A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (24 page)

Luis laughed heartily, pleased that Gabriel was gibing with the deacon. Marco himself just wrinkled up a concerned eyebrow.

Not wanting to push it, Gabriel said, "Sorry, they gave me these pills, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm saying."

That was when Lenka's mother poked her head in the room and commanded Luis to introduce Gabriel around because she was busy with the corn.

"As you wish," he said. Then he cleared his throat, wiped his hand on a dishrag.

The following ten minutes were spent processing around the rooms, Gabriel catching faces and names as he met everyone, catching their scents and then losing them all as soon as the next person came into his line of sight. He kept glancing around for Lenka but couldn't see her. Despite the confusion of it, and the inherent awkwardness of running through so many surface-level conversations, and despite the fact that he still hadn't seen Lenka, it was, as he'd hoped, a warming experience. And he wondered why he hadn't been spending more time among these people all along. Apart from the curmudgeonly deacon, Gabriel was awash in kindness, a feeling that was only amplified by the gentle euphoria he'd been given by the pills. All of his concerns about his mother coming down seemed a little trivial. Of course he'd bring her around here! And his job? So what if he lost it? There was more to life!

Somewhere in there, Gabriel kissed the cheek of Luis's new wife, who said that she'd heard great things about him—he waved off the comment, as if modest, and said, "No, really, it's all true." And she laughed, touched his shoulder. Then he was on to the next cluster of people. He had no idea who lived at the house and who didn't. The web of relations was byzantine. It didn't matter anyway. The point was not to memorize names, it was to touch each of them, one by one, and to smile and say something nice, or funny, or generous, and then move along to the next.

Mostly, Luis introduced him as a
friend
of Lenka's. Occasionally, he said
friend
in a semiconspiratorial way, and then the man Gabriel was being introduced to—Luis did this only with men—grinned at Gabriel as if Luis had just said that Gabriel was legally blind but aspired to be a commercial pilot. One of the men actually pointed at Gabriel's face and said, "Did she do that to you?"

"No, not this," he said. "This was dynamite. The wounds she's inflicted—I can't show you those, not here."

Luis and the other guy were thrown into hysterics by this—they howled, tearing up, shaking their heads. Gabriel laughed too, scratching his cheek, vividly aware that it'd been a long time since he'd had so much fun.

Lenka had been ensconced at the rear of the house so he didn't spot her until he'd almost exhausted the rest of his hellos. She was talking to a woman and gazing at Ernesto, playing with toy cars on the floor. She wore a prim brown pantsuit and a lavender blouse, and although it was one of the least sexy outfits Gabriel had ever seen her in, he found it intensely arousing. She was lost in conversation, unaware that he was even there, and it was one of those moments—like watching her handle her car—when he felt he could peer into a wonderfully mundane portion of her life. It was, by all measures, totally unremarkable, and that was exactly what made him sick with love. When she eventually noticed him, she grinned conspiratorially and stood up. She had a great body, and the pantsuit, despite its dowdiness, showed it off.

Luis excused himself and Gabriel thanked him, still looking at her. She was beaming as she approached. They kissed cheeks and she said, beneath her breath, "Thank you for coming."

"No, thank
you
for inviting me. I'm having a great time."

"I'm glad."

"A warning, though: I might have offended your deacon. I couldn't help myself."

"He deserves it. And how was Luis?"

"He's my hero: a human bazooka."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm glad someone likes him. Have you eaten?"

"Not yet. What do you have left, some pig face?"

She cast him a wicked look. "I saved the eyeballs just for you."

"By the way," he said, lowering his voice still more, "my mother is coming down."

"Wow."

He nodded slowly, eyes cranked open in shock. "You didn't speak to her, did you? She somehow arranged an interview with Evo, and I was thinking..."

"Oh," she said, when she realized what he meant. "Who is she with?"

"The
Nation,
I think."

Lenka thought about it and then sighed, shook her head. "I would have to look it up. Maybe? That's crazy. You know, I'll probably meet with her. Does she know about—"

"Oh yeah. She's thrilled about you. Me, she could do without, but you sound like a dream come true to her."

