The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos (29 page)

The day before the statue of Maria Lionza broke, Luz had been sitting on the sofa eating dulce de leche straight out of a
can and crying over a photograph of Muchacha with
La Traviata
playing full blast on the stereo. Her taste for opera had been aroused when she and Lily were around twelve and her mother’s
friend José Naipaul had taken them to see
Madame Butterfly.
In the car, on the way, he had told the girls that the opera was all about passion, that people who witnessed it for the
first time either loved it or hated it, that it was best to find out how one felt well in advance, to avoid embarrassment
or even shock later.

“My lover took me to the opera on our first date,” he said. “I had never experienced the opera before then, and nearly jumped
out of my skin with delight during the first aria of
La Boheme.
”

Lily had made fun of
Madame Butterfly
and of José with Irene the next day, both of them clasping each other, breaking into high-pitched wails, and collapsing on
the bed in spasms of breathless hilarity. Luz had pretended to agree with them, and laughed and shrieked, too, but secretly
she thought the opera was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen or heard. Of course she still thinks it’s unfair when
Pinkerton takes advantage of the oriental girl. On the other hand, the oriental girl is a geisha, so how innocent could she
be? She thinks perhaps it is true that even a tragic love affair is better than no love affair at all. But she is too fearful
to test this belief firsthand. In any case, such a story would never work as a telenovela.

When the Lancer sputters and chugs to a stop at a gas station at the outskirts of Valencia, and Luz places the call to Miguel,
it is a woman who answers the phone. The voice sophisticated, assured, smooth as silk. So, no, she can’t pretend it is the
maid. Luz says she is an old friend from Tamanaco, just passing through, and hangs up before the woman can ask for her name.
She is relieved and grateful when Ismael and Carlos Alberto, her traveling companions, do not ask questions.

As if intuiting her need for distraction and focus, Ismael asks her to take the wheel of the old Lancer again. And she is
grateful. As they head full speed away from Valencia, she notices the white-knuckled grip Carlos Alberto has on his knees,
and succumbs to a childishly cruel pleasure. Ismael, who also notices, tells her to slow down, and she behaves herself until
an hour later when Ismael takes the wheel for the last stretch.

Luz has always felt the highest regard for Ismael. And this is not so remarkable, since he is really the only father she has
ever known. Her own father died before she was born. She doesn’t remember him, feels no connection with the faded black-and-white
photograph in her mother’s room at the back of the Quintanilla house. When she was growing up, she used to pretend that her
real parents were Ismael and Consuelo. And that her mother was just the maid. She told strangers that her name was Luz Martinez
and practiced this signature in secret. Until the day Consuelo gave her the bracelet. After that she had felt too guilty to
use that name.

In the photograph, her father is dressed in country clothes, a cap on his head, the visor casting a shadow upon his face.
Because of this, and because the photograph is so old, she cannot fully distinguish his features. Every morning she searches
her own face in the mirror for signs of his, mentally subtracting those features clearly inherited from her mother, until
her own face blurs before her. It is a useless exercise, she knows, but it has become a compulsion, this search for a reflection
of her father in herself.

In the jungle shack where she, Ismael, and Carlos Alberto take up residence there are no mirrors. After dinner the first night,
she had been somewhat distraught to learn there wasn’t even an outhouse and applauded herself for having had the presence
of mind to conduct all her bodily affairs at their last truck stop, electing not to tackle the bush until daybreak.

In the morning, Luz awakens with an involuntary jerk and nearly topples out of her hammock. She looks at her watch. Six a.m.
She cannot remember when she last woke up this early. Gingerly, she sits up and takes stock of the cramped surroundings. The
stark poverty of the room, which seven hours ago had appeared so enchanting in candlelight, stands exposed by day. The moldy
bamboo and thatch that form the dome, the dirt floor, the wobbly makeshift table, the threadbare bedsheet that had protected
her from the onslaught of mosquitoes in the night. Her gaze moves to the primary source of light, the cutout window, where
the figure of a naked woman with arms outstretched floats in midair. At first she thinks she is hallucinating, then she remembers
how it is that her hostess earns her living. It is a mobile, but the most beautiful one she has ever seen. She must not leave
without one. Better yet, she will buy as many as she can carry, for they will make exquisite and original gifts.

Except for Efraín, who is still asleep, there is no one else in the room. But the door is wide open, and she assumes the others
are somewhere outside. Efraín’s eyes move rapidly under eyelids fringed with thick, dark lashes. A solitary teardrop glistens
at the edge of one eye. The fragile delicacy of his features, his utter defenselessness, whatever the dream that has produced
the tear, all this squeezes at her heart.

