Guatemala – Journey into Evil

by David Monnery

  ‘I know. But I don’t think there’s much doubt they shot a Guatemalan Army colonel. And once they had done they may have decided that the communists were their only hope of getting out of the country.’

  ‘But why did they shoot him, for God’s sake?’ The PM sighed, and picked up the few remaining crumbs of pastry on his breakfast plate.

  ‘The Guatemalans say they don’t understand it either. But they do want our help.’

  The PM seemed not to hear the last sentence. ‘Have the media got hold of this yet?’

  ‘No. The Guatemalans say there will be no need to publicize the matter if it is resolved quickly…’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, if they catch our men soon then they’ll keep quiet. Which is why…’

  ‘They are threatening us with publicity? Surely they’ll come out of it looking even worse…’

  Clarke shook his head. ‘With all the bad press they’ve had over the last fifteen years they’re probably immune by now.’

  The PM allowed himself a grim smile. ‘You know, I can’t even remember why we agreed to this scheme in the first place.’

  ‘The Americans asked us. And needless to say, they’re not very happy at the way things have turned out either.’

  ‘Neither am I.’ The PM rubbed an eye. ‘So what do they want – the Guatemalans, I mean – what sort of help do they have in mind?’

  ‘Ah. Their ambassador thinks the SAS must have routine procedures laid down for eventualities like this – you know, some sort of handbook which tells them what to do when they get stuck behind enemy lines. Will they head for the border or the coast or the embassy? That sort of thing. Will they try and steal a plane? Can either of them fly a plane, come to that?’

  ‘Everything I’ve ever heard about the SAS suggests that they make it up as they go along.’

  ‘Possibly, but it would be good to give the Guatemalans something. We can hardly claim not to know whether either of these men can pilot a plane, for example.’

  The PM considered this. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said hesitantly.

  ‘I doubt if the SAS CO will co-operate,’ Clarke said.

  ‘He won’t if you tell him it’s for the Guatemalans. So don’t tell him that. Say it’s for the diplomats. Tell him we’re working through channels and we need to have some idea of what his men are likely to do next.’

  Barney Davies called the British Embassy in Guatemala City at 7 a.m. GMT, and spoke to a very tired-sounding military attaché. Ben Manley was not exactly sympathetic. He had apparently known Chris Martinson for years, and was both surprised and disappointed by what had happened. He admitted that it could be difficult working with the more gung-ho members of the Guatemalan Army, but that was part of the job – you didn’t always get to work with people you liked.

  Davies asked him about Hajrija Wilkinson, and was told that the embassy had no idea where she was. When asked whether they were looking for her, Manley first claimed, probably with some justice, that they lacked the human resources to search a country for one missing person, and then spoiled the effect by adding that they had no reason to believe she was in any danger.

  Swallowing his anger – it would be better spent on other targets – Davies asked for some geographical details, particularly the last-known location of Sergeants Wilkinson and Martinson. Manley provided these willingly enough, and after getting off the phone the CO pulled out his trusty Times Atlas. For once, though, he found it wanting. The smallest-scale map of Guatemala was about eighty-five miles to the inch, which left the unmarked Tziaca about an eighth of an inch from Uspantan. His ruler told him that at the moment of decision the two men had been only about sixty kilometres from the nearest border, but the map gave him only the vaguest idea of what those sixty kilometres would look like on the ground.

  He sent his adjutant in search of a better map, ordered two cups of tea and two rock cakes, and read once more through the faxes from the Foreign Office, feeling decidedly at a loss as to what he or the Regiment could do to help their fugitive comrades.

  He was on the point of calling Martin Clarke when the junior minister called him. For diplomatic moves to be effective, Clarke told the SAS CO, the Foreign Office would need some idea of what Wilkinson and his partner were likely to do next.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Davies said, feeling instantly suspicious.

  ‘None at all? Surely there are contingency plans for such circumstances?’

