by M. S. Karl
“¿Policia?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “A countryman of his.” I followed her out of the overgrown garden and into the house.
“The police took him,” she said expressionlessly.
I looked around the room. Plaster was flaking off the wall, but the mosaic floor was clean, and there were no spider webs in the corners.
I heard a child cry from another room, and she turned. “The baby,” she said. I followed her into an inner room where something moved in the hammock. She took a seat in the hammock and pushed the floor gently with her bare foot to swing it. Taking the baby in her arms, she pulled one breast free from the loose dress she wore.
“The child,” I asked. “His?”
Her head gave a slight negative nod. “El mio, no mas.”
“But you live here.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Not long. Before the child was born.”
Four, maybe six months, I thought. “Do you mind if I look around?”
“Can you help him? Can you bring him back?”
“¿Quién sabe?” I said. “Who knows.”
“There’s nothing here. But you may look. The police took some things. They are thieves.”
“I won’t take anything,” I said.
“What does it matter?”
I went back into the front room. It was stark: a couple of chairs, a bookcase with a few paperback novels in English, a desk.
“There was a maquina,” she said from over my shoulder. “The police took it.”
I looked at the bare place on the desk, and wondered which policeman now owned a typewriter. At least there had been none in Obregon’s office.
“Like you said—the police are thieves.”
I went through the mass of papers on the desk, and began to open the drawers. There was very little, really. Correspondence with clients, one in Argentina, one in France, a couple in the United States. A bankbook showing 10,000 pesos on deposit at the Banco de Comercio de Tabasco. I flipped through its pages. A year ago there had been over 50,000; since then, the account had been bled by steady withdrawals. It looked like Harold Bassett was living on savings, with no relief in sight. Well, maybe his problems were solved. I didn’t like the joke, and thrust the bankbook back into the drawer.
The bedroom was spare, too, with a bed, bureau, and cheap armoire. A floor fan drew in a thin breeze from the window and I felt the air trickle across my arm and neck. I picked up the radio on the bureau and shook it, but nothing fell out. I would have been surprised if something had.
The bureau showed nothing unusual—the expected underwear, handkerchiefs, socks. I felt along the back edges of the drawers and underneath, but there was nothing taped to them. The armoire contained several pairs of blue jeans, slacks, some guayaberas, and workshirts, and a single corduroy coat. I went through a few pockets and gave up. There was nothing in the toes of the shoes on the floor of the armoire and the heels were solid. I opened a suitcase in one corner of the room, but all I found was an old train ticket to Tenosique. My fingers went over the lining without results.
Of course, I did not know precisely what I expected to find. Certainly not a hidden compartment in a piece of luggage or a secret room with a two-way radio. Just a disparity, an incongruity of some sort—a book which seemed out of character, an off-key letter, a ticket stub. Which all demanded that I already have an impression of the personality of the man in prison. And, of course, that was a lot to expect.
I opened the door into the little bathroom and looked into the shower stall. The drain seemed well fixed in the floor, and, better, gave off the odor of the sewer. Then I went over to the toilet that, like so many in Latin America, had no seat. I took off the top and looked into the tank: the float was empty and I screwed the two pieces back together and closed the top. The medicine cabinet got a perfunctory look; it held nothing but a few allergy medicines, all bought over the counter. You could get anything short of heroin in Mexico without a prescription, so there was no hope finding a doctor who might have treated him. A supply of ampicillin, which had expired last month. The usual remedies for diarrhea. I shut the cabinet door and saw my face in the mirror. I needed a shave and, for the first time, I noticed the lines in my face. For a moment I had the chilling feeling that the face was watching me and would turn away as I stood there and leave me dispossessed. So I left the face.
There was nothing in the room where the baby slept except the woman’s things. There were not many of them and I left them alone. I already knew my search would be futile, because if Harold Bassett was innocent there would be nothing to find, and if he were not, he was too clever to hide things in the usual places and I would really have to tear the house up to do a thorough job, so all I could hope for now was some minor carelessness on his part, but there didn’t seem to be any, and so I would find nothing. Simple.
