by Lydia Millet
Was it worse to have been beautiful once and not be beautiful anymore? Or to never have been beautiful at all?
Because he had never been a German.
And poor Casey had never been the blond boys.
She was better, his love said—better! She was everything.
But briefly it twisted him with sadness, this matter of never having been German.
•
It took a long, dull while to find the man he was looking for once he and the Germans parted company. He sat in a small restaurant with wooden floors, where they served nothing but fish with too many small bones in it and no discernible seasoning and rice and beans and warm soda. He waited. These were his instructions; another man had told him the first man, the tour guide’s brother, was on the water and would come in later.
He had tried waiting outside the brother’s house for a while but there was nowhere to sit, only a patch of dirt beside a screen door hanging off a single hinge, and eventually he had wandered back to the restaurant and told the hostess he would like to wait at a table, please.
Once or twice he got up and walked around, stretching his legs. In the back of the restaurant, on a small, dusty table, they sold folk art of a heartrending ugliness.
The Germans were coming back at four-thirty, when he was due to meet them at the ocean pier again for the ride back to the hotel. He consulted his watch frequently and worried that the brother wouldn’t show up by then, that he’d come all this way for nothing. Finally he fell asleep with his head on his arms on the table, and a man came and tapped his elbow. He jerked his head up in startlement.
It was an older man, dark-skinned with thinning hair cropped close to his head.
“Mr. Lindley?” he asked, and Hal nodded, still sleep-addled, and gestured at him to please sit down, and could he get him something to eat or drink.
When they both had grape sodas in front of them—the only thing available in a bottle besides beer—Hal said he understood the man’s brother had taken Stern on the boat, and only the boat had come back. The man said it was his half-brother Dylan, and that yes, the boat had come back but not the men.
At first, when the boat was discovered, no one was sure whether to do anything. After all the men had been headed out on a cross-country backpacking trip. The loss of their boat would be a handicap, but only when they returned to the trailhead at the river and found it missing. No one knew when to send another boat looking for them. They had taken enough supplies for a couple of weeks, and Dylan knew the braids of the river well and could bring them back down without the boat. On the other hand, if their food was entirely depleted by the time they discovered the boat was missing, that could be a problem.
Hal remembered what the German had said and asked about the boat’s outboard motor. The brother said it was broken, one of the blades had snapped, but it was not clear when this had occurred, whether it was before or after the boat had been separated from the men. It was more likely, said the brother, that it had happened when the motor was running. But this made little sense, because Dylan would not have abandoned the boat. Under no circumstances. He had bought it himself and rebuilt it with his own hands.
In any case, said the brother, they had to assume, at this point, weeks later, that the men were not returning.
He would never have thought it could happen. The Monkey was a slow, muddy river; the only possible human predators in the rainforest were jaguars, and in many generations none of these had harmed anyone. There were venomous snakes like the fer-de-lance, but it was unlikely a snake would have bitten both men. Possibly they had been attacked by thieves or guerrillas wandering the jungle, but that too was extremely far-fetched.
He was confused. He was mourning his brother but it was an odd, uncertain mourning.
“If I needed to find out more,” said Hal, “what could I do?”
“I don’t know,” said the man, and finished his grape soda. His way of speaking had a kind of Creole lilt, or maybe Caribbean generally. It was melodious.
“Should I go up the river myself? Pay an outfitter or another guide to cover it, take along some rescue workers? I have a budget.”
“The problem is,” said the brother, shrugging, “there’s too much ground up there. It’s only jungle and mountains. We don’t know where they went. One day I looked around where my brother used to go, this one place where there is a hiking trail, but you know, the rains already came then. There were no tracks or anything. I did a couple of walks with some guys from the village here, you know, but we never found anything. None of us.”
“So it’s a dead end,” said Hal.
Then the Germans were at the screen door, looking fresh and invigorated with wet hair. Hal was surprised to see them until he recalled this was the only eating establishment in the town. Before he could say anything the man and woman were sitting on the rough bench on either side of him, their kids standing in the middle of the room toweling off their blond heads and then snapping the towels at each other.
“Did you find out good information?” asked the husband.
“There isn’t any,” said Hal.
“You know where the boat came from?” asked the German woman, looking at the brother.
“I know the trail he used,” said the brother, and shrugged.
“Here, look,” said the husband eagerly, and pulled a map out of a clear-plastic sheath. It was a topographical map, Hal saw, far better than anything he had. Trust the Germans. “Where is this? Show me, if you please.”
The husband and the brother bent over the map, tracing their fingers up the line of the river. Their heads blocked the view and after a few moments Hal sat back, feeling superfluous.
The wife reached out and took his hand, squeezed it briefly and let go.
“We went swimming in the river,” she said, smiling. He noticed her white teeth and the youthful, sun-kissed sheen of her skin. Her hair was caught back in a golden-brown braid. He could picture her in a blue and white dirndl, gaily performing a folk dance.
