State of Wonder.
Ann Patchett.
One.
The news of Anders Eckmanas death came by way of Aerogram, a piece of bright blue airmail paper that served as both the stationery and, when folded over and sealed along the edges, the envelope. Who even knew they still made such things? This single sheet had traveled from Brazil to Minnesota to mark the passing of a man, a breath of tissue so insubstantial that only the stamp seemed to anchor it to this world. Mr. Fox had the letter in his hand when he came to the lab to tell Marina the news. When she saw him there at the door she smiled at him and in the light of that smile he faltered.
aWhat?a she said finally.
He opened his mouth and then closed it. When he tried again all he could say was, aItas snowing.a aI heard on the radio it was going to.a The window in the lab where she worked faced out into the hall and so she never saw the weather until lunchtime. She waited for a minute for Mr. Fox to say what he had come to say. She didnat think he had come all the way from his office in the snow, a good ten buildings away, to give her a weather report, but he only stood there in the frame of the open door, unable either to enter the room or step out of it. aAre you all right?a aEckmanas dead,a he managed to say before his voice broke, and then with no more explanation he gave her the letter to show just how little about this awful fact he knew.
There were more than thirty buildings on the Vogel campus, labs and office buildings of various sizes and functions. There were labs with stations for twenty technicians and scientists to work at the same time. Others had walls and walls of mice or monkeys or dogs. This particular lab Marina had shared for seven years with Dr. Eckman. It was small enough that all Mr. Fox had to do was reach a hand towards her, and when he did she took the letter from him and sat down slowly in the gray plastic chair beside the separator. At that moment she understood why people say You might want to sit down. There was inside of her a very modest physical collapse, not a faint but a sort of folding, as if she were an extension ruler and her ankles and knees and hips were all being brought together at closer angles. Anders Eckman, tall in his white lab coat, his hair a thick graying blond. Anders bringing her a cup of coffee because head picked one up for himself. Anders giving her the files shead asked for, half sitting down on the edge of her desk while he went over her data on proteins. Anders father of three. Anders not yet fifty. Her eyes went to the datesa"March 15th on the letter, March 18th on the postmark, and today was April 1st. Not only was he dead, he was two weeks dead. They had accepted the fact that they wouldnat hear from him often and now she realized he had been gone so long that at times he would slip from her mind for most of a day. The obscurity of the Amazonian tributary where Dr. Swenson did her research had been repeatedly underscored to the folks back in Minnesota (Tomorrow this letter will be handed over to a child floating downriver in a dugout log, Anders had written her. I cannot call it a canoe. There never were statistics written to cover the probability of its arrival.), but still, it was in a country, it was in the world. Surely someone down there had an Internet connection. Had they never bothered to find it? aWouldnat she call you? There has to be some sort of global satellitea"a aShe wonat use the phone, or she says it doesnat work there.a As close as they were in this quiet room she could scarcely hear his voice.
aBut for thisa"a She stopped herself. He didnat know. aWhere is he now?a Marina asked. She could not bring herself to say his body. Anders was not a body. Vogel was full of doctors, doctors working, doctors in their offices drinking coffee. The cabinets and storage rooms and desk drawers were full of drugs, pills of every conceivable stripe. They were a pharmaceutical company; what they didnat have they figured out how to make. Surely if they knew where he was they could find something to do for him, and with that thought her desire for the impossible eclipsed every piece of science she had ever known. The dead were dead were dead were dead and still Marina Singh did not have to shut her eyes to see Anders Eckman eating an egg salad sandwich in the employee cafeteria as he had done with great enthusiasm every day she had known him.
aDonat you read the reports on cholesterol?a she would ask, always willing to play the straight man.
aI write the reports on cholesterol,a Anders said, running his finger around the edge of his plate.
Mr. Fox lifted his glasses, pressed his folded handkerchief against the corners of his eyes. aRead the letter,a he said.
She did not read it aloud.
Jim Fox, The rain has been torrential here, not unseasonable yet year after year it never ceases to surprise me. It does not change our work except to make it more time-consuming and if we have been slowed we have not been deterred. We move steadily towards the same excellent results.
But for now this business is not our primary concern. I write with unfortunate news of Dr. Eckman, who died of a fever two nights ago. Given our location, this rain, the petty bureaucracies of government (both this one and your own), and the time sensitive nature of our project, we chose to bury him here in a manner in keeping with his Christian traditions. I must tell you it was no small task. As for the purpose of Dr. Eckmanas mission, I assure you we are making strides. I will keep what little he had here for his wife, to whom I trust you will extend this news along with my sympathy. Despite any setbacks, we persevere.
Annick Swenson Marina started over at the top. When she had read it through again she still could not imagine what to say. aIs she calling Anders a setback?a She held the letter by its slightest edges as if it were a document still to be submitted into evidence. Clearly the paper had been wet at some point and then dried again. She could tell by the way it was puckered in places, it had been carried out in the rain. Dr. Swenson knew all about the relationship of paper and ink and rain and so she cut in her letters with a pencil of hard, dark lead, while on the other side of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Karen Eckman sat in a two-story brick colonial thinking her husband was in Brazil and would be coming home as soon as he could make Dr. Swenson listen to reason.
Marina looked at the clock. They should go soon, before it was time for Karen to pick the children up from school. Every now and then, if Anders happened to look at his watch at two-thirty, he would say to himself in a quiet voice, Schoolas out. Three little Eckmans, three boys, who, like their mother, did not know enough to picture their father dead. For all that loss Dr. Swenson had managed to use just over half the sheet of paper, and in the half a sheet she used she had twice thought to mention the weather. The rest of it simply sat there, a great blue sea of emptiness. How much could have been said in those remaining inches, how much explained, was beyond scientific measure.
Mr. Fox closed the door and came to stand beside Marinaas chair. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, and because the blinds on the windows that faced the hall were down she dropped her cheek against the top of his hand and for a while they stayed like this, washed over in the palest blue fluorescent light. It was a comfort to them both. Mr. Fox and Marina had never discussed how they would conduct their relationship at work. They had no relationship at work, or not one that was different from anyone elseas. Mr. Fox was the CEO of Vogel. Marina was a doctor who worked in statin development. They had met, really met, for the first time late the summer before at a company softball game, doctors vs. administration. Mr. Fox came over to compliment her pitching, and that compliment led to a discussion of their mutual fondness for baseball. Mr. Fox was not a doctor. He had been the first CEO to come from the manufacturing side. When she spoke of him to other people she spoke of Mr. Fox. When she spoke to him in front of other people she addressed him as Mr. Fox. The problem was calling him Jim when they were alone. That, it turned out, was a much more difficult habit to adopt.
aI shouldnat have sent him,a Mr. Fox said.
She raised her head then and took his hand in her hands. Mr. Fox had no reason to wear a lab coat. Today he wore a dark gray suit and striped navy tie, and while it was a dignified uniform for a man of sixty, he looked out of place whenever he strayed from the administrative offices. Today it occurred to Marina that he looked like he was on his way to a funeral. aYou didnat make him go.a aI asked him to go. I suppose he could have turned me down but it wasnat very likely.a aBut you never thought something like this would happen. You didnat send him someplace dangerous.a Marina wondered if she knew this to be true. Of course there were poisonous snakes and razor-toothed fish but she pictured them safely away from the places where doctors conducted scientific research. Anyway, the letter had said he died of a fever, not a snake bite. There were plenty of fevers to be had right here in Minnesota. aDr. Swensonas been down there for five years now. Nothingas happened to her.a aIt wouldnat happen to her,a Mr. Fox said without kindness in his voice.
