by David Unger
“You miserable apes!”
George tightened his grip around Lewis. “I should just break your neck. No one on this earth would miss you.”
“You wouldn’t dare. I’d have your head in no time,” the American barely whispered.
George looked angry; he clenched his fist and was about to slam it into Lewis’s face. But he hesitated, his hand floating in midair, as if he had just realized the truth of his threat. He let go of Lewis, letting him tumble to the floor, then picked up the gun and shook the two remaining bullets out of the tiny cartridge. He put the bullets in his shirt pocket and threw the gun behind the bar.
“You can pick it up tomorrow, Mr. Lewis, once you sober up.”
Lewis crawled on his hands and knees till he found a chair. He gripped the seat, pulled himself halfway up, sat down, and pointed a finger around the bar. “You’ll be sorry for this.” He stood up and brushed the dust off his khaki pants. “I’m somebody in this town, you know. You’re going to be sorry you ever touched me.”
Without saying another word, Lewis wove his way out of the hotel.
George walked slowly back to the bar, dug the bullets out of his shirt pocket, laughed, and then flung them across the room.
Samuel was shocked and disgusted. On the freighter, Lewis had certainly expressed his biases, but he expected him to be a bit more tightlipped or measured in the company of those he so caustically berated. Here, at this bar, he had simply lost it. He also couldn’t understand why Lewis, who up until that point seemed to be so caring and deferential, had all of a sudden lumped him in with the others. Samuel knew that he couldn’t trust Lewis because he was unstable, but he had almost thought of him as a guardian of sorts.
Samuel picked up Lewis’s stool and carried it over to where George was now sitting. He was watching the bartender dropping purple berries into the mouth of the iguana, who swallowed them whole. No one seemed to be in a talking mood, but he felt the need to disassociate himself from Lewis.
“Mr. Lewis shouldn’t drink so much.”
George looked up. “It’s his routine. For days he’s calm, and then he starts becoming crazier and crazier like the clouds of a storm. This happens every few weeks or so. Tonight, well, it began after you checked in. He came here and started drinking, and making all these strange faces and talking really loud.”
“He was acting crazy, mon,” added the bartender.
“But why? I don’t understand.”
“Look, Mr. Berkow. As I said, it’s happened before. This time it was just a bit worse. You know, I was here in Barrios when he first came. In fact, I carried his bags off the ship. Back then, you could talk to the man and he would listen.”
“He was all ears,” the bartender said. “Always asking questions.”
George nodded. “One after the other. He was friendly, eager—maybe because the big wheels like Dexter and Hoolihan paid him no attention. They thought he was a pest, always wanting to be a part of them. When the Company announced that it would move its headquarters inland to Bananera, I remember Lewis began packing up all his files. But they told him he wasn’t going. He was left in charge here.”
“They cut him off, George. That’s how I would put it.”
“You could say that’s what happened. In Bananera they have these huge mansions and swimming pools and, well, here there are the storerooms and the ships. Little by little, Lewis started to become mean and nasty. The drinking didn’t seem to help. At first he kept to himself, but then he began to threaten and complain, sometimes for no reason. He began spitting and barking at everyone, as if nobody listened to him and he owned the whole damn town. Then there was the strike by the dockworkers and he was told to put it down. He had to pay off some soldiers. People were killed. It was ugly. And, well, he was never the same after that.” George pointed to his glass. “Pour me another shot, Willie.”
The bartender complied.
“But that’s no excuse,” Samuel offered. “He said some very vulgar things.”
George swallowed his drink and winced. “Don’t you worry about it. He’ll be all dried out in the morning. And if he remembers what happened, he’ll be here falling over his heels and apologizing. And if he doesn’t, then it’s as if nothing happened.”
“Amnesia,” said Willie, tapping his temple.
George looked intently at Samuel. “Listen to me. You take my advice. I’m talking to you as a friend, if you can believe that. Get the hell out of Puerto Barrios as soon as you can. Believe me, it’s not a good place for you. I’ve seen too many people come into town wagging their tails and then within a month they’re falling on their faces. It happened to Lewis. It happened to Father Cabezón.”
