The World in Half by Cristina Henríquez Page B

pain. I wanted to believe that I was doing a good job of fitting in here.
    “He’s my father,” I assure him.
    “Okay, then. I’ll say it again, if you really want to find him, you have to look for him.”
    “How far is the library?”
    Danilo lights up. “That’s what I’m talking about!” He grabs my coffee and gulps down what’s left. “Too hot.” He grimaces.
    I laugh at him, but he ignores me.
    “Come on,” he says, standing. “We’re going to the library.” Then he shakes his head. “It’s crazy that I’m actually excited about that.”
     
     
     
    The library takes up the second floor of a concrete office building with tinted floor-to-ceiling windows spaced as evenly as a checkerboard around the outside. It’s unassuming, with a narrow strip of parking along the front and palm trees brushing the front wall.
    “What’s on the first floor?” I ask Danilo as we make our way to the stairwell, my orange bag knocking against my hip.
    “A call center. I used to work there.”
    “Really? Do you know English?”
    “It was a Spanish call center. For Latin America. Not everything in the world is about people serving your country, you know.” He pushes open the stairwell door and starts up the steps.
    “Oh, I know.” I’m chagrined that I was so presumptuous. “Our stupid president thinks it is, but most Americans know better.”
    Danilo swings his head around and screws up his face. “But you elected him, no?”
    “Not me. But yeah.”
    “I don’t understand that. How can all the people think one thing and the president can go do something else? It’s a democracy. That’s what you have, right? Why doesn’t everyone protest to get rid of him, if they don’t agree with him? Here, if people don’t like something, they’re out on the streets about it. I swear SUNTRACS is out there like every other day.” He pauses on the landing, gesturing. “And I’m saying, you know, people are out on the streets here even though there’s a history of it being dangerous to do that shit. Like, the government used to have hit men to come and take you out if you were in their way. It’s worse in other countries, but Panamá has it going on, too, you know. The whole system here is so crooked. All of our politicians are corrupt. But even with all that, people were like, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to take a stand for what I believe in. I’m going to tell these mother- fuckers what’s what.’ You know? It’s not even a risk for you to speak up in your country! Nothing’s going to happen to you, right? I mean, not really. But you guys still don’t do it.” His voice, when he finishes, echoes into the stairwell like the last inch of a bow being pulled across a violin string. He runs a hand over his hair and sighs, then turns to mount the rest of the steps.
    “And does it work?” I ask to his back. “When people here protest?”
    “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. But it’s the only way.”
    “The only way what?”
    “The only way to live.”
    When we step inside the library, a woman sitting at a school desk takes my passport and Danilo’s cédula. She makes photocopies of each before handing us purple stickers that say “Visitante.” I stick mine on my shirt. Danilo slaps his onto his thigh. There’s a small reading area, magazines with plastic binder covers scattered on a table, and two discrete sections of steel gray bookshelves. Except for the woman at the desk and us, there’s no one else in sight.
    “We need a phone book,” Danilo says.
    “I already tried that.”
    “You have his phone number and you didn’t tell me? That would have made things a lot easier, you know.”
    “I don’t have his phone number.”
    “But you looked in the phone book?”
    “Of course. I looked in the one at the hotel.”
    “Which hotel? Hotel Centro?”
    “What other hotel would I be talking about?”
    “Those phone books are old as shit. I don’t think they’ve put new ones in the rooms for, like, ten