The Yellow Envelope

by Kim Dinan

  Veronica walked us down to the dock. We took a seat on a stone wall and waited for our departure back to the mainland.

  Down by the water a crowd of men had gathered and Herman, as grim-faced as ever, stood in the middle of the commotion. We wandered over to a couple also waiting for the boat. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  The woman shook her head, disgusted. “Herman has not paid the families our boarding fees. He’s been arguing with that group of men for the past half hour.”

  “You mean the families haven’t been paid? At all?”

  The woman shook her head.

  Amantani Island had no crime and, therefore, no police, but a group of the island’s respected men were called upon when needed to oversee conflicts. When prodded by these men, Herman had refused to pay the families or produce his tourism card. Calls to Herman’s company on the mainland had gone unanswered.

  One hour turned to two as we waited for the corrupt company to pay up. The women of the homestays had been sitting nearby since the beginning, and I got the sense that it wasn’t the first time they had to fight for what they were owed. Some of the people on our boat approached and paid them directly, but others were not so lucky. My eyes locked with Veronica’s and she smiled at me. At least we knew that the yellow envelope money had not left her empty-handed.

  Eventually the island police agreed they could not hold us forever, so they sent us on our way with the boat captain. But though we were permitted to go back to Puno, Herman was not. They would keep him on the island until the families were compensated. We cheered as our boat pulled away from the dock without him. As far as I know he could still be there today.

  Chapter 7

  A week later Brian and I were stuck in Arequipa, an old colonial city in southern Peru. I hated Arequipa for its nonexistent sidewalks and aggressive drivers, for the trash in its gutters and the sternness of the people we encountered. Plus, I still felt angry about how Herman’s company had swindled us and Veronica and the other families. The experience had tainted my feelings, perhaps unfairly, about the entirety of Peru.

  Normally if we disliked a place we’d just pack up and move on, but we’d booked flights out of Arequipa, and it did not make sense to leave. There were things to do in the surrounding area, but I just could not rally the enthusiasm.

  My mental health shifted 180 degrees from our days in Mancora. I was miserable and homesick and lonely and tired, but I couldn’t communicate my internal struggle to Brian because I couldn’t make sense of it. From the comfort of our home in Portland, this trip had felt like a higher calling. Then, when Michele and Glenn gave us the yellow envelope, I’d been certain of it. But I didn’t feel guided by the hand of destiny now. Instead, I felt lost and guilty for dragging Brian out into the world and then being so unhappy once we’d arrived. We were doing exactly what I wanted to do, and I had no idea why I was so miserable doing it. What the hell was wrong with me?

  I was desperate for time alone. We’d booked the cheapest room in the cheapest hostel we could find, a windowless space crammed into the awkward area beneath the stairs, and I dreamed of lying by myself in that sunless room listening to the footfalls of the other guests as they climbed up and down the staircase.

  One morning I awoke to Brian, already fully dressed, stuffing his things into a day pack.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “I’m going out so you can enjoy the day to yourself. Read a book. Get some writing done. Do whatever you want. I’ll be back by dinnertime.”

  The afternoon before I’d asked for that exact thing when I’d accused him of suffocating me. “I know you can spend every minute together,” I’d yelled at him. “But I need time apart! What is wrong with you that you don’t ever want to be alone?”

  But now I didn’t want to be alone. I sat up in bed. “Don’t go,” I whimpered. “Stay here.”

  A look of exasperation spread on his face, but he didn’t have the energy to argue with me. He grabbed his bag and walked toward the door. “I’m going out. I’ll be back later.”

  With the day to myself I decided to go up to the rooftop where hostel staff served a breakfast of bread and butter every morning. In the distance, the tin roofs of other houses glinted sunlight and a conical snowcapped volcano poked the sky.

  I sat down alone at a table for two. Beside me a large group of backpackers were eating breakfast together. As I poured coffee I eavesdropped on their conversation, a recap of the night they’d just spent at a bar drinking pisco sours and dancing.

