Stranger (21 page)

I have a baby, she said.

He said that the baby meant nothing. He was very matter of fact. She thought that he was not a dangerous man, or he would not be saying these things.

They said goodbye and she walked through the scrubland and the desert until she came to the road. There was very little traffic and when a vehicle finally approached she turned and she waved, but the vehicle passed on. Two hours later she was still walking when a pickup pulled over and idled on the shoulder. A motorcycle was tied to the bed of the pickup. A man sat at the wheel, and he called out through the open passenger window that she should get in. She looked at him and saw that he was very old and this gave her heart and so she obeyed. She climbed up into the cab and settled Meja on her lap and she said, Thank you.

The man clutched and shifted and pulled out onto the highway. He did not speak for the longest time, and she was grateful, though she felt, as usual, a twinge of dread.

And then he said that he was going to Saltillo. And you? he asked.

She told him.

He said that it was a great distance, but that she was heading in the right direction.

He was a small man, and sitting at the wheel he looked dwarfed and she thought him harmless, but she knew that what might appear to be harmless wasn't always so. He said that his name was Eduardo.

She told him her name and she told him Meja's name.

He said that it was a pleasure. He asked if she was hungry.

She said that she was.

And the baby?

She's always hungry.

We will eat, he said.

I don't have any money, she said.

He lifted his shoulders and said that it wasn't necessary.

They stopped at a roadside restaurant. He ordered two plates of huevos rancheros and two coffees and he ordered porridge made of rice for Meja. Eduardo drank coffee and he looked at
Íso
as if seeing her for the first time and he said that she was very young.

She had no answer for what was true.

He said that he had a grandson who lived in Saltillo, and the motorcycle in the bed of the pickup was for the grandson. I spoil him, he said.

His hair was very black for an old man and it was combed back and he had deep lines on his forehead and on his face and Íso found him to be very handsome. When the food arrived they did not speak, but ate with great concentration, even Meja, who sat in Íso's lap and accepted the rice gruel she offered. Íso had added sugar and a little milk, and checked the temperature beforehand. Meja ate quickly and with pleasure.

He dropped her off at the bus station in Saltillo. He gave her
a little cash and she took it without shame and said thank you. He asked if he could hold the baby. She handed Meja to him and he took her and cradled her and then kissed the top of Meja's head as if blessing her.

He gave the baby back and said that she was a good mother. He wished her safe travels. And then he left her.

I
T
took her five days to cross Mexico via the coastal route. She rode local buses during the day and for the first two nights she took cheap rooms. In Tampico she found a small cold-water closet for ten dollars and she bathed Meja with a rag and she fed her and she laid her down to sleep on the single bed and then she showered and washed her hair with a small piece of soap and then she sat on the edge of the bed and she ate tortillas and a piece of corn brushed with chilies. When night fell, she stood in the darkness of her room and looked out the window onto the street below and she watched men in pickups and cars carry away the girls who walked the sidewalks. Young girls. Older women. All willing. At night, she woke and heard shouting from the room next door, and then came the sound of glass breaking and a woman crying, and out in the hallway there were shouts of glee or sorrow, she could not tell, and in the street below there was much to be heard, and she covered Meja's ears and smelled Meja's head. She decided then that the bus was a safer place. And so, in the days to come, she kept moving, sometimes standing for hours as she held Meja. With a serape purchased in a market in Ciudad Victoria, she had fashioned a more comfortable sling for
Meja, and in this way she managed to sleep for brief moments as she stood on the swaying bus, her legs aching, but always she counselled herself that she was young and she was lucky, and sometimes she was lucky enough to have a man offer up his seat to a young woman holding a child. She was favoured. She was unknown. There was no curiosity about her, and she took comfort in her anonymity. The world she had left behind became as a dream, a fantastical world out of which she had risen. She felt very strong.

