'm a fool?” Marcella asked. “Do you think that all this time you had duped me?”

The thick paste of vomit clung to Dorie's tongue. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said unconvincingly.

“All this time,” Marcella clarified, “were you worried for my feelings? Did you hope to spare me from whatever humiliation you thought you were bringing on me?”

The line of questioning confused Dorie. “Yes,” she stammered, “I never wanted to hurt you. It's just—”

She could not finish the sentence for the slap that Marcella then delivered hard across her face. “I don't care you're fucking my husband,” she hissed. “After all, I'm fucking yours. That's”—she slapped her again—“for your goddamned pity, and for thinking I'm dumb enough not to know.” Dorie stumbled against the wall. Marcella slapped her again. “And that's for thinking Tomás would ever leave me for you.”

“I don't, I don't.”

“And don't think Jim doesn't know, either. We all know. Jim and Tomás agreed on it, and I was asked, too. I'm just tired of watching you float around like you're the chosen one. Like you feel so sorry for me.”

Dorie had no idea what she was hearing, had no idea how to even begin to understand.

“Do you really think,” Marcella asked, stepping closer but not raising a hand, “he loves you? I didn't want any of this to happen, but I knew I could never stop Tomás from having a son. I agreed because I'd rather it was with you than some stranger.”

“What do you mean, Jim and Tomás agreed? Agreed to what?”

“Jim will finally prove his manhood to the world! Though, believe me, he has no idea how brown that baby might be. They even have names picked out. They can't decide between Juan and Armando. Though I'm sure whatever it's named, they'll make it seem like your idea.”

“This is ridiculous,” Dorie said. “You really think I'd name my child with a foreign name?” But that's not what she meant.

“I really thought,” Marcella snarled, “you'd have enough sense to get rid of it and spare us both from their monstrous egos. Why do you think I told you about his race? You considered it, of course. But then all you American women are so deluded, so convinced you deserve happiness, that the rules don't apply to you. You had to convince yourself that he loves you.”

“I'm not, I'm not deluded.”

“He's not going to Brazil with you, have you at least figured that much out? He's so pathetically in love with me that he confesses to me everything, every time.”

“If this is what you want to tell yourself, Marcella, to make you feel like you have some control of the situation, fine. But don't expect me to believe this. I do feel sorry for you. You're the deluded one, with these stories you tell yourself. Tomás's faith would never allow him to do something like that.”

“It's not adultery if your wife agrees, if there's no lust involved, if the point is to conceive. It's not a sin if you get special permission from the Church.”

Dorie saw then Tomás working above her, too seriously, only their loins touching. “But no one asked me!” she cried in confusion. “I didn't agree!”

“I really cannot believe you could be so stupid, for so long. Have you really figured nothing out on your own? Should we ring Tomás and have him explain? You trust him more than me, but I'm afraid he's too busy running around Miami with your little maid girl to deal with us at the moment.”

Dorie just stared. “Emelda?”

“The Indian heir wins the game! She gets a better deal than we do out of all this.”

Dorie lunged for her room and slammed the door, locked it with a frantic hand. But Marcella did not try to pursue her.

—

Dorie didn't know what to wear to impress a Communist. Would they respect her more if she wore her best or her worst? In the end, she decided on her best. If nothing else, the events in the capital frightened them, and they might want the opportunity to have someone influential indebted to them. So, with her shoes in her hands, she descended the stairs and slipped out the front door. She started down a path deeply rutted with tire tracks. Unable to navigate in her heels, Dorie kept her shoes off and, to her surprise, did not mind the cool mud sucking between her toes.

From a distance, she watched two Communists load heavy bags onto the truck bed. They were in a hurry, and Dorie, afraid she would not have the courage to go deeper in the fields and catch them again, called out.

“I need a ride to the capital!” She approached, holding out all the money she had. “I need a ride to Guate,” she clarified, using the slang term. “I'll pay you all I have, five hundred quetzales, I think.” She pointed to the truck.

The moment the two men looked down at the money in her fist, she regretted her tactic. Here, in the middle of nowhere, they could just take it from her, kill her, and bury her in the field. She put the money back into her purse, but still they continued to stare at the same place. At her bare feet sinking in the mud.

