XENOLITH
A. Sparrow
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 by A. Sparrow, All Rights Reserved
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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To Setta and Maddie
Table of Contents
Chapter:
xenolith n. – a stone foreign to the matrix that embeds it.
Frank lay bound and on his side. Cords bit into his wrists and ankles. Inches from his face, ants scrambled from their mound, spreading like brushfire, spoiling for war.
He tried wriggling away, but a captor’s knee stopped him. A sandaled foot rose from the thicket of legs and pushed his face into the dirt. His nostrils filled with dead-leaf musk and something foul, like peccary spoor, and the faintest whiff of the sweet peas he had carried for Liz all the way from Bethesda, their stems strewn and trampled beside him.
Frank’s pulse stuttered against the cords at his wrists. His lungs rasped an involuntary breath of fire. He worried less about the pain or his attackers’ intentions and more about the palpitations in his chest. He was struggling to remain calm, fearing that the stress would worsen his arrhythmia, but his heart drummed on, syncopation unbound by any time signature. Obsessing over its rhythm only made it beat harder and more erratically.
His abductors, both male and female, bickered in a tongue he couldn’t peg. Its clicks and pops sounded more African than Amerindian. Petite and nimble, they moved with child-like grace. They resembled the local Mayans only superficially, their faces flatter, complexions more olive than bronze. Odd bits of armor dangled from their bodies: gauntlets and cuirasses made of leather and braided twine, vests with brown, overlapping scales like the wing cases of giant beetles. They bristled with machetes and spears. One even held something that resembled a crossbow.
One man, not old at all, but the oldest of Frank’s captors, stood apart in manner and dress. He wore black sneakers, jeans, and a Ziggy Marley T-shirt. He looked familiar, somehow.
The pressure eased from Frank’s head. A warm trickle – blood? – ran down his cheek. He squirmed around a root that had been jabbing into his ribs. Hands reached down, helped him sit and brushed ants and bits of debris from his face. Frank half turned and met the stern gaze of a young woman. A swath of scabs marred one side of her face. The eye contact further ossified her expression as she extended a grubby finger and probed Frank’s damaged ear.
Frank hoped her actions meant they would spare him.
This should have calmed his heart, but it sped on, beats falling as randomly as the first splats before a rain storm.
A wrecked guitar with popped strings and splintered ribs leaned against a tree. Recognition flared.
“Hey!” Frank said. “You were on the bus to San Ignacio. You followed me!”
The older man’s eyes shifted lazily. “Follow you? I think maybe I am one who is follow.”
“Listen, I didn’t see anything. I won’t say anything about … this.”
“This?” said the man, his eyes quizzical, his smile warped. “What you mean … this?”
“I don’t know,” said Frank. “Whatever. I didn’t see … anything.”
The man shrugged. “No worry. You live for now.” His eyes darted to a younger man. “No give him reason to change mind.”
The younger man tossed his head back and snorted.
The older man understood English, never a certainty this far west in Belize, but another good sign. Clear communications had once helped Frank wriggle free of a similar predicament in the Congo. He was jaded by years of working in failed states; secure, peaceful Belize had put Frank off his guard. In Somalia, bandits and warlords ruled the roads and abductions were as common as camels. But this was Belize where, at worst, some nutcase hijacks a chicken bus on occasion.
It would help if he knew his captors’ proclivities and sensitivities, but that depended on who they were, which was far from clear at this point. These were not mere drunken soldiers at a roadblock. But who were they?
Frank didn’t get the sense that this bunch ran drugs. In Colombia, FARC narcoterrorists sometimes took hostages for money, but Frank would have made a poor catch for such a group. An independent consultant, Frank had no employer to pay his ransom, and he had no family to speak of, no one to notice or care that he was taken.
Frank’s vision began to blur, and not just from the rivulets of sweat running into his eyes. Syncope was not his friend. From the looks of it, no one in this crowd could give him CPR like the young man who had come to his aid when he collapsed outside a Starbucks in Georgetown.
The scarred woman pored through the contents of his pack. She pulled aside his prescriptions, medical kit, and lunch; repacked the remaining odds and ends and tossed the pack to one of her comrades. She had already relieved Frank of the pocket knife that had hung in a sheath on his belt, but let him keep his wallet and passport.
“Those pills,” said Frank, hoarsely. “I need them. I’ve got a heart problem.”
The man who spoke English turned to Frank. “What’s this? Your heart has problem? My too.” He held up his broken guitar. “My beauty. Smash up. Break my heart.”
“No joke,” said Frank. “I need those pills. My heart’s beating fast and rough. Those pills will help me. I only need one. Just one.”
The man crouched down and placed his palm on Frank’s forehead. He peeled back Frank’s eyelids with thumb and forefinger; pressed the back of his hand against Frank’s neck.
“You fine,” said the man. “A little excite maybe. And too red in the face. But how I can know? People like you, you not pale, you red.”
A strip of cloth slid over Frank’s eyes, triggering panic. He ducked and slid out from under the blindfold before it could pull tight. “Please! I’m no threat to you all.” Frank motioned with his chin towards a pile of stones set with a bronze plaque coated in lichen and verdigris. The undone bundle of wilted sweet peas lay scattered before a cairn. “Those rocks over there … that’s my wife’s … memorial. This is where I lost her. I just came here to remember Liz. See those flowers?”
“Stay still!” said the man from the bus, re-securing the blindfold. “You must come, and you must not see.”
Someone pinched Frank’s nose shut, forcing his mouth open. A flask clinked against his teeth and a putrid, bitter fluid dribbled in. Strong hands clamped his jaw shut until he swallowed. Frank sputtered and spat out the traces. His stomach quailed.
More cords coiled around him and pulled snug. Waves of tingly warmth spread from his gut. His muscles turned to mush.
Hands hoisted, propelled him. He bounced and bounded along, head flopping as if it would roll off his shoulders. Branches scraped his face. Bees buzzed in his ears.
