Andean Express (13 page)

Alderete had three aces. Petko balked at Alderete's thousand-peso wager. Anita winked at him, but Petko was playing by the books.

“
Khuya
, I not want these things,” he said.

“What things?” asked Alderete.

“Petko's talking to himself,” said Tréllez.

“Because nobody's listening, just like when you talk in Congress.”

“At least I speak proper Spanish,” said Tréllez, “and not some nouveau riche slang.”

Petko upped the bet five hundred pesos. Alderete hesitated and scrutinized Petko's face in the hope of finding some trace of a bluff. Petko was staring at his cards without raising his gaze. Alderete matched his bet.

Petko held out his straight. “Go ahead and top that.”

Alderete examined the cards one by one. He threw his three aces on the table, served himself another whiskey, called the waiter over, and asked for ice. The waiter headed to the kitchen and they could hear him chopping up ice in a bucket.

“Deal,” said Durbin. “When this guy doesn't want to listen, he won't even hear his own conscience.”

“I'll do it,” said Alderete, ignoring Durbin.

They handed him the cards. Alderete shuffled them several times.

“Not go overboard,” advised Petko. “We not cheaters.”

“I know what I'm doing. Cut,” said Alderete.

The Marquis performed two cuts and handed the cards back to Alderete, who had started whistling a popular tune.

“I like it when you're happy, Nazario,” said Ruiz.

“That's Don Nazario to you,” said Alderete. “When did I give you permission to call me
tú
?”

Ruiz bit his tongue. Alderete dealt the cards with an exasperating slowness.

“How is it that you all ended up on the same train?” Alderete asked.

“It's vacation season,” said the Marquis.

“Don't make me laugh,
you
on vacation?”

“You were on vacation once in Valparaíso,” said the Marquis. “You stayed at my house almost a whole month. Don't you remember?”

Alderete ignored him and scrutinized his hand. He had pairs of tens and eights. The Marquis also drew pairs, but his were queens and jacks. Petko had five different cards, and Durbin held pairs of kings and aces. Tréllez held a straight and Ruiz, three nines. They all asked for more cards, except Tréllez. Alderete received an eight, the Marquis a card that was of no use. Petko salvaged a pair; Ruiz cursed the card that Alderete had dealt him. Durbin, to his relief, got a magnificent and unexpected king. Alderete removed a handful of bills from his inner coat pocket and counted two thousand pesos. Durbin raised his cards so Anita could see them. With a quick peep, she spotted Alderete's full house, then patted her own back, indicating that Durbin could bet.

Durbin raised the bar to three thousand pesos. Alderete guessed that the Irishman was bluffing. Tréllez folded.

“Five hundred on top of Durbin's three thousand,” Alderete wagered after a long pause.

“Let's see 'em,” said Durbin.

Alderete swore when Durbin revealed his hand.

*
Russian expletive.

T
he train came to a halt at the Campero station
—another abandoned settlement in the middle of the Andean plain. It was drizzling, and aside from the railway building there was no other light in the area. The train woke the dogs, eliciting a chorus of barks; the local railway employee was sporting a rubber poncho and a sombrero. The engineer, Quispe, got out to stretch his legs and inspected the engine with a lantern. Meanwhile, the card game continued amid misunderstandings, arguments, and caustic remarks. The group had finished a bottle of Scotch and everyone was a little tipsy. Alderete won some hands, lost others, and the plot to clear him out had not yet acquired any momentum.

This was because he hadn't yet consumed enough whiskey to lose control of his emotions, at which point he would become dangerous and vulnerable. With the alcohol rising to his head, however, Alderete, the ex-accountant-turned-bourgeois-gentleman-miner, was beginning to uproot hidden feelings from deep inside his tension-ridden soul. He was returning to his humble origins, not with nostalgia or tenderness but with rage. He was becoming sharp-tongued and sarcastic. This is what his tablemates were waiting for, except for Petko, who remained focused on the game and unaware of what was being stirred up around him.

“Why are we stopping?” asked Alderete.

“The engine has to rest,” said Ruiz.

“What the hell do you know about engines?” Alderete countered mockingly.

“I travel to Chile and Argentina all the time.”

“Just to rip off idiots on the train. People know about you. One of these days the police will catch you.”

“I don't do anything illegal,” said Ruiz.

The Marquis sent the cards flying gracefully down onto the table. Alderete drew four jacks. Before he could pull them up against his chest, Anita glimpsed his hand—Alderete would bet until the bitter end. Anita Romero had not only worked as a hostess, a whore, and a madam, she was also a bit of a magician. When she saw the Marquis's troubled gaze, she worked out a way to tip him off to Alderete's hand. The Marquis made use of his knee and Durbin took the hint. He in turn passed the warning on to Tréllez, who at that moment was deep in the red. They needed four queens, four kings, or four aces to beat Alderete's four jacks.

Ruiz got the message as well and four majestic queens sprung forth under the table for precisely the person who needed them. Tréllez already had two queens and tacked on two more as a gift. The smoke from Petko's cigar was a formidable curtain that helped shroud hand and eye movements.

In a ploy to confuse the others, Alderete asked for a card and started mixing it with the rest of his hand. He trusted that another player would open the pot; his hope became reality when Petko, who had garnered a three-of-a-kind, opened with a bet of five hundred pesos, setting off the boom of the night—and everyone got into the mix.

“One thousand over his five hundred,” said Alderete.

The ex-accountant's enemies sensed that the trap was set and that the fox was about to step on shaky ground. The five of them each tossed another thousand pesos into the pot.

