“Linda.” I put down my bag and sat on the edge of her side of the bed. I pushed her hair from her face, tucked it behind her ear. I always loved doing that. She never liked it.
“You’re home,” she said, her eyes still closed. She reached for my hand. “Are you tired?”
“Not so much. How is Will?”
“His fever actually broke, I think. I gave him some Tylenol anyway.”
“Good. Should I look in on him?”
“No, let him sleep. You should come to bed.”
“Actually, it’s lunchtime for me. You go back to sleep. I’m going to make a sandwich.”
“Okay.”
“Linda,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
I sat at the table in the kitchen and waited for my tea water to boil. I was home. My family was asleep. My lover was three thousand miles away and I assumed she was sad. But I was at my house. I was sitting quietly in my kitchen while my children and my wife slept. And though I missed my lover, I was not sad. I was satisfied. I was different.
1979
The plane landed at LAX and we marched like doomed cattle to customs. We stopped at the restroom on the way and tried to get cleaned up. We did the best we could. Richard gave Tad one of his shirts and a pair of shorts. I put on a cleanish T-shirt and brushed off my jeans as best I could. I took off my boots and washed the soles in the sink.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“You look like a serial killer,” Tad said.
“Great.” I washed my hands and arms again, but I could not wash off the scratches and cuts.
Richard looked at the mirror. “I think this is about as good as it’s going to get.” He tightened his belt. “Probably best if we’re not traveling together. What do you think?”
“Sounds right,” I said. “Tad, go on out and get in line.”
“We’re going to be okay?” Richard said.
“I’m scared shitless. Here we are in our own fucking country and I’m scared to death.”
“Nothing to be afraid of,” Tad said.
“You can say that. You’re white.”
“Let’s go,” Richard said.
Tad walked on out.
“You first,” I said.
Richard left the restroom and I remained. I looked at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t believe what the man in there had done. My hands were shaking. I thought I saw my eye twitch. I was going to have to get myself under control before I walked up to that counter and handed over my passport. I took a few deep breaths, jumped up and down in front of my reflection. I tried to think of a tune to run through my head, something soothing, but all I could come up with was “My Favorite Things,” but that turned from calm and simple to John Coltrane’s frenetic, manic, and angry version. At first that agitated me, but I let it play freely in my head and suddenly I was breathing more evenly. If I couldn’t appear clean, I could appear unruffled. An Indian or Pakistani man came into the restroom and gave me a long look before stepping quickly into a stall. I left to get in the queue.
Tad was well ahead of Richard in a folding line of passengers. I was at the very rear of another queue. Richard kept looking back at me and when he did I looked down or away, avoiding any eye contact that might have connected us or betrayed our connection. I didn’t see Tad at the agent’s window, but then I saw that he was on the far side waiting for Richard. They had passed through customs and I saw this as encouraging.
They had stepped down the hall before my turn with the agent to give us some separation. I pushed my passport forward.
“Mr. Pace,” the heavyset man said. His cheeks were unusually rosy and with his pale skin and blue eyes he looked like an American flag.
I nodded.
“Only El Salvador?”
“That’s correct.”
“How long were you there?”
“Three nights.”
“What was the purpose of your visit?” he asked.
I had of course been anticipating this question. “I’m a painter and I was down there looking around.”
He looked at me. “Three days. Not a very long stay?”
“Four days, three nights,” I said.
“A mess down there,” he said.
“I didn’t really know about all that stuff until I got there,” I said. “Pretty stupid, I know.”
He tapped on my passport with a finger and stared at me, at my face, my clothes. “Why don’t you just wait right here for minute,” he said. “Just a minute.” He stepped out of his station and talked to another agent. They both looked at me.
My guy came back and picked up the phone. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He hung up. “Someone is going to come talk to you.”
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
“You can talk to this gentleman.” He pointed at the suited man who was approaching me.
The new man was short and I might have thought him well dressed had his suit fit better. He took my passport from the agent.
“Just back from El Salvador, Mr. Pace?”
“Yes.”
“Would you come with me, please.”
I walked with him. I glanced at Richard, but didn’t catch his eyes.
“My name is Special Agent Douglas.”
“Who do you work for?” I asked, feeling immediately sorry I had.
He ignored my question and opened a door, nodded for me to enter. It was a small, windowless room with a table and two chairs. It looked for the world like the interrogation rooms I’d seen in movies. “Have a seat, Mr. Pace.”
“Is there something wrong?” I asked.
“Probably not. Should I think there’s something wrong?”
“No.” He reminded me of the unhelpful man in the American Embassy in San Salvador.
“Can you tell me why you were in El Salvador?”
“Like I told the agent out there, I’m a painter and was just looking around. I had some time and I thought a new place might help me work.”
“So, you picked a place with a civil war?”
