“Give you tour, lady?” shouted one. “Show you San Marcos?”
“Change money?” shouted another.
Emma shook her head and walked in the opposite direction, as the clerk had directed. Out of the oasis of the hotel and on the street, she was vulnerable, helpless, alone. Emma had felt that way many times before, however—every time she had walked out onstage in fact. It had never stopped her. It wouldn’t now.
More battered cars crammed with passengers and painted with advertisements honked at her as they passed, slowing down, apparently looking to pick her up. Emma walked briskly to the corner, her chin down, her eyes straight ahead. Were tourists in this country in danger of being snatched off the streets?
Another quick glance at the cars and their passengers suggested not. The tired-looking men and dull-eyed women bore all the signs of commuters. The cars must be a kind of entrepreneurial bus service, Emma realized. She had seen no evidence of public transportation since she had arrived.
Feeling more and more like an ignorant foreigner—she was the only person on the streets in shorts—Emma crossed the street and turned right onto another four-laned road, then proceeded past low office buildings and walled properties to the next traffic light. As the clerk had promised, there, in front of a threestory brick structure, was a sign that said “American Express.”
Emma went in and found herself in what looked like an airport waiting room: anonymous, fluorescent-lit, crowded. Uniformed armed guards were stationed at strategic points around the room. One long line of people leading to a pair of cashier’s windows snaked through the room.
Emma took her place behind a short, prim young woman who was wearing a dowdy-looking white dress and a red ribbon in her dark-brown hair—the few women in slacks and shorts looked like tourists.
“Hi,” said Emma automatically in response to the girl’s shy smile.
“Hello,” she replied in English and in a moment they were talking.
Celia Eschiverra, it turned out, had gone to college in New Jersey and returned to her native San Marcos to teach English at a local private school. She was a serious girl, exceedingly polite, and seemed surprised that Emma would show any interest in her. For her part Emma was so relieved to have someone to talk to that she was practically ecstatic.
“Yes, it is much better to pay for your hotel in pesos,” Celia said when Emma brought up the subject of money. “Only the most naive or frightened tourists do not take advantage of the black market. Or those who are so rich they do not care. You cannot help but notice the money changers. They are everywhere with their loud, unattractive yelling. It is very embarrassing.”
“But isn’t it illegal?”
“Oh, yes. The authorities try to crack down occasionally, but it is not practical. There are just too many money changers and too much profit to be made.”
“Why doesn’t the government just set a more reasonable exchange rate? That would put them out of business, wouldn’t it?”
Celia smiled.
“What the money changers take from the economy is merely a trickle. The government is playing a larger game. Pesos have even less value outside of San Marcos, you see. By setting the official exchange rate at one to one, the government can force big foreign companies to accept pesos for what they sell here; for what they buy, they must pay in dollars.”
“I see,” said Emma. Suddenly the whole situation began to make sense. “It’s still a little frightening, having to deal with men on the street for your banking—especially if you have large sums to exchange.”
“Oh, the street-corner money changers are not dangerous,” said Celia. “They are out in the open. Most are just trying to earn some extra money for their families. But if you are nervous, you should go the cambio.”
“The cambio?”
“It is like a bank—they exchange money at posted rates, which are usually as good or better than you can get from the money changers on the street. The cambios are licensed and taxed by the government. There is one on the next block from here.”
“But why didn’t they tell me about this at the hotel?”
“I think perhaps the hotels do not mind to be paid in dollars instead of pesos, yes?”
Celia waited for another question with an eager, expectant smile. The line had moved too quickly. They were now practically at the cashier’s windows.
“I’m going to be here in San Marcos for a little while,” said Emma, “and I’d like to learn more about your country. May I take you to lunch? I’d love to ask you some more questions.”
“I am very sorry,” said Celia with obvious disappointment. “I am leaving tomorrow for the United States. I am taking a monthlong class in educational science at my old college in New Jersey. That is why I am here today—I am arranging details of my tuition payment. Then I must spend the afternoon with paperwork at my school here.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll have a good time in the States,” said Emma, disappointed too.
They stood in silence for a moment. Then Emma spoke again.
“Look,” she said, “I know you probably have a lot of packing to do, but maybe we could get together for dinner tonight. My treat.”
“That is very kind of you. I would be honored, but I would not wish you to go to any trouble or expense because of me.”
“No trouble—I’m glad to have someone to talk to. And I’m sure there’s a restaurant at the hotel I’m staying at. Do you know the Casimente?”
“Oh, yes. The restaurant there is the best in San Marcos City, but it is very expensive. I could not accept such generosity.”
“Don’t be silly. Do you know how much money you’ve just saved me? I’m the one who’s in your debt.”
By the time they had concluded their business at the cashier’s window, Emma had arranged to meet Celia in the hotel lobby at seven-thirty. She said good-bye and walked to the small brick building across the street where Celia had told her to go. The sign outside read CAMBIO.
Inside, two clerks dispensed money from behind barred windows under the watchful gaze of three boys who looked about fourteen years old. All cradled submachine guns in their arms.