Anders had wanted to go to the Amazon. That was the truth. What are the chances a doctor who worked in statin development would be asked to go to Brazil just as winter was becoming unendurable? He was a serious birder. Every summer he put the boys in a canoe and paddled them through the Boundary Waters with binoculars and notepads looking for ruddy ducks and pileated woodpeckers. The first thing he did when he got word about the trip was order field guides to the rain forest, and when they came he abandoned all pretense of work. He put the blood samples back in the refrigerator and pored over the slick, heavy pages of the guides. He showed Marina the birds he hoped to see, wattled jacanas with toes as long as his hand, guira cuckoos with downy scrub brushes attached to the tops of their heads. A person could wash out the inside of a pickle jar with such a bird. He bought a new camera with a lens that could zoom straight into a nest from fifty feet away. It was not the kind of luxury Anders would have afforded himself under normal circumstances.
aBut these are not normal circumstances,a he said, and took a picture of his coworker at her desk.
At the bright burst of the flash, Marina raised her head from a black-necked red cotinga, a bird the size of a thumb who lived in a cone-shaped daub of mud attached to the tip of a leaf. aItas an ambitious lot of birds.a She studied every picture carefully, marveling at the splendors of biodiversity. When she saw the hyacinth macaws she experienced one split second of regret that she wasnat the one Mr. Fox had tapped for the job. It was a singularly ridiculous thought. aYouall be too busy with birds to ever find the time to talk to Dr. Swenson.a aI imagine Iall find a lot of birds before I find Dr. Swenson, and when I do find her I doubt sheall pack up on the first day and rush back to Johns Hopkins. These things take finesse. Mr. Fox said that himself. That leaves me with a lot of daylight hours.a Finding Dr. Swenson was an issue. There was an address in Manaus but apparently it was nowhere near the station where she did her field research; that location, she believed, needed to be protected with the highest level of secrecy in order to preserve both the unspoiled nature of her subjects and the value of the drug she was developing. She had made the case so convincingly that not even Mr. Fox knew where she was exactly, other than somewhere on a tributary off the Rio Negro. How far away from Manaus that tributary might begin and in which direction it ran no one could say. Worse than that was the sense that finding her was going to be the easy part. Marina looked at Anders straight on and again he raised his camera. aStop that,a she said, and turned her palm to the lens. aWhat if you canat get her to come back at all?a aOf course I can,a Anders said. aShe likes me. Why do you think Iam the one Mr. Fox decided to send?a It was possible that Dr. Swenson had liked him on the one day she spent at Vogel seven years ago, when she had sat at a conference table with Anders and four other doctors and five executives who made up the Probability Assessment Group to discuss the preliminary budget for the development of a program in Brazil. Marina could have told him Dr. Swenson had no idea who he was, but why would she have said that? Surely he knew.
Mr. Fox didnat know Karen Eckman. He had met her at company parties but he told Marina he could not remember her face, a fact that seemed unforgivable now in light of what had happened. Marina saw the look of gratitude when she took down her coat that was hanging by itself on the rack by the door, but she would never have sent him there alone. The task was one for military chaplains, police officers, people who knew something about knocking on doors to deliver the news that would forever derail the world of the people who lived inside the house. Anders is dead.
aSheall be glad youare there,a Mr. Fox said.
aGlad doesnat figure into this,a Marina said.
Marina was going along to help Mr. Fox, and she went out of respect for her dead friend, but she had no illusions that she was the person Karen Eckman would want to break the news. It was true that she knew Karen, but only as well as a forty-two-year-old woman with no children knows a forty-three-year-old woman with three, as well as any single woman who works with the husband ever knows the wife who stays at home. Marina understood that Karen had made a point of knowing her even if Karen had not consciously mistrusted her. Karen engaged her in conversation when it was Marina who answered the phone in the lab. She invited her to their Christmas open house and the Fourth of July barbeque, where she got Marina a glass of tea and asked her thoughtful questions about protein research and said she really liked her shoes, a vaguely exotic pair of yellow satin flats a cousin had sent her from Calcutta years ago, shoes she loved herself and saved for special occasions. When Marina in turn asked about the boys, what they were doing in school, whether or not they were going to camp, Karen answered the questions offhandedly, offering up very few details. She was not the sort of mother to bombard her husbandas polite colleague with the endless talk of Scout meetings. Marina knew that Karen was not afraid of her. Marina was, after all, overly tall and bony with impenetrable eyes and heavy black hair that set her apart from all the Swedes; it was only that Karen didnat want Marina to forget her. And Marina did not forget her, but what was important between them was so deeply unspoken that there was never the chance to defend herself from that of which she had never been accused and was not guilty. Marina was not the kind of woman who fell in love with another womanas husband, any more than she was the kind of woman who would break into the house at night and steal the grandmotheras engagement ring, the laptop, the child. In truth, after two glasses of rummy punch at the last Christmas party, she had wanted very much to lean against Karen Eckman in the kitchen, put an arm around her little shoulders, bend her head down until their heads were almost touching. She had wanted to whisper in her ear, aIam in love with Mr. Fox,a just to see Karenas pale blue eyes go round in that collision of pleasure and surprise. How she wished now that she had been drunk enough to confide. Had she ever done that, Marina Singh and Karen Eckman would be very good friends indeed.
Outside the snow had been falling in wet clumps long enough to bury every blade of new spring grass. The crocuses she had seen only that morning, their yellow and purple heads straight up from the dirt, were now frozen as solid as carp in the lake. The tiny blooms of redbud made burdened shelves of snow. Mr. Fox and Marina pushed forward through the icy slush without a thought that they were for the very first time in their relationship leaving the building together. They made the long walk from the southern quadrant of the Vogel campus to the parking lot nearly a quarter mile away. Marina hadnat brought her snow boots. It hadnat been snowing when she left for work.
aIall tell you something else,a Mr. Fox said once they were in his car, the snow brushed off and the defroster turned to high. aI never thought head be gone so long. I told him when he left to take his time, to get the point across, but I had thought we were talking about a week, maybe two at the outside. I never considered him staying for more than two weeks.a aHe had a hard time finding her, that threw his schedule off to start.a Anders had left the day after Christmas. The company had wanted him to go sooner but Christmas was nonnegotiable for the Eckmans. She had shown Mr. Fox the few letters shead had from Anders because they confided nothing. He had mostly talked about Manaus and then about the birding trips he had taken in the jungle with a guide. To her, Anders had spoken mostly of rain. If Mr. Fox had also received letters from Anders, and she was sure he had, he never mentioned them.
