by Steven Gould
I backtracked and looked down at the mouth of the alley, where the men had come from when I first saw them. After a minute, two of them appeared, dragging the third with his arms across their shoulders. As they passed under the streetlight I saw blood on their faces—flying glass, I decided—and one of them smoked, literally, puffs of smoke rising from his hair and shoulder.
A car came up the street and stopped abruptly. They pushed the man who couldn’t walk into the back and climbed in on both sides, then the car was moving toward me.
I stepped behind a tree and watched it go by. At the next block it turned right. In the distance, the blare of car alarms was replaced by the rising sound of emergency service sirens.
For a moment I thought about walking back to the flat, to see if there was anything left, anything I could take away, but the neighborhood was well and truly roused and too many of them knew my face.
I jumped.
FOUR
Grasshoppers and Charcoal
When the bus stopped in La Crucecita, I thought it was just another stop in the journey. We’d been five days on second-class buses and ruteras—shared minivans in which the other passengers might include chickens and where I’d ended up with a baby or toddler in my lap more than once. We’d stayed one night in a hotel in Mexico City but otherwise it was nap as you could on the crowded, bouncing buses.
Consuelo said, “Hemos llegado,” and after five days of hearing nothing but Spanish, I actually understood her.
We’d arrived. I couldn’t smell the sea. I couldn’t see it. I smelled diesel smoke from the bus. I smelled something involving cattle. I smelled someone cooking onions.
My stomach rumbled. Except for some crisps on the bus, we’d last eaten in Oaxaca, half a day before.
Most of the passengers who’d gotten off at La Crucecita took the street toward downtown but Consuelo led me behind the station and up a forested hill on a trail half overgrown by banana trees and brush. It was humid but not too hot—not like some of the places on our journey where it had taken all my willpower not to jump back to some air-conditioned mall.
We crested the hill in less than ten minutes and walked into a breeze that did smell of the sea. Looking between the trees I saw flashes of sapphire blue. Consuelo turned up the ridge, away from the water, but thankfully, still in the breeze. After another five minutes she pointed downslope at a red claytiled rooftop visible between the trees. “Finalmente hemos llegado!”
I shifted until I could see more of it around the trees. It was narrow rows of building around three sides of a brick patio. A low wall stood at the open end but there was also construction—additions to both wings were in progress, extending the rectangle.
Consuelo crossed herself and then turned to me. “Wal-Mart. Okay, Greeefin?”
We’d been working on my Spanish the whole trip. “¡No, acuerdate me llamo Guillermo!”
“Okay. Lo recordare. Wal-Mart, okay, Guillermo?”
“Claro que si,” I said. “Un momento.”
The first time I’d jumped in front of Consuelo, she’d gone back to the altar in her room and returned with a vial of clear liquid. She’d splashed it across my face and chest and began a long Latin speech that began “Exorcizo te” but that’s all I caught, really.
There followed an extremely long argument and discussion between Sam and Consuelo in which she kept using the words el Diablo and demonio, and he used the word milagro multiple times. Finally, to settle it, I had to go into El Centro with her and kneel in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe, cross myself with holy water and take communion at Mass, which was probably a sin, since I wasn’t Catholic, but she wasn’t concerned about sin per se, but poderes del infierno.
She decided I wasn’t a demon or possessed but she was never completely comfortable about it.
Sam wasn’t home but the stuff was waiting where we’d left it, in the old stable—two garden carts (bigger than wheelbarrows) and a large pile of clothes, shoes, toys, diapers (for her grown daughter’s newest baby), and tools. I started with the carts, a jump apiece, then began ferrying the rest. Consuelo took what I brought and stacked it in the carts, lashing the resulting head-high stacks in place. It wasn’t all bought from Wal-Mart. Just mostly.
It was bumpy but downhill to the house so the issue was keeping the carts from running away from us rather than pushing them. Consuelo’s mother, the matriarch of the family, was the first to see her. There were tears and hugs. Consuelo hadn’t been home since her husband and son’s funeral three years before.
