On the silt and pebble-covered floor of the lagoon lay the body of a man. His open eyes seemed to be looking at the sun of a lower, liquid sky. A small black and yellow fish swam along the ridge of his leg, another nibbled at his ear. He had been down there for some time, and his unmoving body had become a part of the watery landscape. His face seemed peaceful, but now and then it was as though his lips curled in an expression of disgust. The seaweed moved with his hair in the gentle current. As long as the mud adhered to it, his body changed slowly; the eyes, which originally had been hollow, pushed out of the swollen face. They had lost their color; they would have seen only blackness. The belly grew to be enormous, and one night the body rose up out of the black mud, the muck covered all trace of where it had lain, and the flesh came into the open as it was propelled by the waves to the shore.
The police commissioner of Flores leaned over the body, his handkerchief pressed to his nose. There were few things which displeased him as much as an unexplained death; his bloodshot eyes slowly searched for some sign of violence. He only found the marks left by the hands of the fishermen who had discovered the corpse and pulled it out of the water, and the fish-bitten face and clenched hands. The commissioner had someone force the fists open: one was empty and the other held a bit of earth and a stone. From its size he judged the body to be that of a foreigner. He raised his head and folded his handkerchief.
Richard Ward, an American, had come to the Petén nine months earlier, and had purchased a piece of land facing the lagoon of ltza, where he built a small cottage. He intended to retire there with his wife Lucy, who was waiting in Wisconsin for news of him. Two weeks before the body was found, Richard Ward had been seen in a shop in Flores, and then he had disappeared. His servant Rafael Colina was taken to the police station, where he was questioned. No result came of this, nor of the search made of his hut, on Ward’s land. They kept him for a few hours, and after administering the customary beating, let him go.
Lucy Ward arrived in Flores one wet Sunday in September. She was stout, with graceful arms and legs. At the police station they gave her the little box containing the ashes: 37, she read on the cover, Sr. R. Ward. A police car took her to the property, where Rafael was expecting her.
She wandered around the terrain, examining the landscape with the questioning expression of someone looking at an abstract painting he fails to understand; then she realized with some surprise that it pleased her. She went into the cottage, looked around, and decided to spend the night there. Later, on her way to sleep, she thought of her husband, and was grateful to him for having found this place. She decided to try living there for a while.
From the outset it was as though the absence of human companionship, an absence which she had dreaded, was compensated for by the feverish life of the plants, the activity of the insects, and the tenuous presence of Rafael. Little by little she became aware of the forest’s tiny miracles, and she learned how to resign herself to the inconveniences: the ever-present ants, the constant sweating, the mosquitoes at twilight and at dawn.
After supper she would go out and sit in the rocking chair and stay listening to the voices of the earth, metallic and hypnotic. During the day she liked to walk among the trees along a narrow path cleared by her husband. She would walk until she was tired, and relax among the vines to breathe in the scent of branches and dead leaves. From time to time she caught a strange butterfly, or gathered flowers whose names she did not know.
One night when rain fell unceasingly, the sound of it on the palm-thatched roof kept her from sleeping and for the first time she was troubled by her husband’s death. Like the rain that was starting to drip into the room, fear began to seep into her consciousness. A heavy drop landed next to her pillow; she got up and pushed the bed into the middle of the room. There were flashes of lightning. As she was finally on her way to falling asleep, by a bolt of lightning she saw Rafael in the doorway, watching her. She blinked her eyes, and considered stretching her arm out to light a match; then she realized with relief that she had been wrong. The face was a stain in the wood. She breathed deeply and sank into sleep.
ln the morning when the sun was high, she opened her eyes and heard Rafael working in the kitchen. The air was sweet with the smell of corn. Needles of sunlight pushed between the slits in the ceiling, a fly buzzed. She made her bed and dressed to go out.
Morning, said Rafael, showing his yellow teeth.
She went to sit on the porch. Rafael put the tray on the small table beside her chair. As he was pouring her coffee, she turned and looked into the distance, saying in a hushed voice:· I’ve been thinking of Don Ricardo.
He stared at her an instant, surprised; then he looked away and lifted his head. Don Ricardo, he said. The light moved on the surface of the lagoon. Lucy raised her cup, and he turned and went into the kitchen.
