by David Unger
Guillermo thinks of blowing several hundred bucks to meet Maryam at the Grand Tikal Futura Hotel on the Calzada Roosevelt. But the Futura is just minutes away from Ibrahim’s textile factory, and is managed by a Lebanese man she knows. It’s also risky because there are always huge traffic jams getting in and out of the hotel and neither Maryam nor Guillermo can afford to be late. They could go to the Quinta Real just outside of town, but his law firm represents the owners.
Guillermo makes other inquiries. The Mercure Casa Veranda rents suites and rooms by the month on 12th Street in Zone 10, and so does the Barceló, but the cost would be a small fortune, and the possibility of being seen at either would be greater than at the Stofella. In the end, he decides to rent a furnished one-bedroom in an innocuous building overlooking the Plazuela España, which is less than a mile from his offices in the Próceres building. It is also only two blocks from Rosa Esther’s sacred Union Church, but since she only goes there on Wednesdays—the day he eats over at Maryam’s house with her father—and Sundays, a day the lovers will never meet, the apartment is ideal. They are no more than a ten- or fifteen-minute ride from each of their homes and from Guillermo and Ibrahim’s offices, and there is a garage in the basement allowing them to come and go largely unseen.
Before either one of them realizes it, they are seeing each other three days a week. They make love two or three times each afternoon. There’s never enough time for simple conversation. Neither is the least bit interested in the daily particulars of each other’s lives, but they would both likely discuss music, books, movies, food, the increased violence on the public buses, and the poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City if they had the time.
But the only place that really matters to them is the bed. Before they know it, two hours have elapsed and the last few minutes together are filled with showering and dressing, and sometimes with slight recriminations for not being able to find a better way to be together more.
One day Guillermo promises to devise a plan for them to get away for a long weekend to Ambergris Cay in Belize.
Maryam looks at him with doubt. “You must be dreaming.”
“I can make it work,” he tells her. “Just watch me.”
In the end, they are afraid to even take an afternoon in La Antigua, only thirty-five kilometers away.
* * *
Thursday when they meet, Maryam insists they talk.
They sit in the ersatz living room, he on a chaise longue and she in an overstuffed green chair that overlooks the fountain in the Plazuela España. They are sitting as far from each other as they ever have in this apartment.
“I can’t go on like this, Guillermo.”
When she says this, his heart panics. He suspects the end is near. Both of them are fully invested in the relationship, but he feels he has no right to insist they continue to see one another secretly. He is afraid to divorce Rosa Esther for what it might do to her and their children: he is convinced his family is helpless without him.
Guillermo and Maryam’s relationship is not ideal—what in life is? He doesn’t want to change anything. At least they are able to be with one another on a regular basis. And a divorce, even a separation, could affect his business.
“What do you mean, my love?” he says, trying to be tender.
“I hate all this skulking around. It’s as if we’re committing a crime.” He can see that she is very upset.
“Some would say we are.”
“I know that . . . Maybe it’s something else,” she says, scratching the palm of her hand. “I hate it when we part. I want to be with you all the time.”
He thinks about this and finds himself saying something he has never said to Araceli or any of his other lovers: “I do too.”
She slaps her knees. “I can’t just leave Samir. We got married eight months after his wife died of cancer.”
“I didn’t know that.” This is the first time she mentions anything about how they met. Or about her thoughts of leaving him.
“He’s a leader of Guatemala’s small Lebanese community, and highly respected. Even my father admires him because, though we are Maronites, Samir has forged contacts with our Islamic and Jewish brothers. Do you even know what he does for a living?” she challenges him.
Embarrassed, Guillermo can’t recall.
“He owns a hardware store on Eleventh Avenue, downtown. He barely makes ends meet. He works hard and is respected by everyone. He has grown children, a boy and a girl, who have gone back to live in Lebanon. Did you know that I am the stepmother of children almost my own age? As much as he repels me, I can’t abandon him. Not only for where that would leave him, but also for what he might try to do in revenge.”
“No one is asking you to leave him,” Guillermo counters somewhat testily.
“Please don’t raise your voice at me, Guillermo. I am not Rosa Esther. Whenever we plan to see each other, I have to come up with a pretext: I’m going shopping, I’ve gone to Sophos.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know. This wears me out, all this sneaking about. I can’t just walk out on him, not at this stage. Any day someone will see us, and I need to know where we stand. To be honest, I have no idea where our affair is going.”
This comment echoes some of their earlier text messages, before they started seeing each other more regularly and Guillermo rented the apartment. Every few weeks Maryam seems to have a panic attack: she reaches a point where she wants things to change, to adjust to the new reality of their relationship, to demand more commitment. She believes that they can’t just keep fucking each other three times a week for forty years. He’s not so sure.
“Why do we need to decide this now? I promise to come up with a better solution,” he says, as if he is trying to calm a client. “But can’t we just enjoy ourselves in the meantime?”
Rather than answer this question, Maryam simply ignores him. She refuses to be deflected from her own train of thought. “Samir asks so little of me. I am nearly twenty-five years younger than him. You might not want to hear this, but he isn’t interested in coming inside of me. He is happy if I masturbate him once a month. Thank God he’s happy with my hand and not my mouth—”
“I don’t need to hear this, Maryam,” Guillermo says, standing up.
