by Bruce Wydick
“Very interesting behaviors,” commented Alex scientifically as he scratched the short whiskers on his chin and pondered the two piles of coupons.
“Yeah. Lotta people willing to pay the quarter extra for fair trade. So what’s next?”
“I think we must tempt people more away from fair trade. We will widen the gap. Let’s try a dollar for the standard and keep twenty-five cents for fair trade.”
“Wow, that’s a big difference.”
“Yeah, we see what happens. And maybe the time after that we try a fifty-cent difference.”
“Sounds good. See you then, dude.”
Alex paid Jimmy for the coupon discounts and strode away from the café toward his apartment, reflecting as he walked. He had learned something today: coffee drinkers, at least in San Francisco, were willing to pay more for their coffee to help the growers who grew their beans. But there was something else.
He began to reflect on how he had gone about developing an understanding of the world. Until this point he realized his academic effort had been devoted to a careful winnowing of the evidence in support of a foregone premise. It was just like his high school language teacher had taught him—to follow a thesis sentence in a paragraph with supporting material. But in a curious way, the experiment had positioned him in the business of truth-seeking. Somewhere along the way, and he wasn’t sure where, he had begun to think less like an activist and more like a scientist. But the strange thing was that he felt no less passion for the truth; indeed perhaps more. And now he really wanted to know the truth: how much did the average coffee drinker care about coffee growers, and how effective was the current system in harnessing this goodwill?
CHAPTER 24
Rich
November 20, 2007
RICH SAT SWEATING AT HIS DESK SIXTY MILES SOUTHWEST OF San Pedro Necta. His office was in a trailer, the trailer was in a small World Bank compound in Pajapita, and Pajapita was a torridly humid agricultural village near the coast. The airy mountain breezes of the coffee project a few months before had been relegated to a pleasant memory. A small iron fan, resuscitated from being placed in storage somewhere back in the 1950s, sat on the floor as it squeaked rhythmically at each sluggish revolution.
Work on his fruit-export project would keep him in Guatemala for just another couple of weeks, after which he also would return to Berkeley. His project, funded by the Bank, was to help assess the impact of an agricultural transformation in the low-lying humid areas of the country. World Bank funding had helped convert large tracts of cattle pasture into tropical export crops: mangoes, pineapples, guava, and other tropical fruits. The director of the project, a Spaniard named Diego Vasquez, walked up the old plastic steps of the trailer into Rich’s office.
Rich turned to him lethargically, unexcited. “Hola, Diego.”
Diego looked slightly concerned as he regarded Rich’s state. Darkened sweat patches covered the front of his shirt, the middle of his back, and his sides next to his arms as he was working on his computer. “Rich, do you need another fan? You are sweating formidably,” Diego observed in English.
“No, Diego, I don’t need another one of your fans. I need a freaking turbo-charged air conditioner and an enormous fridge full of cold drinks. What’s up?”
“We need historical data on regional agricultural yields that are sitting in some file in a regional agricultural office in Huehuetenango. The data is old, covering the ’60s through the ’80s, and unfortunately it has not been electronically coded, only in hard copy. I don’t trust the courier services here, and besides, someone needs to go through the files to make sure it’s what we need. Would you mind heading up there in the next few days to get it?”
“I was just starting to run those estimations on the 1995 to 2005 production years. Why don’t you send the hormiga?”
Carlos Jimenez, a.k.a. the hormiga, was a student from the university in Quetzaltenango. Viewed by all as a significant source of help on the project, he was also about four and a half feet tall. Aside from being short, even for a Guatemalan, he was also unusually skinny. Rich had nicknamed him la hormiga, or “the ant.”
“Carlos has to be on data collection down at the coast this week, and anyway I would prefer to have you. You are more familiar with the data we need to complete the project.”
“Okay, no problem, boss.”
Only a few hours later Rich’s cell phone rang. He looked down at the incoming number. It was someone from the United States. He answered it. “Rich Freeland.”