The older one spat through an enormous gap in his teeth. A Mestizo, browned around the edges like toast. He mumbled something to the younger one, who was friendlier-looking, but darker.

“
¿Guate?
” the sweaty boy asked.

“
Sí
,” Dorie nearly cried for desperation. “
Por favor
.”

“Guate rebelde.”

“I know, I know. The rebels are supposed to arrive soon, but I must get there first. My husband is there. My
hombre
in Guate.”

The boy nodded and conferred with the older man. As they spoke, their eyes kept cutting to the villa. From where Dorie stood, she saw a wing of Cortez's house she'd not seen before, with a balcony and a large radio antenna on the roof.

“Me to Guate
.
” She laid her hand on her own breast, hitting herself harder and harder. The boy nodded nonchalantly and began securing the truck's cargo, while the older man, unmoved, studied her.

—

Much to Dorie's relief, the older man stayed behind, leaving the younger Indian to drive the load of coffee to the capital by himself, with Dorie as a passenger. The relief, however, did not last long. Once on the mountain
roads, Dorie wondered if this boy had ever driven a car at all. With no mirrors at all in the vehicle, he didn't compensate by turning his head to look anywhere. He only stared ahead, and took mountain curves so wide and fast that the presence of any opposing traffic would prove fatal.

Dorie soon realized she was alone in a truck with a Communist, who knew exactly how much money she had, and who could lose everything he owned in a day in another revolution. But, she reassured herself, this boy might well be a part of the enraged peasant masses overthrowing the President. Maybe they weren't hauling coffee at all, but weapons. Why would this boy be risking his life to deliver sacks of coffee in the middle of a civil war? Would he fight for or against Arbenz? She felt utterly foolish and confused, not even knowing who was on what side, when the sides seemed so clear.

With no conversation, or much of a common language, Dorie began to rethink her fight with Marcella. Clearly, jealousy of Dorie's pregnancy had driven her insane. Something about Jim agreeing to let Tomás impregnate her—as if they had discussed her in their long meetings. As if Dorie were a piece of property to be negotiated.

“My name is Dorie,” she said to the young driver. “Dorie,” she said again.

He gave her a long side glance. “Simón.”

“Why are you driving today? Why bring coffee to Guate when there are dangerous rebels?”

Simón sped up for the next curve that descended through the morning mist. He launched into a long explanation, taking his hands off the wheel to illustrate, Dorie believed, that if the government was overthrown, his land title would be revoked and it wouldn't be his coffee anymore. It would be Cortez's again. He had to sell now.

She could, she realized, very well die today. If not by a car accident or rebel fire, then by the hand of this boy who was probably, most definitely, hauling weapons. Why would he risk his life to sell a few bags of coffee when he could be fighting to keep his land?

“My
hombre
is the American ambassador,” Dorie blurted. It worked. He set a wild-eyed look on her, ignoring the road for a good five seconds. Then again, this boy may have just realized he had a valuable hostage.

Dorie swallowed the sobs of frustration rising in her throat. She had to shut up now, she wouldn't say anything more. She placed a hand on the door handle, watching the edge of the mountain road. She could not, for the trees, tell how far the drop was.

For the first time since her illness that morning, Dorie thought of the
baby. The stubborn baby that clung to her despite all that she tried to shake it loose, and the baby that slipped through Marcella like a sliver of peeled fruit.

Marcella's baby had been Tomás's, everything normal, until he told her about his race. Dorie remembered her saying over and over that she wouldn't know what to do if it turned out brown. She had been found in the bathtub, covered in blood. Not one drop stained the house. She had done it herself. She had invented the story of the land march at the Presidential Palace. Tomás must know she had done it herself. He had told her about his race in maybe the only moment of trust and weakness in his life, and she had been appalled. How did it feel, knowing your wife would do something like that to herself because she was so afraid to mix her blood with yours? Dorie could imagine Marcella doing exactly what she could not bring herself to do: throwing herself down the stairs, punching herself repeatedly in the stomach, even plunging herself with some astonishingly everyday household instrument. It had not been whiskey and baths. It had left her sterile and had almost killed her.