Ute got up and peered at the dark walls of the café. They were covered in paintings of varying sizes. They were all for sale, at modest prices.
Bleeding, spidery words she couldn’t decipher were woven into the distorted half-animal, half-human figures and landscapes in ochre, yellow, green and blue. The sea was always lurking behind, a pale, murky sea. Ute didn’t know much about art, but she knew when she saw a restless soul, and here was one.
“I like them,” she said. It was a relief to be honest about something, anything.
“An American couple came by yesterday, they had fried calamari. They’re staying at Villa Pacifica. The señor is Colombian. He knows a lot about business. He told me to put the prices up. Too cheap, he said. But I don’t know who’ll buy them. They don’t sell much as it is… They’re not for the locals anyway. People here are too poor and ignorant. And foreigners, when they come, they come for the beach, for the snorkelling…”
“Did the American couple buy a painting?”
“Oh no, no. I didn’t expect them to. To tell you the truth, I keep these paintings up because they make me feel like Oswaldo is here…” She trailed off again. “Such is life, sometimes.”
“Yes,” Ute said and glanced towards those misty hills across the ditch.
“I’ll buy a painting, later,” she said, and knew she wouldn’t. Even the smallest one wouldn’t fit into her backpack. Guilt, that’s what it was. She had learnt to manage and suppress guilt when travelling – you had to, you’d crucify yourself trying to save everyone. It was best to give up all thought of helping and distance yourself. But the woman’s brave smile and these paintings caught her unawares.
“You’re always welcome,” the woman said, as if reading her flaky thoughts of a well-meaning gringa. “If the café is closed, just ask around for Consuelo. I live at the other end of the village.”
“OK,” Ute said. “My name is Ute.”
“Ute,” the woman repeated. “Nice name.”
Perhaps she could buy the smallest one and give it to Jerry to take back with him as hand luggage. Ute got up. The coffee was undrinkable.
“Are you staying at Villa Pacifica?” Consuelo asked.
“Yes.”
“There are many paintings by Oswaldo there. I don’t know if they’re still up, but they’re there. He was a very good friend of Mikel and Lucía. We were all good friends once…” She composed herself. “The furniture there is his work too.”
All small places have their secrets, Ute thought. She promised she’d look out for the paintings, paid up, left an unreasonably large tip and walked away. Consuelo retreated back into the dark interior.
Some black kids were kicking a half-deflated ball on the beach. The village was slowly coming round from its siesta. Ute sat on a bench not far from the café and sketched in her notepad an outline of the area as she saw it: Puerto Seco, the inlet, the two sides, the sanctuary of Villa Pacifica straddling it. She wasn’t too sure about the dry forest – how far it stretched, what was up in those shrouded hills. Ten kilometres that way, Mikel had said. But which way was that? She felt lost without a map, and she didn’t like feeling lost.
The kids had spotted her. There were four of them, a girl and two boys of around thirteen, and a tiny girl with something smeared around her mouth who was running behind them across the sand.
“What are you doing?” the older girl stepped forward, the official envoy of the group. She had a chubby face, and her belly protruded over her trousers. She wore a baseball hat, like the two boys.
“I’m drawing.” Ute smiled. “It’s a picture of the malecón and Puerto Seco.”
The girl came closer and looked at the pad.
“It doesn’t look like Puerto Seco,” she declared.
“That’s true,” Ute agreed, “I’m not a very good artist.”
The girl giggled, her hand on her mouth, where a few teeth were missing. The boys smiled shyly, avoiding Ute’s eyes.
“Why do you have red all over your face?” the girl asked, rubbing her fingers around her own mouth, to show where she meant. “Are you sick?”
“No, I’m not sick,” Ute smiled. “That’s just the way I am. You have crinkly hair, and I have red around my mouth. What’re your names?”
“Evelyn,” the girl said.
“Ricardo,” said one of the boys. The other boy mumbled a name Ute couldn’t make out.
