“I am sorry for how they behaved,” says the young man in slightly accented English. “Some in this city are too lazy to find honest work.”
“Thank you,” I say. I’m still shaking from the sight of that blade in the first man’s hand, shivering and sweating at the same time. With trembling fingers I rifle through my wallet and pull out a twenty and hand it to the man.
He looks up at me and for an instant there is something hard and disappointed in his face. “Don’t do that. I am not a beggar.”
“I am just grateful,” I stammer. “I didn’t mean…”
“I work for my money.” He is stern and noble for a moment more and then he smiles. The smile is wide and seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest. When he quickly turns serious again I want to see the smile once more. “Where are you staying?” he asks.
“At a guest house by the sea.”
“I’ll walk you back.”
“You don’t have to,” I say, but I’m glad that he does.
He walks through the alleyway slowly, his back straight, his gait even, and I struggle to slow down enough to stay by his side. As I quiet my step, I find myself calming. “I’m Victor Carl. From the United States.”
“Pleased to meet you, Victor,” he says. “I’m Canek Panti.” He says his name so that the accents are on the second syllable of each word.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Canek. I didn’t mean to insult you. I am extremely grateful. What kind of work is it that you do?”
He shrugs as he walks. “I run errands, paint houses, whatever there is. I have access to a car so I also do some taxi work and guide travelers around Belize.”
“Interesting,” I say. “Do you know a place call San Ignacio?”
“Of course,” says Canek. “It is in the west, near the border.”
“The Guatemalan border?”
“Yes.”
I think on that a moment. I have read enough news reports of the CIA’s activities in Guatemala, and the missing Americans, and the never-ending civil war, to be nervous about that country. “It just so happens, Canek, that I need to go to San Ignacio on business. Can you take me there?”
“Of course.”
“How much would that cost me?” I ask.
He thinks for a moment. “One hundred and twenty dollars American for the day.”
“That will be fine,” I say.
He doesn’t smile at that, he just looks seriously down at the ground as we walk, as if he is somehow disappointed. I figure he figures he should have asked for more and he is right. He could charge whatever he wants and I would pay it gladly in gratitude for what he did for me. At the end of the alleyway the pavement turns and opens up to the sea. Sailing boats are moored by ragged docks, others are moored bow to stern in the middle of the river; boats speed out of the river’s mouth toward the Belizean cayes. We walk together along the water’s edge and stop at a small park next to a red and white lighthouse. A pelican, brown and fat and haughty, floats by, its wings extended against a gentle current of sea air. From the lighthouse there is a view across the sea to the southern part of the city. The white buildings lining the far shore gleam in the sun and suddenly the city doesn’t seem such a pit. I spin around slowly and look. There is something about Belize City I hadn’t noticed before. It is old and rickety and full of poverty, yes, but it is beautiful too, in a non-Disney way, a gateway to true adventure, as if a last haven for swaggering buccaneers remained alive in the Caribbean. Canek, already acting as the guide, waits patiently as I take it all in and then we continue on together, around the ocean’s edge and up Marine Parade.
“You must bargain,” says Canek, finally, as we walk along the unpaved road that fronts the sea. “I say a hundred and twenty, you say seventy, and from there we find a fair price.”
“I thought your price was pretty fair as it was.”
“It is high,” says Canek. “Most taxis will charge eighty-five to San Ignacio. The bus is only two dollars. Let’s agree on a hundred dollars American.”
I walk without saying anything for a bit, pondering everything carefully, and then say, “Ninety.”
He gives me his brilliant smile again. “Ninety-five,” says Canek Panti, “and I will allow that to include a guided visit to Xunantunich, the ancient ruins beyond San Ignacio.”
“Done,” I say. “We have a deal.” By now we are at the end of Marine Parade, standing in front of the tidy white porch of my guest house. “Tomorrow morning?”
“I’ll be here at nine,” he says.
