Drowning Lessons (17 page)

“I'm vacationing — with a friend.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“A guy. Lewis. He's my adopted brother.”

“And where is he?”

“At our hotel. He hasn't been feeling good.
La tourista
.”

“Has he seen a doctor?”

“We saw one at this clinic.”

“There is a very good doctor near where I am living. You should bring your friend to see him. Dr. Torres. They say he is very good. Where is your hotel?”

“In Playa.”

“It is not so far. Here.” She opened her notebook. With her red pen she sketched a map showing the highway and the bus
stop and an
X
indicating the apartment complex where she lived. Next to the
X
she wrote
Puerto Bienvenido
. “The bus from Playa arrives every day at three o'clock. From the bus stop it is only a short walk. Here I am now.”

The bus arrived at her stop. She tore the page from her notebook, folded it once, and handed it to him, her fingers grazing his. “Theresa María Sánchez de Bernat,” she said. “In the U.S. they call me Terry.”

She extended her hand. The bus began to move. With an alarmingly shrill cry, she commanded the driver to a halt. Holding the closed parasol, she took a moment to compose herself and took her sweet time getting off the bus. Clarke watched her through the window as the bus pulled away. He saw her walking; then suddenly she disappeared. With no houses or other roads in sight, it was as if she had walked directly into the swamp.

As soon as he opened the door to their hotel room, the stench of Lewis's sickness wedged itself into Clarke's nostrils. Lewis lay curled up on top of the covers. The ceiling fan squeaked.

“How was Tulum?” Lewis asked, his voice thin.

“It had its moments.”

“Did you get my stone?”

Clarke produced the stone from his pocket and handed it to Lewis.

“This is a fucking pebble,” said Lewis.

“It's not a pebble; it's a stone.”

“It's an ugly pebble. Where did you get it?”

“From the ruins.”

“The ruins are made of sandstone. This isn't from the ruins.”

“You asked me to get you a stone from the ruins. I went to the ruins and got you a goddamn stone. What do you want from me?”

“Were you even down there?”

“Yes!” said Clarke. “It took me all fucking day. Where the fuck else do you think I've been? And for your information there's nothing down there. Nothing but a bunch of old carved-up rocks and a beach. And a smelly monkey. Christ, I hate this country.”

Lewis's intestines growled. He reached for and took a slug of bismuth from the amber bottle on the nightstand. His cheeks were hollow, and all the color had drained from his face.

“You need to see a doctor,” said Clarke.

“I saw one,” said Lewis.

“You need to see another.” Clarke explained about the woman and the doctor she had recommended.

“How the hell did you manage to hook up with the only rich white bitch in Yucatán?”

“Who says she's rich?”

“She's white, with a fat husband in Mexico City and a condo by the beach with a fleet of mestizos waiting on her hand in glove, being exploited.”

“So why does she ride public transport?”

“Because her chauvinistic husband won't let her drive.” There were times when Clarke deeply resented Lewis's reverse snobbery, and this was one of them. On the nightstand next to the empty Seven-Up bottle a cockroach worked the air semaphore-like with its antennae. Using
The Lonely Planet Guide to Mexico
, Clarke crushed it.

“Was that called for?” Lewis said.

“I thought he was exploiting you.”

“Switch off that fan, would you? It's freezing in here.”

Even with the sun down, the temperature outside was still in the nineties, with the room only slightly cooler. Clarke switched off the fan. He felt Lewis's forehead again and gave him two aspirin.

“Here's the deal,” Clarke said. “Tomorrow you and I are going to see that doctor. Don't fight me on this, Lewis. I did you a favor; I got you your stupid stone. Tomorrow you'll do this favor for me.”

Riding the two-thirty bus with Lewis the next day, Clarke couldn't help feeling guilty — not about the stone (which Lewis gripped in a feverish hand like the talisman he held it to be) but because he knew he was as eager to see the woman in white as he was to get Lewis to the doctor, maybe more. Clarke had wanted them to take a taxi, but Lewis wouldn't countenance such ostentatious displays of imperialist opulence. Lewis sat in the aisle seat, away from the blazing, breezy window, his sweaty head resting on Clarke's shoulder. In the netted luggage rack over their heads, a farmer's bag of seed corn bounced. Clarke studied the map that Theresa — Terry — had drawn for him, her handwriting as jagged and clumsy as a child's.