“And I’m Ute. Can you write your names down for me?” Ute handed over the pad and the pencil to Ricardo. The boys suddenly grew sombre. Ricardo shook his head vigorously. She handed it to Evelyn, who put her hands behind her back and looked the other way.
“Come on.”
“We can’t,” Evelyn said.
“Why not?”
“We can’t write our names.”
They had dropped out of school for reasons they couldn’t explain. Evelyn was ten, and the boys were ten and twelve. The tiny tot was their baby sister. Evelyn lifted her up to show her to Ute, like a toy, and the girl’s face soured, ready to cry.
“Where do you live?” Evelyn enquired.
“Over there, in Villa Pacifica,” Ute pointed behind her.
“El Vasco y la Bruja,” she mumbled and looked at Ricardo, and they giggled. The little one laughed too, happily, kicking sand. The other boy remained glum.
“What?” Ute was intrigued. “Who is la Bruja?”
“La Bruja, la Bruja… el Vasco y la Bruja… el Vasco y la Bruja,” Evelyn chanted by way of an explanation. So Mikel and Lucía were the Basque and the Witch. Ute got up. These kids depressed her.
“Are you going to come again?” Ricardo said.
“Of course,” Ute said.
“When?” he insisted.
“Tomorrow.”
“We’ll be over there,” Evelyn said, and pointed to the patch of beach where their deflated ball sat.
“OK, see you then,” Ute said. But they followed after her, Evelyn carrying the little one. The glum brother tagged behind. Consuelo was leaning in the café entrance, looking their way. From here, Ute couldn’t tell if she was smiling or crying. Either way, she cut a disconsolate figure for someone called Consuelo. Eventually, Ute managed to lose the kids and went looking for the tourist agency that sold tickets for the dry forest. It was a newly anointed national park. She had to see if it was worth adding it into her guide update, and she also needed a map of the area.
She tripped over the doorway step of the sleepy little office and almost tumbled inside. There was an elevation fifteen centimetres high at the foot of the door, as if specifically designed to trip up visitors. The swollen-bodied guard dozing on a chair inside the dark room woke up when she entered.
“El Niño,” he pointed at the doorstep by way of an excuse. “We have valuable exhibits in here. We can’t afford damage like last time.”
The only exhibit Ute could detect was him. She bought two A5-sized tickets to the park, plus an extra one to “swim with the fishes of Agua Sagrada”, as the guard put it, and for a moment Ute stared at him. Then she realized what he meant and smiled. “Swimming with the fishes” was a local expression for drowning, but of course it also meant snorkelling. She asked him how to get to the other side of the inlet, where the cloud forest was.
“The other side? There’s nothing there. The Agua Sagrada beach isn’t accessible from there anyway, you have to go onto the main road, and the official entrance to the dry forest is there. Or you can go swim with the fishes from here, and go to the beach as well. By boat. From here.”
She was confused. “There’s no way across the river further down?”
“You go along the road,” he insisted again.
“And what about the community of Agua Sagrada, can I visit them?”
It was the sick painter she was suddenly curious about.
“They are too far up the hill. It takes two days to get there on horseback. And anyway, they don’t like visitors.” He then added, as if it was somehow connected, “They make pottery.
”
“Careful,” he mumbled as Ute headed outside, just in time to prevent her from tripping again over the crazy door stopper. A hundred metres down the street, she realized she’d forgotten to ask about maps, and the exhibits. She was having a forgetful day. She turned back.
The clerk was already dozing on his chair. She looked around for maps or any other information, but there was nothing, except a wad of US dollars behind the glass counter and a wad of tickets.
“What do you want now?” the clerk grumbled. He’d risen from his chair and was attempting to tuck his shirt into his trousers.
“I’m looking for a map.”
“What for?”
“Well, to get… oriented.”
“If you need information or orientation, you can ask me.”
They looked at each other for a dumb moment.
“You are the official agency that sells tickets to the park, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“This is a newly established national park.” Ute stepped towards him to impress on him the difference in their heights. But clearly he’d seen tall, aggressive gringas before and he wasn’t an impressionable type. He just watched her indifferently, waiting for her to finish and leave. His gut hung over his belt.
