The Center of the World, page 15
Marta turned to look for Felix, who appeared with an empty plastic jug that once held laundry soap, now partially filled with pebbles and clothespins. “I know I play second fiddle to Sofia, but as proprietor of this grand place, I’d like to invite you to stay for lunch.”
Will did not respond. He stood up, keeping his eyes on Sofia, his face crumbling along one side of his mouth. The expected momentum of the conversation stalled and the room echoed with Kate’s heartbeat.
“Will’s been in the Peace Corps and now he’s traveling around for a few months before he returns home. Maybe they don’t do lunch or . . .” She stalled for time, giving Will time to recover from whatever was going on.
He turned to Kate. “I should be going. Thanks for the coffee. Nice to meet you, Marta.” He backed out of the kitchen and left. The sound of the large front door opening and closing echoed in the entryway.
“Was it something I said?” asked Marta. “Was it the guacamole?”
“It wasn’t you. I think he freaked out when he saw Sofia. He must be one of those guys who run when they see a kid.”
Even as she said it, she didn’t believe it. It wasn’t disinterest that she saw on his face. It was fear.
Kate hadn’t seen Will in two days and she wondered if he had packed up and left. Was he just a backpacker guy, post–Peace Corps worker, a vagabond? Will never told her where he was staying. She had scared him off with her seriousness and need, and with Sofia. It was better that she had not told him one thing more, better that she didn’t think about him at all.
Marta’s husband was having trouble selling their property in Australia and would not be returning for weeks. Marta said she longed to talk with someone and that someone was Kate. If Kate came downstairs with Sofia, Marta was there in a flash, seeking the camaraderie of another woman, and another English speaker. Marta was a fountain of questions about the adoption process, now that Kate had confirmed that yes, she was planning on adoption.
“How long will it take? Can I help in any way? It’s odd that they don’t want to meet with you and Sofia together. What in blazes can take them so long? Not that I mind you being here, but surely they can’t expect you to stay here forever. But come to think of it, I don’t know what Felix and I would do if you and Sofia left.”
While these were perfectly normal questions, life had ceased being normal. Since the massacre and finding out about the casa de engordes for little children like Sofia, embers of suspicion ignited in Kate, glowing hot with any inquiry about the child. She was becoming adept at nonanswers.
“Adoption is a long process,” she said. “We’re progressing right on schedule.” Lying grated on her but she no longer felt safe announcing to the world that she had a child and that adoption was a problem. What if someone kidnapped Sofia and sold her?
Kate had already been in Antigua for ten days and she was no closer to finding a solution. Fernando would say only that he was making inquiries. She hadn’t heard anything from Kirkland and she desperately hoped for a lifeline of sorts from her. And if she stayed in the guesthouse with Marta all day, she’d never clear her head enough to think. Marta’s propensity for small talk far out-stripped Kate’s threshold.
It was midday and the two kids collapsed on Marta’s couch. This is how Sofia would have slept at her home, pressed up against her brother like two halves of a walnut, inches away from Manuela and Jorge.
“Go on,” said Marta. “You have the look of a mother who needs an outing. The children are fine here.”
She looked like a mother? Kate put on her jacket and headed to the street. Fernando’s café would have to do as a retreat for her thoughts.
The guesthouse was five blocks from the central square. Storefronts opened directly onto the sidewalks, all the size of closets with thinly spaced stock on dusty shelves: a can of Spam, two boxes of powdered milk, bottles of orange soda, a pile of bananas, and squares of grainy chocolate wrapped in paper. The day was cloudy and cold and the volcanoes were shrouded in clouded hats. Kate had replaced the old sandals with new ones and wore thick wool socks with them. She was not a fashion statement, or if she was, it was called bedraggled gringo.
As she neared the center, something different hit her, stronger than the diesel smell of the old cars that rattled along the buckled cobblestones. It was excitement bubbling over, smiling faces under hats at each corner. By the time she got to the square, a cluster of militia huddled nervously, necks straining to look around as if they feared a sudden attack. She was still undone by the sight of soldiers, but she was becoming better at hiding it. Perhaps Antigua was far too public and open to travelers for the soldiers to do anything stupid, at least in the daylight.
