All Around Atlantis (4 page)

“Not back yet,” he said. His gaze was pleasant—serene and searching. “Any minute.”

He brought her into a big room and sat her down near a fireplace, in a squashy chair. He reached for the chain of a lamp, but Francie shook her head.

“No?” He looked at her. “I'm having coffee,” he said. “Want a cup? Or something else—water? Wine? Soda?”

Francie shook her head again.

“Anyhow,” he said. “I'm Alex. I'll be in back if you want me.”

Francie nodded.

“Can I put your package somewhere for you, at least?” he asked, but Francie folded her arms around the box and rested her cheek against its plastic wrapping.

“Suit yourself,” the man said. He paused at the entrance to the room. “You're not a very demanding guest, you know.”

Francie felt his attention hesitate and then withdraw. After a moment, she raised her head—yes, he was gone. But then there he was again in the entranceway. “Strange day, huh?” he paused there to say. “Starting with the blimp.”

The night before Francie left school, when she'd known so much more about her mother and her father than she knew now, she and Jessica had lain in their beds, talking feverishly. “Anything can happen at any moment,” Jessica kept exclaiming. “Anything can just
happen
.”

“It's worse than that,” Francie had said (and she could still close her eyes and see Cynthia coming up that hill). “It's much, much worse.” And Jessica had burst into noisy sobs, as if she knew exactly what Francie meant, as if it were she who had brushed against the burning cable of her life.

Her body, Francie noticed, felt as if it had been crumpled up in a ball—she should stretch.
Strange day
. Well, true enough. That was something they could all be sure of. This room was really nice, though. Pretty and pleasantly messy, with interesting stuff all over the place. Interesting, nice stuff…

Twilight was thickening like a dark garden, and paintings and drawings glimmered behind it on the walls. As scary as it was to be waiting for him, it was nice to be having this quiet time. This quiet time together, in a way.

Peach, rose, pale green—yes, poor guy; it might be a moment he'd look back on—last panels of tinted light were falling through the window. He might be walking up the street this very second. Stopping to buy a newspaper.

She closed her eyes. He fished in his pocket for change, and then glanced up sharply. Holding her breath, Francie drew herself back into the darkness.
It's your imagination
, she promised; he was going to have to deal with her soon enough—no sense making him see her until he actually had to.

At first, what rob saw from the back seat appeared to be projections of stone on the bluff just above—columns of lava, or basalt. Then the smoky morning split into gold rays, the black forms flickered human/mineral, human/mineral, and a shift of sun flashed against machetes, lighting up for one dazzling instant the kerchiefs tied over faces as masks, and the clothing—the wide, embroidered Indian trousers that Mick and Suky were headed toward the village to buy.

“Hoo hoo!” Mick said. “Worth the trip?” But his hand, extended for Suky's cigarette, was unsteady. How long, Rob wondered; how much longer until they reached the village?

When they arrived, he would eat something with Mick and Suky, maybe even check into the hotel, but he would look around for some way to get back to town immediately. There would be other tourists with cars, and there was supposed to be a boat, a little boat that carried mail across the lake, between town and the village to which they were going on the far side. In any case, he could hardly say it was Mick and Suky's fault that he had come; the fact was, he had knowingly—no, eagerly—given himself over to them, to these people he never would have dreamed of getting into a car with at home. And if something happened—if the guerrillas reappeared, or if there were robbers, or if he got sick, or if, most terrifying of all, they were stopped by the army—he would have only himself to blame.

Suky's small, tanned arm, draped across the seat, sparkled faintly. Her shoulder, the back of her neck…The car fishtailed and Rob turned his gaze to the steaming lake. Himself, himself to blame, himself, only himself. Perspiration—forming below the surface, squeezing its way up to collect in basins around each gold stalklet of a hair, in tiny, septic, bejeweling drops.

 

According to Mick, the crumbly, bunkerlike building they checked into was the village's premier hotel, the dirty pavilion where they sat now under a swarming thatch was the village's premier restaurant. “Only restaurant,” Suky amended lazily. “Well, yeah, there's one other, but Mick got a wicked parasite there last year.”

What difference did it make? Rob would be back on his way to town soon enough.

“Chicken everyone?” Mick said. “Always tasty, always safe.” He put down the sticky menu and turned with a little bow to the child who was swinging idly against a chair, waiting to take their orders. “
Tres pollos
.”

The child considered Mick before responding. “
Pollo no hay
,” he said impassively.

“
Pués
,” Mick said, “
pescado. Bien fresco
.”

“
Pescado no hay
,” the child said.

“
Bueno
”—Mick folded his arms and leveled a ferocious grin at the child—“
Carne
.”

The child stared back.

Suky yawned. “
Qué hay?
” she said.

