Kilometer 99 (19 page)

He looks down at the floor and sighs. “I don't think that's the right attitude for this sort of work, to be honest.”

“What attitude?”

“You know, a plan B kind of thing. You need to be committed for this relief stuff.”

“Don't lecture me, Alex.” After all, he was the one who spent nearly two years getting sick, hardly working at all.

His face goes blank. He's clearly content with his moral high ground. That one squiggly vein along his temple throbs.

“Well.” I stand up. “I guess this is good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Malia.” We share an insincere embrace. As I leave his apartment, I realize that this is, in fact, a worse farewell than the hungover walk of shame I performed two days prior.

At the Pollo Campero in Metrocentro, I use a big chunk of my remaining money to buy two boxes of fried chicken.

On the way out of the neighborhood, I get stuck in an awful traffic jam. The Jeep inches along the Boulevard of Heroes for over an hour, avoiding vendors, beggars, and clowns. A window-washer boy practically throws himself under the wheels before I hand over a coin. All the papers feature the Monkey-Faced Baby above the fold. The needle on the gas gauge leans dangerously toward empty. I feel something like a nervous breakdown creeping its way up my spine. Is there an eject button I could press to launch me high above this car and this country and parachute me someplace safer? If I took a razor to my own forearms, might I wake up in a hospital bed, with concerned professionals hovering about, a passport, an important job, and an apartment in the city? What might it take to finally get something like that—a sense of purpose?

The traffic untangles, and I find a gas station on the outskirts of the city. I fill up the tank and buy a six-pack. It's almost noon. I still don't feel any desire to return to La Lib. Instead, I head down a less-traveled route south of the city, through Los Planes de Renderos, past Panchimalco. Two beers later, I find myself on the old, familiar road to Cara Sucia.

The village looks quiet, as though the residents are all busy working. I wonder if I'm the only one in this country with nothing to do all day long. I park alongside Niña Tere's house, hide the other beers under the passenger seat, and take out one of the boxes of fried chicken.

“Niña Tere?” I call out at the doorless entrance to her house. Rambo barks and howls from inside. Has he already forgotten my scent and come to think of me as a stranger?

“
¿Sí?
” she calls back from the kitchen.

“It's me: Malia. I came to visit you.”

“Come in! Sit down!” She emerges from the kitchen and finds a rag to dry her wet hands.

“I brought Campero,” I say.

We go inside and take seats at the wooden table with the red oilcloth.

“I thought you'd be gone by now,” she says. “Down in South America or someplace.”

“Soon,” I say. “Not quite yet. There's been a little problem with my passport. But I'll sort it out.”

She is back out of her seat, fetching us plates and utensils, reheating some of this morning's tortillas in the kitchen. I smell beans boiling over a wood fire and realize I'd rather have her home cooking than the fried chicken.

“How are you, Niña Tere?” I ask.

“You know—fighting for our beans, like always.” She drops a plastic plate and a fork in front of my place and hers.

“Right.” I bite into a drumstick. Grease soaks my fingertips and the sides of my mouth. I swallow the first bite and ask, “Where's Nora?”

“School.” Niña Tere uses her lips to point back in the direction I've just come from.

I take a visual inventory of this house, where I spent so much of my time in the past two years. This table is not only where we ate our meals but where Niña Tere showed me how to make tamales and
pupusas.
There's a spot out back where we roasted cashews from the trees in her little parcel down the valley, the cistern where we all washed our clothes. The level of the water is low, and the cistern itself is partially covered by a sheet of corrugated metal. Above it, a single pipe with a water tap stands erect, like a rigid cobra waiting to strike. It was the responsibility of each householder to run the pipe from the street to his or her house. Many had already done so before the earthquake hit.

“How's the water situation?” I reach into the box for a thigh.

“Bad as ever.” Niña Tere tosses her chicken bones at Rambo, who catches them midair, chews, and swallows. “We've been washing in Santa Cruz. The mayor sends a truck every so often; they fill a barrel or two for each family.”

