by Hy Conrad
Fanny ordered a post-dinner brandy, for the nerves, and convinced her daughter to join her. They had just taken their first warming sips when the train ground and squeaked and bounced to another stop.
“Oh, dear,” said Fanny under her breath and took another sip.
Everyone was in the dining car except for Jorge O’Bannion, and they all fell silent. No one uttered another word, not until the lights flickered off and the electricity went out, plunging their world into darkness.
“This could be better,” said Edgar with typically British understatement.
“Just great,” growled Todd. A few seconds later and his face was illuminated by the glow of his cell phone. Three other cell phones, including Amy’s, lit up, providing soft white accents in the otherwise black carriage.
No one wanted to panic. More exactly, no one wanted to be the first to panic. Their whispering hum of worry grew steadily. What could have gone wrong? The train must have a generator for emergencies. There was a satellite phone on board, wasn’t there? Someone remembered it being mentioned in the brochure. Does it get very cold here at night? How many extra blankets were on the train? Would the toilet still work? I knew I should have used the toilet before dinner. And where the hell was Jorge O’Bannion?
This last question was answered first. A flashlight beam played behind the glass of the connecting door. Then the door opened. Senor O’Bannion raised the beam to show his face. His expression was serious, almost comically ghostly in its highlights and shadows. “Ladies and gentlemen, I fear that we will be here for a while.” He repeated himself immediately in Spanish.
“How long of a while?” demanded Todd.
“We’ll be here for an hour at least. Unavoidable.” O’Bannion pointed out the left side window. Half a dozen high-beam flashlights flitted around the dark emptiness. “My men are out there, working as fast as they can.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Amy. “Is it the engine? Is it something on the tracks?”
O’Bannion wiped his forehead with a handkerchief from his breast pocket, but he didn’t answer.
Amy went on. “Is there a bridge out? Is it a rock slide?” The romance of being in the middle of nowhere with no other trains coming and no maintenance crew was quickly losing its luster. “Is anyone coming to help?”
The Furies must have been feeling left out, because they suddenly erupted with questions of their own.
Todd pointed out the window and tried shouting over the din. “What are your men doing out there?” It seemed like a good question. What problem could possibly be solved outside, twenty yards off to the side of the dining car?
The owner of the New Patagonian Express stayed calm. He found a spot to prop up his flashlight, in the crook of a currently useless wall sconce, then arranged himself in its narrow beam. Taking his time, he arranged the handkerchief back in his breast pocket, then cleared his throat.
“I must ask you to please forgive me. This may not be the best idea. But I knew no other way to demonstrate to you the absolute beauty, the frightening isolation of my Patagonia. For what is beautiful isolation, I ask myself, without a little awe, a little fear of the unknown?” He checked his watch for the second time since walking into the dining car. “Please forgive me,” he repeated. “But I think we should all go outside.”
Two of the crew, the engineer and a waiter, were at the rear door with flashlights, ready to escort the passengers into the blackness. Whatever panic might have been welling up had now morphed into curiosity. Amy was at the end of the line, and as she approached the door, she could have sworn she heard one of the Furies ahead of her say, “Fuego,” Spanish for “fire.” For a moment she envisioned stepping out and witnessing their silver engine engulfed in a fireball.
“Ooh, fire,” said Fanny, just in front of her.
It was a cozy campfire that they saw, newly lit and just beginning to throw a glow onto its surroundings. No one was working on the train or the tracks. There were collapsible chairs and cushions in a circle, plus dozens of candles, with a porter busily setting them all aflame. Silver buckets were mixed among the chairs, full of ice and champagne. The engineer put down his flashlight and picked up a tray of caviar-stuffed canapés. The chef was by the fire, tuning his guitar. At the outer edge of the circle was a telescope, pointing up to the southern sky, which was alive with the brightest stars Amy had ever seen. A hand-painted sign hanging from the tripod showed a fanciful portrait of the man in the moon, orange on a background of bright blue.
