26
pale blue
THE PILLOW BENEATH HER HEAD WAS PRICKLY with feathers, the pale blue cotton blanket meant to be soft and comforting. But Wara shivered on the narrow hospital bed all night, sleeping barely a wink between nocturnal nurse visits and the constant beeping of the blood pressure machine.
Alejo was alive. He was lying nearly motionless on the other bed in the hospital room, chest faintly rising and falling under a matching pale blue blanket. A thick ream of gauze was plastered around his head, covering the wound where the doctors claimed the bullet had narrowly missed his brain.
But that was impossible; Wara had seen the gun pressed point-blank against the center of Alejo’s forehead, then fire. He shouldn’t be alive.
And he might not be for much longer.
“For now your fiancé is stable, but in a coma,” Dr. Ortega had told her seriously last night, wadding used latex gloves in the pocket of his lab coat after emerging from the emergency room. Remembering Gabriel’s ominous words of warning not to let anyone find out she and Alejo were still alive, Wara had told the doctor she was engaged to the man who’d been shot in the head. They were tourists here from the U.S., and had been robbed at gunpoint in the country near Pairumani. Dr. Ortega looked at her over gold-rimmed glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with thick, hairy fingers.
“We’re not out of the woods, yet, by any means. The bullet’s shock waves could have serious repercussions. I’m going to be honest with you. If your fiancé would need brain surgery, there’s no way we can do it here. An airlift to Chile or Argentina would take too long. Stay with him tonight in the extra bed in the room; if he’s going to pull through we should know by the morning.”
And now it was morning; crisp white light filtered in through the blue checked curtains of the hospital room. A matronly nurse in a tri-cornered hat and thick stockings was shoving a glass thermometer under Alejo’s tongue and smoothing the covers over his shoulders.
As if he would have been able to mess them up somehow; Nazaret’s brother was as motionless as he had been sprawled there on the ground at Pairumani.
But he’s still alive.
Dr. Ortega had said that if Alejo made it til the morning, his chances were better. Wara sat up groggily on the bed and turned toward him, eyes stinging as she took in the bloodied bandage above one closed eye.
I have to call the Martirs, she realized. The idea brought a new chill of shock. How could she tell them what had happened, that the son they had just found as a killer had been shot and could die? And that she had seen the whole thing?
Feeling sick, Wara ignored the matronly nurse with clogs and staggered wordlessly into the hall. Clean white tiles spread before her, and the air was ripe with the scent of Clorox and chamomile tea cooling on breakfast trays. Wara stumbled to the silver elevator and punched a button to head down, desperate to get some fresh air.
In the pocket of her black pants, she fingered the fat wad of boliviano bills she had removed from Alejo’s pants before the nurses carried him into the emergency room. It should be enough to last for awhile; for sure it was enough to make a call to the Martirs’ cell phone in Lima.
The doors dinged open on the main floor, but as soon as Wara’s eyes hit the lobby she nearly doubled over, remembering the scene last night when she ran across the tiles screaming for help. Without stopping, Wara did a one eighty and headed down the hall, towards the back of the hospital and away from the lobby. Plastic olive chairs lined the scuffed walls, filled with women in polleras and children licking suckers. Wara eyed them all blankly, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, really hoping there was going to be a back exit to this hospital. And outside the exit, some quiet, grass-covered spot where she could curl up and wail, possibly until next week. It was still early; the call to the Martirs was going to have to wait just a little bit more.
The creaky voice calling to her in Quechua took her totally unaware. “Imajnaya kasanki? How are you, Wara?”
Wara planted her flip-flops in the center of the hall and whirled around, eyes wild. Who knew her here? She was supposed to be dead.
The navy cardigan sweater and thin gray braids were nothing out of the ordinary in this row of Quechua women awaiting the doctor, but the crinkled black eyes regarding Wara immediately flashed familiar. Doña Filomena, the elderly lady who worked at Café Amara! Wara felt her shoulders slump with relief and she took the few faltering steps over towards the older woman, overwhelmed to see someone from her old life. Her old life, before the trip to Coroico, before disaster.
