The Price of Escape

by David Unger

  Samuel shook their hands. The cook in the white apron drew up to take his order. Apparently he had been watching them from afar, waiting for a break in the conversation to approach.

  Menino grabbed the cook’s arm. “Mr. Fuchs, have you met Chino yet? Chino, say hello to Mr. Fuchs.”

  “Hello, Mr. Fuchs.”

  Menino slapped the cook’s back. “I never feel quite at home here in Puerto Barrios till I’ve seen Chino. I’m a gentleman compared to a parrot like him. Chino, you’d eat my shit if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?”

  The cook—obviously not understanding—rocked on the balls of his feet. “Eat shit, eat shit,” he repeated happily.

  “Nod!” Menino ordered.

  The cook bobbed his head up and down, wiping his hands on his apron.

  “Good, Chino, good boy. I wish I had a bone for you. Now tell our guest what’s on the menu.”

  The cook recited four or five incomprehensible items and stopped. Samuel glanced around at the half-finished dishes piled high with suey and noodles. “Do you have soup?”

  “Chicken.”

  “Good. And some bread, if you have it.”

  “No bread, no bread,” replied the cook.

  “Bring him some johnnycakes,” Guayo suggested.

  “No johnnycakes. Woman try bring cakes with no coco. I say no coco, no cake. Want tortilla?”

  “Yes, that’ll be fine,” Samuel answered.

  “And make it quick,” Menino added. “The man’s hungry. Can’t you see it on his face?”

  The cook nodded quickly three or four times and went back to the kitchen.

  Hugo turned to Samuel. “Your face looks familiar to me. I’ve seen you before.”

  Samuel pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his sweating face. He half-looked at the taxi driver—For the love of God, I hope he wasn’t on the boat to Livingston—and shook his head. “You must be mistaken.”

  “No, I don’t make mistakes.” Hugo smiled. “I forget many things, but not faces. I have lots of time to watch things and so I am a good observer of life … Aha! I know where I saw you! Last night—you came off the pier with that stupid dwarf, no?”

  “Just after sundown,” Samuel volunteered.

  “You passed by my car and I asked you if you needed a ride into town. Remember? Price was carrying your bag.”

  “I remember passing a car.” What Samuel recalled was the swastika on the back window. He suddenly felt weak.

  “Do you work for the Company?” Guayo asked.

  “No,” Samuel answered, clasping his glass. He had lied about his name, good, that had been a smart move. But he had to be careful how he constructed his other lies. “I came to Panama on the Hamburg-Amerika line a few days ago. Fortunately, a cargo ship was heading to Guatemala. I hope to stay in Puerto Barrios another day or two and then go to Guatemala City. I have a job waiting for me there.”

  “Well, in that case, I propose a toast to our new friend. Are you German?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have great respect for Germany. Salud to Mr. Fuchs. Long live the new Germany!”

  “Salud!”

  “Salud!”

  “Long live the Third Reich!”

  Samuel touched all their glasses faking a smile. “¡Salud, amor, y pesetas—y el tiempo para gozarlos!”

  The three friends smiled. Menino leaned over and slapped Samuel on the back. “Bravo! Spoken like a true poet!”

  “It’s just a toast I learned while visiting Spain.”

  “You know,” Guayo began, “I can give you a ride to the capital day after tomorrow. I came here to see my father and pick up some engine parts for my boss’s truck. Maybe you’d like to visit Quirigua with Hugo tomorrow. He’s not only a taxi driver, but also a tourist guide. He knows his stuff.” Guayo’s cheeks filled with color and he glanced at his childhood friend, proud to have made a plug for him.

  “Sure,” said Hugo. “I’m free tomorrow—as I am most days now! Quirigua has just been discovered. There are these huge carved stones that weigh at least five thousand kilos each. Imagine our ancestors moving those gigantic stones! With their bare hands!”

  “We shall see,” Samuel said cautiously. “I need to send a few more telegrams tomorrow. I’m quite anxious to take up my new position in Guatemala City.”

