Denis Johnson - The Stars at Noon

I offered them cigarets, and they assured me that the Vice-minister had been in touch.

We all three smoked, fouling the room, and I declined their offer of coffee.

“It's strange that you have an office, but no commerce.”

“No, it’s not strange. .” He made a speech that I couldn’t keep up with, but I understood he saw no point in running a travel agency when hardly anyone could be expected to travel anywhere.

I said, “This is a time of poverty. The shortages, no replacements. .” Most of my Spanish came off the wall-posters and out of the pages of La Barricada . . “I have a problem about money, too.”

“It's no problem,” he said. “For someone who knows the methods, it's not a problem, the lack of replacements . .” I lost him, and then regained the meaning a couple of sentences later. . “I live at a height above those things.”

He closed his eyes on all of it. “Another floor,” he said in English, “another room.”

“Then you can help me, I believe.”

“Are you fond of eggs? I have chickens at my house.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I can get milk at my comrade’s house. And the man who gives gas coupons right here in the Plaza España is my cousin. I can buy extra coupons from him at a good price.”

“I have no car. I don’t need coupons.”

“I’m not trying to sell you coupons. I’m saying something. I live at a height above this war, this shit. My children aren’t going to fight for the Sandinistas.”

“Good. War is bad.”

“Sandinistas are bad.”

“Can you get drugs?”

“What do you want.”

I shrugged. “Cocaine?”

“You’re crazy. Go to Panama.”

“I don’t really want cocaine.”

“Then why do you ask? Why do you drink when you’re not thirsty?”

I shrugged again. I felt stupid. It had only been a notion.

“Watch out for the woman who drinks when she's not thirsty.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’ll watch out.”

“No. It’s a saying of the Miskitos. It tells me to watch out, not you.”

“All right then goddamn it,” I burst out in English, “keep your fucking eye on me then, okay?”

He paused, shocked. “I know very little English,” he said, “but I know ‘goddamn’ and I know ‘fuck.’ ‘Fuck’ is the property of the whole world.”

“I need to exchange cordobas for dollars,” I said.

“Everybody wants that. Even the members of the Junta would like dollars.”

“Can you do that for me?”

“I have a problem too,” he now revealed.

“Yes. How can I help?”

“You are a journalist.”

“Yes.”

“You understand about this country. The Sandinistas are bad. If they decide I’m a Contra, then it doesn’t matter, they’ll arrest me. If they can’t arrest me, they’ll arrest my family. Maybe I’m a Contra. Maybe I’m not Contra.”

“I understand,” I lied, completely sorry that I’d come here.

“My mother hasn’t done anything,” he said. “My sister hasn’t done anything. But they’re both in prison.”

“Ah.”

“You’re a journalist, a North American — if you ask about her, my sister, my mother — it will be a big help. Show them you know the names of my mother and sister.”

He gave me a piece of paper bearing their names.

“If I can,” I said.

“You can. Go to the Office of Defense. It’s only one street away from Interturismo, do you know it? Ask them what’s become of these two people. They’ll believe these names are known in the United States. Things will go better for my mother and sister, do you see?”

“I see.”

“And then we can help you. We need to make arrangements. Tell us what you’d like, and we’ll arrange it for tomorrow.”

“What rate of exchange do you offer?” I felt miserable, sick, and confused.

“The rate of exchange must be decided tomorrow.”

“And you’ll have dollars tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so. But my companion will help you.”

The other looked too young to help anybody, even himself.

“Why do you want cocaine?” he said.

“It was a mistake to talk about cocaine,” I said. “I’m nervous. My Spanish is very poor. .”

“No one here will give you cocaine.”

“I understand. I made a mistake.”

“We barter currency.”

“I understand. I’m sorry. What time will I come back tomorrow?”

“What time would you like to come back tomorrow,” he said.

“I can come about nine o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

“If that’s not too early.”

“It’s fine. In the meantime, permit me to take your passport. I’ll make a photocopy in just a few minutes. I want to verify you.”

“I don't want you to verify me.”

“Then I have no money for you. No U.S. I have Swiss.”

“Swiss?”

“It can be exchanged fast, not here, but in San José, in Honduras, U.S.”

“What about Costa Rican?”

“Nothing today.”

“I need U.S. or Costa Rican.”

In English he said, “Yew air estewpid.”

“What.”

“You tell me where you go. I go Costa Rica, I go U.S.” He went on in Spanish, “Nothing is verified about me but you’re talking. This is exactly what an American woman is. Our women have learned a new way. It’s a war.”

“If I go to get a photocopy, will you wait?”

“We’ll be here until three o’clock,” the older man said.

It wasn’t yet two. “I need dollars only. U.S. Only U.S.,” I said. “I’ll bring a photocopy of my passport.”

“Good,” he said.

The other said, “She doesn’t honor us with her faith. She doesn’t trust her friends.”

“It’s true.” I said.

“It’s good,” the first said, as he rose to show me out the door.

It was hotter outside, but I noticed I wasn't perspiring as much, not half as much.

Y our passport. In every encounter they wanted my face, and they wanted my name . .

I knew of a copying service not too far off — I'd often passed the sign — the place was nothing more than a shack squatting on a mound directly across the street from the Cultural Center. I went there right away and poked my head through the doorway.

Inside, a solemn man in a white shirt, wearing a necktie, tinkered with his machine. There was hardly any light to see by. “It’s not ready,” he said. “One moment.” There was a lamp on a tripod, a chair for photographees, a tiny curtained closet where I gathered he developed his photos. The floor was earth. He’d quickly removed the outer case of his photocopier and now he was gently violating the mystery of its robot ganglia with a penknife.

I moved to the doorway and smoked a cigaret in the barrage of traffic noise. The road narrowed here, and the suicide-macho rattleheaps contended for the only lane, while the pods of the giant frangipanis wept down onto their hoods. In a few minutes the man said, “It’s ready.”

I gave him my passport to copy, but the machine still didn’t work. “There’s nothing I can do,” he said with the terrible sadness of a heart surgeon.

It was only two-thirty when I was already back at the defunct travel office, knocking repeatedly on the door and rattling the knob and getting no answer at all from those bastards.

I saw it plainly, I’d go back time and again to see people I couldn’t make myself clear to . . I’d spend forever listening to irrelevancies. . The whole matter would get impossibly snarled. . In the end I would take whatever I got, and gladly . .

By the power of my desperation I forced a pay phone to function and called that worthless homo, the Vice-minister.

“Come in and talk to me,” he said. He was speaking English.

I hesitated.