Don DeLillo: The Angel Esmeralda

The wind came up suddenly, rattling the louvres and blowing right through the room, papers sailing, the curtains lifted high. Christa put out her cigarette and turned off the light.

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.

We didn’t look at each other.

“How many aboard?”

“Eight passenger, three crew.”

I went inside. There were only two people in the terminal and the counter was empty. I went behind the counter and opened the office door. Two men in white shirts sat facing each other across desks arranged back to back.

“Is it true?” I said. “It went down?”

They looked at me.

“The flight from Trinidad. The six forty-five. To Barbados. It’s not down?”

“Flight is canceled,” one of them said.

“Outside they’re saying it crashed in the goddamn ocean.”

“No, no — canceled.”

“What happened?”

“No opportunity to take off.”

“Winds,” the second one said.

“They had a whole ray of problems.”

“So it was only canceled,” I said, “and there’s nothing major.”

“You didn’t call. You have to call before coming out. Always call.”

“Other people call,” the second one said. “That’s why you’re coming all alone.”

I showed them the tickets and one of them wrote down our names and said he expected the plane to be here in time for the two o’clock departure.

“What’s our status?” I said.

He told me to call before coming out. I walked through the terminal, now deserted. The stocky man was still outside the door.

“It’s not down,” I told him.

He looked at me, thinking.

“Is it up, then?”

I shook my head.

“Winds,” I said.

Some kids ran by. Rupert’s cab was parked in a small open area about thirty yards away. There was no one at the wheel. When I got closer I saw Christa lean forward in the backseat. She spotted me and got out, waiting by the open door.

It would be best to start with the rumor of a crash. She would be relieved to hear it wasn’t true. This would make it easier for her to accept the cancellation.

But when I started talking I realized tactics were pointless. Her face went slowly dead. All the selves collapsing inward. She was inaccessible and utterly still. I kept on explaining, not knowing what else to do, aware that I was speaking even more clearly than one usually does to foreigners. It rained a little. I tried to explain that we’d most likely get out later in the day. I spoke slowly and distinctly. The children came running.

Christa’s lips moved, although she didn’t say anything. She pushed by me and walked quickly down the road. She was in the underbrush behind a tarpaper shack when I caught up to her. She fell into me, trembling.

“It’s all right,” I said. “You’re not alone, no harm will come, it’s just one day. It’s all right, it’s all right. We’ll just be together, that’s all. One more day, that’s all.”

I held her from behind, speaking very softly, my mouth touching the curve of her right ear.

“We’ll be alone in the hotel. Almost the only guests. You can rest all day and think of nothing, nothing. It doesn’t matter who you are or how you got stuck here or where you’re going next. You don’t even have to move. You lie in the shade. I know you like to lie in the shade.”

I touched her face gently with the back of my hand, caressing again and again, that lovely word.

“We’ll just be together. You can rest and sleep, and tonight we’ll have a quiet brandy, and you’ll feel better about things. I know you will, I’m sure of it, I’m absolutely convinced. You’re not alone. It’s all right, it’s all right. We’ll have these final hours, that’s all. And you’ll speak to me in German.”