Children and a few adults followed quickly, but most of the adults were at work and the older children were en la escuela.
I was introduced as Guillermo, the orphan.
La Crucecita is a village on the south coast of Oaxaca, part of a larger resort area called Bahias de Huatulco, about five hundred kilometers southeast of Mexico City, a couple of hundred west of the Guatemala border. The blue Pacific water reminded me of the Bay of Siam, like sapphires shining in the sun. It wasn’t that crowded, compared with Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta, but being a gringo, I wouldn’t stand out that much, because of the tourists. That was the theory, explained by Consuelo through Sam.
Her extended family worked for the resort hotels as maids, gardeners, busboys, and cooks. Those who didn’t work for the resorts were in the U.S., sending money back, but this was changing as the resorts grew and entering the states became harder.
There was a welcome-home fiesta that evening and Consuelo handed out presents for one and all. I would’ve been lost except for Alejandra, one of Consuelo’s many nieces. Besides Spanish, she spoke English, French, and German, was twenty-five and beautiful. She’d been working in the tourist industry since she was sixteen and had attended the Instituto de Idiomas in Mexico City. She ran a translation services agency and taught weeklong immersion classes in Spanish, working with the resorts. “Visit beautiful Huatulco, lie on the beach, and learn español,” she said. She smiled often with her eyes but when her wide mouth opened into a grin, it was staggering.
It took me five minutes to fall in love with her.
We spoke in French, not because her English wasn’t excellent, but because she had less opportunity to practice French. That was a little difficult for me—Mum and I would speak in French.
She introduced me to everybody from Señora Monjarraz y Romera, Alejandra’s grandmother and Consuelo’s mother, to her many cousins’ children. I was given name after name, but only held on to a few. The food was both familiar and strange. I ate a tortilla filled with guacamole and some delicious, spicy crunchy thing.
“What is it? Uh, quest-ce que c’est?”
Alejandra’s eyes were alight. “Chapulines … los saltamontes.”
I looked confused and she tried French. “Les sauterelles.”
It took me a minute. “Les sutere—GRASSHOPPERS? I’m eating grasshoppers?” I unrolled the tortilla and it became all too clear she was telling the truth: legs and all, fried, from the looks of them.
She laughed. “If you don’t want them, I’ll eat them.” She reached out.
Stubbornly, I rolled them back up and ate the rest of it. Crunch, crunch, crunch. It was still delicious but knowing … I didn’t go back for seconds.
The next day I had la turista, really bad, with a fever and cramps and the groaning, stumbling run to the toilet over and over. I wanted to blame the grasshoppers, but no matter what else I thought, they’d certainly been cooked swell. Consuelo brought me a bitter tea to drink. When I asked what it was, she said something in Spanish and added, “Para la diarrea.”
Grasshopper tea, no doubt.
Later, she brought a small wooden box and burned it by the window in a metal pan. When the charcoal had cooled down she mimed eating it. “Comete el carbón de la leña.”
“Yuck! Absolutely not.”
Alejandra came and coaxed me into taking it. “It absorbs toxins and is the quickest way to stop the diarrhea. You only take it this once. No more after. Th
at would be bad for you.”
“I don’t want to. You also eat grasshoppers!” I set my teeth and curled in on myself, prepared to resist to the death. But she didn’t play fair.
“Faites ceci pour moi, mon cher.”
French, dammit.
“For her.” I managed half of the charcoal washed down with some salty boiled water. “For electrolytes.” And they stopped bothering me.
The runs did stop after that and I was able to eat rice with chicken broth that evening. Two days later, after my first fully solid meal, Alejandra and Consuelo took me out to the patio and we sat in the shade of the banana trees growing near the wall.
“My aunt tells me that you are not just an orphan, but that those who killed your mother and father are still after you.”
Reluctantly, I nodded. I knew we had to tell her. It wasn’t right to ask her to help without knowing. But I liked her. I didn’t want her to push me away, to not want anything to do with me.
