By the time we barreled through Marfa — the artsy west Texas town that has been the backdrop for the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and George Stevens’ Giant, James Dean’s last movie — the entire carriage had broken out in song, Opal Davis leading the way with Smokey Robinson and Otis Redding tunes, with even the dining car stewards joining in. Indeed, when we reached El Paso at around 5pm, my second stopover, I felt rather attached to my new friends and sad to be leaving them. I would catch the train again in two days’ time.
El Paso is hot, dusty, sprawling. I’d half expected a film-set wild-west town, wide streets lined with swing-door saloons; it looked more like a war zone. In fact, just across the Rio Grande, fenced off and seething, lies its Mexican sister, Ciudad Juarez, currently the most dangerous city on earth. More than 3,400 people have been murdered in drug-related violence in Juarez in the past 20 months. El Paso is Geneva by comparison.
A friend had recommended a downtown hotel, the Camino Real, a 14-story tower block close to the station. I walked there in blazing sunshine, cursing myself for not choosing Tucson as my second stop. I arrived at the back entrance. It looked like an airport hotel. Who would recommend this? I opened the door. And there, spread out before me was the most glorious sight: a plush, cool, carpeted lounge bar with a circular marble counter centerpiece, all set below a giant glass ceiling dome. It looked like a church. “Welcome,” smiled a bartender. “Margarita?” I felt I was in paradise.
My mobile rang. It hadn’t been working right through the desert. It was my wife. She didn’t sound well. My heart raced. “Listen, I don’t want you to worry, but ...”
She was in hospital, on a drip, laid low by a heat wave. Our unborn child was fine, but she would be in hospital for two days. I would book the next flight out of El Paso. I still hadn’t made it across the US ... but I had an idea. The four of us would take a steam ship from New York to New Orleans. From there we would catch the Sunset Limited out west. This land seemed filled with possibilities. Outside, somewhere near New Mexico, a train whistle blew.
Douglas Rogers (douglasrogers.org) is the author of The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe, published by Harmony.
RSS