“Do you think it really exists?” Allen grinned at me.
“Yes, Dorothy, I think it does.”
As we picked up speed, Estelle was trying to look stern. She was leaning forward, her short blond hair blowing in the wind. “Now remember,” she warned, “this isn’t completely safe. The road is twenty-five miles long, mostly unpaved, full of bumps, potholes and dozens of hairpin turns. We’ll be driving parallel to the border, staying just a few kilometers south. As you can already see, the terrain on either side of us is different than what we’ve been used to. Lots of cliffs and canyons. Stay calm, but stay awake.” She paused. “I can’t believe it, but we’re almost there.”
Tim put his arm around her and she allowed herself to lean against him, the only indication that she might have been under any kind of pressure and would have liked, for just a couple of minutes, to let down her guard.
It was immediately apparent we were the only ones on the road. No more
campesinos
in sombreros riding mules or donkeys waving to us, or young women carrying fruit and vegetables glancing shyly as we passed them by. The fields of sugarcane and tobacco had been replaced by ominous-looking cliffs and hundreds of overhanging rocks. If all the bumps and ruts didn’t keep us awake, our imaginations would.
After a while, we drove over a bridge that crossed a wide stream and rumbled into the tiny village of San Fernando. We saw a couple of kids fishing in the stream against a mountainous backdrop, but the main street was empty. The small wooden houses looked plain and humble, with only one or two windows to let in the light. Tim told us there was a permanent army garrison here because of all the attacks in the area. Instead of continuing straight through, our escort jeep turned off onto a smaller dirt road and disappeared from view. We had no choice but to follow. We assumed we were heading for the garrison, but a few minutes later, we saw the jeep pull up in front of a gray ramshackle house. We stopped behind the jeep.
“What are we doing here?” Lenny wondered out loud.
“Beats me,” Tim said, jumping down from the truck.
Omar, the tallest of the teenagers, stepped inside the house and a couple of seconds later, a woman in her mid-thirties came rushing out, laughing, and calling to the other soldiers.
“Javier! Miriam! Francisco!”
She treated them like beloved errant children, grabbed their ears, smoothed their hair and kissed them. Omar was blushing and I guessed he was her son. The woman was strikingly beautiful, with high cheekbones, and thick dark hair in a braid that reached her waist.
“Come in, come in,” she cried, grabbing Miriam’s arm and waving at the others. Omar leaned toward her and whispered something. Immediately, she turned to us and shouted that we were all welcome and for everyone to please come in.
We looked uncertainly at Estelle. “Don’t be rude,” she said, smiling.
We jumped out of the truck and followed the soldiers inside. The house was hot and sparsely furnished, but obviously well cared for. I noticed a simple wooden cross on the wall, and a rifle propped just inside the doorway, like an umbrella you might grab on your way out in case of inclement weather. Our brigade stood in a cluster near the door while Estelle explained to Omar’s mother who we were and what we were doing in Nicaragua.
When Estelle finished, Omar’s mother approached each of us and shook our hand. Her name, she said, was Sandra and we were very welcome in her home. A moment later, she disappeared into the kitchen. The soldiers gestured toward a wooden bench and three uncomfortable looking chairs, insisting that we sit.
“We are soldiers,” Javier laughed. “We aren’t used to sitting on furniture. It’ll make us weak.”
To be polite, a few of us sat down. Francisco had already cornered Veronica near the doorway and was peppering her with questions that she clearly didn’t understand although it didn’t seem to matter. They were both smiling. Lenny tried one of the rickety chairs, then immediately got up and said something to Omar. Together, they squatted down and Lenny pointed to one of the legs. Omar nodded and then Lenny carefully set the chair on its side and began trying to fix it.
After chatting with Javier for a couple of minutes, Tim and Estelle wandered into the kitchen to help Sandra who was obviously planning to feed everyone before we left.
At one end of the bench, Liz had struck up a conversation with Miriam who was nodding very seriously. Liz’s Spanish sounded smooth and confident; she would get along fine in Jalapa.
“Yes, I’ve often thought of becoming a nurse,” Miriam was saying, “but I’m afraid it might be too hard to learn.”
