World's Scariest Places: Volume Two

by Bates, Jeremy

  “I believe so. They measure a person’s intelligence.”

  Dr. Cavazos nodded. “You can’t study for them. They test how individuals solve brand new problems, both verbal and visual. Does the word ‘idiot’ or ‘imbecile’ or ‘moron’ mean anything to you?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “In the psychiatric community, those with an IQ between zero and twenty-five are referred to as idiots. They can’t respond to stimuli or communicate with any level of competency. Those with an IQ between twenty-six and fifty are termed imbeciles. They are stalled mentally at about six years of age. And those with an IQ between fifty-one and seventy are termed morons. Morons can communicate with others and learn common tasks, though they often need specific instruction or guidance.” Dr. Cavazos retrieved a chart from the shelf behind her and placed it on the desk, facing Patricia. It was divided into several different sections, the bottom one labeled idiot, the top, genius. “Here is a representation of where most students score.” She pointed to the range between ninety and one hundred ten. “On both visual and verbal problem-solving, however, María scored here.” She pointed to seventy. “For example, when I asked her how a banana, apple, and orange are alike, she said, ‘Pear.’ That’s not quite…it’s related to what I said…but it misses the point that they are all fruit.”

  Patricia didn’t know how much more of this she wanted to hear, and she said, “Please just say what you have to say, Dr. Cavazos.”

  “Well, the good news is that María isn’t functioning at the level of an idiot or imbecile.”

  “But she’s not normal either. She’s…what did you say? A moron?”

  Dr. Cavazos nodded. “She can take care of herself. She doesn’t have any physical challenges. She has some typical life skills. But, yes, she does fall into the moron range.”

  Patricia swallowed the tightness in her throat. “Well, how long is this…this phase…going to last? How long until she grows out of it?”

  The psychologist hesitated. “In my experience, Mrs. Diaz, it isn’t a phase, and one doesn’t grow out of it.”

  Patricia stared blankly. What was this woman telling her? María wasn’t just developing slowly. She was in fact…what was the word people used…feebleminded? “I’ll spend more time with her at home,” she said softly, quickly. “I’ll help her—”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Diaz,” Dr. Cavazos said. “What afflicts María is not something you can ‘fix.’ Now, don’t get me wrong,” she added. “María can and will continue to learn and add to her skillset. She can love and be loved—”

  “But if she continues to fall further behind her classmates, how is she going to graduate? How will she cope in high school? How will she ever get a job?”

  The psychologist leaned forward. “I don’t think you understand fully what I am saying, Mrs. Diaz. María will never graduate. She will never attend high school, or college for that matter. And she will almost certainly never hold a job. She is going to need special care.”

  “For the rest of her life?”

  “That’s correct. But thankfully there are special schools where she can get the help she needs, and where she will be among others like her, where she will no longer be singled out and bullied.”

  Patricia felt all of a sudden hot and woozy at the same time. Then she began to cry. “It’s my fault. Her birth, it went on for far too long. I wasn’t pushing right. She was distressed. The doctor had to perform a caesarian section…”

  “No, Mrs. Diaz. María’s ailment is not the result of something you did or didn’t do, so don’t blame yourself.”

  “Oh dear me…my María…my poor María…”

  “I know how hard all this must be for you to take in, Mrs. Diaz. I know how hard it was for me to tell you—”

  Patricia stood decisively. “Where is María right now?”

  “She should be in class, I imagine.”

  “Would you please fetch her for me? Tell her I’ll be waiting out front the school. I’d like to spend some time with her.”

  2

  María burst out the front doors, her book bag slung over her shoulder, Angela gripped in one hand.

  That doll, Patricia thought with vitriol. I never should have let her keep that doll. Maybe if I’d put my foot down years ago, maybe she wouldn’t be…

  “Mamma!” María said, her face lighting up. “Why are you at school?”

