by Laura Resau
I miss Wendell.
And I miss Gaby and Taita Silvio and Mamita Luz and the girls.
It isn’t Thailand I miss anymore. It’s Otavalo and my new friends there.
Jeff’s started calling Layla Pop-Tart. He seems to be half-joking, but it makes me want to punch something. First, Layla is completely against packaged, processed, corn-syrupy foods, and second, Pop-Tart has the word tart in it, like she’s some kind of gold-digging floozy and he’s her sugar daddy.
But when he says it, she smiles, flattered.
On the first day, Jeff takes her golfing near Yaguarcocha Lake. Blood Lake, in Quichua. As they golf, I sit on a cold rock at the edge of Blood Lake. The wind is insane, like an animal trying to rip my clothes to shreds. It actually feels like the air is on a mission to beat me up.
Layla looks absurd on the golf course. Her long wraparound skirt is whipping around, over her head sometimes, exposing her thighs, her underwear. Thank God she’s wearing underwear, at least. She forgot a rubber band, though, and her hair keeps flying in her face, so she can’t even see the golf ball.
She’s trying hard, I remind myself. She’s doing this to give us a better life. And Jeff, honestly, isn’t a bad guy, except for the Pop-Tart thing, which is truly annoying. Yet I can’t help feeling that things are spinning out of control, taking on a life of their own, like this relentless wind.
If she really wants to change, if she really wants a new life, then isn’t it selfish for me to stop her? Jeff’s standing behind her now, his arms around her, holding her hands over the golf club. She tilts her head up and moves her face close to his. She kisses him, as though she truly likes him, and likes golf, and likes being this new person.
That evening, I try to call Wendell. No answer. Is he avoiding me? Ignoring me? Has he gone back to his ex-girlfriend? Or worse, what if he’s gone back without me to Faustino? What if he’s been poisoned by one of the flora or fauna there? What if he’s dead in that garden? Buried under one of those zombie trees?
On the second day, we go to San Pablo Lake, where we eat fried fish in a bright yellow restaurant. Then we go out with a guide on a motorboat. He’s a friendly middle-aged man with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Squinting in the wind, he tells us a story about the lake—a version of the story the girls in Agua Santa told Wendell and me.
A long time ago, there used to be no water, just a valley. A very rich man who owned a hacienda lived in the valley. Notorious for his greed, he treated all his indigenous workers terribly. One day, a very old man wandered by in tattered clothes and asked for a bite to eat. The rich man turned him away. The old man went around and warned the indigenous workers to gather their things and head to higher ground. That night, water filled the valley. It drowned the rich man and his hacienda and all his animals and crops, and formed this lake. People say the wandering man was really the god of the mountain Imbabura, in disguise. They say that if you gaze into the water, far, far below you might catch a glimpse of the skeletons and the rich man’s house and all his fancy furniture.
As a little girl, I’d ask Layla if we could have our own house someday, and she’d recite,
“Let my house be drowned in the wave
that rose last night out of the courtyard
hidden in the center of my chest.”
I peer into the water, below the sparkly surface, deeper and deeper, into the hidden heart of things. I see the sunken three-bedroom house that I wanted to live in. I see the expensive waterlogged sofas that I wanted to sit on. I see the skeleton of the person I wanted to be.
Have you ever noticed that the good guys are the ones who don’t have fancy houses or magazine-ad sofas? The good guys are the ones who wander. The ones with the ocean spilling from their chests.
Back at the hotel that afternoon, I try Wendell again. His voice mail picks up after the first ring. I leave another message. Then I check for messages on the hotel phone. Not one.
The next day, we go horseback riding in the mountains. Afterward, while Jeff and Layla soak in a hot tub, I try Wendell’s phone again. The voice-mail box is full. And no messages for me either.
I can’t stand it anymore. Ya no aguanto. Feeling like a stalker, I call Wendell’s hotel. A woman answers. “Hotel Otavalo. How can I help you?”
“Dalia?” I ask, because she’s usually hanging around the reception desk. This doesn’t sound like her, though. The voice is colder, less personal.
