The Colombian Exchange

Chapter 3

The ground was much drier here, so the going was easier and the fierce sun discouraged the mosquitoes, which withdrew into the shade of the trees. The air even seemed dry enough to allow his damp clothing to steam slightly as he walked. With the change in the air came a lifting of his mood and the young man found it easier to swing along behind his elderly guide.

Despite their early start and Julio's dogged walking, it was well after mid-day when the road finally began a gradual descent and, round a bend, the restrictions of the jungle abruptly gave way to a clearing on either side. They emerged into an open space where perhaps a dozen huts of drab timber roofed with thatch, or in some cases rusty corrugated iron, stood in the bright sunlight. Brown-skinned children chased among the primitive houses while their mothers squatted outside on the wet earth fanning the lethargic smoke of their cooking fires.

Julio spoke to one of the women who motioned to a bigger hut that stood on short stilts to keep it out of the wet earth. The children stopped their games and their eyes watched as the two men passed. Chickens fled cackling from under the veranda of the house as they approached it and an old man appeared in the empty doorway, smoking a wilting roll-up cigarette.

The headman - for that, Cody realised, was what he was - stood studying the white visitor and his black guide, as they mounted the uneven steps to meet him.

Julio spoke quickly in a dialect that Cody couldn't make out, then turned to his fellow-traveller. Bob removed his hat and wasn't sure whether to shake hands or not. In the end, he shuffled the hat round in his fingers. 'Pleased to meet you,' he said.

The villager spoke and Julio said, 'He say you welcome in he village.'

There was a pause before Julio prompted, in an aside, 'You got a present fo' him?'

Bob hadn't even considered the idea. 'No.' An inspiration came to him. 'Wait. Yes,' he said, quickly. 'Yes, of course!' He pushed the hat back onto his head and swung the backpack off his shoulder, unzipping the top pocket. He crouched down, the bag in front of him, fumbling in the pocket. All the while, the headman and Julio watched him, and the blood rose in his cheeks. He had it. Abruptly he rose to his full height, which was several inches taller than either of the other two men, and handed over his gift to the chief. It was his Swiss army penknife.

The Indian's face lit up as he received the gift. He turned it over in his hand.

'Look, it has a saw,' Cody said, retrieving the knife long enough to pull out the serrated saw-blade. 'And even one of those things for taking stones out of horses’ hooves,' he eased out the shiny spike and looked around him. 'I don't suppose you need to do that very much,' he smiled. He put the implement away and handed the knife back to its new owner. 'We don't use that much in Massachusetts, either,' he grinned ruefully.

Julio made no attempt to translate what Cody had said, but looked forlornly at the knife as the chief took it and spoke to him.

'Why you done come here, he ask.'

'Sir,' Bob addressed the village chief. 'I am from St Anthony's Catholic Mission to Nicaragua and we have been told that there's a young woman somewhere here in your village who has been kept locked up in a prison.'

Julio's hands moved eloquently as he translated.

The headman nodded sadly and spoke, pointing to one of the muddy tracks that led out of the village to the west. Cody's eyes followed the outstretched arm up a track that led towards a decaying, roofless house, where it made a sharp turn to the right and disappeared into the jungle.

'Up there?' he asked his interpreter, who confirmed Bob's understanding with a nod.

'He say that she is soldier's business. He don't going to involve hisself.'

The chief was examining the penknife, carefully.

'He say you with the church; you welcome to stay with he.'

Cody nodded his thanks to the man. 'Tell him thank you, for me,' he said.

The interview appeared to be over and Julio turned. 'The girl not good for the village, Massa Bob. Let's we go, all right?'

'Go to the girl?' the American asked.

'No, man, home.'

Cody was surprised. 'No, Julio.' They descended the wooden steps of the hut together. 'I've come this far. I'll see the girl.' He reached into his pocket and brought out a five-dollar bill. He passed it to the fisherman, saying, 'This is for your help, Julio. Will you come back to the river crossing tomorrow afternoon?'

'You sure, boss?'

Bob laid a hand on the old man's arm. 'I'm fine, Julio. I'll see the girl and I'll take the road back to the river tomorrow. Will you be at the ferry by about mid-day?'

