Fever Dream

by Samanta Schweblin

  Why? What’s happening?

  I see you outside, in the yard, and I don’t understand how you got there. I was watching the stairs the whole time. You go over to the sandals Carla left behind, you pick them up, walk to the edge of the pool, and throw them in. You look around and find Carla’s towel and scarf, and you throw those into the water too. My sandals and glasses are nearby, you see them, but they don’t seem to interest you. Now that you are in the sun, I see some spots on your body that I hadn’t noticed before. They’re subtle; one covers the right part of your forehead and almost your whole mouth, other spots cover your arms and one of your legs. You look like Carla, and I think that without the spots you would be a really lovely boy.

  What else?

  You seem to be leaving, and when you’re finally gone I feel calmer. I open the windows, I sit down for a moment on the living room sofa. It’s a strategic place because from there I can see the front gate, the yard, and the pool, and in the other direction I can keep my eye on the kitchen. Nina is still sitting and eating the last of the cookies; she seems to understand that it isn’t a good time to take her cheerful laps around the house.

  And what else?

  I make a decision. I realize I don’t want to be here anymore. The rescue distance is so short now I don’t think I can be more than a few steps away from my daughter. The house, its grounds, the whole town seems like an unsafe place after today, and there’s no reason to take any risks. I know that my next move will be to pack our bags and get out of here.

  What are you worried about?

  I don’t want to spend another night in the house, but leaving right away would mean driving too many hours in the dark. I tell myself I’m just scared, that it’s better to rest so tomorrow I can think about things more clearly. But it’s a terrible night.

  Why?

  Because I don’t sleep well. I wake up several times. Sometimes I think it’s because the room is too big. The last time I wake up, it’s still dark out. It’s raining, but that’s not what alarms me when I open my eyes. It’s the violet light coming from Nina’s bedside table. I call her name, but she doesn’t answer. I get out of bed and put on my robe. Nina isn’t in her room, or in the bathroom. I go downstairs clutching the railing; I’m still half asleep. The light in the kitchen is on. Nina is sitting at the table, her bare little feet dangling in the air. I wonder if she is sleepwalking, if this is what sleepwalking children do, and also if that’s what you do at night, when Carla says she finds your bed empty and you’re not in the house. But of course, that’s not important now, right?

  No.

  I take a few more steps toward the kitchen and I see that my husband is there, sitting across the table from Nina. It’s an impossible image—how could he have come in without my hearing him? He’s not supposed to be here until the weekend. I lean against the doorway. Something’s happening, something’s happening, I tell myself, but I’m still half asleep. He has his hands folded on the table, he’s leaning toward Nina and looking at her with his brow furrowed. Then he looks at me.

  “Nina has something to tell you,” he says.

  But Nina looks at her father and copies the position of his hands on the table. She doesn’t say anything.

  “Nina . . .” says my husband.

  “I’m not Nina,” says Nina.

  She leans back and crosses one leg over the other in a way I have never seen her do before.

  “Tell your mother why you aren’t Nina,” says my husband.

  “It’s an experiment, Miss Amanda,” she says, and she pushes a can toward me.

  My husband takes the can and turns it so I can see the label. It’s a can of peas of a brand I don’t buy, one I would never buy. They’re a bigger, much harder kind of pea than what we eat, coarser and cheaper. A product I would never choose to feed my family with, and that Nina can’t have found in our cupboards. On the table, at that early-morning hour, the can has an alarming presence. This is important, right?

  This is very important.

  I go over to her.

  “Where did this can come from, Nina?” My question sounds harsher than I would like.

  And Nina says:

  “I don’t know who you’re talking to, Miss Amanda.”

  I look at my husband.

  “Who are we talking to?” he asks, playing along.

  Nina opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. She keeps it open for a few seconds, wide open, as if she were screaming, or exactly the opposite, as if she needed a lot of air and couldn’t get it. It’s a terrifying gesture I’ve never seen her make before. My husband leans over the table toward her, then a little more. I think he simply can’t believe it. When Nina finally closes her mouth, he suddenly sits down again, as if someone had been holding him up the whole time by an invisible lapel, and now they’d let go of him.

  “I’m David,” says Nina, and she smiles at me.

  Is this a joke? Are you making this up?

