"I thought I just heard the sound of tinfoil crinkling." She looked around her, at the water of Long Island Sound, and realized that she had imagined it. It must have been in the lap of the water against the little boat, the smell of raw fish that she a.s.sociated with the sound of someone ripping and balling tinfoil, someone getting ready to cook over a campfire.
"How could you hear something onsh.o.r.e from this far away?" Bruce asked.
Monica shook her head. "It was just my imagination. I was daydreaming."
Bruce opened the cooler again and released the smell of raw fish. She wrinkled her nose. No, it wasn"t the sound of tinfoil she heard. It was the crackle of a fire. It was another memory emerging from the farthest corners of her brain, prompted by the smell of fish and the ruminations about her mother. Then it came back to her, suddenly, like a short movie. One night, she and her mother had cleaned and gutted barracudas for guerrilla rebels.
MAXIMILIANO CAMPOS was nourishing a pack of students, faculty, and others a.s.sociated with the Salvadoran revolution on a boatload of fish, and so everyone was calling him Jesus. "Fish for strength, fish for stealth," Max said, as he pa.s.sed around plates of grilled barracuda and hot tortillas with lime and rock salt on the side. was nourishing a pack of students, faculty, and others a.s.sociated with the Salvadoran revolution on a boatload of fish, and so everyone was calling him Jesus. "Fish for strength, fish for stealth," Max said, as he pa.s.sed around plates of grilled barracuda and hot tortillas with lime and rock salt on the side.
Almost one hundred people were at this beach property, ten minutes by car down the coast from Negrarena. The property didn"t exactly belong to Max; in fact, no one but Max knew the owner, but he had identified it to be a safe place, a remote and lonely stretch of land where the intellectual nucleus of the revolution could meet to fill their bellies, laugh, sing, and play guitar without danger. Since it was on the coast, they couldn"t be cornered because there was always the option of escape by sea. El Trovador, as the property was named, had several acres of beachfront, with rustic outhouses and open-sided huts with roofs made of dried palm fronds. The entire kitchen consisted of a grill and a wide, flat griddle made of burned clay. On the beach, rowboats appeared, slow moving in the darkness of the approaching midnight. They were coming from Nicaragua and Honduras, through El Golfo de Fonseca, an inlet of water that fanned across all three countries.
"Tomorrow they are going to attack one of the foreign emba.s.sies downtown," Alma had casually said to Monica. "But most of these people aren"t going to be directly involved. These are the thinkers, the political side. They don"t do the dirty work."
"So are they good or bad?" Monica asked.
"They"re good," Alma said, but tentatively. "At least, they have good intentions."
"Then why are they hiding?"
"Because they"re communists, honey. If the National Guard finds out they"re here, they"ll come in and kill everyone."
Monica swallowed hard and dug her fingers into her mother"s arm. "These people are all communists? As in guerrilleros guerrilleros?"
"Shh. Don"t say that so loud."
"Are they going to kill us?" Monica pressed, switching into English.
"Shhh." Alma put her fingers over Monica"s mouth and whispered. "Speak in Spanish. Don"t ever ever let them know you speak English." let them know you speak English."
When she took her hand off Monica"s mouth, Alma relaxed and said, in Spanish, "Of course not. They"re Max"s friends. ... It"s exciting just to be be here, to see history unfold. But remember, our names are ..." She pointed to herself and nodded her head, prompting Monica. here, to see history unfold. But remember, our names are ..." She pointed to herself and nodded her head, prompting Monica.
"You"re Leticia Ramos. And I"m your daughter, Fernanda."
"And you go to the public school ..."
"At Canton El Farolito."
"Don"t ever mention that you go to private school, okay? Or that your dad"s an American or that he"s a journalist. Put your arm around Max every once in a while. Pretend he"s your father."
Repulsed at the thought, Monica turned and surveyed the group behind her. "Why are we here?"
"It"s our civic duty."
"We already helped make the tortilla dough and cleaned all that disgusting fish. Can"t we go now?"
Alma smiled and cupped Monica"s face with her hands. "Not just yet. We have to help Max with one more thing. A wonderful, incredibly special thing. ..." Alma put her arm around Monica"s neck and pulled her toward the shadows, away from the crowd. They walked across a dark, sandy field full of the smoky smell of fish cooking. Monica wondered if someone would smell the fish and call the National Guard. She shivered. Why had her mother dragged her here? She had heard about these people from her grandmother, her father, their friends, kids from school. It seemed everyone she knew was against them except her mother. Monica tried hard to shake off her nerves and just trust her mother.
