Marshlands (7 page)

It cheered him to think there were slow accretions happening all around.

*   *   *

They left through a gate that overlooked the Mall, with its neat row of brilliantly lit monuments. Their glowing marble filled him with feeling—not patriotism, certainly, but perhaps a cousin of it, a sense of pride in being affiliated with so much power. He turned to her and said, with breath that left traces in the frosty air, that he wanted to give her flowers.

She burst out laughing and kissed his cheek, then gave him one of the lighter bags and hooked her free arm through his. She said there wasn't a florist for miles, when what they both knew she was saying was that he couldn't possibly afford flowers. He told her that she was a formidable woman, a born diplomat. She patted his arm as if he were an unwelcome suitor who'd just made a surprisingly good case for himself.

He was familiar with her neighborhood now. The cavernous elevator in her building no longer seemed threatening. There was no awkwardness at her door. She simply opened it before them, sat him down on the sofa, and fixed him a drink. He tried to refuse it, but she insisted, saying it was good for his nerves.

The drink was mostly tonic water with a splash of inexpensive gin. He would have preferred whiskey, but took several sips just to be sociable. It was full of ice and gave him a chill. He told her that tending bar was yet another of her talents. She answered from the kitchen that he was a liar, but a sweet one.

He finished the drink in a few long gulps, the faster to be done with it. His plan was to return the tumbler to the kitchen and to tell her how good everything smelled, but he couldn't seem to stand.

The sofa began to swallow him. He felt he was sinking up to the waist in cool desert sand. The sand around his thighs was especially cold. It had absorbed the frigid night air and was releasing it into his bones.

He woke to the sight of her kneeling at his feet, pressing a towel to the carpet. His empty glass was on the coffee table. There were ice cubes in his lap.

“You must have dozed off,” she said. He picked up an ice cube and tried to drop it in the glass, but somehow managed to miss. The cube hit the edge of the coffee table and shattered.

“Please,” she said, “don't worry about it. It's just ice. It's just water.”

“I'm a fool,” he said.

“No,” she said, “it was an accident.”

“Stupid, stupid,” he said.

“Really,” she said, “all I wanted was for you to relax a bit.”

He started to cry. His tears were as surprising to him as they were to her.

“No, no, no,” she said, “please.”

He apologized, but couldn't stop. “There's a medical term for this,” he said.

“You mean for crying?” she said. “Does it really need one?”

She got up and went back to the kitchen. He heard the banging of pots and pans, followed by a curse. He was awake now. He got down on the carpet, still feeling woozy, and went over the wet area with his sleeve. An ice cube had skittered under the sofa. He tried to reach it, but it was too far away. Still, it felt good to lie down.

When she came back and saw him on the floor, she helped him up, but brusquely. There was irritation in her voice when she announced that dinner was ready. She sat him at the little table in the kitchen facing the sink, which was piled high; it looked as though she'd used every pot and pan in the kitchen to prepare their meal.

She served him in silence. He waited for her to be seated, but she went to the sink and began cleaning up.

He asked her to join him, but she insisted that he go ahead and start.

He was certainly hungry enough. The food smelled delicious. The drink and tiny nap had sharpened his appetite. He still had no idea what she'd prepared. Some kind of meat stew with wild rice.

Finally, she realized he wasn't going to eat without her. She made herself a plate with very small portions and sat down.

There was no talking for a while. The stew was the kind of dish that should have been simmered for hours. Even so, the flavors were good. He liked the rice the best. She made it in the marsh style, sautéing it with a bit of onion before adding water, which made it glutinous. He could have eaten several helpings of the rice with gravy, but there was no way to leave the meat, so he ate the meat as well, cutting it into bits.

She misinterpreted his fastidious cutting. She apologized and said she should have known that his teeth would still be sore.

Even though he didn't want there to be any untruth between them, he was grateful for a reason not to have to eat the meat, which was very strong and gamey. She asked if he knew what kind of meat it was.

He shook his head.

She smiled triumphantly and told him it was wild boar. She obviously considered boar a great delicacy. Here in the capital, it probably was, but back in the marshes he used to hunt boar all the time, not for the meat but to ease the burden of the farmers, whose crops were ravaged by wild pigs, and who were often victims of their deadly attacks.

He started to say something about boars, but she cut him off. “Would you be interested in staying on at the clinic?” she asked.

It was an odd question. She made it sound as though working there had been his idea. He said that being with patients made him feel useful, but he doubted he had much to contribute.

She told him he was being too hard on himself. “It was only your first day,” she said. Then she asked him what he thought the clinic needed.

“A real doctor, for a start,” he said.

“Seriously, what else?” she said, handing him some paper and a mechanical pencil. “Make a list. Think of it as a village dispensary, a place equipped to handle anything short of major surgery.”

The phone rang. She answered it in the living room while he worked on his list. The problem interested him.

He'd already made a page of notes when she came back to the kitchen and leaned on his shoulder. Her eyes were brimming over.

“So much for my ally on the board,” she said.

He wrapped an arm around her waist. She curved herself to him and stood that way for a time.

“They're going to ruin my village,” she said. “For the second time.”

“I'm so sorry,” he said.

There were only a few ways for the evening to resolve itself, all of them complicated. He asked if he could use her shower. She told him he was welcome to.

He showered without any thought of how much hot water he was using. The bathroom was full of steam by the time he finished. The towels were all very large. He wrapped himself up to the armpits in one before going back out.

She'd laid out fresh clothes for him on her bed. He took them back to the bathroom and dressed. The bathroom was very small and the floor was wet, but he was glad of a few more minutes behind a closed door.

