The Travel Writer

by Jeff Soloway

  “They told us to keep the body cold,” murmured Soldán.

  The doctor opened the freezer door and glared at the two young men until they scurried inside. They emerged lugging what appeared to be a giant black plastic bag and, laboring painfully, their fingers straining from the weight, managed to lay it on the floor. It can’t be her, I thought. I had lifted her once or twice, to carry her in mock gallantry over the threshold into a hotel room, and she wasn’t that heavy.

  But then the attendant folded down the edge of the bag and leaned back, and it was her face, asleep, paler than moonlight, and like the moon mottled with dark seas. I wondered who had closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Soldán guided me to a barstool on the barricade, as far as possible from the freezer. I stared at my feet until I was ready to listen to him.

  “Let’s return to my office,” he suggested. I followed him silently, down in the elevator and through the hotel, until I found myself seated on the chair before his desk.

  “You said they found her last night,” I said. “Who found her?” I couldn’t help imagining what her body looked like under the plastic, perhaps mangled or crushed from the accident.

  “One of our drivers,” said Soldán.

  “Dionisius?”

  “No.”

  “I rode with her and Arturo, the driver, to Chuspipata. Did you know that? Then Dionisius took her in his van to speak to her. To threaten her, I think. I need to speak to both of them. With the police present. Immediately.”

  “I’m afraid Dionisius accompanied Mr. Barrientos to La Paz. They are there now. I have not seen Arturo recently. I will tell him that you want to speak to him. But there must be some confusion. I was told that yesterday Pilar drove the minivan from Chuspipata back to La Paz, where it was needed. Our minivans are often in great demand. Dionisius, on the other hand, came to the hotel. I saw him myself.”

  “But that’s not true. I saw Pilar and Dionisius drive away from Chuspipata to the hotel. They were together. She came here with him.”

  Soldán said nothing.

  “I need to talk to Arturo, with the police.”

  “I will tell him, Mr. Smalls.”

  I stood up to leave. “Where did the police go?”

  “I believe they went to have lunch while they wait for the examiner.”

  “I want a guard by my room, Soldán. Tell the police. This hotel isn’t safe for foreigners.”

  “Of course, Mr. Smalls.” He bent his head and laid his hand on his telephone. He had many responsibilities.

  “Wait,” I said. “Did they find anything on her body? Her ID? Her wallet?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have it. Her money and ID were there. Quite safe.”

  “I want to see her wallet. I’ll return it to her family. Like I said.”

  “The police may need it.… ”

  “Just let me look. To make sure.”

  He tapped his finger once on the handset, then opened a drawer in the underbelly of his desk. He passed me her wallet. There was a driver’s license, a few business cards, some cash. I bent over the open wallet, pressing it to my chest, communing with all that was left of her.

  Soldán’s phone rang, and he grabbed it before it could disturb my mourning further. He listened for a moment and swiveled halfway in his chair to murmur a series of orders. I bent further, moaning just a bit, and when my hands had dropped below the level of his desk, I slipped Pilar’s passkey into my palm. After Soldán hung up, he led me back to the lobby. I thought he might press my shoulder before he left me, but he didn’t dare.

  * * *

  Beyond the lobby there was a patio and stairs leading to the gardens. No police. I found myself descending the stairs.

  I was now free to brood without disturbance, but despite all efforts, my mind refused to stay fixed on any fact. Sorrow for the dead, a grief that had lightly brushed up against me at the Pearsons’ house, had now taken me by the throat. I couldn’t escape it; and yet, at the same time, I felt something in me had drifted away and was marveling at the transformation grief had wrought on my body. My righteous fury of just a minute ago had already subsided. Lies and conspiracy were just silly gestures in a crude, meaningless game. I wandered stupidly out of the hotel and into the gardens, and wondered why I was wandering, wondered why I was wondering. Insanity, I thought—here it comes. But it wasn’t that either.

