by David Unger
Samuel saw only a blur of faces. “Yes, I’m going,” he said, dusting himself off.
“Well, get a move on, now. The boat can’t wait forever for you to decide what you want to do, you know.”
Samuel nodded to what sounded like a familiar voice. The passengers opened a path for him. He took a few steps and slipped, but managed to keep from falling by grabbing the steamer’s railing. No one stooped to help him.
“He’s nothin’ but a stumbling drunk,” Samuel heard. He wondered if it was the voice of the woman who had originally given him a seat. That would be divine justice, for sure, but the voice was too manly.
Samuel stood straight again and climbed down the ladder slowly, measuring the distance between each rung before stepping. Two hands gently braced his back on the bottom rung and helped him onto the pier. Samuel thanked the man who had helped him, not taking his eyes off his shoes.
“Something has come over me,” he said by way of explanation.
From the boat he heard the same voice saying, “He’s a drunk, nothing but a drunk. Last night I carried his bags all the way to the International Hotel from the big pier and he tried to get away without paying me. Not only a drunk, but a crook!”
The familiar, squeaky intonation burned in his ears. It was useless to answer back and try to clear his reputation. He preferred a sullied name to arguing with the little man with no manners.
“If I were you, people, I wouldn’t let that bum get away. You all saw what he tried to do—beat up on that poor little girl!”
As he shuffled along the pier toward shore, Samuel heard a roar as if everyone on the red steamer was now cursing at him. Any moment, he thought, they would pounce and kill him. What an odd way to go, having survived the enemy on the battlefield, Nazi hooligans in Hamburg, and end up alone like this, all because he imagined some girls ridiculing him.
Then a light went off in his brain—it was wrong to do what he’d done. She was only a child fooling around and he’d lost control, acted like a child beater. He deserved punishment. After all, the girl had such a sweet face. She could have been his daughter …
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Samuel made his way to a stone bench under a leafy tamarind tree and sat down. The flour had congealed with the sweat on his face. He pulled out his handkerchief and tried rubbing off the paste which had hardened into a thin mask. He dropped his head into his hands. Who cared what he looked like now? He felt so helpless and hapless, at the mercy of his own erratic emotions. Each gesture seemed to be wrong and he had to admit that he, not some foe or goon, was responsible for his troubles.
His control over things was disintegrating and he was powerless to stop it. He was alone in Guatemala, lost in a maze of conflicting thoughts and feelings. He wished he had the peace of mind to dissect his life, examine each wrong turn, analyze the important incidents, but he couldn’t concentrate long enough to sift out the wheat from the chaff. The dwarf, Mr. Price, had called him a drunk on the red steamer—he was wrong about that, but certainly he had lost the ability to react rationally to situations.
No, he wasn’t developing the puffy eyes, the red nose, the lumbering gestures of an alcoholic. He was, however, well on his way to becoming a befuddled mumbler like Father Cabezón, incapable of relying on his own instincts. He had better be careful.
The clouds lay thickly over the water like a quilt. Samuel looked out over Amatique Bay and saw the boat to Livingston plowing along, riding over incoming waves. It wouldn’t have been a good day for sightseeing anyhow—he would’ve gotten sick on the boat. Further in the distance, he saw curtains of rain sweeping toward Puerto Barrios across the water. He knew he should get back to the hotel, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.
Samuel felt desolate—like when he had returned from Berlin and discovered his mother had left his father and moved to Palma with his sister. As soon as he’d seen his father, he’d realized how the abandonment had aged him—gone was the gleam in his eyes, the humorous flashes in his conversation. His father had asked him to wait in the foyer as he retreated to get something from his bedroom. There was absolutely no spring to his step. In a minute he was back, holding the tip of a letter in his fingers as if it were a deadly snake.