  One of them looked at me, a giant man-boy with smooth, tanned skin the color of gold. He had a black T-shirt on that revealed the contours of his long, defined arms. His hands were huge, his fingernails the size of postage stamps. He caught me watching him and smiled a devious half-grin.

  I smiled back. It was a thrill to think that he assumed I was alone. He probably thought me mysterious. A woman, alone, in Peru. Without thinking, I dropped my left hand into my lap so that he could not see my wedding ring and then felt instantaneously guilty for the betrayal.

  My eyes fell on the group of backpackers again and a feeling of longing swept through me. I’d missed out on the experience of traveling solo. In another life, maybe I’d be at the table with them, discussing last night’s vagary and flirting with the boy with the catcher’s mitt hands.

  But it wasn’t another life. I was married. Guilt punched the pit of my stomach for even thinking like that. Slowly, I forced myself to place my left hand back up on the table in clear view. Then I pried my eyes from their table and opened my journal to start a list of everything I missed about home: pizza delivery, napkins, regular exercise, good coffee, baking in my own kitchen, Mexican food and margaritas, reliable Wi-Fi, tap water, and craft beer. I tapped my pen on the page and stared up at the cloudless sky.

  It was more than just missing the conveniences of home that contributed to my foul mood in Arequipa. Turning back to my journal, I sketched it out.

  The first thing was obvious. I needed time alone, even if I fought it when Brian offered. In the half hour I’d spent by myself, writing on the rooftop, the dark cloud of despair was already blowing over. Why did I fight the things that I knew deep down I needed?

  Secondly, exercise had to be a priority, even though it was no longer just as simple as walking out of the front door and going for a run anymore. Since arriving in Arequipa I’d tried once to go running but had received so many hoots and hollers from passing cars that I’d given up and slinked back to our hostel. But my mental health depended on exercise so I had to find a way to get it daily.

  Also, I was lonely. It was important to try to make friends with other travelers so that I wouldn’t rely on Brian for all of my social needs and then resent him when he couldn’t meet them. I desperately missed my friends and family, so I’d need to start doing a better job of connecting with them, of sending emails and setting up times to Skype. Since I’d been keeping a blog, everyone back home knew what we were up to, but I didn’t know a thing about their lives. Our communication was an isolated and lonely one-way street.

  And, finally, this other thing loomed six weeks in the future, a thing that was causing me all kinds of stress. I’d been trying to ignore it, but that only made the stress worse. Back before we’d even left Oregon I’d agreed, against my better judgment, to participate in an event called the Rickshaw Run with two other women I’d never met before. They were both newly nomadic, as Brian and I were, and we’d connected online months before while we were individually building up the courage to leave our old lives behind. During that time one of them, an Irish woman named Lesley, proposed the Rickshaw Run, emailing me, and another woman, Sarah, a brochure that explained the event:

  The Rickshaw Run is pretty simple. With no preparation and even less luggage, you fly to the Indian subcontinent and do your darnedest to force 150 cc of glorified lawnmower over thousands of miles
of questionable terrain. All this in around two weeks with no support at all. Fools gather from all the corners of the earth to partake in one of three Rickshaw Runs that thunder through India each year.

  The un-route is a wonderful concept which ensures you are free to get into trouble anywhere on the subcontinent. We give you a beginning and an end roughly 5,000 km apart but whatever goes on in the middle is entirely up to you. The Himalayas, dirt tracks, tropical jungle, monsoons, massive deserts and many other wondrous things await. Each Rickshaw Run is kicked off and finished with a massive party and ceremony.

  It sounded crazy, and it terrified me, yet for reasons that still eluded me I’d been unable to turn down the adventure. Lesley and Sarah were seasoned travelers; they’d both been to India many times before, so I reasoned that if they thought we could drive a motorized rickshaw three thousand miles without getting killed, we probably could, even though the event website displayed a dire warning:

  These are genuinely dangerous things to do. You cannot overestimate the risks involved in taking part in these adventures. Your chances of being seriously injured or dying as a result of taking part are high. Individuals who have taken part in the past have been permanently disfigured, seriously disabled, or lost their life. You really are putting both your health and life at risk.

