Heaven Is High (17 page)

Neither did Robert believe the story, she thought then. Yet, like Barbara, neither of them had tried to question it in a meaningful way that would have repudiated it.

With Anaia's plea, Papa Pat had stopped moving, stopped spooning coffee into a French press.

More quietly Anaia said, “She is my daughter. There isn't enough time to go through the proper channels to have a new birth certificate issued, authenticated, registered. What difference can it make if it gets done now, instead of twenty-one years ago or six months from now? You can see from the photographs that she is my daughter. She has the birthmark. Barbara has seen it. And she is mute. I have written material proving it. And my word.”

And that was the hard part, Barbara thought, her word. Could a man of the cloth pretend to accept what he believed was a lie? How much of a renegade priest had he become? Would he suffer more if he refused than if he agreed?

Slowly he resumed the task of making coffee, still not looking at them. “I think tea is actually as addictive as coffee,” he said in a hollow-sounding tone. “You just have to drink more to get the same caffeine boost. Coffee grounds are quite good for the soil, high nitrogen content…” The irrelevant words trailed off.

He finished with the coffee but did not return to the table immediately. He faced the opposite way, looking at the plaque on his wall, the one that read: “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.”

At the table Anaia had her head in her hands, her elbows on the table, and Robert remained at the door, a silhouette against the bright light. They waited for Papa Pat.

The teakettle made its whistling, rattling sound, and he shook himself. He poured water into the press and took two cups from the cabinet, brought them to the table, then went back to the sink for the coffee press. “I'm afraid I don't have cream,” he said to Barbara. “Not even milk.”

“Black is fine,” she said.

“We'll give it another few minutes,” he said, nodding to the coffee press. Taking his seat again, he gazed at Binnie's photographs. Without looking at Anaia, he said, “I don't suppose it makes any difference at all when a birth certificate is registered and certified.”

Anaia lowered her hands. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice husky. Robert moved from the door. He poured more tea for Anaia.

“What will you need?” Anaia asked Barbara after drinking a bit of the tea. Once again she sounded in control of her voice, her tears. She sounded like a chairman of the board.

Barbara reached into her bag for a notebook and tore out a page. “The birth certificate, certified. Do you have your marriage license?” At Anaia's nod, she added that. “A photocopy will be sufficient. Lawrence Thurston's passport, or the number from it? Is that available?”

“Yes. The number was required for the license. I have it.”

Barbara added it to the list. “You should also make out a will, and make a photocopy of it. A hand-written will with your signature witnessed by two people, including their addresses. Don't wait until you can claim your inheritance. It can be rewritten later by your attorney, but he should have it as soon as possible. If you indicate that you are setting up a foundation, with details to be worked out, or something to that effect, also include something for Binnie, using her full name. It can be jewelry, a sum of money, whatever you decide, but include her, and identify her as your daughter. It should be a significant bequest if that is possible. I want to demonstrate that she is not penniless, that she has means here in Belize that she can draw upon. As I said, you can rewrite it, change it any way you choose later. Use my address for this purpose. As her attorney I can serve in that function. No one needs to know where she can be found.” She added her address and telephone number.

“Something else,” Barbara said. “The survivor clause in your father's will is fairly common. Often it's followed by another routine clause to the effect that if the heir fails to survive for the time designated, then the estate would pass on to any issue of the heir. Do you recall if there was such a clause?”

Anaia shook her head. “I don't know. It didn't seem relevant if it was there. But I don't know.”

“Do you know when he wrote his will?”

“I think it was years ago. Why?”

“The clause would include any future children, not yet born. If that clause is there, then Binnie is automatically heir to the estate should you not survive for thirty days.”

“Not Julius?”

“Not if that clause is in the will.”

“I have a copy of the will,” Anaia said. “It's at the house with the other things you need. I'll get it, too, and find out.”

