All Over the Map

by Laura Fraser

  “My mother is going to hate you,” Evan says over dinner one evening when we are discussing the trip.

  “Great,” I say. “Why?” Normally, I’m good with parents—polite and interested in them, and I write charming thank-you notes on cream-colored stationery.

  “You’re not Jewish, you’re not a lawyer, and you’re probably too old to have children,” Evan says.

  “Well,” I say. If I had known those were the qualifications for the job, I would not have applied. I will leave it to him to figure out with a shrink why he is dating a woman with precisely all the attributes his mother would hate. “There’s not much I can do about any of that.”

  It is far too late to start trying to be someone else for the sake of a man. This isn’t the first time I’ve been called a shiksa, and it annoys me: if a Jewish guy is interested in me, as happens rather more often than demographics would suggest is proportionate, for whatever reason, that’s his issue to debate with himself and not my fault for luring him away. I’m too old to apologize for being who I am, a zaftig shiksa with a fair dose of chutzpah. Anyway, we WASPs don’t believe in guilt.

  “If we got married, my mother wouldn’t come to the wedding,” says Evan.

  This is the first time the phrase “if we got married” has popped out of his mouth, and I decide to ignore it for the time being. My first marriage demystified the glories of connubial bliss, and though I am eager for companionship, I am in no hurry to repeat any major mistakes. Plus it doesn’t seem like a good sign that the first time he’s bringing it up it’s negative, a problem already.

  “So your mother will hate me but you want me to come to Florida to visit her anyway?”

  “She’s my mom. It’s important to me.”

  “Right.” I’m not sure what’s going to happen between us, but I know I’m not going to visit sunny Florida anytime soon. There are compromises that you make for your man, and then there is masochism.

  FOR OUR BIRTHDAYS, his forty-second and my forty-fifth, Guillermo and I throw a Peruvian fiesta, celebrating our recent trip. We—mostly he—make aji de gallina, a peppery chicken stew, Peruvian tamales, and a trio of causas, piles of cold mashed potatoes topped with olives, fish, and sauces; his sister whips up a soufflé of lucuma, a Peruvian fruit that tastes like sweet Thai iced tea and is reason enough to visit that country. We pour pisco sours and celebrate our friendships; I clink glasses too with Evan, who, a couple of days before my actual birthday, I can say is my boyfriend, even though the thought lurks that you have to be careful what you campaign for.

  The Peruvian birthday party is a big success, everyone complimenting the food and the photos of the trip. Guillermo has made perfect pisco sours with a little egg foam on top. Evan is his usual gregarious self, all my friends tell me how it seems as though they’ve known him for years, we have a rousing romp at the end of the evening, and I go to bed happy to be forty-five, or at least satisfied that I’ve arrived at middle age in good spirits.

  My actual birthday is two days later, and I have plans to meet Evan at my favorite kind of place, a southern Italian–style trattoria with locally grown food and an honest wine list. I go to a yoga class and am feeling balanced and flexible. When Evan shows up at the restaurant, late, he is carrying a Hallmark bag covered in pink roses.

  I open my present. Inside is a bar of chocolate. A large bar, to be fair. It is not, though, Turkish gold earrings, tickets to an Elvis Costello concert, the new Murakami novel, or a CD of love songs he compiled just for me. It is not even artisanal French chocolate or Fair Trade single-estate 72% cacao. It is not any of the words that go perfectly well with “forty-fifth birthday,” “girlfriend,” and “present.” But it is dark chocolate, which is my favorite. I thank him, lift my glass, and focus on the tiny prosecco bubbles.

  I’m not quite sure what turn the conversation takes between the appetizers and the main dish. I know I get pensive around birthdays, trying to sort out the big picture—what do I want in life, who are we together, have we examined all the red flags, why don’t you like broccoli rabe with anchovies—but somewhere two-thirds of the way into the Barbera, I hear Evan say, “Maybe we should just break up.” He isn’t asking for my opinion.

