The Girl Who Remembered the Snow (15 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl Who Remembered the Snow
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Emma opened her door, got out and stretched her legs. Timoteo had been running the car's air conditioner and she was surprised by how hot the day had become.
“Come on,” she said to the boy, who hadn't moved. “Let's check it out.”
Timoteo opened his door and followed Emma up the path toward the large building with slumped shoulders and his hands in the pockets of his jeans, which were rolled up almost to the knees.
A boy not much older than Timoteo was walking down the path toward them. He was wearing starched khaki shorts and a matching shirt and was carrying a tray.
“Excuse me,” said Emma as he approached.
“Yes, ma'am?”
The boy stopped and stood straight-backed, looking Timoteo over with a smug expression. According to his Las Calvos nameplate, his name was Hernando and he was a “China Steward.” It took Emma a moment to figure out that a china steward must be someone who took care of plates. Hernando was a busboy.
“We've come up from San Marcos City for the day,” she said. “Is there a place where we can get something to eat?”
“La Reserve, our largest dining room, is behind me in the main building, but it is not open for lunch,” said the boy in a practiced tone. “There are seven other restaurants in Las Calvos. What type of cuisine are you interested in?”
“Nothing fancy.”
“There are snack bars at the beach and the tennis village, but for these it is a fifteen-minute drive. Perhaps La Cocina Verde is for you. There you can get sandwiches and light entrées or the buffet. It is up ahead, past the pool.”
Hernando indicated another path that led through a wall of flowers. Timoteo, who slouched and fidgeted but had not taken his eyes off the other boy, leaned over his shoulder and let loose a long, slow stream of spit.
“Timoteo, don't do that,” said Emma. “Please.”
She turned back to Hernando and thanked him, then put her hand on Timoteo's shoulder and steered him onto the path the china steward had indicated. The boy marched off, looking proud of himself.
“I'm not hungry, you go,” said Timoteo as they rounded the corner of the pool, a huge arc of blue in a grassy glade.
A few tanned men and women frolicked in the water. Others sat sunning in deck chairs. Most of them seemed to be in their thirties and forties, though there were a few young couples and some older people. Everyone had the same prosperous air and bearing.
“Come on,” said Emma. “You're a growing boy.”
In another minute they came to a small building with open sides that blended perfectly into a surrounding greenery. Dark wood furniture, the tables set with white tablecloths and silver, filled the shady room inside. Appetizing aromas filled the air, but all Emma could see was the buffet, which was set along one wall the length of the room. On it were incredible piles of tropical fruits, chafing dishes with hot entrées, bowls of shrimp two feet in diameter. A chef stood by, ready to carve, in front of an array of ham, turkey, and roast beef.
A mustached man with a broad chest, wearing a colorful shirt and tan pants, greeted them at the door.
“May I help you, señorita?” he said in a deep baritone, smiling broadly.
“Yes,” said Emma, stunned by the beauty of Las Calvos after the past few hours of driving through the barren poverty of the island. Probably less than a mile away from this groaning board, people were starving. “I'm not a guest, but I've driven up from the city and wonder if I might get something to eat.”
“Of course,” said the man. “Please follow me.”
Then in a low voice he rattled off a string of Spanish at Timoteo, his smile not wavering.
“I go wait in the car,” said Timoteo and started to leave.
Emma grabbed his arm.
“Aren't you hungry?”
“No,” mumbled Timoteo, breaking away from her grasp.
“The boy is not hungry, señorita,” said the man with the mustache. “Please follow me to your table. You will have our buffet today, yes?”
Emma stood uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then she looked at Timoteo's frayed, buttonless shirt, his jeans and dirty sneakers, his defiant black face. She understood.
“Come on,” said Emma, taking his hand in hers. “Let's go. I'm not hungry either.”
Timoteo, a puzzled expression on his face, let her lead him back to the car.
“How come you didn't eat?” he said finally as they got back into the car.
“I decided to start a diet. I can stand to lose a few pounds.”
“Americans are all crazy,” snorted the boy.
“Let's see if we can find the marina,” said Emma, still furious at the way the man at the buffet had treated Timoteo.
They drove back along the way they came, turning this time onto the road marked BEACH, VILLAS R—s. Fifteen minutes later they had passed the pristine, thinly populated beach, a dozen clay tennis courts, and a modern building that housed a restaurant and a discotheque. Nowhere was there a sign of any boats.
