by Lydia Millet
But clearly his information was incomplete. He glanced over his shoulder at Roger, who was nodding, close-mouthed and sanguine, at something Hans was saying. He had a humble, sun-chapped face with a beaklike nose. Such a face was homely and workmanlike. It seemed trustworthy.
Appearances were often deceiving.
The engines thrummed beneath Hal’s feet. Their noise was deep and steady, their vibration relentless. He was silenced. He felt he had left his personality on dry land. He should ask Hans how to address the men; their uniforms flummoxed him. When he felt the urge to ask a question his instinct was to preface it with “Officer,” timidly and with a sycophantic tone, as on the rare occasion when he had been pulled over for speeding. He did not like policemen; neither did he enjoy the company of soldiers, but he felt more respect for them. Many came from poor backgrounds and were lured by the GI Bill.
Safer to say nothing.
When one of them walked past him he received an impression, in the quickness of the step and the forward-looking, dogged progress, that the walking itself was in the service of a greater business; the detail, the formality of personal transit was a small machination for the sake of general welfare.
And the bodies of the men were budding, strong, confident.
Yet Gretel. Gretel had picked him.
Maybe she was simply unaware that there were other options. Much could be ascribed to ignorance, in the world.
And anyway the fitness of these bodies was only partly a reflection on the men themselves. It was a fitness achieved by the state, in a sense, or at least the cost of the fitness was borne by the state. Also the state-sanctioned deployment of the fit and muscular bodies (which were in no way similar to Hal’s body, sadly for him) was further augmented by a wide variety of complex and powerful weapons, explosives, and multimillion-dollar, high-tech delivery systems for same. When the state chose to spend roughly the same on its military as on all other things combined, the owners of these now-fit and muscular bodies were the beneficiaries.
True, their occupation could also bring sudden death. But so could many occupations. Sewage work, for instance. No one wept for the sewage workers. Or the electric-light-and-power men. Life insurance companies hated them. Were they needed? They were. Were they acclaimed as heroes when they died? They were not. Same with miners, truck drivers, roofers, all the guys with high premature mortality rates, or PMRs, as the insurance industry called them. Even doctors had a high PMR, the cause being suicide.
In Hal’s line of work, which was also conducted in defense of the state, a fit, muscular body was not required. As a result employees of the Internal Revenue Service often suffered from a wide range of their own work-related ailments, including migraines, coronary artery disease, chronic obesity, and carpal tunnel syndrome. These were admittedly less glamorous than battleground injuries. Yet the discomfort was real. And like the sewage workers and the electricity guys, if Hal were to be killed in the line of duty he would not be mourned as a fallen hero. Despite the fact that he had toiled not for private industry but in the unflagging service of his country and all that it stood for, no Taps would play for him.
IRS service did not, however, happen to carry a high PMR.
But finally it was hard to sustain resentment toward the Coast Guarders. Armed forces personnel were not as bad as cops, when it came to the aggregate probability of antisocial personality disorder. They had a different makeup. They were not homicidal so much as Freudian; they liked to feel the presence of a constant father. And their fringe benefits included fit and muscular bodies.
Still, one or two might be behind on their taxes.
He smiled privately at the horizon, a hair-thin line between two shades of blue.
•
The armed forces took small powerboats from Monkey River Town, loaded with personnel so that they lay low in the water. Roger was not coming with them. There was a Coast Guard guy of lower rank, in blue, whose name Hal did not catch at first. Hans told him he could call the guy “Lieutenant.”
There were others in camouflage, some in berets, all wearing mirrored sunglasses through which it was impossible to establish eye contact. His fellow Americans were bedecked in chunky black equipment, belts and holsters and field packs and canteens and knives; they wore headsets and spoke to each other in clipped undertones, as though everything they said was both highly confidential and extremely important.
The sheer weight of their accessories, Hal thought, could capsize the boat if they all moved at once.
The local cadets had no veneer of soldiery and hardly any gear either. Their beige uniforms hung loosely on them and Hal thought they looked eighteen or younger, thin and lost.
