He sighed and put down his fork—he had tried to eat something, but both the rice and the beans had a scorched, compost taste. Suky glanced at his plate, at him. She took a sip of her beer, and stretched her arms high over her head. It was appalling, the way so many girls traveling around here dressed. With grimy bits of underwear showing, or worse, like Suky, with none, Rob observed as she adjusted the strap of her sluttish camisole, to show. What did people think about their country being turned into a private beach? What could the Indian girl, for example, be thinking? When Meredith traveled (Rob knew, though they had never yet traveled together) she took particular care to dress respectfully. Especially if she were going to some Third World country, where, as she’d said to Rob, the inhabitants had little to offer one another aside from courtesy.
Rob brought his mind to the table again, and found Mick entrenched in a boast-fest—the places he and Suky had gone hunting textiles to sell in the States, the foods they’d survived, the dangers they’d faced…Still, if he were to be honest with himself, Rob thought, he would have to admit that Mick and Suky had an effect on him even now. From the moment he’d met them, he’d contorted himself into all sorts of ridiculous postures—misrepresenting and stifling reactions, even exaggerating. And even now, when Mick was evidencing wormlike, sycophantic tendencies of his own, Rob couldn’t control a desperation for their good opinion. Pathetic, but true.
He’d seen them as soon as he disembarked in town from the bus. There they were, at a food stand, joking with the proprietor in Spanish far too advanced for Rob. They were clearly Americans, and he was pining for the sounds of American English, but really, it was something about their appearance that had stopped him—the way they looked together; their slightly feral, miniaturized quality, fastidious and carnal at once.
Although he’d been able to see from where he was standing the hotel recommended by his student guide book, he lingered near them, waiting to ask for their advice. When they finished their conversation, they directed him, without interest, to a hotel in the opposite direction from the one he was facing.
Their indifference had been disorienting. His sincerity, his good nature (and his looks, he conceded uncomfortably) generally made people attentive. But these two! It was hard to tell if they were even listening. Most people made an effort to show by their faces that they understood, were interested in, what one was saying. An unwelcome indignation branched quickly through Rob as he remembered this first encounter, clearing a path through which embarrassment then shot treacherously; he’d just been tricked by his own brain into thinking something distasteful—that the facial expressions displayed by most people, by himself, were social signals, like clothing.
The town was small, and over the next several days, Rob had seen Suky and Mick a number of times. They would nod from the sanctum of their unwashed majesty, and Rob was reminded, each time more keenly, that although they were the largest and most vivid figures in his small universe here, he was no more than a mote, for them, in a vast swarm of tourists.
But Sunday, they’d appeared at an overcrowded restaurant where Rob was sitting, and stood for a moment in the doorway. Rob gestured, more out of civility than hope, to the empty chairs next to him, but they made their way over and sat down without surprise or thanks. And when Mick put a leaf of lettuce and a slice of tomato—both virtually leaping with microbes—right onto his hamburger, Rob, giddy with happiness, had thrown caution to the winds and followed suit. How pure the lake had looked from that side, Rob thought again. He had a perfect view of it from their table, and had noted, he remembered, the way its surface reflected with such certainty the volcano and the little hills—the hills where he sat sweating, now.
Bali, blah blah blah—Mick was still going on; hill tribes, Panama, opium, blah blah—Rob had heard this all not three days before. Though no question Mick was a better performer for a worthier audience.
Worthier, but possibly less impressionable. Kimball merely rubbed his chin, frowning distantly. Only at one moment did his expression change. One of the soldiers had turned slightly; he seemed to be glancing up at Kimball. Did Kimball nod? It seemed to Rob he’d lowered his eyes a fraction of a second. Had something happened? No, there was only a young Indian walking quietly along the road below. Suky was squirming restlessly, her peculiar yellow eyes fixed on the lake, as she twisted a strand of her springy hair. Jealous, probably, Rob thought, for Mick’s attention, and he was taken unawares by a harsh little clout of sympathy.
