By Marnie Mueller Clinton St. Quarterly customs officials were friendly once they heard Caitlin's Guayaquil accent with its dropped word endings and rush of syllables. It was when she handed them the passports that the trouble occurred. She realized a beat later that she hadn't changed her name on the official document and to make matters worse, Andreas was still a German citizen. Their passports were issued in two different countries. "Este esnuestro luna de miel, our honeymoon," she blurted out, immediately angry with herself for giving into the pressure. The official, a thin man with fine features, grinned suggestively at her. "I hope you have mucho miel on your vacation, Senorita." He used the familiar you. "The hot climate is good for that." J he airport was exactly as she remembered it, open on two sides, with the mosaic mural depicting the conquistadores claiming of Ecuador overlooking the waiting room. It hadn’t changed in the five years since she’d lived in this city. The air pressed in the same way, sweet with the scent of flowers and rotting vegetation, heavy with moisture. I’m here again, she kept reminding herself as she and Andreas pushed through the crowds of families waiting for the arrivals. There was a moment of wishing someone from the barrio had come to meet her. Gala or Rina or Hermes. She wondered if they were at the Community Center. Were ■»» W the women in the sewing class? She could see the Center, the wooden shutters thrown open. The hum and thump of the sewing machine pedals floating out. She would walk across the dusty patio and up the steep board steps, and stand at the door looking in. There they’d be, twenty women bent over their work. Behind them the cement wall washed with turquoise, rising twelve feet to meet the corrugated tin roof. Spears of light shooting down from the unpatched holes. Who would look up? Rina? Senora Jijon? Tears of longing welled in her. She wanted their welcome. And to ask their forgiveness. taxi rattled and raced toward the city. The wind blew in hot and full of odors. Caitlin fought back the feelings expanding in her. She took in the smells. The diesel from the buses. The carbon fires burning, with chunks of pork and kernels of maiz frying in pans on top of them. The food vendors were out all along the way. Figures set against glaring whitewashed walls. “That’s the cemetery,” she yelled over the din of the taxi as they passed the gates of the city’s most elegant locale, with its black and white terrazzo floor and white marble mausoleums and castles, set among royal palms. “They say the dead live better than the living, in Guayaquil." Next was the crumbling jail with its usual line of women along the wall, carryB 7 ing three tiered lunchpails for their lovers and husbands inside. The men hung out the windows, their arms stretched through the bars. If no one brought them food, they didn’t eat. They were getting closer to Cerro Santa Ana, the barrio built on a hill where Caitlin had lived. “We’re almost there,” Caitlin said. “Wait till you see it. I’m getting so excited. You’ll
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