His guide took the banknote deftly and shrugged. 'OK,' he said.

The two men walked in silence towards the jungle track. 'Did I do the right thing giving him my knife, Julio?' Cody asked as they parted company.

Julio shook his head sadly. 'That knife is too good,' he said unhappily. 'Too good.'

Cody slapped him on the shoulder. 'Envy is a sin, Julio!'

Bob Cody splashed back across the clearing till he came to the other track, the one the chief had said led to the mysterious girl. There he turned away from the village and pushed up the narrow road between the dark green trees until he came to a bend where there was a tumble-down house with no roof. From here, he followed the road round until he saw the incongruous sight of a white-painted block-house built of stone, with the pale-blue and white striped flag of the Nicaraguan Republic above its doorway. No breeze made it past the bend in the road and the flag hung limply in the torpid heat. Bob Cody stopped. He eased the sticking shirt from his chest and looked at the silent, uncompromising building. He lifted his hat and ran a hand through his damp, unruly hair. What kind of a can of worms was all this going to open, he wondered.

Outside the roofless house, unseen in the shade of its worm-eaten veranda, an old villager sat straight-legged, watching the scene. He watched the white-man cram his hat back on his head and cross the remaining dozen yards to the white-washed building. The stranger tried the door and seemed unsure what to do when it failed to yield to him as he lifted the latch. He called out but the heavy mid-day heat swallowed up his words. He banged on the door with his bare knuckles and a parrot screeched in the dripping jungle.

The white-man moved to the window on his left and raised a hand to shade his eyes, pressing his face against the filthy glass. There was an office of a sort inside, with a table and chair, but there was no inhabitant.

He tapped on the window and waited several moments before shrugging and turning back towards the crossroads. Suddenly he noticed the tiny window on the side of the house. It was high up, with no glass behind the bars that covered it. He appeared to consider the window, but a sound distracted him and he looked round. The villager was on his feet.

Bob saw him and called out. 'Hey! Excuse me!' He waved to the man. 'Is there someone who looks after the jail, a militiaman or something?'

The old man waited in silence for the foreigner to reach him, then he simply beckoned and walked back into the village. Bob followed the scrawny, brown back to one of the shacks, where the man stopped and called out in his native tongue. He turned his old face to Cody and nodded patiently. Bob nodded too and presently a young, native woman appeared in the doorway of the house. Behind her, in the shadows, Bob could see a stocky white-man.

Cody looked past the woman, addressing the man in English. 'Do you look after the jail?' he asked.

'Qué?' the man grunted.

Bob tried again in Spanish. 'Are you the man in charge of the jail?' He pointed back towards the prison.

'Si!' The man pushed his woman aside and stepped out into the daylight, buttoning his shirt over a stained vest.

'I am from St Anthony's Catholic Mission to Nicaragua,' Bob explained in his accented Spanish. 'I have been sent to speak with the girl in the prison.'

'It is not possible,' the man said.

'What do you mean, not possible. Is she not there?'

The man came close and stood solidly in front of him. He was shorter than Cody by several inches but his rough face and matted hair made him an intimidating figure. 'It is not possible to speak to her, Señor.'

'But I must,' Cody insisted. 'I have been sent by Father Joseph O'Brien.' An idea came to him. 'Are you going to stop this woman having the sacrament? Will you take responsibility for her immortal soul?' He took the Bible from his pocket and held it up between them. 'Responsible to God?'

The soldier wavered, uncertain if he was up to the challenge. He growled something about priests and went back into the hut.

Cody waited, unsure if the man had agreed to come or not, till he re-appeared, pulling army boots onto his bare feet.

As the two men walked through the bright sunlight, the jailer said nothing, but jangled his keys in irritation. Finally, as they entered the block-house, he laid a hand on Cody's arm. 'Padre, ella esta muy loca!' He pointed to the cell door and tapped his temple forcefully. 'Loca!' He shook his head and threw open the door.

Cody stepped back. The air inside the cell was foetid - dark and heavy under the great heat that radiated from the tin roof. The light was so dim that details were lost in the darkness. In front of him, high up, was a small window, perhaps two feet wide and one foot high. It was barred. Below the window was a chair. A simple hardwood chair, much like the one in his office in Managua, Cody thought.