Kate crossed the street so that she didn’t have to walk next to the soldiers. What could they possibly be afraid of? She pushed open the doors to the café and turned her head to the table where Will had been on that first day. Empty.
“I’m not that predictable. You can’t look for me at the same exact table,” said a familiar voice.
Kate whirled around. Will sat with his back against the far wall, reading a newspaper. “I wasn’t looking for you,” she said. Too quickly, she said it too quickly.
“And I wouldn’t blame you if you never looked for me. I’m a rude idiot from Brooklyn. Would you come and sit with me so that I can apologize?”
Kate could say no. She didn’t have to walk across the room and join him at the table with the green plastic cloth. On top of everything else, she didn’t need to get involved with a guy who told her nothing about himself and who ran away the minute he saw Sofia.
“So they didn’t teach you any manners in Brooklyn?” she said. Kate slid a chair out and sat down. Did he twitch at her rebuke? His cheek muscles jerked one side of his lips.
“They taught me manners at home, but on the streets, I learned all the best lessons from a guy named Cesar. When I wasn’t getting the shit kicked out of me, he said I showed some promise as a human being. He would have been shocked at my poor behavior with you. He always said, if you find a woman who makes your heart beat faster, and your brain go slower, either run away or move in.”
“Whatever happened to Cesar and his sage advice?” She placed the tips of her fingers on the edge of the table, ready either to hold on or push off. He should not say woman or heart.
“It would sound more interesting if I said he was in jail, but he’s a FedEx driver.”
“And his love life? Which did he choose, running away or moving in?”
“See, guys make up a lot of silly stuff in our heads that never happens. He met Ruthie and she made him wait for two years before she’d let him move in. He moved in when they got married and not before.”
“What kind of silly stuff do you make up?” Kate relaxed and put her elbows on the table. Could he see her heart pounding out of her shirt?
“Me? I’m just going to keep talking so you don’t get up and go away. Is it working?”
“So far. What happened when you saw Sofia? What was that all about?”
Will took a breath, then slowly exhaled. “I got close to some kids in a village. The military hammered the village pretty hard. Some of the kids got hurt. I’ve been avoiding getting close to kids for a few months. It was hard to see you holding the little girl.”
“But surely you’ve seen Mayan kids since then.”
The café was dark, with only two windows facing the central park, and they were heavily shaded by the wide veranda over the once majestic sidewalks. A flickering lightbulb across the room formed a yellow pool that did not extend to their table. Kate’s spine was cold and she wanted to stop pretending she was brave.
“It was the way you held her, the way she trusted you. Trust can go so wrong,” he said.
Will ran his hand along one side of his neck. Had he trusted someone he shouldn’t have?
“What do you mean, hammered? Were people killed?”
“I mean that I don’t want to talk about it, not right now. Okay?”
She could press the issue, but if she did, was she ready to tell him about the massacre? A flicker of alarm fired in her about this man. “Okay.”
Two Mayan men walked by the door, illuminated by a slant of light. Their shoulders were pulled up and back like they had just won the Guatemalan lottery, if they’d had one.
“Do you know what’s going on today? Is it a holiday? I’m completely lost with their holy days.”
Will pushed the newspaper toward her. It was the government-controlled newspaper from Guatemala City.
“Turn to page four. Then I’ll fill in some of the blanks.”
Kate turned to page four. She scanned the page for anything that would explain the thread of festivity that fluttered through the city. Headlines: December 20, 1990: Politicians ran for election, a photo of a military parade in Guatemala City, the president standing next to a somber-faced school child, and then there it was. She knew enough Spanish to get the nouns and verbs. General Javier flies to Santiago Atitlán to inspect the military barracks.
