Borderless Deceit (45 page)

Eventually I found a small park with a bench where I waited for dawn. Until that evening no man had ever called me friend.

Another bus now, this one going north. Not even the boozy night with Estavan, nor the night on a park bench could take the shine off my anticipation. The bus's end station was in a small border town. A stone's throw distant was Costa Rica. I wandered up and down some streets and neared the crossing. The security was close. Passports were being checked. I drifted back to the bus station and crowded into a small van, a local service vehicle, which was departing for the coast, to Puerto Armuelles. Why not see what it was like there? I was accustomed now to casual lodgings in small towns where there were flexible captains owning small boats.

Next day a cheerful boy, a fisherman's son who catered to the odd tourist, took me on a cruise in a high-speed outboard, first south along an isthmus, then north on the other side. Somewhere during that outing the waters became Costa Rican. Some hours later, skilfully avoiding rocks between two close heads, he put me ashore and drew a primitive map in the sand. Hand language helped explain that
diez minutos
inland was a track and
dos horas
walking to the north lay

Punta Banco.
Adios. Buena suerte
. I paid, thanked him for his good luck wish and disappeared into the coastal forest. Here and there the sun broke through an opening in the dense, cathedral-like canopy. Guided by shadows I maintained a straight line inland. It really was only ten minutes until the predicted track appeared. Endlessly it wound its way north. Occasionally I heard a vehicle roaring up, which caused me to jump into the undergrowth until it passed leaving behind it a swirling tunnel of dust. Some hours later trails began verging off the track to the left, to beaches, I presumed. The track turned into a road and traffic picked up. Occasionally I saw people moving amongst the trees. In this way, I eased into Punta Banco and from there, really, I could travel around in Costa Rica as much as I wished. The next day I arrived in Turrialba.

“Rachel?” I called softly. The house had a large verandah and on it a figure in a deck chair had her back towards me. I moved forwards. “Rachel? Is that you?”

The figure moved. A hand on the armrest pulled forward and there was a turning around, a deliberate movement, as if it sprang from a mild irritation at the disturbance. Behind sunglasses the face was motionless. But a split second later, the quickest of reactions, surprise burst out. The sunglasses flew off and crash-landed. Bare feet, agile and quick, pattered along the porch and down some steps. The whirlwind rushing at me consisted of a loose white blouse unbuttoned far down the front and a long and flowing, red cotton skirt. And above all of it was Rachel's matchless, uncombed ash-blond hair. She looked wild, more beautiful than ever. Her arms were open and outstretched.

“Carson, what…what is this?”

“I've been looking for you, Rachel. For days. There isn't a back road around Turrialba I haven't been on.”

I hadn't exactly decided to give up on finding her, but all the same, as days went by, discouragement set in. Diego, my driver, perceiving this, took an opposite tack. His hope became stronger, unassailable even. As his taxi bucked the trails to their inevitable dead ends, whereby my face dropped, his shone ever brighter. “This lucky,” he would say, wheeling
the small car around to go back the way we had come. He would add, “God, he smile,” or, “The holy saints, they love us, sure.” I asked why. “Because,” he answered, “my car no break down here,” or, “Because you see my country close. Ees beautiful, no?” or, “Because I drive you good.” At the end of one muddy track he stopped and got out to climb onto the hood. On this soap box he delivered a speech: “In this country, Señor, freends no disappear.” He did a slow full circle with a finger tracing the mountain tops. “In countries north and south of Costa Rica freends make sadness. One day they no there no longer. They no come back. But here freends stay because God, he smiles. So we lucky. Your freend, we find her,
no problema
. Then you give me tip.” Pep talk finished, orders given, Diego jumped down laughing. Well, it was true – with me, his prospects for a decent tip were never better.

Diego had decided in an instant that his near-term future prospects lay with me. He picked me out, not the other way around. The bus from Cartago to Turrialba had been packed, several passengers being foreign adventurers on small budgets. “You here for the volcanoes, then?” a chatty Brit asked me from across the aisle. His name was Harold. The bus was swerving through bends in the road as if with a sufficient speed it could straighten them. Harold's girlfriend, trying to sleep between him and the window, her head tight against his shoulder, rocked back and forth with him in unison. I too gripped the handle on the seat before me.