  The orchids stuck their tongues out at me and the smooth stones of the trail battered my feet, reminding me that I was walking and not drifting on the wind. She’s gone, I tried muttering to myself, to organize my confusion, to prove to myself that I was capable of mature analysis of my loss. But my succeeding thoughts were childish: I’ll never win her back now; I’ll never touch her again; no one will ever give a shit about me again (no one worth anything, anyway); and the last stupid thing I said to her would always be my final words to her, the ones I could never take back or replace or apologize for. What were they? I couldn’t even remember.

  The higher-floating part told me to think of her, not myself, for once. So I tried: She’ll never have a thought or feeling again; no, she’s trapped underground forever; no, there’s a heaven, or at least a peace-after-death, and she’s within it. I dismissed all these possibilities several times over. Time is finished for her, I told myself, but the statement didn’t convince me—who can fathom the end of time? It was still passing for me. I was still walking. I focused on the plants passing beside me. More orchids, and banana trees, their bunches hanging like beehives; and then I had to stop where the path dead-ended at a curved wooden rail set over a ravine. An overlook. And a bench. I sat for a minute, but felt heavy and awkward, so I lay down on the stone and looked at the sky. I was grieving; I had every right to look silly. If some passerby laughed or scolded, it would give me an excuse to stand up and hit him. That might help. I envisioned myself walloping some passing jerk, and felt my face burn in imagined anger as I stared at the clouds. They were wispy and weak.

  She had been lost to me once before, when I’d heard she’d left Guilford and taken a job in Bolivia. But back then I could still hope she would change her mind about me. Now that she was dead there would be no more midnight conversations in my mind with her, no more giddy fantasies of engagements or children. Grief and absurdity and perhaps even guilt would crush my dreams. I envied Kenny, who could still cling to his futile hope.

  I stood up and started back to the hotel. I was no longer floating; now I felt every step, every burdensome pull of my muscles. I saw a cop in the lobby, slouching on one of the sofas, studying the sports pages in La Razón. Good, the reasonable portion of my mind said. I was safe as long as he and his friends were still here.

  When I reached the bed in my empty suite, I lay down and closed my eyes. There was too much light. I shut the mechanical shades and made a black hole of the room. But when I lay down and shut my eyes again, I found I could not sleep in the double darkness. Was Pilar too now lying awake in the dark, tired and alone and praying for sleep? She had gone to church as a child. Maybe she had been expecting Heaven, or fearing Hell, and was only now realizing that the darkness would be her sole companion for eternity. The worshippers at the La Paz cathedral, all the believers throughout the country, would be surprised and chagrined when they died. Everyone would, but me; only I had the foolish courage to dread the inevitable, the unending loneliness. I told myself I had to be wrong. No universe could bear the misery of anything forever, not even of a single soul.

  * * *

  Kenny entered. He closed the bedroom door behind him with a painful slowness and approached on the balls of his feet. I could see everything. After staring into the dark for an hour, my vision was as sharp as a bat’s. I flipped on the switch and let light burn over me. Kenny was standing like a captured burglar, afraid and embarrassed.

  “I wanted my book,” he explained, and forged ahead. “They told me what happened. She was your girlfriend, right?”

  “I told you. She used to be.�
��

  He pulled out the desk chair and perched himself on its edge, as if afraid I’d scream at him for getting too comfortable.

  “Well, now it’s personal,” he said. Action movies had taught him how to express his emotions, and even to console. Had anyone tried to console him after Hilary’s disappearance? For a moment, I pitied him almost as much as I pitied myself. “I thought she was cool,” he added. “You’ll have to tell me what she was really like, sometime.”

  “She was a mystery to me,” I said. “The best girlfriends are.”

  Kenny eased back an inch or two on the chair. I could see he disagreed but didn’t want to argue.

  “How are we going to handle this?” he said. “We need a plan.”

  “Not just a plan,” I said, “an action plan. Draw up a chart. First we’ll list our resources, then we’ll list the suspects in one column, our reasons for suspicion in another, then our doubts—that’ll have to be extra-wide—and then our strategies to catch each suspect red-handed, or maybe just to assassinate them without telling anybody; and then finally we’ll make a calendar with our activities for each day of the rest of the fucking month.”

