Tourists - Short Story

Literary Review, Summer, 2000 by Mildred Verba Morris

"I understand you are writing a novel." Susan is dazzled out of her daydream by Bonita, a huge woman with a mass of bronze curls and four newly-capped front teeth. "Is it a mystery novel?" Bonita persists.

"We are all a mystery to one another." Susan says.

"Oh, that is so true," Bonita says. The floor rolls. She hangs on to The Boy with one hand, and a pillar with the other. Then she eases herself into a chair and takes out the argyle sweater she has been working on since the beginning of the trip. "Everybody has a dark side," Bonita says, bobbins bobbing. "Take the Colombian. Never without a camera. But has he snapped a picture yet? And how come Nicole permits Pamela's daughter on the bus? No other children are allowed. You are thinking what I am thinking, right? And of course you are curious about The Boy? Admit it." Without waiting for a reply or skipping a stitch, Bonita says that The Boy is her younger brother, thirty-four years of age, a menopausal mistake. "Wally," she says, "give the lady the book."

The Boy thrusts the Michelin Guide to Paris into Susan's hands. "Ask me something hard," he says with a proud grin.

Susan opens the book at random. "Where is the Medici Fountain located?"

His eyes move, as if following a teleprompter in his brain. "It stands at the end of a long pool in the Luxembourg Gardens, shaded by plane trees. Built in 1624, it shows obvious Italian in ..."

"That's fine," says Bonita.

"... fluence in its embossed decoration and overall design."

"You see," says Bonita, tapping her forehead. "A map for a mind. This is his first trip to Paris. Planned it for years. Never gets lost, but his map doesn't include people and traffic, and he was almost run over in London with the cars going in the wrong direction. I promised my mother on her deathbed, I said, `Mom, don't worry about a thing. As long as I'm here, The Boy will be taken care of.' My brother and sister didn't say a word. They were going to put him in a home. But I had to make the grand gesture. So now he is my life," she says. "Funny thing though, I dreamed last night we were in Paris and a taxi ran over him. Rolled him out flat like Bugs Bunny, only Wally didn't get up afterward. When I awoke, I thought, wow, where did all that come from? Is it wish-fulfillment or what? But I shouldn't be telling you all this should I?"

A tidal wave with an overbite ..., Susan writes in her notebook. She sighs. In Bonita's lusterless eyes she sees her own bitter end. "But you're not responsible for your dreams," Susan says. "I'm sure you love him."

"Well, ye-e-s," Bonita says, "but then I ask myself, `who dreamed it?'"

12:45 P. M. Channel boat cafeteria. Clatter of trays. Cheerful ring of cash registers. Homey smell of steamtable cauliflower. Girl from Nebraska, in cafeteria line swirls fries in catsup and nibbles while waiting for hamburger. Eats only fast food, but impatiently, as if no food will ever be fast enough. Says Colombian promised to take her to Le Chien Noir, a dive in Paris, where everyone is a transvestite, a transsexual, or something in between....