During the next break they had more to drink, and Ann told him why the boat had been rerouted down the coast. There was savage fighting between government troops and rebels, moving south along the coast. A lot of people were getting ready to leave, she said, but she thought she’d stay. Tim’s mind was still getting away from him, wishing he wasn’t in bad with the skipper, thinking they might take her along. He needed to clear his head, and the steady intake of beer on an empty stomach wasn’t helping. “If you’re hungry, let’s get something to eat,” he suggested. “There’s a restaurant here, right?”
They situated themselves in the cafe, and when he returned from using the men’s room he knew he was way too happy to see her quietly sitting there, as though he’d been half expecting her to disappear, to get away. In the middle of dinner, he asked her, “Why don’t you leave if things are getting dangerous?”
She smiled sadly. “The rebels have been fighting for a long time. It’s simply unusual for them to be this far south. The action is usually to the north, near the border. The embassies haven’t sent out any advisories for the southern provinces.”
“Yet,” he said.
She paused. “Anyway, here we are in a tourist compound, and I can’t imagine they’d want to bother with us. I can’t afford to leave on my own, and if we’re evacuated, well, they’ll have to send me home free of charge, won’t they?” She was obviously trying to make light of a serious situation. Tim wanted to help but didn’t know how to put it without acting like a jerk forcing himself into her life, so he let the topic die.
As if by agreement, they ordered a bottle of champagne with dinner, celebrating something nameless but singular. Tim didn’t want the meal to end, and when it did, he didn’t want the evening to end, but Ann said she didn’t want to go back into the cabaret. Feeling like a teenager, he asked her for a date he was sure he wasn’t going to get: “Would you like to go anywhere else, show me around a little?”
Again, Ann’s silence bore weight. “It’s probably cooled off outside,” she said at last, “but it’s getting late, so why don’t we just go for a walk?”
They could hear the music playing out on the beach side of the hotel, and they danced on the sand, maneuvering themselves closer together. When the music stopped, Tim thanked the moon for being full and clear and unapologetically romantic as they walked away from the harbor and along the deserted silver strip of water, his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t tell him not to kiss her, so he tried that, too, and she was surprisingly responsive, in her soft, sweet way. She pulled back gently and said, “Would you like some sherry?”
He knew that she meant in her room.
“I’d love to,” he murmured, kissing her forehead.
As a long-term guest, Ann had a cottage with a beach view, still inside the walled compound of the hotel. Compared with his very basic room, it was not at all bad: rattan furniture with striped green and white cushions around a coffee table on which were a vase of fresh flowers, a decanter with two glasses, and a photograph album. The book’s cover was tapestry depicting airplanes, babies, graduates, wedding bells, photographs, suitcases, the word Memories woven into the fabric among the images.
Ann offered and poured sherry from the decanter. Tim wanted to know everything about her all at once, so he said nothing.
Instead, he flipped open the album to the middle. “Oh, sorry.” He’d turned to a wedding picture of Ann and some guy with thick glasses and an intelligent face.
“Don’t be sorry. You see—” She was clearly trying with her expression to preempt Tim’s reaction — “David is gone — but not what you’re thinking. He may not be dead.” She looked at Tim as though he could tell her where David was if she asked him nicely enough. “Oh dear, I’m making a mess of it. Let me start over.”
She took the book from Tim, closed it, put it firmly on the table, and picked up her sherry glass with a shaking hand, composing herself as she took a sip. She set the glass down and began slowly, “My husband David is a journalist. He was covering the rebels near the border. He vanished a year ago after he’d gone to interview one of the rebel leaders. There’s been no word since, no indication he was kidnapped. In fact, the rebels say not. The government men have all been bribed for information, but nobody seems to know what happened to him. His mates and I have tried everything. I’ve run through my money. All I have left is this,” she said, reaching into a pocket in the skirt of her dress. She brought out a beautiful wrist watch and like a hypnotist held it up swinging, the band gleaming gold and flashing diamonds and emeralds. “I’ve been to this sort of pawnshop in the Chinese section twice,” she went on, handing Tim the watch while she got a business card from her pocket. “The second time I worked up the courage to go inside and ask for an estimate of what it was worth. More than enough to get me back to England without borrowing any more from my family, but I couldn’t do it. You see, it’s all that I have left from David. I sold the rest. Now the trouble’s moving south, I should go back and get the money and go, but I’m such a coward.”
Her eyes were brimming with tears as she turned to him, obviously upset that she’d made this confession to a near stranger. “It’s a year today he disappeared, and I know I’ve taken advantage of your kindness. I don’t want to be alone and—”
Tim didn’t know what to say to comfort her, it was all so complicated and sad. He mumbled, “Don’t apologize, Ann, I’m just glad I met you—”
And then he found himself grabbing her, kissing her with a spontaneous passion that almost scared him, the desire like an uncontrolled storm, pulling off the linen dress and finding her body lovely, its contours a perfect fit with his own, their movements as sure as the tides.
A very long time later, she slept.
But Tim Alter sat awake in Ann’s bed thinking until the sun rose. He had a plan by then, a way to make everything come out right. He wasn’t going to let her down, had to help. It was the right thing to do. He took the watch and the business card from the nightstand, picked his way silently across the room to his clothes, dressed, and left the room. He headed back to the hotel along the shore and through the trees, maybe a couple of blocks, not surprised to find the front desk abandoned at this early hour. But the lights were all out, the hall lit very dimly from windows at each end, and he reached his room with rising apprehension. Tim knew something was way off when he saw both his and Jackson’s bags gone, and a note left on his bed saying, “Where in hell WERE you? Get to the boat NOW or we’re leaving you behind. J.”
His heart beating fast, Tim took the stairs two at a time. There was nobody in the lobby, no cabs out front. He ran out of the hotel compound, all the way to the excuse for a harbor, not much more than a marina. He was going to ask the skipper to pay him off right now, let him stay behind.
Then he saw it. There were the slips, but no boats. None. All gone, except a couple of sampan-looking things with men loading bundles. He knew that asking them what was going on would be a waste of time. He went back to the International, now saw that there were a few people around, and he stopped a man he recognized, in a hotel uniform, and asked him for an explanation. “There is no cause for worry, sir. Just some soldiers are going to be using our harbor, sir.”