Such a Pretty Fiction: Chapter 9
This is the ninth chapter of my novel, Such a Pretty Fiction. Chapter 8 is here.
In the morning we went through it all again, close and intimate and happy. We held hands in the taxi to the airport.
Cusco looked like a village but felt like a city. The streets were crowded. People moved quickly. The road climbed gently uphill. Billboards advertised the train that ran down the valley to Machu Picchu.
Normally in Cusco Soledad stayed at an hospedaje. This time she had booked rooms at a luxury hotel in an old Spanish monastery behind the Plaza de Armas. Our taxi squeezed down a narrow lane and parked in a small plaza in front of the hotel. It was two stories, built on a foundation of Incan masonry still visible low along the street. A Peruvian in a suit and flat cap opened the door. We walked into a sandstone foyer. Behind the desk was a glass wall onto a courtyard with palm trees and a balcony ringing the second story.
Soledad had booked two rooms. She explained to the receptionist we would just need one. It felt like hearing a secret. The man behind the desk smiled politely.
“Of course.”
The room was up an arched staircase on the second story. It opened off the balcony overlooking the courtyard with the palm trees. Inside, a four-poster bed stood against the wall.
I set down my bag. “What would your donors say if they knew you were spending their money on a four-poster bed?”
“Good point.” She swung her backpack onto her shoulder. “Let’s check out and move to a hostel. Maybe there’s a campsite on the edge of town.”
I laughed and kissed her hair. Her hands were on me, and we were together again on the brocade bedspread in the soft light peeking through the blinds.
Afterwards we lay together and talked. She was right-handed but played soccer with her left leg. I’d never heard of such a thing. I hugged her close and was glad she was with me.
We took a shower together on the tile floor and went out holding hands into the city. The sun was bright but it was cold. Even if she hadn’t told me we were two miles above sea level, I would have known we were high. There was a thin, reedy quality to everything that gave it away. The air, the light, the shimmer on the hills over the tops of the buildings.
We ate a late lunch down the road from the hotel. The restaurant catered to Westerners, with pizza and beer brewed nearby. The cheese was riper than the mozzarella I was used to. We sat facing each other, chairs scooted close. As we ate we touched our knees to emphasize a compliment or lighten a joke.
We walked to the Plaza de Armas. It was huge like the plaza in Santiago. A pair of churches flanked one corner, overlooking the low buildings that spread out over the far side. Cars drove around the edges. Only the side in front of the cathedral, the larger of the two churches, was closed to traffic. In the center of the plaza a fountain bubbled water into the mountain air. Men sold trinkets. Local women in bowler hats and wrapped in bright ponchos carried baby llamas, offering them to tourists for photos.
Soledad led me into the cathedral. The noise of the plaza was a faint hum seeping through the stones. We began a circuit in the sanctuary away from the altar. Every wall was decorated with giant oil paintings that stretched up to the ceiling. I let go of Soledad’s hand to make a show of admiring them, advancing slowly, lingering so she could see I appreciated art.
In a low voice that echoed off the ceiling, she told me the artists were Incas that had mastered oil painting. Cusco had been a different city then, the defeated center of an ancient empire. She was proud of the subtle ways the paintings were transgressive. When we reached the altar, she pointed overhead. Painted on the ceiling was the Last Supper, with a guinea pig as the main course.
“Why would they let them paint a guinea pig?” My whisper echoed off the stone pillars and the carved wooden saints.
She shrugged and shook her head, a smile on her face. She stared up at Jesus with his arms spread over a South American rodent, Galilee out the windows behind him.
The other church on the plaza had a bell tower with a view over the city. I followed her up the rickety steps. The wood was worn smooth and looked like it hadn’t been replaced for a hundred years. It creaked under our feet.
“It’s a good thing you’re not any fatter,” she said over her shoulder.
“At least if they go, you’ll go first. Very generous to put your life on the line for me. I’m glad you had that extra slice of pizza.”
She stopped to laugh and leaned against the stone wall, breathing hard. “Really…” She took a breath. “They’re sturdier than they look… Survived earthquakes… Survive someone like you.” Her head rested against the wall, half turned toward me, face red and gleaming under the bare bulbs lighting our way.
