The Price of Escape

by David Unger

  He was a cultured man. As a teenager he had sung in the Hamburg Boy’s Choir. If forced to do it, he could still play Chopin on the piano, missing just a few notes of the polonaise.

  He stretched out in his bed and fell asleep. His eyes fluttered open a few times, and he became aware of his hot pillow and the flies in his room. He dreamed of falling into a lion’s den, strangling the animal with his bare hands, but then being unable to climb out.

  When he awoke, he glanced around the room. Feathers from his pillow speckled his bed. Samuel switched on the light, trundled over to the bureau, and removed the towel covering the mirror. Quite an appearance! He had cotton stuck to his face, as if he had slept in a chicken coop. Fine lion it must have been to leave him looking like this.

  No wonder people jeered at him.

  He undressed and rushed to the bathroom, with a towel wrapped around his waist. Inside, he went over to the shower, unlatched the door, and entered. Three or four wispy spiders scurried away into the chinks of the wood. He hung his towel on a dowel outside the shower door and closed it.

  It was stuffy inside the stall. He pulled down on the chain, and a boxful of warm, sulfuric water fell over him. It must have been months since someone had showered there. He washed himself with a piece of green soap, working up a rich lather on his skin, while the water box refilled, making a throaty gurgle. Samuel repeated this several times until he was completely cleaned. His last pull on the chain brought out barely enough water to cover his face. He waited another few minutes for the box to refill, but nothing happened, so he dried off the remaining soap with his towel.

  Back in his room he packed quickly, throwing all his clothes helterskelter into his valise. Then he shaved for the first time in days using the new water from his pitcher. He put on a pair of blue trousers with double pleats in the front, an old alligator skin belt, and a white silk shirt with little wedges and brocaded buttoned cuffs. He stuffed a clean handkerchief in the left breast pocket of his camel hair coat and set it down on the bed.

  He admired himself in the mirror. He was proud that he hadn’t even nicked himself shaving; there was a fine softness and a sheen to his cheeks. When he dabbed Kolnisch Wasser on his face, his skin turned rosy. With threads of saliva, he flattened down the few unruly eyebrow hairs.

  He cocked his homburg slightly to the right of his part—riding just over his right ear—so that he looked almost like a movie star. After pulling down on his shirt cuffs, he slipped into his camel hair coat and placed his valise next to the bed—it would take no more than a few minutes to check out.

  Now he was ready for the Puerto Barrios train station.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Night settled quickly over the town, calming the throngs of blackbirds and swallows that whistled and jabbered as they circled above the palm and flamboyant trees.

  Set to conduct himself like a gentleman, Samuel approached the ticket window at the train station. The clerk was snoozing open-mouthed in a chair, with his dirty feet propped up on his desk. He did not hear Samuel tapping on the ledge.

  “Ahem,” he said, pressing his face against the bars.

  The clerk stirred. His tongue came out to wet his lips.

  “Can you help me now?”

  The man opened one eye. “What is it? I’m not a mind reader.”

  “When’s the train leaving for Guatemala City?” asked Samuel, wondering if the man even had a mind.

  The clerk lowered his feet and stared blankly at a brown card on his desk. “The train’s getting in late tonight—let’s see—and leaving at six in the morning.”

  Holding in his disappointment, Samuel said: “Very good. And must I purchase my ticket beforehand?”

  “You can buy it on the train—that way you know what you are paying for.” The clerk cleared his throat and spat on the floor behind him.

  “So when should I be here?”

  “Look, I’ve already told you when the train’s leaving. What more do you want?”

  Samuel bit down on his bottom lip; he was happy that the patient German in him was winning out. He would only quarrel with his equal.

  “How long is the ride to the capital?”

  The clerk scratched his neck and yawned. A bottle of aguardiente, half empty and corked with a dirty rag, stood in full view on a shelf behind him. Thirst seemed to tug at the man’s throat—he looked as if he wanted nothing more than to swill down some more liquor and doze until the train trundled in.

  “The tracks are in bad shape near Zacapa from the earthquake we had two years ago. Normally it takes twelve hours, but it could take a day.”

