“Good.”
“Well, as long as we’re doing this madhouse thing, you could hug me back. I need it too, you know.”
“You bet. Gosh, what an armload you are. I’d almost forgotten.”
“No cracks, wise guy. I’ll break your effing head.”
“Rebecca.”
Silence.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes?”
“Listen.”
“Speak. I’m listening.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. We’re both sorry.”
“I’m very sorry.” I was very, very sorry. I had failed to be the person she needed me to be. I knew that now. And I couldn’t, not then or now—be that person. I knew that too. I knew those two things. Did I have to come all the way here to find them out?
“Steady on, old chap,” I said.
“Right. Steady on,” she answered.
I could feel her withdrawing from me then, leaving my arms, the miles of space between us restoring themselves unquestionably.
“Goodbye, Rebecca.”
“Goodbye, Ted.”
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
“Q’onk tipeya.”
“What’s that? Is it Spanish?”
“No. It’s Mam.” It had slipped out of its hiding place, glottal stop and all, which I was never good at. “It means ‘Strength to you.’ I think.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Then we said goodbye again, about four times each, and hung up. It was a real goodbye. Hers and mine, too. It was over, with a finality that all the legal papers and signatures in the world could not produce. Not adiós, and not hasta la vista, not “See you later.” More like “You may leave now, if you like.” Go, in safety and health. Vaya con Dios, my darling.
Why hadn’t I said that, I wondered, finding the way back to my room in the dark. I’d also forgotten to tell her why I called.
TWELVE
The next morning at the school, before meeting Catherine, I made it a point to connect with Carlos Méndez. We conversed in Spanish in the office, while he beamed at my progress like a proud parent.
“I must show you off tonight at a little party I am giving,” he said. Friends of his from the States were staying at the Buen Viaje, a local inn, and were joining him in entertaining some other U.S. visitors. He was inviting students. I promised to be there, politely.
I told Catherine about the language breakthrough next, expecting her to come up with some kind of an I-told-you-so. Instead, she gave me a high-five. But that was the extent of the celebration. We reviewed verbs most of the day. She had listed them on a pack of three-by-five cards. She shuffled these over and over and fanned them out in her hand. I was to pick one, blindly, and use it in a sentence. I had two minutes only for each sentence, completed and corrected. We did this all morning and again after lunch, until I couldn’t stand any more. I reached over and gathered the cards together in a swoop, lifting them out of her hands. “I’m tired,” I said.
She didn’t seem to mind. “Good. I’m tired, too. I’ve got to turn in your progress report to the office.” She wrapped the cards in a stretchy blue headband, then began packing up her bag. “You’re getting an A plus, in case you’re wondering. Hey, we’re done here. Finished.”
She stood and so did I. “You mean this is it?” I said.
She said sí, then “done” again in several Spanish versions, clearly amused. It was turning out to be much too abrupt. I was caught off-guard by a sense of incompleteness, that we still owed each other something. Not sex, nothing so recognizable. “Well, then, can I buy you a drink?” I asked, not very smoothly. “A parting glass—like?”
She hesitated, then said “No, I shouldn’t,” and I remembered her husband. “You’re not going to the party?” she asked.
“Oh yeah. I forgot. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t either, but I must.”
“I promised Méndez. But just in case I don’t, well—.” I held out my hand. She took it in a quick firm shake, then shouldered her big tote bag and walked toward the office door.
“Listen,” I said, catching up to her. “Escuche! You’ve been a good teacher. I’m grateful. I hope you know that.”
“Well, you’ve been a rather unusual student,” she answered. “Which, of course, is what I predicted, isn’t it?”
“Must you always be such an insufferable know-it-all?”
“To the bitter end,” she said, and turned into the office with a wave.
The Buen Viaje was an upscale inn, sprawling across a couple of acres of land at the southwestern end of the city. I walked there in a watery blue twilight, aiming directly toward Volcán de Fuego, watching a final finger of the sun as it caught the bottom of a cloud circling the mountain. It had rained briefly and stopped, and the air was full of the sweet-sour smell of ripe vegetation. On a muddy side road a dozen kids played pick-up soccer with a half-deflated ball, shouting curses as it splatted into the puddles. I observed them with a little pang—barefoot, filthy, falling, every man for himself.
I was arriving late, a reluctant guest. The parking lot of the inn was full of cars and the lobby was crowded and thick with smoke. I found a door leading to the exterior, a large grassy courtyard and two illuminated swimming pools. A marimba band played near a lighted fountain.
I looked for familiar faces and spied them, students and tutors, standing near the sliding doors of a first-floor suite, along with a dozen others I didn’t know. Carlos Méndez came to meet me and introduced me to the co-hosts, his friends Angela and Norman Harris from Long Island, a couple perhaps in their fifties. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and she a long skirt in the same plaid. They were owners of an international import company, Méndez told me. “And Señor Peterson is one of our star pupils, an English professor from Massachusetts,” he added.
“Oh-oh. I’d better watch my language,” said Harris, laughing as if he’d coined the joke.
In the suite another two dozen people had gathered around a long table packed with party food. Little U.S. and Guatemalan flags had been stuck on all the platters. I poured myself a scotch and ambled back outdoors. I saw Catherine on the other side of the patio, in conversation with a couple. I recognized her first only by her height. Her Yankees cap was gone, her hair down, hanging in waves around her face, abundantly. How had she managed to get all that tucked into the cap? She was wearing an ankle-length skirt of blue woven cloth tied at her waist around a lacy blouse cut low on her shoulders. She had excellent shoulders, I noticed, now that she had tossed the white shirt. I saw no one near her who might be her husband. It was all gringos.
I slipped through the crowd, stopping at the edge of one cluster after another. Everyone was speaking English, and in nearly every case the topic of conversation was some aspect of tourist life in the country—the exchange rate, when to pay a bribe, the safety and danger of travel. I gravitated to a couple of guys standing apart. One was Hank Stenning, the pony-tailed student I saw every day. The other, stocky and hot-looking in a tightly buttoned shirt, introduced himself as somebody Tornquist. He was “with coffee,” he told me. Who was I with, he wanted to know.
“Myself, I guess,” I said. He seemed puzzled. He was more than a little oiled already. I switched attention to Stenning. He didn’t look like he was “with” anybody either. He picked up