The Bigness of the World (12 page)

The night went on like this, moving farther and farther back in time to include past family vacations, stories accompanied by more drinking and gas passing and groaning. The women stopped trying to read and instead just lay there in their twin beds listening, and when they occasionally communicated, they did so in whispers because it would have seemed odd to make their presence known then, so long after the family had arrived. Finally they shut off their light, but the flimsy wall stopped short of the thatched roof, so the light from the family’s room shined into theirs. Both women found this strangely comforting.

Still, they did not sleep, and Sarah, who was in the bed on the right, was reminded suddenly of a moment from her childhood. During her last week of sixth grade, she had come down with the measles, and her parents had confined her to her bedroom for nearly two weeks, where she had lain with the door shut and the lights off in order to protect her eyes from permanent damage. At one point—she did not know how many days it was into her quarantine—she had woken from a deep afternoon sleep to find that her siblings were home from school. She could hear them at the kitchen table discussing their days, and she had mentally taken roll, listening for each sibling’s voice to offer up some anecdote or casual insight regarding a teacher, only to realize that they were all present save
for her and her father, who was at work. The light from the kitchen had crept in under her door, and it had soothed her at first because she had spent so much time in the dark. But then she had started to think about how rare it was—her family gathering together like this—and she could not help but conclude that it was her absence, her guaranteed absence, that made it possible. She had lain there for quite a while, listening to them laugh, until at some point she had slept again. She had slowly become well, the spots had disappeared, but she was never quite able to shake that feeling that they were happier, more complete, without her. Later, before she became an adult, when she was still a sporadically pensive teenager, she had arrived at a theory that somehow made her feel better, useful even. She had decided that each family has a member whose absence rounds out the family far more than his or her presence ever could. The theory had continued to be a source of pride for her over the years, though, oddly, she had forgotten, until now, the incident that had sparked its formation.

She rolled toward Sara in the dark and whispered, “Sara?” and when Sara turned toward her, she said, “Remember my theory?”

“What theory?” Sara asked, but Sarah didn’t answer.

The family talked far into the night until finally someone said, “My God, it’s nearly three,” and within moments they had cleared the glasses, and a chorus of voices called out, “Good night, Dad. Sleep well.” A male voice, one which had been heard infrequently during the night, said, somewhat awkwardly, “Remember, Dad, we’re just one bungalow over … if you need anything.” Then, the door opened and closed.

“Which way?” asked Shel, the evening’s bartender, from outside their window. “I can’t see a thing.”

Another woman said, “Well, he seems fine,” but she lowered her voice to do so. Nobody responded, and finally one of the men said, “Let’s get some sleep.” And then they were gone.

In the other half of the bungalow, there was silence at first, and
then they heard the man go into the bathroom. The water ran for a minute or two, followed by the sound of urine streaming ferociously into the toilet bowl. He flushed, left the bathroom, undressed, and fell heavily into bed. When he shut off his lamp, at last, the darkness seemed abrupt to them, final. The three of them lay in the dark bungalow like that for a while, the two women feeling oddly like intruders. Then a low wailing rose up, and the women briefly imagined that an animal had become trapped in the thatch of the roof. After a few seconds, the wailing evened out into a deep, bitter sobbing, and then, of course, they realized that it was not a trapped animal at all, that it was the man, Dad, and they both turned instinctively in their separate beds onto their sides and away from each other.

The next morning they ate rice for breakfast at a Chinese restaurant that was not yet open for the day. When they went in and asked the old woman washing glasses behind the bar whether there was rice to be had, she nodded for them to sit down. Then, she continued washing glasses for several more minutes while they sat at a table discussing whether she had misunderstood their request. Just when they were about to leave, the door opened and a young
mestiza
came in quietly, though she had about her the look of someone who had previously been hurrying. She nodded to the old Chinese woman, and the old Chinese woman nodded back at her and then toward them, placed the glass that she had been drying carefully back on a shelf beneath the bar, and walked, with a slight limp, toward the kitchen.

