by Tom Epperson
“I liked the old you just fine.”
“The new one is even better. You’ll see.”
“I can’t wait. My parents are really excited too. Mother made me take her to the hairdresser today, she wants to look nice for you. Do you know how long it’s been since she left the house? And Daddy’s determined to teach you to play golf. So get ready!”
“Okay, I will.”
Caroline peers at him through the computer screen.
“Roberto? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine. But there’s been a slight change in plans.”
“Are you taking a later flight? I hope not, I’ve been literally counting the hours till you arrive.”
“You’re not going to like this, Caroline. I’m not coming tomorrow. I won’t be coming till Sunday.”
She looks stunned. “Sunday! But why?”
“I have to go to Contamana. You know I’ve been gathering material for a book about the massacre. I’ve realized I need to make another trip there. Because if I don’t do it now it might be years before I’ll be able to. And then I won’t be able to write my book.”
“Roberto, you need to leave, they’re going to kill you!”
“I still have plenty of time, it’s just for four extra days. And Contamana’s not dangerous anymore, I’ve never had any problems there.”
“The whole country is dangerous for you, Roberto, that’s why you’re leaving!”
“What I’m going to do isn’t dangerous,” he blatantly lies. “If it was I wouldn’t do it. You have to trust me.”
“I can trust you to always put your job ahead of me! If there’s ever a conflict, I always come in second.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true.”
“Look, Caroline. I can’t come to Saint Lucia and do nothing. That email you sent me, about the walnut desk in the office you’ve made for me—I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to get there and write my book. There won’t be any reason for me to leave.”
He can tell Caroline is listening.
“Not ever?” she says.
“Well at least not for a long time.”
“And you won’t go to any more dangerous places?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
“Yes. And something else I’ve been thinking. Why don’t we get married?”
“You mean now?”
He nods. “As soon as we can get the license and all that.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. What are we waiting for?”
Caroline smiles. “We’ve been waiting for you to say exactly what you’re saying now. This will mean so much to my parents. Especially my mother. I know how much she wants to be at our wedding.”
“Great, make the plans.”
“They’ll want us to be married in the church.”
“That’s fine with me.”
Caroline is silent.
“What is it?” says Roberto.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re telling me something that will make me happy because you’ve told me something that made me unhappy. You’re a brute, Roberto. You trample over my emotions because you know you can get away with it. Because I love you so much.”
“I’m sorry I’m a brute. But I’m a brute that’s crazy about you.”
“I won’t have a peaceful second until Sunday. I’ll be worrying about you all the time. Promise to be careful.”
“I’m always careful. But don’t worry if you don’t hear from me, cellphone service is awful in that part of the country.”
Caroline is looking at Roberto wistfully.
“It’s almost as if you’re not even real anymore. It’s like you’re just an image on my computer screen.”
“When I get there on Sunday, I’ll show you how real I am.”
* * *
He has to get up early, and so he goes to bed early but he cannot sleep. He heaves and twists under the covers, assailed by visions of what might happen to him in Tulcán. He sees himself running and hiding and captured and tortured and killed. How will his little gesture of going there to write a story help Manuel and his mother and Nydia and Lieutenant Matallana? They have gone into the darkness and will not return. If Daniel is right it’s not about them anyway, it’s not some noble quest he’s on to expose injustice, but rather he’s chasing personal glory and the Bolívar Prize. And what would the effect be on his father and mother and grandmother, on Caroline, on his friends, if he went into Tulcán and disappeared?
If he doesn’t go, what are the consequences? Willie will be disappointed, but also relieved; he won’t feel responsible if something bad befalls the son of a close friend. He’ll no doubt get in touch with another journalist, if he hasn’t already. Daniel will be happy, Andrés will be happy. And Caroline will be ecstatic when he calls her in the morning and tells her he’ll be arriving in Saint Lucia at 7:35 p.m. after all.
