Chapter 3 Summary

In this chapter we find out that Frank's marriage had failed and that he'd had a short fling with Claudia Santander at the hospital and a few 'brief encounters,' with other women. We also learn the history of the relationship between Frank and Maria. Frank had indeed stopped at the souvenir shack on his first day in town, as he told Laurence. He had looked around, exchanged brief pleasantries with Maria and continued on his way. But what Frank neglected to tell Laurence was that he had returned two years later on his way back from taking a patient to, "the other, better hospital," drawn in by the sign which was misspelled and roughly drawn. It is during this visit that Frank asks her name and she tells him it is Maria. He presses her for her "real name," her "African name...