The Price of Escape

by David Unger

  The clerk typed on. “Your father or brother?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  The clerk glanced up. “I meant nothing by asking …”

  Samuel realized he was still smarting from the railway clerk’s rudeness. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. The heat’s too much for me … Heinrich is my cousin.”

  The clerk went back to his typing. Samuel could barely read the letters. “And your message?”

  Samuel hesitated. “I’m not sure what I want to say,” he said, embarrassed.

  “Take your time,” the clerk smiled. “If there’s anything, there’s plenty of time around here.”

  A dark scrim curtain fell across Samuel’s mind. He paced back and forth in front of the clerk. A loose slat creaked. How should he put it? A wrong word, here or there, could spoil everything. Samuel’s temples throbbed. What could he say to his cousin that would sound warm, humble, grateful, and still get to the point? Heinrich knew why he had come to Guatemala. It was no great mystery.

  Arrived last night in Puerto Barrios. Will take train tonight to Guatemala City. Am in desperate need of work. Will take whatever is available.

  He should say something about Uncle Jacob, even if it wasn’t true.

  Your father sends regards. Hope you are well. Samuel.

  When the clerk finished typing, Samuel asked him, “When will you send the telegram?”

  “In a few minutes—before I close down for lunch.”

  “And when should I have a reply?”

  The clerk laughed. “I can’t tell you that. What I do know is that your cousin will have the telegram delivered to him one hour after I send it. If you tell me where you are staying, I’ll bring you the reply myself.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll stop by later, if you don’t mind.”

  The clerk laughed again. “Mind? Why should I mind? I appreciate visits. It’s boring work to be here alone. Now that the Fruit Company has its own telegraph, this office will be shut down. If that happens, I will return to my house in Livingston.”

  “Livingston?”

  “You’ve never heard of it?”

  It sounded strangely African to Samuel and he said so.

  “It does, doesn’t it? It’s a small fishing village across the harbor. I’m surprised you’ve never been there.” The clerk snapped his fingers, pointing to the note he had just typed out. “That’s right, you just got here last night.” He offered Samuel a chair. “Why don’t you sit while I send the telegram from my cabin in back? It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

  The clerk disappeared behind the scrim curtain. Samuel sat down and immediately heard a stream of punctuated taps. He felt at ease with this man—despite his shabby dress, he seemed polite, good-natured, willing to please. Perhaps he had been educated abroad.

  The clerk soon returned. “Livingston’s at the mouth of the Rio Dulce up the coast. It was a Belgian settlement, I believe, before the British and the Germans came to Guatemala fifty years ago. They all left for the highlands after a few years—it was too hot for them, I guess.”

  “Did your family come to Livingston from elsewhere? Your blue eyes—”

  “You noticed,” the clerk interrupted, removing a stack of yellow papers from another chair and sitting down next to Samuel. “My mother’s from India originally. A Hindu, but everyone calls us coolies. Her family came over fifty years ago to cut lumber and they stayed. My father’s a Creole. He says I have cousins in South Africa with light skin and blond hair, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at me. Just by my eyes.”

  Samuel laughed aloud.

  “Did I say something funny?”

  “No, it’s just that in Germany, people have to verify the purity of their blood—as if that were a great accomplishment. I was just thinking that if everyone had been born looking alike, there might not be so much hatred.”

  “A wonderful idea, Mr. Berkow, but people are always finding something to hate. Even in a small place like Puerto Barrios. While the Fruit Company was growing, everyone smiled and was willing to be your friend—yes, as long as you took off your hat to the white people, there was no trouble. But when the Company moved its headquarters to Bananera, even your old friends began fooling you. Everything seemed out of control. No more trust, every man for himself. Maybe we should start over again here.”

  Samuel nodded. He enjoyed talking about the past, a glorious past, one in which his place in the scheme of the world was assured. It allowed him to access the dreamy wistful mood that he most liked, before his countrymen became brutes. He thought back to his own youth in Hamburg and remembered how wonderful it had been at home, to be raised in luxury, even though his parents often quarreled. He would sometimes try to identify the exact moment when things began to deteriorate for him. Was it the declaration of war? So many things had gone off badly, it was too hard to remember.

