Future on ice, p.9
Future on Ice, page 9
Soft Muzak played in the corridor and followed him into the elevator as he went down to the coffee shop. He liked the coffee shop in the hotel, liked the fact that the waiters spoke English and knew what an omelet was. The past few days he had been keeping to the hotel more and more, lying out by the beach and finally just sitting by the hotel pool drinking margaritas. The people back at the office would judge the success of the vacation by what kind of tan he got. Debbie had fretted a little and then had told him she was taking the bus in to see the ruins. She had come back darker than he was, the blond hairs on her arm bleached almost white against her brown skin, full of stories about women on the bus carrying chickens and temples crumbling in the desert. She was wearing a silver bracelet inlaid with blue and green stones.
When he paid the check he realized that he still didn’t know what country he was in. The first bill he took out of his wallet had a five on each corner and a picture of some kind of spiky flower. The ten had a view of the ocean and the one, somewhat disturbingly, showed a fat coiled snake. There was what looked like an official seal on the back of all of them, but no writing. Illiterates, he thought. But he would remember soon enough, or Debbie would come back.
Back in his room, changing into his swim trunks, he thought of his passport. Feeling like a detective who has just cracked the case he got out his money belt from under the mattress and unzipped it. His passport wasn’t there. His passport and his plane ticket back. The traveler’s checks were still there, but useless to him without the passport as identification. Cold washed over him. He sat on the bed, his heart pounding.
Think, he told himself. They’re somewhere else. They’ve got to be—who would steal the passport and not the traveler’s checks? Unless someone needed the passport to leave the country. But who knew where he had hidden it? No one but Debbie, who had laughed at him for his precautions, and the idea of Debbie stealing the passport was absurd. But where was she?
All right, he thought. I’ve got to find the American consulate, work something out…Luckily I just cashed a traveler’s check yesterday. I’ve been robbed, and Americans get robbed all the time. It’s no big thing. I have time. I’m paid up at the hotel till—till when?
Annoyed, he realized he had forgotten that too. For the first time he wondered if there might be something wrong with him. Overwork, maybe. He would have to see someone about it when he got back to the States.
He lifted the receiver and called downstairs. “Yes, sor?” the man at the desk said.
“This is Room 1012,” Charles said. “I’ve forgotten—I was calling to check—How long is my reservation here?”
There was a silence at the other end, a disapproving silence, Charles felt. Most of the guests had better manners than to forget the length of their stay. He wondered what the man’s reaction would be if he had asked what country he was in and felt something like hysteria rise without him. He fought it down.
The man when he came back was carefully neutral. “You are booked through tonight, sor,” he said. “Do you wish to extend your stay?”
“Uh—no,” Charles said. “Could you tell me—Where is the American consulate?”
“We have no relations with your country, sor,” the man at the desk said.
For a moment Charles did not understand what he meant. Then he asked, “Well, what about—the British consulate?”
The man at the desk laughed and said nothing. Apparently he felt no need to clarify. As Charles tried to think of another question—Australian consulate? Canadian?—the man hung up.
Charles stood up carefully. “All right,” he said to the empty room. “First things first.” He got his two suitcases out of the closet and went through them methodically. Debbie’s carrying case was still there and he went through that too. He checked under both mattresses, in the nightstand, in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Nothing. All right then. Debbie had stolen it, had to have. But why? And why didn’t she take her carrying case with her when she went?
He wondered if she would show up back at the office. She had worked down the hall from him, one of the partners’ secretaries. He had asked her along for companionship, making it clear that there were no strings attached, that he was simply interested in not traveling alone. Sometimes this kind of relationship turned sexual and sometimes it didn’t. Last year, with Katya from accounting, it had. This year it hadn’t.
There was still nothing to worry about, Charles thought, snapping the locks on the suitcases. Things like this probably happened all the time. He would get to the airport, where they would no doubt have records, a listing of his flight, and he would explain everything to them there. He checked his wallet for credit cards and found that they were still there. Good, he thought. Now we get to see if the advertisements are true. Accepted all over the world.
He felt so confident that he decided to stay the extra day at the hotel. After all, he thought, I’ve paid for it. And maybe Debbie will come back. He threw his towel over his shoulder and went downstairs.
The usual people were sitting out by the pool. Millie and Jean, the older women from Miami. The two newlyweds who had kept pretty much to themselves. The hitchhiker who was just passing through and who had been so entertaining that no one had had the heart to report him to the hotel management. Charles nodded to them and ordered his margarita form the bar before sitting down.
Talk flowed around him. “Have you been to Djuzban yet?” Jean was saying to the retired couple who had just joined them at the pool. “We took the hotel tour yesterday. The marketplace is just fabulous. I bought this ring there—see it?” And she flashed silver and stones.
“I hear the ruins are pretty good out in Djuzban,” the retired man said.
“Oh, Harold,” his wife said. “Harold wants to climb every tower in the country.”
