“Where’s my passport?” Zerina cried out, her strong Albanian accent even more pronounced
than usual, as she rustled through her handbag in the terminal at the airport.
Pointing to the floor a few yards away, her friend Kate said, voice flat, “Is that it?”
“Oh my God! How did it get there?” Zerina said, running over to pick it up. “I’ve never lost my passport before! Never!”
“You probably dropped it when you opened your bag for cigarettes,” Kate said. “You’re lucky someone else didn’t find it!”
“Oh, I need another cigarette,” Zerina said, leaving Kate on line at the check-in counter with their bags. Kate watched Zerina disappear in the crowd. She looked at her watch. It was almost time to board.
Kate didn’t like waiting.
When Zerina returned, she still looked discombobulated. “I’m not myself,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how that could have happened.”
Kate didn’t know either. The Zerina she knew liked to be in control of herself as well as others except when she and Kate were laughing. What Kate actually liked about Zerina was murky in her mind except for all the laughter they shared. Why they always cracked each other up was a mystery. Their laughter seemed to bubble up when it was least expected.
Apart from the laughter, their friendship had always been difficult. Kate liked to have her
own way too but not like Zerina who always needed to take charge. How many times had she tried to order dinner for Kate in restaurants, told her to wear her hair up or that her lipstick was too dark? Why was Kate traveling with her? They had never traveled anywhere together before. That was also murky in Kate’s mind. Had Kate given a thought to what spending so much time together might be like?

Hours later, when they arrived at their destination, a country near the Equator, they went through customs. It was dark when the taxi sped to their hotel in the capital. In the taxi, Kate wrinkled her nose and said, “This town is so ugly, so unaesthetic! I hope the rest of the country isn’t like this.”
“How can you tell in the dark what this town is like?” Zerina said.
“I can tell.”
Though Zerina had traveled on tours and had vacationed with friends at resorts where waiters served exotic drinks by the pool, Kate was by far the more experienced traveler. She had traveled on the cheap to almost every continent.
Kate was surprised that the hotel she had selected from among the cheapest online had turned out to be a dump. She wondered how she had stayed in such places during her younger years when she often traveled alone to what were then called primitive countries, a denigrating label long out of use, but she remembered those rooms she had stayed in, aside from being cheap, were clean.
This one wasn’t.
Even Kate who liked simple living was dismayed when she looked at the windowless cell-like room with a bare bulb and a bed. She wondered how she had stayed in places like this for so many years when she had traveled alone.
“I won’t stay here!” Zerina said, sounding fierce. “Let’s see if they have rooms next door.”
The hotel next door had a lobby with a fake marble counter and a carpet on the floor Kate thought might walk away by itself. Zerina asked the price of the rooms. They cost three times more than rooms in the dump, but they were still relatively cheap. Kate reluctantly acquiesced and followed Zerina into the elevator. When the concierge opened the first of two vacant rooms on the fifth floor, Zerina sighed with relief. “Air conditioning! Thank God! Let’s take them!”
Kate looked at the TV, the garish floral bedspread on the double bed and the faded gray curtains. The room depressed her. “This is this city’s version of a Motel 6,” she said.
Kate hated spending more money but Zerina wore her down. They wound up taking the rooms. Zerina would have shared a room but Kate’s habit of sleeping with the light on made that impossible.
Though they had not planned on spending time in the city, Kate kept on about the added expense of the hotel even after they ordered dinner in the restaurant downstairs. “There must be decent hotels that are cheaper,” Kate said.
Zerina, feeling guilty, having inherited a large sum from her recently deceased father, agreed against her better judgment to check out more hotels after dinner even though it was getting late. They didn’t have far to go. The area was filled with hotels. Leaving their bags in the lobby, in and out they went but Kate rejected one after another. Zerina kept her mouth shut until she noticed the neon lit casino.
“Let’s go in!” she said.
By then Kate was tired of looking at hotels and followed her inside. She didn’t like casinos but she watched Zerina play blackjack anyway. At least it wasn’t Kate’s money Zerina was losing until Zerina said, “Quick! Give me fifty! I’ll pay you back later.” Reluctantly, Kate handed her the money and returned to the hotel where she idly wondered if blackjack was played in Albania. Not that Zerina would know. Zerina had not been back to Albania since she was a child. She did not say much about her childhood and Kate did not ask, though Kate wondered how her accent could still be so strong.
At breakfast next morning, Zerina announced, “I won a hundred dollars!” She handed Kate the fifty. Kate was still annoyed by the way Zerina had demanded money but she said nothing.
Why was Zerina so bossy? Kate wondered. She must take after her mother who had been the matriarch of the family. That much Zerina had told her. Kate could imagine what her mother must have been like.

