few days after the attacks in New York and DC, I am reading by myself in the city square in Cusco. I am reading, but I am not reading, because all the little boys who sell postcards are gathered around me, distracting me. They know me by now. The tourist from the United States -- a soft sell.
"Who did it, miss? Who did those things in your country?"
"I don't know," I say. "No one knows yet."
"It's terrible," they say. "I'm sorry," they say. They shake their dirty little heads in solidarity, and then they ask if I want to buy another postcard.
"I don't have any money," I say, which is true. As a security measure, I leave it all at the hotel.
"Maybe tomorrow," they say. They always say "maybe tomorrow."
"Maybe tomorrow," I say.
Upstairs in the nearby Internet cafe, Americans are huddled around a TV that plays CNN all day long. But I can't watch anymore. I can't be inside, I can't stare at the screen, I can't sigh and shake my head, I can't. The Americans don't even talk to each other, don't even commiserate. They just smoke and eat and stare up in silence. They scowl when people come in laughing. Don't you know? say their angry stares. Don't you even get it?
Out here, in the wind and the sun, the little boys selling postcards keep me company. I am alone in Cusco, but they sit on the park bench with me, tuck their cold, grubby hands into the warm crook of my elbow, stare at my white arm with wonder.
"What are those?" they ask.
"Freckles," I say.
Sometimes they count them. They usually stop around 20. They are bored of selling postcards, bored of hearing "no" all day long.
A tourist throws a paper in the trash, and one of them fishes it out for me. The lead photo is a middle-aged white couple holding hands in the city square. The headline reads: "Tourism in Serious Danger. 3,000 Americans cancel their trip to Cusco."
"It's terrible what happened in the United States," the boys repeat.
"It is," I repeat.
"Who did it, miss?"
"I don't know," I say.
"You want to buy a postcard?" they ask.
I shake my head.
"Maybe tomorrow," they say.
"Maybe tomorrow," I say.
And we all stare out in silence at the empty plaza. Our feet dangle from the park bench, kicking the air.