The Girl in the Glyphs

by David Edmonds

  “That can be arranged.”

  “What about expenses while I’m in Costa Rica?”

  “Only when you’re on the job.”

  “Come on, Jen, it’s the Smithsonian’s money. Who cares?”

  “I do. So let’s drop the subject. Do you want to go or not?”

  “How many other people are going?”

  “It’ll be you, me, a Nicaraguan representative, and Etienne.”

  “Tan? He’s a pottery guy. What you want him for…scare away your enemies?”

  “No, we need him for scaffolds. He’s good at it.”

  “You saying there’s gonna be work?”

  “This isn’t a vacation, Niro. Are you in or out?”

  “Fine, count me in. Just don’t expect me to do any heavy lifting. I’ve got a back problem.”

  As soon as Niro left, I pondered my next problem. We couldn’t just go to the cave, disturb it with scaffolds and shovels, take photos, and then make a claim of discovery. There were international laws to consider—protocols, conventions, agreements. I’d need an official proposal, a permit, and someone from the Nicaraguan government to go with us.

  Someone who wouldn’t blab to Elizabeth.

  I called the Patrimonio Cultural de Nicaragua—their antiquities office—and was soon speaking to their director, a woman named Rosario.

  “Aren’t you the glyph lady?” she said.

  “Am I that infamous?”

  “I read the papers.”

  We talked. I learned she also had degrees in archaeology and was studying for a doctorate in anthropology at Stanford, which meant she was aware of the need for secrecy.

  “Is this about the cave?” she asked.

  “I’d rather not discuss it on the phone.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  That evening, I again curled up on the couch with Father Antonio’s manuscript, struggling with the Catalán in which it was written, stopping now and then to read a spicy account of his lovemaking with Molly, or a battle with pirates on the high seas.

  Then I found what I wanted—not a smoking gun, but an intriguing reference. It was on the last page where he and Molly were debating what to do with their purloined wealth, among which was a sea chest of pirate treasure and a crate of gold coins.

  Father Antonio, who by then was calling himself Don Antonio, suggested they put it into an account at the colonial Casa de Contratación. Molly didn’t like that idea.

  “Oh, però amable Senyor, no em qüestionen la saviesa, però per què no prendre una pala i enterrar el nostre tresor a la cova de les seves llàgrimes sofrir.”

  Which I translated as: “Oh, but kind sir, suffer me not to question your wisdom, but why not take a shovel and bury our treasure in the cave of your tears.”

  The same cave in which I’d killed the lieutenant.

  Chapter 47

  Nicaragua

  Going back to Nicaragua was fine so long as it was in the future. Like death. So when the day finally arrived, and I settled into Stan’s Porsche for the drive to the airport, I had another of those What-the-hell-am-I-doing? moments.

  Which was why I’d shortened my hair, lightened it, and carried a blonde wig in my bag. I’d even changed the name on my passport to my married name, Maria Richardson. This time there’d be none of those clumsy mistakes—like registering as an archaeologist—and the only person in Nicaragua who knew we were coming was Rosario.

  As for Stan, he hadn’t even asked who was going with me. One month of “marriage,” a tumble a week, and the old Stan was back. So it didn’t surprise me at all that he drove me to the drop-off zone, let me out, said, “Be careful,” and sped away in his Porsche.

  Nothing like that farewell with Alan on the Asese dock.

  I checked my luggage and found Niro at the boarding gate. He was wearing a safari jacket that was too big, cargo pants with lots of pockets, and stud earrings on both ears. Worse, he’d dyed his gray hair black. Yet he stared at me like I was the odd one.

  “What happened to your hair?’ he said. “I liked it long and black.”

  “Where’s Tan?”

  “Food section. Where else?”

  A stop in Miami, a three-hour flight that took us across Cuba, and the plane banked starboard for its final approach to Managua. I gazed out the window at plumes of smoke from Volcán Masaya, the storm clouds of May, the ramshackle buildings and sagging tile roofs.

  The wing flaps shuddered. A whine of cables, and then we were bouncing along the runway.