  “You’ll like the capital,” Menino said. “Full of prospectors and investors, most of them foreigners. Quite a few of your German countrymen. New roads being paved, new buildings going up every day. And President Ubico has begun building the biggest central park in the Americas—”

  “With the biggest palace,” Guayo chuckled.

  “Yes, Ubico is building the National Palace across from the Cathedral, which will be the largest in all Central America. It will be made of green marble, each stone weighing a kilo, and he is importing tiles from Morocco and Tunisia. And then he’s going to build a thirty-room house—”

  “Just for him and his wife. A private residence! And, of course, another resting place for all his ex-girlfriends.”

  All three friends laughed together. Samuel laughed with them.

  “Did you find that funny, Rodolfo?” Menino asked, challenging him to refute what he observed.

  “A little,” Samuel confessed.

  “You laughed.”

  Samuel reddened. “I laugh when others laugh.”

  Menino arched his brow. “Laughter is an expression of solidarity. I like that, Fuchs! Well, you look like a man with a sense of humor. But you explain it, Hugo. You’re a better storyteller than me.”

  Hugo shook his head. “I pass to our historian friend at my left.”

  Guayo’s red cheeks lit up. He scanned the room, shrugging his shoulders at the Chinese family, then inched closer to Samuel. He pushed up his glasses, which made him appear less baby-faced. “Well, he did build a new residence on the Avenida Reforma. Then we heard that our President Ubico was constructing a new structure inside the Municipal Cemetery for all his old friends—they would be transported in pickup trucks. But no one could figure out why trucks full of bricks were going to the Municipal Cemetery, dumping their load, and coming out empty. Ubico loves big buildings, so maybe he was planning to build a bank or a hospital in the cemetery. But now we know that he was building Guatemala’s first mausoleum to be called the Recently Dead Apartments. Once you move in, you can stay for life. It’s a private complex, so you can only move in by invitation. Priority is given to his old girlfriends, Communists, lawyers, and unionists, but also students—they’re all dying to get in!”

  The three friends sprawled open-armed on the table, laughing hysterically. An ashtray and a glass fell to the floor and broke. The cook shuffled out of the kitchen and began cursing under his breath in Chinese. Samuel bent down to pick up the broken pieces of glass and ceramic, but Menino stopped him.

  “Let Chino do it.” He knocked several of the plates on the floor, shattering them. When the cook cursed some more, louder now, Menino grabbed an empty rum bottle by the neck and threatened him with it.

  “A la chingada!” Menino shouted.

  The cook threw up his arms and went into the kitchen. Everyone was laughing, except Samuel.

  Guayo caught his horrified expression. “Relax, Fuchs, you shouldn’t look so worried. Seriously.” He gently touched Samuel on the hand. “Menino and Chino have been going at it like this for years. Chino is used to the breaking of dishes. We end up paying for them.”

  “What about the police?”

  Guayo shook his head. “The old saying is that walls have ears. It’s true, but in Puerto Barrios they don’t understand Chinese!”

  “Now you’re talking, cousin!” Menino winked, poured himself another shot of rum, and passed the bottle around. “Do you like our president, Rodolfo?”

  “I know nothing about him.” Samuel took a drink from the rum, and winced.

  “The best thing about him is that he is sympathetic to your country, Germany, and to General Franco. The problem is that
he loves money and himself more than his values and ideas. I propose a toast—to his death!”

  “To his death,” his brother repeated.

  “To his death,” Guayo said softly.

  The three friends lifted their glasses. “We’re waiting for our German friend to join us.”

  “But I don’t know anything about him.”

  “We rise and fall together. That is our motto. To his death, Rodolfo!”

  “To his death,” Samuel whispered.

  The four men clinked glasses and drank. Then the three friends locked arms across the table as if making a secret pact and drank again. Samuel, for his part, tried to appear disinterested, though he worried about having joined in the toast. What did he know about Guatemalan politics? He hungered to be in a country where no one bothered you if you went about your business, whether you were a gentile or a Jew. He hadn’t come to Guatemala to be enmeshed in more political messes.

  How was he going to leave?