She smiled.

"But I still haven't told her about Calloway," Gabriel whispered.

"Eek." Lenka screwed her face up. "Maybe you need a Scotch?"

He nodded in mock solemnity.

"This way."

She poured him a whiskey and they went to the entranceway where they could talk in peace for a minute while he drank up.

"When does she arrive?"

"Tuesday. Two days."

"Evo and I will be gone then."

"I know. She's here for a while, then leaves Friday, before the reception."

"Maybe it's good that you'll have a chance to be alone with her for a couple days before we return?"

"Maybe." He drained the rest of his whiskey. "You want to introduce me to anyone I might have missed?" The way she looked at him then, he swore he could see love in her eyes. He leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, once. "Thank you," he said.

Hours later—after Gabriel had met another dozen people, had let their names enter his mind and then leave; after he had eaten a plate of the shredded pork, an ear of smoky corn, and a couple of chalky wedges of boiled cassava—he and Lenka sneaked off to Ernesto's room for some privacy. Maybe it was the Percocet working its way out of his system, or maybe it was all the small talk, but he was weary.

"Do you regret coming here today?" she said. They were sitting side by side on the bed. Ernesto's room was a tidy rectangle, like all of the rooms in the house; a plain rectangular window offered a view of a row of boxy properties across the street.

He shook his head. "I love it here. I love your family." Battered, brightly colored toys—Buzz Lightyear, Thomas the Tank Engine—had erupted across the floor near the closet. Ernesto'd made his own bed, Gabriel guessed: the sincerity of the attempt was matched only by the awkwardness of the execution. He felt woozy, but he knew he needed to snap to attention, she was trying to talk about something of importance. He needed to convey, most of all, that he adored her and her family. "You know that this isn't"—he gestured in the downstairs direction—"it's not me. The charming guy who buys toys for your son, comes over to dinner all the time. That's not me, but I like it here, and I was thinking that I shouldn't be so, you know, limited."

"Are you going to start coming around for dinner every night?"

"No. But, I mean—" He scratched his stitches and wondered how he could say what he thought he should say, that all the sweet norms of romance—the bashful presentation of flowers, the holding of hands in a dim cinema—did not seem appropriate for them. But their relationship was alive and passionate and it thrived
especially
in the absence of any of that pro forma schlock. Their place was up in his hotel room, with cake and wine, at a slight remove from the messy world below. Still, there was more—or there was potential for more. He loved her and she loved him and he was even falling for her family, and if they—he and Lenka—were an unconventional couple, so be it. Maybe it could be strange and wonderful. But he didn't know how to say these things. Instead, he said, "I really like it here. I really do." And he nodded earnestly as he said it, staring at the toys on Ernesto's floor.

She draped an arm over his shoulder and they sat in silence. His wandering attention settled on a crucifix above the bed. He'd seen it when he entered, but he took a moment to stare at it now. Like other crucifixes he'd seen in Latin America, it presented a much gorier picture of Christ than you'd find in the North. Jesus was pulped, scored with oozing lacerations, his emaciated body painted in blood. The seam of skin at the lower edge of the wound in his chest sagged open like the bottom lip of an idiot's mouth, exposing the pale ribs beneath.

Lenka, aware that he was staring, stood up and retrieved it from the wall. And from the way she held it—cradled it, really—he could tell she was a true believer. She handed it to him and sat down.

He held it, not sure what to do. Did she want him to talk about religion? He didn't believe and would rather not lie about it. He preferred to lie only out of necessity. He blew some dust off the cross. "It's intense," he said, for lack of anything else. He handed it back to her.

"Yes," she said. This was disappointing to her, maybe. She stood up and put it back on the wall.

"I don't mean any offense," he said.

She sat back down. "You know, this is supposed to be a very happy holiday."

"Christmas isn't happy for you?"

She shrugged. "He was born to suffer so horribly, so brutally. His gift to us is his suffering. You know, in four months, Paceñas will be dragging crucifixes through the city streets on the anniversary of his death. Some of them crawl—and by the end of the day their knees are raw and covered in blood." She shook her head. "The suffering continues. We do it to ourselves. Did you know that they say that Bolivia is a donkey on a gold mine?"