“Nonsense,” Liz declared. “You have to study, of course, but I’m sure you could do it.”
“I’d like to,” Miriam said, nodding again. “My country needs nurses badly. The Contras keep killing them. And I don’t mind the sight of blood.” She blushed. “I mean I don’t like it, but as a soldier, I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Liz said. “But it will make you a better nurse.”
“Yes, that’s what I tell myself.”
At the other end of the bench, Allen, Richard and Susan were questioning Javier about the situation in Jalapa. Javier was laughing and clearly enjoying the attention. He had the confidence of someone at least ten years older and I imagined if he survived, he would rise quickly through the ranks to become a leader. Richard was translating the conversation for Allen.
“And so in the town itself,” Javier concluded, “I think you should be safe.” He paused. “Except on Saturday night.”
“What happens then?” Allen asked.
“The soldiers all get drunk and then they like to shoot their guns. It’s possible to get shot by accident.”
“Oh great,” Allen said, which made Javier double over with laughter.
“Allen, he’s kidding,” Richard said, then translated the comment into Spanish for Javier.
“Not really,” Javier replied and laughed even harder.
I caught a whiff of fresh homemade tortillas and decided it was the best smell in the world. Lately, I hadn’t been feeling well enough to eat much, but suddenly I was ravenous. Vickie was right—in Managua, I’d succumbed to an existential depression that stalked the city, preying on the weak and helpless. I’d been vulnerable and had let it catch me. But up here, I was beginning to feel like my old “can do” self again.
I saw Marta standing by the window and decided my Spanish was good enough to chat with her. She saw me approaching and looked expectant.
“Hello,” I said. “My name is Rachel.”
She had dark, shoulder-length hair, chocolate-brown eyes, and that beautiful olive skin that every Nicaraguan girl seemed to be blessed with. She looked strong and fit. She smiled and told me her real name was Leida but she didn’t like it. Now that she was on her own, she was asking everyone to call her Marta.
I nodded in agreement. “Marta suits you better. Where are you from, Marta?”
“I grew up in Esteli.” She pointed at the other soldiers. “The others are all from here. Where are you from?”
I thought for a moment. “Well, I grew up in the eastern part of the United States near the Atlantic Ocean, but for the last fifteen years I’ve lived in the state of Colorado where there are many high mountains.”
Her eyes grew big. “Do you have a lot of snow?”
So I told her about skiing, and then about rock climbing. She had a dozen questions about climbing and how it could be done safely. She was almost eighteen and had been in the army for a year. She and her two older brothers had joined after her father was killed during an attack on an agricultural co-op north of Esteli.
“When they found him,” she said, “he’d been shot more than thirty times, and his eyes had been cut out.” Her voice sounded matter-of-fact, as if she were reciting a story that had nothing to do with her.
I shook my head. “That’s terrible.”
“Yes, thousands of people have died in this war.”
And the survivors, I thought, had the worst PTSD imaginable. “There are many North Americans,” I said, “who don’t like our government and want it to stop supporting the Contras.”
She looked grave, as if she hoped I was telling her the truth.
“But I don’t know if our government will listen,” I added.
“Perhaps you should overthrow your government.” She wasn’t kidding.
I considered telling her how unfeasible that was, but ended up simply nodding as if it were an option, and then changed the subject. “What would you like to do when the war is over?”
Her face softened and she looked like a teenager again. “I would like to go back to school and become a journalist. Then I could travel the world writing about various people and their struggles for freedom.” She smiled broadly. “And maybe someday I could fly to Colorado and you could teach me how to climb.”
I shrugged and nodded. “Well, if you can spare the time.”
A few moments later, Sandra, Tim and Estelle emerged from the kitchen carrying platters piled with cheese, hard-boiled eggs, homemade tortillas and watermelon. I grabbed one of everything and attacked my food like a starving dog. Everything tasted wonderful. As we ate and talked and laughed, I had another perfect moment in Nicaragua, another magical chunk of time when I felt utterly content, as if everything I’d ever done in my life was worth it because it had brought me by some long circuitous route here to this particular time and place. Sometimes, I thought, you have to go a long way from home to find it again.
