WE HAVE BEEN in the city for three weeks. There are rumours that the political situation in the country is deteriorating. I ask you, once again, to change the channel on the television. You say nothing and I ask again and you say, why?
I say, to watch the news, I want to see about the political situation.
You say, why do you care? They don’t report it anyway.
You are right, of course, and I say nothing.
You will not leave our room. You say the altitude makes you sick. You say that the thin air makes you so sick you have to lie on the bed all day and smoke cigarettes and watch TV. You say you know what’s out there anyway, there are too many hills to climb. It reminds you of San Francisco.
I am surprised. I say, have you ever been to San Francisco?
You say, I haven’t.
I say, how can it remind you of San Francisco if you haven’t ever been to San Francisco?
I haven’t been there, you say, but I know what it looks like. You point out the window. That’s what it looks like, you say.
You say you are not leaving this room until Ramiro comes and then you are leaving this room.
When is Ramiro coming? I say.
Soon, you say, but you always say that.
I say, I have been to San Francisco. It doesn’t remind me of San Francisco.
We met a month ago in the south of the country. You told me I had beautiful arms. I believe you only said it because it is something someone once said to you and you liked it.
You had beautiful arms and astonishing eyes, and seemed to me very exotic. It was hard to know what was in it for you but I was not foolish enough to ask.
You told me you liked the way our skin looked together, yours dark and mine pale, like different kinds of corn, you said. Now that I have been in the sun for longer the contrast is not so great but you have not remarked upon it.
You are not from this country but you are from the same continent and speak the same language. You said you loved your country with its great rivers and endless skies and you wished you could show it to me. You said you loved your continent and were proud of it, despite its troubles. You said the whole continent was your country and all its people your people.
I said I wanted to learn your language and you called me your gringo burro and said you would teach me and we made love.
The bank is cool and quiet. The clerk holds my last traveller’s cheque up to the light. He looks at me over his spectacles and asks me to sign it. He files it away and opens the till. I ask him if he thinks the political situation in the country is very bad.
Tens or twenties, he says.
Excuse me? I say, in his language.
The money, tens or twenties?
Tens, I say, it’s easier. He does not smile.
On the way back to the hotel I suddenly see what you mean about San Francisco, the hills, the cars, the wires that hang like vines across the street.
When I get back to the room you say, Ramiro phoned.
I say, he did? You are lying on the bed, watching the soap opera. I find it hard to believe you have moved to speak to someone on the phone.
You say, yes, he did.
So are we leaving? I say.
You say, not yet, there has been a delay.
Again, I say. I say, what is the delay?
You say, Ramiro says everything is fine. He says we should relax and enjoy his country.
I do not tell you how the city reminded me of San Francisco.
We had been in the city for one day when you said, the best thing about this town is that cigarettes last forever.
You had bought cocaine, from Ramiro, and we were in our room, doing it. You timed how long it took you to smoke a cigarette. You estimated that it was 50 per cent longer than normal. That’s value for money, you said.
You said, the cigarette companies can’t have realised otherwise they would have put something in them to make them burn faster. You said it felt good to be getting one over on the cigarette companies and you would smoke as many as you could before they cottoned on.
Or you die, I said.
Or that, you said.
You did more cocaine and so did I and I said that I had an idea for Smokers Holidays to the city. Come to Beautiful ——— , where cigarettes last twice as long.
You were standing on the bed. This is what it’s like smoking on the moon, you said. You were waving your cigarette in your hand, getting carried away. You said, imagine what it would be like to smoke a cigarette on the moon.
You took a drag on your cigarette. You looked at it and you laughed. I said, the worst thing about this town is that cigarettes sometimes go out.
There are always people in the hotel reception. They watch TV. It is always the same soap opera that is on, the same one that you watch. I do not understand what the actors are saying but I am beginning to recognise the characters. The people in reception don’t speak much. I try to ask them about the political situation and they snigger at my attempts. Once, when I sneezed, they laughed hysterically. They held their heads and rocked in their chairs. They couldn’t stop.
I say to you, why don’t the people in reception like me?
You laugh and say, because you are gringo burro.
Of course, I say, I am the gringo donkey. But why don’t they like me?
You say, because you always ask them about the political situation.
In the time we have been in the hotel many other tourists have come and gone. We have met a number of them. One man, a Russian, we met before in the south of the country. He was always eating fruit. You could not stand him. When we arrived in the hotel he was there, in reception.
He didn’t say, hello, he said, I’m in love. His hands ran with the juice of a papaya. It was smeared in his goatee beard. He said, isn’t this town something? I’m in love, this town is really something.
We met him a month ago. Since we have known him he has been in love with many different women. His idea of love was to see someone he would like to sleep with. He had been in love with you too, once.
