Free Falling Off the Map by Pico Iyer

Why did they not put his body in the ground?”
    What is the Spanish word for “cremation”? I wonder wildly. “
Cremación
,” I try.
    “Cremation, eh? Is that right? Thank you,” he says, and walks out.
    A little later, Louis gets up again and staggers to the terrace. More toasts to
Die Freundschaft
go down the drain.
    “I’m really sick,” he says. “I can’t move. Just get me a bed.”
    I relay the request to the police chief.
    For the first time all day, his commitment to our friendship seems to flag. “
Hier gibt es kein Bett!
” he barks. “
Das ist nicht Hotel! Das ist nicht Krankenhaus!
”
    “
Jawohl, mein Herr
,” I say, and we go on waiting for the car rental man.
    Suddenly, headlights sweep into the plaza, and a car pulls up. I hurry outside. A man gets out, with an air of great briskness, and I hurry over to him. “So you are Indian?” he says.“Yes.” “Then tell me something, please. When Rajiv Gandhi died, why did they not put his body in the ground?”
    “Cremation,” I reply with tired fluency, and, satisfied, he gets in his car and drives away.
    Watching this open-air university in action, the police chief is shamed, perhaps, by his earlier brusqueness. “Once,” he tells me in German, “I traveled for six hours by train to Dresden to meet my roommate’s sister.”
    “
Ach ja?
”
    At 11:15 p.m., the car rental man appears, and we return to the inner office to do some paperwork. “So—your name is Pico?” “Well, my family name is Iyer.” “So your father’s name is Pico.” “No …”
    At 1:15 a.m., we pull up at last in front of the Casagranda Hotel in Santiago (“simultaneously dirty and suffocating,” sings my guidebook), a famous old joint recently closed for fumigation, where we have a four-day reservation, paid for in advance in London. I leave Louis comatose in the back of our new car, sundry revelers singing and banging drums around him in the street. Inside the hotel, an enormous man is sitting next to a wooden cash register. When he sees my voucher, he looks unhappy. Party girls in backless dresses and well-coiffed boys stroll down the pitch-black staircase from the rooftop cabaret. A couple of them sit on a couch in the lobby and gaze expectantly in my direction. The enormous man looks desperate. I look worse. He picks up a telephone and starts dialing.
    Thirty minutes later, he has found us alternative accommodations. At 2:15 a.m., a convoy of two cars, including one spokesman for the house of Gandhi, one new rental car and one immobile investment banker, pulls up at the Hotel Gaviota. As soon as it does, a young boy rushes out. “Welcome,” he cries, in English. “How was your trip? Welcome to the Hotel Gaviota! It’s great to see you!”
    “Thanks.”
    “We have some Welcome Cocktails all ready for you! What will it be? A cuba libre? A daiquiri? Some
ron
? What would you like?”
    “My friend cannot move.”
    “No problem. A Welcome Cocktail will help. It’s on the house!”
    “But he’s already heard Margaret Thatcher impugned, almost killed a boy, and been taken to a hospital by a police chief speaking German.”
    “Sure!” says the boy. “That’s why he needs a Welcome Cocktail. Please! My friends are waiting!” He points to the bar, where two young bloods are sitting hopefully in the dark.
    I go over to Louis, now propped up in the lobby, and break the news to him.
    He does not look overjoyed.
    “The thing is, unless you order a Welcome Cocktail, I don’t think you’ll get a room.”
    “Okay, okay, just get me some mineral water.” Realizing that this could entail a long wait—yesterday we had stopped in a small town to ask two boys for water and been told, “For water you must go to the next town! Only forty-five kilometers away!”—I go to the desk to do some paperwork. On one side is a sign that advises, CRAZY LOVE IS NOT TRUE LOVE . On the other, a stack of Cubatur brochures. “
Ven a vivir una tentación!
” Come to