Blinding Light (18 page)

“You're just being evasive,” she said, which was true. “You've hardly said anything this whole trip.”

That was true, too. No one had noticed how silent Steadman had been. That was not unusual. Talkers never noticed; only listeners tended to be aware of the back-and-forth of discussion. Steadman had passively encouraged the others to talk by not appearing to listen.

Ava turned away, went to the window, muttered something. He knew she was not looking at anything, just gazing at empty space, the way she had six days before when he had blindfolded her and made love to her. Maybe she felt that had been a charade and was now feeling futile, probably thinking: What a waste, all this time and trouble, what have we learned?

Apart from Manfred, who in his clumsiness appeared to be the shrewdest one of all, Steadman knew the others were dispirited, impatient to go elsewhere, needing more travel. They were talking about the creatures they would see in the Galapagos. “Big goofy turtles.” They had not spoken about the ayahuasca. They were like children who had smoked their first cigar and gotten sick and said, “Never again.” They had learned nothing.

Ava was still facing the window. She was at her prettiest with the light behind her. Possessing the Indian basket filled Steadman with confidence. He only needed a way to tell her. He saw that he had a future, not earnest hope but the certain knowledge of inspired work.

N
ESTOR LEFT A NOTE
for them at the Colón saying that he had organized the farewell party in a private room in a hotel restaurant, and
el precio incluye todo
—as though emphasizing that the party was included as part of the tour price would tempt them to attend. Ava laughed and crumpled the note and tossed it aside, but Steadman picked it up and smoothed it. He studied the map printed on the back, then folded it and put it into his pocket.

Ava said, “You seriously want to go to this thing?”

“No choice.”

The hotel was in the Mariscal Sucre district, within walking distance of the Colon, down the wide avenue called Amazonas, the narrow side streets leading off it full of strollers and youthful tourists on this chilly November night. No masks, no finery, no processions: the fiesta had ended. What costumed people they saw were Indians from the mountain villages, wearing shawls and beads and woolen leggings, selling woven mats and brightly colored rugs. Most of the shops on the avenue were shut, but Ava remarked that they catered to visitors who wanted jungle tours and Panama hats and leather jackets and raffia bags. The Ecuador experience.

“People like us,” Steadman said.

Seeing them approach, Nestor waved from the foyer of the restaurant. Steadman could tell from the hostility that hung over them like the stink from cold ashes that it would not be a friendly party but an absolute farewell, something verging on the funereal, but a ritual of empty gestures, as though they were burying a stranger. From the outset no one made eye contact. Manfred had already gone inside the restaurant and taken his place at the table and started drinking.

“This kind of goodbye party, we call it a
despedida,”
Nestor explained.

Janey's greeting to Steadman was “We didn't reckon you'd pitch up.”

“The man of mystery,” Hack said.

Steadman had watched Hack drinking from an elegant silver pocket flask, and Steadman's smile was his usual misleadingly mild one, his silence defiant and provocative.

“We have this feeling you think you're too good for us,” Wood said.

“Is that the mystery?” Ava asked.

“The mystery is that he doesn't say anything,” Hack said, and it really was like a chorus, this quartet of travelers. “The mystery is that we give a shit.”

Ava said to Nestor, “We were looking forward to your
despedida
.”

Steadman was still smiling. He knew that his smile was an irritant and that his silence and his gaze had worn them down.

“What is it about this guy?” Hack said, but it was less a question than an unfinished statement.

The hotel restaurant, Papagayo, had an Amazonian Indian theme—jungle foliage and macaws in cages and straw mats and even an assortment of oversized baskets that resembled the one that Manfred had sold Steadman. The floor show promised “folklore.” Nestor obviously chose the place because it was attached to the hotel where the Hacklers and Wilmutts were staying, as some sort of barter arrangement.

