Hard Red Spring (64 page)

“Maya.” Jean tried to collect her daughter in her arms, but Maya melted through her grasp, collapsing into a heap on the bed. “I don't hate you, Maya. I love you so much. I'd never leave you, you know that. I just get so frustrated, and I say things I don't mean. Just like you say things you don't mean. We used to get along so well. Do you remember?”

She nodded with her face pressed against the mattress.

“And I don't hate Brett. I just think you invest too much in him because he's your first boyfriend. And I wish,” she heard herself say, “you were half as excited to spend time with me as you are to spend time with him.”

Maya turned her face up so that Jean saw her eyes peering out through her tangled hair. “And I wish you were as excited to be with me as Telema. But you were too embarrassed to even introduce me to her!”

Mother and daughter studied each other, as if from a great distance. Neither moved toward the other, neither moved away.

—

After careful consideration in the meditation garden, Jean wasn't sure if the best decision was to leave Xela or to stay and ignore Telema altogether. Jean suspected that to run would only provoke her more. It was too late for a bus anywhere safe or useful, so they stayed another night at the hotel. NGOs filled every other hotel in town.

Jean, however, could not sleep. As soon as she lay down, she just began to think. She could not stop the thoughts, ridiculous constructions of the past, the future. Maya and Telema drinking banana drinks at the pool with conspiratorial cackles, Maya as a fifteen-year-old bride, Telema accepting a Pulitzer for her groundbreaking work in Guatemala, for solving a hundred-year-old non-murder. A hundred-year-old Indian man—the sexual savage—released from prison, into the arms of the media, because no one else was left.

Telema's appearance at the hotel, her conversation with Maya about rape, the disturbed proprietor, the possibility of being under CIA surveillance—none of these things much surprised Jean. What she failed to process was Maya's belief that Jean would abandon her in Guatemala. She'd come to believe this after speaking with Telema, of course. Why would Telema interview Maya in the first place? A whole chapter? What did Maya have to do with her book? Jean got the feeling her daughter would be made into some horrible anecdote, supporting evidence for some abstract, half-true theory.

Telema had followed them, this much was obvious. Why? She had broken up with Jean. But still, Telema was following her, though she claimed that she herself was being followed. The government goon. The black suit, the glasses at the airport. From that distance, he could have been any guy in a suit. He could have been the man at the hotel.

Jean had a vision—no, vision would be her mother's word—Jean dreamed of a parade trailing her across Guatemala. Jean followed by Maya, followed by Telema, followed by the suit. And Jean, all along, following the trail of Maya's records. The impulse to flee felt so strong, as strong as Jean's curiosity. To finally be so close to Maya's story, just two hours away by bus, a story she never believed she could know.

Nueva Aldea de la Vida, at least, still existed. She'd seen a bus in the central square painted with the name. So, the town had survived the war. Had Cruzita? If so, the woman could offer a new beginning for Jean and Maya, a new love for them to share, instead of these insane, romantic competitions.

Jean, wearing the nightie from the stranger's suitcase, wrapped herself in a Mayan blanket and made her barefoot way over the chilled hotel tiles, down the steps, into the courtyard. She eased into the waxy hammock, hoping Maya would not wake up to find her gone. She needed air desperately.

“You know you'll get in trouble being down here with me.” The voice came from a hedge on the courtyard's border. She knew exactly who it was.

“Don't worry, we won't get you in trouble. We're leaving tomorrow.”

“It's probably for the best. Xela's not very pleasant at the moment.”

“Why? What are you doing here?” she whispered, hearing footsteps somewhere.

“I'm an anthropologist with the Fact Finders.”

Jean swung herself in the hammock. She had stopped trying to remember the difference between all the NGOs.

“A forensic anthropologist.”

A breeze moved over the courtyard. All around, the tall plants spoke among themselves. The man appeared, walking toward her. He, like her, hugged one of the Mayan blankets around his shoulders.

“It seems anthropologists are bad for business.”

“Indeed, we are.”

“Isn't it also bad for business to turn away customers?”

