Fever Dream

by Samanta Schweblin

  There’s a water fountain just behind her, and she fills two cups of water and hands one to each of us, and she also gives us each a pill. I wonder what they are having Nina take, if it’s the same thing they give me.

  “Carla,” I say, and she turns toward me in surprise. “We have to call my husband.”

  “Yes,” she says. “Nina and I were already talking about that,” and her condescending tone bothers me, and it bothers me that she doesn’t stand up right away to do the thing that I have finally managed to ask her to do.

  “You each take one of these pills every six hours, be sure not to go back out in the sun, and lie down and take a little nap in a dark room,” says the nurse, and she gives the blister pack to Carla.

  On top of my hand, Nina’s hand still seems to want to restrain me. It’s a pale and dirty hand. The dew has dried and the lines of mud cross her skin from one side to the other. It’s not dew, I know, but you don’t correct me anymore. I’m so sad, David. David. It scares me when you don’t say anything for so long. Every time you could say something but don’t, I wonder if maybe I’m just talking to myself.

  It takes you a while to get back to the car. Carla leads you both by the hand, one on either side. You or Nina stop every few steps, and then the whole group waits. Then, in the car, the gravel keeps Carla gripping the steering wheel in silence. None of the three of you says anything when you drive past the door of the house you left that morning and Mr. Geser’s dogs race across the yard and under the privet hedges to run alongside the car, barking. They are furious, but neither you nor Carla seems to notice them. The sun is already directly overhead, and you can feel the heat rising up from the floor. But nothing important happens, and nothing important is going to happen from here on. And I’m starting to think you’re not going to understand, that going forward with this story doesn’t make any sense.

  But things keep happening. Carla parks beside the three poplar trees at her house, and there are many more details you’ll want to hear.

  It’s not worth it anymore.

  Yes, it is worth it. Carla pushes the button on her seat belt and it whips back into place, and with that whipping noise, my perception of reality comes back clearly. Nina is sleeping in the backseat. She is pale, and even when I say her name a few times she doesn’t wake up. Now that her dress is completely dry I see the haloes of discolored fabric, huge and amorphous, like a big school of jellyfish.

  Really, Amanda, there’s no point.

  I have an intuition, I have to go on.

  “I’m going to carry this precious little thing inside,” says your mother, opening the door to the backseat, putting Nina’s arm over her own shoulder and lifting her out of the car. “And you two are going to take a good nap.”

  I have to get out of here, I think. That is all I’m thinking while I see her struggle to close the car door with her foot, and then walk toward her house carrying my daughter. The rescue distance shortens and the rope that connects us pulls me to my feet, too. I follow them without taking my eyes from Nina’s little arm hanging over Carla’s back. There is no grass around Carla’s house, it’s all earth and dust. There’s the entrance to the house in front and a small shed to one side. In the backyard, I can see the fences that must have been for the horses, but there are no animals in sight. I look for you. I’m worried about the possibility of finding you in the house. I want to take Nina and get back into the car. I don’t want to go inside. But I need so badly to sit down, I need so badly to get out of the sun, to drink something cool, and my body goes inside after Nina’s.

  This is not important.

  I know, David, but you’re still going to listen to it all. It takes a minute for my eyes to get used to the darkness in the house. There isn’t much furniture but there are a lot of random things. Such ugly and useless things, little angel ornaments, large plastic boxes piled up, gold and silver plates nailed to the wall, plastic flowers in giant ceramic vases. I had imagined a different house for your mother. Now Carla sits Nina down on the sofa. It’s a wicker sofa with cushions. Across the room in the oval mirror I see myself, flushed and sweaty, and behind me I see the plastic-strip curtain over the front door, and beyond, the poplar trees and the car. Carla says she’s going to make the iced tea. The kitchen opens up to the left; I see her take an ice cube tray from the freezer.

  “I would have straightened up some if I’d known you were coming,” she says, reaching for two cups on a shelf.

  I take two steps toward the kitchen and I’m almost next to Carla. Everything is small and dark.

  “And I would have baked something. I told you about the butter cookies I make, remember?”

  I do remember. She talked about them the first day we met. Nina and I had arrived that morning, and my husband wouldn’t be there until Saturday. I was checking the mailbox because Mr. Geser had told us he would leave a second set of keys there, just in case, when I saw your mother for the first time. She was coming from her house carrying two empty plastic buckets, and she asked me if I’d noticed the way the water smelled too. I hesitated, because we had drunk a little as soon as we’d arrived, yes, but everything was new and if it smelled different it was impossible for us to know if that was a problem or how it always was. Carla nodded worriedly and went along the path that edged the lot our house was on. When she came back I was already settling our things in the kitchen. Through the window I saw her put down the buckets to open the gate, and then put them down again to close it. She was tall and thin, and though she was carrying a bucket on either side, now apparently full, she was upright and elegant as she walked. Her gold sandals traced a whimsically straight line, as if she were practicing some kind of step or movement, and only when she reached the veranda did she raise her eyes and look at us. She wanted to leave me one of the buckets. She said it was better not to use the tap water that day. She insisted so much that I ended up accepting, and for a moment I wondered whether I should pay her for the water. Out of fear of offending her I offered, instead, to make some iced tea with lemon for the three of us. We drank it outside, with our feet in the pool.

