aYou have another idea?a Milton asked his brother-in-law in English.
aThe Bovenders,a Marina said.
aThey are the young couple who stay in her apartment. No doubt youall meet them. They are very hard to miss. They are travelers.a Milton closed his eyes. aWhat is the word?a aBomio,a Rodrigo said disapprovingly.
Milton opened his eyes. aThey are young bohemians.a Rodrigo was making a list of everything Marina was taking, writing down the prices with a pencil. She held a single yellow flip-flop against the sole of her shoe, then she put it back to try another. She picked up a prepaid phone card. Anders would have found the Bovenders easily enough if they were living in Dr. Swensonas apartment. He had the address where her mail was delivered, he would have gone there first. In the store there was an irregular clicking sound, a tapping that wasnat coming from the people who were taking turns trying to force open the door. It sounded like someone was hitting the edge of a watch against a counter. She looked up to the ceiling to see some hard-shelled insects dashing themselves against the fluorescent tubing. From where she stood they didnat appear to have wings.
aEstoque!a Milton called out to the people clustered on the other side of the glass. He continued to shout at them in Portuguese. Rodrigo shut off the light again. In the dark he put her purchases into tissue thin plastic bags.
aWhat do they want?a Marina asked.
Milton turned and looked at her. aThey donat want anything,a he said, pointing out the way in which their situation was different. aTheyare just looking to pass the night.a When Rodrigo finally did open the door to let Milton and Marina out it became clear that the crowd wasnat as large as it had appeared when viewed through a pane of glass, maybe twenty people, and some of them were children. They looked dissipated standing there in the open street, as if there had never really been the energy needed to push their way inside. Still, they waited around to voice their disappointment, which they did in a half-hearted manner.
When Rodrigo opened the car door for Marina she suddenly realized she hadnat paid for anything. The featherweight sacks containing everything she had taken were looped over her fingers and she held them up to the two men. aI havenat paid,a she said to Milton. The members of the dwindling crowd who hadnat wandered home leaned in towards her, hoping to make out the contents of her bags.
He shook his head. aIt all goes on account, yes?a aWhose account?a aVogel,a Rodrigo said. He reached into one of the bags and showed her the carbon of the bill, a neatly printed record of everything she was leaving with.
Marina started to say something and then let it go. If it seemed odd to her that a general store in Manaus had direct billing with an American pharmaceutical company, it did not seem odd to the two men. She thanked them both and said good night to Rodrigo, who, under Miltonas translation, wished her luggage a safe return. Because he opened the back door of the car for her that was where she sat for the very short ride to her hotel. When they reached their destination, Milton gathered up the few things she had and walked her inside.
She had a room at The Hotel Indira. She could not imagine that whoever booked it had known enough to mean it as a joke. From the grand exterior she entered a lobby of palm plants and tired brown sofas that slumped together as if they had come as far as they could and then given up. Milton checked her in and then came back to give her the key. After a pleasant wish for a good night he left her there, having circled his cell phone number on his business card. She realized that without Milton she might have slept in a chair in the airport and then checked in for the morning flight back to Miami. Even when she was in her room and had hung her coat on a metal bar that was attached rather nakedly to the wall, she thought about that flight. She sat down on the edge of the bed and fished a pair of reading glasses out from the bottom of her purse in order to see the endless series of microscopic numbers from the phone card she had bought in Rodrigoas store. Somehow it was only one hour earlier in Eden Prairie. After so much travel she was a scant hour from home. Mr. Fox answered on the second ring.
aIam here,a she said.
aGood,a he said. aGood.a He cleared his throat and she heard some rustling around. She wondered if she had woken him up. aI thought Iad hear from you earlier. Did you get some dinner?a Marina thought about it. She must have eaten something on the plane but she couldnat remember. aMy suitcase was lost. Iam sure theyall bring it tomorrow but I wanted you to know I donat have the phone.a aYou put the phone in your suitcase?a he said.
aI put it in the suitcase.a Mr. Fox was quiet for the briefest moment. aThey always find them these days. Usually they bring it to the hotel in the middle of the night. Call the desk as soon as you wake up in the morning. Iall bet itas there.a aThe driver took me to get some things. At least I have a toothbrush now. Thank you for that, by the way.a aFor the toothbrush?a aFor Milton, the driver.a She put her hand over the receiver and yawned.
aIam glad heas helpful. Iam sorry Iam not more helpful myself.a She nodded, for all the good it did their conversation. Maybe she should have waited until tomorrow to call. The draperies were open and she looked out onto the city, that infinite sea of tiny lights. In the dark, in the distance, she could have been anywhere. She closed her eyes.
aMarina?a he said.
aIam sorry,a she said. aI think I fell asleep.a aGo to bed. We can talk tomorrow.a aUnless the phone doesnat come,a she said, and then she remembered. aOr you can call me at the hotel.a aIall do that,a he said. aGet some sleep.a aIall write you a letter,a she said. She did not remember hanging up the phone.