A vast relief washes over Roberto as he makes the decision to not go to Tulcán. It’s as if he’s awakened from a bad dream or emerged from the delirium of a high fever. This time tomorrow night, he will not be with some scarred killer in a malodorous bar in a woebegone town on a muddy river but in the arms of his beloved. And suddenly he’s sleepy. Overwhelmingly so. But he doesn’t want to fall asleep just yet, these are the first moments of pleasantness and peace he’s experienced since he was awakened by that phone call on Thursday morning, and he doesn’t want to let them go . . . he doesn’t want to let them go . . . he doesn’t . . . want . . .
* * *
The ringing phone startles him awake. He looks at the bedside clock. It’s a little after midnight. He gropes for the phone and says, “Hello?”
“You motherfucker,” he hears. “You son of a bitch.”
“Daniel?”
“What a pathetic excuse for a person you are,” Daniel says. “I’ll get even with you, you asshole.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m coming with you, all right? I’ll probably get killed, and it will be your fault.”
Roberto doesn’t say anything.
“Roberto? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Are you okay?”
“I was asleep. I’m just kind of groggy.”
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” Daniel asks hopefully.
“No. No, of course not. I’ll meet you in Robledo.”
Four days until the day Roberto is to die
Beto takes Roberto’s bags out to the taxi. He can’t stop talking about Roberto’s car.
“I keep going down to the garage and looking at it. I’m afraid it’s going to be gone, but it’s always there. What a beauty it is! The dent in the roof isn’t bad at all. When it’s fixed, it will be perfect. I can’t wait to drive it.”
“Where are you going to go?” asks Roberto. “On your first drive.”
“I’m just going to drive through the city. I’ll go wherever I want to go, I’ll stop wherever I want to stop!”
It’s a gray, drizzly morning. The driver gets the bags stowed in the trunk and slams down the lid.
Roberto and Beto shake hands.
“Good luck, Beto. I’ve enjoyed knowing you.”
Beto is smiling, but he has tears in his eyes.
“Thank you again. I’ll take care of your car like it’s made out of gold! May God protect you on your journey.”
A horse pulling a cart clops by quickly. Roberto squeezes into the back of the tiny taxi. The driver grunts and sighs as he slides into his seat. He’s a large, weary man. He seems to take up the whole front of the taxi. He glances at Roberto in the rearview mirror.
“The airport,” Roberto says.
* * *
The drizzle becomes a downpour. Roberto gets wet getting his suitcase and backpack out of the taxi at the airport. He goes inside and wheels his suitcase past two soldiers with assault r
ifles and heads toward the ticket counter. He’s walking faster than normal, irrationally fast since he has plenty of time to catch his plane, and he makes himself slow down; he realizes he’s nervous because, despite what he told Caroline, he’s not entirely confidant that the people upset with him haven’t changed their mind about letting him leave the country. Several assassinations have taken place at the airport, including a very famous one in 1997 when a presidential candidate was murdered right in the middle of a mob of journalists and admirers. But Roberto doesn’t see anybody heading grimly toward him with his hand thrust suspiciously in a coat pocket. He gets his boarding pass, checks his suitcase, and carries his backpack through security.
Feeling more relaxed, he walks toward his terminal. He stops at a shop selling snacks and drinks. In a display case are row on row of little plastic packets containing guava-filled cheese. He never sees them anywhere in the city except in the airport; he’s loved them since he was a kid. He buys ten, along with a bottle of water for the plane.
He climbs a flight of stairs to a coffee shop that overlooks his terminal, and orders a coffee with milk. As he waits for it he looks around. There are three other customers: a guy sitting by himself hungrily digging into a big tamal wrapped in a banana leaf, and a diminutive old lady drinking hot chocolate with what appears to be her daughter. He takes his coffee and sits down at a table where he can look down at the terminal. The packets of cheese have a picture on them of a happy cow beneath which it says: “Ex . . . quisite!” He tears one open and the cheese and guava really are exquisite and he quickly eats two more.
