The Center of the World (25 page)

CHAPTER 42

K
ate woke mid-morning, drunk with the perfume of flowers, incense, wood smoke, and coffee. She had dreamt so many times of Guatemala, had been so often startled by Manuela's ethereal visitations that she at first thought she was still home in her bed. As she swam to consciousness, she realized with a start where she was. She still struggled to keep up with the feeling of being on a high-speed train since Martin's letter catapulted all of them into the past.

 

Kate wasn't sure of her next move, but she knew she had to arrange for transportation to Lake Atitlán. And from there, what? How would Sofia's return to her home village affect her? What would she think being back in the Mayan Highlands? Would she be overwhelmed by preverbal memories? Or would her past knit together with her life in the States in a way that would make her whole and glorious? Or would she reject Kate forever?

She longed to see Fernando. His café was her first stop today. She needed to see that he had survived the bad years. She stepped into the shower, barely able to turn around in the tiny space. Even these accommodations, a luxury for 90 percent of Guatemalans, would seem shocking to Sofia. Her daughter, by comparison, had been a child of adequate food, education, housing, and safety.

She dressed and stepped into the corridor to the courtyard. Tourists had discovered Antigua; the guesthouse had a steady stream of rugged-looking travelers, the kind who wanted to be far off the beaten path, but with running water and beds.

Kate knocked on her father's door. He opened it. He was dressed and freshly shaved, his cheeks still glistening. “Just waiting for you gals to wake up,” he said.

She knocked on Sofia's door and then pushed to open it. Locked. Of course. “Sofia, we're going out for breakfast.” No answer. Sofia was a heavy sleeper, but surely she'd hear someone pounding on her door. Something was wrong.

Kate felt a whoosh, a breath of air rush by her and she knew instantly that Sofia was gone.

Sam knocked on the door with enough force to bring a young Guatemalan man from the front desk.

“I am Pablo, the owner. The señorita checked out before dawn,” he said.

“Do you mean she is gone? Did she take her suitcase?” asked Sam. Kate translated.

“She took a small backpack. She left her suitcase in the room. And she left this note for you.” Pablo handed a folded note to Kate.

 

 

Sofia had no idea how to get around in Guatemala; she'd be lost instantly. She only had high school Spanish. The crush of who Sofia was hit Kate like a body slam. A brown-skinned girl, plucked from her home and brought to a small enclave of mostly white people in New England, where she was never told about her birth family. Everything about her clothing, her bearing would scream American. She walked with the sureness of an athlete in a country where girls did not play sports. Sofia was a hybrid, a painted bird. She was going to attract attention, nearly as much as she created in the States.

The vacuum of Sofia's absence sent a shock wave through Kate. She expected her father to erupt. Instead, he said, “How can we find her?” He had switched to some other gear, an old military sense that was driven by mission.

 

Did she remember the way to Fernando's? She pushed open the door of the guesthouse and ran, with her father in slower pursuit. “Go, go,” he said. “As long as I can see you, I'll catch up.”

Three blocks south, four blocks west. Yes, that was it. There were tourists on every street, motorbikes, and cars rattled along the cobblestones. Antigua had exploded with life and businesses. A colorful parade of goods was sold along the streets. She prayed that Fernando was still doing business in his café bookstore. She rounded the corner and there was the central park and across from it, the café.

Kate stopped outside the door to catch her breath. Her father caught up with her. They went in.

The tables were filled with young travelers, backpacks at their sides. Two young Mayan women waited on the tables. Teenagers, they would have been just toddlers when Kate had last been here.

“Where is Señor Fernando?” she asked, trying to level her voice, not let the full out panic escape and fill the room.

When he appeared from the courtyard, he did not look older at first. His hair showed no graying. Something had relaxed along his jaw that she had not known was there before. Seven years of peace allowed him to breathe more deeply.

“Kate.” He smiled a toothy grin, something else that she hadn't seen before. It took four steps to reach Kate and in that time, his warm smile changed to alarm. Kate knew that he read her face. This old friend still knew her.