“Señora Dalia’s away this week.”
“Oh.” My muscles tense. The babysitter is gone. “Can I talk to Wendell Connelly?”
“Wendell Connelly,” she repeats. A moment’s pause. “Sorry, señorita. No one by that name is here.”
“But he has to be. Room eleven.”
“Let me check.” Another pause. “It appears the señor left.”
“What?” I try to collect my thoughts. “Is he with Dalia?”
“No,” she says. “Señora Dalia’s in Cuenca. Her mother’s in the hospital there. Heart attack.”
I struggle to find words. “But where did Wendell go? Back to the U.S.? Or to another hotel? Or—”
“I don’t know, señorita. It just says here that two days ago he checked out. He’s gone.”
Chapter 22
Most of the ride home, I stare out the window at the rolling mountains, thinking about Wendell and wondering what to do next. I could ask around, try to figure out where he is. Maybe Taita Silvio or Mamita Luz or the girls know something. Or Gaby—she might have seen him. And if they’re as clueless as me? I could go to Faustino’s again. The thought makes me shiver.
I could call his mother, see if he decided to go home. And if he didn’t? They’d panic. What if Wendell fell victim to Faustino’s poisonous flora and fauna? I can imagine the scene: Wendell visits Faustino, unable to resist. Faustino demands his watch, forces him to empty his bank account, then pours liquor laced with dried, crushed petals down his throat. Or maybe Faustino’s holding Wendell for ransom and his parents are scrambling to send their life savings to him at this moment.
But I can’t shake the worry that he’s simply avoiding me. Have I annoyed him, spending nights at his hotel room, maybe unwanted? And in the woods—did he reach out to hold me or did I throw myself at him? And on the way up the hill—did he slip his hand in mine or did I grab his?
I wish I could talk to Layla, really talk. Now that her advice is no longer flowing freely, I miss it. She used to give good advice, odd perspectives. Maybe those ancient mystics rubbed off on her. Now, in the SUV, I can’t tell if she’s awake or asleep. She’s sitting in the front seat, her eyes hidden behind new sunglasses, her mouth fixed, her hands folded in her lap.
At home, Layla plops in front of the TV. She’s started plopping, plodding, dragging, moving heavily, the way people who think they’ve finished the exciting part of life do. Already the way she used to float around is fading into memory.
“I’m going out,” I say.
“You don’t want to hang out with me? Watch TV? Have girl time?”
“No thanks. I’m worried about Wendell.”
She nods and flicks her eyes back to the TV. “See you, love.” She doesn’t ask me why I’m worried about him. If she’d asked, I would have let it all gush out. But I’m on my own now.
I walk to the main square, through angled evening light, all golden and gentle, toward Gaby’s booth. I’ve changed into a long, gauzy sarong that Layla bought me in Thailand, silky swirls of color. It was too Layla before and I hardly wore it, but now it seems to hold a little of her old magic.
She gave it to me one sunny, breezy day when I cut school to go surfing. My friends and I were walking across the field toward the beach when I caught sight of Layla with her boyfriend at the time, a shaggy-haired Japanese artist. Layla was flying a kite and wearing a rainbow scarf around her neck that I later discovered was a sarong. She ran up to me and hugged me. I said, “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching a class now?”
She laughed and
said, “I’m playing hooky.”
“Try not to get yourself fired, Layla. Please?” She either didn’t notice or care that I was playing hooky too.
She wrapped the sarong around my neck and said, “For you, love.” And then, as my friends watched, gaping, she pulled me down to the grass so we were lying on our backs, side by side. Looking at the sky, she shouted,
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.”
Now, halfway across the world, in that same rainbow sarong, I breeze by scattered tourists, tired stragglers left at the booths. The vendors are packing up, shoulders slumped.
Gaby lights up when she sees me. “Four days, Zeeta! Where have you been hiding?”
“Some hacienda with Jeff and Layla.”
She pulls a piece of paper from her bosom. “From your gringo friend.”
I take a breath and unfold the note.