“And she brought you here to avoid them. They would still kill you if they could find you.”
“Yes.”
“She won’t tell me why they want to kill you. She says only you can tell me.”
“Ah.” I licked my lips and nodded to Consuelo. “Gracias.” To Alejandra I said, “That—that was good of her.” Consuelo was keeping my secret.
Consuelo said something then, and there was a brief back-and-forth between her and Alejandra that was too fast for me to follow.
Alejandra looked back at me, a little confused. “She says she is willing to try that thing. The thing she said she didn’t want to do before.”
I raised my eyebrows at Consuelo. I knew what she was talking about. I’d suggested it back in Sam’s living room, where he could translate, but she’d been afraid. I guess the thought of five more days on buses and ruteras was more daunting.
And it would certainly answer Alejandra’s unspoken question.
“When does she want to leave?”
Compared with the stuff we arrived with, Consuelo’s little suitcase was tiny, but she was taking back a box of regional foods she couldn’t buy in California.
“Any grasshoppers? ¿Chapulines?” I asked.
Alejandra laughed and Consuela said, “No. Sam no like.”
Still, walking uphill into the jungle, the box was heavy and I was sweating by the time we reached the level spot where I’d transported Consuelo’s gifts. I could’ve jumped here from the patio but I was cautious. I’d decided that the rules had some merit.
So what about rule four? Who tells you when it’s okay to jump?
“Can you keep a secret? Like your aunt?” I used English. I didn’t trust my French and it had to be crystal clear.
Alejandra tilted her head to one side. “Will it hurt me? Will it hurt my family?”
I swallowed. “Not keeping it could hurt your family.” She frowned and I said, “I would never hurt them, but those who are after me might hurt them, getting to me.”
“Okay. I can keep a secret.” She leaned slightly closer to me than her aunt and whispered, “And who tells their parents everything?”
Ouch.
“All right. Let’s start with this box.”
I jumped to Sam’s living room. He wasn’t in there but I heard movement in the kitchen. I called out, “Sam, it’s Griffin.”
“Jesus!” I heard a dish clatter across the bottom of the sink. He appeared in the door, wiping his hands with a dish towel. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine. These are Consuelo’s,” I said, raising the box slightly. I put it on the table. “She changed her mind about the traveling thing.”
“Oh? You guys someplace private?”
“You ever been there?”
“For the funeral.”
I stared at him. “I didn’t know you knew her then.”
He shrugged. “Just. I found them. Their bodies.”
Oh. “Well, we’re in the jungle, up the hillside from the house.”
He nodded.
“Okay, then. I’ll be back.”
Alejandra was sitting on Consuelo’s suitcase, her head between her knees. Consuelo was fanning her with a hat.
I knelt beside her. “You okay?”
“¡Jesus Cristo!” She sat up. “Mi tia dice—my aunt says you just traveled to California.”
“Verdad.” In the week I’d known her, I’d never seen her lose track of which language she was speaking.
“And back again?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Beats me. Can I have the suitcase?” I pointed.
She stood up abruptly and Consuelo steadied her.
I took the case and jumped.
Sam was sitting in the corner, arms crossed. I put the suitcase down against the wall.
“What took so long?”
“Alejandra.”
He frowned, then said, “Consuelo’s niece? Is she there?”
“Yeah. Only her, but we didn’t tell her first. Only asked for secrecy. She’s a little freaked.”
His eyebrows went up. “Well, it do take some getting used to.”
I jumped back. Alejandra flinched but it didn’t seem to be fear. Just the sudden appearance of something unexpected, caught from the corner of your eye.
“So, you’re going to take my aunt now?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Have you ever done this before, with a person?”
I shook my head. “When we were discussing it, back at Sam’s place, I tried it with a kitten. Worked fine.”
“My aunt is larger than a kitten. How do I know you won’t leave part of her behind?”
