San Juan

San Juan is the first major setting Sharon encounters on her urgent journey to Puerto Rico. The city’s airport and nightclub frame her arrival as a passage from a familiar life into unfamiliar surroundings, where practical uncertainty and fear quickly make her dependent on others.

Arrival and Orientation

Sharon arrives on an evening plane with hundreds of other passengers. The sight of the low-hanging stars and the air on her skin recall Birmingham, a place she has not seen in a long time; this moment of recognition briefly joins the unfamiliar destination to her own past. Yet she has little time to linger over memory: she knows how much money she has and how rapidly she must act.

Traveling with only a small overnight bag, Sharon avoids waiting for luggage. Hayward has reserved her a room in a small San Juan hotel and written its address on a piece of paper, but he has warned her that finding a taxi may be difficult. The airport’s confusion exceeds anything he could have prepared her for, and she pauses to make sense of it before continuing.

The Nightclub and Jaime

San Juan’s nighttime setting sharpens the strain of Sharon’s arrival. The nightclub she enters occupies a place described as a former backwater, perhaps even a swamp, before the construction of the immense hotel that houses it. Its loud, blatant atmosphere frightens her; with shaking hands, she lights a cigarette and tells Jaime she must find someone and will not be long.

Jaime’s response changes the immediate stakes of the encounter. His eyes identify Sharon as looking like a Yankee or gringo tourist, and he recognizes that she is in serious trouble. The narration says that she has become his property and that even the entire militia would have difficulty driving him away. In this alienating public space, his attention offers a form of intervention, though the language of possession also makes the protection uneasy rather than simple.

Narrative Significance

San Juan is presented through Sharon’s bodily and practical disorientation: the unfamiliar airport leaves her standing still, the taxi warning anticipates difficulty, and the nightclub makes her hands shake. The brief recollection of Birmingham offers a counterpoint, but familiarity cannot guide her through the city’s immediate confusion. The setting therefore turns the urgency of her mission into a concrete encounter with uncertainty, while Jaime’s arrival introduces a local ally at the moment she recognizes that she needs help.