23
bittersweet
THE MORNING PASSED BY AS IF IN A DREAM.
After somehow getting ready, Wara followed Alejo out of El Cupido and waited a few blocks away on a shaded corner for a missionary family, the Paulsons, to come pick them up. Alejo had said something about the Prism finding them, so they would need to try to sneak into the house where the funeral would be held. He insisted she call someone with a van so they could hide out lying on the floor. The Paulsons had quickly agreed to pick them up.
Corban and Misty Paulson had been good friends with Noah; no one said a word during the entire ride to the house where the funeral would be held.
A solemn metallic clanging and the stilling of the purring engine told Wara that the van had finally arrived inside the gate of the Bennesons’ house. She picked herself up off the floor, brushing crumbs off her pants in a daze. She followed Alejo and the Paulsons across the wide lawn with its spiky green grass, around a multitude of assorted Land Cruisers and Brasilias already parked inside the house’s walls. The zip of cool air inside the shade of the white-walled house hit her face, along with the unnatural hush emanating from within.
Everyone turned to stare as she slipped through the door. Wara swayed on her feet, overcome by the sight of all of her friends, Noah’s friends, gathered here, because Noah was actually dead.
“Wara!” Tobin was folding her into an embrace against his bony shoulders. “I can’t believe this happened to Noah. We were so worried. About both of you.” Wara pulled away from him numbly, only to find herself hugged by person after person from her mission. From Noah’s church. Tobias, the other Australian, was scrubbing reddish eyes, obviously trying not to cry as he gave her a quick hug. She saw Tobin’s gaze ride up to where Alejo stood somewhere in the background, probably looking dangerous and out of place at a funeral with his uncut curly hair and jeans. Wara wondered for a brief moment if she should feel like a traitor for daring to come to Noah’s funeral with the man who was responsible for his death. But then she realized she couldn’t feel anything, not yet.
“Wara,” Tobias was saying, “we brought a guitar for you. They want you to sing something for Noah—just one song. Can you do it?”
Wara gulped, then nodded without thinking. Of course she would sing, if it was for Noah.
It was her last chance.
“Thanks,” Tobias nodded and sniffed loudly, laying a hand on her arm. Then he was off in the direction of the living room. She didn’t know what to do, so she just followed him, practically floating in the sea of people milling around here at Noah’s funeral.
It was unreal.
Wara really, really wanted to cry.
As she moved to go into the main living area, a huge, arched room painted in bold colors, rough fingers brushed her arm. Wara looked up to find Eduardo Sejas, the good-looking Bolivian guy who had been in Coroico with Noah. His usually twinkling eyes were red-rimmed behind black trendy glasses, and he wore a dark suit and tie.
“Wara,” he started, and then his voice choked. “You’re still alive. We were so worried…”
“Is he here?” Wara heard herself say, glancing towards the living room.
“Yeah,” Eduardo said, and sighed. “I mean, he’s not really here, he’s with God, but...the casket is in there.”
Wara bit her lip and reached up with one hand to push a stray piece of hair out of one eye. As she did, Eduardo’s gaze followed her hand, and his mouth opened into a round “O”.
“They gave you Noah’s ring?” he asked, staring at the shining silver on her hand. Wara frowned, not sure who he was talking about. Eduardo grabbed her hand quickly and examined the ring.
“Isn’t that Noah’s ring?” He lifted his eyes to hers again, blinking behind the trendy glasses. “Did you find it after the accident?”
“No,” Wara said, realizing dully that Eduardo, as one of Noah’s best friends, must have seen this ring sometime before. She had never seen Noah wearing it.
Eduardo sniffed loudly, but his face lit up. “He gave it to you?”
“Yeah,” Wara said hesitantly, not sure where this was leading. Why did it really matter?
“That’s awesome!” Eduardo was actually grinning.
“What?” In her present condition, Wara was obviously missing something.
“Noah saved that ring for a really long time,” Eduardo explained slowly, as if revealing a delicious secret. “He said that he didn’t want to just casually date someone, but that when he started a relationship he wanted it to be serious. Well, a lot of the guys, we used to always tell him, ‘Well, start a relationship then! What are you waiting for?’ But Noah would always say that he thought maybe God wanted him to be single, since God hadn’t brought the right girl along yet. I told him so many times that that was a bunch of hogwash. He knew several great girls. Noah was just plain scared of commitment! He told me that his parents always fought like cats and dogs, and that they never loved each other a day in their lives.”
Wara swallowed hard and circled the ring around her finger. She knew that Noah’s relationship with his parents wasn’t the best, mostly due to his decision to be a missionary instead of pursuing a career that would make lots of money. He had never mentioned anything about his parents’ relationship with each other.
