Текст книги "Water from My Heart"

Автор книги: Charles Martin

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Fourteen

By the time I turned thirty-nine, Hack and I had finished two more skiffs and I noticed him slowing down. Hack’s cough grew worse and began producing more. Often at night, when we were working in his shop, he’d get to coughing and have to step outside to bring that stuff up out of his lungs and spit out whatever came up. One night, after a rather violent coughing fit, I noticed his handkerchief was tinted red. I told him, “You better let me take you to a doctor.”

He nodded, holding his rib cage. “Maybe it’s about time.” Given that he hated doctors, I knew it was serious.

The next morning, I borrowed a neighbor’s golf cart and carried him to the Bimini Clinic toward the northern end of the island. If Bimini has anything resembling a hospital, it’s this. For reasons unexplained, a CLOSED sign hung on the door. I muttered to myself, “How do you close a hospital?”

Hack laughed. “Easy. It’s Bimini.”

He was right. This was typical Bahamian lifestyle. If something better presented itself, work could wait. The island had a limited drugstore, but only one doctor, who was more often than not drunk, so the idea of “emergency medical care” didn’t really exist. That made it tough to get a prescription for anything while he was passed out. We stepped back into the cart where Hack started one of his coughing fits. Minutes passed while he coughed up a lung and spat the remainder out on the ground around us. This was not a pretty sight and, sitting there with my hands in my lap, it made me feel rather helpless.

While Hack retched, an attractive lady walked by. Bathing suit, hat, flip-flops, designer shades. Bag over her shoulder. Big wide hat. In truth, her legs caught my attention. While her face was beautiful, the look blanketing it was one of resignation and depression. Her shoulders looked like they were carrying a thousand pounds. But despite the small planet that was weighing her down, when she passed Hack, she stopped and listened to his cough. Then she turned to me. A switch flipped and professionalism replaced the heaviness. “Does he belong to you?”

“I’m not sure he belongs to anyone, but yes, I’m his friend.”

“Sounds like he has walking pneumonia. And currently, it’s winning. You’d do well to get him to a doctor.”

I pointed at the CLOSED sign on the clinic door.

Her eyes narrowed, and she then rested a hand on her hip. After a minute, she pointed to her hotel a few blocks up the street. “Follow me, I’ll give him a look.”

“You a doctor?”

One ear still trained on Hack, she nodded and held out a hand. “Shelly Highsmith.” Hack bent over double, clutching his ribs. “You better follow me.”

We followed her to her hotel, where I sat Hack on a bench and we waited. She returned from her room with a stethoscope draped around her neck and a cold bottle of water in her hand. She sat next to him, gently put her hand on his back, and began listening to him breathe. He winked at me. The resulting look on her face did not encourage me.

After a minute, she turned to me. “You live nearby?”

I nodded. Hack was in the process of rolling a cigarette. She touched his hand. “If you want to see tomorrow, you better hold off on that.”

Hack slipped the rolling papers back in his pocket and leaned his head back.

Shelly turned to me. “He’s carrying around a rather nasty infection that’s probably been in there a while. He’s pretty weak and extremely dehydrated—which isn’t helping matters. He needs intravenous antibiotics and fluids. Like right now.”

I glanced down the road. “I imagine they have that at the clinic, but we’d have to break the door down to get it.”

Hack spoke up. “Doc leaves his back door unlocked. He’s got some medicines in there. If you let yourself in, get what you need. I can pay him when he wakes up.”

We couldn’t leave him in the hotel lobby, so we took Hack to my place and set him on the lounger on my back porch with Shelly’s water bottle. He promised to stare at the waves and not smoke while we drove the golf cart to the doctor’s office.

Shelly Highsmith was a plastic surgeon. And evidently a good one. She was the chief of cleft and craniofacial surgery at the research hospital in Miami where she specialized on children. “Every kid should have a beautiful smile.” Four years younger than me, she was in her midthirties, and yet unlike me, she was visiting the island for her first vacation in eight years, prompted by an ugly and unexpected divorce. Said she was sitting in her office, staring out across the bay, when the papers came to finalize it. She signed and realized she’d never made the crossing. Lived in Miami a decade and never ventured across the water to the island.

The doc was in fact passed out on his couch next to an empty bottle of our rum. I didn’t bother Shelly with that detail. We raided his medical cabinet and fridge, getting what we needed. Shelly said she’d like a drug more specific to his condition but broad-spectrum would work.

