Kilometer 99 (14 page)

It's not until then that I sober up enough to think of Ben, to realize that there's a word for what I'm doing right now, and that word is
cheating.

But sex with Alex was always a peculiar brand of satisfaction spiked with shame, a baring of desperate and vulnerable parts. There was never talking, no communication of any kind. He was prone to acts of teeth and fingernails that stopped just short of violence. We were used to feeling embarrassed, awkward, even a little appalled in the aftermath. And it always felt inevitable somehow—like those kernels of suffering were a key part of pleasure, like love couldn't exist without a smattering of cruelty.

I buck hard against him. All of his weight presses down on a spot just below my navel. We grind against each other with force, like we want to get this over with, want to exorcise some specter of the love between us because we're sick of it haunting our waking lives.

Once it's finished, I lie there in his arms. A wave of guilt and self-loathing looms ahead, jacking up along my mental reef and threatening to break. I hope it will back off for a few more hours, so I can at least get some sleep.

 

15

In the first few months of my service—before I ever met Ben, before I ever saw La Libertad, before I'd done a lick of work on the water project—I took a weekend trip with Alex. We stayed at a cabin high in the mountains of Morazán, and went to the Museum of the Revolution. It was staffed by former guerillas and displayed the weapons and equipment that they had used and that had been used against them. Pieces of shrapnel were on display with stamps that read
MADE IN TEXAS.
The biggest exhibit was devoted to Radio Venceremos, the underground radio network that formed the backbone of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. Behind glass stood a re-creation of a studio room with some of the original transmission equipment. Outside, a bomb crater was roped off, alongside a disarmed version of the U.S.-made bomb that had formed it.

“I want to go to El Mozote after this,” Alex told me. We hadn't said much in this somber place.

“Where's that?”

“It's a small town near here, the site of the worst massacre of the war.”

I nodded, a little disconcerted that this was what he wanted to see.

“I read a book about it,” Alex explained.

*   *   *

At the village of El Mozote, site of the worst tragedy in modern Latin American history, I followed Alex to the town square. We came upon the memorial—four black silhouettes cut from iron, two adults and two children, all four of them hand in hand. They stood on a stone pedestal, which bore a plaque that read
THEY HAVE NOT DIED: THEY ARE WITH US, WITH YOU, AND WITH ALL OF HUMANITY.

“What were you doing in 1981?” I asked Alex.

“I was four,” he said. “That's when my parents finished the house I grew up in. I don't remember that, but there's a little plate by the door with the date engraved on it.”

“What happened here?” I asked.

He turned away from the memorial and looked out at the town. “News of a big offensive had gotten around.”

It was as if he'd memorized passages from whatever book he'd read.

“One of the local men—the store owner, I think—sent word to all the villages and provinces that there would soon be heavy fighting. He told the women and children to come here to the town, where they'd be safer.”

Alex took a few steps down one of the dirt streets along the plaza and looked up at the houses. “All of the homes were crowded with people, family and friends who'd come in from the campo, frightened strangers needing shelter.”

I followed him as he took more steps down the block, my arms crossed in front of my chest. A mountain breeze blew cool air against our skin.

“Then the Atlacatl showed up.”

“Who?”

“The Atlacatl. They were a battalion trained by our government, at the School of the Americas. This bloodthirsty asshole named Monterrosa was in charge.”

“What does that mean, Atlacatl?”

“The name comes from an indigenous warrior who fought against the Spanish conquest. Before the war, he was a kind of folk hero for the country.”

“They might've named the money after him.” I swallowed and noticed that my hands were trembling. “Instead of Columbus.”

“Now that name only means murder,” Alex went on. “So they found all these civilians, but no guerillas. They ordered everybody out of the houses and had them lie down on the ground. They stuck machine guns at the backs of their heads and asked stupid questions about the Frente. Then they made everyone lock themselves in their houses, and said that anybody who stepped outside would be shot. The next day, all the people were dragged to the plaza again. Men were separated from women and children and locked up in groups. Most were in the church.” He pointed at the empty lot that was now right beside us. A little fence surrounded it, a stone pedestal with a plaque in the center.

