The Furthest City Light (22 page)

As we drove down a street filled with potholes, Liz searched through her handbag, and then tapped Tina on the shoulder.

“Try these,” she said, handing her a couple of pills. “It should stop your reaction.”

“You got anything in there to help me cope with four kids under the age of ten?” Allen asked. “I share a room with them.”

“Even morphine wouldn’t help,” I said. “You need a tent.”

Liz smiled at us. “The accommodations here are likely to be much fancier than the ones in Jalapa.”

“I share a bed with a two-year-old who wets it,” Allen said. “I’d sleep on the floor, but the cockroaches are bigger than the two-year-old. How much worse could Jalapa be?”

“You’d know if you’d read your packet of information,” I told him.

As we drove through the city, I was stunned by how flattened it was. I knew, from the reading material, that Managua had suffered a major earthquake in 1972 that destroyed eighty percent of the buildings, but this looked like the aftermath of an atomic bomb. We passed block after block of wasteland before we saw a couple of movie theaters. Then, more vacant lots, a small middle-class neighborhood, a gaping ravine, and then a modern-looking shopping center. After the earthquake, millions in aid had poured into the country, but Somoza pocketed the money and never rebuilt the city. I realized with a rush of shame that Sonia’s outdoor kitchen, which I’d thought quaint, had probably been a regular indoor one before 1972.

I stared out the window. What else didn’t I know? Actually, what else
did
I know?

“
Bubkes
,” I imagined my mother saying. “You know
bubkes.
”

It had been one of her favorite Yiddish words when I was growing up. Loosely translated, it meant I knew absolutely nothing. And she was right. What the hell was I doing here? But if I left, where would I go? Not back to Boulder, not back to where Emily in handcuffs had tried to wave goodbye as she was being escorted down a hallway by a couple of guards.

As we passed a working-class
barrio
where the houses were constructed of tin and plywood, I decided I might as well stay put. This was a country in dire straits. Maybe I would be of use here, maybe I wouldn’t. At least I could try.

“Hey, Rachel.” Allen tapped me on the shoulder. “You got any advice about law school?”

I turned to face him. “Sure. Don’t go.”

He nodded. “I don’t want to. My father’s a corporate lawyer who expects me to follow in his footsteps. I can’t think of anything more dreadful. What about criminal defense? Would you recommend that?”

“No,” I said.

The bus had turned into a dirt lane and was heading toward a pink stucco structure that looked dwarfed by the overgrown vegetation surrounding it. The grounds and building reminded me of Sleeping Beauty’s palace after she’d been asleep for a hundred years and unable to maintain it.

“I wonder if they’d let me do a little work around here,” Lenny said to the group. He was the handsome retired architect from Denver.

“You know, I like him,” Allen said, referring to Lenny. Liz and I both agreed we did too.

“Are you married, Liz?” Allen asked. I wondered why he didn’t ask me.

“Amicably divorced.”

Allen looked thoughtful. “You know, Lenny’s in pretty good shape for someone who’s sixty-three.”

“No thanks,” Liz said, shuddering. “That’s one area of my life where I’ve been a complete failure. I never want to get involved again.”

At that moment, I decided I liked her after all. As a rule, I’d never liked or trusted anyone who hadn’t suffered at some point in his or her life. Even Vickie, who seemed fairly content, had had an unhappy childhood.

As soon as the bus pulled up to the entrance, everyone scrambled to get out. It had been a long uncomfortable ride. Although a pitcher of margaritas in an air-conditioned restaurant would have been perfect, we settled for a drink of water on the grass under a hot sun. When the ants began biting us, we went inside.

There were four classrooms, each outfitted with a blackboard and about twenty wooden chairs. We filed into one of the rooms and learned that our teacher, Mrs. Rodriguez, had suddenly become ill, and would be unavailable until Wednesday or Thursday.

“Which means Saturday or Sunday,” Allen murmured. He and Liz were sitting next to me in the back row. Tina had tried to join us, but her chair collapsed and she’d had to move on to find a sturdier one. Two high school students who looked about fourteen had volunteered to help out until Mrs. Rodriguez returned. There were no books in sight.

“This doesn’t bode well,” I said.

“No,” Liz agreed, “it doesn’t.”

