Lost in Hotels

by Martin, M.

  “We don’t have a lot of time before dinner, Catherine, so just a freshen-up and Nogo will accompany you back to the lodge.”

  I didn’t even respond to Tamaryn. I was afraid my voice would crack or she would read my morose face fraught with disappointment. All that is magical of Africa is wiped from my mind, and thoughts of David not even having the decency to e-mail or call the lodge to let me know his decision not to join or need to cancel. There was a silent, sullen melody that accompanied Nogo and me on our walk to my cabin, a journey I was reassured once again that I could not make on my own.

  I collapse behind the door with the baboon lock pulled shut behind me. A feeling of nausea and doom coupled with my lack of sleep and jet lag overwhelm me. I get up and check the room, opening the closets and even looking inside the shower and along the terrace to make sure he wasn’t hiding as a joke or a wonderful surprise. Reason and sanity slip away as tears erupt. I think of his face, the scent that lingers in the nape of his neck, and then I imagine someone else holding her head close to his. Perhaps he’s met someone else; why wouldn’t he? A guy like that would have so many more options than with just someone like me.

  My tears defy my mind’s attempt to insert reason into this moment. My chest echoes in a sullen melody. I imagine never again feeling the caress of his hand, hearing the gentleness of his words, and seeing his eyes that hold me even when weeks and weeks force us apart. My mind lurches back into the moments swimming in Rio, seeing him in the hallway of my Paris hotel, and that blissful, long night in LA. I quickly come to the realization it all may be over.

  Although I search for reasons to believe, the simpler explanation seems the more obvious one. He must have met someone; he must have found someone who better fits him and his lifestyle. My mind cannot comprehend the thought of never seeing him again, never looking forward to the next e-mail, or never feeling the touch of his hand. This must be his parting routine, a vanishing act with no notice or explanation. Still, I hold onto the belief that he’s simply not that kind of man. I pull out my phone to double check if perhaps an e-mail or text has come through. But there truly is no service in this desolate span of southern Africa.

  As I sit collapsed on the floor, I hear Nogo along the walkway gathering other guests and escorting them to dinner. Quickly, I rush to the bathroom mirror. I see this tired, dry, mascara-streaked face glowering behind a wrinkled brow and withered eyes drawn exactly as a woman my age, riddled with pain and loss of that godly vice she can no longer imagine life without. I hear a sturdy knock to which I consider saying I’m too ill or too tired to make it to dinner. I struggle to throw on a fresh shirt and chunky cashmere knit to emerge to a recently showered Nogo who beams as bright as the moon.

  The walk to the lodge feels longer than on the way to my room. My eyes peer up and see magnificent trees that line its terrace ignited in lanterns and a fireplace erupting in bluish flames as we take the few steps up the main staircase. A group of well-dressed guests huddles at a small bar in a corner of the room. Nogo leaves my side, and I make my way to join them given the lack of any other option. Their American voices coupled with a few non-native accents sound crisp in the air as I approach the back of a younger woman with silky black hair and wearing an oatmeal wrap-coat that looks like a woolen macramé.

  My mind doesn’t accompany me to dinner, it remains back in the room scattered on the floor looking for pieces of my life to hold to my heart in an attempt to get through the first of many unimaginable nights. The well-dressed American is Heidi, and her husband is Justin, both of whom are on the second leg of their two-week honeymoon. I meet a Midwest-type couple whose names I can’t recall. They are on their trip of a lifetime that they sacrificed most of their working lives to afford. An older South African couple, who considers this a long-weekend trip from their Cape Town home, shares idle conversation of the other lodges in the region. Then there’s me.

  Luckily, a late arrival for dinner meant cocktail conversation stuck mainly to pleasantries before making my way to one of four tables arranged on the terrace. Mine is the one closest to the edge lit by candlelight with two plates facing each other a good distance from any other guests. Trees reach out over the tables touching each other longer and more gently than any humans do. Candles flicker everywhere, and the sound of the infinite African night plays like a soundtrack that couldn’t be more dramatic and vibrant. I had envisioned more of a communal table, but alas, I will sit alone in perhaps the most romantic dinner setting I have ever witnessed.

