After two hours, Amani slept a little. When she woke up, the man was not behind her any more. He was at the front of the bus. The sun was coming up. The bus was near Nairobi. Amani saw the road, the trees, and the morning light.
When the bus arrived in Nairobi, Amani's brother was waiting at the station. He was eighteen years old and tall now. He took her bag.
'How was the journey?' he asked.
'Long,' Amani said. 'But fine.'
She did not tell him about the man. She did not tell her mother either, when she got home. She put her bag in her old bedroom. She had some tea. She slept for four hours.
That evening, she sat on the small balcony with her mother, and she said: 'Mama, I was glad of your warnings on the bus last night.' Her mother looked at her. She did not ask why.
The Quito-Cuenca night bus left at half past nine. Marisol had taken it twice before, both times with her mother. This was the first time alone.
The bus was a double-decker, slightly old, with seats that reclined more than was useful. Most of the passengers were already in their seats — a young father holding a sleeping toddler in the front row, three soldiers in uniform laughing quietly across the aisle, an older woman knitting under the small reading light. Marisol's seat was on the upper deck, by the window. The seat next to hers was empty.
For the first hour, the road was straight and the lights of small towns moved past. By eleven, the bus was climbing. The temperature dropped. Marisol put on the wool jumper her mother had insisted she pack. She did not sleep.
At midnight, the bus stopped at a fuel station. A man got on alone. He was younger than she was, perhaps nineteen, in a denim jacket. He walked up to the upper deck and sat in the aisle seat across from hers. He did not look at her.
For the next two hours, Marisol noticed him reading on his phone. He had earphones in. He laughed quietly, once, at whatever he was watching. When the bus stopped at three for a meal break, he got off and bought a coffee, and did not, when he came back, sit anywhere else.
Marisol watched the road. The road climbed. She did not sleep. The young man, by four, was asleep against the window of his seat. He was harmless. She had known this, probably, for some time.
The Lima-Cusco bus left at half past eight. Marisol had taken it twice before, both times with her mother. This was her first time alone.
The bus was a double-decker — the kind that the company in question had imported, second-hand, from Argentina some years before, repainted in their dark green livery, and given a name in white letters along the side: CRUZ DEL ANDES. The seats reclined more than was useful. The journey, which would take about twenty hours and climb from sea level to over three thousand metres, was the cheapest option. The plane was not, on a teacher's salary, a serious one.
Most of the passengers were already in their places by the time Marisol got on. There was a young father in the front row holding a sleeping toddler against his chest; three soldiers in fatigues, laughing quietly across the aisle and passing a bag of fried plantain between them; an older woman knitting under a small reading light in the second row, in the way of women who, by a certain age, can knit through any amount of darkness; and, towards the back, a thin man already curled against the window with his eyes closed and his arms folded — too composedly, Marisol noted, in the small reflexive way that she had not, before about the age of nineteen, possessed but which, by twenty-four, she had developed without ever consciously deciding to.
The bus left the station. The lights of Lima moved past — the tall billboards along the Pan-American, the closed shops of the Avenida Garcilaso, the small fluorescent restaurants still open. By eleven the road was climbing.
The man across the aisle from Marisol — different from the thin man at the back — was awake and reading on his phone. He had earphones in. He laughed, once, very quietly, at something on the screen. He did not look at her.
At midnight, the bus stopped at a fuel station outside Pisco. Some passengers got off for coffee or to use the bathrooms. Marisol did not. She had trained herself, at some point, to keep her bag with the strap looped around her foot, and she preferred not to disturb the arrangement.
From the window she watched the small ordinary scene: the buses parked in a row, the drivers smoking together, two women selling tamales from a pot wrapped in cloth. After fifteen minutes the conductor walked along the row of buses, calling people back in a tired, patient voice.
A new passenger got on. He was perhaps thirty-five, in a denim jacket, with a small black bag. He looked at his ticket, walked up to the upper deck, and sat in the aisle seat directly across from hers.
Marisol did not turn her head. She had registered him already, in the seven seconds during which he had been in her peripheral vision: the bag, the jacket, the height, the choice of seat, the small fact that he had not, throughout, looked at her.
The bus left Pisco. The road continued to climb. Marisol pulled her wool jumper around her. She did not, that night, sleep.