  Patricia knelt on the pavement and opened her arms wide. María crashed into her, hugging her tightly—and in that moment Patricia realized her daughter was the same daughter she had always known, and she would continue to love her, she had a duty to love her, feebleminded or not. “I thought you would like some ice cream,” she said, brushing fresh tears from her eyes. “Would you like some ice cream?”

  “Yes, please! Can I have chocolate? Can I have chocolate? Can I?”

  “You can have anything you want, sweetheart.”

  “What about after? Do I have to go back to school after?”

  Patricia stood and took her child’s hand. “That’s something we’re going to talk about.”

  Elizaveta

  1

  Not long after Jack and the others left, a mild wind picked up, and the slate-gray sky began to spit. Then, maybe twenty minutes after that, the sky let loose, unleashing torrents of driving rain, which now plinked against the hut’s corrugated iron roof, sounding like a carnival Wheel of Fortune at the height of its spin. Elizaveta sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against a support post. Jesus and Pita were seated across from her. Dolls covered almost every inch of wall behind them, their eyes glinting in the murky half-light, shadows carving hard edges into their round childlike faces.

  The first peal of thunder rolled across the sky. Elizaveta glanced out the hut’s door. Through the swaying trees she could see a section of the canal. It looked to be all foam and spray. No way the boatman was coming back any time soon, she thought. Which meant they would be spending the night on the island, cold and wet. She wondered whether the others had found Rosa’s campground. And if so, had Miguel and Lucinda been there? Were they okay? Or were they injured, dead, or missing altogether?

  Elizaveta couldn’t believe their newfound circumstances. How had they gotten tied up in a possible murder mystery? This was supposed to be an easy day out. A relaxing cruise down the canals, sun and Mexican food, a lighthearted adventure, that was it.

  They should have listened to the boatman, she knew. They should have shelved the documentary and returned to Cuemanco with him. If they had, she would have been back in the casita, or guesthouse, on the estate in San Angel where she worked as a governess. It was currently home for her. And home was the place you wanted to be during one of Mexico’s summer tropical storms because they could be absolutely vicious. Last month she’d been in Acapulco with Jesus when a tropical storm struck hundreds of miles off Mexico’s Pacific Coast. While the resort they were staying at continued to operate normally, most of the outlying neighborhoods lost access to power and water. Streets turned into gushing rivers while landslides shut down highways. On the low-income periphery of the city, steep hills funneled rainwater into neighborhoods of cinderblock homes, washing many away. During the drive to the airport, which had also flooded, Elizaveta had seen people with picks and shovels digging in mounds of mud and rubble, perhaps for buried friends and relatives.

  That was one thing Mexico and Russia had in common, she thought: endemic poverty. The difference was that the poor in Mexico took it in stride and were for the most part content and upbeat, while the poor in Russia were angry, bitter, always grumbling about how bad things were.

  Elizaveta had been born on Vasilyevsky Island in Saint Petersburg. Her parents were both journalists, critical of the Cold War and the oppressive authoritarian regime in power at the time. Consequently, the KGB kept them under constant watch. Elizaveta remembered a small Russian-made Lada would follow their car around the city, and a man in a dark suit would always seem to be wherever they
went, keeping tabs on them. Her father told her their phones were tapped, their apartment bugged, their mail opened. He also believed their government-provided housekeeper filed frequent reports on them. Then one day when Elizaveta was ten years old she came home from grade school to find the man in the dark suit waiting for her. He told her that her parents had been taken away and she would not see them again, and she never did. The next day she was installed in a state-sponsored orphanage that was like a mini gulag for children. Many infants had fetal alcohol disorders, and it wasn’t uncommon to see them sitting by themselves, staring blankly at nothing, or knocking their heads against the walls. The older children such as herself were frequently mistreated, abused, even “rented out” to local farmers to work on their farms. Needless to say, many of Elizaveta’s Dickensian housemates became psychologically scarred. One girl she got to know well picked up the unhealthy habit of rocking herself to sleep each night, while another rubbed the same part of her head so frequently she went bald there over time.