“So, last weekend, when he was going to Coroico,” Eduardo was going on, “Noah told me that he was taking the ring along, since God supposedly wasn’t bringing any girls into his life that he could give it to and he had reached the ripe old age of twenty-eight. He was just going to ceremoniously throw it out the side of the bus, over the road of death. To put to death the idea of marriage and living happily ever after.” Eduardo’s eyes were swimming but the twinkle was back “But it looks like he didn’t throw the ring over after all. He gave it to you...right?”
Wara just stared at him, because her throat hurt too much to try to speak. She gave a curt nod, not even trying to pretend she wasn’t about to cry. Eduardo looked very satisfied. “Thank you,” she finally whispered, wanting to ask more before she had to go into the living room.
But then she saw the couple dressed in black, standing at the back of the room through the wide double doors, weeping. Wara had never seen their picture, but the look of utter desolation on their faces and the way their gaze shifted uncomfortably around the room as if they were in a strange land they had never before imagined they would see, told her that these were Noah’s parents.
“His mom and dad.” Eduardo touched Wara’s arm, following the direction of her gaze. “We’ll talk another time, ok?”
Wara nodded, and glanced at Alejo, who was standing, tight-lipped behind her, pale face revealing that he had heard who was in the next room. She turned her back to him and forced herself to walk through the open double doors, completely ignoring the small, hushed groups of people clustered around the room, whispering. Her mind registered that the music she heard was Noah, one of the CDs he had recorded with the guys for fun at the studio on España. His voice cut her to the heart.
Why couldn’t that really be you?
A long table was set up in the corner with punch and refreshments. Ridiculous. Who could eat now?
Along the burgundy wall at the opposite side of the living room was an espresso-colored casket, lying on a curled metal stand, closed.
Wara’s knees felt weak. Before she could think she threw herself across the tile floor and drew up to the edge of the long, dark casket, spreading her hands out along the smooth wood. A tear dripped off her chin onto Noah’s casket, and Wara pressed her forehead into the cool wood, eyes closed.
If the world ended now, that would be just fine.
The shaky voice came from a woman just behind Wara. “Were you one of his friends?”
She reluctantly raised her head and stared at the speaker through bleary eyes. It was Noah’s mother: slim and fashionable, wearing a short black suit dress and a string of platinum-colored pearls, Bobbed hair dyed blond gave her the appearance of being much younger than she must be. Wara’s gaze shifted behind her and saw the portly, balding man that must be Noah’s father. He seemed at home in an expensive black suit with a sky blue tie. Drops of perspiration trickled down his forehead despite the coolness of the room.
“Yes,” Wara heard herself answer. The overweight father shuffled uncomfortably forward, glancing around the room as if he would give his entire fortune to be anywhere but here. He took his place at his wife’s side and tried to focus his attention on Wara. Wara ignored the trail left by the tear down her right cheek. “Are you Noah’s parents?”
“Yes, we are…were…his parents.” Noah’s mother had mascara smears under her emerald green eyes, and Wara’s heart flipped, recognizing Noah’s eyes in hers. With a stifled sob, his mother covered her mouth with one manicured hand and wiped away a stray tear with the other. “And you must have been a good friend,” she sniffed.
Wara blurted out, “I was…me and Noah were…I loved him. I was his girlfriend.” Yes, for a few minutes, but what did that matter now? She had Noah’s ring, and she knew that he had wanted to be with her.
Noah’s father looked shocked, and his mother burst into tears. Wara couldn’t miss Mr. Hearst’s disparaging look that traveled over Wara’s rumpled clothing, henna tattoos, nose ring, and bruised face. Surely she didn’t look fit to be at a funeral, much less to be the girlfriend of their precious son from a wealthy family.
But Noah’s mother just waved her hand at her husband and held two slender white arms out toward Wara for an embrace. Mrs. Hearst delicately pulled her forward for a hug, and while Wara was pressed against her shoulder she noticed a framed photograph on top of the casket. A clean-cut young man wearing a blue dress shirt and a silk tie smiled confidently from the picture, looking for all the world like a slick lawyer or a successful salesman. With a gasp, Wara realized she was looking at a younger Noah, long hair clipped off, clean-shaven and wearing a tie.
What would Noah’s parents think if they had seen him how she had known him, with the tattoo and terribly not cool clothes, playing soccer in the dust with school children?
This is how they wanted him to be, she thought miserably. This picture must be from when he was studying international business.
Next to the larger photograph were two smaller ones, also in gold-gilded frames. One was a blond boy, about six years old, wearing a Star Wars t-shirt and grinning at the camera while missing both front teeth. Wara had never seen a photo of Noah as a kid. The other frame showed a chubby baby with bright emerald eyes, stuffed into a starched white suit and staring at the camera while a trail of drool escaped from one side of his rosebud lips.