We found Hack where we left him with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. She sat next to him and swabbed the vein on his arm. When she did, the short, thin, see-through skirt she wore to cover up her bathing suit fell off her thighs and slit to her waist. Hack rested his palm on her thigh.

She eyed his hand and held the needle where he could see it. A smile cracked her lips. “You want pain or no pain?”

Hack put his hand back in his lap and spoke to me. “I like her.”

Shelly spent the weekend checking on Hack, and consequently, based on the tilt and angle of her shoulders, not to mention the disappearing wrinkles on her forehead and the way the edges of her mouth began to turn up every time Hack started telling her a story, the effect of the island, along with us, was good for her.

Being a doctor, she was naturally curious. About Hack. The skiffs. Our fishing. But mostly about me. She also had a thing for good coffee, so I introduced her to Legal Grounds. Sunday afternoon, I took her out on the skiff and helped her catch a few bonefish. She enjoyed that.

She told me more of her story, about medical school, marriage, and why she chose to specialize on kids and their faces: “There’s something special about a kid’s smile. I see in their faces what we all used to be before the world got hold of us.” I liked her. And I liked being around her.

She asked me about me and I told her my story. High school. College. Playing cards. London. Amanda. Marshall. Landing here. Hack. And I told her about “my business partner, Colin.” And how we were in the fragrance and spirit and wine import business. And yes, I left out one important detail.

Before she left, I said, “I’m in Miami about every other week, mind if I check in on you?”

“I’d like that.”

On our first official date, Colin let me borrow his Mercedes because I didn’t own a car, so I took her to my favorite restaurant, Ortanique on the Mile, on the Miracle Mile in downtown Coral Gables. She ordered a mojito and I ordered water. She eyed my decision. “You really don’t drink, do you?”

I shook my head.

“Ever done drugs?”

“No, but I was a miler in college and running is a pretty strong drug.”

“Ever done anything you regret?”

“Sure.”

“Such as?”

She waited. Shelly had a strong intuition and suspected something about me was not on the up-and-up. I didn’t flaunt money and I didn’t spend a lot of money, but she saw the boats I drove. Colin’s Mercedes. She knew there was more to my story than I’d admitted.

“I have not been truthful when I should have.”

“Have you been truthful with me?”

“I’ve not lied to you.”

“There’s a difference between not lying and being totally truthful.” Another sip. “So, have you been totally truthful?”

There are several moments in my life that hurt me. This is one of those. I looked her straight in the eyes. “Yes, I’ve been totally truthful.”

“And you’re not into something that could come back to bite you?”

The problem with being a good cardplayer is that I held my cards close to my chest and I could bluff most anyone. “No.”

She crossed her legs, sipped again, and her foot nudged mine. “Good.”

When I look back across the war-torn landscape of my life, at the people I’ve hurt, those I’ve taken advantage of, and those I’ve betrayed and lied to, I think back to that afternoon with Shelly. I’d like that one back. I’d like to tell her that I’m sorry. Really. Poker players are some of the most constantly optimistic people on the planet. No matter what you lose, it can be won back, and double, at the next deal. Nothing is ever truly lost forever.

Problem is, people are not cards or the chips we bet with. Neither are the relationships we share across green-felted tables and smoke-filled rooms.

*  *  *

A blissful year passed. We were happy. I never took Shelly on a drop, but I’d pick her up on my way back and we traveled a lot by boat. Spent lots of time on all the islands. She’d hop in the boat on Thursday or Friday afternoon with nothing but a small bag and say, “Which island?” We became island hoppers. Then we started venturing farther. Central America.

What Shelly didn’t know was that loaded in the belly of our vessel, in specially crafted holds made to look like the hull or engine or anything but a storage department, was enough cocaine to put us both in jail for several lifetimes. There were times when I thought she suspected, but if she did, she kept it to herself.

And yes, I was risking her life, which was a risk I was willing to take. Which should tell you everything you need to know about me.

One Friday afternoon, I was late picking her up. Again. I hadn’t worn a watch in about eight years and other than my schedule with Colin had become chronically late in pretty much every other area of my life, so whenever we made plans and I told her I’d pick her up at a certain time, she’d ask me, “Now is that ‘real time’ or ‘Charlie time’?” When I slid up to the dock almost two hours late, she stepped into the boat, both eyebrows raised, and handed me a small wrapped box. A present.

I was about to say, “I’m sorry,” when she shook her head and pressed her finger to my lips. “Don’t. Just shhh.”

