Villa Pacifica

by Kapka Kassabova

  “You’re way off-key, Max,” Eve said, but he paid no attention.

  “He thinks he’s winding me up,” Eve said to Ute. “But he’s not. I’m way beyond that.”

  Ute nodded. Jerry had gone back to the bookshelves. Héctor’s inscrutable face was watching from behind reception.

  “So come on guys, what are we gonna do tonight?” Max said.

  “We can play darts,” Alejandro proposed.

  “Nah, boring,” Max said.

  “What’s the song saying?” Jerry asked.

  Ute translated: “But if one afternoon the gardenias of my love die, then I’ll know that you’ve betrayed me, that you have another love.”

  “Gosh, and I always thought it was a cheerful song. Do you think everything’s all right between these two?” Jerry gestured in the direction of Mikel’s drunken singing.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know what a woman like Lucía sees in that clown,” Jerry went on.

  “How do you mean?”

  A glass smashed at their hosts’ table. Ute had taken a chair closer to that end of the veranda. She heard Lucía’s soft voice from a few metres away: “Amor, that’s enough wine for tonight.” One of the collies came and stood by Ute’s chair with a forlorn look, like a child scared away by a violent father. She rubbed his furry flank and he settled at her feet.

  “Are you guys on holiday with the little one?” Liz asked, turning to Luis and Helga.

  “Yes,” Helga said.

  “My junior brother died some weeks ago,” Luis explained in an American accent.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Liz gasped.

  “Sorry to hear about it,” Alejandro offered too, and translated the sad news to Alma.

  “Wow, how did your brother die?” Max asked.

  “We are from the Oriente,” Luis began, “the Amazon jungle. We are indígenas. My tribe is the Achuar.” His mother’s eyes flickered into life at the familiar sound, and she gazed at her son with recognition. “You know about the Achuar?”

  “A little bit,” Ute said, and Luis looked at her in surprise. Ute had never written on the Amazon for the guides, and she’d only been there once.

  “Ah, the Achuar Jivaro!” Mikel said with authority. “They have some things in common with the Shuar. Very interesting animistic system of beliefs… they produce the best medical plants. They have magical dreams and visions. And of course they are most famous for cooking the heads of the enemy, how do you say…”

  “Head-shrinking,” Ute said.

  “Sí,” Luis said quickly in Spanish, “head-shrinking is a traditional practice, especially for the Shuar. They boil the heads of enemies, usually Achuar. But it’s all in the past now.”

  “Thank God for that,” Tim said.

  “So, in our culture—” Luis continued in English, but Max cut him off.

  “Wait, wait, wait – what’s that about shrinking heads? Sounds cool.”

  Luis looked annoyed, but decided to ignore him. “The Achuar tribes have many traditions. This tradition is very old. The head of the enemy is cut off, and you boil it. But it’s illegal now.”

  “You remove the bones first,” Mikel said. “Then you boil the head until it shrinks to about this size.” He showed a fist. Luis stared at him.

  “Shhh,” said Helga, furrowing her brows.

  “Gringos are always interested in shocking things, not in the truth of our culture.” Luis looked disappointed.

  “Ah, the word gringo!” Mikel had another brainwave. “You know where it comes from?”

  “OK, buddy,” Max said in English, leaning across his table and spreading his arms between where Luis sat and Mikel stood. “Let him continue – or you’ll have your head boiling in a big pot before you know it.” He chuckled, and so did Liz.

  Mikel was drunk. Ute could just see Lucía, still seated at their table in front of their dinner plates, stroking the other collie, cigarette smoke curling from where she sat. What a strange woman, Lucía. She always looked absent. But she knew exactly what was going on.

  “OK, guys,” Liz said. “Just let him carry on with the story, OK?”

  “So, in our culture,” Luis resumed, “there are many spirits. Good spirits and bad spirits. Every community has a wishin, a shaman – a man who speak to the spirits. My father was a shaman. This means a very important man with three wives. My mother is his more important wife, because she gave him three sons.”