“You said there were boats here,” said Emma. “Where are they?”
“I can't remember.”
“What about that other resort? Altar del Sol? What's there?”
Timoteo shrugged.
“Okay, let's go see,” said Emma.
They drove back the way they had come, back through the lovely landscaped vistas of Las Calvos, which now seemed strangely cold. When they reached the road on which they had been traveling before, they turned and followed the arrow on the sign that read ALTAR DEL SOL.
Ten minutes later the road began to rise. Emma didn't ask Timoteo any more questions, just followed the road, hoping that Altar del Sol would have a gas station. Their tank was half empty. Unless they found fuel somewhere, they'd never get back to San Marcos City.
Long before the canopy of trees thinned out, Emma had realized that they were on a mountain. Were they going the right way? Timoteo obviously didn't know. He was sitting on his knees, staring out the window, wide-eyed.
As they neared the peak, stone walls began to appear everywhere,
then stone buildings—or what was left of them. Finally the narrow road ended at a plateau at the mountain's top in the ruins of an ancient city. Emma parked in a small parking area where there were several other cars. Far ahead on the side of one of the stone buildings she could see some Japanese people taking pictures of one another with fancy cameras.
Timoteo had gone off to the side, where there were several wooden signs with lengthy Spanish inscriptions, the kind Emma had seen before in national parks.
“People used to live here,” Timoteo exclaimed as she caught up with him, looking up from the words he had been reading. “These are their houses. It was many hundreds of years ago and they are all dead now.”
“Does it say if they left any gas stations behind?”
“This mountain is called Altar del Sol after their city,” said Timoteo. “I have come here before many times.”
“Sure you have.” Emma sighed.
“Come on,” yelled Timoteo, running ahead. “Let's go see!”
Timoteo dashed down the stone path along an ancient wall and was quickly out of sight. Emma followed, hands in her pockets, depressed and hungry.
When she caught up with the boy he was standing on top of the thick curving wall wearing an enormous grin. What could he possibly be so happy about? Emma wondered.
“Look,” said Timoteo as if he had read her thoughts.
Emma looked down over the wall in the direction he was pointing. There, far below, as far as the eye could see, the ocean stretched out blue and beautiful, and at the base of the mountain the water was filled with hundreds of boats, white boats, like a forgotten yet familiar field of snow.
 
 
I
t took nearly forty minutes on the twisty ill-maintained road—including a stop for directions in Spanish from a man herding a flock of goats—for Emma and Timoteo to wend their way back down the mountain and find the small natural harbor where the boats were moored.
A chain-link fence eight feet tall surrounded the marina, but the gates were open and unattended. Emma drove in and parked in the small sandy area alongside the few other vehicles. A few men—boat owners by the look of their tans—were chatting in the parking lot and doing maintenance on the decks of their vessels. None of them seemed to pay her and Timoteo any mind.
Emma had now lost all the weight she wanted to and was ready for lunch. She was also seriously in the market for a bathroom, a problem Timoteo didn't have. Half an hour back he had told her to stop the car, then nonchalantly gotten out and done his business at the side of the road.
Timoteo didn't have to be coaxed out of the car this time, as he had had to be at Las Calvos. Before Emma could extricate herself
from her seat belt, the boy had run out onto the nearest dock and was studying the snow-white boats moored all around. There were all kinds—everything from tiny single-masted sailboats to enormous cabin cruisers with teak decks and radar detectors half the size of Emma's rented car.
“See?” said Timoteo, his chin high with pride. “I told you I would take you to find boats.”
“Like you ever heard of this place?” exclaimed Emma.
“Timoteo comes here often,” declared the boy. “He has many friends with big pleasure boats. All the time they take him for rides in the ocean.”
Emma shook her head. Her little companion was incorrigible. Before she could stop him he had run off into the maze of docks. Emma was too tired to follow at comparable speed. In a moment Timoteo was out of sight behind the forest of bobbing white vessels.
It was nearly ten minutes before she caught up with him again. When she did, the boy was sitting in a canvas-back chair on the deck of one of the smaller boats. He was wearing somebody's blue-and-red Cleveland Indians baseball cap and looked uncharacteristically nervous. The source of his concern was instantly evident.