Off to his left was a bed, covered by a coarse blanket, and, from the bed, two bleached eyes watched him from a filth-streaked face. He recoiled at the sight of the woman, her savage, matted hair, her emaciated face. She was watching him warily, motionless, her hands on her wide spread knees, her bulging shirt stained with sweat. He made himself approach, but she struggled back against the wall, wide eyed. He stopped, holding out his hands.

'Easy there,' he said quietly. 'I'm not going to hurt you.'

She stopped struggling and watched him cautiously. Much younger than he had expected - maybe even younger than he was, but it was difficult to be sure - her hair had been very short and probably blond he guessed, but now hung lankly about her face in dark streaks. Most of all, he noticed how she crouched very upright, balancing the weight of her abdomen, which thrust against the foul bush-shirt.

'My name is Bob Cody.' He kept his hand out to her.

The girl's face showed understanding. He had spoken English. She had not heard English for so long.

She lurched to her feet, pushing with her hands against the bed. Cody looked back at the open doorway. Her words, when they came, were thick in her throat, unaccustomed to her tongue. 'You are English?'

'No, ma'am.' He stood his ground. 'I'm from Massachusetts, a seminarian with St Anthony's Catholic Mission to Nicaragua. We're American.' He thought of Father O'Brien and added, 'those of us who aren't Irish.'

She seized his arms, dragging at him. 'Paul sent you! He remembered. He's sent you to get me out of all this!'

There was a grunt from the guard who stepped forward, speaking quickly in Spanish.

'He says we're not to touch,' Cody translated for her.

She spat at the guard, but still dropped her hands and stood inches from the American, drinking in the details of his bearded face, his full mouth, his brown, unruly hair. Suddenly she saw revulsion in his eyes. She stepped back, dimly aware that she must be disgusting to him.

Cody held out the bag of things that Sister Maria-Theresa had sent for her. Tanya glared at the soldier, expecting him to take the gift, but he had already rifled through its meagre contents and now he made no move to stop her. She slowly reached out towards the stranger's hand and plucked the offering from his fingers.

She turned quickly from him, shielding the prize with her body, and opened the bag close to her face, peering into it. Cody watched. She seemed to be having difficulty seeing what was inside in the dim light. The girl carefully laid the articles out on the bed, one thing at a time; a small bottle of shampoo; a face cloth; a bar of soap. She drew out a toothbrush. Struck by a sudden thought, she shook the remaining contents onto the bed and grabbed the small tube of toothpaste. In an instant, she was scrubbing her teeth with such force that white foam frothed over her lips. As suddenly, she saw his face and wiped the bubbles from her mouth with her sleeve. Bob noticed that it had turned pink with blood from her ulcerated gums.

Abruptly, shamed by the woman's degradation he turned to the guard. 'Bring her some water, quickly,' he said in Spanish. 'She must have water to wash with!'

'Si, Padre!' the soldier said sullenly and went in search of water.

Tanya stared at the tall visitor. 'You're a priest?' she said. She looked at his jeans and touched the sleeves of his open-necked shirt. She denied it for him. 'You're not a priest!' Her voice rose insistently, 'You're not a priest.' The woman seized him and started to shake him. 'A priest?' she screeched, 'Do you see any God in here?' Suddenly the violence of her reaction made her clutch at her belly. She staggered back against the bed and sank down on to it, her arms across her swollen body, rocking in pain.

Cody hurried forward bending over her, holding her shoulders. She was panting. He felt her hand moving down his arm, feeling him, exploring him, and he had to concentrate to keep from flinching from the intimacy of her touch.

He spoke softly, saying, 'You're right, I'm not a priest. The soldier thinks I am one. He thinks I'm going to give you the sacrament.' Cody looked about him. 'He doesn't want your soul on his conscience, whatever else he may think of your worldly needs!' A deep sense of outrage seethed just beneath his fragile humour. 'In the name of God, how long have they kept you like this?'

Tanya turned from him and pointed to the eternity of scratches on the wall.