Mrs. Hearst let her go, again swiping at tears under her painted eyes. “I didn’t know he had a girlfriend ” she rasped. “He never told us. Oh, we wasted so much time…” Noah’s mom broke off, bit her lip, then tried to compose herself. “Of course I don’t know your parents, but I would like to tell you, on behalf of Noah’s parents, whose hearts are broken…” The woman dissolved into tears again and her husband put one hand stiffly on her arm, obviously embarrassed by how his wife was carrying on. Mrs. Hearst’s lip curled with anger and she yanked her arm out of his grip.
“What was your name, dear?” she asked crossly.
Wara told her.
“Wara.” Noah’s mother pronounced the foreign name and then drilled Wara with her bereaved eyes, voice shaky and tight. “For your parents, leave this awful country and go home. There’s nothing for you here. Look what comes of all this supposed ‘doing good’! For the love of God, leave this terrible place!”
Wara felt shaken by the woman’s emotion, and she wanted to back away, get out of this conversation, go back where she could be closer to Noah. She wondered briefly if the embassy had listened to Alejo at all when he told them that the bus had been attacked, and if they had told the Hearsts about it.
No one’s here from the embassy, trying to find me to get more information. The Hearsts seem devastated but not furious. They must not know.
Then another hand touched her arm, and she jerked around to see an athletic-looking guy with a pock-marked face and mahogany skin. A crisp white dress shirt was tucked into worn jeans, and his hair was slicked back with way too much gel. He addressed Noah’s mother.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. You don’t know me, but my name is Hector Villanueva and I’m a volunteer with the SAR search and rescue team.” He paused, obviously noticing the three confused gringo faces. “I was part of the team that went down to the bus accident,” he clarified, expression grave and serious. “This accident…upset me so much. I’ve been a volunteer for ten years, but this one really got to me. I’ve been going to the funerals of nearly all of the victims, and I just wanted to tell you, the parents, how sorry I am.”
Mr. and Mrs. Hearst were staring blankly at the man, and Wara realized with a start that they didn’t understand a word he was saying. She numbly translated most of what the SAR volunteer had said into English. Mrs. Hearst nodded, barely looking at the man, but Noah’s father’s face had gone crimson and he lumbered forward, bearing down on Hector Villanueva.
“Now listen here,” he growled, swiping at a drop of sweat about to run into his eye. “There’s a woman from the embassy here with us, I suppose as a babysitter, but the embassy doesn’t appear to have any information about anything. We’ve tried for days to get information about the rescue efforts, progress, anything. And guess what, no one knew anything! Well---”
Mr. Hearst cut his tirade short for a moment as he noticed that Wara was translating for the SAR worker. Then he ranted on, “Last night, with no warning, we get a call from some missionary who knew our son that he is dead! Well, you were there—can you tell us what has been going on since that accident? Why didn’t they find our son until last night? And if they found him before, why the heck didn’t anyone tell us anything…”
Noah’s father’s voice cracked, and he fell silent, swiveling his gaze over to the silent coffin along the wall.
Wara felt faint, but translated the general gist back to the man who had been there on the side of the mountain cliff. Looking for Noah’s body among the twisted vines and jungle thorns. Noah’s parents wanted to know what they had found.
“I can’t do this.” She trembled from head to toe, backing away from the three others in the conversation. “I can’t translate this, how he was…”
A tight hand clapped her on the shoulder, and Wara lifted wild eyes to meet Alejo’s, deadly serious and morose. “You’ve been standing up too long,” he told her in Spanish, and then the grim line of his mouth softened. “I’m going to translate for them. Go sit over there.”
Without waiting to be told a second time, Wara hurriedly slipped away from the conversation that had suddenly turned gruesome and found refuge in a tan swivel chair a few feet behind Noah’s parents. She collapsed into it, pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged, and buried her face into her hands.
Of course from here she could still hear everything that was said, but at least she wouldn’t be the one to translate it. Wara focused on the SAR worker’s Spanish instead of Alejo’s clipped, perfect English as he translated.
Hector Villanueva had already launched back into the conversation, seriously stating the facts to answer Noah’s father’s questions. He was describing the process SAR, the Bolivian volunteer search and rescue department, had used to scale down the rugged terrain, then systematically search for bodies.
They had started, of course, with the charred remains of the bus.
“We were able to identify all but three of the bus’ passengers from the remains inside the bus,” the man said, and Wara cringed. She closed her eyes tightly, refusing to allow her imagination to get ahead of the conversation in whether Noah had been one of those burned figures trapped inside the vehicle.