“Rich, it is Alex.”
“Lefty, qué tal, amigo.”
“I am coming to Guatemala.”
“What?” Rich asked, surprised. “When?”
“The day after tomorrow. Angela’s coming with me.”
“That’s Thanksgiving!”
“Dutch people do not celebrate Thanksgiving, especially me. But they still allow me four days off. And Angela, her parents are on the East Coast visiting relatives for Thanksgiving and she had nothing to do and is bored. Her prof had postponed some assignment and she said she didn’t trust me coming down alone anyway, but I think she was just joking. She said maybe she could help Fernando and Juana pick coffee during harvest this month. Anyway, we found online some cheap airplane tickets.”
“Why are you coming down?”
“I want to see Lourdes. About Lourdes, I think I love her, Rich. And she has not been answering my e-mails recently.”
“You love her?”
“Yes, Rich, I am believing so.”
“Maybe she had the baby?”
“Yes, Rich, that is the point. Will you meet us at the Chinita?”
Rich reconsidered the cool breezes of Huehuetenango and the highlands, and realized that he had lapsed into a fleeting moment of insanity in his hesitancy to accept the work assignment from his boss in the first place. Now he had two reasons to go.
“No problem, Lefty. Believe it or not, got the director whippin’ my hide to get some data up near there anyway. I’ll get a seven thirty bus Thursday morning. Should be there around midday.”
“Gracias, Rich. We will see you then.”
Almost miraculously, the bus left on time that day and arrived sooner than expected in Huehuetenango. Rich quickly found the data at the agricultural office and hopped on a second bus for San Pedro Necta. He jumped off the bus with his backpack and walked over to the Hotel Chinita, where he checked in. Strange, the town seemed a little deserted. Must be the harvest. He made his way to the room, threw his backpack on the floor and himself on the bed. It was around one in the afternoon.
Not more than half an hour after he arrived, his cell phone rang. He glanced down at the number. It was Alex.
“We are embarking from the bus,” he pronounced over the phone.
“What do you mean—you’re getting on or getting off?”
“Off.”
“Great, nice timing. Just got here myself,” said Rich. “Y’all come on down, the price is right. I’m in room four.”
CHAPTER 25
Alex
ALEX AND ANGELA ARRIVED AT THE INEXPENSIVE HOTEL, the host of many memories from the summer, and knocked on Rich’s door. Rich greeted Alex with a firm Southern handshake, a man-hug, and a strong back-slap. He gave Angela a kiss on the right cheek.
“Rich, Angela, I would like to hike up to the house. Would you mind if I went alone first, and then we go together in the morning?”
Angela gave him a charmed glare with hands on her hips. “Oh, all right . . . I suppose we understand,” she said in mock exasperation.
“No problem, Lefty. A man’s got a right to privacy in matters of the heart.” Rich stayed behind and settled in on his bed, apparently content with a pile of economics journals and the ensuing siesta.
Alex decided he could hike up to the house and make it back not too long after sundown. Carrying just a small backpack with some water in a canteen, he headed through the town toward the dirt road on the remote edge of town that led to the tra
il up into the mountains.
He passed by some of the little comedores, the little restaurants where he and the others had eaten so many meals. He noticed how few people were walking about the town today. It was unusual. Alex kept up a brisk pace as he passed a church on the left side of one of the main roads in the town. There was some kind of event happening at the church; people were dressed up.
He took a left at the intersection on the dirt road that led up into the mountains where Fernando and Juana lived. Horse manure littered the dirt road. After several hundred yards, the road narrowed and turned more steeply up the hill. Alex began to breathe a little harder from the increasing gradient of the road and the elevation. Even so, he was glad to be there. This felt good. A few of the growers they had met were working in their coffee fields. They waved to him as he walked by. He waved back, and Alex had a feeling that more people recognized his face in this tiny town in the western Guatemalan highlands than in his home city in the Netherlands. It was a funny thought.