“Well, that depends on what kind of business you want.” He sat down on one of the planters, bringing the musk of cheap marijuana with him. Was there a single sober American in this country? “If you want a bunch of NGOs reporting how horrible your country is to the world, and who'll be gone in a year—then, yes.”

“Is there another option?” she asked.

“The business class prefers to take the long view. They want tourists. They want people to come and have a nice time and to hear nothing about the violence. Then they will go back and tell all their friends how lovely and cheap Guatemala is. Tourists beget more tourists. Anthropologists just beget dead bodies.” He handed her the joint, mostly smoked and smoldering close to his fingers.

“But there aren't any tourists.”

“There's you. You are the seed.”

Jean smoked, blowing hard at the sky. She stared up at the stars for a moment, noticing them for the first time, appreciating them. They made patterns that weren't constellations. “So I'm it? I'm everything they've been waiting for?”

“For some of them, yes. For others, you're quite the opposite.”

“And who do you agree with?” She pulled at the joint, then passed it back. When was the last time she'd smoked? Years ago, in one of the MFAs.

“I'm not here to agree with anyone. I'm just recording what I find,” he said.

“And what have you found in Xela?”

“Something that is very bad for business. They know by the color of my shirt.”

“Poor anthropologist,” Jean teased. “No room at any of the inns.”

“Exactly.”

“So they've found some bodies?”

“Some isn't the term I'd use. Some are found all the time, no problem.”

“How many?”

“At least fifty. All decapitated.”

Jean breathed her own secondhand smoke sinking around her head. “Fuck.”

“Well, I feel worse for the guy who finds all the heads and has to excavate them.”

“You mean the heads aren't even there with the bodies?”

Jean already felt higher than she thought she'd be. She felt herself falling through various perspectives. Suddenly realizing she didn't understand anyone's motives.

“And why are you here?” the shirt asked her.

“I'm a tourist, remember?”

He nodded, unconvinced. “She loves tourists.”

“
She
is fucking nuts. I don't even like the idea of leaving Maya alone upstairs.”

“She's harmless, really. We all know her. She gets like this whenever we find a grave. It's quite horrible, actually. She lost her whole family in the war.”

Jean sank deeper into the hammock, embarrassed. “She has two sons still. She's told me about them. They're here somewhere in the hotel.”

“No, they aren't. She doesn't have anyone.”

“How do you know? Did she testify to the commission?”

“Oh no, she'd have nothing to do with the commission, but the story came out anyway, from others who testified. From what the commission's put together, in 1982, she had two sons and a husband. Her oldest was sixteen. He was playing soccer one day in the central park and the army just came and scooped up all the boys for the military. Just gone. For six months, they heard nothing of him, then one day he showed up here. Filthy, starving. He'd deserted. She hid him in one of the rooms, but soon masked soldiers came looking for him, found him, brought him out in this courtyard, and shot him in the head for desertion. Then they shot her husband for trying to protect him. They left her and her younger son, who was about fourteen, to bury them.”

“How awful.” Jean took in the dark shapes of the courtyard, looming shadows like men. But the story was not finished.

“Then three days later, a group of guerrillas arrived with handkerchiefs over their faces, demanding that she turn over her older son. She tried to tell them that soldiers already came and killed him, but they didn't believe her. They see her younger son and think that's the older son. They bring him out into this courtyard and tell him that he is guilty of atrocities. That he's guilty
of the army massacre at Lorotenango. They read off a formal charge. One hundred and fifty-two people massacred by his platoon. She keeps trying to explain that this is not her older son, but they just kept reading the charges. Read the names of one hundred and fifty-two people aloud. It takes them, like, fifteen minutes to do this. Then they shot him in the heart.”

“How awful,” Jean repeated. “That poor woman . . .” She trailed off.

“So you can understand she's not really well. But she's harmless. She just locked herself up for the rest of the war with a bunch of English-language tapes, planning for her business when it was all over. She takes tourism very seriously. She's had plenty of guests and she never hurts anyone. She just talks about her sons. And cries.”

“She wants to set Maya up with them.”