The view at the top was worth the climb. The bricks of the plaza floated below us like a kite. Through some trick of perspective it seemed to be inclining toward the tower, like gravity was pulling it upward. The tiny people and the cars looked like they should slide off down the mountain. To our right, spires shot up from the cathedral. All the other buildings were low, the same two stories as the hotel. Terracotta tiles rolled away from us in all directions. Soledad pointed at a ruin of black stones on a hill that knifed into the city.
“That’s where we’re going next.”
Back in the plaza, we held hands and meandered upwards. We walked past the hotel into a warren of narrow streets. We found a flight of steps and began to climb.
We went slowly. Stout little women passed us without a word, pairs of black braids hurrying up the steps. At the top, the stairs disappeared into grass. Then we were in a meadow, on the edge of a complex of stone walls and mounds of earth. The walls had been the Inca fortress of Sacsayhuamán. Soledad said it was destroyed twice. First by the Spanish with two hundred cavalry. Then by the locals, who carried away the stones that had been cut and fitted together so perfectly that there was no need for mortar. Only the giant boulders remained, protected by the fact that no one remembered how to move them.
We drifted back to the stairs. The city looked different than it had from the tower. The same pieces were there. Churches, red tile roofs, hills and mountains on the horizon. But from the church it had seemed like we were on top of a living city, the sound of car horns drifting up to us on the breeze, pigeons whirling around the cathedral. From here Cusco was quiet, like we were standing on the edge of someone’s model of how they thought the city should be.
On our way back down the stairs, an old woman smiled at us and offered a polite “Buenas noches.” She was right. The day was ending. The light was growing paler, the shadows longer, the air colder.
We had dinner at a restaurant off the plaza, crowded with people on Friday night. We shared our drinks and planned the next day. We’d be going into the countryside with Clara, one of the doctors Soledad worked with at the university in Cusco.
Soledad wanted to see how many women were using Nosotras. I took out my phone. We’d had two hundred women log on in the last twenty-four hours. That didn’t seem possible.
“What’s wrong?” Soledad asked.
“Something’s wrong with the numbers…” I refreshed the page. “We have two hundred people using it. That’s too high. Look.” I showed her the screen. “People logged on in Cusco. That’s impossible, isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “Probably Clara and her students. Doctors need to talk to the women.”
“Well, still. Way more than I expected. I’ll have to get Candace to up our quota.”
“Will that be a problem?”
“No. No, it’s not that.”
“Never doubt Nosotras.” She smiled and took a sip of her drink.
When we left the restaurant, night had fallen. It was dark and the cold of the mountains had set in. The roads didn’t behave as we expected. With the buildings so close it was hard to find landmarks. Even the bell tower only appeared in snatches, brightly lit against the black sky.
Eventually we found the tiny plaza fronting the hotel. The doorman opened the glass doors. The tinkling of piano keys rushed out into the street on a gust of warm air. We followed the piano down steps off the lobby to the bar. It was a long, high room dotted with black lacquered tables. The pianist was behind a grand piano in the far corner. A bartender stood behind a white marble bar running along the wall opposite a fireplace.
He gave us a menu. His English was strong.
“Gracias,” Soledad said.
The bartender raised his eyebrows at her accent. He asked where she was from.
She answered in Spanish.
He replied with a word I didn’t recognize. “Cool,” he translated. “Do you speak Spanish?”
I held my thumb and forefinger close together. “Muy poquito.”
He nodded at Soledad. “The best way to learn. You’ll be fluent in no time.” He winked and broke into a wide smile. “I am Nicolas.”
We got pisco sours. Nicolas explained each step, spinning the bottles and flourishing the garnishes to impress us, winking when we rewarded him with laughter. Soledad mimed applause. He smiled and bowed.
We took a sip at the bar to show him we enjoyed them and carried the glasses toward the piano, picking our way between the glossy black tables.
“Logan!” A man’s voice. “Logan!” I looked around. A hand waved from a table to the left of the fireplace.