Tréllez studied his cards once again, lining them up in his left hand while, with his right, holding up an extremely long cigarette in a mother-of-pearl holder. He furrowed his brow and smiled like a giddy young boy who had just come across a photo of a naked woman.

Everyone raised the pot an additional three thousand. The Marquis watched the pile of money with a certain eagerness. “Two thousand more on top of the three thousand,” he said.

“Too much for me. I am out,” announced Petko.

Durbin, Ruiz, and Alderete placed bets.

“Why don't we up it five thousand?” said Alderete.

A circle of onlookers formed around the table.

“Alderete's five thousand and another ten thousand,” said Tréllez.

Durbin and Alderete answered the challenge.

“Better yet, twenty thousand,” declared Alderete as he laid out the money.

Durbin produced twenty thousand pesos in brand-new bills, a reflection of the inflationary spiral afflicting Bolivia. Tréllez followed suit and added: “Twenty thousand plus thirty more.”

Alderete glanced over at Durbin.

“That's it for me,” announced the Irishman.

“Frenchie Tréllez's thirty plus twenty more,” said Alderete.

“Better a Frenchie than a pillager of mines,” answered Tréllez.

“Are you betting or not?”

“Fifty thousand pesos on top of this squirt's twenty,” said Tréllez.

“Where did you get the money?”

“What is it to you?”

“I'll match it,” said Alderete. “I'd like to see you call me a squirt again later.”

Alderete displayed four jacks and Tréllez, with a princelike gesture, revealed four beautiful queens.

Alderete looked like a sand sculpture being slowly washed away by ocean waves. Overcome by a rush of cold sweat and a sudden spell of rage, he began to break down. “That's impossible!”

“What's impossible?”

“I thought I saw another queen somewhere else,” said Alderete.

“You can see what you want to see,” replied Durbin. “Are you calling us cheaters?”

“I want to count the queens,” he said, his eyes red with anger. They handed him the cards. He searched for the cursed queens, but found only the four. “I saw one more. I won't be played for a fool.”

“It could be altitude,” said Petko. “Maybe you see things that do not exist.”

“Stay out of this. Damn Russian ex-pat; it's too bad the communists didn't catch you.”

“
Khuya
, bastard. I Russian émigré, but honorable; difference is you want be white, but nature cannot make miracles like that.”

Alderete went searching again for the card under the table.

“You look ridiculous,” said the Marquis.

“Nobody messes with me. It's not about the money. I just won't stand for looking like a fool.”

“You are fool even if not lose at cards,” said Petko.

Alderete forced the other players to rummage through their pockets, setting off an uproar of laughter. Their trusted ally, Anita, began her retreat. Even though he looked as if he were suffering from a seizure, Alderete happened to notice the mirror at his back. He stood up and went over to the table where Father Moreno and Carla Marlene were still seated.

“A perfect view,” he said. “It was a damn conspiracy.”

Father Moreno was transformed into a dummy observing the scene with a look of infantile obliviousness.

“Do you know something about this?” asked Alderete.

“About what?” answered Moreno.

“You're no priest. I'm going to have the police get you in Charaña.”

“You're always threatening people,” said Carla Marlene. “Who do you think you are?”

“Are you talking to me?” asked Alderete.

“What do you think?”

“This won't be the end of it,” said Alderete.

“It's over,” said Tréllez. “You're a sore loser.”

“Loser, my balls. I want my money back,” growled Alderete.

They laughed in unison, and Tréllez warned: “Don't forget that I'm a congressman with the PURS. My authority ends only at the border. No more shouting, no more fucking around with me. You should be happy you didn't lose any more money. Durbin wants to beat you to a pulp.”

“He's a foreigner,” said Alderete. “If he touches me I'll complain to the authorities.”

“I'd like to see that,” said Durbin. “Once we're in Chilean territory, I'll break your fingers one by one.”

Alderete contained his aggression. The had obviously ganged up against him and further prodding could only stir up more trouble. Yet the whiskey, the jousting, and the smirking faces of his rivals only increased the tension. A bout of chills and dizziness came over him. He prepared his retreat, trying to keep from looking like a fool. But the commotion at the table raged on. Although they contradict the commandments of the Holy Catholic Church, acts of vengeance, however small, are nearly always deeply satisfying.

The train was robbing empty space from the Altiplano. The darkness became oppressive. The flats had an otherworldly look to them; even the toughest shrubs grew with difficulty. Alderete summoned his courage and began walking toward his cabin. The narrow passage between the tables seemed endless. More laughter and jeers erupted from the crew of swindlers.

“W
e're coming into a station,”
said Ricardo.

Gulietta couldn't really hear what he was saying. She felt as if Ricardo was strangling her, as if his lips wouldn't let her breathe. They quivered awkwardly at first, then slackened and began mumbling something unintelligible. Ricardo was trying to get into just the right position. After pinning down her arms, he kissed her on the forehead and penetrated with a hard thrust, forcing out a cry that became confused with the engine's heavy breathing.

The engineer could be overheard talking outside. In the corridor, the watchman shouted something that Ricardo thought was a warning. He moved his body haltingly until she allowed herself to lie still and relax, at which point his gyrations acquired a more rhythmic pattern. He looked at Gulietta's face, a mixture of pain and passion. Even though she hadn't said a word, she was writing poetry with her eyes. She began scratching Ricardo's back delicately, while her legs propped him up and pulled him deeper inside.

The wild barking of stray dogs sounded in the night. Cold breezes entered through cracks in the window and under the door.

“Why are you stopping?” asked Gulietta.