Manaus wasnat difficult to figure out. It catered to tourists and travelers and shippers, who, in this accommodating city, were free from all import duties. Everyone was either getting off of boats or getting on them, and so the streets had been laid out in such a way that one always had the feeling of walking away from the water or towards it. By the third day Marina could navigate easily. Once she got a fix on the riveras position everything else fell into place. She went to the market hall at six in the morning when the world was out to accomplish as much as was humanly possible before the truly devastating heat began. The smell of so many dead fish and chickens and sides of beef tilting precariously towards rot in the still air made her hold a crumpled T-shirt over the lower half of her face but she took the time to stop and look at the herbs and barks at the medicine table, the snake heads floating in what she sincerely hoped was alcohol. A black vulture the size of a turkey walked down the aisles like all the other shoppers, looking for whatever fish heads and entrails were to be had underneath the tables. The bloody scraps were hard to find. Marina bought two apple-flavored bananas and a pastry from a woman who kept hers under a crumpled sheet of waxed paper. After that she went down to the river to watch the boats. She spent a great deal of time looking at the water, which was the color of milky tea and completely opaque even when she walked down a dock, squatted on her heels, and stared directly into it. She did this often. She couldnat see a quarter of an inch below the surface. She was waiting for Dr. Swenson.
Waiting for Dr. Swenson to appear would have been a clear waste of time had there been some other means of putting time to better use. Waiting for her suitcase was simply not a full time job, even though Tomo, the young man at the front desk of her hotel, was kind enough to call the airport twice a day and inquire as to its status. There were also the Bovenders to wait for. Marina had the address of Dr. Swensonas apartment and so every day she had written to them, putting both the names Bovender and Swenson on the envelope and neatly printing her request for contact along with her hotel information. From what Marina could tell from the buildingas architecture and neighborhood, and from the well-appointed lobby where she left off her letters at the desk every morning, it was one of the cityas better residences. She wondered what it was costing Vogel to keep a pied--terre in Brazil that was mainly inhabited by bohemians who didnat seem to be home much themselves. Of course, it was possible that the bohemians had gone on. They had been described as travelers after all, and this was clearly a city where people who had somewhere else to go would not be inclined to stay. She nodded again to the concierge who as always took her envelope with an enormous grin and great, energetic nodding.
aBovenders,a she said pointedly.
aBonvenders!a he replied.
She decided that her project for the afternoon would be to cobble together a note in Portuguese to hand him tomorrow. It would be better if she could explain to the concierge, as well as to the mythical Bovenders, what she was after.
All of Marinaas activitiesa"waiting at the river, waiting outside the apartment building, wandering through the city in hopes that she might be struck by some piece of inspiration that could lead her in the direction of Dr. Swensona"were punctuated by rain, blinding, torrential downpours that seemed to rise out of clear skies and turn the streets into wild rivers that ran ankle deep. People moved calmly from the open spaces and pressed their backs against buildings, sharing whatever room there was beneath various overhangs while they waited for the storms to pass. Several times a day she had the opportunity to be grateful to Rodrigo for pushing the rubberized poncho on her.
Of course there were times when neither the poncho nor the awnings were enough and the rain drove Marina to run in her flip-flops back to the hotel, every drop pricking her skin like a hornet. The chemicals in her sunscreen mixed with the DEET in her insect repellent and when she tried to wipe the water from her face it burned her eyes until she was half blind. Back at the hotel she showered and napped and did her best with the James novel, and when shead had enough of that she read about the reproductive endocrinology in the Lakashi people.
As Anders had tried to explain to her when she had been so disinclined to listen, the Lakashi were an isolated tribe in the Amazon whose women appeared to continue to give birth to healthy infants well into their seventies. Securing accurate ages on the women was of course an inaccurate science. Still, it did not undermine the point: old women were having babies. The Lakashi were reproducing for up to thirty years beyond the women in the neighboring tribes. Families containing five generations were commonplace, and aside from what could perhaps be called a heightened exhaustion, they all appeared to enjoy a state of health commensurate to that of their indigenous peers. Birth defects, mental retardation, problems with bones, teeth, vision, height, weight, everything came out as average in both mothers and children as compared to members in neighboring tribes over a thirty-five-year period of study.
Marina rolled over onto her back and held the journal above her. A thirty-five-year period of study? That would mean that while Dr. Swenson was, to the best of her knowledge, teaching a full load at Hopkins she was also studying the Lakashi in Brazil? Of course, who knew what she did on the weekends, spring breaks, Thanksgiving vacations. It was possible she had been flying to Manaus all those years and hiring a boat to take her down the splitting tributaries of the Rio Negro. Had it been anyone else she would have been certain the whole report was an ambitious fraud, but Dr. Swenson had always exhibited a relentless energy that defied all human understanding. If someone had told Marina that while she was stumbling through her rounds half asleep in Baltimore, Dr. Swenson was taking the red-eye to Brazil to collect data, she would have been impressed but not amazed. In fact, the very paper she was reading included research from a dissertation for which she had been awarded a doctorate in ethnobotany from Harvard. It seemed there was a great deal about Dr. Swenson she didnat know.