The third room was where he did his work. Arranged around the walls were glass-topped cases, many of which were filled with brightly colored specimens, each labeled. A net leaned in one corner, and in another was a small table with several vials, a box of cotton, and a glass jar. I smelled the pungent odor of ether and remembered his words: “I feel bad just chloroforming them.” A thought, like a butterfly trapped in the killing jar, began to flutter its way upward, and died in a wave of nausea as I thought about the dead man.
In the center of the room was a large wooden table made from planks, and upon it lay the artifacts of a work left in abeyance: another killing bottle, with a single silver-winged victim still inside, tweezers, a well-thumbed doctoral dissertation by someone who had studied the lepidoptera of Veracruz. A box of pins …
I stood beside the table, hand to my head, trying to think, and then I sensed the woman. She was two feet away, eyes neither asking nor giving, jet hair around her shoulders, the faint light of the room diffused on her brown skin. She could not have been older than twenty, but there was that about her which seemed ageless. My eyes went to her firm body, down the strong legs to her bare feet. I felt awkward, and I suppose that’s why I asked the question. Was it possible, I asked her, that he had kept a list?
“The addresses of the people whom he sent specimens to, or that he sold to here, for example? Or friends and relatives in his own country?” I felt foolish after I had said it, and looked down at the floor tiles.
The woman said, “I know of no list. There is only the cuaderno. The notebook.”
“Notebook?”
She returned with it a moment later, a spiral binder of the kind school children use. I took it carefully from her hand and opened it. It was a journal of some sort, written in his own hand, and dating from this month last year.
“How is it the police didn’t get this?” I asked.
“Because I hid it. I did not know what was in it, only that often, late at night, he wrote in it, so when they came, I took it and put it in the baby’s blanket.”
“You did a good thing,” I said.
“Will they let him go now?”
“I don’t know.” It did not seem like enough, so I said, “I’ll do what I can,” and felt bad after I had said it. I would do nothing because there was nothing I could do.
I felt her eyes on my back as I left. There was a metallic taste in my mouth and I wanted to spit.
I drove back to the hotel, paid off the cab, and went to my room. I hadn’t eaten since noon, but somehow I wasn’t hungry, just hot and weak. I stripped off my clothes and went into the shower and let the cold water shock over me. All at once none of it seemed real: the hotel room, the house with the woman, the prison, the river, the city. I was not one person, but two, an automaton that did the walking and speaking, and an observer slightly out of synch, who listened and watched it all. It was called depersonalization, and was named by a French physician named Dugas, who described it in the 1890s. That’s what they told me in the hospital. Soldiers experience it, travelers with jet lag experience it, and people in trauma experien
ce it. It is a very natural feeling to have.
But Leah was real. That much I knew. And, of course, she was part of the trauma. Because I had only two things in the world, the agency and her, and you couldn’t take the agency to bed, or hold on to it in the dark of night and cry. So perhaps if I called her now, I thought, slipping on my underwear, there would still be time. Time to get on the next plane, go back, tell Kestering thanks but no thanks, and find a job that did not involve interviewing sad little men in Mexican jails. And then maybe I would begin to remember the part of my life that was blank. Yes. I could still call and tell her. I started up and froze. Suppose it was too late? What if she were already gone? I had a picture of them now, in New York or Philadelphia or Boston. In some quiet little corner restaurant, and he would be telling her that she had done the right thing. A day, a week, or a month later, Adrian Kestering would be listening to it all. “Poor fellow.” And he would purse his lips and the tape would go into my file.
