The Jade Notebook (5 page)

That was the final clue that led us here—the realization that my father must’ve been the traveler who suggested visiting this town. Layla started the list eighteen years ago, then
promptly forgot who gave her the first recommendation. If only she’d recorded the names of travelers who’d recommended each place—we might’ve traced my father to this town years ago. It wasn’t until I’d narrowed his likely hometown to Mazunte last fall that I noticed the connection.

Layla did scrawl some notes after
Mazunte: sea turtles, jade water, jungle, mole.…
As a kid reading this list, I wondered why moles would be an attraction. At some point, I discovered it must be
mole—MO-lay
—which travelers have told me is the world’s most delicious sauce. Not surprisingly, chocolate is the main ingredient.

“Layla, have you had any
mole
here yet?”

She shakes her head. “But I want to get my hands on some. Right here in southern Mexico was the birthplace of
mole
. Cacao beans were sacred to the Maya and Aztecs. Food of the gods …”

She rambles on, picking up a tray with the pitchers of cream and bowls of sugar, as I flip through the pages of the List, mentally ticking off places we’ve lived—Senegal, Thailand, India—and noting the places we haven’t. I notice, on the last page, some fresh writing, new countries that weren’t there last week. Madagascar, Portugal, Mongolia.
What?
She’s still adding potential new homes?

Before I can ask about it, Joe the clown straggles into the kitchen. I groan at the sight of him in a pink wig.

“Sweat of the stars,” he murmurs with a slight Spanish accent, betraying his Mexican roots, despite his insistence on speaking English with us.

Layla smiles as if she knows what he’s talking about.
Maybe she does. “Morning, Joe.” His real name is something like Joani, but he likes to be called Joe.

I raise an eyebrow. “Sweat of the stars?”

“Another name for chocolate,” he says, rubbing sleep from his eyes and adjusting his wig. How he can wear a wig in this climate is beyond me. To complete the look, he’s donned a pair of baggy rainbow patchwork pants held up by orange suspenders.

His first day here, before he understood how sweltering the heat on the coast is—unlike the climate of his native Mexico City—he wore sweat-streaked clown makeup, and I briefly entertained the idea that he might be my father. After all, in France, my father’s face was hidden beneath white paint, his hands inside white gloves, his hair tucked into a black skullcap. But while my father seemed gentle, timid, respectful of people’s space, Joe the clown bumbles around, always in your face, droning on loudly, practically tripping over everyone’s feet, an air of desperation clinging to him.

Layla hands him the tray to take out to the tables. He knows the routine. Joe arrived just a couple of days after us and immediately became enamored of Layla. Her blood must contain some secret clown-attraction potion; Joe is definitely not her first suitor of this profession. He convinced her to give him free room and board in exchange for work as the cabanas’ maintenance man. Just until he could wrangle up some clown gigs, he assured us—something I honestly don’t see happening, given his utter lack of talent. Apparently, he got hooked on clowning somewhere in the American Midwest, where he studied building design and learned
English. Inept clowning aside, I have to admit, despite his ridiculous attire and annoying personality, he does have skills we need—plastering, framing, roofing, repairing furniture.

“Another day and the world’s still here,” he says, humming under his breath as he arranges the sugar bowls and cream pitchers on the tables. A few months ago, Joe woke up feeling sure the end of the world was near. So he sold the construction business he inherited from his father in Mexico City and set off on a journey—as he tells it—to spread joy to everyone he meets during these last days of existence. His clowning is apparently tied in with the spreading of joy. Unfortunately, his obsessive rants about the Mayan prophecy—the impending destruction of the world as we know it—put a damper on his clown act.

Layla, an eternal optimist, reassures him that the completion of the cycle will be a new beginning rather than a bad ending. He counters that the world is a horrific mess, that the end is inevitable. She shrugs and says that people have always been certain their world was a horrific mess. But they find a way to tolerate the messiness and survive. “Just focus on the good stuff,” she keeps telling him.