I opened the box to find a beautiful Marathon dive watch. It looked bombproof and was reported to be waterproof to over a thousand feet. She took it from my hand and rolled it in hers. “I found these guys online: topspecus.com. Couple of self-described ‘gearheads.’ So I called them on the phone and asked them what was the toughest, most accurate watch they sold. They say this thing is nearly indestructible and only loses like a second every hundred years or something.” A playful smirk. “I had them set it five minutes early. So…” She was smiling now. Wrapping my arms around her waist. “You should never, ever, as long as we live…be late again.” A tilt of her head. Half a smile. “Right?”

I nodded obediently. “Right.”

She put her hand on my head and turned it left and then right, prompting me to repeat after her. “Never again.”

I continued moving my head left to right. “Never again.”

She turned and sat in the captain’s chair next to me. “Good. ’Cause if you are, you’re going to need more than just a good plastic surgeon.” A smile. “You’re going to need a donor.”

I laughed.

“And just so you don’t forget”—she pulled the band away from the back of the watch—“I had it inscribed.”

Chapter Fifteen

I had just closed my eyes when Paulo woke me. He whispered, “Vamonos, el doctor. We go.”

I heard myself mumbling something about not actually being a doctor, but he was gone. I stood and pulled on my shoes, whereby my toes poked out the ends. When I exited my shed, he put his hand on my chest and motioned back in my tent. “Agua.”

I grabbed the water jug, we refilled it, and then he handed me a long machete. I followed him out the yard and down the road beneath a dark sky. We walked in silence for almost thirty minutes, returning in the same direction we’d walked yesterday—uphill toward the volcano. When the sugarcane rose up on our right, he took a hard right turn and I followed him through the cane. We walked down long rows and were soon joined by other men, silently stepping through the night. Each carried a machete with the same ease that men carry umbrellas on Fifth Avenue.

It was still dark. Well before daylight and yet people were alive and awake and moving and working. Fires were lit, people were chatting, men were hurrying to work, and all before the first ray of sunshine had cracked the summit of Las Casitas or San Cristóbal. Unlike the world I came from, these people were on the earth’s schedule—the earth was not on theirs.

*  *  *

We exited into a clearing where a large cart, about the size of a railroad car, sat empty. A man sat on the cart, waiting. Smoking a cigarette. When we appeared, he spoke in harsh and muffled tones to the men, pointing in various directions and splitting the men into teams. Paulo pointed his machete and directed me toward a row of cane. When we reached the beginning of the row, he walked in front of me and demonstrated how to grab the cane with my left hand, how to cut it low on the stalk with the machete in my right, and then how to throw it in parallel piles alongside us. He did this quickly and, despite his diminutive size, with great strength. I nodded. He stepped to the row beside me, motioned with his machete to my row, and then he began his assault. Only then did I notice how much larger his right forearm and biceps were than his left. Nearly half again as large.

We worked in tandem until daylight, when we stopped for about thirty seconds to swig from our water jugs. We worked in like fashion throughout the morning. He worked fast and with the strength of several men. I kept up as best I could. By midmorning, my hands had blistered, popped, and oozed. Raw like hamburger meat. Every pull on the sugarcane ripped more skin loose. If he noticed, he said nothing. Neither did I.

With an hour until noon, he had finished his row and returned to help me with mine. By noon, we came to the end of it, and that was good because I could barely swing the machete. He pointed with his machete again, and we walked down the same row we’d just cleared. When we reached the superintendent’s cart, we found him where we’d left him with another cigarette in his mouth. I could not lift my arms above shoulder height. He surveyed our work with little interest, placed two bills into Paulo’s hand, and we began walking home. Paulo turned to me and handed me one of the bills, but I declined, waving him off, and said, “No, no. You.”

He folded the money and said, “Gracias.”

We took a different route home, swinging wide around the cluster of homes known as Valle Cruces. We came to a building and he pointed. “Escuela.”

I didn’t understand, so he folded his hands like he was reading a book. “Escuela.”

“Oh, you mean school.”

We walked up next to the door and found Paulina teaching math to a classroom full of kids of various ages and sizes. Isabella sat in the front row, her heels tucked under her butt to lift her up to the level of the desk in front of her. She twirled her hair with her left hand. With her right, she scribbled on a sheet of paper. The chairs and desks were all handmade from the same wood used in the tenement dwellings up on the mountain. The seats and desktops were worn and oiled. The sides were unfinished and splintery.