  A group of armed soldiers stood on the tarmac between us and the terminal. Routine, I thought, until the flight attendant ordered us to remain in our seats, passports in hand.

  “Mierda,” said a voice behind me, “they’re coming aboard.”

  An alarm went off in my head, followed by a headache and a familiar queasiness.

  Into the cabin and back into my life they tramped, all sunglasses, boots, and green army fatigues. Just like that first night at the hotel.

  Niro, who sat next to me, said. “Damn Jennifer, they’re coming for you.”

  “Shut up, Niro! Shut the hell up.”

  “Hey, lighten up. I was only joking.”

  They marched down the aisle, peering into faces, stopping now and then to examine passports. Now they were three rows in front of me. Two rows. One.

  The pounding in my head grew worse. I could barely breathe.

  “Passport, señorita?”

  I handed it to him.

  “Remove your sunglasses, please.”

  I took off my sunglasses. The officer compared the photo in the passport with my face.

  Then he handed the passport back. “Gracias, señorita, have a pleasant visit.”

  I breathed again. They left the plane. A tinny voice came over the p.a. system.

  “You may now exit the airplane…and thank you for flying…”

  Our luggage made it through customs but I had another bad moment when we stepped into the lobby with our bags and looked for Rosario.

  She wasn’t there.

  Wasn’t outside either, and no one holding up a sign, only a small army of taxi drivers, beggars, guides, and baggage handlers, all loudly pushing and shoving and vying for our attention. Worse, it began to rain.

  Niro pushed away a woman with a child clutched to her breast. “The hell we gonna do now?”

  I spotted a Ford van with the words “Sightseeing Tours” on the side, and we were soon on the Masaya Highway, heading south in the rain, windshield wipers slapping, passing beneath Malinche trees that spread over the road in bursts of crimson.

  “What happened to our escort?” Tan asked.

  “Who knows? I’ll call as soon as we reach Granada.”

  Love motels with familiar names slipped by the window, some near the road, others hidden behind mango and eucalyptus trees. Niro smoked his cigarettes. Tan wondered aloud about the local food. The driver talked about this and that attraction, and although I tried to listen, the reminders of Alan were all around: at the US Embassy. At familiar road signs. At a stream that crashed down from the mountains like rolling thunder.

  Old feelings, sad feelings, happy memories, a jolt in the stomach, and for the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of bittersweet.

  It didn’t help that the driver took the scenic route through Granada, driving slowly past the plaza, talking proudly about the revolution, pointing out the Hotel Alhambra. He stopped in front to point out the bullet pocks, the damaged railing behind which Alan and I had sat, and for a moment it all came back—cuddling and listening to the guitarists. The sweetness of orange blossoms. A glass of Baileys and that wonderful moist kiss.

  “This where you’re staying?” he asked.

  “No, we’ve got reservations at the Granada.”

  Not in a million years would I spend a night in the Alhambra without Alan.

  As soon as we checked into the Granada, I called the number Rosario had given me.

  No answer.
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  The rain continued. We ordered down for sandwiches and the three of us sat in my room. I told them not to worry about Rosario, that this was Nicaragua and things like this happened. Above us a slow-moving ceiling fan stirred the air. Outside, a rooster mistook the lightning for daylight and crowed. Other roosters crowed back.

  “Chickens in the city?” Niro asked.

  “Nicaragua,” I sighed.

  I urged them to tell no one what we were doing, and to never use words like archaeology, glyphs, or Smithsonian. “There’s some bad people in this country,” I said.

  “Can’t be any worse than the gangs I grew up with,” Niro shot back. “All you gotta do is give one a bloody nose and it’s over.” He dropped into a boxer’s stance and faked a punch.

  I rolled my eyes. “One more thing. From now on, my name is Maria.”

  Niro exchanged glances with Tan. “Maria, as in West Side Story?”

  Tan broke into song: “Maria, I just met a girl named Maria…” Niro joined in, and the song didn’t end until the lights mercifully flickered and went out.

  The next morning—Sunday—I again tried to call Rosario. Her housekeeper answered.