“It’s his age or his reduced libido,” Maryam continues. “He has no desire for me. He’s more interested in having me manage the home while he goes to work. He spends most of his time staying in touch with old friends in Sidon, which is also where his children live with his younger sister Dahlia. He is a man of simple pleasures who would prefer to wear slippers and a robe on Sunday mornings instead of playing golf.”
“Uh huh.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Guillermo?”
“What can we do?” he finally says, fighting the urge to touch her.
Her eyes are swollen red, holding back tears, and she is gripping her chair. “Samir suspects that something has changed. Maybe he has spies, for all I know. Or maybe he can tell I’m distracted. What frustrates me is knowing you won’t do a thing.”
He walks over to her and strokes her hair. “Give me a chance to think of something . . . Maryam, are you about to have your period?”
She glares at him. “You think this is about hormones?” she says, getting up to leave.
“Maryam, where are you going?”
She slams the door without saying a word.
* * *
One night, almost two months after Guillermo and Maryam first met up at the Stofella, Rosa Esther takes Guillermo’s cell phone out of its belt case while he’s having one of his evening showers. She’s always been too afraid to do this and assumes he would be cautious enough to use a password anyway.
When she awakens his BlackBerry, she notices he has eleven saved-as-new text messages. She closes her eyes briefly, anticipating that the next step will lead to a place where she shouldn’t go. In fact, she doesn’t want to go there. Not this night. So she puts the phone back
in its leather case.
The next time he takes an evening shower, she’s determined. She wants to know what’s happening on the flip side of Guillermo’s life. Her face darkens as she begins reading the texts he has stupidly saved.
Words like divino, amor, querido, corazón dot the messages, some of which are sexually quite graphic: Divino, I just got off the tennis court and my underwear is wet—for you; or, Habibi, I’m shopping, and when I touch the cucumbers and the badinjan I begin to perspire; or, Corazón, the dream I had of you, with your erect penis, made me touch myself till I came twice in bed. Then she checked his sent messages: at a meeting with some corporate lawyers, and I only think of licking you; or, I see you naked, with your lush breasts swinging above me; or Amor, I can’t get up from the table because of the huge erection I have, thinking of you. I thirst for you and want to taste your peppery cunt.
This is enough for her. She thinks of having it out with him when he comes out of the shower, but decides she should be calm if she wants her words to be effective. She decides she will plan her escape strategically so as not to be foiled. She needs to do what’s best for her and the children.
The moment will come.
* * *
She waits weeks, documenting the number of times he offers lame excuses for not coming home for lunch or coming late for dinner. She wants to have an accurate tabulation before confronting him. In the meantime she has contacted her uncle in Mexico and told him about her husband’s affair. He cautions her to keep silent, at least for now. He wants her to settle all the details about her move to Mexico with Andrea and Ilán, so that once she has decided to leave, there’s no way he can stop her. The last thing she needs is to get involved with a lawyer who might accuse her of kidnapping her own children.
Though she will have to leave her sister in Guatemala, Rosa Esther likes the idea of going to Mexico, escaping all the tawdry gossip and looks, and beginning a new life where no one will know or care how many times Guillermo has betrayed her.
She sets up a Wednesday appointment with Pastor Huggins at the Union Church. Right off the bat she tells him that her husband has always had affairs, but is now falling in love with a Muslim slut. The pastor, originally from Louisville, Kentucky and quite conservative, is taken aback by Rosa Esther’s choice of words. He suggests they seek counseling and can recommend a therapist. He no longer advises married congregants at cross purposes. He has found the few sessions he’s held with accusing couples distasteful—he’s embarrassed to hear salacious allegations, sordid details. Moreover, his counseling sessions never work out, and he ends up losing both parishioners.
Rosa Esther is disappointed with his reaction. She wants action or concrete advice, and all she receives is a pat on the hand, the voicing of platitudes, and a call for greater patience and devotion to the sanctity of their marriage. The Union Church is perfect for drawing congregants closer to God, but fails at resolving the problems of modern marriages.
She thanks the pastor and leaves, knowing she must act on her own, without blessing or benediction.
* * *
Rosa Esther hatches a workable plot with her uncle. For Easter, she will be taking the kids to Mexico to visit him and her older cousins. They will stay a few days in her uncle’s home in the San Ángel area and then go swimming for another couple of days at a luxurious hotel in Cuernavaca. She knows that Guillermo will not want to accompany them, since he isn’t able to get away from work for ten days. Besides, he would not pass up the opportunity to visit freely with his new whore.
The kids are only told that they will be visiting their great uncle and Rosa Esther’s cousins. And everything seems normal. Ten days in Mexico with her only other living relatives.
* * *
Guillermo goes to Aurora Airport to meet Rosa Esther and the children when they fly back from Mexico.
“Where are the kids?” he asks, when he sees Rosa Esther coming out of the baggage pickup area on the lower level with a man pushing her two bags on a four-wheel cart. Guillermo has no idea what is going on, but is not to any extent suspicious. He knows nothing about his children’s school calendar. Maybe the cousins are hitting it off and want to spend another week together.