  That definitely isn’t the way I imagined things: breaking up on a birthday—a multiple-of-five birthday, no less—over dinner, in public. I can’t believe it’s happening. But there he is, moving his mouth, apologizing, saying he is just a guy, I’ll find a better one, none of his relationships lasts long, it isn’t the end of the world, it just didn’t work out, we aren’t in love. All of this is undeniably true, no matter how I might have tried to see it otherwise, but it is my birthday, my forty-fifth f—ing birthday, the finish line in my campaign to better myself—and I don’t like having those particular facts pointed out right now.

  When the server approaches the table, I am embarrassed that tears are rolling down my cheeks, pooling into my new coral satin bra—which, now, no one will admire (and which cost the equivalent of forty big bars of chocolate).

  “I’m sorry,” I tell the waitress in Italian, which Evan does not speak. She gives me a kind smile and a shrug. “Non fa niente,” she says. It’s nothing.

  “Can you believe,” I go on, trying to explain why I have completely lost it over the excellent milk-fed pork, “that this stronzo is breaking up with me? On my forty-fifth birthday?”

  “Him?” she replies, pushing back her black curls. Without skipping a beat: “I thought he was gay.”

  I retreat to the restroom to wash my face, and when I return, she’s put a piece of serious dark chocolate cake on the table, with a candle. This is one of those occasions when you can rely on both Italians and really good dark bitter chocolate—not a big bar of grocery store chocolate—to comfort and cheer you. “He’s not worth it, cara,” she says. “You’ll find someone better.”

  Evan reaches his fork over for a bite of the cake, but I intercept, push it away, cut him a sliver, and place it on his plate. There will be no more sharing from the same dish. There will be no more living with jock talk in the morning and no more moving to the suburbs. I realize I am going to miss his dog. I tell Evan we could be friends, which I know probably won’t turn out to be true, and blow out the candle.

  But what can I wish for? I’m forty-five. Game over, time’s up. My boyfriend—my last hope for some conventional semblance of adult life—has just broken up with me. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another relationship—or sex, for that matter—again.

  But what did Sandra say on my last birthday? Nothing expires until you do. I may not have succeeded in my campaign to find a husband and cozy stability, but I have succeeded in realizing that at least this version of that goal isn’t really what I wanted. The year and the campaign have hardly been a total waste. If I learned anything from tango, it’s to be alert and receptive and not jump to any conclusions. And if I’ve understood anything from meditating, it’s that all we have is the present and all we can do is appreciate the moment, not live with an eye to the future, full of attachment and desire, or regret about the past.

  So I make some wishes to be safe, to be happy, to be healthy, to love and be loved. Then I take a few moments to offer those wishes to many people I’m grateful for in my life. Even Evan.

  And then I take a big bite of rich, warm, intense, slightly bitter chocolate cake.

  I CHECK MY e-mail before going to bed. “Candle,” is the subject line, an e-mail from France, from the Professor, wishing that la bella vita continues this year, sending me “kisses and so and so.” And that is a sweet birthday present.

  Despite my efforts to be cheerful, or at least full of Buddhist equanimity, things are a bit bleak after I break up with Evan. I can’t help feeling blue about the unfortunate timing, as if the universe were pointing out that he was my last-ditch hope for a partner and family, comfort and stability, before my youth expired. It makes sense that we split up, but it doesn’t make sense that I am single, with zero prospects. Even thoug
h I feel a distinct sense of relief after he’s gone, it still bothers me that I didn’t manage to be patient and receptive enough to attract a man who would travel the world with me, holding my hand and watching out for pickpockets. Each time I break up with someone, I have to admit that he wasn’t right for me, but the disappointment is that once again he was the wrong guy. And even though men seem to arrive in my life like trains pulling into a station with no schedule, unpredictably, yet eventually, when I’m standing there alone on the tracks with the last one disappearing out of sight, I never believe I’ll see another.