aSo two weeks then. Not three months. I would have told him to come backa"a aYou couldnat get a hold of him then.a aExactly.a Mr. Fox let his eyes trail off across the whitened landscape that smeared beneath the windshield wipers. aI would have told him thereas a message to deliver and once he gave it to her he should have gotten on a plane himself, with or without her. That was his only job.a aIt never would have been as simple as that,a she said, as much to herself as to him. No one seriously thought the outcome of telling Dr. Swenson she needed to bring her research back to Minnesota would be Dr. Swenson packing her lab into boxes and coming homea"not Anders, not Mr. Fox, not Marina. In truth, it wasnat even essential that she come back. Had she been willing to reopen lines of communication, to prove that the drug was nearly completed, to let the company install a coterie of its own doctors who would give regular and accurate reports of the drugas progress, Vogel would have left her in her research station for years, pouring in cash from an opened vein. But now Anders was dead and the notion of success was reduced to sickening folly. Just the thought of Dr. Swenson gave Marina the sensation of a cold hand groping for her heart. It is fifteen years ago and she is in the lecture hall at Johns Hopkins in a seat safely on the aisle of a middle row, and there is Dr. Swenson pacing in front of the podium, talking about the cervix, the cervix, with a level of intensity that elevates to such ferocity that none of them dare to look at their watches. No one in the crowd of a hundred will suggest that class is long over, class should be dismissed, there are other classes they are now in the process of missing. Even though Marina is a second-year resident she is attending a lecture for third-year medical students because Dr. Swenson has made it clear to residents and medical students alike that when she is speaking they should be in attendance. But Marina would not dream of missing a lecture or leaving a lecture over a matter as inconsequential as time. She is riveted in place while the slide show of atypical cells on the high wall before her flicks past so quickly they nearly make a moving picture. Dr. Swenson knows everything Marina needs to know, answers the questions Marina has not yet formulated in her mind. A tiny woman made tinier by distance fixes one hundred people to their seats with a voice that never troubles itself to be raised, and because they are all afraid of her and because they are afraid of missing anything she might say, they stay as long as she chooses to keep them. Marina believes the entire room exists as she exists, at the intersection of terror and exaltation, a place that keeps the mind exceedingly alert. Her hand sweeps over page after page as she writes down every syllable Dr. Swenson speaks. It is the class in which Marina learns to take notes like a court reporter, a skill that will serve her for the rest of her life.
It strikes Marina as odd that all these years later she still remembers Dr. Swenson in the lecture hall. In her mindas eye she never sees her in surgery or on the floor making rounds, but at a safe, physical distance.
Karen and Anders Eckman lived on a cul-de-sac where the neighbors drove slowly knowing that boys could come sledding down a hill or shooting out between the shrubbery on a bike. aThat one,a Marina said, pointing to the red brick, and Mr. Fox pulled the car to the curb. Marina and Anders must have made about the same amount of money. They never talked about it but they did the same work; Anders had been at the company a few years longer than Marina so he could have made a little more. But Marinaas house, which was quite small and still too big for her, was paid for. She made regular contributions to charity and let the rest of her money languish in the bank while Anders paid for this house, piano lessons, teeth straightening, summer camp, college accounts. How had he managed, three sons and a wife, and who would pay for this life now that he was dead? For a while she sat there, imagining the various birthday parties and Christmases, endless pictures of boys with presents, knotted ribbon and torn-up gift-wrap in piles of red and silver and green, until finally the snow laid a blanket over the windshield and cut off the view.
aNow this is a surprise,a Karen Eckman said when she opened the door, both hands grasping the choke chain of an enormous golden retriever; she was a small woman, and it didnat look like a battle she would win. aNo!a she said loudly. aSit!a She was wearing a white knit stocking cap pulled down over her ears and her coat was just behind her, thrown across a chair in the front hall. Marina was blanking on the dogas name, though there was a picture of him on Andersa desk along with pictures of Karen and the boys. He pushed his mallet head against Karenas hip and gave two sharp barks at the unimaginable good fortune of guests in the middle of the day.
aYouare leaving,a Mr. Fox said, as if this meant maybe they should leave as well.
Karen shook her head. aNo, no, youare fine. Iave got plenty of time. I was going to swing by the store on the way to pick up the boys but I can do that later. Come inside. Itas freezing.a The dog lunged forward when they entered, hoping for the chance to jump up, but Karen, who had at best twenty pounds on the animal, managed to drag him to the side of the entry hall. aYou get back, Pickles,a she said. aYou sit.a Pickles did not sit, and when she let him go she rubbed her hands to work out the indentations the chain-link collar had left. In the kitchen everything was neat: no cups on the countertop, no toys on the floor. Marina had been to the house before but only for parties when every room and hallway was pressed full of people. Empty she could see how big the place was. It would take a lot of children to fill in the open spaces. aWould you like some coffee?a Karen said.
Marina turned to put the question to Mr. Fox and found that he was standing almost directly behind her. Mr. Fox was not taller than Marina. It was something he joked about when they were alone. aNo coffee,a Marina said. aThank you.a It wasnat a bright day but what light there was reflected off the snow and cast a wide silvery band across the breakfast table. Through the big picture window Marina saw a jungle gym standing on a low hill in the backyard, a rough fort gathering snow on its slanted roof. Pickles leaned up against Marina now and he batted her hand with his head until she reached down to rub the limp chamois of his ears.
aI can put him up,a Karen said. aHeas a lot of dog.a Pickles stared at her, his vision unfocused by the ecstasy in his ears. aI like dogs,a Marina said, thinking it was vital that he stay. The dog would have to stand in for their minister if they had one. The dog would be Karenas mother, her sister, whoever it was she wished was standing next to her when everything came down. The dog would have to be Anders.
She glanced back at Mr. Fox again. Every second they were in the house without telling her what had happened was a lie. But Mr. Fox had turned towards the refrigerator now. He was looking at pictures of the boys: the two youngest ones a couple of washed-out towheads, the older one only slightly darker. He was looking at a picture of Anders with his arms around his wife and in that photo they were not much older than children themselves. There were pictures of birds, too, a group of prairie chickens standing in a field, an eastern bluebird so vibrant it appeared to have been Photoshopped. Anders took a lot of pictures of birds.
Karen pulled off her hat and pushed her straight pale hair behind her ears. The flush that had been in her cheeks from the momentary burst of cold had faded. aThis isnat good news, right?a she said, twisting the rings on her finger, the modest diamond and the platinum band. aIam glad to see you but I canat imagine youare just dropping by to say hello.a And for a split second Marina felt the slightest surge of relief. Of course she would know. Even if she hadnat heard she would know in that way a soul knows. Marina wanted so badly to put her arms around Karen then, to give her condolences. She was ready for that if nothing else. The words for how sorry she was ached in the back of her throat.
aItas not good news,a Marina said, hearing the catch in her own voice. This was the moment for Mr. Fox to tell the story, to explain it in a way Marina herself did not fully understand, but nothing came. Mr. Fox had given himself over to the refrigerator photos. He had his back to the two women, his arms locked behind, his head tilted forward to a picture of a common loon.
