Fever Dream

by Samanta Schweblin

  And is it true?

  This isn’t her fault. It’s something much worse.

  And Nina?

  Carla came right away, and when she saw that you were so feeble, sweating with fever, and that you were hallucinating me, she was convinced that the important thing was to talk to the woman in the green house.

  It’s true, she’s sitting at the foot of the bed, and she says talking to the woman in the green house is the best thing we can do. Now she wants to know if I agree. What is she talking about, David?

  Do you see her? Can you see now, again?

  I see a little, it’s all very white still but my eyes aren’t burning now. Did they give me something to calm the burning? I see blurry shapes, I recognize your mother’s form, her voice. I tell her to call my husband, and Carla practically runs to me. She grabs my hands, she asks me how I am.

  “Call my husband, Carla.”

  I tell her, I really did tell her.

  And she calls him. You say the number several times until she can get it down, she manages to find him, and she hands you a phone.

  Yes, it’s his voice, finally it’s his voice, and I’m crying so much that he can’t understand what is happening. I am very sick, I realize, and I tell him. David, this is not sunstroke. And I can’t stop crying, so much crying that he yells at me over the phone, he orders me to stop, to explain what is happening. He asks about Nina. Where is Nina, David?

  Then Carla takes the phone away from you, gently, and she tries to talk with your husband. She feels embarrassed, she doesn’t really know what to say.

  She says that I’m not well, that there are no doctors in the emergency clinic today but they’ve sent for one. She asks my husband if he’ll come. She says yes, that Nina is fine. You see, David, you see that Nina is fine. Carla is very close now. Where are you? Does your mother know you’re with me?

  She wouldn’t be surprised if she knew; she tells herself that I’m behind all of these things. That whatever has cursed this town for the past ten years is now inside me.

  She sits on the bed, very close. Again, the sweet perfume of her sunscreen. She smooths my hair, and her fingers are icy but her touch is pleasant. And the noise of her bracelets. Do I have a high fever, David?

  “Amanda,” your mother says.

  I think she is crying, there is something halting in her voice when she pronounces my name. She insists on calling the woman in the green house. She says there’s not much time.

  She’s right.

  “We have to do it fast,” she says, and she holds my hands, her cold hands squeeze mine, soaking wet, and she caresses my wrists. “Tell me you agree, I need your consent.”

  I think she wants to bring me to the green house.

  “I’ll stay in my body, Carla.”

  I don’t believe in those things, I want to tell her. But it seems like that’s something she’s unable to hear.

  “Amanda, I don’t mean you, I mean Nina,” your mother says. “As soon as I heard they’d brought you here I asked about Nina, but no one knew where she was. We went looking for her in Mr. Geser’s car.”

  The rope pulls tighter.

  She was sitting on the curb, a few blocks past where they parked your car.

  “Amanda, when I find my real David,” your mother says, “I won’t have any doubt it’s him.” She squeezes my hands very tightly, as if I were going to fall over from one moment to the next. “You have to understand that Nina wasn’t going to make it many more hours.”

  “Where is Nina?” I ask again, frantically. Hundreds of needles of pain radiate from my throat to the extremities of my body.

  Your mother isn’t asking for my consent. Your mother is asking for my forgiveness, for what is happening right now, in the green house. I let go of her hands. The rescue distance knots up, so brutally that for a moment I stop breathing. I think about leaving, about getting out of bed. My God, I think. My God. I have to get Nina out of that house.

  But it will be a while before you can move. The effect comes and goes, the fever comes and goes.

  I have to talk to my husband again. I have to tell him where Nina is. The pain comes back, it’s a white blow to the head, intermittent, blinding me for seconds at a time.

  “Amanda . . .” says Carla.

  “No, no.” I say no, over and over.

  Too many times.

  Am I shouting?

  Nina’s name.

  Carla tries to hug me and it’s hard to push her away. My body heats up to an unbearable temperature, my fingers swell up under my nails.

  But you don’t stop shouting, and one of the nurses is in the room now.

  She talks to Carla. What does she say, David, what does she say?

  That a doctor is on the way.

  But there’s no hope for me now.

  The pain comes and goes, the fever comes and goes, and there is Carla again, holding your hands.

  I see Nina’s hands, for a moment. She’s not here but I see them with utter clarity. Her little hands are dirty with mud.

  Or they’re my dirty hands when I came into the kitchen, and without letting go of the wall, I looked for Carla from the threshold.

  That’s not true, they’re Nina’s hands, I can see them.

  “It was what had to be done,” says Carla.

  It’s happening now. Why are Nina’s hands covered in mud? What do my daughter’s hands smell like?

  “No, Carla. No, please.”

  The ceiling moves farther away and my body sinks into the darkness of the bed.

  “I need to know where she’s going,” I say.

  When Carla leans over me, everything is in complete silence.

  “That can’t happen, Amanda. I already told you that can’t happen.”

  The blades of the ceiling fan move slowly and the air doesn’t reach me.

  “You have to ask the woman,” I say.

  “But Amanda . . .”

