by Brady Hammes
“Oh yeah,” Jonah said, more out of courtesy than any real interest in what he was saying. He considered the board, but there was nothing for him, so he drew from the boneyard.
“Where are you from in the States?” Edwin continued.
“Chicago,” Jonah said, not looking up from the game. The guy obviously wasn’t getting the hint.
“Windy City,” Edwin said, as if summoning a memory. “I visited once in the late nineties. Cold city full of warm people. That’s how I remember it. May I ask how you ended up on this train tonight?”
“Tourists,” Jonah said curtly.
“Is that right? Gabon isn’t known for its tourism, but I admire your sense of adventure. Kenya is the obvious place for tourists. Kenya or South Africa. People want to see the animals, the big five. They want luxury camps and sundowners in the bush. Don’t get me wrong, a safari is a wonderful thing, but I applaud you for taking the road less traveled. Tourism is a real boon for countries like Gabon. Of course, it doesn’t help when we have this kind of political unrest. It’s important for people like you to spread the word, let the West know that Gabon is a friendly place full of kind people.” He looked to the bar. “The kind of place that still uses the honor system.”
Jonah was tired of listening to this man speak as if he were the tourism ambassador. “We should get some sleep,” Jonah said to his sister.
“Let’s finish the game,” she said.
“What do you think of this train?” Edwin continued. “I don’t care for it so much. Too slow. Quite dangerous as well. Last time we hit an elephant.” He illustrated this by punching his open palm with his fist. “Damn thing exploded all over the train. Took almost three hours before we were moving again. The conductor had to wipe the windshield down with his T-shirt. That’s an image I won’t soon forget.” He paused to drink from his beer. “You probably don’t know this, but we have a serious poaching problem here in Gabon. It’s taken quite a toll on the elephants.”
Jonah had tuned the guy out, but this last statement commanded his attention. Edwin drained his beer and went to retrieve another. “Yes, poaching is a real concern here,” he said, swaying with the motion of the train. “The ivory smuggling is out of control, keeps getting worse. Chinese are part of the problem, but it goes much further. Vietnam, Philippines, even the U.S., where you’d think people would know better.”
Jonah didn’t like where the conversation was headed. He swept the dominoes into the small metal box and stood to leave. “I think we’re done for the night. You have a good one, okay?” He motioned for Sam to follow.
“It was a pleasure meeting you,” Edwin called after them. “Enjoy the rest of your trip.”
They made their way back to their seats, where Gavin was snoring, his head resting against the window. The train didn’t have proper sleeping compartments, but it was half empty, so they had most of the car to themselves. Jonah took a seat in the row behind his brother, and Sam settled into the two seats across the aisle. Beneath his feet was his backpack containing a week’s worth of clothes and fifty thousand dollars of someone else’s money.
“Night,” Sam said, pillowing a sweater between her head and the window.
“Good night,” Jonah said. His sister looked broken, defeated, a shell of her former self, and Jonah immediately regretted bringing her here. He was only beginning to realize the magnitude of her sickness, and he wondered if an obscure drug was really the best medicine, or whether Sam might be better served by a Western-style detox program like Gavin had suggested. As the train hurtled them into the forest, Jonah looked to his sister staring blankly out the window and felt a crushing guilt for leading her into something he knew so little about.
“Jonah,” Sam finally said, very softly, without looking at him.
“Yeah?”
“How worried should we be about what the cab driver said—the violence and all that?”
This was not the question he was expecting, but it was one for which he at least had an answer. He wanted to confess, to tell his sister everything. He wanted to tell her about the money in his backpack, about Slinky and Andre, and how he was beginning to think this Edwin fellow was somehow involved in all of it. He wanted to tell her about the terrible situation in which he’d implicated himself, if only to illustrate the insignificance of her concerns compared to everything else that could possibly go wrong. Instead, he smiled and said, “Not very.”
SAMANTHA
IT WAS RAINING WHEN THEY arrived in Franceville, a violent purging of the sky that fell faster than the ground could take it. Small ponds were forming in the fields outside Sam’s window, and she watched an elderly man trudge through rust-colored mud, leading a cow toward a copse of trees. When the train settled at the station, Jonah and Gavin grabbed their bags and made their way onto the platform. Sam followed them into the station, which was surprisingly simple compared to the bustling ones in Europe. There were no travelers wheeling suitcases, no electronic billboards displaying schedules, no intercom announcing arrivals and departures. It wasn’t much more than a concrete box, and she was taken aback by the paucity of the place, the cavernous silence. It was unoccupied aside from a woman painting her nails behind the ticket counter and two young boys kicking a soccer ball against a wall.
She followed her brothers to a bench, where Jonah dropped his backpack. “We’ll wait here for Laurent. I spoke to him yesterday and he said he’d meet us here.”
“Do we have a reservation?” Gavin asked.
“For what?” Jonah said.
“The hotel.”