The man was seated beside Timoteo—a stocky brute about five feet ten with a totally shaved head and graying eyebrows bushy enough for a community of small creatures to make their home in. He wore green Bermuda shorts and a grubby white T-shirt that did nothing to conceal his enormous belly. In one hand he held a baseball bat at its center, which he slowly thumped against the palm of his other hand. It was clear from the expression in the bald man's tiny brown eyes, presently fixed on Timoteo, that he was even more annoyed than Emma was.
“See?” shouted Timoteo indignantly as he saw Emma approach. “I told you. I told you!”
“Shut up,” ordered the man, his voice somewhere between a
bullfrog's and a collie's. He glanced over at Emma, not taking his eyes off the boy for more than a split second. “How'd you two get in here?”
Emma tried to smile. When in trouble, smile, her grandfather had always counseled. A smile, Pépé had declared, was the “irresistible flower of the face.”
“The gate was open,” Emma said. “We just drove in.”
“What about Julio?” barked the man with the shaved head. The flower of his particular face was Venus flytrap.
“Who's Julio?”
“He's supposed to be the guard, the lazy bum. I oughta break his head.”
“There weren't any signs,” said Emma. “Nobody said anything. If we're trespassing, I assure you it wasn't intentional.”
“Kid claims he works for you,” said the man. “Says he's your assistant. That right?”
“I'm afraid so,” said Emma evenly.
The man broke into a yellow-toothed smile.
“I was admiring his hat. We don't get many Cleveland Indian fans down here. Barry Castleman's the only one I know. He's got his boat moored over in B-twenty-three, right near where I found your little friend here. In fact, he's got the exact same hat. I've seen him wear it about a million times.”
“What an interesting coincidence,” said Emma, glaring at Timoteo. “I'm sure Timoteo would love to talk to this Mr. Castleman. He's a great Cleveland fan, too. Aren't you, Timoteo?”
“Yeah,” mumbled the boy.
“Thing is, Castleman's out playing golf today,” the bald man went on in his distinctive growl. “But maybe we could just go over and wait for him. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. Barry's such a hospitable guy, he's always forgetting to lock his boat.”
“I don't think that will be necessary, Mr … ?”
“Garr. Sid Garr. I run this marina.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Garr. I'm Emma Passant.”
“Yeah. Your assistant here tells me you're a famous magician.”
“Oh, he did, did he?”
“Yeah. He says this is yours.”
Still holding the baseball bat in one hand, Sid reached down and picked up a chrome-plated Art Deco ice bucket.
“Part of the act, huh?” he chortled. “Funny—Barry Castleman's got one just like this, too.”
Emma didn't say anything. She was too angry to speak.
“I think maybe it's time for me to call the policía.”
“The ice bucket is mine,” said Emma after a moment, seeing the panic in Timoteo's eyes. “You're right. It's part of my act.”
“Yeah?” said Garr. “Then you won't mind showing me. I ain't been getting much entertainment since Madonna walked out and left me for a younger guy. Come aboard.”
Timoteo tried to rise from his chair on the boat, but the big man pushed him back.
“I didn't do nothing,” he muttered, hanging his head.
Emma ignored him and stepped carefully from the dock onto the boat. There were witnesses all around. It wasn't as if Sid Garr could whack her over the head with his baseball bat and toss her into the water. Could he?
“May I?” Emma said, reaching out her hand when the boat stopped rocking.
“Sure,” said Sid, handing her the ice bucket. “This I gotta see.”
Emma took off the bucket's top, turned it over and placed it upside down on Timoteo's head.
“Hold on to to this,” she said to the boy. “Use both hands.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Timoteo warily raised his hands and placed them on either side of the ice bucket. Garr watched in unconcealed amusement.
“Are you holding it tightly?” Emma asked Timoteo.
“Yeah,” said the boy.
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
Emma gave the bucket a sharp whap with her open hand.
“Hey!” yelped Timoteo, looking up with surprise.
“Don't let that fall off your head,” ordered Emma.
“But you—”
“Now, open your mouth and say ‘aaah.'”
Timoteo looked at her with a puzzled expression.
“You want me to leave you here with Mr. Garr?”
“Aaaah,” said Timoteo.
Emma put three knuckles of her fist into the boy's mouth and whapped the ice bucket on his head again with her other hand, even harder this time. When she pulled her fist out of the boy's mouth it was full of pesos—a colorful pile of notes in every denomination.
“Hey! How you do that?” cried Timoteo with new respect, turning the bucket over and scrutinizing it for remainders. “Do it again! Make more money appear from my mouth!”