  Tamaryn approaches through the lodge, by the bar, and onto the terrace in my direction. She looks even more regal in her dark, still-wilderness-minded clothes with a fashionable scarf tied meticulously around her neck.

  “Catherine, I thought I would join you for dinner if that’s okay?”

  “That would be lovely, truly lovely,” I say, despite wishing for the solitude as I do everything to avoid erupting into tears.

  Tamaryn takes her seat opposite me and undoes her scarf with a regal, circular movement. Staff rushes to her side to pour the water, place the bread, arrange the butters, and pour the wine she selected before arriving. She lives up to pictures of the proud and adventurous relatives who precede her and lay a foundation for family and legacy that I am sure will endure longer than any of my own will.

  “So tell me about your glamorous life in New York. I always dreamed of living there,” she says as she leans into the table and grabs her glass of crisp white wine.

  “New York? Well, it definitely lives up to all your expectations, but somehow you still find yourself complaining about it at every opportunity,” I laugh.

  “Oh dear, but isn’t that with any place?”

  “I guess. Sometimes I find that the parts of life like getting to work or going shopping or running to a doctor’s appointment is an afterthought in most places, but in New York, it’s almost a job in of itself. I mean life in New York is truly hard, and you do have to stay a pace ahead to just get by, let alone hopes to one day thrive.”

  “From the outside, it seems so glamorous. It’s really a dream for so many kids I know. However, I see what you’re saying. I mean, as a child, I would beg my parents to take us to Cape Town of Joburg and now here I am as an adult continuing the life that was laid for them by our grandparents.”

  “There’s an intimacy here that surprises me. I thought that with so few people in such a large space, you would feel isolated. But really, it forces you to connect with everything around you; even your staff is incredibly engaged with one other.”

  “Yes, I guess it’s the legacy of the African tribes, they forge incredible bonds that I assume we’ve picked up on and continued with our own traditions,” she says in a hushed, soothing tone.

  “It’s really an incredibly special place,” I reply.

  “And tell me about David, have you been together long?”

  “In all honesty, I’m not even sure if we’re really together.” I pause, shocked by my truthfulness and hoping to restrain myself from exploding into tears.

  “You know, it’s a long-distance thing,” I continue. “It’s intense when we’re together, and when we’re apart, we attempt to keep that memory alive through e-mails and text. But really, David likes being single, and I know that in the end, it will be my heart that’s going to break, not his.”

  “Isn’t it always the story though, as women?”

  “I would have thought it was a little different here.”

  “You know, I struggle here with all these single men who pass through the bush looking for fun and adventure. I watch them all pass and wonder when one of them will stop and say, ‘You’re worth it, you’re worth stopping and getting to know better and maybe, just maybe, having a life together.’”

  “And it’s coming for you, I can feel it. You have such a wonderful energy inside that it’s just a matter of time. You’re also still very young,” I insist, noting th
e slight age difference between us.

  “Not that young, trust me,” she replies.

  There’s fragility to Tamaryn that I had not previously noticed, tippy-toeing through a maze of emotions that leaves me forgetting my own woes and remembering similar thoughts that plagued so much of my own life.

  “You must be patient; he’s out there somewhere, I assure you.”

  “There was one guy I dated for about a year, and I thought everything was going really well. He met my parents, got along with my brother, and we’d talk about our future all the time.”

  “And what happened?” I ask.

  “One day we woke up, he turned over, and told me he wasn’t in love with me. It was if he stated a fact he knew all along, he had tried to make it work, he really did. Then one day, he simply had enough … of me, that is. He said he loved my family and loved the life, but he didn’t love me.”