“Poor man,” Willie added, again tapping his temple.
“I met him on the stairs.”
“He’s a strange one,” said George.
“Well, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I tried.”
“The hotel priest got here long before I came. He used to have a small congregation. Willie, you were here. You tell him about it.”
The bartender bent down and placed the iguana in a wire cage on the floor, then poured himself a glass of rum. “Father Cabezón came from Quetzaltenango, a big city in the Guatemalan highlands, to become the headmaster at the Santa Elena School. That’s when it looked as if Puerto Barrios might become a decent town. But then when the Company moved its headquarters inland, things went downhill. Cabezón was a responsible priest when he arrived, a good director, but he began drinking and neglecting the school. The heat bothered him, and then some parents said he was visiting brothels. He didn’t show up at the school for days at a time. It was a very small school with three or four classrooms and the nuns were happy to run it themselves. Still there were complaints, but the Church did nothing—what did they care about what went on in Puerto Barrios, hundreds of miles from civilization? But then the priest got arrested. He was accused of selling cases of illegally brewed rum to army officers in Zacapa and Cobán—he had probably insulted someone at one of the brothels who wanted to exact revenge. There was a big fuss and the bishop of Guatemala City had to intervene. I know that Father Cabezón was forced to give up the school …”
“Was he defrocked?” Samuel asked.
“I don’t know. All I know is that they took away his school and took away his church. But they surely didn’t take away his money. For the past five years he’s been living in this hotel. Sometimes I hear him saying Hail Marys and Our Fathers in the middle of the night. Other times it sounds as if he is thumping about his room on one foot. Dancing, maybe. Strange smells float out of there. He can shake his maracas for hours!”
“And then there are the candles.” George grinned. “Once a week, on Thursdays, we have a big open-air market by the band shell. Indians come in from all around the country to sell stuff for Puerto Barrios, Livingston, and Saint Tómas de la Castilla. Old Cabezón sets up his little booth of trick candles that light back up when you blow them out. Some Indians, a group of Lacandones who live deep in the jungle, say that Cabezón is the son of Kinich Ahau, the Mayan sun god. They make pilgrimages just to buy his candles and receive his blessings. Maybe that’s how he can afford to live in this hotel and spend his money on the prostitutes at the Delfos Bar in town.”
“Ah, that proves he’s no longer a priest!” Samuel said. He felt oddly lifted by the conversation, as if it provided a bit of a respite from his recurrent dark thoughts.
“The man’s crazy. Was he wearing a robe when you saw him?”
“Yes, he was. A black robe.”
“Well, priest or no priest, the Church leaves him alone because they don’t want any trouble from the Indians who believe he’s a God. In a way, it probably benefits the Church. In the end, it’s all harmless.”
Thunder suddenly cracked, and the bar lights flashed off and on.
“I think we better call it a night. Go to bed now, Mr. Berkow. Get yourself some good sleep.”
Samuel, sensing that h
is company was no longer wanted, got off his stool, leaving the whiskey that Willie had poured him untouched on the counter, even though his throat itched.
“You’re right. I have a long day tomorrow. I’m taking the train to Guatemala City.”
“Good for you,” said George.
“Good night, George, Willie, and, ah—”
“Kingston’s his name, but don’t expect him to answer. He was among the dock workers that went on strike, but one of the soldiers ended up smashing his voice box.”
The man looked up, flashing a lame smile. Samuel noticed that he had two doughy scars creasing his neck.
Samuel nodded and left. Again he felt bile rising up his throat.
As he walked through the doorway, he heard a shrill, inhuman cry behind him as if the throat of an animal had been slit. He lingered for a second at the foot of the stairs, heard a second wild cry, covered his mouth, and went up to his room taking the steps two at a time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Samuel closed the door, wiggled out of his shoes, and collapsed in bed. It couldn’t have been much past nine, but he felt engulfed by fatigue, by the desire to sleep and forget. Lewis, the dwarf, the priest, the iguana—it was all too much for him. He had expected something different when the Chicacao entered Amatique Bay.
