The Price of Escape

by David Unger

  “My luck,” the man moaned softly, rolling over on top of the snake’s head. “I’m goin’ to die. Forget it, mon, it’s no use. The Lord’s already holdin’ my hand.”

  The mate who had produced the tourniquet sunk down, pinned the man with his knees, and made a wide and deep cut along his upper arm with the tip of a scaling knife. Then he put his mouth to the wound and began sucking and spitting.

  A crowd of fellow workers—outshouting one another to explain what had happened—formed a tight circle around the two men, blocking Samuel’s view. The tiny man tugged on his coat.

  “Come on, let’s go. I already know what’s going to happen next,” he said, chuckling. “Puerto Barrios has some of the strangest creatures you’ll ever see. We’ve got scorpions that can bite through wood. And tarantulas too, bigger and hairier than coconuts!”

  “Do you think the man’s going to die?” Samuel gulped.

  The dwarf looked across the pier. “Will he die? the man asks?” He looked to his sides, as if on stage and addressing an audience. “Should I tell him the truth? Okay. If I’d been bitten, I’d be dead now. You too, my friend, would be dead and we’d have to plan your funeral with none of your family! But these Caribs have tough hides and blood thicker than mud.”

  “Horrible, just horrible.” Samuel shifted his umbrella to his left hand and pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket to dry his face. Over the harbor noise he could hear the bitten man still moaning fitfully. Samuel licked his lips—they were salty from the sweat streaming down his checks. He swallowed hard to keep from vomiting.

  The dwarf resumed his tottering walk and Samuel hurried to keep up. As they reached the shore, the pier widened considerably to accommodate wooden cargo sheds and what appeared to be steamship and telegraph offices. Further on, Samuel saw the only concrete building on the pier. A United Fruit Company sign was clearly illuminated; Alfred Lewis was most probably working inside.

  At the end of the pier, a dirt road took over from the wooden planks. On one side stood a small guard house. As they neared the booth, the dwarf whispered: “Give me twenty dollars.”

  “What for?” Samuel asked.

  “To bribe this fool, what else? Do you want to spend hours at the immigration office answering a hundred stupid questions and then still have to pay off another man? I’m trying to save you time and money! Put the bills inside your passport. Make sure they don’t stick out. Do you hear me?”

  “But that’s bribery!”

  “Nothing’s bribery in this country, my friend.” The little man snapped then turned around to smile at him. The strap holding his suitcase dug deeply into his forehead. Samuel felt a sharp kick to the leg. “Don’t be stupid, mon. You could be here all night. Be quick about it!”

  Samuel shook his head. He opened his wallet, took out a twentydollar bill, and folded it into his passport. When they reached the booth, the dwarf let Samuel go before him; the guard took the passport and smiled. He thumbed through the pages, found what he wanted, examined the visa, and stamped the passport.

  “Bienvenido a Guatemala, Señor Berkow. Esperamos que le vaya bien.”

  “Gracias a usted, señor, por vuestra gentileza,” Samuel said in his best Spanish. He smiled politely, slipping his passport back into his inside coat pocket. The visa, which had received no more than a passing glance, had cost his Uncle Jacob thousands of marks …

  When the dwarf reached the gate, he gestured for Samuel to wait up ahead. “Noches, Tacho,” he said to the guard.

  “Noches, gusanito. ¿Por qué hay tanta bulla en el muelle?”

  “Lo de siempre. Una barbara amarilla picó a uno de los estibadores.”

  “No me digas. ¿Y seguro que no fue un gusanito que lo pico?”

  “No te creas. ¿Todo bien?”

  “Así es. Gracias por el pisto. Te debo una. ¿Quieres tu parte ahorita?”

  “Después, después. Paso a verte más noche.”

  “Que les vaya bien.”

  Samuel knew some Spanish from having spent two months with his sister in Mallorca. From what he could tell, the guard and the dwarf were in cahoots and planned to split the twenty dollars. He felt anger surging up inside of him at having been clipped by them. But he told himself to calm down, that he should stop worrying about little details—he was finally on land, soon he would be in Guatemala City. No point in making a fuss.

