by JJ Pike
Arthur hadn’t stopped talking, even though Bill hadn’t been listening. “I left Antigua City when I was a kid. The civil war was still raging.”
Both men fell silent when the waitress offered them more café con leche or a licuados of some kind. The fresh fruit, mixed with milk, would have been tempting had it not been for his churning stomach. “Any chance I can get a black coffee this time?”
Arthur translated, throwing in a shrug and a laugh. Bill had no idea what he might be saying, but his body language suggested he was making fun of his travel companion. “Americans, do they even know how to live?”
The waitress blushed and laughed, glancing at Bill every once in a while, but showering Arthur with questions as she did. She seemed to view him with a kindly eye. Or at least that was what Bill wanted to believe. Perhaps Arthur wasn’t mocking him. Perhaps he was making some joke about hangovers and coffee and the need for something strong and plain in the morning. He needed fortifications for the day, but his digestive tract wasn’t going to cooperate. Coffee would have to do.
Eventually the waitress left.
“She thinks you’re handsome,” Arthur broke off some tortilla and dipped it in his beans. “She asked if you were married.”
He’d gotten it wrong. They’d been sizing him up. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her that you were a mad man who’d left the most beautiful woman in the world back at home and that she could look at you, but she shouldn’t touch, because the woman you love was also vengeful and would cut her eyes out if she knew any other woman ‘made eyes’ at her man.”
Bill sat back in his chair. “You said that?”
Arthur laughed. “No. I’m just messing with you. I told her you were married.”
Bill wasn’t sure what to make of his translator. The guy was strange. They were here on a serious mission but he was making jokes and eating a full breakfast and flirting with their waitress.
The waitress delivered Bill’s coffee, with a wink at Arthur. Who knew what the guy had really said to her?
Arthur downed the end of his orange juice and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Where was I? Right, the civil war. It lasted from 1960 to 1996. You don’t know what that’s like to grow up and only know war.”
Bill did, once removed. Alice was one of those people. Her past colored their whole life. She’d only known her country when it was wracked with horror, riddled with gunfire, ablaze with conflicting ideology.
Arthur stabbed his eggs and let them run over his beans. “Genocide. Did you know there was a genocide here in Guatemala?”
No wonder Alice was always on high alert. She had to be. She’d learned to open the eyes in the back of her head, see the wicked in men, be on the lookout for the ones with heavy weapons.
Arthur leaned across the table. “No matter which side he was on, there’s every chance Mateo Hernandez committed a boatload of war crimes. If he hurt the people we’ve spoken to, they could be protecting themselves by saying ‘he’s great’ and ‘he helped us’ and ‘I remember him so fondly.’”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Bill. “What matters is that we have his address. I get to go see him for myself.” What he meant was, “What matters is what he did to Alice.”
He let Arthur argue until their plates had been cleared, but he didn’t relent. He was going to find Mateo by himself. This was his journey now. He had to tread it alone.
“You’ll get lost.”
That was a weak argument. Bill didn’t even dignify it with an answer.
“You won’t be able to buy anything, haggle prices down, find anyone.”
Bill smiled. “I was a structural engineer, Arthur. I’ve seen the world. I’ve been to Japan, Kazakhstan, Rwanda, and a whole host of other places where very few people spoke English. I’ll be fine.”
“I still need my per diem,” said Arthur.
“Sure,” said Bill. “You’re on the job. You get paid whether you come or not.” He hadn’t pegged Arthur for a money-grubber, but if that was why he’d been tussling with him all morning, well so much the better. It’d be easy to give him his per diem and be on his way. Bill handed Arthur a roll of cash and left without a backward glance.
He drove the rental out of the city, along winding roads, through towns, then villages, then hamlets. It rode like a small tank. Any car on the road could hit him and he’d be fine. It was old-school, solid, and though the seats were weathered and worn, someone had loved this car once. It was a smooth ride on rough roads.
All he could think about was Mateo Hernandez. He’d found his picture on the internet without too much trouble. The man was in his 60’s. That would have made him 40-something when he’d taken Alice. Bill swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid a cat. Horns blared, drivers made lewd gestures, passengers scowled. “Chill,” he thought. “No one died. Even the cat made it. You’re all safe.”
For now.
If Bill had been a different kind of man or on a different mission, he might have taken a side trip to explore some Mayan ruins. Any normal person would have at least gone to Tikal and ogled its pyramids and lemurs and baboons, or visited the pre-Colombian archeological wonders at Abaj Takalik and marveled at the petroglyphs and Olmec-style sculptures. But he was blind to that kind of history and its jagged, fallen beauty. The history he tracked was steeped in blood and bullets.