He passed from sun to shade, shade to sun, drifting towards oblivion. Knocks and bumps and cool drops of water jolted him awake, but the fog would roll back and consume him. Faces filled his mind’s eye: loved ones, strangers – a gallery of the living and the dead. Thudding onto the ground, he slumped into a bed of warm sand, draping it like a dead worm. His pulse settled into a lazy, loping groove. The outside world blinked out, leaving him alone with his visions.
*****
I am a man of constant sorrow,
No pleasure on this earth I’ve found.
In this world, I’m bound to ramble,
I have no friends to help me now.
- Traditional
One day earlier …
Pools among the reeds flashed like signal mirrors as the bus sped past the marshes. Ahead, the road took flight, slashing into the misty blue foothills of the Maya Mountains. The window batted Frank’s temple through the crumpled bandanna he employed as a pillow. A day into his pilgrimage, jet lag had finally overtaken his double espressos. He rubbed parched eyes, retreated behind their lids. Soon, he sifted into recesses impervious to light, where not even the din of the chicken bus could reach.
He slipped inside a familiar dream space, once nightmarish but now almost cozy, the way a prison cell might become to a lifer. A rickety chair and a wobbly table perched on a concrete slab at the café and guesthouse he knew to be the Scarlet Macaw in San Ignacio. Long shuttered, it existed now only in memory.
Frank’s dream blended a Belizean sunset with a midsummer’s eve in upstate New York. Sultry breezes blew in from jungled hills across a river. Katydids creaked from overhanging branches with finely filigreed leaves. Winged termites as big as dragonflies harried a bare light bulb. The perfume of rubber trees and fresh-cut hay permeated all.
He waited for Liz, or for whatever shards and wisps of her his brain could still conjure. With instincts honed by endless iteration and error, he hovered lightly in dream thrall, emotions subdued, attention unfocussed. How delicate the spell that summoned this recurrent dream and how easily it could crumble, cursing him awake into the hellish void of an empty bed.
She arrived with the tinkle of a spoon in a teacup. As usual, her face eluded him, as if he were viewing her through a camera with a broken auto-focus. This never failed to frustrate him. He had gazed at her dog-eared photos often enough to etch her image indelibly in his waking mind, yet in dreams she always presented as an irresolvable blur.
Her voice, however, came through in pure fidelity, liquid vowels preserved like the toll of an ancient bell. Too bad she spoke only gibberish; a white noise of non sequitur and small talk. This Liz was a pale facsimile of the one he loved, a faded picture in a locket, no more than a keepsake. He found his lips struggling, nonetheless, to form the questions that ritual demanded.
What happened up the Macal River? Who or what took you and kept you but left no trace?
He moaned and writhed, head bobbing like a skiff in a squall, the words tangling in his throat. His temple slammed into the window frame. The dream spell shattered in a corona of pain. Eyelids snapped open like shades. Midday glare blazed through retinas. Punta music blared past synaptic barriers molten by consciousness.
Dumped back into the hubbub of the bus, he slammed his eyes shut, longing to be back at that table with Liz. He searched for a path back to the dream, straining to reconstruct its sensations from scraps that lingered.
Failing, he opened his eyes and found the bus on a collision course with a tanker that had taken over its lane. The tanker struggled to overtake a tandem trailer but couldn’t muster enough oomph to pass. Three sets of truck horns blared and bleated in a queer harmony.
Frank yawned, more from fatigue than boredom, though such maneuvers were de rigueur on the Western Highway or, for that matter, any two lane highway in a developing country. Over time, he had learned not to over-react – bad for the heart. Somehow, the standoff would resolve favorably. And if not …?
The bus driver was in a real pickle. Queues returning from Saturday market blocked an easy escape to the shoulder. As the angular carapace of the tanker bore down, he found a gap in the throng, veered off the road and stood hard on the brakes, alternately cursing and praying. Panicked market-goers scrambled off the shoulder and leapt across a ditch. The bus shimmied and rattled over the pitted shoulder, clipping a wheelbarrow, spilling its load of peppers.
As the bus skidded to a halt, luggage tumbled from the overhead racks and slid down the aisle. Standers stumbled or fell. A guitar splintered and twanged its last discordant chord.
People climbed over each other, retrieving wayward boxes and suitcases. Across the aisle, a teenage boy extricated his sandaled foot from the ribs of a guitar someone had been holding upright in the aisle.
“So sorry, sir!” said the teen. “I can give you money to fix it.”
The man who owned the guitar waved the boy off. Calmly, he picked bits of wood off the floor and dropped them in the sound hole. Frank’s eyes lingered on this man. Something about his face stood out, even amidst all the trekkers and reformed Mennonites and the already eclectic locals. Large eyes set wide nestled deep in thick, crescent folds. His nose sat too high, looked too small for his face, like a lump of clay placed and shaped by a novice sculptor. He had wavy, black hair flecked with white patches like whitecaps on a windy lake.
Frank stood up and checked the bundle of sweet peas he had picked up from the florist in Bethesda the day before, Sheathed in paper and cushioned with bubble wrap, each stem sipped from its own tube of citrate and preservative. Their spicy, powdery scent remained strong and so far they had kept crisp, though it didn’t matter if they wilted. They would likely end up as forage for tapirs and snails anyway. All that mattered was that they were sweet peas. Liz had always loved sweet peas.
Frank looked up and down the aisle. “I’m a doctor,” he called. “Anyone hurt? Need help?” He wasn’t equipped to handle much but he had a small first aid kit in his day-pack and a larger bag in his luggage. He scanned his fellow riders, found people wincing, rubbing elbows, pressing hands to foreheads – nothing serious as far as he could tell, not that anyone would tell him. The array of blank and blinking faces pretty much ignored his offer.
“Anyone needs help, let me know. I’m a doctor. Really. No joke.”
Frank wobbled back to his seat, stepping around a man scooping rice and grit back into a sack. The bus ground through its gears and lurched back onto the road.
Being ignored or dismissed like that bugged him, but it was nothing new. People had always had a hard time believing he possessed an MD. He couldn’t imagine why. Doctors these days came in all genders, shapes and colors. Somehow, Frank Bowen managed to stray beyond the tails of the distribution. Some patients even refused to let him examine them.