Karen turned her eyes up, shook her head slightly. aThe letters have been crazy,a she said. aIall get two in a day and then nothing all week. They donat come in any sort of order. I got one a couple of days ago that didnat have a date on it but it must have been pretty recent. He sounded like he was half out of his mind. Heas definitely writing to me less now. I think he doesnat want to tell me he has to stay longer.a aKaren, listen.a Pickles lifted his head as if listen was his command. He sat.
aIt isnat his job,a Karen said, and while she looked at Marina she pointed her finger at Mr. Foxas back. aHe doesnat like the jungle. I mean, the birds, he says the birds are spectacular, but the rest of it is making him crazy, the leaves and the vines and all of that. In one of his letters he said he felt like they were choking him at night. Where Anders grew up in Crookston there are hardly any trees at all. Have you ever been to Crookston? Itas nothing but prairie up there. He used to say that trees made him nervous, and he was joking, but still. He isnat cut out for this. He isnat some mediator whoas been trained to talk down the difficult cases. I understand why you sent him. Everybody likes Anders. But if Vogel has inflated its stock price then thatas Vogelas problem. Itas not his job to fix it. He canat fix it, and you canat just leave him out there to try.a Marina imagined that Karen had been making this speech in her head every morning and night while she brushed her teeth, never thinking shead have the opportunity to deliver it to Mr. Fox himself.
aHeas never going to say this to you but even if he hasnat been able to bring this nutcase back itas time for him to come home. Weave got three boys here, Mr. Fox. You canat expect them to finish out the school year without their father.a This time Marina recognized the sensation at the onset, the helpless buckling of joints, and was able to reach for the tall chair at the kitchen island. Surely it was Mr. Foxas part to give Karen the letter, but then with a fresh wave of grief, Marina remembered that the letter was in her own pocket. She pulled out the chair beside her. aSit down, Karen,a she said. aSit next to me.a The moment did not bring to mind her own losses. What rushed before Marina was the inherent cruelty of telling. It didnat matter how gently the news was delivered, with how much sorrow and compassion, it was a blow to cut Karen Eckman in two.
aAnders?a Karen said, and then she said it again, louder, as if he were in the other room, as if she both believed what she had been told and denied it. All the cold that swept through Minnesota came into Karen Eckman and she stammered and shook. Her fingers began to rake at the outside of her arms. She asked to see the letter but then she refused to touch the thing, so thin and blue, half unfolded. She told Marina to read it aloud.
There was no way to say she wouldnat do it but still, no matter how much Marina tried to edit the words as they came out of her mouth she couldnat make them into sympathy. aGiven our location, this rain,a she said tentatively, leaving out the part about governments and their petty bureaucracies. aWe chose to bury him here.a She could not bring herself to say that this burial was no small task. She should have read the first paragraph, as banal as it was. Without it what was left didnat even sound like a letter. It sounded like some thrifty telegram.
aShe buried him there?a Karen said. The bellows of her lungs strained for nothing. There was no air in the kitchen. aJesus, what are you saying to me? Heas in the ground?a aTell me who I can call for you. Someone needs to be here.a Marina tried to hold her hands but Karen shook her off.
aGet him out of there! You canat just leave him. He isnat going to stay there.a It was the moment to promise everything, but as hard as she tried she could not assemble a single sentence of comfort. aI canat get him out,a Marina said, and it was a terrible admission because now she could see very clearly the mud and the leaves, the ground closing in the rain, growing over immediately in tender saplings and tough grasses until it was impossible to find the place where he was. She could feel Andersa strangling panic in all those leaves and the panic became her own. aI donat know how. Karen, look at me, you have to tell me who to call. You have to let me call someone.a But Karen couldnat understand or couldnat hear or didnat care what might have made things easier for Marina. The two of them were alone in this. Mr. Fox had been driven from the room by the sound, the keening of Karen Eckmanas despair. She slipped down from her chair and sank to the floor to cry against the retriever, wrapping her grief around his sturdy torso while the poor animal shivered and licked at her arm. She cried there until shead dampened the dogas fur.
What idiots they were thinking they knew what they were doing! Marina had had to announce deaths to family members in the hospital when she had been a resident, not often, only if the attending was too busy or too imperious to be bothered. No matter how hard these daughters and fathers and brothers and wives had cried, how tightly they clung to her, it had never been that difficult to extricate herself. She simply had to raise her head and there was a nurse who knew more about how to hold them and what to say. Behind her there were charts full of phone numbers that had been compiled in advance. Available clergy were listed for any denomination, grief counselors and support groups that met on Wednesdays. The most she had been asked to do was write an order for a sedative. Marina had made the announcement of Andersa death while giving no thought to deathas infrastructure. What about those boys standing in front of the school now, the snow growing into piles on their shoulders while they waited for their mother? How could Marina have forgotten to account for them? Why didnat they know to find somebody first, a dozen somebodies standing ready around Karen while she absorbed the violence of the news? All of those people at the Christmas party, the women in reindeer sweaters, the men in red ties, the people Marina had seen laughing in this kitchen only a few months ago, leaning against each other with their whiskeyed eggnog, they were desperately needed now! And if they hadnat been smart enough to bring family and friends, could they not have thought at least to slip a few sample cards of Xanax into their pockets? There was no waiting out the situation. Giving it time would only mean the Eckman boys would start to panic as a teacher led them back into the school building and told them to wait inside. They would think that their mother was dead; thatas where a childas mind goesa"always to the loss of the mother.
Marina stood up from the floor, though in her memory she had never sat down on it. She went to the phone, looking for an address book, a Rolodex, anything with numbers. What she found were two copies of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a scratch pad with a clean sheet of paper on top, a coffee mug that said aI Love My Librarya jumbled full of pens and crayons, a piece of paper tacked to a cork board that said aBabysitter Emergencya: Karenas cell phone, Andersa cell phone, Andersa office, poison control center, ambulance, Dr. Johnson, Linn Hilder. This is what it feels like when the house is burning down, Marina thought. This is why they give you a number as simple as 911 for the emergencies that will surely come, because when the flames are racing up the curtains and hurtling towards you over the floorboards you wonat know any numbers. As much as she wanted to help the wife of her dead friend, she wanted to get out of that house. She picked up the phone and dialed the name on the bottom of the list. She had to take the phone out of the kitchen in order to hear the woman on the other end. Linn Hilder was the neighbor down the street who happened to have two boys who were friends with the Eckman boys. Why, Linn Hilder had leaned out her car window not twenty minutes ago and asked them if they needed a ride home and they had said no, Mrs. Hilder, our motheras coming. Linn Hilder was herself now crying as convulsively as Karen.
aCall someone,a Marina said in a low voice. aCall anyone you can think of and send them over here. Call the school. Go to the school and get the boys.a When she came back to the kitchen she saw that Pickles was lying out on the floor to the right of his owner, his sodden head resting at the joint of Karenas hip, and to her left sat Mr. Fox, who had miraculously stepped forward in her brief absence. He was petting Karenas head with a slow and rhythmical assurance. aItas all right,a he said quietly. aItas going to be all right.a Her head was against his chest and her tears had darkened the stripes on his tie from blue to black. And while it wasnat all right, nothing close to it, she seemed able to hear the steady repetition of the words and was trying to breathe regularly.
Marina and Mr. Fox left the house an hour later, after Karenas mother had been located, after her sister came in with her husband, bringing word that their brother was driving up from Iowa, after Linn Hilder had collected the Eckman boys from school and taken them to her own house until a sensible plan for breaking the news to them could be devised. From the moment Mr. Fox had first stood in the door of the lab with that blue envelope in his hand it had never occurred to Marina that there might be guilt where Andersa death was concerned. It was an accident as much as being pulled under by the current in the Amazon River would have been an accident. But as they stepped into the smack of frigid wind with only Pickles there to see them out, she wondered if the people inside thought of Mr. Fox as culpable. The days were still short and the sun was already low. Certainly without Mr. Fox in the picture, the Eckman boys would be doing their homework or rolling up a snowman in the backyard. Anders would be looking at the clock in their office, saying he was hungry, his body already leaning towards the door in their thriving, living world. She thought it was possible that even if Karen Eckman and her people didnat blame Mr. Fox in the greatest hour of their grief, the blame might still come to them later on, after time and sleep had untangled their thinking. She certainly blamed him for leaving her alone to tell Karen, and for not holding her arm as she carefully maneuvered her way down the unshoveled walk to the car. Did she blame him for sending Anders to his death in Brazil? She struggled with the handle on the passenger-side door that was half frozen down while Mr. Fox slipped into the driveras side. She brushed the snow off the window with her hand and then rapped her bare knuckles against the glass. He had been staring straight ahead and now he turned in her direction and looked startled to see her, as if he had forgotten he hadnat come alone. He leaned over and pushed the door open.
