The Sunflower: A Novel (23 page)

Love is never convenient—and rarely painless.

PAUL COOK’S DIARY

Christine woke in her bed a little before noon. Her fever was mostly gone, and she felt only the remaining soreness in her muscles and joints—like a runner the morning after a marathon.

She could hear Paul, Gilberto, and Marcos shouting to each other across the camp and she knew they would be leaving soon. She got up and showered, then dressed in her last set of clean clothing. She was packing her things when Paul joined her, carrying a Tupperware container. She guessed that it wasn’t the first time he’d been in that morning.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Much better.” She walked over and put her arms around him and they kissed. As they parted, she sighed with pleasure. “Last night seems like a dream.”

“In a week, this whole experience will seem like a dream.” He handed her the Tupperware. “I brought you some breakfast. You’re going to need energy.”

She sat down on the bed and pried the lid from the container. Inside was a napkin, yogurt, fruit and a cinnamon roll. “Thanks. I’m starving.”

“You should be. You haven’t eaten for a week.”

“The Dengue Diet Plan,” she said. “I could sell it.” She took a bite of the cinnamon roll. It was no longer warm but still fresh. “This tastes
so
good.”

“Rosana does all right.”

She took another bite of the roll. “When are we leaving?”

“In the hour. We need to get back to Puerto before dark.”

She wiped her finger on the napkin and set the container aside. “And then what?”

“Tomorrow we fly back to Cuzco and meet up with Jim and Jessica. Then you fly on to Lima and home.”

“And what about you?”

“I go back to El Girasol.”

She stepped back from him. “And that’s it? Nice to meet you, I love you, goodbye?”

“Do you have a better ending?”

“Don’t you?”

He put his hands in his pockets. “I do. But I couldn’t ask you.”

“Why?”

“Because you wouldn’t stay.”

She looked into his eyes. She suddenly understood that he hadn’t asked her the night before because he already thought he knew the answer and didn’t want to hear it anymore than she wanted to believe it of herself.
Men marry women, women marry situations.
She had no idea what to say. In that brief moment of silence the space between them hardened.

After a while Paul said, “I’ll be back to get your bags.” The door banged shut behind him. As he walked away, shame rose in her chest, lodging painfully in her throat. She finished packing the rest of her things.

Christine was sitting on the porch when Paul came for her luggage. He said nothing as he threw her bags over his shoulder, and she silently followed him to the edge of the incline above the dock.

“I’ll be back to carry you down,” he said.

“I can walk by myself,” she said coolly.

He looked at her for a moment. “Okay.” He started down. She descended the hill after him, using the dirt wall to steady herself. When she reached the bottom after him, Rosana went to her and kissed her, and Christine thanked her for all she had done. Gilberto and Marcos had already boarded the canoe, one in front and the other in back. Christine climbed in first, then Paul, and Leonidas and Rosana waved them off from the dock as the men paddled away from the shore. Christine looked back as Makisapa grew small in the distance. She and Paul did not speak.

They had covered a quarter of the distance across the lake when Marcos pointed across the bow and shouted to Paul.

“Christine, the otters,” Paul said.

A hundred yards ahead of them the animals frolicked, their snouts and webbed feet breaking the surface. They veered slightly for a closer glimpse, but the otters were gone by the time they reached the place they had seen them.

They arrived at the jungle path an hour later, and Gilberto handed them their galoshes. Paul took Christine’s boots, inserted his hand inside them, then returned them to her.

“They’re empty.”

“Thanks.”

Paul grabbed her bags along with his own. They climbed the bank and started off onto the shadowed trail. The walk was no longer frightening to Christine, and she knew she was not the same woman who had marched into the jungle the week before. She did her best not to slow the men, though she knew she was doing so. Her weariness grew as she walked, and a few times she stopped to catch her breath. Paul told Marcos and Gilberto to go on without them and prepare the boat while he waited for her.

“I’m sorry,” Christine said.

“Take your time. You’re still weak.”

