Last Flight of José Luis Balboa

by Gonzalo Barr

  “Does he have any hobbies?” I said.

  Iris put her glass on the table. She stood and waved for me to follow her to the second bedroom. The room was bare except for two metal filing cabinets and an old desk. Books, newspapers, and magazines were arranged in piles on the floor around the desk. Iris moved close to me. I could smell the wine on her breath.

  “This is the kind of stuff Benny reads lately,” she said, picking up a book and tapping the cover. “He stays up all night taking notes. Whatever he writes, he keeps locked in there,” she said, pointing at the Ming cabinets. I picked up another book from one of the piles. It was a how-to manual on staging a coup d’état, a small paperback with a gray cover and black letters, published by some think tank in California.

  “Is he serious?” I asked.

  “Of course not. Benny’s a dabbler. A dreamer and dilettante. Impotent, too.”

  I put the book down, picked up a magazine, and pretended to flip through the pages.

  “They say it’s all the drugs he takes. I’ve tried everything, but it’s no good. Sometimes I wonder if it’s me.” Iris picked up a copy of El National dated last week. “This is his father,” she said, tapping the front page. A picture showed a white-haired old man standing at a podium, mouth open, index finger in the air. Above the picture was the headline “Former Senator to Lead March Demanding Châvez Resign.”

  “Benny wants to be there,” Iris said. Then she opened the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out a passport. “This is Benny’s. I would like you to keep it for me. No matter what happens, don’t tell him that you have it.”

  I started to speak.

  “Please,” she said, taking my forearm.

  Someone was slipping a key into the front door lock.

  “Take it.” Iris pushed the passport against my shirt and stepped out of the room. Benny was yelling something from the other side of the front door. I thought about putting the passport back in the drawer or even leaving it on the desk, when Benny pounded on the door and yelled Iris’s name. So I slipped the passport into a pocket and hurried to the living room.

  Iris motioned me to sit on the sofa. I picked up the photo album and opened it. Benny pounded on the door again.

  “Just a minute,” Iris called out, unlocking the door. Benny walked in with several large paper bags.

  “Why the hell did you put the night lock on?” he said, placing the bags on the kitchen counter.

  “Habit, I guess. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You weren’t thinking?”

  Iris said nothing.

  “Is that also why you are practically naked, because you weren’t thinking?” Benny said. One of the bags tipped over. At least a half dozen plastic bottles rolled over the counter and fell to the floor. They looked like chemical bottles—brown plastic, white label. Liquid swished inside as they rolled. Benny rushed to pick them up. He put them back in the bag and turned to me.

  “Pests,” he said.

  I nodded and looked down at the photo album across my lap. When I looked up again, Benny was standing in front of me.

  “I see Iris gave you her portfolio. She does that with everybody. Don’t think that you’re special.”

  Benny turned his head to get a better look at the album and squinted. He smelled of stale sweat, as if he’d been out all morning in the sun.

  “I found Iris a photographer on South Beach to update her portfolio. Top-notch guy. Works with all the models.” Then louder, so Iris could hear him, he said, “Mi amor, what is your photographer’s name?”

  Iris noisily uncorked another bottle in the kitchen.

  Benny continued to talk while I looked at the pictures. There were close-ups of Iris smiling, then serious. Iris wearing a mink coat, a bikini, a white dress, carrying a parasol, like something by Monet.

  Iris returned from the kitchen with a new bottle and another glass filled with wine. Benny took the glass and drank half of it in one gulp. I wondered if the wine would react with whatever drugs he had taken that day.

  “Iris may not be nineteen anymore,” Benny said, “but she is still beautiful.” He tried to kiss her cheek.

  “Careful, you made me spill some.” She refilled her own glass.

  I turned the page. There was Iris smiling over her shoulder and her bare back; another one of her crossing her arms. Iris lying on a white fur rug, looking impish. And Iris on the beach naked. I closed the photo album. When I looked up, Benny was watching me.

