The Ruins (52 page)

 "You
know it's not real," she said. "Don't you?"

 Just
laugh,
he
thought.
It's
so easy.
But then, without really meaning to, he
started talking, his voice spilling out of him, propelling him down a
different path altogether. "It doesn't make things
up."

 Stacy
was silent, watching him. She folded her arms across her chest. "Eric—"

 "It
mimics things. Things it's heard. It doesn't create
them."

 "Then
it's heard someone having sex at some point, and it mixed our
voices in."

 "So
that's your voice? You said those things?"

 "Of
course not."

 "But
you said it mixed your voices in."

 "I
mean it took our voices, things we've said, and it put them
together to say new things. You know? It took one word from one
conversation, and another word from—"

 "When
did you say ‘harder'? Or ‘kiss
me'?"

 "I
don't know. Maybe it—"

 "Come
on, Stacy. Tell me the truth."

 "This
is stupid, Eric." He could sense how frustrated she was
becoming, could feel her working to control it.

 "I
just want the truth," he said.

 "I've
told you the truth. It's not real.
It's—"

 "I
promise I won't be angry."

 But
he was already angry, of course; even he could hear it in his voice.
This wasn't the first time Eric had asked Stacy to confess to
some infidelity, and he felt the weight of all those other
conversations now, pressing down upon him, prodding him forward. There
was a pattern these confrontations inevitably followed, a script for
them to honor: he'd badger her, reason with her, methodically
eliminate her evasions and diversions, slowly cornering her until the
only choice remaining was honesty. She'd start to cry;
she'd beg his forgiveness, promise never to betray him again.
And somehow, despite himself, Eric would always find a way to believe
her. The idea of having to pursue this course now, of having to plod
through each of its many steps, filled him with exhaustion. He wanted
to be at the end already. He wanted her weeping, begging, promising,
and it enraged him that even here, even in their current extremity, she
was going to make him work for it.

 "Look
at me," Stacy said. "Do you really think
I'd have any interest in
fucking
anyone
at this point. I can't even—"

 "Would
you fuck him at another point?"

 "Eric—"

 "Would
you have fucked him in
Cancún
?"

 She
gave a loud sigh, as if the question were too demeaning to answer. And
it was, too. On some level, Eric understood
this.
Calm
thoughts,
he said to
himself.
A
calm voice.
He was fighting hard to summon them, but they
wouldn't come.

 "
Did
you
fuck
him in
Cancún
?"
he asked.

 Before
Stacy could answer, her voice started up
again:
Hold
me. Just hold me.

 We
shouldn't. What if he—

 
Shh
. No one will hear.

 Then,
once more, the panting began, gradually rising in volume. Eric and
Stacy were both silent, listening. What else could they do?

 God,
that feels good.

 The
panting deepened into moans. Eric was concentrating on the voices,
which maintained that same slightly smudged quality. Sometimes it
seemed as though they definitely belonged to Stacy and Mathias; other
times, he could almost bring himself to believe her, that they
weren't real, that it hadn't happened.

 So
good,
he
heard,
and he
thought,
No
,
of course not, it can't be him.

 
Harder,
he
heard—that urgent whisper, so full of hunger—and he
thought,
Yes
,
definitely, it has to be her.

 The
climax came, finally, and then there was just the rain again, and
Pablo's breathing, and the wet flapping of the tent each time
the wind gusted. Stacy edged toward him. She reached and rested her
hand on his knee, squeezing it through the sleeping bag. "It's trying to drive us apart, sweetie. It wants
us to fight."

 "Say
‘Hold me. Just hold me.'"

 Stacy
lifted her hand from his knee, stared at him. "What?"

 "I
want to hear you. I'll be able to tell if I hear you say
it."

 "Tell
what?'

 "If
it's your voice."

 "You're
being an asshole, Eric."

 "Say
‘No one will hear.'"

 She
shook her head. "I'm not
gonna
do this."

 "Or
‘harder.' Whisper
‘harder.'"

 Stacy
stood up. "I have to check on Pablo."