  “I see,” Samuel replied, again hiding his disappointment. He carefully went down the platform steps and stopped at the bottom. Glancing up, he saw stars in the airless black sky.

  In less than twelve hours he would escape this nightmare. But what if a worse nightmare awaited him in Guatemala City? Nothing had been as he expected, and he would need all his wits to survive.

  But he would get by, even if it meant stooping to wash dishes, sweep floors, or take tickets at a movie theater in a sweltering town named Escuintla. The worst was behind him.

  The moon shone brightly. Here and there a lone firefly sparkled like a flitting gem before vanishing into the saw grass. Toward his right, he could see shadows snapping at the doorways of the slat-board houses in town.

  He knew Puerto Barrios was pestilent, but as an act of defiance, he wanted the townspeople to see him dressed elegantly, to show them he had not capitulated, much less been defeated. He wouldn’t be like a dog limping off with his tail tucked between his legs. In fact, he even relished the idea of running into the tiny Mr. Price.

  So he headed toward the center of town. After walking less than a few hundred feet, the road sloped up and then leveled where the shacks began. At the first one, he tipped his hat to a group of Caribs sitting on a wooden porch and they waved back to him. As he moved along, the huts bunched together. Samuel could see that they were miserable wooden hovels, neither screened nor sealed, with corrugated tin sheets for roofs. The smell of wood burning and pungent stews widened his nostrils, tightening his stomach like a wrench.

  The feeling of hunger was familiar, like the one he’d felt during those delirious hours in the Belgian forest when he had no other choice but to wait for death to overtake him. He had stayed conscious by cataloging merchandise that he might have ordered for one of his father’s stores: ten dozen Martin belts from London; forty embroidered silk handkerchiefs from Finland; thirty boxes of bon-bons from Di Capio’s in Rome; three dozen umbrellas from Apinal. He had become so confused, he remembered, that eventually the Martin belts were from Finland and the umbrellas from Rome—he had mixed up the quantities as well—but the only thing that mattered was staying awake. When he couldn’t repeat the orders anymore because his brain had almost ceased to function, he chewed on a pinecone he had found in the snow to remain conscious. He bit down on the wooden bits as if he could somehow squeeze nutrition out of them. And around him, his blood had begun to ooze from his uniform and jacket and turn the snow into a red marbled tomb …

  At the intersection, Samuel veered right. On the corner stood the wooden Palace Hotel: six floors of rooms and a façade of painted half-nude women. The hotel and all its windows had been boarded up, but there was an open cantina on the ground floor.

  Samuel peered in, craning his neck beyond the folding accordion screen that had been put up to block the view of curious interlopers. He saw several round tables with fat candles on them and pine needles carpeting the floor. He heard lots of laughter and the scratchy sounds of an old record on a turntable.

  A fleshy woman in a yellow shift and open sandals came to the doorway and looked out. She ran her eyes over Samuel, deepening her stare. Casually she fiddled with the straps of her dress until one shoulder was bare. She then leaned against the accordion partition, still playing with her strap.

  Samuel watched her hungrily. The woman coiled her tongue out of
her mouth and threaded it along her red lips before straightening up and placing a hand squarely on one of her shapely hips—she was challenging him to give in to his desires.

  As the music tempo inside slowed, her free hand snaked down her throat to the neck of her dress, her rounded belly, settling on her crotch like a brown starfish.

  Samuel’s groin stirred. His palms grew wet and he began sweating as the woman let her fingers rub softly against her dress. He wanted to leave, but found himself drawing closer to the woman, like an iron filing to a magnet. When she slipped her right foot out of her sandal and stroked her other leg with the sole of her foot, he thought he was going to explode.

  Samuel was nearly upon her when the music wound down and stopped, though the record continued spinning. The scratching needle pulled him from his dreamlike state, slowly chilling his desire.

  The woman seemed suddenly unnerved. Had she also heard the record creaking? She was reaching out to touch Samuel’s arm when a crash sounded from inside, followed by lots of loud talk and laughter. Someone changed the record, and several sassy trumpets blared loudly as a new song started playing.