  ‘I don’t recall any of my men ever encountering circumstances remotely similar to these,’ Davies said drily.

  ‘Well, do you think they will try to get across the border?’ Clarke asked patiently.

  ‘That sounds a fair bet.’

  ‘Can either of them fly a plane?’

  ‘I…’ Davies hesitated, wondering what possible need the Foreign Office could have for information like that. The Guatemalan authorities on the other hand…‘No, I’m pretty certain they can’t,’ he lied. If his suspicions were justified, then there was always the chance the Guatemalans might not bother to guard their airfields quite so assiduously. ‘I’ll have to go through our files,’ he said helpfully. ‘We’re in the middle of computerization,’ he added, being somewhat economical with the truth. ‘So it may take some time.’

  ‘As soon as you can,’ Clarke said crisply, and hung up.

  Davies took a bite out of a rock cake and reflected that British politics was like a garden pond. The longer you went without changing the water, the more scum you could see on the surface.

  His two men had been sent to do a dirty job at the insistence of the Foreign Office, and he was damned if he was going to let Whitehall wash its collective hands of them.

  Hajrija was woken soon after four in the morning, and while the rest of the household readied themselves for the day, two of the women worked on her. They were both in their twenties, Hajrija guessed, and their names were Lorena and Martina.

  First they rubbed the paste on to her face and neck, her arms and feet. She didn’t know what it was, and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know. It didn’t exactly smell bad, but it had a slightly acrid, earthy aroma. It reminded her of the herbal potions her late grandmother had concocted after day-long expeditions into the forests above Zavik. Still, whatever it was, it worked. Her skin not only grew several shades darker, but also took on a distinctly reddish tinge.

  They moved on to the hair, which was the right colour to start with. The two women parted it, flattened it and braided it, giggling as they worked. Every now and then other members of the family would walk through the small room and make suggestions, compliment the stylists, or simply smile.

  They were just about finished when the clothes arrived. There was a long, wraparound skirt, a long, sleeveless huipil tunic, and a shoulder cape, each of them beautifully woven and embroidered in the same style as that worn by the women of the house. Hajrija put them on, feeling somewhat humbled by the process. She had read enough to know that the Mayan women spent months, sometimes even years, weaving clothes that were made to last a lifetime, and she wondered where this costume had come from. She thought perhaps she could see disapproval in the eyes of the older women, but could think of no way of allaying it. She was sure it would be a mistake to offer money.

  She wished her interpreter, Mariano, would put in another appearance, and allow her to express her gratitude more clearly, but when the time came to leave there was still no sign of him.

  Outside it was still half dark and the dawn air, though clear, seemed damp. There were seven females in the party, ranging in age from Rosa to a woman Hajrija hadn’t seen before, who had to be over fifty. She was carrying a live but apparently sleepy duck under one arm.

  As the party started down the street the one weakness in Hajrija’s disguise became only too apparent – she was about four inches taller than her companions. Trying to walk with her knees bent she felt even more conspicuous.

  But for the moment there was no sign of the Army or th
e police, only similar groups of women, all laden with wares for sale, all heading in the same direction.

  The bus station turned out to be little more than a large garage with two buses, both of which were already warming up. The drivers were on their respective roofs, tying down merchandise, and the crowd milled around below, chatting and holding on to the numerous live animals. Hajrija suddenly noticed the two soldiers standing to one side, and felt her heart in her mouth as one of them looked straight at her, tapped his comrade on the shoulder, and started in her direction.

  He walked straight past. Casually she turned her head, and found the soldiers looking at the passports of an arriving gringo couple, both of whom had long, dark hair. They were German, she decided, though she wasn’t sure why she thought so.

  The driver was getting down from the roof now, and fighting his way through the throng to the door. The women accompanying Hajrija bustled forward, almost lifting her off her feet in the process, and in no time they were all funnelling aboard the bus and into seats near the back. She was given a window seat, and the eldest of the women sat down next to her, an increasingly wakeful duck in her lap.

