by Danny Lopez
I gave him the lowdown on Maya and the salamanders. “She’s supposed to be working with a team from the university. But I don’t know where she lives. I only have two locations: Xochimilco and Colonia Roma. And I don’t have a lot of time.”
He downed his third Negra Modelo and made a gesture with his hand for me not to worry. “We’ll find her, not a problem. Mexico’s big, but Mexico’s small. You know what I mean?”
I didn’t. But it wasn’t exactly the conversation I wanted to have at the moment. I tossed a couple of peanuts into my mouth and said, “I need to start right away.”
“Right, then. We’ll start first thing in the morning. I’ll come get ya, right? We’ll go get lost in Xochimilco. A fine place to start. You’ll fucking love it. Doesn’t feel like you’re in the city at all.”
“What about this Colonia Roma?”
“That’s a neighborhood, yeah? I’ll ask around.” He gestured for Julio to bring two more beers. “You need to meet Toni. I’ll introduce you. Bloody socialite if I ever met one, Toni Spencer. She knows everyone. She lives in La Roma. Knows every fucking thing that goes on. And she’s downright hot, too. Untouchable, but bloody hot.”
It sounded like a good plan. Julio brought two more beers. Afterward, Malcolm and I walked a couple of blocks up the street where a man and a woman ran a little taco stand on the sidewalk outside a parking garage: three plastic tables and chairs and a small aluminum vat where they fried quesadillas stuffed with mushrooms, chiles, and squash blossoms and sausage.
Malcolm told me he’d been in Mexico four and a half years. He worked as a freelance journalist for a number of British and U.S. papers. He said the work was good. “But it’s the fucking lifestyle. That’s why I stay, right? I’m not getting rich, but who is?” He laughed a maniacal laugh. “I can’t complain. Or I could. Yes, I could. But I bloody won’t. Anyway, beats the fuck out of living in Scotland.”
We parted ways in front of the hotel, agreeing to meet early in the morning and go to Xochimilco.
The following morning after I’d had breakfast, I stood alone outside the hotel door, watching the secretaries and young executives and office workers in their dark gray and blue suits walking to their jobs. About an hour later I got a text from Malcolm: Can’t make it. Minister of Energy resigned. Have to write story. Take taxi. Enjoy X. Meet for drinks after.
The drive was long, complicated, and prolonged by traffic. On the way the driver gave me a colorful historical narrative of the place they call the floating gardens of Mexico. He explained that Xochimilco was the last vestiges of what had once been an intricate network of canals and man-made islands that dated back to the time of the Aztecs. They had been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Mexicans like himself enjoyed outings with family and friends on occasional Sundays. He was sure I would enjoy it, but he couldn’t understand why I wanted to be there so early in the morning because things there really didn’t get going until the afternoon unless it was a weekend.
I wondered about Maya. If I found her, what would I tell her? Would I even recognize her? Would she talk to me? And if she did, would she tell me about her father? Would she have a lead to people with possible motives for killing Nick?
Did she even know her father had been murdered?
The taxi driver dropped me off in the main tourist hub of Xochimilco. It was the end of a canal packed with flat-bottom boats with arched roofs and fancy facades painted and decorated with colorful flowers. There were dozens of them lined up one next to the other and one in front of the other. But there didn’t seem to be anyone around.
It was quiet. There was a light fog, and the air was moist and stank of old vegetables and sewer. There was trash floating on the dark green water: candy wrappers, fruit peels, Styrofoam containers, empty cans.
I made my way along the water’s edge. A little boy about eight years old came running up to me with his hand out. He was filthy, barefoot, wore dirty pants and a ripped sweater.
“No me da un peso pa comer?” He walked alongside of me, moving his hand from his mouth to his belly and out to me again. “Please, mister. Cinco pesos.”
I waved him away and kept walking. A scrawny brown mutt scurried past. Then a boy, about fourteen, appeared from behind an abandoned food stand and ran toward us waving a thin long cane.