“It is so good to see you. Welcome to my country now that we are at peace,” he said. Fernando waited for Kate to initiate an embrace. He would have stood there forever if she had not opened her arms.

“Oh, my friend,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. Had she slipped back in time, needing Fernando again? Was Will waiting to step into the café? Correction, Will and his wife.

She turned. “This is my father, Sam. Dad, I told you about Fernando.”

Sam reached out a hand. “I am in your debt. You helped my daughter and granddaughter when I couldn't.”

“Tell me what is wrong,” said Fernando, urging them to a table. “I remember the way your face told a story. We have a saying that means that one's heart is drawn on their face.”

The shift in adjusting to the slow pace of life in Guatemala surrounded Kate. It was the custom to move slowly, to ask about family, to eat, drink. If she did this, her head would implode.

“We came here with Sofia. She is fifteen now. She only just learned about Manuela, her father, her brother, and the massacre. We arrived last night and now she's gone.” Kate knew how abrupt she sounded. She put one hand over her mouth, holding back a flood of screams that ached for release.

“And why did you tell her now?”

“I didn't. Her stepfather . . . my husband died six months ago and he left instructions with a lawyer to inform Sofia of her background.”

Fernando blinked, laying his thick black eyelashes on his high cheekbones as if he bowed in sorrow.

“Do you know where she has gone?” he asked.

Sam leaned forward. “I think we all know where she's gone. She wants to go to the village where she came from.”

A rivulet of sweat ran down Kate's back. This was not at all what Kate had planned. She wanted to offer Sofia's past to her, show her the lake, the night sky, the church where she taught English classes, where Manuela came with her two children.

Sofia had just changed the game. Her high school soccer coach said, “When Sofia walks on the field, she's the game changer.” But this wasn't soccer. How could Sofia know what the rules were here?

Fernando reached his hand across the table, placing his fingertips along Kate's arm, as light as a dragonfly. “How can I help you?”

“Can you help us get to Lake Atitlán?” asked Kate.

“Of course. When did Sofia leave?”

“Around dawn,” said Sam.

“Then she may have taken the first bus out of town. It is a very slow journey by bus. It stops in every town. . . .”

“I know,” said Kate. She was yanked back in time, huddled on the bus with a small child in her arms.

“They may just be arriving in Panajachel now. It will be wise for us to drive. Let me arrange this. While I do, you can go back to your hotel and gather your things.”

Something niggled at Kate. Fernando was too prepared, not surprised enough by her presence in Antigua. He hadn't asked her quite enough questions, but most importantly he hadn't asked her why Martin had left the revelatory letter with the lawyer.

They stood up and Sam turned to leave. Kate couldn't take her eyes off Fernando. She knew how his steady manner could belie his intricate web of connections, how his café had masked his support of the Maya for so long. But there was nothing more important than finding Sofia. The image of her daughter traveling alone carved out a desolate pit in Kate.

How had Sofia managed to find a bus, to know where she was going? Of course, the late night light under Sofia's bedroom door, the way she had flicked off her computer the instant that Kate walked in. She knew her daughter; Sofia had been researching everything about traveling to Santa Teresa for the past two weeks, even before Kate announced that they were going to Guatemala.

Fernando walked them to the front door. “Are you only now realizing that she is as smart as her mother, both her mothers? Go. I will pick you up at your hotel. Ask them to store your luggage and only bring what you need for a few days. We will find her.”

CHAPTER 43

 

S
ofia had studied Spanish for two years. At first, it didn't come any easier to her than it had for the white kids. Her mother told her that she had only spoken a weird kind of Spanish for a few months after coming to the States and then adapted to English. But she had been so little then, she had to rely on what her mother told her about that time, and who knew what was true and what wasn't with her mother. By year two of Spanish, something clicked with the language classes and the pulse of Spanish felt comfortable, like old socks.

While her mother was planning their trip to Guatemala, getting time off from work, and getting assignments from her teachers, Sofia was doing a different sort of planning. She read travel guides at the library, and between the Internet and long-distance phone calls, she was able to secure a way to Lake Atitlán once they got to Antigua. And here was the important part: She wanted to go alone, without her mother or grandfather, and she knew they wouldn't let her go without them.