Paul set down the bags and brought out his machete, strapping it across his chest.

It took them nearly an hour to reach the clearing, and Christine was relieved to see the river stretched out before them, broader and faster than she remembered. Marcos and Gilberto were waiting for them, sitting on the grass ridge above the river. Christine took off her boots, and Gilberto helped her down the bank. Gilberto went to the back of the boat and started the motor while Marcos helped Christine in, then climbed in himself. Paul threw his bags on board, untied the boat’s moorings, then pushed them out, climbing over the side in the same motion. The outboard motor roared, pushing them out into the current.

Marcos sat on the bow to watch for debris and Paul and Christine lay on the benches across from each other. The wind and spray increased, and without a word Paul brought out a blanket and wrapped Christine in it. The silence between them was unbearable to her. She looked at him, and he looked back without turning away, his eyes clear and sad. She searched them for something; reprieve, forgiveness, love? She wasn’t sure. Finally, Christine closed her eyes and tried to sleep. A half hour later she opened her eyes. He was looking at her. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

“I’m okay.”

“I have cookies.”

He smiled a little and it felt to her like the sun breaking through the clouds. She moved over next to him. “Paul, I’m sorry. I…”

“Don’t,” he said. “I understand.”

“But…I love you.” She looked at him and sighed. “I love you. And we don’t have much time left. I don’t want to waste any more of it.”

He smiled sadly then opened his arms to her. “Come here.”

She went to him, and he held her as she tried to believe that the boat ride would never end.

We have returned to civilization. I fear the “real” world holds far more peril than the darkest jungle.

PAUL COOK’S DIARY

The jungle gradually changed as the river widened and the trees thinned, then it changed with man’s encroachment, the clearings of the lumbermen and ranchers and the ugly slag heaps of the gold-mining camps. From Paul’s backpack came an electronic beep.

“I have reception,” Paul said. He lifted out the phone. There were twenty-two messages. “Do you want to call Jessica?”

“Not yet.”

Paul woke Christine as they arrived at the dock in Laberinto. The waterway was busier than before, and Gilberto skillfully maneuvered their boat to the concrete slip between two other boats filled with green bunches of bananas.

“This is where we say goodbye,” Paul said, standing, hunched beneath the boat’s canopy. “Marcos and Gilberto are taking the boat to a dock downriver.”

Christine looked at the men fondly.
“Gracias, Marcos. Gracias, Gilberto.”

“De nada,”
they both returned.

Paul carried his and Christine’s things to shore, then returned to help Christine. Marcos and Paul embraced, then Marcos climbed back into the boat.
“Chao, hermano,”
Marcos said, and he pushed them away from the dock. The boat’s motor sputtered, then fired, pulling them away from the slot.

“I’m starving,” Paul said. “Are you?”

“I could eat a
cuy,”
Christine said.

Paul laughed. They walked up the road a way and stopped at a café. An elderly woman brought them a small loaf of bread, and Paul ordered roasted chicken, yams and orange Fanta. “Are you ready to go home?” he asked.

She nodded. “I miss my mother. And hopefully my boss hasn’t replaced me.”

“Just think of the stories you’ll have to tell at the water cooler,” Paul said. “I’ll send the picture of you holding the crocodile.” He broke off a chunk of bread and took a bite.

“May I call Jessica now?”

“Of course.” He pulled the phone out of his pocket. He pushed the numbers then held the phone to his ear. As he waited for it to ring, Christine reached out and took his hand.
“Hola, amigo. ¿Qué pasa?”
He smiled and looked at her. “Yeah, she gave us a scare. But she’s fine. A little thinner, but fine. No, she didn’t need to lose any weight.” Pause. “She wanted to speak with Jessica.” He nodded. “No worries. We’ll call back.”

“May I speak with Jim?” Christine asked.

“Just a minute, Christine wants to talk.”

He handed her the phone.

“Jim?”

“Christine! Welcome back from the dead.”