  “Very nice,” I said, and stood to leave, making up some excuse, thanking them for the wine, leaving my glass, still full, on the table.

  Benny followed me out. “I want to tell you something,” he said. “You know, my wife likes to overdramatize things. She likes to create her own reality. I’m not saying she’s crazy. Only that the world”—he opened his arms wide—“is not exciting enough for her, so she invents things.”

  Benny moved closer to me. His breath smelled acrid, like burnt coffee mixed with ammonia. I took a step back. The heel of my shoe hit the wall behind me.

  “I want you to rest assured that she and I have an understanding,” he said. “Do you know what I mean by that? An understanding?”

  I wanted to give him the passport and even reached for it in my pocket, when he said, “Good,” and patted the side of my arm. “It is important for you to know that.” Benny stepped back to the middle of the hall. “On the other hand, you must not believe everything she says. Like with the portfolio. She thinks that she can go back to modeling and pick up where she left off ten years ago, before we were married. I don’t want to discourage her, so I hired a photographer. What is wrong with that?” Then he moved in close again and grabbed my elbow hard. “She tells people that I’m crazy.”

  I let go of the passport and took my hand out of my pocket. There was no telling how he would react if I tried to give it back to him now.

  “I know she tells people that,” he said, squeezing my elbow. “I don’t mind. It is one of her fantasies—the beautiful young wife who gave up a promising career as a model to care for her sick husband. People have told me. Iris has to be the center of attention.”

  “Look—” I said.

  “Good.” He cut me off. “I knew you were my friend.” He winked and walked back to his apartment.

  For the next few days, my life settled back into its old routine. I woke early, drank one cup of coffee, and walked five miles in the morning, before it got too hot. Afterward, I showered and worked at my desk. The money my mother left me when she died is enough to allow me to live modestly, but the extra cash comes in handy. At noon, I ate lunch. Wednesday afternoon, I ran my errands between 2:00 and 4:00, avoiding any lines at the cleaners or the bank. The rest of the week, I sat by the pool and read. This year I’m reading about the smallest countries in the world, from Andorra to Vatican City. Last year, it was Brazil, the year before that Japan. At 7:00, I made dinner. By 9:00, I was in bed. Even when I watched TV, I rarely stayed awake past 10:00.

  People like Benny and Iris, who make public every quake and tremor of their lives, break the monotony. Being around them is like speeding through a red light. Lately, I take my time doing the laundry, hoping Iris will come in. Or I linger in the mailroom, paging through the free newspapers, takeout menus, and flyers stacked on the bench beneath the mailboxes, keeping an eye out for Benny.

  Over the next two weeks the situation in Venezuela worsened. Snipers shot at anti-Chávez demonstrators. High-ranking military officers demanded publicly that Chávez resign. On Monday morning, I was coming back from my walk, out of the elevator, when I heard Benny screaming at Iris in their apartment.

  “I know you have it!”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I do not.”

  Glass shattered. Iris screamed.

  The judge appeared around the corner wearing a gray exercise suit and a terry-cloth headband. His face was dry and his cologne smelled sweet.

  “Do you think h
e’s hurting her?” he asked me. Iris screamed again. “I’m calling the police,” he said, and walked away.

  I knocked on Benny’s door. Everything became quiet.

  “Benny, it’s me.”

  Nothing.

  “Benny? Iris? Is everything all right? The judge is calling the police. You have got to be quiet.” When Benny opened the door, he was breathing heavily and his ears were red. I saw no sign of Iris.

  “Hi.” Benny smiled. “What did you say before? I was watching a DVD. Incredible sound system. Those Japs sure know electronics.”

  “Iris was screaming.”

  “Iris? She’s in her room. Do you want me to get her?”

  I told him about the judge calling the police.

  “But why? Look for yourself.” Benny stepped aside. “Would you like to come in?”

  I looked over his shoulder. Nothing seemed out of place.

  “I hope everything’s OK,” I said.

  “Why shouldn’t it be?”