“How come they need all those guns? We’re just looking for someone in the jungle,” he whispered to Hans.
They rounded a curve in the river, which was so brown it looked more like mud than water.
“They are active-duty military. Of course they have guns.”
“What are they going to do? Shoot the trees?”
“They’re treating it like an extraction. For training purposes.”
“Uh huh.”
“By the way,” said Hans, close to his ear, “no photographs are permitted. This is an unofficial mission.”
“I didn’t bring a camera,” Hal protested, though at the same time it occurred to him that he probably should have. Documentation; proof. For Casey and Susan. “Are you kidding?”
Then the men hunched around maps, Hans among them. They appeared to be tracing routes on the maps with markers and pushing buttons on their watches. The Americans took a paternal air with the local cadets, who nodded eagerly at every directive. Hal tuned them out and gazed into the foliage growing over the stream banks. It was bushy and disordered, thick, unruly—it could hide anything. A wave of dismay rolled over him. There was no way they would find Stern.
That was all right though, in the end. Wasn’t it? He would have made an unimpeachable showing. If these Rambos could not locate Stern, Susan and Casey would never think to be disappointed in little old him.
•
After a while they tied the boats to some trees at a place in the river where there was a muddy embankment. It looked like a dirt path of some kind, mostly overgrown.
“This is the trailhead,” said Hans, and pointed at a place on the map. It was where Dylan’s brother had directed them.
“So we’re all getting out here?” asked Hal.
“There are several groups,” said Hans, as the Coast Guarders surged around him off the boats. “You will go with the BDF group. The trainees. It will be less strenuous.”
“Oh, good,” said Hal. He was being babied, but he could care less. “Little hungover, sorry to say.”
The Americans were using their black radios, or walkie-talkies, or whatever they were. Static squawked out of them, and nasal tinny voices. All of them huddled on the bank, nodding and talking; Hal grabbed his pack and stepped off the boat with barely room to walk between the broad impervious backs and the hem of reeds and bushes along the water. He stepped too far into these and soaked a foot, swearing, then skirted the crowd.
He felt lost.
“Mr. Lindley?” called one of the young cadets. He had a scar from a harelip. “Right here, sir. Just a moment, then we’re going.”
The cadet had an accent, but what kind Hal couldn’t say. Maybe he was a native Garifuna. Light-brown skin, dark hair, like all of them. Hal didn’t feel like getting to know anyone. Small talk, names and places, details. He wanted to trudge in peace, passively. Just let them do their duty. Whatever the hell that might be.
He found a low flat rock in the shade and sat down. It was all shade, just a few feet from the riverbank it was all trees, tall and thin-trunked, most of them. Underfoot was mud and tree roots, a few dead leaves. Young backs were turned to him, blue and beige and camouflage shoulder blades. He let his head flop back and stared into the green overhead, barely moving except for his toes in the clammy, wet sho
es.
No sky through the treetops to speak of, only leaves. Strange how the green of these tropical places seemed so unvarying—as though every tree had the same color leaves. Was it the brilliance of the sun, washing out their difference? The quality of the light as it beat down on them? But in the shade they were all the same too, the same bright yet curiously flat green.
Then the men broke their huddle and were jogging past him down the path, a group cutting off along a trail to the right, another group getting into a boat again and gunning the engine upstream. The lieutenant was in charge of the cadets, apparently—the once-harelip motioned to Hal and they were striding after him up the trail.
Hal hoisted himself off the rock and followed.
“We got monkeys,” said the once-harelip kid, turning back to him and grinning. “You might see some of the howlers. Way up. Black things. They’re not so cute monkeys. They got big teeth. Kinda ugly.”
Hal nodded and smiled.