  Elizaveta left the orphanage at the age of fifteen, in accordance with Soviet guidelines. She moved into a room in a state-subsidized Kommunalka, or communal apartment, in which none of the floors, walls, and pipes seemed to line up right. She shared the kitchen, two toilet closets, and a single bath with six other families. Although the building was warm during winter, it was not uncommon for the heat, or hot water, to shut off without warning—which had happened to her on several minus-thirty-degree days, and which was why she kept a giant jug of water handy so she could flush the toilet or wash dishes if needed.

  The Soviet Union collapsed when Elizaveta was eighteen. Retail stores were routinely empty, and you had to wait in long queues for food supplies. You never threw out a vodka bottle because you could get small change for it at a recycling point. People with PhDs drove taxis, while neighbors banded together to chase off looters.

  For the next four years Elizaveta pursued a university degree in education, focusing on English, French, and Spanish. She had grown sick of her homeland—sick of the daily indignities, the endless prostitution of everybody and everything—and her plan was to move to Western Europe or the United States. Upon graduating, however, she discovered there were few legal channels for low-paid employment abroad such as teaching. Elizaveta considered simply getting on a plane to the West with the intention of never returning—the Russian Federation was not the USSR; you were no longer persecuted or imprisoned if you applied for a visa—yet she hesitated. If she violated her visa regulations, she would not have any legal status in her new country, which was why most Russian women who attempted such an escape ended up trafficked as sex workers.

  In the end Elizaveta accepted a job in an elementary school in Saint Petersburg, where she taught for several years. Life in the new Russia improved slightly, but a pair of sneakers were still something you showed off, and a VCR was still a luxury far out of her reach. Then, in 1997, when she was twenty-five years old, her close friend, Olga, who worked as a nanny for a wealthy family, told her the family was moving to Mexico—and interviewing for a governess of Russian nationality who could speak Spanish.

  2

  Elizaveta folded her arms more tightly across her chest, to ward off the damp chill in the hut. She told herself to be positive. She shouldn’t be thinking about being back in San Angel. They’d made their decision not to return with the boatman to Cuemanco, they couldn’t change that, so they had to deal with the situation the best they could. Besides, who would have thought the weather would have deteriorated so implacably and quickly?

  Pita examined Jesus’s ankle, pressing her fingers to it gently. The ankle had turned a virulent purple and had swollen to the size of a melon.

  “Stop it,” Jesus told her. “That’s not helping any.”

  “We need to reduce the swelling,” she replied.

  “Got a spare bag of frozen peas?” he remarked.

  “Hopefully it will be better in the morning.”

  “Fucking Jack,” Jesus grumbled.

  “He didn’t mean it,” Elizaveta said. Her Spanish accent wasn’t native, it never would be, but her Spanish was about as fluent as her English.

  “Didn’t mean it?” Jesus said to her. He’d pushed his Aviators up onto his forehead and was looking at her with incredulity. “Did you see how hard he shoved me?”

  “Pepper said Nitro started it.”

  Jesus waved dismissively. “Pepper doesn’t know anything.”

  “I saw you and Nitro double-teaming him.”

  “You’re taking Jack’s side?” Pita asked. Her long-lashed eyes were dark and disapproving. She shot a Camel from her pack and lit up.

  “I’m not taking any sides,” Elizaveta said. “I’m saying Jack didn’t mean to make you sprain your ankle, Jesus. He was going after Nitro. You were in way.”

  “He caught me by surprise, that’s all,” Jesus said. “I wouldn’t have fallen otherwise.”

  “And Jack has a bad temper, Eliza,” Pita said. “He has to learn to keep it under control.”

  “Nitro’s a bully,” Elizaveta said.

  Jesus chuckled. “What grade are we in?”

  “To tell you truth, Jesus, I don’t like him. I don’t know why you like him. You two are so different.”