  I returned to my apartment. A few minutes later, there was more shouting. This time it was Benny. I walked out. Iris stood sobbing in the hall. Benny was in handcuffs. Two police officers, one on each side, walked him to the elevator. Behind them were two security guards and another police officer.

  “Is this what you wanted?” Benny yelled at Iris. “Is it?” He kept yelling until the elevator doors closed. The judge’s wife came out and took Iris away. I stood in the hall and listened to her muffled cries. Then it was quiet again.

  The knocking woke me later that night. I felt my way to the front door and peered through the peephole. Iris’s head looked much bigger than the rest of her. When I opened the door, it took a second before my eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lights in the hallway. Iris wore a short blouse, low-cut beltless jeans, and gold lamé sandals.

  “I can’t sleep,” she said.

  I made a big deal about rubbing my eyes.

  “Benny’s in jail,” she said. “I don’t know what to do. He wants to fly to Caracas to join the demonstrations against Chávez.”

  “Then I suppose he’ll need his passport,” I said.

  I had put Benny’s passport away in the bedroom. I decided to give it to her; let her worry about it.

  When I returned to the living room, Iris had closed the door, switched on a lamp, and sat on the sofa. Her bare feet were tucked under her.

  “I want to talk,” she said.

  I sat in the chair opposite the sofa and tossed the passport on the coffee table. Iris covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders started to shake. I felt that I had to do something, so I sat next to her.

  Iris leaned into me, slid down on the sofa, and lay her head on my shoulder. Her hair was wet and smelled of peaches. I took a deep breath and held it for a moment.

  Iris turned and kissed me. Her eyes were puffy and red and her nose was moist. The next kiss was longer. The one after that longer still. Until, kiss after kiss, I lost myself in her hair and in the faint smell of lavender that came off with each piece of her clothing.

  2.

  The next day I woke much later than usual. Iris was gone. It was too hot to go walking, so I listened to a CD of Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations. My heart ran fast. My mind was fixed on the previous night. Bach seemed the perfect antidote. The music was orderly and rational. There was emotion but no surprises. Around lunchtime I boiled some pasta and tossed it with butter and fresh basil. I opened a bottle of wine that I’d kept in the refrigerator for months and drank half of it before I fell asleep on the sofa.

  Benny must have been released on bail because later I heard them arguing.

  “Stop speaking so much trash,” Benny yelled.

  “I do not speak trash,” Iris yelled back.

  “Yes, you do speak trash.”

  The telephone rang, but they ignored it.

  “You are the one who speaks trash.”

  “No, you are the one who speaks trash.”

  And so on.

  Around 3:00, I left some shirts and pants at the cleaners and picked up a bottle of wine at the liquor store. After that, I went to a bookstore and browsed through the section on New Urbanism, oversized books with colored-pencil drawings of towers topped with pennants, like de Ghirico, only with brighter colors and wood slats instead of stucco. Around 8:00, I went home, dropped three ice cubes in a glass, poured some wine, and sat to read. After a few pages, I lay on the sofa and fell asleep. It was almost 11:00 when the sound of fingernails tapping on the door woke me. Iris’s face Med the lens of the peephole.

  When I let her in, she put a finger on my lips and kissed me.

  “Where’s Benny?” I asked.

  “Asleep,” she said. “Took his medicine. Said he couldn’t sleep last night. Well, he was in jail, wasn’t he? Not like he was staying at the Ritz-Carlton. He’ll sleep until the morning for sure.”

  “But what if he wakes up?”

  “If he wakes up, he’ll see that I’m gone. If it’s morning, he’ll think that I left to do errands.” Iris kissed me again.

  “What if he comes looking for you?”

  “He doesn’t care.”

  “How can he not care?”

  “He doesn’t, OK?” Iris let go of me and walked to the window.

  She took the glass of wine I poured for her but did not drink.

  “Now I don’t feel like it anymore,” she said. “I thought you wanted me to stay with you again, but now I don’t feel like it.”