  He recalled that Alfred Lewis had several times condemned union agitators and hailed Ubico for knowing how to handle troublemakers, once his hands were greased. But what did Samuel care about politics? Let a man work and eat in peace.

  Samuel was afraid to say this aloud. As it was, he had already compromised his impartiality by toasting Ubico’s death. If anyone else had heard him, this pledge could be held against him.

  Menino poured the dregs of the rum bottle into each of their glasses. “Chino!” he yelled. “Where’s this man’s soup? Are you plucking the goddamn chicken? Bring us another bottle of rum—and may the Chinese devil get you if you don’t hurry up.”

  The cook shuffled around in the kitchen for a few seconds and then trotted to their table clutching a bottle without a label.

  “What the hell is this, Chino? I asked you for a bottle of rum, not pisswater.”

  “That all I got. Commissary say no more ron. All ron go to Guatemala City.”

  Menino thumped his fist on the table. “Chino, how can you be so stupid to believe that?”

  Guayo touched his friend’s arm. “Easy, Mino. This is a celebration, remember. Let’s not spoil it arguing with Chino. You know that his head’s thicker than a brick.” He looked at the cook. “You sure you don’t have any more Botrán hidden away? Menino can get very, very angry, you know!”

  Samuel offered him his glass. “You can have the rest of mine.”

  Menino nodded his head. “Chino, don’t trick me.”

  The cook shook his head. “No ron. No ron. I try for three days now. Just aguardiente. No more ron!”

  Menino pulled on his mustache. He was tired, and the whites of his eyes had yellowed like the skin of a papaya. He snatched the bottle of aguardiente from the cook and uncorked it with his teeth.

  The cook bowed to Samuel. “I bring you soup now.”

  As Chino went back into the kitchen, Menino filled the glasses. “Hugo, for the life of me, I don’t understand why you continue to stay in this shitty town. There’s nothing left here but trash. You should come back with me and stay on my farm. And you can drive your taxi in Huehuetenango. Clean air, brother, clean mountain air, not this gooey lard that sticks to your lungs! No gringos and no bananas. You can hunt wildcat or boars in the Cuchumatanes. A life of your own—you aren’t obliged to serve anyone, not even your big brother.

  “My garlic farm is thriving. And I grow all the food I need. Huge heads of lettuce, tomatoes like soccer balls, avocados that drop at your feet. Artichokes. Why stay here, brother? Frankly, I don’t understand it.”

  “Maybe he stays here for the negras,” Guayo broke in, laughing, pushing up his glasses.

  Hugo brought his glass to his sad mouth, hung his upper lip over it, and slurped a drink. “Things will get better, you’ll see. Like before, when we all lived here. Alfred Lewis says the Company is about to build a new factory here to make high-quality vinegar from the overripe bananas—”

  “And you believe that hypocrite who hates you and every drop of Indian blood in your body?”

  Hugo swallowed another mouthful of his drink, puckered his face, and coughed. Despair, like a sleepy moth, hovered in his eyes. He stared into space, focusing on nothing, tapping his glass with his silver ring.

  “You have to believe in something,” Guayo offered, in defense of his friend.

  “Guayo, you know nothing about life. Stick to your books!”

  “But cousin—”

  “Don’t cousin me, you fat ape! You know nothing of nothing. You’re like Hugo, always bolstering your dead dreams. Open your eyes, Guayo. Look around you. What do you see? Do I have to remind you what happened?”

  “There’s enough hot air in here tonight, Mino,” his brother said.

  Menino glared at Hugo. “You never want to hear about it, do you?”

  “And you never get tired of repeating it. I’ve heard the same lousy story a thousand times!”

  “But you forget—you forget everything!” Menino slurred. “You, you forget how rich the soil was here. You forget how big and strong the trees were in the nearby hills, how the lumberjacks came and cut down all the mahogany and dried up all the rain. How each year the harvest of our fruit trees and cacao plants shrank and the leaves turned brown and spindly, so that the farmers cried with joy when they got enough fruit to survive for the next season. Then the Company came and told the farmers they would do better to plant banana trees and that they would set up a system of irrigation. But after five years, the nutrients in the soil were gone and the farmers could barely get two bunches growing on a stem. The Company knew that would happen because they sold us poisoned fertilizer. It was people like your friend Alfred Lewis—”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Like hell he’s not. Gringos like him advised farmers like our father to stop planting cacao and fruit trees because bananas were as good as gold, and then when the bananas stopped producing, father was forced to sell his land—”

  “That was his decision. No one forced him to plant bananas. And certainly no one told him to sell the land. The Fruit Company had already moved its offices to Bananera.”