But, of course, she would still be there. She had been under a strain, too, all that time. First my near death, then the months of rehabilitation, and then my amnesia, not recalling the simplest things. Like a hole in the world, the psychologist had once told me. The rest of it was all there: the President of the United States, Christopher Columbus, the rules of the road. It was just the personal things. Yes. A hole in the world. And I was the hole. Well, it must have been tough on her living with a partial vacuum. Someone who could tell you the day the World War II started but not the day you were married. Who could tell you the address of the White House but not his own. Who could hold you against him in bed but—I imagined her lying in bed now, leggy and red-haired, waiting for the phone to ring, trying to interest herself in a book. What would she be wearing? The pantsuit that outlined her legs or the housecoat? The latter more likely. Head propped up by two pillows, smoking compulsively to keep occupied.
But maybe it would be too much, and without thinking one hand would touch her thigh and she would thrill to the awakened sensation, and she would try to shut it off, but would not succeed, so that her hand would part the robe, showing the whiteness of her belly and the reddish nestle of hair over her pubis, and the hand, like an automaton, unable to stop, would touch her belly lightly, massage, and then slide down through the little forest of damp fur, searching for the cleft, and, finding it, her body would surge upward against the exquisite pressure, and the book would fall aside as her eyes closed. Imagining the scene excited me, but physically there was no response. I got up from the bed, got the notebook, and settled back in the heat of the tropical night to read.
Chapter Four
It was nearly nine when I awoke, and for a long time I lay inert, watching the fan and listening to the traffic outside. My dreams had been hag-ridden swatches taken from movie previews, and in one I had seen Leah sitting at a table, half in shadow, while muted traffic passed through the streets of some big city. I could not see her companion, and so I knew that the movie dream was supposed to be a mystery and that when I returned for the full feature I would see the face of the man with whom she sat. He handed her a box, the kind a precious jewel might come in, and her soft features were alight as she opened it. The camera zoomed close, and I saw with horror that it was a butterfly brooch, the wings silver, with little diamonds forming the design. She picked it out of the box and fastened it to her blouse, ever so tenderly, and as I watched a terrible thing happened: the wings of the butterfly began to flutter and beat, and when she felt it, she looked down and smiled. And the more the butterfly beat its wings against her breast and twisted, the more she smiled. Then the camera zoomed toward the butterfly’s face, down until the breast that was made for pleasure was a mottled fabric surface and only the butterfly could be discerned, and then, as I saw its face, and the fear stamped on its features, the screen went dark. The face of the butterfly was mine.
I tried to make it go away, but I knew that it was still there, just under the surface, waiting. I had the feeling there had been other dreams, too terrible to remember. My eyes looked up at the ceiling, where the fan still spun, winglike blades impaled on a central axis, and I thought with revulsion about a fat man in his bedroom. Then I remembered a frightened little man in a grimy cell. His notebook was still on the bedside table. I had finished it in the early hours of the morning, and I supposed I knew a little more about him now.
It was not a diary, but, properly, a field journal recording his professional work, if it could be called that. It seemed to have been begun about a month after he arrived.
March 10. And so here I am, alone, where I intended to be and never wanted to be. Everybody talks of running away. Gaugin. South Seas. Except mine is highland Chiapas. Amazingly fresh and clean here, after the city. Train to Tenosique crowded as hell. Glad it isn’t a long ride. Felt like a Jew on the way to a camp. Jesus. Thing smelled, too. No problem getting the ride to Limonar. These trucks ferry people back and forth in the rural section, for a few pesos. Only problem is schedule. Goddamn it, why do I still persist in thinking in those terms? All the time in the world. Almost. Should have taken some lists with me for people that would be interested. No problem. I still remember. Just keep clear of people that might recognize my name. Christ, you would think I was wanted for something. Screw it. Amazingly rich collection of lepidoptera. Also arachnida here. Man in Tenosique hotel said the forest was being “selectively” thinned. So much for the fauna. Nobody surprised when I told them I was after lepidoptera. Though at first they thought I was after ruins. Kept asking if I wasn’t going to the ruins of Bonampak. Said now is the ideal time because it’s the dry season. Maybe so. I’ll get to them sooner or later. Right now, first things first.
