Alejandro looked back at Alma, then stepped inside the boat heavily.
“Alex,” Alma called out. “Don’t go.”
“I’ll be back soon, corazón.” The reluctant adventurer waved. “Don’t worry, we’ll just take a quick trip down the river and back.”
Max pointed a victorious fist at them, and then trumpeted: “Don’t cry for me, Argentina!” He had a surprisingly good baritone.
“Let’s go back to the house.” Eve nudged Alma, who looked distressed.
They were now walking back to the house. Héctor stood shining the torch at the gliding boat for a moment, then caught up with them, panting.
“I’ll let Lucía know,” he said, and turned off to the master bungalow.
“Maybe you could call Carlos on the other side?” Ute suggested.
“There’s no phone on the other side,” Héctor muttered. Mikel would give him hell for letting the guests across unauthorized.
Back on the veranda, Eve was tucking into a large piece of moist syrupy cake, already served at their table and waiting. She offered some to Alma, who declined and sat fingering the golden crucifix at her neck. Ute sat with them and had a piece of cake too. The women waiting back at the house keeping the fire going, while the men went hunting, that was the idea. And to confirm their ascribed gender roles, Eve and Alma picked up a woman’s conversation from earlier on.
“The first one is the hardest,” Eve was saying to Alma in between mouthfuls of cake, “but also the sweetest. After that, the birth gets easier. Your hips expand. Actually, it’s almost kind of addictive. It’s kinda sad to think that I’ll only give birth and breastfeed one more time…”
Héctor was back. He was behind the reception, handling keys. Ute walked into the lounge.
“Everything OK?” she asked Héctor.
“Well” – he shrugged – “we’ll see. Would you like some dinner?”
“Yes. I’d like the arroz marinero please, and a carrot juice.”
“Fine,” Héctor said. And just then, a gunshot ripped through the night. Everybody jumped in their chair.
“What was that?” Eve cried.
“Carlos. Greeting the visitors.” A smile brushed Héctor’s face.
“What, has he just… shot at them?” Eve said.
“Carlos would do anything to protect his animals.” Héctor said, then turned around and hurried back inside. Eve rushed off down the path to the shore and, after casting an uncertain glance at Ute, Alma followed. Ute got up too and went after Héctor inside the house. He was talking to Conchita in the kitchen.
“Héctor,” Ute called, and he came out. She hushed her voice.
“You know how you were telling me about the gringo and all
that?”
“Yes,” Héctor said.
“Are you trying to tell me that he was murdered?” she whispered. Most people never get to say this sort of thing, and she was startled to hear herself utter it. “By Mikel, or Carlos?”
Héctor didn’t seem shocked by the question.
“We can never be sure of anything that we don’t see with our own eyes. I didn’t see anything with my own eyes.”
“Do you want your arroz marinero or not?” The cook stood at the kitchen doorway, hands on her hips.
“Yes please,” Ute said.
“It’s all right, Conchita,” Héctor said in a conciliatory tone. “Señor Mikel is back tomorrow and it’ll be all right.”
“It better be. Cos this place is turning into a zoo. Like this whole country.”
And Conchita stomped back into the kitchen. Héctor set off down the pebbled path.
Ute’s carrot juice was waiting for her on the veranda, at the table next to where Eve and Alma had sat. Ute sat down and drained her juice in long, slow gulps. Its coolness spread inside her.
Conchita brought her dinner and placed it in front of her with a muttered “buen provecho”. Ute tried to formulate a question, extract some insider information from her, but she was too hungry to think, and anyway Conchita’s face didn’t invite conversation. She surrendered to the fragrant mound of rice and seafood.
And now the hunting party was returning, Max’s voice leading the way. He hadn’t been shot.
“…And I say to him: come on, gaucho, shoot me, come on. And the sonofabitch shoots at us.”
“Not at us,” Alejandro piped breathlessly, “but shootin’ in the air.”
“I didn’t see which way he was shootin’, the point is he was shootin’…”
They emerged into the light of the veranda: Max striding ahead, Alma and Alejandro walking hand in hand and, last, Eve and Héctor with his torch.