The young
mestiza
turned toward them and said in Spanish, without first stopping to inquire whether they spoke Spanish, “I am always late.” She said it with an air of resignation, as though it were some unalterable quality like thinning hair that she was commenting on. “And
la chinita
, she rises earlier and earlier each morning.” She sighed sadly and then, switching to wobbly English, asked what they wished to drink. They paused for a moment, for they had not given thought to anything more than food.

“Beer?” she suggested, and they both looked shocked.

“But it is far too early for beer,” said Sarah in Spanish.

The woman seemed puzzled. “For tourists, it is not too early I think.”

They were annoyed to be called tourists but did not say so. Instead, they both ordered coffees, black and without sugar, though when the young woman returned with the coffees, both contained sugar. They said nothing, sipping from their cups as she hovered nearby. Finally, Sara asked her in Spanish for chopsticks, and she again appeared puzzled but went off behind the bar and returned with toothpicks, which were also called
palillos
. She set the toothpicks down in the middle of their table and then stood back to watch what they would do with them. They could have laughed and explained the misunderstanding, pretending to eat with chopsticks to demonstrate what they had really wanted, but neither of them had the energy for it, so instead they reached for the toothpicks and sat with them in their mouths until the rice arrived.

The old woman had prepared fried rice for them with plenty of tidbits, which they suspected were scraps left from the night before, chicken and beef that had been ordered and picked at by other diners, and though in theory they were impressed by this degree of resourcefulness, in fact they found their stomachs turning. Both women took up the forks that they had been given and worked through the rice carefully, as though they had lost something of great importance amid the grains. In this way, everything that was not rice was removed and added to a pile on the side of each woman’s plate, perhaps, they hoped, to be recycled one more time.

As they finished eating, the door opened again, and a dapper black man in a pressed linen suit came in and proceeded at a trot to a table not far from them. Before he sat, he removed his Panama hat and tipped it in their direction, and they could see then that he was much older than his quick step had suggested. “Top of the morning,
ladies,” he said, setting the hat on a chair and seating himself beside it. The old woman hobbled out from the kitchen and over to his table, and he repeated the greeting to her, using her name, which was Mrs. Chu. Mrs. Chu returned the greeting, speaking with a strong Chinese accent.

“How’s the honey?” he asked, and she nodded vigorously.

“Ah yes, honey still have. Thank you,” she told him. Then, uncharacteristically they thought (though they had only just met her), Mrs. Chu giggled and a blush of sorts spread across her cheeks.

The dapper man leaned back in his chair so that he could see both Sara and Sarah before he spoke. “Perhaps you ladies would be interested to know that I am a beekeeper,” he said.

They both nodded politely. “Beekeeping. Now that must be a fascinating profession,” observed Sara.

He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Indeed it is. You may not be at all surprised to learn that my father before me also kept bees. In fact, everything I know, I learned from that man. Say,” he said after a moment, “how many times do you suppose I’ve been stung over the years? Go ahead—wager a guess.”

After a moment, Sarah suggested a hundred and five times and Sara agreed that that sounded like a reasonable number. The old man chuckled and brought his hands together in front of his face, forming a large circle through which he peered at them. “Ladies, would you believe it,” he said dramatically. “The answer is zero. Those bees just don’t fancy me. But I’ll tell you this, and nobody would deny it. I raise the best honey around.” He paused thoughtfully before reconfirming Sara’s earlier observation: “Yes,” he said, “a fascinating profession.”

There was an uncomfortable silence then, though uncomfortable only for the two women, who felt that the conversation ball had been bounced back to them and that they were simply sitting with it. Finally, to fill the silence, Sarah said, to nobody in particular, “The bee.”
She stretched the word out thoughtfully, as though she planned to offer insight, but the old Chinese woman misunderstood her, thinking that she was requesting
the bill
. In turn, she called out sharply to the
mestiza
, who rushed in with a large, colorful bird perched on one shoulder and presented them with a slip of paper bearing the price of their breakfast, two Belizean dollars and fifty cents.

