Red Weather

19. The Heart of the World

134 19 TheHeartoftheWorld They kept climbing. The air was clear, so thin that gravity pulled at her ears. It was nearly midmorning, but still she heard the roosters crowing, the last a little plaintive, as if desperate to be heard. Up and up they went, passing little clusters of houses, a few signs, and then nothing but the narrow road, the rock and scrub falling away to the valley. At the first glimpse of Lake Chichool from the bus window, she felt it. Something still and perfect settled in her. The indigenous people called the lake the Heart of the World. Yes, it had to be here, in this perfect blue place. Everything else fell away in the face of it. She understood why it had called them, why it called to her. Neva took the first launch leaving the dock. The small boat roared through the bright sunshine, then slowed to a chug-chug as they came into the fog covering most of the lake. It was chilly, and when they crossed the wake of another boat, the spray rushed into her face. When she shivered, she felt it in her bones. She zipped her jacket and listened, but there was nothing: a hint of voices behind her, the bow of the boat slapping down on the water, but nothing else. The boat pulled in at a small wharf. A boy rushed to tie them up and then reached for Neva’s hand to help her out. “La Loma?” she asked. “Arriba,” he said. “Mas arriba,” pointing to a path leading up the hill. She went up and up. She climbed until the backs of her legs burned. It was like climbing into the sky. When she reached the village, she stopped to ask a grandmother sitting on the steps of her house, “What street is this?” The woman shook her head and called back into the house, a word Neva did not recognize. A young man appeared in the doorway. “My grandmother doesn’t speak Spanish,” he said. But he knew where the gringos lived. “Directo.” He pointed straight up the road. “Una casa rosa.” No, not far, he told her. 135 The woman who answered the door of the pink house was her mother’s age, the age she would be now, and she was Native, black hair shot with gray, a silver turtle pendant on a string of green and yellow beads around her neck. But she wasn’t Neva’s mother. And the man in the garden—white, tall as her father—wasn’t Neva’s father. “Sit down,” he said. “You must be out of breath. It’s quite a climb.” “I’ll get some tea,” the woman said. She came back with a pitcher and three tall glasses. “You’ve come to the right place.” She poured a glass and handed it to Neva. “Oh no,” she said when she saw Neva’s face. “I didn’t mean that—they’re not here.” Neva couldn’t swallow. How had it happened, the thing she had sworn would not happen? A moment of such joy—how had she allowed herself to feel it? “We sent the postcards,” the man said. Neva was surprised at her own furious weeping, at how long it went on, at the way the man and woman waited, quiet and patient. “My grandmother’s name was Lila,” she blurted. “Lily,” the woman said. “I’m Lily.” “We knew your parents,” she said. “I shouldn’t say ‘knew.’ We’d met them. And later we heard what had happened. Tim and I were headed down here to pick coffee—” “The coffee brigades,” Tim said. “You probably don’t know about those.” Neva nodded. She had trouble looking at them. “Someone asked us to bring the postcards, mail them from here,” Lily said. “We always wondered if someone would come, but we thought it would be someone else.” Neva looked up. She could imagine the someone or someones they had expected. “Thank you for what you did,” she said. “You are so like your mother,” Lily said. “When you came to the door, for just a moment I thought you were Frances. But then I knew who you had to be.” Neva spent the night on their sofa, and even so, she was late getting home the next day, past curfew. But she didn’t care. She wanted her own bed enough to risk it. [3.16.69.143] Project MUSE (2024...