  “Hey, that makes me a shaman,” Max leant towards Eve excitedly, “a very important man with lots of children. That’s me,” he chuckled. “Except where’s my other wives? I should be allowed to have two more wives. See, these guys have figured it out…”

  Helga shot him a dark look.

  “OK, so my father was a shaman. But I don’t remember him, because he died when I was three years old.”

  “Oh,” Eve cooed.

  “How did your old man die?” Max asked.

  “The neighbours’ tribe thought he had put a bad spell on someone there, and the bad spirits had killed him. So the other tribe, they went and killed my father.”

  “Wow,” Liz said and licked her spoon.

  “Blimey,” Jerry said. “That’s a bit harsh.”

  “The life of a shaman is dangerous. Because he has too much power.”

  “And because,” Mikel said, “his power is subjective. His village thinks it’s good power, the neighbour village thinks it’s evil power. When someone dies, it’s the fault of the shaman.”

  “Mikel was an anthropologist,” Ute whispered to Jerry.

  “You know about Achuar culture?” Luis asked.

  “Of course. I was in the Amazon. It’s not my field of speciality, but I know. It’s an interesting fact that men living in a tribal society like the Achuar have a thirty per cent chance of dying a violent death. Compare with men in civilized society…”

  “What about women?” Liz wanted to know.

  “What is this ‘civilized’?” Helga demanded. “Who is ‘civilized’?”

  “Ah,” Mikel said, lifting a cautionary finger, “this is a very complicated question.”

  “I’m not civilized,” Max boasted. “I’m the original caveman.”

  “I think the Achuar are more civilized than the slums of Mexico City,” Alejandro said, and Alma nodded, as if she hung out in the slums all the time.

  Luis’s mother said something to him, covering her mouth as she spoke.

  “Is she correcting you?” Liz asked.

  “No, she wants some cake,” Luis grinned. “The Achuar don’t have cakes.”

  Héctor brought a piece of the cheesecake on a plate, and everybody’s eyes were on the tiny woman, who covered her mouth as she took a first forkful of cake and then quickly spat it back out onto the plate, while her face remained impassive. She mumbled something to Luis and pushed the plate towards him.

  “Sorry, it’s too rich for her.” Luis looked in the direction of Mikel, who had moved away from reception and sat inside, close to the veranda. “I’ll eat it.”

  “No importa,” Mikel waved it away. “It’s a pleasure to have guests from el Oriente. It’s our first time. We get many gringos, but not many locals.”

  Luis smiled.

  “So you know where gringo comes from?” Mikel said to everyone. “From ‘green’ and ‘go’. You know why?”

  “The Americans in Vietnam?” Max guessed.

  “No. From the Mexican-American war, when American soldiers wore green uniforms and Mexicans shouted ‘green, go home’.”

  “So what happened to your brother?” Tim asked, turning to Luis, who was cradling the baby.

  “Hey,” Max butted in. “Is Luis your real name? Don’t you folks have tribal names?”

  “Yes, my name in Achuar is Yánkuam. It means ‘afternoon star’.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Liz said.

  “My name,” Max said, “means Homus Maximus. The big man, basically.”

  Liz giggled.

/>   “Luis, please continue with your story,” Jerry said.

  “I finished.” And he got up with the baby, who was asleep again.

  Luis asked Mikel if it was OK to have a look upstairs, and Helga and his mother followed Mikel, who went ahead to show them around. Lucía had disappeared with the second collie.

  The rain had stopped and the night insects had resumed their serenade on the edges of leaves. The air smelt like the inside of a rotting passion fruit. Max was inhaling loudly through his big nostrils.

  “Hey, I got an idea, let’s play a sex game!” he proposed. “Lottery. Pull names out of a hat.”

  “OK, I’ll play on one condition,” Liz declared. “If the guy from the animal shelter takes part.”

  “Absolutely,” Tim agreed. “We’ve got to have the gaucho. I’m not doing it without the gaucho.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Eve said, and looked at Max.

  Ute avoided Jerry’s eyes.

  “It’s a joke, this game, right?” Alejandro said, looking from face to face with worry.

  “Buenas,” Mikel waved to them, as he came down the stairs.

  “Hey, amigo, you can’t walk off now! You’ll miss out on the fun,” Max jeered after him.

