Kilometer 99 (17 page)

“Chuck Norris, do something about your girl. She's acting crazy.” Peseta appeals directly to him, as if I'm incapable of reason.

“Malia.” Ben puts his arm around me. “Let's go. Goddamn, you gave me a scare.”

After we've walked a few blocks, I swallow my pride and say, “I'm sorry.”

“It's all right,” Ben says. “It's not a big deal.”

“I screwed up all our plans.”

“We'll figure something out.” We enter La Posada. He leads me to the bedroom and sits me down on the bed.

“The money was easy come and easy go.” Ben takes a seat beside me. “We're safe. We're together. That's what's important.”

My chin starts to quiver. I can't quite look up at Ben.

“I love you, Malia.” He rubs a circle into my back.

I wipe at my eyes with the hem of my shirt. “I love you, too.”

*   *   *

We lie down, but between the long nap and the adrenaline rush, I toss and turn for hours.

Finally slipping into the twilight stage right before full sleep, I'm awakened by a bang and then a grunt from the room next door. Immediately, my thoughts leap back to my first night in La Lib.

“Ben!” I shake him. “Somebody's in Pelochucho's room!” My voice is a hissing whisper.

“What? Huh?” He forces himself up onto his elbows.

“Fucking crackheads. They know Pelo's hurt.” In that insane logic that could only occur in La Libertad, I feel that this is unfair, outside of the rules somehow.

Another bang comes through the wall, then a third, lighter one. The sounds settle into a rhythm. Ben's expression goes from concern to mischief. He lies back down. “Don't worry about it.” He shuts his eyes. “It's not fucking crackheads; it's only fucking.”

I listen closer and hear coos and moans in a female voice. “But … Pelochucho? How? With whom?” My first thoughts are of prostitutes.

“Kristy,” Ben whispers.

“For real?” How have I been denied such a juicy bit of gossip? “Since when?”

“Apparently, it all started the last time Pelo was down here. I guess it got weird when he left. She fell for him more than he realized, hoped he might take her back to the States. He wasn't sure what would happen on this trip.” Ben closes his eyes and turns over to one side. “Now we know.”

I lie there silent beside him. On the other side of a few thin inches of wood and plaster, Kristy and Pelochucho fuck away. As Ben and I grow more silent, I can make out everything.

“Te quiero. Te quiero. Te quiero,”
she purrs over and over—that Spanish phrase that means both to love and to want, a word that never can be satisfied.

It goes on and on, prolonged perhaps by all the pills that Pelo took for the pain. Ben snores beside me. I listen to the lovemaking a while longer, with a feeling I finally recognize as envy. My own bed feels tainted with the betrayal I committed, the jealousy Ben showed, and the half-truths I used to cover it up.

I hardly get any sleep at all.

 

17

Three weeks after my trip to El Mozote with Alex, there was a swearing-in ceremony for a new group of volunteers. These were always a big deal; everyone went to the capital for the weekend, attended a party at the embassy, got to dress up and eat fancy hors d'oeuvres.

I was busy with my health census and wasn't able to travel to San Salvador until the day of the ceremony. It had been a while since I'd left Cara Sucia, and I looked forward to blowing off steam.

I went straight to the Peace Corps office to pick up my mail and drop off some paperwork. Courtney came and found me in the volunteer lounge.

“Did you just get here?” she asked. Her face was white.

“Yeah. A few minutes ago. What's up?”

“We need to talk.”

Courtney led me out of the office to the parking lot, lit up a cigarette, and said, “What's going on with you and Alex?”

“What do you mean?” I shrugged. “I figured I'd see him today. I paged him, asking him to find us a room.”

“Did something happen between you guys?”

“No. We had a nice trip to the mountains a few weeks ago. That's the last time I saw him. Why?”

“He was attached to one of the new girls last night,” Courtney said. “They were, like, all over each other at the bar.”

“Seriously? Alex?” At first, I thought this must be some sort of misunderstanding.

She looked at the ground and blew out smoke. “Everybody was watching them. They were practically making out on the dance floor. It was gross.”