When she saw me, Isabella hopped down out of her seat and danced toward us. The measured speed with which she gallivanted across the room told me that she wasn’t so much glad to see me as she wanted to be recognized by the other kids that she—and not they—was on a first-name basis with the gringo. Moving slowly made her point all the more poignant. When all eyes noticed her familiarity with me, she returned to her seat. Sitting a little higher. Task accomplished. Paulo said something to Paulina, who then ended class. Isabella appeared at my side and slid her hand into mine. When she sensed the blisters and raw skin, she turned my hand over and eyed it with tenderness. She ran her fingers around the edges of the blisters that had popped. “Do they hurt?”

I shook my head.

When we returned to the house, Paulina pointed to the sink and said, “Better wash those in the pila.”

“The what?”

She pronounced it more slowly. “Pee-lah. It’s the name for that concrete sink. You don’t want those getting infected.”

I did as instructed while the three of them loaded the truck.

I watched Paulo hand the two bills to Paulina, who placed them in her pocket. Quickly and showing no sign of fatigue, Paulo backed the truck up and began honking the horn, drawing Isabella and Paulina out of the house. Isabella climbed into the cab with Uncle Paulo while Paulina sat with me in the back. He eased off the clutch, which was slipping, and revved the engine, which blew white smoke out the exhaust, suggesting that it was burning nearly as much oil as gas. Grinding the gears, we eased out of Valle Cruces en route to León.

Paulina and I sat on the wheel wells as the heat and dust and humidity pressed against us at forty-five miles per hour. Along the roadside, all the brilliant Technicolor flags and homes and cars and people stood still as we sped by. Occasionally, I’d catch a glance of a vine-covered fountain or an old home or chapel or some prior remnant of beauty buried beneath a caked layer of dirt, exhaust, and disrepair. After a few minutes, she reached for my hand, turning it in her own, studying it. She offered softly, “My uncle says you work hard.”

“Twenty years older, he did twice as much work. Came back to help me when he finished.”

She laughed. “He said he kept waiting for you to fall over, but you never did.”

“I wanted to.”

“Well, thank you.”

“How much did we earn?”

“A hundred córdobas.”

I calculated. “Seems like a lot of work for three dollars and eighty cents.”

“It’s twice what he normally makes.”

I spoke out loud to myself. “I spend more than that on a latte at Starbucks. There was a time in one of my former lives when I’d spend a hundred times that on a lunch and not think twice about it.”

She stared out in front of us as the wind tugged at her hair. She nodded but said nothing. We rode in silence. I turned to her. “How come you haven’t asked me anything about me?”

She grinned and pointed to Isabella in the front seat. “I let her do my dirty work.”

“Seriously. I could be an escaped convict, and you wouldn’t know it.”

She shrugged. “An escaped convict wouldn’t have been found on the sidewalk covered in his own excrement.”

“Good point.”

“You did carry a ninety-pound backpack six miles up the side of a mountain.”

“You sure it wasn’t heavier than that?”

She smiled, proving that Isabella had not fallen far from the tree. “Since you’re offering, can I ask one favor of you?”

“Anything.”

“Pan y Paz is a bakery in León. Isabella’s favorite. They make these chocolate croissants. Do you—?”

“Done. Anything else?”

“The bakery is plenty.”

I pressed her. “Are you one of those people who’s good at offering help but not so good at accepting it?”

She nodded and tucked her skirt under her thighs as the wind pulled at it, momentarily exposing long, muscular quadriceps and toned, beautiful legs. Then she pulled the hair out of her face. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“What are you three doing for dinner?”

“Driving back.”

“Before you go, will you let me buy you dinner?”

She hesitated. “When I found you, you had nothing. And unless something’s changed, you still have nothing.” She lowered her voice. “How’re you going to buy dinner?”

“I left my money in the room.”

“Can you afford to buy us dinner?”

“Yes. Please. It’s the least I can do.”

Paulina considered this. And the look on her face told me that she was not accustomed to accepting help. “As long as you let me pick the restaurant.”

We reached León and the Hotel Cardinal, where the young man was glad to see me and seemed proud that he’d guarded my room and everything was just as I’d left it. When he left, I turned to find Isabella staring at the peephole in the door. Paulina was smiling. “She’s never seen one.”

I lifted her so she could press her eye against the door. Paulina stood outside the door and waved. Isabella jumped back in shock at her mother’s distorted image, then giggled and tried to make sense of the illusion.