Maybe it was the way he couldn’t keep his shirt-tails tucked, or the crude vernacular he retained from a boyhood spent on the fringes of South Boston. Encroaching middle age only exacerbated the impression that he belonged to one of the rougher trades. His doughy face had grown coarser, his thick torso thicker. Did a monkey wrench look more natural in his stubby fingers than a stethoscope?
Even in Belize? Or was it especially in Belize? Maybe the Belizeans wondered what sort of doctor would ride a cut-rate chicken bus from Belize City to San Ignacio? Perhaps they thought any MD worth his or her shingle should have a driver and an air-conditioned SUV?
He could have easily hired a car. He also could have afforded a much nicer hotel than that mildewed guest house on a seedy side street echoing with the drone of motorbikes. But this was no vacation. Not only were comfort and convenience not his goals, they conflicted with the object of his trip. He had come to Belize as a memory pilgrim, seeking to re-experience Belize the way he and Liz did when they arrived together almost twenty years ago. He couldn’t replicate every mishap or serendipity, but he could try his best to follow in the echoes of their footsteps.
That morning, Belize City obliged, offering a mise-en-scene uncannily reminiscent of their first day together in a new country. The sun, like then, slashed obliquely through the blue haze of cook smoke. Jerked chicken roasted on skewers. Stacks of papayas and onions lined the sidewalks. Women gossiped in a patois so thick that Liz mistook it for French. As he turned the corner into the same bus depot, he could almost feel Liz holding his hand.
Belize conjured Liz for him dependably. Like a drug. No other place came close to replicating the sense of being with her. Not even Ithaca, where they began their time together. And certainly not Somalia, Colombia or Congo – places where he had worked, post-Liz, for a string of NGOs and oil companies. Only Belize could make Liz’s long, cool fingers curl lightly over his as he ambled down its shattered sidewalks.
*****
May 5, 1991 …
That first day together in Belize, Liz had taken the window seat on the bus outbound for San Ignacio. Texas had been her deepest prior foray South. She was new to the developing world, new to the tropics. Everything she saw either shocked or enchanted her: makeshift shacks huddled roadside, giant jacaranda trees blooming purple. Her reactions helped sear the film from Frank’s oblivious eyes, already grown jaded from years of trekking.
Frank had tried to warn her about the discomforts and annoyances that accompanied travel in the developing tropics, but Belize brought her up to speed more rapidly than his words ever could. At lunch in Santa Elena, a rat scurried under their table while chickens watched them eat banana curry over rice. At dinner in San Ignacio, a flying termite caught fire in a candle and expired with a sizzle in her limed tea.
That night in their guest house, as Frank sorted through bills of lading for their misrouted and delayed household effects, he heard a creaking from the bathroom.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Frank hustled over. “What’s wrong?” He peeked in.
Liz stooped naked in the bathtub with a rusty tap broken off in her hand.
“There’s no running water,” she said. “And I’ve been looking forward to a hot shower all day.”
Frank looked around. “At least the bidet works.” He pointed to a water-filled plastic trash bin beside the toilet. Liz threw the tap at him, striking his shoulder before he could duck.
***
A white Toyota Land Cruiser with a CRS logo showed up at the guest house the next morning. Frank had been telling her not to expect the driver to show up on time, but in fact, he arrived early. With her smile restrained but broad, she strode straight for the front door and got in before the driver could hustle over to open it for her. Frank helped load the suitcases and climbed in back.
They rode out of town across the river and over a hill, passing several small farms and a scattering of weather-worn, but tidy-looking houses. A few minutes out of San Ignacio, the Land Cruiser veered off the main road onto a narrow, dirt track that led back down to the river. He rolled to a stop in a dirt patch under a tree with sprawling horizontal limbs that seemed to defy gravity.
“Why are we stopping here?” said Liz. “So soon?”
The driver stepped out. “Road to Rio Frio no good,” he said. “Rain wash out. You must take boat.”
Liz looked alarmed. “You mean … Rio Frio is not accessible by road?”
“No madam. Not since last year. And they no fix.” The driver opened the back of the Land Cruiser and unloaded their bags onto the red dust.
“Were you aware of this, Frank?” she said, with scolding eyes.
“I had no clue,” said Frank.
“When will it be fixed?” she asked the driver, hopeful.
“They no fix, madam. No more. It wash out too much.”
“Never?”
“Nebber,” said the driver, as he helped Frank transfer the luggage into a canopied dugout.
“There’re only these … canoes?” The prospect of being linked to civilization by water alone seemed to knock her off kilter. She stood in the dirt patch staring at the moored launches.
“It’s not a canoe Liz. It’s a launch. They’re pretty stable and strong.”
She climbed in only after the boat was fully loaded and everyone stared at her standing alone on the bank. She sat near the prow, then stood abruptly and moved back, her face twisted in disgust.
“What’s wrong?” said Frank, redistributing their luggage to correct a list to port.
“Pig shit,” she said, removing her sandal and swiping it through the water.
The operator had trouble starting the engine and had to prime it with a mouthful of petrol siphoned from a jerry can. Soon it puttered to life in a cloud of blue smoke, the prow lifted and they roared away from the dock.
With two bends of the river, all civilization disappeared. The diffuse outskirts of San Ignacio gave way to green walls of jungle that hung over the water. They passed an occasional clearing with a thatched hut up on posts, but most of the shore passed for wilderness.
Frank, awed by the surroundings, suppressed his excitement because he could tell it wasn’t shared. Liz looked like someone waiting for a dentist.
She caught him staring. “Why are you gawking at me?”
“Just curious … what you’re thinking. Anything like you expected?”
A pause pregnant with calculation ensued.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “And more. How about you? Is it what you expected?”
“No,” said Frank, immediately, treating her query like a bear trap. “I expected a road. And a town.”
After an hour of winding travel, through slow deeps and shallow riffles, past broad swaths of marsh, the launch powered down at a confluence with a smaller river. The prow descended and they turned towards a mudflat loaded with overturned canoes. It fringed a stubbled clearing with a path climbing a tall bank to the top of a sandy shelf.