  Mikel turned around and walked up to Max.

  “Listen,” he said in Spanish, and pushed a finger into Max’s chest. “I’m getting sick of your loud voice. This is my place. I’ll see you tomorrow morning when you settle your bill, and until then, keep your voice down. OK?”

  “Well, well, well – are you trying to throw me out, amigo?”

  “I’m not your amigo.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, we’re not leaving tomorrow.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “What’s happening is, we’re going snorkelling tomorrow, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Or are you gonna try and get rid of me like you did with that gringo? Remember, two years ago, the drowned French gringo?”

  “Are you mad or what? What are you talking about?” Mikel shook his head. “You say I killed the French guy? He drowned. Me entiendes? He drowned in the river” – he pointed in the direction of the river – “he took cocaine and went for a swim. Bad idea.”

  “Yeah, sure he drowned,” Max said.

  Everybody watched with fascination.

  “Now you say sorry.” Mikel took off his glasses and pointed an angry finger at Max. His eyes looked small and vulnerable without the glasses. “Sorry for telling lies about me and Villa Pacifica.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Max said, and put his feet up on a chair.

  Jerry cleared his throat. “Mikel, don’t worry about it. Forget about what he said.”

  “Nobody listens to him,” Eve added. “He talks garbage all the time, so just ignore him.”

  Just then, an eerie, fluted sound came from upstairs and silenced them.

  “What’s that? I wanna go and see,” Liz sprang to her feet. One by one, everyone followed.

  “Luis is a professional músico,” Mikel said. “Buenas,” and he was gone.

  “You know,” Jerry said to Ute, “I came across one entry in the visitors’ books that says ‘If you stay here longer than a week you become cracked in the head’. I think for some people it might take even less.”

  “How long have we been here?”

  “Three days? Four to go, before we go nuts. You’re not worried about that storm?”

  “Not really,” Ute said.

  “I suppose if it rains heavily, we can just stay in our cabin all day, or play games and read here.”

  “Yeah. If the roof holds up.”

  “Oh really, does the rain get that bad here?”

  The truth is, she didn’t know. But she knew that if Café Fin del Mundo could be wrecked by beach waves a year ago, so could this cabin by the shore.

  “Señora.” It was Héctor, eating spaghetti in a dark corner of the reception lounge. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and got up.

  “I’ll come up in a second,” Ute said to Jerry.

  “You are staying on?” Héctor enquired.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Because, you know” – he lowered his voice to a whisper – “what Mikel said about the storms and all that, it’s a bit exaggerated.”

  “Really? There’s no storm forecast?”

  “No, no, there is, there’s going to be a lot of rain, but not tomorrow. Maybe not even the day after. I think Mikel just wants to see the American señor gone.”

  “I see,” Ute said. “Well, I don’t want to interrupt your dinner.” She made for the stairs.

  “No, not at all, I’m done. I hope you enjoy swimming with the fishes tomorrow.”

  “Swimming with the fishes,” Ute repeated, and had a feeling of déjà vu.

  “Sí, swimming with the fishes,” Héctor said, smiling.

  “By the way,” she said, “Is there a good path from the bay that leads up to Agua Sagrada?”

  “Why do you want to go to Agua Sagrada? There’s not much there. Some ruins and a cloud forest. It’s a long way up. Many hours of walking. And there’s nowhere to stay.”

  “But people do go there.”

  “Only by special arrangement with the local community, and usually they don’t walk. They hire a donkey or a horse.”

  “Do you ever visit” – she hesitated – “Oswaldo?”

  “No. It’s too far.” Héctor’s face darkened. “He’s sick. It’s very bad. Shall we go upstairs? After you.”

  Ute went up the stairs, and he followed. Luis was expertly blowing into a fluted, reed-like wind instrument, Helga was beating along on some skin drums with closed eyes and tantrically moving neck, while his mother’s sandalled foot was tapping. When they finished, everyone clapped.

  “What’s that instrument you’re playing?” Max asked.

  “Bueno,” Luis said, “this is a traditional Andean instrument call zampoña.”