  Kenny had grabbed a notepad with hotel letterhead and a pen from the desk and was busy slashing lines to bring the chart to life.

  “Isn’t it good to organize?” I said.

  He ceased his slashing, looked up at me, and tossed the pad back on the desk.

  “I saw when you came in last night. It was like five o’clock. You need to sleep.”

  “I was asleep just now before you walked in,” I lied. “I won’t be able to get back to it now. You can’t just sleep whenever you want to.”

  “You eaten anything today? How about room service? I’ll get you a burger.”

  “Do you have any idea how much room service costs in a place like this? A burger’s twenty bucks at least. They never comp room service.”

  “I’m paying,” said Kenny, with a sort of grim pride.

  I lay down and probably dozed off. I don’t think he knew to tip the server, but I do know that, at some point, I was eating a burger, and later on I must have slept again, because the next time I opened my eyes, it was dark, and when I rolled over toward the window, I saw a horde of stars above the shadowy hills.

  Chapter 24

  It was only 8:00 P.M. Kenny was once again watching a rerun of Friends. He must have memorized the schedule of the English-language channels. I told him I was going for a walk.

  The rooftop lounge was empty of Kallawayas and all but a handful of older guests, red-eyed boozers resenting their wives for dragging them so far from civilization. I ignored the bartender, who was triumphantly brandishing a bottle of Young’s, and stared out the plate glass at the stars. The light inside was kept low to enhance the view. What did people say about the stars to make them feel better? That they shone the same on rich and poor, living and dead alike; that they had existed for millions of years and seen millions of tragedies, even millions far worse than ours; that they would shine just the same after we were dead. None of the platitudes impressed me. It seemed I was the only person in the universe, and the nausea of grief was the only sensation that could possibly matter to anyone, anywhere. I remembered our first kiss, in the warm, sticky air of the jungle hut, but now in my memory Pilar’s lips were chilly and pale.

  I returned to the bar and accepted the Young’s. The bartender grinned with satisfaction in a job well done.

  As I drank, I swept my gaze again through the room. A few guests had gathered in the lounge chairs behind the bar. And one man who wasn’t a guest.

  Arturo stood and approached me, carrying a beer by the neck like a dead bird.

  “Soldán said you want to speak with me,” he said.

  “You killed her,” I said, but softly, so as not to attract the bartender. I couldn’t recall ever before having used the verb matar, except perhaps to recount the plot of a movie.

  He shook his head gently, but I could see the muscles of his neck clench. “So you discovered the secret. I had nothing to do with her death. I am sorry. She was a good friend of mine.”

  “Then Dionisius killed her.”

  Arturo said nothing. He set his beer on the bar and squeezed it with both hands. It was a Bud. Anti-American hypocrite.

  “I know the hotel officials are lying,” I said. “Or somebody lied to them. They say she drove the van alone yesterday. We—you and I—saw her get in the van with Dionisius. And they say she went back to La Paz. But I saw her here.”

  “You lied to me. Last night.”

  “I was trying to save her. You found her in the hotel?”

  “I didn’t find her,” Arturo said. “If I had, she might be alive. Someone else found her.”

  “Who?”

  He didn’t answer. I knew it was Dionisius.

  “Where did he find her? In her room?”

  “In the garage. She had just moved a car to a hidden corner. She was removing from it a change of clothes and some American food. She was clearly hiding in the hotel.”

  Perhaps she was trying to arrange it for her quick getaway the next day, I thought. Perhaps she would have taken me with her.

  “Dionisius is big but not stupid,” Arturo continued. “He knew she was attempting to betray us in some manner. He had ordered her to return to La Paz. She pretended to obey, but then came to hide in the hotel. Why? Clearly she wanted to speak to you. Dionisius assumed she knew what happened to Hilary Pearson. Perhaps she planned to tell you and claim some reward. And yesterday we discovered another lie of hers.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from imagining her in the garage, stepping out of a car when a flashlight shone in her face. I saw her backing away and trying to spin a tale to save her life, and not thinking quite fast enough. It was late, and she was tired.

