palm trees hover overhead as we, along with hundreds of other vehicles, lurch and crawl and bump over the city streets. The driver doesn’t stop at intersections. Instead, he honks twice—two little bleats to announce that we are coming through—then barrels ahead. Traffic lights are rare. On side streets, there are stop signs, and elsewhere traffic is regulated naturally by the halting ebb and flow of vehicles pressing slowly ahead, edging around each other, making their own lanes, turning where they want, stopping in the gravel along the side of the street.
“I’m glad I don’t have to drive here,” I whisper to Danilo.
“Eh. It looks like a fucking mess, but it’s so slow that people never get in accidents,” he says.
We pass stout white buildings with wavy red-clay roofs, restaurants with their names painted in block letters onto the façade, strip centers, uniformed guards with machine guns slung over their shoulders pacing the street corners, a man selling Coca-Cola and Orange Crush in bottles from a cart, apartment buildings with laundry hanging over the balconies, huge cathedrals, people holding umbrellas on street corners, kids selling fruit stuffed into long plastic sleeves, covered bus stops, wild tangles of plants in every open space. This is it. I’ve been staring at the photographs in my guidebook for weeks. But now, this is it.
Danilo asked me the address before we got on. I told him: Ave A. Casa 822. He clucked his tongue and grimaced.
“What?” I asked. “Do you know it?”
“I don’t know the house, but that address is in a bad area.”
“How bad?”
“It’s just . . . Look, it’s not terrible. But it’s a good thing you’re going there with me. Let’s just say that.”
I didn’t press him about what that meant exactly. I don’t know, maybe I should have. But what would have been the point? The address was the address, after all, and no matter where it was, it was where I needed to go.
Another fifteen minutes into our ride, the bus stops. I don’t think anything of it at first. Outside, a dog sniffs at a styrofoam container of food open on the sidewalk. But by the time the dog wanders away, we’re still stopped. Two cars in the intersection in front of us start honking at each other. I glance at Danilo. He’s gazing out the window across the aisle, totally unconcerned. Behind us, two men start talking about how a month earlier one of the city buses caught fire and how the passengers rushed to the back exit to get out but the door was sealed shut, so they changed course and surged toward the front of the bus instead, but with everyone scrambling and pushing and screaming and climbing over one another, most of them got trapped inside the bus and died when it went up in flames. The woman across the aisle from us is holding an ivory-colored rosary in her lap, working her fingers from one smooth bead to the next.
“Danilo,” I say. “Are we close?” If we are, maybe we can just get out and walk.
“Not really.”
“How long have we been sitting here?”
He surveys the deadlock in front of us. “Who knows?”
A bubble of panic rises inside me. What am I doing here, on this bus, with someone I hardly know? He could be taking me anywhere. He could be anyone. I’ve heard the stories about tourists who are kidnapped or murdered when visiting a foreign country, and yet here I am, trusting him. Why did I talk to him in the first place?
I look at Danilo again, at his soft earlobe and the fine hairs that gather in a little curl just below it, the buttons of his spine peeking out over the stretched, droopy neck of his T-shirt. He grips the back of the seat in front of him with one hand outstretched and, as I’m staring at him, drops his head to wipe his forehead against his arm. Then he turns to me again.
“You okay?” he asks. “You look, I don’t know, strange.”
I laugh in spite of myself. “What a compliment.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Maybe
“I’m glad I don’t have to drive here,” I whisper to Danilo.
“Eh. It looks like a fucking mess, but it’s so slow that people never get in accidents,” he says.
We pass stout white buildings with wavy red-clay roofs, restaurants with their names painted in block letters onto the façade, strip centers, uniformed guards with machine guns slung over their shoulders pacing the street corners, a man selling Coca-Cola and Orange Crush in bottles from a cart, apartment buildings with laundry hanging over the balconies, huge cathedrals, people holding umbrellas on street corners, kids selling fruit stuffed into long plastic sleeves, covered bus stops, wild tangles of plants in every open space. This is it. I’ve been staring at the photographs in my guidebook for weeks. But now, this is it.
Danilo asked me the address before we got on. I told him: Ave A. Casa 822. He clucked his tongue and grimaced.
“What?” I asked. “Do you know it?”
“I don’t know the house, but that address is in a bad area.”
“How bad?”
“It’s just . . . Look, it’s not terrible. But it’s a good thing you’re going there with me. Let’s just say that.”
I didn’t press him about what that meant exactly. I don’t know, maybe I should have. But what would have been the point? The address was the address, after all, and no matter where it was, it was where I needed to go.
Another fifteen minutes into our ride, the bus stops. I don’t think anything of it at first. Outside, a dog sniffs at a styrofoam container of food open on the sidewalk. But by the time the dog wanders away, we’re still stopped. Two cars in the intersection in front of us start honking at each other. I glance at Danilo. He’s gazing out the window across the aisle, totally unconcerned. Behind us, two men start talking about how a month earlier one of the city buses caught fire and how the passengers rushed to the back exit to get out but the door was sealed shut, so they changed course and surged toward the front of the bus instead, but with everyone scrambling and pushing and screaming and climbing over one another, most of them got trapped inside the bus and died when it went up in flames. The woman across the aisle from us is holding an ivory-colored rosary in her lap, working her fingers from one smooth bead to the next.
“Danilo,” I say. “Are we close?” If we are, maybe we can just get out and walk.
“Not really.”
“How long have we been sitting here?”
He surveys the deadlock in front of us. “Who knows?”
A bubble of panic rises inside me. What am I doing here, on this bus, with someone I hardly know? He could be taking me anywhere. He could be anyone. I’ve heard the stories about tourists who are kidnapped or murdered when visiting a foreign country, and yet here I am, trusting him. Why did I talk to him in the first place?
I look at Danilo again, at his soft earlobe and the fine hairs that gather in a little curl just below it, the buttons of his spine peeking out over the stretched, droopy neck of his T-shirt. He grips the back of the seat in front of him with one hand outstretched and, as I’m staring at him, drops his head to wipe his forehead against his arm. Then he turns to me again.
“You okay?” he asks. “You look, I don’t know, strange.”
I laugh in spite of myself. “What a compliment.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Maybe
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