A bald man prowled the flat, a gaggle of children schooling around him like pilot fish. An over-sized guayabera billowed in the breeze, revealing the contours of his paunch. He wore horn-rimmed sunglasses. Several days’ worth of stubble bristled his chin.
“Well, well, I hope it really is the Bowens this time and not tourists come to see an authentic Mayan village.”
“We are,” said Frank, stumbling out of the launch. “Bowens, I mean. Well … I am, anyway. Liz kept her maiden name. Are you … Father Esposito?”
“Please, call me Leo.” He reached out to steady Liz as she stepped out of the launch.
Liz looked at Father Leo quizzically. “Do tourists really come all the way out here?”
Father Leo kept hold of Liz’s hand as she stood before him on the mudflat. “Not usually. Some Brits came by yesterday. The kids thought they were you all arriving early. Got us all excited for nothing. But welcome! You don’t know how much we’ve missed having a doc around here. We certainly are excited now to meet the real Bowens … or Bowen and—”
“O’Connell.”
“Well, we’re pleased to see you both. Aren’t we, kids?”
“Yeeessss!” the children screamed in unison. They wore uniforms of a sort – white shirts and dark blue slacks for the boys, plaid skirts of diverse length and pleating for the girls. Their colors displayed every gradation of hue and shade for blue.
“My, Miss Elizabeth, you look even more stunning than your photo.”
“Please. I feel all wilted,” Liz said, retrieving her hand from his grip.
“We have refreshments waiting for you at the rectory. Fresh sheets and towels at your bungalow. There’s a generator that runs from six to ten every evening, and you’ll be happy to know that as of yesterday you have running water. We’ll hope it stays that way.”
Frank reached for one of their bags. Father Leo waved him off. “Leave those. My staff will fetch them.”
By staff, he meant a pair of pre-teen boys who clambered into the launch, only to be scolded by the launch operator in Spanish that Frank translated to: “Get off the damn benches with your muddy feet!” The boys took the largest bags and ordered the smaller children to help with the others. They followed Liz, Frank and Father Leo up the riverbank like a parade.
Atop the bank, the path skirted a lumpy football pitch. Father Leo extended a digit towards a cluster of low buildings under a grove of palms.
“That there, right next to the field, is our school,” said Father Leo, “Which, as you might have guessed, is off today in honor of your arrival. And behind the school is, of course, our chapel. The rectory and residences are a bit farther down beyond those breadfruit trees.”
“Breadfruit! How interesting,” said Liz. “Is it edible?”
Father Leo gave her a sour look. “Depends what you mean by edible. Doesn’t do much for my appetite. My cook, Itzel, sneaks it into stews occasionally. Reminds me of mushy cauliflower, and I like it about as much.”
The chapel resembled a bare bones amusement park replica of a classic New England church, with white clapboards and steeple. Double doors at ground level opened to a dirt floor covered in rows of folding wooden chairs.
Frank craned his neck, searching the complex for anything that looked like a medical facility. Father Leo tapped his shoulder.
“Your clinic is down among those sapodillas.” He pointed towards a bunker-like mass of concrete block with a rusted sheet metal roof. “I have to apologize for its condition. It’s been almost a year since Doctor Rodolfo left, but things were in bad shape even when he was still here. I hate to be frank, but … I hope you’re a little shier than he was about taking frequent holidays. Rodolfo’s a nice enough fellow, and a good doctor… Cuban… but it seemed like he was on leave more often than not. That left the Sisters to pick up his slack, the way they end up doing with everything else around here.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” said Frank. “Far as I’m concerned. Being here … this is a holiday.”
Liz pointed to a tiny, one room structure sitting by itself in the middle of a lot. “That little cottage is adorable. Will we be staying in something like that?”
Father Leo looked aghast. “That? Oh no, that’s not a home per se. That’s actually … well; we use it as our morgue.”
“I … see,” said Liz.
“Your actual quarters will be much larger and cheerier, I assure you. I’ll take you there forthwith. But first … I hope you understand … the Sisters are really anxious to meet you.”
“Of course,” she said, as a trio of dogs charged, snarling and snapping.
“Oh, don’t worry about those scoundrels,” said Father Leo. “They’re nothing but show.”
“They act like they mean business,” said Liz, stepping back.
“No dog has ever bitten a guest of mine … and lived to tell.” He glared down at the dogs and raised his palm. “And these ones know it.” His head popped up. He smiled. “Oh, we’re here. This is it. My rectory.”
Liz shot a glance at her husband, eyebrows rising. The dogs pulled up, panting, roughhousing.
The rectory was a low wooden house with a wide veranda and overhanging eaves. The Sisters, in simple blue dresses, waited for them shyly by a garden gate. Beaming, they kissed Liz on both cheeks, but kept their distance and bowed to Frank.
“My boys will drop your things off at your bungalow,” said Father Leo. “Please help yourself to the refreshments.” A pitcher of lemonade and a tray of cookies and scones were arrayed on a picnic table in the courtyard.
Father Leo nodded to a pair of smiling men in button-down shirts standing in the shade. “That’s the mayor and the constable, by the way.” But instead of introducing them, he prattled on about the mission and his ministry. Frank found it odd how Father Leo avoided his gaze, directing all his eye contact towards Liz.
He went on and on about his early days in Belize, when had apparently been quite the woodsman; spending weeks exploring the Maya Mountains, sleeping in hammocks, roasting iguanas. With reluctance, and only when Liz's attention began to fade, did Father Leo lead them to their bungalow. The algal stains and blistered paint did not look promising.
“Oh!” said Liz stepping onto the cool tile of the entry. “This is nice. This is actually pretty nice.”
The interior sparkled despite loose tiles, patched screens and worn drapes. Someone had obviously spent considerable time tidying up the place. It had four, tall-ceilinged rooms, each with large screened windows. The bedrooms looked out onto a cleared hillside and forested hills beyond.
“This is for you. A house warming gift,” said Father Leo, handing Frank a black leather case.
