The Angel Esmeralda - Don Delillo [7]
When I opened my eyes, much later, the desk lamp was on and she sat in a chair, in her robe, reading some papers. I tried reaching for my watch. The door and louvres were shut but I could hear rain falling.
“What time is it?”
“Go to sleep.”
“Did we miss the call?”
“There’s still time. They will ring the bell by the gate. An hour yet.”
“I want you next to me.”
“I must finish,” she said. “Go to sleep.”
I managed to prop myself on an elbow.
“What are you reading?”
“It’s work. It’s very dull. You don’t want to know. We don’t ask, you and I. You’re half sleeping or you wouldn’t ask.”
“Will you come to bed soon?”
“Yes, soon.”
“If I’m asleep, will you wake me?”
“Yes.”
“Will you slide the door open a little, so we can feel the air?”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course. Whatever you wish.”
I lay back and closed my eyes. I thought of those sand islands out there, two days’ sail, and surf flashing on the reefs, and the way the undersides of the gulls looked green from the bright water.
Again, again, the broad-leaved trees and tangled lowlands, the winding climb through smoke and rain. Some circumstance of light this particular morning gave the landscape a subtle coloration. Distances were not so vivid and living. There was only the one deep green, with elusive shadings. We were in the late stages now, about forty-five minutes out, and I was thinking it could still change, some rude blend of weather might yet transform the land, producing texture and dimension, leaps of green light, those waverings and rays, and the near consciousness we always seem to find in zones of overgrown terrain. Christa rubbed her neck, sleepily. I kept peering out and up. In the foreground, along the road, were women in faded skirts, appearing in twos and threes, periodically, women coming into the damp glow, faces strong-boned, some with baskets on their heads, looking in, shoulders back, their bare arms shining.
“This time we get out,” Christa said.
“You feel lucky.”
“We don’t even wait. First flight.”
“What if it doesn’t happen?”
“Don’t even whisper this.”
“Will you go back with me?”
“I don’t listen to this.”
“It’s crazy to stay,” I said. “Seven- or eight-hour wait. We’ll know our status. I’ll check everything with the man. Rupert will wait for us. He’ll take us back to the hotel. We’ll have some time together. Then we’ll come back out. We’ll get the two o’clock flight, or the five, depending on our status. The important thing right now is to clarify our status.”
Rupert listened to the radio, his shoulders leaning into a snug turn.
“Do you enjoy this so much?” she said. “Back and forth?”
“I like to float.”
“This is not an answer.”
“Really, I like to float. I try to do some floating every chance I get.”
“You should go back. Float six weeks.”
“Not alone,” I said.
She had on the same gray dress she’d been wearing two days earlier, in the dirt road outside the terminal, when I’d turned to see her standing politely to one side, her face contorted by the strong glare.
“How much longer? I know this place.”
“Minutes,” I said.
“This is where we nearly went off the road, the first time out, when smoke came pouring out of the front. I should have known then. It would be disaster to the end.”
“Rupert wouldn’t let that happen, Rupert, would you?”
“Watching the whole car disappear in smoke,” she said.
I looked over at her and we both smiled. Rupert tapped the steering wheel in time to the music. We passed some houses and climbed the final grade.
I took Christa’s ticket and asked her to wait in the taxi. The luggage would also stay until we were sure we’d be able to board. Several people mingled outside the terminal. A heavyset man, Indian or Pakistani, stood by the door. I’d seen him near the counter the day before, hemmed in, sweating, in a striped blazer. Something about him now, an attitude of introspection, his almost eerie calm, made me feel I ought to stop alongside.
“There is a rumor it went down,” he said.