The couples had changed their style of clothes, the women now in white shirts and loose slacks and sandals: they were the catalogue models again, and Steadman saw with dismay that they were loyal to the Trespassing logo. The men wore new Panama hats and safari jackets and freshly pressed cargo pants. They had conquered the jungle. They seemed fashionable, calmer, relieved; they had put their humiliation and disappointment behind them. Their adventure was over. It would never be repeated. They had their stories, their photographs, and on entering the restaurant each of them wore a weary look of triumph.

When Steadman sat down at the long table, they lost their confidence and became furtive again, uneasy and resentful, for this man was still a stranger to them. He had mentioned nothing of his experience, not a single word to them in all the days they had spent together. They had never learned his name. He was like a man who had vanished in a forest and reappeared after a long time without telling anyone what he had seen.

“Thanks for sharing,” Wood had said in the van on the way back, in an attempt to provoke him.

Sarcasm was their way of showing frustration. Steadman's silences maddened them, especially as their own talking revealed them as querulous and ashamed, like naked people in the presence of a man in a tuxedo. In their attempt to tease him they were mocking themselves and feeling foolish.

“Aguardiente,” Manfred said, sipping his glass of clear liquid.

“How about you?” Hack said to Ava. “Have a drink.”

Ava felt that she too was being tested, for every apparent expression of politeness from them was like a challenge.

At the head of the table, Nestor ordered the dishes, saying, “This a specialty of Esmeraldas,” and “The people in Riobamba make this chicken
seco
—like a stew but dry,
seco de gallina
,” and “My mother, from Guayaquil, prepares the fish like this.”

Even so, no one ate much. The altitude killed their appetite, they said. Only Manfred ate and drank with any gusto, and he had seconds. Steadman thought, He is silent only because his mouth is full of food.

While they picked at dessert (“I'd call this iced fancy a kind of macaroon,” Janey said), Nestor made a short speech, thanking them for visiting his homeland of Ecuador and for being such great travelers.

“And maybe better not say much about where we went and what things we did.” He leaned forward to confide in them. “Is
secreto.
Is
escondido
.”

And he put his finger to his lips. Conferring with the waiter, he quietly settled the bill, then scattered his business cards on the table. He backed away smiling, looking courtly, giving a little salute, leaving them to themselves and causing, by his departure, a conspicuous void that was like a reproach to the ones who remained there.

“He hates us,” Wood said. “Maybe because we didn't tip him.”

“Because the expedition sucked,” Hack said. “Like, who would we tell?”

“Those natives in that scruffy village were cheeky monkeys,” Janey said.

Hack went on, “Nestor was all attitude. That didn't sit well with me at all. Let's get out of here.”

But he remained seated, drinking from a large glass, a green concoction, one of the local drinks the restaurant offered,
canelazo.

“Rocket fuel,” Hack said. He was drunk, though he had always seemed that way to Steadman because of his anger and loudness, his air of reckless violence; even his posture was like a drunken threat.

Wood said to Ava and Steadman, “Want to come upstairs for a drink?”

He didn't mean it—she knew that. His inverted politeness was not an invitation but a challenge. Out of a hostile reflex of false pleasantry, they were being asked to have a drink precisely because Wood and the others, who didn't really want to have a drink with them, disliked them.

“Just one,” Ava said, accepting because she disliked them in turn. It was as though each were trying to expose the other. Had Ava and Steadman refused, their dislike would have been obvious.

Wood said to Manfred—more hostile ritual—“What about you?”

“
Fámonos
,” Manfred said, wiping his mouth.

In the elevator, Hack turned to a stranger, a man in a track suit, obviously an American hotel guest returning from jogging, and said, “You American? Us too. Bay Area. Marshall Hackler,” and stuck out his hand. “We just came from the Oriente. Lago Agrio? Aguarico River? We were staying in an Indian village. We took this psychedelic drug, no shit.”

“Ayahuasca,” Wood said. “I got ripped.”

“It was all ghastly,” Janey said.

“I'm not even supposed to be telling you this, but my friends will back me up. Anyway, the whole thing sucked.”

“No way.”