Allen raked both hands through his frizzy hair. “At least both of you know enough to get by. I’ve watched you. But I’m in deep shit because I don’t know any Spanish at all. I’d assumed a lot more of the people down here spoke English.”

“Too bad you didn’t read your packet of information,” I said.

Liz started to laugh. “Okay, enough. I’ll lend him mine tonight.”

The group voted to eat lunch and then figure out how to utilize our two high school assistants. We ate in the school cafeteria where a man in a wheelchair served us rice and beans. The regular students, we found out, were on vacation. We sat together at a long table, joking about our misadventures. Toward the end of the meal, one of the assistants told Estelle she had a phone call from Jalapa. Both Estelle and Tim left the room.

When they returned, they looked pale and serious. Everyone stopped talking and waited for the news.

“Well,” Estelle said, “last night about fifty Contras slipped over the border from Honduras and attacked Jalapa. They killed twelve people, including an infant, and kidnapped a couple of women. Some of the townspeople found one of the women today. She’d been raped repeatedly and her eyes had been cut out.”

“Jesus,” Tina said.

Tim took a deep breath and sat down at the head of the table. “We’re telling you this because we don’t want to mislead you. We’re going into a war zone and we want everyone to be prepared. So far, no North Americans have been harmed, but we can’t guarantee anyone’s safety.”

“Are we still planning to go in two weeks?” Veronica asked. She was young and game, not scared.

Estelle nodded. “Unless the government won’t let us.”

“Well, if it isn’t safe—” Tina began.

“It’s not,” Susan interrupted, “but everyone knew that beforehand.”

Liz put her hand on Tina’s shoulder. “I think we’ll be all right,” she said. “Witness for Peace volunteers have lived in Jalapa for years. Personally, I can’t wait to get up there and start rebuilding the clinic.”

“Me too,” Richard said, stroking his beard.

I sat quietly at one end of the table, listening to everyone’s reactions, and trying to figure out my own. Like the others, the news had hit me like a bucket of ice water, sobering me right up. But now that I was sober, I realized I was beginning to feel excited. This could be the real thing, a chance to participate in something that actually mattered. We could go to Jalapa during a time when they needed us and help rebuild their clinic. The risks seemed small in comparison. On the other hand, I was a burned-out adrenaline junkie, so what did I know?

“Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t read the packet of information,” Allen told me as we left the cafeteria. “If I had, I might not have come.”

“Liz thinks we’ll be okay,” I said.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

“I probably should be, but I’m not.”

We walked silently down the hall, lost in our private imaginations. As we approached the classroom, Tim caught up to us and told me I had an international call from a woman named Vickie. I’d given her the number of the school, and we’d agreed she would try to call me today. I hurried to an office at the end of the hall where a woman with a baby in her arms handed me the phone.

“Hey Vickie,” I said.

“Rachel, it’s so good to hear your voice. I’ve been trying to get through for hours. How are you?”

“Well, I didn’t sleep much and I’m in culture shock, but other than that, I think I’m okay. How about you?”

“I’m just missing you. So, what’s it like there?”

The woman had left the room. I sat down at her desk and glanced out the window at an overgrown palm tree. A fat green parrot was perched on one of the branches.

“Everything’s larger than life,” I said.

Vickie laughed. “How about a few details? Tell me about the family you’re staying with.”

 We talked for about ten minutes before she asked about the situation in Jalapa. I hesitated, and then told her it had been mostly peaceful.

“Good. Just be careful. Oh, your client Emily Watkins called. She said to tell you she was being transferred from the Denver facility to the penitentiary in Canon City and wondered if you’d be able to visit her there sometime. I hope you don’t mind, but I told her you were in Nicaragua.”

“No, that’s fine,” I said, running my fingers along the edges of the desk, which were smooth from years of use.

“So, do you have a return date yet?”

I didn’t answer. I was thinking about the way Emily used to look up legal terms in an old dog-eared dictionary held together with duct tape that Sunny kept in his desk for her. She adored old things: old books, old furniture, old houses. New things, she said, seemed so cold and lonely. They had no history of being loved and cherished.

“Rachel, are you there?”

I stared out the window. “I guess I am.”

“So when are you coming back, sweetie?”