In daylight, the crowded streets looked even uglier and dirtier to Kate than they had the night before. “There’s no culture here,” she said. Kate wasn’t anxious to explore the city except for the old section where she hoped she’d find some character, maybe even beauty though she thought this was doubtful. She didn’t mind that the old section was considered dangerous. Zerina would have been happy to walk downtown among skyscrapers but she acquiesced to Kate’s wishes.
As they made their way in the heat through the large, crowded, foul-smelling market, Zerina could barely contain her annoyance with Kate who stopped with increasing frequency to take pictures of God knows what!
On the edge of the old section, some old men warned them about the gangs. “Muy peligrosa!” they said. But Kate looked around and said to Zerina. “It doesn’t feel dangerous.”
Zerina agreed, so they continued down the empty streets until Zerina said, “I want a beer.”
Glancing at her watch, Kate said, “It’s only noon,”
“So what. I’m thirsty. There’s a bar across the street.”
“What? You want to go in there?” Kate said, looking at the decrepit wooden building. A bar sign dangled from one side. “Why do you want to go there?”
“Because I’m thirsty!”
“I’m not taking any chances,” Kate said. “What are you trying to prove? Are you crazy?”
“It’s perfectly safe,” Zerina said, still annoyed. “I’ll go in by myself.”
“You really are crazy,” Kate said, afraid of being alone on the deserted street. “Look, all I want is a nice peaceful trip. I’m not looking to get my throat cut!” Kate wondered if Zerina would go into a bar like this in Albania —if such a bar existed.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Zerina said, enjoying Kate’s fear.
Kate followed her inside. A few dim bulbs illuminated six scruffy men looking up from their drinks in surprise. “Are you trying to show me how brave you are?” Kate whispered, watching the men out of the corner of her eye.
Ignoring Kate’s question, Zerina asked for a beer in the few words she knew in their language.
Had they reversed roles?
Wasn’t Kate the one who preferred old neighborhoods that didn’t hide their history, their wear? Weren’t those places more real to her?
Kate hated to admit that Zerina was the brave one. Since when was Zerina so brave? Often, fear had stalked Kate on her travels alone to places where it seemed no one else wanted to go. Wasn’t it Kate who had tried to prove over and over how brave she was?
Now Zerina had shamed her.
In the bar, the men were harmless. They asked where they were from and tried to engage them in conversation but Kate and Zerina didn’t speak their language—except for a few words.
Why was Zerina doing everything she could to annoy Kate?
She was, wasn’t she? Kate asked herself.
Was Zerina jealous of her?
Why would Zerina be jealous of her?
Kate did not know how Zerina’s father had made his money. She didn’t want to ask. But she knew Zerina’s father had even bought her a condo in midtown.
Kate still lived in a small rented apartment.
They continued walking down centuries-old cobblestoned streets in the old section. But the houses, crumbling or abandoned, looked dismal and dirty to Kate. The few locals they passed looked as depressed as Kate felt.
Would she have been so depressed on her own? Kate wondered. Wasn’t Zerina’s presence—not to mention her sighs and grumbling—enough to spoil Kate’s mood?
Zerina said, “We really should have spent the day downtown.”
Kate had no intention of spending another day in the city. Next morning she decided to take the ferry to a small island she had read about that seemed to suit her solitary nature. Zerina would meet her the day after that.
Before Kate left, she asked Zerina if she planned on going to the casino again even though she knew the answer.

On the ferry, Kate felt free for the first time. She wished Zerina would stay in the city. They had been friends for a number of years but had never spent this much time in each other’s company.
Why was she traveling with Zerina?
Wasn’t this country Kate’s idea?
Why did she choose it?
Because neither of them had been there?
Clearly, they hadn’t thought things through.
Kate was never sure what Zerina was thinking. She suspected they both were too strong-
willed, too difficult, too competitive and judgmental to travel together.
She wondered whether Zerina thought so too. Even though Kate often kept things from Zerina, she considered herself more upfront.
Still, she hesitated to ask.
What if Zerina agreed?
What then?
On the ferry, watching patterns of iridescent blue and purple swirls in the water, Kate was reminded of the beautiful marbling on end papers of fine books. Of course, the iridescent swirls were toxic oil. Does knowing the iridescent swirls are toxic make them less beautiful? she asked herself.
But on this morning when she saw the bright flowers and the little houses on the hillside as she disembarked from the ferry, she felt that she had found the perfect place.