Two days later, ten quetzales remaining in her pocket, she rode up out of San Lucas Tolimán in the back of a pickup surrounded by her people and she saw the sun falling over the lake and she saw the fishermen in their cayucos and she smelled the smoke from the maize fields high in the hills. Descending onto a flat plain where the road ran through a coffee finca she felt the wind that came off the lake, the wind that removed all sin, and she ducked her head and whispered in Meja's ear that they were home.

T
HE LAKE AT
I
XCHEL, SITUATED ALONG THE
S
IERRA
M
ADRE
de Chiapas, is the deepest lake in Central America. In the middle of the last century, the government, hoping to attract tourists, specifically anglers, introduced a foreign fish, the black bass, which ate the native fish and contributed to the extinction of a water bird called the Atitlán Grebe. No one speaks anymore of the Atitlán Grebe, save for those fishermen who are in their later years, or a few souls who study birds and are inclined towards preservation. The Atitlán Grebe had slate-grey legs, and a bill with a bold black vertical band. It was rather nondescript. It had small wings. It was flightless.

Three days after the kidnapping of the doctor's child in Saint Falls, about which the village knew nothing, a stranger had arrived at the hotel near the clinic at Ixchel and introduced himself as an
amateur birder. He spoke of the Atitlán Grebe and he mentioned two other birds, the Horned Guan and the Azure-rumped Tanager, two endangered birds found in the cloud forest above the lake. He hoped to sight one of these birds, or hopefully both. This stranger was seen in the pueblo, always walking, wearing his Tilley hat, and carrying his binoculars. He spoke a rudimentary Spanish. He handed out candies to the local children. He asked a few questions here and there about Señora Perdido and her daughter, but the answers he received were vague and contradictory. The mother used to have a daughter but she was now gone. Or the daughter had died travelling to America. Or the daughter had returned but was now working in Guatemala City, as a nurse, or a doctor. Or she was studying at the university. He went to the clinic and spoke with the director, Elena. She was quite beautiful, and very willing to answer his questions, and of course she knew the doctor and his wife, and she said if she heard anything about the child she would contact him immediately. They sat in chairs, facing each other, and he was aware of her dark blue dress and her pearls and the colour of her skin and he felt a stirring of desire. She leaned forward and said that he shouldn't expect anything to be simple. This is not a simple place. One doesn't fly down here and find a child that has been kidnapped. A child that in fact belongs to the woman who took her.

I think we can agree that she gave it up, he said.

She might not agree.

Who can I trust? he asked. The police?

She smiled. This is not America, she said.

He stood and reached out a hand. She took it and held it. He thanked her. And she thanked him. They agreed to keep in touch. He left the clinic and walked back to his hotel, aware of the heat from the sun on his back. He was distracted, and he knew that it was not a good thing to be distracted.

The following day he visited the tienda of Señora Perdido and observed her talking to customers. He did not approach. He just observed. Late that afternoon he drank a Gallo beneath the hotel gazebo. He had yet to take a trip into the cloud forest in search of the rare birds.

And then he disappeared for a time. Rumour had it that he had gone back to his home, or to the city to speak to the authorities, or perhaps he himself had been robbed by ladr
o
nes and left by the roadside to die. This was wishful thinking.

When he returned three weeks later, he could not be missed as he strode along the small lanes of the village, or as he folded himself into a tuk-tuk. He again took a room at the same hotel.

On a Saturday, the stranger once again entered Señora Perdido's tienda. She was alone at the counter. The stranger walked about, looking at the wares. He opened the fridge and inspected the butter and the yogurt. He hefted the bread. He stepped out under the awning and looked down and then up the street. Finally, he returned and he traversed the floor and stood before Señora Perdido.

Señora Perdido smiled at him. She wished him a good afternoon.

On this day the stranger was dressed not in his birding gear, but more formally. He wore a white shirt and black pants and he
wore polished leather boots. To Señora Perdido he resembled men she had met before, perhaps even a younger version of Lewis, the man who had been her teacher so many years ago in San Francisco. Or he might have resembled the men who came to her tienda as missionaries, usually young men in dress slacks and white shirts and ties who spoke broken Spanish and wanted to make her a happier person. The stranger had the look of an evang
é
lico, of a man who knew what he believed and was astounded that others did not agree. In any case, the stranger stood before her.