The line here was short and consisted entirely of men who looked like money changers themselves and probably were. No wonder there were so many of them, thought Emma, realizing how easy it would be to make a profit off ignorant tourists.
It took only a few minutes for Emma to exchange the money she had cashed at American Express at a better rate than anything she could have gotten on the street. Paid in pesos, her hotel room would now cost less than ninety dollars per night.
Emma walked back to the hotel, feeling better for having made a friend and nervous for having so much cash in her pocket. She didn’t relax until most of the cash was locked in the hotel safe, along with her passport, her checkbook and the rest of the traveler’s checks.
It was now a little after three o’clock, still time to orient herself in San Marcos City. Emma got a map of the city from a rack by the door and brochures for the area’s few tourist attractions, sat down in one of the rattan lobby armchairs, and began leafing through the pictures.
The largest and most impressive brochure was for Las Calvos, some kind of exclusive resort area in another part of the island. Rich people from all over the world apparently came here to play golf and tennis, stay in luxury bungalows and dance the nights away in tropically decorated discotheques. It all looked very expensive and very boring.
In San Marcos City there were an old Spanish fort, government buildings, and the botanical gardens to see. Several hotels featured their own casinos and nightclubs. Apparently a bus left the hotel twice a day and shuttled between tourist attractions. The afternoon bus had left half an hour ago and the next one wouldn’t be until eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Emma could buy a ticket now if she wanted to see the island from the safety of a crowd.
“Is there anything within walking distance of the hotel?” Emma asked a desk clerk, a small man with g
reased black hair.
“If you go out the door and turn right, there is the nicest part of town where there are many restaurants. In the other direction there is not much but offices.”
“Except for the cambio and American Express.”
“If you are interested in changing money,” said the clerk, leaning forward and lowering his voice, “I have a cousin who can get you a better rate than the cambio.”
“Maybe some other time,” said Emma, feeling a little less green, a little more confident.
Outside at the hotel gates, Emma turned to the right and walked toward the group of money changers she had seen before. The hotel guards apparently made the men keep their distance from the hotel gate, but all bets were off where the property line ended. The money changers convened around her, chattering their rates, shaking fistfuls of pesos at her, tapping their calculators.
“Dos cuarenta! Two point four!”
“Tours of the city! Best tours of the city!”
“Better tours! Cheaper!”
Emma suddenly felt horribly vulnerable again, but she somehow manufactured a smile and shook her head. Most of the men seemed to take the rejection in good spirits, though a few stared after her with unsettling leers, laughing among themselves.
Emma kept walking briskly and didn’t look back. She had done a lot of traveling alone and was used to the stares, the catcalls, the unwanted attentions. Long ago she had decided that she was never going to be a prisoner of fears, whether hers or anyone else’s. Most situations that arose could be solved with the right attitude and some common sense. And, bum knee notwithstanding, she could still deliver one hell of a kick if she had to.
After a few blocks of large walled mansions with soldiers posted outside—embassies, perhaps, or the homes of high government officials—the street narrowed, and Emma found herself in a pleasant residential neighborhood.
The houses here were smaller and had the same baked-in-thesun-for-too-long appearance that most of the buildings in the city seemed to have. The architecture was vaguely Spanish. Each house had a wall around it, just as the mansions up the street had had, but here the numerous trees, the parked cars, driveways and sidewalks made it seem rather like a nice old suburb of practically any city in America.
Emma came to a few restaurants, also walled, with colorful signs hung out front. Each had the same slightly seedy look, though according to the prices posted on the menus, none of them was cheap. All took every credit card known to man, Emma noticed ruefully. Tourists who charged their meals on a credit card would get the official exchange rate and thus pay more than twice what their meals would cost in pesos.
After a few more blocks the neighborhood changed abruptly again. The walled houses gave way to dilapidated storefronts. The trees vanished. Crowds of people, poorly dressed, jammed the narrow streets, traffic thickened and slowed to a crawl. The area seemed even poorer than the ones she had driven through on the way from the airport. Apparently the nice part of town was not very big.
A group of young men standing on a corner against a wall spray-painted with Spanish slogans spotted her and called out, laughing, passing a brown bottle between them.
Obviously this was not where she belonged. Emma turned around and headed back toward the hotel. In half an hour she had covered only a few blocks. It was clear that she’d never find out much about the island on foot. What she needed was a guide and a driver, someone who knew the island and spoke the language, someone who could keep her from getting into trouble.
A dozen of potential candidates were still waiting like a pack of wolves just outside the hotel property line when she returned. They started shouting their pitches again as they saw her coming.
“See the island. Take you everywhere.”
“My car! My car!”
“Sell dollars? Two point four. Two point four.”
Emma tried to look them over as she approached. Like many men on this subtropical island, they all wore dark pants. Most also sported enormous smiles and clean white shirts, which somehow made them look even more menacing.