When the rains came hard and caught her out too far to run back to the hotel, Marina would go to the Internet caf and pay five dollars to look up information about Dr. Swenson or her tribe, but as she sat there trying not to let her hair drip on the keyboard she found there was remarkably little information to be had. Google Annick Swenson and there were course descriptions, appearances at medical conferences, papersa"mostly related to gynecological surgerya"some tedious postings from medical students who complained that Dr. Swensonas classes, and probably all of their classes, were unfairly difficult. Most of the mentions of Lakashi linked back to the New England Journal of Medicine article, although the name also came up in relation to the famous Harvard ethnobotanist Martin Rapp, who had first interacted with the tribe while taking plant samples in 1960. His interest in them as a people appeared nominal, as his writing about their habits was limited to which species of fungi they did and did not consume. There was a single picture of him, an extremely thin sunburnt man with light hair and a straight English nose who stood a head above the natives on either side of him. They were all holding up mushrooms. Marina read everything she could find about Dr. Rapp and the Lakashi in hopes that there might be some clues as to their location, but the most specific directive she found was acentral Amazon basin.a Leave it to Dr. Swenson to somehow manage to keep the Internet out of her business.
aTell me theyave found the suitcase,a Mr. Fox said as soon as he answered the phone. Mr. Fox had somehow become more focused on whether or not she had made successful contact with her luggage than with either Dr. Swenson or the mythical Bovenders.
aApparently the airport code for Manaus is MAO. Madrid is MAD. The theory is that an O starts to look like a D after a certain number of suitcases and so they start sending bags to Spain.a aIam going to mail you another phone,a he said. aIall get it programmed and shipped down there tomorrow. Youare going to need more Lariam soon anyway. Make a list of what you want.a aNothing,a she said, looking at the rings of insect bites that braceleted her wrists and ankles, hard red bumps that she longed to dig out with her fingernails. aI donat need anything. The second you send another phone my suitcase will show up and then Iall have two.a aSo then youall have two. You can give one to Dr. Swenson. There may be someone she wants to call.a In fact, Marina enjoyed not having a telephone. She had started out as an intern with a pager and then added to that a cell phone that later turned into a BlackBerry. In Manaus, there was an almost indescribable sense of freedom that came from wandering around in a strange city knowing that she was unreachable. aSpeaking of Dr. Swenson, Iave been reading about the Lakashi.a aItas always good to read up on people before you meet them,a Mr. Fox replied.
aItas an interesting article but she doesnat exactly give anything away.a aDr. Swenson doesnat mean to give things away.a aSo whatas the secret ingredient? Does she even know? Certainly the Lakashi donat know. I donat care how primitive these women are, if they understood what they were doing that was causing them to remain fertile unto death theyad stop doing it.a Mr. Fox fell silent on his end and Marina waited.
aYou know and you donat want to tell me?a Marina said, laughing. Surely his secretary, the very serious Mrs. Dunaway, had walked into his office at that moment and forced him to wait on his reply.
aIt isnat a matter of want,a Mr. Fox said finally.
Marina had relaxed into the conversation and spread herself out across the bed but a bolt of incredulity forced her to sit upright again. aWhat?a aThere is an agreement of confidentialitya"a aIam in Brazil,a she said. aI found a lizard in the bathtub this morning the size of a kitten. I donat know where Dr. Swenson is or how to find her and now youare saying you arenat going to tell me how the Lakashi women maintain fertility? Is there something I still need to do to merit your trust?a aMarina, Marina, it has nothing to do with you. Itas contractual. Iam not allowed to talk about it.a aIt has nothing to do with me? Then why am I here? If this has nothing to do with me then I would very much like to come home now.a In truth, she did not care. She did not care that the Lakashi were having 3.7 times the number of children as compared to other indigenous Brazilians over the course of their lifetimes. She didnat care where they lived or if they were happy or if they wanted the children they had. What she did care about, cared about very much in fact, was that her employer, who had virtually proposed marriage and then sent her off to the equator after one of Vogelas employees had died there, now refused to share with her the basic information of the research in question. aWhen I find Dr. Swenson and all those pregnant Lakashi people, am I supposed to avert my eyes so I wonat figure out how theyare managing this? Do they make it a practice of killing anyone who finds out their secret?a And then she saw Anders standing ankle deep in the muddy river, holding a single blue envelope in his hand. aMy God,a she said. aMy God, I didnat mean that.a aThey chew some sort of bark while itas still on the tree,a Mr.
Fox said.
