Thereafter
~continuing the story of Teddy, who is swimming in the bay and thinking of swimming and swimming and swimming till she can't go on
No one would miss me. Maybe Aunt Lili. My father had been dead for a long time; I had seen my brother and sister very sporadically for years, and I didn't have any old friends. I had been away from the Netherlands for so long. After high school, I packed up and started traveling the world. Everywhere I went, I made friends I would never see again or only for a month a year, like here in Zihuat. No one stayed in my life, and I didn't stay in anyone's life. Why should I stay alive? What kept me here? I had plenty of money, and I still did, but that might run out in a few years and several years of travel, although that was not likely. I had no money worries, no challenges, and was cowardly. I didn't dare go out on the water and exhaust myself so much that I would sink. I was afraid of my last seconds if I realized that this was it, that this was the end, that I was going to suffocate. One more time I would open my mouth, I would try one more time to suck air into my lungs but there was no more air, it would be water that I sucked in, my lungs would fill up with water and I would suffocate.
Terrified, I swam on. My heartbeat was pounding through my body. I had scared myself insanely. The only way I could think of to calm myself down was to count my strokes. Every time I inserted my right hand, I counted. I inhaled on the right side and blew out underwater, coaxing, inhaling, inserting, counting, exhaling, and repeatedly. Sometimes, I lost count. Then I started all over again. The counting and the regularity calmed me down, and the other side came into view. I had swum for at least one and a half hours and had crossed the bay. I turned left and swam to the beach. At the end of Playa del Ropa was Restaurant la Perla. I always ate something after my swim. I had agreed with them that I would give them an amount every week that I could eat so that I didn't have to take money with me when I swam. La Perla had delicious breakfast dishes, such as American pancakes with blueberries, eggs Benedict, good coffee, and fresh juices. I ordered the Eggs benedict, a coffee with hot milk and a coconut juice.
A few hundred meters away from me, I saw Juan Carlos' straw hat coming onto the beach. Juan Carlos was underneath, and I hoped he wouldn't see me. I saw how his head was searching in all directions and I had a suspicion that he was looking for me. I didn't feel like that and beckoned to Carlito, the owner's son. I called Juan Carlos' name and moved as if I wanted to slit a throat. It seemed evident to me.
Carlito laughed, and I knew he would keep Juan Carlos away from me. Most hard-working Mexicans had nothing to do with Juan Carlos, who smoked weed, made his money illegally copying CDs, had sex with tourists, and built his own house. They thought he was just a parasite. Carlito put a parasol on its side so Juan Carlos could only notice me when he was standing in front of La Perla. I assumed he was looking for me to apologize, but I didn't like his stoned eyes and his offer to smoke a joint with him. If there's one thing I didn't need, it was oblivion. This blow. My mother's death. Eaten by a shark. I had to face this. I had to do something. Come up with something. I needed a clear head for that.
I tried to eat the Benedict eggs with taste, which was not easy. All the time I saw my mother in front of me with that bloody bunny in her hand, I didn't know if it was a bunny but it looked like it. Mechanically I chewed but luckily it tastes excellent and slowly I started to enjoy what went over my tongue. Still, I couldn't help but think about my mother, who would never eat again. Would she have eaten Eggs Benedict in Chile?
She was in Chile; I had always been attracted to that country but had never been there. I traveled to South and Latin America but never went to that long, thin country. Now, it was time to go to Chile. I knew what I had to do. After dinner, I would first rest on a beach bed at the bungalow park where I had rented a bungalow, and then I would go back to the Internet café and look up the best way to travel to Chile. That's where I had to go eventually. Maybe my mom still had stuff there. She had a husband there. Perhaps she had a wife there. She had a family there, and I had a brother or sister. I took small sips of my hot coffee. Juan Carlos had undoubtedly given up looking for me; I would soon find that scumbag on my beach bed if the owner of Urracas would not chase him off the beach, or he might have already done so. All my anger about what had happened to my mother was directed at Juan Carlos, which felt good. I had to be able to blame someone, someone who was here and whom I could scold in Spanish, which was a good language for swearing, especially Mexican Spanish was good in the mouth for a scolding, and who better than Juan Carlos could I scold.