Emma nodded back, stunned. As the man walked past her, she could see the hotel’s logo on the back of his jacket. He was not a thief or assassin, she realized, but merely one of the hotel guards, keeping the guests safe from the friendly people of San Marcos.
11
Turn right here, turn left at the first light,” said Timoteo, fiddling with the air-conditioning controls and adjusting the passenger seat for the third time in as many minutes.
Emma pulled out of the car-rental agency’s parking lot and into traffic. She hardly needed directions back to the Casimente. It was only a block—and three hundred pesos per day, twenty centavos per mile—away. Either the agency was wise to the ins and outs of currency exchange or it was just preposterously expensive to rent a car on San Marcos to begin with.
Timoteo didn’t appear concerned about the pressure his suggestion to rent the little white Honda Civic was going to put on Emma’s finances, however. If anything, he looked as if he had been just been granted a dozen extra birthdays and been named Emperor of France. As they neared the hotel, the expression on his face changed from one of rank smugness to one of sheer bliss.
“Slow down, slow down,” he commanded, jumping to his knees on the seat and rolling down his window.
Emma slowed the car. Directly ahead was the usual group of money changers and tour guides outside the gates of the Casimente. Timoteo leaned out the window, his smile growing even more enormous.
“Hey, Reginaldo!” he shouted. “Hey, Javier! Hola! Look at me!”
The boy then rattled off a rapid string of Spanish. Emma couldn’t understand what he was saying, but from the disgusted looks and fist-shaking from the men at the curb she gathered that Timoteo was being less than gracious about his good fortune.
“What did you say to them?” she asked as the hotel fell out of sight behind them.
“Nothing,” said the boy, grinning with satisfaction, not meeting her eye.
“Why did they get mad then?”
“I don’t know. I just tell them hello.”
“You’re right,” said Emma, braking the unfamiliar car as they came to a light. “It’s none of my business.”
“They’re just a bunch of guys. They are nothing to me.”
Timoteo’s sneakers were cracked and dirty and at least two sizes too big for his feet. He wore tatty blue jeans rolled up at the bottoms and no socks. His old sport shirt, also too big, was unbuttoned because it had no buttons, revealing the boy’s bony black chest.
“So where are we going to find these boats, Timoteo?” said Emma, glancing down at her own Gap chinos and the shoes that cost as much as feet.
“I show you,” said Timoteo, his face at once earnest and defiant. “You get nowhere alone. Timoteo know all the places. We turn right at the light up here and stay on that road for a while. We go through the city, over to the other side. Over the big bridge. I take you.”
They drove in silence to the ramshackle area Emma had hesitated to venture into yesterday on foot, then on through narrow streets crowded with noisy little cars and bicycles. Telephone wires stretched overhead. The gutters were filled with trash. The buildings were a crazy quilt of garish signs and peeling paint.
“I tell them they looked stupid,” Timoteo mumbled after a few minutes.
“Who?”
“The mens who change money. I say I laugh because they are standing there with their thumbs up their asses, while I have a beautiful lady to drive me around. I tell them they look like donkeys. You are mad at me now?”
“Why would I be mad?” said Emma, trying to remember the last time someone had called her beautiful.
“We be friends,” said Timoteo, his big smile returning. “I have lots of friends. My mother, she say I make friends with everybody.”
“It’s okay with her, right? Your driving around with me today?”
“Sure. She doesn’t care. She’s in U.S. In Hartford, Connecticut. She sent me this shirt from the guy she works for.”
“What does your mother do in Hartford?” asked Emma.
“She’s housekeeper for this man,” said the boy, playing with the controls of his seat again. “She cleans and cooks for him. She’s very good cook. He is very rich. She is making money so we can be together again.”
“How long has she been away?”
“Long time. Three years, maybe. She’s coming back soon. She sends me all kinds of things. She sent me these shoes. I live with my aunt. She have six kids. They all my friends. Everywhere I go, I have friends. The guys back at the hotel, they all my friends, too.”
“I thought you said they were just guys,” said Emma, “that they were nothing to you.”
“They are jealous of me,” sneered Timoteo. “Timoteo has the car and the lady to drive him, and they have nothing.”
“Maybe they’d like you more if you didn’t rub their noses in your success.”
The minute the words were out of her mouth, Emma regretted them. Since when had she been elected Oprah? This boy’s welfare wasn’t her responsibility. He was just someone who could help her find what she had come here to find. His personal life was none of her business. She couldn’t afford to get involved. She should just shut up and drive.
“They think they’re so smart,” said Timoteo angrily, “but they’re full of shit. They yell at me because I am small. They would cheat you if they could. They would kill you.”
“That’s why I came with you.”
“How much you pay for those shoes?”
“None of your business.”
“They are very beautiful. You give them to Timoteo, maybe?”
“Not a chance.”
“Timoteo take you to find boats. We will have a good time. You will be happy lady, yes?”
“Your friends at the hotel—they did sort of look like donkeys, didn’t they?” said Emma. The boy beamed.
“These are oil tankers, Timoteo,” exclaimed Emma, looking at the huge hulks moved in the brackish water. “The others are cargo boats. Freighters.”