  Si nos dejan,

  Nos vamos a querer toda la vida.

  Si nos dejan,

  Nos vamos a vivir a un mundo nuevo.

  Yo creo que podemos ver

  El nuevo amanecer

  De uno nuevo día,

  Yo pienso que tú y yo podemos ser felices todavía …

  It was a lovely ranchera, sung by a man and a woman, about loving one another for the rest of their lives, if only people would leave them alone. A new dawn was coming, a new day, and happiness would be theirs …

  Swept up by the music, Samuel closed his eyes and began taking steps backward. When he opened them again, the woman was next to him with her dress gathered in her hand around her navel. She wasn’t wearing underwear so he stared at her black pubis and her flabby thighs. She grabbed him, pulled his face close to hers, and kissed him on the mouth. He allowed himself to be kissed, his thoughts drifting to Lena.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the aging prostitute in front of him. Without a glance or a word, Samuel turned around to leave. The woman dropped her dress, stepped out of her shoes, and walked quickly after him. She caught his left arm and twisted him around. He tried to push her away, but she was strong and pressed her open mouth against his for a second time, placing his hands on her breasts.

  “Let go of me!” Samuel yelled, grabbing his hat as it fell away from his head. He stared into her face and saw jagged teeth gaping out of her mouth. Once more she reached for him, and this time her mouth missed his lips as he was turning away, and she ended up biting his chin.

  He struck her blindly in the face.

  “Beto! Beto!” the woman shrieked, falling backward on the ground.

  As she lay there, Samuel touched his chin—he wasn’t bleeding, but he could still feel her teeth marks. Still, he went over to help her up. When he pulled her up by the arms, she began laughing hysterically with the same force and brusqueness of Mr. Price.

  He let go of her and she fell again, tossing her head backward in laughter. “Just my luck! Going after a fag!”

  “Please, you’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re saying.” Samuel tried to shush her by putting a hand over her mouth.

  “Don’t touch me, you queer!” she screamed, standing back up. “Beto, Ricardo, Joaquín, I’ve got a queer here!”

  She lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his waist to hold him.

  Samuel heard chairs shifting and footsteps approaching. He wrenched himself free and tucked his hat under his arm. He started running back in the direction from which he had come, but changed his mind because the revelers from the Palace Hotel bar had come out to the doorway, laughing and drinking.

  He continued running down the narrowing road. He refused to slacken his pace till he was in the brush and his body had melted into the darkness. He stopped to listen and faintly heard voices bellowing behind him. He glanced back and saw the outline of trees against the road and the moon in the sky hovering above them like a huge spotlight. He dashed through a small settlement of houses with palm leaves for roofs and fences made from bound reeds. He could smell the aroma of food cooking, he wanted to enter a hut—any hut—and share the simple meal he would be offered.

  He was so hungry. His legs ached and his lungs felt nearly on fire. He wanted to rest on the side of the road, but each time he slowed down, a dog’s bark or a hooting owl changed his mind. It was only when he was immersed in the chorus of frogs and insects, and there were no more lights to be seen, that he slowed to a trot and finally stopped.

  He took off his coat and folded it over his arm. It, like his shirt, was soaked through with sweat. His legs shimmied, almost buckled under his weight, as if he had been galloping for days through a forest. He limped over to an uprooted trunk just off the gravel road and sat down.

  Samuel felt humiliated—never had he been so crudely slurred, especially by a woman. He was disgusted at himself for having, well, nibbled at her bait and not seen what was coming.

  Lena would have found this whole seduction scene tawdry. But who was Lena to approve or disapprove? Samuel shook his head: why was he allowing a memory of love to have a say in his present life? Maybe this state of exhaustion was finally allowing him to admit that Lena’s departure had been more painful than he had previously wanted to acknowledge. He had become a kind of self-contained vagabond, unable and unwilling to become emotionally engaged in anything.

