Free The Abundance of the Infinite by Christopher Canniff Page B

arrived home, we discussed other locales to which we could travel. She said she did not want to go anywhere else. But at the moment when she surprised me, her sudden resolution to depart that bus seemed like a sensible idea. There was a way back, and another bus would be by within a few hours. We hiked for two miles along desolate paved roads, to reach the last workplace of Salvador Dalí, Grafista , Graphic Artist. The spiraling foliage, the deep blue of a Mediterranean sky, and the surreal images inside the small castle he had built for his wife still fuel my dreams.
    â€œWhy here?” I ask Karen, aware now that everyone who is awake aboard the bus is watching us inquisitively. “I know you’re trying to prove something to me,” I continue, “that you’ve changed, but you don’t have to.”
    â€œChanged?” Karen asks quizzically. “Why do you say that?”
    â€œLet’s just stay on the bus until we get somewhere less remote. This town doesn’t even look like a normal stop on the bus route.”
    â€œYou don’t think this is a normal stop, with all these signs for tourists?” she asks. And I think I can hear, at that moment, but just faintly, the words, rolling into my head in a whisper: “But anyway, neither was Girona.”
    We descend the stairs of the bus and arrive at the edge of a muddy street.
    This place seems familiar. I pull one of my father’s photographs out of my backpack and see him smiling in front of an overgrown town square, the fountain at its centre no longer functional but instead a cascade of dense foliage, the backdrop appearing to be the same as what is now before us.
    â€œI recognize this place,” I say. “At least, it looks like a town my father visited. But why are we here?”
    â€œThe Señora says this is where your father spent much of his time,” she replies.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œHe owned some huts here in Archidona, and we’ll rent them from the new owner.”
    â€œI don’t care to stay here, and we need to get to Quito.”
    â€œWe need to rest in a bed. And don’t you want to know why your father spent so much time here?”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    As I try to climb the stairs to get back on the bus, its door closed now, the vehicle speeds off with a cloud of pollution. I stare for a while at the water rushing nearby, the mud-brown water of the Amazon.
    After a few minutes we find ourselves unexpectedly alone in the middle of this place, without a bus in sight and without knowing when another will be coming through. I have the sudden frightening thought that the protests in the country might delay the buses, or even temporarily stop service altogether.
    My anger at her, and at myself for listening to her, turns into wonderment at discovering a place that was so dear to my father. A small black monkey hops down from one of the trees within the square, noticing us, moving very cautiously at first, then scuttling away, and then returning. The animal becomes more and more emboldened after each incremental determination to discover whether or not we intend to hurt it. Staring at my backpack, which I set down, the small black-faced beast scampers toward me and grabs the pack as though it is an offering and, dragging it, unable to carry the weight, begins to examine the outside closely. It tries the zipper, slides it open, and removes a bottle of water. The monkey runs away with its newfound prize, its tail curled in anticipation as it hops up to the base of the tree, the bottle thumping to the ground heavily as it darts quickly upward.
    As the sun moves behind the clouds, the image of this black monkey, who sits in the dark tree staring at us, starts to blend in to become at first dark colours, and then an absence of light.
    This then transforms into the dim shade of the evening, sporadic shadows drunkenly attacking the fog of oversized insects around the two streetlights