Too bad he couldn’t have sex with her. But he was not an old lech. Not quite yet. He wouldn’t wish himself on her even if she would have him.
“Aren’t there caymen? Or piranhas or something?”
“Sure, crocodiles,” she said, and laughed lightly. “But you know, very small. The water was so refreshing! We didn’t see the crocodiles. Too bad. But we saw beautiful herons.”
Germans always thought water was refreshing. They ran down to the water and plunged in boldly, welcoming the bracing shock of it as some kind of annoying proxy for life.
“Here, see here, Mr. Lindley?” asked the husband. Hal was surprised his name had been remembered. He leaned over the map, obliging. “Here is where Mr. Palacio says his brother would usually start the hikes. You see? There. I marked it with the pencil. Back at the Grove you can make a copy of this.”
“Thank you,” said Hal a little faintly.
Once they were back on the powerboat, the boys hunched over and pushing buttons on their handheld games again and the German couple became caught up in the momentum. They were enthusiastic.
“You must contact your embassy in Belmopan,” said the husband. “They have military forces! Maybe they would help you.”
Germans. They thought you could just call in the army.
“My understanding is, the U.S. embassy there is a very small facility,” protested Hal, but they were already shaking their heads at this trifling objection.
“This is what they are here for,” said the wife. “To help the citizens!”
“Technically I think they’re here to prop up the Belize Defence Force,” said Hal. He had skimmed a passage on the local military in his guidebook. “Which boasts about six soldiers.”
“But also humanitarian assistance,” said the husband, and the wife nodded in affirmation. They believed in the logic of cooperation, the good intentions of everyone. That was clear.
“They must have, what do you call it, Coast Guard,” said the
wife. “To do rescues in the ocean. Like Baywatch.”
“Baywatch,” said the husband gravely.
“Exactly,” said the wife.
He had no idea what they were talking about. Possibly it was some kind of wholesome Krautish neighborhood-watch thing. He nodded politely.
Would he like part of a granola bar, asked the wife, with peanut butter in it? She divided one into three parts and they shared it.
The husband was some kind of electrical engineer, he learned, and the wife was a kindergarten teacher. They were living in the U.S. recently for some job of his. Their names were Hans and Gretel. He hadn’t caught that at first. He asked if they were joking and they gazed at him with wide eyes and shook their heads.
He told them he worked for the IRS and they were practically admiring. That was a new one on him.
• • • • •
In the hotel business office, his third whiskey in hand, he composed a fax for the clerk to send to Susan. It was in telegram style, though he had a whole blank sheet to write on.
RAISING AN ARMY WITH GERMANS.
5
He woke up in the morning with a splitting headache once again. Thankfully the drapes were closed and he was safe in dimness.
His bedside telephone was blinking, a red message light. He did not want to reach out and touch it so he lay there, long and heavy on the hotel bed. Susan and Casey had both visited him. He hadn’t dreamt much but he remembered them both spinning around him like tops or bottles, either angry or worried, with white and yellow ribbons streaming from their hands. Now he had the taste of peanut butter and iron in his mouth … the peanut butter he could remember from yesterday, when Gretel had made him eat granola, but where did the iron come from?
When a woman like Gretel offered you a piece of something to eat, you took it. You put it in your mouth. You barely noticed what it was. Personally, he never chose to eat granola, in bars or other formats. He banished granola from his sphere. But when Gretel broke off a piece and handed it to him, he ate the granola. Readily.
He had almost no memory of lying down. It could be he’d put his mouth on the bathroom tap, though you were cautioned not to drink the water. That could account for the iron. Or blood. Had he bitten his tongue? He stuck a finger into his mouth but it did not come out red.
Was it Susan who had called the room? Probably. Few others had any interest in him. He lived a life that was neither broad nor open. Only a few days ago he had ascribed this narrowness to the committed pet lovers, but like all of his nitpicking criticisms it was, in reality, merely his own view of himself. Projection or whatever. You didn’t have to be a Sigmund Freud to see that.
He had believed, once, that somewhere outside in posterity was an impression of him—the collected opinion of the rest of the world, in a sense. The way he was seen by others was out there like a double, not his real self but a view of him that might have more truth, or more style at least, than his own. But now he knew there was nothing like that at all. You did not exist in the mind of the world as a whole person, there was nothing out there that represented you. There was no outside ambassador.
All you were to the rest of the human race was a flash or a glint, a passing moment in the field of the perceived. Parts of you struck them, parts of you did not; the parts formed no coherent image. People had few coherent images of anything. Even simple concepts, small words like dog or tree, were confusing to them: a thousand trees might pass through their memories in the split second of invocation—the white of birch or red maple or palms or small pines with golden angels holding Styrofoam trumpets.
Or all the dogs in the world. What room was there for you in this panoply?
People were like dogs and this was why they took pity on them—dogs alone all the hours of their days and always waiting. Always waiting for company. Dogs who, for all of their devotion, knew only the love of one or two or three people from the beginning of their lives till the end—dogs who, once those one or two had dwindled and vanished from the rooms they lived in, were never to be known again.
