The Girl Who Remembered the Snow (14 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl Who Remembered the Snow
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“I'm sorry, Timoteo,” she said. “You're right. You're the guide.”
“Okay,” said the boy, staring at her with a strange expression.
“Okay. What now? Where are these boats? Where are we going?”
“Not much further. You'll see.”
After ten more minutes, Timoteo motioned for her to get off the aging highway onto a road spur that led down through a stand of palms directly onto the beach. He had apparently forgotten the incident with the police altogether. He looked eager and excited.
“What's here?” said Emma.
“This is where everybody comes. There are boats. Drive down there.”
Emma steered the little white Honda where the boy directed. In a moment they were on a patch of dirty gray sand and gravel
next to the ocean. A few whitewashed rowboats were stacked against a small shack. About twenty children, some black, some white, none older than about fifteen, were playing in the breaking waves and standing on the shore.
“What are we doing here?” asked Emma, as half a dozen of the children convened around the car.
“You want to swim?” said Timoteo, opening the car door. “You give me your shoes now?”
“I want to find boats, Timoteo,” said Emma, grabbing his arm before he could get out. “You said you were going to take me to see boats.”
Was it some kind of trap? she wondered. Had the boy tricked her, gotten her to this remote place so she would be at the mercy of some kind of gang? How could she have been foolish enough to trust him? How could she have been so naive?
“Here are boats,” yelled Timoteo, pointing at the little rowboats. “We can take them out. Or we can swim. You can go in like that. Your clothes will dry quick. It's real fun.”
Around the car, the “gang” of children squealed with delight. Timoteo broke free from Emma's grasp and got out of the car. He jumped onto the hood of the car and began speaking to the group in Spanish. Emma opened her door and got out, too. Laughing children convened around her, their eyes full of curiosity and wonder.
“I tell them you're this rich American who can buy anything she wants,” bragged Timoteo with obvious pride. “They think you own this car and everything. They never see such a nice car. You want to go swim now?”
“No, I don't,” said Emma, feeling more than a little foolish. “I want to find boats. Not ones like these. Bigger boats.”
“I show you big boats before, you not like. Here are little boats, you not like. We go swim now. Okay?”
“Timoteo …”
“Just for a minute? Please?”
“Oh, all right,” said Emma. “Go ahead.”
Timoteo jumped down from the hood of the car and ran laughing down to the beach, followed by a dozen of the kids. He stripped off his shirt, pulled off his blue jeans and ran into the small, breaking waves in his white jockey shorts.
Emma waited, surrounded by the rest of the children, who stood staring at her in awe.
Clearly no one else wanted this ugly piece of beach. That's how the poor children had taken it over as their own. Where else would they be welcome to swim and enjoy themselves? How often did Timoteo get here? Not often, judging from the look of him, splashing happily in the water and yelling his head off. For all his bravura and street smarts he was just a little boy. To him this place was paradise.
It was only eleven o'clock. There was still time to look for boats today. Figuring she may as well make the best of it, Emma boosted herself up on the hood of the car and smiled at the group of kids who stood around, staring at her.
“He say you very rich,” said the tallest boy, stepping forward, shaking her hand. “He say you have many houses in United States. You buy me a house?”
“Me, too,” said a bright-eyed, skinny little girl. “I want a house, too.”
In an instant all the children were chattering happily, mostly in Spanish, jumping up and down, laughing. By the time Timoteo came back to the car, Emma was laughing, too, and draped with a pair of six-year-olds.
“You go swim now, too?” Timoteo said happily.
“No, we've got things to do,” said Emma, extricating herself from the giggling children. “What are you going to do about your clothes?”
“It's okay,” said Timoteo. He picked up his blue jeans from the sand where he had left them in a heap and put them on over his wet underpants.
“They're still wet,” said Emma, unable to stop herself. “They're going to soak right through your jeans.”
“No, they won't. I always do this. It's okay.”
Emma just shook her head.
“How far away is that fancy resort area?” she asked, struggling to recall the name of the place in the hotel brochure. “Las Calvos, that's it, right?”
“An hour away, maybe,” shrugged Timoteo.
“Have you ever been there?”
“Sure, many times,” said the boy, leaning over and spitting a slow stream of saliva onto the dirty sand.
“Is there a marina near there? Boats?”
“Yes, many boats. Las Calvos is very beautiful resort. Many rich people come there. You want I should take you?”
“Do you know the way?”
“Sure.”
“You're certain you know the way?”
“My cousin live in Españata,” said Timoteo, getting into the car. “Right near Las Calvos. I go see him all the time. Come on, let's go. I take you.”
Emma opened her door and got in. The remaining children stepped back as she started the car, then ran behind them, shouting and laughing, as Emma steered up the sandy road and back onto the highway.
 
Two hours later they were still in the middle of nowhere and Emma was getting more than a little concerned.
Timoteo kept on saying over and over that they were almost there, but it was obvious now he had little real knowledge of the island's geography. It had been nearly an hour ago that they had passed Españata, where the boy claimed he had cousins. Emma had been expecting a city, but you couldn't even call Españata a village. It was just few rows of shacks at a crossroads in the bakedmud
countryside. No more than hovels, really—gray, unpainted boards and corrugated sheet metal.
“Your cousin lives here?” Emma had asked, trying not to show her dismay at the crushing poverty all around them.