Marina did not care at all about the bark or the trees. aI didnat mean that.a aI know,a he said, but all the light had gone out of his voice, and in another couple of sentences they had wrapped it all up and gotten off the phone. Marina put her shoes on and went back out into the street. The rain had stopped and the sun was beating the pavement and buildings and people and dogs into a flat sameness. She didnat want to walk to the river or the market hall and so she walked for a while around the square in the choking humidity thinking of how Anders must have walked around the square as well. Maybe he hadnat felt hopeless when he came here. Maybe he was glad to go on day-long birding excursions into the jungle and drink pisco sours alone at the bar at night. Marina bent over to look at the carved trinkets that a group of natives were selling off a blanket. She picked up a bracelet that could have been smooth painted beads or red seeds with holes drilled through the centers. She let the woman on the blanket tie it to her wrist with a complex and permanent set of knots and then bite off the ends, her lips somehow never touching skin. One of the children, a narrow-chested boy of nine or ten, looked through the menagerie of tiny carved animals that were spread out in front of him and picked out a white heron that was two inches high, a tiny fish caught in the needle of its beak, and he handed it to her. Marina had meant to refuse it, but once she held it up she thought it was in fact very fine, better than anything else she had seen, and so she agreed to buy the heron and the bracelet for a handful of bills she thought worked out to be about three dollars U.S. She put the little bird in her pocket and walked down a series of side streets, careful to keep all her turns in mind. She wasnat in the mood to get lost. The farther she walked the more she noticed that no one was looking at her. The small boys with stacks of T-shirts and dazzling butterflies pinned to boards inside cheap wooden frames didnat follow her. The ice cream vendors didnat call to her, nor did the man with the mustache and a small monkey on each shoulder who was barking at tourists in Portuguese. With her black hair caught back in a barrette beneath the hat shead bought and her cheap clothing and her flip-flops, she was able to pass in Manaus the way she was never able to pass in Minnesota. Here they looked at her and seeing someone who looked something like a woman they knew, looked away. When she was spoken to it was only a simple greeting, that much she understood, and she nodded her head in recognition and kept walking. Anders would have been mobbed everywhere. He was so blue-eyed and overly tall, his skin was very nearly luminous, as unfamiliar to these people as snow itself. Any passerby could see deeper into Anders than he could the Rio Negro. Marina thought of all the times head come to work on Monday after a weekend spent paddling the boys around some lake in the summer, and how his skin would be scorched, his lips and nose already starting to peel. aHavenat you heard of sunblock?a Marina said. aHats?a aThey keep all that information from men.a He didnat wear a tie to work on those days and his shirt collar stayed open. The sore, red visage of his neck was something Marina made a point not to look at. Who thought it would be a good idea to send Anders to the equator? Her own skin was darker now. The sun had extended its reach past the hats and creams. It was inevitable.
When Marina turned again, a turn that was as aimless as all the others she had made, she found herself back at Rodrigoas store. There were no crowds out front this time, no one peering in the window. In the daylight it didnat appear to be such a compelling attraction. The street outside was empty of people, empty of cars. In fact when she went inside, thinking she would say hello, buy a bottle of water, there was only one young couple in the store, a man and woman in their twenties pointing up to something that was over their heads. The woman was long-limbed and tan in a red sundress and she stretched to try and reach for whatever it was she wanted. Her long yellow hair, which was held away from her face by a large pair of sunglasses pushed back on her head, was the brightest aspect of the room, as it seemed that Rodrigo was no more inclined towards electricity during the day than he had been at night. The young man, who may have been a little taller than the woman, stood back in his T-shirt and baggy shorts and watched her stretch. His hair was pale brown and shaggy and his face, which was nearly too pretty, was half covered up in what was either a beard or several days spent not shaving. They hadnat noticed her come in, and so Marina watched them, in part because they made an unusual sight for Manaus, and in part because she was sure that they were the Bovenders.
She had pictured the Bovenders as being closer to her own age, without any of the drama inherent to so much bony attractiveness, but the minute she walked in the store she revised the imaginings of her idle mind. There was a tattoo banding the young manas ankle, a decorative vine, and around the womanas ankle a small gold chain. Marina had exactly one word of description to work from, bohemians, and these were the only two bohemians she had seen in three days.
Rodrigo came into the store from a room behind the counter. He told the couple something in Portuguese and the young woman disagreed and once again reached above her head helplessly while the young man folded his arms across his chest. Was it the soap pads she wanted? When Rodrigo turned for the ladder he saw Marina standing just inside the open door and in the course of a single second he placed her, remembered who it was she wanted to find, and was pleased at the luck of being the one to make the introductions. aOla! Dr. Singh!a he said, and when the young couple turned to see who it was Rodrigo knew, he opened his hands towards his other guests. aBovenders.a The young Bovenders, in possession of a highly evolved social instinct, were beaming as they walked towards her. If they had been working to avoid her they were masters at hiding it. In fact, it seemed as if meeting her in this store on this afternoon was the very thing they were most looking forward to in all the world and they would not hold it against her that she had come a little late. aBarbara Bovender,a the young woman said, extending her hand. She smiled to show the slight disorder among her large white teeth.
aJackie,a the young man said, and Marina shook his hand as well. The accent she thought was Australian but she wasnat positive. They seemed too tan to be English.
