Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

Still, if kindness counted for anything, I was way ahead.

The old woman was very ugly and the young woman was her daughter and the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. They were so caring that I loved them both and the man too. They told me things about themselves and the place I was in and they asked me questions, so many questions, but I couldn’t understand. I told them my name and they told me theirs, Pedro and María and then the old woman’s name, which was Jacinta.

When the children came to see me, they taught me to count, first to twenty and then to a hundred. We played a game in which I taught them the English word for things and they taught me the Spanish and we argued over which was right. Every day, when the pain started to get bad, the woman knocked me out with a milky white juice that first numbed me and then drifted me off to sleep.

I had been a week in the hut when out of the blue one morning, Pedro helped me dress and got me out of bed. He was explaining something very important and serious. I nodded and tried to get it, but I couldn’t follow him. María wrapped my stump in cotton bandages and then pinned my trouser leg up over it. Both María and her mother had skillfully repaired my jeans. They had patched them with heavy cotton that they had dyed light blue. When I arrived, they had been cut to shreds and more hole than fabric. I told them that now some hippie chick from NYU would have coughed up a hundred bucks for them. Pedro had made me a beautifully worked crutch that fitted well under my arm. It was carved with leaves and simple patterns and there were three little figures at the top, which were obviously him and his family. I choked up when I saw it. He helped me walk out of the hut into the village square: half a dozen huts, children, women, goats, and little brown dogs with long tails. The jungle on three sides and a clearing and a dirt path on the other.

Pedro had watched me walk and wasn’t happy with his crutch and took it off me to shorten. He ran back inside while I leaned on María and her mother. It was to be a departure, as waiting out there in the clearing for me was a Volkswagen Beetle, a red one in reasonable condition. The driver came and tried to help me over to the car, but I shook my head. I wanted to say something first. I turned to the little assembled crowd and cleared my throat.

I just want to say thank you very much for looking after me. You have been so kind, muchas gracias, muchas gracias .

There was a smattering of quiet, sincere talk and some applause and María kissed me on the cheek. Pedro came back with the crutch and it worked even better now. Before I got in the car, I saw a man jogging through the jungle towards us, a huge, fat man with a beard, blue shirt, white cotton slacks. He didn’t look at all as Indian as the people in the clearing. He was puffing, and his face was red. I knew he was the angry man who had been my surgeon.

He came over to me.

I want to see you before you go, he said.

Yes, I said, I remember you.

My English, I cannot talk.

No, your English is good, I said.

No, very badly, he said, and his eyes met mine.

The children have taught me to count to one hundred in Spanish, I said.

He smiled.

I do not want to miss you, he said.

Look, I want to thank-I began, but he interrupted.

Listen, please. I know who you are. You are American. Not safe anymore for here. We take to you somewhere else. The border. There you are safe. They are good men, but not everyone keeps, uh, keeps quiet when he is. Tell no one about where you are from, say that you are in trouble over girl if you say anything.

It seemed a bit hokey, but he was serious and his face was grave. I looked at him; his eyes were old and very blue.

All of you, and you in particular, you saved my life. I don’t know your name.

He offered his hand and I shook it.

Príncipe, he said. You know that there is no choice, we know we cannot take you to hospital, you are famous gringo escape. Murderer. Famous.

They said I was a murderer?

Rapist, murderer, such things we hear.

It’s lies.

Príncipe shook his head, as if I didn’t even need to say it. The cops wanted me and that was good enough for them. For all of them.

Thank you, Príncipe, I said.

You are welcome. Thank also la Virgen nuestra, nuestra madre, que se echa la culpa de nuestros pecados . Now, my friend, you will go.

Ok.

He helped me into the car. I wound the window down and thanked Pedro, María, and the mother. I got in the VW and we headed off. I turned to wave, and they were all waving back. I was crying. I wiped away the tears and looked out after them for a long time.

The driver of the VW didn’t speak to me but was friendly enough and offered me cigarettes. We smoked and listened to godawful mariachi and Mexican rock music on the radio. The little Beetle was not in as great shape as I had thought and the exhaust seeped into the car from the backseat. The engine was loud and throaty and it seemed impossible that so great a rupture of sound could be coming from so wee a vehicle. The road was good for a long time, but then he turned off it and the new road was immediately terrible, and the car shook and made dreadful crashing noises over every pothole. I was feeling extremely sick from the fumes, and we had to stop every half hour or so for me to get a breath. When we got going again, I tried to focus on the horizon. I stared at the fields and occasional plantations, but my attention always wandered down to my left ankle. The horror of it got me every time. Jesus Christ. María had given me roots to chew on for the pain, and they’d dug up some white pills from somewhere. The root really helped, but whether through placebo or some natural emollient, I don’t know.

When it was getting dark and we had climbed a little and it was colder, we stopped at a village and the driver helped me out. He led me to a hut and told me to use the roll mat on the ground. I lay down and he went back to the car and drove off. I couldn’t sleep at all that night, and it wasn’t from the vermin everywhere. My heart was pounding again in my ears, not from fever this time, but from something else. Nerves, panic. Was this the start of it? My breakdown? I calmed myself very deliberately and lay awake until just before dawn, when men came for me in a jeep. They laughed and slapped my back and said things in Spanish. We drove through a town called Tenosique de Pino Suárez, and then up into mountains. When it got cold, one of the men gave me a parka and I wrapped myself in it.

We came to the camp in the evening. For camp it was. Tents and outdoor fires in a clearing by a river. About twenty men standing about, and at first I assumed they were miners or prospectors or something; but it soon became clear that they were fugitives and absconders and the like. They weren’t bandits, they didn’t raid anyone, they just lived up here, gathered for mutual protection. A tall, thin man with a preposterous Zapata mustache came up to me grinning with a mouth of yellow teeth and said something in Spanish. He shook my hand and gave me tobacco to chew and introduced me to a couple of other men. He was the boss, and I said I was happy to meet him.

I suppose that he explained the situation up here and who everyone was.

Ok, mate, but I haven’t understood a fucking word, I said, and smiled, and hobbled to a place near the fire.

The men were kind and saw me under a canvas overhang next to a rocky little patch which was to be my spot. There were blankets, and you could stuff saw grass into sacking if you wanted a pillow. They helped me clear away the stones and, when the ground was flat, I laid a blanket down and slept.