“
Frijoles
,” the child said, already wandering off. Pleased, Rob wondered, because he could offer them beans, or because he could offer them nothing else?

The pavilion sat on a rise overlooking the muddy road, and beyond that, the lake. In front, just next to each of the poles that supported the thatch, a soldier stood, aiming a rifle at the shabby ladinos walking below, and the soundless Indians, in their elaborate, graceful, filthy textiles. From town, the lake had seemed blue, and the air over it tonic, a pure ether in which the volcanoes and the hills presided, serene and picturesque. But on this side the air was green, heavy with a vegetal shedding, sliding, with a dull glint, like scales. The water, the volcano, the dense growth, and the crust of tin-roofed shacks that covered the hills all appeared to be discharging skeins of mist that made everything waver, as though Rob were under the lake, here, looking up.

“A gourmet paradise it may not be,” Mick said. “But you've got to admit it's beautiful.”

In
cred
ible. Was Mick aware of his callousness? Even if you were to succumb to some claim of the dark and protean landscape, you could hardly ignore those soldiers. Their faces were smeared with anarchic black markings, and their eyes glittered red with exhaustion or hatred, or illness.

Of course, Rob was not unprepared for some kind of unpleasantness. The other day in town, when Mick had pointed across the lake to the village, Rob's insides had registered a violent but incoherent response. He'd heard vague but alluring mention of the area—its unparalleled weaving and embroidery, its ancient indigenous religions. He had the impression of an iridescence. But someone had referred to guerrillas, and someone else had told him about the people, Indian peasants, who had been untouched by centuries of change but who now, during planting and harvest seasons, were taken off to labor on the eastern plantations under military guard. “It sounds really interesting,” Rob had said politely to Mick.

“Interesting,” Mick said. “It's sensational. Very dark, very magical.”

Suky sighed then, Rob remembered. And he had said something about how he'd like to get there one day, and then Suky had said, “So why not come with us? We're going Wednesday.”

Wednesday
. Rob stared at her while she rooted around the bottom of her drink with her straw. “Why not?” she said. She looked up at him and pushed her drink aside. “This is a great time to go. Some general's up in the States, lobbying Congress for more aid, so the army's making kind of a point these days of not killing gringo tourist college boys.” She had smiled then briefly, showing her funny little sharp, uneven teeth.

Shame (as though Rob were on the brink of doing or thinking something unworthy) abruptly presented him with another memory: his parents, with boxes of slides, resulting from various travels, which they showed on a screen in the living room to himself and his sister, and sometimes to others in the community who were considering similar adventures. His parents were vigorous and inquiring—much more energetic, physically and intellectually, than he was. There had never been any place, as far as Rob knew, they hadn't wanted to go. And although they had made a show of disapproval about the casualness of Rob's plans this summer, Rob could feel their pride, their eagerness to see new places through his eyes. If only he had their stamina. Bad weather seemed only to intensify their interest in the way other people lived. And bad food, and bugs. Only two or three times, as Rob remembered, had their trips worked out badly. Their sunny temperaments seemed damaged on those occasions, when they had come home plaintive and baffled. Which trips had those been? Haiti? The Philippines? Rob was no longer sure—the slides had stayed in their boxes.

The infant waiter reappeared, shoving three plates of rice and beans onto the table and dropping a plate of tortillas into the center so that it buzzed. “
Dos más, Pablo
,” said a voice from over Rob's shoulder. Then, “
Welcome, welcome
.”

The owner of the voice was probably no more than thirty, just a few years older than Mick and Suky, but his weighty graciousness insisted on a wide margin of seniority. He held one hand out to Mick, and with the other he decorously reached a chair for the sphinxlike Indian girl who accompanied him. “
Y, Pablito
,” he called to the child, “
dos cerrezas
.”

Drugs, most likely, Rob thought. Rob had seen men like this in towns en route. But usually they kept to themselves, hanging around in clumps, or with various counterparts—burly, scarred Latins, or older good-for-nothings from the U.S., '60s casualties with greasy, faded ponytails, whose clattery frames and potbellies would have devolved from bodies as supple and powerful as this man's.

Rob started with dismay—his plate had been washed! A universe of disease trembled in a droplet of water on the rim. Think sick, get sick, was what Mick said, and that was probably true in some way, although the corollary—think healthy, stay healthy—seemed less of a sure thing.

“Rob, Suky, hey—” Mick was poking Rob on the arm, pointing to the beers Pablo was setting down in front of the newcomers. “Now this is smart. See what Kimball is doing?”

Kimball who? Who Kimball? Bad, Rob thought, not good—he had failed to control his attention. He channeled it now, with effort.

