by PJ Skinner
When they got back to the village of Riccuarte, a fiesta was raging. The boys suggested they go dancing. Sam leapt at the chance to avoid Wilson for the evening. He had taken advantage of the journey home to tell her about his bad luck with women. She did not have any trouble believing that.
They ate tuna and rice again for supper. No wonder she was constipated. Her stomach was distended and she felt as if she would explode. The dance was in the schoolhouse. It was a long, low barn with three or four blackboards on the walls. It was very dimly lit with all the desks pulled back against the walls, which were used as tables for the drinks. Most of the desks were reserved but they found one in the corner where they could sit.
It was pouring with rain outside. All the dancers were soaked with a combination of rain and sweat. Everyone carried a large handkerchief or a towel and rubbed themselves down from time to time. Don Moises bought three beers and a bottle of potent local brew that Sam declined to try. Carlos sashayed up to them. Would she like to dance with him if they put a go-go record on? Sure she would, even though she had no idea what go-go was.
Go-go turned out to be the local version of pop music. All the records so far had been rhythmic African tunes. Everyone danced quite stiffly with lots of intricate footwork. Most people stared down at their own feet, checking out their moves. Sam tried a couple of dances but found it hard to tone down her movements. Wilson danced surprisingly well and seemed to be having a ball. Carlos shimmied back over for another dance. At exactly the same moment, the very large and tall son of Doña Elodea requested a dance. They stared at each other. Sam was speechless. Wilson was off strutting his stuff on the dancefloor, so mediation was not a possibility. She grabbed Carlos and whisked him off to dance under the glare of the jilted boy.
It was great fun. She forgot to dance in the local manner and caused great amusement among the locals. Wilson was collared by a bubbly girl in a canary yellow dress, who danced right up next to him, jiggling her giant body. Meanwhile, a mother was breastfeeding her baby while waiting for her next request. All the women were perched on the school desks, dying to dance. They never danced without a male partner and waited desperately for an invitation that only the men could offer. Each invitation was for only one dance and then the woman had to return to her perch on the desk. Most people seemed to dance at some stage.
Wilson wanted to go home. Don Moises stayed with Doña Elodea because she could not stay alone at the dance, being a married woman. At least Sam thought that was what Wilson said, although she had started to take his translations with a grain of salt.
She slept like a log and woke up with a bald patch. That cheeky rat!
***
The next morning, as they went to the river to wash, they met Don Moises and Carlos, who were still drinking. They were raring to go to work. They set off downriver from Riccuarte to pan the terraces in the lower reaches of the concession, where the river widened and the terraces contained lots of sediment. Despite the inebriated state of the crew, the day went well. They stopped several times on their way back upriver to Riccuarte. But the results were not interesting.
‘These terraces do not have gold now,’ said Wilson, ‘because they are near the road. Men with diggers come and take out the gold. None left now, I think.’
‘Can I try panning?’ asked Sam, knowing full well that Wilson would have let her do anything to get back in her good books.
‘Okay. Carlos, show the geologist how to use the pan.’
They all did a lot of swimming, especially Carlos and Don Moises, who showed no signs of wilting, despite having had almost no sleep.
They got back to the village after dark. As they sat on the stairs outside their shack waiting for their supper, a big bunch of children congregated at the house across the road. They started to play a game of concerts. Each child in turn shuffled up the front steps of the house and did a turn for the very critical audience, giggling and shifting as they sat on the wall in front of the house. Each act was greeted with raucous applause and the children often joined in with the performer in high-pitched, angelic voices. The horror of what had almost happened to her evaporated with their voices. Soothed by the jungle harmonies, Sam felt safer again.
The next day was their last at Riccuarte. They packed their bags, which were double-wrapped in bin bags to keep out the water, and loaded them into the canoe. Everyone looked worn out. They went down the river towards the sea to do their last piece of reconnoitring there.
Wilson was suffering from serious over-attention to her every whim, desperately trying to get back in her good opinion before she saw Mike. Sam avoided talking to him and spent the day practising her Spanish with the workers. When they reached the last village downriver on the concession, Wilson paid the men. Carlos came up to Sam and spoke to her.
‘The engineer has not given us enough money. We worked for five days but he has only paid us for four days,’ he said.
‘I am sorry but I don’t understand.’
‘Wilson paid us only eight dollars. We should get ten dollars each. Can you help please? He won’t listen to me.’
Sam questioned Wilson, who looked startled at first but soon recovered.
‘Sam, they trying to trick you. This they try every time in this region. They think you stupid because you a woman. Leave these things to me. I know what I doing.’
She did not believe him. She could not prove it, but she was sure he had short-changed them and not the other way around. She could not speak Spanish yet but she could count. She felt embarrassed but she could do nothing to help them. Wilson was a law unto himself.
So the boys set off back to Riccuarte in their canoe, grumbling about their pay, leaving Sam and Wilson to go back to San Lorenzo in a pickup truck that had seen better days. They squeezed into the front seat and were thrown from side to side due to the terrible condition of the road. Sam regretted that she had not chosen to sit in the back with Don Moises, who hitched a lift with them into town. He sat in the open part at the back, looking serene despite being periodically thrown into the air by a pothole.