At three o'clock, on schedule, the bus pulled over. No one else got off. As they wavered on the empty roadside, the driver gave Clarke a curious smile, crossed himself, and closed the door. The bus left them in a cloud of mauve dust.

“It should be just a short walk. Think you'll make it?” asked Clarke.

“If the alternative is dying here, yes.”

They walked about a hundred yards, Clarke helping Lewis
with an arm around his waist, to a small road buried in the tall weeds. Walking hip to hip Clarke felt something sharp in Lewis's pants pocket: the stone, the ersatz good-luck charm. They'd walked another hundred yards when he started to worry. What if the map was wrong? What if there was no Puerto Bienvenido, no condo by the beach? What if he'd dreamed the whole thing? They kept walking, Lewis's body growing heavier, his forehead dripping. They stopped to drink water, Clarke giving Lewis the last sips from their only bottle. Lewis coughed. Clarke tossed the empty into the swamp, where it floated in the tea-colored water. They had walked at least half a mile.

Down the road Clarke saw something: a white rectangle rising like a Goliath refrigerator from the jungle verdure. Closer, there was a sign.
Puerto Bienvenido
. As they neared the tall, featureless building, Clarke's head burst with images of running water, of ice trays and glasses gray with condensation. He yearned for air-conditioning. “We're here,” he said.

“Strike up the band.”

A fallen palm tree blocked the road, uprooted (Clarke guessed) by the last hurricane two years before. It had been that long since a vehicle had passed beyond it. Clarke all but carried Lewis the rest of the way to the building, which, he saw as they drew closer, was still under construction, or (he realized with even more dismay) it had been left unfinished, abandoned. Its empty windows yawned in great gulps of sea air. The plastered walls of its exposed units were buckled and stained with salt. Electrical lines and copper pipes dangled; concrete slabs gave way to raw armatures. Behind the building a yellow backhoe crouched, frozen like an iron dinosaur, its rusty maw still bearing a payload. Only the building's upper-floor windows had been glazed.

“I'll be right back,” Clarke said, depositing Lewis in the marble foyer. He went to the intercom panel to find it dangling from a matrix of colored wires. He tried the elevator; it didn't work. He bounded up the stairs to the top floor, which held three apartments. A wreath of mangrove roots, spray-painted white, hung from one of the doors. He knocked lightly at first, then less lightly, and then he pounded. He tried the other two doors. He bounded back down the stairs.

“I can't find her,” said Clarke. “She must be around here somewhere.”

Lewis said nothing.

Clarke went around to the side of the building facing the sea. He saw nothing, no people, no children, no toys, no laundry, no signs of human life, just the surf and the wind carrying sand into his eyes from the beach. The beach! Maybe she'd gone for a walk along it. He ran to the water, his sneakers slipping in sand. A horseshoe crab inched its way along a deposit of sea scum. Far down the shore, about a mile away, Clarke saw a cluster of buildings, nothing more. With his fingers vaguely touching his lower lip, he looked up at the building's top-floor windows. In one set of windows white curtains fluttered. He turned and gazed out to sea again, wondering why so many went so far out of their way to coexist with this vast desert of salt water. As he wondered, a parchment-colored dot appeared down the shore.

“Theresa!” Clarke shouted and ran toward her.

Seeing him approach Terry smiled. “Ah, so it's you!” she said. “I am so glad that you have come,” she said, twirling her parasol. “Isn't it beautiful?” She looked out to sea. “According to the Popol Vuh, before the surface of the earth existed there was only the calm sea and the great expanse of sky, alone and tranquil, nothing
more. How beautiful it must have been! I can't understand why my husband hates it so. Can you?” She failed to notice the distress on Clarke's face.

“I brought my friend with me. Look,” Clarke said. “You said you knew a good doctor. Dr. Torres, I think you said. Remember?”

“Oh, yes, Dr. Torres. He is very, very good.”

“Can we phone him? Do you have his number?”