  “She’s very sick, señorita. The flu. It’s going around.”

  The old feeling of doom came over me. “May I speak with her?”

  “I’ll ask if she’s able.”

  I heard coughing, groans, a muffled voice, then the housekeeper was back. “I’m so sorry, señorita, she says all the arrangements are made. All you need to do is go to the landing and ask for Pepito. He’ll take you where you’ll be staying.”

  “Pepito works for the Cultural Institute?”

  “No, señorita, he’s just the boatman.”

  I thanked her, hung up, and slumped into a chair. Only one day in Nicaragua and already things were falling apart.

  Chapter 48

  Lake Nicaragua

  We spent the morning buying supplies and were at the port of Asese by noon. Mist was falling, with sheets of rain far on the lake. I stood there, breathing in the familiar smells and taking in the giant trees with tentacles trailing into the water, the cawing birds, a partially sunken boat, and the place where Alan had fastened his little guardian witch to my wrist.

  “Yo,” a man called from a boat. “You Maria?”

  It was Pepito, eating a sandwich, drinking beer, and looking as if he hadn’t shaved in a long time. His boat, the Esperanza, was one of those brightly colored, plywood-roofed tourist things. Unsafe at any depth—just another reminder of how badly things were going. We settled on a price of a hundred dollars and were loading up when a rumble of thunder shook the ground.

  “We ought to wait awhile,” Niro said in his raspy smoker’s voice.

  I was thinking the same until I spotted Nelson a few boats away, bent over an engine with a wrench in his hand: Nelson with his greasy dreadlocks and dirty T-shirt.

  “No,” I said to Niro, and pulled my rain hood over my head. “We’d best get moving.”

  The voyage to our little island took an hour. By then we were drenched, miserable, and seasick, with lightning streaking the sky and waves crashing over us. The boat-master bounded out like a teenager, lashed us to the pier and helped us out.

  “See how pretty it is,” he said with a yellow-toothed grin. “You’ll enjoy it here.”

  I grabbed a coconut tree for support and threw up.

  The caretaker of the place, a dark little man with strong indigenous features, rushed down from the cabin with an armload of towels, ducking beneath the limbs of a giant mango tree. He hesitated at the sight of Tan and stared as if he’d never seen a large black man with a pony tail.

  “You gotta problem?” Tan said, puffing out his chest.

  The man backed away and introduced himself in Spanish as Nacho. Behind him sauntered a young woman in tank top and tight shorts. Bronze skin and long dark hair. Pretty in a slutty sort of way. “Mi mujer,” said Nacho, meaning his woman. “Her name is Leocadia.”

  Leocadia gave us a toothy grin and batted her eyelashes.

  Niro, who only moments before had been spilling his breakfast over the side, wiped his face with a towel and took her hand. “Leocadia,” he said with an Italian ring. “What a name so poetica. What a señorita so bella. Do you habla inglés, Leocadia?”

  “No, señor, solamente Cristiano,” which was her way of saying only Spanish.

  I stepped between them. “What’s the name of this island?”

  “The Isle of Thieves,” she said, “but there are no thieves here.”

  She laughed as if she’d said something original. Pepito hopped back into his boat and chugged away. Nacho grabbed an armload of luggage and led us up the path and around the mango tree to a wood cabin. A bell dinged when he opened the front door.

  “Security alarm,” Leocadia said, and again laughed.

  My first impression, even in my miserable state, was how much it resembled the cabin on Ana Maria. Same floor plan, same colors and decor, same odor of cigarettes.

  “Charming little love pad,” said Niro, glancing at the nude prints on the wall. “Great place to shack up for a couple weeks. Don’t you think so, Leocadia?”

  Leocadia grinned and nodded as if she understood.

  I headed for the bedroom, changed out of my wet clothes, and fell back on the bed. Damn this miserable feeling. I curled up, dozed, and fell into a dream about Alan and Luz Maria in bed together, propped against the wall and smoking a cigarette, Alan saying, “Only reason I was fooling around with Jennifer was to keep her from getting killed.”

  “Was she any good in bed?”