I thought of Niña Tere. Had she seen anything like this? Did she hear about it on Radio Venceremos, perhaps?

“The men were first,” he continued. “The soldiers went ahead with their bullshit interrogation, then moved on to torturing and killing, while the wives and children screamed from inside the locked buildings. That took most of the morning. Around noon, they switched to the women. Girls were raped and then shot down. The little children were the last.”

The sides of my eyes grew moist. I clenched my teeth and breathed out through my nostrils.

“They burned down the buildings. When the first reports came out, our government denied it. Reagan called it ‘communist propaganda.'”

“Men.” I spat out the word as though it had a bad taste. “Men with guns killing women and kids.”

I put my hand out and Alex took hold of it. We each squeezed hard. With my other hand, I brushed away the beginnings of tears. He put his arm around me and turned back to the iron silhouettes on the memorial. We shared an embrace there, in the middle of the town square. My face pressed into Alex's chest. I looked up, past the bullet-riddled houses and into the hills beyond. El Salvador's beauty and terror spread itself out in ridges and wrinkles all the way to the horizon.

Though it was barely twenty years old, I was dumb enough to believe that this atrocity was never to be repeated. I saw this as a dark age from which this nation was emerging.

But more than anything, as I stood there in that killing field with the boy I loved, I felt the exquisite sensation of my ego slipping momentarily away. For a second, I wasn't the hero of my own drama, but just a bit player in something bigger and much more meaningful. Looking back now, it fills me with an odd sense of guilt—like we were indulging in some creepy form of tragedy tourism.

I pulled Alex even closer to me and rubbed my hand up and down his spine. Clouds moved in from the east. History sprouted up all around us like the blades of tall grass. That was one thing about being Alex's girlfriend: It always felt important.

 

16

Morning sunlight shines through the sole window in Alex's room. His slender arms still wrap around me. For the first time, I see the scars along his wrist. They are many, done in a haphazard mess—as random a series of lines as those galvanized pipes scattered down my riverbed. What did I expect—a single deep and decisive cut on each arm? I run my fingers along the raised mounds of flesh, as though they are a kind of Braille and I can tease a meaning out of them if I concentrate. My mind's eye tries to picture Alex in the act. Was he uncertain? Could he barely bring himself to make the deepest cut? I allow myself to wonder: Did he ever mean to go through with it? Or was this a desperate plea for attention—a cry for help, as they say?

Alex stirs as my fingers touch the scar tissue. He wakes with a series of jolts and shudders—another habit I remember well from our days as a couple but do not miss.

I climb out of bed and dress in the things I've left scattered about the floor: bikini, borrowed clothes, dime-store rubber sandals.

“Malia.” Alex rises and sits up on the bed. “I'm sorry.”

For a second, I wonder if I can lay the blame on his shoulders. Can I compose a version of last night in which I was drunk and he took advantage? I try that out for half a second but can't sell it even to myself.

“It's my fault.” I pick the bills up off the floor and stuff them back into my bikini top. “I have to go,” I tell him, without any real idea what time it is.

“You don't have to go, Malia.” The pink marks on his forearm look like their own odd form of clothing. “That's the one thing you should get straight in your mind: You do
not
have to go.”

“Good-bye.” I leave the apartment without a kiss or hug.

*   *   *

It takes a while to find the car. The gate of the Estancia is visible a few doors from my parking spot. I look down at my skirt and top, knowing I should return them. But then I recall Courtney's disappointed parting glance last night, and I can't bring myself to face her.

As I pull the door handle on the Jeep, I realize that I don't have a choice: She's got my keys.

Luckily, Niña Ana is up and buzzes me in. She has a habit of boiling tap water and then cooling it in the fridge for her guests. I take out one glass bottle and drink the entire thing in a series of bubbling gulps. Gingerly, I push open the door to Courtney's room.

Inside, half a dozen bodies lie across the mattresses in various states of drooling, snoring, hungover slumber. Courtney's things are arranged upon a folding chair by her bed. Searching underneath a couple layers of clothes, I find my car keys tucked inside her shoe.

