Ask for Me Tomorrow

“But the road turns the other way towards the gulf. And it’s late, it will soon be dark. You might get stuck in the sand or lost.”

They were valid reasons but not the real one: she happened to have a vacant cabin which she rented out to tourists. Nothing fancy, of course, no running water or electricity, but a nice clean bed. For this nice clean bed the asking price was about the same as for a suite at the Beverly Hilton. The señora admitted that the price was high, but she didn’t offer to change it and Aragon didn’t argue. It was Gilly’s money. If she wanted to come down here and haggle over it, let her. He was tired and hungry.

He ate at the nearest place, a shoebox-sized cafe overlooking a pond where a dozen or so coots were floating on the water and foraging on the banks. When he was a child he’d often eaten coot, which his mother called black mallard. This sounded better but didn’t improve the taste or texture. As he ate the machaca he was served, a kind of hash, he tried to identify its contents. Coot maybe, dried goat meat probably, and chilis unmistakably, the small green innocent-looking kind that lit up his mouth and throat and brought tears to his eyes to put out the fire. Dessert was a dish of fried beans and a cactus fruit with sweet juicy pulp. He drank two bottles of beer and bought two extra to take with him in case his teeth were extra dirty.

He returned to the gas pump and the Viñadaco Hilton. The señora had left a kerosene lamp burning for him, and a basin with a pitcher of water and two small towels. After he’d stripped and washed he sat down to drink some beer. Almost immediately he discovered that the Viñadaco Hilton had one other thing which the Beverly Hilton didn’t — mosquitoes. The first bite coincided with the first twinge in his stomach. He went to sleep trying to remember some of the things Laurie had urged him to take along — antibiotics... head lice... tooth beer... Laurie, I miss you...

He woke up at dawn. So did every man, woman, child and beast in the village. Children chanted, donkeys brayed, roosters crowed, dogs barked. Aragon got up and opened the door. The sun was shining and a cool moist wind was blowing steadily in from the sea. It was the kind of day he wanted to rush out to meet.

During the night the señora’s conscience must have been bothering her: she appeared at the door with a cup of coffee and two tortillas rolled up with guava jelly and a pot of hot water.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“And you want hot water. Why do Americans always want hot water?”

“To shave.”

“You have hardly anything to shave. And who is going to see you in that forsaken place? I’ve never been there myself but I hear the people are very dark-skinned and ignorant.”

While he shaved she gave him directions to Bahía de Ballenas and even borrowed his pen to draw him a little map. He didn’t put much faith in the map — she held the pen as though it were the first one she’d ever used.

Also during the night someone — probably the two teenaged boys who were now leaning casually against the gas pump — had washed the Ford. He appreciated the gesture, but unfortunately the car was now parked in the middle of a large puddle of water. He took off his shoes and socks, waded through the puddle and climbed in behind the wheel. His feet felt pleasantly refreshed. People checking out of the Beverly Hilton might have their cars waiting at the front door, but they didn’t get guava jelly tortillas, farewell footbaths and all the fresh air they could breathe.

He stopped at the café where he’d eaten dinner the previous evening and picked up a dozen bottles of beer. If the señora’s prediction came true and he was going to get lost, he might as well do it in style. He was on a little dirt road a couple of miles south of Viñadaco when he stopped to consult the map and discovered that the señora had neglected to return his pen. He might ask for it on the way back, assuming he arrived at any place to come back from. Or, better yet, he would put it down as a business expense, Gilly’s small and undoubtedly grudging contribution toward international relations. She was, in her own words, pretty tight with a buck.

The road climbed uphill along a cliff for a while, then dropped down again between sand dunes, sometimes disappearing entirely, only to reappear a few yards farther on like a magician’s scarf. At one point there was a fork not indicated on the map. The east branch showed signs of more frequent use than the west. If the señora was correct in claiming that no one went to Bahía de Ballenas, then the west branch seemed the better choice. He took it.