  He said something to Helga, and they resumed their duet. Ute caught herself glancing out of the window in the futile hope that Carlos’s hat might appear on the white path.

  And the rain started again. Everybody instinctively looked out. Everybody except Alejandro, who was dozing in a comfortable wicker armchair, with Alma sitting on a cushion at his feet: tiny and silken-haired like an expensive puppy. Tim was reclining in his favourite spot by the windows, his eyes closed, and Liz was sprawled with her thighs open onto an armchair like some Antipodean Danae offering herself to the inseminating tropical rain of the Gods. Just as the elemental music, coupled with the rain, seemed to produce a hypnotic effect on them all, the baby started to squeal. Helga sprang up, abandoning the drums, and the musical interlude was over. Alejandro came to with a start and stroked Alma’s hair.

  “He’s tired,” Luis said. “We have to go.”

  The old woman shuffled to the stairs, followed by Luis and Helga.

  “See you tomorrow,” Luis waved to everyone, and everyone said “See you”, except Max, who grabbed the zampoña and caught up with Luis halfway down the stairs. “Don’t forget this,” he said.

  “So, are you a writer?” Liz turned to Jerry. “What are you writing now?”

  “Well, I’m writing a story called Villa Pacifica,” Jerry said. “It’s about a bunch of strangers who are drawn together by chance in a place not too dissimilar to here.”

  “Am I in it?” Tim wanted to know.

  “Is it funny?” Eve asked.

  “What happens at the end?” Max asked. “Somebody get killed?”

  “Well, goodnight,” Alejandro said, and stood up. Alma was yawning.

  “You guys are so boring.” Max shook his head.

  “Good night,” Alma chimed, and they were gone.

  “Shall we be boring and retire too?” Jerry asked Ute.

  “I guess so.” She was not so much exhausted, she realized, as strangely vacant, as if some nerve had been extracted from her. There was something wrong with this state of affairs, but it was better than pain.

  �
�That’s a good idea,” Tim said. “I’m gonna get some sleep too, before the snorkelling expedition tomorrow. Goodnight,” and he was gone down the staircase, together with the Mexicans.

  “I’m also turning in,” Eve announced. “Anyways, I’ve gotta pack.” She looked at Max.

  “Jesus, you’re a bunch of geriatrics,” Max complained. “Come on Liz, let’s have a game of pool.”

  “OK,” Liz sprang up.

  Eve walked along with them in the warm rain.

  “Wow,” she said. “I feel like I’m in a giant shower. Do you guys believe this El Niño stuff ?”

  “Yep. And the smart thing is to leave tomorrow, like you,” Jerry said. “Why don’t you take Max with you?”

  “You’re kidding me. You’ve seen Max. He’s, like, so contrary. If I say something, he goes and does the opposite.”

  They continued to walk in silence, listening to the quick crunching of their own steps and the lashing of rain on the leaves.

  “Why do you stay with him and have children with him if you don’t” – Ute hesitated over the word – “love him?”

  “You know why? Because I figured some time ago that all men are bastards. Sorry honey.” She looked at Jerry. “You’re a nice guy, but you’re in the minority. So I figured, I might as well marry a rich bastard and stay with him. That way I’ve got one less thing to worry about. In my family, we were always short of money and there were always lots of mouths to feed. I swore to myself my kids’ll never be like that.”

  Her hair was plastered to her round head, and with her rain-shiny face she looked haggard and pitiful.

  “Well, that’s me here,” Eve said, stopping in her tracks. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She waved at them and ran down the path leading to the Whale. They walked on to the Turtle. Running was pointless: they were already drenched. When they got to their cabin, Ute kicked off her flip-flops, took off her wet T-shirt and fell onto the bed in her rain-sodden dungarees.

  “Amazing, that couple,” Jerry said.

  “Yeah. I don’t get it.” That initial, silly pang of jealousy for Eve and Jerry seemed weeks, months ago.

  “You know what’s funny and sad about them?” Jerry continued. “Max fancies himself as a successful American, but deep down he still feels like a Latino small-timer. And Eve will always be the daughter of poor Costa Rican immigrants, no matter how big their house gets. They’ll never have class.”