  No, David. It’s a dream, a nightmare. I wake up agitated, this time completely clearheaded. It’s five in the morning, and a few minutes later I’m already packing one of the three suitcases we arrived with. At six I have everything almost ready. You like these observations, David.

  They’re necessary. They help with remembering.

  The thing is, I think over and over how strange my fear is, and it seems ridiculous to be already loading things into the car, with Nina still in her room, asleep.

  You’re trying to get away.

  Yes. But in the end I don’t, do I?

  No.

  Why not, David?

  That’s what we’re trying to find out.

  I go up to Nina’s room. I pack her bag while I try to wake her up. I’d made her some tea, and I brought it up with her packet of cookies. She wakes up and has breakfast in bed, still sleepy, watching me fold the last articles of clothing, put away her markers, stack her books. She’s so sleepy that she doesn’t even insist on knowing where we are going, why we are going back sooner than planned.

  My mother always said something bad would happen. My mother was sure that sooner or later something bad would happen, and now I can see it with total clarity, I can feel it coming toward us like a tangible fate, irreversible. Now there’s almost no rescue distance, the rope is so short that I can barely move in the room, I can barely walk away from Nina to go to the closet and grab the last of our things.

  “Get up,” I tell her. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Nina gets out of bed.

  “Get your shoes. Put on this jacket.”

  I take her hand and we go down the stairs together. Upstairs, the violet light on Nina’s bedside table is still on; downstairs, I see the light coming from the kitchen. It’s all just like in the dream, I say to myself, but as long as I have Nina by the hand, her strangely stiff body won’t be waiting for me in the kitchen, she won’t talk to me in your voice, there will be no perplexing can of peas on the table.

  Good.

  By now there’s a little light outside. Instead of putting Nina in the car right away, I have her pack things up with me so she doesn’t leave my side. We also go around the house together to close the shutters.

  You’re wasting time.

  Yes, I know.

  Why?

  I’m thinking. While I’m closing the shutters I’m thinking about Carla, about you, and I tell myself that I am part of this insanity.

  Yes.

  I mean, if I really wasn’t letting myself be taken in by your mother’s fears, none of this would be happening. I’d be getting up right now, putting on my bikini to make the most of the morning sun.

  Yes.

  So I’m guilty too, then. I’m confirming your mother’s own madness for her. But that’s not how it’s going to be.

  No?

  No. That’s why I have to tell her.

>   You’re thinking of talking to Carla.

  Of apologizing for yelling at her yesterday. I want to convince her everything is okay, and that she has to calm down.

  That’s a mistake.

  If I don’t do it, I can’t leave in good conscience. I’ll be back in the city and still be thinking about all this craziness.

  Talking to Carla is a mistake.

  I turn off the main power switch and close the front door of the house.

  This is the moment to leave town, now is the time.

  I leave the keys in the mailbox, just as Mr. Geser told me to do the day we leave.

  But you’re going to see Carla.

  Is that why I don’t make it?

  Yes, that’s why.

  We leave at dawn. I go down the road in the opposite direction from town and then stop at your house. I’d never gone inside your house, and I’d really rather not. So what I find there comes as good news: the house is empty, and I remember it is Tuesday. Everything starts too early in the country, and maybe your mother is already at Sotomayor’s offices, a mile toward town. It’s a relief, and I take it as a sign that I’m doing the right thing. Nina is sitting behind me, looking out in silence as we drive away from your house toward Sotomayor’s. She doesn’t seem worried. She’s wearing her seat belt, her legs crossed Indian style on the seat, as always, and she’s hugging her mole. Sotomayor’s fields start at a big manor house, and they open out behind it, indefinite. There is still no sidewalk, but there is grass between the street and the house. There are two medium-sized sheds behind it, and seven silos much farther back, far beyond the first fields. I leave the car next to others that are parked at the side of the house, on the grass. I ask Nina to get out with me. The door is open, and we enter the house holding hands. Just as Carla told me, the place is more office than house. There are two men drinking mate, and a fat young woman is signing papers and reading the titles of each page under her breath. One of the men nods, as if he were mentally following the woman’s activity. Everything stops when they see us, and the woman asks us what we need.

  “I’m looking for Carla.”

  “Ah.” She looks at both of us again, as if the first time hadn’t been enough. “Just a moment, she’ll be right back.”

  “You two want some mate?” One of the men at the table raises the gourd, and I wonder if either of them is Sotomayor.

  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.

  Carla comes o
ut 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.