The Angel Esmeralda - By Don DeLillo Page 0,1

seemed propelled by some deep saving force. A primitive baptism might have been in progress. The rest of us crowded around the clerk. He was putting checks next to some names, crossing out others.

“The flight is full,” he said. “The flight is full.”

There were eight or ten faces left, bland in their traveler’s woe. Various kinds of English were being spoken. Someone suggested we all get together and charter a plane. It was fairly common practice here. Someone else said something about a nine-seater. The first person took names, then went out with several others to find the charter office. I asked the clerk about the late-afternoon flight. He didn’t know why it had been canceled. I asked him to book Jill and me on the first flight out next day. The passenger list wasn’t available, he said. All he could do was put us on standby. We would all know more in the morning.

Using only feet, Jill and I pushed our luggage to the door. One of the charter prospects came back to tell us a plane might be available later in the day—a six-seater, only. This seemed to leave us out. I gestured to Rupert and we started taking things out to the car. Rupert had a long face and a gap between his front teeth and wore a silver medal over his breast pocket—an elaborate oval decoration attached to a multicolored strip of cloth.

Jill sat in back, reading. Out by the trunk, Rupert was saying he knew a hotel not far from the harbor. His gaze kept straying to the right. A woman was standing five feet away, very still, waiting for us to finish talking. I thought I recalled having seen her at the edge of the crowd inside the terminal. She wore a gray dress and carried a handbag. There was a small suitcase at her feet.

“Please, my taxi went back,” she said to me.

She was pale, with a soft plain face, a full mouth and cropped brown hair. She held her right hand up near her forehead to keep the sun out of her eyes. It was agreed we would share the taxi fare to the hotel and then ride out together in the morning. She said she was number seven.

It was hot and bright all the way back. The woman sat up front with Rupert. At intervals she turned to Jill and me and said, “It is awful, awful, the system they have,” or, “I don’t understand how they survive economically,” or, “They could not guarantee I will get out even tomorrow.”

When we stopped for some goats, a woman came out of the trees to sell us nutmeg in little plastic bags.

“Where are we listed?” Jill said.

“Two and three this time.”

“What time’s the flight?”

“Six forty-five. We have to be there at six. Rupert, we have to be there at six.”

“I take you.”

“Where are we going now?” Jill said.

“Hotel.”

“I know hotel. What sort of hotel?”

“Did you see me jump, back there?”

“I missed that.”

“I jumped in the air.”

“It won’t be Barbados, will it?” she said.

“Read your book,” I told her.

The ketch was still anchored in the harbor. I pointed it out to the woman up front and explained that we’d spent the last week and a half aboard. She turned and smiled wanly as if she were too tired to work out the meaning of my remarks. We were in the hills, heading south. I realized what made this harbor town seem less faded and haphazard than the other small ports we’d put into. Stone buildings. It was almost Mediterranean.

At the hotel there was no problem getting rooms. Rupert said he’d be waiting at five next morning. Two maids preceded us along the beach, with a porter following. We split into two groups, and Jill and I were led to what was called a pool suite. Behind a ten-foot wall was a private garden of hibiscus, various shrubs and a silk-cotton tree. The small pool was likewise ours. On the patio we found a bowl full of bananas, mangoes and pineapple.

“Not half bad,” Jill said.

She slept awhile. I floated in the pool, feeling the uneasy suspense lift off me, the fret of getting somewhere in groups—documented travel. This spot was so close to perfect we would not even want to tell ourselves how lucky we were, having been delivered to it. The best of new places had to be protected from our own cries of delight. We would hold the words for weeks or months,