  “Nitro isn’t a bully,” Pita said, blowing smoke out the corner of her mouth. “He’s actually a very nice guy when you get to know him.”

  Elizaveta didn’t say anything. She knew why Pita was defending Nitro. She was fooling around with him behind Jack’s back.

  They’d all been at a beach house party two months or so ago. Jesus and Elizaveta picked up Pita on the way there, though Jack stayed behind. There was some important American football game on the television he wanted to watch. The beach house was packed with people when they arrived. Jesus and Pita went into mingle mode, working the room. Elizaveta poured herself a glass of wine from the bottle she’d brought, left the rest in the kitchen, and went to the deck for a cigarette. She much preferred going to bars or clubs than these private parties. There was a great community of ex-pats living in Mexico City, and she knew many of them: Russians, French, Canadians, Australians, a few New Zealanders, a lot of Americans and British. They were all intelligent and friendly, and she always had a good time with them. The people around her that evening, on the other hand, fell mainly into two groups: young Mexican socialites who didn’t work and lived off their parents’ credit cards, and older businessmen who drank whiskey and smoked cigars. The bratty socialites looked down on Elizaveta because she was a “salary worker,” while the businessmen often treated her like a prostitute until she firmly put them in their place.

  Around midnight Elizaveta asked Jesus if he was ready to leave. He wasn’t. He was surrounded by admirers hanging on to his every word, most holding one of his brewery’s beers in their hands. Tired of talking to strangers, she decided to walk along the beach. The night was cool and dry. The ocean droned on endlessly while waves lapped gently at her bare feet. She walked for close to thirty minutes, and she was on her way back to the beach house when she ran into Pita and Nitro. She didn’t know it was them at first. They were little more than amorphous shapes on the sand beneath a palm tree. Then she heard Pita speaking in that throaty voice of hers, and Nitro replying in that gruff way of his. Elizaveta froze, dumbstruck. She was contemplating whether to make her presence known, to ask them what they were doing out here, when she realized they weren’t merely talking; they were making out. She hurried back to the party, told Jesus she wasn’t feeling well, and took a taxi home.

  She’d seen Pita and Nitro at parties together three times since, but Jack had been present at each one. She’d been tempted to confront Pita, or even tell Jack what she’d witnessed. She didn’t, because she’d been hoping it had been a one-time thing, a drunken fling. For a while it seemed this might be the case until last night at Jack’s place. Jack had been inside refilling his drink, and Pita had been trying to convince Jesus to invite Nitro to the Island of
the Dolls the next day. Jesus didn’t want to, given the animosity between Nitro and Jack. Pita, however, was persistent, arguing that Jack was so drunk he likely wouldn’t even get up in the morning. So Jesus rang Nitro, who confirmed he would come on the spot.

  Again, Elizaveta didn’t confront Pita. It wasn’t her business to intervene. Besides, these types of things, romantic affairs, never remained secret for long. Jack would discover Pita’s infidelity on his own. It was simply a matter of time.

  At least, that’s what she told herself. But there was another reason she remained silent: Pita was vindictive. Elizaveta didn’t want to get into her bad books for fear Pita might turn Jesus against Elizaveta herself. Pita wielded a surprising amount of control over her brother, and if push came to shove, Elizaveta didn’t know with whom Jesus’s loyalty would lie. If he dumped Elizaveta, what would become of her then? The twin girls she was tutoring turned fourteen this year; they would enter boarding school in autumn. Consequently, she would be out of a job, and her visa expired early next year. She would have no choice but to return to Russia…to poverty. And she couldn’t do that. She’d worked too hard to get to where she was in society now. She couldn’t go back to waiting an hour in line for a loaf of bread, or to teaching fifty-hour weeks for a couple of thousand Rubles—the equivalent to what she currently earned in one morning.

  “What’s taking them so long?” Jesus said, tugging Elizaveta from her reflections. He was staring out the door at the slanted rain and the swaying trees.