Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (22 page)

    
"Later, later," he calls back.

    
Without saying a word, he stops in front of one of the three or four
two-storey houses along the street. "This is the guesthouse. Dolores is the
owner. I vouch that she is an excellent cook."

    
They get off and thank the man. André ponders whether they should
try to go further since according to the sun it is only noon. They could
search for something to eat here and then wait for another lift. He notices
Bianca’s longing looks at the run-down house and decides to give in to
his own urge for a decent wash, a rest and hopefully a good meal.

    
"All right, since you want to sample the hospitality of this five-star
establishment, let’s see if they have a room."

    
She smiles gratefully.

    
"Or do you want a room for yourself?"

    
"No, I want to be with you." Her response comes fast, with a hint of
panic.

    
"I prefer that too, and it is wiser to stay together."

    
He enters through the bead curtain into what looks like a dining room.
There are four tables with benches along two walls. Through a half-open
door at the back, he hears the banging of pots being put away.

    
"
Buenas tardes
. Any vacancy?" he calls out.

    
After maybe half a minute, a tall, middle-aged woman enters while
wiping her red hands on her off-white apron. Her mien strikes André as
a mixture of perpetual suspicion and resigned suffering. Didn’t the
farmer who gave them a lift call her ‘Dolores’? The name fits her
perfectly. No need for a nickname. Her long black dress and black
kerchief, hiding graying hair, suggest that she is a widow. She must have
once been a stunning woman in her youth before the unforgiving
Cordillera countryside soured her life. Behind her stands a boy of ten or
twelve. The skin of their faces is light, hinting that at least the woman is
of immigrant stock. Both look them over from top to bottom.

    
André repeats his question. Dolores nods. "How many nights,
señores
?" Her accent points to Spain as her origin.

    
"One only. How much does it cost, including lunch and dinner for
today for the two of us?" He asks himself whether the forty thousand
pesos will suffice, although it should at a place like this.

    
She scrutinizes him for a couple of seconds and then answers: "Thirty
thousand pesos for a room with a matrimonial bed, and you pay in
advance."

    
He has little doubt that this is possibly twice the sum she charges
somebody local. But he doesn’t want to bother. "That includes hot water
for a bath," he says in a tone that expects no denial.

    
"No bath,
señor
, there is a shower next to the toilet."

    
"That’s fine. Please show us the room,
señora
."

    
Without uttering a further word, she goes to a door at the right back
corner of the room. It leads to an outside wooden staircase up to an open
landing along the length of the house. He counts six evenly spaced doors,
presumably guest rooms. She opens the one at the end. They enter a small
room with one window on the wall opposite the door. A double bed in
the right inside corner leaves little more than four feet of free space. At
the foot of the bed in front of the window are a small table with a large
bowl and a chair on each side, while a narrow wardrobe fills the far
corner. The window has no curtains.

    
Dolores remains standing at the door. André guesses that she is
waiting for the money. He quickly checks the bed linen. Its color is
greyish, but it seems clean. He retrieves the two peso notes from the
pocket of his rain jacket and hands it to her. She turns each over twice,
before she nods and says: "Walter will bring you the change." With that
she makes ready to leave.

    
"
Señora
, please wait. Would you show us where the toilet and
showers are?"

    
She pauses in the door. "They are at the bottom of the stairs. They are
shared with all guests,
señor
."

    
"And towels?"

    
"Walter will bring you one and a jug of water."

    
"Would you by chance have anything for shaving?"

    
She frowns and then replies: "I will check. My oldest son may have
left some stuff. Walter will bring it to you."

    
"And when will you be ready to serve us lunch, please?"

    
"In about a quarter of an hour." With that she closes the door,
precluding any further questions.

    
André puts the backpack next to the wardrobe. Bianca sits on the edge
of the bed.

    
"Is this OK with you?"

    
She nods. "I’m so tired. I simply want to lie down and sleep, but I
want to take a shower first."

    
"So do I. But let’s eat before that. We can sleep for a while in the
afternoon. We should also wash some of our clothes and let them dry
before evening."

    
He sits next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders, hugging her
briefly. "We will get out of this alive, Bianca."

    
She only places her head on his shoulder. They sit there silently. A
few minutes later, Walter brings them a towel, a jug of water, a glass, a
disposable shaving blade, and a ten thousand-peso note.

    
"Lunch is served in the dining room. It will be ready shortly," he says.

    
"Thank you. Tell me, when does the bus north pass through Las
Delicias?"

    
"In the morning, but it has already left today and there isn’t another
until next week."

    
"Next week? When?"

    
"I think on Tuesday. There are only three buses each week."

