I knew Don Hernan did not drive. He could not have rented a car. If he went anywhere, he would surely have taken a taxi. Near the bus station was a taxi stand where drivers sat together, drank coffee, and gossiped while they waited for fares. From time to time I went there to show the photograph to the various taxi drivers who came and went.
Finally, when I was about to despair, a young taxi driver said he recognized the photograph. I was elated.
“Can you remember where you took him?” I asked.
The young man scratched his chin, a rather grizzled affair, and looked thoughtful. Suddenly I caught on. I handed him fifty pesos.
“American dollars?” he queried.
I obliged, exchanging the pesos for a ten-dollar bill. It appeared to be enough.
“I think I can remember,” he said obligingly. “I could take you there. But it is very far, very expensive.” He named a figure that was close to two hundred dollars.
I was running out of cash, and was not sure I could manage this, but he was obstinate. In his mind, he knew something I didn’t, and I was going to pay for it.
The other cabdrivers were watching this with interest. One of them broke away from the crowd, came over, and literally boxed the ears of the younger man. The young man slunk away.
“My younger brother,” he said. “I apologize on his behalf. I know where he took your friend, and I will take you there, for one hundred dollars. But I cannot take you now, because tonight is the last night of Carnaval, and I must accompany my family to the festivities.
“Be here tomorrow at noon, and I will take you.”
I surmised that as frustrating as this might be, it was the best that could be done at this point, so we shook hands to seal the arrangement. As I left I could hear the two brothers, if indeed that was what they were, arguing. They were speaking very quickly and from a distance I couldn’t follow the conversation, but I thought I heard something that sounded like “Huaca de Chac.”
It was late afternoon by this time. I went back to my hotel to wait until dark when I could put on my Carnaval attire and blend into the crowds.
Curtains drawn tight, I sat cross-legged on the bed, afraid to put my bare feet on the floor lest the huge cockroach return with friends and relatives.
It occurred to me, in my tired, and in retrospect, morose state, that I should perhaps feel a sense of kinship with the creature sharing this room with me, always hiding, and with so strong an affinity for the dark. I wondered what on earth I was doing, and what I had ever thought I could accomplish by coming here.
About nine, I put on Dona Josefina’s clothes and headed out again. I watched in the crowds as the Carnaval parade began. It consisted essentially of two floats, one of them a six-foot conch shell constructed of wire and canvas, painted a bilious pink, mounted on the back of a blue pickup truck.
The other float was a farm wagon pulled by another pickup. On it, several people dressed up as Maya Indians were pantomiming a ritual sacrifice of some sort. In an anachronism of immense proportions, a speaker on the top of the truck was blasting disco music.
Many of the spectators were in costume themselves.
Little girls were dressed up in shimmery dresses with aluminum-foil crowns on their heads, their faces all made up with lots of their mothers’ rouge and lipstick. They were having a wonderful time.
There were clowns on bicycles, their young children in the carrier baskets, balloons, people in fantastic headgear of all kinds. People were literally dancing in the streets. I looked on enviously, wishing this were another time or place where I could feel free to join in.
Suddenly there was a hush, then some nervous laughter. Out of a side street came someone dressed up as a priest, followed by a number of men dressed in army camouflage, carrying play rifles cut from plywood, their faces shrouded in black masks.
“Children of the Talking Cross,” people whispered, and soon there was a smattering of applause from the crowds. The men raised their rifles in a salute and joined the end of the parade.
Shortly thereafter, the federal police arrived, and I hastily pulled back into one of the dark side streets to stay well out of their view. As I did so I saw them hurrying to catch up with the revelers dressed as rebels. A few people, presumably the same ones that applauded the “Children,” hissed as the police went by. I didn’t hang around to see what happened, but I felt sorry for anyone audacious enough even to pretend they were rebels right now. The federal police did not appear to have a sense of humor.
Trying to put some distance between me and the police, I went down one of the back streets in the less salubrious part of town. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was, but I rounded a corner and found myself in a little square with a lovely tree and wooden bench in the center.
At one end of the square was a cafe“ with large barbecues set up out front. Smoke from the cooking filled the square and it smelled delicious. I realized I was hungry, and headed in that direction.
The cafe, open to the square with a palapa-style roof of interwoven palm fronds, was called Pajaros—Birds— for no apparent reason that I could see. The patrons of the place were predominantly white, Europeans and Americans, the Americans immediately recognizable by their baseball caps and cowboy boots. The women tended to fringed vests, short skirts, and cowboy boots of their own. There was an old-fashioned juke box at the back: Waylon Jennings wailed from the loudspeakers.
I sat at a small table in the corner and listened to a group of men at the next table talk about their adventures in ‘Nam. I had obviously found the place the ex-patriots in the area liked to hang out in the evening. At least being white here was not going to call attention to my presence.
The waitress brought me a beer, almost without my asking for it, and then told me to go and help myself to food. I went up to the barbecue grills, where a tall American, probably the owner, also dressed in cowboy gear which seemed to be de rigueur here, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses despite the dark, served me something wrapped in a banana leaf, a warm tortilla, and some refried beans.
Inside the green wrapper was chicken in a spicy red sauce, chicken pibil. I devoured it, using my fingers to finish the last of it off. The waitress smiled as she saw me. “It’s all you can eat,” she said. “Get some more.”
I thanked her, but I had an appointment, arranged in the note left for Isa, so I told her I’d just sit and finish my beer, and asked directions to a public telephone. She gestured to a dark corner. “The light’s out,” she said. “You’ll have to kind of feel your way. But the phone works.”
Since finding a phone that worked could be a challenge, I headed for the dark corner and fumbled around for some change, getting through to the Casa de las Buganvillas with some difficulty.
Santiago answered the phone.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Theresa!” he said. “How nice of you to call. Isa is right here.”
Theresa?
Isa came on the line immediately, “Hi, Theresa,” she said. “Glad to hear from you.”
“Is someone there—Martinez maybe?”
“Yes. We’re all terribly concerned about your recent illness. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “How’s Alejandro?”
“Mother has been to see him, and he’s having a rough time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. Anyway, you’ll be wanting to know about those investments you were thinking of making. Jean Pierre is right here.”
Jean Pierre came on the line.
“Hello, Theresa. I checked on those companies you were thinking of investing in, and you were right to be concerned. I would advise you against investing in them because their value has plummeted in the last year or two. The company has been resting on its laurels, as it were. The major shareholder and his family will have taken quite a substantial loss, I’m sure, and I wouldn’t want you to risk your money with them.”