•
It was a long march, a long, hot, wet, relentless, rapid march, it seemed to him, and three hours in he was bleary with exhaustion. He couldn’t believe he was there, couldn’t believe that no one had warned him. Hard to keep up—more than hard, actually painful: a form of torture. Long time since he’d had this much exercise and it was practically killing him. It was all he could do to stay in earshot behind them. He was far past embarrassment; he was past even humiliation. He had no pride left at all, nothing left but the strain. He had to struggle just to put one foot in front of the other. Every now and then, from in front, came the sound of voices or a branch snapping. Sweat had wet his shirt through and through, and it was making him cold in the shade of the trees; his water bottles were almost empty.
Take pity on me, he thought, and shortly afterward they stopped for lunch.
They had reached a rough campsite, he saw, coming up behind them, a small muddy clearing. The lieutenant kneeled at a fire pit ringed with rocks, touching the ashes or some shit. Sniffing them? Hal wiped his dripping brow with the back of his hand and sat down heavily on a log. Not watching. All he wanted was rest. He had no interest in them or what they were doing, except insofar as it caused him direct physical distress.
Maybe if he asked they would just let him rest here, let him lie down in the mud and sleep, sleep, sleep while they kept on marching.
He put his head on his arms.
“A watch,” said someone.
Hal raised his head. It was the lieutenant, holding out a wristwatch.
“Do you recognize this?”
Hal took it, flipped it over. It was a cheap, bulky digital with a plastic band—no brand name, even. Dried mud between the black plastic links.
“No,” he said. “He wouldn’t wear one like this. He’s more of a Rolex type.”
“Could belong to the guide,” said the lieutenant, and turned back to the others.
They were passing around sandwiches, eating them standing up. Hal’s damp log was the only seat in the house. Someone offered him a sandwich, the cadet with the harelip scar, and he took it gratefully. Maybe after he ate he would be stronger, maybe it would invigorate him. He wolfed it down inside a minute, barely registering the contents. He drank the rest of his water and someone gave him a can of juice. It was quiet for a while as they all ate, hardly any birdsong, until a radio squawked and a low murmur of conversation started.
He got up to pee in the woods, picked his way over tree roots and ferns for privacy. Staring at a thin, light tree trunk with thorns up and down the trunk, ants traveling up and down between the thorns, he noticed movement far off, in the shadows—what? A dark shape—a long, low animal, roughly the size of a dog. Were there dogs in the jungle? It moved more like a cat, though. Jumped from a stand of bamboo to some trees and was gone. He wiped his eyes, which ached from tiredness or dryness or something. Hallucinations, now. He should go back to the boat. He was sick, possibly. In the tropics, viruses thrived.
He was no better than the neurotic bohemians.
•
The trail continued on the other side of the campsite but it was more overgrown. There were vines, and now and then a cadet took out a machete and hacked at one.
Hal dragged after the column, defeated. Sometimes he had to climb over a down log, encrusted with fungus, and pieces of rotting bark got into his shoes and irritated his ankles and heels. He had to stop to pull them out and then catch up to the others, who waited for him. There were biting insects, so he slathered on some bug juice a cadet handed back. He did not bother trying to hear their exchanges; anyway they were mostly lost up ahead.
After a while a light rain began to patter on the leaves and his shoulders. The cadets had ponchos on now. He had nothing. But his shirt was already soaked and he found he didn’t mind the rain; the insects bit less. Not too much rain hit the ground, anyway, it seemed to him, much of it trapped above them in the canopy.
It was late afternoon when they turned around. Hal wasn’t sure how it happened, but they turned, and he was so grateful he smiled as he stood watching them file past, waiting to bring up the rear again. The lieutenant told him they were headed back to the boats.
“That’s it?” said Hal.
“We’ve been walking six hours give or take,” said the lieutenant, nodding. “We got no sign since the campsite. We’re tracking thin air. We got a timepiece, that’s it. Plus there’s a storm moving in. And we don’t want you collapsing on us.”
“Me?” asked Hal weakly, and as he fell into step behind them wondered if they were turning around for his sake. He wanted to weep with gratitude.
