[Note: this story involves the same characters as the series "Coyoacan Mi Amor." I wanted to make it part of that cycle but it can be read on its own. Enjoy!]
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"You're in for a real treat," said Bernardo as he steered the Jeep Cherokee over the rutted road. Scrub brush lined the lanes; every few miles they stopped as a cow ambled across.
"My kidneys are bruised from all the bumping. It'd better be great whenever we get where you're taking us, Bernardo," said Dan Lissner, senior writer for a major professional services firm in New York. "It feels like we've been driving all day."
"Only two hours," said Dafna Greenbaum, grabbing Dan's wrist to check his watch. They sat scrunched together in the back seat of the SUV. Dafna felt Dan's hairy thigh rubbing against the smoothness of her leg, which he helped her shave – so slowly, with so many kisses -- the night before. Dafna and Dan had come a long way since they met online, then became digital and then real lovers.
"Two more miles and we're there," said Bernardo. "You've never seen anything like it."
"I'm sold," chuckled Dan. "You guys haven't steered me wrong yet."
While they had been driving only two hours, the group had been on the move since dawn that Friday in Mexico City. Bernardo Michelson and his wife Leah, Dafna's younger sister, Velma Martinez (Dafna's friend and fellow school teacher), and finally Dafna and Dan drove to the far corner of Benito Juarez International Airport. Roaring up to a private hangar, they parked the two SUVs and piled their luggage into a spacious prop plane. "All aboard," called the pilot, Nahum Rosenfeld, Velma's boyfriend and the director of security for Dafna's apartment building in Mexico City. They climbed into the plane, giggling like kids on a field trip.
Within minutes they were airborne, soaring over Mexico City's dirty air for points south. After about 90 minutes, the plane smoothly descended into Ilopongo Airport in San Salvador, the military airport known as headquarters for American advisors during the Salvadoran civil war. "No hassles with the commercial airport for mis amigos buenos," the boyfriend said as they grabbed bags and filed out. Two other vehicles waited for them. Dan, Bernardo and Nahum piled into one, while Dafna, Velma, and Leah piled into the other for serious girl talk. During a bathroom and pupusa break (pupusas being a Salvadoran dish, dough full of meat or cheese) at a country crossroad an hour outside of San Salvador, they rotated so Leah, Bernardo, Dafna, and Dan rode in one vehicle, while Velma and Nahum bumped along in the other.
Bernardo pointed the SUV down a sandy road, a trail, really, flanked by spindly palm trees and thatched-roof wooden homes. Finally he turned through an open gate and stopped.
"Here's the treat, Danno," he said with a theatrical flourish. "Playa La Libertad!"
"Let's take a look," said Dan, giving Dafna's warm hand a squeeze. Her fingers tightened around his. With the red-tipped nail of her middle finger she scratched his palm, up and down, and then again. Dan felt the jolt of her light touch straight up and his spine and down his crotch.
Out of the car, far from Mexico City, away from Ilopongo, Dan stepped into another world. In front of him were small cabins flanking an open pavilion with a sunken floor, a bar and refrigerator, couches and chairs. Beyond that, a large white rack held kayaks and a motorboat bobbed in a freshwater inlet. And in the distance, he saw a wavering line that stretched far to the right, a beach that vanished into the horizon at a point of blue sea, green brush, and black sand.
"Wow. Long Island Sound it's not," whistled Dan. The dark ribbon ran 100 yards down to the roiling surf of Pacific waves. "I'm impressed. So this is the black-sand beach Dafna's told me about."
"The most beautiful beach in Central America," said Bernardo. He slipped his arm around Leah and pulled her to him. "And the most beautiful women."
"My Bernardo, he's such a charmer. I could never resist him," said Leah, resting her head on his shoulder with a sigh.
Friends of Bernardo's in San Salvador loaned them the beach house for the weekend. The caretakers cleaned the place beforehand, so the couples simply brought food, bathing suits, and other necessities. Awaiting them were simple cabins (one for each couple), a sometimes sporadic supply of electricity, plenty of board games, Shabbat candles, and a motorboat to ferry them to a thickly wooded island a half-mile out in the inlet, where a small river flowed into the Pacific.
After a quick nosh the couples changed into swimsuits and headed to the surf with body boards. Dan, a novice, quickly figured out how to choose and ride the three-foot high waves far up the beach. Dafna, in her turquoise one-piece Gottex swimsuit, ripped along with him. Sometimes, when the waves finally deposited them on the shore side by side, they'd turn to each other. On the warm sand they lay, the Salvadoran jungle sun a caress through the grit and suntan lotion.
"Mi amor," said Dan. "This is a wonderful place. I like it already."
"Good for the soul to get away from the city, no?" asked Dafna.
"And the body. Must not forget the body. Or, bodies," said Dan in a teasing tone.
"Jamas!" she cried in mock seriousness. "Never!"