I stepped back. He whacked the little kid. “Andale cabrón, largate pinche puto!”
The younger boy cowered and ran away. Then the older one turned to me and gave me a big smile. “Sorry, my friend. Amigo.”
I dropped my guard, took a deep breath.
“No problem,” he said. “All good, no?”
“What’s the matter with you?” I said. “He wasn’t doing any harm.”
He laughed. “No, no. He a very bad boy. He sniff glue.” He tossed the stick and ran his index finger around his ear. “He no good. Muy loco.”
This boy didn’t look much different than the kid he’d just chased off. The only difference was that he wore sandals. I looked past him at the canal where a man in a small wooden boat was approaching. The boy followed my gaze and smiled. “You want to take trip in a trajinera?”
“No,” I said. “I’m looking for someone. A girl.”
“Ah, you want girls. No problem. But they sleep now. Too early. Too much party last night.”
I shook my head. “I’m looking for one person. A woman who’s working with the university. She’s looking for the salamander, the axo … axolotl.”
The boy smiled and waved his hand from left to right. “No more axolotl. All dead. All gone.”
“I know. But have you seen biologists, students?”
He smacked his chest with his hand. “I am Ernesto.”
“Dexter.”
“You come from the Estates?”
“That’s right. And I’m looking for a friend who’s working with a team from the university, with the UNAM. Do you know where they are?”
He looked at me as if I’d asked him if he’d been to the moon. Then he nodded and motioned for me to follow him. We approached the old man in the small wooden launch with a little motor that had been pulled from a scooter. He agreed to take me around for a few hundred pesos. Ernesto invited himself along. I couldn’t tell if he was in business with the old man, or if he was just coming for the ride. Either way, I didn’t mind.
It turned out Xochimilco was not simply a lake with a couple canals south of Mexico City. It was a town and a huge area with little lakes and a maze of canals peppered with small settlements along the banks. We wandered endlessly without apparent direction. In the morning fog, it had a creepy, ethereal feel—like we were stepping back in time.
“The islands are man-made. They’re called chinampas.” Ernesto pointed out the line of trees along the rectangular islands. “The people built the islands a long time ago. Very good soil for crops in the chinampas. Corn. Beans. Chile.”
The old man sat quietly in the back of the little launch looking ahead, the engine puttering at a steady rhythm like an old lawn mower. Whenever Ernesto said something to him, he didn’t smile or frown. He just nodded and kept on going, his little beady eyes focused somewhere in the fog.
We passed a few shacks and shanties. Great big trees grew along the sides of the canals, their canopy forming tall, natural tunnels. The deeper we went into the maze, the foggier it became. At times, we couldn’t see more than thirty yards ahead.
The drone of the motor was making me drowsy. There was a slight chill in the air. I pulled up the collar of my jacket and closed my eyes. I breathed in the odd smell of the wet earth, pungent and sour. Then Ernesto nudged me. He pointed to one of the islands. The old man slowed the boat. It was like a mirage in the fog. Something was hanging on a tree. A head. An eyeless, hairless pink head the size of a cantaloupe.
As we got closer, I could see the island was covered in body parts: tiny plastic limbs and heads and fabric hanging from the trees and plants. Dolls tied to the branches, hanging, wrapped with rope to the t
runk of the trees—heads, arms, legs. It was some creepy shit.
Ernesto smiled. “You like?”
“What is this?”
“Isla de las Muñecas,” he said enthusiastically. The Island of the Dolls.
I remembered the post on Maya’s Facebook. She had mentioned this place. We were getting close. I gave Ernesto a thumbs-up. “Are the biologists here?”
“The man he live here alone,” Ernesto said. “He collect the dolls he find in the water. They say they come alive at night.”
We drifted alongside the chinampa—mutant dolls everywhere.
