Avoiding Prison & Other Noble Vacation Goals

by Wendy Dale

  Oranges, grapefruits, and lemons had always seemed so benign to me before. I could only imagine the consequences of peeling something exotic like pomegranate.

  “What is going to happen to me?” I needed to know.

  “The rash will clear up on its own, though it may take a month or so. As for the diarrhea, it’s merely a case of tourist’s disease.”

  A disease just for tourists? This sounded a bit xenophobic to me.

  “It means you’re not used to the bacteria in the food. Drink lots of water and control your food intake a little bit. You’ll feel better in a few days.”

  That was it. I was going to be just fine. My extremities weren’t going to grow to mammoth proportions, no tapeworm inhabited my intestines, no parasite was going to start sucking the life out of my heart.

  I paid the doctor his fee, the full price of six dollars since I didn’t have Costa Rican medical insurance, and walked out to greet my waiting entourage, all fingernails and major appendages still in place.

  The next few days, as my body slowly recovered, Michel’s situation steadily worsened. He had gone to the bank every day in hopes of good news, but there was simply no information. In typical Latin American fashion, no one had any idea when the transfer would arrive or what the holdup was. Worse yet, I was going to have to be leaving in a few days if I wanted to make it back to my folks’ in time for Christmas, which meant that when the transfer arrived, since it was in my name, it would be impossible for Michel to claim it. Torn between letting down my new lover or my family, I settled on a compromise.

  “I want you to take this money,” I said to Michel, handing him a stack of twenties, the day before I was scheduled to leave.

  “Oh my God, no, I can’t.”

  “Look, I have to get to my parents’. But with this, you can pick up your ID and have your mother send the money in your own name. You’ll be fine.”

  “Sure. Fine but without you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was going to miss him too, but he didn’t understand that travel was just a game to me. It was the only place where I would never be faced with tough decisions. It was another reality that I mucked about in for a while, where I got to take rash (no pun intended) and juvenile actions—and then left without ever having to face the consequences.

  As if sensing my thoughts, Michel gave me a halfhearted hug good-bye and that morning went off to Limón to claim his ID. It wasn’t the last time I would see him—he’d be back that afternoon and I wouldn’t leave until the next day, but it still felt so final.

  I spent a grim morning with Jessica and company. She and Martiza showed up unexpectedly at the hotel, and discovering that I was alone (a state they regarded with the same suspicion as heroin), they swooped me up and dragged me off to their work. Their job consisted of getting corporate sponsorship for the Costa Rican Foundation for the Blind, something they did on a contract basis out of their own office, not too shabby for two girls who hadn’t yet reached the American drinking age.

  The last words I’d had with Michel had left me glum and not much in the mood for talk, but my companions were occupied in other things anyway. Jessica’s boyfriend Olman had shown up and the two of them were absorbed in the task of making out in the room upstairs while Martiza read through a stack of papers on her desk, lighting one cigarette after another and occasionally passing one along to me.

  I stared out the window of a rainy Costa Rican day, feeling guilty and missing Michel. Why did he have to complicate the lightheartedness I had worked so long to cultivate?

  Unlike in my own country, where we defined the relationships between people on something logical—on a tangible real-life person named Kevin Bacon, in Latin America, lines were drawn on the basis of relatives who had been visited by the Virgin Mary. Just as I had never met Kevin Bacon personally, no one I came across in Costa Rica had actually seen the Mother of God, but everyone’s cousin or cousin’s cousin or Aunt Beatriz had definitely been privy to the experience.

  This wasn’t too peculiar, considering that this was a land of mystery and magic, where churches offering the word of God were much more ubiquitous than cable lines offering HBO to the people. This was a place where wishes were granted as a result of faith, and when Michel arrived at the hotel later and informed me of what had happened to him that day, I suddenly began to understand why Latin Americans were so obsessed with religion. Praying to a statue of a virgin to recover a lost passport was a lot more likely to bring results than relying on government organizations.

  As usual, nothing had gone right for Michel. The Costa Rican officials had taken the money, but they’d given him a hard time for being an Arab and insisted on running an additional check before they’d give him his ID. Michel had no idea how long it would take. And this was the last night I was going to be able to spend with him.

  “There’s always the possibility that the transfer has arrived at the bank,” I wagered optimistically.

  “You must be a religious woman,” Michel said sarcastically. “Because what you’re speaking of would be a miracle.”

  Nevertheless, I convinced him to at least give it a shot and both of us squeezed through the doors at the last minute just as the guard was closing up for the evening. From the lobby of the enormous Bank of Costa Rica, we ran up the escalators to the third floor, and raced through the halls in the direction of the international transfer department.

  A grumpy woman anxious to go home entered the number of the transfer into the computer.

  “What is the country of origin?” she requested.

  “Kuwait.”

  “Hmmm. No, I don’t see anything from Kuwait.”

  “Don’t you have any information?” I pleaded.

  “The computer only shows me what transfers have arrived. I can only tell you whether or not your money is here. It isn’t.”

  “How much longer should it take? It’s already been a week.”

  “Ten days is the usual time. Though we’re closing tomorrow for the holidays. We’ll reopen the day after New Year.”