Cody straightened, following her finger. For the first time, he saw the great pattern of crude marks. Some were deep, scraped violently into the crumbling whitewash with God knew what implement. Others were as faint as memories. He crossed the small room, considering the rough calendar. Involuntarily he traced her first days with his fingertips, trying to imagine how it must have been for her, alone, confused. He found he was counting them. The first row alone spread the distance of an arm's length from left to right and below that were five more, no, six. In all, there were more than two hundred of these forlorn scratches. Dear God, two hundred days.

'Is this right?' he asked. 'Are these days? You have been here all this time?'

He turned as the guard pushed through the doorway, water slopping from a bucket on to the earth floor, and saw the naked hatred in the girl's eyes.

Cody pointed savagely at the wall. 'Is this right?' he asked in Spanish, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. 'You've kept her here all this time?'

The guard faced him, sullenly. 'Estoy solomente militar, Señor.'

'Only a soldier!' Cody snapped in English. 'That's what they said at Auschwitz, I was only a soldier!' Furious, he seized the bucket and crossed to the girl in two strides. 'Get cleaned up,' he cried. 'We're going to get you out of here. I've been sent here by the Catholic Church and, believe me, they will not let these people get away with this!'

He turned. The ugly black muzzle of an automatic pistol was pointing at his chest. It didn't waver.

Cody froze. He tasted salt in his mouth and his hands were suddenly sweating. He looked down at the gun and then into the soldier's eyes. They were unmoving. The two men measured each other in silence. At last, Cody lifted his arms cautiously in a gesture of conciliation. 'OK, I'm sorry,' he said. 'No need for the gun. I'm sorry.' The other man's eyes never left his own and Cody remembered he didn't speak any English. 'Perdon, Señor, esta bien?' He waited until the soldier considered it safe to lower the gun before he turned slowly to the girl. 'I'm sorry,' he told her softly. 'Please clean yourself up.'

She bent quickly towards the bucket and Cody had an image of her stripping naked in front of him to wash. Quickly he turned away. 'I will leave you alone,' he said but she seized his arm.

'No.'

'I have to.' He looked about him.

'Don't leave me!'

He prised her hands free. 'You need privacy. I'm supposed to be a priest, remember. '

The girl watched him moving away, leaving her. The jailer had put the gun back in its holster and stood waiting. Cody said, 'I'm going to find out why you're here, Tanya. Believe me, I am.' Then the door swung shut and she listened as the bolt scraped home in the lock before she sank down onto the bed, alone again.



*



It's a shambles - not because of the earthquake - it has always been a shambles. I had taken a taxi there. At first I thought I might go shopping – perhaps that was what he'd expected me to do – or had he thought I'd just laze around the hotel and sunbathe all day while he was gone? But once I was in the city, once I'd seen the ruin, the devastated remains of all the places I'd known so well before the earthquake – I knew I would end up at the Museum, the Museo Nacional de Nicaragua.



*



They have stuff in there that even they don't know about. I have always loved it, the cool after the heat of the day outside, the dry, musty smell of history. I loved that smell, like breathing the past.

There was so much to unearth, and the people running it knew even less about it than I did. But they remembered me from my previous stay in Managua, and they greeted me with such friendship. They trusted me, allowing me to drift wherever I wanted in the chaos of their archives.

She remembers the building. Upstairs, away from the public area, the rooms are shadowy, with cold stone floors and small windows, and there's everything from Mayan skulls to a Spanish soldier's breeches. But she passes them by, seduced by a room at the end of the corridor. This is where she is always most at home, in amongst the written records, turning the dry papers, reading the black, spidery handwriting of people long-dead; people for whom the world had been flat.

Something from the 1750s had sidetracked me– like finding a new word in a dictionary – I had followed the new scent, something to do with the British colonisation, but in amongst the papers was a document from much earlier. It had no right to be with this stuff from the 1700s. It came from two centuries before. I remember how it felt in my hand; dry as dust, it crackled as I turned it over and saw the extravagant Spanish of a bygone age.

That is what first catches her attention, the language, and as she reads it she realises it has been written by the captain of a man-of-war - or maybe by his secretary – and talks of the year 1524 and of the San Juan River.

Is that why I'm here?