She packed the cloth that her birth mother had woven, which might help her find her brother. Kate had retrieved it from the top shelf in her closet and handed it to Sofia. It had been sealed in a box, wrapped in tape as if it could have escaped on its own. She slept with it every night since. She also packed a deflated soccer ball. Everyone knew that soccer was a big deal in Latin America. Maybe it would help somehow.

What was the fastest way to get from Antigua to Lake Atitlán? Helicopter, at least according to guidebook number two. And how did one pay for a helicopter ride? Cash. Her grandfather had set up a savings account in her name. She emptied it three days before they left, and reserved a dawn flight out of Antigua. Would American dollars be okay, she asked in a phone call? “
Claro,
” said the crackly voice from Guatemala.

All of the phoning and strategizing had to be done in the hours after school, before Kate got home. There would be astounding long-distance charges, but after Guatemala, she wouldn't care.

Sofia knew her mother thought she was angry and pouting, and maybe she was. But that wasn't why she spent so much time in her room. She was studying maps, calculating how long it would take to get across the lake, and how she would find the village where she had been born.

With a twin, even if it is fraternal, you're both born with the same antenna. She wanted Mateo to be alive, but she knew her mother and grandfather would never believe her if she told them. She had heard a long-distance drum beat all of her life, hammering under her skin. It had to be him.

Sofia knew it wouldn't be like they both always loved cherry ice cream even though they were separated at birth, well, not at birth, but at age two. That kind of stuff happened with identical twins. They were born with the same chemistry. He had called to her in dreams, or when she heard a bird song, or when she smelled the rich mineral scent of lake water.

Sofia slipped out of the guesthouse at 6 a.m. A taxi took her to the landing pad, a flat parcel of dry ground behind a churchyard. She handed the pilot a white envelope with a wad of dollars. He wore a baseball cap, jeans, and Nikes. He counted the dollars and helped her up the steps. Sofia feared he would ask if she was old enough and she began to wonder if she was old enough too. He didn't ask. He helped her strap in, put on his sunglasses, and they rose straight up.

A sudden panic struck her, not from acceleration, not from leaving the ground, but the sound of the whop, whop, whop beating a murderous dread into her, like an ancient war beat, a giant from the sky sent to destroy her. Her heart raced. She closed her eyes and gripped the edge of her seat. She wanted to be covered and held.

“We will be there in thirty minutes,” said the pilot. “Don't worry. I haven't killed anyone yet.”

She covered her eyes with her hat for most of the flight, peeking only when she felt a turn or a change in altitude. They flew over the mountains as the sun came up, blinding her. She looked at the pilot to be sure that he could see. The combination of sunglasses and baseball cap was practical. Sofia gasped when the massive lake came into view, jolting her with the force of electricity. It looked like a giant mountain had been scooped out by a melon baller, leaving a sunken bowl filled with water. Sharp peaks surrounded the lake. Volcanoes.

They landed in a schoolyard, blowing a vortex of dust into the air. “Where is the boat launch?” Sofia yelled, trying to be heard above the engine.

The pilot pointed off to the left. She grabbed her pack and slid out of the seat, dropping to the ground. She'd find it. She'd find everything. First, she'd find out where to inflate the soccer ball.

CHAPTER 44

K
ate and her father walked back toward their guesthouse. Sam wiped his forehead with his palm. She could not have imagined what Sam's reaction would be to this hardscrabble, mountainous country. Would it bring out all of his long-simmering PTSD born of the war in Vietnam? Would the presence of the military in Guatemala, while massively subdued from the war years, fire up his hypervigilance? Would the throngs of impoverished indigenous women and children drag him back to his violent and guilt-infused memories of the country he had been sent to invade as a young man? And what old military know-how might he call upon now that his beloved granddaughter had skittered off?

As they turned the first corner on the long block, Sam stopped when he saw a soldier standing on the cobblestoned street corner, young and tender with his thin arms poised on an automatic weapon. Kate put her hand on his arm, thinking to anchor him into the present.

“He is just a boy,” he said. “He is only beginning . . .” and then words failed him and his eyes filled with tears.