“I told you. We’re staying at Laurent’s restaurant.”
“A restaurant?”
“Yeah.” The kids’ soccer ball rolled over to Jonah, and he kicked it back to them.
“Does he have beds at this restaurant?” Gavin asked, rifling through his duffel bag, searching for something.
“He has a couch. And I have my sleeping bag.”
Gavin looked up. “You can’t be serious.”
“But I am.”
“This is bullshit,” Gavin said, removing the phone charger he’d been after.
“You’ll survive.” Jonah pulled his phone from his pocket and checked for messages. “I’ll go look for him. You guys wait here.”
“I need to eat something,” Gavin said to Sam. “You want anything?”
“I’m good,” she said.
Gavin disappeared and Sam sat with her head in her hands. She hadn’t brought anything besides a few Percocets, which she’d polished off on the two flights over here. Her muscles ached and she felt terribly cold despite the equatorial heat. She had downplayed the extent of her addiction to her brothers, though she knew Jonah was on to her. She’d barely slept, spending most of last night pacing the train car and making frequent visits to the bathroom. She had hoped that maybe it was just motion sickness, but now, back on solid ground, the waves of nausea continued, crashing and receding, until she finally stood and ran to a nearby trashcan to vomit. The woman at the ticket counter called over to her, but Sam couldn’t understand her over the sound of her own retching. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked up to the see the woman standing next to her.
“Êtes-vous malade?” the woman asked.
“Bathroom?” Sam said.
The woman pointed to a door marked TOILETTE, and Sam shuffled toward it. She cupped her hands under the tap and rinsed her mouth, then splashed water on her face and looked in the small mirror above the sink. She did not look good. She was pale and her eyes were bloodshot and faint bruise-like splotches were blooming on her cheeks. This was already turning out to be significantly more difficult than she’d imagined, though she now realized she hadn’t really considered the physical repercussions of going cold turkey. She needed to either go home and find more drugs, or get started with whatever sorcery Jonah had in m
ind, because what she was currently experiencing was unsustainable.
She heard a knock at the door, followed by Gavin’s voice calling her name. “Sam?” he said again. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she called back.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll be right out.” She fixed her hair and tried to compose herself.
“You need anything?”
She opened the door to find her brother holding a bag of chips and a bottle of water. “What happened?” he asked.
“I got a little nauseous,” she said, stepping past him.
Gavin nodded toward the woman sitting at the ticket counter. “She said you were puking.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re really sick, huh?”
She went to retrieve her bag. “I don’t feel spectacular.”
“Is it because of the drugs?”
It was actually the lack of drugs, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “It’s just motion sickness. I should be fine now.”
Gavin handed her the water and she drank. “Where’s Jonah?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He isn’t back yet.”
“I think I need some fresh air,” she said.
They grabbed their luggage and found an empty bench outside. The rain had ceased and the sun was now breaking through the clouds, pressing down on them with renewed purpose. Across the road was a gas station, where two men worked under the hood of a busted pickup while a teenage boy leaned against one of the pumps, smoking a cigarette and watching indifferently.
“Is this what you expected?” Gavin asked.
“I don’t know what I expected,” Sam said.
A skinny dog approached from the gas station and began drinking from a puddle in the road.
“I expected more elephants and fewer stray dogs,” Gavin said.
The dog wandered over and sniffed Sam’s leg. She gave it a chuck behind the ear.
“I wouldn’t pet that thing,” Gavin said.
“Why?”
“It probably has rabies.”
“I doubt it has rabies.”
“I hope those vaccinations work,” Gavin said. “Knowing my luck, I’ll get fucking typhoid.”
Sam didn’t know what typhoid felt like, but she imagined it was preferable to whatever she was currently experiencing. She had a sudden longing for her old life back in Russia, the routine, however toxic, that she’d designed for herself. She realized now that she didn’t care for new experiences and unfamiliar places. She liked knowing the shape of her days, the tasks that were expected of her. Before leaving Chicago, she’d sent a curt email to Nikolai telling him to go to hell, and another, kinder email to Max, apologizing for all the damage she’d caused. He’d written back to tell her that the production was moving forward, though it wasn’t the same without her, a nicety she didn’t totally believe. Nikolai had been right. She was replaceable, and so she’d been replaced, most likely with Marguerite, his Parisian pawn. It had been hardly more than a week, but those people seemed so far removed from her life.
Gavin paced the road in front of the station. “Where the hell did Jonah go? This is ridiculous. I don’t even know where we are.”
“We’re in Franceville,” Sam said, pointing to a sign affixed to what appeared to be a post office.
“Doesn’t seem particularly French.”
Suddenly, as if summoned, a white truck appeared from around the corner. It pulled to a stop in front of the station and Jonah emerged, along with the driver, who, Sam realized, was the Englishman from the train. Standing behind them were two men in camouflage military fatigues.
“Where the hell have you been?” Gavin said. “We’ve been sitting here with our fingers up our asses.”
