Fever Dream: A Novel(12)

I shake my head and we walk toward a sofa, but then Carla is already back. No one lets her know we’re here, and she’s so distracted when she comes in that she doesn’t notice us. She’s wearing a white cotton shirt, and I’m almost startled not to see the gold bikini straps peeking out.

We need to go faster.

Why? What’s going to happen when the time is up?

I’ll tell you when it’s important to know the details.

When she finally sees us, Carla is surprised. She thinks something is wrong, and she gets scared. She looks at Nina out of the corner of her eye. I tell her everything is fine. That I only want to apologize for yesterday, and to tell her I’m leaving.

“Where are you going?”

“We’re going back,” I say. “Back to the capital.”

Her frown makes me feel sorry for her, or guilty, I don’t know.

“My husband needs me there, we have to go back.”

“Now?”

If we had gone without saying goodbye it would have been terrible for your mother, and in spite of the awkwardness I congratulate myself for having come to see her.

But it’s not a good idea.

It’s already done.

This is not good at all.

From one moment to the next your mother’s hurt expression completely changes. She wants us to see Omar’s stables. They’re abandoned, but they’re contiguous to Sotomayor’s land and it’s easy to get there from here.

The important thing is very close now. What else is happening? Around you, what’s happening?

It’s true, something else is happening. It’s outside, while your mother is trying to convince us to go with her. I hear a truck pull up and stop. The men drinking mate put on long plastic gloves and go out. There’s another male voice coming from outside, maybe the truck driver’s. Carla says she’s going to drop off some papers and then she’ll take us to the stables, and she tells us to wait outside. And then there’s a noise. Something falls, something plastic and heavy, but it doesn’t break. We leave Carla and go outside. There are two men unloading plastic drums. They are big, and the men struggle to carry one in each hand. There are a lot, the truck is full of barrels.

This is it.

One of the drums is left alone in the doorway to the shed.

This is the important thing.

This is the important thing?

Yes.

How can this be so important?

What else?

Nina sits down in the grass near the truck. She watches the men work, and she seems fascinated with their activity.

What are the men doing, exactly?

The driver is in the truck bed, and he’s the one who hands the drums down. The other two take turns receiving them and carrying them inside. They go in a different door, the big door to a shed that’s a little farther back. There are a lot of barrels; the men come and go, over and over. The sun is strong and there is a fresh, pleasant breeze. I think how this is our goodbye to the place, and that maybe this is Nina’s way of saying goodbye. So I sit down next to her and we watch them work together.

What else, in the meantime?

I don’t remember much else, that’s all that is happening.

No, there’s more. Around you, close by. There’s more.

That’s all.

The rescue distance.

I’m sitting ten inches away from my daughter, David. There is no rescue distance.

There must be. Carla was only steps away from me the day the stallion escaped and I almost died.

I have a lot of questions to ask you about that day.

Now’s not the time. You don’t feel anything? There’s no other sensation that could be tied to something else?

Something else?

What else is happening?

Carla takes a while to come outside. We’re very close to everything, in the middle of their work, almost in the way. But it all happens slowly and pleasantly, the men are nice and they smile at Nina again and again. When they finish unloading the drums, they wave the driver off and the truck drives away. The men go back into the house, and we get up from the grass. I look at my watch and it’s a quarter to nine. Nina looks at her clothes. She turns to look at her bottom, her legs.

Why? What’s wrong?

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

“I’m soaked,” she says, somewhat indignantly.

“Let’s see . . .” I take her hand and spin her around. With the color of her clothes I can’t tell how wet she is, but I touch her and yes, she’s wet.

“It’s dew,” I tell her. “It’ll dry while we’re walking.”

This is it. This is the moment.

It can’t be, David, this is really all there is.

That’s how it starts.

My God.

What is Nina doing?

She’s such a pretty girl.

What is she doing?

She walks away a little.

Don’t let her walk away.

She looks at the grass. She touches it with her hands, like she can’t believe her small disgrace.

What’s happening with the rescue distance?

Everything is fine.

No.

She’s frowning.

“Are you okay, Nina?” I ask her.

She smells her hands.

“It’s really gross,” she says.