“Verifying the identity of these bodies took until yesterday. The first day we found one of Franco Salazar’s assistants several hundred meters uphill from where the bus came to rest. She had already passed away from severe trauma. The other two missing bodies were not found until yesterday around six p.m., when the volunteers were just about to go home for the day. We had been combing the area for two days, but it wasn’t until we reached a spot nearly a kilometer away from the bus’ exit point from the highway that we found both of them. Obviously they had been thrown from the bus while it was still pretty high up the mountain, to have landed so far away. One of the men had been dead since approximately early Monday morning, according to the autopsy, but the autopsy of the other man, your son, showed that he had passed away about twelve hours before we found the body. They just called me with the autopsy results.”
Wara’s whole body shook and she pressed her fingers into her forehead. There was a deathly silence, and then Mr. Hearst’s indignant voice gasped, “Are you saying that for twenty-four, no for nearly a day and a half after that accident, our son was alive down there in the jungle?”
“Yes, sir, that is what the autopsy report showed,” Hector reported, stiffening as if just now realizing that the giant man in front of him was simmering with rage.
“B..b..but---you’re saying that because your ‘search and rescue’ team didn’t find him sooner, our son died? He was alive for nearly two days! If you had been more competent and found him sooner, he would still be alive!”
“No, sir, I can assure you…” Hector’s voice trailed off and he sighed. “I was there when we found him. There were too many broken bones.”
Wara moaned and slumped forward in the chair, feeling hot tears slipping through her fingers. A death-filled scene flooded her vision: Noah, bloodied and broken, lying on the cold jungle floor in the dark, unable to move, with no one to help him. He had died all alone.
But then a different picture swallowed that one up. Noah, lying on his back, in the middle of an emerald forest clearing, staring up at the tropical birds and butterflies flitting around the peaceful sanctuary. He couldn’t get up, but he was singing, quietly, and the songs he sang were only between him and his God, on his way to meet him.
Wara forced herself to swallow, then straightened in the chair. The last scene of Noah in the jungle was one she could live with.
A man had started speaking from somewhere in the room, inviting people to come take seats on the folding chairs. Gripping the edges of the chair with both hands to steady herself, Wara rose to her feet, ready to sing a last song for Noah Hearst.
Many people went up front to talk about Noah, including the Bolivian pastor of Noah’s church. The Bennesons sat up front, along with the rest of the people from the mission. Dona Filomena was there, wearing a dark pollera and cardigan with her signature gray braids. Even Tiago showed up, nearly unrecognizable in black dress pants, a starched white dress shirt, and red weepy eyes.
Wara sat numbly through it all. Eventually she realized that someone had asked her to come up and sing, and she made her way towards a folding chair off to the side, tripping once and nearly planting her face into the floor before she caught herself, grabbing another chair. Barely noticing her near-accident, Wara sat down and pulled the guitar that was propped next to the chair onto her lap. Her fingers curled tightly around the neck, metal strings biting into her flesh. It was Noah’s honey-colored Taylor. They had brought it from the café.
Wara bit her lip, then strummed a chord. The guitar was perfectly tuned.
She started a song she knew by the band Mercy Me, that began talking about how everyone says “you” are in a better place. As the chords vibrated out of the Taylor, she moved on to the chorus, singing what may have been the truest thing she had said all day:
“I’ve never been more homesick than now.
I close my eyes, and I see your face,
If home’s where my heart is then I’m out of place,
Lord, won’t you give me strength to make it through somehow,
I’ve never been more homesick than now.”
Her fingers fell across the strings one last time, sounding the last open-ended chord, and then she rested her forehead on the smooth wood of Noah’s guitar. After a moment, without looking at the many faces who had gathered here to remember her best friend, Wara forced herself to put the guitar back in its place. What she really wanted to do was sling the black guitar strap over her shoulder and walk away, never looking back.
Eduardo was coming up front to sing something, however, and she knew he would need the guitar.
Wara somehow managed to make it to an empty chair.
“If home’s where my heart is, then I’m out of place.” The chorus she had just sung rang in her head, even as Eduardo and Tobias began to sing Amazing Grace.
Oh God, I can feel that so much right now. Why do I have to stay here any longer? If Noah is with you, I want to be there too, at home. I don’t think I can stay here one more minute.
Leaning heavily forward against the metal back of an empty chair, Wara’s sideways gaze fell upon Alejo, standing in the back of the room, arms folded across his chest. She had nearly forgotten about his existence. His face was red and puffy, and he looked really, really miserable.
She was glad.
He should be miserable. Forever.
Because thanks to Alejo Martir, I surely will be miserable forever.
As Wara heard Eduardo sing the last line of the hymn, a cold feeling crept over her chest, as if she had put on a sweater that had been sitting outside all night in a Montana blizzard. The feelings of anger she had just been tempted with were gone. The grief seemed to be gone. All Wara could feel was…nothing.
Nothing except the desire to go home.