They returned to the compound. Bernardo was on his cell phone, trying to untangle a production snarl at one of the malquiladoras, or manufacturing plants, he managed in Reynosa, Mexico, on the Texas border. He drummed his fingers on a table in exasperation. His wet black hair hung over his forehead.
Leah walked over, a glass of ice water in her hand. "You two look rung out. Time for a nap?" she asked.
"Maybe, Dan, you would like to see the island? It is very pretty and quiet. We could take the boat," said Dafna. A Salvadoran beach towel, decorated with drawings of exotic birds and pueblos, hugged her hips.
"Take a little picnic with us, too?" said Dan. The swimming made him hungry, while the setting – sand, surf, privacy, Dafna coyly draped – created another urge. The island sounded like a very good idea.
First they took quick showers to wash off the sand, then packed a hamper with sandwiches, cold sodas, vigorously rinsed fruit, more towels, and a big green picnic blanket. Rummaging in the room for a T-shirt, Dan thought, "Why not?" and threw in the new bottle of baby oil.
"Your papers, pleeeaze," Leah joked in a mock-German accent as they stepped onto the boat for the ride to the island, a half mile from the beach house.
"You two kids have so much energy. This is a wonderful time for a siesta. I'm going to come back and climb right into the hammock," Leah chattered.
"Time away from the kids, that's what parents like to do, right?" said Dan. "Catch up on our sleep."
"You know what they say," said Leah. "Little kids don't let you rest, big kids don't let you sleep. Or is it the other way around? No matter. It's very pretty on the island. The children like to go exploring there. It has a real Treasure Island feel."
"Maybe we find a chest of gold doubloons there someday, never have to work again," added Dafna.
Dan leaned over to her. "I know where to look for a chest of gold right now," he whispered to her. His forearm brushed against the front of her swimsuit, firmly enough so he could feel her cleavage shift. Dafna shivered.
"OK, you two, last stop," called Leah as she pulled the boat to another dock. "Just enjoy. No rush for anything. Dafna, you've got the cell phone?"
"Yes, I packed it."
"Bueno. Just call when you've had enough and one of us will come pick you up. We're not going anywhere, believe me. I am going to crack Bernardo on his keppie if he doesn't stop calling his office. He may have a bandage on if he comes to get you! We'll light Shabbat candles around 7, then dinner."
"Very good," said Dan. "Thanks for the ride."
He took the basket and the blanket, then helped Dafna out of the boat. After the shower she had a scrubbed look, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, sand washed off everywhere. In the sunshine he noticed some freckles on her nose. Sneaking a look as they walked inland, he saw her lips looked different from earlier in the day. Had she applied a quick coat of lipstick? A little eyeliner? She loved those womanly arts. The pulsing in his baggy orange-and-black swim trunks quickened. His throat felt dry; I need a drink, he thought.
While Dan struggled with the basket on the sandy path, Dafna glanced at him. He looked good, even if a little silly under the green Israel Defense Forces thimble-hat that kept the sun off his head. Muscles on his hairy forearms flexed under the weight of the basket. His fingers on the basket handle looked so clean, as if he had scraped every bit of sand from beneath the nails. Who knew where those fingers would soon be lingering? Dafna smiled; she knew.
"Is not too far the walk," said Dafna. They threaded through a path leading from the dock through bushes and trees. In a minute the beach house had vanished from sight. The path rose slightly, then opened onto a clearing about 10 yards round.
"Estamos aqui," said Dafna. "We're here."
Dan picked a flat spot with mottled shade and sun on one side of the clearing. The grass wasn't too long. They spread the thick green picnic blanket, then they opened the basket. "I am hungry. All that swimming took a lot of energy," Dan said as Dafna handed him a tuna sandwich.
"Yes, vacations can take a lot of energy," agreed Dafna as she opened a soda. "All the packing and moving and setting up. The place is just so great, though. It's one of the most relaxing places in the world."
"The office can't reach me. We've got a rule: no calls during vacations," he added between bites.
"Good!" Dafna said. She had made great progress taming Dan's gotta-check-voicemail work habits. Only his ex, Rebecca, could call in case an emergency involving their daughter Shayna.
They chatted about the trip so far, Dan's impression of the ride through the rolling Salvadoran countryside.
"People everywhere. It's amazing. You think you're in the country, then you see a bunch of people walking from God knows where," he said.
"Crowded country, lots of children, not much land," said Dafna. The crowding was worse even than Mexico, the resources sparser.
"Lots of children means lots of sex," said Dan. "That doesn't mean it's good sex, of course."
"For the women here, often, no. Just a chore. Very sad. They miss a lot of pleasure."
"Leah sure seemed chipper, like she didn't want things to be too quiet," mused Dan.
"Leah likes you a lot. She wants you to be happy here," said Dafna. "She hopes we are having fun. Leah just feels a little anxiety with visitors, until she knows they are OK. We get that way of thinking from our mother."