Emma didn’t know why she should be surprised. The warehouses and deserted streets of the area should have been a dead giveaway as they approached, but Emma had just assumed Timoteo knew what he was talking about. She had asked him several times if they were going in the right direction, if he understood what she wanted. The boy had sounded so sure.
“These are magnificent boats,” he said again now, defensively. “They are very big and come from the ocean. From across the world. Everybody like these boats.”
“I’m looking for pleasure boats, Timoteo. Cabin cruisers. Like I told you. Small boats. Do you understand?”
“Sure.”
But he didn’t. The next pier he directed her to in a less-industrialized area of the city a few miles away held a small fleet of commercial fishing trawlers. Emma suddenly realized that the boy probably didn’t know what a “pleasure” boat was. Why would he?
“Oh, you want little boats for fun,” he said when she tried to explain. “You got to say so. Why don’t you say so?”
“I’m sorry,” said Emma, swallowing her frustration, trying not to attack his pride. She was already a nervous wreck from competing for space on the city’s narrow streets with drivers who seemed to come in only two varieties: suicidal and homicidal. The last thing she wanted was to try this again tomorrow with some thuggish money changer as her guide.
“I know this other place where there are little boats,” said Timoteo. “That’s what you want. I know.”
“Where is it?”
“Outside the city. I show you. Keep on this road.”
“How far?”
“Not far. You’ll see.”
They drove back through the center of town and out along the coast on Peguero’s trophy highway. After twenty minutes they passed the airport and kept going. The highway in this direction quickly lost its meridian, its palm tree borders and two of its four lanes, until it was just an ordinary, not-very-well-maintained road along the oceanside.
There wasn’t much traffic now that they were away from the city, and at first Emma didn’t understand why the yellow car behind her was following so closely, honking its horn and flashing its headlights.
“You got to pull over,” said Timoteo with a look of disgust.
“Why? What does he want?”
“It’s the police. You were speeding.”
“No, I wasn’t. Was I? What’s the speed limit?”
“Pull over,” Timoteo said again. “You be quiet. I talk for you, okay?”
“Like I’m going to understand what they’re saying anyway?”
She pulled over to the muddy side of the road. The police car —an old Volkswagen Rabbit—clattered to a stop behind her. On its side she could see the word POLICÍA in black paint, but other than that there was nothing to mark the car as an official vehicle. It was only slightly less battered than most of the cars she had seen on the road—even her rental had numerous dents and bruises, and the girl at the agency had seemed puzzled that Emma would even comment on them. Apparently no car in San Marcos went unbashed for long.
Two men in tan uniforms got out of the car behind her. One was tall and thin. The other was short and fat. Both wore sunglasses, mustaches and enormous revolvers.
“Buenos dias, señora,” said the tall one, smiling broadly, leaning down and tipping his hat. The short fat one smiled and tipped his hat, too. The words “banana republic” flashed into Emma’s mind, and not for the first time today.
“Qué quiere?” barked Timoteo.
The tall policeman shrugged and launched into a lengthy speech in Spanish. Timoteo folded his arms in front of him and listened, his face a picture of pure contempt.
“What did he say?” asked Emma when the man had finished.
“He says you were speeding,” answered Timoteo. “I told you so.”
“I wasn’t going faster than anyone else. How does he even know? I don’t see any radar.”
Timoteo said something to the policeman in Spanish. The man laughed and spoke again, pointing to his partner every so often.
“What did he say now?”
“Give me forty pesos,” said Timoteo. “Don’t let him see how much money you have.”
“You’re not going to try to bribe him, Timoteo.”
“Give it to me now,” said Timoteo, sounding serious. “They can take us to jail and beat us if they want.”
The tall thin one who was doing the talking tipped his hat again politely to Emma. The short fat one wiped his sweaty face with a white handkerchief. In their ill-fitting uniforms they looked almost like clowns. Emma turned away momentarily, reached into her pocket, and took out four ten-peso notes and handed them to Timoteo.
Speaking in Spanish, Timoteo handed two of the notes to the tall policeman. The man’s smile vanished and he shouted a flurry of words at Timoteo, none of which Emma could understand.
Timoteo growled back, his face curled into a sneer. For a moment Emma thought he was going to spit on the floor of the car, but instead he handed the other twenty pesos to the cop. The man snatched it, hissed a few final words which even Emma could recognize as obscenities, turned and marched back to his car, followed by his portly partner. In a moment the two policemen had started their engine and roared away.
When Emma turned on her ignition again, she found her hand was shaking. She had driven a mile before she was even able to speak.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again, Timoteo,” said Emma angrily.
“What?”
“What if he hadn’t accepted bribes? What would have happened then?”
“Why he stop us if he didn’t want money?”
Emma didn’t answer.
“You should be happy,” said Timoteo. “Why you mad? I take good care of you.”
“I can take care of myself. It’s no big deal to pay a speeding ticket.”
“You pay everything these guys want, every time they stop you?” said Timoteo, laughing, baring startlingly white teeth. “You must be very rich lady. Or crazy.”
