The Quest

Mercado looked up from tugging at his boot. “Huh? Oh. ‘The cure is worse than the disease,’ ” he answered as he pulled off his boot.

Purcell didn’t respond.

Mercado said, “Don’t go feeling all inadequate, old man. She doesn’t know the language. Just a phrase or two. She’s just showing off.”

“For whom?”

“For me, of course.”

Purcell pulled off his boots and looked at Vivian, who was sitting on her haunches and testing the water with her fingers.

She called out, “It’s warm.”

Mercado slipped off his shorts and padded toward the edge of the pool. His body, Purcell noticed, was showing the signs of age. How old could he be? He was here in Ethiopia during the Italian invasion in 1935, so he had to be at least sixty. Purcell looked at Vivian, then back at Mercado, wondering what their relationship was, if any. He slipped off his shorts and stood near Mercado.

Vivian, a few feet away, rose to her feet, stood on her toes, and stretched her arms in the air. She shouted to the sky, “There’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench, consumption!” She fell forward and the black, warm mineral waters closed quietly around her.

Mercado hunched down and touched the water. “That was Shakespeare, Frank. King Lear’s description of a vagina, actually.”

“I hope that wasn’t his pickup line.”

Mercado laughed.

Purcell dove in and swam. The warm water smelled like rotten eggs, but it was not unpleasant after a time. He could feel the fatigue run out of his body, but the heat made his mind groggy.

Mercado lowered his big bulk into the water, then began to swim.

Purcell floated on his back and drifted. He felt good for the first time in days. Maybe weeks. He let the pool currents take him, and the rising steam lulled him. In the distance, he could hear Vivian cavorting, and her shrieks of animal joy echoed off the surrounding structures. Purcell wanted to tell her to be more quiet, but it didn’t matter somehow. He noticed that his member was stiff. He rolled over and swam toward a stone platform in the middle of the pool. The platform was awash in a few inches of water, and he climbed onto it and lay on his back, then closed his eyes.

Mercado bobbed up beside him. “Are you alive, Frank?”

Purcell opened his eyes. He could see Mercado’s face through the steam. “Tell her to pipe down,” he said groggily. “She’ll have every Galla in the province here.”

“What? Oh. She’s sleeping by the poolside, Frank. I told her before. Were you dreaming?”

He looked at his watch. A full hour had slipped by.

“Let’s get back to the Jeep, old man. I’m worried about the gear.”

“Right.” Purcell turned and swam with steady even strokes toward the side of the sulphur pool and climbed out. He noticed Vivian sleeping, curled like a fetus by the edge of the pool. She was still naked.

Mercado looked around. “I’m sure there’s a freshwater spring around somewhere. Probably in the bathhouse over there.”

“I’d rather get out of here, Henry. We’ve taken enough chances.”

“You’re right, of course, but we smell.”

Purcell sat on the lichen-covered marble bench and wiped himself with his bush jacket. Mercado sat next to him. The older man’s close nakedness made Purcell uneasy.

Mercado pressed some water out of his thick gray hair, then nodded toward the naked, sleeping Vivian and asked, “Does she make you… uncomfortable?”

Purcell shrugged. Mercado had not offered to define his relationship with the young lady, and Purcell didn’t know if he cared. But he was curious. He had the habitual and professional curiosity of a newsman, not the personal curiosity of a meddler. Back in Addis, he had agreed to drive Henry Mercado and Vivian Smith to the northwest where the civil war was the hottest, and he hadn’t asked for much in return. But now he figured Mercado owed him. “Who is she?”

It was Mercado’s turn to shrug. “Don’t know, really.”

“I thought she was your photographer.”

“She is. But I met her only a few months ago. At the Hilton in Addis. Don’t know if she can photograph or not. We’ve taken scads of pictures, but nothing’s been developed yet. Don’t even know if she uses film, to be honest with you.” He laughed.

Purcell smiled. The moon was below the main building now and a pleasant darkness enveloped the spa. A soft evening breeze carried the scent of tropical flowers, and a feeling very near inner peace filled him. He wondered if he was getting Indochina out of his system. Apropos of that, he asked Mercado, “You were in jail, weren’t you?”

“Not jail, old man. We political prisoners don’t call it jail. If you’re going to talk about it, use the correct term, for Christ’s sake. The camps. Sounds better. More dignified.”

“Still sounds like shit.”

Mercado continued, “That it should have happened to me was more ironic, since I was a little pink in those days myself.”

“What days?”