James Siegel - Detour

“Yes,” Joanna said. “Her name’s Joelle.”

“Well, congrats,” he said.

“Thanks,” Paul said. It was nice to run into someone from back home—even if it was someone he’d known for eighteen hours. “We need to get a little paperwork done so we can take her home. How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“The embassy?”

“Oh, if you want to go into the jungle, you have to sign a release. They don’t want your next of kin complaining they were negligent and didn’t warn you. I think what they really don’t want is anybody suing them.”

“Well, good luck,” Paul said.

“Yeah. You too.”

When they entered the spacious anteroom, they passed under a portrait of a smiling George Bush. It didn’t really sound like an embassy, though, more like a nursery at feeding time. The room was crammed with couples holding, rocking, shushing, and changing a varied array of agitated Colombian babies. If running into the ornithologist was a welcome reminder of home, this was more like an actual homecoming. All the new parents were, of course, American. Joanna and Paul managed to find two seats next to a thirty-something couple from Texas. Paul assumed that they were from Texas because the man was wearing a T-shirt that said God Bless Texas. When the man said howdy, it was more or less confirmed. His wife was holding a baby boy with a noticeable harelip. Paul immediately chided himself, ashamed that his first impression of the boy hadn’t been whether he was big or small or shy or friendly, no—he couldn’t help zeroing in on the boy’s physical imperfection.

He was kind of disappointed in himself. But as he looked around the room, he thought it was possible that he wasn’t the only one doing some comparison shopping. Every parent seemed to be mentally taking notes. Perhaps it was the nature of being handed a ready-made kid.

They were called into a fluorescent-lit room where a dour-looking Colombian woman asked them for Joelle’s birth certificate. Which didn’t, of course, say Joelle on it. Paul hadn’t really known what the birth certificate said, since it was entirely in Spanish. Among the Spanish words was apparently the baby’s name—the one given to her by her birth mother.

“Marti,” the woman said as she scribbled something down.

The biological mother was a complete unknown to them. María Consuelo had offered them information about her, which they’d promptly and politely declined. It was a kind of denial mechanism, they knew, a sophomoric one at that. It went something like this: If they didn’t know about the mother, she wouldn’t really exist. And if she didn’t really exist, it would be easier to believe that Joelle was all theirs.

The woman asked them a few questions. Her manner was polite but aloof. Paul, on the lookout for any antipathy from the natives, was unable to read anything particularly malicious in her line of questioning. Still, he was relieved when the interrogation was over.

“YOUR BABY’S COMPLETELY HEALTHY,” THE DOCTOR SAID.

Their second stop of the day.

Adopted babies needed to undergo a medical exam before they were allowed to leave the country. Pablo had driven them to a pediatrician near the hotel.

Dr. Dalliego was middle-aged, balding, and coolly efficient. He weighed, poked, and prodded Joelle with machinelike detachment as Paul and Joanna stood by with mute anxiety. Was it possible the physician would find something wrong with her? Her modest fever had disappeared this morning as quickly as it had come, but was there something that the orphanage had missed? Something that would necessitate returning her and leaving Colombia empty-handed and brokenhearted?

Occasionally, the nurse would interrupt the doctor with a telephone call, and he’d hand Joelle back to Joanna while he patiently listened to some other baby’s mother or father pour out their fears. He’d calmly utter a few words of Spanish into the receiver, nod in a kind of affirmation of his wisdom, return the phone to the nurse.

Then back to the baby at hand.

After a while Paul grew tired of looking for clues in the doctor’s expression. He decided he’d simply wait for the final verdict.

Which was apparently first-rate. Your baby’s completely healthy, Dr. Dalliego said. She’s fine.

Which was more than you could say for her father.

Paul finally allowed himself to exhale.

NINE

They were back in the hotel room.

Galina had left for the day. Joelle was asleep in her crib. Slats of amber light were slanting in through the window.

He’d remember this exact moment for a long time. Just about forever. He’d remember the way it looked—how the rays of light crisscrossed the bedspread and seemed to cleave Joanna’s naked leg in two. He’d take a photo of this moment and paste it into the album of very bad things.

Joanna was lying half in and half out of the bedsheets, staring straight up at the ceiling. She looked kind of morose.

Once upon a time Paul had resisted asking Joanna why she looked unhappy, because he always knew what the answer would be, and it always involved him. He was hoping things were different now—that the two of them were positively suffused with happiness—so he went ahead and asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” she said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You don’t know what I’m thinking. It’s ridiculous.”

“Yes, I do. You’re thinking I’m going to think you’re crazy.”

“Besides that.”

“What, Joanna?”

“It’s nuts.”

“Okay, it’s nuts. Tell me.”

“She smells different.”

“What? Who? ”

“Joelle. She smells different.”

“Different than what?”

“Different than . . . before.”

Paul didn’t know quite how to answer that.

“So?”

“So?”

“So she smells different. I’m not—”

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

“No.”

Joanna rolled onto her side and faced him. “I don’t think it’s her. ”

“What?”

“I don’t think it’s her,” clearly enunciating each word this time so he’d know exactly what it was she was saying. Which was clearly and patently, well . . . nuts.

“Joanna—of course it’s her. We took her to the doctor today. You were with her the whole day. Are you . . . ?”

“Crazy?”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Paul said. Of course, that’s exactly what he was going to say. “I just . . . I mean, it’s just so . . . She’s Joelle.”

“How do you know?”

“What do you mean how do I know?”

“It’s a simple question. How do you know it’s Joelle?”

“Because I’ve been with her two days. Because . . . it looks like her.”

“She’s one month old. How many other babies have you seen here that look exactly like her?”

“None.”

“Fine. Well, I have.”

“Joanna, because she smells different? Don’t you think it’s kind of . . . paranoid?”

“You mean like when we thought Galina kidnapped her?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe we weren’t being paranoid. Maybe Galina did kidnap her.”

“Do you hear what you’re saying? Do you? It’s ridiculous.”

“You didn’t think it was ridiculous yesterday.”

“Yes, I didn’t think it was ridiculous yesterday. That was before Galina came back with her. She had a fever, so Galina went to get her a thermometer. Remember?”

“Joelle didn’t have a fever when we went for a walk, did she?”

“How do we know that?”

“Because I’m her mother. I held her before we left. She was fine.”