He continued to hike as he slapped at a fly buzzing around his head. After a while it was time for a break, and he took the canteen out of his backpack and had several long swallows of cold water. He could see over the town now, the small adobe houses dotting the landscape beyond its center, each surrounded by a small field of coffee, the colorful cemetery in the background. Along the roadside, he could see that many of the coffee cherries that had been just little green dots when they had been there months before were now a large reddish-orange. School would be out now, and soon it would be time for the harvest. The children would help their parents in the fields. Fernando’s whole family would join the picking crew, even the little ones. He wondered if he would be here long enough to help. Nothing he could think of pleased him more than the thought of helping Fernando’s family pick their coffee during the harvest. He would pick next to Lourdes, and they would spend hours picking and talking until sundown. A wonderful feeling flowed through him merely at the thought. And after the harvest, Lourdes’s family would have more money than they would have any other time during the year. They would be able to buy things they needed. He remembered what Sofia and Angela had told him about the Prisoners, and he hoped that the weather had been perfect here—and terrible in the rest of the world.
He continued up the old, pitted road, and after nearly an hour of hiking, he saw Lourdes’s house in the distance. Fernando would be working outside preparing the fields for harvest, and Juana and Ema would greet him from the window, surprised to see him, and would ask him in for a meal. They would not have expected him to return. He knew they didn’t approve of his tattoo, and he had had it painfully removed the week before. The tattoo had vanished from his right wrist, leaving a few laser burn marks that had yet to heal. But it would be a sign to them of his respect; he wanted them to be able to trust him with their daughter, and even their grandchild. They would laugh about the summer’s happier events, and enjoy the special connection shared only by those who have bridged a friendship across income levels, language, and culture. He and Lourdes would talk, and he would share with her his thoughts about a book he had been reading in Spanish that she had given him. She would challenge every preconception he had about life and love and family, and he would listen to her. And they would pick coffee for hours together while Juana took care of the baby in the house. Maybe when they took a break, he and Lourdes would take a walk down to the creek. He approached the house smiling inside.
As he walked up from the cornfield in front of the dwelling, he saw no sign of anyone around the house. Usually the grandchildren and the nephews were playing soccer in the front or the little game they played with the hoops and sticks. The family must be out picking in the field. A dog barked in the side yard, but this didn’t seem to attract the attention of anyone. He walked out to the field. The cherries were ripe for picking, but no one was picking them. He called for Lourdes. He checked in the field for Fernando and Juana.
Alex sat on the solitary concrete step leading up to the front door and waited. Even the neighbors seemed to be away. Time passed. Half an hour went by, then an hour. Disappointed, he decided to return to town. He retraced his path, descending down the dirt road about half a mile. A man who had seen him ascend called to him.
“A quien buscas?” he yelled across his small milpa field to Alex. Who was he looking for?
“A Fernando Ixtamperic,” answered Alex, now just happy to talk to someone.
“No lo conozco,” said the man. He didn’t know him. Perhaps he was at the church with many of the others?
“Okay, amigo. Gracias,” Alex responded.
Alex descended down the dirt road back into town. From his location on the mountain path he had a view over the town, and he could see the church again. The words Iglesia Pentecostes were painted in purple under the eave. It was then that he remembered that this was the church that he had visited with Lourdes. It was her church.
People were filing out of the church now. Most were staring down at the ground. Many of those coming out of the church were young people—too young—he thought to himself. From the hill at a distance, he continued to watch the procession. More young people filed out of the church, and still more. How many could the church hold? Finally, a modest casket slowly appeared out of the front of the church, carried by six young pallbearers. It was a funeral. This was somebody who was too young to have died, he thought.
And then a sickening feeling overtook him.