Wara slowly leaned forward to grasp Doña Filomena’s forearm, mumbling the usual Quechua greeting. The woman smiled, dispersing a legion of crow’s feet across her copper cheeks. “I have been needing to have some tests done for a while,” she was saying in Quechua, “and since the café is closed today I am taking advantage of the time.”
Wara swallowed hard. Café Amara, vestiges of another dimension. “The café is closed?” she repeated. Her voice faded to a whisper as she asked, “Why?”
“You don’t know?” Doña Filomena’s rheumy eyes flickered, then she cocked her head to one side. “Of course you know! They said you were on the bus as well, that bus that had the accident. This whole week we prayed for you, and that boy. We prayed for you so much. What am I thinking, how could I forget that! They said that you had been found and that you were all right. But then yesterday I went to work, to peel potatoes and make the humintas, and they said that the café was closed until next week, because they found that poor boy had died and gone to glory.”
Wara’s words stuck in her throat. I can’t talk about Noah, or I’m going to throw myself into her arms and cry.
Her knees trembled beneath her. And then she heard herself say something she never would have expected.
“Doña Filomena, can you please pray for another friend of mine?” The word ‘friend’ was spoken rather tightly. “He was shot in the head. The doctors think he might not live.”
“Oh, that is serious!” Doña Filomena shook her head slowly, thin gray braids scratching her worn sweater. “We must pray for this poor boy, too. Sometimes, when I am not working, I come here to the hospital to pray for people. And if I cannot come, I will remember to pray for your friend at church.”
Wara felt some kind of relief that Filomena would probably be waving her hands around and praying for Alejo, because right now, she couldn’t. All she could do was sit there and watch him, to see if he would live or die.
Fighting back the bitterness stinging her throat, Wara said goodbye to Doña Filomena and made a beeline for the back door of the hospital. An ample concrete square shaded by a balcony preceded the hospital’s delivery area, currently completely empty.
Filomena’s words echoed through Wara’s head: “They found out that poor boy had died and gone to glory.” Barely stifling a cry of grief, Wara flopped to the ground behind a huge clay planter and curled into a ball.
Sometime in the afternoon, Wara forced herself up from the ground. She wandered the dusty neighborhood and called the Martirs on the brand new cell phone Alejo had bought for them. She couldn’t call them on her own new cell phone, because the thing only worked for local calls. By the time she left the Viva call center across from Univalle, dusk had darkened to full-blown night. Few people passed the hospital on the unlit sidewalks. Wara sighed deeply and headed across the street to the hospital, resigned to spend one last night here before joining the Martirs in Lima.
Yes, she felt bad for Alejo; he was up there all alone, life hanging in the balance. But he wasn’t hers to care for, not by a long shot. She needed some time, needed to be close to people she actually liked. The roll of red boliviano bills she had pilfered from Alejo were more than enough to make it to Lima. With her dark coloring, she’d likely make it across the border on the bus without showing ID. She had also called her parents again from the call center, and they would wire money to Lima for her and arrange for a plane ticket back to the U.S.
Home.
But not really. This had been her home.
I loved this city. I never wanted to leave.
But now Cochabamba seemed full of unknown stalkers and haunted memories. For the first time since she arrived in Bolivia five years ago, Wara wanted to go home.
Chest still tight with emotion, Wara exited the elevator upstairs and turned towards the room she shared with comatose Alejo. The halls were dim and empty and a faint, urgent beeping drilled the walls. From the direction of Alejo’s room.
Wara swallowed hard, just as the buxom nurse from this morning pushed past her, practically tearing up the tiles in her white clogs. Wara froze, then hurried after her with clipped steps, as the nurse dove into the open door where Wara had left Alejo.
She ducked inside to find Alejo convulsing on the bed and the blood pressure machine going wild. Dr. Ortega had his back to Wara, punching a syringe into the plastic of Alejo’s IV bag. Five or six nurses in white were framing the bed, grim and sober. Every single set of eyes flickered to Wara as she entered, and none of the gazes were friendly.
“What’s happening?” she asked stupidly, knowing they all must hate her for disappearing the whole day while her fiancé was hovering between life and death.