  “You have to beg her.”

  Someone approaches, from the hallway. The footsteps are so soft, almost imperceptible, but I can hear them precisely. Like your steps in the green house, two little wet feet on the splintered wood.

  “Tell her to try to leave Nina as close as possible.”

  Can you intervene, David? Can you leave Nina close?

  Close to whom?

  Close, close to home.

  I could.

  Whatever it takes, please.

  I could, but it won’t do any good.

  Please, David. And that’s the last thing I can say, I know it is the last thing, I know it a second before I say it. Everything is silent, finally. A long and tonal silence. Now there are no blades or ceiling fan. Now there is no nurse. Carla is gone. The sheets aren’t here, nor the bed, nor the room. Things are no longer happening. Only my body is here. David?

  What?

  I’m so tired. What is the important thing, David? I need you to say it, because the ordeal is ending, right? I need you to say it, and then I want everything to stay quiet.

  I’m going to push you now. I push the ducks, I push Mr. Geser’s dog, and the horses.

  And the girl from House & Home. Is this about the poison? It’s everywhere, isn’t it, David?

  The poison was always there.

  Is it about something else, then? Is it because I did something wrong? Was I a bad mother? Is it something I caused? The rescue distance.

  The pain comes and goes.

  When Nina and I were on the lawn, among the barrels. It was the rescue distance: it didn’t work, I didn’t see the danger. And now there is something else in my body, something that activates again or maybe it deactivates, something sharp and bright.

  It’s the pain.

  Why don’t I feel it anymore?

  It pierces the stomach.

&
nbsp; Yes, it bores in and rips it open, but I don’t feel it. It reaches me with a cold, white vibration, it reaches my eyes.

  I’m touching your hands, I’m right here.

  And now the rope, the rope of the rescue distance.

  Yes.

  It’s as if it were tied to my stomach from outside. It pulls tight.

  Don’t be scared.

  It’s crushing, David.

  It’s going to break.

  No, that can’t happen. The rope cannot break, because I am Nina’s mother and Nina is my daughter.

  Did you ever think about my father?

  Your father? Something pulls harder at the rope and it tightens around my stomach. It’s going to slice my stomach in two.

  It will break first. Breathe.

  This rope can’t break, Nina is my daughter. But yes, my God, it’s broken.

  Now there is very little time left.

  Am I dying?

  Yes. There are seconds left, but you could still understand the important thing. I’m going to push you ahead so you can listen to my father.

  Why your father?

  He seems rough and simple to you, but that’s because he is a man who has lost his horses.

  Something falls away.

  The rope.

  There is no more tension. But I feel the rope, it still exists.

  Yes, but there’s not much time left. There will be only a few seconds of clarity. When my father speaks, don’t get distracted.

  Your voice is weak, I can’t hear you very well now.

  Pay attention, Amanda, it will last only a few seconds. Do you see something now?

  It’s my husband.

  I’m pushing you forward. Do you see?

  Yes.

  This is going to be the last effort. This is the last thing that will happen.

  Yes, I see him. It’s my husband, he’s driving our car. He’s entering the town now. Is this really happening?

  Don’t interrupt the story.

  I see him clear and bright.

  Don’t turn back.

  It’s my husband.

  At the end, I won’t be here anymore.

  But David . . .

  Don’t waste any more time talking to me.

  He takes the boulevard and drives slowly forward. I see everything so clearly. The stoplight is red and he stops. It’s the town’s only stoplight, and two old people cross the street and look at him. But he is distracted, he looks forward, he doesn’t take his eyes from the road. He passes the plaza, the supermarket, and the service station. He passes the emergency clinic. He takes the gravel road, to the right. He drives slowly and in a straight line. He doesn’t drive around the potholes, or the small speed bumps. Beyond the town, Mr. Geser’s dogs come running out and bark at the tires, but he maintains his speed. He passes the house I rented with Nina. He doesn’t look at it. He leaves the house behind, and then Carla’s house comes into view. He takes the dirt road and goes up the hill. He leaves the car next to the trees and turns the motor off. He opens the car door. He is aware of how loud things are: when he closes the door, the slam echoes back from the fields. He looks at the dirty old house, the places where the roof was mended with tin. Behind it the sky is dark, and though it’s noon, some lights are on inside. He is nervous, and he knows someone might be watching him. Still without going up the three wooden steps, he looks at the open door and the plastic curtain tied across it. A small bell hangs from the roof, but he doesn’t pull the rope that hangs from it. Instead he knocks twice, and from inside a deep voice says, “Come in.” A man the same age as him is in the kitchen; he is looking for something in the cupboards and he pays no attention to my husband. It’s Omar, your father, but they don’t seem to know each other.

  “May I speak with you?” asks my husband.

  Your father doesn’t answer, and my husband chooses not to ask again. He starts to move closer, but he hesitates a moment. The kitchen is small and the man doesn’t move. My husband takes a step onto the damp wood floor, which creaks. Something in the man’s immobility makes my husband think this is not the first visit he has received.