You passed like a dog through those empty houses, you passed through empty rooms … there was always the possibility of companionship but rarely the real event. For most of the hours of your life no one knew or observed you at all. You did what you thought you had to; you went on eating, sleeping, raising your voice at intruders out of a sense of duty. But all the while you were hoping, faithfully but with no evidence, that it turned out, in the end, you were a prince among men.
•
Someone was knocking on the room door—knocking persistently. He had dozed off again, a glass of water on the nightstand beside him. The red light was still blinking. The knocking would not let up.
“Hold on. Hold your horses,” he struggled to say, resenting the interruption. “I’m coming, dammit.”
He stood at the door in his skivvies. He opened it, realizing in the same instant that he had powerful morning breath.
In front of him were Hans and Gretel in skimpy trunks and a flowery bikini, showing their tan, smooth bodies and cornflower-blue eyes as they smiled at him.
“I have contacted the Coast Guard,” said Hans proudly.
“Sure, right,” said Hal. “Right. Sure.”
“Good news!” said Gretel. “They will send a task force.”
“Very funny,” said Hal, and wondered if they would allow him to go brush his teeth. From the second he met them, he had basically been their captive. Even in his own room he could not get away from these eager Germans.
“No, but seriously,” said Hans. “The Coast Guard has a boat in these waters currently. I was put through to them. Also there are some local cadets they are helping, a mentoring exercise. The Americans are training them in search-and-rescue, so it will be like a practice.”
“I don’t … give me a second, I have to splash some …” He was mumbling as he retreated, but still they stepped into the room after him.
Gretel pulled open the drapes with a certain exuberance.
“You need some fresh air in here, Hal Lindley!” she said.
Probably to let out the morning breath.
Germans were not known for their sense of humor, he reflected as he brushed his teeth, the flimsy bathroom door shut carefully behind him. Their idea of a joke was not his own, that was all. Cultural barrier. Not uncommon. But he could have used another hour of sleep.
Let them stand there in all their terrible beauty. He was secure here in the bathroom, with a toothbrush and a tap and a clean toilet. In the end there was not much more a man truly needed.
But it could not last forever. Breath freshened, head aching, he stepped out again. There was no helping it.
“They will arrive tomorrow,” said Hans. “The Coast Guard and also the cadets. All of them.”
“Ha … it isn’t that funny, though,” said Hal. He hoped the fly on his boxers was not gaping. Couldn’t risk a downward glance, however. He was already playing the buffoon in this particular comedy. Where were yesterday’s pants?
He bent down and grappled with the bedcovers.
“No, but really, really,” said Gretel, and smiled again. “It is a special task force! There will be approximately twenty persons.”
“That’s impossible,” said Hal flatly.
He felt around under the bed for the pants, found them collapsed in a heap.
“Hans was just talking to his friends,” said Gretel. “It’s not a problem.”
“Hans has friends in the Coast Guard?”
“Actually they are working for NATO,” said Hans, nodding. “The Supreme Allied Command Atlantic. In Virginia?”
“He consults for them on the avionics systems,” said Gretel.
“I called in a small favor,” said Hans.
Hal shuffled away from them to pull the pants on. When he zipped up and turned back, their heads were backlit by the window and their faces indistinct; he saw them for a second as leviathans. They might be slim and standing there in their G-str
ing swimwear, which had an all-too-floral tendency and made them look far more naked, even, than him. But in the strength of their Teutonic conviction he put his finger on what it was about them.
They were machines of efficiency, purposeful. Even in the simple act of unwrapping a granola bar there was the sense of a necessary fueling.
•
“I’m afraid you may be drinking too much,” said Susan.
She had him paged in the dining room while he was eating his breakfast. Because the Germans were sitting at the table with him, believing him to be a family man who was close to his loving wife, he could hardly refuse to take the call. Reluctantly he had followed the waiter to a telephone at the end of the front desk.
“Not at all,” he said.
“What was that fax about, then?”
“It was accurate. There’s a task force involved. Something to do with NATO.”
“Come on, Hal. I don’t get how you’re acting, these last few days. I’m asking you please just to be serious.”
He had brought his coffee cup to the phone with him and took the opportunity to sip from it with a certain poised nonchalance, his telephone elbow braced on the high, polished wood of the counter.
Robert the Paralegal could not raise a task force. A Trojan perhaps, but not a task force. None.
“What can I say? I met Germans with connections. Germans who refuse to take no for an answer, I’m guessing.”
“See? This is what I mean, Hal. You just don’t make that much sense right now.”
“I’m telling you, Susan. Either there’s a twenty-man task force trained in search-and-rescue that’s arriving tomorrow to look for your friend Stern, or the Germans are conning me. It’s possible. As history has taught us, Germans are capable of anything.”
She was silent for a few static beats. He sipped his coffee again.
“Really, Hal? Honestly?”
“So they tell me. We’ll see.”
“But that’s amazing, Hal. Amazing!”