“Thanks,” said Frank, taken aback. The case was worn at the corners and felt surprisingly heavy for its size. “What is it?”
“Open it,” said Father Leo.
Frank unsnapped the latch and opened the lid, revealing a black pistol.
“We’ve passed this one down from doc to doc,” said Father Leo, lifting it out of the case. “Glock 25. Light enough for a lady.” He grinned at Liz, jerked back the slide and sighted down the barrel. “I see Rodolfo’s kept it nice and clean.”
“Thanks, but … I don’t think we’ll be needing a gun,” said Frank.
“Take it,” said Father Leo, placing it in Frank’s hands. “Better safe than sorry. This far out in the boonies, some pretty squirrelly people come through Rio Frio. Definitely not locals. Who knows what they’re up to?”
Frank put the gun down like it was a hot potato. He had cultivated a fierce aversion to firearms. As an ER resident in Boston he had cleaned up after too many of the messes bullets could make: livers turned to jelly, femurs into splinters. He looked over at Liz, who looked as shocked as he felt. Better to be gracious, he thought. He could always lock it away in a drug cabinet.
“Well, you’re both probably exhausted,” said Father Leo. “Have a good night and God Bless. You know where to find us if you need anything.” He turned down the path. The boys who had carried their luggage and a larger entourage of smaller kids trailed like pilot fish. Frank shut the screen door. Liz bustled over, eyes bugging, and stuck the latch in its eye hook.
“Honey. It’s okay,” said Frank. “This is Belize.”
*****
Chapter 4: Mission Doctor’s Wife
June, 1991 …
Frank braced for signs of culture shock in his greenhorn wife, but Liz surprised him. She never broke stride, adapting to every insult, surprise and deprivation with aplomb. When she noticed the tattered window screens letting in every sort of mosquito and fly, she repaired the rips and holes with monofilament fishing line and pieces of clear packing tape.
But moths and other bizarre and unspeakable creatures of the night attracted to the veranda light still flew in whenever they opened the door. Liz solved that dilemma by creating a second line of defense. She adopted one of Sister Violetta’s kittens that had a talent for stalking and a predilection for snacking on insects.
Frank would have preferred at least a week to get the clinic up and running, but that didn’t stop patients from showing up on his first day and every day after that. He usually finished sick call by noon, so he had the afternoons to take inventory, order supplies and repair what he could of the outdated equipment. He recruited and trained enough assistants to sustain a robust duty rotation, aiming to mold them into a tight little operation modeled after the health post he ran in Liberia before he met Liz.
Liz had started a garden out in front of the bungalow. For days she dug and dug, upending turf and battling roots. One day he returned to find fresh topsoil filling each bed and Liz cross-legged on the ground planting seed from a freezer-sized zip-lock full of Burpee packets. He crouched down beside her, noting the packets already emptied and strewn along the walk: basil and tomatoes, sunflowers and cilantro. He peeked over her shoulder as she opened yet another. “Sweet peas?” he muttered, nuzzling her cheek.
“Yup. You like?”
“Not my favorite vegetable,” he said.
“Vegetable? This ain’t the kind you eat, silly,” she said. “And you’d better not, because I think they’re toxic. But the flowers are gorgeous, almost like orchids. And the scent, you know, like my mom’s backyard in Ithaca? She’s grown them all my life. They’re absolutely intoxicating.”
“Will they even grow here?”
She pouted her lip. “They don’t have a choice.”
***
Hospitals had always disturbed Liz, so she generally stayed away from the clinic. When she wasn’t gardening or reading or filling her journals and scrapbooks, she took to exploring the string of little villages that dotted the Rio Frio like charms on a necklace. She came back with bizarre orchids and jungle fruits that always managed to look more delicious than they tasted. She read prodigiously and filled her journals and scrapbooks.
The lack of land access proved less isolating than expected. They routinely went to San Ignacio on weekends, to get away from the mission and reconnect with the rest of the world. Liz found the tidy, green hillsides of San Ignacio and its sister city, Santa Elena pleasing. She particularly enjoyed the book shops near the junior college, and the cafés and restaurants on Burns Avenue, San Ignacio’s main street. They spent those Saturday nights at the Scarlet Macaw, which had guest rooms upstairs and the best brioche and croissants in Western Belize.
Liz soon learned that the jungle had more to offer than monkeys and sour fruit. Father Leo fancied himself an amateur archaeologist. After weeks of bragging, he finally took them into the bush to see one of the Mayan ruins near Rio Frio. He brought them to a bump in the ground covered with moss and vines. Frank feigned interest, but Liz seemed genuinely excited by the lump. Father Leo promised greater wonders as soon as the parish Land Cruiser, its axle broken, could be repaired. Caracol, the largest ruins in Belize, lay just up the Chiqibul Road.
“There’s so much more out there, undiscovered,” Father Leo told them at one of his Sunday teas. “One place I know … a quarry, supposedly … so strange. I’m not even sure if it’s Mayan.”
“Oh. Really? What else would it be?” said Liz, her brow crinkling.
“Not sure,” Father Leo said, inhaling through his teeth. “I can’t get any of my archaeologist acquaintances interested in it, because … there are no ruins involved. No artifacts. But it’s the oddest place. Bare stone. Not overgrown the way everything else is. As if someone’s maintaining it or that plants simply won’t grow there.”
“Could it be where the Mayans got the stone to build Caracol?” said Liz.
“Too far for that,” said Father Leo. “I’ll take you there sometime. Fascinating place. You really should see it.”
“We look forward to it,” said Liz.
Father Leo spoke nothing of it for several Sundays. In the interim, a telex arrived for Liz bearing bad news about her father. He had suffered a remission of his colon cancer and had undergone surgery to resection his bowel. He was already home recuperating, but Liz wanted to see him before he had to start chemotherapy. She made plans to fly to Houston.
At tea that week Father Leo became flustered when he heard she was leaving. “Oh my. Then we need to go soon.”
“Go where?” said Frank.
“To the quarry,” said Father Leo. “I promised I’d take you both.”