Paulo was a quiet man. Few words. He watched, listened, and was purposeful in all he did—wasting no movement. I attributed it to years of conserving his energy for whatever unknown came next. His unwritten response to life was one of crisis management. While Isabella entertained herself with the peephole, he waited quietly in a chair just outside the door.

*  *  *

We left the hotel on foot, following Paulina’s finger, and arrived at Meson Real fifteen minutes later. It was a “locals” joint and the smell coming from the kitchen was divine.

The waitress came and took our orders, and given that the menu was written on the wall—in Spanish—Paulina asked, “Want some help?”

I tried to make sense of the wall. “Yes.”

“You want real Nicaraguan or tourist stuff?”

“Real.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Might be kind of spicy.”

“I’m game.”

While we waited on our food, I tried not to pepper Paulo with too many questions. He told me he had been born just a mile or so from where he now lives, but he had traveled a good bit to find work in both cane and coffee plantations.

When he said he’d worked in coffee, I began listening a little more attentively. “You’ve worked coffee?”

“Sí.”

“Where?”

“Honduras. Costa Rica.” He tapped the table. “Nicaragua.”

“Where in Nicaragua?”

He pointed west. “Las Casitas. Near mi casa.”

“Any one place in particular?”

He shook his head. “No understand.”

“What plantation?”

“Jus’ one.” When he said it, there was a sense of warmth and affection I’d not heard before. “Cinco Padres Café Compañía.”

I swallowed hard. “What’d you do there?”

He made a circle around the table. “Manage workers.” He tapped himself on the chest and smiled. “El jefe.”

I shook my head and was in the process of saying I didn’t understand when Paulina put her hand on mine and said, “He managed all the workers. The plantation. Everything.”

“He was the foreman?”

“Before this foreman…yes, that was part of his job.”

“Why did you leave?”

He paused. “Jus’ too many events.”

I pointed at Paulina, acting as if I didn’t know. “Was it the hurricane you mentioned?”

He sliced his hand across the table in a level motion. “Hurricane Carlos bad. Very bad. Kill many. Kill my brothers. Their wives. My wife. Many family, but…” He shook his head. “We survived Carlos.”

My voice quivered. “What…happened?”

Paulo paused, crossed his hands, and then spoke, almost in reverence. “American company.” Paulo made a fist as if he were crushing a cracker. “They squeeze us…require us to pay back loan. Have no way to pay. But after Carlos, we has nothing. All gone. So, when we no pay, American company take.”

Something about my complexion must have startled Paulina because she put her hand on my forearm. “You okay? You’re doing that thing again.” Her index finger rolled around the underside of my wrist and landed on my pulse where she held it.

“No, I’m good.” I wiped the cold sweat off my face. “What’d you do?”

He shrugged. “Many empty homes in Valle Cruces. We move in. I return to sugarcane.”

“Do you rent?”

He shook his head. “No one to pay rent.”

“Who owns it?”

“My cousin.” He said the name proudly. As if he were honoring it. “Saulicio Mares Estevez.”

“Where is he?”

“Beneath the mud.”

“I’m sorry?”

Paulina spoke. “His family in Managua lets us live in it.”

The pieces of this puzzle were floating around my brain, and I was having a tough time putting them together. I scratched my head. “Where were you living?”

He looked at me, surprise covering his face. He pointed at Paulina. “El casa.”

I turned to Paulina. “Whose house?”

She brushed the hair out of Isabella’s face. “My father’s.” She turned to me, and for the first time, she fingered a polished stone hanging around her neck. She said his name slowly and with great affection. The words swam around my head, finally settling on the memories attached to them: “Alejandro Santiago Martinez.”

I swallowed hard.

“He, along with four other men, started Cinco Padres.” She pointed across the table at Paulo. “Paulo married my father’s sister. So while he wasn’t one of his brothers, they trusted him. My father was the businessman. Dealt with the banks. The buyers. Paulo was the people’s man.” She smiled at Paulo. “He kept everybody happy. And”—she laughed—“he kept everything working. Tractors. Trucks. Conveyor belts. Even delivered babies. Didn’t you?”

He laughed as if the memory were pleasant.

When the food arrived, steam lifted off the overfilled plates, and everyone ate and savored it with great delight. My meal looked like steak fajitas with everything in the kitchen thrown on top. And while it tasted and smelled wonderful, I didn’t so much eat it as push it around the plate. Halfway through his dinner, Paulo said something to Paulina in a hushed tone, which she acknowledged quietly. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I asked if he was okay. She said, “He asked if you liked your food, because you’re not eating.”