 "He's
fine. Can't you hear him?" And it was true: the
sound of Pablo's breathing seemed to fill the tent.

 Stacy
had her hands on her hips. He couldn't make out her face in
the darkness, but he could tell somehow that she was frowning at him. "Why are you doing this? Huh? We have so much else to deal
with here, and you're acting like—"

 "Amy
was right. You're a slut."

 This
seemed to hit home; it slapped her into momentary silence. Then, very
quietly, she whispered, "What the fuck, Eric? How can you say
that?"

 He
heard a trembling in her voice, and it nearly gave him pause. But then
he was speaking again; he couldn't stop himself. "When did you do it? Tonight?"

 It
was hard to tell, but it seemed like she might be crying.

 "You
were naked when you came in," he said. "I saw you
naked."

 She
was wiping her face with her hand. The rain increased suddenly, jumping
in volume; it felt as if the tent might collapse beneath it.
Instinctively, they both ducked. It lasted only a few seconds, though,
and in its passing, the world seemed oddly quiet.

 "Were
there other times, too?"

 Stacy
made a sniffling sound. "Please stop."

 Eric
hesitated. For some reason, that peculiar sense of heightened silence
was beginning to unsettle him—it seemed ominous, threatening.
He glanced out toward the clearing, as if expecting an intruder there. "Tell me how many times, Stacy."

 She
shook her head again. "You're being a
bastard."

 "I'm
not angry. Do I seem angry?"

 "I
hate you sometimes. I really do."

 "I
just want the truth. I just want—"

 Stacy
started to scream, making him jump. Her fists were clenched; she was
yanking at her hair. She yelled, "Shut up! Can you do that?
Can you please just shut the fuck up?" She stepped forward,
as if to strike him—her right arm raised over her
head—but then stopped in mid-stride and turned toward the
tent flap.

 Eric
followed her gaze. Mathias was standing there, stooping, one foot in
the tent, one foot still outside. He was completely drenched. It was
hard to discern much more than that in the darkness, but Eric had a
sense of the German's confusion. He seemed as if he were
about to retreat back into the night, deferring to their privacy.

 "Maybe
you can tell me," Eric said to him. "Did you fuck
her?"

 Mathias
was silent, too startled by the question to offer an answer.

 "The
vine was making sounds," Stacy explained. "Like
we'd had sex."

 Eric
was leaning forward, peering at Mathias's face, trying to
read his expression. "Say ‘God, that feels
good.'"

 Mathias
still had one foot out in the rain. He shook his head. "I
don't understand."

 "Or
‘We shouldn't. What if he—' Can
you say that?"

 "Stop
it, Eric," Stacy said.

 Eric
spun on her. "I'm not talking to you. All
right?" He turned back toward Mathias. "Just say
it. I want to hear your voice."

 "Where
do you think you are?" Mathias asked.

 Eric
couldn't think of a response to
this.
Hell
was the word that came to
him.
I'm
in hell.
But he didn't say it.

 "Why
would you even care—at this point, I mean—if Stacy
and I had fucked? Why would it matter? We're trapped here. We
don't have any food.
Henrich
and Amy have both been killed. I can't find Jeff. And
Pablo—"

 He
stopped, cocked his head, listening. They all did.

 The
silence,
Eric
thought.

 Mathias
vanished back out into the rain.

 "Oh
God," Stacy moaned, hurrying after him. "Oh please
no."

 Eric
stood up, the sleeping bag still wrapped around his shoulders. He
stepped to the flap, peered toward the lean-to. Mathias was kneeling
beside the backboard; Stacy was standing behind him. The rain poured
down on both of them.

 "I'm
so sorry," Stacy kept saying. "I'm so
sorry."

 Mathias
rose to his feet. He didn't say anything; he didn't
need to. His expression of disgust as he shoved his way past Eric into
the tent was far more eloquent than any words he might've
uttered.

 Stacy
lowered herself into a crouch, the rain spattering her with mud. She
hugged her legs, began to rock back and forth. "I'm
so sorry…. I'm so sorry…. I'm
so sorry…."