“We’ve come across a couple of times now,” Mick was saying. “But we haven’t had a whole lot of luck. Hard to find quality these days. Old stuff’s in shit condition, new stuff’s just plain shit…”
Kimball rested his fingertips together, indicating the Indian girl with a movement of his head, and Rob became fully aware of the fine, even stripe running through her clothing, the softness of the fabric, the yoke of her blouse, where flowers and jungle animals—jaguars, monkeys, snakes—bloomed and sported in a heavy embroidered wreath.
“I was noticing,” Mick said.
“Made it herself,” Kimball said.
Mick eyed the blouse sideways, then reached out and rubbed an edge of the fabric between his thumb and forefinger.
“Family does great work,” Kimball said.
“Great piece,” Mick said. “Yeah.” He stared at the girl smokily.
Kimball leaned over to the girl and they spoke in low voices, as if, Rob thought, anyone else could possibly understand the preposterously arcane language they were speaking. “Listen,” Kimball said. He pushed his empty plate aside. “She says when are you leaving? Because this is it—we could go check out her family’s stuff, and then she and I could catch a ride with you back into town.”
“Ideal,” Mick said.
“Except we’re sort of tight,” Suky said.
“We can fit them,” Mick objected. “No problem.” He glanced at Rob.
“Sure,” Rob said. “Of course.”
“We’ve got a lot of luggage,” Suky said, looking at Rob evenly. “Why don’t you take the mail boat?” she said to Kimball. “It would probably be a lot more comfortable.”
Rob felt himself flush. However comical Suky and Mick had found his pack, it would hardly prevent Kimball and the girl from sitting in the back seat with him.
Kimball was emitting a fog of absentmindedness. “Problem is,” he said, “we got a business appointment—we got to get all the way to the capital by morning.”
“See, so we couldn’t help you out in that case,” Suky said. “We’re not going back to town until tomorrow.”
“Huh,” Kimball said. He reached over to the Indian girl’s plate and wrapped a spoonful of her beans in one of the sour, hay-flavored tortillas. “Well, no sense our taking the boat anyhow,” he said. “We’d get to town too late to go straight on. So we might as well spend one more night here, then squeeze in with you tomorrow.”
“What about your appointment?” Suky said.
Kimball scooped up the remainder of the girl’s meal. “Appointment’ll just have to wait one day, because we’re sure as shit not going to do the road from town to the capital after dark.”
“After dark!” Mick said. “Hey, guess who we saw this morning. On this road. In broad daylight.”
Kimball put his beer bottle down on the table and looked at Mick. “Who?” he said.
“The muchachos,” Mick announced.
“You know this?” Kimball said, and only then did Mick appear to notice his unwavering stare.
“What he means,” Mick said, turning to Rob as though it were Rob who’d committed some kind of faux pas, “is that around here you’re never sure. Army dresses up like the guerrillas, guerrillas dress up like the army…”
Kimball was looking from one of them to another. “They didn’t stop you?” he said.
“They were gone,” Mick said. “They were there, and then they were gone, vanished.”
Really, Rob thought, there really couldn’t be any
question of who it had been, standing mere yards from them this morning. Oh, anyone could put kerchiefs over their faces, but who could learn to become invisible? Only people who had lived in the mountains. Only people who had been hunted in the mountains like animals. “See, look at Rob,” Mick said. “He still looks like he saw a ghost.”
Rob turned to Kimball, disregarding Mick’s witticism. “Are they stopping people? You know, I heard they were, some places. I met a kid in San Cristobal who told me they stopped him, I don’t know if it was here, really, and took his last fifty dollars. He said it was the worst experience he ever had. Not the money, obviously, but when he felt the gun, sort of rubbing against his hair, he said it was like a switch on his head, and everything lit up with this strange, glowy light and became completely lucid, like one of those little glass things.” Rob remembered the kid’s voice, his white, wondering face. “He said his life had always been all dark and confused, but right then he could see how it all fit together, and his whole life made perfect sense. And the sense it made—the sense it made—was that it was completely, totally pointless.”
The others looked at him. Then Suky smiled and slid a cigarette out of her pack.