They came upon a tiny thatched-roof hut. Monica could hear someone sobbing inside, a wretched, painful sound, as if a girl were being tortured. She froze, but Alma pulled her along. "C"mon, it"s okay."
A man was standing in the shadows. He took off his hat and pressed it against his chest as they pa.s.sed. They stepped over a sleeping dog lying across the entrance and entered the hut. There was no furniture except for a hammock hanging empty across the room, a transistor radio on the floor, and a dirty blue-and-white Salvadoran flag, which hung on a crude pole nailed into one of the rafters. The room smelled of sweat and rubbing alcohol.
Maximiliano was kneeling on the packed-dirt floor, and the parts of his face that were not bearded gleamed with sweat. He was wearing khaki pants and a dirty, bloodstained white guayabera that reached down to his thighs like a lab coat. An old woman who was normally his cook was at his side. When he saw them come in, he looked up and smiled. "Are you sure la princesa la princesa can handle this?" he asked with not just a bit of sarcasm. can handle this?" he asked with not just a bit of sarcasm.
Alma nodded. "Monica has seen every type of animal birth at Negrarena. She"s ready to graduate to humans."
Max said, "Come," and signaled with his finger to Monica. No one asked the patient.
Monica stood next to where Max was kneeling. On a straw mat lay a girl, two or three years older than Monica, at the most fifteen. Her black, straight hair was splayed all around her head like a fan. She was lying on her back, legs parted, an enormous belly weighing down her small frame.
"This is how life begins, Monica," Max said, pointing to the head that was beginning to crown. Monica craned her head and looked. She blinked, took in the wonder of that little, hairy head emerging. It wasn"t so different from the livestock births, except the girl"s cries were far more unnerving. The whole scene made Monica grit her teeth. Maximiliano pressed his fingers around the little head. Monica watched, fascinated but growing woozy. Alma stood over her shoulder for a moment, but was soon helping Max to shift and reposition the girl"s hips and to soak up some of the blood.
The room began to spin a little, so Monica crawled to the girl"s side. She talked to her, dabbed at the sweat on her forehead and neck with the hem of her skirt. The girl gave Monica her hand, which was hot and moist with sweat, and Monica took it, but turned her head away from the scene. She was trying to gain her footing over the swimmy feeling, all the while feeling some kind of elation in the look of grat.i.tude in the girl"s face. The girl continued squeezing Monica"s hand, harder, until Monica wanted to cry out herself, but then the baby was out and the adults clapped and laughed and announced its male s.e.x in unison: "!Es varon!" "!Es varon!"
The adults were busy cleaning up the girl and the new baby, which had already found its lungs, when the girl turned to Monica and whispered in a hoa.r.s.e, exhausted voice, "Do you want it?"
"Want what?" Monica asked.
"Mi angelito."
"You"re giving your baby away?" Monica asked, stunned.
"My father said I have to get rid of it. We already have eleven kids in our house."
Monica looked into the girl"s face, round and short, with the characteristic thick, straight eyelashes of El Salvador"s indigenous people.
"You can feed him breast milk, can"t you?" Monica said, thinking she had resolved the issue.
The girl smiled sadly. "For a while. And in six months he"ll begin to need some real food."
"What about the baby"s father?"
The girl looked away. "No tiene." "No tiene."
"No father? How could he have no father?"
"You know how it goes."
Monica didn"t have the foggiest idea of "how it goes," but she nodded anyway, trying to understand something so beyond her. The girl raised her head and asked Alma and Maximiliano if either of them wanted the baby. "I can"t take him," Alma said, "but don"t worry, we"ll help you find a good home for him."
Monica spoke in English this time so the others wouldn"t understand. "Mom, I want the baby. I"ll take care of it."
"This is a child, not a puppy," Alma said. The matron returned with a dishpan of water, and they cleaned the baby to screams that made them all pull in their heads like turtles.
Monica insisted that she could take care of him: she"d bathe him, feed him, teach him to read and write. But Alma shook her head no again and again. She and Max left the hut together with instructions for the matron to finish up. Max was going to clean up and get back to his guests. They let Monica stay with the girl. The girl"s father was waiting outside to take the girl and her unwanted baby home.