“You know what? I’m gonna call the police… Hey buddy” – he turned to Héctor – “what’s the number of the local police?”
Héctor didn’t understand, or pretended not to.
“Don’t be an ass,” Eve snapped at Max. “You know that firearms are legal here. What’re you gonna say? I was trespassing in the middle of the night?”
“Shut up,” Max snapped back. “Women, huh” – he turned to Alejandro – “they always know better.” But Alejandro was still clasping Alma’s hand.
They went up the veranda stairs to where Ute was sitting.
“Hey Uddar,” Max said, and plonked himself onto a nearby chair. “Hey buddy” – Max turned to Héctor – “bring me a bottle of your finest wine. The most expensive.”
“We don’t have—”
“I don’t wanna hear what you don’t have. Just do it.”
Héctor stood for a moment, then went inside. Everyone else sat down.
“All I wanted to do was to play with the animals. Say hello to the lion cub. Is that a crime?” He shook his head. “This place is fucked up, man. It’s a loony bin. The gaucho over there is a maniac. Mikel’s got a screw loose somewhere, that’s for sure. The kitchen boy here’s a bit dense. And the lady of the house… What the hell’s she good for?”
Nobody answered him except the creaking insects in the invisible giant plants.
“I tell you, I’m going off my fucking head here.” He shook his head.
“Max, let’s leave tomorrow,” Eve said in a placatory tone.
Max shook his head again. “We came here for you, honey,” he said. Cos you wanted a baby, remember?
Alejandro cleared his throat. “We’re gonna go to bed,” he said and got up. Alma followed him. Ute saw that his knee was grazed.
“What, you’re going already?” Max protested. “What about a game of darts upstairs?”
“Not tonight, no.” Alejandro stood his ground this time. “We’re very tired.”
“All right, all right,” Max dismissed them with a flick of his hand. Alejandro made way courteously for his bride and, his hand on her shoulder, they walked across the veranda towards their bungalow.
Max sighed heavily, frowning with sudden introspection. He was a man alone, in a world of disappointing alliances.
“Hey amigo,” he shouted, “where’s the wine?”
Héctor emerged with a bottle in a cooling bucket, his expression inscrutable. But Ute could read him better now, and she saw the stiff neck, the clenched jaw.
“Here it is,” Héctor said, and produced the chilled bottle. “Moët et Chandon.”
“What, did I say champagne? No, I said wine, vino, vino. This is fizzy wine, estúpido.”
The bottle dripped in Héctor’s raised hand. For a moment, Ute thought he was going to smash it onto Max’s head. But he just said:
“You say most expensive…”
Max leant back in his chair heavily. “All right, whatever, come on, we’ll drink it. Uddar, you want some champagne?”
Héctor had brought glasses for everyone.
“Um,” Ute cleared her throat. She felt like she hadn’t spoken for ages. She loved champagne, and she didn’t often drink Moët et Chandon. Even Max’s presence couldn’t turn her away from this. “Yes, thanks, I’ll have a drop.” She looked at Héctor whose eyes ha
d gone vacant.
“A drop. A drop in the ocean,” Max said, as Héctor filled their glasses.
Eve clinked glasses with him. “To the kids,” she said, not making eye contact with him. “I really miss them. Let’s call them now.”
“I wanna speak to them first!”
Max was dialling a number on his mobile. Ute imagined a bevy of small children in a large mansion, all golden and fluffy like freshly baked pastry, with big, empty eyes. Ute drained the last bit of champagne in her glass and got up.
“Thanks for the drink,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Eve said absently. “Hey, Mama?” Max was saying now. “How’s it goin’? Listen, Mama…”
Ute went the alternative way, via the “master” cabin. She just had to. Not that she expected to see anything, but she needed to reassure herself that someone was home. Someone who hadn’t come out when the gunshot was fired. The lights were out. Ute could smell cigarette smoke.
10
“Who’s there?” a hoarse voice said in Spanish.