“Don Julián, they say he see a girl die in the water. He put the dolls on the tree for her.” Ernesto touched the side of his head with his index finger. “He say the dolls are her spirit. If you see, sometimes the dolls move. Look.” He pointed at the trunk of a twisted juniper. It had doll heads all around it like a Christmas tree. But nothing moved.
“You see?” Ernesto said.
The old man crossed himself.
“Look, Ernesto. This is cool,” I said. “But I need to find the biologists. Students looking for the axolotl. Help me out here.”
He smiled and touched the old man’s shoulder. Ernesto spoke, gesturing with his hands back and forth. The old man nodded and spoke with a deep voice.
Ernesto turned to face me, and nodded toward the old man. “Ausencio say he see students last week. But very far.”
“How far?”
Ernesto waved. “Too far to go in his boat. You have to take car to San Lorenzo Atemoaya.”
It took forever to get back to the dock where we had started. On the way, the fog began to lift. The landscape looked friendlier, the canals cleaner. I suppose it would have been enjoyable under other circumstances.
Ernesto came with me to the center plaza where we hired a taxi to take us to the neighborhood of San Lorenzo Atemoaya.
In Sarasota, waterfront property belongs to the rich. Here it was for the poor. Shanties made of block and wood and cardboard hung to the water’s edge for as far as I could see. It was shack after shack after shack, ending at the canals. They had no sewer, but they’d dug narrow drainage ditches that carried the filth from the shacks to the waterways. It had to be poisoning whatever was supposed to live in the water: fish, frogs, the axolotl.
We got out of the taxi where the street ended at a crossroads with a muddy, unpaved road. We walked along the road, then took a narrow path that separated the shanties from the water. The foliage was lush and green. Between the shacks and the canal there were small yards with chickens and pigs. Clothes hung to dry. Women washed laundry by hand using concrete washboards.
We walked for almost an hour, leaving the town behind. The foliage became denser, the shacks more scattered. Then we came upon a turn in the path and found a camp at the water’s edge.
Bingo.
Half a dozen young men and women were spread out in the grass, sitting cross-legged, writing on binders and clipboards. One of them was working on a laptop. There was a wooden launch tied to a young elm.
They all raised their eyes and watched us approach. One of the men, probably in his mid-twenties, stood and placed his hands on the sides of his waist. “Buenos dias.”
Ernesto introduced me as a gringo who was looking for the people trying to find the axolotl.
“You speak English?” I asked.
The man nodded and introduced himself as Roberto Magaña. “We’re the research team with UNAM. How can we help you?”
“I’m looking for a woman,” I said, looking past him, scanning the group for someone who might look like Maya. A person in a wet suit surfaced near the launch. “Her name is Maya Zavala,” I continued. “She came here a few months ago from Florida to help search for the axolotl. Do you know her?”
Roberto shook his head and turned to his companions. “Alguien conoce a una Americana que se llama Maya Zavala?”
They shook their heads and looked at each other. Their eyes were blank, questioning.
I offered Roberto the photograph Nick had given me of Maya. “Are other teams working here? She could be with a different group or a different university.”
“No,” Roberto said flatly, still looking at the photo. “Not here. We’ve had a couple of American students come and help, but that was months ago. And they were men.”
“No one else is searching for the axolotl?”
“I don’t think so.” He gave me back the photo. “We have a grant from the Secretaría del Medio Ambiente and support from the university. We’re it. No one else cares for the axolotl.”
I took a deep breath. Maybe Dr. Tabor and Boseman had been pulling my leg. I looked everyone over. They just sat in the grass looking at Ernesto and me, waiting. My eyes kept drifting back to the person in the wet suit and mask.
“You mind if my friend and I sit and take a break?” I was a little tired from the walk, but I also wanted to see who was behind the mask.
Roberto nodded and made a gesture for us to sit. “It’s not our land. You’re welcome to join us. I must apologize. This is very difficult and frustrating work. We are all very tense.”