Barbara nodded. She made no notes of her next suggestions. “This is going to be a shock to Binnie, of course. If you think of anything that might lessen it, you might include that. Maybe pictures of you and Shala when you were young adults. Perhaps your mother's picture. If you would add a statement to the effect that you believed your sister and the child were both killed by the pirates, explaining why you never tried to find her, that would also be good.

“For the authorities,” she continued crisply, “I have the newspaper story about the piracy as well as an official account. I may not have to use them, but they are available to use. Much will depend on whether the official documentation is sufficient, on how determined some minor official is to have her deported.”

“I have our newspaper stories, also,” Anaia said. “A notice of the memorial service.”

“But they won't mention Binnie, will they?”

Anaia turned away. “No. They didn't include her.”

“I can't use them,” Barbara said. She looked over the notes and passed the paper to Anaia. “You should do this as soon as possible,” she said. “I don't know if an extension of time was allowed, but I do know that it will be finite and at its expiration, she will be classified as an undocumented illegal fugitive if I don't produce her. I want to avoid that if I can.”

“It must be done quickly for another reason, also,” Robert said. “Barbara has to get out of Belize. I'm afraid her name might well have been added to the list of targets.”

16

Barbara stood at the back-screen door drinking coffee while the others planned the next days. The coffee was strong and very good, exactly what she needed. Her thoughts were swirling and the saying on the wall plaque kept intruding:
Heaven is high and the emperor is far away
. True for Papa Pat, she thought, but for her? If she had heard Anaia's story for the first time here in this kitchen would she have believed it? Probably, she decided. But she had talked to Anaia in the church, and that made a difference.
Heaven is high
 … Stop it, she ordered herself. Binnie was her client, the one she had to protect, and if a principal character in her story, or anyone else, had a story that didn't corroborate hers, who was to say which one was the truth? Contrasting stories were testified to all the time in court.… Shala might have become delusional, might have lied.… She might have decided it was better to continue to claim Binnie as her child than to cut her adrift. Or something else, she added irritably.

She was not responsible for what anyone else might say. If Anaia, by lying, could do what Barbara couldn't do, save Binnie from deportation, save her life, why was she even wrestling with it?
Heaven is high
 … She knew she would never be able to support a client in a lie if she knew the client was guilty. She remembered the long discussions in classes about the ethics of duty to client and duty to the law, how if they clashed an attorney would be caught in a moral and ethical dilemma that was likely to be career-ending if the wrong decision was reached. But Anaia was not guilty of a crime, was not accused of a crime, and if her two stories were radically different, who was to decide which one was right? Who had the right to make that decision? How could it be wrong to claim your sister's child as your own if that was the only way to save that child's life?
Heaven is high
 … She closed her eyes.

They were discussing the best way for Anaia to get into and back out of Belmopan without anyone being the wiser. She had to have enough time to write a will, to find the marriage license, pictures, find her father's will.… And Julius had allies in the capital. Corruption at the highest level, someone with authority responsible for protecting the marijuana planting. Corruption that extended to one or more in the United States government.

“Barbara,” Robert said, “there will be publicity concerning a new heir to the Santos estate. We'd like to delay it for several weeks. Can you delay it in your country for a short time?”

She turned to face them. They all looked grim. “I think so. Are you going to tell Julius Santos?”

“Yes. It might give him pause to think there's yet another heir, another obstacle, but only if you think you can keep Binnie safe. He isn't likely to want to make noise about it immediately, I think. As long as he thinks there's a possibility of eliminating Binnie, he probably won't want publicity. Especially publicity that moves him farther down on the chain of heirs.”

Barbara asked Anaia, “Will you be able to deal with the doubts and suspicions your newly found daughter is going to arouse? Your uncle could hire investigators, take it to court to disprove your claim.”

“He was out of the country and has no firsthand information about me or my child,” Anaia said. “If we wait a few weeks, the birth certificate will be on file, just one of hundreds, thousands, and who will remember when it was placed there or when it was registered? No one knows how many were reregistered or when they were after the hurricane that destroyed the records. Today, currently, there are often, maybe most often, delays in registering births from outlying districts. The date of birth is of importance, not the date of filing. Patrick is a well-known figure in the registrar's office. In a few weeks he will register another one or two. It's a routine procedure for them.”