“I didn’t know about that. I’m an artist and sometimes I just don’t read the news.”
“So what was it like down there?”
“Kind of scary right before we left,” I said.
“We?”
“You know, the people on the plane.”
“So, you were traveling alone.”
“Yes.”
He looked at my customs form. “Says here you live in Philadelphia.”
“That’s correct.”
“Yet you flew into Los Angeles.”
“I was trying to get out of El Salvador. Like you said, there’s a war going on down there.”
“Did you meet anyone while you were in El Salvador?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you make any new friends?” he asked.
“I met some people.”
“Did you feel comfortable there?”
“Well, I don’t speak Spanish, except for a few words.”
“Yet, you got on just fine,” he said.
“I’m glad to be home. Listen, am I in trouble?”
“Did you meet any Americans down there?”
“A couple, I guess.”
“Any on the plane with you?”
“Yes, some reporter, but I don’t know his name.”
“I see.”
“Can I go?”
“Someone waiting for you?”
I shook my head and relaxed into the seat.
“Did you see any violence?”
“No. Yes, sort of. I saw a tank.”
“That must have been scary.”
I nodded.
“Do you use drugs, Mr. Pace? The recreational kind.”
“No. I do drink.”
“Any plans to go back?”
“None.”
“Would you like to go back?” He smiled at me, but I didn’t know how to read him. “To El Salvador, I mean.”
I la
ughed. “Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Again, there’s a civil war going on.”
He laughed too. “What if you had a free trip?”
“Excuse me?”
“You say you were comfortable down there and you met some friends. I’m just wondering if you might want to visit again. If you had a ticket. Would it help your painting to go back?”
“I don’t think so.”
He pulled his upper lip tight across his teeth as if he was disappointed. He then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photograph. He handed it to me. “Have you ever seen this man?”
It was the Bummer. He was younger, but I recognized him immediately. I looked at the picture for a few seconds. “He looks sort of familiar, but I don’t think I know him. Who is he?”
“You didn’t meet him down there?”
I shook my head. “Who is he?”
“His name is Bumgarner.”
“Why would I have met him?”
“He’s an American down there. You know how people run into each other. This guy, well, he’s kind of a war criminal.”
“I see. I didn’t meet him. I don’t remember seeing him.”
“Where’d you go down there?” he asked. “You’re an artist. You go to the museums? Were they open?”
“I don’t much like museums. I just drove around the countryside. I liked the colors. Can I go now?”
“Yeah, you can go.” He pushed his card toward me. There was only his name, Matt Douglas, and a number on it. No agency name. No address. “You call me if you decide you’d like to go back down there.”
I picked up the card. “I’ll do that. I can go?”
“You can go.” He remained seated.
I stood and walked to the door.
“Think about it,” he said without looking at me.
“You bet.”
I walked out of the room and closed the door when I was on the other side. I was a wreck and I thought I understood the conversation I’d just had, but I couldn’t believe it. I found my way out and found Tad and a near-crazed Richard waiting for me.
“Good god, what happened?” Richard asked.
“I don’t know, but I think I just got recruited by the CIA.”
“What the fuck?” Richard said. “Hey, why don’t they want me?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go home.”
House
The Avis car rental could have been in Cleveland or Boston, except the desk staff spoke perfect English. I collected my Nissan Sentra and drove into town. I found my hotel, the Hotel Villa Florencia Centro, a very nice place without a single rugged note. It was, as the name suggested, near the city center, though I didn’t recognize the center at all. This was a place I had never been. For the life of me I could not recall the name of the hotel in which I had stayed in 1979, and neither could Richard, not that I wanted to be there. I needed to see, to feel only two places. I called Linda once I was in my room to let her know that I had arrived safely. We didn’t say much. I walked around a bit, then returned to my room for a shower, a light room service dinner, and a decent night’s sleep. I awoke early and studied my map. I had already marked the tiny speck that was Las Salinas. Finding my way this far had been easy enough, as the place of my bad dreams had turned into a popular equatorial paradise. Richard had had no desire to return and I did not blame him. Fact was, I wanted to be alone in El Salvador, for whatever reason I wanted to be there.
The remarkable thing about where I was now driving was that it was not remarkable in any way. Strip malls, functional glass and steel office buildings, fast food restaurants, many of the brands I knew. I drove out of the city just the way I imagined I had driven so many years ago, into the same mountains that I had no reason and certainly not the power to recognize. Through the city and into the country and into the mountains I never felt unsafe. Even when I was lost I never felt lost. There had been a recent fire in the mountains and though I could not have claimed that it altered anything that I might have found familiar, the charred ground and blackened trees reminded me that landscapes are ever changing. The fire had changed that mountain and my time in that country had forever changed me.