She fell onto the leather seat just as she might have fallen out on the pavement in front of the house had she been forced to wait there another minute. aJust take me back to my car,a Marina said. Her hands were shaking and she pinned them between her knees. She had spent most of her life in Minnesota and yet she had never been so cold. All she wanted in the world was to go home and sit in a hot bath.
It had stopped snowing but the sky hanging over the prairie was swollen and gray. The interstate, once they found it, was nothing but a beaten strip of badly plowed blacktop between two flat expanses of white. Mr. Fox did not take Marina back to her car. He was driving instead to St. Paul, and once in St. Paul to a restaurant where in the past they had had remarkable luck not running into anyone they knew. When she saw where he was going she said nothing. She could understand in some dim way that after all theyad been through it was better for them to be together. It was well after five when they slid into a booth in the back of the room. When Marina ordered a glass of red wine, she realized she wanted it even more than the bath. The waitress brought her two and put them side by side on the table in front of her as if she might be expecting a friend. She brought Mr. Fox two glasses of scotch over piles of ice.
aHappy Hour,a she said with no particular happiness. aYou folks have a good time.a Marina waited until the woman had walked away and then without preamble she repeated to Mr. Fox the single sentence from Karenas monologue that had stuck in her head so clearly after all the others began to melt together. aIf Vogel has inflated its stock price then thatas Vogelas problem.a He looked at her with what might have been called a wan smile except there wasnat quite enough smile in it. aI canat ever remember being this tired.a She nodded her head. She waited. For a long time he waited with her.
aYou know the stock price is up,a he said finally.
aI know itas up. I guess I donat know why itas up or that it has anything to do with Anders.a Mr. Fox drained his first glass easily and then rested his fingers lightly on the rim of the second. He would be sixty-one in a month but the events of the day had put him safely beyond that. In the dim light of the low-hanging swag lamp with a faux Tiffany shade he could have been seventy. He sat hunched, his shoulders pressing towards one another in the front, and his glasses dug a small red groove into the bridge of his nose. His mouth, which in the past had been generous and kind, now cut across his face in a single straight line. Marina had worked at Vogel for more than six years before they ever came to this restaurant. It was plenty of time to think about Mr. Fox as her employer, her superior. For the last seven months they had made an attempt to redefine their relationship.
aThe problem is this,a Mr. Fox said, his voice turned sullen. aFor some time now there has been . . .a He waited, as if a combination of the cold, the exhaustion, and the scotch had stolen the very word he needed. aThere has been a situation in Brazil. It was not a situation that Anders was meant to solve. I didnat ask him to solve it, but I did think he would bring back enough information so that I would be able to handle it myself. I saw Anders as the person who would set things in motion. He would explain to Dr. Swenson that it was essential that she wrap up her research and move directly, with the help of other scientists, into the developmental phase of the drug. Then he would explain to me, based on what head seen, what sort of reasonable timetable we should be able to expect. The fact that Anders died in the middle of all this is a terrible thing, I donat need to tell you that, but his deathaa"and here Mr. Fox paused to consider his words and take a quarter inch off the second glassa"ahis death does not change the problem.a aAnd the problem is that this drug which youave been saying for a year now is all but sitting on the doorstep of the FDA doesnat exist? Itas not that Dr. Swenson isnat bringing it back from Brazil. Youare saying thereas nothing to bring back.a Mr. Fox was too old for her. He was five years younger than her mother, a point her mother would have been the first person to bring up had Marina been inclined to tell her about the relationship.
aI donat know that. That was the purpose of the trip. We needed more information.a aSo you sent Anders out on some sort of reconnaissance mission? Anders Eckman? How was he qualified for that?a aHe was meant to be our ambassador. He wasnat hiding anything, there was nothing to hide. His job was to explain to Dr. Swenson the importance of her finishing her portion of the project. Since sheas been down there sheas disconnected herself, froma"a Mr. Fox stopped and shook his head. The list was too long. aEverything. Iam not entirely sure she possesses a concept of time.a aHow long ago did you last hear from her?a aNot counting todayas letter?a He stopped to do the math in his head though Marina suspected he was only stalling. aItas been twenty-six months.a aNothing? In over two years youave heard nothing? How is that possible?a What she meant was how was it possible he had let this go so far but that was not how he heard the question.
aShe doesnat seem to feel sheas accountable to the people who have been funding her work. Iave given her a kind of latitude that any other drug company would have laughed at, and should laugh at. Thatas why she agreed to come with us. Her money is deposited monthly into an account in Rio as per our original agreement. Iave paid to have a research station built and I donat even know where it is. We sent the whole thing down on a barge, freezers and tin siding, roofs and doors, more generators than you could imagine. We sent everything to set up a fully operating lab and she met the barge in Manaus and got on board and took it down the river herself. None of the workers were ever able to remember where they dropped things off.a aIf Anders found it, it wouldnat be impossible to find.a Dr. Swenson would never see herself as accountable to Vogel, any more than she would think of herself as working for them. She might develop a drug for the purposes of her own curiosity or the interest of science, but it would never occur to her that her work was the property of the people who signed the checks. Anyone who had spent a thoughtful hour in her presence could have figured that much out. aSo pull the plug. Cut the money off and wait until she comes out.a Mr. Fox, who had been holding the remaining and mostly full glass of scotch an inch off the table, now set it down. The look on his face meant to say that she understood none of it. aThe project needs to be completed, not abandoned.a aThen it wonat be abandoned.a Marina closed her eyes. She wanted to sink into the red wine, to swim in it. aThe truth is I donat want to talk about Dr. Swenson or Vogel or drug development anymore. I know Iam the one who brought it up but I was wrong. Letas just give the day to Anders.a aYouare absolutely right,a Mr. Fox said in a tone that was free of concession. aThis isnat the time to talk about it, and tomorrow wonat be either, nor will the day after that. But since the day is rightfully Andersa Iall tell you this: in finding Dr. Swenson we not only have the chance to solve Vogelas problems, but we could resolve some of the questions about Andersa death as well.a aWhat questions?a aBelieve me,a he said, athere will be questions.a She wondered then if he felt it too, that the blame would come to him eventually. aYouare not going to Brazil,a she said.
aNo,a he said.
It was this terrible light that made him look old, the scotch and the heavy weight of the day. She wanted them to leave now, and when they got back to Eden Prairie she would take him home with her. She blamed him for nothing. She leaned across the table of this dark, back booth and took his hand. aThe president of the company doesnat go off to Brazil.a aThere is nothing inherently dangerous about the Amazon. Itas a matter of precautions and good sense.a aIam sure youare right but that doesnat mean that you should go.a aI promise you, Iam not going. Annick Swenson wouldnat listen to me. I realize now sheas never listened to me, not in the meetings, the agreement letters, the contracts. Iave been writing to her ever since she lefta"no e-mail, no texting, she does none of that. I sit down and put it all on paper. Iave been very clear about her obligations and our commitment to the project. Thereas been no indication that she reads my letters.a aSo what you need to find is someone sheall listen to.a aExactly. I didnat think that through when I sent Anders. He was affable and bright, and he seemed to want to go, which counted for a lot. I only thought it needed to be someone from Vogel, someone who wasnat me.a Oh, Anders! To have been sent off on a mission you were never right for. To be regarded after your death as an error of judgment. aSo now youall find the right person.a aYou,a he said.
