Snowstorms in a Hot Climate

by Sarah Dunant

  I began to feel chilled. The cross was in front of us now, beginning its drunken journey up the steps of the church. Behind it trundled the inevitable Virgin Mary, life size and dazzling in blue and white china robes, hands clasped in prayer, eyes to heaven, the perfect example of Catholic passivity. And the ultimate con job, reified and deified in one image. All I could think of was bread and circuses as I stood there crushed by the crowd. God, Marla, I wish you’d been there. I was in need of atheist companionship.

  The voice came from nowhere, interrupting my heartbeat. “You look so angry. How come you’re not amazed by the spectacle?”

  He was standing right behind me. Funny. In the coffee shop he’d looked European rather than American. Close to, his eyes were very bright; blue-gray, like a cat’s. His hair was so blond it was almost white. In the middle of such Latin American darkness, he stood out like an albino. I don’t remember replying to him. The only thing I can recall about that moment is the fact that I wasn’t surprised to see him.

  “Have you been in the cathedral yet?” He was almost shouting to make himself heard over the noise.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t make a reservation.”

  He smiled. “Everyone should see it once. Like the pyramids at full moon. They’ll be following the Stations of the Cross. Christ is scheduled to die in less than an hour.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe it did have to be seen. I pushed myself up on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of the vast wooden doors of the cathedral, a river of people pushing their way in. Our Lady was having trouble making it up the last few steps. “We’d never get across the square, let alone inside.”

  “Sure we will. Just keep your eyes on the back of my head and follow me.”

  He turned and broke out of the crowd, not waiting to check if I was behind him. Together we fought our way out to more open spaces, and then he plowed ahead, fast turns down small alleyways and side streets where the crush was not solid. He moved like a man who knew the city. And then around a corner at the end of a street, a side door to the cathedral. He paused to let me catch up.

  “Have you got anything to cover your head?”

  I hadn’t. He moved over to a small stall set up by the cathedral wall, littered with devotional pictures and rosary beads. His conversation with the old woman was short and to the point. He came back with an offering of black lace. The act of putting it over my hair unlocked the whole box of Sunday morning childhood memories. It all came tumbling out; late-morning mass with my stomach weak from hunger and no hope of food until after communion. Sometimes even the incense smelled of roasting meat. I could feel the texture of the host against my tongue as I tried to peel it off the roof of my mouth. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned …” Devotion drowned by saliva. Maybe this was why I had wanted to stay lost in the crowd.

  Inside the air was stiff with sweat and incense. If you looked up into the vaulted ceiling, you could see smoke hanging over the main altar, tendrils of it snaking out into the body of the church. There must have been a thousand people in there, jammed together in the semidarkness. Christ and Mary were making painful, lumbering progress down the aisle. We edged forward until we stood by the end of a crowded pew. Next to me a woman was standing, staring at the altar. I watched her lips chewing out silent prayers while her hands fingered a rosary. There was something almost nervous in her movement, as if this had more to do with anxiety than comfort. Over her head the church was dense with prayer. The weight of worship was almost tangible. My throat had gone dry, and I found it hard to breathe. The atmosphere was solid, as if some great black bird had landed on the roof of the church, and the warmth of its body and spread wings was suffocating the people below. I remember thinking what a giveaway it was that I should imagine its color to be black. Ex-Catholics have an ambivalent relationship with the Holy Spirit. I felt excluded. And oppressed. I didn’t fit in and I couldn’t get out. I turned and started to fight my way back toward the open door. He could stay or he could follow. For that moment I didn’t care.

  Outside, light and air engulfed us. I stood against the wall, feeling the stone cold through my sweater. I took in great gulps of air and began to feel better. I was looking for a way to make light of it, but he got in before my defenses were up.

  “What’s the problem? Claustrophobia? Or maybe a sliver of Catholic glass lodged somewhere, trying to get out?”

  I shook my head. “Trying to get in, more likely,” I said, folding up the lace mantilla and handing it to him. He continued to watch me, as if he knew there was more to say.

