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1

San José, Costa Rica, May 1953

EARLY EVENING. TWILIGHT. SWARMS OF INSECTS. THE WIND sweeps them into his face on the ride back; he has to squint. But still he can see her as he turns off the road, away from the green river and into the driveway: Maria. She’s standing on the steps leading up to the house, looking a bit nervous, fidgety. At one point she slaps her arm.

Something else he can see: she seems to have been waiting for him.

“Mail for you, Don José,” Maria calls out as he parks his moped. “On the stairs,” she says. And as he’s walking past her: “From Germany.” He slows down.

He hasn’t written his brother in three months. For the most part his silence has been met with reproaches: We’ve always made an effort. It’s always been important to us to stay in touch with each other.

“Do you want to come inside for a moment? I have cold lemonade.”

Carl’s letter will have to wait.

He steps into the room with its dark furniture. She turns on the ceiling fan. The air stirs; it smells of dust. The small birdcage that hangs from one of the rafters starts swinging violently back and forth. The squirrel trapped inside has been trying to get out for days. Maria caught it in the garden, con mis manos—with her bare hands. Its bushy tail flails around like a mad painter’s brush.

“When are you going to set it free?”

She looks at him, taken aback. “I like animals. Horses, dogs, squirrels.”

“But all it can do is go around and around in circles. It’s about to go round the bend.”

She laughs at his play on words—volverse; volverse loco—and leans back in her chair. Her body is shaped like a barrel. No waist. Five children, all of them married. She wears a shirt that belonged to her late husband, large and boxy. He knows Maria is lonely. The nights here lie shrouded in gauzy darkness. No light anywhere. The house enveloped in a warm caress, heat trapped in the walls.

He tells her about his flight over Santa Barbara. About how they have to go ahead and map out the roads that are to be built next year—that’s why they’re meeting with the engineers.

“Roads,” she says, “are important. There’s too much dust here.”

Darkness falls completely while they talk. He doesn’t talk about Germany anymore. “The country is divided now?” she once asked, uncertain.

Yes, there was a war in Europe. Surely you must have heard about it! “A world war,” he explained.

“There are so many wars,” she said, defending herself. We have had many wars here too.

When his glass is empty he gets up, walks outside, and finds his way up the stairs in the moonlight. As he climbs, he reaches for the large brown envelope.