I follow suit with the bones—tossing them to Rambo, who stands at attention by our table—and recall the burden of living here during the dry season.

“They say there's a lot of money coming into El Salvador these days,” I tell her. “Other countries are donating. Maybe they'll finish the project.”

“Maybe.” She sighs. “Until then, we'll keep on as usual.”

“Niña Tere.” I put my chicken down. “Are you upset with me for leaving when I did? For not staying to fix the aqueduct?”

“Upset with you?” She covers her mouth and laughs. “Don't be ridiculous, child. What could you have done? Reversed the earthquake?”

“I didn't want to, you know, to abandon the community.”

“Abandon nothing! You spent two years with us. And for what? You didn't need the water. You have a house in Hawai‘i with water that runs hot and cold, do you not?”

“That's true,” I admit.

“The community was lucky to have you.”

From outside the house comes the sound of a southbound bus. The
cobrador
calls out a destination and rattles his coins. Rambo abandons his post at the side of our table and barks his way toward the entrance.

“Nora!” Niña Tere calls out before she's even turned the corner. “Look who's here.”

“Niña Malia!” Nora rushes in and hugs me where I sit. In her starchy school uniform and backpack, she presses her cheek against my shoulder.

I struggle to return the embrace without getting chicken grease all over the white of her blouse. Rambo paces anxious circles around the dirt floor.

“Run and change your clothes,” Niña Tere orders. “Then come and have some chicken.”

Nora does as she's told.

“She looks even bigger than last time,” I say.

“That one.” Niña Tere rolls her eyes. “She grows each day. I fear she'll be taller than you even.”

Nora emerges from the bedroom in her normal clothes: a plain green skirt, a secondhand American T-shirt—
I'M A TOYS-“R”-US KID!
written across the front—and rubber sandals. Niña Tere fetches her a plate and utensils. I pick up one of the retoasted tortillas, blistered black from its second turn on the
comal
.

“Niña Malia, have you come back to stay?” Nora asks.

Her question is innocent enough, but it rips open a gaping hole inside my gut, despite the big greasy meal.

“No, Nora,” I say. “I've come here to visit one last time before I go.”

“You're still going to South America?”

I pause for a few seconds. “That's right.” I nearly add “Someday,” the way that Elaine had hours earlier.

“Be careful,” she says.

“I will.”

Niña Tere rejoins us. “Isn't this nice? Niña Malia brought you Campero.”

“Yes.” Nora's fingers shine with the oil from the chicken. “But I'd rather she stayed here for good.”

Once again, this is likely the last time I'll be inside this house, the last meal I'll ever eat here. There will be no plaque or framed diploma to commemorate my exit. It'll be as simple as walking away.

Though there is plenty more chicken in the box, we all stop eating. After a minute or so without conversation, Niña Tere finally says, “What heat, no?”

“What heat,” I repeat, taking the weather talk as a sign. I let out a long breath and say, “Well, it's time for me to go.”

“So soon!” Niña Tere feigns surprise and starts to pack up the chicken box.

“You keep that,” I say.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” I stand, and they do the same. Nora hugs me around the waist, the way those unfamiliar children did during the earthquake. Niña Tere pats my shoulder.

“Take care of yourself,” she says.

We repeat our good-byes, while Rambo whines nervously in the background.

A local farmer, Don Chavelo, walks uphill as I exit. We exchange a little wave. He looks confused at the sight of me. I turn the key in the ignition and stare at the other houses in Cara Sucia. Across the street, Felix's cross still stands in the courtyard, though the flowers upon it are now all brown and withered. I consider going over and offering my condolences to his grandmother, telling her good-bye, but I can't quite make the walk.

For nearly two years, my subconscious prophecy about leaving this place involved triumph, running water in every house. Somehow, I can't settle for less. Whether or not it's my fault, this alternative feels too much like failure.