He said, My name is Derek Grima. Íso Perdido. She is here?

He was speaking his high school Spanish.

There is no Íso here, Señora Perdido said.

Not here?

Señora Perdido shook her head.

There is a baby. I am looking for the girl called Íso, and the baby called Meja. They are together.

Señora Perdido bowed her head.

The man asked in English if Señora Perdido spoke English.

In Spanish she said that she spoke Spanish.

The man looked around the shop. He reached into his pocket and took out a photograph. It was a photo of Doctor Mann and his wife. He laid the photo on the counter and asked if Señora Perdido knew these people.

Señora Perdido leaned forward and studied the photograph as if it were an ancient artifact. She excused herself and went to the back and returned with her reading glasses and leaned once again towards the photo. This one, she said. That is Doctor Mann.

You know him? the man asked. His voice was a little higher in pitch.

Of course. Everyone knows Doctor Mann.

He is a friend of your daughter's?

Everyone was Doctor Mann's friend. Señora Perdido lifted her arms as if to envelop all of humanity. He was loved, she said.

Your daughter Íso too?

The nurses, the keepers, me, the other doctors. Everyone.

Señor Grima leaned back from the counter. He sighed. He retrieved the photograph, slipped it into his front pocket, and said in his simple way, We come back.

Señora Perdido nodded. Okay, she said. You come back. Her voice was shaking, but the man did not notice.

When the stranger had gone, Señora Perdido closed her tienda, put on a jacket, and stepped out into the street and waved down a tuk-tuk. Her heart was both light and heavy. If she were to cry, though, it would be from relief and happiness. She directed the driver to take her to the carpintería, on the other side of town. She found Santiago staining a massive door that had been laid out on sawhorses. His hands and fingers were brown and the air smelled of the fumes from the oil. Santiago laid down the cloth and offered her a stool. She refused. She told him about the stranger. Santiago nodded and said that he was aware. She said that the man had been in the tienda and he had shown her photos of the doctor and his wife. And he'd asked about the baby, and he'd asked about Íso.

Santiago stepped sideways and picked up his cloth and bent to
inspect the wood. He rubbed at a spot and then looked up and said that she should not worry. It will be fixed, he said.

Íso has the child, she said.

Yes, Santiago said. She has the child. He smiled. His eyes creased. And she will keep the child.

T
HE
stranger returned to Señora Perdido's tienda the following day. He had with him a young man who would act as his translator. A man Señora Perdido did not know. A man who was from elsewhere. Also a stranger.

The translator introduced himself as a friend of Señor Grima's. His own name was Pedro. He would translate. Okay?

Señora Perdido said that he could do as he pleased, but there was nothing new to say.

Pedro spoke with Señor Grima. They conferred in whispers. Pedro lifted his head and said that Señor Grima was looking for a child by the name of Meja. A child who belonged to Doctor Mann and his wife. There was reason to believe that Señora Perdido's daughter, Íso, was in possession of Meja. Señor Grima has come to return the child to the doctor and his wife, Pedro said.

There is no child here, Señora Perdido said.

If not here, then where?

Nowhere.

The men conferred some more. Pedro lifted his head and said that the child would be found. It was just a matter of time. Señor Grima thinks that you are not telling the truth, he said. It was clear
that he was not happy to speak these words—in fact, he seemed to understand that he might have chosen poorly in taking this job of translating.

Señora Perdido sensed Pedro's hesitation, and she saw that she held a certain advantage, no matter how weak. She told Pedro that it was dangerous for Señor Grima to be looking for something that was not his. She said that Señor Grima should return to his own country. It was safer there.

Do you want me to tell him this? Pedro asked.

Señora Perdido shook her head. Tell him that I'm a simple woman who runs a tienda, and if he would like some butter or bread, I have that. Otherwise, I have nothing. He's knocking on the wrong door.

Pedro translated.

Señor Grima spoke to Pedro. He was angry, but he spoke calmly. He said that the mother was making a mistake. A dangerous mistake. And that she would have to open the door.