“There’s been a change of plans,” Jonah said. He had a troubled look about him, and Sam got the impression that he’d been reprimanded by the Englishman who now stood next to him, holding his backpack.
“Is this your friend?” Gavin asked.
“Different friend,” Edwin said.
He spoke with an authority and formality absent from the night before. Gone was the disheveled wanderer who’d peppered them with questions about their travels. This was a man in charge of something, though what exactly that was Sam couldn’t say. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Get in the car,” Edwin said. “Jonah can explain on the way to the hotel.”
“So we are staying at a hotel?” Gavin asked, sounding more relieved than he should have been.
“You two are,” Edwin said. “Jonah has some business to tend to.”
GAVIN
THE HOTEL WAS NICER THAN he’d expected, a once glamorous building that refused to go quietly. Jonah led them to the lobby, where he spoke surprisingly decent French to the woman at the front desk. Edwin stood a few feet back, like a skeptical parole officer, while the two rangers waited at the hotel entrance. Whatever business Jonah was involved in was turning out to be considerably more nefarious than Gavin could have imagined. “I’d like to know what’s going on,” he whispered to his brother.
“Not right now,” Jonah said. The receptionist handed him a key and directed him to the elevator at the other end of the lobby. He turned to Edwin. “Can I show them to their room?”
“Five minutes,” Edwin said, stepping aside.
The elevator ride was their first chance for Jonah to speak freely, and Gavin wasted no time. “Can you please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“It’s a long story,” Jonah said, “and I only have five minutes.”
“Who is that guy?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you’re going with him?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“What did you do, Jonah? Is this about that money?”
“What is this money you keep talking about?” Sam asked.
“It’s nothing,” Jonah said. “I just need you guys to hang tight until I get this squared away. I’m sure it’s just a simple misunderstanding.”
The elevator stopped at the fifth floor, and they made their way to their room at the end of the hall. It contained two double beds, a small desk, and an old television. A wall AC unit dripped water into a plastic bucket on the linoleum floor. Gavin pulled back the curtains and looked out onto a field of palm trees and half-constructed concrete buildings. He’d been here less than a day, but his impression was that Gabon was a country with a serious lack of follow-through. It was shortly after noon, and a tide of clouds had blotted out the sun. “How does this factor into our original itinerary?” he asked.
“It doesn’t,” Jonah said.
“But I assume you have a plan.”
“Not at the moment, but I will soon.”
“When will you be back?” Sam asked, flipping through a worn magazine she’d picked up off the desk. Some color had returned to her face, and she looked slightly better than she had at the train station.
“Soon,” Jonah said.
“So we’re supposed to just sit here and wait for you?” Gavin asked. “What happened to the guy who was supposed to pick us up? Your friend we were gonna stay with?”
“I can’t get a hold of him, but I left a message telling him to meet you here. I gave him your name and room number. I also told the woman at the front desk. He probably just got held up. If worse comes to worst, you can sleep here tonight and I’ll meet you at his place in the morning.”
“And what are we supposed to do until then?” Gavin asked.
“Hang out by the pool. The restaurant’s supposed to be nice.”
“This is unreal,” Gavin said, appalled by his brother’s insouciance. “If you insist on involving us in your sketchy bullshit, you could at least have the decency to tell us what’s going on.”
“If I knew I would tell
you,” Jonah said. “But I honestly don’t. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve got until noon tomorrow,” Gavin said. “If you aren’t back by then, Sam and I are returning to Chicago and proceeding with my original plan.”
“No, we’re not,” Sam said, hanging a shirt in the small wooden armoire.
“Yes, we are.”
“I’ll be back,” Jonah said. “I promise.” He tossed a wad of francs on the desk and made for the door. “Dinner’s on me.”
“That’s so generous of you,” Gavin said as the door slammed shut.
* * *
—
BECAUSE THE AIR CONDITIONER was broken and because there was no working fan and because they could think of nothing else to do, they took Jonah’s advice and spent the afternoon by the pool. It was small, yet surprisingly clean, ringed by a chain-link fence and a few plastic loungers. They were the only ones there.
“So what happened with Renee?” Sam asked, sitting along the edge of the pool, kicking her legs back and forth. She looked shockingly thin in the orange one-piece bathing suit she’d bought from the gift shop, and for the first time, Gavin noticed the bruises stamped on her forearm.
“She’s camping in Joshua Tree,” he said, hiking his jeans up to his knees and sitting next to Sam at the pool’s edge.
“I thought she was coming to Chicago with you.”
“She was supposed to. But then we got into a fight and she decided to spend Christmas with friends.”
“That seems drastic.”
“That’s Renee.”
“So you broke up then?”
Gavin ran his hand along the water. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her in a while.”
“I think that means you broke up.”
“Probably.”
Sam lowered herself into the pool. “I never really liked her if that’s any consolation.”
“It’s not, but I appreciate your honesty.”
