chapter eight. merde alors
In the succeeding month, Guillermo accompanies his client Ibrahim to his daughter’s apartment three more times for lunch. There is something kinetic building between them, but since they are both married and Ibrahim is always present, the attraction remains muted and almost hidden.
As the weeks pass, Guillermo learns that Ibrahim dislikes Samir immensely, though he approved of him at first. This aversion is partially the result of the guilt he feels for convincing Maryam to marry him. He just about calls Samir a liar for pretending he had lots of money saved up from his hardware store and would be a good provider for his daughter’s future. Ibrahim now realizes that his son-in-law has very little money and absolutely no ambition.
Still, his dislike of Samir — who is almost his own age — does not justify pairing Guillermo with Maryam. But he enjoys having the younger man around, and there is no doubt that these lunches please him, if only to make Samir remotely jealous.
Guillermo wants to invite Maryam for drinks or dinner without her father as chaperone, but he suspects she would laugh in his face. She is not the kind of woman he can simply invite for a romp in bed at the Stofella, or so he thinks — she is much more elegant, and comes from a decent, if conservative, Maronite Christian family. In this, Ibrahim’s family more closely resembles Rosa Esther’s than Guillermo’s.
What he especially likes about Maryam is that she has a desire to know what is going on in the world. While most Guatemalan women read Vanidades and Cosmo, she has a subscription to the Economist and Poder, and is comfortable reading novels in both English and Spanish.
They talk politics, especially about the Middle East. Maryam is convinced that Iraq will end up like Lebanon — dozens of competing factions held at bay by a cold peace once the Americans leave. Or it could be worse: civil war.
The embarrassing thing is that during these lunches, Guillermo sits at the table sporting a huge and painful erection. Going to the tea table for dessert, for example, has become an awkward maneuver for him, and there have been several occasions when he has noticed Maryam glancing at his bulky crotch.
There is another issue too. Since Guillermo has begun having affairs, he has divided the women he knows into two separate types: the proper, marrying kind, and the cavorting sort. He wants nothing to do with the former, whom he can spot immediately, so he gravitates to those women who are either single, divorced, unhappily married, or only interested in a physical encounter. Guillermo cannot imagine finding a woman who is independent and sensual simultaneously unless, of course, she is unhappily married. He can foresee bedding down with Maryam, if he can get her alone, but only after several expensive lunches at Tamarindos and lots of tiny gifts of chocolate and perfume. At the same time, he realizes she is his intellectual equal, having secured a degree in economic history at the Universidad del Valle.
From the first day he saw her in her perky tennis outfit, he knew she had a luscious body, one built to please him — short but shapely legs, full breasts, a kind of sassy spring to her movements. He suspects that her vulva tastes of mango, or something sweeter.
He is afraid to take things to the next level because of his budding friendship with Ibrahim and the complications with Maryam’s husband and Rosa Esther. He imagines that the next step might be off a cliff.
And how could he even arrange the next step? He doesn’t have her phone number, and sending her a letter at home is much too risky. What he would like to do is slip a note into her pocket asking her out for lunch at La Hacienda Real and let things go from there. He is now fantasizing about her all the time. She has become a kind of obsession, even though nothing has happened between them but a mild, almost sardonic tease. He is becoming so sexed up that he begins masturbating again, simply to keep his attention on his work. And he has begun seeing one of his lovers, Araceli, at least twice a week, even at the risk of Rosa Esther finding him out.
Maryam must know that he is constantly staring at her with something more than desire. He is in fact undressing her, and she seems to like it, this lust, though he knows she will not act on it. In Guatemala, a woman rarely hankers after a man, especially a married man, more so if she herself is married. The woman is never the aggressor.
* * *
One Wednesday, as soon as he steps into Ibrahim’s office for their weekly meeting, the older man grabs him by the forearm.
“Guillermo, I have to confess something to you. I know that we respect one another, but what I have to say to you now cannot be shared with anyone, especially not with Maryam. I need you to swear it on your life.”
Guillermo is unflinching. “More than my client, you are now my friend.”
“And you are mine. But all the same, I need you to promise me. Do I have your word?”
“You don’t even need to ask.”
Ibrahim drops Guillermo’s arm and goes over to the window, which looks down from his third-floor office above his textile factory to the parking lot and the surrounding fence. It is an ugly view of cars, concrete, and loading docks in an area that lacks plants and trees. He then walks back and signals for Guillermo to sit across from him at the table in his office. They were supposed to discuss the possibility of moving his company’s accounting offices to El Salvador. Since banks there operate strictly in US dollars, it would be easier to transfer money to Ibrahim’s accounts in Miami. Also, the president of Guatemala has begun talking about nationalizing the banks.
“Besides the occasional threats, someone is now tapping my house and my cell phone conversations.”
“Are you sure?”
“I used to have clear connections on both but now there is static, and a kind of muffled echo. I called Guatel to complain. They claim there is nothing wrong with my phone lines or connections. I brought my cellular to be examined, but the serviceman says it is in perfect working order. And I continue to get strange calls with the heavy breathing. This isn’t normal.”
“Well, these winter rainstorms have been a nuisance,” Guillermo says, unconvinced by his own words.
Ibrahim stands up and grabs his forearm again. “Guillermo, I am trying to tell you something and you are trying to calm me down by giving me silly explanations. I don’t need a lawyer for that.” He sits back down. “At our last board meeting, Ignacio Balicar — the president’s representative and the chairman of the Banurbano advisory board — interrupted my presentation on the suspicious dispersal of public funds to say that it is dangerous to make wild accusations I cannot prove. He says that the president’s enemies are acting more boldly, and he has asked his staff and associates to be careful with what they reveal to the press, especially in this climate.”
“What climate is that?” Guillermo asks.
“Balicar said that everything is very combustible — in case I didn’t know it. Combustible, I said back to him, that’s an awfully charged word. Balicar smiled and just kept nodding. Then he said — almost as an afterthought — that the president and his wife are upset because they sense there are members of the opposition party who are trying to encourage the army to overthrow him. And he is not going to let that happen.”
Guillermo whistles. “That’s quite a conversation.”
Ibrahim goes on: “He was looking straight at me when he said it. Actually, I don’t think you know that Ignacio is also a vice president of Banurbano. He is both an employee and an advisor, something I consider objectionable.”
“So his opinions aren’t really objective.”