  January 2 was more than a week away. I couldn’t believe it. The bank was closing for nearly ten days.

  Both of us silent on the walk back to the hotel, I was reminded of what had happened to me in Cuba, how I had nearly run out of cash with no access to any of the funds I had in the United States. If it hadn’t been for Alberto and Mercedes, who knew what would have happened to me there? Alberto had found me a cheap place to stay and Mercedes had offered me cash. Of course, I didn’t accept the money, but the mere idea that she suggested it had deeply touched me—it had taken her twenty years to save seventy lousy dollars, yet she had been willing to relinquish a quarter of it to an American tourist she’d known for just a week.

  Here I was, on the other side of the fence, completely able to help someone out of a bad situation. If nothing else, I owed it to Mercedes.

  “I’ll call my parents and tell them I can’t make it.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Merry Christmas, Michel.”

  It was a grim December 25. This was the first time in six years that I had missed Christmas at my parents’, and the brief phone call I’d made to my dad in Honduras hadn’t gone very well. Our short chat hadn’t been long enough to explain everything; there had just been enough time for me to note the disappointment in his voice.

  Frankly, I wasn’t any happier about the situation. I was as devastated as a girl being deprived of something like—well, like Christmas. Granted, in Honduras, it wouldn’t have been a traditional holiday with cranberries and turkeys and a tree (this year, instead of fighting with pine branches, my parents had given up and just decorated the ficus plant), but it was still the only time of year everyone in my nomadic family got together. I was going to completely miss seeing my sisters this year.

  Now I was in a nearly deserted city, eating lunch in the only place open, an overpriced tourist restaurant famous for its extra-large quantities, which meant an even bigger s
erving of tasteless black beans and rice.

  Sensing my misery, Michel came up with a suggestion. “Look, we’ll head out of here tomorrow. If you’re committed to sticking around for another week, we might as well have some fun. Let’s get out of this city and go to the beach.”

  It was a wonderful idea. I hadn’t yet seen anything of Costa Rica and the thought of whiling away a week on the sands of the Caribbean was a lot more appealing than hanging around the smoggy, thief-infested pandemonium of San José. Finally, I’d make it to the ocean.

  Manzanillo was a quaint seaside location filled with seagulls, tropical breezes, and tranquil villagers, where the most stressful moment of the day was watching the sun rise through the languid fronds of beachside palms. The afternoons were lazy, the nights loud with Afro-Caribbean music, and the food a savory blend of seafood, coconut milk, and exotic spices. It was the kind of place that we were nowhere near at the moment.

  To get to Manzanillo, you first had to pass through Limón, a grimy and rambunctious Caribbean port town, where the occasional roaming sailor was the most reputable person you were likely to run into. Those native to this rundown hellhole were usually drunk and disheveled, on drugs, or simply up to no good. It was the place Michel had initially been robbed of his twenty-five-thousand-dollar check and hoping that thieves were like lightning (not in terms of speed, but rather that they wouldn’t strike the same place twice), I had surreptitiously slipped Michel the bulk of my money for safe-keeping.

  On the nerve-racking walk to the bus station where we planned to purchase our tickets to Manzanillo, I repressed the urge to look behind me, but I couldn’t help but play out the worst in my mind: some unsavory character holding us up at gunpoint, demanding our money, and tossing us into his vehicle. Of course, this was just a fantasy. Reality was, it would take five men to grab Michel at gunpoint and toss him into their vehicle.

  It all happened so fast that I didn’t have time to comprehend what was occurring. One minute we were just steps away from the bus station and the next we were surrounded by five bulky guys who encircled Michel, told him not to make a scene, and forced him into the back of their pickup. I simply stood there dumbfounded, not understanding, until one of the men grabbed my arm and reassured me, “Don’t worry. We’re from the police.”

  This did not make me feel especially better. But before I had time to ask any questions, they were gone—and they had taken Michel along with them.

  I found myself suddenly alone in Limón, a place whose name in Spanish means “lemon,” and I’d already learned how much damage that particular fruit could cause. I was completely lost, far away from home, and in a treacherous town where men disappeared faster than one-night stands. What the hell was I supposed to do?

  Suspecting that this sort of problem was a little beyond the scope of either of my travel guides, I entered the nearest café, ordered a papaya smoothie, and sat down for a smoke and a long think.

  What were my options? First of all, I could always return to Honduras. I’d hop on a bus to San José and head back to Tegucigalpa. A good plan—but Michel had most of my money. Not only that, because he was such a damn gentleman, he’d been holding my suitcase, and the cops had taken it along with them. This was definitely the last time I was going to let a man carry my bag for me! I needed my cash and my clothes—and frankly, I needed to figure out what was going on. Unable to come up with a better alternative, I realized there was only one thing I could do: I was going to have to find him.

  I walked up to the counter to pay for my drink and asked the woman at the cash register how to get to the police station. I could tell by her expression that this was not the question she was expecting.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  I did my best to force a smile and nod. Realizing she wasn’t going to get an explanation out of me, the cashier reluctantly wrote down the directions.