The Quito-Cuenca night bus left at half past nine. Marisol had taken it twice before, both times with her mother. This was her first time alone.
The bus was a double-decker — the kind the company had imported, second-hand, from Argentina some years before, repainted in their dark green livery, and given a name in white letters along the side: CRUZ DEL ANDES. The seats reclined more than was useful. The journey, which would take about ten hours and climb from twenty-eight hundred metres to over thirty-five hundred and then back down, was the cheapest option. The plane was not, on a teacher's salary, a serious one.
Most of the passengers were already in their places by the time Marisol got on. There was a young father in the front row holding a sleeping toddler against his chest; three soldiers in uniform laughing quietly across the aisle and passing a bag of habas tostadas between them; an older woman knitting under a small reading light in the second row, in the way of women who, by a certain age, can knit through any amount of darkness; and, towards the back, a thin man already curled against the window with his eyes closed and his arms folded — too composedly, Marisol noted with a small reflex she had not, when boarding any bus before about the age of nineteen, possessed but which, by twenty-four, she had developed without ever consciously deciding to. She filed the observation, in the way one files an observation that is unlikely to require action but which it is, on balance, better to have made.
Her seat was on the upper deck, by the window. The seat next to hers was empty. The woman in the seat across the aisle was, judging by the small icon on her phone, listening to a Catholic prayer in Quechua. She nodded when Marisol sat down. They did not, that night, exchange names.
By eleven the bus was climbing. The temperature dropped. Marisol put on the wool jumper her mother had insisted she pack — the same wool jumper Marisol had once thought was a sign of her mother's tendency to underestimate her, and which she had, by now, come to recognise as a sign of something else, harder to name. She watched the lights of small towns move past in the dark. She did not, that night, sleep.
At midnight, the bus stopped at a fuel station outside Latacunga. A man got on alone. He was younger than she was, perhaps nineteen, in a denim jacket. He walked up to the upper deck and sat in the aisle seat directly across from hers — the seat next to the woman with the prayer.
Marisol noticed, by the small efficient peripheral noticing one cultivates when looking directly is, for one reason or another, not a good idea, that the young man chose that seat rather than the empty seat next to her, although the empty seat would have given him more room. She also noticed, almost immediately, the small mental tilt by which she had, for half a second, registered this choice as a piece of information about him rather than about her own situation. She set the tilt aside, gently, in the way one sets aside thoughts one knows one will not act on. He had, in fact, very probably chosen the seat for a reason that had nothing to do with her. He had probably chosen it because the woman with the prayer had a quietness about her that suggested she would not, in the next ten hours, be a difficulty.
For the next three hours Marisol watched him read on his phone. He had earphones in. He laughed quietly, once, at whatever he was watching. He did not look at her. The woman with the prayer fell asleep against the window. The man read.
The road climbed. The temperature dropped further. By two in the morning, the bus was crossing a high pass at three thousand five hundred metres, and the headlights showed only the road and the mist on either side.
Marisol thought, briefly, about her mother in the small flat in Quito, asleep at this hour. She thought about the woman with the prayer, who had, in her sleep, slid slightly down in her seat, and whose Quechua icon was still active on the phone. She thought about the young man across the aisle, who was, on every available evidence, harmless — a young man on a long bus journey, doing what young men on long bus journeys do, in a country that has, by certain measures, the most dangerous roads in the region and, by other measures, the most considerate fellow travellers.
When the sun came up, somewhere above Cuenca, the young man was asleep against his window. The woman with the prayer was awake, knitting. Marisol had not slept.
She watched the morning light on the volcano in the distance. She thought, with a slow and slightly tired gratitude, that nothing had happened. She thought, also, that the absence of harm was not the same as the presence of safety; the kind of attention she had paid for ten hours was, on the wrong night, the kind of attention that could amount to nothing useful at all.
She had been lucky. She did not think she had been wise.
The Quito-Cuenca Night Bus
A note before the story. The events I describe did not, in any single configuration, happen. They are made of pieces of journeys taken by my mother, by a friend in Cusco, and by myself. The protagonist is a young Ecuadorian woman, and I am not Ecuadorian. I have decided to write the story anyway, on the same grounds as the writer of the story this one is in conversation with: the alternative principle, that one writes only stories whose protagonist could be one's self, has seemed to me a more limiting one than the principle I am here defending. The reader will judge the defence.
