“Matteo es muy hermoso,” Elena offered, smiling knowingly.
All Helen understood of that was “Matteo is.” She put on a blank expression and turned her hands palm upward to indicate ignorance.
“Hermoso,” Elena repeated, stroking her face with both hands lovingly.
Matteo needs a shave? Helen wondered. No, that couldn’t be it. Matteo is...something. He is shaving? She mimed the activity to Elena, who shook her head disgustedly, standing and posing, turning from side to side as if admired by a crowd.
I don’t believe this, Helen thought. I’ve come fifteen hundred miles and been shot at by the Puerta Lindan police so I can play charades.
She shrugged to indicate bafflement.
“Hermoso,” Elena said again, louder, frustrated by Helen’s stupidity. “¿Lindo, si?”
At this point Matteo strode into the room, since Elena had left the door open and he could see the two women inside. Helen was glad of Elena’s presence; she felt awkward seeing him in the light of day after their last encounter and jumped in to ask, “Matteo, can you tell me what Elena is trying to say? She keeps repeating that you’re hermoso, or something like that, and she obviously expects me to react to it.”
Matteo fixed Elena with a baleful stare, and the older woman burst out laughing. Helen knew immediately that she had made a mistake.
“What does it mean?” she asked in a small voice, her curiosity outweighing her judgment.
“Good looking,” Matteo said, sighing. “Handsome. I think our landlady was preparing to enumerate my virtues for you, lining you up for the hard sell. She thinks if I got married and started producing babies my life would be complete.”
“Maybe she has a point,” Helen said softly. “And you are hermoso. Very hermoso.”
Elena had been following the conversation from the tone of their voices, and she slapped Helen on the back approvingly, which almost sent her flying across the room.
Matteo decided it was time to intervene. He cleaned off the tray Elena had brought and handed her the empty, saying, “Thank you, Elena, it’s been real. Goodbye, good luck and God bless.”
Helen was laughing when the older woman left, and she said to Matteo, “I can’t believe the way you talk. If I didn’t know better and I didn’t hear that little accent every now and then, I’d swear you were an American.”
His reaction was not what she expected. He studied her soberly for a few seconds and then answered, “There are others who would agree with you. And it hasn’t made me very popular in some quarters.”
She could tell that she had touched on a sore subject and asked quietly, “How do you mean?”
Matteo sat on the cane chair and took a sip of Helen’s coffee, grimacing at its bitterness. “Elena’s been cutting this with too much chicory,” he commented, before answering Helen’s question. He drew his finger around the rim of the cup and said thoughtfully, “There’s a faction among the rebels that would like to see me replaced.”
“Replaced?”
He nodded. “They know that I was educated in the U.S. and had spent more time there than in Puerta Linda by the time I reached adulthood. They want someone who never ‘deserted’ his country to be their leader.”
“Who is they?”
Matteo bent his head, staring into the cup. The bright morning sunlight filtering through the window turned his hair into a burnished ebony helmet, dark and gleaming.
“Well, actually, it’s only one man, but he has others who would follow him if it came to that. He’s one of my best, too, Vicente Olmos. I can tell that he’s biding his time, waiting for the right moment to turn on me and seize command for himself.”
“But if he wants what you want, a new government for Puerta Linda, why does he waste his energy on divisive action that will only weaken your group internally?”
Matteo rose, putting the cup down and jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You don’t understand about the egos involved here, Helen. Olmos has lost sight of the larger issue; he sees only that he’s more suitable for my position than I am. Or so he thinks. He’s strong too, a tireless fighter, and he’s lived in Puerta Linda all his life. He knows there’s anti-American feeling in the camp, and he plays on it, calling me ‘nuestro jefe americano—’ our American leader.’ He says I talk like an American, act like an American and think like an American.”
“Lucky for him that you do,” Helen responded fiercely. “Lucky for all of them. They’ll be free one day because you think like an American.”
He stared at her, smiling gradually, and then put his hands on her shoulders, putting his cheek against her hair. “You’re good for me; do you know that?”
“Am I?” she whispered.
“Yes, you are. Anyway, don’t worry about Olmos. He’s too afraid of me to do anything, and unless his greed for power outweighs his fear he won’t be a threat.”
Helen could well understand that the other man might fear Matteo. As gentle as he was with her, she remembered his reaction when the mailman had arrived, and at the airport, and knew that he could be deadly. She shivered slightly and he stepped back, looking down at her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just thinking about the trip ahead. How far is it to your camp?”
“I got the directions last night from Esteban. If we leave now we should make it by nightfall, but some of the way will be on foot.”
“You need directions to get to your own camp?”
“It’s moved every few days in order to hide it from government troops.”
“But they find you anyway, don’t they?”
“Sometimes. They’re always looking.” He glanced around the room. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Elena packed us some food, and Esteban fueled up the bike this morning. Let’s go.”
As they walked down the stairs Helen said, “I still feel bad about stealing that bike.”
Matteo halted. “If it will make you feel better, after this is over I’ll try to track down the owner and send him the money for it, okay?”
