Betrayed (30 page)

“I was not so small!” Cesar cut her off. “I do not how old I was. They do not give birth certificates in the villages. But seven or eight was decided in the army camp when I started school. Old enough to remember clearly what I saw. Was the village—my family—
comunista
? The army called them so, to be sure. I do not know politics. But was it
comunista
to want freedom for our people? The right to work for ourselves and to feed our families? Not to slave and starve and die on the plantations of the wealthy so that they could live in luxury at the cost of our sweat and labor and blood? Is it
comunista
to want an education? To organize the cooperatives, so that together we could bargain for better equipment and prices than we can achieve on our own? To sell together our goods at the market? Tell me, did your own labor class never fight for such rights? Or did the landowners and factory bosses surrender them willingly?”

“Well, no, of course not.”

“The guerrillas would come into the town, yes. We did not ask them to come or want them because we knew they would cause trouble. But they too had guns so what could we do? They didn’t hurt us. Why should they? Many had relatives in the village. They were fighting for our people, our future. Then the army came and told us that because we had allowed the guerrillas in, we were simpatizantes, ‘sympathizers’. And for that they destroyed our village.”

“It just seems so unbelievable. I understand war. I’ve seen it in other countries. But that government forces would target civilians, women and children, right here in the Americas under the eyes of the international media and never be held accountable—”

“Yes, that is what all the gringos say,” Cesar said flatly. “Either they do not believe it could be so bad. The people must be exaggerating. Or they throw money at us as though rebuilding houses or schools will wipe away all that has happened.”

Vicki was dismayed. She hadn’t meant to provoke such an outpouring of emotion. And after all her effort, she was losing him, the dark features shuttering into that stoical Mayan reserve.

“And Holly?” she asked with some anger of her own. “Which was she?”

Unexpectedly, it proved the right question this time. Cesar relaxed visibly, even smiling briefly. “She did not ask such questions. She spoke only of the animals, the trees, the water. Those who come to the center are like that. They are interested only in the land, not its people. In the future, not the past. It is why I chose to work there. Because there it is possible to forget.”

Vicki saw horror lingering in Cesar’s fixed gaze, felt the tenuous peace she’d found in this remote place draining away.

“I . . . I don’t think I should have come. I shouldn’t be intruding on your people, your church. Maybe I’ll just ride back.”

“No, no!” Cesar looked dismayed. “No, please, you must not leave. I am sorry if I should make you feel so. You are thinking it will be sad. But it is not. If the past is not so easily forgotten, nor is the future. Our church meeting is a time of rejoicing and hope, not sadness. You will see. Come! Come!” He grinned. “Your sister loved to come to our services.”

That did it. Cesar wasn’t quite as passive as he’d schooled himself to be in front of his Ladino and expatriate colleagues. Meekly, Vicki followed him on foot down an alley. They’d turned a corner when she heard music. A minor atonal singing that wound through an intricate beat sharp enough for Vicki to feel it in her molars. As they headed toward it, she glanced around at the thatched roof homes.

“What I find really unbelievable is that you came from here to become a veterinarian. How in the world did you make it to the university? That is really impressive.”

He looked pleased even as he waved away the praise. “It is true there haven’t always been many opportunities to study. But there were teachers at the army camp where I was brought. They took an interest in me. A scholarship was found to permit me to go to the city to study. Later when I worked hard, the scholarship became enough for the university.”

“From the army, you mean? To compensate for destroying your village?”

“No, not the army, never the army.” Emotion flashed in his eyes. “To compensate would be to admit they had done wrong. No, I truly do not know where the scholarship came from. I was very young, and there have been many programs of
extranjeros
and
misioneros
to benefit the poor in Guatemala. But I have always believed it was the gringo.”

“The gringo?” Vicki found herself actually holding her breath, willing her companion to keep talking. But just then they crossed an alley into a large corner lot worn bare of grass. The singing became abruptly louder.

Vicki had assumed they were heading toward the town cathedral. But this was a much simpler affair similar to the communal shelter at the center. Stripped tree trunks held up a thatched A-frame, the dried palm fronds hanging low enough to keep out all but the worst weather. Behind a platform at the far end, adobe bricks had been built up to about ten feet high for added protection. The platform was more adobe brick.

The floor was dirt. Narrow, backless wooden benches were the only seating. Its only identification as a church was a banner attached to the adobe behind the platform announcing,
Iglesia Shalom
, “Church of Peace.”

“So what kind of church is this?” Vicki asked as they ducked through the open rear of the structure.

Cesar looked puzzled. “Why, this is where we sing and praise God. We also read the Bible, which is God’s Word. And pray to our heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, who is our Savior from sins.”

“No, no, I mean what denomination? In my country there are many church groups. I was just wondering which one yours belongs to.”