Hola, Z,
Staying with Faustino now. Not a bad guy once you get to know him. Spanish is getting mucho mejor. Thanks for your help the past few weeks.
Wendell
I sink into Gaby’s folding chair.
He chose Faustino over Taita Silvio and Mamita Luz.
Over me.
And he didn’t sign it Love, Wendell or Yours, Wendell or even Fondly, Wendell. Just an impersonal Wendell, out of a sense of obligation.
I translate the note for Gaby.
She shakes her head. “What a mess.”
Tomorrow is Gaby’s day off. It’s asking a lot of her, but I try anyway. “Can you come with me tomorrow? Try to convince Wendell to leave?”
“Oh, Zeeta. I would, but I promised my cousin I’d watch her children all day in Quito.” She pats my shoulder. “Why don’t you bring your mother?”
“No. Too complicated.” If Layla gets involved, then Jeff will too, and for some reason, that seems like a bad idea.
Gaby says firmly, “Go tell the boy’s uncle—what’s his name, Silvio?—tell him what’s going on.”
“He doesn’t acknowledge his brother’s existence.”
“From what you’ve said, this Silvio sounds like a good man. A man who would do anything to protect a person. A man who is more of a father than Faustino could ever be.”
On the bus the next morning, the speakers blast cheerful music, cumbias that make me think of dancing with Wendell. We pass through the outskirts of town, past tire stores and welding shops and garages, low buildings with dirt lots and cars in various stages of disrepair. And then, outside of town, the rubble gives way to wildflowers and grass and low bushes, and occasional houses with sprays of pink and orange bougainvillea in the yards. I twist my fingers around the plastic bag of fruit I’ve brought for Mamita Luz.
In most places in the world, especially small-town places, you always bring gifts of food when you visit. A bag of beans or corn or fruit or bread. And your hosts always feed you when you visit. Exchanging food and visiting.
From the time at my grandparents’ house in Maryland, I know that suburban Americans don’t tote sacks of beans or eggs around on visits. They invite each other to potlucks and barbecues. I try to imagine this Andean landscape stretched out like a tight green sheet of lawns, full of gringo families at their grills and picnic tables, like the Fourth of July in my grandparents’ neighborhood. I try to imagine one of these families as me and Layla and Jeff. I try to conjure up a glossy, sunlit magazine ad of Jeff flipping a hamburger, and Layla and me cutting up a fruit salad.
I can’t do it. It’s like straining to remember a blurry dream that keeps slipping out of focus, and all that’s left is a lingering memory of a certain feeling.
At Agua Santa, I get off the bus and walk up the hill alone, watching giant shadow blobs of clouds pass over the mountains. At the turnoff, I keep my eyes open for the girls. They always seem to magically appear, little elves emerging from the foliage.
A sound is rising over the insect songs and rustling leaves, a thin wail growing louder. A frantic, panicked sound.
Then, across the field, they come running, Odelia and Isabel and Eva. Odelia’s pumping her little legs as fast as she can, but lagging behind the others. Eva slows and grabs her little sister’s hand. A man’s running after them with a stick, half-stumbling, obviously drunk, cursing and yelling in a mix of Quichua and Spanish. “I’ve had it with you brats! You’re good for nothing!”
Their father.
My feet freeze. What to do, what to do? No one else is around, only a man working in a field far away, out of earshot. I look around for a stick or rock, some kind of weapon. All the rocks and sticks are either too tiny—twigs and pebbles—or too heavy to lift. Last time, when Wendell was here, I knew that the two of us could defend ourselves and the girls if we had to. But I’m alone now. And their father is the worst kind of drunk—not so drunk that he can’t stand, but drunk enough to do damage. He’s running, each of his strides twice the length of theirs.
The girls whiz by, hair streaming behind them, eyes terrified. They must be making a beeline to Mamita Luz’s house, cutting directly through cornfields and yards and pigpens, crawling under fences and skitting around cows and chickens.
At the edge of the road, the man sees me. He slows down and glares beneath heavy eyelids.