Rodrigo said something to Barbara and she squinted at him slightly when he spoke, as if she were translating each word separately and then reassembling them into a sentence in her head.
aNos?a aDr. Swenson,a he said.
aYes, of course,a Barbara said, looking almost relieved. aYouare looking for Dr. Swenson.a aPeople donat look for us,a Jackie said.
aThatas because nobody knows where we are,a Barbara said, and then she laughed. aThat makes it sound like weare hiding.a Marina tried to put this couple together in her mind with Dr. Swenson. She tried to picture the three of them standing together in the same room. She could not. aIave left letters for you.a aFor us?a Jackie asked. aAt the apartment?a aAt Dr. Swensonas apartment building. I left them at the desk.a At this point Rodrigo got the ladder and climbed up towards the ceiling to get a box of dryer sheets. The hierarchy in which different items were desired, needed, and sold, could clearly be charted based on what was closest to the ceiling and what was closest to the floor. Dryer sheets appeared to be hovering on the edge of obscurity for everyone in Manaus save Barbara Bovender.
aAll the mail goes straight into a box,a Jackie said. aAnnick picks it up when she comes into town.a aOr she doesnat,a Barbara said. aShe isnat very good about the mail. Iave told her Iad open it for her, sort it all out, but she says not to bother. I think at the heart of it she just doesnat care.a Jackie turned then to face his wife. Was she his wife? The Bovenders could have been siblings or cousins. The general resemblance they bore to one another was striking. aShe has a lot on her mind.a Barbara nodded, half closing her eyes, as if she were considering all the many weights Dr. Swenson had to bear. aItas true.a aWe have a postbox,a Jackie said. aThat way when we get to the next town theyall forward it on.a aAre you leaving?a Marina asked.
aOh, we will, sooner or later,a Barbara said. She looked over at Rodrigo who now had the box of dryer sheets in his hand. aWeare always leaving. Weave stayed here longer than anywhere.a Somehow Marina was hoping she didnat mean Manaus. She couldnat imagine how she would last out the week. aIn Brazil?a aNo, here,a Jackie said, and held up his open hand as if he meant to say that they had spent an endless stretch of time in Rodrigoas store.
Barbara then got a serious look on her face and tilted the slender rack of her shoulders towards Marina. aDo you know Annick?a Marina hesitated so briefly that neither of the young people saw it. aI do,a she said.
aWell, then you know. Her work is so importanta"a Jackie interrupted her. aAnd sheas been really good to us, my God.a aItas not like I think weare helping her,a Barbara said. aWeare not scientists. But if she thinks weare helping her, if thereas anything we can do to contribute, then itas not a problem for us to stay for a while. Itas not a problem for me anyway. I can do my work anywhere. Itas really harder for Jackie.a aWhat do you do?a Marina said, using the pronoun in the plural.
aIam a writer,a Barbara said.
Jackie raised his hand and ran his open fingers through his hair. aI surf,a he said.
Harder, yes. Marina thought about the bath-warm water of the Rio Negro inching along towards the Rio Solimes so that they could flow together into the Amazon. She was planning to ask him something about this, how surfing constituted work or how he planned to solve the current problems of his employment, when the only other person she knew in Manuas came through the open door. When Milton saw the three of them together he was extremely pleased. He had left his suit in the closet at home and was dressed for the weather. All his light cotton clothes were neatly pressed. aPerfect!a he said. aYou found each other without me.a Marina extended her hand to the driver. Because she knew him to be a problem solver she was especially glad to see him again. aI was just out taking a walk.a aA bad time of day for walking but this is very good,a Milton said. aI am relieved. I have been telling them to go to your hotel.a Jackie had wandered off to pick up the storeas lone can of tennis balls. It seemed that there was nothing Rodrigo hadnat thought of. Barbara in turn shot her eyes to Milton who seemed startled by the severity of her glance. aIam sorry,a he said, before he knew what he might be apologizing for.
Barbara sighed and tried to brush a medium-sized insect off the front of her sundress. It was hard-shelled and black and the tiny spikes on its legs held stubbornly to the fabric but she seemed not to notice any of this. She put her thumb beneath her index finger and gave the bug a single, dislodging flick. aYouall forgive me,a she said to Marina, who imagined she would. aPart of what we try to do is keep Annick hiddena"from the press that comes down, from other doctors and drug companies trying to steal her work. You never know who someone really is no matter what they tell you.a aI am terribly sorry,a Milton said.
aThe press comes here?a Marina said.