“Will you really?”
“I said I’ll try.”
“I guess you think I’m silly. I mean, I realize that you probably steal cars and boats and things all the time, but I don’t, and well...”
“I don’t think you’re silly. And as I told you once before, I’m not a thief. But I do what’s... necessary.”
Yes, he did, Helen thought, as he called Elena and Esteban to say goodbye. He always did what was necessary, and that knowledge caused a chill to set in around her heart, belying the stifling heat of the Puerta Lindan day.
Elena hugged Helen goodbye, and Esteban shook hands with her solemnly, like an ambassador bidding farewell to a foreign dignitary. The sun was already scorching as they climbed onto the bike, and Helen began to wish for a return of the rain. At least it provided a temporary cooling effect, and she had a feeling that before long she would think that any relief was welcome.
She was right. Matteo drove steadily for hours, always climbing, and the sun beat down on her back like the hammers of hell. It was rough going, too, as he kept off the main roads and often took tracks that were little more than well used footpaths. By the time he stopped for lunch she was sunburned and thirsty, and her insides felt like jelly. He pulled the bike into a shaded area and helped her off it. Helen sat immediately, folding her legs under her and closing her eyes.
“You don’t look so hot,” he said, bending down to peer into her face.
“I am very hot, thank you very much,” she replied, not opening her eyes.
“I mean it,” he insisted, squatting next to her and handing her a thermos. “Take a drink. Why didn’t you tell me to stop?”
“I know how important it is for you to get back to your men,” she answered, swallowing the water he gave her.
“Hey. Listen. Nothing is more important to me than you. Got that?”
“I got it,” she answered, as he r
eached into his pocket and withdrew a white paper packet.
“Salt pills,” he said, offering her two of them. “They’ll help prevent dehydration. You’re just not used to this climate, and it can be a killer.”
Helen swallowed the pills dutifully, wondering how he could look so fit and hale after the ride they’d just had. And he was the one who had taken a bullet a short time ago, not her.
Matteo got up and unstrapped the pack he had carried on the back of the bike, taking out a bottle of lotion and handing it to her.
“You’re already burned,” he said. “Elena gave this to me; you should have put some on before we left. Your skin is like linen and you’re cooking.”
“What a charming analogy,” Helen replied, as he poured some into his hand and daubed it on her face. It was blessedly cool and smelled heavenly.
“That’s wonderful,” she said dreamily. “What is it?”
“Coconut oil, palm oil, some other things.”
“It smells like candy.”
He chuckled. “That’s the coconut. We have many uses for it, some of them not so savory. Have you ever had a dulce de leche?”
“A what?” she asked, almost purring as his strong fingers stroked the lotion along her throat.
“Dulce de leche. It means ‘sweetness of milk,’ and it’s a drink made with coconut milk and rum. It doesn’t taste alcoholic at all, and you can just keep belting them down until, before you know it, you’re dead drunk. It’s a great favorite with the locals, who like to feed them to the tourists and then take various forms of advantage.”
Helen laughed, beginning to feel immeasurably better as he lifted her hair and applied the lotion to her back above the deep V of her blouse.
“I think I’d like to try one of those,” she said, smiling.
“Then you will. When all this is over, I’ll take you dancing, and you can sip dulce de leches under the stars.”
When all this is over, Helen thought. Would it ever be over? For him?
“Matt?” she said as he shook more lotion into his palm and smoothed it over the exposed skin of her arms.
“Hmm?” he replied, not looking up, absorbed by his task.
“Do you think we’re going to get out of this?”
He raised his head, saw the expression in her eyes. “You are, majita. I’m going to make sure of it.”
“And what about you?” she asked, searching his face.
“I’m in it for the duration, Helen. You know that.”
She dropped her eyes, following the motion of his hands. Why did she keep asking him the same question? Did she think that just once the answer would change?
“Just the front is left,” he said, handing her the bottle. “You can do that.”
“You do it,” she replied, giving it back to him.
He stared at her, saw the seductive challenge in her eyes. Sparks kindled in his, and he spread another pool of lotion onto his fingers, slipping them across her collarbone and the tops of her shoulders. The front of the blouse had a deep round neck, and he stroked lower and lower, teasing her. When he finally reached into the cup of her bra, his big hand engulfing her breast, she moaned and her head fell forward, her hair draping over his arm.
The bottle dropped from his hand and he lifted her into his lap. Helen lay back in his arms, reaching to pull him down to her as he kissed her. The noonday sun filtered through the trees, making patterns on the two figures sprawled upon the ground. In seconds they were as lost as they had been the night before, and Matteo was reaching behind Helen to undo the buttons at the back of her blouse.
She arched her back to accommodate him, and in moving she scraped the burned skin of her arm across the rocky soil beneath her. She cried out, and Matteo sat up, looking around them.
“What is it?” he said, scanning the trees. “Did you hear something?”
“No, I just hurt my arm.”
He looked down at her, lying across his thighs, and suddenly seemed to realize what they were doing. He picked her up bodily and set her against the trunk of a tree, standing himself and walking a short distance away from her.