The man feigned interest, but seemed embarrassed to be at such close quarters with this loud man and this group of seemingly drunken people who filled the elevator. He pressed his lips together and said nothing more. He watched the lighted floor numbers change, and when the warning bell rang and the elevator stopped at his floor, he quickly squeezed past Hack, who was still talking.

“This isn't a country, it's a theme park. It should be turned over to a private company. Disney could run it.”

“You said that in Kenya,” Sabra said as the doors hissed shut again. Conversation for them, Steadman saw, was returning again and again to a subject and harping in monotonous repetition on trivialities. He had heard this same banter several times already, in the van, at Lago Agrio, at Papallacta, at the village.

“Kenya's a fucking zoo,” Hack said. “India's a total dump. China sucks big-time. Egypt's all ragheads. Japan's a parking lot. Want a sex tour? Go to Thailand. Want to get robbed by a Gypsy? Go to Italy. Want a truly shitty experience among dirtbags? Come here.”

“Do shut up, darling, you're sounding bolshie and blimpish,” Janey said.

“Make them viable. Put some American CEOs in charge. Run these Third World countries like corporations,” Wood said.

“They got my hunting knife,” Hack said. His eyes went small and turned more mean than rueful. He was making a fist with one hand, as though clutching the memory of the knife. “It was a real shank, cut from a solid block of steel.”

“My posh Harrods binoculars were pinched,” Janey said.

“I lost some cash and traveler's checks, but I'll get the checks replaced,” Wood said. “This country is full of kleptos.”

The floor bell rang again, the elevator doors hissed apart, Hack led the way to the room—adjoining rooms, as it turned out, a pair of deluxe ones linked by a large, shared sitting room. This one had a sofa and armchairs and a wide-screen television, and on the coffee table were magazines and newspapers and Sabra's copy of
Trespassing.
Manfred began asking aloud in a disapproving way what this arrangement had cost them and had they requested it beforehand? From the window they could see Pichincha, the twinkling lights from the mass of huts on its slope.

“You always travel together?” Ava asked, trying a harmless question because they seemed agitated.

Janey said, “Indeed, yes. We're the Gang of Four. Surely you saw the printing on our singlets?”

“I thought those T-shirts had something to do with China,” Ava said.

“Have a drink,” Hack said to Steadman.

“He doesn't drink anymore, really.”

“You sound like his mother.”

They had been cowed, uncomfortable, and defensive in the hot muddy village, but in the elevator and here in their tidy hotel room they were aggressive and rude, as though trying to erase the memory of that failure, or perhaps simply because they were leaving and had nothing to lose.

“I am ever so keen on our next trip,” Janey said. “Tibet. We found a way of going there without going into grotty old China. You just charter a plane in Nepal.”

Manfred said, “Maybe I come along. I was there. I wrote some things about the
Schamanismus
in Nepal. I know some important people, healers in Kathmandhu.”

Steadman just listened. The lights dazzled him, his ears rang from the talk, he felt anxious, he hated seeing his book in the room. He noticed Hack leering at Sabra, he heard Wood explaining how you would go about running a country like a business. Janey sat, knees together, watching Manfred drink from a bottle of aguardiente he had swiped from the restaurant table. Steadman sensed a great emptiness in the room—after all, it was just a hotel room in which they were taking their turn as guests. But the vibrations of an unspoken drama among the people present animated his imagination, and he saw more than he had words for, like a nameless odor or the echoes of strange rituals.

He watched and waited for a silence, and then filled it as conspicuously as he could, saying, “Take me home, Mother.”

“No one's going anywhere,” Hack said. “You came here for a drink. You've got to drink something first.”

Steadman said, “You don't want me here, really.”

Instead of denying this or protesting, they stared.

“Just stay,” Hack said. “And drink something.”

“You don't mean that.”

Hack turned his back on Steadman and said, “This guy is calling me a liar.”

“You want the truth?”

Steadman was seated, facing them all, and the way he fixed his eyes on them, the tone he used in phrasing this question—his smile, his seriousness, his poise—silenced the room.