Ann Patchett - State of Wonder

“I want to tell you something different,” Marina said.

“I know you do.”

“It’s terrible here, Karen. I hate it.”

“I know,” she said.

That night, which was her first night of fever, she dreamed that she and her father were paddling a small boat down a river in the jungle and that the boat turned over. Her father drowned and she was left alone in the water. The boat had gotten away. Marina had forgotten that her father didn’t know how to swim.

“Now I have something you’re going to like,” Barbara said on the phone.

Marina hadn’t heard from the Bovenders since her visit to their apartment several days before and since that time she had not left the hotel and had very seldom left her bed. She wasn’t entirely sure if the preventative medicine that worked against insect borne diseases was making her sick or if she had in fact contracted an insect borne disease in spite of the medication. It also seemed entirely possible that all of her symptoms, which included body aches and a peculiar rash around her trunk, were psychosomatic — she was willing herself into illness in order to bring this all to an end. But then she wondered if Anders hadn’t reached the same conclusion. I have a fever that comes on at seven in the morning and stays for two hours. By four in the afternoon it’s back and I am nothing but a ranting pile of ash. Most days now I have a headache and I worry that some tiny Amazonian animal is eating a hole through my cerebral cortex . Marina had only read that letter once and still she knew it by heart. “What will I like?” she asked Barbara Bovender, because in truth she could not think of one single thing in Manaus that sounded appealing.

“We’re going to the opera! Annick keeps a box and the season opens tomorrow. We have her tickets!”

“She keeps a box at the opera?” Marina didn’t have the energy for indignation but really, was there no end to this?

“Apparently there was a season several years ago when the rains got so bad she had to come into the city for a long time. She said the opera saved her.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s going to save me. I’m sick. I need to stay where I am.”

“Did you eat something?” Barbara asked. It was the logical question. The market stalls were filled with things that would kill anyone who didn’t have several generations of the proper bacteria in their gut.

“It’s just a fever,” Marina said.

“High or low?”

“I don’t have a thermometer.” She was bored. She wanted to get off the phone.

“Alright,” Barbara said. “I’ll be over in about an hour. And I’m bringing some dresses for you to look at.”

“I don’t want company and I don’t want dresses. I appreciate the gesture but trust me, I’m a doctor. I know what I’m doing.”

“You have no idea,” Barbara said lightly.

Tomo, the concierge, in an act of dogged perseverance and faith that far outreached anything Marina herself was capable of, had continued to call the airport every day regarding her luggage. It had been located momentarily in Spain and then lost again. He was also the hotel employee who was sent up to her room whenever someone called about the screaming, and now he was looking after her because she was sick. He brought her bottles of syrupy cane juice and carbonated soft drinks and hard, dry crackers that stood in for meals. The truth was that Marina, stranded and in decline, elicited the sympathy of the entire hotel staff, but they all recognized that Tomo was in charge of her.

So when there was knocking on her door, how much later she couldn’t say (sleep was like an anesthetic she broke out of and then slipped into again), Marina assumed it was Tomo. She put on the extra bed sheet that was her robe and answered the door.

Barbara gave her a hard stare up and down before speaking. “Oh, you are rough,” she said with her long, flat vowels. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Marina, disappointed that now she wouldn’t be able to go right back to sleep, retreated into her room, which was dark and stale. The Australian followed her.

“I’ve brought you things.” Barbara held up a small, dirty paper sack and a tapestry overnight bag as if they were enticing offers. The housekeepers hadn’t been in for a couple of days because Marina could not stop sleeping. Bits of crackers were scattered over the floor like sand. Mrs. Bovender turned on the light switch by the door and then opened the blinds. “You shouldn’t be living like this,” was all she had to say.

“My standards have changed.” Marina burrowed down into the bed. One would think it would be difficult to fall asleep in front of someone you barely knew but in fact it was the simplest thing in the world.

Barbara took a paper cup out of the bag and pried off the lid. “Here,” she said, and held it out to her. “Sit up. You’re supposed to drink it while it’s hot.”

Marina leaned forward and sniffed the contents of the cup. It was the river, boiled down to its foulest essence. It was even the color of the river. The steam that rolled off the surface was like the heavy morning mist. “Where did you get that?”

“From the shaman stand in the market, and don’t say anything dismissive about the shaman until you’ve given him a try. I’ve been bitten by half the insects in this country. I’ve had some awful fevers, some sores I wouldn’t even talk about. Jackie had food poisoning once. He ate some sort of grilled turtle from a vendor, which was idiotic in the first place. I was positive he was going to die. The shaman’s saved us every time. I could practically open an account with him.”

The shaman would no doubt have direct billing with Vogel. “But I haven’t been to see the shaman,” Marina said, applying logic where no logic could be applied. “What is he basing his diagnosis on? You haven’t seen me either.”

“I explained the situation. Actually, Milton explained the situation for me after I explained it to Milton. The shaman and I don’t exactly speak the same Portuguese, and I think it’s important to get it all right. Milton hopes you’re feeling better, by the way.” She pressed the cup against Marina’s breastbone and held it there until she took it in her hands.

“This is idiocy,” Marina said, looking down at the cloudy liquid. The cup was warm. The smell came up to her in layers: water, fish, mud, death.

“Drink it!” Barbara said sharply. “I’m tired of trying to help you. Drink it all down, one swallow, come on. This is what we do down here in hell.”

Marina, so surprised by the force of the order and by the look of mad frustration on Barbara Bovender’s face, did what she was told and took down the whole foul cup in one long swallow. It was not entirely liquid, it was thicker near the bottom, viscous, and there were tiny bits of something hard and twiglike that caught in her throat. The canoe they were in was a log and it rolled over to the side and she was thrown down with her father into the water. The water filled up her eyes and nose and mouth. She sank before she could swim and all she could taste was the river. She had forgotten until now how the river tasted.

“Put your head back and pant,” Barbara said. “Don’t throw it up.” She got down on her knees in front of Marina, putting her hands on Marina’s knees. Mr. Fox had said the difference between Marina and Anders was that Anders hadn’t had the sense to come home when he had first fallen sick, but oh, it wasn’t a matter of whether she was willing. It was all a matter of able. A chill passed through her, a great shuddering wave that washed over her wet skin and made her spine convulse.

“Okay,” Barbara said quietly, patting at her knee as if it were the head of a very small dog, “here’s the other thing. You’re going to be really sick now, but just for a little while, an hour or so, maybe two. It all depends on what needs to break down inside you. Then you’re going to be absolutely fine. You’re going to be better than fine. I’d be happy to stay with you. I’m free all afternoon.”