Two Years after Valentine's Day

Liz could not really concentrate, though. Again and again she checked her watch, hoping she wouldn't miss the time she was supposed to be at the bridge. When it was one thirty she apologized to her friends, and made her way through the crowds. Passing the streets, she saw improvised tents, made of blue pieces of plastic. Everything from warm soups over illegally copied DVDs to tourist souvenirs was being sold in them. She was tempted to stay around for a while, look at all the goods on sale, have a little chat with the sales women. Someone pushed by her a cart full of huge hot sweet potatoes and hot fried bananas. Liz felt a sting of hunger – she hadn't had breakfast before going to the bus stop in the early morning. But she decided to wait until Pablo was here, then they could have lunch together.

The bridge was as crowded as everywhere else, but Liz sat down on the rail. She had a good view on the only road leading into the village – a car was descending down the hills, drawing a huge cloud of sand behind it. Then, for quite a while, the street remained empty. Checking her watch, Liz became a bit nervous. Finally, another dusty cloud appeared at the horizon. As it made its way down the hills and approached the town, it turned out to be a small truck. It took quite a while for there to be a bus, it was almost two thirty when one appeared. "He is going to be in that one," Liz thought. The bus passed the street near the bridge, and continued further down to a huge field that was used as a parking spot for hundreds of busses and cars. After a while she saw a group of people making their way up from the parking spot. Pablo was not between them.

Liz checked the time again. A quarter to three, almost. And she did not see any more busses. What if there weren't going to arrive any more? The procession was over, after all, only the dances would follow now. What if he had missed the last bus? How long should she sit here on the bridge, getting stared at by children? She couldn't imagine standing up, walking away, admitting he wasn't going to show up anymore. How could she enjoy the festival without him?

Checking her watch again with surprise she realized she was close to tears. An old woman pushed close by her, trying to make her way quickly across the bridge, and hit a big bag she was carrying into Liz' knee. Liz had to hold back not to curse. There were too many people here. The people were too happy, too much in a festive mood. She wanted to get away. Why would she keep waiting for Pablo? Obviously he wasn't going to show up! Apparently he was too stupid to get the last bus. How dare he anyway, to make her wait on this bridge! How dare he not showing up, making her unable to enjoy the festival! How dare he being able to make her that angry at him.

Liz was sick of hunger by now, but the thought of food somehow made her feel worse. A woman selling corn cobs and cheese crossed the bridge, but Liz declined. She realized that she wouldn't enjoy the festival anymore, unless he was here... Maybe she should stop seeing him.

Just at this moment someone called out her name.

Liz looked up, and a few metres from her, at the end of the bridge, stood Pablo, grinning. Jumping down from the rail of the bridge, she tried to look cool, tried not to show the anger she had felt, nor how happy she was to see him now.

*

The rest of the festival was a day she was never going to forget. The dances turned out to be far more interesting than the procession of the morning had been – until late at night groups of musicians and masked dancers showed their talent in the streets, huge groups of people gathering around them to admire their glittering and colourful costumes, to see their dancing. One of the dances was more a fight: Two men wearing a furry kind of coat, and woollen masks hit each other's legs with a long whip. You could hear how it hurt, and the beaten one jumped up funnily, causing the crowds around them to burst out in laughter. In another dance, the masks did show more features of human faces, and you could make out one older man dressed in a black suit, with a huge moustache, and a woman he was dancing with. One of the dancers with the whips, from the dance before, mixed into this group, trying to coax the woman into dancing with him, only to be chased away by the moustached man. In other dances the masks seemed more like devils, the costumes showed huge golden horns, and the dance steps were more uniform.

After a while, Liz and Pablo left the crowds, to walk around the streets. It was dark by now, and the sweet potato Liz had eaten after Pablo's arrival seemed like long ago. They found a little restaurant, where they could sit on a shaky wooden bench at a table, covered by a dirty wax cloth, and eat hot soup with quinua and some big pieces of meat in it. When she was done, Liz wanted to return the plate, but Pablo demanded a "yapa" – and really, the little boy that was collecting their plates brought them to his mother, who was standing by the door at a stove, on which the soup was boiling in a huge kettle, and then returned with another half-plate for each of them. For dessert there was another coca leaf tea.

Then they walked further out of the small town's centre, to streets where the houses only had one floor and stood further apart from each other. In front of a few of them there were long wooden sticks, around the top of which someone had wrapped red or blue plastic bags.

"What's this?" Liz asked.

"They are selling chicha," Pablo explained. "Come." He took her hand and went to one of these houses. He knocked at the door, and a young woman opened. She looked tired.

"Allillanchu, mamay," Pablo said. "Not at the fiesta?"

"Later," she answered. "I see these dances every year."

"Of course. Well, can we have two glasses, please?"

She nodded and disappeared into the house. Shortly after she returned with two huge plastic cups, filled with the same slightly sour yellow liquid, Liz had already drunken back at the boss's birthday party. While they drank and listened to the faraway sound of the musicians, the girl kept standing in the door to contemplate them. After a few minutes, a maybe three year old boy appeared, half-hiding behind her leg, and also looked at them.