  “All lies!” Menino shouted, snapping his fingers in the air. He grabbed the bottle of aguardiente by the neck and sloughed down another gulp. “I don’t know why I bother trying to explain these things to you. Either you don’t want to know or you’re too stupid to understand.”

  The cook brought Samuel’s soup and a pile of tortillas wrapped in a cloth napkin. The soup had an oily surface, under which floated chicken feet, lumpy carrots, and potatoes. Samuel took up his spoon, stirred his soup, and swallowed two mouthfuls of the liquid. It tasted good. He picked up a fork and attacked the carrots, potatoes, and the few strands of chicken. He kept eating as if that would buffer him from the argument between the two brothers. He stole glances up at the three men, hoping they had forgotten about him and that he would be able to escape without further problems.

  “It was his fault.”

  “He had no choice, you idiot!”

  Hugo slammed his glass down. “Mino, I don’t know why you always dredge up the same old stories. Maybe you shouldn’t come back here. It’s always like this on my birthday—we begin celebrating, then you get skunk drunk, and we all end up depressed. We never have anything new to talk about! If your garlic farm were more successful, you wouldn’t go on and on about things here. I’m happy,” he said, sticking out his chest. “What about you?”

  Menino gave a dismissive laugh. “You are happy to let everyone here trample all over you. Taxi driver? Tourist guide? What crap.”

  “Don’t make this personal.”

  “Sorry, but they lead you around here on a leash.”

  “Brothers, let’s not fight,” Guayo said.

  “Oh shut up, fat boy.”

  Hugo rolled his hands into fists. “I’m not blind to the crimes of the Fruit Company, but they brought jobs and money when Puerto Barrios was only a muddy swamp, a breeding ground for malaria and yellow fever. They
drained the swamps and built—”

  “Nothing.”

  “Brother, let me finish—”

  “Nothing! Nothing!” Menino’s copper face bulged red.

  Suddenly the restaurant fell silent. The Chinese family had at some point left. The only sounds were scraping noises from the kitchen.

  “They brought the telegraph and the radio,” offered Hugo, trying to lighten the mood.

  Menino turned to him. “How can you be so stupid? They brought the telegraph and their radio, that’s true, but for their own use. They built roads and warehouses, for their own use. They built swimming pools and tennis courts, for their own use. They brought whores who spoke several languages, for their own use.” He paused. “Open your eyes, Hugo. They bought all of us, for their own use. They gave us flush toilets and sinks that they imported illegally and for which they never paid duties—”

  “Your brother was just making a joke,” Guayo said.

  “Let me finish! So now people here feel superior because they don’t have to shit in the jungle like those people living in Petén. Here you can invite your friends over to your rotten shack that floods whenever it rains, and you can drink infected water from the faucet and watch that lousy toilet flush over and over again. Isn’t that it?”

  Hugo lowered his eyes. With his fork, he stabbed at a piece meat on the plate of cold noodles in the center of the table.

  Samuel ate a piece of tortilla, cold now, and it dropped in his stomach like a stone into a well. The soup had nourished him, but now all that was left were the chicken feet staring up at him with nails still intact. He swallowed hard to hold in his vomit.

  “If you’ll excuse me …”

  Menino got up and stood over Samuel. “Fuchs, do you know how our father died? It’s important for you to hear how your kind treated the proud people that used to own all this—”

  “Leave him alone, Mino. He had nothing to do with it—”

  “Brother, I’m still talking. People around here think that the only time there was trouble was when those three men got killed. They whisper Kingston and shake their heads. And it’s good for Guayo to hear this story because one day he wants to study law—”