“Now,” he said in a slightly unsteady voice. “You stay there and I’ll stay over here, or else we won’t get to the camp today, and we might not get there at all. Understood?”
“Si, mi jefe,” she replied, saluting smartly.
“That isn’t funny,” he said, removing two sandwiches from the backpack and tossing her one. “Now eat your lunch like a good girl and try not to taste Elena’s trademark meatloaf. She thinks it’s an American dish, and I’ve never had the heart to tell her it’s like nothing I’ve ever tasted on this planet, much less in the States.”
Helen took a bite, and had to agree that the filling in the sandwich bore little resemblance to meatloaf. It did, however, have a disturbing likeness to the Wednesday night special at her secondary boarding school. The students had referred to it as mystery meat. They had it on good authority that it had been responsible for the deaths of several students over the years. Helen wondered briefly how Elena had managed to get the recipe from the Parsons School for Girls in Concord, New Hampshire, and then dismissed the coincidence as one of life’s little ironies.
“What are you smiling at?” Matteo asked.
“I was just thinking that this tastes like a dish I used to have at my old boarding school,” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah, institutional food is pretty bad. In college we sent out for pizza every night. It’s a wonder we didn’t all have rickets.”
“What’s an engineering major like?” she asked curiously. “What kind of courses did you take?”
Matteo shrugged. “Physics, mostly.”
Helen shuddered. “I had one physics course, and that was enough. All those problems with people riding bicycles up an incline, into a head wind, with this kind of pull and that kind of drag. How fast were they going? What was the thrust and the slope and the resistance? I never knew.”
He grinned. “That was my favorite type of problem.”
“You could actually solve those things? I would memorize the formulas for the tests, and I thought I was applying them right, but I would always wind up with an answer that had somebody riding a bicycle at the speed of light.”
Matteo laughed. “And then, after having spent forty-five minutes figuring it out, you would hand it in anyway, right?”
She nodded vigorously. “You bet. I was heavily into partial credit. The professor would give you points if you picked the right law of thermodynamics, or whatever, even if you got the wrong answer. I think that’s how I passed.”
“Why were you taking a physics course? That seems an odd choice for an English major.”
Helen made a face. “I had a counselor who told me I had to be well rounded. I was a freshman; what did I know? After that year I decided I would be narrow minded and insular, and my grades improved dramatically.”
He smiled, regarding her with amusement, and Helen thought it was an unusual conversation to be having, with this man, in this place. She could see where his rival would resent the education and the polish that made Matteo seem much more a product of the American culture than his native one. Sometimes, as now, when she talked to him she could forget what he had chosen to do with his life. Then she would be brutally reminded by hearing the harsh tone of his voice when he issued orders or seeing the glint of the sunlight on his gun. At one moment he would seem like a young Manhattan professional at a cocktail party or a gallery opening, and at another like a guerrilla, grimy and armed, looking out at her from the pages of the Sunday supplement. He sat astride his two worlds uneasily, inhabiting both, but completely at home in neither.
“What are you thinking?” he asked suddenly, his tone wary, almost unfriendly.
She blinked. “Why do you ask?”
“You were looking at me so strangely, as if you could see right through me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Tell me what’s on your
mind.”
“I was thinking that your life must be difficult,” she said honestly.
“And yours hasn’t exactly been a party since you met me,” he replied. “I carry so much trouble with me that it clings to those I touch, like pollen.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it, Matteo,” she said softly. “This is an adventure. I’ve never had one before, and probably never will again.”
“Did you think that yesterday when the bullets were flying?”
“Once I realized I was still alive, I did. It’s a tremendous rush, isn’t it, to be in such peril, and then to escape, knowing that you got out of it through your own resources, that you won and ‘they’ lost. I felt exhilarated, totally alive, like I was flying.”
“You felt that, too?” he said softly.
“Oh, yes. There’s nothing else like it, is there?”
“Nothing,” he answered, half smiling, his eyes meeting hers in perfect communication.
Helen felt the heat come up under her skin; the sensation of shared understanding was almost sexual. Then he broke the spell by striding toward her and offering his hands to pull her up. When she was on her feet he led her to the bike.
“We have to get going. The last leg of the trip will be on foot, and I don’t want to be walking through the jungle after dark.”
“Jungle?” Helen said apprehensively.
He leaned over her shoulder and pointed into the distance, where the slope of a mountain could be seen rising into a mist so thick that it was still untouched by the tropical sun.
“La Jungla Azul,” he said softly. “The Blue Jungle.”
“Why blue?”
“The vegetation is so dense that it looks blue from the air. Pilots flying over it named it.”
“Is your camp on that mountain?”
“Part way up the slope. The plants produce about half the oxygen used in the whole country.”
“Are you sure you can find the camp? The trees all look... the same.”
He chuckled. “Spoken like a city girl. I can find it, majita, never fear.” He handed her Elena’s thermos and said, “Have another drink. And I’ve got candy bars. If you feel weak or faint, tell me. Eating one should take care of it.”
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