Terry shook her head. “There is no telephone. My husband, he built this place for me. At least he says that it was for me. He has built many places.” They had started toward the building. “It was almost finished when the hurricane came.
Mala suerte
. Now he has no intention to finish it. Still, I'm happy here. ‘Here is the sky, all alone,'” she recited. “‘
Here is the sea, all alone. There is nothing more — no sound, no movement. Only the sky and the sea. Only Heart-of-Sky, alone. And these are his names: Maker and Modeler, Kukulkan, and Hurricane
.' Ah, this must be your friend. So good to meet you!”

“The pleasure is all mine,” said Lewis, not looking up. A sharp odor of diarrhea filled the vestibule.

“The doctor,” said Clarke, “how far is he from here?”

“Dr. Torres,” said Terry. “Not very far. A few kilometers.”

“I don't suppose you have a car, by any chance?”

“Oh, no,” said Terry, laughing. “My husband won't let me drive. But you can walk. It's just down the beach. It is faster that way anyway. But you must hurry before the tide comes in.”

“When will that happen?”

“Oh, there's time.”

Lewis moaned. Clarke knelt to feel his forehead. He asked Terry if she had any aspirin. She wasn't sure. “You're welcome to look,” she said.

“What's going on?” Lewis asked.

“I'm going to see if Terry has some aspirin for you,” Clarke said a little more distinctly than necessary. “We're going to get you some aspirin, okay? And then we're going to get you to a good doctor. Okay?”

Except for a white sofa facing the large open window and an antique malacca chest, the apartment was bare. Empty whiteplastered walls. No electricity, no telephone, no refrigerator, no air conditioner, no running water. “A man who works with my husband comes once a week with water and other supplies,” Terry explained. “He has to leave the truck on the road and then bring everything on a cart because of the fallen tree, which my dear husband has neglected to remove, nor will he fix the road, which, as I'm sure you saw, is very badly rutted.” While speaking she searched everywhere for a bottle of aspirin, finding none. “No aspirin,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

Clarke wondered how annoyed he should be, if he should be annoyed at all, since it was all a dream, the same dream he'd had on the bus. He was still on that bus, asleep and dreaming this as it rumbled through the swamp, a dream of pure whiteness in which shadows and reason did not exist. A soft breeze from the sea parted the pale curtains, toying with strands of Terry's blonde hair as Clarke looked at her, thinking if she was crazy he didn't want to know it, not now. Under any other circumstances he would have wanted to make love to her, to take her there in her shell of an apartment on her ghostly white sofa, to run his hand up under her pale dress, to feel those lips against his.

But these were not other circumstances.

“Look,” he said with what he hoped was enough sharpness.
“My friend is very sick. He needs help. Have you at least got some water in this place?”

Terry looked perplexed. “Water? Yes, yes, I think so.”

She produced a gallon jug with less than a few cups of water in it. “The man hasn't come yet this week, and I'm afraid this is all I have left.” She found a desiccated orange in her refrigerator. “And here is an orange, if you like.” Clarke took the jug and the orange and stood there. For a moment he felt as if he could not move.

“Would you care to see a photo of my husband?” said Terry.

From inside the malacca chest she produced a photograph of a Cesar Romero clone with a crown of rich white hair. Clarke heard a liquid growl somewhere that sounded like running water, but he couldn't be sure.

Terry stood by the window. “Here is where I spend my time, most of it, by this window looking out. Doctor's orders. The doctor is my husband.” She spun around and faced Clarke, her hands gripping the windowsill behind her. “Rest and being alone by the sea. That is the best remedy, he tells me. The only remedy. He calls it the ‘Sea Cure.' Tell me,” said Terry. “Do I look cured to you?”

Clarke hurried down the stairs.

“That is the hotel there,” said Terry, pointing down the shore to a distant group of buildings. “I had a drink at the bar there once. That's when I saw Dr. Torres. He was sitting all alone in the cabana, wearing a pink suit with a white handkerchief in its pocket. I asked the hotel manager, ‘Who is that distinguished-looking gentleman sitting over there?' ‘That is Dr. Torres,' the hotel manager said. ‘He is a very, very capable man.'”

With Lewis slung over his shoulder, Clarke started down the beach, leaving Terry behind. He did not even say good-bye to her.
He never wished to see or even think of her again, ever, not even in his dreams. When she called after him one last time he did not respond or look back.