“Aren’t those opposites?”
“Maybe they’re just two parts of the couplet.”
It reminds me of something Saba used to say: A truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin. It never quite made sense to me before.
“Willem, I suspect deep down you know exactly why you’re here, exactly what you want, but you’re unwilling to commit to it, unwilling to commit to the wanting, let alone the having. Because both of those propositions are terrifying.”
She turns to me and gives me a long, searing look. It goes on a while, and the car starts to drift. Again, I take the wheel to right us. She lets go of the wheel entirely and I grasp it with both hands.
“Look there, Willem. You grabbed the wheel.”
“Only to keep us from crashing.”
“Or, you might say, to keep us from having an accident.”
Twenty
Mérida, Mexico
Mérida is a bigger version of Valladolid, a colonial pastel-painted city. Kate drops me off in front of a historic peach-colored building that she has heard is a decent hostel. I book myself a room with a balcony overlooking the square and I sit out and watch people taking shelter from the afternoon sun. Shops are closing up for siesta and though I’d planned to scout out the area and find some lunch, I’m not actually hungry. I’m a little wrung out from the morning’s drive and my stomach still feels as if it’s on the bumpy highway. I decide to take a siesta, too.
I wake up covered in sweat. It’s dark outside, the air in my room still and stale. I sit up to open my window or the balcony door, but when I do, my stomach heaves. I flop back down on the bed and close my eyes, willing myself back to sleep. Sometimes I can trick my body into righting itself before it realizes something’s wrong. Sometimes that works.
But not tonight. I think of the pork in the brown sauce I ate for dinner last night and the memory of it makes my stomach wave and flutter, like there’s a small feral animal trapped inside.
Food poisoning. It must be. I sigh. Okay. A few hours discomfort, and then sleep. Then it will be over. It’s all about getting to the sleep.
I’m not sure of the time so I don’t know how long it takes for the sun to come up, but when it does, I haven’t even touched sleep. I’ve puked so many times the plastic wastebin is almost full. I tried, a few times, to crawl to the shared bathroom down the hall, but I couldn’t make it past my door. Now that the sun is up, the room is heating up. I can almost see the toxic fumes from the wastebin spreading out, poisoning me all over again.
I keep throwing up. There’s no respite or relief in between bouts. I puke until there’s nothing left: no food, no bile, none of me left, it seems.
That’s when the thirst hits. I’ve long since drunk the rest of the water in my bottle, and thrown that up too. I start to fantasize about mountain streams, waterfalls, rain showers, even the Dutch canal; I’d drink from those if I could. They sell bottled water downstairs. And there’s a tap in the bathroom. But I can’t sit up, let alone stand up, let alone make it to water.
Is anyone there? I call. In Dutch. In English. I try to remember the Spanish but the words get jumbled. I think I’m talking but I can’t tell and it’s noisy in the square and my weak voice stands no chance.
I listen for a knock at the door, praying for an offering of water, clean sheets, a cool compress, a soft hand on my forehead. But none comes. This is a hostel, bare bones, no housekeeping, and I prepaid two nights.
I retch again. Nothing comes out except my tears. I am twenty-one years old and I still cry when I puke.
Finally, sleep comes to rescue me. And then I wake up, and I see her, so close. And all I can think is: It was worth it if it brought you.
Who takes care of you now? she whispers. Her breath feels like a cooling breeze.
You, I whisper back. You take care of me.
I’ll be your mountain girl.
I try to reach for her, but now she’s gone and the room is full of the others: Céline and Ana Lucia and Kayla and Sara and the girl with the worm, and there’s more yet—a Franke in Riga, a Gianna in Prague, a Jossra in Tunis. They all start talking at me.
We’ll take care of you.
Go away, I want Lulu back. Tell her to come back.
Green turtles, red blood, blue sky, double happiness, lalala, they singsong.
No! That’s not how it goes. That’s not how double happiness goes.
But I can’t remember how it goes either.