Her ex-husband, in the traditional IBM blue suit and white shirt, went to the opposite end of the suite. It was a suite that her father and grandfather had always used, whenever they were in San Francisco. “Latin America all the way to Punto Del Fuego. Quite a territory for a man my age. Really, I think it was because of you. I suppose they thought I understood the Latin mind.” Monty sat on the orange chintz-upholstered couch, put his hands on his knees, and looked at her as if she might give him an award. I suppose I do, he told himself.

She realized he was a fool, and was surprised that she’d never seen that until now.

He’d come during his lunch hour to pick up his son. He had hired a nurse to take the boy home and provide for him until his wedding. He was engaged to a girl who had just graduated from UCLA, who, he told Isabella, would make an excellent mother for the child. He was betting on her the way you might on a horse to win a race. He told people, in fact, that she was going to “go the distance.”

“As soon as things calm down, I’ll take him back,” Isabella said. “You understand. It’s impossible right now with the war, and I have to make the plantation work somehow. It’s all that Roberto and I have. Would you mind if I had a drink? Would you like one?” Her ex-husband shot her a disapproving glance.

“Sorry. It’s a Thursday, and quite early at that. I have one on Saturday night.”

“Well. It must be the time change,” she said, and went to the servi-bar for a gin. She called Olga to get her a glass from the bathroom.

Olga came out from the bedroom. Monty stood up. The two had never said more than “good morning” and “good night.” Monty, for whatever reason, was afraid of Olga— probably because she reminded him of the wild Indians he’d seen in the movies. Olga politely came to Monty’s side, called him Don Monty, then turned to get Isabella her glass.

“Does he have everything, Olga?” Montgomery asked. “Clothes and things?” Monty always forgot that Olga spoke no English. He waited for an answer as she walked towards the bedroom.

“Yes. He has his clothes,” Isabella said, looking at the little bottle of gin in her hand. She was afraid of the bottle, and she loved the bottle. It was like most things in her life, a bit of a mystery. When the man had jumped on the jeep to stop her, she had mysteriously fired her father’s gun at him. The barrel of the thing drove into the man’s brown stomach. His rifle slung over his shoulder, he’d never expected a woman to shoot him. But she had: She had shot him well, as the plantation workers said later.

For the workers, Isabella had taken on almost mystical powers after that. They viewed all outsiders—including the guerrillas—as a threat. After the shooting, she got the kind of respect her grandfather and father had enjoyed. The workers believed the Cruzes had magical powers and would protect them from the communists.

“I hope Robert is helping you with the place. Is he still playing polo? Or whatever it is he does all day?”

“They’ve killed all the horses,” she said, cracking open the bottle. “It was quite horrible, really. Seeing them like that in the stalls, dead. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink, Monty?” She realized then that Monty was a boy and would never be a man, if being a man meant that you weren’t afraid. He was afraid of everything. He’d been afraid of her in bed. He was afraid of his boss and of his company.

This moment was to be the first impression, and memory, Russell was to have of his father. He would recall later that the man was tall, and looked down at him as Olga brought him out from the bedroom where he’d been napping. There was a lushness that he would always remember about life with his mother. She sank down beside him, her long hair falling over her shoulders.

“Mí querido, hoy te vas con tu papá. My dearest, today you go with your papa.” She said it in both languages. Isabella rubbed his hair and held him tightly for moment.

Nothing would ever hurt her as much as that long moment. Not being alone on the plantation later, with the constant threat of death, or the loneliness of her affairs, or her addictions, or even the dreadful pain of missing her mother and father.

“He’s a big boy,” Montgomery said, walking towards him, speaking a language that Russell couldn’t really understand. Isabella wouldn’t have cried, but Olga started, and then Isabella couldn’t stop herself. The boy, not accustomed to the two women in his life crying, looked at his mother for an explanation. None, unfortunately, was forthcoming.

He was taken from his mother exactly a half hour later by a “nurse” who smelled of Listerine and called him Russ. The first word he learned in English was “Mother.” Russell once heard his father tell his stepmother that Russell’s mother was a drunk.

The first thing Russell remembered about life—about being alive—was the gunshot that had saved them. It had been very loud. His mother had shot well. Everyone at the tennis club in Quatepeque said so. The guerrilla had intended to kill them, people at the club said, because he hated the rich.

FOUR

The price of commodities throughout Latin America had collapsed completely, leaving strangled economies unable to breathe. Guatemala’s currency, the quetzal, dangled by IMF machinations and a prayer. Violent crime in the country had reached absurd, Hieronymus Bosch-style levels.

The free markets were at work, just give them time, urged his newspaper’s editorial writers. But they were in London, and even to Russell—who believed in the system—their opinions on the crisis seemed hopelessly out of touch.

Come to Carl’s Party in Antigua, the email had said. The invitation had come to Russell’s office computer in Guatemala City, the Thursday after he’d returned from Tres Rios. It gave an address and a long list of people, some known to Russell, who were planning on coming. He scanned the list of names. It promised a good time and he immediately wrote back, saying he planned to come.

He called Katherine Barkley, an American girl, asking if she’d like to go to the party with him. She answered her cell phone from somewhere out on a coffee plantation, building housing for poor families.

Barkley was the opposite of the wealthy Guatemalan girls he’d been dating, girls whose main preoccupations had been their hair and their breast size. Katherine worked for a UN-affiliated NGO called “Houses for Humanity.” She was serious, intelligent and completely unimpressed by his big job with the Financial Times, which she considered an “establishment rag.” At the party where they’d first met, they had argued about the IMF’s role in the life of the country. She was, she’d said, an anti-globalist. He thought her position ridiculous, and told her so. He’d told her that capitalism would make the world richer, but it would take time.

He honestly believed that. It’s what he’d been taught at the University of Chicago, and like any neophyte, he believed what he’d been taught with passion. It was a harsh Darwinian system sometimes, he agreed, but it was better, far better, than anything else. Leave it to Adam Smith’s invisible hand. It was the only way, he’d told her. If it worked in America, it could work anywhere. Weren’t people all the same? He told her he thought it racist to think only white people had a right to prosperity.

They’d agreed to disagree, and he was surprised when she’d given him her number and told him to call her. On the way home that night, he began for the first time to silently question his beliefs. Stopped at a traffic light, he’d looked at the pedestrians as they crossed in front of him. He couldn’t help but see the pain in their faces, really see it, as they stood waiting for buses, holding a child’s hand. Their faces were marked by suffering, really stamped by it now. He’d seen it clearly—anyone could—a shared frantic look that said there were limits to patience before people exploded. The communist insurgency had lasted thirty years, and now this strange new enemy, an economic war with unseen generals and unseen armies but real casualties, was being visited upon them.