 Eric
could barely make out Pablo on his backboard, beyond her, just visible
in the darkness. Motionless. Silent. While they'd argued in
the tent, while the storm had beaten down on them from above, the vine
had sent forth an emissary. A single thin tendril had wound itself
around the Greek's face, covering his mouth, his nose,
smothering him into death.

E
ven after the rain had begun
to fall, Jeff had maintained his post at the bottom of the hill. If the
Greeks had set out that morning, then it seemed possible the storm
could've surprised them on the walk in from the road. Jeff
spent some time attempting to guess how Juan and Don Quixote would
react to its arrival, whether they'd turn around and try to
flee back to
Cobá
,
or duck their heads and hurry onward. He had to admit that the latter
of these two options seemed least probable. Only if they were nearly
there, if they'd already left the main trail and were making
their way along that final, gradually uphill stretch, could he envision
them persisting through this downpour.

 He
decided he'd give them twenty minutes.

 Which
was a long time, sitting out in the open, unsheltered, with that rain
beating down upon him. The Mayans had retreated into the tree line,
were crowded together beneath their tarp. Only one of them remained in
the clearing, watching Jeff. He'd fashioned a sort of poncho
for himself, using a large plastic garbage bag, from which
he'd torn holes for his head and arms. Jeff could remember
making a similar garment once, on a camping trip, when he and his
fellow Boy Scouts had been caught unexpectedly in a two-day rainstorm.
As they'd made their way home, they'd been forced
to ford a river. It was the same one they'd crossed on their
hike into the woods, a week earlier, but it had risen dramatically
since they'd last glimpsed it. The current was fast,
chest-deep, very cold. Jeff had stripped to his underwear, floundered
across with a rope slung over his shoulder. He'd tied it to a
tree so that the others could follow, holding on to it for support. He
could remember how daring he'd believed himself to be for
attempting this feat—a hero of sorts—and he felt
slightly embarrassed by the recollection. It came to him now that
he'd spent his entire life playing at one thing or another,
always pretending that it was more than a game. But that was all it had
ever been, of course.

 The
rain fell in a steady torrent. There was thunder but no lightning. It
was nearly dark when Jeff finally checked his watch, stood up, turned
to go.

 The
trail had grown muddy, slippery with it; climbing was hard work. Jeff
kept having to stop and catch his breath. It was during one of these
pauses, as he glanced back down toward the bottom of the hill,
struggling to judge how far he'd come, that the idea of
fleeing occurred to him once more. The light had faded enough that he
could no longer see the tree line. A mist was rising from the cleared
ground, further obscuring his view. The downpour had doused the
Mayans' campfires; unless they were prepared to spend the
night standing guard almost shoulder-to-shoulder along the
jungle's margin, it seemed perfectly possible that Jeff might
find a passage through them.

 The
rain maintained its onslaught, but for the moment Jeff was hardly
conscious of it. He was famished; he was completely used up. He wanted
to go back to the tent, wanted to open the tiny can of nuts
they'd brought and parcel it out among them. He wanted to
drink from their jug of water until his stomach began to hurt; he
wanted to close his eyes and sleep. He fought against these
temptations, though—and that sense of failure, too, which
continued to cling to him, promising him yet another
disappointment—and struggled for something like hope, a
sentiment that was already beginning to feel oddly unfamiliar. He asked
himself:
Why
shouldn't it work?
Why shouldn't he be
able to creep down the hill and find the clearing deserted, the Mayans
huddling together beneath their plastic tarps, hiding from the deluge?
Why shouldn't he be able to slip past them, undetected,
vanishing into the jungle beyond? He could hide there till dawn, start
for
Cobá
at
first light. He could save them all.

 But
no—he was doing it again, wasn't he? More
foolishness, more pretending. Because wouldn't the Mayans
have anticipated something like this? Wouldn't there be
sentries waiting for him, arrows
nocked
?
And then Jeff would just have to retrace his footsteps back up the
hill, all the more tired and cold and hungry for the wasted effort.