Lone Star (23 page)

We had no choice, Hannah told Johnny. We couldn't go earlier because we were working to save money for the trip, and we couldn't go later because some of us were starting college.

“That's right.” Johnny studied Chloe. “University of Maine, as I recall.”

Chloe, true to form, said nothing. Of course I said nothing. Blake said nothing because he was still seething about the
guiri
.

Johnny excused himself and left the room, and we were alone in the dining room.

“Are you sure we can't cancel our tour guide and go with Johnny, Blakie?” Hannah said. “He owes us, so it'll be free.”

“It won't be free. And we've already paid the other guide. No. He's on his way, and we're on our way. Besides, I suspect he's a con artist. He'll lure us into some alley and rob us. Assault us.”

Chloe looked as if she was nodding in assent but then said, “This is not your story, Blake. This is real life. You can't make up details about him just because they suit you.”

“How does getting robbed suit me? Explain that.”

Before Chloe could explain, Johnny returned. “Y'all sure lug a lot of stuff with you.”

“What's it to you?” Blake said. I elbowed him in the ribs. He ignored me.

“Well, what it means to me,” Johnny said, “is I can't find a place on the floor of the porch to perch. Maybe we can move your suitcases out for one night? Otherwise I'll have to sleep on
the floor with the girls.” He smiled. Blake inhaled sharply. “But more importantly,” Johnny went on, “it'll mean something to the thieves who haunt the trains from here to Spain. If you take a sleeper car on one of your legs to Barcelona, I'd sleep on top of the suitcases if I were you. It won't guarantee no robbery. But at least you might wake up
as
you're being robbed.”

“And who's going to rob us?” Blake wanted to know. “People who travel the trains, um, like yourself?”

Johnny laughed. He winked at the girls, and went out into the backyard, leaving the four of us stumped and wary, even me. We saw him through the porch, kneeling in the dirt talking to Otto. He talked to the old man for a long time. We were all crazy curious what they talked about. And in what language?

Before turning in, Johnny thanked Varda for the hospitality and the girls for inviting him. (“Inviting him?” Blake demanded. “I thought he invited himself.”) He shook our hands, and said he was going to be up real early and would probably not see us again. He said it was fun getting to know us a little bit. He wished us well on our travels. He told us to stay safe.

We slept poorly with him on the porch with us. He was an extremely restless sleeper. Blake had the couch, I was by his side in the long chair, and Johnny was on the floor. I heard him get up at least four or five times in the night and go out into the yard. Once, near blue dawn, I peered through the glass to see what he was doing. I think he must have been smoking, hunched over by the shadowy rows of fat tomatoes. His head was down in his hands and his long narrow back was turned to me.

Chloe

Gorgeous Livu Square, beautiful day. Street performers, crowds, humid sunshine. Chloe didn't want to do anything except breathe in the air and maybe have an ice cream near the red roofs and the sparkling blue walls.

But no.

Blake had booked Gregor.

Gregor turned out to be an uptight dick in maroon loafers, who majored in geology at some fancy university Chloe had never heard of. Geology and tourism, he told them. “Geotourism.” What an ass. She had been accepted into the best schools, too, she wanted to tell him. The best of the best. Did she bore him with her resume?

“Oh yeah, he's much better than Johnny would've been,” she whispered to Blake.

“That's right. One bazillion points of light better.”

That was at ten in the morning. Blake changed his tune by noon. Gregor tortured them by never, and she meant
never,
stopping speaking. He led them on a walking tour that included that hideous example of Socialist Classicism, the Latvian Academy of Sciences built in Stalin's pompous empire style. The four of them sounded an objection, said they didn't
want to go, but Gregor wouldn't hear of it. “I have a plan, ladies and gentlemen, to show you everything important in Riga in the most sensible and effective way possible. The building is on our way. We simply must see it. It's the heart of our city.” He convinced them it was for the best, sort of like a rectal probe. All poor Mason wanted was to see inside the black dome of St. Peter's. “We will get to it,” said Gregor, adding, “
if
there's time.”

“Oh, so for Stalin there's time, but Jesus is a maybe?” Mason hissed.

“Shh.”

They followed Gregor around like slaves. He walked five steps ahead of them at all times and never ceased yammering. They bleated gently like lambs that they desired to partake of the Jewish ghetto. Gregor said no. He said it was completely destroyed in the war.

“Why does everyone keep referring to it as
the war
?” Hannah whispered to Chloe, doggedly keeping up behind Gregor. “There've been other wars, no?”

“No,” Gregor said, who overheard. “Maybe other wars, but they are all completely inconsequential.”

The Freedom Monument, the factory that made Stolichnaya vodka, streets and streets of art nouveau. They toured inside the Opera House, up and down the marble stairs, but were not allowed to stop to get a schedule of events. Gregor said there was no time, not if they wanted to see the Orthodox Cathedral—which under Soviet rule had been used as a planetarium—or the famous Riga Hostel. (“Why do we have to see that?” “And why couldn't the hobo you dragged in yesterday stay there instead of with us?”)

