Hard Red Spring (58 page)

“Ladino? Is that the same as Latino?”

“No. Ladino's a native or someone with mixed blood who's Westernized. Gets rid of his traditional clothes, acts white. It's only a word in Guatemala. Anyway, how would this Dolores even know about Evie Crowder unless the little girl was still alive in 1954? Maybe even still in Guatemala? She seems to have known a lot of things. My friend copied the letter she sent to the newspaper and there's a lot more than her claiming to be Evie, there's a lot more than what they printed. She wrote about a conspiracy between United Fruit and the U.S. government. Some of it true, some of it believable, some of it completely bonkers. She said she was Evie Crowder and that someone named Tomás—I have no idea who that is—had been looking for her, had finally found her and told her who she was. And that she was moving with him to Brazil.”

“How strange,” Jean marveled, preferring these stories to the confrontation she had planned. “Will you find out more?”

“Yes, in time. She had to have known something. Lots of digging to do, but I had to come back to teach this fucking class.” The sun disappeared below the water and the scene on Jean's deck darkened. “Imogene, Imogene.”

“I hate that name,” Jean said, loving it on Telema's tongue.

“Of course you do. So why don't you change it? You know, my real name's not Telema Espejo de la Hoz.”

“It's not? What is it?”

“Evangeline.”

Telema's laugh was a startling animal-like cackle. The cut on her cheek glimmered with a slight infection. They both laughed so hard that their bodies slid down into their chairs, their legs tangling under the table. Imogene and Evangeline.

“I'm going to Guatemala in August,” Jean said, feeling so unexpectedly confident. Yes, she could keep Telema. No need for a fight now. When she went on the Roots Tour, she'd track down the adoption records. If she found the facts to exonerate herself preemptively, Telema could hold nothing against her. And Maya would surely benefit, just as the therapist said. Suddenly the solutions to all Jean's problems lay in Guatemala.

“Are you going to research your book?”

“Sort of.”

“Guatemala's beautiful,” Telema said vaguely. Jean still did not know if she'd ever been there. “But there's always been the war. You're quite brave to be going so soon without an
organization
.”

Jean knew it wasn't the best time, but if she waited any longer, Maya would be old enough to resist. And now Jean's own peace of mind depended on it. “The Peace Accords help,” she said.

“Yes, I suppose a signed document is the best gauge anyone has. Peace Accords bring peace. A paper peace, paper justice for a war begun on paper.” Her eyes narrowed, following something in the dark, something distant. “Listen, maybe this is a good time to go. I have my own investigation to do down there, for my book.”

“Really? Will they follow you there, too?”

“If they don't fuck it up, which they often do. But they've covered their asses in the usual cowardly way. I received a letter from a distant relative of Evie's today. Of course, the suits contacted him about my book.”

“What does the letter say?”

“Oh, so and so about harassment, libel. If I publish the story of Evie Crowder, I'll have a lawsuit on my hands.”

“But why would the FBI care about your book?”

“They don't, really. The CIA does.”

“Your book about Guatemala? Or about Evie?”

“One book about everything, which just so happens to feature Guatemala.”

“A book about everything, with a lawsuit already pending. How do you begin to write that? You're still going to do it?”

“Sure.”

“What about the lawsuit?”

“To sue me, they have to find me a few more times. And they have to get the right name on the paperwork. They certainly didn't have it this time around.”

“But they can find you, can't they? I mean, they know where you are now.”

“They know where I am now because I've allowed them to find me. Sometimes it's easier to have them along for a while. They're stunningly incompetent, you know, especially when they have stiffies.”

“Aren't you afraid they'll arrest you?”

“Oh no, they want me to lead them somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Someplace I will never lead them, but they don't know that.” She said this exactly in the way she had referred to her own students, weeks before, oblivious to the fact that they would all be getting C's.

“Would you let them follow you to Guatemala?”