The ash from the cigarettes that Wilson was chain-smoking blew in her eyes and made them sore. His polyester trousers made her leg sweaty and her trousers damp. She was repulsed by their close contact but she could not move away as she interfered with the gear stick when she slid closer towards the driver. No doubt he too would think she fancied him if their legs kept touching.
Once they had arrived in San Lorenzo, they checked into the only habitable hotel, a seedy establishment where Sam thought she could hear bedbugs rustling in the sheets. Wilson went to eat with Moises. Sam said she was not hungry to avoid seeing Wilson any more than she had to. She took the mattress off the bed and rigged up her mosquito net and her sleeping bag on the plywood base, hoping to avoid the worst of the fauna. She was just about to go to bed when Wilson knocked on the door of her room. He had brought her some pieces of cooked chicken and a few stale biscuits. She was reminded of a documentary on kingfishers that she had seen on the BBC and remained cagey, pushing him out of her room without speaking to him. He already smelt of the strong local hooch and would, without doubt, drink himself to sleep.
She did not know what to do about Wilson, having never been assaulted before. She wondered if she had done something to deserve the attack. Maybe she had given him some sort of signal without realising it? She felt humiliated in some way that she could not put her finger on. She was doing her job in the jungle, becoming a real geologist and her colleague had only seen a vagina on legs. Had she not been professional on the trip and tried to help when she could without getting in the way? Maybe she would ask Gloria when she got back to Calderon, in case it was something she had done.
She was starting to realise that there was a very different culture in Sierramar, that was not apparent at first but became clearer as she came into closer contact with the local people. Before going to sleep, she pushed a chair under the door handle, just in case.
VII
She took a taxi to meet Mike at the beach, where he was taking a break from work. She looked forward to speaking English again. During the drive, she felt her anxiety dissipate and her humour returning to normal. Surely she would not have to work with Wilson again after what happened? She was convinced that Mike would take her side. After all, what excuse could Wilson have for his behaviour?
She sat back in the ancient taxi and watched the palm trees whizz by. The doors of the taxi were held in place with string and the springs of the back seat stuck into her legs. Every now and then the gears got stuck and the driver had to grind them into submission. A new clutch might have solved the problem but a new car would have been a better solution. There was no chance of this happening unless the driver won the lottery.
Sam knew that even taxis were subjected to the enormous import tax for cars, so she understood why most of them were held together with string. Spare parts were also subject to import tax, so as time went on, the entire taxi fleet in Sierramar was stuttering to a halt. The only reason anyone owned a taxi at all was due to government legislation twenty years before that allowed the import of a large batch of yellow cabs without import duties. Only the very lucky and well-connected got a taxi, so there were doctors and lawyers driving cabs instead of working in badly paid state employment. Fares were government-controlled in theory but in practice, most of the taximeters were also broken or sabotaged. The drivers charged according to what they imagined the passenger could pay. No one seemed to mind being charged according to their means. It was a tradition in Sierramar.
After paying her gringo-based taxi fare, reduced by a certain amount of complaining and by her shabby, filthy appearance, Sam stepped out of the taxi in the parking lot of the hotel. The hotel was on the beach where all the houses were on stilts because of the risk of high tides during stormy weather. It consisted of one main building that served as the reception, bar and restaurant on the top floor, which had a balcony on three sides for sitting outside. The bottom floor contained storage and the residence of the hotel manager and was raised above the sand on sturdy legs.
Stretching right and left along the beach between the palm trees were a few wooden cabins, also on stilts, with tin roofs. They had once been brightly painted but were now faded to pastel colours, and the paint was peeling off in places. There were small porches on each of the cabins with welcoming but shabby hammocks with tatty fringes. Randomly placed seashells and strange-shaped rocks had been left behind by former holiday makers who had apparently balked at carrying them in their luggage. There was a cool afternoon breeze blowing. A coconut fell at Sam’s feet, making her jump.
Sam left her bag at the foot of the stairs of the main building and climbed wearily up to the restaurant. She approached the bar. A small wiry man with a greying beard appeared from what looked like the kitchen.
‘Hello,’ he said in English, ‘you must be Sam. I am Socrates. Your friends are out on the balcony. Would you like some lunch?’
It was after three o’clock in the afternoon and Sam was ravenous. She selected a dish called fish at the beach, which seemed to please Socrates, who bustled into the kitchen to encourage the cook. She wandered out on the balcony. There was no one there, but evidence of a long lunch was lying on a table facing the sea. A bowl of banana crisps and popcorn sat amid the debris of dirty plates and glasses with soggy lemon slices. Sam pushed the plates to the other side of the table and slid along the bamboo bench under the table to sit overlooking the beach. The sea sparkled in the afternoon sunshine. Gulls swooped and cried above a small fishing boat that headed for the shore. Socrates appeared on the beach below the balcony and went over to where the boat was landing. Three fishermen pulled the sturdy craft up onto the sand with the help of several people who had appeared on the beach, alerted by the seagulls. Socrates helped them land the vessel securely and then entered into negotiations over the contents of two orange buckets in the prow of the boat. Sam breathed in the sea air and luxuriated in the feel of the sun on her back as she watched him bargain for their supper.