Monica watched, cross-legged on the floor, as the matron showed the girl how to nurse the baby. Monica thought of the cattle, horses, pigs, and chickens at Negrarena, eating bushels of feed every day. Was it possible that anyone could be so poor that they couldn"t afford to feed a little creature that weighed less than seven pounds?
"I"m Maria del Carmen. What"s your name?" the girl asked.
Monica hesitated, not knowing if this girl was one of the communists on the beach. Outside, the girl"s father called to her, and the girl replied that she needed just a moment more.
"!Sos comunista?" Monica asked outright. Monica asked outright.
"I don"t bother with that stuff," the girl answered.
Confident that the girl could be trusted, she whispered, "Me llamo Monica." "Me llamo Monica."
"!Monica que?" The girl insisted on a last name. The girl insisted on a last name.
Suddenly understanding the girl"s boldness, she answered, "Winters Borrero."
"Oh, you"re very rich then," Maria del Carmen said, brightening. She rocked the baby in her arms and smiled broadly at Monica. "G.o.d sent you to us."
When the matron went to fetch some aspirin, Maria del Carmen called her father over and whispered in his ear. The old man mumbled something to Monica that she didn"t understand because he was toothless. He carried his exhausted daughter in his arms, and the two disappeared into the darkness of the fields beyond the beach.
When the matron returned, Monica was curled up on the straw mat where the girl had been. The matron knelt beside the figure she thought was Maria del Carmen. Instead, she found Monica whispering to the infant. Monica had wrapped him in the Salvadoran flag for lack of a swaddling cloth, and the baby"s little fingers curled around her index finger. She had unb.u.t.toned her cotton shirt, and the baby happily suckled on the unopened buds of her tiny, p.u.b.escent b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"YOU KNOW we can"t keep that baby," Alma said. "It has to go to the orphanage." we can"t keep that baby," Alma said. "It has to go to the orphanage."
"He," Monica corrected. She sat at the kitchen table at Caracol, watching Francisca feed the baby powdered milk from a Raggedy Ann baby bottle that had been Monica"s. Monica corrected. She sat at the kitchen table at Caracol, watching Francisca feed the baby powdered milk from a Raggedy Ann baby bottle that had been Monica"s.
"Why not?" Monica insisted. "Everybody else has a brother or a sister. Why can"t I?"
"Because, Monica Marina, we can"t take care of him."
Monica stood up and leaned forward. She made her hand into a fist and banged on the table. "We have five maids, two gardeners; our family owns a dairy plant. We can afford this baby."
Francisca smiled and raised an eyebrow at Alma. "Maybe she"s right, Nina Alma. Here I am, employed as a nanny but with no more babies to watch."
Alma closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes, we have enough food. But babies need more than food. They need parents. They need someone to take responsibility day in and day out. We don"t have anyone here who is willing to do that. And you"re twelve years old, Monica, for G.o.d"s sake."
Monica stared at her brown suede earth shoes, fuming. "You say you care about the poor of El Salvador, but you won"t sacrifice to help one little baby. You just want to be liked by Max and his communist friends." She turned and ran out of the room, partly to keep herself from saying more, and partly to avoid the consequences of such disrespect. She heard Alma calling after her, but she was hiding in the one place Alma would never look: her father"s office. Monica sat at Bruce"s typewriter and began to type a letter to the president of El Salvador, pleading with him to authorize the baby"s adoption, even though she was only twelve. She had already named the baby Jimmy Bray, after a boy she had a crush on at the American School. She had fantasized that this was her offspring with the blond, blue-eyed expatriate boy from Alabama in her sixth-grade cla.s.s. They"d only spoken once, when Monica asked, "Is this your library book?" Jimmy Bray nodded his shiny blond head and took the book from Monica. Not much of a relationship yet, but Monica considered it a good start.
The other part of her fantasy was that Jimmy Bray junior would be more like her brother, the child her dad could do "boy stuff" with, the child who could bring her family together. They needed needed a baby to glue them back together-and this baby desperately needed them. a baby to glue them back together-and this baby desperately needed them.
But the next day little Jimmy Bray was gone.
When they saw Max at the San Salvador farmers" market the following Sat.u.r.day, he was amused with the whole ordeal and had put his arm around Monica and tried to console her. He said she was a good girl, with a big heart, and that the baby was safe and they had found a nice family to take him in.
Monica wanted to see for herself, out of a deep distrust that was blossoming between her and her mother. But Alma refused to take her to see Jimmy Bray, out of punishment for her disrespect. The baby, Monica learned, had been "renamed" Jose Martin Castillo.