“That will be perfect. I’m suddenly very thirsty,” I say, wiping sweat again from my brow. “Can I buy you a drink, Canek?”
He glances up at the guest house for an instant and then shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry, Victor, I have now to get the car ready for our trip. It needs first some work, but I will be here tomorrow at nine, on the spot.”
We shake hands, solemnly, as if we had just agreed on the next day’s headline in The Wall Street Journal, and Canek walks off, hurrying more now. I wonder in just what shape his car is in that it needs so much work but, surprisingly, I am not worried. The Caribbean shines like an emerald in the late sun. The guest house, on its stilts, seems more quaint than I remember it to be, prettier and whiter. I have met an honest and honorable man. Inside, I know, I can get a bottle of cold water and a bottle of cold Belikin and sit at a table on the veranda and rehydrate beneath a spinning fan. All of it is almost enough to make me forget what it was that led me to Belize City, almost but not quite. I think on the man I am hunting and I think on all he has committed and on the secrets he is hiding and think again on last night’s dream of Veritas and even in the midst of the heat I shudder.
16
LAST NIGHT I DREAMT I went to Veritas again. I was at the base of the long grassy hill just inside the great wrought-iron gates with the forged design of vines and cucumbers that barred the entrance to the drive. The moon was bright and cold, the grass devoid of all color in the darkness. Behind, a stream swept past, its black water swirling around heavy, sharp-faced rocks. Two massive sycamores stood side by side, sentries at the base of that hill, and I stood between them, looking up the long sweep of grass to the stone portico that guarded the formal front of the great Reddman house. The wind was fragrant with the soft scent of spring flowers, with lilacs, with the thick grassy smell of a perfectly manicured lawn. Rolling down from the top of the hill, stumbling uneasily down like a drunken messenger, came the sound of music, of violins and trumpets and snappy snare drums. There were lights shining high over my head, there was the sound of gaiety, of laughter, of a world drinking deep drafts of promise. Veritas, on the crest of that hill, was alive once again.
I began to walk up the hill toward the party. The music, the laughter, the light in that dark night, I wanted to see it, to be a part of it all. I was in jeans and a tee shirt and as I got closer and began to hug my bare arms from the cold I wondered where was my tuxedo. I owned one, I knew that, and mother-of-pearl studs and a cummerbund, but why wasn’t I wearing it? I patted my pants. No wallet, no keys, no invitation. Where was my invitation? Where were my pearls? I felt the sense I feel often of being left out of the best in this world. I thought of turning back but then the music swept down for me. I heard a car engine start, coughing and sputtering like something ancient, I heard the neighing of a horse, I heard voices that sounded like guards. I dropped to my knees and began crawling, hand over hand, up the steep hill.
My knees slid over grotesque fingers of roots that jutted from the soil. Pebbles embedded themselves into the flesh of my palms. I heard the faint buzz of beetle swarms infesting the lawn. I thought about stopping, about letting myself go and rolling down the hill, but the music grew louder and swept down once more for me. The violins drowned out the buzzing of the insects and the laughter turned manic. My jeans ripped on a stone, my palms bled black in the moonlight, but I kept moving toward the joy, reaching, finally, the encircling arms of the front portico’s stairwell that would take me to it. On the wide swooping steps that led up to the house I crouched and slowly climbed, steadying myself with a hand on the step above my feet, my blood smearing black on the stone. I could hear distinctions in the voices now, hearty men, laughing women. Snatches of conversation flew over my head as I rose to the top of the stairs. A group, standing outside on the drive that circled the surface of the portico, seemed not to notice me as I slipped across. I was certain the guests would see me but they didn’t; even as they turned to me they looked right through me. They were handsome, pretty, they laughed carelessly, they were sure of their places in the world and I realized that for them, of course, I would not exist. I stood, slapped the dirt off my ripped pants, walked past the group to one of the large bay windows to the right that studded the grand ballroom wing of the house.