“Is he staying at the Estancia?” I asked.

Courtney shrugged.

I left the office and headed straight to the taxi stand at the Hotel Princessa. The driver quoted me a price for where I wanted to go; I handed him nearly double the amount, asking to please get me there as fast as possible.

The taxi seemed to go eighty miles an hour from the second I shut the door. I should've felt terror at the run red lights, the weaving through lanes, and the near-misses. But my heart was so full of anger that I had no space left for fear. A trip that took an hour plus by bus was over in a few minutes.

Other guests sat on the front patio, drinking coffee, so I had no trouble getting into the hotel. I opened the door to two other bedrooms before I finally found Alex—in a shared room with three twin beds, all of them occupied, him in the center one.

What I hadn't expected to find was that new volunteer, still tangled up in Alex's arms. The two of them turned to face me. Oddly, the thing that unnerved me the most was that she was also Asian. She pulled the covers up to her shoulders; I glared at her from the doorway.

“Hi, Malia.” Alex was remarkably calm. “Did you just get here?”

“Shut up. You're an asshole; you know that? I never want to see you again.”

“Okay,” he said. “I guess I didn't realize you thought of our relationship as an exclusive thing.”

“You had to pull this in front of all my friends? Is this, like, your thing?” I literally shivered in disgust. “You know, you try to come off as this dark, brooding, smart guy—but the truth is, you're just a jerk.”

He nodded, as if agreeing.

I left the room, took a bus to El Centro, bought a bottle of cheap vodka, then found my connection out to Cara Sucia. At that point, the project hadn't yet broken ground. I hadn't yet discovered Ben or La Lib. I drank vodka by candlelight in my little house that night, listening to sad songs on my tape deck, wondering if there was any place for me in this country.

Not long after, Courtney sent me a letter explaining that the new volunteer from Alex's bed had quit and gone home after a few days in the campo. That news gave me a smug, superior feeling that I carried around for weeks.

 

18

Roosters crow me awake. Thin streaks of sunlight enter through the bedroom window. I shower and brush my teeth. By the time I'm dressed and ready for the embassy, Ben and Pelo sit in the dining room, eating breakfast.

Pelochucho's eye patch has inspired them to talk like pirates: “Arr, after breakfast, Captain Pelo be needin' another shot of antibiotics in me arse, arr!” I wonder how long that will last.

Short on time, I grab a piece of sweet bread from the case on the counter and ask Kristy for coffee.

“¡Qué guapa!”
Kristy says to me. I'm wearing a khaki skirt and white top with a collar, an outfit reserved for meetings and embassy functions. She's not used to seeing me in anything but bathing suits and sarongs.

“What are you so dressed up for?” Pelo asks. “I figured you guys would be itching to get out of here by now.”

I roll my eyes. “We can't leave. Not after what happened yesterday.” Though it's unfair, I do hold Pelochucho partly to blame. His presence, his injury, his insistence that we stick around in the first place, they all conspired to put me in the position to lose my passport—and to sleep with Alex.

“Hey.” Pelo looks back and forth between Ben and me with his one good eye. “You two don't have to stay here just to take care of me. I'll be okay.”

“It's not that, Pelo.” Ben lays his fork on his empty plate. “The night before last, our room got ripped off. We lost a lot of money. Malia's passport is gone.”

“For real?” Pelo lets his mouth hang open. “That sucks.”

Kristy sets my coffee on the table.

Pelochucho leans back in his chair. “That was a shitty day for everybody, wasn't it?”

“She's headed to the embassy to see about a new passport,” Ben says.

I take a seat and burn my mouth on the first sip of coffee.

“Hey, listen.” Pelo lowers his voice. “If you guys want to make some quick dough, there is a way—with your Jeep, I mean.”

“What are you talking about?” Ben asks.

“Just do a midnight run.” Pelo shrugs. “It takes only a couple hours. You'll probably make back more than you lost. Last time I was here, this South African dude did three or four of them without a hiccup. I rode along for one.”