Barbara looked at her. aWell, they will once they hear about her research. They did before we got here. What really matters is that people shouldnat distract her. Even people with very good intentions.a She was trying to be firm but she lacked experience.
aDr. Singh works for Vogel,a Milton said in an attempt to make up for his indiscretion. aShe and Dr. Swenson are employed by the same company. They sent her here toa"a He looked at Marina but he had to stop there. She hadnat told him why theyad sent her.
aVogelaa"she looked at Marinaa"aIam sorry but that is my point exactly. Vogel is the worst. All they want to know is what her progress is. How can she be expected to do her work if sheas constantly being monitored? This is science. This may change the course of everything. She canat just stop and meet people. Do you know that youare the second doctor that Vogelas sent to see her since Christmas?a aI do,a Marina said. If she were in any way inclined to have compassion for the girl she would have stopped her then, but at the moment she did not. Jackie had come back now and he kept the can of tennis balls in his hand. Maybe he wanted them. Maybe he knew a court nearby where they could play.
aYou know Dr. Eckman?a aWe worked together.a Barbara shrugged her pretty shoulders which were gold along the tops and gold down her arms. aWell, if heas a friend of yours, Iam sorry. Heas a perfectly nice guy but he was a huge distraction. He hung around here forever, always asking questions, always wanting to go along. He was a distraction to my work. I canat even imagine what he must have been like for Annick.a aHe took me birding,a Jackie said.
aI tried to explain to him that Annick didnat have the time, but he wasnat going to go until he saw her. She finally came and picked him up. For all I know heas still out there.a aHe isnat,a Marina said. aOr he is. Heas dead.a It wasnat the girlas fault of course, not any of it, but Marina found her sadness transposed itself easily into anger.
Jackie put down the tennis balls then and took Barbaraas hand in a gesture of sympathy or solidarity. She watched the color drain from the girl, from her face, her neck, all the blood was rushing to her heart. Even the gold receded from her shoulders.
aDr. Swenson buried him at the research station where she works. She told us that in a letter. She sent us very little information about his death, but, as you say, sheas busy. Dr. Eckmanas wife wanted me to come down to see if I could find out what happened. She wants to know what she should tell their children.a Three women came into the store then, one of them holding a baby, and in another minute a couple came in behind them. It seemed that they all knew one another, the way they were talking. The woman with the baby passed her baby over to another one of the women so that she could look at cooking oil.
aI need to sit down,a Barbara said. She did not say this dramatically. The two Bovenders left the store together to sit on the cement steps out front. Almost immediately Jackie came back in to get her a bottle of water.
aAh, your poor friend,a Milton said to Marina. aI am very sorry.a Marina nodded, unable to focus her eyes on Milton or the Bovenders or anything in the store.
When the Bovenders did get up from the steps, after Barbara had finished her bottle of water, they did not come back into the store. Rodrigo wrote out the same well-ordered receipt to charge to the Vogel account and then gathered up the things theyad wanted and put them into bags: dryer sheets, tennis balls, a new sun hat, mangoes and bananas. Marina in her rush to be unpleasant had likely broken the one thread she could have followed into the jungle. Maybe they found Anders annoying, but in his affable way he had managed to wear them down. Still, she liked to think if she had been the one who died and he was coming in as the replacement, his patience would have been limited as well.
Four.
Jackie sat up front with Milton on the way to Ponta Negra while Marina sat with Barbara in the back. They kept the windows down. In the wind tunnel that roared through the backseat, strands of Barbaraas hair would intermittently fly out and strike Marina in the face even though Barbara did her best to gather her hair in her hands and hold it down. Jackie was prone towards car sickness, and the road to the beach was neither smooth nor straight.
aIt wouldnat be better if you were cool?a Milton asked Jackie. Jackie said nothing.
aHe needs the fresh air,a Barbara shouted from the back.
Marina might have noted that the air was not particularly fresh but she refrained. The Bovenders had invited her to the beach and she was determined to be grateful that they had extended themselves. When he was invited to come along on the outing and bring his car, Milton had said they needed to leave no later than six a.m. The beach, like the market, was strictly a morning affair. But the Bovenders would not hear of six. They claimed they were useless until nine at the very earliest, and while Milton and Marina were waiting for them in front of the apartment at that designated hour, the Bovenders did not make an appearance until nearly ten. It was, Marina thought, a bad start. aWouldnat you get motion sickness from surfing?a she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the din of circulating air. They were going fast; Jackie had said he wanted to go fast in order to get out of the car as soon as possible.
aNot a problem,a he said.
aHe can surf a killer wave but on boats,a Barbara said. aMy God, he canat even look at a boat. He canat walk down a dock.a aBaby, please,a Jackie said, his voice weak.
aSorry,a Barbara said, and turned her head towards the window.
aI donat have any problems when I drive,a Jackie said.
As they rounded another hairpin curve a silky white goat trotted into the road and Milton slammed the brakes. Marina, who was not given to car sickness in the least, felt her stomach lurch up. The people in the car understood that the goat had escaped his fate by no more than four inches, but the goat understood nothing. It looked up, mildly puzzled, sniffed the blacktop, and then went on. Jackie opened the door and vomited lightly.
aI canat let you drive,a Milton said.
aI know,a Jackie said, and he covered his eyes with his hand.
The night before at dinner the Bovenders had made a list of everything Marina should see while she was in Manaus. aThere isnat much to do around here,a Jackie had said, aso you really ought to make the effort.a They offered to take her to the beach and the Natural Science Museum but both required a car. Barbara took out her cell phone at the dinner table and called Milton. His number was programmed in.