Cesar’s face lit up with understanding. “Ah yes. We are Christian, of course.”

Okay, so it didn’t really matter. Either way, it was vastly different from the sedate community church Vicki had attended with the Andrews or the expatriate city church she’d visited in Guatemala City.

Cesar and Vicki were not the only latecomers filing in, but the benches were already full, if not of the entire village, certainly a sizable portion. Late arrivals stood along the sides and in the back. Children squatted on the dirt floor or wandered between benches.

The congregation was on its feet, their singing shaking the rafters with enough force to sprinkle dust and twigs onto Vicki as she followed Cesar to an open spot near a support pillar. The intricate beat came not only from an assortment of hide-covered drums but the staccato of clapping. There was a guitar and reed flutes. The music itself was not cheerful to Vicki’s American ears, the melody minor and plaintive, the lyrics in some Mayan dialect she couldn’t understand. But from the enthusiasm of the singers around her, they didn’t agree.

Then the song shifted to Spanish, the melody a familiar camp tune that had incredibly crossed continents and cultures to this highland Guatemalan village.

He decidido seguir a Cristo
. “I have decided to follow Jesus.”

Heads turned as Cesar and Vicki settled under the thatch, but the singing didn’t miss a beat. From the platform someone called out, “Cesar, up here!”

At his apologetic glance, Vicki waved him forward. A moment later he took his place behind a marimba. Vicki listened in delight to a ripple of chords from the padded mallets. Her WRC colleague was good!

The melody and song were again unfamiliar and wholly Mayan, but Vicki found herself caught up in the foot-tapping, hand-clapping rhythm until her hands were sore.

As more and more latecomers squeezed in, Vicki backed herself against a support pillar to keep from being jostled into the thatch. The light filtering in through the thatch and press of bodies was dim, so it wasn’t until the instruments fell silent and those with seats rustled down onto the benches that Vicki was able to see across the interior—straight into a pair of green eyes.

How had she possibly missed Joe? But he too had backed against one of the support pillars, slouched against it in his usual, lounging posture, the dried fronds of the thatch blending in with his sun-bleached hair, which was currently neatly combed. He was even in jacket and pants, as Vicki had seen him wearing at the embassy.

If Vicki had been unaware of his presence, Joe had known of hers because he gave her a civil nod as her eyes met his. When he straightened up and disappeared from the pillar, Vicki assumed he’d left.

But a few moments later, there was a rustle of thatch behind her. Then Joe murmured, “You might want to close your mouth before you catch a fly down your throat. You look so surprised to see me in church—I’m not sure I shouldn’t be feeling insulted.”

Vicki snapped her jaw shut. “I’m not surprised to see you in church,” she defended herself feebly. “I just wasn’t expecting you
here
.”

“I could say the same.”

And you wouldn’t be here if you’d known
, Vicki interpreted his sardonic expression.

Joe seemed to feel he had to explain himself because as he leaned against the pillar where Vicki stood, he went on, “I may not get much chance to get to church when I’m on the road. But when I can, I like to come. If only to remind myself there really are decent, honest, caring human beings somewhere on this earth. This one—” Joe was close enough as he turned his head to survey the church interior that his jacket sleeve brushed Vicki’s shoulder—“I like.”

Vicki looked around. The women wore mostly the indigenous
huipil
and wraparound skirt, the men cheap pants and shirts like Cesar. The youngest children wore nothing at all. The singing had ceased, but it was hardly quiet so Joe and Vicki’s low English exchange was no distraction. A young Ladino preacher shouted enthusiastically above the whimper of babies, a babble of restless children and their mothers’ shushing, a clucking of chickens, even the snuffle of a pig sprawled nearby under the thatched eaves.

This congregation held the poorest of the planet’s poor, their wiry frames stunted and thin from a scant diet, the damp musk of inadequate hygiene so strong that Vicki was thankful for the open sides. It was for people like these that she had pledged herself to fight, raging against the injustice of their lives, battering her mental fists against heaven itself for answers to their plight. More incredibly, like Cesar and Maria and little Alicia and Gabriela, every one of this group had come to this place from tragedy greater than any Vicki had ever undergone.

So how was it they could sit here listening to whatever the Ladino pastor was reading from a huge Bible in their dialect with the contentment Vicki could see on bronze features all around her?

No, not contentment. Acceptance. Hope. Trust. Even joy.

Maybe the answer was in the final song that brought the congregation back to its feet, another of those oddly minor and joyous unfamiliar tunes. This time the words were in Spanish so Vicki could translate the gist of the lyrics:

.

Así por el mundo yo voy caminando

So through this world I walk along

De pruebas rodeado y de tentación.

Surrounded by trials and temptations
.

Pero a mi lado viene consolando.

Yet at my side He walks consoling me
.