Some people caught on faster than others. Edgar had been smiling from the last few sentences of O’Bannion’s speech. For Amy it was the telescope. One of the Furies was on her second glass of champagne before her companions could convince her that this wasn’t an emergency, after all, that O’Bannion had fooled them, that he and his staff had deliberately stopped at the most remote spot on their journey just as a special, unexpected treat.
“Welcome to the real Patagonia,” the ringmaster announced in both languages.
Fanny settled into a cushioned camp chair by the fire. Their mischievous host poured a little more brandy into her snifter, and side by side they waited for the chef to commence his concert. This left Amy free to wander the perimeter, edging tentatively out into the void. Were the mountain peaks in this direction or the other? She couldn’t see the emptiness, just the incredible stars above, bright clusters she’d never seen before and a band of stardust brighter than the Milky Way. The breeze was picking up, and Amy imagined that the wind had traveled forever to get here, unimpeded, across hundreds of miles, just to fly into her this very second.
“The stars are different here. Do you want to see?” Nicolas stood by the telescope and beckoned to her. She left the black void and joined him.
“Your boss really had us going.”
Nicolas didn’t get the jargon.
“He had us very scared. The delay, the explosion, the condition of the track. When we stopped and the lights went out, I thought we were stranded. For days.”
“But you are not. It was a game designed for the rich.” Nicolas spoke softly from the heart, as if the darkness and isolation gave him the right to be so candid. “Tonight you will sleep in your comfortable beds, on your way to even more comfortable beds, while we take care of your every need. Your existence is charmed—in our eyes.”
Amy wasn’t sure if he’d meant to be condescending or not. Either way he had a point. “Compared to the rest of the world, I guess.”
“Compared to here—in Chile, Argentina. Now is not so bad. But the history of our world has been violent, cruel without reason. As a tourist, you see what we want you to. You don’t see what came before. Our ways are quaint. The tango. The gauchos. That’s the word? Quaint?”
“You’re making me ashamed to be a tourist.”
“I apologize,” he said without seeming to mean it. “Tourists bring money. Some, like you, are very nice. But they remind us life isn’t fair. We don’t always want to be reminded.”
Amy wasn’t offended, just uncomfortable. She looked around them for a change of subject. “I think I would like to see those stars, not that I can’t see them already.”
“The biggest telescopes in the world are built in Chile. Astronomers come here for the altitude, the darkness, the lack of pollution.” He made a sad, ironic face. “My telescope is a little smaller.”
Nicolas’s telescope was white with black bands, about three feet long, the kind that Amy had seen but had never used on the balconies of luxury resorts. He gazed down through the eyepiece, changed the angle and the focus. “We have constellations you have never seen.”
“Beautiful,” Amy agreed, then examined the sky for anything that might look familiar. Three bright stars in a row caught her eye. “That one looks like Orion, only bigger.”
Nicolas looked up from the eyepiece and followed her finger. “That is Orion. But it’s upside down.”
“It looks bigger upside down. Oh, is that the Southern Cross?”
“It is.” Nicolas was obviously pleased. “Those four stars, like the Savior’s cross. It has safely guided our sailors and explorers for centuries.”
“Like our North Star. And it points directly south?”
“Uh, no. Almost.” He stretched his arm and pointed. “You draw an imaginary line from the top to the bottom of the cross, then go four and half times that length and draw another imaginary line to the horizon. That is south.”
Amy frowned. “Four and a half lengths and imaginary lines? Seems a lot of work.”
“What do you mean, work?”
“For the explorers. I mean, it’s not south. More like south-east. How did it get the name Southern Cross?”
“Because it is the Southern Cross,” Nicolas insisted.
“Absolutely,” said Amy and began to look around for another change of subject. “Did you paint the sign?” She indicated the hand-painted moon hanging from the telescope’s tripod. “It’s charming.” Somehow the word charming came out sounding like quaint.
Nicolas smiled and nodded. “Senor O’Bannion asked us to create special touches. There were some wood pieces and house paint in a shed at the estancia.”