Marina felt a small jolt in the hand he was holding, as if something sharp had briefly stabbed through him and into her. She took back her hand and rubbed it quickly.
aShe knows you,a he said. aSheall listen. I should have asked you in the first place. You were the boardas choice, and I made the case against you. I told them I had asked you and you had refused. It was selfishness on my part. This time weave spent togethera"a He looked up at her now but for both of them it felt almost unbearable and so he dropped his eyes. aItas been important to me. I didnat want you going off. Thatas my guilt, Marina, sending Anders instead of you, because you would have gotten it done.a aBut he died,a she said. She didnat want to turn back the clock and choose between Anders and herself, to think about which one of them was more expendable in lifeas greater scheme. She was sure she knew the answer to that one. aYou would have rather it had been me?a aYou wouldnat have died.a He was utterly clear on this point. aWhatever Anders did, it was careless. He wasnat eaten by a crocodile. He had a fever, he was sick. If you were sick you would have the sense to get on a plane and come home.a Marina didnat approve of the introduction of culpability on Andersas part. It was bad enough that he was dead without it being his fault. aLetas leave poor Anders out of this for a minute if we can.a She tried to grab hold of logic. aThe flaw in your argument is that you think I know Dr. Swenson. I havenat seen her ina"a Marina stopped, had it been that long? aThirteen years. I know her thoughts on reproductive endocrinology and to a lesser extent gynecological surgery, and not even her current thoughts on either of those things, her thirteen-year-old thoughts. I donat know her. And as for her knowing me, she doesnat. She didnat know me then and there is no reason to think she would suddenly know me now. She wouldnat remember my name, my face, my test scores.a Would Dr. Swenson know her? She saw Dr. Swenson raise her eyes to the lecture hall, sweep past the faces of all the students, all the residents, year after year after year. There could be hundreds of them in a single class and over the years that quickly added up to thousands, and yet for a brief time Dr. Swenson knew Marina Singh alone.
aYou underestimate yourself.a Marina shook her head. aYou overestimate Dr. Swenson. And me. We would be strangers to one another.a This was halfway true. It was the truth in one direction.
aYou were her student, her bright student who went on to do well in her field. Itas a connection. Itas more of a connection to her than anyone else has.a aExcept for her employer.a He raised his eyebrows but it wasnat enough to mock surprise. aSo now you think I should go?a aAre we the only two people available for this mission? I donat think either one of us should go.a She could see Anders so clearly now. He had laid it all out for her and yet she had missed his point entirely. aShe found a village of people in the Amazon, a tribe,a Anders had said, awhere the women go on bearing children until the end of their lives.a aNow thereas a chilling thought.a Marina was inputting numbers and listening to Anders the way she often did, with half of one ear.
aOf course their lives are on average shorter than ours by about a decade but thatas true everywhere in the Amazona"poor diet, little or no medical care.a aAll those children.a Anders pushed off from his desk in his rolling chair. With his long legs and the short length of floor in the lab he maneuvered around the room easily with his heels. aTheir eggs arenat aging, do you get that? The rest of the body goes along its path to destruction while the reproductive system stays daisy fresh. This is the end of IVF. No more expense, no more shots that donat end up working, no more donor eggs and surrogates. This is ovum in perpetuity, menstruation everlasting.a Marina looked up. aWould you stop this?a He put a thick bound report on her desk, Reproductive Endocrinology in the Lakashi People, by Dr. Annick Swenson. aPretend for a moment that you are a clinical pharmacologist working for a major drug development firm. Imagine someone offering you the equivalent of Lost Horizon for American ovaries.a He took Marinaas hand as if in proposal. aPut off your reproductive decisions for as long as you want. Weare not talking forty-five, weare talking fifty, sixty, maybe beyond that. You can always have children.a Marina felt the words pointed directly at her. She was forty-two. She was in love with a man she did not leave the building with, and while she had not broached the subject with Mr. Fox, it wasnat impossible to think that they could have a child. Improbable, maybe, but not out of the question. She picked up the hefty report. aAnnick Swenson.a aSheas the researcher. Sheas some famous ethnobotanist in Brazil.a Marina opened to the table of contents. aSheas not an ethnobotanist,a she said, glancing down the list of chapters: aOnset of Puberty in Lakashi Women,a aBirth Rates in Comparable Tribesa. . .
Anders looked at the page she was looking at as if this information was printed there. aHow do you know that?a Marina closed the report and slid it back over the desk. From the very start she remembered wanting no part in this. aShe was a teacher of mine in medical school.a That had been the conversation in its entirety. The phone rang, someone came in, it was over. Marina had not been asked to sit in on the review board meetings or to meet Dr. Swenson on the occasion of Dr. Swensonas single visit to Vogel. There was no reason she would have been. Obligations on review board committees were rotating and in this particular instance her number had not come up. There was no reason Mr. Fox would have ever known about the connection between herself and the chronicler of the Lakashi people except that clearly at some point Anders must have told him.
aWhat is she like, anyway?a Anders asked her two or three days before he left.
Marina took a moment. She saw her teacher down in the pit of the lecture hall, observed her at a safe and comfortable distance. aShe was an old-style medical school professor.a aThe stuff of legends? A suicide in every class?a Anders was looking at his bird books then, too distracted by tanagers to notice her face. Marina was caught not wanting to make a joke of something that didnat have an ounce of humor in it, and at the same time not wanting to offer up any little crack that could be pried open into a meaningful conversation. All she said then was, aYes.a In the end neither Marina nor Mr. Fox could face dinner. They finished their drinks, two apiece, and drove back to the parking lot at Vogel, where Marina got in her car to go home. There was no further argument, no plans for the Amazon or the evening ahead. They had both been certain that the answer would be to go to bed together, hold each other through the long night as a means of warding off death, but there in the parking lot they split apart naturally, both of them too tired and too fundamentally alone in their thoughts to stay with the other.
aIall call to say good night,a Mr. Fox said.