Bill looked down at the address the bartender had given him. Before he went there, he needed to make one more stop. Alice had never uttered the name of the village where she’d known such happiness and such sorrow, but he’d been able to work out where she’d lived by piecing together the stories he’d heard a million times in the night and those newer, more horrifying tales she’d shared in Dr. Moore’s office.
Alice had fled when the “men with very big swords” killed her parents. She’d spent time in the forest, been captured and held hostage, escaped, found a river, followed it until she could see the “famous volcano,” and eventually had been taken in by a family who treated her as their own. He knew the barest facts. From those, he extrapolated a timeline (six weeks hostage, eight weeks on the run), an end point (Quetzaltenango), and thence, working backwards along the major rivers, a probable starting point.
He pulled the car to the side of the road and sat looking at the tiny village Alice had called home. He knew some Guatemalan history, though he’d feigned ignorance when Arthur was schooling him, in part so he didn’t have to talk but also in hopes he’d learn something new. The civil war had torn the country apart. The likelihood that the buildings he was looking at now had been standing when Alice had fled into the forest were astronomically small. Whoever had rebuilt had taken pains to keep the flavor of a small town and not allowed it to lose its Conquistador-inspired colors or its earthquake-resistant buildings, low and squat, with thick walls and slim windows.
He could see the patchwork hillsides overlooking the town, the fruit and vegetable stalls lining the street, the Spanish arches of the official building at the far end of the square. Had any of this been here when his girl had called the place “home?” Would she recognize anything if she were to come here? She never would, he knew that. In spite of the tremendous strides she was making in therapy, Alice was far too fragile to come to the site of her undoing.
Bill didn’t bother locking the car. It would have been an insult to the spirit of the place. He’d passed several roadside fruit and vegetable stands with small pyramids of luscious fresh goods stacked on their shelves. He couldn’t read what the note said, but he guessed it was something along the lines of, “Take what you want, leave your money in the box.” He’d seen the same thing in rural Japan.
He didn’t know enough about Guatemala to know whether you could lose your wallet on a Monday night and find it at the local Police Box on a Tuesday morning, the money untouched; or if people would run after you to return your umbrella if you left it on the train; or if you bought presents for every person you knew if you went on a trip, but it had a communi
ty vibe similar to Japan’s. He’d only been in the country for a day and a half, but he’d already seen more people talking to each other in public spaces than he’d ever seen in New York City, and he’d lived there for more than ten years.
Bill was the only stranger in town. People nodded and smiled as they passed, but the kids came close, squealed, and ran away. He fanned himself with his hat, waved at the children, wished he was here for any other reason than the one that had brought him to this beautiful, secluded corner of the world. He needed to find the spot where Alice’s house had stood. It was by the edge of the forest, he knew that. So, to the south? Or had the forest been stripped? He walked the length and breadth of the town twice.
“Can I help, Senõr?” A woman approached him, three kids hiding behind her skirts. Her command of English surprised him.
“A friend of mine used to live here,” he said. “I came to see her home.”
Everyone within earshot was craning to hear what was going on. Bill was keenly aware of the hush. He didn’t like it. This was supposed to be a quiet mission that drew as little attention to him as possible.
“Your friend’s name?”
Bill didn’t want to say Alice’s name out loud. 1) It would make him stand out and 2) it would be too painful. She didn’t know he was here. He’d lied about where he was going. He never lied to Alice. Correction, he’d never lied to her in the past.
“Many buildings have changed and the streets are a little straighter, maybe. We came back and rebuilt our homes. I grew up here.” She pointed toward a man in the crowd that had gathered to listen. “He grew up here.” Her finger travelled down the line, alighting on a woman in bold colors and a straw hat. “She came here with her family forty years ago. That man in the chair is a great grandfather. All his children stayed. Their children left for the city, but what can we expect? Life here is slow and steady. They want something fast and exciting.”
Bill felt the pressure of the crowd. It would be too strange to turn and leave now. “Alice,” he blurted. “Her name was Alice.” It wasn’t. It was Alicia Sophia, but if he said her name and then Mateo Hernandez turned up in the river, it wouldn’t take much to link his death to the American visitor and Alice.
“Alicia?” she said, clamping her hand over her mouth. So much for anonymity.
He shrugged.
The woman turned to the crowd and spoke for many minutes. The rise and fall of the responses told Bill they knew who Alicia was, remembered her, knew something of her story. He regretted not bringing Arthur to translate, but there was nothing to be done about it. He was a foreigner in a foreign land, dependent on the kindness of strangers.
The woman turned back to him, wiping her tears with the hem of her apron. “She left a long time ago.”
Bill nodded.
“Her family lived there.” She pointed over his shoulder.