“Oh, don’t sweat it, Father,” said Liz. “I won’t be gone long. You can take us when I get back.”
“But the rains will be starting,” said Father Leo, his voice edged with urgency. “The Macal will be in full flood by the time you get back. We can’t go up river in those conditions. When exactly are you leaving?”
“Saturday.”
“This coming Saturday? Oh dear. We need to go this week. How about … tomorrow? It’s only a day trip.”
Liz looked to Frank and shrugged. She didn’t seem that eager to go.
“On a Monday? Don’t think I can,” said Frank. “You know how busy the clinic gets after a weekend.”
“Tuesday, then,” said Father Leo. “I’ll hire a launch.”
*****
Chapter 5: Up the River and Gone
The bus crept slowly through San Ignacio’s narrow streets. Frank clung to the window, eager for a peek at familiar landmarks, like the park by the soccer field where he used to picnic in with Liz, the little bookstore where they bought weeks-old copies of the Herald-Tribune, but most of all, the stucco walls and feathery trees of the defunct café he visited so often in his dreams. The bus must have taken a different route than usual, because there was little on the street he still recognized.
If he scrunched his eyes, though, its ambiance felt familiar. San Ignacio looked much like any provincial town in Central America. Cracked concrete walls. Sheet metal roofs. Rusty dogs sprawling, prowling everywhere. It was greener than most, with some extra English signage on its shops, but any native from Panama to Mexico could feel at home there.
The bus entered the terminal in a haze of diesel, its wheels easing over the speed bump like a rheumatic elder. The dusty lot had the usual boys vending snacks and drinks from trays, a row of other chicken buses and something new – a fancy express coach with air conditioning and curtained windows. The seated passengers had surged out into the aisles and clogged it with their baggage well before the bus had stopped. Frank lagged, his reactions slowed by a daze of fatigue. He gathered himself and collected his day pack and overnighter from the overhead rack. He had less than an hour to conduct business before offices started closing for the day. He squeezed into a space between a wide screen TV upended in its box and a thick bundle of plastic irrigation tubing.
When the door squealed open, the packed aisle oozed forward like a human glacier. A smoky breeze greeted him as he finally limped down the steps, squeezing past a gaggle of vendors and cabbies congregating around the door. He found himself following the man with the broken guitar down an alley leading away from the terminal. The man carried nothing but the ruined guitar, his preternaturally long fingers wrapped loosely around its neck. The man glanced back at Frank. Their gazes met and bounced away like colliding soccer balls.
They parted ways where Burns Avenue split off from the river road. The man went on towards the Macal. Frank entered a place on Burns called Tigris Auto Rentals.
New roads connected San Ignacio and Santa Elena with the villages that were formerly river-bound and numerous ecotourism resorts that had popped up along them. Launches still plied the river, but that was one aspect of his time here with Liz that he had no desire to replicate. Something about being on the river felt too raw, too close to the pain of losing Liz. Seeing the quarry again would be hard enough.
***
It was the night before Father Leo’s excursion. A lone candle illuminated the screened veranda where Frank knelt, fussing with his rucksack. Liz came out of the kitchen bearing a cup of tea for them both. She put one down beside him and reclined on the wicker chaise she positioned to watch sunsets and catch breezes from the river.
Frank took a sip of honey-sweetened jasmine, admiring Liz in repose. In recent days, she had finally started to act like she actually lived here, that this bungalow was home. Frank worried that her trip back to Houston would dash that equilibrium, but seeing her face so calm and unworried relieved some of those apprehensions.
Frank searched his rucksack for a pocket that would accept an extra water bottle and a tube of DEET.
“Oh, and make sure you pack this too.” Liz pulled a bag of her precious dubbel zout licorice out of her purse and tossed it over.
“I thought you were out of these vile things,” said Frank.
“My emergency stash,” she said. “Don’t you go eating them.”
“I’d rather suck seaweed.”
“Ooh yum, nori!” said Liz. “I should add that to my list.”
“You do have the oddest tastes,” said Frank, fiddling with a stuck zipper.
“Men, in particular,” said Liz.
“I won’t argue with you there.” He stashed the salt licorice in a side pocket and zipped it shut.
“What about that gun?” said Liz.
“What about it?” said Frank. “Why would we need a gun?”
He got up and sat on the chaise beside Liz taking her into his arms. She put down her tea and squirmed to face him, eyes wide. “I don’t know. Maybe jaguars?”
“Jaguars? But they’re just cats. Shy cats.”
“Shy cats with big teeth and sharp claws that outweigh me by a hundred pounds.” She scowled, her face glowing amber in the candlelight.
“I’d worry more about the peccaries or worse – the mosquitoes.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Peccaries? You mean those little wild piggies?”
“Those little piggies have been known to disembowel a jaguar,” he said.
She still looked skeptical but the furrows on her brow showed that her concern had amped up a notch. Frank regretted mentioning the peccaries.
“They only come out at night, right?” said Liz.
“What? The mosquitoes or the peccaries?”
“The jaguars!”
“Yeah. They’re supposedly nocturnal,” said Frank. “So you’re worried about nothing. Father Leo says we’ll be back in Rio Frio by nightfall.”
The mission’s generator had been off for nearly an hour. The oddly industrial din of crickets and tree frogs had a crescendo. The squabbling of feral dogs could be heard from the village just upstream.
“I’ll miss you,” said Liz.
Frank sighed. She wasn’t leaving till the weekend and already she was starting. “You’re only going to be gone two weeks.”
“I know, but I’ll still miss you.”
She turned and made her eyes big. “Will you miss me?”
“Course I will.”
She looked away. Her eyes narrowed. Frank felt her go tense in his grasp. “So … how will you miss me? What is it exactly that you’ll miss?”
Frank took a long, deep breath. Here it comes. It was like a ritual, this questioning and he hated it. It was too easy to say the wrong thing, especially for him. The slightest dodgy inflection or word choice could set things off.
Though, this night did feel different; maybe because they were about to spend their first significant time apart since their marriage.