“I had another apocalyptic dream last night,” Joe announces, picking up three oranges from the counter and juggling them. “Involving torrential storms of geckos.”

I make a face. Once Joe gets started with his end-of-the-world prophecies, he can go on for hours. Not to mention, his juggling skills are lacking, and there are plenty of breakables in this kitchen.

When he drops the oranges, I scoop them up and wash
them off, then put them back in the bowl. Unfazed, he keeps talking about the storms of geckos. Before he can grab any more oranges, I shoot Layla a look. She hands him another tray, puts on her Rumi-quoting face, and calmly whispers, “
A
white flower grows in the quietness. Let your tongue become that flower.”

Joe presses his lips together in a smile. “So wise,” he murmurs. Thankfully, his tongue is quiet as a flower while he fills the tray with coffee mugs and spoons.

Meanwhile, the guests have begun trickling in. Layla greets every one with a huge smile and a
qué onda, güey
. Inappropriately street-talky, but the guests either don’t understand or seem amused by the slang.

Our guests are the same breed of backpackers we’ve hung out with all over the world—the kind who stay in out-of-the-way places and embrace the lack of electricity and hot water. Two twentysomething Norwegian women stroll into the palapa and plunk themselves sleepily on the tree-trunk seats in front of the counter. They’re followed by a blind, middle-aged Chilean named Horacio who arrived last night. Even with a guitar strapped on his back, he seems to be navigating the irregular stone path fairly well using his white cane—better than some of the hungover guests who can see, in fact. On his heels are three Australian guys in their twenties with half-open eyes; a bright-eyed American couple, who must have gone to bed early; two Canadian women who’ve brought their own organic herbal tea bags; and a groggy Spanish man who reeks of stale tequila. Finally,
along comes a Brazilian couple, who look elegant from the time they open their eyes.

As the guests work their way through their tea and coffee, they become more chatty. By the time I’ve served the last person coffee and sat down again in front of my notebook, everyone is relatively perky and lost in conversation.

Joe sits beside me. “What’s in that mysterious green notebook of yours?”

“Jade notebook,” I correct him, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. There’s something grating about him … or maybe, as Layla would contend, I just have unresolved feelings about clowns.

“Jade,” he repeats. “What’s in your jade notebook?”

I sigh. I might as well interview him, get it over with. I’ve already filled a good chunk of my notebook with interviews with our other guests. I grab a pen from my pocket and open to a fresh page. “Okay, Joe, what’s your idea of perfection?”

I’m pretty sure he’s going to say
Layla
, because his gaze moves right to her in response. But he thinks for a moment, then says, “Perfection is this sick, sad world ending, and a shiny new one beginning.”

“Right,” I say, regretting that I’ve given him an opening for another the end-of-the-world rant. I let him ramble on about storms and fires while I zone out and think about my own perfect world. Joe would not be in it. My perfect world would actually be pretty close to what I have now. The people I love—Wendell and Layla—in a beautiful place doing rewarding work, meeting (mostly) fascinating people.
It’s like a puzzle that has come together for me, with just one piece missing—my father. Number five on my list.

“But of course,” Joe is saying, “you can’t have perfection without complete destruction first. Annihilating the ego. Burning up in fire until the sparkling soul is revealed.”

I bite my tongue and close my notebook. “Thanks, Joe. Very interesting.” I search for some reason to end the conversation. “Hey, look—everyone’s heading to the beach now. You don’t want to miss sunrise yoga.”

Joe jumps up, his wig nearly falling off. Tripping over his baggy clown pants, he rushes in front of the others to join Layla, who’s leading the motley crew through the jungle toward the beach. As they go, I catch snippets of Layla’s melodic voice quoting Rumi to the eager guests.
“… graceful movements come from a pearl somewhere on the ocean floor. Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge of driftwood along the beach, wanting!”

