Don DeLillo: The Angel Esmeralda

At the hotel there was no problem getting rooms. Rupert said he’d be waiting at five next morning. Two maids preceded us along the beach, with a porter following. We split into two groups, and Jill and I were led to what was called a pool suite. Behind a ten-foot wall was a private garden of hibiscus, various shrubs and a silk-cotton tree. The small pool was likewise ours. On the patio we found a bowl full of bananas, mangoes and pineapple.

“Not half bad,” Jill said.

She slept awhile. I floated in the pool, feeling the uneasy suspense lift off me, the fret of getting somewhere in groups — documented travel. This spot was so close to perfect we would not even want to tell ourselves how lucky we were, having been delivered to it. The best of new places had to be protected from our own cries of delight. We would hold the words for weeks or months, for the soft evening when a stray remark would set us to recollecting. I guess we believed, together, that the wrong voice can obliterate a landscape. This sentiment was itself unspoken, and one of the sources of our attachment.

I opened my eyes to the sight of wind-driven clouds — clouds scudding —and a single frigate bird hung on a current of air, long wings flat and still. The world and all things in it. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I was in the lap of some primal moment. This was a modern product, this hotel, designed to make people feel they’d left civilization behind. But if I wasn’t naive, I wasn’t in the mood, either, to stir up doubts about the place. We’d had half a day of frustration, long drives out and back, and the cooling touch of freshwater on my body, and the ocean-soaring bird, and the speed of those low-flying clouds, their massive tumbling summits, and my weightless drift, the slow turning in the pool, like some remote-controlled rapture, made me feel I knew what it was to be in the world. It was special, yes. The dream of Creation that glows at the edge of the serious traveler’s search. Naked. It remained only for Jill to come walking through the sheer curtains and slip silently into the pool.

We had dinner in the pavilion, overlooking a quiet sea. The tables were only one-quarter occupied. The European woman, our taxi companion, sat in the far corner. I nodded. Either she didn’t notice or chose not to acknowledge.

“Shouldn’t we ask her to join us?”

“She doesn’t want to,” I said.

“We’re Americans, after all. We’re famous for asking people to join us.”

“She chose the most remote table. She’s happy there.”

“She could be an economist from the Soviet bloc. What do you think? Or someone doing a health study for the U.N.”

“Way off.”

“A youngish widow, Swiss, here to forget.”

“Not Swiss.”

“German,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Wandering aimlessly through the islands. Sitting at the most remote tables.”

“They weren’t surprised when I said we wanted breakfast at four-thirty.”

“The whole island has to adjust to that rotten stinking airline. It is awful, awful.”

Jill wore a long tunic and gauze pants. We left our shoes under the table and took a walk along the beach, wandering knee-high into the water at one point. A security guard stood under the palms, watching us. When we got back to the table, the waiter brought coffee.

“There’s always the chance they’ll be able to take two standbys but not three,” Jill said. “I absolutely have to be back for Wednesday but I think we ought to stick together all the same.”

“We’re a team. We’ve been a team all through this thing.”

“How many flights to Barbados tomorrow?”

“Only two. What happens Wednesday?”

“Bernie Gladman comes down from Buffalo.”

“The earth is scorched for miles around.”

“It took only six weeks to set up the meeting.”

“We’ll get out. If not at six forty-five, then late in the afternoon. Of course if that happens, we miss our connecting flight in Barbados.”

“I don’t want to hear,” she said.

“Unless we go to Martinique instead.”

“You’re the only man who’s ever understood that boredom and fear are one and the same to me.”

“I try not to exploit this knowledge.”

“You love to be boring. You seek out boring situations.”

“Airports.”

“Hour-long taxi rides,” she said.

First the tops of the palms started bending. Then the rain hit, ringing down in heavy splashes on the stone path. When it let up, we walked across the lawn to our suite.

Watching Jill undress. Rum in a toothbrush glass. The sound and force of the wind. The skin near my eyes feeling cracked from ten days of sun and blowing weather.

I had trouble falling asleep. After the wind died, finally, the first thing I heard was roosters crowing, what seemed hundreds of them, off in the hills. Minutes later the dogs started barking.

We rode out in first light. Nine men with machetes walked single-file along the road.

We established that the other woman’s name was Christa. She and Jill made small talk for the first few miles. Then Jill lowered her head toward the open book.

It rained once, briefly.

I’d expected half a dozen people to be in the terminal at that hour. It was jammed. They pushed toward the counter. It was hard to get around them because of luggage and boxes and birdcages and small children.

“This is crazy,” Jill said. “Where are we? I don’t believe this is happening.”

“The plane will be empty when it gets here, or close to it. That’s what I’m counting on. And many of these people are standbys. We’re two and three, remember.”

“God, if you exist, please get me off this island.”

She was very near crying. I left her by the door and tried to get up to the edge of the counter. I heard the plane approach and touch down.

In minutes the regular passengers were nearly all cleared away from the counter and were forming a line across the room. The heat was already drenching. Among those of us who remained clustered, there were small gusts of desperation — a vehemence of motion, gesture and expression.

I heard the clerk call our names. I got to the counter and leaned way over. His head and mine were almost touching. One would go, I told him, and one would not. I gave him Jill’s ticket. Then I hurried back to get her luggage and carry it to the small platform next to the counter. Her mouth gaped open and her arms shot out from her sides in a kind of silent-movie figure of surprise. She started after me with one of my own bags.

“You’re going alone,” I said. “You have to fill out a form at the booth. Where’s your passport?”

Rid of the luggage, I walked her over to immigration and held one of her tote bags as she filled out the yellow form. Between lines, she kept looking at me anxiously. Confusion everywhere. The space around us glassy and bright.

“Here’s money for the airport tax. They had room for only one of us. It’s stupid for you not to go.”

“But we agreed.”

“It’s stupid not to go.”

“I don’t like this.”

“You’ll be all right.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll marry a native woman and learn how to paint.”

“We can charter. Let’s try, even if it’s just the two of us.”

“It’s hopeless. Nothing works here.”

“I don’t like leaving this way. This is so awful. I don’t want to go.”

“Darling Jill,” I said.

I watched her walk toward the ramp at the tail section. Soon the props were turning. I went inside and saw Christa near the door. I got my bags and walked out to the road. Rupert was sitting on a bench outside the gift shop. I had to walk about ten yards down the road before I was able to catch his eye. I looked back at Christa. She picked up her suitcase. Then the three of us from our separate locations started toward the car.