“Do you know how much blood has been spilled on Latvian soil?” Gregor asked, but rhetorically; he didn't even wait for his own answer before launching into a comparison of Lutheranism and Catholicism and a discussion of the magnificent Tower of the Holy Spirit.

He had no need to stop for food or drink, and was irritated when the girls cried bathroom break and vanished for twenty minutes into an adorable hidden alley with little shops that sold summer dresses. They each bought something flash, but had to roll it up and hide it in their backpacks so Gregor wouldn't yell at them. He was worse than Chloe's mother.

On and on and on, stories about Old Town and Riga Castle and what used to be a vibrant and active Jewish quarter, “the way it was in Vilnius and Warsaw and Krakow and Trieste.”

“Where the hell is Trieste?” Chloe whispered.

“There are no Jews anywhere,” Gregor said, “that's my point, because they're all dead. Especially in Poland. Though to answer your question, Trieste is in Italy. That's how far down the destruction of the Jewish population extended. I used to be a tour guide in Krakow and Warsaw. I know those cities well. If you go to Krakow, by all means stop by Auschwitz, but you should also try the salt mines if you have time, and Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory. That's a must-see in Krakow. Even more than Auschwitz probably.” He told them stories and historical anecdotes, legends, lies, myths, and provocations, how the riverbeds dried up and that's why the tram line now ran through what used to be a river.

“In Riga?”

“No, in Krakow. I was talking about Krakow.”

You know what they didn't get?

Silence.

You know what else they didn't get?

Peace and quiet.

And you know what else?

An ice cream. A cherry strudel. A conversation among themselves. A potato pancake. A fifteen-minute rest at a table in Livu Square. But they did, however, receive a lecture on Livu Square as Gregor stormed past it. “There was no square here before the war,” he said, “but one of the bombardiers leveled three city blocks, and suddenly opened up this lovely area. After
the war, the city council decided to leave it and rebuild around it. Isn't it wonderful? You can sit, browse the local painters, have a coffee, listen to the musicians, but not now, ladies and gentlemen, now we must hurry, no stopping.”

He bored them into submission with his staccato Germanic delivery and four hours later still had not shut his trap. When he talked, he demanded complete silence and would not let them interrupt or move until he stopped spouting whatever nonsense it was he was spouting. “Can I just have your attention, please, for two more minutes until I finish?” All eyes had to be on him, and he invited no questions. “Ask me questions as we walk to the House of the Blackheads, but please, walk quickly,” he said.

He finally abandoned them just after three, and even then reluctantly. As soon as he left, they ran screaming to the meandering park enfolding the Riga Canal; got drinks, food, ice cream; found a green slope to perch on; spread out on the grass under the trees beside the calm and languid water; and spent a blissful hour ragging on Gregor.

Though Blake also found it hard to shut up about Johnny. “What kind of a pseudonym is Johnny Rainbow? Like, what's he hiding?”

“Do you think it's not his real name?” said Hannah.

“Of course it's not. It's so dumb and fake. He probably thinks he's being clever.”

“Blake, give it a break,” said Chloe. “Gregor was much worse. Let it go.”

“She's right, man,” said Mason. “Let it go. Johnny was an okay dude. I know you didn't think so. But we did a nice thing for someone. Because of us, he had a place to sleep and he didn't get robbed. That's it. It's over. Let's talk about tomorrow and Gdansk. How long do you think it'll take us to get there?”

“And most important, is Treblinka near Gdansk?” Hannah asked.

The four of them stared at the map, spread out in front of them on the grass like a picnic blanket.

“I don't see the death camps marked on your Rand McNally masterpiece of Poland, bro,” Mason said.

“Where is this Treblinka? Does it even exist?” Hannah asked. “Because I want to get it over with as quickly as possible and go to Barcelona.”

“Gee, really?” said Chloe. “And here I thought you wanted to linger in Poland.”

“I don't,” the bleached blonde said, deaf to irony.

“Hannah's right about one thing—we need to be mindful of the time,” Blake said. “We don't have a day to spare. Barcelona's a long way away.”

“Chloe, please, do we really have to go to Treblinka?” Hannah asked. “Wouldn't you rather go to a beach or a castle than Treblinka?”

Blake carefully folded the map. Mason carefully studied the folds.

“Why are you being like this again?” Chloe said after a strained pause. “Yes, we really have to go to Treblinka.”

Both brothers made clucking conciliatory noises. Everything will be okay, they cajoled the girls. We'll have plenty of time. And we'll be together. Isn't that the whole idea? Chloe and Hannah reluctantly agreed that it was.