I hold the coffee cup halfway up to my mouth. “You mean … drugs?”

Pelo nods. “The bales that come up on the boats. The guys from the crack house are always hiring runners.”

Ben furrows his brow. “Bringing it from the cove at K Ninety-nine back to town here?” His index finger makes a journey from one side of the table to the other.

“Exactly.” Pelo nods. “Frankly, I'm surprised you guys haven't done one yet. You could fit four or five bales in the back of that thing, and you've got four-wheel drive. If you want, I'll set it up. We could split the money three ways.”

“Are you insane?” I say. “Absolutely not. I can't believe we're even talking about this.”

Ben looks at me. After a second, he nods.

“Hey.” Pelo holds up his palms. “It was just an idea.” He rises and walks off to his own room.

A second of silence passes. Finally, Ben says, “Crazy, huh?”

I snort out a halfhearted laugh, then finish the coffee.

“You'd better get going,” Ben says.

“Want anything from the capital?” I consider asking Ben if he needs more of his Dutch rolling tobacco, though I don't truly want to drive across town and buy it at the Hotel Intercontinental.

He shakes his head. “Malia,” he says, “good luck today.”

“Thanks.” I slow down my slurping long enough to look him in the eye.

“But don't worry. If it takes days, it takes days. If it takes months, it takes months.” He puts a hand on my knee. “We'll be okay.”

I nod and smile, though I lack his optimism. And this is just the passport issue; we still have no idea how to solve our money problems.

*   *   *

The drive feels therapeutic—the morning air still cool, dramatic sunlight upon the trees and the recent ruins of adobe walls, my hair and collar flapping in the wind. Rising uphill and inland, I feel in control of things for the first time in days.

The outskirts of the capital gather on both sides of the road. The last time I saw this part of the city was in the aftermath of the earthquake, from the back of that pickup—the traffic, the looters, elephants and giraffes running around cars, the dust clouds rising up like some unnatural kind of weather. I know now that it was a 7.7 on the Richter scale. Over nine hundred were killed, thousands more injured. Encampments of homeless refugees line all the highways. And here I am, worried about trivial things like lost money and a single drunken indiscretion. I tell myself to keep my problems in perspective.

*   *   *

El Salvador's American embassy is a sprawling cross between a campus and a fortress—larger than any of the Salvadoran government's own buildings and enclosed by a three-story concrete wall. It's located to the west of the city, and there are rumors that it was built atop an old Mayan temple, that thousands of artifacts were uncovered and disposed of during its construction.

I find street parking on a nearby block, gather my purse, and lock the car.

The line has already formed. Each day, thousands of Salvadorans queue up for their visa interviews—a three-minute ordeal in which someone from the lowest tier of State Department underlings examines their bank balances, asks a few questions in passable Spanish, crushes their dreams, and calls in the next applicant.

Armed Wackenhut security guards watch the embassy's perimeter. I approach the closest one and say, “Excuse me. I have an appointment with—”

“There's the line,” he shoots back.

“No, you don't understand.” I try to show him my slip of paper with Elaine's name and number. “I spoke to her on the phone.”

He looks away, as if our exchange is over, as if my taxes don't pay his salary.

I extend the paper toward his face. He puts both hands upon his shotgun.

“The line!” he shouts.

“I'm not here for a visa!” But I've given up on him already. I walk off to find someone more accommodating.

At the next corner, I approach a slightly kinder-looking guard.

“Excuse me.” I hold out the paper. “I need to get inside. I have an appointment.”

“The line.” He points with his lips, careful not to make eye contact.

“You don't understand.”

“Go get in line.”

He points with his finger this time, as if I've not seen the long worm of humanity inching its way forward and extending for several city blocks. In spite of myself, I turn and look in the direction of his hand gestures. I suddenly feel at one with all those people—having lost my home and livelihood in the earthquake, lacking the documentation required to enter Fortress America. Could it be that I'm the one who's wrong? Is the line where I belong?

“I don't need a visa,” I say, snapping out of it. “I'm an American citizen.”

“You don't look American,” he says.