Forty One
Their time at JFK, with the attendant queuing and tearing of stubs and the subliminal harassment of the security checks, was mercifully brief. Before the departure had even been apprehended as such, the airplane was climbing out of the weather quickly and they were once again under a resplendent sky. Turning away from their still unsettled thoughts, and surrendering to the steady drone of the engines, both women slept for most of the four hours of flight. The other passengers erupted out of their seats all at once as soon as the plane came to a stop. It was once again easy to submit to a communal will at such moments that were linked by superficial familiarity to other trips. Thus, no thinking was required. The plane disgorged them directly onto the broiling tarmac. It wasn’t like the New York heat at its worst though, which filled you with immediate despair. Here, it seemed an understanding was implicit: if you did not shuffle about too vigorously under the sun, you would be permitted to survive. So all of the passengers formed themselves into a slow caravan, some miserably trailing carried-on items, toward the customs area of the Aeropuerto Las Americas.
By virtue of Antoinette’s presence, they both got through Dominican customs almost without any grief. Though Carmen had long since secured her own blue passport, as a patent Dominicana, she would have been troubled with a careful search of her luggage for any items with high re-sale potential, and would have certainly suffered a more familiar treatment from the agents. Instead, they probably dismissed them as a pair of vacationing lesbians; one lucky to have latched onto a rich Yanqui patron, the other indulging in a taste of exotic Latin flesh.
From the capital, they would have to drive another two hours to Higuey. So once the business of the rental was settled, and they had gotten some snacks and several bottles of colored pop, they were on the highway. Carmen was surprised with how much of her own Choferismo Dominicano remained. The ramps and turns of the airport were unchanged since the last time she’d been there seven years before, and the highway itself was nothing more than a straight road with two lanes in each direction and a palm-dotted median. You could only tell one decade from another along La Carretera del Aeropuerto by the billboards which lined it; subtly as small hotels or hole-in-the-wall caféés were promoted, flashed briefly with popularity then faded into ruin; or more obviously as the garish colors of the prevailing political party shouted the issues of the moment in giant letters.
Driving toward the East, the sea was a constant presence on the right side of the jeep; at times remote, so that only the distant line of the horizon was visible, at times near enough that the crashing waves misted the windshield. Carmen was a good driver, and her dark-spectacled demeanor behind the wheel seemed to invest the entire odyssey with a much-needed hopefulness. Antoinette was still examining some of her newly-acquired Dominican paper money. When she tired of just looking at it, she brought it cautiously to her nose. “Why does it smell?�? she said. Carmen understood that her interest in the money might be a bit contrived, but also that it was important that there should be some conversation as they drove. “I dunno. Because it’s old maybe.�?
For a while there was the agreeable illusion of unworried lightness between them. They both knew it was fragile and could not last, but were content to speak only words which would not destroy the fantasy of girlfriends on holiday. As they were settling into the rhythm of the road, with wind, warmth and dappled sunlight bathing the interior of the topless Suzuki, there was a commotion on the road ahead.
The way was suddenly blocked by a thick column of dust straddling both directions of traffic. The two or three cars ahead of them that were still visible slowed to a crawl, and the reality of the moment rushed in on them. As they neared the dust cloud, they could see a number of cars littering the middle of the road, seemingly tossed about at random by the hand of a giant. A flatbed truck had slid across from the other side of the highway, deracinated a number of palm trees from the median and plowed broadside into the oncoming traffic. All the cars were tiny 3-cylinder Daihatsus or Suzukis, and they had been crushed like toys. As they entered the cloud, they passed a car on the left where a woman was screaming, waving her arms in the air; the car was a crumpled ball of foil where her legs ought to be. Off the road to the right, another toy car had driven straight into a particularly stout palm tree. The driver, a dark young man, was draped like a doll over the open door; from his lifeless head hung a strip of bright, pink tissue. Both women gasped in unison.
“Camioneros locos!�? Carmen shouted, gritting her teeth. “Motherfucker truck drivers, always killing people on this road. I only hope the bastard died too!�?
Antoinette could see that it became a labor for Carmen to keep driving after that. But she had no desire to take over the chore herself. “Another few seconds and it would have been us.�? Was all she managed to say.
“It wasn’t our turn.�? Carmen said. Her right foot felt numb and too weak to depress the gas pedal with any conviction.
After that, the rest of the drive to Higuey felt like standing on a high balcony, overlooking a changeless landscape, a sea voyage experienced from the crow’s nest. Though the sun declined in the sky, and the colors of the world shifted markedly toward the orange, the accident still held them in that stark, shadowless high-noon moment. It seemed more horrible that they never actually stopped, that they just floated through it, never fixing themselves in any way to that place at that time. If a stone on the road had been nudged by a foot, or a blade of grass bent by a heel, it would have been enough. But instead they transcended like phantoms; they cheated. It was not enough to understand how narrowly death had missed them. They should have stopped and looked it firmly in the face, known that it was those other people that were steeped in it and not them. If they had stopped, it would have positioned the two women in one place and death in another, with a calculable distance of several seconds in between. Now they were uncertain whether it had really missed them at all, whether it had come close, like a comet that puts awe in the sky for a few nights then goes away for a thousand years. They would know they were safe, because such things are never so far away as when they have just missed you.
Higuey mounded up slowly along both sides of the highway, so that after a few kilometers, they were suddenly driving down the town’s main street. The modern buildings were all one- or two-story structures made from the same gray cement blocks, the facades stenciled in purple and red with the faces of the primary presidential candidates. The more historic landmarks, like the colonial church and the governor’s palace, were accorded the dignity of bills and glue in lieu of paint. Antoinette craned her head back as they passed an ancient billetero calling out his best numbers in a high haunting wail. “Seis cincuentay-nueve. Que bonito número. Que bonito número.�? At an unregulated intersection, where it seemed prudent to stop, they were assailed by a horde of half-naked children, all extending their arms into the jeep with fruits and candies and skewered bits of suspicious-looking meat. Antoinette was tempted by a ripe mango, but Carmen waved them away and put the jeep quickly into gear.
“If you take out your money, especially dollars, forget about it. They’ll be climbing into the car like a bunch of animals.�? Carmen said, removing her sunglasses for the first time. “We’ll be at the hotel in fifteen minutes. I’m hungry too, and tired. I won’t go out to Felo’s house until tomorrow anyway.”