The Varieties of Romantic Experience by Robert Cohen

Author:Robert Cohen [Cohen, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2002-02-26T04:30:00+00:00

It was obviously some illness of his own, thought Victor, watching the continent swallow the winged shadow of the plane. There was no other explanation. Among the bonds that tied him to Philip Averick, a quest such as this had no precedent; it was a transmutation of loyalty into recklessness, sense into nonsense. He brooded over it as the plane hurtled southeast. At last he found, at the bottom of his third glass of scotch, an idea that he liked: Averick was actually doing him a favor. He'd been sent to Mexico not on some ludicrous whim, but as a deliberate act of mercy, the opportunity to escape his friend's decline without dishonor. Averick had done the selfless, farsighted thing, and set him free.

Or had he?

Donna Gans, at last report—the news was several years old—had moved to the Yucatán, where she managed a small two-star tourist hotel in Mérida. Whether or not she was still with Jorge they'd been unable to ascertain; Averick's sources when it came to Donna had never been particularly reliable. Still, he liked to work the phones. The absence, not the presence, was what engaged a man's energies. The prospect of connection with the unseen. It was the same thing that had brought him to radio, Victor thought. He stood in the terminal, fingering the slip of paper containing the hotel's address, and waiting for his luggage to arrive on the enormous belt.

Though it was January, the air was steamy and flooded with sunlight. He had to squint to see the horizon. Thick low-slung jungle, only ten feet high, was invading the airport area, buckling the tarmac and threatening the roads. Palm trees with yellow flowers bowed toward his taxi as he sped into town. The streets were narrow, with tiny sidewalks. All the buildings were low to the ground, except for the massive cathedral that loomed over the zocalo, dwarfing the flowers in shadow. Victor could smell their blossoms from the car. There was a transistor radio on the dashboard, tinkling a pop tune. The back of the driver's head swayed benignly to the melody.

“Hotel del Prado, señor.”

The fare, as he understood it, came to several thousand pesos. He fumbled in his pocket for the unfamiliar bills, reminding himself that the exchange rate made this a very small sum indeed. Regardless, Averick was footing the bill. He was being carried. He would have to get used to it.

Though the façade of the hotel was all but indistinguishable from the colorless plaster of the neighboring apartment houses, inside he found another world, a lush courtyard of bougainvillea and guano palms, their limbs ascending toward the balconies, their leaves drooping moistly over the iron railings. The air was cool. A tiny lizard stood frozen on the bottom stair, arrested between the solid geometry of the tiles and the profuse disorder of the garden. Victor imagined a whole city of hidden life inside the walls, under the floor, staking out the interstices of the cultivated and the wild.

“ Señor?”

He could hardly believe his luck.

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