She reaches out for the presents the bearded man has brought her. She handles the shampoo and the soap, then looks closer into the small pile of clothing. There is a shirt. And underwear. There is a clean skirt. Perhaps he is going to get her out of here. Perhaps these are just the first steps. She levers herself up again and holds the ankle-length, drab skirt against herself, stretching the elastic waist till it fits across in front of her. She drags off her filthy bush-shirt and tears stream down her cheeks as she kneels on the wet earth to scrub in the cold, soapy water.



*



The asymmetric rectangle of sunlight had slipped across the wall, so that it was now folded into a corner of the cell, lighting her dimly where she sat on the edge of the bed. The door that she had been quietly watching opened again and there he was. She had no recollection of his name, but the smile he gave her stirred a feeling, which she had not known in an endless time – a sense of belonging again.

Unbelievably, and despite the heat, he was carrying two steaming mugs. 'I managed to get you some coffee,' he said without preamble. 'I guessed you'd take sugar.'

She nodded her head enthusiastically and for a second, through those startling blue eyes, he glimpsed the girl within. Her newly washed hair, still dishevelled for lack of a brush, bobbed and her eyes were alight behind long lashes in the fine-boned face. Scrubbed clean of the prison grime she was really very pretty.

'Good.' He grinned and passed her the strong black coffee. 'I've been talking to the guard while you were washing. I don't think he's such a bad guy. He's just doing his job, after all, isn't he?' He added as an afterthought, 'Do you know, I think he's frightened of you?'

The light went out of her eyes as she dropped her gaze to the floor. 'He's a pig!' she hissed.

There was another much longer pause while a terrible thought occurred to him. Was that why she was pregnant? He broke the silence abruptly, saying, 'Has he abused you?' As the words came out, he realised how absurd they were. Of course the man had abused her. He abused her everyday, just by keeping her here. 'I mean, has he...' He could think of no easy way to frame his thoughts, 'What I mean is, were you pregnant before you were brought here?'

The girl took the coffee without another word and Cody waited, hoping for some gesture of denial but there was nothing. At last, he decided to start again. 'I'm sorry if I frightened you earlier, when I lost my temper. We never got the introductions out of the way properly. I'm Robert Cody.' He held out his hand. 'My friends call me Bob.'

She put down the mug and stood up, smoothing her hands down the long skirt he had brought. 'Whose was it?' she asked, ignoring his hand.

She was not tall, a little over five feet he thought, and her arms were as thin as her gaunt face. Her blue eyes held his steadily.

Could I have endured all this? he thought.

She was watching him in silence and suddenly he remembered her question. He looked down at the dark-blue, shapeless skirt. 'Oh, by the look of it, one of the Sisters of Our Lady must have sent that.' He returned her smile apologetically. 'But I don't think she was... expecting.'

Embarrassed, he suddenly laughed and, for an instant, she saw another man. A laughing face with eyes that flashed from under bleached brows.

She clung to those eyes, as she had so often, willing them to live, but as she watched, they grew dull, motionless, dark. Dead. Dead eyes in a lifeless face surrounded by blond hair. Hair that floated back and forth pointlessly in still water. 'Jimmy?' she said, holding out her hand to him.

Cody felt the hair on his neck rising; the girl was staring past him. He looked round. The room was empty, as he knew it would be. He had stopped laughing. 'Excuse me?' he asked.

'He was here, just now,' she said, rocking herself gently, caressing her baby. 'This is Jimmy's,' she said, then, suddenly. 'You're not Paul.'

He took her hand and helped her to sit down on the bed. 'No, I'm Bob,' he said. She continued to rock, backwards and forwards, her arms across the unborn child and he asked very gently, 'What's your name?'

'I'm Tanya,' she said. Her face brightened. 'And you're Bob.'

He nodded, pulling the chair up from under the window.

'Who's Jimmy?' he asked.

He sat in front of her and waited.

'Jimmy's gone.'

'Listen, Tanya, I need to know where you've come from. I've been sent to help you, and I want to, but I can't if I don't know who you are.'

She stared through him.

'Well, can you tell me why you're here?'

Her eyes focused on his face. 'Don't you know that?' she asked.

'No,' he said. 'I don't.'

She sat, rocking her baby.

'Is it drugs?'