The hotel where Kate had made reservations was a large ramshackle affair over the water, built in the 1930s. She loved the place. Of course it was cheap.
Her tiny narrow light-filled room had a door to a little balcony overlooking the beach and the sea. How wonderful to sit out there! She imagined blissful hours on that balcony, leaning back against the wall in the only chair, legs stretched out over the railing. In the room a high window, with wide-open shutters facing sea and sky, admitted the salty sea air. Below the window was a cot. Behind it a few hooks to hang her clothes. Against the wall opposite the bed and below an old mirror stood the chair she would use on the balcony.
Simplicity itself, she thought.
The beach below the hotel was filled with strange and beautiful shells. Shells filled her with wonder. Petty annoyances disappeared. Shells were proof of a Universal Spirit.

A half-mile from the hotel was the “swimming beach” the proprietor had recommended. The hotel beach was too dirty for swimming, he said. When she arrived, the sea was calm, the beach empty. Only a fat man, his round belly above the horizon line, floated motionless. Throwing down her towel, Kate rushed into the water. But the instant she submerged herself she felt pinpricks all over her body and ran out. Examining her skin, she found nothing. Turning, she saw the man still floating motionless. A young tourist couple sat down nearby. Kate watched the woman go into the water, swim around for a while, then come out.
“Didn’t you get stung?” Kate asked.
“No,” the woman replied.
Kate looked puzzled. “I think I was stung by microbes.” Was she losing it? No, she recalled the acquaintance back home who claimed she had been stung by microbes in the water on another island.
The woman’s husband hearing the conversation said, “I wouldn’t go near that water! Who knows what diseases you could get swimming in there.”
“I think it’s okay,” the woman said to Kate, ignoring her husband, “Why don’t we go in together?”
Waist high in the water with the woman, Kate felt the stings. “Do you feel them?” she asked.
“No,” the woman said, coming closer.
“Maybe they just like me,” Kate said, laughing nervously.
When they came out, the woman’s husband was standing, beach gear in hand, impatient to leave.
Looking around for the first time, Kate’s eyes widened. Behind the beach stood a mountain of trash tall as a two-story house. Is that real? she wondered, approaching it gingerly, holding a towel over nose and mouth. Still, the stench leaked through. Before turning away in disgust, Kate saw plastic bags and plastic bottles of all sizes and shapes and colors, banana peels, broken dolls, scummy Styrofoam, crushed beer and soda cans, rusted metal rods and what looked and smelled like rotting fish.

Despite the garbage, Kate was reluctant to leave next day on the ferry. Okay, she thought, I can’t swim here, but I can still admire the beauty of the island.
Can’t I?
I can search for shells and sit on my balcony. She was not quite ready to admit that the island was a bad choice. She was stubborn that way. Who knows, she thought, other islands, other parts of the country may be even more polluted. Again, she recalled the microbes her acquaintance had told her about. Surely, there were other countries that were worse than this one. Far worse. She was reminded of India where mounds of trash were taller than the Taj Mahal, where starving children dove into refuse heaps for scraps to eat or anything to sell. And not just India—
But watching waves roll in while eating dinner in the hotel’s open-air restaurant, she forgot the trash—at least for a while. She didn’t even give a thought to the fish she had eaten—not then anyway.
That evening Kate called Zerina and told her about the microbes and the mountain of garbage. She was surprised to hear Zerina say she was coming anyway.
Kate was both glad and sorry.
Maybe Zerina didn’t like being alone after all. But Kate wasn’t going to ask. This was the kind of thing Zerina kept to herself.
Kate had to admit she missed Zerina’s language mistakes. She had to laugh remembering the time Zerina thought a lawn mower was a man who mowed lawns. Or the time she thought the classified ad for a job on x-rated films meant a position handling x-rays in a medical office.
Arriving the following day, Zerina said nothing when she took the room opposite to Kate’s, facing the other side of the beach and the sea. Looking down at the beach from the balcony, Zerina said, “So many big birds! What are they?”
“Vultures,” Kate said, suppressing a smile.
“Oh,” Zerina said.
Looking over Zerina’s shoulder, Kate saw them devouring a dead dog. They must have vultures in Albania, Kate thought. Vultures are everywhere, aren’t they?
Zerina said nothing about the shared bathroom down the hall. Maybe she didn’t mind. After all, they were the only guests. Maybe she wanted to show Kate that she could rough it too. After all, childhood on a farm in Albania could not have been easy.
Now Albania is called the garbage dump of Europe.
But that’s another story—

