Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

“It’s sort of what we have instead of Valium,” Constance said with a soft bitter laugh.

They watched the people out on the sidewalk. Many of them — doubtless Americans — hurrying aimlessly one way and then another, some clearly panic-stricken, unable to decide where to turn. An elderly couple in ridiculously unfitted clothes — bright white long-sleeve shirts and silly-looking bell-bottom red slacks, stopped on one corner, crossed the street, then turned and waited and crossed back, and went on. Natasha felt suddenly so tremendously sorry for them that she found herself weeping again. It was as if she had just awakened from a dream of crying to discover that she was indeed crying.

“Here, baby,” Constance said, reaching to touch her cheek with a handkerchief. “It’s gonna be fine. You’ll see.”

Many people dressed for holidays in the sun were gathering in front of the hotels and restaurants on that side. They all appeared confused and harried.

“The airlines are grounded,” Constance said. “No flights. We’re stuck here. Stuck here. You know that? Jesus Christ. We’re stuck.”

The news on the hotel televisions kept replaying the pictures: the planes slamming in, smoke towering skyward, clear sky beyond the city, devastation, the immense squat black toadstool of a cloud over its southern end — and the buildings collapsing in that terrifying straight-downward, floor-upon-floor, pancaking way, like thick gray powder.

The ride back from Kingston was completely silent. The three ladies had disappeared into the streets, so it was just Natasha and Constance and the three men. They filed out of the van and back into the lobby of the resort’s central building, where others still watched the television with its inexhaustible voices and images, the pundits all weighing in, the discussions of the short presidential speech, and the fact that the president at first seemed to be running — or flying — away, Air Force One heading west for a thousand miles before turning around.

Natasha went up to her room and lay down. A fit of low, breathless crying came over her. The window was bright with sun, and the wind blew through. She turned, pulled the blanket over her shoulder, and lay there trembling. The chill persisted, and though she might have allowed herself to fall asleep, nothing like drowsiness came to her — she was as wide awake as she had ever been in her life. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and finally pulled the blanket high over the side of her face and breathed into her palms.

A while later Constance came and knocked on the door and called to her. She got up and opened it and then walked back to the bed. Constance followed her into the room. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably trying to call you.”

The younger woman sat up and put her feet on the floor. “I can’t stay here.”

“Well, there’s nowhere to go.”

“I mean this room.” She stood and looked at the open French doors leading to the balcony, showing the sea and the sunny sky and the broad pure beach, where, now, there was no one.

“Imagine,” Constance said. “We’ll always feel a kind of hatred for this place now. This is where it happened to us.”

“I can’t stand it here.” Natasha moved toward the other window that looked out on the mountains to the east.

“You want to go down to the water? It’s almost lunchtime.”

“I can’t eat.”

“Then let’s have more to drink. I’d like to get drunk if it’s all right with you.”

Natasha saw something broken and frightened in the other woman’s round, double-chinned face, and she put her arms around her. They stood there embracing, hearing the sounds of others moving down the hallway and still others on the patio below. Someone laughed, a young boy — you could hear the edge of adolescence in the scratchy notes, that lean, pointless exuberance. It seemed excruciatingly out of place, incongruous, even ill spirited, an assault. In the next instant, a voice spoke harshly in Spanish, and the laughing stopped.

Downstairs, the lobby was still crowded, the television blaring. They went past it to the outside patio, where meals were served, a wide veranda in sunlight overlooking the beach. Several other people were already seated at the tables near the stone balustrade. At the farthest table sat the two men who had been with them in the van. They were not talking or looking at each other, but they were together, with the air of strangers clinging to the familiar, or near familiar. The younger one, Nicholas Duego, stood and waved at them.

“Well?” Constance said.

Natasha went with her to the table. It was better to be in company. They sat down, and the waitress came over. The waitress was a beautiful island woman named Grace, and they knew her. “What will it be for you?” Grace said to them with a note of solicitousness. There had existed a sardonic, teasing banter between her and her customers until this day. She had played a version of herself, a performance — an island character with no need of these tourists and interlopers — and now all her normal rosy, affectionate disrespect was gone, replaced by gentle concern. The difference was disheartening.

“Piña colada, Grace,” Constance said. Her voice carried, and Natasha realized how unnaturally quiet it was, turning to look at the other tables, where people were alone or with others, not saying much, staring, some of them, or concentrating on their meals. At one table the three elderly ladies sat, with untouched glasses of beer before them.

“How did they get back?” Constance said, then turned to Grace. “Make it a double, will you?”

“Yes, mum. And the young miss?” Grace was not more than five years older than Natasha. Her eyes were midnight dark and full of mournful kindliness. She wore a floor-length wraparound skirt, and her wild brown hair was tied in an impossibly big tangle atop her head, dark tan dreadlocks trailing out of the knot of it. “Well?” she said.

Natasha pondered a moment. She had been drinking rum punch or white wine all week. “Whiskey,” she said. “I’ll have a whiskey.”

“Bourbon?”

“Yes. Neat.”

Grace nodded and walked off.

The heavy man held up his glass as if to offer a toast. “Whiskey sour,” he said. “I haven’t had one in ten years. This is the first one. Ten years. I’m an alcoholic.”

Natasha remembered smelling alcohol through his heavy cologne in the morning. She almost said something; it seemed pointless now to keep any kind of pretense about things. But she saw the shadows under his eyes and the way his hands shook. He was just someone suffering this, like everyone else.

Duego was drinking water. He took a long swallow of it, set the glass down shakily, then rubbed his eyes. The muscles of his jaw tightened.

Natasha took the rolled napkin from its place on the table, removed the heavy silverware from it, and put it to her eyes, trying to gain control of herself. Duego offered her some of his water.

“Where is Grace?” Constance said.

As if summoned by the question, the tall woman appeared in the doorway and started toward them. Constance reached up and took her drink off the tray and gulped it down. “Bring me another one, please,” she said. “Make it two more. Doubles both. Please.”

Grace nodded, setting Natasha’s glass down, and turning to move off.

Natasha lifted her glass and sipped from it, but caught Grace’s eye as Grace started away and nodded at her questioning look. “Yes. Me, too.”

The heavy man also ordered more, and Duego, as if wanting merely to keep up with the others — there was something grudgingly acceding in the gesture — touched Grace’s elbow and ordered a screwdriver. She moved off, seeming to glide away in the yellow wraparound skirt.