  Relieved, Samuel began walking jauntily up the road, figuring that the tiny man would catch up to him. He passed several mule carts and an old black Packard on the side of the road. As he passed the car, he noticed a black swastika decal on the side rear window.

  Samuel edged closer to have a better look.

  “Taxi, mister?” a voice said in English, blowing smoke toward him.

  Samuel looked inside and saw a casually dressed figure slumped in the front seat. He couldn’t make out the man’s face because of the cigarette smoke.

  He felt sick to his stomach. First the ship with the German flag in the harbor and now this swastika on a car. Were there Nazis everywhere in the world?

  “Long walk into town …”

  “No thanks,” Samuel said.

  Just then the dwarf whistled. Samuel glanced back and saw him pointing to his left. “Come along, this is the shortcut to your hotel. That gravel road was built by the Fruit Company bastards—that’s why it goes from the pier to the train station and sidesteps Puerto Barrios!”

  Samuel rushed back to him. “But didn’t I tell you I wanted to go to the train station?”

  “I told you it closed at sundown.”

  “Are you sure there aren’t any trains to Guatemala City tonight?”

  “I’m quite certain.”

  “Awhile ago you said you didn’t know. And now you are sure. I would like to take the very next train there, if that’s at all possible.”

  The dwarf looked up at him. “You would, would you?” He shook his head. “Well, I would also like to see the Church of Notre Dame. And I wouldn’t mind taking the ferry to London, but I can’t. That’s the way it is. Like I told you, there’s no train to Guatemala City tonight. Maybe there will be one tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Surely, there must be a schedule.”

  “Surely, there must be, but I’m not paid to know it. Now hurry along. Do you think your suitcase weighs nothing?”

  “Please. Why don’t you let me carry my own bag?”

  “I’ve got it, can’t you see? Besides, how would it look for a man dressed like yourself to be seen carrying around his own luggage? Not very well, indeed. Come along now. We have to hurry if we want to get across the little wooden bridge to the hotel. When the tide rises, it gets quite slippery.”

  Samuel followed the man up three wooden steps joined with side planks to a series of loosely fitted boards set on stone pilings. The long bridge ran parallel to the bay and passed the elevated wooden shanties he had first observed from the Chicacao.

  As they walked along the bridge, Samuel peered into the houses. Candles on little dishes threw phantom shadows against the walls. Laughter and talk blew out, accompanied by a child’s occasional giggle.

  These stilt houses comprised a town within a town and were connected to one another with swinging wooden transits. Samuel saw that the last stilt house was the neighborhood store. Penny candy jars sat on a rickety counter; behind them were skewed shelves dotted with canned goods and paper-wrapped staples. A cat pawed a couple of fish heads on the store floor, which was covered in trash. A dog came to the door of the shack and poked its head out. It had a mangy coat and what seemed to be a broken leg.

  “How can people live in this filth?” Samuel asked in a low voice, his throat tightening again.

  The dwarf kept walking. “How? Well, what did you expect? Pretty little houses with picket fences and flowers?”

  Puerto Barrios was a port city; Samuel had of course been aware of this prior to his arrival. It didn’t need bustling docks on the scale of Hamburg or Rotterdam, but this was nothing m
ore than a miserable assortment of wobbly shacks stuck like matchsticks along the shore.

  His hotel had better be different. “Is all Puerto Barrios like this?”

  “Hmm, in a way. It has bars and restaurants and whorehouses. Anything a man needs. You’ll get used to it. Believe me.”

  I don’t plan to get used to anything here, Samuel thought to himself.

  Once past the last shack, they walked on in silence. Under normal circumstances, Samuel would’ve wanted to ask the dwarf many things—his name, how he managed to get settled in Puerto Barrios, where he had learned English. He would have been interested, as well, in asking the little man his opinion of Mr. Lewis. And more personal questions too: What was life like for a dwarf? Did his parents love him the way parents love a normal child?