She was happy to hear his voice. “Look who’s talking? How are you?”

“Takes more than a mountain to stop the Hammer. Of course it doesn’t hurt having a doctor around.”

She looked at Paul. “I know what you mean. Where’s Jessica?”

“She got bored and went shopping.”

“Do you know if she called my mother?”

“She did. She’s fine, just worried about you.”

“How’s Jessica?”

“The nurses at the hospital have a name for her. La Loca.”

“I’m not surprised,” Christine said, laughing. “When will she be back?”

“In a couple hours. She’s been dying to talk to you. She has some big news.”

“What?”

“She’d kill me if I told you. I’ll have her call. Glad you’re back, Christine. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

“Me too,” she said. “Bye.”

She hung up and gave the phone back to Paul. “Jim says Jessica has some big news.”

“What is it?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.” She thought about it and smiled. “Maybe they eloped.”

The waitress brought their food. When they finished eating, Paul left Christine at the café while he went looking for a taxi. He returned a few minutes later in the backseat of a station wagon. He climbed out and opened the door for Christine. The driver spun the car around in the middle of the road and they started back to Puerto Maldonado.

Such fickle days of love when pain and ecstasy share the same hour.

PAUL COOK’S DIARY

It was nearly dark when the taxi arrived at the Don Carlos Hotel. Paul checked them in at the front counter then carried their bags to their rooms. When he came back, he asked, “How do you feel?”

“Pretty tired.”

“Do you want to go to bed?”

“No. It’s our last night together.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really. Maybe we could get a coffee.”

“There’s a café a few blocks from here.”

In the clear jungle skies even a partial moon seemed brilliant, and they held hands as they walked the rutted dirt road. They were both silent for a while.

“What time is our flight tomorrow?”

“I’ll have to call the airport. But the flight usually leaves around eight. It’s too bad we don’t have more time. There were some more things I wanted to show you.”

“This trip has already been so much more than I thought it would be.”

“I would say so. Dengue fever, falling off mountains…”

“Falling in love,” she said. “I thought I was coming here to heal my heart. Not to lose it.” She looked up at him. “Tell me what to do, Paul.”

“I can’t do that.”

She looked back down and frowned. “I know.”

They reached the café and the proprietor led them to a table and lit a candle. Paul ordered two decafs and a bowl of taro chips. The light danced across Paul’s face, and as she looked at him, the weight of their impending separation seemed unbearable.

“I don’t want this day to end.”

Just then Paul’s cell phone rang. He looked at the number displayed. “It’s Jessica.”

“Don’t answer it.”

Paul looked at her. Then he turned off the phone and put it back in his pocket. The owner returned with their order and put it on the table. Christine took a sip of her coffee, then looked up into Paul’s eyes. “Ask me to stay.”

He slowly shook his head. “I can’t.”

“You don’t want me to?”

“Of course I do. I just don’t think you could be happy here.”

Christine frowned. “I don’t know if I could be happy here either. But I know for certain that I’d be miserable without you.”

Paul looked thoughtfully at the flickering flame, then up into her eyes. “Marry me.”

Christine stared at him in astonishment.

He took her hands. “Christine, I’ve waited my whole life to find someone that I could love like you. You have no idea what you’ve done to me. I can’t breathe when I think of losing you.”

Christine looked down at the table. Tears gathered in her eyes. When she looked up again, a smile slowly broke across her face. “Shouldn’t you be giving me a ring or something?”

Paul looked at her in surprise. “Are you accepting?”

Her smile grew still wider. “Yes.”

His eyes glistened in the candlelight. He took the gold band from his hand. “Will this do for now?”

She held out her hand. “It’s perfect.”

His hand trembled as he slid the ring on her finger. It was too large and they both laughed.

“Well, it’s almost perfect,” she said. “How about I wear it on my thumb for now.”

He moved the ring to her thumb, then held her hand. “I promise to do everything I can to make you happy.”

She couldn’t stop smiling. “You already have, my love.”