Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins Page B

Hector an affectionate
squeeze of the shoulder.
    “No! Please! You are not leaving?”
    “Afraid so. It’s getting vivid in
here, if you catch my drift. Good luck, pal. Ha sido estupenda. I’ll be
in touch.”
    As he headed for the exit, he called,
“Order Gloria there a pot of coffee. And don’t forget to put it on your expense
account. The company’s a mile-high Santa Claus with an elastic sack.”
    On the taxi ride back to the Centro,
he passed one of the cathedrals he had visited earlier that day. It was the one
with the statue of the angel on its porch. Once while playing Ping-Pong with
Suzy—one of the rare times he was left alone with her—he had asked her what
language she thought the angels spoke. “Oh,” she answered, without missing a
stroke, “probably the same one Jesus speaks.”
    “The historical Jesus is believed to
have spoken Aramaic. Of all the possible languages, why would the heavenly
hosts choose to converse in a long-dead Semitic dialect from southwest Asia ?
Do you suppose.”
    She looked so puzzled that he
regretted at once having broached the subject. Suzy was a “babe in Christ,” as
the Bible refers to them, and “babes in Christ” become quite unhappy when asked
to actually think about their faith. “Whatever,” she said cryptically,
and smashed a shot past his outstretched paddle.
    “I guess it wouldn’t matter whether
we could comprehend angel talk or not,” he conceded. “They’ve got those
trumpets and flaming swords, and glow-in-the-dark accessories, they’d find a
way to get their point across. I’m multilingual, so I’ve been told, but I spend
a lot of time in countries where I can’t understand the language at all. And
you know, Suzy, I’m coming to prefer it that way. It’s uplifting. When you go
for a while without being able to understand a word of what anybody around you
is saying, you start to forget what banal bores our blathering brethren be.”
    Suzy found that highly amusing, and
when they traded ends of the table for the next game, she allowed him a
fleeting fondle—which, of course, assured her of victory in the match.
    Incidentally, Switters and his
friends lumped all CIA agents into one of two categories: cowboys or angels.
They spoke the same language, the cowboys and the angels, but with different
emphasis and to far different ends.
    It was approaching 2 A.M. when he reached the Gran Hotel Bolívar, and the lobby
was not surprisingly shadowy and quiet. No sooner had he walked in, however,
than a figure shot from one of the overstuffed chairs and began walking toward
him. His hand slid to the pistol in his belt.
    The figure was stoop shouldered and a
little gimpy.
    “Señor Switter. Who do you find to
buy your tractors at this late hour?”
    “Why, Juan Carlos, I’ve been to midnight mass.” He shook hands with the guide. “Didn’t see you there. The priest was asking about you. He’s worried you aren’t getting enough
rest.”
    “Do not joke, señor. I could not rest
for the thinking of your situation. You have changed your mind about breaking
the heart of your dear grandmama?”
    “No, my plans are firm. But don’t
worry, pal. My grandmother’s tough as a plastic steak. And she’s adamant about
giving that cracker-snapper its freedom.”
    Juan Carlos looked as downcast as a
busted flowerpot. “If you take it to Iquitos ,” he said, “it will not be free for long.” The guide
explained that despite its romantic reputation as an exotic jungle town and the
capital of Amazonia , Iquitos had
grown into a city of nearly four hundred thousand residents, and logging and
farming were pushing the rain forest farther and farther from its streets. “You
must go fifty kilometers from Iquitos in any direction to find the primary jungle, and even
there your bird may not be safe. The parrot market in Iquitos is very big, señor, very extensive. Your grandmama’s
friend will only be captured and put in another cage. Eventually, some