He found her asleep on the couch in the living room, a half-empty bottle of wine nearby on the coffee table. She was snoring; her parted lips revealed purplish teeth. He tried to help her to bed, but she rolled away from him, so he gave up and covered her with a sofa blanket. Then he sat by her on the floor, from time to time brushing the hair from her sleeping eyes.

His legs fell asleep, and still he didn't move. He found himself humming an old song.

“That's pretty,” she said.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered.

“It sounds like a marsh tune,” she said, reaching for his hand. She nuzzled it, tucking it under her cheek like a pillow.

He shifted his arm, trying to make it comfortable for her.

“Here,” she said, “come up here with me.”

She tried to make space for him, but the couch was narrow. He wound up more or less on top of her, his arms straining to support his weight.

“You can lie on me,” she said, “I won't break.”

He laid his head on her breast. She wrapped her arms around him.

He felt whole, or nearly whole.

“Are your parents still alive?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “But I don't think so.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I miss mine, too.” She pulled his face to hers and kissed him. She shifted under him, freeing him with busy hands, then pulled her own clothes aside.

He felt for a time that he was drifting on a lake, the sunlight warm on his shoulders. He didn't want to hasten it, but his body moved anyway.

She strained against him, clasping with her thighs.

Afterward, they fell asleep.

She woke him a few hours later and led him to her bed. It was dark. His leggings had come unwrapped. He was embarrassed to be half naked in front of her.

She brought him a glass of water, which he drank in great gulps. She laughed and told him to save some for her.

They climbed under the sheets. He thought he might be dreaming, but her earthy smell was real enough.

Somehow she managed to guide him inside of her again. They moved together for a while, but it didn't build to anything. She kept stroking his face and asking about his childhood. He told her everything she wanted to know. He wasn't capable of holding back.

She listened, craning her neck to kiss him from time to time.

Then they were quiet together, but he couldn't sleep.

“Now it's your turn,” he said.

She turned on the bedside light and held up her hand for his inspection. He traced an old scar in the meat of her palm. “Don't you recognize your own work?” she asked.

“Ah,” he said, “you were my patient.”

“I was just a girl,” she said.

“Was I nice to you?”

“Very,” she said.

“That's good. What else?”

“You knew my father.” She said a name he didn't recognize. “That was his given name,” she said, “but you knew him as the Magheed.”

It was a name from a different life. It pierced him. “That's impossible,” he said. “You can't be
that
Thali.”

“Can't I?”

“I saw your business card.”

“I took my mother's maiden name when I came to this country.”

He shook his head. “Your father was the Magheed?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You're
that
Thali?”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a while. Her hand found his under the sheet.

“I should have been with him at the end,” he said. “I could have protected him. At least I could have tried. But by the time I got back to the village, it was too late.”

“They did him like a thief,” she said, “but he wasn't.”

“No, he wasn't.”

He pulled his hand away. “I was a fool back then. I did things your father would have called
unclean
.”

“I heard,” she said.

“You did?”

“Yes.”

Something grew in him until finally he blurted it out. “Did we just insult his memory?”

“Oh, Gus,” she said. “My father admired you. He thought of you as one of us.”

“I wanted to be. I tried.”

“Well, you were and you weren't,” she said. “Just like me.”

He wanted to ask what she meant, but she yawned and said it was way past her bedtime. “Besides,” she murmured, “it's almost time for work.”

The building was waking up. He'd stubbed his toe on a plastic three-wheeler the other night, and now he heard a child racing it up and down the hallway. He lay still, trying to sense the faint vibrations of the wheels, the way he used to pause sometimes at dusk outside the camp, listening for thunder.

II

(TWENTY-ONE YEARS EARLIER)

1

Master
, my canoe boy asks, breaking the silence that has reigned between us for nearly an hour,
tell me again, what is your tribe?

I don't have an easy answer for him. I could say my tribe is the occupying army, or the hospital staff
,
or my aging parents, who say they understand what I'm doing in the marshes, but keep agitating, year after year, for me to come home.

What I want to say is,
My people have evolved beyond tribes.
But to a marshman, that would be absurd. It would be like saying,
My people have evolved beyond hunger.

A man must eat. Just so, a man must have a tribe.

But it's an earnest question, and earnest questions ought to be answered.
First of all
, I say,
how many times have I asked you not to call me master?

He turns and smiles good-naturedly, as if I have praised and not chided him.

You and I are not so different
, I say.
We both come from small tribes surrounded by strong enemies
.

It's an oblique answer. I'm not even sure what I mean by it myself. Sometimes the sentences run off on their own when I use the language of the marshmen.

He finds meaning in it anyway. I can tell he approves by the way his eyes narrow. My answer seems guileful to him, and guile is something the marshman respects.

Then, for the umpteenth time, he proceeds to recite his lineage, which is his way of scolding me for my lack of roots. He's talkative today. For two weeks, we've been living in close quarters, and he has respected my wish for quiet. But now the hunt is over. It's time to return to the field hospital. I've ordered him to turn us around—no small feat in the weed-choked channels, which are barely wide enough, in most places, to accommodate the sharp prow of my canoe.

The prospect of sleeping once again in his own hut has loosened his tongue. He narrates highlights of our hunt as if I hadn't lived them myself.
Five pigs!
he exclaims.
Who will believe we killed five pigs?
He digs a heel into our game bag, which is bulging with the day's coot.
A good hunt
, he says. He's proud of my shooting skills. I'm proud of his, too.

In a moment of enthusiasm, I call him by his nickname, Chigger, which makes his shoulders ripple with pleasure. He prefers that I use his official title,
canoe boy
, within earshot of his friends, but out here, with no one else around, we are at ease.