After Wendell finally wakes up—somehow he can sleep through Layla’s yoga bell—we eat breakfast, then head to Playa Mermejita. Sure enough, the first words out of his mouth are “Let’s check on the turtle nests!” As we walk through the surf, he pauses to take photos of water birds and shells. He plans to photograph the flipper tracks leading to and from the sand-covered, egg-filled holes. And maybe, if we’re lucky, a few turtles might still be straggling back to sea. The sun’s already blazing, but the water’s cool, lapping around our ankles and calves.

“I hope they’re okay,” Wendell says, twirling his camera
strap around his fingers. “Especially that giant one. She’s my favorite. Like some big, wise, old grandmother, you know?”

“Muy chida,”
I agree. Another variation of “really cool.” “At the rate she was going, I bet she’s still flopping back to the surf.”

“She does have two tons of body weight to haul around.” He pauses, probably sifting through facts from all the books he’s read in preparation for his internship. “She must be decades old, to be that big. It’s amazing she survived through the time hunting turtles was legal.”

I make a face. “Why would you hunt a turtle?”

“People eat turtle meat.” He scowls. “And some people believe the eggs make men more virile.”

“Ick.”

The closer we get, the more animated Wendell becomes, his gestures excited, his pace quickening. “This’ll be
bien padre
. The lighting’s perfect for abstract sand patterns. I’ll get some great shots of the flipper marks.” He spreads his arms. “These leatherbacks dig three-foot-deep holes for their eggs. Then they cover them back up with their flippers. I’ve seen some incredible videos online.” Grabbing my hand, he cries, “Hey, look, there she is, Z!”

Ahead is the giant, dark form of a turtle heading back to sea. I have to admire her. I imagine the hours it took her last night to drag her body inch by inch up the beach, to look for the perfect spot to lay her precious eggs. Now she’s on her return journey, clumsily flopping her flippers, scooting back to the surf.

In the daylight, I can admire her color—deep gray,
mottled with white. Parallel ridges line her rubbery shell, and marring the surface are several deep scars. They look old; the wounds must have healed years ago, maybe decades ago. They form a distinct pattern—a rough diamond shape. I wish I could interview this turtle for my notebook, find out what stories lie behind those scars.

“This is her, right, Wendell? Your grandma turtle?”

Wendell nods, adjusting his camera settings as we move closer and station ourselves a few meters away. Then he scans the beach, puzzled. “I don’t get it.”

I follow his gaze. Dotting the beach are gaping holes. “Why aren’t the holes covered?” I ask tentatively, sensing that something is wrong. Very wrong.

“I don’t know,” Wendell murmurs, looking distressed. He hands me his camera, then runs up the beach, away from the water, following the grandma turtle’s tracks. When I catch up with him, he’s kneeling, staring at an enormous hole. Empty. He leans over, reaching toward the bottom, sifting through the sand. “Nothing,” he says, his voice barely audible. “There should be fifty or a hundred eggs. Big ones, the size of golf balls. Impossible to miss.”

“What happened?” I ask, glancing around. “You think some animal dug them up and ate them?” I can’t help thinking of whatever made that noise in the jungle.

Wendell doesn’t seem to hear. He’s studying other tracks in the sand—human footprints leading from the hole up to the jungle’s edge. He follows the footprints about fifty meters to a small dirt clearing that leads to the road. As I
jog after him, he puts his hands on his hips and kicks the ground. When I reach him, I see what he sees: tire tracks in the dried mud, along with a few cigarette butts.

“You think …?”

He frowns. “Poachers. They must have followed the turtle tracks to the nests, then dug them up. Stolen the eggs.”

I feel a pang of guilt that I prevented Wendell from checking out the noise on the beach last night. Maybe we could have stopped this.

In a hoarse voice, he says, “Let’s see how much damage they did.”

We run through the sand, scanning the beach. No other turtles in sight. Probably the rest completed their journey back to the sea before sunrise. But we see their tracks in the sand, parallel flipper markings, each one leading from the sea to an empty hole, then back again to the sea. And another set of prints—human ones—leading from one raided nest to another.