Betrayed by Jeanette Windle Page B

Jeff always stamped his pictures with name and date to protect his copyright. That one would be you at . . . three months. Which sounds right because that’s when he was offered a graduate fellowship back at Columbia. I didn’t see Jeff and Victoria for several years after they left, but they always kept in touch. I knew Jeff was doing well because I’d see his name on a news photo from Sri Lanka or a magazine spread on Kenya. He did have itchy feet.”
     
    Like his daughters . Vicki bent forward again to look at a National Geographic layout of an African refugee camp that might easily have been one she herself had surveyed. For the first time she was beginning to feel that these unfamiliar people in the photos really might be connected to her and Holly. Her parents.
     
    Then why was it all such a blank, as though she were listening to a story about total strangers? She strained to remember something— anything —but the effort brought a familiar queasiness to her stomach. She asked hastily, “So how did they end up back here? By the photos they must have come back. We . . . I mean.”
     
    “Jeff had been given a grant to do a book on the modern-day Mayans. He believed the beauty of this country needed to be preserved on film before it was gone forever, and he wanted to include the basureros in the book, since they’re Mayan too. I invited him to bring the whole family here. So you came. Victoria settled right back into helping with the children while Jeff traveled around the country, taking pictures, doing interviews. You girls loved it. Playing with the children. Having tea with me in this apartment. Singing.”
     
    Evelyn gestured to the ancient pump organ in a corner, a worn hymnbook lying open on its rack. “That’s where you learned ‘This Is My Father’s World.’ That’s even the same book. I sang it for you one day because it seemed to fit what your father was trying to do. You and Holly latched onto it and begged me to sing it, though you never managed to get past the first line. Funny to think that stuck even when you forgot everything else.”
     
    “I can’t believe it.” Vicki shook her head. “I always assumed we’d learned that song at Sunday school. I can’t imagine choosing to sing it.”
     
    “Well, you did, over and over.” Evelyn gave a ghost of a smile before she went on. “I’d have been happy to keep you here forever. But Jeff persuaded the leaders of a Mayan village to allow him to live there and photograph their daily lives for his book. He convinced them that this would be an opportunity to communicate their plight to the outside world. It was the height of the civil war, and the Mayan peasants were getting the worst of it. Jeff was sure this would be Pulitzer material. The only drawback was leaving his family for such an extended time.
     
    “Victoria dug in her heels and said you’d all go. It would be safe since you’d be under the auspices of the Mayan tribal leaders, and there was a strong army presence in the area as protection against any guerrilla activity. Besides, as a nurse, she could handle any medical emergencies, even make herself useful in the village while Jeff was working. I’ll never forget you and Holly climbing into the Jeep to take off, still singing ‘This Is My Father’s World’ at the top of your sweet little voices. That was the last time I saw you.”
     
    “Because Jeff and Victoria were killed?” Vicki was touched to see tears in Evelyn’s eyes. It seemed odd that to this woman these people were friends—even family—while to Vicki, their daughter, they were strangers.
     
    “Yes. There was no easy communication in those days, certainly not in the mountains, so it was no surprise for a month to go by without hearing from Jeff and Victoria. In fact, the first I knew of any trouble was when the embassy announced that two Americans had been killed in the Mayan highlands east of here. The bodies had been recovered and turned over to a