“Maybe, I'm not sure. Actually, I think this summer might be the perfect time for me to go. The best time to get information, records. The world's eyes are on Guatemala, so they've got to play nice, right? Truth and reconciliation. In a year, once the world's forgotten, it'll be much harder. Also, you'd be a good decoy. If we're both down there, they won't know who to follow. When do you leave?”

Jean told her, flushed with excitement at this development. A vacation together, a relationship milestone. Then, remembering Maya too late, she backtracked. “Listen, Telema. I'd love for you to come, but I'm taking my daughter. I can't involve her in—”

Telema held up a hand. “That's fine, Jean. I completely understand. Don't
think a second more about it.” She refilled her wine. “How's your paper coming?”

“I don't know.” The paper was going nowhere and she knew Telema would hold it against their relationship. “I'm having a hard time understanding the point.”

“Your thesis, you mean?”

“No, the point of the coup.”

“But that is your thesis, right?”

Jean acknowledged this. “I read about the antitrust suit. It just makes no sense at all. Everything, absolutely everything points to the fact that they did it to save Fruit, so why would they dismantle them right after? They got the dictators they wanted lined up, ready to give the company everything they wanted.”

“Is that person trespassing?” Telema interrupted, staring wistfully out at the darkening curve of beach.

“I suppose so.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“I do not.”

“That's too bad. Not one court in this country would convict you if you shot him.”

“Listen, Telema. I love you,” Jean blurted, warmed with wine. The wine was warming her, but cooling Telema, which Jean could very well see. She hadn't meant to say that, but it seemed the closest approximation to her feelings without using more pathetic, accurate word “need.” It was better, anyway, than I'm not writing a book. I give money to breast cancer research. I have an assimilated, adopted daughter, who is currently on a date with a football player.

Telema withdrew her foot from their game beneath the table.

“It would never work,” Telema said after taking a long drink, finishing her wine.

“Us? Why not?”

“Because emotions are always exploited, they become distraction.”

“Distraction from what?”

“From what matters, Jean. Those articles from 1983 I stumbled upon, detailing the little girl's murder, the ghastly details of her rape, the confessions, everything. Conspiracy theories, alternate endings. Now, why, after all those years, would someone dredge up that stuff?”

“Because they want justice? Because they received that letter?”

“Distraction! The newspaper published that shit during the bloodiest months of the civil war! And this was the news the people got. The smallest bit of investigation would have proved that this Dolores was not Evie. But they didn't even bother to find out. They just ran with the story. Of course, the people ate it up. They loved it because it provoked their most private fears and desires. Emotions are our own enemies, Jean. They distract us from real problems. Especially love. Especially horror.”

“I wouldn't distract you. I could help you with your research.”

“Still, it would never work.”

“Why not?”

“Because you would never give up your private beach.”

“I'd give up my beach, sure. It doesn't mean a thing to me.”

“Sell it to me, then. Sell it to me right now for a dollar forty-eight an acre.”

“A dollar forty-eight?”

Telema was drunk, but this new game pleased her, and Jean felt it leading somewhere other than a joke. Possibly reciprocation.

“That's fine.”

Telema reached a hand down to her purse. “How much land do you have?”

“Less than an acre.”

Telema laid a dollar on the table and Jean took it too quickly, before she realized she shouldn't have. She was drunker than Telema and she had the vague feeling it had all been planned. That Telema had the deed in her purse and would force Jean to sign it after a few more drinks.

“Now,” Telema said, sitting back, “you are my guest. You cannot move from your chair or look at the ocean. You are only allowed to be in that chair and you can only look at me. If you move, I will shoot you for trespassing.”

Jean laughed. “But we're together now?”

“Yes. And you cannot leave. You're mine.”

Jean knew she should be happy. It was all she had wanted, this simple declaration. She had no idea what she would have done if Telema had rejected her, but now that it was accomplished, she had even less of an idea of her future. What does one do with Telema? The moment she had her, Jean began to suspect it would be painful, but easier, to live without her.

