Andean Express

by Juan de Recacoechea

  “I just remembered that they don’t give out visitor passes for the Santas.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why would I lie to you?”

  “All right,” said Ricardo. “Sometimes I’m a little too forward.”

  She kissed him on the lips, caressed his hair, and looked at him tenderly. “I’m going to the wake with my mother.”

  “What time will you leave the hotel?”

  “At around 7. The ship leaves at 8. I barely have time to buy stuff— you know, something to wear on board.”

  “I’ll take a siesta,” said Ricardo.

  “I don’t feel like going to the wake.” Gulietta made a face like a spoiled rich girl, then turned to leave and said, “I’ll see you later.”

  Ricardo went up to the window that looked out over the sea. The warm air carried the aroma of the waves crashing around El Morro. The Santa Rita suddenly appeared. He hadn’t seen it before because it had been hidden behind that historic rock, the pride of this serene and quiet port.

  It was a cargo ship like many others: ten thousand tons, the hull painted black, the deck a sparkling white, and a green smokestack. On the bow and the stern rose enormous cranes like giants with metal stingers. Several barges headed toward it. Motionless, Ricardo observed the freighter, which stopped some two hundred yards offshore, swaying side to side with a certain elegance.

  The fading sun ducked behind the horizon. The sea, which had been a deep blue in the early afternoon hours, now acquired silvery tones. With the rising tide, the constant crashing of the waves could be heard off in the distance. Ricardo entered the small bar on the first floor. Tréllez and Durbin were there drinking cognac.

  “Did you go to the wake?” asked Durbin.

  “I don’t know where it is . . .”

  “At the end of 25 de Mayo. On the second floor of a wooden house. You’ll see a hardware store on the ground floor.”

  “Why bother?” asked Tréllez.

  “My wife is there and so is Anita,” said Durbin. “The Marquis took care of everything.”

  “Doña Clara will probably slip him a few pesos,” said Tréllez.

  Petko came through the swinging door at that moment and sat down at the table.

  “Where did you eat lunch?” asked Durbin.

  “Customs official invite me to seafood restaurant.” Petko lit a cigar and his beady eyes studied Ricardo. “Carletti girl already leave.”

  “I’m waiting for her,” said Ricardo.

  “She leave. I see her go.”

  “Impossible. She told me to wait for her.”

  “Yes! I accompany Doña Clara and Gulietta to barge that go to ship. Marquis too.”

  Ricardo stood up. He walked over to the concierge and asked for Gulietta. The man raised his eyebrows in a feminine gesture.

  “She left for the ship half an hour ago.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Are you Señor Ricardo?”

  “Ricardo Beintigoitia.”

  The concierge handed him a sealed envelope with his name on it. It was a short and cold missive from Gulietta affirming that she went looking for him everywhere, couldn’t find him, and had no choice but to board her ship. She added that her mother was accompanying her, that she would probably return immediately to the wake, and that Gulietta would write to him from New Orleans.

  “There’s no way to visit the Santa Rita?”

  The concierge was an annoying fellow. Not only did he maintain an obnoxious silence; he gave himself the luxury of looking at Ricardo somewhat flirtatiously. “Maybe,” he said.

  “How’s that?”

  “I can get an invitation for you.”

  “How much does it cost?”

  “Nothing; it’s a courtesy of the hotel.”

  The large barges swayed alongside the stern. Stevedores tossed thick ropes to the sailors of the Santa Rita, who proceeded to tie them to sturdy hooks on a wide opening on the hull. The boat in which Ricardo rode sidled up to the ship. After a series of maneuvers, one of the sailors seized a rope that the boatman had thrown him and tied the little vessel to the ladder. Ricardo climbed up to the deck. Once on board, he breathed in the ocean breeze, which smelled of the high seas. Three levels of solid iron stood before him, topped by the green smokestack that was still exhaling after the long journey from Valparaíso. Ricardo headed up to the second floor. A few vendor stands, somewhat upscale in appearance, formed a fan around the fountain, which was covered with climbing ivy. He walked up to a desk and asked a smiling, freckle-faced orderly for Gulietta’s cabin.