No answer.

'You're here for dealing in drugs or something like that?'

No answer.

Cody eased the sticking shirt from his back, but the girl didn't seem to notice the heat in the humid cell.

'OK,' he said. 'Let's start with who you are. What's your second name? Tanya what?'

'Mitchell,' she said to the room.

'Good, Tanya Mitchell. From...?'

'Wherever you like,' she said. 'I've come from wherever you like.' She leant forward, conspiratorially. 'Where have you come from, Bob Cody?'

Cody leaned towards her. 'If I tell you, will you tell me?'

'Maybe.' She sat back suddenly.

'I'm from Boston,' he said.

She thought about that. 'What's it like in Boston just now? Is it summer?'

What season was it in New England? Bob looked instinctively towards the barred window but saw only the hot jungle. He thought harder. 'It's winter,' he said at last, nodding to himself. 'Winter.'

'With snow?'

'Not yet.'

She looked disappointed.

'OK,' he nodded, 'yes there might be snow.'

'Is it Christmas?' she asked.

Suddenly she lurched to her feet and he scraped the chair back out of her way.

'No, it's not Christmas. Not yet.' He waited till she had sat back down before he said, 'And now it's your turn to tell me where you're from, Tanya. I've told you, now you have to tell me.'

She was silent and he prompted her, 'You're from England.'

She nodded.

'London?' he started with the name he knew best.

'Yes!'

He sighed. At last they were getting somewhere. 'You have family there?'

She becomes still

Music is floating down from an upstairs bedroom buoyed up on the heavy, motionless air. It is hot, the doors and windows of the London house are open and yet there isn't a breath of wind. Scratchy blues music floats down the stairs and insinuates itself into her consciousness as she swats for her A-level exams. Francis must be back from veterinary school.

Francis, the brother who never had to cram for an exam. Francis, the boy who cruised his way to straight A-grades and Cambridge University while she has to flog her stupid girl's brain to understand something as simple as Bismarck's policy on the Balkans. 'For God's sake turn it down!' she bellows up the stairs and the music stops abruptly.

Well, she got there. She got her degree. She showed them in the end that he wasn't their only child with any wits.

She puts her hand on her stomach.

She had it all going for her finally, and for what? For this? For a stinking room, for a tin roof that fries her brains out every day? For eight month's of no-one but herself to tell how stupid she has been! And the baby! Jesus, she never wanted a baby. Why didn't it just die? Why couldn't things just go back to how they were supposed to be? All she'd ever wanted was to show her stupid, bigoted father that being a daughter didn't make you invisible. She'd done everything he'd asked her to - the riding, the sailing, the travelling. It wasn't her fault he'd had a girl!

She seized the man's hand and thrust it roughly onto her belly. 'Is it still living?' she cried, 'What do you think? Do you know about these things? Can you tell? Is it dead?' She was practically screaming at him. 'I want it dead. I don't want it – do you understand? Not the baby, not any of this!'

'You can't mean that.' His heart hammered. Could you tell if a foetus was alive like that? What did she mean, is it still alive? He wanted to shake her, to snap her out of her madness.

'You can't tell me what I want,' she hissed, pushing his hand away. 'It's not your baby, it's mine.'

Cody was on his feet, upsetting the chair. 'Why are you talking like this?'

She wheeled away from him. 'Jimmy's dead,' she said. 'I killed him and now I'm carrying his baby. Did you feel it move? Is it alive?'

'Stop!' he cried, overturning his chair. 'I'm trying to help you and God knows you need help - but you don't need me. I'm just a theology graduate from Boston.' He banged the dust off his hat and crossed to the door. 'You need a shrink!'

He wanted to knock on the door, to call the jailer to come and open it for him, to let him out. But from the depths of his past, he remembered a different scene. It was in a police cell. A boy of thirteen sat on the bed where she had been - the boy was Bob Cody, young and alone - and instead of himself being the interviewer, there was another man, a wiser, grey-haired man – a probation officer who spent hour after patient hour with the boy, talking to him, helping him, trying to sort his life out for him.

The girl was still standing, looking at him. There was fear in her eyes, he could see it. She knew that she was driving him away and the knowledge terrified her. He couldn't ignore the pleading in those eyes. Slowly he walked back and picked up the overturned chair.