There was uncertainty about distance and trains that affected Hannah, made her uneasy. Chloe could see that. She wanted to tell her friend that everything was uncertainty. Gypsies. Demons. Aurochs and angels. But Hannah wanted certainty. Did Hannah even hear the story Johnny had told them over herring the night before? Chloe recounted it now. He had told it as proof that they should fire Gregor and hire him instead. He said that the Latvians harbored hostility toward the Germans and Russians that stretched back a thousand years. So though a sign might say D
OGS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO RUN WILD
in all three languages—Lettish, German, and Russian—the last two languages would be tarred out. The Latvian thinking was, if a man can't read Lettish, his dog has an excuse for running wild. They had laughed then,
and they laughed again now when Chloe retold it. All except Blake. “I don't know why you're telling us his stories,” he said. “Who cares?”

Chloe tried again. “Johnny also said that if you ask a Lett for directions in Russian, they'll give you the street name in Russian, but when you get there, the Russian and German will be tarred out.” Blake almost smiled that time.

He was much happier than he was last night. He pored over the map, tracing the journey ahead of them. Gdansk was but a blip on the northern water, Krakow somewhere south, and Barcelona a distant dot a continent away. “Don't worry, it's not really that far,” Blake said to Hannah by way of comfort. “Europe is the smallest continent.”

“Blakie, don't kid,” Hannah said. “You're always kidding. Johnny said Barcelona was really far.”

“What does he know? You know he's not really a tour guide?” Blake nodded. “He's actually a mentally ill homeless person. Last week he thought he was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the United States armed forces. You are so gullible. Wise up.”

“Oh, because you're so smart,” said Chloe.

“Smarter than you.”

“Really? What about when you decided to borrow your dad's welding torch to melt the ice on your mother's Subaru? Do you remember what an epic fail that was?”

“Define epic fail. The ice did melt.”

“Yes, and half the car with it!”

“I didn't say there weren't some unintended consequences.” Blake looked so proud of himself. “But God gave man the power of fire. Hence the acetylene torch. It's a sin not to use the power God gave you.”

“You were grounded for a month.”

“It was a manly grounding. I was grounded for being manly.”

“Yeah, okay.” Chloe licked her ice cream, dazed and dreamy, sitting up on the grass with her knees drawn up in her light summer dress.

“And what about you, genius?” Blake said to Chloe, flicking her leg. “Remember the Nativity play? Gold,
Frankenstein,
and myrrh, you said. Do you remember?”

Hannah and Mason joined in. Yeah, yeah, we remember that. We peed ourselves laughing.

“It was elementary school! I was ten!”

“More like eleven,” Blake said. “And what about when you sang ‘America the Beautiful' for the Academy talent show? ‘Purple
mountain's magazines
above the
fruit that's plain
.' How old were you then?”

“That was elementary school, too. And I was, um, six.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“Genius.”

“You genius,” Chloe said, tickling him. “What about when your father nearly killed you because you decided to carve up his brand-new concrete driveway with the pneumatic chain saw?”

“He'd gone outside the edge! I was helping him. Besides, it's in the name. It's a pneumatic
concrete
chain saw. It's a saw that cuts through concrete. I had no choice but to use it.”

“Because you're so smart. It has a noise level of eighty-eight decibels. You nearly went deaf.”

“What?”

“You nearly went—oh, I'm not playing anymore.”

Blake laughed and laughed and Mason said and what about the time Blake swung on the zipline he'd just hooked up and crashed into a tree and broke his leg in five places, that was smart, and Chloe was about to get to the chocolatey end of her ice cream cone at the very bottom, her favorite part, and she was murmuring and thinking up something else to tease Blake with, and then she heard someone calling her name.

“Chloeeeee. Chloeeeeeeeee . . .”

She was wearing a green-and-yellow dress, floral, cotton jersey, easy on (easy off), elastic waist, no zippers, no sleeves. A neckline. Her breasts were somewhat camouflaged by hibiscus
flowers (she hoped!), and her thin arms had burned a little in the Riga sun. She didn't mind. Better burn slightly here than blister in Barcelona. Her hair was shiny and loose like a hippie at Woodstock, her nose freckled, her lips parched. They had drunk some
kvas
and Black Balsam, were light-headed, had been trying to sober up, watching parents with their kids on the grass, couples arm in arm on the walkways, young and old, the very colors of life dancing scarlet and blue, everything saturated with muffled music and the whistles of men. For a moment Chloe thought her eyes had caught fire.

She looked down to the river, at the small wooden boat drifting slowly near the grassy knoll where they were lounging, and there was Johnny at the helm of this craft crammed with tourists. With a microphone in one hand, a camera in the other, and a beret on his head, he was waving to them and calling out. “Guys! Hey! Guys!”

“Ignore him,” Blake muttered. “Maybe it's not us he's waving to.”

Hannah waved back. For a moment, Chloe sat warily. She turned to Blake. “What were you saying about him being a mad general?”

Hannah had already scrambled up from the grass and walked down to the waterline to hear Johnny better. He was barely ten feet away. Chloe followed her.

“How was Gregor?” he yelled. He didn't even have to use a microphone. “You look like you're still recovering from him.” Happily he turned to his boatful of people. “Ladies and gentlemen, are you enjoying yourselves?”