  “Not half as good as you, dulce. Boobs weren’t that big either.”

  I sat straight up, ready to kill them both. The odor of cigarettes was strong in my nostrils. Laughter came from the front room. Leocadia? Why was she still here? I pulled myself together, went out, and found her on the sleeper sofa with Niro, smoking a cigarette as if she were a guest.

  “Put that cigarette out,” I snapped. For emphasis, I opened a window to let in fresh air.

  “Where is Nacho?” I asked her.

  “Boathouse,” she said in her little girl’s voice. “Working on the generator.”

  The generator roared to life. Lights came on, and Nacho marched in wiping his hands on a dirty towel that stank of gasoline. “Vamanos,” he said to Leocadia.

  She came slowly to her feet, stretching her arms and thrusting out her breasts as if to say, “Mine are bigger.” At the door, she turned back to me. “You’re not from Nicaragua, are you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Your Spanish is different.”

  In all my efforts to remain anonymous, it never occurred to me that I could get busted for my accent. Gonzales had probably passed out a flyer that read, Speaks Spanish like an Indian.

  Nacho took her arm. “Come on, dulce, they need to rest.”

  Leocadia didn’t budge. “What will you be doing on the lake?”

  “Botany. We’re gathering bark and leaves for medicinal purposes.”

  “I can help. I know every plant on the islands.” She pointed at Nacho and began telling us about his bad liver, and how the only relief he got was a drink from the boiled bark of such and such plant. She didn’t know the name, but she’d be willing to show me.

  “That’s not necessary,” I said. “I’ll show you what we bring back, ask your opinion.”

  She nodded and followed Nacho out the door, but as they made their way down the path, passing around the low-hanging limbs of the mango tree, they seemed to be carrying on a heated debate, Leocadia glancing back as if she’d seen my face on a wanted poster.

  As soon as they puttered away in their outboard, I hurried into the bedroom and lifted the mattress. There, wrapped in the blue and white of the Nicaraguan flag, was the .32 Beretta Rosario promised. I squeezed cartridges into the clip the way Alan had shown me, then strolled outside with the binoculars and ran up the flag.

  It caught t
he breeze and flapped away, telling the caretakers and everyone else on the lake that all was well, to stay away, inhabitants armed and dangerous. Then I saw it:

  Ana Maria Island.

  It loomed out of the water no more than a half-mile away, cruelly beautiful through the binoculars: palms and coconut trees all around, birds dive-bombing the water, waves slamming the breakwater. The memories hurt. God, did they hurt. Was Alan there now—with Luz Maria?

  “Let it go,” I said to the wind.

  Chapter 49

  Isla Zapateras

  We set off at first light, Tan in jeans and green T-shirt and Niro in an Indiana Jones outfit. I sat at the controls, trying to keep down breakfast. As a precaution against being followed, I looped around the Island of the Dead, then wished I hadn’t. There it was, the cliff beneath which Alan and I had made love so many times. On a sandy white beach.

  “This the island?” Niro asked.

  “No, Niro. Is anyone following?”

  “Nothing but birds.”

  And memories.

  I had another bad moment when we crossed the area where I’d sunk the lieutenant’s boat and body. Was his spirit still down there, ready to rise up like Neptune and pull us under? I pushed the throttle to full speed and kept it that way until Zapateras came into view—fifty-two square kilometers of an uninhabited tropical island, growing from a tiny speck to a looming menace of trees, hills, buzzards, and bad karma.

  “Isla Zapateras,” I announced. “Eight miles long and five wide.”

  Rain clouds loomed up in the south, dark and ominous. Buzzards and sea gulls circled overhead. One final scan of the horizon and I idled the boat into the inlet, looking this way and that while Tan pushed away spider webs and foliage with a paddle.

  What I remembered as drab and ugly was now green and lush, with lilies floating in the lagoon, trees all around, brightly colored orchids and bromeliads, palmettos along the shore. I cut the motor and listened. Nothing but the chirr of crickets, the croak of frogs, and the happy sounds of singing birds. What a difference from the abrasive racket from my other visit.