Hard Red Spring (45 page)

“You trust me?”

Lenore had no good answer for this, other than that she considered Emelda her friend, for no good reason. Her need for a friend at the moment trumped her fear and uncertainty. Emelda was the only woman she had
spoken to in three months. “I trust you more than a guerrilla I don't know, I suppose,” she answered.

Emelda did not correct her. “Nothing bad. I just need you to come on a walk.”

“A walk to where?”

“Just here in town.”

“Why do you need me?”

“Because my pass says I'm a guide. I can't be a guide by myself.”

Emerging from the restaurant, Emelda clutched the newspaper in an angry wad. Lenore looked both ways down the long, baked street and could see a group of men a distance away. She could tell right away from the shapes they cut against a whitewashed building that they were men. Xela's Civil Patrol.

Emelda turned in the opposite direction and Lenore followed her back to the central plaza, where another full bus unloaded passengers. A brief crowd, then, in a matter of moments, everyone was gone. Where did they go? Where were she and Emelda going? Lenore began to distrust her friend when they turned into a decayed alley. Somewhere, a radio voice wheezed through static. Then the sound of tinkling metal, laughing, a story above. A guerrilla network, strung right behind the city's façade.

“You stay out here, do not let them inside see you,” Emelda said before entering a smooth building, the color of vanilla peeled away in places to reveal an earthy clay.

What transpired next seemed to Lenore to take hours, though it must have been less than five minutes. From just outside the door, she heard it all, while she frantically checked all routes of escape. Emelda speaking, another voice evading, Emelda slamming the wadded paper down, demanding,
“¡Su dirección! ¡Tiene que darme su dirección!”

Lenore smelled, sensed, people all around, but could see no one. A door opened and closed. Peeking around the corner, she saw a figure slip out a side exit. The figure running for help. Inside, the man's voice remained calm in response to Emelda's ranting, so calm that Lenore realized he may just be buying time. Emelda fired questions that echoed in the empty alley, which the man answered with no.
No, no, no
.

A few blocks down, Lenore spied the tiny flailing figure, running, leading the Civil Patrol. Their collective afternoon shadow crept dramatically, like a storm cloud overtaking the city.

“Emelda.” Lenore found her voice, though she did not recognize the fear
in it. “Emelda!” she yelled, and her friend appeared in the doorway. “The Civil Patrol.” And that was enough. Emelda grabbed her and they ran together, away.

“What the hell was that about!” Lenore cried, panting. After a few turns, they arrived in the central plaza. Emelda took Lenore by the shoulders.

“Did they see you? Did anyone see you?”

“No, I don't think so. Someone ran out, but they never turned back. I don't think. What was that about, Emelda?”

Her guide pulled her into the open space of the plaza. She held Lenore's hand tightly, forcing a casual pace. “It's about these stories they print. The newspaper office keeps printing this story. It's everything I need to prove my grandmother isn't a murderer.”

“Evie Crowder? Is that your grandmother?”

“No, no! I told you my grandmother's name was Ixna.”

At the other end of the plaza, the Civil Patrol appeared. Lenore counted them, but they kept pouring in and she lost track.

“Now we find out if anyone really did see you,” Emelda breathed, and let go of her hand. Lenore sought it out again, but Emelda swatted her away. “Keep walking just like this. Like this. Breathe slow, like you haven't been running.”

This Civil Patrol carried real machetes. And now they marched toward them, preceded by their shadows. The commander, in front, regarded them intently on approach. He held a small pistol low as he walked. Emelda kept her head down. Lenore felt her face flush as she resisted panting from their sprint. She must look guilty, she couldn't help it. Her doubts, her deceptions, her denial of being a missionary. She felt them like weapons concealed awkwardly beneath her clothes. The commander squinted, then he veered slightly away and the men passed more distantly.

Lenore sobbed on their way back to the hotel. “Why, Emelda? Why is your grandmother worth all this? She's already dead! And we could have been killed!”

“Not you.” Emelda rubbed her back. “They would not kill you. I would not endanger you, only myself. This newspaper story—”

“It's about your grandmother?”

“No, it's about Evie Crowder. She's alive! She's written to the newspaper, telling them that she is alive and was never murdered!” She held up the shred of newspaper left from the confrontation.

“Wait, I don't—”

“So she is alive and can clear my grandmother's name! But they won't give me her address. They know it, they know where she is, but they won't say.”

“So your grandmother was accused?”

“Not until 1954! Not until we tried to claim our land back! Not until after she was already dead! Not until they tricked me!”

“What land?”

“My land. It was fallow, so my mother made a claim for me under the new law. The Fruit company said they'd fight us in court, they said they could prove my grandmother was involved in the murders. We were afraid of the trial and what they would invent about her. They were very powerful, they could prove anything. But then the Fruit man came and said we could have the whole mountain if we just dropped our claim. No trial, no evidence. They would just give it to us. I liked that he spoke Quiché and English, like me. He said we could have our land without a fight. I didn't believe him at first, I remembered what my grandmother always said. I wouldn't take anything from him, at first. But then he gave me money, too. Lots of money.”

“So you took the land?”

“Yes, but I should not have. It was very bad for Guatemala. And when people heard we dropped our claim, they thought it was because my grandmother was guilty, that we did not want her exposed in court. But that wasn't why! And I had no idea what it would all lead to!”

Outside, the unmistakable sound of a helicopter neared. They both moved for cover instinctively, and they stared up into the small square of sky above the hotel courtyard, waiting for it.