The Bovenders had come to her. They had waited nearly a week after their unfortunate first meeting but then they called. They wanted to hear about Anders. They assumed, incorrectly, that Marina knew a good deal more about his death than she had told them.
aBut what did Annick say?a Barbara leaned in close enough that Marina could smell her perfume, a mix of lavender and lime.
aShe said that he died of a fever. Thatas all I know. And I know that she buried him there.a The restaurant was dark with a cement floor and dried out palm fronds hanging over the bar. There were two pinball machines in the corner and they chirped and clanged even when there was no one there with the change it took to play them.
Barbara ran a tiny red cocktail straw in circles, nervously stirring up the contents of her glass. aIam sure it would have been almost impossible for her to get the body back.a aBut people do,a Marina said. aI realize Dr. Swenson isnat sentimental but I imagine she would have felt differently had it been her husband. Andersa wife would have liked to see him buried at home.a She would have liked it had he never gone in the first place.
aAnnick has a husband?a Barbara said.
aNot that I know of.a aDid you speak to Annick about what should be done with Dr. Eckman?a Barbara was more inclined to do the talking. Jackie was busying himself with the hard salted strips of plantains that were served in the place of chips.
aFrom what I understand she doesnat have a phone. She wrote a letter and by the time it got to Vogel head been dead two weeks.a Marina took a sip of some fruited rum punch Jackie had ordered for all of them. aShe wrote the letter to Mr. Fox.a Barbara and Jackie looked at one another. aMr. Fox,a they said together ominously.
Marina put down her drink.
aDo you know him?a Barbara asked.
aHeas the president of Vogel,a Marina said, her voice even. aI work for him.a aIs he awful?a Marina looked at the girl and smiled. In truth she was irritated with Mr. Fox. He had gone ahead and sent her another phone and several different antibiotics and enough Lariam to see her through another six months in South America. If he had intended it as a message, it wasnat a message that pleased her. aNo,a she said neutrally, anot awful at all.a Barbara waved her hand. aI shouldnat have said that. But you have to understanda"a aWeare very protective of Annick,a Jackie said, nibbling the side off a plantain strip.
Barbara nodded vigorously, giving her long, jeweled earrings a good swing. Barbara had overdressed for dinner, wearing a sleeveless silk top in emerald green. She was such a pretty girl. It must be hard for her, Marina imagined, to have no place to go. aOf course youad be upset about your friend. Weare upset about Dr. Eckman ourselves, but whatever happened it wasnat Annickas fault. Itas just that sheas very focused. She has to be.a Now that Marina was in the Amazon it seemed that there was probably no end of things that could kill a person without any assignment of blame, unless perhaps the blame was assigned to Mr. Fox. aI never thought it was her fault.a This news came to Barbara as a great relief. aIam so glad!a she said. aOnce you understand Annick you know thereas nobody like her. I was thinking that maybe you hadnat been around her in a while, or youad forgotten,a she said, seeming to know things she could not possibly know. aSheas such a force of nature. Her work is thrilling, but really, itas almost beside the point. Sheas whatas so amazing, the person herself, donat you think? I try to imagine what it would have been like to have a mother like that, a grandmother, a woman who was completely fearless, someone who saw the world without limitations.a Marina could remember that exact feeling. It was a thought so briefly held and deeply buried that she could barely dredge it up again: What if Dr. Swenson were my mother? She made a mental note to call her mother before she went to bed tonight, even if it was very late. aBut what does that have to do with Mr. Fox?a aHe bothers her,a Jackie said, as if he had suddenly woken up and found himself in a restaurant, in a conversation. His blue eyes peered out brightly through the fringe of his overly long bangs. aHe writes her letters asking her what sheas doing. He used to call her.a aThatas when she got rid of the phone,a Barbara said. aIt happened years before we got here.a Marina took the slice of pineapple off the edge of her glass, dipped it into her drink and ate it. aIs that really so intrusive? She does work for him after all. He is paying for everything, her research, her apartment, this dinner. Isnat he entitled to know how things are going?a Barbara corrected her. aHe doesnat pay for it. The company pays for it.a aYes, but the company is his job. He runs it. He hired her. Heas responsible.a aIs the person who commissions van Gogh responsible for the painting?a Marina wondered if she would have come up with a similar quip of logic when she was twenty-three or however old Mrs. Bovender actually was. She was quite sure she would have felt the same way. It was exactly Dr. Swensonas brio she had been drawn to, the utter assuredness with which she moved through the world, getting things done and being indefatigably right. Marina had not met her like again, and she was glad of that, and she was sorry. aI suppose that van Gogh would be responsible for making good on his sale, and that if he didnat show up with the painting after a vastly extended period of time it would be within the rightsa"a Barbara put her cool hand on Marinaas wrist. aIam sorry,a she said. aMr. Fox is your boss, Dr. Eckman was your friend. I shouldnat be running on about this.a aI understand your point,a Marina said, making a conscious effort to get along.