Bill startled, panic running through his veins like magma from one of the many volcanoes that dotted the landscape. He’d been standing by her front door this whole time and hadn’t known it. His chest contracted, his heart suddenly too big. She had been here, the Alice of Before. Had she been like these children, hiding and smiling and wanting to know what he brought of the outside world?
“The familia were such kind people,” said the woman. “So good.” She nodded, lost in memory. “The father was an activist. Good man. Strong man. Full of ideas. Driven by his principles.”
That was news. Alice had never said anything about her father being anything other than a farmer.
“It was a different time.” The woman translated simultaneously. The words for the crowd far outnumbered the words she doled out to Bill. “There were troubles.”
“Was he murdered because of his activism?” The question popped out before he could stop it. It was a mistake. He knew it instantly. He’d admitted he knew the family had been murdered.
The woman talked to the crowd for close to five minutes, all of them adding details, arguing points, throwing up their hands, crying.
“He was killed because he refused to do as the soldiers commanded. If he’d done what everyone else did, his family would have been spared. But he was a proud man. A man of honor. He died where he stood, defending an idea about his land. The land of his forefathers. He said it should be his. They said it should be theirs. They were armed, he was not.”
Did Alice know? She’d never said a word about her papa being an activist. Then again, if anyone had asked Midge what he did, she’d probably have told them he was a hunter who made “okay” pancakes. He had to remind himself that Alice had been a child and her worldview had been limited to what her parents wanted her to know.
“Your friend, Alicia?” The woman looked pained; as if she didn’t want to know the answer. “She comes here, too?”
Bill’s eyes filled with tears and he had to look away. There were people here who’d known her. Perhaps they’d played together, this woman and his wife. She’d cut herself off from all this joy. He righted himself, wiping his face with the back of his hand. She hadn’t cut herself off, Mateo had done that for her. He shook his head. “No. She’s not coming.”
The woman turned and translated, again more words than he’d spoken with so much gesticulation he had to believe it was the history of her whole family.
“Gracias,” he said. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”
“Nothing,” she said. “We wish Alicia Marroquin and all her family had lived to see us return. But God has other plans for the sweet souls in the world. He takes those to Him that He loves best.”
Bill needed to get back to the car, urgently. God hadn’t taken Alice, but neither had he spared her. This was no place for a theological discussion nor a crisis of faith. He had somewhere to be.
The children ran circles around him as he walked back through the village, plying him with little gifts. He was given an orange, then a slice of cake, then a glass of water which he was urged to drink. When he made it to the car there was just one little girl remaining, her hand outstretched. He plucked the colorful pine box from her hand. It was less than five inches long and two inches wide. Inside was a small figure clad in traditional peasant colors, bright and cheerful and hand-spun. He knew what it was. It was a “worry doll.” He’d seen them on sale in the airport. Guatemalan children told the dolls their worries and tucked them under their pillows. The worry doll took their troubles away while they slept. Bill forced a smile, holding off the tears until he was far from the village and no one could see him.
He pulled back onto the road and aimed himself at Mateo Hernandez’ hometown. He had stolen Alice’s sleep. Bill would get it back.
Chapter Fifteen
Jo took a deep breath. She was trained for this. You plan but remain flexible. If they needed to adapt, she could do that. “We’ll bury Arthur first, then take care of your truck.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me. It’s sticking out of the water. Anyone can see it.” Rayton was frantic. There was an upside: he was thinking about not getting caught. He understood his part in the cover up. That was what she needed.
“Not in the dark,” said Jo. “Put it out of your mind.”
“Put it out of my mind? Are you insane?” The man was spitting mad. It’d be a great time to test out where he was coming from. Perhaps even ask him some targeted questions.
“The body has to be our priority.”
Rayton swore under his breath.
“I get it. This is a big deal. If you want out, then now’s the time to get out. You can legitimately say you didn’t bury Arthur’s body. Go take care of your vehicle and then split if you want.” It was a bluff, but it would tell her what she needed to know. If he had his own reasons for helping her get rid of Arthur, he’d stay. No sane person agrees to bury the body of a murder suspect. In the movies, yeah sure, but in real life, experience told her he’d cut and run at the first chance unless he had a solid reason to stay.
Michael bounced the shovel a couple of times in the d
irt, chewing his bottom lip. Anxiety response. Good. “I’m doing this for Aggie, not you.”
“What’s your connection? Why do you even care about the Everlees?” She kept her tone light.
Was that a flush she saw, rising from his collar?
“Alice is my friend and colleague.”
“Colleague, yes. But friend? The kids seem to think not.” She was getting perilously close to the heart of the matter. She needed to watch him minutely. Breath sounds, word choices, eye movement, physical gestures. It would all add up to a tale his mouth might not be willing to tell.