  “Upper deck,” the guy answered.

  Ricardo, for better or worse, found the way to the cabin through a jumble of corridors. He knocked and Doña Clara appeared.

  “Hello, Ricardo, are you here with your family?”

  “I’m alone.”

  “Come in. This is Gulietta’s cabin. If I were traveling with her, I would be sleeping in the cabin right in front. I came to say goodbye to my daughter.”

  The room was spacious and comfortable. Along one side was a double bed, a closet in which Doña Clara had hung Gulietta’s clothing, a Venetian-imitation oval mirror, and a desk.

  “And Gulietta?”

  “Out and about somewhere.”

  “Have you taken a look around?”

  “To be honest, I’m very tired. Gulietta can tell me how beautiful the ship is in her next letter.” She peered at herself in the mirror for a moment and applied some cream around her eyes.

  Ricardo thought that Doña Clara wouldn’t stay a widow much longer. He pictured her on the edge of a cliff and diving in headfirst. She looked good for her age, and with Alderete’s money there would be no shortage of suitors out for a good time and a free ride. At forty years of age, a woman of her social standing, distinguished and well-preserved, was a prize that wouldn’t pass unnoticed.

  “I’m going to look for Gulietta to say goodbye,” said Ricardo.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, Doña Clara.”

  “It’ll only be three months; then you’ll see her again in La Paz.”

  Ricardo went down to the deck. He searched for her from bow to stern. At the rear of the Santa, there was a tiny pool and an American-style lounge. Gulietta was alone and drinking orange soda at the bar. Ricardo stood quietly near the entrance. Meanwhile, one of the ship’s officers appeared and sat down next to her. He ordered a beer and joked with the bartender, a scrawny black man. Gulietta glanced at the officer out of the corner of her eye and he returned the look. The man clearly had an effect on her. She became tongue-tied and her body trembled slightly. The officer appeared to be in his thirties and he had unusual features, if you assumed he was an American WASP. He had the look of an Italian who had grown eight inches taller than the average height in the motherland. He was handsome; and in his officer’s uniform, he was doubly dangerous.

  Ricardo, an intuitive young man, realized that Gulietta was in mortal peril, and that she would face it with great pleasure. The officer seemed to caress her with his eyes. There was a certain stiffness to his slender frame, though his movements were graceful and not without their charm. Gulietta stared at him, now seemingly hypnotized. Her eyes were only for him. People say that love and affection have nothing to do with the heart, which is only a muscle, but Ricardo’s heart was in pain; he felt like an invisible hand was crushing it. He remained motionless, his eyes fixed on her. He had never seen her like this before, even in the moments he made love to her. She didn’t look like the Gulietta he knew. The officer was drawing her into a space, the likes of which Ricardo had been unable to create. When she had been with him, she was always her own boss; she never lost control of her feelings. Dumbstruck, Gulietta listened devotedly to the officer’s words, which he wove with the efficiency of a spider. There would be no point in approaching her.

  Ricardo turned around, and as he was leaving, he heard her call his name.

  Gulietta raised her hand, but Ricardo con
tinued right on down the corridor toward the exit. Gulietta hurried from the bar and caught up with him.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Gulietta.

  “Nothing. You’re the one with the problem.”

  “I was just talking.”

  “Why did you tell me there was no way to come and visit the ship?”

  Gulietta was hit by a torrent of vibrations emanating from Ricardo. His gaze was so penetrating that it made her face turn a deep red. She knew she had done the right thing in deciding to travel, whatever the cost. Ricardo’s passion was thrilling, but also oppressive. If they stayed together, she feared there might be mutual suffering: He would compulsively try to force her to fit into his mold, while she would never abandon her newfound quest for freedom.

  “Didn’t you want to see me?” asked Ricardo.

  “I was going to write as soon as I arrived in New Orleans.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. You used me, Gulietta, as if I were a fool.”

  “You’re so . . . intense . . .”