  Taking deep breaths, his tension began to ease. He tried orienting himself with what little light the moon supplied through the dense foliage, but he had no idea how he had ended up where he was. He blinked a few times trying to dislodge the image of the prostitute seducing him. Then he saw a streetlight down the road—was that even possible in Puerto Barrios?

  Samuel pushed himself up from the trunk and started walking stiffly. The uphill climb out of the dip in the jungle made his legs ache again. He threw his coat over his shoulder and bent down to massage his calves. What a warm bubble bath would do! He then stood up and continued walking as the road flattened out. In some strange way, he had circled back around and was again entering Puerto Barrios.

  Below the streetlight was a concrete building with a red hand-scribbled sign nailed above the doorway: Comedor Pekyn. An old black Packard was parked in front under a jocote tree.

  Samuel lingered at the doorway, letting the pungent odors blowing out of the restaurant tickle his throat. His mouth filled with saliva—what he would give for a delicious meal and an ice-cold pilsner.

  He put his coat back on, pressed his hat down on his head, and walked in through a red-beaded curtain.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Samuel stood still, widening his eyes for a second till they adjusted to the bright lights. Across the dining room he saw a barrel-shaped Chinese woman in a full-body white apron sliding pots on a stove. At almost the same moment, the cook glanced at Samuel and waved him in.

  Three men sat hunched at one end of a large table that took up almost half the restaurant. Away from them, toward the table’s center, there were empty rum bottles, several plates piled with leftover noodles, a mix of glasses. It was only when he sat down at a table near the entrance that he saw a Chinese family of four sitting across the dining room toward the back.

  Because of the steady hum of a generator, no one else had noticed Samuel come in. He laid his arms across the table, making it creak. The conversation of the men stopped and one of them looked toward him. Samuel flashed a polite smile and raised his hat to wave. The men looked impassively at him, till one of them nudged the others and they all turned toward him. The man was slender and wore a pencil mustache. He whispered something to the man next to him, who then laughed and nodded.

  This man walked over to him. He looked vaguely familiar to Samuel. “Señor, won’t you join us for a drink at our table?” he asked in Spanish.

  “Thank you, but I
only came to see what this place was,” Samuel stammered, getting up.

  The man stretched out an arm and stopped him. “Very few foreigners make it to these parts of town, and even fewer to our table. It’s my birthday. I would be honored if you would join us for the celebration.”

  Samuel stared at the man. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with large slow eyes. Though he smiled, Samuel could tell that it wasn’t easy for him—it was a false smile. His breath reeked of alcohol and tobacco. At first, Samuel ransacked his mind for some ploy to get out of this invitation, but ended up giving in—what could he possibly have to lose?

  “Yes, of course.” He took off his hat and placed it on a nearby chair.

  The two other men clapped and whistled when Samuel sat down at the head of the table; he couldn’t tell if they were welcoming him or congratulating the thin man with the mustache for having gotten him to join them. One of them looked a lot like the thin man—probably his brother—though taller, with less hair and eyes a bit too small for such a long head. The third man was fat and had large glasses perched on his nose, which hid much of his otherwise bland face. While the two brothers were casually dressed, this man wore green overalls.

  Samuel grew nervous. The man who had fetched him raised a bottle high in the air, letting a stream of yellow liquid splash into his glass. His two friends applauded vigorously.

  “Thank you, thank you. One of my humblest tricks.” He filled a clean glass in the same manner and slid it in front of Samuel. “Your name, my elegant friend?”

  Samuel hesitated.

  “Well,” said the fat man, turning to his friends, “maybe our friend doesn’t really speak Spanish. Or perhaps he’s forgotten his own name.”

  “No to both questions. I speak Spanish perfectly. I’m Rodolfo, Rodolfo Fuchs …”

  The thin man extended his right hand. “I’m Hugo Alvarez—the Puerto Barrios taxi driver.” He flicked a finger toward his car parked outside. “And this guy who has spent ten years trying to grow a mustache is my big brother Menino. And this scholarly fat boy over here is Guayo Ortiz, a good friend, a brother. Once a year, on my birthday, they come back to the town of our birth for a reunion. Tonight, my dear Mr. Fuchs, is the night.”