A woman dressed in rags walked slowly on the road, carrying an enormous bundle on her head. Against one of the huts sat an old man with no shirt, flies hovering around him. He apparently hadn't the strength or the motivation to shoo them away. Or perhaps he was merely dead.
“My cousins don't live here, like these pigs,” Timoteo had said breezily. “They live in the country, around here. They have a beautiful farm. I think they are away now. I think they have gone on a vacation.”
Since then the road that they were traveling had gotten narrower and more bumpy, if that was possible. The roadside was overgrown with vegetation—not the straight stately conifers she was used to from San Francisco, but little scrubby thick greenery, punctuated with palm trees, mangroves and ferns. There was no traffic, nor any evidence that there had ever been people here, save the road itself, and it clearly hadn't been maintained in years.
Emma was terrified they would get a flat tire or break an axle in one of the enormous potholes that seemed to appear every few yards. Then what would she do? Emma hadn't thought to check the spare—not that she'd ever changed a tire in her life. They hadn't seen a gas station since just outside of the city. There weren't even any electrical or phone lines on the side of the road.
At least she knew where she stood, Emma thought to herself. She was a foreign woman alone in the middle of a strange country with only a ten-year-old boy to help her, and he was a confirmed liar. The thick wad of pesos she had brought along in case of emergencies only made her feel more vulnerable. Celia had been right. This had been one supremely lousy idea.
“Do you have any idea where we are, Timoteo?” said Emma in exasperation.
“We're almost there,” said Timoteo angrily—as if he were insulted that she could doubt his word, even though he had been wrong about everything up to now.
“That's what you keep saying.”
“How come you not married?”
“Don't change the subject. Where are we?”
“Men no like you?”
“Men like me fine. And how do you know I'm not married? I could have a dozen husbands back in the States for all you know.”
“If you had a husband, he would not let you drive around like this without him. The man must be the boss. The woman must do what he says.”
“Oh, really? And why is that?”
“Because the man, he brings home the money,” declared Timoteo. “The woman must make the house for him.”
“Well, I happen to bring home my own money.”
“A woman cannot bring home as much as a man,” snorted Timoteo, folding his arms in front of him. “What can you do?”
“I'm a magician.”
“A woman cannot be a magician.”
“A woman can be anything she wants. Including a magician.”
“I don't believe you are a magician.”
“I'm a magician.”
“Ha, I laugh.”
“I'm a magician. I'm a magician. What am I doing? I don't have to prove myself to you. You're just a little boy. I'm a magician. I do a big show. I've played all over America.”
“If you are magician, why are you lost?”
“Because I've been listening to you!”
“Because you listen to Timoteo, you go where you want to be.”
“Yes, and where is that?”
“Look!”
Emma looked to where the boy was pointing. For the past fifty miles the only traffic they had seen had been comprised of ancient
tractors and a few men herding cows. Now, far up ahead, a fire-engine red Dodge minivan was heading toward them.
As Emma watched in amazement and relief, it turned onto a side road to their right. There were two signs when Emma came to the same spot. The first read, FOR TENNIS VILLAS A—H, TAKE ACCESS B. The other sign read ALTAR DEL SOL, with an arrow pointing in the direction the minivan had come from.
“What's Altar del Sol?” asked Emma.
“It is another resort,” said Timoteo, though from his expression, Emma couldn't tell whether he knew or was making it up.
“Is this Las Calvos?”
“I come here all the time,” said Timoteo, glassy-eyed. Clearly he had no idea.
“I'm glad you knew the way,” said Emma, not wanting to embarrass him further. She turned onto the side road, which was paved with a smooth asphalt. The smoothness of the ride after hours of driving on potholes was jolting.
Within a few yards trees and flowers began appearing—not the shaggy palms and scrubgrass they had been seeing, but Japanese maples and dogwoods, exotic camellias and frangipani. Soon the roadside was ablaze with every color of the rainbow and the air was fragrant with floral perfume.
Emma drove on for a mile or so and other signs of civilization began appearing: a crew of gardeners trimming trees at the side of the road; another fire-engine red minivan with several couples dressed in tennis whites and carrying racquets; a pair of signs, one for the heliport, another for limousine parking; guard stations with sharp-eyed uniformed men wearing holstered automatics who looked at her car, smiled and waved them through.
Timoteo's eyes almost popped out of his head when they rounded a curve and found the rocky ocean coast stretching out before them, bounded by a seemingly endless golf course. Coral cliffs, huge white sandy spaces, stands of sugarcane, cashew, almond, orange and teak trees—all contributed to make the landscape
breathtakingly beautiful and exotic. It was more than like being in a different country from the poor, ugly one through which they had been driving for the past two hours; it was like being on a different planet.
“I hope we can get something to eat here if we aren't registered as guests,” said Emma. “I'm starving. How about you?”
For a change Timoteo didn't have anything to say. He just sat on his knees, gaping out the window, as two beautiful young women galloped past on horseback, their long blond hair dancing behind them in the breeze.
After a few minutes the road forked. Emma followed the set of signs for the reception area, rather than the ones pointing to the tennis village and beach. Soon they found themselves in an area of thicker foliage and taller trees in which several small buildings were set.
Emma pulled up the car into a small parking area in front of the largest building, which had been invisible until they were practically on top of it, camouflaged perfectly by the trees. On the shaded walks between the buildings several couples, tanned and prosperous-looking, strolled by, looking as if they had just stepped out of advertisements for expensive summer fashions. The flashes of crimson in the trees were tropical birds. There were no clouds in the perfectly blue sky.

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