Behind the pallbearers Alex spotted Fernando and Juana. Fernando was holding Juana’s hand tenderly. They shuffled slowly behind the casket. Behind them other members of the family slowly walked, all looking at the ground. Behind the big casket, two other people carried a smaller casket. It was a tiny casket, the size of a treasure chest. Even from a distance Alex could see that many of the young women in the group were crying, and even some of the young men. The group stopped in front of a small pickup, which was decorated with ribbons and flowers to function like a hearse. It would carry the person in the big casket and the baby in the small casket to the cemetery of many colors, to lie together forever among the pastels. The pallbearers placed the caskets carefully together in the bed of the pickup, then stood back. Fernando and Juana each leaned over the big casket and gave it a kiss before it drove away.
CHAPTER 26
Angela
ANGELA AND RICH WERE WAITING FOR ALEX IN THE HOTEL room. When she had gone out to get lunch, Angela had learned of the bad news. Alex opened the door and silently sat down on the bed, drenched with sweat. He was perceptibly disturbed. Emotionally numb, his movements were like those of a zombie. His eyes were like a mannequin’s, but his teeth and jaws kept clenching and unclenching as he stared straight ahead lifelessly. They were all silent for some time.
Angela sat down on the other twin bed across from Alex. “On the way to the comedor, I saw the procession. I was able to talk with one of her brothers.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed, and his lips were taut. He stood up and walked over to the window. He watched the last of the people lingering outside the church embrace, wipe away tears, and begin to return home. His lower lip began to quiver as he sat back down on the hotel bed. Angela sat down next to him with her hand on his shoulder. They were silent for several minutes before Alex spoke.
“What in hell happened?” he asked Angela finally, his expression tight and grim.
“It was some kind of brain hemorrhage related to her pregnancy.” Angela looked into his eyes and tried to say it as gently as she could. “Fernando and Juana don’t really understand because the doctors don’t really seem to know either. She wasn’t even giving birth yet. I’m so sorry, Alex.”
“And the baby?” he asked.
Angela shook her head dejectedly. There was no good news. “Poor little thing just didn’t make it; they think maybe because of the loss of her brain function, but they don’t know why. Would have only been born a few weeks early. Her brother said there were some signs that things were going bad. She
started to feel very weak; then she became dizzy. They didn’t have the money to take her to the hospital in Huehue. Thought it was probably just related to the pregnancy and might just go away. Then all of a sudden she lost consciousness, and they couldn’t bring her back.”
Angela looked at Alex’s face, which was a virulent swill of emotions, frustrated, mad, and despairing in equal parts, but in all parts bitter. Tears came now, and his nose was running. Angela looked for a box of tissues, but there was just a towel. She handed it to him.
Rich sat down next to him and put his hand on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, buddy.”
Alex’s body repelled the touch instantly and jerked away. He remained silent and brooding for a few moments. Then he turned to Rich and lashed out with a venom-laced tirade. “It’s all just part of how it works for you, isn’t it?” Alex glared at him. “Another coffee picker dies because her family didn’t have the money for a doctor. But at least it is saving you five cents on your cup of joe.”
Rich looked back at Alex, his face pained, without words.
“Can you now see, you stupid fool?” He was shouting now. “Can you see now how unfair this bloody world is of yours?” Alex rose up from the bed and stoically walked toward the window facing the church. Rich sat silent, staring at the floor.
“Please sit down, Alex,” said Angela, trying to calm him, her voice shaky and on edge.
Alex regarded the church pensively through the window as a few more tears dropped down his cheeks. Then, without warning, he reared back and punched a hole through the window with his fist. Shattered glass flew everywhere, inside the room and crashing down to the sidewalk two stories below.
Rich dove for him and pulled him away from the window. Blood was pumping out of Alex’s wrist in the inflamed area that formerly hosted the tattoo, and was soaking his clothes. Rich dragged Alex over to the hotel bed. “Help me hold him down!” he yelled to Angela. Angela held his legs and they forced him down on the bed.