Barbara shrugged. “When the story does come to light, you might want to say you didn't release the information until it had been properly investigated, which always takes time. And let me know ahead of time,” she added. “Also,” she said after a moment, “there will be questions about why you didn't go instantly to meet your newly found child. For Binnie, travel to Belize would be impossible. A lot of paperwork must be done, normalizing her status, getting proper identification papers, and so on. It's a lengthy process. Consider why you didn't make the attempt.”

“The legal situation I inherited,” Anaia said, “required my attention. And I, too, have to apply for a passport.”

True, Barbara thought, on both counts. She certainly did have a legal situation to deal with. “Good,” she said.

Anaia returned to the conversation about the near future, and Barbara turned toward the back of the property again. The shadows were lengthening at an alarming pace. Shadows of palm trees were grotesquely long dark lines, the foliage so far removed from the bases, they looked like kites on strings. It was four thirty, and they would still be in the jungle after dark. Philip was only a boy, a naïve and inexperienced boy. Disquieted, she wanted to leave, to get back to the lights of the hotel, to a glass of cold wine on the terrace with people around. Howler monkeys set up a clamor and she clenched her jaw.

“Barbara,” Robert said, again drawing her into their conversation, “late Monday afternoon Papa Pat will send all the documents to you at the hotel. If you can get a flight out on Tuesday morning, you should do it. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes. I'll cancel my flight and book the first one out after Monday as soon as I get back to the hotel.”

“It will be late in the afternoon,” Papa Pat said. “I have to register the certificate in Belmopan, of course, then drive down to Belize City and make photocopies of everything. I won't bring them myself. Someone might get suspicious.” His Flatbush accent was more pronounced than before, as if he had consciously checked it earlier and now, stressed, could no longer do so.

She nodded. “I'll be waiting for the courier.”

“We should be going,” Robert said, rising. “I'll take you all the way. I told Philip not to wait for us if we didn't show up by two.”

She appreciated the fact that there had been a deadline for her to deliver something meaningful. Otherwise, the bum's rush out of Dodge City. Her relief that it would be he, not Philip, was followed instantly by alarm. “You shouldn't be seen with me at the hotel,” she said. “Someone might be watching.”

“Right. We'll stop somewhere else for you to take a taxi the rest of the way.”

At the front door, she shook hands with Papa Pat. Then, to her surprise Anaia embraced her.

“Thank you, Barbara,” she said. “I hope we meet again one day.
Vaya con Dios
. Go with God.”

*   *   *

The light was dim on the narrow, unpaved roads, where in places the canopy solidified, blocking all light. At those times the jungle edging the roads looked like solid black walls. There were no other cars or jeeps on the roads until they reached the paved road to the bridge, where only two or three other pairs of headlights came into sight. The smell of the jungle, a pungent mixture of moist earth, decaying matter, fresh greenery, perfume, other odors without names, intensified as the evening darkness deepened. Then, it seemed without warning, the light failed and there was only the dark wall of jungle on both sides and beacons of light on the highway ahead.

Neither Robert nor Barbara spoke until after the toll bridge had been crossed and they were heading for Belize City on the Northern Highway.

“My grandfather lived up near the Mexican border,” Robert said. “He was illiterate but wise in many ways. When my father was hardly more than a boy he became a mahogany cutter. The trees were very scarce by then, most had long since been found and cut, but he had a sense of where one might be, then another. One day he came home and said they were all gone, the mahogany trees had all been cut down. He became emotional about it, his role in cutting the trees to extinction. Guilt and necessity in conflict, something of that sort. I remember what my grandfather said. He talked about two rivers nourishing the land, bringing life dependably for all the people. But when the two rivers met and joined, a great turbulence occurred and they became dangerous, and often killed those who ventured upon the new river. I didn't understand. Now I do.”