  The bus more than filled up, the minutes dragged by, and after spending what seemed an eternity adjusting his rear-view mirror the driver ground down on the clutch and squealed the vehicle into gear. Several seconds later the bus jerked forward. Emerging triumphantly from the dark cloud of its own exhaust, it began rumbling through the streets of the still largely comatose village.

  They were soon out of the village, climbing the steep and twisting road to Sololá, and Hajrija was just daring to hope that there were no checkpoints when one came into view on the road ahead. The soldiers had set up a block on one of the bends, parking their vehicle in one of the lay-bys normally reserved for travellers who wanted to sit and enjoy the view across Lake Atitlán.

  There were two cars ahead of them, and while they waited Hajrija became aware of the tension building in the bus, and of the various looks being cast in her direction. They all knew, she realized with a shock. Probably every Indian in Panajachel knew she was being smuggled out of the village on this bus.

  And yet she felt more secure in that knowledge, not less so. Which said volumes about Guatemala; this was not just a divided country – it was two worlds, both of which happened to occupy the same geographical space.

  The bus inched forward, and one soldier climbed aboard. While he checked the driver’s papers another soldier started fighting his way down the aisle, which was already jam-packed with baggage and bodies. He stopped at the Germans, and laboriously went through each passport, comparing faces with photos as if determined to find a mismatch.

  Failing in this task, he reluctantly handed back the passports and continued down the aisle. Acutely conscious of her height, Hajrija tried to crouch as low in her seat as possible, turning her eyes towards the window and the gorgeous panorama of lake and volcanoes.

  There was a tug on her sleeve, and she turned to find her neighbour offering her the duck. Hajrija took it clumsily, then got a better hold, and concentrated on keeping her mouth closed – the white teeth were a giveaway – and her cheeks slightly inflated.

  She could feel the soldier looming above them, and was expecting the blow to fall at any moment when the duck finally realized that there was a whole lake on the other side of the window. It quacked and struggled in her hands, failed to get free, and sent an avenging stream of warm shit into her lap. Hajrija half leapt from her seat with surprise, and heard the laughter explode around her. Even the soldier was laughing, holding his nose in mock dismay. He left the bus shaking his head, as if he could hardly believe it.

  A minute more and they were on their way again. Hajrija’s neighbour helped her wipe away most of the mess and took back the unrepentant duck. The tension in the bus evaporated as the two worlds drew away from each other again, and to her surprise Hajrija found herself relaxing like everyone else.

  They passed the Sololá cemetery with its multicoloured gravestones, rumbled through the cobbled streets of the town and out on to the road which led up to the Pan-American Highway. The sun was bathing the fields now, and there were numerous groups of women walking along the side of the road, some with large bunches of wood balanced on their heads. At the Los Encuentros junction there was another checkpoint, and for a long half hour they waited in the queue for inspection. Through the window she could see other buses waiting with trucks, pick-ups, bicycles and a single Guatemala City cab, which seemed to be carrying two tourists. Everyone seemed to be heading for Chichicastenango.

  Many of the drivers had abandoned their vehicles for the line of stalls selling food and drink, and the smell wafting over from the cooking fires reminded Hajrija that she had hardly eaten anything since noon the previous day.

  Eventually their turn came, and this time there was no need for the duck to perform. A single soldier climbed briefly aboard, checked the Germans’ passports, took one cursory glance at the rest of the passengers, and climbed down again.

  An hour later the bus drew to a halt in the small town of Chichicastenango, and began disgorging its human and animal cargo. Hajrija’s friends hurried her across the street and down an alley lined with stalls selling tourist goods. This fed into the town square, which possessed two whitewashed churches staring at each other across a huge market. Hajrija caught sight of a few stalls selling food and cooking utensils but the overwhelming impression was of tourist wares – a multi-hued riot of clothes, fabrics, bags, patchwork quilts, wooden and jade carvings, purses, jewellery, rugs, brassware and wall hangings.

