Potboiler

He boarded a propeller plane to Cancún. He spent the night in a motel and caught the first bus out of town. He got off the bus in a random village and walked around. He spent the night in a motel and got back on a different bus. He did the same thing the next day, and the next. Rarely did he stay in one place for more than twenty-four hours. He ate when he was hungry and slept when he was tired. He let his beard grow. It came in everywhere except for the strip of scar tissue on his upper left lip.

One evening while walking from the bus station in some no-name rural hamlet he heard the sound of a struggle and went to investigate. Down a trash-strewn alley, a pair of thugs was robbing an old woman at knifepoint. Pfefferkorn flexed his arms. His healed leg was still stiff. It impaired his mobility a hair. On the other hand, he was leaner and stronger than he had been in years. He was all sinew and muscle and bone.

The old woman was crying, being jerked about as she clung to her handbag.

Pfefferkorn whistled.

The thugs looked up, looked at each other, and smiled. One of them told the other to wait and then he advanced on Pfefferkorn, the knife glinting in the moonlight.

Pfefferkorn left him sinking to his knees, gasping for breath.

The other thug ran.

Pfefferkorn scooped up the old woman in his arms and carried her three blocks to her home. She was still crying, now with gratitude. She blessed him and kissed his cheeks.

“De nada,” he said.

The next morning, he moved on.

115.

The places he visited all had the same markets, plazas, and cathedrals. They all had the same murals of Hidalgo or Zapata or Pancho Villa. They were all too provincial and remote to get foreign newspaper service, and so he had to wait until he reached Mexico City to get to an Internet café and catch up on the latest developments in the Zlabian valley.

What had happened depended on whose account you chose to believe. According to the West Zlabian state-run news agency, the festival celebrating the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of Vassily Nabochka had been an unmitigated success. Copies of the newly completed poem were distributed to every citizen, and the resulting swell of patriotism provoked the jealousy of the East Zlabian capitalist aggressors, who then invaded. According to the East Zlabian Pyelikhyuin, the release of the controversial new ending had sent waves of anger through a West Zlabian populace already brimming with discontentment. The rumblings grew in strength and ferocity until they erupted into riots. Violence spilled across the Gyeznyuiy, at which point it became incumbent upon Lord High President Thithyich to breach the median and reestablish order. According to CNN, the chaos was total. Everybody was killing everybody. Neighboring governments, fearing errant shells and a flood of refugees, had begged the world powers to intervene. The White House had petitioned Congress to authorize the use of troops. In theory the peacekeeping force was to be multilateral, but ninety percent of the boots and all of the strategic command were American. Within twenty-four hours they had put the entire valley on lockdown. The president of the United States had issued a statement that there would be a complete withdrawal as soon as feasible. He refused to set a timetable, calling that a “prescription for disappointment.” Nor would he comment on what would happen to the West Zlabian gas field.

Pfefferkorn reread the words “newly completed poem” several times.

He tried looking for a copy of it online but found nothing.

Back at his motel, he reread his unfinished ending to Vassily Nabochka. A few months’ distance enabled him to admit that Zhulk’s wife had been right on the money. It was terrible.

That night he went out for a walk. He passed a pimp slapping around a prostitute, threatening to cut her tongue out.

Pfefferkorn whistled.

116.

He used public phones.

He dared not try more than once every few months. He didn’t know who was monitoring the line. He also worried that overdoing it would lead her to stop picking up calls from strange Mexican numbers. On balance he preferred the answering machine. His sole aim was to hear her voice, if only for a second, and it was less painful to get a recording than to listen to her asking Hello? Hello? without being able to respond.

117.