The letter said that his mother was on her way to Mallorca. She acknowledged to her husband that they had grown apart and were so different that it was pointless to continue. She said she would send for her things and would appreciate Phillip boxing them up for her. She also insisted that her mind was made up and she didn’t want him to come after her. She didn’t want to see him ever again and she knew that he would be all right.
By the wear on the letter, Samuel realized that his father had read, crushed, opened, and reread it multiple times. His father had staggered into his arms, and Samuel tried to get him to sit down, but he’d slipped through his arms and fallen on the floor, crying fitfully. When Samuel tried to pick him up, his father resisted with the heaviness of grief and despair. Samuel didn’t know what to do; he had never seen his father so defeated.
So after thirty-five years of marriage, his mother had finally initiated an act of rebellion. His father couldn’t find comfort in anything, even struggled to get himself dressed. Going to work was out of the question. He was a broken man. Samuel came daily to take care of his father until he died in bed a few weeks later.
Berta refused to come to the burial.
When Samuel visited her in Palma, a week after he had buried his father, he found a woman hardened like a walnut shell, completely indifferent to her husband’s passing. It was as if she couldn’t even fathom what had happened.
How two months could change things. And to his surprise, his mother hardly acknowledged him, her own flesh and blood. She wanted to be left alone, to thumb through fashion magazines and drink chamomile tea at beach-side cafés. The only passion she showed was when she scolded Samuel for putting ice in an already cold drink—
A soft drizzle gave way to a downpour. Scores of Caribs and Garifunas raced along the pier, lugging carts and sacks to whatever shelter they could find. The stevedores crowded together inside the boxcars that had transported the fruit from Bananera. Samuel couldn’t stay under the tamarind since it was peppering him with seeds and pelleting raindrops.
He stepped out from under the tree. To his right he saw the turrets of the hotel just under the cloud line in the distance and began walking in that direction. It took all his strength not to trip on the muddy ground and still keep an eye on where he was going. He reached the railroad tracks, and walked on the ties till he neared the hotel. He circled around several boxcars, crossed two empty tracks, and came upon a barbed-wire fence. He scanned it frantically until he found a tear in the fence marked by two steel drums.
His shirt clung like taffy to his body, his face was streaked with mud and flour, but he had found the trap door that would lead him to El Dorado! The crossing, unfortunately, would not be without peril since the opening was at a point where the bay washed up against rocks. But Samuel was ready for heroic action.
He placed his left elbow against one of the drums and lifted the top wire carefully with his right hand. Pushing down on the bottom wire with his left foot, he opened a space wide enough for his body to pass through. He arched his right foot over the wire and planted it firmly on a flat stone on the other side. Then he switched hands so that his left hand now held the wire and allowed him to slide his back under the barbs. When he had made it past, he sprung his left leg through the gap and plopped it down next to his other foot.
Samuel released the wire and the stone shifted. For a split second, he saw his body toppling on the wire. He twisted away, but his shift was too sudden. The stone slid out from under him and he fell on all fours into shallow water.
Samuel winced. He hobbled up, using a piece of driftwood as a brace. By stretching, he reached solid ground. He looked down at his badly scuffed hands—Battle injuries, he thought, laughing aloud. He bent down to examine his legs. His pants were
ripped and muddied, his knees bleeding.
He felt ridiculous.
The rain was beginning to let up. He took a deep breath and walked over to an open shed littered with cracked railroad wheels and spokes. Punctured steel drums abounded and the ground was covered with nails and rusting tools. Discarded train and steamer parts were piled about everywhere, in careless heaps.
The hotel lights glowed in the distance; he was not that far away.
Samuel wiped his hands on his pants and then on impulse touched his shirt pocket.
“Oh my God! Where is it?”
Agitated, he searched through his pants pockets several times, turning them inside out, though he was sure he hadn’t placed his passport in his pants. He tore off his shirt, squeezing it into a ball.
It’s not here, it’s not here, he despaired, throwing the shirt on a pile of rusting steel. Then he went back, picked it up, and began shredding the shirt by hand.