  “I was a Catholic once,” I murmured. “As a child. But I turned my back on it as soon as I could think for myself.”

  “Sure, but you know what they say about the Jesuits. This could be a rearguard action.”

  I laughed. “Not me, I’m clean. They never got their hands on me. It was a mixed marriage, one Catholic, one atheist. I was christened, confessed, and confirmed, but never in a convent. It was all extramural indoctrination. They never managed to instill enough guilt to keep me loyal. Anyway, how come you know so much about it?”

  “These things just interest me, I guess. What makes people obey rules, what makes them keep coming back for more.”

  “You sound as if you admire it.”

  “Not admire exactly, but I’m a little impressed by its Machiavellian effects, yes. Catholicism has kept Latin America as firmly enthralled as sacrificing virgins to the sun did four centuries ago. You have to have respect for that kind of power, don’t you think?”

  “No, not necessarily.”

  We stood for a moment, looking at each other. My God, I thought, I’m having a conversation with a Westerner and we haven’t yet mentioned how long we’ve been on the road or where we’re going next. This hasn’t happened to me for months. And I was feeling amazingly light and reborn, which had nothing to do with Easter.

  He smiled at me, and I remember thinking he was beautiful. Or rather that I fancied him. And I wondered what should I say next to make him stay. I needn’t have worried.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said. “But I could do with a cup of coffee. Or even something a little stronger. In which case it’ll have to be my hotel. There aren’t a whole load of places where they let atheists celebrate on Good Friday.”

  I thought of the small change rattling under my left breast and the prices on the hotel drinks list. Then we both thought of a secondhand International Herald Tribune. “But,” he added, shaking his head, “this one has to be on me, right? After all, if I hadn’t forced you in there you wouldn’t need a drink. OK?”

  Inside somewhere I was laughing, with an old-fashioned kind of delight. I knew it was regressive, a woman bought with chivalry and wine. But, as I said, I was looking to be wooed. Like any old-fashioned girl. And so I accepted his offer.

  And as we walked back out of the path of the worshipers, it began to rain: cold, Colombian rain with a hint of the mountains in it. A clock struck three. I remember thinking that God was keeping a firm eye on the proceedings, even down to the special effects. And so we went back to his hotel.

  Out on the New York balcony, Elly stopped talking and stared at her hands folded in her lap. I sat marble still. To tell stories is to relive them. And we had just got to the part which would be hardest to tell.

  Time passed. I got up and went into the sitting room, collecting the bottle of bourbon from the table. I filled her glass and then my own. She looked up at me. Her foot, I remember, made a tiny nervous gesture.

  “There’s too much of it, Marla. Let’s leave it till tomorrow.”

  I sat down and crossed my arms. “In the mead halls of old England, storytellers used to recite all night. Let’s tell it now.”

  four

  What can I say? You know what happened next. It’s what comes before the “happily ever after” bit. We had coffee in the coffee shop, then a drink in the bar, then dinner in the restaurant. We drank European wine—which I had not tasted for eight months—and brandy,
and then we went to bed. And I think the truth of the matter is that I “fell in love,” whatever that means, that very night. Not because of the sex. No. That was the usual, messy first-night affair—strung-out desire and no finesse. No, not because of the sex. I think it was more because of the conversation.

  You have to imagine how it was for me. You have to remember how starved I was for that kind of communication, that edge of sharpness, that intellect. I had got used to the meanderings of dopers, following smoke rings and getting off on diversions rather than destinations. Maybe I just wasn’t as stoned as they were, but God, it had got boring. With him it was different. He was bright, shiny, and very fast. He knew things. And they didn’t come out of the latest Time magazine. Colombia wasn’t just the next country on a map for him. He had studied it, knew chapter and verse of its history and people. He’d read Latin American writers I hadn’t even heard of. After months of hanging out with people whose only knowledge was the relevant entry in the South American Handbook, he was nothing less than a miracle. I swear I was more seduced by his mind than his body. He was a challenge, a mystery. The most powerful aphrodisiac in the world.