What I thought might have been the cantina in which we had spent a night, in which I had met the awful Carlos, was now a burned-out cinder-block shell. However, some miles beyond it, on a now-developed road that I didn’t believe had been there before, was a nice resort with nicely parallel-parked rental cars and nicely dressed white Americans and Europeans. I stopped there for a rest and a bite and to orient myself. I talked to a tall man just a little older than me who was watering the hanging plants on the terrace where I sat.
“It’s beautiful here,” I said.
He looked at me, the yellow watering can hanging from his big hand. He didn’t speak English.
“Hermoso,” I said.
“Sí.”
I pointed west. “Las Salinas, ya está.”
He shook his head and pointed slightly more north.
That surprised me, but I believed him. There was no reason not to.
“Por qué quieres ir allí?”
I didn’t understand him, but I heard the word why.
“I just want to see it,” I said, stupidly, knowing that he had no English. So I shrugged.
That seemed to satisfy him. “Vaya con dios,” he said.
“Gracias.”
I sat at the table for a while longer, watched the tourists from many places sip their drinks and eat their authentic dishes. I finished my American hamburger, paid my tab, and got back into my car.
I followed my map and the twisting road, remembering that I had come to this village thirty years earlier on what was barely a wagon trail. This way in, whatever way it was, was well worked and unmaintained asphalt. I came to a collection of simple houses. Satellite dishes sat on top of a couple of them. There was a tiny convenience store with an old-fashioned soda pop cooler wedged between a house and what I took to be a public building. There were no signs.
I parked and walked into the public building. It smelled like a bathroom and looked a little like one with its institutional green walls. There was a waist-high counter but there was no one behind it. Instead, a young woman sat in the only chair in what might have been a waiting area.
“Hola,” she said.
“Hola. Is this Las Salinas?”
She nodded. “You are looking for Las Salinas?”
“Yes. Sí.”
“We can speak English,” she said.
“Thank you.” I looked around. “What is this building?”
“We don’t know yet,” she said. “The government built it for us, but we don’t know what to do with it.”
“Looks like a police station,” I said.
“If we only had a policeman.”
I smiled. “You don’t want one of those.”
“Why do you come to Las Salinas?” she asked.
“I’m just a tourist.”
“Tourists don’t come to Las Salinas. Tourists go to Lake Coatepeque. Tourists go to the Basílica Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. You might even go to the Ruta de las Flores. Tourists don’t come to Las Salinas.”
“So, who comes to Las Salinas?” I asked.
“People who live in Las Salinas.”
“Well, I was here many years ago and I just wanted to see it again.”
“See what? When were you here?”
“Before you were born.”
“I am not so young,” she said.
“Why are you sitting in here?” I asked.
“No reason. There’s a chair in here. Trying to figure out what this place is supposed to be. Maybe I want to be a policeman.”
I nodded, looked around, at the windows in the front, at the empty shelves behind the counter. “I was here in 1979,” I told her and watched her expression change. She didn’t become cool or hard, but confused, I think. “I’m not completely sure this
is where I was. I was told it was Las Salinas.”
“That was when the war started,” she said. “Are you a soldier?”
“Look at me. I’m an old man.”
“Not so old. But there are old soldiers. Were you a soldier then? You were not old back then.”
“I’m a painter.”
“You’re an American.” She didn’t like that fact, I could tell. “Were you a soldier?”
“I was a painter then too.”
“There is nothing here,” she said. “There has never been anything here.”
“You’re here,” I said.
“True.”
“My name is Kevin.”
“Betty.”
“How is it that you speak English?”
“School. I went to school in San Salvador. I came back because my grandmother is dying.”
“I’m sorry.” I leaned against the wall. My legs felt suddenly tired.
“That’s why I came back. What about you? Why have you come back?” She was suspicious, but she didn’t know why she was.
“I don’t really know why I’m here. I don’t even know if I’m in the right place.” I studied her young, high-cheekboned but wise face and decided to simply tell her. “Thirty years ago I was here or someplace just like here and I saw a terrible thing. I didn’t actually see it happen, but I saw a little girl. She had been murdered. I had never seen a dead person, certainly not a dead child. Her father was there. She had a little brother.”
“You saw this girl killed?”
I shook my head. “Like I said, I didn’t see it happen. I saw her after. I saw her father. I will never forget it.”
She stood and looked out the window. “Would you come with me?”
“Pardon?”
“Come with me,” she repeated.
“Where are we going?”
“Just come with me.”
I followed her and we walked past the grouping of houses, around a bend, the road turning from asphalt to gravel, to another huddle of small houses. These houses on the deteriorating road were incongruously nicer or at least better kept than the other houses on the better road. The sky was starting to cloud over.
“Wait here,” she said. She stepped onto the porch of a yellow house, then turned back to me. “You wait?”
So Much Blue Page 21