“You charge twenty dollars per ticket, which I’m happy to pay,” Ute continued. “A map and some additional information is not that much to ask for, is it? In a park that’s… I don’t know how many thousands of square metres, and comprises several microclimates, endangered flora and fauna, beaches and marine life?”
“We do not have the means to provide visitors with maps, señora. We have been a national park only for two and a half years, and El Niño hit us hard. As I said, whatever information you need, just ask. That’s why I’m here. For example, I can tell you that the park is twenty hectares. It’s the biggest park of its kind along the coast, and the only one.”
There was a flicker of enjoyment in his eyes now. She had brought a bit of action into his afternoon. “If you’d like to know more about the flora and fauna, just ask the guide when you take the boat trip. And also, you can use these tickets for up to seven days. You can go in and out of the park as many times as you like.”
“OK. And can I see the exhibits?” Ute said, resigned.
“Unfortunately, some work is being done on the exhibit room just now. It will be open to visitors in a few weeks. Where are you from?”
“Finland,” Ute said.
“Like the vodka,” the man said, and smiled lecherously.
“Yes.” She felt woozy and aggravated by everything and nothing in particular. It was very unlike her. On the way out, she tripped over the step again.
“Watch out for the step!” a belated drawl followed her out.
5
When she got back to Villa Pacifica, she discovered that her watch had stopped. It wasn’t two-twenty, as it showed, but five-twenty. Somehow, she had spent the entire afternoon in Puerto Seco. She’d also missed the afternoon crossing to the animal shelter with Pablo, or was it Jesus? She’d have to wait till the morning.
The young receptionist-cum-waiter conveyed this to her in a low, confident voice meant to sound respectful, but the thread of mockery in it didn’t escape her. He had slicked-back hair, and his slightly hooded lizard’s eyes gave him a sly expression. It said, “I’ll take your breakfast order no problem, but I’m also taking your measure, all you gringos who’ve washed up here, with your self-delusions and vanities.” It didn’t surprise her. They were, after all, vaguely despicable, Ute thought. Had she been him, she’d despise gringos too. In fact, she already did, a little.
His name was Héctor. He called her señora, which made her feel old. “My name is Ute, by the way,” she said to him, and he said, “Bueno, señora.” She must have looked huge to him, with her practical cargo trousers and broad shoulders. But she was used to feeling this way in South America. Sometimes it even gave her a pang of dull satisfaction, a friendly giant’s glee, to see the curious, alarmed looks of the locals. The worst places to be unfeminine in South America were Rio and Buenos Aires. The beauty of the women there was so commonplace that society as a whole took its absence as a public insult. Walking down the streets of Buenos Aires, Ute had actually felt the judgemental looks of passers-by, both men and women. How dare you look like that, they seemed to say. How dare you show your disfigured face, how dare you uglify our city. She had declined the offer to update the Argentina guide.
Ute went into the lounge and took a look at the furniture. It was made from a light wood, the design simple and sensitive. She already liked Oswaldo the artist. She imagined him as a silver-haired man with a suffered-in face, and wondered if she could meet him, up in his cloud forest. Héctor stood by, watching her.
“It’s nice work, isn’t it?” he said eventually, nodding at the tables.
“Yes, beautiful.”
“It’s the work of a local artist, Oswaldo Joven. This is by him as well.” He pointed to a large painting in the dimmest corner of the room. Ute went closer and recognized the style of weaving words and shapes in a seasick way. It was hard to say just what it meant to depict, but the overall impression was one of rolling hills and bays, or perhaps clouds and waves. It was as if a malevolent God had run its hand through this landscape and spiritually deformed it. She managed to decipher the poem, which undulated with the landscape, but the letters were too warped, and all she could make out was: welcome… end of the world… and the world will not… you and the world will not… you…
“This painting used to be in a café. Señor Mikel bought it and put it here.” Héctor explained. Ute didn’t mind him so much any more.
