Up the Down Volcano (Kindle Single) Read Free Page B

The cold air whips through a crack in the dashboard and I worry about my clothing. If I ask too many questions, Edgardo tells me to be “tranquillo.” He isolates the word for effect, simply saying “calm,” not bothering with the “yourself.” I’m no expert in South American culture, but I’d bet you all the rice and cabbage in Ecuador that treating a woman like a Victorian hysteric when she asks about long underwear does not go over well.
    “Pichincha,” Edgardo points across my chest, breaking the silence.
    “I see,” I nod, though I am already starting on a path of indifference regarding the mountains.
    Victor reaches silently through from the back seat and offers me cereal puffs from a plastic bag. I shake my head. We stop the car at an adobe-style house complete with a stone path. It is bare bones but at this point any evidence of human intent registers as a luxurious. We haul our belongings — which for me includes a backpack stuffed with an old sleeping bag of Victor’s, various climbing equipment, beans and a chocolate bar. I push on a wooden door and poke my head into the house and see a musty rug, a small kitchen with 20-year-old appliances and a ladder leading up to a floor covered in hay. It’s somehow colder inside than out and smells of mildew. Then again, so do I. Victor comes in behind me. He looks up at the rafters, puts his hands on his hips and whistles appreciatively.
    Edgardo appears behind us.
    “We cannot stay here.”
    “It’s fine ,” I say, fishing in my pack for toilet paper.
    I am fond of this role reversal.
    “We have to go to the refuge,” he says plainly and glares at Victor, who should know better.
    Apparently, we are trespassers. This little hacienda is not our destination. It costs quite a bit of money to rent and other people have done that already. This evening’s destination is another 1,200 feet north and we will be climbing there on foot. We stopped here only because it was raining and Edgardo thought this might be a good spot to layer up on the porch. I unfurl two pairs of snow pants, a sweater and my fleece vest from my backpack but I am having trouble with the boots. Exasperated, Edgardo grabs my leg, one hand behind the knee and the other on the boot, quickly forcing me to sit on a stone bench. He starts lacing up my boots for me. This would verge on maternal if it weren’t the most violent corset-style lacing session of all time. I don’t know what kind of mother Edgardo had. Mine used to take a heart-shaped cookie cutter to my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

    •••

    “Here is where we get out,” Edgardo says, firmly.
    The rain has turned to snow that comes from beneath the car as much as from above it. No one expected a snowstorm but apparently this one doesn’t look so bad. I am awash with the girlish impulse to be back in New York in my apartment, imagining the feel of it in mid-July when the first sign of rain is the high-pitched tapping of drops falling on an air-conditioning unit. I am freezing already, a fact that Edgardo can’t believe, despite the purple hue of my lips. I have been backed into trusting Edgardo through circumstance. Like a doctor-patient relationship, no matter how extreme my discomfort or doubt, he is the only one to tell me what’s normal. The next second opinion is about 5,000 vertical feet away. I unbuckle my seatbelt. I think that I have never been so cold in my life and then immediately try to rid myself of thoughts like this. I know we’re at the beginning.
    It is beyond me how anyone could discern “parking space” from where we’ve stopped. If I opened my door and stepped straight over a cliff, I would not be surprised.
    Dead? Yes. Surprised? No.
    “Your hands are too cold,” Edgardo observes as he watches me not getting out of the car.
    I am rubbing my palms together with more enthusiasm than a pubescent Edgardo ever rubbed anything. I would stick them in my mouth if I wasn’t worried about the