Emma’s heart sank. How could she just get into some stranger’s car? These guys might be the salt of the earth for all she knew, but any one of them could just as easily drive her to a secluded spot and rape and/or kill her. But how was she going to find what she had come here to find from a tour bus?
Emma barely noticed the little hand slipping into her own, but the next moment she was being pulled toward a battered gray car at the curb by a black kid about ten years old.
“You come with me, lady. My uncle got car, we give you greatest tour of the island. You see everything, come on.”
The boy tugged at her hand insistently. At the curb, a small man with Caucasian features but the characteristic dark San Marcan complexion got out of the gray car—an ancient Ford—nodding happily and opening the back door.
Several of the other tour operators ran after Emma and the boy, complaining loudly in Spanish, but the boy shouted back in the same language what obviously were curses. A few men laughed in surprise at the boy’s nerve, the others continued to shout. He hurled more curses and pulled Emma closer to the car.
“Don’t pay no attention to those guys,” the boy said to Emma with a look of contempt. “They are the dirt under your feet. Animals. They would cut your throat for five pesos. You cannot trust them.”
“I can trust you?”
“Sure, I’m okay. My uncle got good car, we take care of you. Give you excellent tour.”
The other men threw a few insults of their own and backed away, except for one gigantic hairy fellow, who strode right up to the boy and growled in low, threatening Spanish. The boy listened to him for a few seconds, then yawned and spit on the ground.
Well, not exactly spit. It was more like controlled stream of drool, which apparently was even more effective. The hairy brute bellowed like an enraged bull and looked as if he would have started swinging if two comrades hadn’t restrained him.
The boy barely flinched. He said something else in guttural Spanish (which further enraged the man) and spit/drooled on the ground again. Then slowly, deliberately, he turned to Emma.
“You don’t have to worry about him. He is not a man at all, he is a worm. He is full of shit. I tell him to crawl back into his hole. I’m Timoteo. You come with me, okay? What’s your name?”
“Emma.”
“Emma, that’s a good name. You come with us, Emma. You come with Timoteo. We give you good tour of the island. You have fine day.”
The hairy competitor shouted some final curses at the boy and let his friends usher him away. Timoteo pulled Emma toward the car again. The driver—the man the boy had said was his uncle—nodded happily and gestured to the back seat.
“Wait a second,” said Emma, having second thoughts. And third. “How much is this little tour of yours going to cost?”
“Fifty dollars,” said Timoteo.
“How about fifty pesos?”
Timoteo went over to his uncle and began chattering animatedly. The man finally shrugged.
“Okay,” said Timoteo, returning. “He accepts.”
Emma was still telling herself all the reasons why she would have to be crazy to go off with this boy as she let herself be pulled into the back seat. The time had come to make a decision. If she hoped to find the Kaito Spirit and her grandfather’s killer, she would have to trust someone. Whom better than this boy? What other choice did she have?
“This my uncle, Changee Money,” said Timoteo, breaking into a big smile as he shut the car door. “He change your money, that’s why they call him that.”
“Changee money?” said Uncle Changee Money, taking an immense wad of pesos from his pocket. His huge smile revealed teeth that looked as if they had been filed down—or perhaps they just came to sharp points naturally.
“You are very good-looking lady, Emma,” said Timoteo with an innocent smile. “I am glad you come with us. No good-looking lady ever come with us before. They al
l afraid Changee Money kill them.”
“What have I gotten myself into?” muttered Emma, as Changee Money started the car. With a sound like that of a dishwasher digesting a place setting of silverware, they screeched away from the curb.
10
What she had gotten herself into, Emma discovered to her great relief, was simply a tour of the island.
For the next two hours, Timoteo and Changee Money drove her through the crowded streets of San Marcos City, pointing out the local attractions: memorials to the late dictator, fountains and churches, natural rock formations, an enormous outdoor market complete with plantains piled to eye level and pens full of live turkeys.
Only once did they find themselves in an area obviously not on the standard tourist route, a street of what could only be called shacks, gray hulks of rotting timbers built directly on the dirt. Each shack was no more than ten feet square and was built only inches from its neighbor. Emma assumed they were some kind of deserted storage facilities, until she saw a woman with a baby in her lap sitting in the doorway of one of them. As they passed, the woman looked up and made eye contact with Emma. There was no anger in her gaze, no hatred, no despair—which was somehow even more disturbing. There was nothing at all.
“People live here?” Emma exclaimed.
“They’re nobody,” sneered Timoteo. “Poor people. You don’t want to see them. You wait. In a minute we’re coming to great statue, twenty feet tall.”
The boy was an endless source of chatter, laughter and charm. He regaled her with questionable information about the island’s attractions (for some reason Emma doubted that the scenic highway along the coast was really two hundred years old) and boasted endlessly about his own talents.
“I am best of all the boys where I live,” he declared as they drove past a group of ancient buildings that apparently had been built by the Spanish conquerors of the island in the seventeenth century. “Many girls chase after me. I have gone to school and am always the smartest one for I know all the answers.”
The Girl Who Remembered the Snow Page 11