“You can do that with house paint?” She was impressed. The man in the moon was purposely primitive and delicately done, with a wry, twisted grin and an unmistakable twinkle in the shape of his eyes. “You should be an artist.”
“I studied art at the conservatory in the capital, Santiago. One day I will go back.”
“You should. Absolutely. Follow your dream.”
His reply came softly, almost a whisper. “Dreams are not for someone like me.”
“Dreams are for everyone.” Amy cupped a hand around his shoulder. “I know money can be a problem, Nicolas. Everywhere. But if you love art like you say . . .”
“My dreams don’t matter.” The disdain was back in his voice, giving a harder edge to his whisper. “What matters is family. Obligations. Right and wrong. If I manage to survive, then maybe I will. . . .”
“If you manage to survive?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Manage to survive what?”
Nicolas took a long, deliberate breath, then bent down once more to gaze through the eyepiece and focus. “I mean that we could all die at any time.”
“That’s not what you said. Why did you say that?”
Nicolas didn’t have a response. He just stood there, looking down through his telescope at the southern stars until Amy gave up and wandered away.
CHAPTER 15
When Amy finally stumbled out of bed, still woozy from the brandy and the late night, it took her a minute to realize that the New Patagonian Express wasn’t moving. It took her another minute to realize that she wasn’t all that alarmed. Jorge O’Bannion’s magical surprise party had gone a long way in convincing her, convincing all his guests, that the tour was once again under control.
The hour delay that he’d warned them about, flashlight poised under his chin, had become over two hours of laughter and stargazing, drinking and telling multilingual tales around the campfire. The highlight had been a talent show by the train’s crew. The chef had played his guitar, accompanied by the engineer, who had blown across the tops of his panpipes. No one had brought an accordion. But the waiter and bartender had shown off their skills with a bolo and a lariat, and everyone had joined in on Chilean folk songs that seemed to have fifty verses apiece. Toward the end, Jorge had imbibed enough brandy to permit Edgar to ride his beloved motorcycle in a huge circle around the scrubby plains, with Todd in the sidecar, the dual headlamps roaming the outer reaches of the darkness.
Fanny had always been an early riser, no matter how late she’d fallen asleep, so Amy now had the compartment to herself. She washed her face, brushed her hair, slipped on a white resort bathrobe, and stepped out into the small semiprivate lounge separating them from the next compartment. It was empty for the time being, but as always, there were thermoses of hot coffee and hot water waiting on a side table and a carafe of fruit juice. The velvet drapes were tied back, and Amy was pleased to see the reason for their stationary state. They had arrived.
Outside the window stood a stone train depot, similar to the whistle-stop at Glendaval, although this one was larger and seemed more dilapidated than the first. The waiting room, for example, was more than just a place away from the wind and rain. It was outfitted with a fireplace and a chimney, but a chimney that, to Amy’s eye, leaned precariously toward the train and the tracks.
Several crew members wandered the platform. Two at the caboose end were unloading Jorge O’Bannion’s Indian motorcycle and sidecar, lifting them onto the back of a pickup truck. Just inside the waiting room, Amy could see Jorge himself engaged in an intimate conversation with a thin woman in a tropically floral dress and a stylish black fedora. Beneath the fedora was a helmet of ash-blond curls. Instinctively, Amy looked for the large mole just below the left cheekbone. It was there.
She could tell from Jorge’s body language that he was overjoyed at Lola’s presence. Amy watched as he reached into the pocket of his long coat and pulled out something silver and blue. It has to be the pendant, Amy thought, his mother’s favorite on a silver chain. He presented it to the woman, who looked at it appraisingly and then, without much fanfare or apparent emotion, slipped it over her head. Jorge straightened it around her neck.
“The woman with Jorge. Is that Lola Pisano?” Amy didn’t know which startled her more, the fact that the woman from the adjoining compartment, one of the Furies, had so silently entered the lounge or the fact that she was speaking English. Accented but very good English.
“I think so, yes. I met her once in a tango bar, just for a minute.”