He crushed the joint into the floor tiles. “She tries to set them up with our local volunteers, too. It means she likes her. Don't be too disturbed by it. We're all used to it by now. I hated to be so mean the other day, but I needed the room. I'd walked miles, all over, before I came here. This place is always a last resort. I don't like to upset her.”

Around the corner, the iron gate creaked open. They both rose, expecting to flee the proprietor like teenagers, but no one arrived in the courtyard. Together, they made their way down the hall and to the front entrance. Jean, still caped in her Mayan blanket, peered into the street. In the distance, the market loomed pale and empty in the moonlight, the cobblestone expanse looking like the back of a great, sleeping reptilian beast. Shadows collapsed in corners, looked vaguely human, vaguely dead. Jean thought she saw the cobblestones rise and fall, breathing.

No one appeared. Turning around, Jean saw that someone had made more red handprints on the hotel. They were everywhere, scraped down at all levels and angles, like the scene of a massacre.

“Election fun.” The NGO sighed.

The hands were all the same size, the work of a single person. Small and delicate in a way that could not be hidden by the gore. A woman's, a child's? Jean put her own hand next to one of the prints. The same size. They were still wet. Stepping away, Jean collided with someone running around the corner. A bag dropped, and Jean felt the hand on her chest before she saw who it belonged to.

“Boo!”

Telema barked right in her face, smiling like a cat. Long shadows made her teeth looked sharpened. Jean felt the contrast of their expressions: horror
met with laughter, fear met with bravery. Telema pushed hard off Jean's chest. She retrieved her big black purse from the ground and Jean watched her run awkwardly away with it looped around her shoulder and a half-full bucket sloshing at her knees.

“That's some balls there,” the NGO said. “What does she think this is, a democratic election?” Jean didn't know what he meant until he pointed at the silk nightie, stamped with a red handprint.

“No balls,” Jean said, covering herself with the blanket again. Her heart raced, as if the paint had made a mortal wound. “I've checked.”

A paper had fallen from Telema's bag. Jean picked it up and opened it. Too dark to read. Her companion pointed to a dark figure following Telema's path. A suit creeping along the perimeter of the square, tripping over a shift in the stones. He fell onto a knee, cursed, then limped on his way.

Back in the courtyard, at one of the tables, the NGO produced a twelve-pack of beer. Jean drank, convinced herself there wasn't a single reason Maya would interest the professor. Whatever she had been doing with that bucket of paint seemed to compel her more. Telema stamping her handprints everywhere. A variation of the blue hand.

“What about the blue hand?” Jean asked her companion. “On the white background, the blue hand painted everywhere. What is it?”

“That's FRG. The political party started by Ríos Montt a few years ago.”

“He's started his own party? From jail?”

The NGO grinned miserably. “He's not in jail. He's a congressman, the president of the legislature.”

Jean took a moment to process this information. Why hadn't she learned this in Telema's class? Of course, because anything that happened in the past twenty years didn't count as history, according to the university. “What about the mass grave you found? You can't tie that to him?”

“Of course, it's definitely military. But hundreds have been tied to his term. There's nothing to do about it. Truth and reconciliation.” He peeled the label off his beer bottle. “That was the deal. No subpoenas, no convictions.”

“I knew that, but I didn't realize it applied to Ríos Montt. Lowly soldiers, guerrillas, people taking orders, sure. But it goes all the way up?”

“Some human rights organizations are disputing that, saying that Guatemala's signing of the Geneva Conventions trumps the amnesty, but the big players have already covered their tails. According to the new constitution, you can't be charged with a crime while in public office. You have to be suspended first, by the courts, which are appointed by the people in power.”

He pushed his bottle around the table, making circles.

Hearing this, Jean finally understood Telema's purpose in Guatemala. She was, if nothing else, a multitasker. In a single day, she'd spend hours in the library researching Evie Crowder, lounge at a pool and amuse herself with the deranged views of a teenager, then risk her life with that bucket of paint. Jean felt the whole courtyard breathe and she let herself, finally, relax. Telema was here for several reasons. Research, justice, and a little amusement on the side by stalking her ex. Stalking, as a goal, would not appeal to Telema, who valued her time too much to give in to romantic obsession.