“I must get Evie's address,” Emelda panted. “They have to tell me where she is.”

~~~~~

Lenore did not go to the doctor's again. To her relief, by the time they finished shopping for the pageant, it was too late to go back for the test results. But when they left the hotel early the next morning, a note from the doctor awaited her at the front desk. She accepted the envelope in her hands, but did not open it.

Waiting through the various checkpoints, staring out her bus window, Lenore noticed something she had not seen on the way to Xela: villages. So many villages visible in the distance. Small settlements checkered the mountains she thought inhabited only by terrifying animals and guerrillas.
She saw planted fields and paths, houses made of stones, sticks, and leaves, blended into the jungle.

“I don't think I'm going to be in the model village long,” Emelda told her after almost an hour of silence. “I think something very bad is going to happen to me.”

“But that's the point of the village, we're here to protect you.”

The speed of the bus whipped Emelda's long black hair across her face. She gathered the strands and began braiding them together over her shoulder. “They said they did not get my letter.”

“Who?”

“The man at the newspaper said he never got my letters you mailed. Which means the General has them. He knows I am in the camp.” She finished her braid, which began to unravel the moment she let go.

“No, Emelda. I never mailed the letters. The General doesn't have them.” She took her hand to reassure her. “You're safe! I have them still!”

“You didn't mail them?” She wrenched her hand loose. “Why not? We had a deal. I translated for you! I never would have done it—”

“Because I was scared, I didn't know what they were. I didn't know they were about your grandmother, about fixing her reputation.”

“You did not mail them! Not even the other one?”

“I was going to. I just needed to work up to it, I guess. Aren't you happy the General doesn't know? But why would he care about your grandmother?”

“Because I know things no one is supposed to know. He doesn't realize I'm in the camp yet. He doesn't remember my name, but he knows my story. Once he finds out, I'm done. But I guess it doesn't matter. We must mail them, anyway.”

“I don't get it. You want me to mail them when we get back? Even if it means the General might get them?”

“Please. It's all I can do. I have to find out where she is. Maybe someone there will write back.”

Their return trip took much longer than their departure—ten hours to reach the intersection where a military truck awaited them. The ride back on the new road that Dan had mapped and the Indians had cut seemed a little smoother than the day before. Unable to talk to Emelda in the soldiers' presence, Lenore became bored and anxious enough to read the doctor's note. She unfolded the paper and stared at the words. The blood test had come back. She was malnourished. He suggested eating beef and vegetables three times a day and snacking between meals.

—

They carried plastic shopping bags full of packaged food and supplies for the pageant. No fresh vegetables could be found in Xela. Walking unattended down from the base, they could see the workings of the model village—the Civil Patrol circling the heart in some repetitive exercise, the women in line at the water pump, the children milling purposelessly at the fence. In the nearby jungle, the smoke of the road crew uncurled into the sky. Then, farther out, more smoke spread over the range, a thin gauze over the inflamed evening sun.

“Will you go home soon, Lenore?”

She fell in step with her friend. “Sometimes I want to. I wish I could take you with me. But since I can't, I guess I'll stay. I can't imagine leaving you or Cruzita here by yourselves.”

“Don't worry about us. We wouldn't go to the United States, anyway. I've already been there long enough to know it's not for us.”

Lenore stopped in the path. “You've been to America?”

Emelda kept walking, passing a stunned Lenore to take the lead as they descended farther into the valley. “You're surprised?” she said over her shoulder. “An
indio
like me?”

“Yes. When did you go? How did you get there?”

“I went to fight the Communists. It was part of the deal.”

“Where did you go? When?”

“In 1954. I went to Guatemala City and was interviewed.” She seemed amazed, still, at her own history. “He told me another revolution was coming. That I would be punished as a Communist because I got land. I tried to tell him that Fruit gave us the land, we dropped the case, that it was an inheritance, not Communist, but it didn't matter. Things were going to change and I would look bad.”

“Who said this?”

“The American ambassador. He said things would go badly for Indians who got land, but that the new government would protect me if I helped them. That I could keep the land when everyone else would lose theirs.”

“Where did you go in America?”

“I went to Guatemala City and he told me he needed me to fight the Communists. I'm just a little girl from Xela, remember. I told him I don't know how to fight. But he said he needed my voice.”

“The American ambassador,” Lenore said.

“Yes. He said he needed an Indian who loved her country to help convince other Indians that communism was evil. I was educated, he said, but
my people were not. He had a plan to free the country and he needed me.” She cocked her head, still amazed at this fact. “He needed someone who could speak Spanish and Quiché with a convincing accent for a radio program. They called it
The Voice of Liberation
. We told people we were broadcasting from a hiding place in Guatemala, but we were really in Miami.”

“You've been to Florida?”

“I thought Miami would be fun, that I could see how great Guatemala could be. But I was too afraid to leave the hotel. We weren't there legally. If we got caught, they said they wouldn't come get us. We would go to jail and no one would believe our story.”

“How long were you there?”

“Weeks. I had a radio and a television in my room. I watched so many shows,
Truth or Consequences
,
Lassie
. I thought America was so nice, even the dogs were nice. I listened to a radio show where women told how miserable their lives were, then the audience would clap for who had the saddest story. For the woman with the loudest clapping, they would put a crown on her and give her a refrigerator.”

“What was your job? I don't understand.”

“We were supposed to convince the entire world, even Guatemalans, that Guatemala was having a civil war.”

“But there was a war, wasn't there? It's still going on.”

“No, not then. Everyone loved Jacobo Arbenz. The war didn't start until they got rid of him, until Castillo Armas came along.”

“I don't understand. How did you convince the world there's a war going on when there wasn't?” They watched the Civil Patrol's exercise from above. The men marched in a perfect circle.

“Radio. We reported things to make people afraid to leave their homes, then told them what was going on, which made them not want to leave their homes even more. I watched so much television in Miami. All the American news shows reported a civil war in Guatemala. They even talked about me on the news. My name was María for the show. I was so proud I jumped on the bed.”