Cuando te toca aunque te quites

by Doris Kristina Raave (Estonia)

I didn't expect to find Mexico

Thump! I heard him plunge down behind us. “Something's wrong,” I told myself immediately. As the air stood still, It’d be instantly felt. I turned around to see him approaching us. “Something's wrong,” my intuition warned me again. My first impulse was to reach out my right hand to push my cousin aside. She was the only thing separating him from me. “¿Es por aquí la playa?” I asked, attempting to conceal my quavering voice. Casual conversation, that would serve to ease the tension. We were mere meters from the Playa Coral, a deserted strand of the Pacific Coast. We had flown in into this suffocating heat the very morning. Trespassing now through private property, we found ourselves descending on a gully path to the beach where we expected to be welcomed by the nefarious waves, the ones that grow ever so gently, stay steady for just a moment before gushing down with a dreadful force transforming the otherwise piercingly turquoise ocean into a bed of white clouds. “Sí,” he answered while making his way around us. I could feel myself tensing. Readying. To fight or flee. Suddenly, I glimpsed the sun flashing back from something behind him. “Eek!” I jumped back. I'd never been threatened with a cold weapon before. One that would easily gust through your intestines and leave you slowly bleeding. “Denme sus cosas,” he commanded firmly. My instinct was to obey the dagger. Barely lifting my eyes from the knife, I turned around to face my cousin who'd sneaked behind my back in search for cover. “Don't resist”, I told her firmly, “give him what he wants.” I did so without giving it a second thought. It's not worth the fight, it never is. But of course, she wouldn't. Before I could know it, she was kneeling in front of him, begging on her knees. I felt myself going numb as I looked at the tip of the blade pushing through her thin chiffon top. For the first time then, I raised my eyes to look at the small plump Mexican. How stereotypical he looked. It almost made me chuckle. The air was still standing still, so would, I reckoned hence, also the time as for some reason now, I wasn't in a hurry, ignoring his palilalia “denme sus cosas, rapido, rapido, rapido…”. I observed him and the more I did so, the more I came to notice something. It's something in his eyes. He was not sure of himself. I sensed our opportunity. Calmly, I placed myself on my cousin's side. Looking deep into the man's eyes I told him with determination: “You can have our cash and my phone. In exchange for all her cash, but I want my wallet back. You can keep the money inside.” I had already lost all my identifications in Mexico once before, I wasn’t about to do it again. Negotiating with a blade, was I out of my mind? But no, apparently no. He looked me back, squinted his eyes as if deliberating, and then handed me back my wallet. “Really?” I was about to ask in genuine surprise. I didn't though. “Have to keep up the play,” I told myself. But it's not so easy to fool oneself. After he left, I wanted to, too. For the first time in forever, I wanted to go home. It was my eighth trip to Mexico. I adored this country, filled with contrasts, and I adored its people, so warm and welcoming had they always been. Now I felt as if I didn't want to see a single one of them. It is funny how fear can change you and losing material things can affect you so. So dependent have I come off my phone, I felt scared and impotent without it. “Are we still going to the beach?” I asked my cousin. What a silly question it seems now, but I just couldn’t let this incident bring me down. We never went to the beach. And I couldn't sleep that night. Nor the following. But I am back in Mexico now. And the people are still warm and welcoming. They always were. Time heals all wounds after all.