Lucía was lying in a hammock outside the cabin, smoking. In the dingy light of the path, Ute could only just make out her skinny shape.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said in English. “I was just… returning to our cabin. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You’re not disturbing me, I’m already disturbed.” Lucía snuffled a soft laugh. “Where was that from? Come and sit.” She gestured towards the other empty hammock, symmetrically suspended on the other side of the door. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
Ute went over and sat on the edge of the hammock.
“What were you looking for?” Lucía asked.
“Oh, I… wasn’t looking for anything.”
There was a silence in which her lie echoed long enough for both of them to make of it what they liked. Lucía offered her a cigarette, and Ute lit her second cigarette in ten years, after the first one with Mikel the day before.
“How was your walk in the park?” Lucía asked.
“Actually, we got a bit lost. Well, not lost but we got caught out by the night. We took a shortcut back to the shelter.”
“You know, we’ve been meaning to get some maps designed, for our guests. It’s ridiculous that the national park can’t get their act together yet. But then again, nothing surprises me here any more…” She paused. “How did you find the shortcut?”
“I just guessed.”
“That’s clever of you.” Lucía said.
“I don’t suppose you went as far as Agua Sagrada?” Lucía continued. “It’s quite far by foot, a steep climb…” Something in the way Lucía trailed off reminded Ute of Consuelo when she talked about her husband.
“No, we didn’t. I wanted to,” Ute said. She waited for Lucía to mention Oswaldo. Another thick silence full of insects. Even Max’s voice had been turned off. Ute felt heavy-limbed, and with every second of silence she sank further into a canopy of drowsiness. Lucía’s tobacco-textured voice brought her back:
“We plan things a certain way in life. But they turn out differ-
ently.”
This startled Ute, and she turned it over in her sluggish mind.
“Perhaps you’re too young to understand this yet. But you will.”
“You have a great life here,” Ute said. She was surprised by how much Lucía was talking, and how intimately.
“Yes,” Lucía said. “Oh yes. Lying in a hammock all day is sweet. And eventually it kills you.”
Ute didn’t know what to say. “Do you and Mikel have children?” she asked in the end.
“No. I was a feminist. I didn’t want nappies and suburbia. I travelled instead. I took drugs…”
“And Mikel?” Ute asked.
“He had a son.” Lucía had reclined back in her hammock, and her face was out of view. “It’s a sad story.” Another long pause, which Ute didn’t feel she could interrupt.
“You know, Mikel is an old-fashioned utopian. But, as I said, things don’t always turn out the way we thought they would.” Ute waited for more, but Lucía went quiet.
At one point, Ute felt a light breeze near her face: it was a very large green insect flying by.
“You’d think that in a place like this time would go very slowly,” Lucía said just as Ute wondered if she’d fallen asleep. “But ten, fifteen years have gone like that. I arrived on this coast a young woman from California. I blinked, and I woke up middle-aged. Like Sleeping Beauty in reverse. When you come to this point in your life, it’s frightening. It frightens you and pushes you to do stupid things.”
Lucía lit up another cigarette and, in the quick flash of the lighter, her face looked like a skull.
Ute swallowed. Her throat was dry. “Do you ever leave… this place?”
“It’s hard to find someone to manage it.”
“Héctor seems onto it,” Ute tried. She suddenly remembered the gunshot. “That gunshot… Did you hear it?” she said.
“Sure. It’s happened before.”
“What, guests of the villa crossing at night?”
“No. Traffickers. That jaguar is worth tens of thousands of dollars, and they know he’s here.”
The large green insect alighted on Ute’s forearm and stretched its many legs.
“We’re on our own out here, you know. If armed traffickers broke into the animal refuge, no one would lift a finger in Puerto Seco. If the place went up in flames tomorrow, no one would do anything to help us. The new government of President Gonzales is a pain too. They took some mangrove land we own, which we bought when we first arrived, to protect it from being turned into a shrimp farm. Cos that was the big thing in the Eighties and Nineties. Shrimp-farming. It became a huge export industry. Some officials from the Ministry of Tourism came round and basically took possession of the mangrove swamps. They refused to compensate us, and of course we refused to sign anything, but they went ahead anyway. Now they’re charging visitors for guided tours there, fifty to a hundred dollars a head. And the worst thing is, there’s a real danger they might want to take the animal shelter next, make it part of the national park, and start charging for it. Oh, I could go on…”
“And how come you don’t get on with the locals?”