He sips his coffee, gazing at the waiting passengers below. Most of them seem mesmerized by their various electronic devices. Roberto’s come to this terminal many times over the course of his life, it’s old and high-ceilinged and drafty but has a certain charm but it’s slated for destruction. The airport is being privatized, they’d privatize the air you breathe and the blood pumping in your veins if they could, and it’s now basically owned by Landazábel’s best friend. The old airport was fine but it’s all being gradually demolished and rebuilt, they can make more money that way.
The old lady and her daughter are descending the stairs, the old lady laughing at something as the daughter holds her arm. Roberto glances at the guy who was eating the tamal and finds him talking on his cellphone and looking right at him.
Roberto reaches for his coffee, takes a drink, and looks back at the guy. He’s wearing a denim jacket and a red shirt. He notices Roberto looking at him and looks away.
Below Roberto, the passengers have begun to line up for boarding. He stands up, grabs his backpack, and goes downstairs.
He joins the line. He looks out of the terminal’s tall windows. It’s still raining. Beyond the big tails of the waiting planes are the gray runways and, off in the distance, the cloud-shrouded mountains.
He looks up at the coffee shop, and is glad to see the guy in the red shirt isn’t standing there watching him. Roberto probably just happened to be in his line of sight as he talked on the phone and the guy wasn’t even aware of him. It would not be good if the guy knew who he was. If Roberto was leaving the country, it would make no sense that he’d be getting on a plane to Robledo.
* * *
It’s a prop plane seating about forty. As chance would have it sitting next to Roberto is the old lady, as small as a child. She gives him a warm smile and starts talking to him the moment he sits down.
“What a nice beard you have,” she says. “My son has a beard exactly like that. He’s a doctor. A pediatrician.”
“Oh really?” says Roberto a bit coolly, not wanting to encourage her lest he doom himself to an hour and a half of hearing about her son. He takes his cellphone out and checks messages. He has two texts. From Caroline: Have a safe and productive trip my love in 105 hours roberto will rejoin his caroline. And from Daniel: Sitting in my car scratching my balls and picking my nose. A bad traffic accident, fatalities, blood. You’ll beat me to Robledo. If you feel you can’t wait and need to start your insane adventure without me I’ll understand. He replies to Caroline that Sunday will be here before she knows it and to Daniel to not worry, he’ll be glad to wait, then a flight attendant tells him to put away his phone. The plane shudders down the runway and lifts into the rain, rips up through the clouds, and finds the sun.
He feels like he hasn’t slept in days. He’s never had trouble sleeping on a plane and he soon nods off. He dreams about Clara. He’s on a sailboat with her on a glittering sea and then a bright silver fish jumps into the boat. It flops around in the bottom, Clara is agitated, she tells him to catch the fish and throw it back in the water before it dies, but it’s slippery and keeps squirting out of his grasp. He’s awakened by the captain announcing the plane’s beginning its descent into Robledo. The old lady is looking kindly at Roberto.
“Did you have a nice sleep?” she says.
“Yes, I did. Thanks.”
She’s so nice he feels a little guilty he hasn’t been more friendly to her.
“Do you live in Robledo?” he says.
“Yes, my husband and I moved there several years ago. Such a beautiful town. What about you, do you live there?”
“No. I’m just meeting a friend.”
* * *
Roberto’s flown from mountains to more mountains. The mountains here are different though, brownish, mostly bare, with oak trees scattered across them. The climate is very dry. When the Spaniards arrived, armor clanking, nearly half a millennium ago, they looked around the broad valley and were reminded of southern Spain. The town they established has been officially frozen in time; by law, no structures can be higher than two stories and no modern construction is allowed, which means all the buildings have whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs, green doors and window frames, and enticing balconies with overflowing flowerpots. It’s beautiful, as the old lady said. Perhaps the most beautiful town in the country.