  I wandered out of the restaurant nervous and disoriented. I wanted to take a cab, but I knew the tiny quantity of money that still remained in my pocket wouldn’t stretch that far. I was going to have to walk, something that had been bad enough at Michel’s side and was worse now that I was a woman facing the streets alone.

  The town was like the bad parts of San José only much smaller and rowdier. I tried to avoid a passing child determined to sell me a pack of gum when a man stumbled out of a bar and bumped into me, shouting something unintelligible to me in pigeon English. I ignored the proposition or the insult—I wasn’t sure which—and kept moving, guided by my crude directions. I turned the corner and the next street was nearly identical: one-room concrete buildings converted into bars, restaurants, or tiny markets.

  Soon, I had picked up an unwelcome guest, a red-eyed man reeking of alcohol who kept grabbing my shoulder. I jerked myself away but the man persisted.

  “You’re so pretty. Pretty eyes,” he slurred in Spanish.

  I tried to ignore him, but he grabbed my hand. This had happened to me before and I had found that the best tactic was to stop, face the man head on, and shout at him. But I didn’t have the strength. I just wanted him to go away. I wanted the whole damn town to go away. I wanted my money back and my clothes back and I wanted my faith in short-term vacation romances back.

  I sped up to a run. My pursuer was out of sight within minutes but I kept up my pace anyway. I realized I was making a scene—I was the only foreigner in this part of town, not to mention that I was racing through the streets, but I needed this journey to end as soon as humanly possible.

  Red-faced and panting for breath, I finally arrived at the police station, a peeling white structure surrounded by a large fence, where in place of grass, there was just a huge rectangle of mud separated by a concrete pathway. I walked up to a bored-looking guard at the entrance and tried to explain what had happened.

  “I was walking down the street an hour ago . . .” I got out between gulps of air.

  “Did you get robbed?”

  “Kind of.”

  “What did they take?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  By the look he gave me, I suspected this was not the kind of thing that went on all the time, not even in Limón.

  “The people who took him,” I added, “they said they were from the police.”

  “Who’s your boyfriend?”

  “Michel Omar. He’s from Kuwait.”

  “Hang on.” The guard picked up a handheld radio and asked about everyone who’d been brought in during the past hour. “No one named Michel? No one from Kuwait?”

  He turned to me and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, whoever it was who took him, they didn’t bring him here.”

  Great. Now where was I supposed to look?

  “Though they might have been from the OIJ. You might want to try going there.”

  It was another six blocks to the federal building, which meant I would have to brave the streets of Limón again. I turned away from the guard and headed in the direction he had pointed me in, too exhausted to keep running.

  Retracing my steps for three blocks, I thought how ironic it would be for something to happen to me on my walk. I was halfway between the police station and the feds’ office—how fitting.

  Fifteen minutes later, after having been shouted at, groped at, and stumbled into, I brushed the hair away from my face and dragged myself up the steps of my destination. I was mentally drained and out of breath, but I figured that as far as bad days went, this one could not possibly get any worse.

  Figuring that your day could not possibly get any worse is the kind of thought it’s safe to have in a place like, say, SeaWorld. What’s the worst-case scenario? The cotton-candy machine is broken, the dolphins are out with a bad case of the sniffles, the puffer fish get deflated. Fall into the sea-lion tank, and you can safely assume that your day is about as bad as it can get.

  However, find yourself stranded in a foreign country, your companion suddenly snatched out from under you by a group of plain-clothed men in a pickup who cla
im they are on official business, and you can be assured that your day is unlikely to start looking up any time soon.

  Walking up to the information window at the offices of the OIJ, I wasn’t certain what would constitute good news in this case. If Michel was actually here, it would mean that he’d been arrested. If he wasn’t here, it meant he had been kidnapped. A criminal or a hostage? Which did I prefer?

  At the moment, what I really preferred was a carefree day at the beach followed by a candlelit dinner and a massage, but the slender, bearded man behind the window wasn’t selling tickets to Manzanillo, romantic meals, or hot oil. All he had for me was information, news I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.

  “Kuwait?” he asked, slightly amused. “There’s no one here from Kuwait.”

  “Thanks anyway.” I turned to go, wondering how I was going to get home now.

  “But your boyfriend is here,” the official slyly informed me.

  “What?”

  He handed me a passport bearing a photo that was obviously Michel.

  “Is this your boyfriend?”

  It wasn’t the time to explain the exact nature of our relationship (besides, I didn’t know how to say “fling” in Spanish) so I just nodded.

  “As you can see, it’s not a passport from Kuwait.”

  I rifled through the pages filled with stamps from countries all over Latin America and turned to the cover: Trinidad and Tobago.

  “Have you given him any money?”

  I didn’t know how to respond.

  “Look, why don’t you come back here, take a seat, and we’ll have a little chat. I’m a detective. My name’s Luís. Don’t worry. You’re safe now.”

  Luíis was a kind man with sad eyes who gently offered me a seat and a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Your boyfriend, Charles—”

  “His name is Charles?”

  “Yes. Did you give Charles any money?”

  He hadn’t really taken anything from me. I’d offered every time— and it was just food I’d bought him, plus the 320 dollars I’d given him to reclaim his passport. “What exactly do you mean?” I asked.