“That’s just gross,” I said. But it worried me a bit. The heaviest thing I’d carried was the carts we’d used. They only weighed about thirty-five pounds, though, big as they were.
Alejandra said, “Try it with me first.”
“What?”
Consuelo, watching us both carefully, said, “¿Qué dijisté?”
Alejandra pursed her lips and I realized she didn’t want to tell her aunt, that Consuelo would protest.
I stepped up to Alejandra from behind and put my arms around her. I only came up to her shoulder blades; my cheek pressed against her spine through the thin cotton of her sundress. She smelled wonderful.
Consuelo said something sharply and took a step toward us. I jumped.
I staggered a bit, but we were both in Sam’s living room.
Alejandra gasped and staggered, too, and I steadied her—kept her from falling over. After a moment she said, “Uh, Guillermo, you can let go.”
“Ah.” I stepped slightly away from her, then caught her again as her knees buckled.
Sam and I helped her sit on the couch.
“Where’s Consuelo?” said Sam. “Is everything all right?”
“You explain,” I said to Alejandra, and jumped.
Consuelo was talking fast and furious with lots of gestures and I couldn’t get one word in ten, much less meaning. Well, I didn’t understand the sentences but I sure understood the sentiment.
I kept trying to calm her down but finally I just jumped behind her, like playing tag with Dad in our exercises, put my arms around her, and jumped.
We both staggered forward in Sam’s living room, but Sam steadied Consuelo and Alejandra grabbed my arm.
Everyone was a little wide-eyed, even me.
Deep breaths.
“You know,” I said, “I’m hungry!”
Consuelo couldn’t stand for anyone to “have hunger.” She didn’t even need it translated.
We ate out by the spring and Alejandra marveled at the dryness of the air and the trees and the rocky brown hills.
“¿ Dónde está lo verde?” she asked her aunt. Where is the green?
Consuelo got a stony look on her face. “No tenemos agua, ni hay verde.”
I realized what she was thinking about: her husband and son. No water, no green.
Alejandra realized it, too. �
�¡Oh, perdóneme! No pensé.” I didn’t think.
Consuelo waved her hand. “No es importante.” She said something else that I couldn’t understand.
Alejandra translated. “She’s glad she doesn’t have to spend all that time on the buses. Even if it was terrifying.”
“Travel Air Griffin. When you absolutely have to be there today.”
“Greefin? Why Greefin?”
“Uh, that’s my name. My real name. Consuelo and I chose Guillermo because they know my real name, the people who killed my parents. And Griffin is unusual. So, it’s Guillermo, okay? I mean, you can call me Griffin in private, I guess.”
“No,” said Sam. “Go on as you mean to go on. She calls you two different things, it’s easy to get mixed up. She calls you one thing, then she’s not likely to make a mistake in front of someone else.”
Alejandra nodded. “True. But going on? Are we meaning to go on?”
Sam switched to Spanish, asking Consuelo something, and the conversation broadened to include all three of them, but I didn’t follow it. I was watching Alejandra. Waiting. Hoping.
Finally, she turned to me and said, “Well, Grif—Guillermo. Do you want to live with me in La Crucesita? I have a small house behind the Hotel Villa Blanca, just across from Chaué Beach. There is a small room above the carport with spiderwebs.” She shuddered. “But it could be cleaned out.”
I nodded solemnly.
“You’d have to study hard and learn español because I’d be telling everyone you are a distant cousin on my mother’s side, the Losadas. She’s from Mexico City, not de el lado de mi familia de La Crucecita. And you would have to go to the beach often, to tan, so people would not call you el gringito.”
I nodded more vigorously. “All right. I’ll work hard and I’ll keep up my homeschooling. And I’ll learn Span—español. And I can shop for you, in the United States if you want, or Thailand, or Lechlade, uh, our village back in Oxfordshire—in England.”
“Whoa, boy,” said Sam. “You are going down to Oaxaca to disappear, not draw more attention to yourself.”
My ears got hot and I stared at the table for a moment. “Uh, right.”