  “I make some mean butter cookies,” said Carla. “They’d go perfectly with this iced tea.”

  “Nina would love those,” I said.

  “Indeed, we would adore them,” said Nina.

  In the kitchen at your house I fall into the chair beside the window. Your mother adds lemon to the tea and hands it to me with the sugar.

  “Put a lot in,” says Carla. “It’ll clear your head.”

  And when Carla sees that I’m not touching the sugar, she sits in the other chair and stirs it in for me. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye.

  I wonder if I’ll be capable of getting myself out to the car. Then I see the graves. I just look outside, and there they are.

  There are twenty-eight graves.

  Twenty-eight graves, yes. And Carla knows I’m looking at them. She pushes my tea toward me. I don’t see it but its cold nearness fills me with disgust. I won’t be able to, I think. I feel bad about it for your mother’s sake, but it’s going to be impossible to drink anything. And yet I’m very thirsty. Carla waits. She stirs her tea and we are silent for a while.

  “I miss him so much,” she finally says, and I struggle to understand what she is talking about. “I checked all the kids his age, Amanda. All of them.” I let her talk and I count the graves again. “I follow them without their parents’ knowing. I talk to them, take them by the shoulders to look them right in the eyes.”

  We have to move forward. We’re losing time.

  Now your mother looks toward the backyard too.

  “And there are so many graves, Amanda. When I hang up the clothes to dry I always look down at the ground, because I tell you, if I step on one of those mounds . . .”

  “I need to go to the sofa,” I say.

  Your mother gets right up and goes with me. Wi
th one final effort I fall onto the sofa.

  I’m going to count to three, then let’s get you up.

  Carla settles me in.

  One.

  She gives me a pillow.

  Two.

  I reach out my arm, and before I fall completely asleep, I hug Nina tightly against my body.

  Three. Grab the chair, like that. Sit down. Do you see me? Amanda?

  Yes. I see you. I’m very tired, David. And I have some terrifying nightmares.

  What do you see?

  Not here. Here I see you. Your eyes are very red, David, and you have almost no eyelashes left.

  In the nightmares.

  I see your father.

  That’s because he’s in the house. It’s nighttime and my parents are looking at you and Nina lying on the sofa, and they’re arguing.

  Your mother is going through my purse.

  She’s not doing anything wrong.

  Yes, I know. I think she’s looking for something. I wonder if she’s finally going to call my husband. That’s all she has to do. Did I tell her enough times?

  You told her at the beginning, and now she’s trying to find a phone number.

  Your father sits across from the sofa and looks at us. He looks at my untouched tea still on the table, he looks at my shoes, which your mother took off for me and left to one side of the sofa, and he looks at Nina’s hands. You look a lot like your father.

  Yes.

  He has wide eyes, and though he would prefer we weren’t there, he doesn’t seem frightened. I sleep for moments at a time, and now the lights are off and everything is dark, it’s night and your parents don’t seem to be in the house. I think I see you. Do I see you? You’re next to the plastic curtain but there’s no light anymore, I can’t see the poplars or the fields. Now your mother walks past me and opens the window that looks out on the backyard. For a moment the air smells of lavender. I hear your father’s voice. Now there’s someone else. It’s the woman from the emergency room. She’s in the house, and your mother comes over with a glass of water. She asks me how I feel. I make an effort to sit up, and I swallow another pill from the blister pack. They also give one to Nina, who seems to be a little better and asks me something I can’t answer.

  The effect comes and goes. You’re poisoned.

  Yes. So why are they giving us something for sunstroke?

  Because the nurse is a very stupid woman.

  Then I go back to sleep.

  For several hours.

  Yes. But the nurse’s son, the children who come to this room, aren’t they kids who’ve been poisoned? How can a mother not realize?

  Not all of them go through poisoning episodes. Some of them were born already poisoned, from something their mothers breathed in the air, or ate or touched.

  I wake up in the early morning.

  Nina wakes you up.

  “Can we go, Mommy?” she says while she’s shaking me.

  And I am so grateful to her. Her words are like a command, and it’s as if she’s just saved both our lives. I bring a finger to my lips to tell her we have to be quiet.

  You both feel a little better now, but it’s an effect that comes and goes.

  I’m still dizzy, and I have to make a few attempts before I manage to stand up. My eyes are burning and I rub them a couple times. I don’t know how Nina feels. She ties her own shoes, though she still doesn’t really know how to do it well. She is pale, but she doesn’t cry or say anything. I’m standing now. I hold myself up by leaning against the wall, the oval mirror, the column in the kitchen. The car keys are next to my purse. I pick everything up slowly, careful not to make any noise. I feel Nina’s hand on my leg. The door is open, and we hunch over as we go through the plastic curtain across the door. It’s as if we were emerging from a cold, deep cave into the light. Nina lets go of me as soon as we leave the house. The car is unlocked, and we both get in through the driver’s-side door. I close it, start the engine, and drive a few meters in reverse until I reach the gravel road. Before turning, in the rearview mirror, I look at your mother’s house for the last time. For a moment I imagine her coming out in a bathrobe, making some kind of sign to me from the door of the house. But nothing moves. Nina climbs without any help into the backseat and then buckles her seat belt.

