Concepción and the Baby Brokers and Other Stories Out of Guatemala by Deborah Clearman

Author:Deborah Clearman [Clearman, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780996838450
Google: ua1-dQAACAAJ
Publisher: Rain Mountain Press
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Turista

“Un descanso, por favor!” Elizabeth gasped. A rest, for God’s sake.

An American woman, in midlife and freshly divorced, she had shed the constraints of New Jersey and left the known world for Guatemala. Booted and clad entirely in exploration khaki (even her close-cropped hair was khaki!), she clambered up a steep trail after her native guide, gulping in air woefully deficient in oxygen. At well over ten thousand feet, the atmosphere made up in frigidity for what it lacked in sustenance.

The guide—his name was Álvaro, he’d informed her at the outset, with a jauntiness that implied that the very name was a source of self-satisfaction—was half her age at most. He sprang up the trail like a goat, his long black ponytail swinging behind him. Her words brought him to a halt.

“But of course!” The guide sat down upon a boulder placed serendipitously next to the trail, not far from a brook that gurgled amongst precipitous pines. He patted the rock’s flat surface beside him. “You’re tired. Sit!”

He flashed her a charming smile. His white teeth blazed in a face as smooth and copper as a Mayan god. He called her tú. She called him usted , adhering with rigor to the formal you .

She declined the invitation to sit next to him, choosing instead a moss-covered embankment by the stream. Fog enveloped them, damping all sound except for the brook dropping into a small, dark pool, and Elizabeth’s rasping breath. The guide took two bottles of water out of his knapsack and handed one to her. “Here,” he said. “Refresh yourself.” Again the overly intimate tú. “You must not drink from the mountain.”

His voice radiated…what? It was a delicate question. Concern, Elizabeth decided. That was it, professional concern for the tourist in his care. He'd come recommended by the hotel. She had confidence in him.

“I never drink ground water,” she said, wanting to make the rules clear. Not even in the comparatively safe temperate zones. Certainly not here, where the ground oozed amoebae, giardia, malaria, dengue, and other diseases too gruesome to ponder.

“You don’t understand,” her guide reproached her, raising knowing brows over his obsidian eyes. A silver stud flashed in the nostril of his regal Indian nose. The piercing, the ponytail, the lion’s claw necklace—was he a member of a drug gang? Surely not, so far from civilization, eight hours of rough road from the capital, in this remote sierra tucked in the western edge of the country, climbing La Torre, the region’s highest mountain. “Nature here is pure,” he said with authority. “The dangers of La Torre come from its evil spirits.”

“Ah yes.” Elizabeth pegged him: the superstitious native. Harmless enough to a woman like herself, well educated, armed with facts.

“I’ll tell you a story about a man from La Ventosa.” He removed food supplies from his pack—a bunch of miniature bananas, a plastic bag of crisp orange cheese doodles, fresh baked rolls—and laid them out in a seductive array. He and Elizabeth had left the village

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.