“No, man, for ruins you gotta go to Zabla,” the hitchhiker said. “But the buses don’t go there—you gotta rent a car. It’s way the hell out in the desert, unspoiled, untouched. If your car breaks down you’re dead—ain’t nobody passing through that way for days.”
Harold’s wife shuddered in the heat. “I just want to do some shopping before we go home,” she said. “I heard you can pick up bargains in leather in Qarnatl.”
“All we saw in Qarnatl were natives trying to sell us decks of cards,” Jean said. She turned to Millie. “Remember? I don’t know why they thought Americans would be interested in their playing cards. They weren’t even the same as ours.”
Charles sipped his margarita, listening to the exotic names flow around him. What if he told them the names meant nothing to him, nothing at all? But he was too embarrassed. There were appearances to keep up after all, the appearance of being a seasoned traveler, of knowing the ropes. He would find out soon enough, anyway.
The day wore on. Charles had a margarita, then another. When the group around the pool broke up it seemed the most natural thing in the world to follow them into the hotel restaurant and order a steak, medium-rare. He was running low on cash, he noticed—he’d have to cash another traveler’s check in the morning.
But in the morning when he awoke, cold sober, he knew immediately what he’d done. He reached for his wallet on the nightstand, fingers trembling a little. There was only a five with its bleak little picture of a shrub left. Well, he thought, feeling a little shaky. Maybe someone’s going to the airport today. Probably. The guys in the office aren’t going to believe this one.
He packed up his two suitcases, leaving Debbie’s overnight bag for her in case she came back. Downstairs he headed automatically for the coffee shop before he remembered. Abruptly he felt his hunger grow worse. “Excuse me,” he said to the man at the desk. “How much—do you know how much the taxi to the airport is?”
“No speak English, sor,” the man said. He was small and dark, like most of the natives. His teeth were stained red.
“You don’t—”Charles said, disgusted. “Why in God’s name would they hire someone who doesn’t speak English? How much,” he said slowly. “Taxi. Airport.” He heard his voice grow louder; apparently Debbie was right.
The man shrugged. Another man joined them. Charles turned on him with relief. “How much is the taxi to the airport?”
“Oh, taxi,” the man said, as though the matter were not very important. “Not so much, sor. Eight, nine. Maybe fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” Charles said. He tried to remember the airport, remember how he’d gotten here. “Not five?” He held up five fingers.
The second man laughed. “Oh no, sor,” he said. “Fifteen. Twenty.” He shrugged.
Charles looked around in desperation. Hotel Tours, said the sign behind the front desk. Ruins. Free. “The ruins,” he said, pointing to the sign, wondering if either of the men could read. “Are they near the airport?” He could go to the ruins, maybe get a ride….
“Near?” the second man said. He shrugged again. “Maybe. Yes, I think so.”
“How near?” Charles said.
“Near,” the second man said. “Yes. Near enough.”
Charles picked up the two suitcases and followed the line of tourists to the bus stop. See, he thought. Nothing to worry about, and you’re even getting a free ride to the airport. Those taxi drivers are thieves anyway.
It was awkward maneuvering the suitcases up the stairs of the bus. “I’m going on to the airport,” Charles said to the driver, feeling the need to explain.
“Of course, sor,” the driver said, shrugging as if to say that an American’s suitcases were no business of his. He added a word that Charles didn’t catch. Perhaps it was in his native language.
The bus set off down the new two-lane highway fronting the hotels. Soon they left the hotels behind, passed a cluster of run-down shacks, and were heading into the desert. The air conditioning hummed loudly. Waves of heat traveled across the sands.
After nearly an hour the bus stopped. “We have one hour,” the driver said in bad English. He opened the door. “These are the temple of Marmaz. Very old. One hour.” The tourists filed out. A few were adjusting cameras or pointing lenses.
Because of the suitcases Charles was the last out. He squinted against the sun. The temple was a solid wall of white marble against the sand. Curious in spite of himself he crossed the parking lot, avoiding the native who was trying to show him something. “Pure silver,” the small man said, calling after him. “Special price just for you.”
In front of the temple was a cracked marble pool, now dry. Who were these people who had carried water into the desert, who had imprisoned the moon in pale marble? But then how much had he known about the other tourist spots he had visited, the Greeks who had built the Parthenon, the Mayans who had built the pyramids? He followed the line of tourists into the temple, feeling the coolness fall over him like a blessing.
He went from room to room, delighted, barely feeling the weight of the suitcases. He saw crumbling mosaics of reds and blues and greens, fragments of tapestries, domes, fountains, towers, a white dining hall that could seat a hundred. In one small room a native was explaining a piece of marble sculpture to a dozen Americans.
“This, he is the god of the sun,” the native said. “And in the next room, the goddess of the moon. Moon, yes? We will go see her after. Once a year, at the end of the year, the two statues—statues, yes?—go outside. The priests take outside. They get married. Her baby is the new year.”
“What nonsense,” a woman standing near Charles said quietly. She was holding a guidebook. “That’s the fourth king. He built the temple. God of the sun.” She laughed scornfully.
