Hard Red Spring (70 page)

There was more. Two more pages, but skimming down, Jean could see it fell into hysteria. Written in stages, with different pens, during difficult hours. Jean tried to refold the letter, but her hands shook and she could only manage to crumple it and shove it back into her purse.

Jean recalled the photos of all those babies in Cruzita's file. All about the same age as Maya, but some in much worse shape. One baby had been missing an ear, another looked blind in one eye. What had become of them?

“Ixchel!”
The search for the enterprising, mischievous girl had gained urgency, more voices calling.
“Ixchel!”

It was five-thirty. What was Maya doing at that moment? She may have convinced the hotel staff to turn the lamps on in the pool so she could swim in the glamorous white light. She might be trapped in the courtyard, listening as the proprietor planned her marriage to one of her sons.

“Ixchel! Ixchel! Ixchel!”

Jean did not want to see Lenore. Suddenly Jean was standing in the last place in the world she wanted to be. And at just the moment she decided she did not want to see her, Lenore appeared. She ducked through Cruzita's gate, into the street, putting on her sunglasses. All Jean had to do was step into view and ask. But she did not. Jean shrank back, behind the vine, watching
Lenore through its twisted green, grasping stems. She watched, unmoving, as a crowd of Mayan women swiftly cohered around Lenore. In two seconds, the street went from empty to full. Where Lenore stood, thirty yards away, the women made a clashing wall of neon stripes, embroidered flowers, over which Jean could still see Lenore's head, several inches above the rest.

“¿Dónde hay Ixchel?”

Lenore turned a full circle, almost like a dance. Jean, transfixed, watched this odd scene, not understanding it, until all at once the women raised their hands in the air: machetes, clubs, metal pipes. Jean felt as if she'd been hollowed and filled with cement. She could not move, could not cry out, could not even close her eyes. Her eyes remained open, seeing Lenore bow her head before they all fell on her. She did not fight, did not push or try to explain. She lowered her head, making an easy target for the metal pipe that smashed against her ear. The sound. Like a hammer hitting a watermelon, over and over, as the mob closed in on her body, which collapsed from view. Only sound, only that sound. No one screamed, not in fear or rage. Everyone played her part in dedicated silence. Even Jean, as witness. Even the woman who must have been Cruzita, who ran out her gate empty-handed. She clawed at the mob, trying to pull them back. In Mayan dress, she blended into the crowd. She disappeared a moment, until someone pushed her away. She fell hard onto her knees, spun around, seeking help, and spotted Jean.

The horror of eye contact jolted Jean, bringing her back. Cruzita saw her, and in that moment Jean thought she'd point and turn the mob onto her. How long had Jean been standing there? How long could this go on? Forever. Cruzita gathered herself from the ground and ran toward her, and that seemed to take forever, too. Her skirt made her running steps small. Cruzita became no clearer to Jean, even as she grabbed her wrist and pulled her down the street, away.

They ran together. Cruzita did not let go of Jean's wrist and did not look back. She dragged Jean through alleys, over ditches, keeping away from the main road. Her hair, braided down her back, whipped Jean in the face at several turns.

They emerged into the dusty bus lot, where one of the painted buses revved up, ready to leave. Green, with lightning bolts and blaring pop music, it emitted an acrid black cloud. Cruzita yanked Jean toward it, pushed her up the child-size steps, and into the seat behind the driver.

“
¿Dónde?
” For the first time, she saw her clearly. Jean spied the teenager
in the file picture, could see the beauty still evident in aged echoes. Fifteen years of sun, wind, and war had almost eroded her away. She tried to find Maya there. She tried to see a monster.

“
¡Dónde!
” Cruzita shook her.

“Xela,” she gasped, the situation abruptly plain to her. If Jean had walked those few yards to Cruzita's gate, if she had not sheltered in the vine for shade, she would be dead, too.

Cruzita spoke to the driver with authority, giving instructions. She drew a wad of money out of her blouse and withheld it until he repeated what she'd said. Then she leapt down, out of sight. No goodbye, not even a glance.

The bus headed in a direction Jean could only identify as down. Where would down lead? She could not ask the people packed in around her. Anything, she feared, could provoke them. If she cried, if she showed weakness, they would turn on her. But she needed to cry out, to call the police, to tell others. But out here there were no phones, no mail, no one to tell. The police staffed by exonerated genocidal maniacs. There would never be anyone to tell. Nothing to do. There was nothing she could do. Lenore had realized that, had not even fought for her life. She merely deferred to their decision, which she had claimed to be awaiting. The scene came back to Jean in pieces that she tried to reassemble. In the moments before Cruzita touched her, Jean had been counting the blows. The only witness, she'd fixated on the number, thinking it important. She had counted to thirty-six before Cruzita wrenched her away.