“Might try one,” I replied.

“Semantha and I are doing them all – Irazú and Turrialba this week. Last week it was the lava flows off Arenal, and then Poás. Next week Chirripó. Fall in with us if you want. We can share, you know, the cost of vehicles for getting around.”

“You look fit,” I observed. “I'd hold you back. I'll stick to lower elevations. What did you call the volcano you climbed? You liked it?”

“Arenal. Sure did.” Immediately, Harold was unstoppable. With Sam on his shoulder groaning at the bus's every lurch, for the next hour he delivered a painstaking description of their trek, step by step, of the way up and down. It was overwhelming. No wonder Sam insisted on sleeping. Following the pair off the bus I moved quickly to the left when they were looking right. And in this way I stood confronted by Diego. He was slight, about my age, spoke enough English, and had eyes so
bright I believed they'd never once beheld misfortune.

Diego did more than drive a taxi. He also offered services as guide. I was soon deposited at an economical hotel, where he waited. An hour later he drove me to a back street eatery on the edge of town and again remained outside. “Girl?” he asked after I had dinner. I shook my head. He frowned. “Boy?” I declined again. He looked puzzled. “Why you here?”

“A friend, Diego. She's staying somewhere around here in a house of some kind, maybe on a farm, or hacienda, something like that.”

“A freend! I take you. Now? Tomorrow? Casa is where? You show me.”

“I don't know.” Anne-Marie's rough directions were of a ten or twelve minute drive along a main road out of town, then a turn right and fifteen more minutes down a side road of some kind.

“Ees eesee,” Diego laughed. “I know road. Tomorrow I take you.”

Four main roads connect up in Turrialba. How far is a drive that lasts ten minutes? And what is a side road? A dirt track that heaves and falls like storm waves?

I tried to point this out, but Diego dismissed the uncertainties. With eyes closed and two hands raised to stop my bickering, he said, “Please, señor. Señor, please. You no know here. Here I know. Your freend is mystery. Whoamen are mystery. But I am Diego. I good detective. Tomorrow I do this work for you.”

Next morning the sky was cloudless, the light gentle, the air vital, a day for horoscopes to allude strongly to fulfilment. Diego, having first stated that money talk was beneath him – sleuthing being a higher calling – finally agreed to a day rate. The road southeast was repaired tarmac, smooth enough, but as the taxi picked up speed it began to shake. Diego often yanked the steering wheel sharply clockwise to tame the shimmy, but a little quiver soon crept back, which then grew into a major vibration. Dash, doors, windows – everything rattled. Within this madhouse we advanced, Diego making up his mind on turnoffs to the right. No…No…No…Ha,
aqui, si
…One by one the often muddy, winding arteries into the back country were checked out. All eventually turned into dead ends: fields, bits of tropical forests, dipping furrows in the land. The countryside around Turrialba is busy. Numerous small square houses painted bright pink, dark blue, red or
yellow were everywhere, all of the same design, all with metal roofs. Now and then Diego stopped at one to ask excited questions, which caused much hand-waving and finger-pointing into random directions. Here and there stood grander places. Once we stopped at one because the place had an expatriate look. A heavy young woman with three
niños
came out. She engaged Diego in a cheerful, high volume shouting match. They went at it for a while, perhaps determining that they were each other's long lost
freend
now happily refound.

On day two, in between several spectacular downpours, the area southwest of Turrialba, back in the direction of Cartago, was similarly methodically eliminated.

Day three, Diego proclaimed, would bring luck. For this reason he took the road towards the north and west as far as Santa Cruz, the Vulcán Turrialba looming as backdrop the whole way. The motif made me think of Harold. I assumed that at that very moment he was driving poor Sam crazy the whole way up, informing her he'd just finished putting his boot on this rock and was about to place the other on one a step farther along. But as for Rachel, we had no luck, which only drove Diego's optimism higher. “Case feeneeshed almost,” he concluded as we came to yet another halt on a track leading into a forest. The vegetation was luxuriant and inviting – it being the rainy season – and I was ready to continue into it on foot. “Now close,” he added, turning his back to the trees and pointing at the hilly landscape below. Everywhere there were dots of trees and beneath them the black-green hues of coffee shrubs. “Very close, no? Tomorrow. Yes. You too feel?”