  “Go back to your officer and stop lying. You already got what you wanted.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  Ricardo opened a hatch door that faced starboard and quickly descended the stairs to the rented craft that was waiting for him. The sun was slowly setting, fading like a doomed, sacred fire.

  Ricardo kept an eye on the Santa Rita from his room. He was trying to defuse the violent emotions that were tormenting him and adopt an attitude of indifference in the face of the ship’s imminent departure. But as the moment drew closer, this seemed impossible. For the first time in his life, he felt defenseless against a situation that was beyond repair. With a telescope, he would surely have seen her on deck, gazing at the city lights in the company of that officer. An irresistible, seafaring personage in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, he could have been a creation of Melville. Ricardo heard the ship’s siren in the distance and managed to glimpse the anchor being raised over the bow. A large tugboat helped the Santa Rita turn around and head for the open sea. As the second siren sounded, Ricardo recalled the whistle of the Andean Express. The tugboat managed to point the ship’s bow toward the horizon, beyond which the sun was almost gone. A final, definitive horn blast broke the small-town silence. Ricardo watched as the boat headed out into the ocean, leaving behind a trail of foam. Sea gulls circled overhead. He stood there silently until the boat’s silhouette became one with the shadows. A fleeting period in his life, which had begun in La Paz the day before, had come to an end. The image of Gulietta at Central Station was vivid in his mind. He remembered the first time they exchanged glances there, the conversation in the dining car, the first caress, and that night when he first made love to her, accompanied by a pang of guilt. He imagined Gulietta’s eyes, frozen in surprise, sweet-looking in orgasm. He was afraid he would never forget her, and that she would appear endlessly in his dreams. He didn’t know her well, but their time together had been divine. Gulietta might go on to have a very beautiful life, but she would always find herself on a knife’s edge. There would be a surprise around every corner, jealousy in every glance. It was too risky to live in a state of constant uncertainty. Loneliness would be hard to bear for a long while, but it was better to suffer now and forget . . . If he was able to forget.

  The following day, a Friday, Doña Clara buried Alderete in the cemetery of Arica. Other than the Marquis and Anita, no one else witnessed Alderete’s descent to his final resting place. It was a simple ceremony: Not a single tear was shed. Doña Clara had reserved her return ticket to La Paz for that day, and she would be joined by the Marquis, Anita, and the four hostesses who had come from Valparaíso. The Marquis put them up in a pension downtown, where they were preparing themselves for the daily grind that awaited them in the capital of the Altiplano.

  The travelers who had occupied the sleeping car went their separate ways. Ruiz headed to Tacna to purchase merchandise, which he would later pass “under the table” through the border town of Desaguadero. The cash he had won in the poker game from Alderete wasn’t too shabby, and he intended to double his small fortune by trading in contraband Peruvian cotton. Durbin and Lourdes flew in a DC-3 to Valdivia, where they planned to vacation for a while before embarking to Ireland. Rocha, the executioner, almost immediately caught a rickety bus bound for Iquique in search of the mulatta who would make him happy and use him as her one-legged pimp. With the sum he had received for eliminating the miner, he planned to open a tavern at which, obviously, he would be the number one consumer. He left Arica in a state of contentment, his conscience undisturbed.

  Tréllez and Petko were still lodged at the Hotel Pacífico. After dispatching the freight that came from Germany to La Paz, Petko would dedicate himself to daily swims at La Licera, a popular beach, between the hours of 11 and 1.

  It was a Saturday night. The film season had begun with a double-feature in the resort town’s only movie theater. There were two American movies, a musical with Gene Kelly and a dark drama with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

  When his family retired to the hotel, Ricardo decided to take a walk on La Rambla. As always, Canepa was there waiting for him. He introduced him to his girlfriend and her sister, a pale, quiet young woman named Soledad who glanced suggestively at Ricardo. They agreed to meet up the next afternoon at the sisters’ beach house in Chorrillos.

  The sisters excused themselves on the pretext of going home to listen to a radio soap opera. Ricardo and Canepa smoked and looked out at the ocean, which was barely illuminated by a timid summer moon. Ricardo wanted to be alone and said goodbye to Canepa, promising to join him on Sunday at the girls’ house.

