John Irving - Avenue of Mysteries

You took an elevator from the street-level entrance of the Ascott to the hotel lobby, which was on an upper floor. At the elevators, both at street level and in the lobby, there were a couple of anxious-looking security guards with two bomb-sniffing dogs.

He didn’t tell Bienvenido, but Juan Diego adored the dogs. As he made his reservation, Juan Diego could imagine Miriam checking in at the Ascott. It was a long walk to the registration desk from where the elevators opened into the lobby; Juan Diego knew that the security guards would be watching Miriam the whole way. You had to be blind, or a bomb-sniffing dog, not to watch Miriam walk away from you — you would be compelled to watch her every step of the way.

What is happening to me? Juan Diego wondered again. His thoughts, his memories — what he imagined, what he dreamed — were all jumbled up. And he was obsessed with Miriam and Dorothy.

Juan Diego sank into the rear seat of the limo like a stone into an unseen pond.

“We end up in Manila,” Dorothy had said; Juan Diego wondered if she had somehow meant everyone. Maybe all of us end up in Manila, Juan Diego was thinking.

One Single Journey. It sounded like a title. Was it something he’d written, or something he intended to write? The dump reader couldn’t remember.

“I would marry this hippie boy, if he smelled better and stopped singing that cowboy song,” Lupe had said. (“Oh, let me die!” she’d also said.)

How he cursed the names the nuns at Niños Perdidos had called his mother! Juan Diego regretted that he’d called her names, too. “ Des esperanza”—“Hopelessness,” the nuns had called Esperanza. “Desesperación”—“Desperation,” they’d called her.

“Lo siento, madre,” Juan Diego said softly to himself in the rear seat of the limo — so softly that Bienvenido didn’t hear him.

Bienvenido couldn’t tell if Juan Diego was awake or asleep. The driver had said something about the airport for domestic flights in Manila — how the check-in lines arbitrarily closed, then spontaneously reopened, and there were extra fees for everything. But Juan Diego didn’t respond.

Whether he was awake or asleep, the poor guy seemed out of it, and Bienvenido decided he would walk Juan Diego through the check-in process, despite the hassle he would have to go through with the car.

“It’s too cold!” Juan Diego suddenly cried. “Fresh air, please! No more air-conditioning!”

“Sure — you’re the boss,” Bienvenido told him; he shut off the AC and automatically opened the limo’s windows. They were near the airport, passing through another shantytown, when Bienvenido stopped the car at a red light.

Before Bienvenido could warn him, Juan Diego found himself beseeched by begging children — their skinny arms, palms up, were suddenly thrust inside the open rear windows of the stopped limo.

“Hello, children,” Juan Diego said, as if he’d been expecting them. (You cannot take the scavenging out of scavengers; los pepenadores carry their picking and sorting with them, long after they’ve stopped looking for aluminum or copper or glass.)

Before Bienvenido could stop him, Juan Diego was fumbling around with his wallet.

“No, no — give them nothing,” Bienvenido said. “I mean, not anything. Sir, Juan Diego, please — it will never stop!”

What was this funny currency, anyway? It was like play money, Juan Diego thought. He had no change, and only two small bills. He gave the twenty-piso note to the first outstretched hand; he had nothing smaller than a fifty for the second small hand.

“Dalawampung piso!” the first kid cried.

“Limampung piso!” shouted the second child. Was that Tagalog they were speaking? Juan Diego wondered.

Bienvenido stopped him from handing out the one-thousand-piso bill, but one of the beseeching children saw the amount before Bienvenido could block the young beggar’s hand.

“Sir, please — that’s too much,” the driver told Juan Diego.

“Sanlibong piso!” one of the beseeching children cried.

The other kids quickly took up the cry. “Sanlibong piso! Sanlibong piso!”

The light turned green, and Bienvenido slowly accelerated; the beggar children withdrew their skinny arms from the car.

“There’s no such thing as too much for those children, Bienvenido — there’s only not enough for them,” Juan Diego said. “I’m a dump kid,” he told the driver. “I should know.”

“A dump kid, sir?” Bienvenido asked.

“I was a dump kid, Bienvenido,” Juan Diego told him. “My sister and I — we were niños de la basura. We grew up in the basurero — we virtually lived there. We should never have left — it’s been all downhill since!” the dump reader declared.

“Sir—” Bienvenido started to say, but he stopped when he saw that Juan Diego was crying. The bad air of the polluted city was blowing in the open windows of the car; the cooking smells assailed him; the children were begging in the streets; the women, who looked exhausted, wore sleeveless dresses, or shorts with halter tops; the men loitered in doorways, smoking or just talking to one another, as if they didn’t have anything to do.

“It’s a slum !” Juan Diego cried. “It’s a sickening, polluted slum! Millions of people who have nothing or not enough to do — yet the Catholics want more and more babies to be born!”

He meant Mexico City — at that moment, Manila was forcefully reminding him of Mexico City. “And just look at the stupid pilgrims !” Juan Diego cried. “They walk on their bleeding knees — they whip themselves, to show their devotion!”

Naturally, Bienvenido was confused. He thought Juan Diego meant Manila. What pilgrims? the limousine driver was thinking. But all he said was: “Sir, it’s just a small shantytown — it’s not exactly a slum. I will admit the pollution is a problem—”

“Watch out!” Juan Diego cried, but Bienvenido was a good driver. He’d seen the boy fall out of the overfull and moving jeepney; the jeepney driver never noticed — he just kept going — but the boy rolled (or he was pushed) off one of the rear rows of seats. He fell into the street; Bienvenido had to swerve the car not to run over him.

The boy was a dirty-faced urchin with what appeared to be a ratty-looking stole (or a fur boa) draped over his neck and shoulders; the shabby-looking garment was like something an old woman in a cold climate might wrap around her neck. But when the boy fell, both Bienvenido and Juan Diego could see that the furry scarf was actually a small dog, and the dog, not the boy, was the one injured in the fall. The dog yelped; the dog could not put weight on one of its forepaws, which it tremblingly held off the ground. The boy had skinned one of his bare knees, which was bleeding, but he seemed otherwise unhurt — he was chiefly concerned for the dog.

GOD IS GOOD! the sticker on the jeepney had said. Not to this boy, or his dog, Juan Diego thought.

“Stop — we must stop,” Juan Diego said, but Bienvenido just kept going.

“Not here, sir — not now,” the young driver said. “The checking-in part at the airport — it takes longer than your flight.”

“God isn’t good,” Juan Diego told him. “God is indifferent. Ask that boy. Speak to his dog.”

“ What pilgrims?” Bienvenido asked him. “You said pilgrims, sir,” the driver reminded him.

“In Mexico City, there is a street—” Juan Diego began. He closed his eyes, then quickly opened them, as if he didn’t want to see this street in Mexico City. “The pilgrims go there — the street is their approach to a shrine,” Juan Diego continued, but his speech slowed, as if the approach to this shrine was difficult, at least for him.