•
It was night when they got back to the boats, dark and raining. Hal could barely see—was so blurry with fatigue he blundered along the trail, slipping, with his eyes on nothing but the back of the man in front of him. That was his fixed point, that was his everything. He heard greetings in front of him, saw the shine of water beyond the light of the boats, but registered nothing more in the dark except the fact that he could sit down now, he could sit down. His legs shook violently as he sat and someone put something on his back, a blanket, then put a hot drink in his hands—a hot drink. How? But he did not think, he only drank and rested his bones. It was hot chocolate, possibly. Sweet and thick.
Hans was beside him, sitting in the boat, a clap on the back.
“… sorry,” said Hans. “But C Team believes it located a guerrilla training camp. In that sense the mission has been an exceptional success. And they have you to thank.”
“Gorilla?” asked Hal, barely above a whisper.
“Guerrilla. Guatemalan guerrillas. Possibly Mayan.”
“I see,” said Hal, and something vague went through his mind about Rigoberta Menchú and the Peace Prize. The killing of civilians; the Guatemalan refugees, straggling to Mexico … but he was tired, too tired. He couldn’t think of it now. He drank, half-dropped the empty cup at his feet. He wanted to slide down, lie down on Hans’s lap. Maybe he could. But no. Other side: a clean slate.
Fumbling, he spread out the blanket on the seat beside him, where Hans was not.
“… in troops,” Hans was saying. “Possibly airpower.”
“Humanitarian?” asked Hal weakly, but he was already lying down, arranging the side of his face on the blanket. He felt the hardness beneath it against his cheek, but it did not stop him.
• • • • •
As he trudged up the dock to the hotel he had the dawn at his back, bands of pale pink over the sea. Exhaustion was making him woozy, unsure of himself; it took over everything. He might still be dreaming. There was a crick in his neck. Old man. The palm fronds dipped a little in the breeze off the ocean, almost bowing … he and the palms deferred together, it seemed to him, his bent neck and their dipping fronds.
The beach was deserted except for a short wide guy in a baseball cap, raking sand. Hal went by him and pushed up the hill, passing beneath a coconut palm. A falling coconut could kill you if it hit you on the head. The neuro
tic bohemians had said so. Everywhere there were hazards, waiting.
He turned and looked back at the sea but there was a mist above the surface and he could barely make out the powerboat anymore. Was he losing his vision? A ridiculous thought. But there was something unreal about all of it. As though eyesight could be stolen, like an object … he felt a sudden panic and rubbed his eyes. It was a mist, that was all. Fuzzy whiteness.
He kept going toward the buildings. He’d been jolted awake a couple of minutes before by the harelip cadet, who put a small, hesitant hand on his shoulder as the engine throttled down in the shallows. He was groggy, having slept, almost reeling from it, but at the same time there was an edge of anxiety. If he lay down in the hotel bed he was afraid he would toss and turn and have to get up again. The morning light might seep in.
He wanted to talk to Casey, but what would he say to her? His exhaustion, the blur of it … first he needed more sleep.
Passing a fence he heard the light, plastic tic tic tic of a ping-pong ball hitting the table. He knew who it was. The cornboys were early risers, and this did not surprise him. He would not talk to them, though, he would avoid them neatly. No question. Their English was limited to single words they pushed out with a kind of belligerence. The last time he’d encountered them all they did was jab their fingers at items they were holding or wearing and assert the brand name. “Coca-Cola.” “Swatch.” “Nikes.”
The more he pondered it the eerier it got.
He brushed past clusters of pink flowers on vines growing over a white trellis—stapled there. Wait: he leaned in close and saw the tendril of vine was stapled to the wood. Was it plastic? He had the suspicion the whole place was fake, was a façade—now that he thought about it, the cornboys in their eeriness were a little unreal, as all of it was turning …
The tic tic tic of the ping-pong ball, no one at all on the beach but the man raking sand, scritch scritch scritch. If not fake, the place must be abandoned. There was only a silence behind those faint sounds—like everyone had filed out of here in the night, faded away and left it empty in the gray of early morning.