Mike Morton appeared from behind a bamboo screen, which hid the entrance to the toilets. He wove his way across the floor in the uncertain manner of someone who had enjoyed a long alcoholic lunch.
‘Hola, chica,’ he said. ‘Want a cervesa?’ He giggled softly at her tired face.
Sam was disarmed by his gentle drunkenness.
‘I’d prefer a fruit juice, please. One of those passion fruit juices would be perfect.’
Mike turned to go back to the bar to order the juice. Halfway there, he turned back to Sam.
‘By the way, I’m here with Alfredo Vargas, a friend from Quito. He’s around somewhere. I expect he’ll turn up any moment. I think he went to help Socrates with the fishing boat. You’ll love him.’
Sam, who had a low tolerance for strangers at the best of times, doubted this very much. She was crabby with hunger and in desperate need of a siesta. She smiled back at Mike and tried to ignore the rumbling in her stomach.
After a few minutes, a drunk man, whom she presumed was Alfredo Vargas, appeared in the restaurant with a monkey on his shoulder. Sam wondered from where on earth he had conjured up a monkey, when the jungles she had just left behind were empty of wildlife. He wore the lopsided grin of someone who had also spent the afternoon drinking.
‘Coco locos,’ he said. He sat down heavily beside Sam on the hard bench. He hiccupped and turned to look at Sam with big, brown, unfocused eyes. The monkey jumped onto the table and scavenged amongst the scraps of food left over from lunch. Sam could not move away, as she was already touching the railings around the balcony, so she opted for staring back at him.
‘Green eyes,’ he said in English. ‘Beautiful green eyes.’ He took her hand and started to croon a song in Spanish called Ojos Verdes, about a man in love with a woman with green eyes. Sam got the gist of it and removed her hand from his grasp.
‘Ah, typical cold gringa bitch, are you?’ he asked.
Sam was taken aback.
‘Who the hell are you anyway?’ she asked, her eyes flashing with anger.
‘Ah, the gringa has spirit. Permit me to introduce myself,’ he said, again grasping her unwilling hand. ‘I am Alfredo Diego Vargas Arias, the treasure hunter at your service.’
Sam could tell he was not joking, as he was in no fit state to make anything up. She was left with her mouth open in surprise.
‘Please excuse me. The toilet is calling,’ he said and stumbled off.
Socrates, who had come to remove the monkey from the table, was listening to this. He said, ‘Alfredo is telling the truth, as unlikely as it sounds. He is the self-appointed hunter of the lost treasure of the Incas. He is also an infamous drunk who had almost succeeded in drinking himself to death at various times in the past. His bouts of drinking are interspersed with periods of sobriety and attempts to get a proper job. I heard that he had managed to stay sober for three years the last time he had tried. But now he is drinking again with even more fervour than before.’
‘Why does Alfredo speak such good English? His accent is public school.’
‘He told me that he may have been to school in England, although he claims that he can’t remember anything due to all the drinking.’
Alfredo appeared again and walked towards the table. He had shoulder-length, coarse grey hair worn in a ponytail, and big, black eyebrows over sad, brown eyes in a rugged face.
‘Is it true that you’re a treasure hunter, Alfredo?’ asked Sam.
‘Yes, linda, it’s true.’
‘My name’s Sam, not Linda.’
Alfredo laughed. ‘I know. Linda is a term of endearment, like cutie.’
‘Oh,’ said Sam, mentally adding this to her Spanish vocabulary list.
�
�We’ve got time, Alfredo’ said Mike. ‘Tell us about your adventures.’
‘Order me a large whiskey, then.’
Mike called Socrates over and ordered a round of drinks. Socrates brought them over with one for himself. He had heard the tale before but it did not get boring.
Alfredo began, ‘When I was a young man, I befriended Jorge Vasquez, one of Sierramar’s richest men, who had made a fortune from bananas and cocoa. I had recently come across some material referring to the lost treasure of the Incas and I had resolved to find it. I told Jorge about it and asked him for money to fund the search. Jorge had no family on which to spend his money and he was fascinated by the tale of the lost treasure of the Incas. So Jorge poured money into our project to find the treasure, which was rumoured to still be in the mountains of Sierramar. Jorge was convinced that the crude treasure map I had found in my research would lead us to the treasure, so he dedicated the next twenty years of his life trying to find the treasure with me.’
‘Twenty years? Wow!’ said Mike. Sam guessed that he was struck by the parallels between Alfredo’s relationship with Jorge and his own with Edward Beckett.
‘We made many, many attempts to get the treasure and I believe that we came close. Once Jorge broke his leg when a helicopter crashed in a stream. He was stranded for a week while I went to get help. He was finally found by a military expedition and rescued. When Jorge got too old to go to the mountains, I was delegated to go there by myself and I always came back with tales of derring-do and narrow escapes to entertain him. We were both infamous drinking men and many nights turned to day in the telling and retelling of these yarns.’