When they returned to the plaza the dances had stopped. A band was still playing though, and a group of girls, obviously foreigners and just as obviously drunk, jumped around happily to the music. A few local boys joined them after a while.

Liz was tired – she had been up since the very early morning. Pablo suggested to go to the parking place and see whether there was any busses going home yet.

There weren't, but they found the driver of a minibus who told them he was planning to leave in a few more hours – when most of those people, who had not got a bed in a cheap pension, or a spot on the floor of one of the locals' houses, would be tired of dancing and drinking. He opened his van for them, and said they could wait there. That way, Pablo decided, they could secure the front seats, which were a bit small for two people next to the driver, but otherwise the nicest. They sat down as well as they could, Liz more or less on Pablo's lap, and tried to catch some sleep. It was not particularly comfortable, and Liz kept waking up, listening to the faraway noise of musicians, and Pablo's breathing.

Finally the driver returned, when there was already a very slight light forming at the horizon. With him there was a group of people. When they got in, the back of the bus looked full to Liz, but the driver decided there was still room for one or two more. Driving through the centre of the town, he kept shouting his destination. Two gringos, a man and a woman, indicated they wanted to go there. Liz was glad to sit at the front now, the back was a lot more crowded, and people were talking to each other, while she could just sit there quietly, looking into the night, Pablo's arms around her.

The light at the horizon became a big red stripe, as they made their way up the hills surrounding the town. When the sun came out, there was another valley in front of them, and snow capped mountains at the horizon. Pablo had slept most of the journey but was awake now, running his fingers through Liz' hair and quietly, almost whispering, telling her the name of the mountain she could see.

The people at the back of the bus seemed to be waking up as well – Liz could hear them talking, and a child was crying for a few minutes, but then calmed down again. The driver turned on his radio and searched for a station. When he found one that was playing the usual folkloric pop music, he turned the volume up.

Liz leaned her head against Pablo, and looked past him through the window into the landscape. She was tired, and her whole body seemed to hurt from having tried to sleep in the cramped car. Only her coat and Pablo's body warmth protected her somewhat, from the icy cold of the night that everyone in the car was subjected to. But the sun was rising behind the mountains, its bright light a promise of the warmth that was going to be there in a few hours.

Some llamas stood by the road and lifted their head curiously when the car approached. Pablo was humming along with the music. Liz' eyes closed, she was tired. He wrapped his arms yet closer around her, as if to protect her from the outside world. Her head was now leaning more to his chest than his shoulder. Along with his humming she could hear his heartbeat. She wished this journey would never be over, she wanted to sit like this forever.

*

The next months time seemed to fly. Liz spent Christmas with Pablo's family, this was the first time she met them. They seemed a little bit surprised, when he presented her as his girlfriend, but they did all they could for Liz to feel at home in their house.

From then on, Liz and Pablo spent almost every day together, as much as their work schedules allowed them. In January they had a week off, and went hiking. It was an easy trip that Pablo had chosen, knowing that Liz had not gone hiking very often yet. Nevertheless, the landscape they saw on the way was breathtaking. And sleeping in a tent in the middle of nowhere gave them the feeling of being closer together even than they would be in Liz' room.

Soon February started, and suddenly Liz realized that she had less than two weeks left until she had to go home.

She and Pablo had talked many times about what would happen in the future, but no matter how they turned it – she had to return. Her parents wouldn't pay for any more travelling now, they said. They wanted her to finally get a job. And those were scarce here, and the monthly wages equalled what at home she could make in a few days. Staying here, unless she could find a really good job, would mean living in a level of poorness she did not want to put up with for the rest of her life. It had never before occurred to her before, how spoilt she was. But it was also unlikely for Pablo to get a Visa to the US.

Of course there was the possibility to get married, so he could come home with her – but he hardly spoke any English, so what kind of work would he find there? And while many people were trying to leave the country for the richer western world, he had never been one of them. He didn't say it, but Liz felt that making him leave his mountains was something she shouldn't do.

Whenever she thought things through rationally, Liz realized it was all no good. They had been together only a few months, getting married so quickly was not the responsible thing to do. There was no guarantee things between them would even be the same, living in a culture so different to this one here, in a place where he would suddenly depend on her in almost everything – and what if it didn't work out, after he had given up almost everything?

"Then go home and work for a few months, and come back as soon as you saved up some money," Pablo suggested. "Even if it's not that much for over there, you could live here quite a while on it."

Liz nodded. It was at least something of a future plan. In the back of her head she wondered if she would really do it. But it still was a plan. At least, she could come here on vacation. Or on some new volunteer program. Knowing she would be back made it easier to leave.

*

The motors of the airplane made the familiar sound that indicated the take off would start in a few moments. It was still standing, then started to move slowly, quicker, while thoughts flashed through Liz' head. Pictures of the last night before she left. Like all the other nights. Images of his body, his eyes, the memory of how his skin felt under her fingers, how he felt in her, his taste in her mouth, the sound of her own moans mingled with his in her ears.