When Bruce returned from Nicaragua that Sunday night, his twelve-year-old had matured by years, already having a.s.sisted in a birth and, in her own mind, having endured a mother"s loss of her baby. She sobbed into Bruce"s shoulder and complained about her mother.
Later, Monica heard her parents arguing. Bruce didn"t approve of the field trip. "A human birth, for G.o.d"s sake? She"s too young, Alma," he scolded. "You treat her like she"s a mini-adult. You need to slow it down, shelter her innocence a bit longer." There was a pause and then he asked pointedly, "What were you doing with Maximiliano anyway?"
"Monica and I were at Negrarena when Maximiliano sent a mozo mozo on horseback with word that he needed help with the birth. He was doing it as charity in a neighboring town, but needed an a.s.sistant. I couldn"t leave Monica alone, so I went. The last thing anyone expected was that the family would take off and leave us with the infant." on horseback with word that he needed help with the birth. He was doing it as charity in a neighboring town, but needed an a.s.sistant. I couldn"t leave Monica alone, so I went. The last thing anyone expected was that the family would take off and leave us with the infant."
Another long pause, and Bruce spoke again. "I think you"ve been spending way too much time with Max. I know he"s your childhood friend and that you share an interest in science and medicine, but you"re a married woman. It doesn"t look good, and it"s not healthy. Why don"t you and Monica come with me on my next work trip instead?"
Alma made a face. "Too dangerous. There"s a war going on out there."
As a last attempt, Bruce, whose voice was far deeper and more audible to Monica than Alma"s, said, "It hurts me that you spend so much time with him. I"m asking you to stop."
There was a pause.
"Alma, look at me. I"m asking you to stop spending so much time with him and start investing your time and energy in your own marriage and family. Will you at least reconsider the idea of a baby? Monica is obviously desperate for a sibling."
Their bedroom door slammed shut. Monica heard her father"s footsteps in the hall as he made his way back to his office.
In bed that night, Monica cried for the lost baby, for the mother and the grandfather who had walked away from their own flesh and blood, thinking the baby would be raised with the comforts and privileges of a prince. She felt a sudden confusion over Max, whom she had sworn to hate, but who was tending the wounds of the poor and delivering their unwanted babies. And more disturbingly, she felt the weakening of loyalty to her mother, who was keeping her from having a normal family with brothers and sisters like everyone else. Most disturbing of all was that her father wanted more children. She had always believed that they agreed on this issue.
A week later, over breakfast, Alma held up the newspaper for Monica. Monica recognized one of the men by his fuzzy hair, even though he had a bandanna covering his face. It was one of the young communists that had been at the beach that night, eating barracuda. He had recited a long poem by Ruben Dario for Monica.
"That guy is dead," Alma said. "And sixteen of his friends are missing. There was a government raid in Chalatenango."
Monica pushed the newspaper aside. "Are you in love with Max? I have to know."
They could hear Bruce moving around in the other room. The phone rang. He picked it up and began to speak to someone.
Alma stared at her. "Are you challenging me?"
Monica stared back. "You don"t love my dad."
Alma looked down and began to chip away at her pearly nail polish. "I admire Max. I love the places he"s going ..." She stopped. "Yes, I love him. He"s always been my friend. Since I was a kid. As for your dad ..."
Monica looked away. "Are you going to leave him?"
Alma looked at Monica as if seeing her for the first time. When she spoke, it was more to herself than to Monica. "s.h.i.t, you"re turning into me."
Alma leaned over and tried to hug her, but Monica took a step back. "I said, are you going to leave my dad?"
"Lower your voice." She leaned back, studied her daughter, searching her face for the source of this new aggression. "No, I"m not leaving your father, Monica. And don"t talk to me like that."
"Max is taken," Monica sneered. "He doesn"t belong to you."
Alma turned pale; she sat back in her chair. "Who told you that?"
"I heard you say it in your sleep."
"sO WHY ARE YOU THINKING of going to El Salvador, Dad?" Monica asked as Bruce rowed the rowboat toward sh.o.r.e. of going to El Salvador, Dad?" Monica asked as Bruce rowed the rowboat toward sh.o.r.e.
Bruce looked at her oddly. "What do you mean? I just told you. Cone venom."
"Nothing else?"
"I wouldn"t mind looking up some old friends, taking a leisurely stroll down the bombed-out section of memory lane."
Monica nodded. "That"s why I"m going with you."