  “When I first came to Puerto Barrios from Livingston, every week a big white ship would arrive, filled with furniture, rugs and curtains, and dozens of passengers from New Orleans and Boston. There was so much excitement.” The clerk waved an arm around. “Silk curtains from China once draped this room, and you might not believe it, but a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Only fifteen years ago, Mr. Berkow, everything was still here. Now it’s all gone, everything but this oak door, which is too heavy to move. Progress stopped, even reversed, so quickly. I should go back to Livingston, even if I have to survive on wild cashews. Here, there’s always a smell in the air like bad fish, but you can never find out where it’s coming from. Have you smelled it or am I just crazy?”

  The clerk’s openness was disarming; Samuel felt that here was a man to whom he could finally talk. “No, I can’t say that I have smelled it, but I must tell you that these last two days have been very difficult for me. Less than a month ago, I was in Hamburg, Germany—taking streetcars to restaurants where I could eat well and drink wine. There was a philharmonic, an opera, elegant estates, promenades where the very rich paraded around in new clothes. There are so many new things here, I sometimes think I’m living through a bad dream. Especially in Puerto Barrios, if I may be so blunt.”

  The telegraph clerk put a hand on Samuel’s forearm. “This is no place for you, Mr. Berkow. Things just happen here and you can’t figure them out. For example, last week I saw a buzzard and wild dog happily chewing on a dead monkey as if they were the best of friends. Sometimes around sunset I’ve seen snakes flying through the air. It can all be a bit terrifying. You don’t have to play with fire to get burned in Puerto Barrios. When you least expect it, a fire will come looking for you.”

  “I don’t really understand what you mean.”

  “It would be useless for me to tell you to look around you, but we have birds that bark like dogs, flowers that bleed when you pick them. Strange things. Do you know which animal is the most dangerous here?”

  Samuel shrugged. “Tarantulas … poison snakes … scorpions … I don’t know.”

  The clerk smiled. “I like tarantulas myself. As a child, I would let them walk across my chest. As for scorpions, well, all you need is a broom to sweep them out … Ah, but the tiny, little green frog isn’t so harmless in Puerto Barrios.”

  “A green frog? The kind that jumps around the water?”

  “Well, a kind of green frog, only very malicious. You see, its urine will make your skin fall off. Its saliva can blind you if it spits in your eye; eating its meat will kill you instantly.”

  Samuel nodded.

  “But there’s still a more dangerous creature here, Mr. Berkow. I think you know.”

  “Oh, but I don’t.”

  “Oh, but you do. I would take a snake in my bed, step into a lion’s den, or be chased by a pack of wolves, but I would never want to be in a cage with a starving man. Never!”

  The silence that followed seemed inordinately long. Samuel felt slightly uneasy, as if the clerk was expecting him to come back with some kind of profound retort. “I must b
e going,” he finally said, standing up.

  “The dangers in Puerto Barrios are often unseen. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I hope you know that.”

  “Of course. But I am late for lunch.”

  The clerk rose and accompanied Samuel to the door, pushing it open for him to step out. “I’ll stop by later, Mr… .”

  “Meena,” the clerk replied. “But just call me Joshua.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Samuel wanted to go back to the hotel, but the thought of eating alone and biding his time in the lobby with George and Kingston hovering about depressed him. Hunger was wearing him down: he wanted to eat something at the stands lining the pier that sold hot food to the stevedores, but he was afraid to get sick. In the end, he settled for a large fresh orange juice at a nearby stand, which only quenched his thirst.

  He scanned the pier. Brightly dressed Carib and Garifuna women were making a beeline toward a red steamer, balancing huge covered baskets on their heads. It was the boat to Livingston. Dozens of Caribs were already packed into the boat, crouching under a piece of haphazardly strung canvas or lolling in the sun protected only by the rims of their straw hats.