The images were pushed away by a different one: The bus stop. Yesterday, when she had left. He had brought her there, they had stood next to the bus, hugging and kissing until the driver obligated her to get on the bus. The bus still stood there for another ten minutes, but Pablo had left. But then, when the bus left the station, she saw him. He was standing across the street from the exit of the station, looking at the busses, waiting for her. Smiling, the way he always smiled. She waved at him and looked through the window, pressing her face against the glass, to see him standing there as long as she could, until the bus turned around a corner and she could not see him anymore.

Only then she had started to cry. And now, while the pressure in her stomach and her head told her that the airplane was up in the air, tears were welling up in her eyes again.

***

Liz hated the long wait, after the airplane had landed, before you could get off. People stood up, standing in the small passages between the seats, as if that would make the doors open earlier. Liz stayed in her seat until there was actually movement getting into that row of people waiting there. Then she pulled out her small bag from under the seat in front of hers, and got in line too. She still had to wait a while: Those that stood up first, only now realized they had their things still in the overhead compartment, and held up everyone by getting it out, ordering coats and suitcases.

When Liz reached the exit of the plane, a glimpse into the little hallway she had to pass told her, it was decorated with pink bows and hearts, and some big posters telling you what chocolate was "the best way to tell her you love her".

'It's getting worse every year,' Liz thought. She hadn't realized it was Valentine's day again. When she had bought the ticket she had not thought about it.

On the poster a blond smiling woman looked at a blond smiling man, both of their eyes full of love.

Love. What was that, love?

She had thought she could not live on without Pablo, because she loved him. Two years ago, she had cried on the plane until she fell asleep, exhausted. And she had started crying again shortly after she woke up.

For the first two months she had emailed or called Pablo almost every day, in between speaking with him through various chat programs.

Then she started finding herself a bit tired of their phone conversations. He spoke of love, but in her head the old question popped up again – what is love? Is this it? The calls and conversations got more rare. She found herself forgetting what exactly he looked like. And she found herself noticing other guys again.

More weeks went by, until she could summon the courage to tell him that things couldn't continue the way they were going. She found a great job, in something she had always wanted to do, but it demanded all her effort. She would not have time to travel for a year at least.

It was him who had suggested to remain friends, and she was glad for that. But it was awkward, and their contact had gone down to the occasional email for someone's birthday or Christmas, and a short hello every now and then on messenger.

Liz had been too busy with work to think a lot about him, anyway. She had met Paul, then Michael, having short and meaningless relationships with each, but most of the time she was alone.

Then she got the offer for another job – an NGO working exactly in that area she had been in. The fact that she had been there before, that they worked with the NGO she had volunteered for, was what got her the job. She would be flying back and forth between the US and there – spending more time there, though. The pay was less than it had been in her old job, but they owned a small, modern apartment in the centre of the town, that she could live in. It wasn't the memory of Pablo, but rather that of the old women with braided hair and knee length skirts, the fresh fruit sold in the streets, the colourful and noisy festivals, and the yellow grass on the hills, that made her take the job.

She did drop Pablo an email, though, telling him she would be back, asking if they could meet up sometime, just for a coca tea and to chat about the old times.

His answer arrived a few days later. He had some things to do in the capital just at the days around her arrival. If she told him the time and number of her flight, he could try to pick her up. He couldn't promise he would have time though. She wrote him the information he had requested, but did not get an answer anymore after that.

*

Waiting in line to get her passport stamped, Liz wondered if he would be there. Did she even want him to be there? She tried to recall his face, but couldn't. It was his eyes that she had remembered for the longest time – narrow and dark. But even those were gone.

More waiting at the baggage claim, but finally her suitcase arrived – yes, a suit case. She was not a backpacker now. She was here to stay, she travelled with a suit case. It still felt strange, like it wasn't really her.

When she had everything, and pushed the luggage cart towards the exit, handing out her customs declaration, she started feeling a bit nervous. If Pablo was there, what was that going to be like? It was bound to be awkward. Suddenly an image of him flashed through her mind after all: Pablo standing at the side of the street, waving after the leaving bus.

The doors opened, and she stepped out into the hall. Behind a small barrier huge amounts of people waited for the new arrivals. She did not see him. Sighing she pushed the cart towards the exit that lead to the taxi stands.

Then she heard her name. His voice caused her heart to beat strangely strong. Slowly Liz turned around. There he was, Pablo. He looked the same like two years ago, she realized, as he approached her. With every step he took another one of those long months without him seemed to dissolve. Then he stood right by her, smiling the way he had always smiled, a flower in his hand that he seemed to have forgotten about, because he didn't hand it to her.

He leaned forward a bit, to greet her with that kiss on the cheek that was the common greeting between friends in this part of the world. She felt his skin brush her cheek, she caught a smell that reminded her of leaning her head against his chest at a bus ride long ago. And she could not help herself, it was just the most natural thing to do, it seemed: She turned her face more towards his, looking into those dark eyes, that were very close to hers now.

For a few seconds both of them seemed to hold their breath, time seemed to stand still. Then, when their lips touched, it was as if that journey in the mini bus, on which she first realized she loved him, had really never ended.