“Of course,” Rob said, “he was glad it wasn’t the army.”
“Excuse me, dear,” Kimball said to Suky. “You got extra?”
She inhaled luxuriantly, then handed Kimball her cigarette. “By the way,” she said to him. “How did you happen to know we came by car?”
Kimball gazed at her in sorrow. “How else could you have gotten here before the mail boat came in?” he asked reasonably. “Besides,” he added. “I saw you drive up.”
“Hey, lookit,” Mick said. “No soldiers.” And in fact they had disappeared from in front of the restaurant.
Kimball squinted down at the lake. “Yup, and the mail boat’s coming in,” he said. He glanced at his watch—an incongruously expensive one, Rob saw. “On the dot, give or take.”
“Fabulous,” Suky said. “Hours of Pantsuits before we’ve got the place to ourselves again.”
Kimball twisted around in his chair to look full at her. “You know what?” he mused. “You kids are nice kids. You got a sense of propriety, and that’s something that appeals to me. So what I’m saying is, if you’ve got to stay over tonight, I want you to do me this favor. I want you to take care of yourselves, and stay inside.”
“Can’t,” Suky said. “Rob and I have tickets for the opera.”
Mick looked annoyed. “Very funny,” he said.
Kimball smiled indulgently. “Now, her family”—he pointed at the Indian girl—“barricades themselves in.”
“No shit,” Mick said. He pursed his lips and examined his juice glass. “‘Barricades.’”
“Hey, now,” Kimball protested, as though Mick had maligned the girl’s family. “These are good people.”
Mick nodded gallantly at the immobile girl. “I don’t doubt that for a second,” he said. “But, what you’re… I mean, if there’s actual…conflict.” He turned the glass in his hands. “What do you say, Suke?”
“Besides.” Suky smiled sweetly. “Rob wants to stay, obviously. Rob wants to see conflict.”
“No conflict,” Kimball said. “Oh, sure, the odd incident, naturally, now and again, but the real problem around here”—he lowered his voice—“is brujos. There was one recently, changed himself into a wild boar nights. Rampaged, was tearing up everyone’s little plots of corn and beans, went after people whenever he got the chance.” He studied Mick for a moment. “Now, Micky. We know that anybody who’s out at night is up to mischief. I know that as well as you do. A person who’s out at night is not a reliable human being. But things happen, and you got to take that into consideration. Someone’s old lady gets sick, they have to get water from somewhere. A kid wanders out. You know how it is. And this brujo chewed up some folks something awful, they say, before they shot it one night in a cornfield. And in the morning? When the sun came up? The body turned into the sweetest old man you’d ever want to meet. One of our next-door neighbors.” He sighed and shook his head. “But you know what?” He looked up as though surprised. “Rob—Suky—Are you listening? Because this is the interesting part, now. Afterwards, there were a lot of people who said that sweet old man and his wife were guerrillas.”
Suky was looking at him thoughtfully. “No shit,” she said, after a moment.
“No shit,” he said. He stood, studying the empty spots where the soldiers had been, and hitched up his jeans. “Hey—” He whistled. “Pablito—”
“A buck fifty apiece,” Mick said, when the bill was analyzed. “Can’t beat that.” He drained his juice, set the glass purposefully on the table, and stood. “Sure. We’ll try to give you guys a hand, go back today if we do good business early—no real need to stay over, then. So, ready?”
“I think I’ll just hang around,” Rob said. “Explore.”
Mick and Suky looked at him blankly.
“Okay, professor,” Kimball said. “Explore away.”
Now that Rob had succeeded in obtaining solitude, he found he had no idea what to do with it. The prospect of finding a ride back, which in the car had seemed so reasonable, was obviously absurd; he had noticed no other cars in the village. And who could he even ask? Pablo was at his elbow, staring at the little pile of money on the table. “Sí.” Rob nodded. “Gracias.” Pablo’s eyes glinted as he seized it.
He could consult the man who had checked them in at the hotel, Rob thought. Though that didn’t seem too promising. For a hotel keeper in a village to which few surely traveled, the man had been remarkably—not actually rude, Rob thought, but, well, …preoccupied.