For over an hour, Jean's thoughts skated in obsessive circles: Someone's been murdered, tell someone, there's no one to tell, because everyone's been murdered; my child's been stolen, so my child's been saved, because she's been stolen, so she could be saved; I almost died today, but I did not, but I almost did. She imagined standing in line in the government office to report these crimes, like everyone else: fill out this form, submit a picture, go home. Three more added to the millions already in their computers.

The bus stopped in a tiny mountain town, to the protests of the passengers. The driver motioned for Jean to follow him. She did, helpless, no longer in charge of her own fate. She trusted him more than anyone else, because he'd been paid. Money, she could still understand. Money made more sense than anything.

And then she saw it across the street:
Xela
. A pink bus with bald tires, overloaded with passengers. The man paid her fare and left before she could
show she had the money herself. No explanation was offered to the new driver. She became an ordinary passenger again. A tourist with nothing to report.

On the two-hour ride to Xela, Jean's adrenaline ran dry and she began to think more clearly. She was not helpless, she realized, there were plenty of things to do. To find Maya, to pack, to leave, to forget what she could not change. To just save Maya.

Where was Maya at this moment? Jean imagined her again, swimming in the lighted pool with loose limbs. Swimming, not with skill or intent, but simply to admire herself. Nothing to report but adolescent troubles. And if Jean did, even if she did bring Maya to the government office, if they typed her stats into a computer and came up with a list of likely mothers, what would be the point? To return her to Guatemala? Impossible. Truth down here was not followed by justice or reunion or remedy. Reconciliation had been decreed for a reason, for people like Maya, the small number of those who could be saved.

Everything was taking forever. By the time the bus arrived in Xela, the atrocity Jean had witnessed had migrated to a different part of her consciousness. The excruciating process left her exhausted. She felt as if a new groove had been carved into her brain over the past three hours. Slowly, deeply carved as the images moved through tissue, to become memory. A new groove, through which every action, every thought for the rest of her life, would have to travel.

She could barely walk the block to the hotel. To run, to attract attention, proved unthinkable. To collapse into a defenseless heap even more so. So she walked, like a tourist. The moment she entered the hotel, she meant to scream Maya's name, but the immediate presence of the bright, cheerful maids rendered her speechless with terror.

Jean did not find Maya at the pool, or lying out in the courtyard with a banana drink. She found her in their room, huddled in a corner with her head on her knees. The proprietor, sitting on the floor, too, held her, shushing.

“Maya.” Jean rushed at her, to pull the demented woman away. “Maya!”

Her daughter glared up with a red, twisted face. Snot and tears and saliva glossing an ugly expression. Mouth open, eyes squeezed against the light. A noise escaped from her, a low primal groan of pain.

“Maya! Are you okay?” On her knees now, Jean handled her daughter. Lifting her limbs, searching her face. Maya gave in, limp and remote. The
proprietor allowed this transfer of ownership by standing up. “Maya, I'm here! Did she hurt you? Did she say something to you again?”

“He dumped me!” she cried with her furious mouth. “I called him to say we were coming home early and he dumped me! For Maureen!”

Jean wrapped her arms around Maya without fear of rejection. She brought her close, smelling her coconut suntan oil. “Oh, honey.” She found herself crying as hard as Maya. “Oh, honey.” Inconsolable.

Still standing over them, the proprietor began a tactful exit. “I'm sorry,” she told them both. “They're good boys. I don't know why they would be so cruel. This Maureen sounds no good. They love you, Maya. I know. We all do.”

She stepped out on stiff knees, closing the door behind her.

“If we hadn't gone on this stupid trip, it wouldn't have happened! I knew it would, I didn't want to leave them alone! I told you! I told you!”

Jean just rocked Maya and sobbed. And in doing this, miraculously, Maya said exactly what she would have said: “He didn't love me.” She went on, hiccupping with agony. “He never said he did . . . but I thought I could convince . . . him. I gave him what he . . . wanted and I told him I loved him . . . and I thought that would be enough . . . to make him love me . . . eventually.” Jean rocked and rocked her daughter, who settled into her arms. Finally, talking became easier and the frantic hiccups subsided. Then, another miracle. Maya began to rock Jean, without breaking their rhythm. “It's not your fault, Mom. Don't cry. He's an asshole. You knew he was an asshole. Don't be upset, don't cry.” She wiped her eyes clear and straightened, freeing herself. “You know, I'm glad we came on this trip.”