  Hajrija’s group reached the foot of the semicircular steps which led up to the front door of the larger of the two churches. Skirting round a group of women who were sitting on the steps tying gladioli into bunches, they walked up and in through the open entrance.

  It was not much later than eight-thirty in the morning but already the church was alive with activity. Along each side wall, tables had been arranged, and down the centre of the nave a line of stone slabs had been laid. Both tables and slabs were covered with candles – hundreds, even thousands, of them – and the smoke from their burning was mixing with the thicker smoke of incense, drifting dreamlike in the rays of sunshine slanting in through the high windows.

  Hajrija became aware that Rosa was tugging impatiently at her sleeve, and allowed herself to be led forward to where a young woman was sitting alone in one of the pews. Rosa pushed Hajrija in beside her, gave her a goodbye smile, and retreated back up the nave.

  ‘You speak English?’ the woman asked in a whisper. She was wearing a different costume, one in which green was the predominant colour.

  ‘Yes,’ Hajrija whispered back.

  ‘I am Lara. We wait here for ten minutes, maybe twenty.’

  ‘OK,’ Hajrija said softly. She already felt reluctant to leave the church – there was something so safe about the womb-like semi-darkness, the curling smoke, the murmur of prayer. There was what looked like a whole family gathered round the nearest slab, and the father was lighting a row of thin pink candles, while the mother watched with hopeful eyes, a baby cradled in her arms.

  The infant’s head was encased from the nostrils up in a cloth cap, reminding Hajrija that the Mayan Indians traditionally covered their babies’ eyes for the first year of their lives. She couldn’t remember why they did it, but was struck for the first time at how much trust such an arrangement would engender in a child.

  Maybe that was what made these people so unusual, she thought: they trusted each other. And maybe that was why she had come with Rosa the previous evening and why she had come to Chichicastenango that morning and why she was now sitting in a church pew with one complete stranger and probably waiting for another.

  She couldn’t understand a word most of them said, but she trusted them with her life.

  When Chris Martinson awoke the sun was an orange flash through the trees, the light still almost full. He looked across at Razor, still gently
snoring in the Gore-tex bag, and decided that at least one of them should have some idea of the lie of the land.

  The base camp was spread across a thickly forested fold in a west-facing mountain slope. The tree canopy offered one line of defence against prying eyes, and the well-camouflaged dug-out ‘accommodations’ another. These in turn were widely spread, and not, Chris suspected, from any desire for privacy. Someone knew about heat signatures, and had done his best to hide the camp from American satellite observation.

  He walked slowly up the hill, hoping to find an observation point which looked out over the forest canopy. He passed a man and a woman cleaning their rifles; they stared at him for a moment before raising their hands in silent greeting.

  Twenty metres further up the slope he suddenly heard what sounded like someone laughing. He stopped in his tracks, listening intently, and a few seconds later the laugh sounded again. Chris started walking as quietly as he could manage towards it, his eyes searching the trees above.

  He was so busy looking upwards that he almost walked into her. She stepped backwards, saying something he didn’t understand. It was the woman from the ravine, he realized.

  The bird laughed again, jerking both their heads towards it.

  She looked at him, then pointed a finger in the direction of the invisible bird and said a word which sounded to Chris like ‘ixsharu’. ‘We call it a laughing falcon,’ he whispered in Spanish.

  They advanced together this time, and soon Chris could see it through his binoculars, perched on a branch of a deciduous tree which he didn’t recognize. The bird’s bushy white crest seemed to glow in the gathering dusk, and the dark face mask looked almost owl-like.

  Chris offered the binoculars to the woman, who let out almost a purr of pleasure when she caught sight of the bird. For several minutes they passed them to and fro, until the bird either grew tired of being watched or suddenly became aware of their presence, and with one last laugh flapped awkwardly up through the branches and out of sight.