'I'm sorry.' He dropped his hat onto the floor again. 'Sit down, won't you.'

She sat, submissive, facing him.

'You're Tanya Mitchell, from London, England, and you're here because you killed somebody called Jimmy. Am I close?'

She nodded, slowly, glad that the man had stayed, determined to try harder not to make him angry again.

'Do you have any friends in Nicaragua? Anyone else who knows you're here?'

She shook her head and they looked at each other in silence.

'Didn't you ask about somebody, when I came in? You thought somebody had sent me, don't you remember?' Cody sank his forehead onto his hands and rubbed his temples, trying to clear the ache that pulsed inside his head. He looked up and she was watching him.

'You did,' he sighed, feeling impatience welling up inside him again. He fought it, saying slowly, 'You mentioned a man...' The name wouldn't come, but quietly she said 'Paul.'

Cody looked at her, astonished how clearly she had said it.

'Paul! That's right. You said You're not Paul, didn't you? Who's Paul? Is he here in Nicaragua, somewhere? Who is he, Tanya?' He realised that he had asked too many questions. She was confused again. He took her hand quietly and said, 'Paul who?'

'Paul was going to look after me,' she said. 'He was going to come back soon. Have you seen him?'

Cody sensed that she was really trying. 'Tell me who he is.'

She looked desperately into his face.

'You're doing good, Tanya, real good. Tell me who he is.' He squeezed her fingers and said, 'Try, Tanya, try and concentrate.'

'He was going to come back for me,' she sobbed, hopelessly. 'They took him away and he said he would come back, but he never came. I don't know where he is. I don't know.'

Bob Cody released her hands and she wiped her sleeve across her eyes, then he said gently, 'His name, Tanya? Tell me his name. If he's in Nicaragua, we should be able to find him. The police must know if they took him away. I'll ask the Ministry of Justice in Managua. Just tell me his name!'

'Nash,' she said slowly. 'Robertson-Nash. He was on the boat too, when they caught us. Him and me and Jimmy.' She checked herself. 'Jimmy was dead, but they brought him too.'

Cody had pulled a pen from his pocket and was writing down the strange surname. 'Robertson-Nash. Paul, you're sure?'

Tanya nodded. 'Paul.'

'Great! Good girl!' he squeezed her hand. 'We'll find him for you.'

Above their heads, the afternoon rain began to beat steadily on the tin roof and they heard the jailer sliding the bolt on the door. Bob stood up. 'I've got to go now, Tanya, but I won't be far away. I'm going to stay in the village tonight.'

The soldier was in the room with them.

'Try and think of anything that'll help me,' Cody said.

Tanya rose with him, unwilling to let go of his hands. 'I'll be with you tomorrow morning,' he said. 'I promise, OK?' He eased her fingers from his own and moved towards the open door. 'God bless you, Tanya.' A thought crossed his mind and he turned to the guard, motioning for a moment longer. 'Do you want to pray with me now, before I go?' He waited. 'Do you?'

She shook her head, but a gentle smile crossed her lips and she said 'No, Bob Cody, but say a prayer for my baby.'



*



'She is loco, right, Padre?' The bolt scrapes as he locks the door behind them.

Cody waits for the man to turn to him before replying. 'No. She's not mad.' The anger has been washed away by the pathos of the woman's condition. He hasn't the strength to feel anything for the guard, except, strangely, a kind of pity. 'Why do you keep her here?' he asks frankly. 'Is she such a threat to somebody?'

The Guard shrugs 'who knows?' and pushes past into the office that Bob had seen for the first time, all those hours ago, when the sun still shone and he had not met the woman with her unborn baby.

The soldier says. 'You are going back now?'

'No,' Cody says. 'Tomorrow.'

'Then you will stay with me tonight.' The guard opens the front door. It's not an invitation, more a fact.

'The chief has said I can stay with him,' Cody looks through the doorway, out at the wet jungle, where grey clouds sit on the tops of the trees and the warm rain falls to the ground ceaselessly.

'You are here on government business, Padre. You will stay with me.'

Cody shrugs. If that was the protocol, he could go along with it.