“You are?” Jean picked wet black strands of hair from Maya's face. There were so many. She cleared and cleared, like someone finding an overgrown trail.

“Yes, because it's made me realize who loves me and who doesn't.”

“And who loves you, Maya?” Jean cleaned Maya's tears, as she herself continued to weep. The same tears, it seemed, transferred by touch.

Maya did not answer right away. Instead she asked, “Can we go home now?”

They packed Maya's suitcase together, handling the glittery bottles, the spandex, and the lace with a great deal of care. Jean became determined not to act like they were fleeing, though she wanted nothing more than to collect Maya in her arms and run for the bus station. Keep calm, for Maya's sake. These are things she should never even suspect. The last bus to the capital would leave in twenty minutes and it took almost that long for Maya to locate
her belongings throughout the hotel. Lipstick forgotten on a windowsill, sandals at the pool, a barrette rusting in the bathroom. Each piece she found became a treasure, as if it could not be replaced the moment they got home. As for Jean, she would leave everything here. She would not even pursue her lost suitcase.

After several minutes of fruitless searching, Maya deemed everything found. She closed her suitcase, tested the clasps, and sat down on the bed, just as Jean rose to leave Guatemala behind forever.

“Mom. I feel like I should tell you. Telema was here again looking for you. Looking for a letter she said you stole from her.”

“She said I stole from her? Why would I do that?”

“Because you've become a CIA informant. You're helping them sabotage her important book. The sexual savage book. What's a CIA informant?”

“It's something that I'm certainly
not
, Maya.”

“Well, she says you are and that you're helping the government hide the truth. She found a letter that explains what happened to that little girl. A very important letter. It's changed the whole course of her book, she says, proving her point more than ever. And you stole it.”

“Telema says a lot of things, Maya. Only seventy percent of them are true.”

Her daughter agreed, understanding Telema's nature after just two encounters, more quickly than Jean herself had. “She told me you paid the Guatemalan government twelve thousand dollars for me. Is that true?”

“Yes,” Jean admitted, feeling a strange relief. Forgive me, she wanted to say. Forgive me, Maya. I have a weak heart. She imagined twelve thousand obstacles, suddenly, between them. Twelve thousand fights. Twelve thousand corpses.

“That's a lot of money,” Maya ventured, caught on an uncertainty that thawed into a lopsided smile. “You really love me that much?”

“Yes,” Jean answered, for this was the greatest truth she could offer. For the first time in a long time, happiness touched her. An untuned string within her plucked, reverberating. How unexpected, how encompassing, how close to disappointment it felt.

T
he office was more finished than it had been just one week ago. Everything now had its proper place. Books upright on shelves, knickknacks consigned to their eternal displays, already collecting dust: an Indian warrior lunging, a helmeted conquistador aiming. The Catholic chalice still held its arsenal of sharpened pencils on the desk. The bird, Magellan, with the red breast, presided in a corner. He opened his beak and held it there—a silent scream or laugh, or a yawn—and shifted his weight from foot to foot in a golden cage lined on the bottom with newspaper. He seemed to be doing better. Two tail feathers, one blue, one green, held a long flirtation through the bars, twisting and crossing for a meter before touching the floor. The bird regarded Evie with one hostile eye, possibly remembering her.

“How old are you, Evie?” Mr. Ubico's accent sounded like his mouth was full of food. Was this really the man who had replaced God, as her father had said? The bird, behind him, nodded enthusiastically, then began shredding his newspaper. Evie had never thought God could look so young, or be so short.

She held up nine fingers. There was no good reason to lie, but it was already done. She sat in the same church pew she and Father had sat in before, while Mr. Ubico regarded her sadly from his red velvet throne. She spread her nightgown to show off the lace, secretly pleased to be wearing it in the daytime, in public.

Judas, with a bowed head, stepped outside. Evie listened to his fancy shoes—
squeak, squawk—
make a crazy noise against the arcade tiles. He had told her not to ask any questions, not to say anything, advice that she trusted. Judas had saved her, after all. They had put her in the cemetery like a dead person, and he had saved her.

“Do you know your address in America, Evie? Could you tell the embassy where someone in your family lives?”

She shook her head, ashamed now that she had lied about her age. A nine-year-old would know her address. Probably an eight-year-old should, too.

“Do you know what happened? Do you know why you're here?” Absently,
he reached into his pocket and slid four peppermints across his desk in front of her. Behind him, the bird began aggressively grooming himself, feathers drifting to the floor.

“Our parents,” Mr. Ubico began, making his first slip in English, “were murdered by their Indian workers. Your father hired criminals and they robbed and murdered your family. Do you understand this?”