“Can I—can I see that book for a minute?” Charles said. The cover had flipped forward tantalizingly, almost revealing the name of the country.
The woman looked briefly at her watch. “Got to go,” she said. “The bus is leaving in a minute and I’ve got to find my husband. Sorry.”
Charles’ bus was gone by the time he left the temple. It was much cooler now but heat still rose from the desert sands. He was very hungry, nearly tempted to buy a cool drink and a sandwich at the refreshment stand near the parking lot. “Cards?” someone said to him.
Charles turned. The small native said something that sounded like “Tiraz!” It was the same word the bus driver had said to him in the morning. Then, “Cards?” he said again.
“What?” Charles said impatiently, looking for a taxi.
“Ancient playing set,” the native said. “Very holy.” He took out a deck of playing cards from an embroidered bag and spread them for Charles. The colors were very bright. “Souvenir,” the native said. He grinned, showing red-stained teeth. “Souvenir of your trip.”
“No, thank you,” Charles said. All around the parking lot, it seemed, little natives were trying to sell tourists rings and pipes and blouses and, for some reason, packs of playing cards. “Taxi?” he said. “Is there a taxi here?”
The native shrugged and moved on to the next tourist.
It was getting late. Charles went towards the nearest tour bus. The driver was leaning against the bus, smoking a small cigarette wrapped in a brown leaf. “Where can I find a taxi?” Charles asked him.
“No taxis,” the driver said.
“No—why not?” Charles said. This country was impossible. He couldn’t wait to get out, to be on a plane drinking a margarita and heading back to the good old U.S.A. This was the worst vacation he’d ever had. “Can I make a phone call? I have to get to the airport.”
A woman about to get on the bus heard him and stopped. “The airport?” she said. “The airport’s fifty miles from here. At least. You’ll never find a taxi to take you that far.”
“Fifty miles?” Charles said. “They told me—At the hotel they told me it was fairly close.” For a moment his confidence left him. What do I do now? he thought. He sagged against the suitcases.
“Listen,” the woman said. She turned to the bus driver. “We’ve got room. Can’t we take him back to the city with us? I think we’re the last bus to leave.”
The driver shrugged. “For the tiraz, of course. Anything is possible.”
If Charles hadn’t been so relieved at the ride he would have been annoyed. What did this word tiraz mean? Imbecile? Man with two suitcases? He followed the woman onto the bus.
“I can’t believe you thought this was close to the airport,” the woman said. He sat across the aisle from her. “This is way out in the desert. There’s nothing here. No one would come out here if it wasn’t for the ruins.”
“They told me at the hotel,” Charles said. He didn’t really want to discuss it. He was no longer the seasoned traveler, the man who had regaled the people around the pool with stories of Mexico, Greece, Hawaii. He would have to confess, have to go back to the hotel and tell someone the whole story. Maybe they would bring in the police to find Debbie. A day wasted and he had only gone around in a circle, back to where he started. He felt tired and very hungry.
But when the bus stopped it was not at the brightly-lit row of hotels. He strained to see in the oncoming dusk. “I thought you said—” He turned to the woman, hating to sound foolish again. ‘I thought we were going to the city.”
“This is—” the woman said. Then she nodded in understanding. “You want the new city, the tourist city. That’s up the road about ten miles. Any cab’ll take you there.”
Charles was the last off the bus again, slowed this time not so much by the suitcases as by the new idea. People actually stayed in the same cities where the natives lived. He had heard of it being done but he had thought only young people did it, students and drifters and hitchhikers like the one back at the hotel. This woman was not young and she had been fairly pleasant. He wished he had remembered to thank her.
The first cab driver laughed when Charles showed him the five note and asked to be taken to the new city. The driver was not impressed by the traveler’s checks. The second and third drivers turned him down flat. The city smelled of motor oil and rancid fish. It was getting late, even a little chilly, and Charles began to feel nervous about being out so late. The two suitcases were an obvious target for some thief. And where would he go? What would he do?
The panic that he had suppressed for so long took over now and he began to run. He dove deeper into the twisting maze of the city, not caring where he went so long as he was moving. Everything was closed and there were few streetlamps. He heard the sounds of his footfalls echo off the shuttered buildings. A cat jumped out of his way, eyes flashing gold.
After a long time of running he began to slow. ‘Tiraz!” someone whispered to him from an abandoned building. His heart pounded. He did not look back. Ahead was a lit storefront, a store filled with clutter. The door was open. A pawn shop.
He went in with relief. He cleared a space for himself among the old magazines and rusty baking pans and child’s beads. The man behind the counter watched but made no comment. He took out everything from the two suitcases, sorted out what he needed and repacked it and gave the other suitcase to the man behind the counter. The man went to a small desk, unlocked a drawer and took out a steel box. He counted out some money and offered it to Charles. Charles accepted it wordlessly, not even bothering to count it.
The money bought a meal tasting of sawdust and sesame oil and a sagging bed in an old hotel. The overhead fan turned all night because Charles could not figure out how to turn it off. A cockroach watched impassively from the corner.