  “But hear this, it is better to wait until you find the right guy and not just the one who stops, and you worry that another one won’t come along in time.”

  “Yes, but I very much want a family. I can’t imagine growing old here alone, watching everyone else have what I want as I pass through life completely alone.” She muffles a choke while taking a slow sip of the wine.

  “You won’t be. You must be patient and wait until love finds you, please believe me. You don’t want to marry someone who only meets most of what you want.”

  “I try to reassure myself of that, but it’s a story I’ve been retelling inside over and over again. At a certain point, you have to prepare for the alternative.”

  I see a younger version of myself in Tamaryn as the intensity of the conversation dead ends in silence. The only resolution to our questions is a story that only time can tell, and we are both smart enough to know it. I could see we were eating faster than the other guests who were just taking their entrees as we progressed with dessert. In mutually resigned smiles, we ate a caramel-laden dollop of ice cream before she invited me back to the bar for an after-dinner drink. Citing jet lag, I excused myself to return to my room. We separated with a long, comforting embrace knowing the emotions that stirred within both of us.

  A different guard walked me back to the room. He remained silent as we exited the lodge and made our way with a torch to the elevated walkway. Shortly before we arrived at my room, he grabbed my arm and hesitated. A rustling in the bushes revealed itself as a charming warthog that had wandered into camp. With a soft laugh, we parted ways. I rejoined my misery, and he made his way back to whatever it was the guards and staff members do come nightfall and freedom.

  With the closing of the lock, I was immediately grief-stricken again, falling on my bed and imagining what could have been with David if we had just one more time. I imagine us lingering in the morning, watching the bush ignite in sunrise, or waking in the middle of the night to feel his warm naked body against mine. I felt the need to talk to him, but suffocated from the lack of cell phone or e-mail communication that might have kept me from knowing what actually happened. My deepest fears taunt. I resign myself that he met another woman, one who’s closer to his age and life in London, who’s more available than my life allowed.

  My thoughts return to Billy and Matt, who sit at home with hearts full of love, unknowing what I have become. Ultimately, I tell myself that David not arriving could actually be for the best. I still love my husband and really don’t know when I would have ever found the strength to tear myself away from David or found the courage to end my marriage. I can’t imagine being a single mom explaining years later to my son what happened to his father and me, and why I was willing to give up so quickly on him and us. I’ll give my version of how I imagined everything so differently in the beginning, the way all other divorced women do. This wasn’t what was to become of any of us.

  Maybe life can still be different with Matt. Everything was more passionate between us prior to having Billy; we were social, and he was motivated to do so much more than just be a stay-at-home dad. I wonder how we can ever get back to that place, how I can ever look at him and not think of my enormous betrayal. How do I learn to love his touch again, to look in his eyes, and not imagine that it is David’s hands and body that I so crave? When do the memories of David’s body and scent retreat from my soul and allow me to be the wife and mother I have failed to be? I can’t help but think that despite my heart’s utter pain, David not arriving is the universe’s way of saving my soul before it is all too late.

  Without taking off my clothes or even my makeup, I turn off the lights and allow the darkness to cradle my lost heart. As the tears ease, the sounds of the outside penetrate and release me from the inward consumption that has left me with nowhere to go or think or feel. After I pull off my shoes, I stand and make my way to the well-secured door and push it open to leave only thin netting between the wild and me. Come have me, I think, and with it all this misery. I run back to bed and hide under the covers. The sounds magnify so much more with the open door. The chill sets in immediately, forcing me to find that warm spot in the bed again left by my prone body.

  My mind drifts back to the first time I actually allowed myself to talk to David in Rio, thinking that just one conversation would be harmless. Then the reassuring promise that a day together would mean nothing and that a simple kiss wouldn’t lead to anything else. Then there’s that moment you fall face first and head into this place where every fantasy you ever dreamed, and even some you didn’t, are fulfilled by the flesh. You tell yourself that this man can only live in this compartmentalized world of sporadic weekends, and that if shown the real you, he would vanish before your eyes, but you continue to dream of only him.