  “I need water, Mommy,” she says, and crosses her legs on the seat.

  And I think yes, of course, that’s all we need now. It’s been many hours and we haven’t had a thing to drink, and poisoning is cured by drinking a lot of water. We’re going to buy some bottles in town, I think. I’m thirsty too. The pills for sunstroke were on the kitchen table and I wonder if it wouldn’t have been good to take another dose before getting out on the road. Nina is looking at me, her forehead wrinkled in a frown.

  “Are you okay, Nina? Sweetie?”

  Her eyes fill with tears but I don’t ask again. We are very strong, Nina and I, that’s what I tell myself as I leave the gravel behind and the car finally bites the town’s asphalt. I don’t know what time it is, but there is still no one in the street. Where do you buy water in a town where everyone is asleep? I rub my eyes.

  Because you don’t see well.

  It’s like I need to rinse them out. There’s a lot of light for it to be so early.

  But there isn’t a lot of light. It’s your eyes.

  There’s something that’s bothering my eyes. The shine from the asphalt and the pipes along the boulevard. I lower the visor and look for my sunglasses in the glove compartment. Every movement requires a huge effort. The light makes me squint, and it’s hard to drive in these conditions. And my body, David. My body stings, a lot. Is it the worms?

  It feels like worms, minuscule worms all over your body. In a few minutes, Nina will be left alone in the car.

  No, David. That can’t happen, what’s Nina going to do alone in the car? No, please. This is it, isn’t it? It’s now. This is the last time I see Nina. There’s something up ahead in the street, just before the corner. I’m going more slowly now, and I squint my eyes more. It’s hard, David. It hurts a lot.

  Is it us?

  Who?

  The people crossing the street.

  It’s a group of people. I see them and I put the brakes on, they’re passing just inches away from the car. What are so many people doing together at this hour? They’re children, almost all of them are children. What are they all doing crossing the street together, at that hour?

  They’re taking us to the waiting room. That’s where they leave us before the day starts. If we have a bad day they take us home early, but in general we don’t go home until night.

  A woman stands at each corner to be sure the crosswalk is safe.

  It’s difficult to care for us at home. Some parents don’t even know how.

  The women wear the same apron as the woman from the emergency room.

  They’re the nurses.

  There are children of all ages. It’s very hard to see. I hunch down over the steering wheel. Are there healthy children too, in the town?

  There are some, yes.

  Do they go to school?

  Yes. But around here there aren’t many children who are born right.

  “Mommy?” asks Nina.

  There are no doctors, and the woman in the green house does what she can.

  My eyes are watering, and I press them with both hands.

  “Mommy, it’s the girl with the giant head.”

  I open my eyes for a second and look forward. The girl from House & Home is standing stock-still in front of our car, looking at us.

  But I push her.

  Yes, it’s true, you’re the one who pushes her.

  She always needs a push.

  There are a lot of children.

  There are thirty-three of us, but the number changes.
>
  They are strange children. They’re, I don’t know, my eyes are burning. Deformed children. They don’t have eyelashes, or eyebrows. Their skin is pink, very pink, and scaly too. Only a few are like you.

  How am I, Amanda?

  I don’t know, David, more normal? Now the last one goes by. The last woman also passes, and before she follows the children she stands looking at me for a moment. I open the car door. Everything starts to go white. I can’t stop rubbing my eyes because it feels like I have something in them.

  It feels like worms.

  Yes. If I had water I could wash my face. I get out and lean against the car. I think about the women.

  The nurses.

  “Mommy . . .” Nina is crying.

  Maybe if they could give me a little water, but it’s so hard to think, David. I’m so dazed and I’m so thirsty and so anxious and Nina calls to me nonstop, and I can’t look at her, now I can’t see practically anything. There is white on all sides, and now I’m the one calling Nina. I feel my way along the car and I try to get back in.

  “Nina. Nina,” I cry out.

  Everything is white. Nina’s hands touch my face and I push them away harshly.

  “Nina,” I say. “Ring the doorbell of a house. Ring the bell and tell them to call Daddy.”

  Nina, I say over and over, many times. But where is Nina now, David? How could I be without Nina all this time? David, where is she?

  Carla came to see you as soon as she found out they’d brought you back to the emergency clinic. Seven hours passed between when you fainted and when Carla came to visit, and over a day since the moment you were poisoned. Carla thinks it is all related to the children in the waiting room, to the death of the horses, the dog, and the ducks, and to the son who is no longer her son but who goes on living in her house. Carla believes it is all her fault, that changing me that afternoon from one body to another body has changed something else. Something small and invisible that has ruined everything.