I dreamed that night of the cenotes we swam in back in the summers when we’d first met, the deep jungle sinkholes near the beach towns, far from the main smuggling conduits. But I was alone this time, and no matter how often I dove in I couldn’t see anything under the water—no trees, no roots, no sign of Bernardo. Eventually I clambered up a rock face only to find the tall trees giving way to the dusty Oaxacan valleys and cracked clay earth. A quiet digital whine drifted through the air, resolving itself into a cough—someone was checking a microphone.
I followed the weatherworn two-lane highway away from the cenote and came to a press conference. It wasn’t warm enough for the heat to rise from the ground, but a shimmer seemed to emanate from the black raised platform where the speaker towers and a rosewood podium sat waiting. Folding chairs littered the surrounding area, and when I sat down they seemed to fill with white reporters, clutching pencils, wearing little hats. Finally a tall man stepped up to the podium, ancient, craggy, chewing a cigar, wearing glasses. He murmured out to us.
“We, as you’re no doubt aware, we are in a crisis of frankly unparalleled proportions.” The clicking of shutters began as the seated throng pulled out cameras, but he pressed on. “By which, by which I mean to say, of course, that while the problems we face are not… not insurmountable, the efforts and sacrifices that will be required on the part of the American people will be… be deep and… ahm, continuous for a long period of time.” His features seemed to shift with the words—at times the way he stooped made his lapels reflect the lights of the flash bulbs, and I could almost catch the reflection of a pin or a rose. The people around me stood, asking questions in Spanish.
From behind the podium, Bernardo stepped around to keep the questions orderly, but the white men in the little hats shouted past him at the tall, old man.
“Bernardo!” I shouted. “What are you doing here?”
“One minute,” he shouted back. “Give us some light here, huh?”
From behind me I heard the shouting grow frenzied and realized the press was turning around. The man at the podium reached under it and pulled out a desk phone, but it was too late. A massive, canvas sign came fluttering down from the sky, seeming to catch the breeze but dropping unerringly towards its target. Bernardo stared up at it as it passed between him and the sun. I screamed at him with the reporters, but it landed with a cloud of dust over the speaker towers, and I saw its message in well-printed red letters:
¿QUIÈN COMPRA UN PRODUCTO DESCONOCIDO?
I started running back towards the cenote as the digital whine grew into muffled feedback from the draped stage, but the forest and the sinkhole were both gone from the road. Behind me I saw the press, discarding their hats and frantically running with their notebooks, but alongside them men in bright white clothes carried cloth banners of their own, rushing to find some sort of higher ground to make their messages clear. The feedback grew into a keening wail. I dropped to my knees. When I woke up the phone was ringing.
April 05, 2009, 9:39pm Comments