  We slept late into the next morning. Easter Saturday in Bogotá—what else is there to do between death and resurrection? When we woke we made love again, and it was better than before. And, afterward I was a little nervous, because I already understood that I did not feel entirely careless about this one.

  And then, almost as if he had sensed my paranoia, something went wrong. It was as if he flicked a switch and turned off. Just like in the coffee shop. He left. Not physically, but in every other way. He suddenly became distant and chilly, treating me with a kind of patient politeness, as if he was surprised to find me still there. If he’d been English I would have just assumed emotional repression. But I’d been in the spotlight of his charm and knew that it wasn’t that he couldn’t give—it was more that he’d decided not to. Only this time I was prepared for it.

  I took the initiative. I got up, leaving him in bed, took a long shower, then got dressed, ready to go. He could have stopped me at any point, asked me to stay, made some comment about a future—even if it was only breakfast. But he didn’t say a word, just lay back on the pillows and watched me. Yet something had happened between us. Christ, Marla, you don’t just imagine that. You might misjudge depths of attraction, but you can’t misjudge the whole thing. But then, Lenny specializes in the unpredictable. Anyway, this one he played to the limit. He waited until I got as far as the door. I was actually walking out, but I had no intention of leaving him in total control. My anger propelled me to turn and say, “Thanks, I had a great evening. Maybe the next religious festival I can buy you for the night. See you.”

  I was halfway out when he called me back. “Elly, if you have no other plans, why not come tomorrow evening and we’ll pick up where we left off?”

  I think it was the studied lack of humility which enraged me most. I remember thinking, Watch it, Elly, this guy is fucked up. But I didn’t listen to myself. Instead of walking out I walked back in.

  “Listen, I don’t know about the women you usually fuck, but the silent macho approach doesn’t cut it with me. I’m sorry, but I’m busy doing nothing tomorrow night. Besides, I’m leaving Bogotá on Tuesday, so there wouldn’t be much in it for you.”

  To give him his due he didn’t flinch, didn’t move a muscle, just looked at me and said, “Well, I’m sorry too. I’ll miss you.”

  “Yeah, well you know how it is on the road.”

  And then he did just what I didn’t expect. Of course. He smiled and held out a hand toward me.

  “I’ve annoyed you. Forgive me. I would like to see you again. Only I have some work that will take a few days to complete. If you felt like changing your plans and staying around, then maybe we could go to the islands, spend some real time together. I would like that.”

  I didn’t move. I still couldn’t work out the hot from the cold in him. “It wouldn’t work. I couldn’t afford your lifestyle. We’re traveling on different budgets.”

  “So, travel on mine for a while.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t live off men. And I don’t have enough money to sit around Bogotá waiting for you.” You see, I knew already that if I didn’t start fighting, I wouldn’t stand a chance. What I didn’t realize, of course, was how much that was his style as well.

  “OK. Let me lend you some. You could pay me back later. I’m not looking to compromise your independence, Elly. It’s just I don’t believe you’re the kind of person to let money stand in your way.”

  He was smiling broadly now. Enjoying it much more than I. I think that unnerved me too. For maybe only the second time in my life I knew that I was standing at a crossroads, I could still turn and walk away without contracting a fatal disease; I still had the power of choice. And do you know what, Marla? I couldn’t move. My brain had decided. It told my legs to start walking. They simply refused. Emotional mutiny. And, of course, he sensed it.

  “Elly, I like you very much. Why run away?”

  And I could have said, “Because I think I know what it is you do, and I don’t want to get involved.” Or, “Because I suspect at some level that I won’t ever be able to trust you, and who needs it?” Both of those things were true. I didn’t say either of them. Instead I closed the door, walked back across to the bed, sat down, and looked at him.

  “OK. I’ll wait for you. But I’ll do it from my hotel. Now you can decide whether or not you want to tell me what you do.”