  On one of our many bus trips around Ecuador, we’d met a man named Bob. Bob came from India but had lived in Detroit for forty years. When I told him about the Rickshaw Run, a look of genuine terror had flashed in his eyes. “You can’t understand what it is like over there. I don’t even drive when I visit. It’s crazy! You are risking your life!” He’d called his wife over and told her the story. She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Please,” she’d pleaded. “Don’t do it. You will die.” At the time I’d laughed lightheartedly and said, “I’ll be careful.” But my subconscious kept shouting her warning: You’ll die. You’ll die. You’ll die.

  Shutting my journal, I glanced over at the cute backpacker, but his attention was back with his friends. Standing, I tucked my chair beneath the table and returned to our dark little room, feeling lighter after completing my list. For the rest of the day I’d pamper myself, I decided, by painting my toenails, shaping my eyebrows and trimming my hair. My eyes fell on a small mosaic mirror that hung above our bed. I removed it from the wall and sat down cross-legged on the floor with my tweezers.

  Holding the mirror in front of me, I started to tackle my eyebrows but became distracted by the sight of my double chin. Recently in the shower I’d noticed the translucent pink scars of new stretch marks on my hips, the result of my downtick in running and uptick in French fry consumption. With a mix of concern and fascination, I stripped naked and propped the mirror up on the floor. It’d been months since I’d seen the reflection of my own body. In the mirror my stomach bulged, newly pudgy, and the muscles in my legs looked less defined. Twisting my body, I pinched my butt and stared at the cellulite on the back of my thighs. Free from mirrors, I hadn’t noticed the changes in my body. As I climbed back into my clothes and returned the mirror to the wall, I vowed not to do that ever again.

  In late afternoon Brian found me in the common area of the hostel cleaning out my backpack, purging myself of all of the things I brought on the trip but didn’t need: malaria medicine, extra clothes, and my stupid pickpocket-proof purse. We’d spent a lot of money and bought a lot of stuff without realizing that we could buy whatever we needed wherever we were. It hadn’t occurred to me beforehand that the entire world had shopping centers.

  Over dinner we discussed the hours we’d spent apart, though I left out my solo fantasies and my time with the tweezers and the mirror. It was nice to have something to talk about. Back before we quit our jobs, recapping our days over after-work drinks was something I always looked forward to. I missed the ritual of sharing those stories. It dawned on me that I never had a chance to miss Brian anymore. But today I’d missed him. The hours apart had been good for us.

  “Did you give away any yellow envelope money?” I asked.

  “Um, I don’t know. I tipped a street performer a lot more than I usually would. Does that count?”

  “It only counts if you intended for it to count. Did you?”

  “No, not really. I just liked his shtick.”

  “Then no.”

  We fell into silence, and I looked out through the restaurant window. The moon, just a sliver, rose on the horizon.

  The moon on Amantani Island came back to me, and I realized that I’d never asked Brian about the wish he’d made. “Hey,” I said, reaching my hand toward his. “What did you wish for on top of the mountain when we were on Amantani? From Pachatata?”

  Brian smiled but his eyes looked far away in thought. “Do you really want to know?” he asked, cocking his head toward me.

  I squeezed his palm. “Of course I want to know.”

  He pulled his hand away and set it in his lap. Then he fixed his gaze on me. It felt like the first time I’d seen him in many days. “I wished for happiness,” he said. “I wished for us to always be happy together.”

  It was an odd thing to wish for, out of all the wishes in the world. I gave him a smile but felt a pit of guilt in my stomach thinking of the way I’d hidden my hand earlier to conceal my wedding ring. Perhaps he already had an idea of what would happen next.