  Samuel thought that it might be interesting to visit the village across the bay. As he approached the steamer, heads turned to watch him. More heads turned when he struggled up the small rung ladder from the wooden pier to the boat. At the top, a deckhand offered Samuel his forearm; Samuel gripped it tightly and climbed over the side railing to the deck. Here he rolled his shirtsleeves up above his elbows and looked around. There was lots of jabber—adults talking to each other, children laughing and screaming amongst themselves. A scaly skinned toothless woman offered her shaded seat above the engine room to Samuel and moved out into the glaring sun. He felt embarrassed, but as no one said anything and the seat remained unoccupied, he went ahead and took it.

  The novelty of his presence among all the black faces wore off as soon as six or seven Carib men tried to hoist a gas stove onto the steamer just above the captain’s lookout post. It was comical to see them struggle to balance the stove and then ease it down on the captain’s lookout, buttressed by some crated boxes so it wouldn’t tip.

  Sitting among the crush of bodies, waiting for the boat to push off, Samuel had a kind of epiphany: people in Puerto Barrios seemed to be either malicious or overly deferential. This had to be the result of the abusive power that the Fruit Company wielded, making friends, spies, and enemies by the simplest of actions. This woman, for example: why had she given up her seat? Had she been taught to cede her treasured place at the very appearance of a white man? And why had George and Joshua warned him not to stay in Barrios, when he hadn’t even solicited their advice? They were looking out for him, that was all. And the tiny man, Mr. Price, who he wished he could forget—why had he heaped abuse upon Samuel? Was there something in his face that made people either pity or hate him?

  Samuel was aware of the chatter around him, yet he felt enclosed in glass with hardly a sound or smell reaching him. He closed his eyes and drifted back to Hamburg. He was eight years old, hiding behind the sofa while his mother played Beethoven’s Appassionata leisurely on the grand piano. His father and uncle stood by the bay window only a few feet away from him, watching the snow drift down and talking. He heard his father say that Samuel was too serious, much like his wife, so concerned with right and wrong that he couldn’t allow himself to enjoy the surprises in life or even let out a sprawling laugh. His Uncle Jacob complained even more about Heinrich. At least Samuel cares about people. Heinrich talks to them as if they are bolts of cloth, dogs rifling through garbage, ignoramuses not worth common courtesy. I don’t know what has made him like that—the taunting of his sisters? The two men stared out the window without talking. Suddenly, Uncle Jacob clapped his hands and said he must go. His father followed him to the door, handed him his old familiar coat and hat, and came back to the window. Meanwhile, Samuel left his hiding place and ran up to his father and hugged him as if he had been alone in his room and had just discovered his arrival. He wanted to apologize, to tell him that he laughs when he’s with his friends and that he can be spontaneous, but before he could say a word, his father patted him on the head and pulled some pocket change out of his trousers. He placed a few coins in Samuel’s hand, closed his fist tightly around them, and told him to put on his galoshes before he headed out to the corner store to buy candy. Samuel felt wounded, yet determined to obey his father: he put on his overshoes and took the elevator to the ground floor. Outside, he went down the building steps, slipping and sliding on the sidewalk. It was twilight and the gas lamps had been lit. At the store, Samuel pointed to a jar with chewy coffee balls, his father’s favorite sweet and now his. A young attractive woman, wearing an apron and chic dark glasses, smiled at him as she scooped out a few dozen coffee balls and dropped them into a paper bag. At the cashier, he opened his hand to pay and the woman started laughing. Samuel glanced down, saw several buttons in his palm. The woman said never mind, your father will pay me later—One way or another, she said with a wink. He was so embarrassed that he ran home crying. Before he entered his building, he glanced up and saw his father smiling and laughing from the window above. He was the butt of his father’s jokes too.