I was glad she couldn’t see my face; it would have looked confused and guilty. “I’m not sure, babe. Part of it depends on when we actually get to Jalapa. After that, we’ve made a minimum four-week commitment to work on the clinic.”

“Minimum? What are you saying? Are you saying you might stay longer?”

I waved my hand in the air as if it were no big deal. “Well, anything’s possible. I just don’t know yet.”

“So what are we talking about? A week? A month?” She paused. “A year?” She paused again, waiting for reassurance but I couldn’t give her any. “Rachel?”

I expected her to start shouting or even worse, crying at any moment. In the meantime, I stared at a row of empty bookshelves lining the opposite wall, wishing the phone would go dead, that something would intervene before the conversation got any worse. “Honey,” I said, “I just got here.”

The silence lasted so long, I thought maybe the phone had gone dead after all. Finally, my partner said, “Don’t lose me, sweetheart. Don’t throw your baby out with the bathwater.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “I won’t.” I had a strong urge to lay my head down on the desk and take a short nap. It was around three in the afternoon, although according to a clock on the wall, it was a quarter past eight. “Everything’s broken here,” I said.

June 10, 1986

Dear Vickie,

You asked for the truth, so here it is: I can picture myself calling the airport and booking a return flight to North America. I can picture myself hugging everyone goodbye, taking a hot bumpy taxi ride to the airport, and waiting patiently while children dressed like soldiers search my bags for contraband. I can even picture myself boarding the plane, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t picture myself arriving in Colorado and settling back into my old life. My imagination stops at the border.

Having said all that, I don’t want you to panic. Everything here, including me, is in flux. The whole country’s in a state of trauma—it’s probably why I feel so at home. But one of these days, the ground beneath my feet will either stop shifting or I’ll finally get used to it. All I need is time; I’m lurching as fast as I can. I probably sound like a lecherous teenager who puts a hand on his girlfriend’s knee and says, “Trust me,” but trust me. It’s still you and me, babe.

Your loving rat,

Rachel

At the end of our strained phone conversation, Vickie and I had agreed from then on we would write instead of call, that Vickie would stop pressuring me about returning home, and in exchange I would tell her as much as I knew as soon as I knew it. In theory, it was a good plan. I reread my letter, which fulfilled my obligation to write, then put it with all the others at the bottom of my duffel bag. At the rate I was writing them—one or two a day—I would end up with quite a collection. Someday, I might even let Vickie read them. Unsent letters from the earthquake capital of the world.

So why didn’t I just send the letter or any of the others I’d written? The truth is I don’t know. All I can say is that for a number of months after losing Emily’s trial, I was a stranger to myself. My motives and desires, usually so clear to me, were suddenly inaccessible. I looked like myself, felt like myself, but didn’t act like myself. In the legal profession, this is known as a complete loser of a defense.

In the meantime, which didn’t help matters, I was suffering from extreme sleep deprivation, the kind that drives a good soldier to divulge critical information about everyone in his squadron and then gratuitously offer more about his wife, relatives, childhood friends and anyone else he can think of. After a week of practically no sleep, I would have traded my entire kingdom for a sleeping pill (Liz had a limited stash but only for emergencies), and if you threw in a small air-conditioner, performed any sexual favors that didn’t leave scars.

Each night, I’d wait until it cooled down to around a hundred degrees, dose myself with a handful of useless Benadryls, sink into my cot, and lie there sweating until I finally passed out around two thirty. Each morning, a few minutes before five, the chicken would hop onto the cot and squat on my ankles. If I kicked her off, she’d wait a few minutes and then try again; three times, five times, ten times, it made no difference. It was exactly how I used to wear down the prosecution on most of my cases.

On my fourth or fifth evening, I made a nice cozy nest on the floor using my softest T-shirts, but the chicken wasn’t even tempted. I tried blocking the doorway with my orange crate, but after a few minutes of scratching, she figured out how to climb over it and then hopped triumphantly onto my legs. One afternoon, while Sonia took a neighbor to the hospital, I snooped around the house to see if I could figure out how the chicken was getting in. After finding at least five possible ways, I gave up. I considered various “accidents” that might befall my chicken, but I couldn’t quite see myself as a cold-blooded murderer.