Fever Dream: A Novel(13)

Carla comes out of the house, finally.

Carla isn’t important.

But I walk over to her. I think I’m still trying to dissuade her from the walk.

Don’t leave Nina alone. It’s happening right now!

Carla comes over, carrying her bag and smiling.

Don’t get distracted.

I can’t choose what happens next, David. I can’t turn back toward Nina.

It’s happening.

What is, David? My God, what is happening?

The worms.

No, please.

It’s a very bad thing.

Yes, the rope pulls tight, but I’m distracted.

What’s on Nina?

I don’t know, David, I don’t know! I’m talking to Carla like an idiot. I ask her how long it will take us to walk to the stables.

No, no.

I can’t do anything, David. Is this how I lose her? The rope is so taut now I feel it in my stomach. What’s happening?

This is the most important thing. This is everything we need to know.

Why?

What is the feeling now, exactly now?

I’m soaked too. I’m wet, yes, I feel it now.

That’s not what I mean.

It’s not important that I’m wet, too?

It is important, but it’s not what we need to understand. Amanda, this is the moment, don’t get distracted. We’re looking for the exact moment because we want to know how it starts.

It’s just, I’m focused on something else. Now I feel it, yes, I’m soaked.

It’s very gradual.

The breeze cools the dampness and I feel the wet seat of my pants. Carla tells me it will take only about twenty minutes, the stables are just right over there, and I look instinctively at my pants.

Nina looks at you.

Yes.

She knows this is not good.

But it’s dew. I still think it’s dew.

It’s not dew.

What is it, David?

We’ve come this far so we can learn exactly what you feel right now.

Just that slight tug in my stomach from the rope, and something acidic, just barely, under my tongue.

Acidic, or bitter?

Bitter, bitter, yes. But it’s so subtle, my God, so subtle. We start to walk, the three of us, crossing the lot and going deeper into the fields. Nina gets distracted. Carla tells her there’s a well at the stable, and now she’s excited to get there too. Her mood changes.

How long does that take?

Right away, she forgets right away. So do I.

Are you going to wonder again what it was that got you wet?

No, David.

Are you going to smell your hands?

No.

You’re not going to do anything?

No, David, I’m not going to do anything. We’re going to walk and I’m even going to wonder if I’m doing the right thing by leaving. We talk, we stay there under the sun with the grass up to our knees. It’s an almost perfect moment. Carla talks to me about Sotomayor. Your mother has made some decisions about how to arrange the order spreadsheets, and Sotomayor has been praising her all morning.

Don’t you realize what’s happening right now?

I can’t realize, David. Nina sees the well and runs over to it. The stables don’t have a roof, there are just some burned bricks. It’s a beautiful view, but also desolate, and when I ask Carla how they burned, she just seems annoyed.

“I brought mate,” she says.

I tell Nina to be careful. I’m surprised by how much I want to drink a few mates, how little I feel like getting into the car and driving four and a half hours to the capital. Returning to the noise, the grime, the congestion of everything.

Does this place really seem better to you?

A group of trees gives us some shade, and we sit near the trunks, close to the well. The soy fields stretch out to either side of us. It’s all very green, a perfumed green, and Nina asks me if we can’t stay a little longer. Just a little.

I’m not interested in this anymore.

“A lot of things have happened,” I say to Carla.

She wrinkles her brow while she takes out the mate, but she doesn’t ask what I’m referring to.

“I mean, since you started telling me about David.”

Really, this won’t get us anywhere. If you knew how valuable time was right now you wouldn’t use it for this.

I like this moment. We’re good, all three of us at ease. After this everything starts to go bad.

When does it start to go bad, exactly?

“What happened with David? What was it that changed so much?” I ask Carla.

“The spots,” says Carla, and she shrugs one of her shoulders, almost nonchalantly, like a little girl. “At first the spots were what bothered me most.”

Nina walks around the well, and every few steps she stops and leans over the bricks toward the darkness. She says her name, she says “We adore it” in her noble tone of voice, and the echo of her voice is just a little deeper. She says “Hello,” “Nina,” “Hello, I am Nina and we adore this.”

“But there were other things,” says Carla, and she hands me the mate. “You think I’m exaggerating, and that I’m the one who’s driving the boy crazy. Yesterday, when you yelled at me after David went into your house . . .”

Where are her gold straps? I think. Carla is pretty. Your mother, she’s very pretty, and there’s something in the memory of those straps that moves me. I feel so bad for yelling at her.