  I tried to kiss her.

  “No.” She gave me the glass and walked out. I put the glass down and followed her into the hall, whispering her name, trying to get her attention.

  “Iris, stop!”

  She walked into the darkness of her apartment and left the door open behind her. It wasn’t like I weighed my options—go home, sleep, wake, walk, read, eat, and sleep again. I could do that. Or I could follow Iris.

  I stepped inside. The front door closed behind me. My eyes were not yet adjusted to the dark. Everywhere I looked, I saw the ghost of the hallway lights. Someone was moving all around me.

  I stretched one arm out but felt nothing. Benny was snoring in the bedroom. Their place had the same layout as mine. If the snoring came from my right, then all I had to do was—what?

  I put both arms out and looked for the front door. Iris took my hands and brought them against her face, the curve of her waist, behind her back. She was naked. Then she kissed me. We kneeled and continued kissing. Iris moving my hands over different parts of her body. Finally, I lay on the carpet, Iris above me, just enough light coming in through the blinds now that I could make out the way her hair fell over her shoulders.

  Iris pushed me out before the sun rose. I went home and fell into bed with my clothes on. When I woke, the sun was high. The surface of the bay shone pale green nearby and a hazy blue farther out. The palm trees shook in the breeze. Below my window, by the swimming pool, a man and a woman slept on chaises longues. A young girl lay on the other side of the pool with a cell phone pressed to her ear. I thought a swim would clear my mind.

  The pool was quiet and the water was warm and pleasant. I swam from end to end and tried to think my way through this. I understood now what Benny meant when he said that they had an understanding. Sure. Benny was impotent. Wasn’t that one of the first things Iris told me? He had his politics and his fantasies; she had her occasional affairs. It made sense, but I wondered how often she did this. Once a year? Every few months? Was it a regular thing or an occasional respite from the ups and downs of Benny’s emotional life? Maybe Iris would come by for a few nights, even a few weeks, but eventually she would stop, her marriage to Benny intact.

  After my swim, I found him waiting for me in the hall.

  “Where?” Benny said, motioning with his hands. “I know you have my passport.”

  “I never wanted it in the first place, but—”

  “Do you know that I spent a night in jail because you took my passport?”
r />   “Now, wait a second—”

  “You take my passport. I go nuts looking for it. I ask Iris. She acts dumb, so I lose my temper. That television judge calls the cops. And I’m dragged off to jail to spend the night with winos and petty criminals. I thought you were my friend.”

  I went inside and found the passport. Benny waited for me in the hall. He took it and walked off without looking at me.

  That evening, I was finishing my dinner when Iris arrived. She looked very happy.

  “Papa says we can play tonight.” She kissed me.

  “Where is Benny now?”

  “Home.” She walked to the windows and looked out on the dark bay.

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “Why are you so concerned with Benny? All you do is ask me about him.”

  “Does he know?”

  “He is locked up in his room,” she said, turning around to face me. “Wouldn’t answer me when I spoke to him.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  “Why? He can’t get into any trouble so long as he stays there.”

  Iris spent the night with me.

  The next morning was Friday. I found the table set for breakfast and Iris in the kitchen. She moved from the stove to the refrigerator, put the dirty pans in the sink and ran water over them. I couldn’t stop looking at her.

  Around 5:00 that afternoon, she dressed. I asked her when she would be back. “Soon,” she said, kissing the tip of her finger and placing it against my lips.

  After she left, I watched a couple of old movies on TV until I fell asleep. When I woke, it was 3:00 in the morning. Outside, the bay was black, except for the trembling lights it reflected. I went to the kitchen and started putting the pans, dishes, and cups in the dishwasher, when a lou thump shook the apartment and made all the glasses rattle. It sounded as if someone had jumped off a chair and landed barefoot on the floor in the condo above me, except that the thump was followed by an echo that expanded beyond the city and the bay, like an explosion. Everything was quiet for a couple of minutes. Then sirens gradually filled the quiet.