That evening I patrolled the town. I checked out sidewalk cafés, or peered into restaurants through windows. A premonition was building that tomorrow fate would deliver a twist, that one way or the other there would be a new direction. Suppose Rachel could not be found? What then? Should I stay for a while, maybe help Diego start a tourism business? I had to admit that driving through the countryside with him was unbeatable. In charming English he explained local customs, his family, Costa Rican politics. I had begun to like him as much as the deeply contented feel of the whole country. All Diego needed was some money for a new vehicle, some coaching on the finer points of service, and away he'd go. I could help him. Who
knows? Around here I might have nothing better to do.

On day four we were on the fourth and final road leaving town, going northeast. Diego was explaining that the casa we sought had to be in that area because of where the road was leading – to Guayabo. A thousand years ago Guayabo was a large city from which, seemingly from one day to the next, the inhabitants disappeared. Politics and war? A volcanic eruption? Quickly enough the place was reclaimed by nature, became lost and turned into a legend. But now it was being unearthed by archaeologists. The link to Rachel, Diego pointed out, made sense. “Guayabo was lost, señor. Your freend too. We no
arqueólogos
. We
detectives
. But we find too.” He pointed at his head to confirm the truth of the conclusion. “
Lógico
.”

Filled with optimism Diego headed towards the Guayabo monument, avoiding the shimmy by driving slowly. For me the stakes were high. Preoccupied with failure I scarcely noticed the kilometres passing. Some fifteen minutes into the drive we crossed the Guayabo River where the road took a broad turn. Just beyond the bridge a road of sorts led into a clump of trees on the edge of the stream. Diego, whistling happily, continued on.

“Diego, stop. Stop right here. Go back. There was a turnoff there.”

“Señor. Guayabo no far. I show you. Guayabo breeng luck.”

“No. We crossed the Guayabo River. That was lucky and the turnoff was right there. We couldn't be luckier.”

Diego stopped. He thought. A finger paused on his lips on the way to pointing at his head. “
Si. Lógico
.”

He wheeled around and soon we climbed a steep hill, wheels spinning in the mud, then slithered down an incline and from there bounced on a track. Away from the river, the countryside was one of stands of coffee and fields of sugar cane. We passed some brightly coloured houses lit up by a sun beaming down between the rainy season clouds. Someone out for a brisk walk would have gone faster than Diego's vehicle and more minutes passed. Another stand of trees, then a long slow rise up to a plateau, and once on it, we saw a house a few hundred metres away. A fine looking, spacious casa, a kind of Tuscan villa, with a small tower rising from one corner. The garden all around, marked off by flowering shrubs, was large, maybe two, three hectares. The first impression was colour – house, flowers, trees,
sky – colour, colour, colour, all of it perfect. We came up to the house from the back. Its view west towards Vulcán Turrialba, covered this moment by a fluffy white hat, was unobstructed.

“
Lógico
.” Diego repeated. “I know we find. God, he smile in Costa Rica. Freends always found.”

“It's just a casa in the country, Diego. We don't know if my friend is here.”

“Señor!” Diego reprimanded me sharply. Life can be lived as optimist or pessimist and given the choice, Diego's tone said, why foolishly go for the latter? “She here, señor. If she no here…” He pointed at the house. “She live in casa like it. But no casa like it. So she here.
Lógico. We detectives excelentes
.”

“Wait, Diego.”

“Tea,” Rachel blurted. “I'll make tea. Then tell me why you've come. And how. Or coffee? There's coffee too. I'm sorry. I look as if I've just got out of bed.”

I explained a taxi was waiting down the road. I would send it away to return in an hour.

“Tell him two hours. No, three. How long do you have?” I replied I was in no rush.

I walked back to Diego and signalled him with a thumb up. He clapped. When I said tea was being served he danced, leaping and soaring with arms spread wide, like an eagle gliding. Twice he went around his car this way. I suggested he return later, but going back to town was out of the question for Diego. He would remain – until nightfall if necessary.
Esperaré
…
Esperaré
. I'll wait, I'll wait. He crossed himself, kissed his fingers, and extended his palms down to consecrate the ground on which he stood. It was his way of preparing a spot for a siesta.