There was Rafa. He wore the same blue polo. A beer bottle rested on the table in front of him. I cursed under my breath.
“Is that Rafa?” Soledad asked. “With a cerveza?” She lisped the word. “Do we have to?”
“I can’t think of any way out of it…”
Rafa slid a chair from a nearby table over to his own. I sat across from him. Soledad was between us, facing the wall.
“Small world!” he said. “How goes the adventure? Saved many lives?”
“Something like that,” I said. “I mostly just hold the camera.”
“And that makes you the star.” He smirked at Soledad. He seemed drunk. “You were modest in Valpo. Didn’t mention your award. Soledad the genius!” He grinned at her. I wondered who had told him.
“Where’s Muriel?” I glanced toward the stairs, thinking I might see her returning from the bathroom.
His face fell. “New York,” he said softly, and sucked on his beer.
Soledad perked up. “What’s she doing in New York?” She picked her glass off the table and eyed him over the rim.
“Book stuff. A draft for her editor.”
“Oh good for her! Her memoir, right?” The chirp in her voice didn’t match Rafa’s tone. It sounded sharp.
He nodded and took another drink. This was a different Rafa than we had sat down with moments before. I’d scored a lucky point asking about Muriel. It derailed him. “The memoir about her poor life, her poor childhood, and her poor self.” He slurred the words together. He was very drunk.
Soledad glanced at me and raised her eyebrows.
“Are you staying here then?” I asked him.
“Cusco?” he said absently. He wasn’t looking at me.
Soledad stifled a laugh.
“Well Cusco, sure, but the hotel I mean. You staying here?”
“Oh. No. I just come here to drink. They make me anything I want. And they have good beer.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Few days.”
“Why Cusco? Machu Picchu?”
“Muriel and I were going to see Machu Picchu. When she flew back to New York, she told me to go without her. What’s the point, though…”
Soledad’s posture changed at this. Her voice was softer. “Rafa. That’s nice. So what are you doing instead?”
“Nothing really. Reading. Waiting.” He picked up the beer bottle and set it back down without drinking.
“When does she come back?”
He shrugged. “Least a week. Maybe longer.”
“Is she going to meet you here?”
“Depends on what happens in Nueva York.” He spit out the Spanish like he hated it.
“Well good for her,” Soledad said encouragingly.
“Yep. Good for her.” He stood up. His chair squeaked on the stone floor. “I’m taking off. Go ahead and put your drinks on my tab. He knows me. See you guys around.” Before we could reply, he shuffled off toward the door, swaying slightly.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
“Other than being drunk?”
“Something between him and Muriel?”
“Obviously. But I don’t know what.” She took a sip of her drink. “Maybe they broke up and he doesn’t want to tell us. Or maybe he realized the book is going to change things.”
“Why would the book change things?”
“Well, her editor’s flying her to New York to look over a draft. That must mean it’s good. If it’s good, and it sells, she’ll be successful.”
I waited for her to go on, but she didn’t. “So what? So her book is successful. Why would that be bad for Rafa? Doesn’t that just make everything easier?”
She turned her whole body toward me. For a moment she looked perplexed, like I might be making a joke. Then she looked like she felt bad for me. Like she was sorry I even had to ask the question. “No. It doesn’t. If she’s a successful author, who is he? Some guy she met in San Francisco. Everything will not get easier.”
“You think so? Even after they’ve been together all this time? You saw him support her on the boat. You think she’d cut him off just like that?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Plus his dad is famous. At least in Spain. That’s something. And he’s got money. Or his dad does. That’s something, right?”
She shrugged.
“God… Be careful. You’re going to make me feel bad for Rafa.”
She rolled the stem of her glass between her fingers. The white napkin swirled on the black lacquer. I put my hand on the table. She looked at me. Her face was blank. Then she smiled and took my hand. We finished our drinks and listened to the piano. On the way out we told Nicolas we were on Rafa’s tab.
“Ah, the Spaniard,” he said. “He is your friend?”
Soledad and I looked at each other.
Nicolas nodded. “I understand completely.”