As I leave town, I see other men I once ordered around in the hills not far from here, while they built what I thought of then as my life's work. I see my hubris and helplessness measured out in several more worthless water taps hovering above empty cisterns.

And while I do feel personal disappointment as I drive out of Cara Sucia, I can't convince myself that it makes much difference. My project wouldn't have resurrected this fallen country. It would have offered only a small measure of comfort to one tiny village within a badly broken nation. More than anything, it was a way to convince myself that—for a little while—I wasn't making things worse.

 

19

Ben swings in the hammock outside our room, a Salvadoran newspaper on his lap.

“Want some chicken?” I climb out of the car and set the second box on the hood.

Ben stands. “That took a while.” His voice is studded with suspicion.

“I went by Cara Sucia on the way back.” I remind myself that this is nothing to be ashamed of. “How are the waves?”

Ben gives a thumbs-down, then reaches for the Campero box.

“I got you this.” I take the rolling tobacco out of my purse and place it on the hood.

“Thanks.” Hands full of chicken, Ben lets the pouch lie there.

“Any news from Peseta?” I ask.

“Yeah. Somebody put newspaper between Crackito's toes while he was asleep on the seawall, then lit it on fire and ran away. Poor kid woke up with burning feet and fell down onto the rocks.” Ben manages to suppress a chuckle at the cruel prank. He takes a bite.

“I meant about my passport.” I pick up the tobacco and roll a cigarette, hoping Ben won't notice that the pouch has already been opened.

“No.” He covers his full mouth with a hand. “Haven't heard anything about that.”

I find a plastic lighter on the windowsill and light up.

“You don't want any chicken?” Ben sits back down in the hammock.

“I already ate.”

A flush sounds from the shared toilets. Pelochucho emerges from one of the stalls, both his eye patch and his big sunglasses on, that same faded surf magazine tucked under one arm. “Do I smell Campero?”

“Help yourself.” I gesture toward the box.

“So, Chinita.” Without washing his hands, Pelo takes out a drumstick and bites into it. “We need to talk.”

“Let me guess,” I say. “You're broke.”

“There is a sense in which that's true.” Pelo holds the chicken leg before his mouth like a microphone. “You know, during Donald Trump's divorce, he went walking with his daughter in Manhattan and they passed this homeless man. Trump whispered into the little girl's ear, ‘Sweetie, that man has ten billion dollars more than Daddy does.'”

“Is this a parable or something?” I ask.

“Because of all the debt, you know. But who would you want to switch places with?” Pelo takes a bite of chicken. He looks back and forth between Ben and me, perhaps worried that we might choose the homeless man.

“The point is”—Pelo waves his free hand in a circle, erasing the story from an imaginary blackboard—“in this day and age, it's not about how much money you have, but about how nimbly you can move that money through space and time.”

“Pelo, no offense,” I say, “but what does this have to do with us?”

“I went online today,” he says. “I've got some investors who sound interested in the surf resort. A while back, I sent out a few queries—mostly to be polite to some guys I know, returning favors and whatnot. I never expected to have help.”

“Congratulations,” I say. “Please be careful. And when did you start calling it a resort?”

“I told them about your concerns. They're not trying to cut corners. They want to do this right.” He points his now nearly meatless chicken bone at me. “They're interested in you, Chinita.”

I shrug. “Interested?”

“It would be a consulting position. You could come up with your own title—environmental engineer or sustainable development officer—whatever's best for your résumé.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“This would not be like before.” Pelo lets the bone hang limp between his fingers. “You'd be an expert, not a gofer. No stupid errands, nothing like that. And I wouldn't be the one paying you. Your contract would be through the LLC we're setting up. I want to call it SalvaCorp. What kind of salary are you thinking? Does a grand a week sound okay?”

“Wait.” I'm confused. “So I'd consult on this thing, but who'd have the final say? I mean, if my input is ‘Don't build on that hillside,' will your people listen?”

“They want to do it like you said the other night—with the walls and the gutters and the planted hillside and everything.”