Not long after she arrived, Zerina found a young fisherman who said he would show them a “clean place to snorkel” on the far side of the island. Kate tried to dissuade Zerina from paying him to take them out in his flimsy motorboat.
In the spot the fisherman had told them about, they saw globs of nasty yellow foam, oil swirls and water like thick soup. Of course, they made him turn back. But they were still a quarter mile from shore when Zerina suddenly ordered the fisherman to stop.
“You’re not going into that filthy water, are you?” Kate said.
“It’s cleaner here than anywhere else,” she said, adjusting her mask.
“Cleaner than where?”
Before Kate could say another word, Zerina jumped over the side. She’s really lost it! Kate thought. She wasn’t surprised that she could see nothing but Zerina’s vague shape in the soupy water. But it wasn’t long—four or five minutes at most—before Zerina climbed back on board.
“So what was the point of that?” Kate asked.
“I thought it was cleaner,” Zerina replied, shrugging.
There was nothing to do after dinner and the ferry wouldn’t arrive until morning, so they climbed narrow winding paths up the hillside, past bright fragrant flowers and modest wooden houses. The bougainvillea, oleander, jasmine and wild hibiscus seemed monstrously large. Maybe the flowers were monstrously large. Kate thought of mutant plants she had once read about growing to enormous size after nuclear fallout. “Maybe pollution has the same effect as nuclear fallout,” she said to Zerina. They weren’t sure about the flowers but they would have sworn that frogs the size of giant rats had leaped out of the darkness and touched down by their feet in pools of light on the paths.

Next morning the ferry left early. Disappointed, they missed it, so they decided to hike up the island’s highest hill which was covered by thick woods—at least it looked that way. If pristine nature could be found anywhere, they figured they would find it there.
Aside from fallen boulders they managed to skirt, hiking was easy the first hour. But nearly halfway up or what they thought was nearly halfway up, the trail suddenly narrowed and through the trees they glimpsed something reddish in the distance.
“What do you think that is?” Zerina asked.
“I don’t know.”
A few minutes later, they stopped before the rusted, ruined hulk of a once red pickup.
“What’s that doing here?” Zerina asked. She looked over her shoulder at the trail behind them. “Impossible to drive that thing over those boulders and it’s too narrow here for a truck. Do you think the pickup was lowered from a plane?”
Laughing, Kate said, “Not lowered—dropped!”
After they sidled past the pickup and continued up the trail, the trail was not only narrow but steep. Kate saw far in the distance vultures circling high overhead. Maybe the vultures will go away before we reach the top, Kate thought, but she didn’t really believe that.
Zerina kept her eyes on the trail.
Taking one slow step at a time, they kept going for what seemed like hours—it wasn’t—when they caught a glimpse of the top through the trees. The hill was higher than they expected. “This is more like climbing a mountain than climbing a hill,” Zerina said, out of breath. Kate was out of breath too. From the little they saw, the top seemed to be multi-colored.
“Flowers?” Zerina asked.
At times Zerina seemed almost innocent.
Further on, the trees thinned. But only when the trees almost disappeared entirely, did they stop. They fell silent. The hilltop might have been flat. But it was hard to tell. What wasn’t flat was the great mass of garbage that rose to a peak at least three times higher than the refuse dump behind the beach.
Kate was surprised only by its size. She thought of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It
was of little consolation to remind herself that the floating island of trash in the Pacific Ocean was more than twice the size of Texas.
She and Zerina didn’t have to be in the Pacific for Kate to imagine them both swallowed by garbage.
She could imagine the whole world swallowed by garbage.
“Unbelievable!” Kate said, fuming.
“You can’t be angry at the garbage,” Zerina said. “The garbage didn’t get here by itself.”
“Do you think the island or the country is paid to collect waste?” Kate said.
Scrunching up her nose, Zerina said, “The government is probably making money.”
Kate said, “I feel sorry for that family of young American expats in the restaurant with a baby. Imagine raising a baby here!”
“Hippie types. They looked happy,” Zerina said. “I’d like to know what they do with their trash.”
“They’re not the only Americans. I read that a small colony of expats lives here.”
“But there’s only one tiny grocery,” Zerina said, “so they have to buy everything in the city! If they run out of toilet paper or diapers, they have to wait and take the ferry next day.” She chased flies from her face. “I wouldn’t live here for a zillion dollars!” She paused. “Is there such a thing? A zillion dollars?”
“It’s more than I have,” Kate said.
They started to laugh even though nothing was funny. All this garbage was too horrible to be funny! Too absurd to be funny! Nevertheless, they laughed.
Laughter protected them.
They were somewhere else while they laughed.
Nothing could harm them while they laughed.
The dump didn’t exist while they laughed.
The island didn’t exist.
There was only laughter.
Only each other.
They understood each other in their laughter.
In the midst of that laughter, a memory came to Kate of she and her mother laughing when she was a child. She thought their laughter would never end but they never laughed like that again.