He snapped his fingers, turned, and walked over to the bay. He dropped bare-chested on the rocks and stretched his arms as far as he could into the shallow water.
“It must be here,” he said aloud, “by these rocks! Yes, I had it on the boat. It must have fallen into the water … It’s here, I know it is.”
Samuel spent ten minutes raking the shore with his hands, but all he snagged were a tin can, a string of brittle wire, a bottle, and a fistful of oozing mud.
He was beside himself, fearing that without proper papers he would be jailed or immediately sent back to Germany—no one could stay in Guatemala without identification.
“I’m finished!” he cried, pounding the water over and over.
When he finally came to terms with the fact that his passport was lost to him forever, he stood up slowly. He was wheezing and panting. He lifted his arms into the air and then slammed his closed fists against his stomach. He teetered on his feet for a moment before he fell facedown onto the shore.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When it had begun to rain, George closed the register on his desk and came out onto the veranda of the International Hotel. He was proud of himself because he had predicted to Willie, the bartender, that there would be a storm today, confirming his theory that downpours always follow a full blue moon.
He pushed against the screen door, holding it open with his body. He welcomed the rain for it would disperse, at least momentarily, the foul odors that saturated the air in Puerto Barrios. His only concern was that the bad weather would force Alfred Lewis to return to port—he wanted the man with the egg-shaped head and the filthy mouth out of his life for a few days. The steamer sinking was too much to hope for.
George was fed up with Puerto Barrios. He felt it had become a magnet for malingerers and losers and he was sick of the lies he told himself to justify his remaining here. He should have left long ago. The town had become a cow with dried-up udders. When the Company had offered him the opportunity to oversee a guest house in Bananera, he thought that leaving was a betrayal of the dream that had brought him here in the first place. He hadn’t been able to imagine himself living inland, surrounded by endless fields of bananas, in a Company town.
What a fool.
If he had any guts, he’d bundle up his things and go back to Punta Gorda and work the small plot of land still in the family name. It would be hard work battling the jungle, but at least he wouldn’t have to prostrate himself in front of sneering, embittered men like Lewis.
But then, to return to his village empty-handed, well, that would be admitting to having struggled for twenty years for nothing. Not that his brother Buster, a lawyer in Monkey River, would complain—he had been begging him for years to come back home. Buster thought that the two of them could start a lumber business, since there was so much mahogany idly growing on their land.
No, George was trapped and he had nothing to show for it, other than a small house on the dirt road to Bananera he never stayed in, since he worked day and night at the hotel. This is why he advised newcomers to get out of Puerto Barrios before it was too late—vines grew too swiftly in the region, strangled everything.
He started moving down the steps of the hotel. The beauty of a hard rain was that it pelted everything equally and indiscriminately. In less than twenty minutes, deep puddles had formed in the park and mud was splashed on the sides of the band shell. He groaned at the thought of having to sweep the mud off the walkways afterward, but this too was part of his job. Since the swamps behind the hotel had been drained and the trees on the nearby hills had been cut, currents of mud swirled down unimpeded all the way to the bay whenever it rained hard.
George maintained the band shell on his own, though it had been ten years since any musicians played in it. The municipality had abandoned it, but George replaced the wooden slats on the floor and cemented the sides whenever they cracked from the elements.
That was the trouble with Puerto Barrios—one step forward and two steps back, a crazy dance in which no progress was ever made. It was as simple as that.
George lit a cigarette. Though the air was sultry, the sun was wedging its way through the clouds. In a matter of minutes, it would be out and everything would dry. The world was indeed mysterious.
Suddenly, a scream jolted him out of his stupor. The cigarette fell from his lips and before he could catch it, it bounced down the steps into the muck. “Damn,” he mumbled.
When he looked up toward the band shell, he saw a creature the size of a small donkey trudging on all fours in the mud. George’s chest started thumping. As it came closer, he realized it wasn’t a donkey; it was too low to the ground. It was crawling on its elbows, holding a stick like a rifle in one hand and dragging a coconut shell by the hair in the other.