  He headed for the bar on the ground floor of the Hotel Pacífico, which had two entrances: one from the street and the other from the hotel lobby. They were serving excellent coffee, which they imported from Colombia. A bald, chubby bartender was sweating behind the counter when Ricardo arrived. He was leafing through an Argentine sports magazine and glanced occasionally at the plaza, which was dimly lit by a pair of art noveau streetlamps.

  “Last night there was a temblor,” said the waiter. “Did you notice it?”

  “No,” said Ricardo.

  “There’s a temblor almost every day.”

  “I’ve been coming here since I was seven years old. Temblors don’t surprise me.”

  “You’ve probably never been in an earthquake. As a child, I lived through Chillán. I was so scared my hair fell out.”

  At that moment, Petko had just stopped around the corner, next to some planters containing roses and carnations. He was smoking. He took a long look at El Morro and proceeded into the bar. He was dressed in a linen suit, which was both elegant and spotless. He took off his hat, and as he placed it on a chair, he said: “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Of course not,” replied Ricardo.

  “Family asleep?”

  “We went to the movies,” said Ricardo.

  “You very depressed. I not see why.”

  “I’m thinking about what happened on the train.”

  “And?”

  “Maybe if he hadn’t surprised us in bed, Alderete would still be alive.”

  “Khuya!” Petko exclaimed. He ordered a cognac and a small coffee and waited in silence for the chubby guy to serve him. Then: “I have something to say you if you allow me. I don’t like to see you like that, seem like you will have same face at Club de La Paz café.”

  Ricardo nodded.

  “Now they leave, it best to tell truth.”

  “Uncle Tréllez is still in Arica.”

  “He not part of this.” Petko sipped the cognac and the coffee. “I feel good. Ocean whet appetite.”

  Ricardo became impatient. “What were you going to tell me?”

  “You, Ricardo, had nothing to do with death. He not die of heart attack.”

  “Then what did he die of?”

  Petko bit into his cigar with relish. “They kill him.”

  “They did?”

/>   Petko’s gray, squirrel-like eyes looked away. “It seem made up, but is true. They killed. I saw everything,” he said, smiling.

  “How? Who?”

  “Swear you not repeat what I say now because it about honorable person.”

  “Honorable?”

  “The one who killed was not very honorable, but the one with idea was . . .”

  Ricardo ordered a cognac; he’d never had one before. The chubby waiter offered him a cigarette and asked if he wanted more coffee.

  “Please,” said Ricardo.

  “When Alderete go to his cabin after we won poker, I have to go to bathroom at end of car,” said Petko. “I got up and go to one at end of dining car. It was full. I wait, but really need to piss, so I go to bathroom in my sleeping car. Piss and leave, what did I see?”

  “What did you see?”

  “Cripple Rocha leave cabin. He look all around, but not notice I was there. Rocha go to cabin of Alderete, who just leave yours, after see erotic scene. He entered cabin. I go slowly toward door and hear short but fatal conversation.”

  “Rocha killed him?”

  “Rocha killed in two or three minutes. Fast. He say few words to Alderete and send him to other world. I hide myself again in bathroom. Rocha leave happy and return to cabin. I stay silent.”

  “Unbelievable!” said Ricardo.

  Petko blew a puff of cigar smoke into the air. “Cuban tobacco is best. Nothing compare.”

  Ricardo burned his throat with a sip of cognac. He was astonished, but he knew Petko wasn’t lying. Why would he? He had no reason to.

  “Then, before Gulietta go out into corridor, other person appear.”

  “Who?”

  “Doña Clara.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “She look around, enter Alderete cabin, leave, and slide envelope under Rocha door. Probably money.”

  Ricardo finished the cognac and asked for one more.

  “Not drink cognac like that. You have to sip. It not like beer.”’

  “Incredible . . .”

  “Why incredible? Alderete leave her husband penniless. Kill him too, but little by little. Better to die like Alderete, in single moment. Not have time even to think about all terrible things he did. Now feel better?”