“I’m not sure what this means and what to believe,” said Kate. Was there any harm in telling Will that she had been doing research at the lake? The words sank back down her throat and hovered until further notice. She folded the newspaper and handed it back to him.
Will pulled the newspaper toward his side of the table. “Here’s what I know so far. There was a massacre in Santiago. Thirty-two people from Santa Teresa were killed in the village square by a bunch of bozo military guys. But here’s the amazing part. The Maya from Santiago and the next village filled the square the next day. Ordinarily, it would have been standard procedure for the families to take their slaughtered loved ones and bury them. Or on days when the militia felt less generous, they’d dump the bodies into mass graves, dug by the people of the village.” Will clenched his hands, and for a moment he looked like a boy who could not believe the first and worst truth of his life.
“This time the villagers refused and they stood guard over the bodies, daring the soldiers to shoot them. I’m a little hazy on this part. I didn’t actually read that in the newspaper, but the market is buzzing with rumors. The villages around Santiago say they will no longer give them food or shelter. If the soldiers touch the women ever again, the women will poison them. They are done with the soldiers and they want their lives back the way they were before the military moved in. The people of Santiago don’t want one more massacre, one more person killed.”
Kate faced the back of the café, where an arched doorway led to the back room. The blood in her head whooshed. She pictured people standing sentinel over Manuela’s body and her son, and the body of Jorge in the makeshift jail. Her eyes stung and she looked down, fussing with her hands. She pressed her lips together to gain control.
“Did anyone survive the massacre? I mean the ones who were shot, were there survivors?” What was left of her voice came out in a whisper.
“I don’t know. Do you want to know the thing that tipped the balance, other than the balls-up courage of the people? There was a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle in the village who witnessed the massacre and the demonstration. She wired in the story and it’s all over the world. Her name is VJ Kirkland.”
Kate heard the tinkling sound of a spoon against dishware and she looked up. Fernando held a tray with a café con leche; he shook his head slightly before he came into Will’s sight.
“Hello, Kate. This is your favorite drink. For my special customers, I don’t wait for them to order,” he said. Fernando set the cup and saucer in front of Kate.
He’d been listening, she was sure of it. Why shouldn’t she tell Will about Kirkland?
“I might have read her stuff in the States. I’m not sure.” She thanked Fernando and sipped the hot drink. She pushed up from the table. “I have to get back. I don’t want to leave Sofia with Marta for too long.”
“How about a do-over? I mean it. I feel terrible about the last time I was there.”
Something tingled in her solar plexus, all of its own volition.
Kate watched Fernando’s back as he walked away, his thin torso pulsing. The cold from the adobe walls pulled out the warmth from her skin. She wouldn’t say anything about Kirkland, but her desire to be with Will muffled any caution.
“Sure, let’s try again. Tonight?”
Suddenly there was a light in her chest, something other than terror. Will’s smile was sad and soft and the combination was unsettling.
CHAPTER 23
Kate kept her trips outdoors with Sofia to a minimum. When she did go out, she tried to take both children. With little Felix along, she was a white woman with two children, one Mayan and one white, not a gringo with a Mayan child.
The reality of taking two small children through the streets of Antigua was much harder than she could have imagined. While Sofia clung to her, Felix exploded from one spot to the next. When she ventured into the market to buy another handwoven cloth, she went alone to the stalls on the outskirts of the city.
Kate could not use Manuela’s cloth to carry Sofia; it would immediately identify the child’s origins. And there were the bullet holes from the machine gun, a surprising few given the torrent. She had washed it and dried it in their room. If she were smart, she would throw it away, take it out to the base of the volcano and bury it. Any number of options had come to mind: Shred it with scissors, burn it, dye it indigo blue. But the cloth stuck to her like a spiderweb. Manuela’s hands had touched every thread in the cloth. If she discarded the cloth, there would be nothing left of Manuela. She rolled it tightly and tucked it under the foot of her mattress.
