Stranger by David Bergen

Author:David Bergen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2016-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

SHE took what she thought was the correct bus, but then she got off too soon, and she was lost. She sat on a bench at another bus stop and she watched the cars and the people, and each time a bus came by it stopped and the doors opened and people got off and people got on, but she just sat there. She saw that many of the people who rode the buses were poor and it reminded her of home, though these people here did not look at you, nor did anyone say hello. At some point she stood and began to walk. She had the new clothes she wore and she carried her small pack with its extra sweater and she still had the money that she had once again taped to her stomach. She also had Gabriel’s shoe in her pack. And the lunch from Isabella.

She ate the lunch in a park where some boys were skateboarding. She watched them as she ate and when she was done she drank some water and she licked her fingers and spilled a bit of water onto her hands and cleaned them. She drank some more and then put the cap on the water bottle. The boys were filming each other, bending low to record their performances. They showed no interest in her. She imagined that it would be very easy not to be noticed. She sat for an hour in the sunshine. One of the boys passed by, near to her, and he looked at her and said hello in English and she was so surprised to be addressed that she said nothing.

The boy passed by again and stopped. Hey, he said.

She said hello and then she asked in English where the bus station was.

Downtown, he said. He pointed.

She looked in that direction.

’Bout ten minutes. And then he said, Peace, and he kept moving.

She stood and began to walk. The sun was hot and she was thirsty and so she drank and she thought of water and heat and she pushed these thoughts away and kept walking. She thought about the boy’s voice and how happily he had said the word “peace.”

At the bus terminal she stood inside where it was cool and she watched the people. She found an empty spot on a bench and she sat and waited. The signs in the terminal were in Spanish and English and she heard many people speaking her language. An older woman passed by speaking in the accent of her place, where she had come from, and her heart lifted and she wanted to follow the woman, but she was gone. She sat for an hour, watching. She saw where people bought tickets and she saw them climb on the buses, but she was afraid to move forward, and she felt very tired. There were police with guns standing at all the entrances, but this did not surprise her, as she came from a place where a Coca-Cola truck had its own guard with a shotgun.

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