  “Would you like some mate?” your father asks, his back already turned as he dumps the used yerba into the sink. My husband says yes. Your father points to one of the chairs, and he sits down.

  “I hardly even met your wife,” says your father. He sticks two fingers into the mate gourd and throws the remaining yerba away.

  “But your wife met her,” says my husband.

  “My wife is gone.”

  He puts the gourd on the table. He doesn’t slam it down, but it is not a friendly movement, either. He places the yerba and the sugar on the table, then sits down across from my husband and looks at him.

  “Go ahead,” he says.

  Hanging on the wall behind him, there are two pictures of the man with the same woman, and below are more photos of the man with various horses. A single nail holds them all up. Each picture hangs from the previous one, each tied with the same thin rope.

  “My daughter is not well,” says my husband. “It’s been more than a month, but . . .”

  Your father doesn’t look at him, and pours another mate.

  “I mean, she’s doing okay, they’re treating her and the spots on her skin don’t hurt as much anymore. She’s recovering, in spite of all she’s been through. But there’s something else, and I don’t know what it is. Something more, within her.” A few seconds pass before he goes on, as if he wanted to give your father time to take in his words. “Do you know what happened, what happened to Nina?”

  “No.”

  There is a moment of silence, very long, during which neither of the two moves.

  “You must know.”

  “I don’t know.”

  My husband slams his hands down on the table, contained but effective. The sugar bowl jumps and its lid falls a little to the side. Now your father does look at him, but he speaks without fear.

  “You know there’s nothing I can tell you.”

  Your father brings the straw to his mouth. It’s the only object that shines in the kitchen. My husband is going to say something else. But then there is a noise, it’s coming from the hallway. Something is happening that my husband, from where he’s sitting, can’t see. Something familiar for the other man, who isn’t alarmed. It’s you, David. There’s something different that I couldn’t begin to describe, but it’s you. You peer into the kitchen and stand there looking at them. My husband looks at you, his fists relax, he tries to calculate your age. He focuses on your strange gaze, which at certain moments strikes him as dim-witted; he notices your spots.

  “There you have it,” says your father, pouring another mate and again not offering any to my husband. “As you can see, I would also like to have someone to ask.”

  You wait quietly, attentive to my husband.

  “And now he’s started tying everything.”

  Your father points toward the living room, where many more things are hanging from rope, or are tied together with it. Now my husband’s whole attention is focused on that, though he couldn’t say why. It doesn’t seem like a disproportionate number of things. It seems more like, in your own way, you were trying to do something with the deplorable state of the house and everything in it. My husband looks at you again, trying to understand, but you run out through the front door, and the two men are left in silence to listen to your steps moving away from the house.

  “Come,” says your father.

  They get up almost at the same time. My husband follows him outside. He sees him glance to both sides as he goes down the steps, maybe looking for you. He sees your father as a tall and strong man, he sees his large hands hanging down at his sides, open. He stops, not far from the house. My husband takes a few steps toward him. They are close together, close and at
the same time alone in so much open land. Beyond the soy fields it looks green and bright under the dark clouds. But the ground they are walking on, from the road to the stream, is dry and hard.

  “You know,” says your father, “I used to work with horses.” He shakes his head, maybe to himself. “But do you hear my horses now?”

  “No.”

  “Do you hear anything else?”

  Your father looks around, as if he can hear the silence much farther away than my husband is capable of hearing. The air smells of rain and a damp breeze wafts up from the ground.

  “You need to go,” says your father.

  My husband nods as if grateful for the instruction, or the permission.

  “If it starts to rain you’ll get stuck in the mud, you won’t get out.”

  They walk together toward the car, now with more distance between them. Then my husband sees you. You’re sitting in the backseat. Your head barely clears the backrest. My husband approaches and looks in through the driver’s-side window, determined to make you get out. He wants to leave right now. Upright against the seat, you look him in the eyes, as though begging him. I see through my husband, I see those other eyes in yours. The seat belt on, legs crossed on the seat. A hand reaching slightly toward Nina’s stuffed mole, covertly, the dirty fingers resting on the stuffed legs as if trying to restrain them.

  “Get out, please,” says my husband. “Get out right now.”

  “As if he were going somewhere,” says your father, opening the back door of the car.

  Eyes desperately seek out my husband’s gaze. But your father unclasps the seat belt and pulls you out by the arm. My husband gets into the car, furious, while the two figures walk away, return to the house, distant. First one enters, then the other, and the door closes from inside. Only then does my husband start the car, drive down the hill, and take the gravel road. He feels like he’s already wasted enough time. He doesn’t stop in town. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t see the soy fields, the streams that crisscross the dry plots of land, the miles of open fields empty of livestock, the tenements and the factories as he reaches the city. He doesn’t notice that the return trip has grown slower and slower. That there are too many cars, cars and more cars covering every asphalt nerve. Or that the transit is stalled, paralyzed for hours, smoking and effervescent. He doesn’t see the important thing: the rope finally slack, like a lit fuse, somewhere; the motionless scourge about to erupt.