“I thought they might stay in Mexico a little longer,” Rosa Esther says, kissing him on the cheek.
The only problem is that Guillermo’s ego is a bit bruised for not having been consulted. “And you made this decision without me?” he asks as they make their way to the car in the parking lot.
“Guillermo, if you cared for Ilán and Andrea as much as you think you do, you would never have taken up with that whore.”
“That what?”
“Your Muslim whore. I know all about it. I read your disgusting text messages to her. Is she your princess? Does that make you her prince or have you been elevated to king or ayatollah?” Rosa Esther’s face shows no emotion. No hurt, no resentment; an almost cold-blooded dispassionate expression is stamped upon it.
There’s no point in denying the affair at this point. The proverbial beans have been spilled. He will have to deal with the fallout. “What do you want from me?” he asks.
“A separation to start, followed by a divorce. And your agreement not to contest the custody of our children. I want half the money in our bank accounts and I want you to sell the apartment. We can share the profits. I don’t want you living there with that whore.”
“We bought that apartment with the money we made from selling the Vista Hermosa house that I paid for with my parents’ inheritance. In truth that apartment should be all mine.”
“Well, it isn’t. And no judge in Guatemala will let you keep what is now common property, especially when I present proof of your affairs. I deserve the full value of the apartment, so I believe I’m being very generous with you. Plus, I want you to send me sixteen thousand quetzales each month in child support until both of the kids are out of college.”
“And where are you planning to live?”
“In Mexico City.”
“And what do you expect me to live on, after I wire you that money?” he asks contemptuously. “Water? Air?”
“To be honest, Guillermo, I don’t care what you live on. Hummus, for all I care. And I don’t deserve your scornful tone. You are the transgressor. You might have considered being a bit more forthright with me about your whore, and maybe the terms of our separation would have been more favorable.”
“Maryam is not a whore.”
“The whore has a name,” she says sarcastically.
“She does. And I think her name’s beautiful.”
Rosa Esther is about to slap him, but holds back. “You disgust me.”
“It sounds as if you were planning to leave me all along.”
“Oh, Guillermo, talking to you is pointless. You’re always the lawyer. You have piles of arguments and briefs and you know how to use them. What I wonder is, when did you lose the thoughtfulness, the humanity you had when I first met you at Pecos Bill? You’ve become so crass, and a coward on top of that! I’ve given you two beautiful children and you’ve given me nothing but heartache and a venereal disease that makes my face break out in a rash every few months. Thanks for ruining my life.”
“Nice,” is all he can say. She’s still bringing up the herpes stuff that occurred nearly twenty years ago.
And before he can say anything else she adds, “Tell me, when did I become your enemy?”
“You’re not my enemy.” He feels unjustly accused. And unjustly forced to respond.
She laughs heartily. “Oh, but I am. I know you have other enemies that you consider much more important, like the president and his wife, liberal journalists, tax reformers: anyone who can stand in the way of achieving your state of total freedom. Well, you are now free to fulfill your dreams. And the price that I am extracting from you is cheap. Very cheap. You won’t lose your children forever: you will be free to visit them in Mexico. And they can visit you in Guatemala as long as you are not living with tha
t whore. There won’t be any talk of kidnapping, or of you trying to block my leaving. You can have this poor excuse of a country all for yourself. Is that clear?”
Guillermo fumes. From a legal point of view, he knows that Rosa Esther is being uncommonly accommodating. He’s well aware of Guatemalan statutes regarding divorce and culpability. He knows when he’s been beaten and also when he has been given a pass, a good settlement. What upsets him is that there is nothing left to negotiate with her, not even her refusal to accept the fact that anything good, other than the children, has come from their marriage.
He cannot say anything in his own defense.
Rosa Esther is through talking. “Could you start the car? I want to go home.”
* * *
So they drive home together like a civilized, uncoupled couple. Rosa Esther moves into Andrea’s bedroom, full of posters and pictures and pink stuffed animals. She stays in Guatemala for two weeks, packing up the kids’ things and saying goodbye to her sister—who promises to visit her within the month—and all her friends before flying off to Mexico.
There are no big blow-ups; there’s no more terrain to contest. In fact, there is no need for lawyers. Rosa Esther has brought her own divorce contract from Mexico and only needs Guillermo to copy the terms on the Guatemalan writ for divorce so that their separation can become official.
Pastor Huggins is more than willing to prepare a legal Unitarian divorce in which both parties are rendered guiltless as subjects who have come to realize that they have irreconcilable differences. Rosa Esther does not want to create a scandal by accusing him formally of infidelity. Since divorce is illegal in Guatemala, she is willing to have their marriage annulled under the proviso that they were never in love, and that their marriage was only contractual in the eyes of man, not sacred in the eyes of God.
Guillermo, naturally, agrees.
Every night, while Rosa Esther is finalizing her affairs, he calls the children on Skype. The phone conversations end up with Andrea in tears, but Ilán is more stoic, as if there has merely been a soccer trade or the aging star of the team has been axed. Guillermo promises frequent visits to Mexico City. He does not want to lose them, or so he says.