“He’s dying!” the nurse with the clogs snapped, then turned back to Alejo.
“It’s the swelling.” Dr. Ortega’s face shone slick with sweat above a bushy black beard. “It’s gotten worse, making him convulse. His heart’s racing. It’s like I told you, señorita. The only way to relieve the swelling is to operate. We can’t do that here.”
Wara wandered closer, ignoring the cool glances of the nurses. Alejo had stopped shaking and lay flat on the bed, face the color of white clay. “He’s dying?” she repeated, moving so close one hand touched the edge of the bed near Alejo’s elbow.
“The bullet didn’t enter his brain,” the doctor said, speaking loudly over the frantic beep of Alejo’s heart rate. “But the impact still caused this swelling. It’s much worse than we thought. His heart can’t keep this up much longer. I’m sorry.”
Wara didn’t even look at the doctor, but her face crumpled as she watched Alejo.
I should leave. Just leave. I don’t have to watch this.
But her heart surged to her throat, vibrating with what she realized was compassion. She clutched the bed sheet with white knuckles. Alejo’s heart rate accelerated further and his back arched.
And then his eyes flew open, leaving Wara absolutely shocked, staring into a sea of hazel. He was sitting, suddenly, gasping and leaning forward onto the pale blue blanket. The monitor’s beeping dove from a constant beep to deep electronic thuds. And stayed that way.
Dr. Ortega had flown to the bedside and was leaning over Alejo’s shoulder, trying to support him. Behind the gold-rimmed glasses, the doctor’s eyes were round and about to pop. “His heart rate’s normal,” he stammered. “Where did it…what happened to the tachycardia?” The nurses had drawn back and were gaping at Alejo sitting up on the bed. And then they jumped. Because Alejo grinned. At Wara.
It was weak and lop-sided, and looked out of place on his pale face. But the smile caused his eyes to spark, and he glued his gaze on Wara, who gawked back at him, knee propped against the side of his bed.
“You!” he croaked. Then coughed and tried another grin. “He told me I wouldn’t remember your name. Doesn’t matter. They’re coming for us. Two of them. And he said we’re just supposed to go, and do whatever they say. Come with me!”
And then the grin faded and Alejo hunched farther over, as if just now feeling the pain traveling down the nerve pathways from his head. “What hospital is this?” he moaned, leaning over onto his knees with head in his hands. “I remember everything. I can’t believe I’m here.”
The nurses rushed towards him, firm hands admonishing the patient to lie back down. Wara forced her mouth to shut and backed up a few feet from the bed. She ripped her gaze away from Alejo towards the doctor, who was still watching wide-eyed and incredulous.
“I can’t believe…I was sure he was…dying.” As if realizing he had just said that out loud, Dr. Ortega snapped his mouth shut and rubbed his temple. “This is really unusual. We’ll have to run some more tests. I’d say we’re not out of the woods yet, after that little speech our patient just made. He’s obviously delirious. It’s to be expected with the brain trauma.”
Delirious. Of course. “They’re coming for us?” That had sounded like a line out of Terminator.
A skinny nurse butted into Wara’s line of sight, cutting off the conversation with the doctor. “Doctor,” she clipped nervously. “The patient he…can’t see.”
Wara blinked, staying where she was as Dr. Ortega moved towards Alejo and tried to check his sight. “You can’t see?” the doctor asked with concern. Alejo was lying still on the rumpled pillow, eyes opened narrowly.
“I can’t see anything,” he answered.
“There you go.” Dr. Ortega turned his head towards Wara. “It’s still the swelling. Considering the loss of sight and that delirious talk, I’m going to have the lab come up and do some more tests right away.”
But he looked right at me. When he woke up, Wara thought, stunned. That grin, half-crazed but out of his mind with delight about something. He knew she was there. And now he couldn’t see.
“It’s late,” the doctor told Wara. “Why don’t you try to get some rest, while we draw some blood for the tests.” Everyone shuffled out into the hallway, leaving Wara alone with Alejo, lying still and pale in the bed. Staring at the ceiling and seeing nothing.
“Get some rest,” the doctor says.
Tomorrow couldn’t come fast enough. Wara needed to escape to Lima.