  Samuel opened his eyes. Unknowingly, he had stood up and raised a hand in the air. Three girls were sitting across from him, pointing and laughing at him, hiding their mouths behind their hands. Samuel dropped his arm. The girls looked at one another, giggled, and buried their faces in their laps. The tallest girl, with piercing black eyes and very straight hair, stuck her fingers in her mouth and started making faces at him. Samuel bristled.

  The two other girls joined the tall one in making faces. Samuel realized they were plotting to get the other boat passengers to turn against him. But why? He hadn’t done anything to them, nor would he. What right did they have to mock him, a total stranger? Someone needed to teach them some manners, to respect their elders! Was this his calling? Well, why not? If their parents refused to control them, then he would have to discipline them.

  “Stop it! I won’t have you laughing at me! I don’t have to take such abuse!” Samuel howled, lapsing into German. He raised a hand menacingly into the air. There was a lot of buzzing, maybe the engine had been started though the boat was still tied to the pier. The two younger girls immediately stopped their antics, grasping his tone, if not the meaning of his words. But the older girl, defiant and angered at his scolding, gritted her teeth and flicked out her tongue at him.

  Choked with rage, Samuel lunged at her. The girl screamed, and hid behind her friends on the bench. All the movement on the boat had stopped, even the stove tottering above the captain’s cabin. As Samuel tried to grab the girl and smack her with the back of his hand, a worker stacking sacks of flour next to the engine room held him by the back of his shirt.

  “What are you doing, mon?” the man asked in English.

  “She’s laughing at me!” Samuel said, saliva flying out of his mouth.

  The man tightened his grip on Samuel’s shirt, forcing his arms to flail uselessly at his side. The passengers began to move away. Some, in fact, were so disturbed by what was going on that they started to take the ladder back down to the pier. A flurry of movement followed as Samuel twisted himself out of the man’s hold. Voices buzzed in his ears, but he couldn’t figure out what language they were speaking. He didn’t understand Garifuna, but it seemed as if someone had said that the white man was going mad—addled brain, hearing strange voices. Others were laughing at his feeble elbowing.

  “Let go of me, I tell you!” Samuel didn’t know where he was or what he was doing, only that he had to escape. He may as well have been back in Germany, being forced into a boxcar that would eventually reach the gates of Sobibor or Bergen-Belsen. He tried to claw at the man’s face, knowing that any minute someone might lunge at him and stick a knife into his chest. He remembered that it began with a stupid prank his father had played on him which ha
d caused him much embarrassment, but then there was this thing with the girls laughing at him. Samuel was fed up with being ridiculed—by his father, Lewis, the dwarf, the train station master. He’d had enough.

  But then he was struck by a novel thought—maybe there was a way to escape. Perhaps he could just die, stop being afraid, get it over with and put an end to this life of suffering.

  The black man spun Samuel around, held him down against the side of the engine room. Sacks of flour broke his fall and white dust mushroomed into the air. Several people coughed, then it grew quiet. Samuel could hear, with his cheek pressing one of the bags, the bay water lapping the side of the steamer and his own heavy wheezing. He remained on the sacks, unhurt, not wanting to move, pretending to doze until something or someone more momentous than he decided to rouse him.

  The man who’d been holding him before came over and stretched an arm down to him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I will help you up. Why are you acting this way? You better get off the boat before someone hurts you.”

  “But I did nothing—”

  “Listen to what I’m saying,” the man insisted. “I don’t want to harm you.”

  Samuel shook off the man’s offer to help and stood up on his own. His face and clothes were white, layered with flour. He could taste blood on his bottom lip. He wiped his mouth with his forearm and stared at the marbled stain, spit and blood. He then glanced at the other passengers shaking their heads in unison like a mute but concurring jury. Samuel bowed his head in shame. Never, no never, have I acted like this before. What have I done? He was disgusted with himself, thinking that not even Reeperbahn drunks and louts would behave like this, and all because a young girl had supposedly—he no longer knew for sure—made faces at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said out loud to no one in particular.

  “Throw the drunk off before he hurts somebody!” a man’s voice rung out, sounding a bit like his father’s when he spoke English. The crowd cheered.