  The Monday after that miserable forty-fifth-birthday breakup I go to my office, a writers’ collective that I share with a group of freelance writers and filmmakers. I hole up in a black mood, not interested in seeing my colleagues, even though they are invariably full of lively lunch conversation about writing and politics and can be counted on to compliment my haircut or shoes. In the middle of the afternoon the doorbell rings, and I drag myself to answer it.

  It is Gustavo. I haven’t seen or heard from him since the last time I left his bed. I am shocked; he is the last person I want to see in my present state. He wasn’t expecting to see me, either, since he is there to meet a filmmaker. I look like hell, my heart is sore from my recent breakup, and I’ve just gotten an extremely short haircut as a sort of Fuck Men reaction to events. It isn’t what I need, to run into this beefy, dark-haired Brazilian with his sly smile, reminding me that things never work out and that I will probably never have sex that good again in my life, if I ever manage to have sex again at all.

  Gustavo hugs me and politely asks how I am doing. “I just turned forty-five and broke up with my boyfriend,” I blurt, giving him too much information, especially since he might not otherwise have guessed precisely how much older than he I am. I try to recover with a lame laugh. “Good thing it’s a new week.” I hold it together and we chat briefly; he’s just been in Brazil to see his girlfriend, the dark-haired beauty whose photo I conveniently ignored when I spent the night at his apartment, and they are finally moving in together. I am glad at least that all that talent isn’t going to waste.

  “Are you going to be all right?” he asks, his eyes briefly searching mine.

  “Sure,” I say, looking away. “Take it easy.”

  I really am not all right. My European, joie de vivre attitude about food and wine is turning into overeating and drinking to bloated grogginess every evening. I stop meditating, as if willing myself down a black hole. I am listless, writing whatever any magazine editor calls up and suggests I write—about an interior designer in San Diego who makes creative use of ottomans, the five best budget hotels in San Francisco, the Queen of Organic Greens—and have zero ideas of my own. The bottom comes when I agree to do a slick women’s magazine story on “stumbling blocks to women’s friendships,” thinking it is a personal essay I can whip out quickly, but instead the editor wants me to interview random but demographically balanced and zip code–diverse women about their myriad issues with female friends. I just can’t make myself do another of those interviews with friends of friends about a vague topic, I can’t write another article that starts with a breezy dramatic anecdote, goes on to a nut graf defining a faux trend, then speeds through three more gripping personal stories, each illustrating a different aspect of the supposed trend, finally having a Malibu PhD who recently wrote a peppy self-help book on the subject weigh in with friendly solutions and bullet points so we can all stop thinking about it and go back to shopping already.

  I am simply unable, psychologically incapacitated, paralyzed. I have not been so depressed since my husband left me or George W. Bush stole the White House from Al Gore, I’m not sure which.

  One afternoon I have coffee in the Mission neighborhood with my friend Trish, whom I met a couple of years ago while doing a story in Nicaragua, where she organizes Fair Trade coffee cooperatives. It was inspiring, to see what a huge difference a puny increase in coffee prices could make to people living in huts without shoes, how it could build health care centers and schools; it was also fun to dance salsa and soak in hot springs in view of a volcano. All that seems very far away now. Trish is still traveling to coffee countries but is now packing up her entire life and moving to the East Coast to be with an international development expert she happened to meet and fall in love with. It won’t slow her down: she will travel out of Dulles instead of SFO, meeting in exotic locales with her fiancé, who also travels frequently, and I’m glad she seems happy, having sorted things out after forty, able to retain her independence and love of travel and still have a committed relationship with someone.

  Over steaming lattes, I confess how depressed I am, how I have no prospects in romance or work, no energy to come up with ideas or do much of anything except stay home at night and devour DVDs, as if consuming culture were the same as creating it.