There was one other party of guests at the hotel, Rob remembered. Three unsmiling button-faced blonds, of which one or two seemed to be boys. He could ask them. A good idea.
But when he imagined himself strolling back and finding them, a feeling of weakness overtook him. Their presence in the hotel’s sunless courtyard earlier had been ghostly and forbidding. The hotel keeper had gestured to an enclosure beyond them—the shower, he explained. A shower! But Mick had been jittery and discouraging. “It’ll be freezing, man. Let’s go get some lunch—it’ll warm up later.” But Rob stood his ground—he’d earned the right, he felt, in the car. So Mick and Suky waited while he fetched the stiff little towel from his room—his cubicle—and disappeared into the shower stall. Instantly he was back in the courtyard, humiliated; the shower was literally unbearable. Mick had doubled up, and the blonds looked at him out of their button faces. But perhaps the blonds simply hadn’t understood—they were foreigners. Well, foreigners, of course, but what he meant, he corrected himself, was, not American.
Rob gazed out at the watery sky, the cloudy lake. At the very worst, he’d only have to wait until late afternoon. Either Kimball would have succeeded in convincing Mick and Suky to return to town today, or he could take the mail boat by himself. Which was by far the more appealing alternative, actually—he was certainly in no hurry to be out on that road again. Anyhow, the urgency to leave had passed. There was something—well, something correct about being where he was. After all—the thought rose up dripping—it was where he was…
He had wanted to go, while he had the chance this summer before starting grad school, someplace very far away. Whenever his parents came home from their trips, they sparkled with things it was impossible to say. In fancy books of photographs you could see clues, hints, in the glossy pages, where boats rocked in the harbors of seaside towns, streetlamps spread a soft glamour through the rain of antique cities, where men and women of distant nationalities hunkered in the circle of the lens, enticing and resistant.
Since the beginning of summer he’d wound his way down and down and down, in buses throbbing with peasants and chickens. His heart had pounded at each blue and gold drop to the valley floors, at the crude white crosses marking death along the roads, at the shining, disinterested God-filled air, through which he had expected, at every
moment, to plummet, along with his fellow passengers, bouncing in their tinny container from peak to peak. And he had felt, all the time, that he was following a trail of instructions that would lead him as far as it was possible to go.
Now here he was. As far as it was possible to go. The end of the trail, where the world trickled out into mud.
If Meredith were here, she would show him how to find the beauty of this place as though it were a photograph. Through her eyes, it would acquire coherence, meaning, intelligibility. The lake with its sudsy rolls of fog—Meredith would know facts about it: its size, its depth, its geological origin. She would have researched the social organization, the language, the economy of these silent, unreadable villagers. She would smile, now, and coax him to his feet.
Oh, if only he could just go back to the hotel and have his shower! But he imagined Meredith’s bewilderment: You got all the way there and didn’t even see the market? Or the church? She shook her thick gold-brown hair and laughed. You just took a shower and went back? No, she didn’t laugh—her white smile dimmed when she saw his face.
All right. So, market, church, then shower and return. A few tourists were struggling up the hill—evidently Suky had overestimated the impending plague. They would be headed for the market themselves, Rob reasoned, as he lost sight of them in the thicket of tin roofs and little hills.
But despite the intricacy of paths and turnings, the market turned out to be no more than two minutes’ walk from the restaurant. Indian clothing hung from stalls, and careful heaps of dwarfed and fly-specked mangoes were displayed on crates.
Pale, smiling people, determined, apologetic, wearing squashy hats to protect them from the sun, aimed cameras at undersize children and their glowering mothers. Even worse was the dickering at the stalls. The scene had a sickening familiarity. It was like seeing as an adult one of those frenetic, mean-spirited, sentimental TV shows Rob had watched as a child. “They want you to bargain, they expect you to. It’s insulting if you don’t,” one woman was informing her shame-faced husband. “Twenty dollar,” she said to the shop owner, believing herself, apparently, to be speaking a foreign language.
All Around Atlantis Page 4