“No sign of the little guys, huh?”
He shook his head.
“The axolotl is very important to Mexico.” The person in the wet suit had pulled the mask off and was wading to shore. A woman. But it wasn’t Maya. “People think it’s just a salamander, a genetic freak of nature.”
Her accent was heavy, but her English was good. She sat across from me and pulled the flippers off her feet. “The name axolotl is Nahuatl for water monster. It was what the Aztecs called it. Biologists breed them and study them because they have the ability to reproduce in the larvae stage and regenerate and grow any part of their body that is damaged.”
“I wish I could do that.”
She didn’t find that funny. “But for Mexicans, this little amphibian represents something much greater. Like the canals of Xochimilco, they’re what we have that remains of our culture before the Europeans destroyed it. They think they discovered us. But they’re wrong. They’ve written their own history. Now we’re writing ours. And the axolotl is at the core of our national identity. The Aztecs used it for medicinal purposes. It was very important to their culture. We believe it is as much a key to our past as it is to the future of Mexico.”
It sounded like hyperbole. I was thinking of two things: Maya Zavala, and this woman staring at me with a pair of amazing eyes that seemed to say that she couldn’t give a damn whether I cared or not. She was covered in mud and algae while giving me this rant that was part ecological lesson, part politics, and part insult.
“I think it’s a noble thing,” I said, because I had absolutely no clue what to say. Flattery and the impression that I was on her side might help. She could know Maya. And I did care about nature. I cared that animals continued to live in the environment they had always inhabited. Except raccoons. I fucking hate raccoons.
She smiled and leaned to the side, resting her chin on her shoulder. “Everyone should have a purpose in life. The axolotl is ours.”
“So if you find it, I suppose it will make the government take an interest and clean up this place.”
“To hell with the government. They don’t do anything for us. Do you know who lends us their boats? Who brings us lunch? Who gives us tips on where to search? The people who live here. The peasants who still grow crops in these little chinampas. They come with tortillas and stew and feed us and tell us stories of how they used to hunt the axolotl when they were children. They were everywhere then. No one thought they would disappear.”
“I guess the city is encroaching in their habitat,” I said.
“No one is happy about it. I think some of these people even feel guilty about it.”
I looked at Ernesto. He nodded at me as if he understood and agreed and was ready to go to battle for this little reptile. The rest of the crew was back to work. Roberto was busy putting on a wet suit. The others were jotting down informati
on on a map, taking notes, transcribing information into the laptop.
The woman introduced herself as Flor Quintero. Flor. Flower. I liked that right away. I asked her about Maya.
“Why are you trying to find her?” she asked. “Do you fear she has been kidnapped?”
“No. Or at least I don’t think so.”
“In Mexico, we walk with danger like it is our shadow.”
It sounded a little melodramatic. But what did I know about living in Mexico? I offered her the photograph of Maya. “I don’t think anything bad happened to her. It’s just that her family has lost touch with her. Her father asked me to help him find her.”
She studied the photo. When she looked at me again, I could see a slight change in her eyes. It was subtle. Maybe it was just a reaction to the light. She passed it back to me. “Are you a policeman?”
I laughed and shook my head. “I’m a reporter. A journalist. When I lost my job, Maya’s father asked me to help. His last contact with her was about four months ago.”
“That is a long time. Why did he wait so long to find her?”
It was a good question. “Maybe he was trying to give her a little space.”
“Maybe she was fed up with her father’s patriarchal ways.”
“I don’t know about that.” She sounded as if she was talking of her own relationship with her father. “Well,” I said, “things have gotten a little complicated in the last few days.”
“Complicated, how?”
“Death in the family. That’s why I came down here.”
“I see.” She wiped her face with a towel. “And you say she’s a biologist?”
“Biology student. Her professor said she was obsessed with the axolotl.”
She laughed a very deep, honest laugh. “We’re all obsessed with the axolotl.”