The Center of the World (14 page)

CHAPTER 21

 

“F
ourteen Mayan languages and still counting. Impressive. I wish I knew how you did it. I think translators have brains that are wired differently,” said Will's new boss, Ron Blackburn.

They were in a mostly empty office building in Guatemala City, not far from the airport. Ron's office had a set of heavy, hand-carved chairs in front of an equally weighted desk. Aside from a few newspapers, there was no evidence of reading material. One travel poster of Kauai relieved the otherwise blank wall in back of Ron.

Will spent February through April traveling through the country picking up Mayan languages. When he returned to Guatemala City, his job had been to teach Kaqchikel to a group of government workers from the United States. Blackburn called him into his office after Will spent two weeks trawling through the flatlined brains of his students.

“I wish the class had gone better. People can get discouraged when they're first learning a new language,” said Will.

The day before, he left his class in despair, unable to break through the most rudimentary linguistic barrier of teaching Kaqchikel to a dozen meticulously groomed men. They were clearly not Peace Corps types who took it as a badge of courage to dress down as far as possible and to make clothing last until the fabric was translucent. One of the guys, Emerson, turned out to be a good candidate for a beer drinking buddy, but he was a terrible student.

“Don't be too hard on yourself,” said Blackburn. “You did a fine job. But we're going to scrap our previous plan and consolidate our efforts. We are never going to be as fluent with these languages as you are.”

His students were hopeless. Will waited for the words that would announce the regretful firing of his incompetent ass. After trekking through Guatemala for months learning the strange pockets of languages, his one moment of glory demonstrating his accumulated knowledge had been a colossal flop. His students left the class unable to grasp even the tone of the language, how the words flowed from the land through the people, how the language had, in some areas, blended with animal sounds to express a nuance that was so subtle, Will had stayed for six weeks in the coastal area to be sure that he truly understood. Now he was going to be sacked.

“We don't have the same kind of manpower that we had a few years back. International security is a whimsical thing and we've got troubles in other places in the world. So, like I said, we need to consolidate and you're the most talented translator we have. Excuse me, Language Specialist. We don't have time for a roomful of guys to spend three months learning how to say
please
and
thank you
.”

The Department guys marked every major event with a cigar. Cuban cigars were sold freely in Guatemala; political embargoes did not interfere with luxury items. Ron held out a box to Will.

“Thanks. Do you mind if I save it for later?” Will selected a large cigar, just in case they were involved in some kind of contest about whose was bigger.

“Instead of teaching languages in the Department, we're asking you to give us direct translations about some basic day-today things that could help us and help the Maya.” The end of Ron's cigar glowed like a torch.

Will wasn't sure if he heard him right. It was the rainy season and the sheets of rain pounded everything: the balcony, the planters—every horizontal surface. A gust of wind shifted the angle of the rain and it slammed the windows with a metallic shriek.

“You're not sending me home?” asked Will. He wished he didn't sound so young, so much in need of whatever his boss might offer him.

Blackburn smiled. “Just the opposite. I've pulled together a job that is tailor-made for you. I've read your PC file again. The local people were always comfortable with you, back in Mexico and here in Guatemala. We'd like you to assess the agricultural commerce of the northern areas. You know—what they're growing, what they keep and how much they sell. And how far they travel to sell it.”

Blackburn paused, rolling the cigar between thumb and forefinger. “Very much like the Peace Corps,” he added, looking at the cigar.

“The Peace Corps goes into an area because the community requests it. I know you guys aren't the Peace Corps, but have they requested assistance?” The hair along the back of Will's neck flickered and he moved back in his seat.

What if the villages didn't want assistance? Although, who could turn down the occasional tractor or water pumps that might come with governmental help?

Ron smiled indulgently. “You've seen the squalor that they live in. Of course they need our assistance. This would be right up your alley. For example, we want you to go to Dos Erres and see approximately how many people live in the village, what they grow, and, if they sell their produce, where they take it. They've set up some sort of collective out there. We're not sure what that means. Agriculture is the key to this country. If we don't understand their system of agriculture, we can't help them, can we?”

“This doesn't have anything to do with their internal war? The military takes a pretty heavy-handed approach to the Maya.”

“Do we look like the Guatemalan army? We're not. This is a country in transition and it's to our advantage that the direction doesn't turn into another Havana. We'd like to win the hearts and minds of the people,” Blackburn said. “Once we understand more about their agriculture, then we can figure out what to offer. I thought this might interest you.”

Will agreed to an agricultural report of the region. At least he wouldn't have to teach the language-impaired frat boys anymore, and the information might do some good. A few months should do it. With his first paycheck, he had enough to buy a motorcycle, and because his Spanish was impeccable, bargaining brought him a price that was nearly Guatemalan.

 

Will spent July, August, and September in the northern highlands. His approach was to arrive with his backpack, rent a room, and then set out to donate his labor, sometimes as an adobe carrier, or as the guy who formed adobe, invariably working his way into the men of the community.