“Are there other paintings by Señor Oswaldo here?” she asked.
“Yes. Many.”
“Where are they?”
Héctor shook his head. “There are too many, there’s not enough space for them here.”
Just then, a man and a woman arrived. They were Hispanics, but from the man’s clear Spanish, Ute gathered they weren’t locals.
“Where can we park our car?” the man demanded, dangling a large bunch of keys. “It’s a four-by-four, so we need space.”
He had the imperious manner of rich Latinos speaking to those with less money, which meant most other Latinos. The woman – she was a girl, really – glanced around with studied superiority, making sure the place was up to their standards. They said a smiley, friendly “Hola” when they saw Ute. Héctor got on with the business of registering them. His manner had stiffened again.
The man was youngish, perhaps in his mid-thirties, but his tall frame had already slumped into the softness of a prosperous middle age. He wore a heavy gold watch, Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt with an open collar – the kind of gear affluent American men wear to signal they’re outward-bound. In his earnest shorts, pulled-up socks and pristine trainers, he looked like a fat rich kid keen to join the cool kids’ party. The woman was long-haired, bejewelled and tiny, with a bird’s face. She looked to be in her twenties and carried a small crocodile-skin handbag. Her stick-insect figure somehow supported a pair of disproportionately large breasts in a white sleeveless top with a high polo neck. She looked like Barbie. Ute stared involuntarily. The woman smiled back blankly. Ute couldn’t imagine her either loving or hating her husband.
She dragged herself back to the cabin. Back at la tortuga, she found Jerry lying in the hammock, asleep, the ridge of his nose marked by his glasses, which were neatly folded on his crotch, his closed laptop resting on his stomach. The door of their cabin was ajar. Ute stepped inside, anxious. What or whom did she expect to find in there, apart from mosquitoes? There was no one there, of course, though the earthy incense aroma of the previous night hung heavily in the air, like a presence. Her half-unpacked stuff was just as she’d left it that morning. After a cool shower, she felt slightly more alert.
She came out, and Jerry gave her a vivid smile from his hammock. She sat on the doorstep.
“Brilliant siesta. Possibly the best siesta I’ve ever had. How was Puerto Seco?”
“It’s a dump. But I got us tickets for the dry-forest park tomorrow. Looks like we’ll have to set the day aside for it. It’s huge.”
“Have you been across to the animals?”
“No, I missed the afternoon crossing.”
“You’re joking! You’ve got to see them! Stuff the dry forest.”
“Yeah, I’ll see them tomorrow. There’s wet forest too, you know, above sea level.”
She wanted to tell him about Consuelo and Oswaldo, about the painting, the sad kids on the beach, but it all seemed too complicated. She didn’t have the energy.
“Ute,” Jerry shifted heavily sideways in the hammock and blinked at her in that ingratiating, puppyish way he had of signalling that he wanted something. “Would you mind if we stayed here longer? Say, a week?”
“A week!”
“Yeah, I know, I know. We said only a couple of days. But I’d be happy to spend my whole break here, and you’d still have time afterwards to cover the rest of the coast. I mean, you’ve already covered it, this is pretty much the end of the line, as it were.”
Ute shrugged. “But why?”
“There’s something about this place, an energy. Last night, I didn’t blink. I felt incredibly alert. All my tiredness went. I just sort of prowled around the place. I went down to the shore and I knew there were wild animals on the other side, I just knew it though only the birds were making a noise. Then I lay in the hammock and, you know, listened to the jungle, as it were. I took some notes. A lot of notes actually. To be honest, I’d like to do some writing while we’re here. I’ve got the time off now, you know how it is. When I go back to teaching in January, my time won’t be mine any more…”
“I don’t mind. As long as we can stay away from that guy Max,” Ute said.
“Oh God,” Jerry rolled his eyes, “where did he come from! Big baboon. The first thing he asked me when we met, he goes,” Jerry put on an exaggerated American accent, “‘How much do you earn teaching lidereture at callege?’”
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