He’s been to Robledo before, once as a child with his parents, and just over a year ago with Caroline. He doesn’t remember much about the first trip except he spent a lot of time walking around looking at things and being bored, but the handful of days he was here with Caroline were among the best he’s ever had. The food, the wine, the sun-soaked walks, the immense sky and the white clouds, the lovemaking in the hotel room in the indolent afternoons. Soon they were talking about living here, about buying a house. For centuries Robledo had existed in a Shangri-la-ish solitude, but a highway had been built some thirty years ago connecting it to the capital city, and an airport followed and then lots of people with money like Caroline and Roberto were buying houses in Robledo. It was such a peaceful place, one saw no soldiers, the guerrillas and the drug cartels seemed far away. But then Caroline’s mother got cancer and Caroline went off to her Shangri-la in the sea.
Roberto gets a taxi at the little airport then reaches the town in just a few minutes. The streets are all stone, tough on tires, tough on feet. The taxi slowly bumps along to the hotel where he’s supposed to meet Daniel. It’s where Roberto and Caroline stayed. It’s 300 years old. It used to be the hacienda of the Saldamandos, the town’s most prominent family. Portraits of several Saldamandos hang in the lobby, the men handsome and haughty, the women pretty, with bold eyes. The hotel has kept an eighteenth century décor. The lobby has a high ceiling with exposed beams. Just inside the front entrance stands a suit of armor, supposedly worn by the first Saldamando, fresh off the ship from Spain, when he was fighting the Indians who used to infest the area. There’s a picture of Caroline kissing the visor of the helmet, and one of Roberto standing beside the suit of armor, unsmiling, staring into the camera; people were supposedly much shorter in the olden days, but not evidently the first Saldamando because the suit of armor’s exactly Roberto’s height.
He recognizes the desk clerk, a studious-looking young man wearing glasses with heavy black frames; Roberto and Caroline became quite chummy with him, and now he remembers his name.
&
nbsp; “Rodolfo? I’m Roberto, I was here about a year ago. With my girlfriend, Caroline.”
Rodolfo laughs; he remembers Roberto, probably remembers Caroline even better, and he and Roberto shake hands. Rodolfo seems disappointed when he finds out she’s not with Roberto.
“But you’ll be staying with us for a while?” he asks.
Roberto explains he would love to but he’ll be taking a trip by car and he’s meeting someone here first, and asks him if he could leave his bags here while he takes a walk around the town. Rodolfo replies he’s happy to help him in any way. Roberto tries to tip him but Rodolfo refuses to take it.
He walks through the breeze-tossed shadows of oak trees in a park then reaches the central plaza. It’s a huge cobblestone expanse with a fountain in the middle. It’s supposed to be the biggest plaza in the country; it’s certainly outlandishly large for a town the size of Robledo, as if its founders imagined one day it would become a great city. Shops and restaurants surround the plaza, with a church at one end. A cluster of nuns walk toward the church. Lots of people are strolling around. A tourist is taking a picture of two dour Indians in ponchos. Dogs are sleeping or just hanging out, looking well fed and happy. A little boy runs at breakneck speed diagonally across the plaza—Roberto tries to remember if he ever had energy like that. He walks past a restaurant where he and Caroline sat at a table outside drinking wine and watching the sun go down and the lights beginning to glow in the buildings around the plaza and then a wisp of a moon appearing.
They’ve begun to grow grapes in the hills around Robledo and the wine they were drinking was locally made and not half bad. A band was playing blues and rock, she pulled him out of his chair and made him dance with her, they were both drunk, he stumbled a little on the stones but Caroline who is a great dancer didn’t miss a step. Everyone was watching them and laughing and clapping and ordinarily he hated being the center of attention but for once he didn’t mind because he realized he was with a superb girl in a unique town in a mystic deepening dusk and he felt joy mixed with sadness, sadness knowing this was all temporary, it was going to end. As Roberto stands and gazes on this sunny morning at the empty table where he sat with Caroline, it seems savagely ironic that he finds himself in Robledo. The only reason he’s here is he looked at a map and saw Robledo had the closest commercial airport to Tulcán, but more than if he were in any other place, being here makes him not want to go to Tulcán.