Kate had on jeans and a thick sweater. She had pulled her hair back into a braid and pulled a wool cap over that. Casa Candelaria never truly got warm, but having now slept outside under the worst possible conditions, Kate was grateful for far lesser accommodations than she would have accepted only weeks ago. No rain soaked her and the child, no mudslides threatened, and they were out of the wind. Marta’s place already earned four stars.
Kate walked along the network of vendors and looked casually at each one. She squatted in front of a woman and admired her fabric.
“Where do you live? What region do you come from?” Kate asked in Spanish.
“By the ocean,” she answered. The woman had broad cheekbones, with fine features and skin that seemed to pull across her face and not down.
The ocean would be far enough away. Kate selected a yellow cloth to carry Sofia. She had never seen a yellow weaving around Santiago. Handwoven cloth lends itself to geometric designs, but what attracted Kate were the animals and birds that appeared along the weave. Children like animals and birds. She pictured Sofia pointing to each one, learning the word for bird, horse, jaguar, and some of the other as yet indecipherable animals.
She bought fresh cheese, eggs, and Spam. She wasn’t sure what Marta intended to cook with the ingredients, but this had been the request.
That evening Marta, Will, and Kate warmed themselves by the fire after a dinner of Spam omelets and potatoes. They ate in Marta’s living room, amid a collection of laundered sheets. A group of German travelers had checked in and Marta struggled to keep up with the wash. Sofia and Felix made a wonderful mess of the mashed potatoes. Both children refused the Spam.
Kate pointed to the mini-piles of the pink meat product discarded by the children. “I think they know something that we don’t,” said Kate.
She was on her third beer. The great salve of alcohol had entered her bloodstream as soon as her mother died and now it found the old pathways of grief once again. With each beer, Manuela’s face with the black hole over her eye faded and grew hazy.
“You Americans are too finicky about your food. We ate tinned meat for Sunday supper and were glad to have it,” said Marta. She patted her stomach. “Just like home.”
“It was a magnificent meal of multiple meat sources,” said Will. He nursed the same beer that he had started with. “Let me take care of this fire and see if I can inspire it.” Will put another small stick of wood on the fire and rearranged the embers until the fire wrapped its greedy tongue around the fresh wood and sent flames upward.
“Impressive,” said Marta. “You’d be right at home in the outback.”
“Maybe the outback should be my next stop.”
Kate set her beer down on the floor next to her chair. The idea of Will leaving gripped her throat. “Where is your next stop?”
The sound of the iron knocker clanging on the front door startled Kate.
“You’re a jumpy one. That’s only the German tourists coming back after their dinner.” Marta scooped up a pile of towels and headed for the door. “Continue on without me, but take notes. I want to know where this fire-tender is off to.”
Will’s sweater smelled of fresh air and smoke, and as his body warmed, tendrils of feral spice rose from his skin. Sofia and Felix played on a rug closer to the fire. Kate got up and sat with the children, putting Sofia on her lap. The child fidgeted a bit, wanting to be near the boy. “Oh, Sofia, I know Felix is the main attraction. Be careful of the fire.” Kate pointed with her finger. “Fire. Fire.” She exaggerated the word, dragging it out, placing her top teeth on her bottom lip as she enunciated.
Will squatted down next to them. If sadness could have been drawn on someone’s face, it would have been around Will’s eyes, which had a dryness to the outer edges and eyelids that had gone heavy.
“I learned a saying about children from the Maya and I’ve heard it all over, in different dialects, but the meaning is the same. Ri akkala qi wish kaj qe ri schoy. It means—”
Sofia turned away from Felix as if the sun had just shone on her. Will stopped in mid-sentence. She stood up and walked to Will and placed a tiny hand on his cheek. Then she rocked from foot to foot and said, “Akkala wishkaj,” in a singsong voice. Sofia smiled and a small yelp came from her throat that Kate had not heard before.
Will said, “Q’uel ya’? Juyu’ nim?” He was casting with a fishing rod of words, testing the water with bait until he got it right. When Sofia repeated a word back to him exactly as he said it, he smiled at her.
