THIRTY-THREE.

HE WOKE ONCE, but couldn't see. He woke again and it was dark. He tried to say something to Jevy about water, just a small drink, and maybe a bite of bread. But his voice was gone. Speaking required effort and movement, especially when trying to yell over the howl of the engine. His joints pulled him tightly into a knot. He was welded to the aluminum shell of the boat.

Rachel lay beside him under the smelly tent, her knees also pulled close and just touching his, same as when they sat together on the ground in front of her hut, and later on the bench under the tree by the river. A cautious little contact from a woman starved for the innocent feeling of flesh. She had lived among the Ipicas for eleven years, and their nakedness kept a distance between themselves and any civilized person. A simple hug was complicated. Where do you hold? Where do you pat? How long do you squeeze? Surely she'd never touched any of the males.

He wanted to kiss her, if only on the cheek, because she had obviously gone years without such affection.

“When was your last kiss, Rachel?” he wanted to ask her. “You've been in love. How physical was it?”

But he kept his questions to himself, and instead they talked about people they didn't know. She'd had a piano teacher whose breath was so bad the ivory keys turned yellow. He'd had a lacrosse coach who was paralyzed from the waist down because he cracked his spine in a lacrosse game. A girl in her church got pregnant, and her father condemned her from the pulpit. She killed herself a week later. He'd lost a brother to leukemia.

He rubbed her knees and she seemed to like it. But he would go no further. It wouldn't pay to get fresh with a missionary.

She was there to keep him from dying. She'd fought malaria twice herself. The fevers rise and fall, the chills hit like ice in the belly, then fade away. The nausea comes in waves. Then there is nothing for hours. She patted his arm and promised he was not going to die. She tells everybody this, he thought. Death would be welcome.

The touching stopped. He opened his eyes and reached for Rachel, but she was gone.

JEW HEARD the delirium twice. Each time he stopped the boat and pulled the tent off Nate. He forced water into his mouth, and poured it gently through his sweating hair.

“We're almost there,” he said over and over. “Almost there.”

The first lights of Corumba brought tears to his eyes. He had seen them many times when returning from excursions into the northern Pantanal, but they had never been so welcome. They flickered on the hill in the distance. He counted them until they blurred together.

It was almost 11 P.M. when he jumped into the shallow water and pulled his rig onto the broken concrete. The boat dock was deserted. He ran up the hill to a pay phone.

VALDIR WAS WATCHING television in his pajamas, smoking his last cigarette of the night and ignoring his cranky wife, when the phone rang. He answered it without getting up, then jumped to his feet.

“What is it?” she asked, as he ran to the bedroom.

“Jevy's back,” he answered over his shoulder.

“Who's Jevy?”

Passing by her on the way out, he said, “I'm going to the river.” She couldn't have cared less.

Driving across the city, he called a doctor friend, who had just gone to bed, and cajoled him into meeting them at the hospital.

Jevy was pacing along the dock. The American was sitting on a rock, his head resting on his knees. Without a word, they gently shuffled him into the backseat, and took off, gravel flying behind them.

Valdir had so many questions he didn't know where to start. The harsh words could wait. “When did he get sick?” he asked in Portuguese. Jevy sat next to him, rubbing his eyes, trying to stay awake. His last sleep had been with the Indians. “I don't know,” he said. “The days all run together. It's dengue fever. The rash comes on the fourth or fifth day, and I think he's had it for two days. I don't know.”

They were racing through downtown, ignoring lights and signs. The sidewalk cafes were closing. There was little traffic.

“Did you find the woman?”

“We did.”

“Where?”

“She's close to the mountains. I think she's in Bolivia. A day south of Porto Indio.”

“Was she on the map?”

“No.”

“Then how did you find her?”

No Brazilian could ever admit to being lost, especially a seasoned guide like Jevy. It would hurt his self-esteem, and perhaps his business. “We were in a flooded region where maps mean nothing. I found a fisherman who helped us. How's Welly?”

“Welly's fine. The boat's gone.” Valdir was much more concerned about the boat than about its deckhand.

“I've never seen such storms. We've been hit with three of them.”

“What did the woman say?”

“I don't know. I didn't really talk to her.”

“Was she surprised to see you?”

