Summary

As the narrator and the Englishman leave the Hotel, they pass the Costa Rican, who then follows them as they leave in a taxi. They make their way through a sharp rainstorm that floods the streets, their conversation turning political as the Englishman tries to understand why the Nicaraguan dictators will not follow through on their pledge to allow free elections, and the narrator cynically explaining that popularly discussed democratic principles. She then changes the escape plan, deciding to take the Englishman where he can see “some liberty and some of that other bullshit” (40).

As she and the Englishman arrive at their new destination – a heavily air-conditioned socialist bookstore – the narrator reveals that she had been in Central America for a year. She and the Englishman order coffee and enjoy the relative peace of the bookstore, until the narrator reacts angrily to...