“I’ll miss this time. Under this net with you. Listening to the rain and the frogs. No worries or cares beyond our little net.” He kneaded her shoulder, urging her to flow towards him.
Liz squirmed away. “Rain? What rain? It’s not raining.”
He pulled her back close. “You know what I mean.”
Someone rapped heavily against the screen door. He nearly jumped through the net.
“Who’s there?”
“Dr. Frank. Is me, Alejandro.”
Frank slipped out from under the net, and went to the door, bare-chested, wearing only jockey shorts. Frank went to the door and found Alejandro, his administrator, standing with a massive long-handled flashlight.
“I sorry to wake you, but Itzel’s mother … Senora Roxita … she has a problem with the breathing. Itzel brang her to the clinic.”
Itzel cooked for Father Leo and the Sisters. Her mother lived in a tiny village downstream from Rio Frio along the Macal.
“What kind of problem? Is she choking?”
“No, no choke. She no breathe well. Too fast. Not so deep. Her face is hot. Her color’s no good, like a dead person.”
“She’s there now?”
“Yes. Now.”
Frank tossed Alejandro a key. “Get the clinic opened up. I’ll be right down.”
He slipped on a T-shirt and pulled a pair of cargo shorts over his boxers. Liz came up behind him and rested her chin on his shoulder.
“What do you think it might be?”
“We’ll see. Maybe she just got a chicken bone stuck. Sounds like she might have a fever, though. Not good.”
“Need me to help?”
“Nah. Get some rest,” he said. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow. At least one of us will be alert enough to spot the vipers.”
“Vipers? What vipers?”
“Just joking,” he said, regretting the quip.
Frank stepped into his sandals and slipped out onto the graveled path that led down to the clinic. Someone started up the generator as he approached. Lights flickered on.
He found Itzel holding her prostrate mother’s head in her lap. She was worse off than he expected. Rales crackled like bubble wrap with every labored breath. Her blood pressure was lower than it should be. Her lips were blue, her eyes panicked.
He clipped a portable oximeter over her index finger. Her oxygen saturation hovered around 60%. A stethoscope revealed one of her lungs fully congested and the other well on its way. He got her into a bed and put her on intravenous ceftriaxone – a broad-spectrum antibiotic that could deal with all of most common bugs. She needed ventilation urgently, but he had to fumble with a balky oxygen regulator for half an hour before he could get it to work.
It was after two when he left Itzel at her mother’s bedside and returned to the bungalow. A candle still flickered on the night stand, burnt down to a nub. Liz slept deeply, her breath whistling gently. The night air had cooled. He collapsed under the net beside her, kissing her gently on her bare shoulder.
He awoke to the sound of Father Leo calling through the window. The sky was bright. Liz was already up and dressed.
“Don't tell me you two overslept,” said Father Leo, in a scolding tone. “The launch is all ready. Our guide is waiting.”
“Frank had a busy night,” said Liz. “I let him sleep in a bit.”
“Busy?” Father Leo made a face of mock horror. “Do I really want to know this?”
“Itzel’s mom has pneumonia,” said Frank swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.
“Oh,” said Father Leo. “Is it serious?”
“Bad enough when I left her. I told Itzel to come wake me if her oxygen dropped any lower. Hopefully, her not coming to wake me is a good sign.”
“What does this mean for our little excursion, then?” said Father Leo.
“Well, I can’t go,” said Frank. “A pneumonia patient needs monitoring, especially at this stage. This disease can turn on a dime. But that doesn’t mean that you all shouldn’t go.”
Frank had little interest in traipsing around the jungle looking for slimy rocks, and was almost glad for an excuse to back out.
“You sure?” said Liz. “We can postpone this.”
Was Liz also seeking an excuse to cancel the excursion or did she simply didn’t want Frank to feel excluded? The latter seemed more likely, but Frank’s interpersonal radar had always been faulty. He was particularly, or at least more consequentially, blind when it came to reading his new wife.
“No, go on ahead,” Frank said, cautiously. “We’ll have plenty of chances to do stuff like this together.”
***
Frank saw them off at the launch, a smaller version of the dugout that brought them to San Ignacio, with the same long-screwed outboard motor clamped to the back. A tattered black flag with a white cross flew on its prow – Father Leo’s expeditionary colors, apparently.
The young launch operator and the guide sat in the stern while another boy perched far aft to scout for snags. Father Leo settled shakily in the middle next to Liz, her hair tied up under a wide-brimmed slouch hat.
“Later ‘gator.” Liz gave him a little flick of a wave and a quivery smile, causing a faint and puzzling nausea to billow up in Frank. His face flushed as the launch roared away from the mudflat and arced into the main channel of the glassy river, dappled with puffs of mist and clouds of gnats. Frank waved. Liz dipped her chin, but held onto her hat while an animated Father Leo commanded her attention.
Frank hiked back up to the bungalow, stomach growling for breakfast, but found his hunger was offset by the nagging queasiness. He paused mid-slope, gripped by the realization that he had forgotten to transfer Liz’s licorice from his rucksack. He sighed and continued on. The launch had already rounded the bend, out of sight, the drone of its motor fading.
Two small bananas and an egg sandwich later, Frank came around the sapodilla grove to find the usual line of villagers from Rio Frio and beyond had already collected at the clinic. Alejandro was busily checking them in with the aid of his younger sister, who often volunteered at the clinic whenever she could escape her household chores.
Frank found Itzel still sitting beside her mom in the main ward. Itzel looked scared. Senora Roxita lay limp and blue on clammy sheets, her breath raspy and weak. Her pulse still raced. Her blood pressure had sunk to 70 over 50 – perilously low. And despite an entire night of ventilation, her oxygen levels had barely risen.
The needle on the regulator flirted with the red zone. Frank rummaged around the store room but only found one small bottle of oxygen, barely enough to finish the day.
“Alejandro! I need you!”
His assistant came running.
“I thought we had more of these,” Frank held out the lone bottle.
“No, Doctor,” Alejandro said. “We no keep more than two. We no use so much.”
“We use now,” said Frank. “Listen. We need more. Today. Any way we can get some?”