“She didn't seem to be. She was pretty cool. I think she liked our friend back there.”

“How did their meeting go?”

“Ask him.”

Nate was curled tightly in the backseat, hearing nothing. And Jevy was supposed to know nothing, so Valdir didn't press. The lawyers could talk later, as soon as Nate was able.

A wheelchair was waiting at the curb when they arrived at the hospital. They poured Nate into it, and followed the orderly along the sidewalk. The air was warm and sticky, still very hot. On the front steps, a dozen maids and assistants in white uniforms smoked cigarettes and chatted quietly. The hospital had no air conditioning.

The doctor friend was brusque and all business. The paperwork would be done in the morning. They pushed Nate through the empty lobby, along a series of hallways and into a small exam room where a sleepy nurse took him. With Jevy and Valdir watching in a corner, the doctor and nurse stripped the patient bare. The nurse washed him with alcohol and white cloths. The doctor studied the rash, which began at his chin and stopped at his waist. He was covered with mosquito bites, many of which he'd scratched into little red sores. They checked his temperature, blood pressure, heart rate.

“Looks like dengue fever,” the doctor said after ten minutes. He then rattled off a list of details for the nurse, who hardly listened because she'd done it before. She began washing Nate's hair.

Nate mumbled something, but it had nothing to do with anyone present. His eyes were still swollen shut; he hadn't shaved in a week. He would've been at home in a gutter outside a bar.

“The fever is high,” the doctor said. “He's delirious. We'll start an IV with antibiotics and painkillers, lots of water, maybe a little food later.”

The nurse placed a heavy gauze bandage over Nate's eyes, then strapped it down with tape from ear to ear.

She found a vein and started the IV. She pulled a yellow gown from a drawer and dressed him.

The doctor checked his temperature again. “It should begin falling soon,” he told the nurse. “If not, call me at home.” He glanced at his watch.

“Thanks,” Valdir said.

“I'll see him early in the morning,” the doctor said, and left them there.

Jevy lived on the edge of town, where the houses were small, the streets unpaved. He fell asleep twice as Valdir drove him home.

MRS. STAFFORD was shopping for antiques in London. The phone rang a dozen times before Josh grabbed it. The digital gave the time as 2:20 A.M.

“This is Valdir,” the voice announced.

“Oh yes, Valdir.” Josh rubbed his hair and blinked his eyes. “This better be good.”

“Your boy is back.”

“Thank God.”

“He's very sick, though.”

“What! What's the matter with him?”

“He has dengue fever, similar to malaria. Mosquitoes carry it. It is not uncommon here.”

“I thought he had shots for everything.” Josh was on his feet, bent at the waist, pulling his hair now.

“There is no shot for dengue.”

“He's not going to die, is he?”

“Oh, no. He's in the hospital. I have a good friend who is a doctor', and he's taking care of him. He says your boy will be fine.”

“When can I talk to him?”

“Maybe tomorrow. He has a high fever and he's unconscious.”

“Did he find the woman?”

“Yes.”

Atta boy, thought Josh. He exhaled in relief and sat on the bed. So she's really out there. “Give me his room number.”

“Well, they don't have phones in the rooms.”

“It's a private room, isn't it? Come on, Valdir, money is no problem here. Tell me he's being taken care of.”

“He is in good hands. But the hospital is a little different from yours.”

“Should I come down there?”

“If you wish. It's not necessary. You can't change the hospital. He has a good doctor.”

“How long will he be there?”

“A few days. We should know more in the morning.”

“Call me early, Valdir. I mean it. I have to talk to him as soon as possible.”

“Yes, I will call early.”

Josh went to the kitchen for ice water. Then he paced around his den. At three, he gave up, made a pot of strong coffee, and went to his office in the basement.

BECAUSE HE WAS a rich American, they cut no corners. Nate got pumped into his veins the best drugs available from the pharmacy. The fever dipped a little, the sweating stopped. The pain vanished, washed away by a tide of the finest American-made chemicals. He was snoring heavily as the nurse and an orderly rolled him to his room, two hours after his arrival.

He would share the room for the night with five others. Mercifully, he was blindfolded and comatose. He couldn't see the open sores, the uncontrolled shaking of the old man next to him, the lifeless shriveled creature across the room. He couldn't smell the waste.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 464