Evie nodded, recognizing that word, murdered, from her conversation with Judas. But Ubico had gotten it backward. Father had murdered a worker, not the other way around. At least, the situation had gotten no worse than the day before. Slightly relieved, she ignored the pile of mints, knowing from before that they were old and stale, and tasted like pennies and pocket dust.

“Did you see anything?”

She shook her head. The only thing Evie had seen was the blanket covering her face, the rough weave of wool and light and straw. She had woken up to fabric being stuffed in her mouth, an Indian blanket wrapped around her head. She couldn't scream or talk, but could open her eyes and see that the color of pure dark was not black but red.

“Did you hear anything?”

Just the footsteps that carried her away. The fabric had been scratchy. Nothing her mother would own.

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.

“Do you know what happened? Judas says you don't, he says you're only six. But you're a big girl of nine. I think you understand a lot. I think you can help me.”

No one had ever asked Evie what she thought was happening, she had always been told. But yes. She knew the point where everything had changed. One thing leading inevitably to another, forces beyond their control driving them hard to failure. Yes, just like a train barreling down long-laid tracks. Tracks that others had ridden before them: the priest, the cochineal farmer.
History, as Mother would say. There had been no avoiding it. Ghosts, the snake, the awakening of the cave. Yes, she knew exactly the moment it all began.

Ubico turned over a piece of paper on his desk. She recognized Mother's stationery right away. My address in America is there, she wanted to say.

“Can you tell me what happened two weeks ago? Do you remember that far back?” He selected a sharpened red pencil from his arsenal and underlined something in the letter.

Judas opened the door. Flustered, Ubico shot up from his chair and yelled in English, “I do not pay you for your opinion!” Then he remembered his Spanish and Judas shrank back and disappeared at the few words Ubico spoke.

“Stupid Indians.” He grinned confidentially at Evie. He fumbled at the edge of his desk and Evie heard a bell, trilling somewhere inside the building. “You can't trust them, not even with a simple job. They just make it harder for me. You're big enough and smart enough to understand that. Didn't your parents teach you to never trust Indians?”

Evie nodded, realizing so much at that moment. Clearly, Ubico had the power to help her. He had replaced God, after all. And Judas, like the stupid Indian he was, made him angry. On top of that, he'd told Ubico that
she
was stupid, that she was only six—six!—and could not even remember what had happened two weeks ago. Changing strategies, she did something unthinkable a moment before. She put one of the peppermints in her mouth. She sucked on it, feeling it burn a tender welt in her cheek.

Another government man in a suit sailed in on a smile and a handshake, from a different, interior door. As they spoke in hushed Spanish, Evie walked to Magellan's cage. Up close, she saw that Magellan was not better. He was worse. The golden cage had confused her from afar. The red breast feathers were completely gone, replaced by blood. And Magellan was sitting on his newspaper, the one featuring Mrs. Fasbinder's party, ripping up the picture of the President's face. Bloody feathers and newspaper shreds that had fallen from the cage stuck to her shoes, her good shoes. Ruined.

Poor Magellan, poor me, she thought, holding back tears of horror. She remembered Judas saying,
Magellan is killing himself because he cannot kill you
. That, Father told her, would be scientifically impossible. Of course, Indians were stupid. But not her! Why couldn't she answer Mr. Ubico's questions? She was not crazy or stupid or useless. She wanted them to know this much. Because she now suspected that her parents had fired her for just those reasons. Had left her to start a new life in Europe.

“I remember everything!” Shouting over her fear made her sound sassy, though she hadn't meant to. The men turned in unison. “I know what this is all about. I know everything started with the volcano!”

And it worked. The government men closed their mouths like traps. They regarded her differently now, not like a child at all. Father, wherever he was, would have been proud, would have laughed and taken her back, for the astonishment on both their faces.

With his eyes still on Evie, Ubico found the knob of his office door and pushed it wide open. Judas was gone. In his place, cold light, fresh air, the busy morning noise of Xela rushed in.

“Thank you. We will take you to your parents now,” Ubico said, holding out his hand. “They are waiting for you.” Evie let out a little smiling sigh of relief and stepped toward him. Everything fixed, so quickly and completely. The blood on her soles made a tacky sound on the tiles and she hesitated, glancing back at Magellan. The bird, hunkered in misery and contempt, was beyond hope. She remembered Father's pronouncement:
If he can't survive in a cage, with us bringing him food, he certainly can't survive on his own in the woods
. But walking all the way back up Father's mountain, escorted by a policeman, she could not forget him. Poor Magellan, who could not live in a cage and who could not be
free.