Following her dinner, Isabella eyed the offering of ice cream listed on the wall. Paulina quietly scolded her in Spanish. I had a feeling she was telling her that we weren’t ordering dessert. When the waitress returned, I asked Paulina, “Would it be okay if I ordered her some ice cream? Really, it’d be my pleasure.” She turned to Isabella, who nodded excitedly. Isabella held up three fingers and said, “Cho-co-la-tay.”

The image of Zaul entered my mind and the ticking clock I’d been hearing since I sat in the hospital room beside Maria’s bed returned. I needed help yesterday, so when everyone had finished, I spoke to both of them. “I’d like to make you a proposition—if you’ll allow.”

Paulo nodded. “Of course. Please.”

“I’d like to hire you. Both of you.” Paulina stared at me with a growing suspicion.

Paulo shook his head. “No need to hire. You ask. We help.”

“What I’m about to ask is no small thing. I’d feel better if you’d let me pay you.”

Paulo shook his head, and for the first time, I saw a shadow of pride I’d not seen before. He waved his hand across the table, palm down, slicing through the air. “No pay. We will glad help.”

The job for which I wanted to hire them would mean he’d not be working in the sugarcane fields. Which meant a loss of income. Which meant their meager existence was about to get worse. I said, “I am here looking for someone. A sixteen-year-old kid. He’s sort of like my nephew. He got mixed up in some bad stuff, ran away from home, and came here. His name’s Zaul, and his parents asked me to bring him home before he gets himself hurt or disappears forever. He’s hotheaded, tempestuous, and as much as he would deny it, he’s a bit naive as to people and their intentions. He thinks he can read people, but he can’t. I know he came to León, and he’s a surfer, so I know he intended to chase big waves along the coast, but I have a feeling his fortunes have reversed since arriving because the foreman at Cinco Padres Café is now driving his truck.”

Paulina looked surprised. “That new truck?”

I nodded. “My business partner, Colin, bought it last year. Zaul’s his son, and he hoped it’d bring them closer as they chased waves up and down the coast.”

“That’s an expensive truck.”

“My partner inherited a business from his father. They started poor, then struck gold when his father realized how to import rum. He picked up where his father left off and has done very well since.”

Paulina raised an eyebrow. “And you?”

“I work for him.” I emphasized the word “for.” “I handle deliveries.” It wasn’t a complete lie.

Paulo lit. “Management?”

“No. I’m a solo act. Work alone. It’s just the nature of my business.”

Paulo nodded. “No matter. We will help.”

“I’m afraid it will require a lot of your time. At least half the day. Sometimes all day. I’d be keeping you from your work.”

Paulo asked, “How long?”

“I’m trying to find a kid who doesn’t want to be found. A week? Two? Maybe a month.”

Paulo paused. I could see him calculating the cost. “I work la caña in the morning, and we go with you after lunch.”

I shook my head. “From what I know about him, he surfs in the mornings and they travel or sleep in the afternoons. Our chance of seeing him in any one place would be the time until noon. If we wait until after lunch to get started, our chances will be slim.” I pointed at him. “I need a driver who speaks the language, and I’ll pay for all your gas.” Paulo calculated again. Paulina sat uncomfortably quiet. I offered, “Whatever you miss in income, I’ll pay.”

Paulina spoke up. “If he doesn’t work, if he misses a day, he loses his seniority. That means when he returns, he won’t be guaranteed work.”

I began to see how I was upsetting the balance of their lives. How one missed day, one cold, one sickness, one injury, one missed bus or just oversleeping by ten minutes could alter the fortune of their lives for a long time.

She leaned forward on the table, trying not to be unkind but wanting to make sure she got her point across. “Seniority in this part of the world is a commodity. Worth more than the money we make.”

She had found me on the street. Naked except for my underwear. In her experience, I was not a solid bet.

“How will you pay?”

“With money?”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Why do you want to hire me, too?”

“To translate and, no offense, to be a woman.”

“What do you mean?”

“In my experience, sometimes a woman can get information that a man cannot.”

That common sense seemed to satisfy her, yet she still looked incredulous. She sat back. “And you can afford to pay us?”

In her eyes, I was nearly as poor as she, so I wanted to be careful here. “Yes.”

She crossed her arms. “If Paulo misses a single day of work, what we call ‘getting out of line,’ he loses his place of seniority, which has taken him years to build. That means that like all the other men now waiting for a chance to work, he has to get back in line. Wait his turn. It could take him weeks to get a single day of work. It’s how things work around here.”