    
"I see. Thank you. We will be down shortly."

    
That is not good news. He tells Bianca. "We can’t risk staying here for
three nights, waiting for that bus. Even one night is risky. I’d expect that
our kidnappers have contacts in all towns around here. Some of their
people may even be recruited from here or live here. So we have to find
another way to move on."

    
"But please, let’s stay the night."

    
He already has real misgivings about staying even one night in this
place. So he does not answer. Instead, he says: "Let’s go down for
lunch."

    
At the bottom of the stairs are indeed two doors with rusty enameled
signs, one marked
baño
, the other
inodoro
.

    
Lunch consists of corn tortillas, with a topping of beans in a tomato
sauce and goat cheese, but it tastes delicious. They are both hungry.
Dolores seems pleased to see them eat with such healthy appetite and
offers them a second helping. They both thank her before returning to
their room.

    
"And now the shower. You go first, Bianca," says André, handing her
the soap and towel.

    
"No, I don’t want to go alone. You have to stay with me."

    
"All right."

    
He locks the room door, and they go downstairs. Bianca insists that he
join her inside the
baño
. "I’m scared. I don’t want to be alone, not even
in there," she repeats.

    
It is a narrow room with a small washbasin toward the door and a
shower at the end. Only a few empty hooks hang from the shower curtain
rod. The shower rose is encrusted with calc deposits.

    
He turns on one of the shower taps. Nothing happens. He tries the
other one. After some spluttering, cold water trickles from the shower
rose. He opens the tap completely and holds his hand under the water,
waiting for half a minute. The flow increases, probably just enough to
rinse off the suds, but remains on the cool side. "So much for a hot
shower."

    
Bianca is already undressing and hangs her garments on one of the two
hooks next to the washbasin. She brushes past him and stands under the
water flow.

    
"It’s bearable," she mutters.

    
He hands her the soap. While she lathers herself, he undresses and
then watches her. The soapsuds both hide and enhance her sensuous
body. She seems completely uninhibited. "You are a beautiful woman,"
he says softly.

    
"Is that all you can think about? Do my back, please," she replies,
holding her face into the water spray, her eyes closed tightly.

    
He rubs her back, fighting the threatening erection, but not succeeding. After she has rinsed herself, he hands her the towel and quickly steps
into the shower. While he soaps himself and shaves off his seven-day old
stubbles with the rather blunt blade, she washes her underwear, shirt, and
socks with the soap and then puts them on wet as they are. He does the
same afterward.

    
Back in their room, she undresses again, hangs her wet underwear
over a chair and uses the only metal hanger in the wardrobe for her
blouse. Then she dries herself superficially with the towel, slips into the
sheets and turns her back to him. A minute or so later, her regular
breathing tells him that she has fallen asleep.

    
He places the other chair under the door handle, barricading the door
from being opened, and then joins her in bed. He reflects on the
implausible sequence of events that now finds him sharing a matrimonial
bed with the girl he met only a week earlier, both of them naked, she
asleep, he aroused, like an ordinary married couple.

* * *

André wakes with a start. Something is wrong. He is cold. The sheet does
not cover him anymore. Opening his eyes, he looks straight into Bianca’s. She is lying on her side next to him, still naked.

    
"I thought you would never wake up," she remarks. "I want to fuck
you."

    
"I don’t fuck," he answers.

    
"No? So what did we do at the lake?" She sounds piqued.

    
"Making love."

    
"Same thing."

    
"No, fucking is taking your own pleasure selfishly. Making love is
giving and receiving pleasure. I’ve not fucked a woman since my late
teens. Haven’t you discovered that giving pleasure heightens your own
response?"

    
She smiles and reaches for his slowly growing penis. "Then make love
to me."

    
He lets his hand slide from her shoulder, past her right breast, over her
waist, down her hip and thigh, and then back up again, barely touching,
repeating it a second time, passing over her mound.

    
"I like you better like this," he says, playing with the new growth of
black fuzz.

    
"I had a Brazilian wax for Franco. He liked it better without hair."

    
"I prefer making love to a woman, not a child, nor a woman pretending to be one. But maybe some men need it to overcome their own sexual
inadequacy."

    
"Franco was not sexually inadequate." Her eyes briefly flare up. She
pushes his hand away.

    
"Then tell me, was he fucking you or making love to you?"

    
"That’s none of your business."

    
"No, it isn’t, but tell me anyway. Did he make sure that you got as
much pleasure as he? Did you climax every time with him?"

    
"You’re disgusting. Why do you want to know?" She sits up, hugging
her legs, turning her face away from him.