The rain had let up, but when the lightning flashed off in the distance, he saw the creature stop dead in its tracks, raise the rifle, and howl.
George went back into the hotel. The front of his shirt was wet. He shook his head. Maybe it was the hairy duende his mother had told him speaks a dozen languages and grants wishes to those who believe in him, or maybe it was Sismito who kills whomever he visits. Either way, he was not ready to confront a wild spirit.
When the creature climbed the hotel steps, George saw that it was simply a man and no errant spirit. He went to the screen door and opened. Upon being seen, the man stopped and snarled. He lunged with his stick and threatened to heave the coconut at George.
When Samuel recognized George, he simply put the stick and the coconut down on the steps and crawled on into the hotel. There was foam at the edges of his mouth and his eyes danced wildly inside their sockets. When he reached the foot of the staircase, he stood up and climbed the steps to the second floor.
George walked back out to the veranda, half in a daze. The storm, which had lasted all of fifteen minutes, had lifted and a ribbon of yellow light began streaking across the black, metallic water of the bay.
He would smoke a cigarette and then shovel the mud off the walkways. Later he’d sweep the lobby floor and mop it dry.
He pulled out several cigarettes from the pack in his shirt pocket, squeezed them till he found one that was dry. Cigarette in mouth, he rubbed his eyes—he could not fully believe what he had just seen, but in the end, what did it matter if it was real or not? His lips trembled. Puerto Barrios was cursed.
George put his hand to his cigarette and took quick, cheerless puffs.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Samuel had no idea what had happened other than that he’d lost his passport and walked back to the hotel when the rain stopped.
Once back in his room, he kicked off his wet shoes and peeled off his ripped shirt and trousers. He wrapped a flimsy towel around his waist and went down the corridor to the bathroom. There he saw a sign tacked to the wall stating there would be no water until six p.m.
He went back to his room and used the remaining water in his pitcher to wash the mud and hardened flour from his face. He then sat down on his bed and rubbed his bruised legs. He knew he s
houldn’t be dawdling and should rush back to the train station and telegraph office. Taking out clean slacks, a brown short-sleeve shirt, and a spare pair of oxfords from his valise, he got dressed again. Then he sat back down on the bed and resumed rubbing his legs.
He was worried to be without a passport since it would take weeks, maybe months, to get a new one from the German consulate in Guatemala City—assuming they wouldn’t put him off suspecting he was Jewish. That’s what Hitler was trying to prove to the world—that no country in the world wanted Jews. And if the consulate refused to issue him a new passport—that was a possibility—how would he prove to anyone who he was? Without proper identification papers, he would have to toe the line, remain completely inconspicuous, if he wanted to stay in Guatemala. He knew nothing of the local laws, but the times required everything to be in order—one false step and he’d be deported. Crooks or finaglers would have him under their thumb if they learned he had no official papers.
But there was also a positive side to the loss. For one thing, the ties to his past had been cut. He was free to be whomever he wished. And he still had his cousin Heinrich. After a decade in Guatemala City, he must be well connected with the higher-ups in the government. He could ask a functionary to help his cousin get new papers. Connections and money opened up all kinds of possibilities. Samuel could change his name to something more Spanish-sounding like Pablo de la Vega or Roberto Gómez.
A lost passport was not to be sneezed at, but in the end, it could be a serendipitous opportunity for Samuel to remake himself.
There was nobody at the train station. Samuel felt relieved, however, to see palletfuls of boxed goods thronging the platforms. A card taped onto the clerk’s window bars said, Be Back at Two, but a wind-up clock just above the booth marked ten minutes to three. Samuel was not rattled by the clerk’s absence. The train would undoubtedly leave soon for the capital. Maybe he should go to the telegraph office first and see if Heinrich had answered his telegram.