“Yes. We get from San Ignacio hospital.”
Frank had visited the little hospital in San Ignacio, and its bare bones state of equipping and supply did not fill him with confidence. But there was no time to send Alejandro to the larger hospital in Belmopan.
“Go now. Get as much as they can spare and come straight back.”
“I go in a little bit,” said Alejandro. “I am still checking in the people.”
“No, go now,” said Frank. “Your little sister can finish checking in. I’ll help. We need that oxygen pronto, understand?”
Alejandro grabbed his shoulder bag and rushed off towards the landing. There were always a few launches hanging around, available for hire almost any time of the day.
Frank wondered whether it would have been wiser to simply evacuate Senora Roxita to San Ignacio. What if Alejandro found they had oxygen, but couldn’t convince them to part with any of it? On second thought, all the jostling she would have faced getting her down to the river and up those bumpy roads would not have done her any good. She was better off resting where she was, where Itzel could check on her.
Frank directed his attention to sick call, which proved entirely routine – ankle sprains, headaches, diarrhea – the kinds of things any of his assistants could have handled on their own.
Senora Roxita was touch-and-go all that day, but by late that afternoon, as the antibiotics and diuretics kicked in, her condition began to uptick. Her oxygen ran out just before Alejandro returned with two fresh bottles. With her oxygen saturation in the mid-80s and climbing, and Sister Violetta sitting by the old lady’s bedside, Frank felt confident enough to drag himself back to the bungalow for a nap.
He dreamt of rivers flowing into rivers branching into still more rivers. He awoke as twilight crept over Rio Frio and the smell of wood smoke suggested that Itzel might be back in her kitchen preparing dinner, a good sign, if true. Liz and Father Leo would be returning soon if they hadn’t arrived back already.
Frank ducked into the clinic to find a weak but feisty Senora Roxita arguing with her brother while a gaggle of nieces and nephews looked on. The oximeter read 91%, not wonderful for someone supplementing their breathing with pure oxygen, but at least the trend was positive. Her fever had come down completely. She was over the hump and should only get better here on out. Frank murmured some encouragement to the Senora and her family and excused himself, bounding down the path towards the river.
He made his way out to the outcrop of limestone beyond the mudflat, on the point that separated the clear water of the Rio Frio from the muddy Macal. He stared upriver into an angry sunset and listened for launches. Darkness encroached rapidly. He knew that launch operators didn’t like to be on the river after nightfall because darkness obscured dead falls that lurked half-submerged, and could flip or rip a launch in two.
Most launch operators carried lanterns for emergencies, but most preferred to get the hell off the river after nightfall. A bit of glow remained in the Western sky. Frank prayed for the sweet sound of an outboard motor.
Mosquitoes descended like vampires. Frank stared upriver, slapping at the unseen marauders, struggling to expunge demons of pessimism from his thoughts. Something akin to insanity began to bubble up in him.
An hour later, in complete darkness, Frank bounded back up the path to the mission to fetch a flashlight and grab a bite to eat. Maybe they decided to wait till morning to return, or were drifting unpowered to be safe from snags. No reason to assume their delay was caused by anything less mundane.
After a frantic dinner of stale bread and cold ham, he had a brief look-in on Senora Roxita, and went back to the river. Alejandro joined him. They paced the mud flat to stay one step ahead of the swarming mosquitoes.
“We have extra radios,” said Frank. “Why didn’t Father Leo take a radio with him?
“He took,” said Alejandro. “But I tell him the other day, the batteries, they no good. He must have forget.”
“Did they bring a tent or anything?”
“No. Father Leo, he say no need. Because they come back same day.”
Another hour passed. Frank sent Alejandro home to his family.
“No worry Doctor Frank,” Alejandro said as he left. “The one who is bringing them is a good boat man. He knows the river. Even in the dark.”
The river grew darker and lost its sheen. The little bit of starlight that had given its gloss had been swallowed up by a creeping overcast. Reluctantly, Frank returned to the mission. He found Senora Roxita snoring peacefully with Itzel hunched over on a chair, head resting by her mom’s hip, her mom’s hand resting on her hair.
Frank burst through the door of the bungalow and lay down on the chaise. He tried to sleep but his eyes felt as if they were pinned open. He tried reading, but the words evaded him. He found himself repeating the same sentences over and over.
He imagined Liz huddled in the launch, believing every snort of tapir in the underbrush to be a jaguar. Frank slid off the chaise, grabbed a kerosene lantern and shot back out the screen door, heading back to the river yet again.
The Macal slithered by in the night as dark and oily as an anaconda. Frank made straight for the dugouts strewn across the landing. The first one he tipped over had a splintered bow and teemed with snap jaw ants that were busy reclaiming its punky wood into loam. He found one small but river worthy, large enough for two. To whom it belonged, he didn’t care. He would worry about reparations later.
Frank put the lantern in the prow, pushed in, and climbed aboard. The current felt stronger than it had looked and he made slow progress paddling against it.
A river of dark thoughts poured through his imagination – faceless attackers, horrific scenarios of abduction, rape and murder, in some Father Leo a victim, in others a perpetrator.
Frank dwelled on the devil that he knew – Father Leo. He revisited the old priest’s teas in memory, poring over the minutia of his interactions with Liz, his risqué jokes and innuendos, the way his eyes lasered in on her and only her as if Frank wasn’t even standing by her side. Being practically alone with her in a wilderness, could the temptation have grown too great?
Of course, that was preposterous. First, Liz was lanky and strong – naturally athletic. No way could this gimpy, attenuated elder overpower her. And besides, this was a Catholic priest pushing seventy, crusty yes, but loved and trusted by his parish. He had nothing untoward in his record.
And how could Father Leo not pay attention to Liz? She had a quirky wit that made people laugh, open up, not that Father Leo needed any encouragement. He had a lifetime of reminiscences to report and a new and captive audience to hear them – a pretty girl to boot. Frank was a bump on a log by comparison, master of non sequitur and shop talk. It was no wonder Father Leo homed in on Liz.
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