There followed a description of some of the species of butterflies he had seen and netted. The next day was little different:
March 11. Awoke at five A.M., with the people. Nice little village. Good people, to let me stay here in an abandoned hut. Tzeltal Indians. Woman wear bright, picturesque blue skirts. Canoes are brightly painted. Not many speak Spanish. Seem to take my butterfly hunting at face value. But some kids tried to help me. Some Lacandon Indians came down from upriver earlier and held a talk with the head of the village. Lacandons still wear the traditional white smocks and have their hair long. But today they carry rifles instead of bows and arrows. Everything changes. Somebody said they were trading tobacco for coffee beans. I hate coffee. Always have. But this fresh coffee, from the newly ground beans, is great. Well, today it’s pushing on upriver to the next place. Maybe the Lacandon village. They say it isn’t far and the Lacandons are getting ready to go back. Now if I can just communicate with them.
He had been in Chiapas a week and then, when he returned to the city, his notebook had gone blank. It was apparently some notion of would-be professionalism that demanded that he keep an account while on the job. Would be, or ex—? For a long time I wondered about the lists he had mentioned, but then it became clear in subsequent entries. He meant people who might be interested in buying his captives.
April 28. Up here the whole world seems to consist of mountains, jungle, clouds. A primeval world. I can just about convince myself that the other one doesn’t exist. Near San Cristobal the vegetation is piney forest. Not quite to Ocosingo it changes radically to lowland jungle, except that it isn’t lowland. High forest, trees a hundred feet tall, cypress, mahogany, lakes and rivers. You dress for warmth near San Cristobal and for the tropics in Ocosingo. They’ve probably forgotten about me already at school. Students never remember. How many professors can I remember? Bad question: I can remember them all. It’s exam time now, almost. Bastards will be cramming. Who did they get to teach mine? Bad when a prof walks out in the middle of a semester. Students probably didn’t give a damn. I bet they were glad. Wonder if Judy dropped the course. Stupid question. The bitch. Her fault. She used me. And their fault. Goddamn administration that doesn’t give a man the benefit. I never sold a grade. Never in all that time. Even Clarisse believed that.
May 14. Incredible variety of lepidoptera. Everything from Sulphurs to Morphos, and some I don’t recognize. You see them in the tops of the trees, always just out of reach. Well, maybe with the trap. Vacation time for students. I saw some with knapsacks the other day in Emiliano Zapata. Made me think what a bitch it would be if I ran into a couple of them up here in the jungle. Doctor Bassett, I presume. We heard about you. Tough shit. By the way, your Bio one-o-one was a bore. Heard a couple of coeds liked it. Judy Howard, for example. Did you really test her rabbit? I might even be able to take it from them, if they consisted of at least one girl that put out. Judy said they don’t say put out anymore. Did it. Screwed. Fucked.
Which is what I’ll be if I don’t build up enough clients. One day the money will run out. Then what? Thirty-five years old and I’ve never held a job except in my profession. Useless. Can’t do what any Indian here can do. Here, failures don’t eat.
And so the journal limped along, through the summer months and into autumn. Comments on butterflies, climate, ethnology, the vicissitudes of his ex-life, at some faraway campus, until the last day of November, when he had scribbled in Tenosique:
November 30. Such a strange damn business. Don’t especially like children, especially babies. Cried all night. But what could I do? They’ll be alright, anyway. I can always put her to work. Slavery, that’s it. Crap. No damned time to be in the field. Hardly any specimens. Krieger says his specimen got beat up in the mail. Blame customs. Think the damned thing was dusted with heroin, probably. Cretins. No. Dumb bastards.
And that, as best I could tell, was when the woman came to live with him. Aside from the initial mention, the rest of the journal was silent on the subject. I did think, however, that the last months showed more tranquility, less complaining, as if he had adjusted to something. A truth or a way of life.