“Our fates are now intertwined, Jean. When you are on my land, you
must obey my rules. I paid, so I get whatever I think I'm entitled to. Refill my drink.” Here, Telema brought a small, black .22 out of her purse. Jean, astonished, laughed.

“You carry a gun?”

Telema cocked it and Jean could see the weight of it on her palm, loaded.

“Refill, Jean.”

“Um, okay,” Jean said, trying to get into the game but unable to.

“And where's Maya, Jean?”

“Maya? What do you want with her?”

“She's mine, too, now. I paid. She lives here, doesn't she? Or is she just a myth? I've never even seen her. Why are you hiding her from me?”

“You paid for the land, not us.”

“But you live here. And you will continue to live here. My land, my rules. Where else would you go? You have a dollar. Where else can you go?”

~~~~~

The Santa María ecotour convened at the base of the volcano the next morning, in darkness that soaked everything brown. It was four in the morning, too early even for perverts. They had made a clean break from the hotel, no one following. Jean had no idea where the paranoia had come from, other than Maya's own ridiculous behavior, but she made a concerted effort now to avoid the man in the suit.

At the volcano's base, Jean shivered in her hiking shorts. She had forgotten how cold spring could be. Eternal Spring felt more like late winter during the nights, and a wet, dank fall during daytime hours. Jean would be cold and underdressed for at least another hour—her coat packed in her lost luggage. When she moved close to Maya for warmth, her daughter moved away, shivering, too. For the past twenty-four hours, she'd turned more sullen than usual, not even perking up for shopping. In desperation, Jean had bought her everything she pointed to. Piles and piles of factory-made shit from the Latino shops that Maya demanded but took no joy in, as she normally would. Three purses, silk scarves, beaded jewelry, and an expensive silver jaguar (her school mascot) that Jean knew wasn't made of silver. A present for Brett. Jean bought all these things, then she had to buy bags to carry it all home. This strategy only made their small room more crowded and Maya's discontent harder to avoid.

What had been in the orphanage file, to affect her like this? To make her
so needy, yet remote? The medical notes, the mother's name, the picture. Baby Maya, a red-tinted bundle of pain.

Maya, in moving away from Jean, neared the others.

“What's your name?” a kindly woman in a polo shirt asked, speaking as if to a much younger child. As if to a lost child. For her refusal to stand near anyone, everyone was having a hard time placing Maya. They tried their best not to stare.

“María,” Maya replied. “María Tiara López.”

“Are you with the Truth Commission?” a member of the tour group asked Jean.

“No,” Jean said, pointing to Maya. “We're on a Roots Tour.”

“Roots Tour,” the woman repeated, possibly trying to decipher the acronym for Roots. Jean did not clarify, pleased to be mistaken for an aid worker. Revenger of Oppressed Tribes, Jean thought. But the joke came too late. The woman turned away, spoke with a man in a different polo shirt.

Their guide did not look like a traditional Mayan guide, but more like a Latino youth with a woven Mayan belt holding up his pants. Disappointed, Jean could not imagine challenging him. Whatever his ancestry, he knew English well. “I'm a tourism major,” he said as an introduction. “The climb will be about two hours, and along the way there will be plenty of trash to pick up. I come every week and always there is new trash. The townspeople desecrate their own volcano,” the guide reported gravely.

The group, except for Maya, lowered their heads in collective neutrality, torn between their love of the environment and of an ancient culture.

Everyone received a black trash bag and leather gloves, stained brown and stiff, as if by aged blood. They all put them on, opened and closed their hands to achieve some kind of harmony with the fabric, then began up the path. The two Truth Commission workers headed the parade, followed by the man in the white polo shirt, the woman whose organization was unclear though its symbol marked her shirt, and one man directly associated with the United Nations.

It wasn't just Maya's photo that had unsettled Jean. She also could not forget the mother's information. Not information, really, just a name. Cruzita Sola Durante. In 1983, she had been alive, but was she still?