“Buenos días, Señorita,” says Juanita Sanchez, coming through the door, her arms full of firewood. She is followed by Ismael
and a puffy-eyed Carlos Alberto, who take their places at the table. “I trust you slept well and have an appetite for Pizca
andina.”

“Very well, thank you,” says Luz, swinging her legs out of the hammock, feeling for her sandals with her feet, and stepping
right onto an iguana’s head. She shrieks.

Efraín sits bolt upright, rubs his eyes, sees the iguana, jumps out of his hammock and grabs the offending creature. He takes
it outside, and when he returns he smiles at Luz. It is a big, crooked-toothed smile that makes him look alluringly impish.
Luz, recovered, smiles back.

“Show the señorita where to do her business, Efraín, and take a pail of water so that she can wash up,” says Juanita Sanchez,
turning on the radio.

Carlos Alberto grins wickedly at Luz, and she knows he thinks she won’t last the day. In fact, she was thinking that ruefully
to herself, as she observed the welts where the mosquitoes had feasted on her blood, but the smug look on Carlos Alberto’s
face has just inspired her to stick this adventure through to the very end. Grabbing some tissues from her purse, she follows
Efraín outside.

“Don’t worry, Señorita, I’ll take you where there aren’t any snakes,” says Efraín sweetly, while Carlos Alberto chortles into
his coffee cup. Luz shoots him a withering glance as she takes Efraín’s hand and walks more boldly than she feels out the
door and into the dense forest.

Midmorning, after a breakfast more hearty than any she has permitted herself in years, Luz asks Ismael whether there is a
defined plan for the day. Carlos Alberto, who already has his video camera slung around his neck, points it at Efraín, but
Ismael steps in front of him and places his hand over the lens. Juanita, who has already begun to preen for the camera, begins
to argue with Ismael, but Ismael gives her a warning look. She abruptly stops arguing and tells Efraín that they need more
firewood. Efraín looks at his grandmother in surprise, then at the stack of firewood in the corner, then at Luz. Luz, realizing
there is going to be a discussion over the filming and that Ismael does not want the boy to be a party to it, holds out her
hand to Efraín, saying, “Vamos, Efraín, show me how to find wood in the jungle.” Efraín, tilting his head and smiling in that
crooked-toothed way that had taken her heart hostage at first sight, picks up his machete and sack in one hand, and offers
Luz his other. And together they go into the forest.

They walk between the trees, following a faint path of previously trampled leaves for several minutes. They reach a small
clearing, where Efraín begins to cut wood while Luz places it in the sack. When the sack is full, Efraín says, “Would you
like to see the nest of a Maizcuba?”

“Yes,” says Luz, “I certainly would.”

“We can leave the sack here and collect it later,” says Efraín.

“Let’s go, then,” says Luz.

Efraín leads her out of the clearing, where there is no path, cutting his way through the overgrowth, and Luz momentarily
wonders how they will find their way back. But the boy is so confident, turning every now and then, and smiling at her encouragingly,
that her misgivings are quickly allayed. Of course he knows his way, she thinks, this forest is his backyard.

After several minutes of walking, they come to a stream, and Efraín stops, putting his finger to his lips and pointing up
in the branches of a tamarind tree. “Do you see it?” he whispers.

But Luz is looking somewhere else, to a place her nose has led her eyes, a pungency, faintly nauseating, on the other side
of the stream, almost directly across from where they stand. She sees the boot of a man. The man is lying facedown on the
bank covered in mud and leaves, arms outstretched. Below him lies a woman; the upper half of her body is in the stream, her
face appears to have been eaten by wild animals, her long hair floats in a fan around her on the water. Further on, two others,
both men, one lying on his side, the other on his back. Efraín follows her gaze and begins to scramble through the water toward
the bodies. Luz reaches out to restrain him, but he is already halfway across, leaving her no choice but to follow.

Efraín stops near the woman and stares, his eyes growing wider and wider.

Then his frail body crumples in a faint and he falls backward into the stream, in almost the same position as the woman without
a face.

Luz, holding her breath to avoid the stench, gathers Efraín in her arms and lifts him. Carrying him, she crashes back across
the stream and, with a strength born of pure adrenaline, runs through the forest, concern for the boy her only compass. When
she reaches the clearing not far from the hut, she falls on her knees still holding Efraín and begins screaming for help.

Minutes later, Ismael comes running into the clearing with Carlos Alberto close on his heels.

“There are four dead people by the stream. Efraín saw them and fainted,” says Luz, her breath coming in gasps. She is on the
verge of fainting herself.

Carlos Alberto lifts the boy from her arms and they return to the house. While Luz pulls off Efraín’s wet clothes, Juanita
holds guanabana leaves to his nose to revive him. Carlos Alberto grabs his video camera and he and Ismael head back to find
the place by the river Luz has described.