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Chapters (14)
  1. Salt Crystals
  2. I. THE DAMNED CIRCUMSTANCE
  3. II. NOTEBOOK OF A RETURN
  4. III. DIVISIONS
  5. IV. LICKLE GOUGH
  6. V. BOWIE GULLY
  7. VI. THE PAPERS OF TIME
  8. VII. NORTH END
  9. VIII. SALT CRYSTALS
  10. IX. IGUANAS ON THE ROOF
  11. X. THE SOUTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN
  12. XI. CREOLES AND RAIN
  13. XII. OTTO
  14. TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

The author’s name is Gerhard Sandner and he’s a Namibian-born geographer, but he’s of German origin and lives in Germany, I read on the back flap. The book was published by the Universidad Nacional in 2013. Now I focus on the words highlighted in neon green:

…by the end of the eighteenth century, the names had emerged that remain the most significant ones today: Archbold, Bowie (the founder arrived circa 1789 with twenty slaves, one of whom he married), Robinson (the founder was an impoverished English captain), Newball and Taylor, Forbes and Lever, Brown and Wright…

Silence. Jaime looks at me curiously. I let myself be swept back in a flash to the tiny slave ship. A woman, huddled naked among hundreds of parallel bodies, trembling, the humid air charged with terror, fever, vertigo, a guest at the party.

IX. IGUANAS ON THE ROOF

IX. IGUANAS ON THE ROOF

Lying in bed, I hear a crunching noise on the roof, and I wonder once again how I ended up falling into the tropical rabbit hole.

Ruuuum, ruuum! Rum!

It sounds as if there were some heavy stew boiling up there, a duppy’s presence crackling, one of all the men and women who have visited me here.

It’s been hard to take the heat, but I don’t much feel like leaving the house; I’ve slept a lot, despite the unbearable racket of the sirens and construction sites out back. I’m still alarmed by the sirens. Their daily activation reminds me that San Andrés isn’t a village anymore, but a whole city in a state of emergency.

Roberto called me from an unknown number a few days ago. I picked up and my comfortable distance was abruptly cut short. I felt my stomach turn at the sound of his voice – I hadn’t heard it since the morning he left on his trip to Southeast Asia, when he kissed me goodbye and told me he loved me. Bastard. The next day, worried that I hadn’t heard from him en route, I logged into his email, hoping to find some reservation code that would let me know he’d landed in Narita, and I did. I tracked his flight, which had landed in Tokyo by then. I also learned that he wasn’t bound for the spiritual retreat he’d spent months talking about, but for a honeymoon vacation with his old lover.