Despite the impression he made of size, this Kimball person was not tall, Rob saw—just rather broad, and well put together. Although his features were somewhat sharp and his dark blue eyes small, there was a suggestion of largesse, or costliness, possibly, about his creamy skin and loose black curls. And Mick had certainly fallen in behind him with disgusting alacrity. Astonishing, really. Lofty Mick, dignified Mick—but sensitivity to rank, evidently, was fundamental to this aristocracy of wanderers.

“People don't realize how easy it is to get dehydrated,” Mick was saying showily to Rob. “Listen. The juice here is great. If you don't want to drink beer, you should have some juice, at least.” But Kimball could obviously care less, Rob thought, who was a beer drinker and who was not; even though all the other tables were empty, he kept craning around as though he were expecting someone.

“I'm not thirsty,” Rob said.

Suky's eyes were closed, though Rob thought he saw a mocking little smile flicker across her mouth. So what? He wasn't thirsty; he could wait—he had three safe bottles of water back at the hotel, in his pack, the weight of which had given Mick occasion to marvel, satirically, as they'd climbed into the car.

“Suky?” Mick said.

“Beer,” she said.

“Well, I'mna have beer, and I'mna have juice,” Mick said with infuriating cheer. “Pablo—” he called.

Was that really the child's name? Rob wondered. Or some demeaning generic business. And what was this Indian girl's name? Had she even been introduced? Her expression hadn't altered by a blink so far as Rob had observed, since she'd sat down. “
Señorita
,” he said, “
vive usted aquí?
”

Kimball turned to contemplate Rob. “She don't speak Spanish,” he said. He put his arm around the girl and said something into her ear in a language full of
sh
and
z
sounds. The girl laughed—a tiny, harsh glitter. “But, yeah—” Kimball turned back to gaze at Rob. “She wants you to know. She does live here.”

The girl's eyes passed over Rob with a smoldering chill, like dry ice. She was even more terrifying, Rob thought, than Kimball. What was it about her? If only he'd asked Meredith along. She'd had the summer free; she'd hinted. And if she were here, she'd know what was upsetting him—she always did. Sometimes, as Meredith pointed out, it was nothing more than beauty. “Rob, that's
beautiful
, don't you see?” she would say. Or: “That woman's not weird-looking, she's
beautiful
.” Then Meredith would laugh and rub her head against his, and he would see: whatever it was, was only beautiful.

He sighed and put down his fork—he had tried to eat something, but both the rice and the beans had a scorched, compost taste. Suky glanced at his plate, at him. She took a sip of her beer, and stretched her arms high over her head. It was appalling, the way so many girls traveling around here dressed. With grimy bits of underwear showing, or worse, like Suky, with none, Rob observed as she adjusted the strap of her sluttish camisole, to show. What did people think about their country being turned into a private beach? What could the Indian girl, for example, be thinking? When Meredith traveled (Rob knew, though they had never yet traveled together) she took particular care to dress respectfully. Especially if she were going to some Third World country, where, as she'd said to Rob, the inhabitants had little to offer one another aside from courtesy.

Rob brought his mind to the table again, and found Mick entrenched in a boast-fest—the places he and Suky had gone hunting textiles to sell in the States, the foods they'd survived, the dangers they'd faced…Still, if he were to be honest with himself, Rob thought, he would have to admit that Mick and Suky had an effect on him even now. From the moment he'd met them, he'd contorted himself into all sorts of ridiculous postures—misrepresenting and stifling reactions, even exaggerating. And even now, when Mick was evidencing wormlike, sycophantic tendencies of his own, Rob couldn't control a desperation for their good opinion. Pathetic, but true.

He'd seen them as soon as he disembarked in town from the bus. There they were, at a food stand, joking with the proprietor in Spanish far too advanced for Rob. They were clearly Americans, and he was pining for the sounds of American English, but really, it was something about their appearance that had stopped him—the way they looked together; their slightly feral, miniaturized quality, fastidious and carnal at once.

Although he'd been able to see from where he was standing the hotel recommended by his student guide book, he lingered near them, waiting to ask for their advice. When they finished their conversation, they directed him, without interest, to a hotel in the opposite direction from the one he was facing.

Their indifference had been disorienting. His sincerity, his good nature (and his looks, he conceded uncomfortably) generally made people attentive. But these two! It was hard to tell if they were even listening.
Most
people made an effort to show by their faces that they understood, were interested in, what one was saying. An unwelcome indignation branched quickly through Rob as he remembered this first encounter, clearing a path through which embarrassment then shot treacherously; he'd just been tricked by his
own brain
into thinking something distasteful—that the facial expressions displayed by most people, by himself, were social signals, like clothing.

The town was small, and over the next several days, Rob had seen Suky and Mick a number of times. They would nod from the sanctum of their unwashed majesty, and Rob was reminded, each time more keenly, that although they were the largest and most vivid figures in his small universe here, he was no more than a mote, for them, in a vast swarm of tourists.