  I hear once again that faint call from earlier in the evening, the incredible call of the lioness that she sends to search the night for her fallen mate, not knowing he is gone, and that daunting misery that lies in her path. She calls again and again and again with a rhythmic precision unyielding to time or sleep or hunger. Her anguished lullaby comforts my pain, tempers my loss, and helps me to want to live. It hushes me to sleep, knowing that despite the enormous defeat, I will ultimately survive and be again.

  A thump on the door at 5:00 a.m. sends me into a state of terror, a combination of my eyes not adjusting to the darkness and lack of remembering exactly where I was this morning. An African accent is indistinguishable except the word coffee that alerts me of my surroundings and the numbing cold that has penetrated me to the bone.

  “We will meet you at five-thirty,” says the man. I hear a series of heavy footsteps that follow and slowly fade to silence on the outside walkway.

  Reality of the place, the situation, and the new day taunts me as I pull the door open and take my tray of coffee steaming inside a tall French press. There are two cups next to a plate of sugar-topped cookies the texture of biscuits that crumble at a poke of my index finger.

  As I sit on the bed looking at my watch with only ten minutes left before I am due on the truck, I am tempted to ditch this place altogether, but the lack of communication with the outside world makes it hard to justify a family emergency, or at least knowledge of one. I consider saying I’m sick, but then they’ll summon their own doctor. With no escape, I must slip on my jeans, pull on my coat, and tie my scarf around my neck as I go out this door and begin my old life again, as it should be, in this post-David world that I now face.

  As I make my way down to the lodge, I can see other guests making their way out and into the trucks. Duarte lingers at the bottom of the stairway, most likely wondering if I would show or choose to spend my day with eyes closed in what could be the most majestic place on earth. Even I, in all my despair, can see it would be a great tragedy not to let this place affect me and see as much as my eyes can take and my heart can bear this day.

  “Good morning, Catherine. Good night’s sleep, I hope?” Duarte says, looking more handsome this day than the last, his beard, and wavy b
lond hair groomed.

  “Yes, wonderful, actually. I could hear the lioness all night.”

  “Good memory. Yes, we all did, actually, until around three o’clock when she stopped or moved along the riverbed where sound doesn’t travel as well.”

  “Do you think the cub is still with her?” I ask.

  “Well, he would have been fine as long as she was calling. After the interruption, it’s anyone’s guess. But before we head out, did you want to grab a bite of food?”

  “No, I’m not much of a morning eater, so let’s be on our way, as I don’t want to hold you guys up.”

  “Well, it’s just you in the truck again, so there’s no problem, really. Also, I wanted to let you know that Tamaryn checked with the Joburg office, and all flights were on time from London yesterday. There was no word from David. But communication is very slow in the bush, so perhaps something kept him back in London?”

  “Yes, perhaps. His work is very busy, so who’s to tell, really.”

  “So let’s be on our way and see if we can track down some of those male lions. Also, there was a rhino spotted nearby last night, so we’ll try to see if we can catch up with her.”

  With an unyielding gusto, the truck roars away from the lodge and temporarily from all my angst and sadness. The morning air is alive; the naive precursor of a harsh day for all that inhabits this magical place and may likely face its death.

  It’s a short drive before we arrive to our first idle of the truck—a family of twenty or so elephants are en route to the local riverbed. The agitated bull is the first to trumpet our arrival. He turns to face us and puffs his ears with a siren that startles even Duarte, if I’m to read his hand placed tightly on the ignition key. The bull’s front foot kicks up a plume of sand visible in our headlights as he jolts forward and then to the side as if to test our vigilance. He trumpets again, and suddenly Duarte flips on the motor and speeds a few yards up sending the bull after us just a few steps and then retreating to the rest of his family and away from our truck.