That morning, instead of taking her walk in the forest, Lucy went to the end of the dock and spread out a towel to sunbathe. She thought of the past; it was empty and vague. Memory dissolved in the heat.
The sun burned her face. She heard Rafael push his rowboat into the water. Sitting up, she saw him row past the dock. I’m going to see if there’s any fish, he told her, continuing to row toward the other bank.
She lay face down, looking at the white flowers under the water; then she shut her eyes in order not to think.
The heat became intense. She plunged into the water and swam back and forth at the end of the dock. Then she came out and let the sun dry her. On her way to the house, she noticed that the door to the hut under the banana plants was open. She glanced behind her — only the still water — and walked rapidly to the door, peering into the dark interior.
There was a large earthenware pot in the corner, resting on some stones that kept it from touching the floor; underneath it were ashes and dead embers. She stopped, astounded, in the middle of the room. In the air, near her face, an enormous toad was staring at her. It opened its mouth, and she saw the glass jar and the cord that suspended it from above. The toad moved, pushing its four toes against the glass. Her fear was transformed into pity. She touched the jar with a fingernail, and the toad raised and lowered its eyelids. The cover had been pierced with a nail. In the bottom of the jar were some blades of grass and a fly. She turned it around and held it close to her face so she could examine the toad’s skin.
From some distance away came a hollow wooden sound. From the doorway she saw the boat in the middle of the lagoon. Rafael was rowing in a standing position, a stroke on the left, then on the right, never taking his eyes off the shore. She felt a trickle down her spine, and she realized that her hair was dripping wet. She went out of the hut, leaving drops of water on the floor where she had stood.
That noon Rafael served her a fish stew. She tasted it without pleasure, and left it almost intact. He asked her if anything was the matter with the food. No, the food was good, but the sun had taken away her appetite. After he had disappeared into his hut to take his siesta, she went to the kitchen and prepared herself a dish of fruit.
She must speak to Rafael. His treatment of the toad was cruel. She thought of the wrinkled skin, the unhappy eyes behind the glass. Sitting on the porch, she looked out over the lagoon and thought of her husband’s ashes.
She rose from the rocking chair and went silently – the afternoon was very still – to the open door of the hut. Rafael, crouching with his back to her, was playing with the toad, which he had taken out of the jar and was poking with a stick. The cornered toad puffed itself out threateningly; above its eyes had appeared pointed black ridges, like horns.
She took a few steps back, and called out loudly: Rafael! He jumped up and stuck his head outside the door.
I’m sorry, she said. I need some lemons. Do you think you could go and buy some?
When Rafael had gone, taking the road to the village, Lucy drew back the bolt and pushed open the door to the hut. The toad was once again in the jar. She unscrewed the top, put the jar on the floor, and urged the toad out of the room with her foot. She bolted the door again and went back to the porch. The sun was getting close to the horizon.
Rafael returned at dusk. There were no lemons, he said as he walked past her, on his way to the hut. Lucy watched him as she rocked in the chair. She saw him open the door and go in. Then suddenly he rushed out again, as if he had been pushed. He looked here and there on the ground, behind the bushes that surrounded the hut, under the banana plants, in the ditch beside the path, and between the stalks of the canebrake. He returned to the hut and searched once more, and after that he stood in the doorway looking out.
What is it? Lucy called. She saw him coming toward her, his head lowered.
Is something wrong?
Somebody went into my house.
The mosquitoes were biting her. Somebody? When?
Rafael glanced behind him. You didn’t see anybody?
There was a full moon, and the air was still. Before supper, Lucy went out and stood on the shore looking at the sky. She knew that her lie had offended Rafael. For a moment she felt like admitting her wrongdoing, but then silence seemed the better course.
The food was on the table. Listlessly she finished all the fish; this was to please him. (Now she felt sorry for him.) In a low voice she begged his pardon. Rafael served himself and said good night. When the candle in his hut no longer burned, she went into her room.
In the night she awoke to feel a weight on her abdomen. She felt it move upward across her chest. It was something cold, it was crawling now on her neck, and it stopped at her mouth.
She could not move: her limbs were heavy. Then she saw the toad, its body swelling …
She threw back the sheet and jumped out of bed. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. She seized a flashlight, ran into the bathroom, and tried to be sick. Letting the water run, she put her head under the tap. Then she sat down on the bathmat and found that she was unable to get up again. In the mirror she saw the flashlight shining.
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