South of the Border, West of the Sun Page 0,27
her and thought she was pretty attractive. She was a nice girl. Nice personality, cute. Not a raving beauty but, you know, appealing. Am I right?”
I nodded.
“You really want me to tell the truth?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“You’re not going to like this.”
“I don’t care. Just tell me the truth.”
He took another mouthful of whiskey. “I was jealous of you, always together with her. I wanted a girlfriend like that too. Now I can let it all out, I suppose. I never forgot her. Her face was engraved on my memory. That’s why, running into her out of the blue in an elevator—even eighteen years later?I knew right away. What I’m getting at is this: I have no reason to want to say anything bad about her. It was a shock for me too, you know. I didn’t want to admit it was true. Let me put it this way: She’s no longer attractive.”
I bit my lip. “What do you mean?”
“Most of the kids who live in that apartment building are afraid of her.”
“Afraid?” I repeated. I looked at him, uncomprehending. He must have chosen the wrong words. “What do you mean—afraid of her?”
“Hey, how about we call it a wrap? I didn’t really want to get into this anyway.”
“Wait a second—what does she do? Does she say things to the kids?”
“She doesn’t say anything to anybody. Like I said before.”
“So kids are afraid of her face?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“Does she have a scar or something?”
“No scars.”
“Well, then, what are they afraid of?”
He finished his whiskey and placed the glass on the counter. And looked at me for a good long time. He appeared flustered and more than a little confused. But something else was in his expression. I could catch a trace of his face as it was back in high school. He looked up for a while, staring off into the distance as if watching a stream flowing off and away. Finally he spoke. “I can’t explain it well; besides, I don’t want to. So don’t ask me any more, okay? You’d have to see it with your own eyes to understand. Someone who hasn’t actually seen it won’t understand anyway.”
I nodded, saying nothing more, just sipping at my vodka gimlet. His tone was calm, but any further inquiries I knew he would turn down point-blank.
He started to talk about the two years he worked in Brazil. You won’t believe it, he said, but I ran across one of my junior high classmates in São Paulo, of all places. Working at Toyota as an engineer.
His words blew right by me. When he left, he clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, the years change people in many ways, right? I have no idea what went on between you and her back then. But whatever it was, it wasn’t your fault. To some degree or other, everyone has that kind of experience. Even me. No joke. I went through the same thing. But there’s nothing you can do about it. Another person’s life is that person’s life. You can’t take responsibility. It’s like we’re living in a desert. You just have to get used to it Did you see that Disney film in elementary school–The Living Desert?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Our world’s exactly the same. Rain falls and the flowers bloom. No rain, they wither up. Bugs are eaten by lizards, lizards are eaten by birds. But in the end, every one of them dies. They die and dry up. One generation dies, and the next one takes over. That’s how it goes. Lots of different ways to live. And lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn’t make a bit of difference. All that remains is a desert.”
He went home, and I sat alone at the counter, drinking. After the bar was closed for the night, after all the customers had gone, even after the staff had straightened up the place and gone home themselves, I sat there, alone. I didn’t want to go home right away. I phoned my wife and told her I had something to take care of at work and would be late. I turned out the lights and sat in the dark, drinking whiskey. Too much trouble to get ice out, so I drank it straight.
Everyone just keeps on disappearing. Some things just vanish, like they were cut away. Others fade slowly into the mist. And all that remains is a desert.
When I left the bar, just before dawn, a light rain was