Puerto Barrios reminded him of what he had felt after enlisting in the army—a dose of a bizarre reality, but a reality nonetheless.
An explosion snapped him out of his stupor. Samuel went over to the door and opened it. Beyond the screened corridor, lightning blazed in the sky like swords crossing in battle. Suddenly the wind picked up, shuffling leaves and fronds, making the corridor screen billow. A furious rain began swirling and falling from many directions.
Samuel walked over to the screen and held his breath. The rushing wind abruptly died down, was gone, at best soft gusts barely rippled the screen. What sounded like a wild pig grunted from behind the hotel. Frogs, high up in the trees, made quick clicking sounds.
There had been no storm, except perhaps in his mind. What was wrong with him? Next he would be sitting at the dinner table with his dead parents or accompanying Lena to the Alps for a skiing weekend. Again he cocked his ears. Nothing. He shook his head, trudged back into his room, and sat on the rattan chair by the desk, confused.
This new world was playing tricks on him, to be sure. Heinrich had made it sound so different when he wrote to his father. Samuel remembered certain images and observations from the letter:
You can’t believe how fertile the land is. You sprinkle seeds on the orange-brown soil and within days shoots are pushing up. You only have to stretch your arms to pluck ripe plums from the treelined boulevards. It is another Garden of Eden. For twenty-five cents you can buy a hundred oranges. There’s a green fruit called aguacate that is creamy and smooth—three for just a nickel—and tastes delicious, with lemon juice, salt, and a kind of parsley called cilantro. There are: Purple mountains. Talking birds. Flowers growing wild everywhere. Mangoes. A fruit called papaya that grows to a meter in length, weighs up to three kilos, and tastes delicious with a hint of lime.
And the climate, Father, especially in the countryside. The air sweeps through your body as if it were a colander—I’m becoming a poet! No clouds in the sky for six months at a time. Every day you awaken to dazzling light. No snow, no blizzards. The tour conductors say this is the country of eternal spring—and so it is. Your bad moods are forever on vacation.
Guatemala City is ideal. Well-maintained colonial structures and new modern buildings going up every day. Cobblestone streets have replaced the dirt roads. Movie houses and restaurants on Sixth Avenue and fancy cabarets that could rival Hamburg’s are opening up every month.
President Ubico is an admirer of Mussolini and even dresses like him, with his uniform and high boots. He is no Hitler, but it is indisputable that he believes in order: no beggars, no prostitution. The city is so clean you can eat off the streets.
A businessman’s dream. Electrical appliances, imported fabrics, canned goods from America. You can import and export anything and retire comfortably within twenty years. Five quetzales a month, and you get a live-in maid to clean and cook for you seven days a week. Three daily newspapers. Imported German magazines. Life is progress. A Frankfurt Jew has begun importing pickled herring and sprats, wonderful gemütlichkeit—I am so happy that I decided to come here. My only fear is that Guatemala will one day be overrun with Polish Jews, as our beautiful Berlin was, thus feeding anti-Semitism. All those black frocks, beards, and side curls aroused such resentment from the working-class Germans. But so far, these are only my fears …
Had these been his cousin’s very words?
Why hadn’t Heinrich said anything about Puerto Barrios when he wrote to his father to tell him that Samuel was welcome to join him in Guatemala? Surely his cousin had passed through the port on his way to the capital—the heat, the filth, the hustlers trying to swindle him, the scruffy kids? Just beyond the hotel, there were probably packs of beggars and chiselers and gun-toting thieves.
Samuel opened his valise. At the top were his silk pajamas. He put them on and lay on top of his bed, which was already a tangle of sheets.