  But for now, silence was better; it was enough of a chore for Samuel to keep his footing. He certainly would’ve preferred the longer route by the railroad station—that way, at least, he would have gotten the schedule, seen a bit of the town instead of skirting the mangroves. But he had committed himself to the dwarf, who was now his guide. More than his guide, his one and only pilot—for in truth, Samuel was completely in his hands.

  A strong foul stench now greeted them. “Oh my God, what’s that odor?”

  “That’s right,” said the dwarf. “Brace yourself—we’re approaching the toilet facilities. The lavatories. In street parlance, let’s just call them the shitholes!”

  To their left, four toilets with molded seats had been carved out of a huge tree trunk. Below them ran a creek which flushed the excrement right into the bay. A nifty idea, to be sure, but something had gone wrong—either the creek had been diverted upstream or had dried up, and the stench was overwhelming.

  Samuel clasped the railing not to slip, but he stumbled against the tiny man who had stopped momentarily to shift the suitcase further up on his back. Samuel tripped and fell, facedown, onto the bridge’s wooden planks. His umbrella flipped into the dry creek below.

  “Hey!” yelled the dwarf, falling to his knees. “Do you want me to fall into this crap? You think I have no pride?”

  Samuel stood up, unhurt, and looked at the man. He wiped his mouth slowly with his handkerchief and held his breath. He felt embarrassed by his clumsiness—surely the army latrines had stunk just as bad, and he had tolerated it. What about the time the army officers had urinated on him and his fellow soldiers as a prank while they slept rolled up in the frigid night?

  “I’m very sorry,” he began uneasily, breathing in and out through his mouth. “I was choking. Are you hurt?”

  The moon was rising over the bay to the east. It was a huge moon, a giant milky pearl really, suffusing the darkness with white light. It was quite beautiful.

  Samuel stared at the dwarf—the leather strap dug into his melonshaped head. He was sweating profusely and his eyes poked out like fishhooks shimmering in blubber.

  My God, Samuel thought, this little man is monstrous—no one can love him. No mother, no father—no one on earth.

  “What are you looking at now?”

  Samuel ran his hands through his hair. “Nothing at all. I—please, Mr… . I don’t even know your name.”

  “Mr. Price to you.”

  “Please, Mr. Price. Let me carry my own valise. I don’t know why I let you take it in the first place. No, I know what you said, about how it looks here. In Hamburg it would be the same. But really, I am accustomed to taking care of myself. I don’t really need any help. I’m sorry for all the inconvenience.”

  “In-con-ven-ience. Now there’s a big word for a German. My, you are quite educated, we can see that,” the dwarf laughed, spreading out his arms as if about to do a two-step. “You do have a way with words.”

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “Don’t be. What’s there to be sorry about all the time? Have you never seen a dwarf? Haven’t you ever smelled shit before? What did you expect to find? Sewers out here? Cobblestone streets and gas lamps? Is that it, Mr. Berkow?”

  Samuel threw up both hands. “I don’t know what I expected.”

  “Of course you don’t. And this is why you need to trust me. I can see very clearly that you’re a confused man, somewhat out of his element.”

  Samuel shuddered. Why had the little man said that?

  “I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t know who you are and you don’t know where the hell you are or where you’re going. You could be in the China desert or in the middle of Africa. You, my friend, are completely lost.”

  Samuel said nothing.

  Mr. Price clapped his hands. “All right then. Now that we’ve established that, let’s move along. I’m sure you’d be surprised to know you’re almost at the one and only Hotel International!” He spun around on his heels and started walking again.

  They went down some steps and took a dirt path that cut through a wooded area of thick ceibas and tamarinds. Samuel heard screaming animal sounds above him. He glanced up, scanned the trees, thick with leaves. A flurry of brushing noises followed, then there was more screaming and something smacked down beside them.

  “The howler monkeys are having a party.” Mr. Price bent down, felt along the ground. He picked up a pulpy object and gave it to Samuel.

  “What is this?” he asked, holding it in his hands.

  “Breadfruit. We grind it and then combine it with dried coconut to make johnnycakes.”