Marina nodded and she kissed him, and when she was home and in bed after the bath she had so desperately wanted, he did call and said good night, but only good night, with no discussion of the day. When the phone rang again, five minutes or five hours after she had turned out the light, she did not think it would be Mr. Fox. Her first startled thought was that it was Anders. It had something to do with a dream she was having. Anders was calling to say his car had broken down in the snow and he needed her to come and pick him up.
aMarina, Iam sorry, Iam waking you.a It was a womanas voice, and then she realized it was Karenas voice. Marina reached beneath her to try and straighten out the nightgown that had worked its way into twisted rope around her waist. aItas all right.a aDr. Johnson brought some sleeping pills over but they didnat do anything.a aSometimes they donat,a Marina said. She picked up the little clock on her bedside table whose tiny hands glowed green in the dark, 3:25.
aThey worked for everyone else. Everyone in the house is sound asleep.a aDo you want me to come over?a She could go back now and sit on the kitchen floor with Karen and Pickles. She could lie on Andersa side of the bed and hold Karenas hand in the dark until she fell asleep. This time she would be ready, she would know what to do.
aNo, itas okay. Iave got my family here, even if theyare asleep. Itas just that Iave been thinking about all this, right? Of course Iam thinking about this.a Her voice was remarkably calm on the other end of the line.
aSure.a aAnd Iave got all these questions now.a aOf course,a Marina said, unable to think of a single question shead be capable of answering.
aWell, why does she say in the letter that sheas keeping his few possessions for his wife? Does she think that Iam going to come by and pick up his watch?a Her voice wavered a bit and just as quickly she regained control. aDonat you think shead mail them?a His camera, wallet, passport, watch, maybe the field guides and maybe some clothing but she doubted that. Dr. Swenson would return the things that she deemed important, which is to say she would set them aside and forget them. aMaybe she just thought she would give them to the next person who came down there. It would be safer. I imagine a lot of things get lost in the mail.a It occurred to her then that this letter could have been lost, or it might have come three days ago, or a month from now. How long would they have waited passively for news of Anders while they went about their lives?
aBut what if she isnat sending the things because he still has them?a Marina rubbed her thumb and index finger into the corners of her eyes. She was trying to pull herself up from sleep by using the bridge of her nose. aIam sorry. Iam not following you.a aWhat if he isnat dead?a Marina pressed her head deep into the pillow. aHeas dead, Karen.a aWhy? Because we got a letter from some crazy woman in Brazil who nobodyas allowed to talk to? I need more than that. This is the worst thing thatas ever going to happen to me. Itas the worst thing thatas going to happen to my boys ever in their entire lives, and Iam supposed to take a strangeras word on it?a There had to be an equation for probability and proof. At some point probability becomes so great it eclipses the need for proof, although maybe not if it was your husband. aMr. Fox is going to send someone down there. Theyare going to find out what happened.a aBut say heas not dead. I know you donat believe it but just say. Say that heas sick and he needs me to come and find him. In that case there isnat any time to wait for Mr. Fox to reassemble his committee to find someone else to send to Brazil who has no idea what heas doing.a Slowly Marinaas sight adjusted to the darkness. She could make out the shapes in her bedroom, the dresser, the lamp. aIall talk to him. I promise. Iall make sure he gets this done right.a aIam going to go down there,a Karen said.
aNo, youare not.a It was all a form of shock, Marina understood that. Maybe tomorrow Karen wouldnat remember this conversation at all.
The phone was quiet for a long time. aI would,a she said. aI swear to God if it wasnat for the boys.a aLook,a Marina said, athis isnat something that any of us can figure out now. Youave got to get some rest. We have to give Mr. Fox a chance to find out what he can.a aI gave Mr. Fox everything Iave got,a she said.
That afternoon Marina had thought that Karen would never speak to her again, that she would always blame her for bearing the news. The fact that she was the person Karen Eckman called in the middle of the night felt something like forgiveness, and for that forgiveness she was deeply grateful. aWhat time did you take the sleeping pill?a Marina waited. She watched the glowing second hand pass the three, the six, the nine.
aKaren?a aYou could go.a So now Marina understood what this conversation was about. When Karen said it, a picture of Anders came very clearly into Marinaas mind: his back was against an impenetrable bank of leaves, his feet in the water. He was holding a letter. He was looking down river for the boy in the dugout log. He was dead. Marina might not have a great deal of faith in Dr. Swenson but Dr. Swenson wasnat the sort to announce a death where no death had occurred, that would constitute a frivolous waste of time. aYouare the second person to tell me that tonight.a aAnders said you knew her. He said she was a teacher of yours.a aShe was,a Marina said, not wanting to explain. Marina was from Minnesota. No one ever believed that. At the point when she could have taken a job anywhere she came back because she loved it here. This landscape was the one she understood, all prairie and sky. She and Anders had that in common.
aI know how much Iam asking,a Karen said. aAnd I know how terrible you feel about Anders and about me and the boys. I know that Iam using all of it against you and how unfair it is and I still want you to go.a aI understand.a aI know you understand,a Karen said. aBut will you go?a
Two.
First things first. Marina made an appointment with an epidemiologist in St. Paul and got a ten-year vaccine for yellow fever and a tetanus shot. She got a prescription for an antimalarial, Lariam, and was told to take the first pill immediately. After that she would take one pill a week for the duration of her trip, and then one a week for four weeks after her return home. aWatch this stuff,a the doctor told her. aIt can make you feel like jumping off a roof.a Marina wasnat worried about jumping off a roof. Her worries were centered around plane tickets, packing, English-Portuguese dictionaries, how much Pepto-Bismol would be enough. From time to time she thought about the upper quadrant of her left arm, which, since those two shots, felt like both needles had broken off their respective hypodermics and were now lodged in her humerus like a pair of hot spears. She allowed these more practical concerns to stand temporarily in place for her thoughts of Anders and Karen and Dr. Swenson, none of whom she could manage at the moment. It wasnat until the third night after she took the first tablet of Lariam that Marinaas thoughts swung sharply in the direction of India and her father. In the process of leaving for the Amazon, she had inadvertently solved a mystery that at present was the farthest thing from her mind: What had been wrong with her childhood?
And then the unexpected answer: these pills.
It came to her in the night when she bolted up from her bed, out of her bed, drenched and shaking, the dream still so alive she wouldnat blink her eyes for fear of calling it back, though really there was no avoiding it. She knew this one by heart. It was the same dream that had marked the entirety of her youth, intensely present and then gone for years, returning at the very moment she was careless enough to forget about it. Standing there beside her bed in the dark, the sheets soaked, her pillow and nightgown soaked, she came to the clear and sudden realization that she had taken Lariam as a child. Her mother never told her but of course she must have, starting the dosage as prescribed, the first pill taken a week before departure, then every week while away, then for four weeks after they returned. Pills meant it was time to see her father as surely as digging through desk drawers to find the passports and dragging the suitcases up from the basement. India pills, her mother had called them. Come and take your India pills.
Marina had only the most cursory memories of living in an apartment in Minneapolis with both of her parents but she could summon them back without any effort. Look, there is her father standing at the front door shaking the snow from the black gloss of his hair. There he is at the kitchen table writing on a tablet, a cigarette in the saucer beside him burning slowly to ash, his books and papers arranged in such precise order that at dinner time they had to sit on the floor in the living room and eat off the coffee table. There he is at her bed at night, pulling the covers beneath her chin, tucking them in on either side. aSnug like a bug?a he asks her. She nods her head against the pillow, the only part of her free to move, and gazes at his lovely face only inches above hers, until she can no longer keep her eyes open.