"I've heard that. I don't think of it that way."

"I know, Gabriel," she said. She was trying to be kind to him, but something was wearing thin for her. She shook her head and he wished that he could explain better what he meant and how he felt. He wished he could explain how much he adored her family, and how crazy it was for him to care that much about them, considering what he'd come to Bolivia to do.

"I just found out that I will probably be fired from my job," he said. "And my mother told me she's coming, and—I wanted to tell you that the most remarkable thing of the day has been spending this time here. I really—I don't know how to say this..."

"It's okay, Gabriel, you don't have to," she said.

That would have to do. He couldn't bring himself to explain the rest.

She leaned in and kissed him on the eyelid. "Thank you," she said. "I love you."

He nodded and stared at the toys on the floor, feeling awful.

Lenka helped Gabriel sneak out of the party without all the goodbyes. He asked her to apologize to her mother for him, and to say that he'd bring his mother around.

Kissing slowly around the corner from her front door, he ran his hands down the back of her pantsuit and felt where the coarse fabric grew taut across her hips. He leaned in to her ear and said, "Will you wear this tonight?"

Staring at him, she nodded slowly, her mouth open. He could see that her lower lip was wet from their kissing. He leaned in and kissed her beneath the eye.

When he got back to Hotel Gloria, he stopped at the front desk and asked the petite woman if he had any messages. Yes, he did. Catacora had already left a message saying that he wanted to meet at his office the next morning.

"Did he say anything else?" Gabriel asked the woman.

"No."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Ugh." Vexed, he lingered. "Okay. Thanks."

He went to the Lookout, half hoping to find Fiona, half hoping not to find her. She wasn't there. She probably wasn't even in the country anymore. He sat in a booth in the corner, near the window that looked across at Hotel Gloria. There were a handful of journalists at the bar, none he knew. He gazed out the window and tried to figure out which window in the Gloria was his. He narrowed it down to two, but he wasn't sure which floor was which.

Then he opened his notepad and glanced over his notes on Santa Cruz. He had nothing so far. He'd never been fired before, and he didn't look forward to the experience.

He dialed Oscar, whose phone was off. It was, after all, Christmas evening. He didn't leave a message. He knew he was supposed to call his mother, but he couldn't bear to do it. The conversation would go on and on, he knew. And the last thing he wanted that evening was to talk to anyone for a long time.

Severo wasn't there that night. It was another bartender. The bartender came over to the table and asked what Gabriel wanted.

"Coffee with cream, please."

When the bartender brought him his coffee, he took the cup downstairs to the casino and quickly burned through two hundred dollars at the blackjack table. He tipped the dealer his last two chips and left his coffee, tepid and untouched, on the table and went back to his hotel.

That night he and Lenka didn't order any wine or any trout. He wasn't in the mood for trout or wine and she wasn't talking. He wasn't in the mood for sex either. They just sat on the edge of his bed, fully clothed. He had cleaned the ashtrays out, but the smell lingered.

Eventually she said, "When are you going to leave?"

She and Evo would be in Sucre for a few days that week, but back on Thursday, the day before the party in honor of Vincenzo D'Orsi, the Italian former vice president of the World Bank. Evo wanted to portray the man—and, by association, any sympathetic European or American—as a heroic rebel. The narrative, which Lenka was helping to sculpt, went that D'Orsi was the kind of person who was prepared to put his personal needs aside in favor of the greater good. The man had deliberately lost a very plum job because he'd been a stoic defender of the Bolivian people. Gabriel knew it was more complicated than that. Everything in life was more complicated than that. The day after the party, Evo and Lenka would set off on Evo's world tour. Gabriel would probably leave then too. In a week, he'd be back in New York and she'd be off touring the globe with Evo.

Seeing no need to adorn the truth, he said, "I'll leave when you leave on that tour with Evo, next Saturday." He pushed his fingers through his hair. "Unless my boss fires me first."