Emma had practiced the art of palming for years during down moments in restaurant jobs, experimenting with everything from meager tips to toasted bagels. She had never found much use for the skill in her act, however. Making Sweet'n Low appear from thin air in a Greek joint was pure magic. Onstage it just seemed like a trick.
“I wonder if I could persuade you to keep this, Mr. Garr,” said Emma, handing the stack of pesos to the bald man. She wouldn't have used nearly as much money had she had a chance to count it off properly from the wad in her pocket.
“You trying to buy me off?”
“Not at all. Why don't you just think of it as kind of a souvenir?”
“A souvenir,” said Garr, taking the bills. “I like that. That's real creative. Hey, you're okay, honey.”
“And maybe you could give these to that Mr. Castleman,” said Emma, snatching the ice bucket from Timoteo and handing it
over to Garr, together with the stolen baseball cap. “It sounds like he might appreciate them.”
“I'll do that,” said Garr, storing both items in his armpit and putting down his baseball bat so he could put his “souvenir” in his pocket.
“How you do that? How you do that?” said Timoteo. “Teach me. Teach me.”
“You just be quiet for a minute or I'll turn you into a toad.” Timoteo shut up.
“I appreciate your consideration in this, Mr. Garr.”
“No sweat,” said Garr amicably. “I appreciate yours.”
“Actually, if you're in charge here, then you're the man I came to see.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I'm looking for a boat.”
“Well, we got plenty of 'em. What kind of boat you want?”
“Well, it's sort of a long story … Is it possible for me to use your bathroom first?”
“Sure, it's possible. I just don't know if you'd want to, that's all.”
“I'd want to, believe me.”
“Thing is, it ain't exactly the most elegant facility in the world,” said Sid, a blush racing up his fat face, over his bushy eyebrows and across the vast expanse of his naked head. “Now that Madonna's moved out, I mean. She kinda cleaned it more oftener than I did, if you catch my drift.”
Emma closed her eyes in pain at the thought of it, but didn't say anything.
“In the bow,” said Sid. “Down the stairs. Don't step on the cat. I already stepped on him once today. He don't like it.”
“Thank you,” said Emma.
“Okay, I meet you at the car,” said Timoteo, rising from his chair. Garr caught him by the arm.
“You stay here with me.”
Garr and Timoteo were still sitting in awkward silence when she returned from the facilities a few moments later, only slightly worse for wear.
“So what boat you want to know about?” grunted Garr, looking almost happy to see her. He clearly had no idea of what to do with a ten-year-old.
“It might not be here now, but it was somewhere on San Marcos about thirty years ago.”
“Thirty years ago? You must be kidding. Thirty years ago I was a candy-ass kid learning boiler maintenance from the U.S. Navy.”
“Aren't there records you can check that go back that far?”
“Sorry. Marina's only fourteen years old.”
“Well, maybe it was still around when the marina opened,” said Emma hopefully. “Boats live a long time, don't they?”
“Sometimes. If they're maintained okay. What's the name of this tub?”
“The
Kaito Spirit.”
“Never heard of it. It's not here now, that's for sure.”
“Can you check your records? It's very important to me. I've come all the way from San Francisco to find it.”
“San Francisco, huh?” said Garr, his thick lips curling into the wicked yellow semblance of a smile. “Nice town. I knew a broad once in San Francisco … well, never mind. But she was okay.”
“Can you check?”
“Yeah, I guess. Come on. Keep an eye on light-fingered Louie there.”
“Timoteo. My name is Timoteo.”
Garr struggled to his feet and led the way onto the dock and back toward the gate where they had come in. Several men in shorts, boat owners from the look of them, nodded to Garr as they walked through the marina. The bald man acknowledged them with grunts. Emma walked directly behind Timoteo, with
her hand on his shoulder, though the boy showed no apparent inclination to escape.
Eventually they came to a small wooden shack along the outer fence, a few hundred yards past the parking lot. The shack had no windows and was painted white. The padlock which was supposed to secure the door was open and hung uselessly from the side of the latch.
Garr, his bushy eyebrows colliding angrily in the center of his face, yanked the door open. Out fell a man who Emma could only assume was Julio, judging by the guilty expression on his face as he hit the ground and woke up. He had been sleeping upright on a chair. The shack wasn't large enough to contain much more than Julio, his rifle, and a few stacks of books.

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