Marina did not forget her father in his absence, nor did she learn to accept the situation over time. She longed for him. Her mother often said that Marina was smart in just the way her father was smart, and that explained why he was so proud that she excelled in the very things that interested her the most: earth sciences and math when she was a little girl, calculus, statistics, inorganic chemistry when she was older. Her skin was all cream and light in comparison to her fatheras and very dark when she held her wrist against her motheras. She had her fatheras round, black eyes and heavy lashes, his black hair and angular frame. Seeing her father gave her the ability to see herself, the comfort of physical recognition after a life spent among her motheras people, all those translucent cousins who looked at her like she was a llama who had wandered into their holiday dinner. The checkers in the grocery store, the children at school, the doctors and the bus drivers all asked her where she was from. There was no point in saying, Right here, Minneapolis, though it was in fact the case. Instead she told them India, and even that they didnat always understand (Lakota? asked the gas station attendant, and Marina would have to work very hard not to roll her eyes because her mother had explained that eye-rolling was the height of rudeness and was never an appropriate response, even to very stupid questions). Being the child of a white mother and foreign graduate-student father who took his doctoral degree but not his family back to his country of origin after he was finished had become the stuff of presidential history, but when Marina was growing up there was no example that could easily explain her situation. In time, she came to tell herself that she practically was from India because after all her father was from there and lived there and she had visited him there every two or three years when enough money had been saved. These dramatic trips were discussed and planned as great events, and as Marina marked off the months then weeks then days on her calendar what she was longing for was not only her father but an entire country, that place where no one would turn around and look at her unless it was to admire her good posture. But then, a little less than a week before she left, the dreams would begin.
In the dreams she is holding her fatheras hand. They are walking up Indira Gandhi Sarani towards Dalhousie Square or following Bidhan Sarani in the direction of the college where her father is a professor. The farther they go along the more people start to come out of buildings and alleyways. Maybe the power has gone out again and the trams have stopped and all the fans in all the kitchens have stopped so that people who were in their apartments have come out to the street because the crowd is pushing in closer and closer as more people are joining in along the edges. There is the heat of the day to contend with and then the heat of so many bodies, their sweat and perfume, the sharp scent of spice carried in the smoke of vendorsa fires and the bitter smell of marigolds strung into garlands, and all together it begins to overwhelm her. Marina canat see where sheas going anymore, only the people pressing into her, hips wrapped in crimson saris and dhoti-punjabis knocking her from side to side. She reaches out her hand and pats a cow. She can hear the persistent music of jewelry weaving through the shouted conversations, bangle bracelets stacked halfway to the elbow and anklets covered in tiny bells, earrings that function as wind chimes. Sometimes when the masses shift her feet are lifted from the ground and for a moment she is held a few inches aloft, a small weight distributed over various points on other peopleas bodies as she drags behind her father like a low kite. She feels her shoe knocked loose from her foot and she calls for her father to stop, but he doesnat hear her over the roar of voices. She can still see the little shoe flashing yellow on the hard packed ground not two steps behind them in the crowd. It is perfectly still, untrampled, and though she knows she isnat supposed to, she lets go of her fatheras hand. She dives for her shoe but the crowd has already swallowed it, and as quickly as she turns back the crowd has swallowed her father as well. She calls for him, Papi! Papi! but the ringing of bells, the calling and crying of beggars, has taken the sound from her mouth. She doesnat know if he even realizes sheas gone. Some other child could have attached himself to her fatheras hand when she fell off, in India the children are very fast. And then Marina is alone somewhere in the sea of Calcutta, folded inside the human current of chattering Hindi which she does not understand, her body swept along while she cries, at which point she would wake up sweating, nauseated, her black hair soaked to the skull. She would run down the hall to her motheras room, throw herself into her motheras bed, crying, aDonat make me go!a Her mother took her up in her arms, put a cool hand on her forehead. She asked her what the dream was about but Marina always said she couldnat remember, something awful. She did remember, but wouldnat speak it for fear the words would somehow cement the images into reality. From then on she had the dream every night: she had it on the plane going over to Calcutta and woke up screaming. She had it in the flat her father rented for her and her mother not far from his office at the college so that they would not disturb his second wife, his second children. They were separated getting onto a bus, her father let her go while they were swimming in the sea at a crowded beach. After so many dreams that were so much alike she became terrified of sleep. She was terrified the whole time they were in India, so much so that at the end of every trip both of her parents agreed that it might all be too much for her. Marinaas father said he would try to come to Minnesota more often, but that was never practical. Once they were back at home, after a week or two, the crowds that haunted her sleep would begin to dissipate, thin into smaller groups, and then break apart altogether. Slowly, Marina would forget them, and then her mother would forget, and within a year it would once again be decided that she was a much bigger girl now and maybe they should start thinking about a trip to India sometime in the future.
Was it possible that no one had troubled themselves to read the voluminous side effects of the Lariam? Marina liked to think she would have figured out the puzzle herself if her father hadnat died when she was in college. At that point she hadnat been back to Calcutta in three years. Had he lived and she had gone again, she would have been old enough to look into the medication herself, although it was true that a patient was less likely to question a set of symptoms she had always accepted. She had grown up believing that India gave her nightmares, seeing her father gave her nightmares, when all along it was the antimalarial. The drug, not the circumstances of her life, destroyed her chance to be with her father.
aOf course I knew it was the Lariam,a her mother said over the phone. aYour father and I were always worrying about it. You had such a terrible reaction.a aThen why didnat you tell me what it was?a Marina said.
aYou donat tell a five-year-old theyare going to have bad dreams. Thatas like giving them an invitation to have more.a aA five-year-old,a she said, aIall grant you that. But you could have explained it to me when I was ten, at least when I was fifteen.a aI couldnat tell you anything when you were fifteen. If Iad told you it was the pills that gave you nightmares you wouldnat have taken them.a aWould that have been the end of the world?a aIf you had gotten malaria in India then, yes, I suppose it would have been. The end of the world had it killed you. Iam surprised this is still a problem. I would have thought they would have come up with a better drug to take by now.a aThey have and they havenat. The new ones donat make you so crazy but they also donat protect from all the different strains of malaria.a aSo why in the world are you taking Lariam again?a her mother asked. It was the most important question and yet it only now seemed to have occurred to her. aAre you going back to India?a What was so interesting about the nightmares now was the extent to which nothing much in them had changed. At forty-two she was still holding her fatheras hand, the people around them rose up like a tide and she was then forced to let him go. It had never actually happened, this physical wrenching apart, and still her subconscious clung to the fear. Things that had happened to Marina, the memories she saw as the logical candidates for nightmares, never entered her sleeping life, and she supposed that for this she should be grateful. In her own home she got up and turned the lights on in the bathroom. Her hands were shaking and she ran a wet washcloth over her face and neck, careful not to look at herself in the mirror. It was surprising to discover that understanding the origin of her dreams offered her exactly no comfort at two in the morning. In fact, all she could think of now was her doctoras careless admonition that she might want to jump off a roof. Her deepest fear, her fatheras hand slipping from her hand, had held steady even when it was kept undisturbed in a pharmacy without her for twenty-five years.
aWhat about the funeral?a Marina asked Karen Eckman. They hadnat seen each other all week, not since Marina had come with Mr. Fox on the day of the heavy snow. Now that she was leaving in the morning, both of the women thought it was important to say goodbye, though for different reasons. Marina wanted to see if Karen had given up on the idea that Anders might still be alive now that shead had some days to sit with his death. Karen wanted to make sure Marina wasnat thinking of backing out.
It was after dinner when Marina came by and the lengthening day had just gone dark. The boys had brushed their teeth and were watching television in the den. They were now allowed a show before bedtime every night, a childhood luxury previously restricted to weekends. Marina said hello to them when she first came in and they barely turned their heads towards her, the youngest two muttering hello in low unison when their mother insisted, the eldest saying nothing at all. Mr. Fox had made a mistake in telling Marina that she had been the first choice to go find Dr. Swenson instead of Anders. She now saw the entire world in terms of alternate scenarios.
aA memorial service. You call it a memorial service when you donat have a body,a Karen said.