“I’m just a visitor here, Timoteo. I don’t want to get into trouble.”
“Okay. Next time you see those guys, you give them the two hundred pesos they wanted. That’s how much they wanted. Two hundred pesos! Give them all two hundred pesos. I don’t care.”
“All right.”
“I get you off cheap,” Timoteo went on. “You couldn’t even talk to him. He was ignorant man. He did not even speak English. What you do if he took you to station and beat you and take all your money? What you do then?”
What would she do? Emma asked herself. It was she who was the child here. She was as naive about this place and how it worked as Timoteo would be if he were plunked down in the middle of the New York Stock Exchange.
“I’m sorry, Timoteo,” she said. “You’re right. You’re the guide.”
“Okay,” said the boy, staring at her with a strange expression.
“Okay. What now? Where are these boats? Where are we going?”
“Not much further. You’ll see.”
After ten more minutes, Timoteo motioned for her to get off the aging highway onto a road spur that led down through a stand of palms directly onto the beach. He had apparently forgotten the incident with the police altogether. He looked eager and excited.
“What’s here?” said Emma.
“This is where everybody comes. There are boats. Drive down there.”
Emma steered the little white Honda where the boy directed. In a moment they were on a patch of dirty gray sand and gravel next to the ocean. A few whitewashed rowboats were stacked against a small shack. About twenty children, some black, some white, none older than about fifteen, were playing in the breaking waves and standing on the shore.
“What are we doing here?” asked Emma, as half a dozen of the children convened around the car.
“You want to swim?” said Timoteo, opening the car door. “You give me your shoes now?”
“I want to find boats, Timoteo,” said Emma, grabbing his arm before he could get out. “You said you were going to take me to see boats.”
Was it some kind of trap? she wondered. Had the boy tricked her, gotten her to this remote place so she would be at the mercy of some kind of gang? How could she have been foolish enough to trust him? How could she have been so naive?
“Here are boats,” yelled Timoteo, pointing at the little rowboats. “We can take them out. Or we can swim. You can go in like that. Your clothes will dry quick. It’s real fun.”
Around the car, the “gang” of children squealed with delight. Timoteo broke free from Emma’s grasp and got out of the car. He jumped onto the hood of the car and began speaking to the group in Spanish. Emma opened her door and got out, too. Laughing children convened around her, their eyes full of curiosity and wonder.
“I tell them you’re this rich American who can buy anything she wants,” bragged Timoteo with obvious pride. “They think you own this car and everything. They never see such a nice car. You want to go swim now?”
“No, I don’t,” said Emma, feeling more than a little foolish. “I want to find boats. Not ones like these. Bigger boats.”
“I show you big boats before, you not like. Here are little boats, you not like. We go swim now. Okay?”
“Timoteo …”
“Just for a minute? Please?”
“Oh, all right,” said Emma. “Go ahead.”
Timoteo jumped down from the hood of the car and ran laughing down to the beach, followed by a dozen of the kids. He stripped off his shirt, pulled off his blue jeans and ran into the small, breaking waves in his white jockey shorts.
Emma waited, surrounded by the rest of the children, who stood staring at her in awe.
Clearly no one else wanted this ugly piece of beach. That’s how the poor children had taken it over as their own. Where else would they be welcome to swim and enjoy themselves? How often did Timoteo get here? Not often, judging from the look of him, splashing hap
pily in the water and yelling his head off. For all his bravura and street smarts he was just a little boy. To him this place was paradise.
It was only eleven o’clock. There was still time to look for boats today. Figuring she may as well make the best of it, Emma boosted herself up on the hood of the car and smiled at the group of kids who stood around, staring at her.
“He say you very rich,” said the tallest boy, stepping forward, shaking her hand. “He say you have many houses in United States. You buy me a house?”
“Me, too,” said a bright-eyed, skinny little girl. “I want a house, too.”
In an instant all the children were chattering happily, mostly in Spanish, jumping up and down, laughing. By the time Timoteo came back to the car, Emma was laughing, too, and draped with a pair of six-year-olds.
“You go swim now, too?” Timoteo said happily.
“No, we’ve got things to do,” said Emma, extricating herself from the giggling children. “What are you going to do about your clothes?”
“It’s okay,” said Timoteo. He picked up his blue jeans from the sand where he had left them in a heap and put them on over his wet underpants.
“They’re still wet,” said Emma, unable to stop herself. “They’re going to soak right through your jeans.”
“No, they won’t. I always do this. It’s okay.”
Emma just shook her head.
“How far away is that fancy resort area?” she asked, struggling to recall the name of the place in the hotel brochure. “Las Calvos, that’s it, right?”
“An hour away, maybe,” shrugged Timoteo.
“Have you ever been there?”
“Sure, many times,” said the boy, leaning over and spitting a slow stream of saliva onto the dirty sand.
“Is there a marina near there? Boats?”
“Yes, many boats. Las Calvos is very beautiful resort. Many rich people come there. You want I should take you?”
“Do you know the way?”
“Sure.”
The Girl Who Remembered the Snow Page 13