  Germany

  Chapter 8

  As our train glided toward the airport, I stared out the window at the charcoal gray of a sunless afternoon. Young couples walked on the sidewalk holding gloved hands, and parents strolled shoulder to shoulder in winter coats, their children running ahead of them. I looked around the compartment of our train at the other travelers. Many were carrying shopping bags filled with gifts, off to the warmth of their own holiday celebrations.

  Brian sat across from me, his head tilted against the window. His breath made hazy puffs of fog on the cold pane of glass. He’d been distant all day, claiming jet lag, but I knew the truth was that we weren’t quite sure how we should be acting toward each other anymore.

  That morning in the soft hue of dawn I’d burrowed under our pile of blankets and curled my arm around the warmth of his waist, timing the rise and fall of my breath with his. “Merry Christmas,” I’d whispered into the solid space between his shoulder blades. He’d entwined his fingers in mine and squeezed my hand. He didn’t chide me for finally offering up the one thing he’d been asking for. He just whispered back, “Merry Christmas.”

  Two weeks earlier, Brian and I had been in Buenos Aires to catch our flight to India via this three-day layover in Germany. It was December; summertime in the southern hemisphere, and Christmas decorations lined the sidewalks in festive seasonal displays. The holiday decor contrasted the intense summer heat in a way that made me feel like I couldn’t get a grip on my own existence. It was Christmas. It was summer. My connection to life back home felt more drifting and unreliable than it had ever been.

  One evening we left our rented apartment to take a walk. Buenos Aires crackled with energy. The sidewalk cafes were packed with groups of friends sipping after-work drinks and young families eating dinner around candlelit tables. Brian grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and we walked with the weight of his warm palm in mine. The last few months I’d been silently battling a growing desire to be on my own, but in that moment I just wanted to be happy with Brian.

  We strolled slowly down the sidewalk. Hand in hand, but with an unbridgeable distance between us. My head screamed: You are not happy! This is not working! But my heart couldn’t bring me to say it. I knew Brian wouldn’t say it because he never did.

  Dropping his hand, I turned to him, and the words tumbled out of me in a landslide, one word triggering the next. “Brian, I can’t have a nice evening with you and just pretend that everything is okay when we both know it’s not. Are you really okay with this? Are you really okay walking down the street holding hands pretending
like we are just a normal, happy couple?”

  Since leaving Peru six weeks earlier, our crumbling had been rapid and painful. We were both homesick and lonely and needy, but we were also frequently moved by our experiences together, and that made us patch over the holes in our relationship. But I could no longer pretend that the holes weren’t there.

  The internal deliberation over what I wanted was exhausting. I couldn’t keep ignoring the question that had begun to beat louder and louder in my chest. What if I were alone? Who would I be on my own? Traveling and writing were not enough. I needed to know the answer to this too.

  Brian let out a deep sigh and stopped walking. He looked drained of emotion and color. “What makes you think that I’m okay with this?” he asked. “Of course I’m not okay. But can’t we just have one night where we aren’t walking the goddamned tightrope in our relationship? We’re in Buenos Aires, and it is a beautiful evening. Can’t we just enjoy ourselves?”

  He so rarely raised his voice at me, and I stared at him, shocked. Sometimes when I felt lonely or upset I’d push him until he did finally yell, feeling satisfied to get a reaction out of him. But I hated being yelled at. I looked down at my hands and started to cry.

  I knew how utterly un-understandable I was. My unhappiness made me feel like a monster, and I hated myself for that. But I also hated Brian for his silence, for allowing me to treat him in a way that I hated myself for. Each time he allowed me to steamroll on without even a peep about how dysfunctional we’d become I’d add another slash to the tally of my resentments. I wanted him to blow the whistle on the whole mess even though I didn’t have the courage to do it myself.

  “Don’t yell at me,” I said.

  “I wasn’t yelling.”

  “Yes, you were!” I was yelling now.

  Brian looked backed into a corner. He put his hands up like I’d pulled a gun. “Listen, I’m sorry. If I yelled at you, I’m sorry.”