“It’s not that we don’t get on. We contribute hugely to the local economy. Everybody who stays here goes on the local tours, the snorkelling, the new national park. But in their heart of hearts, the people here wish bad things on us.”
“I heard some kids in the village call you la Bruja and el Vasco,” Ute said. She could be honest with Lucía. Lucía had been honest with her.
“That’s right.” Lucía uttered her mirthless laugh and exhaled smoke. “I’m a witch because I’ve got dogs instead of children. That’s what life is about around here. Breeding, lying around in hammocks, chasing the flies, and waiting for something to happen.”
But Lucía was saying this from a hammock, Ute thought. It’s not as though she led a strenuous life. Ute was relishing the conversation, the first enjoyable conversation since she’d arrived.
“This fragrance,” Ute said, “what is it?”
“Palo santo.” Lucía offered Ute another cigarette, and Ute took it automatically. “A kind of tree bark. It grows in the cloud forest. It chases away bad spirits.”
“Do you believe that?”
Lucía sighed, or maybe sniffed or laughed. “It’s a bit late to believe it when the bad spirits have already paid you a visit,” she said. “But I humour Mikel.”
It seemed they’d reached the end of the conversation. Ute bid Lucía good night and walked to the tortuga cabin. Halfway there she remembered about food for Jerry and turned back. In the lounge, Héctor was leaning against the reception desk, reading a newspaper. His skin had an oily shine in the dingy light.
Someone was in the games room – there were hefty footsteps upstairs. Ute asked Héctor for a piece of the lemon cake for Jerry. Héctor cut a fat slice, then put it on a small plate with a fork,
covered it with a napkin and asked:
“Is he feeling unwell?”
“No, just tired. He missed out on all the excitement tonight.” She reached out to take the plate. But he was holding on to it.
“Yes,” he said, and walked her to the French doors, the plate in his hands. “For the time being, the situation is under control.”
“What situation?”
“The situation in general. With Carlos and all the rest.”
He was now walking with her down the pathway, as if he intended to deliver the cake to Jerry personally.
“By the way,” Ute said out of the blue, “why has Carlos come all the way from Paraguay to live here of all places?”
“Because he got into some trouble there,” Héctor said. “He plotted the murder of a politician.”
“What?”
“Some vendetta. You can ask him. Though I’m not sure you will get anything out of him. Buenas.”
They were outside la tortuga now, and he handed her the plate. He looked pleased with himself. What exactly did he want from her?
“Buenas,” she said. Héctor turned on his heels and sauntered off.
“Idiot,” she said to herself. She’d forgotten to ask Lucía about the elections.
Jerry was sitting in bed, hammering on his laptop.
“Ah, you’re back!” He stretched and yawned. “And with sustenance! What’s the time?”
Ute looked at her watch. “Seven o’clock,” she said and got into bed, with her clothes on. “Which could mean anything between ten and tomorrow.”
“It feels like midnight. It’s like we’re in a sort of… black hole here, isn’t it?” Jerry gulped a forkful of cake. “I thought I heard a gunshot earlier.”
“You did,” Ute said. She was already under the covers, with her back to him.
“Strange thing is, it didn’t surprise me,” Jerry said, but Ute didn’t reply. She was sinking into a vat of sticky sleep, where bad dreams were already churning.
11
Loud music woke Ute up. Jerry wasn’t there. The inside of the cabin was dark day and night, because of the heavy thatched roof, and her watch showed seven-thirty. She lay for a while with her eyes closed, trying to work out where the noise was coming from. The chest-thumping loudspeakers were playing Cumbia somewhere close by. Then the music stopped, and some sort of blurred speech took over. It sounded like the fruit sellers that cruised along the sleepy streets of coastal towns here in open-topped trucks laden with fruit, shouting through megaphones, “Un dolarito las mandarinas un dolarito los bananas…” until you bought some, just so they would leave. But what were the fruit sellers doing here in the middle of the night?
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