Señora Perdido understood English, of course. She stood, and she began to speak English to Señor Grima. She said that it was he who was making a dangerous mistake and that there was no door to open.

Both men were surprised by this outburst and Señora Perdido was immediately sorry that she had exposed herself in this way.

Pedro said, You speak English.

I do, Señora Perdido said.

Then why am I translating? Pedro asked.

Because it's your job, Señora Perdido said. She shrugged.

Pedro turned to Señor Grima and said that they would now go.

Señor Grima protested.

We will go now, Pedro repeated, and he took Señor Grima's arm and led him out into the street.

D
EREK
Grima disliked tropical countries. The vegetation was overwhelming, there was no such thing as dusk, the dogs were ill fed, most people were shorter than he was, the garbage on the streets disturbed him, and inevitably there was the language. He lived in Arizona, at the edge of the Sonoran Desert, and he loved the hot, dry days and the cold nights. The clean sky. The lack of plant life. The paucity of people. The birds that liked to hide away. It was a fact that he was not a birder. He was here to find the child. Even though it was his policy never to take custody cases, he had agreed because of the large sum offered, but now here he was in this dirty pueblo for the second time within a month, chasing after a child who might not exist. He had misstepped in coming here too early, just after the girl had kidnapped the child, and long before she would have made it home. But the couple had insisted, and so he'd arrived, and of course found nothing. The people of the village to whom he spoke were unhelpful. Everyone either shrugged or pretended not to understand. Even the few local police were unhelpful. The village, the climate, the police, the stray dogs—everything conspired against Derek Grima.

The following morning, early, a man, short and with a fey step
and a lilting voice, appeared at his door and asked in fairly good English if he was Señor Grima.

He was. And who would this be?

My name is Santiago, the little man said. He bowed slightly. He might even have clicked his heels. Slightly comical.

Santiago said that if Señor Grima was looking for a child named Meja, then he, Santiago, was the one to help. For a certain amount, Santiago said, I can take you to her.

What amount? Grima asked.

Santiago gave a number and then ducked his head as if the asking price might be too exorbitant.

How do I know who you are? Grima asked.

I am Santiago. I can help you find the child.

Grima studied him. Now? he asked.

She has just arrived. With the girl named Íso. If we do not go today, you will miss her. Perhaps you would like to prepare, Santiago said. Shave, bathe, dress in your good clothes. When you are ready, I will take you to the child. You will check out, take your bags. Everything will happen quickly. Again, Santiago made a movement with his head, very appealing and convivial.

Grima stepped back into his room and did as Santiago had suggested. He shaved and showered, and then he dressed in black pants and slipped into his boots and lastly buttoned up his shirt. He took his passport and his wallet. His small valise. He had a phone, and the phone had a camera. He would take photos. He would hopefully retrieve the child. But of course everything was unknown here and unpredictable and shifty. The people were
friendly but impervious. He might find himself on the verge of understanding, and then the clarity slipped away, like a fish that slips by in the shallows of a fast-flowing river. He missed the river near his home. He missed the certainty. He was tired.

They went to the pier by foot. As they walked, Santiago pointed out vistas, and he said in Spanish the names of the various sights as they passed. He said that he was a carpenter by trade. Business was slow. Therefore a livelihood must be made by other means. No? He said that most recently he had built windows for a customer but the customer had been unhappy and had refused to pay. But that was not the worst of it. The customer had spoken poorly of him, had spread stories of his incompetence. This we cannot do, take away a man's honour. He stopped speaking and took Grima's elbow and guided him down the hill towards the pier.

They boarded a boat that could easily have held thirty. But there were only three: Grima, Santiago, and the driver, a young man who appeared to know Santiago well. His name was Daniel. The crossing was rough. The wind was high, the water choppy. It was impossible to speak and so they sat, Santiago and Grima, in the middle of the boat, and Grima watched the landscape and the sky and he viewed the volcanoes in three directions, and though there were other boats on the lake, it seemed that they were all alone.