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I'll talk it over with Alfredo and with Jose too, and we'll work out how to explain it to him; but what nonsense was this, she was thinking. Ben expected to meet his own kind, and he was not going to let the dream go. If they said, 'But Ben, better if you didn't see them, they are poor wretched people,' — he would want to meet them. If they pretended to find a place in the mountains where the people had been, and then said, 'They seem to have moved away somewhere,' Ben would go on searching, for his need was so great. Teresa tried to imagine what it was like, believing yourself to be the only person in the world like yourself, knowing you are alone, dependent on chance kindnesses, used but then abandoned — but she couldn't imagine it, only a panic of emptiness and aloneness that gripped her, making her cold and sick. But we have to tell him, we have to, she was repeating to herself, as she fell asleep, and woke to see Ben standing over her. Outside was a strong yellow moonlight and the room was light enough. Ben had his jacket and trousers off, and what she saw there, in his hand, made her sit up and say sharply, 'No, Ben, no, stop.'
He was bending over her, and she did not know if he intended only to look at her, or . He straightened, his hand dropping away from a shrinking penis. 'You should go back to bed, Ben,' she said.
He did so, silent, obedient, and lay awake. So did she. He said angrily, 'Rita liked me. She liked me. You don't like me.' 'Yes, I do, Ben. You know I do.'
She heard his breathing: it was rather like a child's who is about to burst into tears. She thought that this . man, whatever he was — strong and full of energy when he wasn't miserable — had his instincts; and what had he been doing for sex, for women? Rita was a long time ago — months. She knew that as he lay there, snuffling a little, he was thinking that when he met his people there would be a woman for him. Soon his breathing changed, and he was asleep. She did not sleep. As soon as the light came she was up and dressed and went to the kitchen to make coffee. The smell of it woke the men.
The door between this room and Ben's was closed but even so she was speaking in a low voice, telling them that they must explain things to Ben, they must, it was cruel to go on like this.
'He will find out,' said Alfredo. 'He will see for himself 'I am afraid,' said Teresa, but did not mean for herself, or for them, but first Alfredo and then Jose assured her that they would all be together and if Ben was angry they would defend her, and themselves. Alfredo saw she was not reassured and said to Jose that Teresa was fond of Ben. 'And I am too. He's not just a — beast.'
'He feels things the way we do,' said Teresa.
And here Ben came in, smiling, as eager for the new day as a child, and before he could ask, 'Can we leave today?' she told him that today was for doing the shopping.
They all went together in Jose's car to buy more warm things for the mountains, plastic cans for water, a blanket each, food. That took all morning.
Then Teresa complained again of her headache: the altitude was making her feel sick.
Jose brewed coca tea and made them all drink it, for the altitude sickness. She slept away the afternoon, while the men went off to see someone, and Ben fidgeted about in the sitting room.
At supper Alfredo and Jose told Teresa they had a plan for her. She could stay here in this house, with Jose's wife, who worked in Jujuy and kept her weekends free for when Jose came from Humahuaca. That morning they had been to see a friend who worked in the local television station — a small one, nothing like the splendid provisions of Rio, and if she was patient there would certainly be something for her. Meanwhile, there was the archaeological museum, she could try there. Jujuy attracted tobacco men, mining men, experts of all kinds, and they needed people like Teresa to look after them. What did she think? Would she stay in Jujuy? asked Alfredo, and she answered at once, yes. Ben was listening to this conversation as a child does when the talk does not concern him, but Teresa thought, and for the first time, What are we going to do with Ben? If we send him back to Alex, that Professor Gaumlach will get him. I can't ask Jose's wife to take in Ben, too. They had scarcely thought of Ben's future: it had been so urgent to get him out of Rio, out of danger. It rather looked as if she — and that meant Alfredo (but why should he say yes to it?) — was now responsible for Ben. Or perhaps he should be sent back to London, to this Rita Ben talked about.
'What time will we go tomorrow?' asked Ben.
'When we've got all the things into the car,' said Jose.
'Are we taking them to the people?'
'No, we need them,' said Jose. 'It will be cold.'
'Why do they live in a cold place?'
'You'll see,' said Alfredo, after a pause, when the three pairs of eyes met, and separated again at once, in case Ben should see their anxiety. But he had seen: oh, yes. Ben understood very much more than ever people knew.
'Why did you say it like that?' he wanted to know. 'Is there something wrong with them?'
'No,' said Teresa, and Jose came in with the reminder that it was not yet eight o'clock, and why not all four visit a certain hotel, and see for themselves the night life of Jujuy?
Ben said he did not want to: Teresa said that he had liked sitting on the pavements in Rio and watching life going on, hadn't he?
The hotel was a gimcrack place, far removed from the stately edifices along the famous beaches of Rio. There were coloured lights on its outside, isolating it from the rest of the area, and in the main room it was bright, crammed, noisy. The entrance of the four was hardly noticed, and as for Ben, the place was full of strong bulky men. Food was arriving at the tables, but the bar that filled a wall was what people came for. All along the bar stood men, mostly from the tobacco estates, eyeing the bold loud young women who were there for them. The four found a table and squeezed themselves in; Ben did not look happy: the noise was affecting him. It was upsetting Teresa too, in her present state, with headache and nausea only just held at bay. And she was watching the girls and assuring herself that she had never been so pushy and noisy, she was sure of it; telling herself that they, like herself, probably had families to support — and wishing she had never come. Then she saw a young woman she had last seen at a cafe table outside the first hotel she had used, in her new dress. She was afraid she would be recognised and greeted and that Jose would know about her. That wouldn't be nice for Alfredo. She shrank back behind Alfredo, who noticed it, looked to see why, understood, and said to her that they need not stay long. Meanwhile Jose had been accosted at the bar by a girl he obviously knew very well: they were exchanging pleasantries.
'How long has Jose been married?' asked Teresa, and as Alfredo laughed, she said, 'If I had to wait for you in Rio I'd be jealous.'
She thought Ben wouldn't understand, but he said, 'Why, Teresa? Why are you jealous of Alfredo?'
'We were joking,' said Teresa, watching Jose with the woman. Then, in a low voice to Alfredo, 'No, I wasn't joking.'
'But you'll keep me out of trouble,' said Alfredo.
At this point Jose came back with beer for him and Alfredo, juice for Ben, and coca tea for Teresa. 'Tomorrow will be difficult,' he said to her. 'We will be going much higher, and you'll feel bad if you don't drink this tea.'
'Do my people drink this tea?' asked Ben.
'Judging by you they won't have to,' said Jose. 'Where did you get those lungs?' Then he laughed, in a knowing conspiratorial way, and said, 'I said that as if they existed.' He said it in Portuguese, sharing the cruel joke with Teresa and Alfredo. In Portuguese: but Ben had caught it, caught something. 'Why are you laughing?' he said to Jose. He was all at once full of suspicion.