aWeall try to find a way to get word to Annick, and if we canat weall just entertain you ourselves until she comes back.a Marina took a long pull off her drink, even though there was a distinct voice in her head telling her not to. aYou donat have to do that.a aOf course we do,a Barbara said, and sat back peacefully in her chair as if everything had been decided. aItas what Annick would want.a By ten oaclock the world was a furnace cracked open in a closed room, but just outside of Manaus people crowded the riveras bank on a Wednesday to lie across towels spread out in the sand. Children played in the shallows while adults swam wide circles around them. Their voices, the screaming and laughing while they splashed one another, sounded less like words and more like the call and answer of birds. Milton in his infinite wisdom had brought a large striped umbrella in the trunk of his car and stabbed it repeatedly into the sand until it was able to stand upright and provide a circle of shade. It was in that limited field that he and Marina sat on towels, their arms around their knees. Marina had gone to buy a swimsuit from Rodrigo that morning and the only possible option, which is to say the only one-piece, was cheap and bright and had a small skirt that made her look like an aging figure skater. She wore it under her clothes now, unable to imagine what had ever made her think she would go into the water. The Bovenders, who had no interest in the umbrella or its protection, were, without their clothes, unnerving. Jackie wore a pair of cutoff shorts that rode dangerously below the sharp protrusions of his hipbones, while Barbaraas bikini was carelessly tied together with a series of loose strings. It seemed that the desired effect of their swimwear was to make their fellow beach-goers feel a strong breeze could strip them bare. At one point Jackie yawned, tilted forward into the sand, and raised himself into a handstand. The muscles in his arms and back separated into distinct groups that any first year medical student would have been grateful to study: pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, deltoid, trapezius, intercostal. The people on neighboring towels pointed, calling for their children to watch. They whistled and clapped.
aNot sick anymore,a Milton said.
Jackie brought his feet to the ground and sat again. The vine that encircled his ankle was hung with tiny clusters of grapes. aIam fine.a aThatas why I married him,a Barbara said, half of her face shielded behind enormous black glasses. aI saw him do that at the beach in Sydney. He was wearing his boardies. I said to my girlfriend, aThat oneas mine.a a aMarriages have been built on less,a Marina said, although in truth she didnat think this was the case.
aDo you swim?a Milton asked her. He was wearing his trousers and his white short-sleeved shirt. He showed no signs of removing them.
aI know how,a she said, aif thatas what youare asking.a Barbara stretched along her towel, her oiled body reflecting light from every surface except for the few discreet areas covered by fabric. There was a small, circular diamond hanging in the gold chain of her anklet and it glinted along with her skin. aItas so hot,a she cried quietly.
aHot is what we do best,a Milton said. He had a little straw hat sitting on the top of his head and somehow it made him look cooler than the rest of them.
aLetas go for a swim,a Jackie said, and leaned over to smack his wifeas stomach lightly with the flat of his open hand. Her whole body jumped an inch off her towel.
aThe water is only going to be hotter,a she said.
aUp, up, up,a he said, and stood himself, leaning down to pull her to her feet. She paused a moment to shake the sand out of her pale hair. It was for the other beach-goers as great a spectacle as her husband standing on his hands. They were halfway to the water, their arms draped against each otheras naked waists, when they turned back to their compatriots. aYouare coming, arenat you?a Jackie asked.
Marina shook her head. aGo, go,a Milton said. aWeall come and watch.a He got up stiffly and helped Marina to her feet. aThey want us to see how pretty they are in the river.a aThey were pretty enough just lying there,a Marina said.
aWe are the parents,a Milton said. aWe have to watch.a Marina went along with a sullen sense of duty, but out from under the umbrella the world was a different place. It had not been cool beneath the candy colored stripes, but away from them the sun meted out a pummeling that was stunning. She stopped for a moment to spot the Bovenders as they walked into the brown water holding hands. On a few occasions since arriving in Brazil she had been as hot but she had always been able to step into the shade, to go into a caf for a can of soda, return to her hotel room and stand in a cold shower. She had come to know in advance when the heat was about to overwhelm her as clearly as if there had been a thermometer built into her wrist and so she had been able to save herself accordingly, but looking out at the water and the sand she was uncertain of where she could go. She was melting into the people around her, into Milton. There was a little ice chest beneath the umbrella that Milton had brought with thema"cool bottles of water and beers for Jackie. She could rub a piece of ice against her neck. Far ahead of them the Bovenders sank into the water and blurred into all of the other children around them as they swam away. With everything in her she cursed them for being unwilling, unable, to wake before nine. After all, she had been tired herself. She had taken a Lariam fresh from the new bottle Mr. Fox had sent the night before and at three in the morning she had woken herself, and no doubt everyone else in the Hotel Indira, with her interminable screaming. Someone is stabbing a woman to death, was the thought she had swimming up through sleep before she realized where the sound was coming from. After that she was finished for the night, no more sleep, just waiting.