The northern dialects reflected the harsher environment, as if stones caught in everyone's throat and the sounds came out in dry explosions. When the first round of corn was loaded onto wagons, mules, and one truck, he offered to go along. They drew maps in the dirt for him. He played soccer with the little boys who had a ball that was hardly a ball at all, more of a round wad of paper held together with tape. He made a note to always carry tape and to always bring a soccer ball to each village that he visited.

The young women in the villages were beautiful with their broad cheekbones, full lips, tightly belted traditional skirts, but he was polite and formal with them. He had seen the wreckage that had resulted from a romance between a young Mayan woman and a PC guy.

He was delirious with the abundance of language and sometimes had to pinch himself to ensure that this was real. He had been asked to learn languages, to spend time in the separate villages, absorbing key phrases, the different way that one group might hold their tongue for emphasis or vibrate their throats. While learning the languages, he could also learn about their agricultural economy.

What would his mother think of the Mayan languages? He longed to share the common thread of linguistics with her. He caught himself thinking of his father while he was hauling bags of stone for the wall foundations, remembering with affection his father's failure at building a stone BBQ in their patch of yard behind their apartment in Brooklyn.

He had not missed his parents with this intensity while he had been in Wyoming. Now, he had a cinematic recall of the way his father had taken him to the local YMCA for swim lessons, even though his father never learned to swim. He felt his father's love in a different way, wider and deeper, the way his father stood at the shore along Coney Island watching Will swim. Why was he discovering these things now, so far away from his parents? He felt guilty and self-centered for not thanking his father.

Maybe it had something to do with the affection that he saw in the families, who had so few possessions, slept on the ground, and sometimes ate only tortillas and coffee for breakfast before a day of intense labor. Yet fathers hugged their sons, women took time to laugh at the antics of children, and couples haggled in companionable patter.

Village life wasn't perfect; girls married far too young, children suffered from illnesses that would have been easily cured in the States, and older people lost teeth at an astounding rate. Yet, the physical closeness that people had with each other, their essential need of each other, made him long for his family in a way that he had never experienced before.

With each group, as a sign of respect, he asked to speak with the local healer, who was sometimes the shaman and sometimes not, something that not even his fleet-footed language skills could predict. He asked the same question each time. Why are the languages of the Maya different? What makes you all the same people? The answer to the second question was always the same. “We are the people of the corn. We are here to create balance between all things. We bring life into the world with our children. We dream together with our ancestors. We love the land.” The answers were offered with a sense of incredulity—how could anyone not know this?

Language was the personality and the soul of a people. Will wanted to understand the Maya so that he could understand the language. Once people knew that he could speak their language, which was shocking enough because he was a white person, they would invariably ask him,
Where do you belong?
They did not ask where he was from and the difference vibrated his heart. Where did he belong? What land held him like a cradle, like a lover? Was it with his parents, his friends in Brooklyn, his friends and lovers in Wyoming? How could he explain being a wanderer? There was no such thing about the Maya. Unheard of.

 

Will's time in the highlands became a tonic to the weeks that he had spent teaching in the State Department. If his reluctant students in Guatemala City had tried even a little, they could have learned enough of the language to be understood. Will settled for four weeks in Dos Erres. He would not have stayed that long, but after he met Hector, he didn't want to leave.

By then, Will had met a lot of children, many of whom were inquisitive, charming, or shy. But Hector, with his skinny arms and bucked teeth, had chutzpah and persistence and more than anything, he reminded Will of the kids back home in his neighborhood growing up.

If Will had a little brother, he would have wanted him to be like Hector, with the prepubescent smell of leaves, earth, sticks, and the light stickiness of sweat with a line of dirt ringing his neck. The two of them settled on a routine of Spanish lessons for Hector after Will was done working for the day, and gossip for Will. Hector kept him informed of the girls who liked Will, which man was in trouble for getting too rough with his wife, and who was considered too lazy. Mostly they played soccer. Hector was a fleet-footed genius, running figure eights around Will.

Will's soccer ball was a prized possession. One afternoon, after a breathless game of passing the ball every which way except to Will's feet, he told Hector, “You are the official guardian of the ball. It is yours.” He handed it to Hector. The boy picked up the ball and beamed. It was as if Will had anointed him Lord of the Soccer Ball.

The ultimate compliment came when Hector said his family wanted him to join them for supper in their casita. Like most houses, theirs was built of adobe, topped with a corrugated metal roof. Will spent a high school summer working with the forest service in Wyoming and his boss told him, “When you get invited to dinner, it's a big deal. Take off your hat, leave your attitude in the truck, and remember to say thank you.” Will washed out a T-shirt the night before.

Hector may have tried for a state of nonchalance, but at age eight, he was incapable. After Hector introduced Will (even though he had met every person in the village many times) to his mother, father, grandmothers, two older sisters, and someone's babies, Hector and Will did the four-stage handshake that they had formulated over the past month. Grab, thumbs-up, back of the hands, slide.

Will's mastery of the local language, K'iche', had at first stunned the villagers. Now that he had crossed the threshold and was a guest in their house, they wasted no time to ask him the questions that they had wondered all along.