I throw back my shoulders and stand tall, trying to appear big, the way you’re supposed to do if you encounter a mountain lion. I look at him straight on, and although I can’t find any words—my throat feels locked shut—I stare, willing him to back down. Ready to run, I brace myself. He’ll have to get past me to get to the girls.
He hangs back, about twenty feet away, and yells something at me in Quichua. Then he turns and staggers in the other direction. Once he’s far enough away, I collapse, kneeling in the dirt. Being fifteen years old and confronted with this monster is scary enough. I can’t imagine how it feels to a forty-pound five-year-old who only comes up to his waist. Even though they’re obviously used to this—running from this man who is supposed to love them—that doesn’t make it any less scary.
I force myself to stand and head toward Mamita Luz’s. My heart’s beating wildly the whole way, along the irrigation ditch, beneath the arc of corn leaves. Wendell must have had a feeling about this, must have felt helpless. All he could do was warn the girls. Now I feel helpless, thinking of a million things I should have said to that terrible man, things I should have done. How dare you try to hurt a child! I should have drop-kicked him. Tackled him. Tied him to a tree with a sign reading I HIT INNOCENT CHILDREN and refused to let him go until he swore to never do it again.
When I reach Mamita Luz’s house, I knock on the door, my hands and legs still shaking.
“Who is it?” Eva’s thin voice calls out.
“Zeeta.”
She opens the door, looking worn out, like a very old lady. Wordlessly, she closes the door behind me and heaves a thick wooden bar across it. Mamita Luz is sitting by the oven with Odelia in her lap and one arm wrapped around Isabel. Odelia’s sobbing in scratchy gasps and gulps of air. Across Isabel’s face, paths of dried tears streak through the grime. Eva’s quiet, but beneath her stooped shoulders and crossed arms is a hard ball of anger.
Mamita Luz murmurs in a slow river voice, “You girls are treasures. Your father should treat you like the treasures you are.”
A few other kids are in the corner, playing marbles on the dirt floor, talking softly. I stand awkwardly by the wood column, still feeling guilty that I didn’t do something to their father, anything.
Mamita Luz nods at me in a sad greeting, then turns back to the girls. “When Taita Silvio gets home, we’ll tell him what happened and he’ll go talk to your father. You’re safe now.”
Once Odelia’s sobs stop, Mamita Luz says, “Eva, please go cut some ortiga. Zeeta, go with her.” She hands me a knife. “For the ortiga.”
I hold th
e knife tightly, ready to use it on the girls’ father if he dares to come here. Eva grabs a bag and leads me to a clump of nettles at the side of the house. The sun’s halfway to the top of the sky, the light still fresh, the heat just starting.
Carefully, Eva cuts the stems with the knife, trying to avoid the sharp hairs. Strange how something that can sting you can also heal you.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She shrugs.
“What happened, Eva?”
“Papi’s drunk. He got mad at Odelia. She was playing while he was sleeping and woke him up, and he told her to shut up and started beating her with the stick. But it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t her fault. She’s only five. She was just playing.”
Eva’s crying now, wiping her tears with her arm as she cuts the ortiga. “And he kept hitting her harder and harder and then Isabel tried to grab his arm to stop him and he started hitting her, too, and we told Odelia to run. And I grabbed his arm and told Isabel to run and then he hit me and started chasing after them and I held him back long enough for them to get a head start and then I ran too, and luckily he’s drunk enough he kept tripping and couldn’t catch us. And last time he did this, Taita Silvio talked to him for a long time and for a while he didn’t hit us, but he was in a really bad mood this time and got drunk and …” Her voice fades. She straightens up and slings the bag of ortiga over her shoulder, sniffing. “Ready?”
On the way back, I ask, “What about your mother?”
“She works as a maid in Otavalo all day to make money for us. She has to, because our father spends all our money getting drunk on trago. Mami leaves when we wake up and gets home after we’re asleep. And she tells me to look after my ñañas. I try, but I can’t protect them.”
I put my arm around her. “You protected them. You brought them here. To a safe place.”