  Trish suggests I should go to Rwanda if I am so depressed. At first I think that is a surprisingly scolding, unfunny remark: if you want to make yourself feel better about having a midlife crisis, go take a look at the aftermath of genocide, that’ll put things into perspective. It is true, of course, that in the big scheme of things I have absolutely nothing to complain about and everything to be grateful for, but nevertheless it seems extreme, and maybe self-righteous, to bring up Rwanda in the context of our conversation.

  But Trish is serious. She is leading a trip to Rwanda for coffee importers and tells me that if I pay my own way, I can come along. Surely, she says, you can find some sort of a story to write from Rwanda.

  That gives me reason to wake up the next morning, rouses my inner Brenda Starr, and less than a month later, I find myself arriving at the airport in Kigali, Rwanda.

  IN THE INTERVENING weeks I have read everything I could find about Rwanda and the 1994 genocide there, but nothing has prepared me for being in that tragic and beautiful country and encountering its people and ghosts. I have never been to Africa before and only stopped off en route to spend a few days in the still-colonial tourist enclaves of Nairobi and at a posh game resort to do a travel article to help pay my way (astonished, as everyone is, that the elephants, zebras, water buffalo, and lion cubs roam around just as they do on the National Geographic Channel). So arriving in Rwanda, the most densely populated country on the continent and one of the poorest, is a shock. I expected the shacks and barefoot children—I’ve seen poverty like that in Latin America—but I am surprised to see so many lush hills and to meet brightly dressed people whose ready smiles gave little hint of their history.

  I meet up with Trish and the rest of her group, including a sociology professor, his students, and a couple of coffee importers. We spend our first days in and around Kigali, touring the sites of the genocide—at a million deaths in a hundred days, one of the most brutal episodes in human history. I have been to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and Rwanda’s memorial sites are as chilling and horrifying, perhaps for being more recent, the genocide having taken place only a dozen years before, during my adult lifetime and the Clinton administration, to its everlasting shame. We visit one brick church where thousands of Tutsis sought shelter from the rampaging Hutus and nearly all were massacred. There are bullet holes in the altar and enormous crypts in the back filled with boxes of bones and row upon row of skulls, lined up like books in an enormous library. At another church, women’s pocketbooks are still left behind in the pews, scattered among teenage T-shirts and baby shoes, those small daily objects more heartbreaking, somehow, than all the skulls.

  I am astonished by our upbeat translator, Alice, who is in her early twenties, whose entire family was killed while she was away at day school and whose uncle was massacred while she watched from where she was hiding. She is able to relate the history of the genocide calmly, as if it didn’t happen before her eyes. The only time she becomes emotional is when she tells the story of a boy who grew up with her in an orphanage. While standing in front of the church where these events happened, she describes how the boy’s Tu
tsi mother threw her baby out of the church to a Hutu woman when the Hutu militia started shelling the building. The woman held on to the baby, but the Hutu soldiers recognized that it wasn’t hers and threw it back into the burning church. The woman dashed into the church, rescued the baby, and ran back out to safety, initially taking the boy to the orphanage where Alice grew up, afraid of reprisal if she kept it herself. Eventually she adopted him and raised him, with mixed ethnicities, as his mother. Alice wipes tears from her eyes—the only time I see her cry—from her happy-ending story.

  The next day Alice takes me to visit the Rwanda Widows’ Association to interview the director, a genocide widow herself. This group, in its plain and tidy offices, has an insurmountable task—trying to give psychological, economic, medical, and social support to the widows left from the genocide, more than two-thirds of whom were raped and half of those left HIV-positive by their attackers. The stigma surrounding rape left the women unable to testify in the local gacaca courts, which attempted a sort of village-level justice for the genocide, so the association offers surrogates. Many of the survivors gave birth to babies fathered by their rapists and either gave them away or had to cope with their older children taunting the younger ones, “Your father killed my father.” Others have no other children left. Some of the women live in dire poverty, in a situation where, with their husbands dead, they can’t own land. “We live like ghosts,” the director tells me. “Our lives are over, and we only keep going for our children.”