  Samuel examined the breadfruit. As soon as he pressed it, phosphorescent worms gushed out and he dropped it to the ground in disgust.

  The little man shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, resuming his walk.

  The footpath brought them to a treeless park with a stone band shell in the middle. A couple of pariah dogs, more bones than flesh, snoozed openmouthed on the steps.

  Beyond the park there was a green three-story wooden building. Above the entranceway, there was a veranda supported by two stone columns. Swinging from the top of the columns was a sign that read, Hotel International.

  The little man stopped in front of the steps. He looked around as if admiring the grand architecture of a newly discovered Mayan temple. “The Ritz of Puerto Barrios,” he said.

  Samuel nodded. He was beginning to understand Mr. Price’s odd sense of humor and that made him happy. What made him happier still was that he had been as good as his word—he had brought him to the hotel quickly and safely and without any further deception.

  The Hotel International could be crumbling for all Samuel cared at this point. No matter what it was, it was exactly what he needed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Samuel followed the dwarf up the three steps of the veranda and entered the hotel through flapping screen doors. The lobby had little furniture—most prominently, a half dozen dusty wooden chairs set facing each other on a jute rug. Each chair was flanked by waist-high metal ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts. There were dramatic murals on both sides of the lobby depicting the same Mayan scene of bare-breasted women offering a quetzal-feathered chieftain libations and plates of food. A route map of the Hamburg-Amerika line hung on the back wall above the front desk.

  There was no one working the desk. The dwarf tried to set down Samuel’s suitcase behind him, but the weight flipped him onto his back. He flapped his arms to the side to regain his balance and, as if to cover for his bungle, slipped quickly out of the headstrap, jumped to his feet, and blared: “Hey, George! Where you hiding? Come on out, mon. Time to get off the john. I got you a customer.”

  A few seconds later, a very dark man stepped out from a scrim curtain behind the counter. He rubbed his face with his two big hands, shook his head, and yawned loudly.

  “How’s things, Mr. Price?”

  “Oh, you know, not bad.” The little man folded up his net bag and jammed it into the space between his pants and his waist. “Not as many clients come by ever since there’s been all this talk of war. But oh well. To get to the point: this gentleman would like to spend the night here.”

&n
bsp; The clerk glanced at Samuel. “How do you do?”

  “Just fine,” replied Samuel.

  George pulled out a hotel register from under the counter and started opening drawers searching for something.

  Samuel opened his coat pocket. “I have a fountain pen, if that’s what you’re looking for. Do you need my passport?”

  “That won’t be necessary. I just need you to print your name here. And then I will need four quetzales—dollars will do—for your room. You’ll find a towel in the bathroom and a piece of soap.”

  “All I need is a bed!” Samuel announced euphorically. He was so happy to be back in civilization, poor as it might be.

  The clerk raised an eyebrow. “That you’ll have.”

  Samuel wrote his name, put his pen down on the counter, and took out the bills from his wallet. His Uncle Jacob had not only bought him his ticket, but had given him fifty dollars in cash to get started. He was about to slip his wallet back into his trousers when he felt a tug.

  He looked down and saw Mr. Price opening and shutting his hand like a clam. “Let’s hand some of that over here.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I beg your pardon,” the dwarf mocked. “That will be four dollars for my escort services.”

  “But that’s impossible! You only carried one bag. Why, you were with me for no more than fifteen minutes.”

  “You forget that I got you through customs and saved you from being scalped by the boys and the taxi driver. My rates are standard.”

  “But that’s what I am paying for this room.”

  “I couldn’t care less about your other expenses. As I said: my rates are standard. You better pay me now or I’ll have George call the police.”

  “Don’t involve me in this, mon,” the clerk said, shaking his hands in front of him. “I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Georgie Porgie. I’ll call the police myself. They are all my friends. It is amazing what a little money will do. And besides, there’s no great love of foreigners here in Guatemala, and certainly not for some German who is unwilling to pay a dwarf for standard services, I can tell you that.”