Marisol was twenty-four. She had grown up in Quito, in a small flat near the Parque La Carolina, where her mother still lived. She had moved to Cuenca eight months earlier, to begin a teaching post at a small private school. She came home about every six weeks. The bus was the cheapest option. The plane was, on a teacher's salary, a serious option only twice a year.
The Quito-Cuenca night bus left at half past nine. She had taken it twice before, both times with her mother. This was her first time alone.
The bus was a double-decker — imported, second-hand, from Argentina some years before, repainted in the company's dark green livery, given a name in white letters along the side: CRUZ DEL ANDES. The seats reclined more than was useful. The journey would take about ten hours and would climb from twenty-eight hundred metres to over thirty-five hundred and then back down.
Most of the passengers were already in their places by the time Marisol got on. There was a young father in the front row holding a sleeping toddler against his chest; three soldiers in uniform laughing quietly across the aisle and passing a bag of habas tostadas between them; an older woman knitting under a small reading light in the second row, in the way of women who, by a certain age, can knit through any amount of darkness; and, towards the back, a thin man already curled against the window with his eyes closed and his arms folded — too composedly, Marisol noted with a small reflex she had not, when boarding any bus before about the age of nineteen, possessed but which, by twenty-four, she had developed without ever consciously deciding to.
I would like to interrupt, here, in the manner the present story has borrowed from the one whose company it keeps, to acknowledge that the moment I have just described — the protagonist's small reflex of attention — is now a recognisable convention of a particular kind of contemporary fiction. The reflex is real. The convention has, by now, the slight wear of overuse. I am writing the moment anyway, because I have not found a better way to convey the same observation, and because the convention's wear is itself part of what the moment is, in the present period, doing.
Her seat was on the upper deck, by the window. The seat next to hers was empty. The woman in the seat across the aisle was, judging by the small icon on her phone, listening to a Catholic prayer in Quechua. She nodded when Marisol sat down. They did not exchange names.
By eleven the bus was climbing. Marisol put on the wool jumper her mother had insisted she pack. She did not sleep.
At midnight, the bus stopped at a fuel station outside Latacunga. A man got on alone. He was younger than she was, perhaps nineteen, in a denim jacket. He walked up to the upper deck and sat in the aisle seat directly across from hers — the seat next to the woman with the prayer.
Marisol noticed, by the small efficient peripheral noticing one cultivates when looking directly is, for one reason or another, not a good idea, that the young man chose that seat rather than the empty seat next to her, although the empty seat would have given him more room. She also noticed, almost immediately, the small mental tilt by which she had, for half a second, registered this choice as a piece of information about him rather than about her own situation. She set the tilt aside. He had probably chosen the seat because the woman with the prayer had a quietness about her that suggested she would not, in the next ten hours, be a difficulty.
For the next three hours Marisol watched him read on his phone. He had earphones in. He laughed quietly, once, at whatever he was watching. He did not look at her. The woman with the prayer fell asleep against the window.
The road climbed. The temperature dropped further. By two in the morning, the bus was crossing a high pass at three thousand five hundred metres.
I would like to make one further small observation. The story I have been writing is, by its own internal evidence, a story in which nothing of consequence is going to happen. The young man across the aisle will, in the morning, get off the bus and disappear into a perfectly ordinary day. The story's interest is not in him. It is in Marisol, and in the small sustained work of her attention, and in the fact that this work is, on most nights, the entirety of what a young woman travelling alone has to offer her own safety. I record the observation because the literary short story has, by now, become so good at producing this kind of effect that the effect itself has begun to feel suspect — and because the suspicion, as well as the effect, is part of what the story is, in passing, doing.
When the sun came up, somewhere above Cuenca, the young man was asleep against his window. The woman with the prayer was awake, knitting. Marisol had not slept.
She watched the morning light on the volcano in the distance. She thought, with a slow and slightly tired gratitude, that nothing had happened. She thought, also, that the absence of harm was not the same as the presence of safety; the kind of attention she had paid for ten hours was, on the wrong night, the kind of attention that could amount to nothing useful at all.
She had been lucky. She did not think she had been wise.
I would like the reader to leave her there.
How useful did you find this text? Leave a rating and a comment to help other teachers.