Life During Wartime

flexed their bone-white claws and scuttled from beneath a jetty into the kelp fringe at the margin of the shore; a crane stepped with Egyptian poise through a reflecting film of water overlying a sand bar. Roosters crowed, call and response, Skinks scurried into the beach vine. A fisherman in shorts and a red hard hat poled a dory past, heading for the channel. Tied to a coco palm, a spotted hog rooted in the mucky sand not far from a compound wall of green cinderblock inset with a wooden gate. And Mingolla sat on a palm stump about fifty feet seaward from the hog, holding a baby hummingbird in his hand. Bottle green with a ruby throat, barely the size of his thumb joint.

Angry voices from farther down the beach, where Izaguirre and Tully were arguing. ’… no reason,’ was all Mingolla could hear.

A live jewel in his palm, the hummingbird throbbed with life, with anxiety, its throat pulsing. Mingolla had searched for its nest, but with no luck. He wished he could do something for the hummingbird; he couldn’t just leave it on the sand.

‘Shit!’ said Tully, waving his hand.

Izaguirre stood with his arms folded.

Mingolla wondered if he could calm the hummingbird down. He touched its mind cautiously, feeling the electrical contact as a tiny fire flickering at the edges of his thought, one that winked off abruptly. The hummingbird’s throat had quit pulsing.

‘All right, mon! You won’t hear no more ’bout it from me!’

Tully came stomping up, dropped onto the sand beside him, and Mingolla closed his fist around the hummingbird. It was warm, its beak stabbing his palm. A shiver passed through him, the ghost of an emotion.

‘Ever stop and t’ink dat dis damn war make no sense,’ said Tully grumpily.

Mingolla reached behind him, scooped a hollow in the sand, and gave the hummingbird a surreptitious burial.

‘I mean here dere’s war’—Tully swiped at the sand—‘and here dere’s none.’ He made another swipe next to the first one. ‘And damn fools are sendin’ other damn fools to do t’ings nobody have any business doin’.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Mingolla asked.

‘Dat Cifuentes squint was messin’ wit’ you…’

‘Yeah?’

‘Dey goin’ to send you after her, send you into de Peten to bring her back for interrogation.’ Tully sighed, exasperated. ‘I say to Izaguirre, “Mon, dat’s a waste of dis boy’s talent. He got better t’ings he can be doin’.” But de doctor he say dat’s how it goin’ to be.’

‘That’s fine with me,’ said Mingolla. ‘Just fine.’

Tully looked at him askance. ‘Don’t sound like you care much fah her.’

‘I care a lot,’ said Mingolla in a dead voice, watching grackles swoop out of the high sun like bits of winged matter blown from its core. A vulture landed with a crunch in a palm top.

‘You gettin’ strange, Davy,’ said Tully. ‘Gotta watch that.’

‘You ever hear words when you touch somebody’s mind?’ Mingolla asked.

‘Words? Not’in’ like dat… but I do hear ’bout one fella say he got words one time, just a little bit. Why you axin’?’

‘I had a dream ’bout it.’

‘What kinda dream?’ Tully was more than a little interested.

Mingolla shrugged, thought back to his hallucination, wondering if his communication with the Christian girl had been evidence of something or just a fantasy. ‘Weren’t you going to brief me on the Iron Barrio?’

Another sigh, and Tully pulled some papers from his hip pocket. ‘Yeah, all right. Dese here de plans, but ’fore you scan dem we better talk ’bout gettin’ in. Ain’t no big trick to that. De whores dat live dere…’

‘Whores?’

‘Oh, yeah. Lotsa people in de Barrio dey got family on de outside dat’s hostage, and to earn some extra money, de prison guards dey send some of de women out to work the street. Dey know de women ain’t goin’ to be ’scapin’ long as dere family have to pay de cost.’

Voices behind them.

A squat black man and a small boy were walking from the compound gate; the man was carrying a machete and a pistol.

‘Look like Spurgeon ’bout to slaughter he hog,’ said Tully. ‘Anyway, dere dis one whore… Alvina Guzman. De other prisoners treat her special ’cause her father Hermeto Guzman, de one who led de Army of de Poor up in Guatemala. Dey bot’ heroes to people in de Barrio. So you hook up wit’ her, and t’ings should go smooth.’

The hog watched the man’s approach, grunting softly as if expecting a treat. The man stopped half-a-dozen feet away and broke down the pistol.

‘You won’t have no trouble trackin’ her. Most nights she be in one of de bars on La Avenida de la Republica.’

Mingolla touched the hog’s mind, found it strong, and hovered at its edges.

‘We goin’ to give you some drugs for to barter, for to…’

‘Why? I can just take over whoever I need.’

‘Dat ain’t always de best way. Y’can’t take over everybody. And dem dat’s watchin’, dey might be gettin’ suspicious ’bout how come you havin’ such an easy time.’

The man snapped the cylinder of the pistol into place, and the boy said something in a high piping voice.

‘I won’t ’vise you how to deal wit’ it from dat point on. But gettin’ in ain’t a problem. You can handle de guards fine.’ Tully elbowed him. ‘Hey, mon! Listen up! T’ought you wanted dis briefin’.’

A shot rang out, and Tully jumped. But Mingolla, who had been anticipating it, gave no sign of having heard.

The afternoon before he left for La Ceiba, Mingolla closeted himself in his room, intending to read awhile and fall asleep early. He read the title story of The Fictive Boarding House again, lingering over his favorite parts, the description of the building itself, with its ancient swimming pool whose waters were so filthy that it looked like a lozenge of jade, and its owner, the old Korean man who sat in his wheelchair all day writing characters on strips of paper and tying them for luck to the vines in his garden, and the maid Serenita, the last survivor of the contract, whose final moments scripted the author’s death. It was odd, he thought, that the same author could write two stories that had such opposite effects upon him, because the story about the two feuding families continued to rankle him. However, he managed to read it all the way through this time and was disgusted to find that the plot went unresolved. He tossed the book into his dufflebag, put a pillow over his face, and tried to sleep. But sleep did not come, and finally, giving up the idea, he went for a walk on the beach, watching sunset casting wild glitters over the sea, fading to a rippling line of gold drawn across the empurpled water within the reef. Darkness, and he sat down by the hotel wall, gazing up at the pale lumps of cloud cruising among the stars and whacking the sand with a stick.

‘Best you not hit a toad wit’ dat stick,’ said a girl’s voice.

Elizabeth was walking toward him through the palm shadows, her white church dress aglow with striped moonlight, holding a hymnal. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘Dat a cassava stick,’ she said. ‘You hit a toad wit’ it, and dey will run you off de island.’

He laughed. ‘I’ll try to avoid it.’

‘Not’in’ funny ’bout it,’ she said. ‘Dis very thing have happen to Nadia Dilbert’s boy last year. De toads spray milk at him, make he life not worth livin’.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ he said, matching her graveness.

She came a few steps closer, and his eyes went to the cushy swell of her breasts backing the lace bodice.

‘Where’s your friend?’ he asked.

‘You mean Nancy? She off wit’ some boy.’ She glanced behind her. ‘I guess I’ll be…’

‘Stay and talk a minute.’

‘Oh, I can’t be late for church.’

Mingolla opened her to the possibility of tardiness, projecting desire. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘Just a minute or two.’