The Night of the Iguana

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of sexual misconduct, intimate partner abuse, physical assault, and self-harm.

Several hours have passed, and it is almost sunset. Maxine sets up tables for dinner. Hannah enters to ask Maxine if there is a bathtub that Nonno can use. Maxine informs her that she knows of a boarding house that will take them on credit, explaining that Costa Verde is not equipped to accommodate older people with physical limitations. She offers to take care of transporting Hanna and Nonno in the morning. Hannah helps Maxine with the dinner tables, but when Maxine tells her to stop, adding, “I don’t accept help from guests here” (357), Hannah persists. She takes out an ornate jade figurine and offers it to Maxine as collateral, but Maxine rejects this, noting that Hannah must be completely broke. Hannah concedes that she is. Maxine confesses that her late husband left her in a serious financial bind. Fred’s final request was to be buried, uncovered, at sea; Maxine carried out his wishes but now shivers at the thought that the fish he used to catch are now eating him. The Germans are singing another nationalistic march as they walk back from the beach, raucously reveling in the bombing of London.