“Bueno.” The Fury moved past Amy to the window and tilted her head for a better look. “Jorge promised she would be here. She is known not to be sociable.”
“Excuse me,” said Amy, turning to her new companion, feeling a little shamefaced. “I know we were introduced days ago. Amy Abel, from New York.” She held out her hand. “I had no idea . . .”
The woman took Amy’s hand in both of hers. “Gabriela Garcia, Buenos Aires. I apologize if I was rude. My friends don’t speak English, and I didn’t want to abandon them. After the first day, it felt easier just to say nothing. Laziness on my part.” She was the shortest, most ordinary looking of the Furies, the one with the fastest tongue and the sternest expression. Her speech was slower now; her expression all smiles. “Good to meet you again. I’m the owner of Hemispherio Travel.”
Amy smiled back. “I’ve heard of you, of course. Well, not you personally.” Hemispherio was a legendary name. At one point, she recalled, the company had owned a dozen hotels and a small cruise line. She didn’t know exactly what had happened. The recession, perhaps. Even in its reduced circumstances, it remained a force in South American travel. In fact, as soon as it became public knowledge about TrippyGirl’s Patagonian trip . . . “I must thank you. Your company is buying banner ads on my Web site. TrippyGirl?”
“Trippy?” Gabriela shook her head. “I’m afraid I hire out my marketing to others these days. Are we getting good value from your Trippy site?”
“TrippyGirl. I hope so.”
“Arturo, my husband, was the genius. He would have memorized every number and fact. He would have called you at all hours and driven you a hard bargain. But you would have loved him.”
“It sounds like you loved him.”
“I still do,” Gabriela said softly. “But he took business too seriously. The work and the worry. In the end it killed him.” Before Amy could express her condolences, Gabriela’s attention wandered back to the scene through the window. “She doesn’t look pleased with him, does she?”
Amy changed her own angle to see. Jorge and Lola were in almost the same spot, their intense, solemn faces close together. Jorge reached out to adjust the pendant. Lola allowed this, grudgingly perhaps. “He’s a charming man,” Amy said. “But you’re right. She do
esn’t look pleased.”
“Why is this so expensive, Jorge?” Gabriela said in a high, mocking imitation. “Why are you giving away trips? You know how much it cost to rent that engine? I will have to sell my terrible, tasteless jewelry. Please don’t touch my mole.”
Amy blurted out a laugh. Was this what conversation was like when the Furies chattered among themselves? She could kick herself for not learning Spanish. “Poor Jorge. I don’t mean to be nosy, but is Hemispherio going to promote the New Patagonian Express?”
Gabriela made a face. “If no one dies. There’s a good market for adventure travel that looks dangerous but is not.”
“If no one dies?”
“Other than what your mother saw. Imaginary deaths do not matter.” Her smile had morphed into a hard smirk. Once again Gabriela Garcia was one of Furies.
“Do you really think she imagined it?”
“Whether she saw a rabbit or a guanaco or nothing, your mother likes to be the center of attention. She has provided my friends and me with much entertainment.”
“Oh.” Amy felt her cheeks turn red. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Just a small cup, thank you. Then I suppose we need to pull ourselves together for our next safe adventure. Cross our fingers.”
An hour later, after Amy had drunk her coffee, indulged in a long shower, and made herself presentable, she packed up her suitcase and bag and left them in the compartment, next to Fanny’s already packed luggage. Then she joined Alicia, Gabriela, and one of the other Furies in the second vehicle, Toyota Land Cruisers on this leg instead of Land Rovers, heading to the O’Bannion family’s second estancia. Amy sat shotgun and did her best to ignore Gabriela and her friend’s aggressive chatter in the back. She concentrated instead on the breathtaking scenery. In just a few minutes they would arrive at Torre Vista, where breakfast would be waiting on the wide veranda.
* * *
Fanny had been careful not to wake her daughter. Amy hadn’t been sleeping well. She took things so seriously, Fanny thought, despite her general inclination to ignore problems. Or perhaps because of it. Ignoring things could be very stressful.