Another man at the hotel had an accent it was hard to place. It had streaks of everywhere in it. He asked me if I played chess and I said, yes, a little. We played in the courtyard.
He said the people in the room next to him made a lot of noise at night, he thought they might be criminals of some kind. He had no problem with fornicators, he said, as long as he didn’t have to listen to them. He said, I guess you can’t choose your neighbours, huh? He said, you get what you’re given, right?
He did not concentrate on the game. He wanted to talk. He had been travelling for years and had complaints about everywhere he’d been. In this country he didn’t like the small bananas that tasted like apples. He said, if I buy a banana, I want it to taste like a banana, right?
I moved my queen. Check, I said.
He looked at the board. It’s checkmate, he said, in his funny everywhere accent.
Is it? I said. I didn’t realise.
He said, don’t you know how to play? It’s checkmate. Don’t you know how to play?
Ramiro knows everyone in the city. He knows the people in reception. This is one of the things that makes me nervous.
You met him in reception the day we arrived and he invited us to a bar he had just opened. We were new in town so we went to the bar in the evening. It wasn’t much of a place. There was no one else there and he made a great fuss of us. He gave us drinks and taught us dice games that only local people knew. The games were not very good but the drinks were strong and everyone had a good time.
We surprised ourselves by telling Ramiro about our love affair. We were embarrassed when we told him we had only known each other for a month but he said it was unimportant and that love was love, if it were one day or fifty years. He said he believed in love and it made him feel good to hear about other people’s.
We told him about our plan to build a bar and some cottages at a place that you knew on the coast of your country that was wild and unspoiled. You had uncles that could help us with the building and the business side. The only problem, we said, was that we would need money, but we believed in it and everything else would take care of itself.
Ramiro was delighted with us. He said we were beautiful lovers and that when we married he would expect to be invited and he would come. Then he was sad. He said that he had been married. It was when he was in the air force. He was married and he had a child but they were killed in circumstances that he couldn’t bring himself to tell us about. Then he stopped being sad and poured more drinks. He said he had friends all over the country and we must tell him whatever we needed and he would help us.
That is when you asked him if he knew where we could buy some cocaine. He said, of course, for two lovers such as yourselves it will be no problem.
I lie on the bed. I lie on the bed and try to concentrate on the soap opera. There is a lot of dark wood in the houses and it looks like the 1970s. Nothing ever happens outside. I do not understand what the people are saying but it is not hard to follow the story. The characters are passionate people with quivering lips. There are many tense pauses and the storylines are always about betrayal. The actors have lighter skin than the people on the street in the city. They do not seem to suffer from altitude sickness.
Are you feeling any better? I ask you.
No, you say, no better.
I say, the altitude did not affect you at first.
Not at first, no, do you think I am lying?
No, I say, I don’t think you’re lying.
A cigarette lasts 50 per cent longer than normal, you say. That’s how much less oxygen there is. That’s how much less air I am getting. No wonder I feel bad.
I say, I’m not sure that follows.
Gringo burro, you say.
I say, if Ramiro does not come soon we will have no money left.
I no longer talk to you about the political situation.
What I know I know from hearing bits of conversation around the city. On street corners and in shops I hear the words for soldiers and rebels and beatings and disappearances. I know the words for these things, the sound of them is satisfying, but I do not know the little words that surround them and give them meaning. I try to talk to people when I hear them say these words but I cannot make myself understood. They look blank and ask, in my language, do I like their country, and I say, yes, it’s very beautiful.
When you are on the toilet or in the shower I switch the TV over to the news. There are reports of strange accidents and natural disasters that do not quite add up. Once, very early in the morning, I went out for a walk. I saw convoys of trucks carrying troops leaving the city, heading south.
The man with the voice from everywhere comes to our door. He is holding the chessboard and wants to play. He is trying to get a good look into the room. I look over at you, lying on the bed, and I say, yes, I’ll play.
He says, over my shoulder, talking to you, he says, you can play the winner.
I close the door. She’s sick, I say. Anyway, she doesn’t play.
We sit down in the courtyard and set up the game.
He says, so she’s sick, huh? I nod.
Everyone gets sick, he says. That’s the way life goes, right?
The Russian walks out of reception and into the courtyard. He has a mango in each hand. He pulls up a chair and starts to cut into the fruit. I’m in love, he says.
The man with the voice makes mistakes. I take his queen. He makes a face like it was a great move.
He says, I concede, right? Sometimes you just have to concede. You want another game? he says. I shake my head and he picks up the board. He goes back into his room, the one next to mine and yours. The table is covered in slime from the mangoes.
I’m in love, says the Russian.
