Fever Dream: A Novel(8)

Yes, I know her.

Is there part of you in her body?

Those are stories my mother tells. Neither you nor I have time for this. We’re looking for worms, something very much like worms, and the exact moment when they touch your body for the first time.

“Who is she, Mommy?”

There’s no more put-on nobility now. When they are close to us Nina takes a few steps back; she wants us to move farther away. We make room for them by pressing up against the ovens. The girl is Nina’s height but I couldn’t say how old she is. I think she’s older, maybe your age.

Don’t waste time.

It’s just that your mother must know this girl, the girl and her mother and their whole story. And I go on thinking about Carla as the woman leads the little girl around the counter and the girl disappears from view because of her height. The woman presses the button on the register and hands me the change with a sad smile. She does all of this with both hands, one for the button, the other for my money, and just as I’d wondered a moment before how she could take that child’s hand, now I wonder how it’s possible to let go of it, and I accept the change thanking her many times, with guilt and remorse.

What else?

We go back home and Nina is sleepy. A nap so late is a bad business, later she has trouble falling asleep at night. But we’re on vacation—that’s what we’re here for. I remind myself of that so I’ll relax a little. As I put away the food we bought, Nina falls soundly asleep on the living room sofa. I know her sleep. If nothing loud wakes her up, she could be there for at least an hour or two. And then I think about the green house, and I wonder how far away it is. The green house is the house where the woman took care of you.

Yes.

The one who saved you from the poison.

That is not important.

How can it not be? That’s the story we need to understand.

No, that’s not the story, it has nothing to do with the exact moment. Don’t get distracted.

I need to measure the danger, otherwise it’s hard to calculate the rescue distance. The same way I surveyed the house and its surroundings when we arrived, now I need to see the green house, understand its gravity.

When did you start to measure this rescue distance?

It’s something I inherited from my mother. “I want you close,” she’d say to me. “Let’s stay within rescue distance.”

Your mother isn’t important. Go on.

Now I walk away from the house. It’ll be fine, I think. I’m sure the walk will take only around ten minutes. Nina sleeps soundly, and she knows how to wake up alone and wait for me calmly; that’s how we do it at home, when I go down to buy something in the morning. For the first time I walk in the opposite direction from the lake, toward the green house. “Sooner or later something bad is going to happen,” my mother would say. “And when it happens I want to have you close.”

Your mother is not important.

I like to look at the houses and the grounds, the countryside. I think I could keep walking like that for hours.

It’s possible. I do it sometimes at night.

And Carla lets you?

It’s a mistake to talk about me right now. How is the walk, in your body?

I walk quickly; I like it when my breathing grows rhythmic and my thoughts shrink to the essential. I think about the walk and nothing else.

That’s good.

I remember the way Carla’s hand moved in the car. “The people who live here take that way out,” she’d said. Her arm reached to her right, and her hand held her cigarette at the height of my mouth, the cigarette sharpening the directions. Over there the houses have a lot more land. Some have sown fields that reach back half a hectare; a few have wheat or sunflowers, but really it’s almost all soy. Crossing a few more lots, behind a long line of poplar trees, a narrower lane opens off to the right and goes along a small but deep stream.

Yes.

A few more modest houses stand along the stream bank, squeezed in between the fine, dark thread of water and the wire of the next estate. The next-to-last one is painted green. The color is worn but it’s still bright, it stands out from the rest of the landscape. I stop for a second and a dog comes out of the field.

This is important.

Why? I need to understand which things are important and which aren’t.

What happens with the dog?

He pants and wags his tail, and he’s missing a back leg.

Yes, this is very important, this has a lot to do with what we’re looking for.

He crosses the street, looks at me for a moment, and continues on toward the houses. There’s no one in sight, and since strange things always seem like warnings to me, I turn around and head home.

Something is going to happen now.

Yes. When I reach the house I see Carla waiting in the doorway. She moves away from the house a few steps and looks up, maybe toward the bedroom windows. She’s wearing a red cotton dress now, and the straps of the bikini peek out on her shoulders. She never goes into the house, she waits for me outside. Outside we chat and sunbathe, but if I go in to get more iced tea or put on sunscreen, she always waits outside.

Yes.

She sees me, she wants to say something to me and she seems not to know whether to walk toward me or not. She can’t seem to decide what’s best. Then I feel it with frightening clarity as the rope pulls taut: the shifting rescue distance.