State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [126]
“You’ll like this,” Dr. Swenson said, and turned back to the path they had come down. “This will be right up your alley.”
Marina was out the door and down the steps. Dr. Swenson did not wait for her and had continued to carry on their conversation alone. “I know how much you’ve been looking forward to practicing medicine while you’re here. I think we’ve found you an opportunity.”
Even with Dr. Swenson six or seven months pregnant Marina had to rush to keep up with them. The man was setting the pace and the pace was quick. She kept a close eye on the ground. Marina had a particular fear of breaking her ankle. “I didn’t say that.”
Dr. Swenson stopped and turned to Marina. The man now looked petrified. It was imperative they continue their forward motion. He raised up the bag in case she had forgotten it and began a quick monologue in Lakashi, but Dr. Swenson held up her hand. “You did. You remember, on the boat. We were discussing the girl with the machete in her head.”
“I do remember,” Marina said, marveling at how the panic rising up in her was obliterating all of her questions: Why did you give Anders over to them and why did you lie about it and there was something else after that but now she couldn’t remember. “I thought it was right for you to attend to the cases that presented themselves.”
“That presented themselves to me as a doctor, or you as a doctor. Either way, you waved the Hippocratic oath above our heads like a flag so now you’ll have the chance to bask in its glory.”
“I’m a pharmacologist.”
To the man’s great relief Dr. Swenson started walking again. The sun was high and bright and very hot. “Yes, well, I can’t get on the floor and in this village things happen on the floor, and if you’re planning to tell me that they should bring his wife to the lab, I’ve already suggested that. She can’t go down the ladder. As much as I am opposed to hosting a medical clinic in my office, I am considerably more opposed to house calls.”
“What’s wrong with his wife?”
Dr. Swenson passed a dead log covered in bright red butterflies and the breeze that she made caused them to startle and disperse upwards into a bright red cloud. “It has something to do with the birth of a child. If you are ever betting on the nature of a local tragedy you’ll never go broke putting your money on that one. For the most part they do it remarkably well but the sheer volume in which they reproduce brings forth a certain number of errors.”
“Do you know what this error is?” Marina was walking faster and faster when everything in her was saying she should stop.
Dr. Swenson shook her head. “No idea.”
“But you said you didn’t want to interfere.” Interference in the medical needs of an indigenous people suddenly struck Marina as the worst possible idea. She could see now the virtue in leaving them alone, of observing without imposition. “You distinctly said there was someone—”
“The county witch doctor, yes. His malaria has flared again. He’s running such a fever we’ve been asked to go by and check on him later. There is also, you will be pleased to know, a midwife, who is presently in labor herself. She is being attended by the midwife-in-training, who is her daughter. The daughter would feel much more comfortable if we stopped in.”
“Who told you this? It isn’t possible.”
“The messages are collected by Benoit, who brings them to Dr. Nancy Saturn. Benoit and Dr. Saturn can stumble along together in Portuguese. Frankly, the chain of communication is so weak that we might arrive and find out none of this is true. I do a better job communicating