We stopped going to Ramiro’s bar two weeks ago. He said it was better that way. Since then you have been sick and have had to lie on the bed smoking cigarettes and watching TV. Ramiro calls on the phone, sometimes, and speaks to you. I do not understand the conversations. You talk very fast and I wonder if it is deliberate. After you put the phone down you light a cigarette and I say, well?
You say, everything is fine. There has been a delay.
You do not look at me, you talk to the TV.
I say, how long?
A couple of days, you say. You say, everything is fine, Ramiro says hello.
Last week I suggested we leave the city for a few days. I said we could go to another town, down towards the jungle. It would be a change and you might not feel so sick, I said.
Changes in altitude do terrible things to my ears, you said. We would only have to come back, you said. You said, Ramiro says it could be any time, we should be ready to leave. This is your best argument and it is not a very good one.
Now we have a hotel bill that we cannot pay. Now we have no money and could not leave even if you wanted to.
You refuse to teach me your language. You say I only want to understand so that I can ask about the political situation. I ask you what is wrong with that and you shrug and say, if you really wanted to learn you would watch the soap opera, it is really very good.
You are not from this country but you are from the same continent and speak the same language. You are sneering about the people here. You say they have no culture. You say that even the soap opera is filmed in your country and I am surprised because you have never thought to mention it before.
I have become wary of Ramiro’s promises. I have become wary of his promises and I try to tell you this but it makes you angry as I knew it would.
He is trying to help us, you say. He believes in us and he is trying to help us.
I say, but now the political situation is deteriorating. We do not know who works for the authorities.
You say, you did not care about the political situation at first.
I say, you were not sick at first.
You say, you are obsessed with the political situation.
Do you want to fuck Ramiro? I say.
You say, you think everyone is working for the authorities.
I say, are you fucking Ramiro?
The man with the voice from everywhere and I play chess in the courtyard. The Russian is sitting with us. He is using a long knife to dissect a pineapple but he does not speak. The man with the voice does not like how they weigh your food in restaurants and you pay accordingly. He says, why don’t I like it? I have my own way, right? Everybody has their own way, he says.
Four men are dressed in green and are talking to the people in reception. They are carrying guns and are either soldiers or police.
The man from everywhere moves his queen and says, it’s not the money. I have money in the bank. You know what I’m saying, I don’t have to worry.
The men in green come over to where we are sitting, the Russian, the man from everywhere and me. They say something to the Russian then pull him up by his shoulders. They walk him out towards reception. The Russian hides the pineapple behind his back.
The man from everywhere shrugs his shoulders. He knocks over his king and says, I concede, right? You want another game?
I have many friends, Ramiro had said.
I have been thinking about your plan, he said, and I want to help you. I want to help you because I like you, because you are lovers, and I was a lover once.
We were drunk and had not slept for days and still it did not seem like a good idea.
Trust me, you said.
I don’t know, I said. For one thing, there is the political situation to think of.
There is always that, you said, but trust me.
I don’t know, I said.
You held out your beautiful arms and touched me. You said, perhaps you were not serious about our plan? You smiled and fixed me with your astonishing eyes. You said, perhaps you were not serious about the bar and the cottages and the wild unspoiled coast? You lay down next to me, your skin still dark against mine.
You said, quietly, perhaps you were not serious when you said you loved me?
Ramiro phones and says everything is ready. You tell me that this is what he says. You tell me that you are too sick to go. You say that you have already told Ramiro that I will be going alone.
Someone comes to the hotel to pick me up. I had been expecting Ramiro. In the courtyard the Russian and the man from everywhere are sharing a bunch of bananas, the small kind that taste like apples. They do not notice me. In reception there are three people watching TV. The soap opera is on.
We drive up, out of the city. I talk to the man who is not Ramiro but we cannot understand each other. I can remember some of the words you taught me but not how to put them together. We drive up and I can taste the thinness of the air and I think it is as well that you have not come, it would only have made you sick.
After two hours the driver stops the car. He shakes my hand and waits for me to open the door and get out. He shouts something out of the window as he pulls away. It sounds familiar but I do not catch it. I watch the clouds of dust that blow up behind the car for a long time after it has disappeared from view, thinking about what it is he might have said.
There is nothing but bare mountains and stones. I think that this is what the moon must look like. The sun is bright but I am shivering with the cold. Nothing moves in the air, it is empty, pressed up against the sky. I try to light a cigarette but cannot get a flame. I think of you, lying on our bed. I wonder what is happening in the soap opera, if you are even watching it.
From a long way off I see clouds of dust and, behind them, a truck approaching.
I feel dizzy, a little sick. I try to light a cigarette but it is hopeless. It is not until the truck is nearly upon me that the thin air lets me hear the sound it makes.