Why hadn’t Heinrich at least warned him? Yes, yes, he had said, Do not expect too much help from me. This comment had embarrassed his Uncle Jacob, but Samuel knew what to expect from his cousin. The only male children in the Berkow family, as boys they had been inseparable, living so close together, the two sides of the same coin darting off on common escapades. They were the two rails of a train track—bending, dipping, and turning together, but always with the same amount of space between them.
There was jealousy between Uncle Jacob and his brother Phillip because Samuel’s father had been so much wealthier. Heinrich also felt that his freedom was hemmed in by his mother Gertie and his three sisters. Samuel was aware of his cousin’s feelings, tried to be the best friend that he could, especially after his mother died of cancer. He would lend him money, pay his way when they went rowing near the Alster Pavilion or would go to the movies and stop off for dessert at a café in St. Pauli. But what else could he do? Trade places with him?
When Samuel enlisted in the army, Heinrich stayed in Hochschule to finish his studies in business math and accounting. If before the war their friendship had begun to fail, certainly after it there was little friendship left. When Samuel visited his Uncle Jacob’s house, his girl cousins would sit at his feet, pepper him with questions about the battlefield, and beg to see his wounds until he embarrassedly consented. By this time, Heinrich would have hurried upstairs without excusing himself to do something like finish studying for a licensing exam. His sisters frankly didn’t care. They found their own brother to be unbearable and self-centered …
After the Great War, when the German economy was in a shambles, Heinrich worked with his father at his lamp store. As soon as he could, he began his own import/export business, though he could have easily joined his Uncle Phillip’s firm. Jacob’s relationship with his son became strained. He couldn’t understand why Heinrich wanted to compete with his uncle for the same customers. And strangely, Samuel’s father didn’t worry about competition—the more, the merrier. Samuel defended his cousin to his uncle, saying that Heinrich needed to make his own mark in the world.
“Just as when I joined the army—Heinrich wants to set out on his own.”
Samuel did not tell his uncle that his own son loathed him for his lack of enterprise, but kept up cordial ties simply to keep peace in the family. By 1930, thirty-two-year-old Heinrich was becoming a rich man in Germany, but then something ugly happened—he was accused by Hamburg’s municipal assessor of having failed to pay duty on several shipments of belts and umbrellas from London. Heinrich denied the charges, but refused to contest them—anti-Semitism was beginning and it wasn’t clear if he had committed a crime or whether some worthless soul was trying to blackmail him or take over his market. He simply sold what was left of the busin
ess and set sail for Guatemala in 1931.
When Samuel’s father died of a heart attack in 1936, his uncle sold the lamp store and took over his brother’s business, which was already in trouble. Anti-Semitic slogans soon were painted across the Hamburg store walls, display windows shattered, and Uncle Jacob told Samuel that it was time to leave. A group of Nazis had shown up at the store, threatened him on the trumped-up charge that he was selling deerskin gloves advertised as genuine calfskin leather. He was an old man now, his daughters having married and moved with their husbands to London and Amsterdam to escape the Nazis, and did not want to leave. But Samuel was young—why should he stay and suffer? His Uncle Jacob had written to Heinrich to put old grudges and the past aside. Yes, the cousins had their differences, who didn’t? In times of need, wasn’t blood thicker than water?
Jacob bought his nephew a ticket on the Hamburg-Amerika line for the boat to Panama. He gave him the equivalent of a thousand dollars in deutsche marks and fifty American dollars. How was he to know that the gestapo customs agents would confiscate the marks and threaten to throw Samuel in jail for leaving the country with illegal funds? Samuel had protested, but the agents just patted their guns. He surrendered his money, except for the dollars he’d hid in an old sock, and boarded Das Bauernbrot, lucky to be getting out alive …
Would his cousin see him through? Blood was thicker than water and thicker, too, than money. So what if Heinrich had never replied to his letter telling him that he was coming? One can never trust the mail …
Still, Samuel had been foolish to think that Heinrich would come all the way to Puerto Barrios to meet him. But now that they were on the same soil, they’d meet face to face, embrace, reminisce about their youth, iron out their petty little differences. Who knows, they might even work together and become best of friends again!