So they don't jingle, I wrap my fingers tightly around the keys and make my way to the door.

“That was a shitty move you pulled last night.” Courtney's voice shocks me so much, I put a hand over my heart.

“Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.” I speak softly, hoping not to wake this roomful of sleepers.

“Sorry.” Her eyes hardly open. Her head turns slightly upward off the pillow. “Just thought you should know.”

I want her on my side. So often, she's been my confidante in times like these. “I fucked up last night,” I say. “Cut me a little slack.”

“You can't have your cake and eat it, too, Malia.”

A grumble comes from a body in one of the other beds.

“I know,” I whisper. “I'm a little confused about things.…”

“Try not to mess with too many other lives while you figure it out, okay?”

I don't have a response to that. Why is she being so cruel? “Courtney, did you … Were you hoping that you and Alex might…?”

“Would you all shut the fuck up, please?” bellows a voice I don't recognize.

Courtney doesn't answer me.

“Is that what this is about?” I suppose the better part of my interest is pure curiosity. But another part, from a deeper and darker place, feels that she's violated some unwritten code. It's true that I'm with someone else and all, and technically on my way out of this country. But Alex is my ex. And Courtney is my best female friend. There's some sort of rule against that, isn't there?

“That's not even the point, Malia.”

“Shut up!” The same sleeper throws a pillow, which lands near my feet.

It occurs to me that I might not see Courtney again for a long time, years even. “Thanks for everything you did for me yesterday. You're a good friend and you're right: I messed up. I hope you'll forgive me.” I leave the room, grateful that nobody asked me to return the borrowed clothes.

Traffic is light for a weekday morning. Large
H
signs point the way to the hospital. Young boys carry tins of Spanish olive oil between the cars at every stoplight. The oil was Spain's primary form of aid to their former colony in the wake of the earthquake. It's given out in shelters and refugee camps. Nobody in this country knows what to do with the stuff. It smokes too much to fry with. Teenagers sell gallons of it for pennies. Salvadoran cooks often dump the expensive oil out upon the ground so that they can use the sturdy tins for something else.

*   *   *

Luckily, there's a parking spot close to the building where I left Ben and Pelochucho. I buy sweet bread from a cart outside.

“You look like shit,” Ben says to me.

“I didn't sleep well. Brought you some food.” I hold out the bag of baked goods, hoping its aroma might mask the smell of cigarette smoke, that the cigarette smoke might mask the smell of sex.

Pelochucho stirs, says hello, and bites into one of the sugar-encrusted rolls.

“How was the floor?” I ask Ben, looking down at his makeshift pile of cushions.

“Not so bad.” He shrugs. “I was tired.”

“And the patient?” I ask Pelo.

“Ready to get the hell out of here.” His mouth is full of eggy dough.

“You smell like cigarettes,” Ben says.

“I smoked some on the drive.”

He nods but doesn't look convinced.

Checking out of the hospital takes longer than expected. Ben and I leave Pelo in the room and sort things out with the clerks at the front desk. They give us syringes and a vial of antibiotics to inject into Pelochucho's ass, as well as spare bandages and an eye patch. Ben hands over the rest of his money—everything we “earned” from Pelo yesterday. That barely covers the bill.

Again, I ride in the plywood storage space. It's uncomfortable, but I'm thankful not to have to make conversation. My hangover reaches fever pitch on the ride back as we descend toward the coast. It brings gallons of guilt along with it. In one long evening and a short bit of morning, I've lost two of my closest friends in this country, and managed to cheat on Ben in the bargain. I keep thinking of Alex's last words to me, about not needing to leave, and Courtney's accusation that I want to have my cake and eat it, too. It's true: I want to go south and surf, to leave behind the ruins of this place and get some waves, to see Patagonia and toss those stones Ben's always talking about into the sea. But I also want to stay and set things right, to help heal El Salvador and make my father proud. The two possibilities wrestle with each other inside my mind. I wonder if my Hawaiian ancestors had a way of choosing between competing
kuleana.
Perhaps those were simpler times. In the end, I decide the best thing is to convince Ben to leave as soon as possible. At least that way, my indecision can't cause any more trouble.