  There are, you see, not a lot of things that a well-dressed young American could be doing in Colombia, short of spending his father’s fortune. It’s not a rich country: industry and export are important, and there are small fortunes to be made on the right deals, but it takes time and patience and playing the bureaucratic game, and it’s too much like hard work for most people. Certainly for Lenny. That was not his style. The reason I had not asked him what he did for a living was that I already knew. You get very adept at spotting coke smugglers when you’re on the road. Sometimes they try to blend in with the plebeian travelers, but more often the big fishes swim in the pools on the fancier side of town. Of course, lots of travelers do coca in the poorer hotels. Even on a small budget it’s hard to resist just a taste. And some of them play with the possibility of taking enough home to finance their next trip. Most of them don’t do it because they’re frightened of getting caught. Some do it and get caught. A few get away with it. But the real businessmen don’t operate in that way. They act more like the establishment—they are the merchant bankers of crime. They look clean—they stay at the best hotels; and they live on the right side of the law in the sunny side of society, until they take that one step which puts them in the twilight zone. Lenny had to be moving coke. He was too smart to be doing anything else.

  And there was another reason. He had to be moving it because he had told me he wasn’t. When the talk had turned to professions, he had described with some enthusiasm buying merchandise for a chain of shops back in the States. We both knew he wasn’t telling the truth. There may have been shops—there were as it turned out—but that wasn’t what he was doing. He knew I knew. But he offered no clues. His secrecy was part of my proof.

  So, you see, when I began to walk out of the door, he had a decision to make. He had to decide whether or not he could trust me with the knowledge. If he gave me that, he gave me everything. Lenny doesn’t usually trust people. In general, good coke men don’t. But I’d called him. He didn’t have a lot of options. I wasn’t interested in the casual fuck. Maybe he wasn’t either. And you can’t really carry on a proper affair with a coke man and not know what he’s doing. In effect I did have some power. I knew when he had made that remark about work that he was giving away more than he needed to. On the other hand, I was still careful to leave him with a let-out.

  His answer was to lean over to the drawer next to the bed and take out a small leather case. From his neck he slipped a key off a c
hain and fitted it to the lock. Inside was a glass container, the size of a marmalade jar, filled to the top with white crystalline powder. No one can tell good coke from bad just by looking at it. But you can tell volume. There must have been a good half pound in there. And that would be just the sample.

  I looked at it for a moment, then took the jar from his hand, unscrewed the lid, and put a fingertip into the powder. It came out coated white. I rubbed the finger slowly along my gums, top and bottom. I could feel a slight numbing sensation immediately. I put the lid back on the jar and put the jar back inside the leather case. Then I kissed him. His tongue ran around the edge of my gums. Another kind of lust. Freemasons. There is a lot of ritual attached to cocaine. It was as well to indulge in it early. The ceremony ended, we moved apart and I said, “I want you to know I’m less interested in what you do than in who you are.” And I swear if it was a lie, then I didn’t know it at the time.

  He was looking at me closely. “I wonder,” he said. “You may find they’re not so different. Let’s go eat breakfast and I’ll tell you some of the things you don’t need to know.”

  And that is how the whole sordid tale began—how young, relatively innocent Elly Cameron joined the twilight world of the cocaine transport trade. And that goes some way to explaining why I couldn’t tell you. One of the things he made me promise that day was silence. Another part of the ritual. But one that makes sense. The fewer people who know, the fewer people can talk. At the time I gave the promise easily. Later I understood how much it isolated me, how much it left him in control.

  He didn’t tell me a great deal more that morning, which was fine by me. Knowledge is responsibility, and I didn’t want to know. Ask no questions and you might be told no lies. After all, it was him I wanted, not the cocaine.

  After breakfast I went back to my hotel, and he went out to see a man about a drug. He would be busy for the next few days. I did not want to be around. Before I left, he handed me a small vial of cocaine. I was already a kept woman, you see. Someone else was paying for my drugs.