Finally, Javier looked at his watch and announced it was time to go. We all knew it was dangerous to be on the road after dark. Everyone hugged Sandra goodbye and thanked her. As the soldiers climbed into their jeep, Francisco patted the seat next to him and suggested Veronica switch places with Omar. Omar, he joked, could continue his conversation with the
Yanquis
, and he could continue his with Veronica. Both Javier and Estelle immediately shook their heads.
“It’s not safe,” they said in unison.
Veronica looked disappointed but joined us in the truck. Within minutes, we were back on the main road and lumbering, once again, toward Jalapa. It was almost six o’clock. The terrain seemed lonelier now and more deserted. Everyone was glad we’d stopped, but we were aware of the time and anxious to arrive before dusk. Because the road had so many curves, we often lost sight of the soldiers, but it was comforting to know they were less than a mile ahead of us. There were a couple of dark gray clouds overhead and I wondered if it was going to rain. It would feel nice, I decided, but would make the road muddy.
“This is such a great little country,” Lenny was saying. “I wish I’d tape-recorded all of the conversations I’ve had with the various people I’ve met here. I would force everyone I know back home to listen.” He sighed. “But it probably wouldn’t make any difference. You have to be here to understand.”
At that moment, as we headed around a sharp curve, we heard a loud explosion. Everyone froze. Enrique’s cigar fell out of his mouth as he braked to a halt, and then we just sat there looking stunned. Was it a landmine, an ambush, or both? We strained to hear any sounds of gunfire, of people running and shouting, but there was nothing. The silence was enormous. After two or three minutes, Estelle was standing up and shouting, “Go!” It seemed to take forever before the truck started to move. Everyone was leaning forward, looking pale and anxious, their eyes already glassy with anticipation.
Allen had grabbed my hand and was squeezing it much too hard. It hurt, but I didn’t pull away. Later, my entire palm would turn purple.
“Allen,” I said, “don’t panic. They might be fine. Everything might be okay.”
He was so upset he could barely speak. “You think so?”
I didn’t, but I was a world-class liar, so I nodded and said, “It’s possible.”
We drove as fast as we could around two more curves before we saw a shallow burned-out crater about six feet wide in the middle of the road. A landmine, I thought, buried under a layer of dirt making it undetectable until they’d driven over it and triggered the explosion. We screeched to a halt and frantically craned our necks searching for the soldiers.
“Where the hell are they?” Estelle shouted.
A second later, we spotted the jeep, which had landed on its side halfway down a small hill just below the road. All of its wheels were gone and there was a gaping hole where the seats had been. Thick black smoke was gushing from the engine.
“We have to get them out of there!” Richard screamed.
Like everyone else, I leaped out of the truck and started running down the hill. I was sliding and falling, knocking into whoever was beside me in an effort to reach the soldiers as quickly as possible. The smoke was making me cough and it was getting harder to see. Fear was flowing through my arteries like an electrical current. As I hurried, a terrible knowledge was bearing down on me, probably just a couple of seconds away.
“They’re not down there!” Estelle shouted from the road. I looked up and saw her arms waving back and forth like windshield wipers in a blizzard.
“Where are they?” Liz yelled, a few yards above me.
“Over here,” Tim shouted from a little farther down the road, and I started scrambling in the direction of his voice.
I’d lost one of my sandals on the way down, but didn’t stop to search for it. Go, go, go, I told myself, as I drove my body forward through the underbrush to get back up the hill.
Their bodies were scattered along the shoulder of the road, like bundles that had been tossed off the back of a truck. As I ran forward, I could hear Francisco moaning. He was lying facedown with both legs bent in anatomically impossible positions. Miriam was a few feet away, covered with blood. One of her hands was missing. Liz was on her knees leaning over her. She’d ripped her blouse off and was tearing it up to use as bandages.
Enrique, our driver, was panting right beside me. “Don’t move them!” he shouted. “My brother died because they moved him. I know a doctor in town. I will bring him.”
“No!” Liz yelled.
Enrique turned and started running toward the truck. As he ran, I heard Liz yell, “I’m a nurse! We have to take them to Jalapa now!” But Enrique had already jumped into the driver’s seat and was starting the engine. Tim, who was closest to the truck, hopped in beside him.