“Sing,” Valerie sang, under her breath, beneath her breath, down among the mushrooms of her mind. “Sing to me, and sing to me, and then I’ll run away. Oop!”
Down again. Another scratch on the same knee. Not treating this model well at all, take it into the shop they’ll say, Jeepers, lady, where you been driving this model? Mountaintops and bellyflops, a poor white convertible upside down with its whitewalls spinning, upholstery all muddy, scratches on the fenders, this is a dent, lady.
“Vaaaallll-erie! It’s Ro-zeee-ta! It’s oh-kaaaayyyy!”
“Vrrooommm,” Valerie said, giggling at the idea of having the idea of being a car, and from somewhere above and behind her left shoulder she watched herself go up the jungly slope on all fours. Mud, dirt, roots, dangling branches. Little buggies scuttling out of the way of her Donald Duck hands. Wflap! Wflap! Big webbed hands out of the sky.
Still light in the sky, dark blue light, sun gone away to the other side of the mountain, waiting over there for Valerie. Vaaaallll-erie, I’m waiting. Here I come, here I come, here I come.
Ridge. Downslope. Climb a tree trunk to verticality, vertiginous verticality, the ground darker than the sky, her feet way far down there in the pool of darkness, puddles of night all around her feet. The calling voices were fainter, but could still be heard, the beacon behind her that gave her direction. Keep the voices between her shoulder-blades, hurry the opposite way.
Splop. Splash-splop. Stream; water. Chuckles down from the right, scurries on off to the left, white rabbits down the hideyhole. Follow? No, go the other way. Where’d those rabbits come from? Hide with Mister Rabbit at home.
Splush, splush, splush. Water cold and nice on the cuts, running around her shins, ribbons in a wind tunnel. Stop a minute, kneel in the water, get her hands and arms all clean, throw water on her heated face. Sssss, steam from her heated face — just kidding. Stones on the bottom of the stream, though, that’s no joke. Up again, up up up up up. On.
Siiiiii-lence. Oh, siiiiii-lence. How long has it been? Very very dark. No stream, no light. Reach out and touch a telephone pole. Step. Reach out; step.
Are there stars out tonight? Oh, gosh, oh-oh, don’t look up, it’s awfully dizzy up there!
Hungry all the time for some reason. Must be all this exercise. Pig out. Only three tortillas left between her blouse and her flesh, beneath her breasts. Munch and munch. A little dry and tough, but tasty. Satisfying.
A path. Yes? Yes. A narrow path angling downward, slightly to the left. Pitch black, can’t see your face in front of your head. Walk down the path, swing the arms, the last two tortillas stuck to her skin.
Ow! Tripped right over that log, fell on a man! A man? Roll away — not with me you don’t, buster!
Flashlights came on, men’s voices, they’d been asleep or resting or what, Valerie gaped around at them, her little pinprick eyes staring in the flashlights, seeing the camouflage uniforms on the chunky little bodies, the weapons, the bush hats. Soldiers, British, Gurkhas. Gurkha patrol, is that a song? “Rescued!” Valerie said in cheerful surprise, and smiled happily, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
14
Same Again All Around
For a moment after he switched off the van’s engine, Vernon sat on in darkness, staring at the wall of the Fort George Hotel directly in front of himself and willing himself to be calm. He was going to do this, he was going to come out the other side, it was all going to be all right. All of it. All right. The chicken and rice he’d eaten for dinner at J.B.’s on the way down from Belmopan sat like an auto accident in his stomach, unmoving.
If only the village had not already been selected — the one the journalists would be visiting tomorrow. Vernon had done his best, but he’d been too late. The village had been selected, and it was not the one the Colonel had insisted the journalists must see.
What choice had he had? He was racing across a tightrope, high above the rocks with no net, already off balance, running forward as fast as he could because it was the only way not to fall. The other side, the other side, sooner or later he had to reach the other side. In the meantime, he could only keep running, keep improvising, try not to miss his step.
The wrong village. With great difficulty Vernon had arranged to be made the driver for tomorrow’s expedition. Then, using the absent Innocent St. Michael’s authority, he had also arranged to be ordered to come to Belize City tonight, ahead of time, staying at the Fort George along with the journalists, ostensibly so they could begin early tomorrow morning but actually so that Vernon would be beyond any countermanding orders. He would be the driver, and that’s all.
And he would make a mistake. An honest mistake. He would take the journalists to a different village, not the one the government had selected but very similar. A simple mistake that anyone might make. And then it would all be over, he would have reached the other side of the abyss, no more tightrope, firm ground at last.
Vernon whimpered, a little mewling sound. Behind him, the dozen empty seats of the van were filled with the ghosts of wrong turnings. He shuddered, and took the key from the ignition and his overnight bag from the floor space between the front seats, and got out onto the blacktop.
The desk clerk was both cold and obsequious; obsequious because Vernon’s room was being paid for by a government department, suggesting power and authority, and cold because Vernon himself was so clearly nothing but a minor clerk. When I’m rich, Vernon thought, but this time the thought wouldn’t complete itself. Where was his rage? Sighing, he filled out the registration form, then showed his list to the desk clerk, saying, “These are journalists staying here, I must see them in the morning, you’ll—”
“I believe they are in the bar,” the desk clerk said, coldly and obsequiously.
So Vernon went to his room and unpacked, and went to the bathroom, and washed his hands and face and the back of his neck, and went to the bathroom, and took some antacid pills, and went to the bathroom, and changed his shirt, and combed his hair, and went to the bathroom, and washed his face, and turned out the light, and went down to the bar, where two of the large round black formica tables were occupied. The four silent gloomy beer-drinking fellows at one table with their big red faces and big red knees jutting from both ends of their short-trousered British Army uniforms were certainly not journalists, whereas the seven oddly assorted people clustered around the other table, all talking at once, nobody listening, certainly were. Vernon went over and stood beside that group, waiting for a simultaneous pause in all seven monologues, or for someone to notice him.
Someone noticed him; a skinny sharp-nosed gray-faced man in a safari shirt and bush jacket and U.S. Army fatigue trousers and Hush Puppies, who looked up, saw Vernon, and in an East London accent said, “Right. Same again all round, then.”
“I’m not a waiter,” Vernon said.
“No? Then be off with you.” The man turned back to his chattering companions.
“I’m your driver,” Vernon said.
“The hell you say.” The man looked him up and down. “And where am I going, then?”
“Requena,” Vernon said. The settlement was called that because it was the last name of the majority of the settlers.
“That’s tomorrow,” the man said. By now, two of the others, including the group’s lone woman, had also stopped talking and were looking at Vernon, wondering what entertainment or news value he might possess.