  “What was the other lie?”

  “What your idiot friend told me. The security guard she recommended had been Hilary Pearson’s boyfriend. No one had known this. It was her secret. I had no alternative but to inform Barrientos. I don’t want to die myself. Pilar was involved somehow in the disappearance of Hilary Pearson.”

  I glanced at the bartender, and all the guests around us. “I’m going to tell the police everything,” I said. Let him shoot me in front of everybody and then try to explain it.

  “Tell them whatever you want,” he said. “It won’t matter a tiny bit. I, of course, will not support you. But listen to me. Whatever you do, leave this hotel now and take your friend with you, before Dionisius returns.”

  “The police know my room number. I’ve told them to guard us.”

  Arturo took a slug of his beer and twisted his torso to burp politely into his mouth.

  “Pilar was a good friend of mine,” he repeated. “You don’t believe me? It’s true. I told her to be careful and not to persist in her foolishness—a foolishness I did not understand and still don’t. Why didn’t she listen to me? You tell me that. Did she talk to you?”

  “You watched her die.”

  “I saw nothing, Yankee.”

  I saw him huddled in his car, examining the dirt under his fingernails and trying to find a better radio station while Dionisius put Pilar’s dead body in a van and pushed it off the cliff. “You could have saved her.”

  “How? She was like a dog lying down in the middle of the highway. She refused to listen to me, and she defied Dionisius.”

  “Don’t you feel anything?” I asked. “A tiny bit of guilt? Are you even human? Like I told you: you’re no better than Dionisius.”

  “Even Dionisius is human. And Pilar is guilty too. Was guilty. I advise you to leave immediately. Do not wait for the morning.”

  “If another American dies in this hotel, that will be the end of it.”

  “That is why it is in both our interests that you leave immediately.”

  I wanted to say something to impress upon him the depth of his iniquity, but nothing pithy came to mind. If only he could understand English, I thought.
I had to resort to the first dramatic phrase I could concoct.

  “If I believed in God, I would say that you would not escape his vengeance,” I said.

  “Those who pray for misery are bad Christians,” he said. “I too am a bad Christian. In my heart, I hope that all American neoliberals go to hell for keeping the southern countries poor, hungry, and without hope. Nevertheless, I am very sorry, Mr. Esmalls. But the interests of the party are paramount. Remember also that my father depends on me for his own survival. I cannot behave recklessly.”

  Behaving recklessly didn’t seem foolish to me as much as pointless. Arturo said she was found with American food and a change of clothes. I wondered what her last lonely meal had been.

  “What kind of American food was she carrying? A hamburger?” Perhaps our last meals had been the same.

  “What? No. She had a shopping bag from some gringo store. Some kind of juice, peanut butter, some bread.”

  Peanut butter? And then I understood.

  “If the hotel dies, the party will suffer,” I said.

  “The hotel will not die.”

  “It is dying right now. You know that. Its reputation has been destroyed.”

  He said nothing.

  “I know how to save the hotel,” I said.

  He rubbed his finger around the mouth of the bottle.

  “If I could prove that Hilary Pearson is alive,” I continued. “If I could show the world she was never harmed, the hotel will be forgiven completely.”

  “How do you know she’s alive? Did Pilar tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  “Nothing. Kenny knows more. Let me talk to him tonight. I’ll tell you all I found out tomorrow morning. Give me this one chance.”

  “I make no promises. If I did, Dionisius would not keep them.”

  Chapter 25

  I trolled for cops in the lobby and on the patios. There weren’t any. They had probably knocked off at five and were watching the soccer highlights in their rooms, assuming the hotel was putting them up. On my way back to the room, I passed a young cop in camouflage examining the llama prints on the walls of Tupac Amaru Way. Maybe this was our guard. As I opened the door, I glanced back to find him gazing over my shoulder into the room, looking as if, like Kenny, he wouldn’t mind running about the place turning on the gadgets.