“That was me,” he said. Sam's response was not what she had feared. He looked like he was being reborn, baptized into a kind of awakening, half a world away from the source of his old war traumas. Sam seemed to be looking at the alternate universe of his life as a young man, watching the calamity of war and its aftereffects as if it was a private showing just for him. A kind of stainless steel brace lifted off him and he looked younger.

“Let's see if they'll stash our luggage,” he said. His voice was clear and sure in a way that Kate had never heard before.

 

They were on the road by noon, with Fernando at the wheel. By five, the sun was low in the sky and they had not even reached the halfway mark.

“Here is our sign of economic progress,” said Fernando. “Road construction. Once this is finished, the route from Antigua to Sololá will be smooth and twice as wide as it is now. And we will move along it easily. But for now, we crawl like ants.”

The traffic was thick with chicken buses, large trucks carrying concrete and stone, every sort of pickup truck, and cars. Emissions controls were not yet part of their economic growth and Kate's eyes and throat burned from the diesel exhaust. Their progress could be measured in feet, creeping along at a rate that made Kate want to jump out of her skin. She wondered if it might be quicker if she got out and ran, huffing up the steep mountain road.

The odd feeling scratched at her brain again, the too-easy way that Fernando had welcomed her. Something was off.

“You knew I was coming. How did you know?” she said. Kate sat in the backseat, giving her long-legged father a chance to stretch out in the front.

The traffic was at a standstill. Fernando pressed his palms together and took a breath. “I received a letter a few months ago. Mail delivery is still unbearably slow. It was written by your Martin, sent by his lawyer in the event of his death. He wanted me to find Will and give him an envelope. Martin knew that Will was the man you had loved long ago.”

Kate grabbed the back of the front seat. Martin had put this into place after she told him about Guatemala. Their years together flew past her, ripping through time in fast-forward. He had never mentioned Guatemala again. But she never told him Will's name. How could he have known?

“Why did he do that? Will is married. I told Martin that he was with someone else.”

Fernando turned his head and registered surprise with a small smile. “Will has never married. He has never loved anyone else.”

Sam looked back at Kate. “Do you think Martin sent more letters? Should we be on the lookout for further communiqués from the dead? I mean that in the best way possible.”

“Do you know what was in the letter?” asked Kate, ignoring her father's attempt at humor.

“Will told me only that you had lost your husband and that we should expect you and Sofia.”

“And where is he?”

“He is often in Guatemala City, working with the forensic teams, identifying the remains in mass graves, always translating. Or else he spends months, sometimes years in the northern villages that were hardest hit in the war. It was not an easy thing to locate him,” said Fernando.

“But you did. I know you did,” she said.

Sam put his hand on the dashboard. “We need to stay focused on our girl,” he said. “The rest of this can wait.”

“Where is he?” said Kate.

“There is a good chance that you will find him in the remote villages outside Santa Teresa. He said that he had never been there, that he had avoided it, and now he was ready to help with translations.”

Why had Martin created this avalanche? He must have known how deeply his letter would affect Sofia.

Fernando broke into her thoughts. “After we arranged for Will to be released, he needed time to recover. He lived with my wife and me for a few months. He insisted on washing dishes for the café, even with his injuries. . . .” Fernando paused. His Adam's apple slid up and down as he swallowed. “He had broken ribs, a broken arm, and other injuries that he chose not to tell me about.”

The wind picked up a swirl of dust. Kate rolled up her window, picturing Will beaten and bloodied. She shuddered. He had helped them escape. He had paid the price.

“Then for several years after that, we lost track of him. We heard he was working on a coffee plantation. But wherever he went, he translated, that much I do know. As the war limped to conclusion, he was asked to translate for the peace accord. He was the only person who could translate every dialect.” Fernando flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. “He's been translating ever since, helping villagers come face-to-face with the soldiers who had terrorized them.”

The weight of losing those she loved bore down on her, crushing her skull. She massaged her temples. “What if Sofia hates me? What if she finds her people and wants to stay here?” she whispered.

Sam said, “First we have to find her, that's the important thing.”