“Excuse me, but do you know how far it is to the Mennonites?” Sarah asked politely in Spanish as she handed her the money for the bill.

“The Mennonites,” the
mestiza
answered in English. “They are very far. Maybe you go thirty kilometers, maybe you go more. The Mennonites are far from us.”

“The Mennonites?” the dapper black man said, breaking in on their conversation. “The Mennonites are not far. I would say precisely twelve kilometers, give or take a few. Which route do you plan to take?”

“The shortest,” they answered in unison. “We’re walking,” Sarah explained.

“Walking!” the beekeeper exclaimed in horror. “Nobody walks to the Mennonites. And the Mennonites, for their part, do not walk to us.”

“Well, we’re walking,” said Sarah again, “so if you would be kind enough to point us in the right direction, we would be grateful.”

“Come,” said the beekeeper, struggling to his feet. They stood also and waited as he placed his Panama hat precisely atop his head, and then they followed him from the restaurant.

“Do you see this road?” the beekeeper asked, but the sun was strong already, and they both had trouble adapting after the darkness of the restaurant. Finally, when Sarah’s eyes had adjusted sufficiently, she found that he was pointing straight down at the very road that they were standing on, which was also the road that led to their bungalow.

“Yes,” she told him.“I do see this road.”

“Very well.” He went on to explain that they should follow this road out of town. “You will pass some bungalows,” he said, and they nodded. “You must continue past the bungalows for approximately one more kilometer. On your right, you will see a river. Leave the road and walk down to the edge of the river. Stand by the edge in full view of the other side, and soon somebody from the other side will come for you in a boat and ferry you across. You should give him fifty cents apiece. When you reach the other side, you will see another road, and you should continue along that road. There will be people to guide you.” They thanked him and started on their way, though they were skeptical about the river crossing. In fact, everything unfolded as the beekeeper predicted, and when they each handed the boatman fifty cents, he tipped his straw hat at them and extended his oar for them to hold onto as they stepped from the boat onto a cluster of damp rocks and from there to the shore.

They walked all morning, but the longer they walked toward the Mennonites, the farther away from the Mennonites they were, or at least that was how it seemed, for as they stopped at the various houses and huts along the road to inquire about the distance, the numbers tossed out grew steadily larger. At one hut, the woman opened her refrigerator and took out two sodas, which she offered to them. They drank them, but when they prepared to leave, she told them that they owed her two dollars for “the refreshments.” They gave her the money and didn’t mind really because they had been thirsty and they knew that she needed to make a living. Then, after they had paid her, as they were waving goodbye, she said, quite matter-of-factly, “You will never reach the Mennonites,” and for some reason, this, they minded.

Several times during the day, they sat down near the side of the road, generally under a tree, to drink from their water bottles, and each time, a passing vehicle stopped and the driver offered them a
ride. Finally, they were afraid even to pause because they found it difficult to reject the offers again and again. At one point, several schoolchildren approached them, giggling, and asked for water, so they gave the children a bottle that was half-full and told them to keep it, though they both knew that they were acting less out of generosity than a shared fear of germs. Finally, after they had been walking for over six hours, they decided that they had no choice—they would accept the next ride, which turned out to come from a very large blond man in overalls accompanied by two equally blond, similarly dressed teenage boys all crammed together in the cab of an old pickup truck. The man in overalls nodded toward the back, and they climbed in and squatted as though preparing to urinate.

“Mennonites!” Sarah mouthed excitedly.

“Yes, but now what do we do? We can’t very well tell them that we’re on our way to see them.”

The Mennonites did not ask where they were going, however. Instead, the large, blond man drove and the two teenagers rocked gently in the seat next to him. They had driven several miles when, coming over a hill, the women found the landscape startlingly different. Scattered at intervals were farm houses, large and white and sturdy, with barns off to the side and a silo, sometimes even two, attached to the barns. And everywhere they looked there was corn, rows and rows of it. Best of all, the smell of worked soil hung thickly in the air.