State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [147]
“Marina!” Alan called.
She went to them. The Lakashi were busy at their trees and the gentle sound of their mastication was a comfort to her. One of the women patted her bottom as she walked past, her mouth firm to the bark. It was her nurse. Marina patted the back of her head.
“She’s gone completely native,” Alan said to Mr. Fox.
Like everything else around this place, Mr. Fox looked better in the light of day standing between the trunks of the Martins. He had on a blue shirt this morning and a darker pair of pants. She couldn’t quite believe that in his rush to find her he had brought a change of clothes. “I was meaning to ask about the dress last night.”
Marina brushed off the front of the coarse fabric. “It’s the local uniform.”
“What happened to your clothes?”
Marina shook her head. “A misunderstanding,” she said. “Really, the dress has been fine.”
“If my legs looked as good as yours I’d wear one too,” Nancy Saturn said.
While Marina’s legs were of sound basic construction they were also bruised, unshaven, scabbed, and covered in a fierce topography of insect bites. It struck Marina then that it wasn’t only Mr. Fox she was lying to. She was lying to the other doctors, her friends, who would certainly have wanted to know that she had more than a professional relationship with the man they were trying to snow. A small Lakashi woman who had finished her requisite amount of bark came up behind Marina and gave her shoulder two hard taps and Marina sat down on the ground with thoughtless obedience. She didn’t mind sitting down in the Martins. All of the insects save the purple martinets cut a wide berth around this part of the jungle. The woman untied the end of Marina’s braid and combed out her hair with her fingers.
“Is this a service?” Mr. Fox asked.
“You can’t stop them,” Marina said. “There is absolutely no fighting this.”
“I had long hair the first month I was here,” Nancy said, nodding at Marina. “They were all over me. As soon as I cut it off I was invisible to them.”
“They fix Budi’s hair every morning,” Alan said. “They come to her hut.”
“So you’ve gotten used to the place?” Mr. Fox said, and for the first time he sounded as if he were speaking to Marina as if she were someone he had met before.
She nodded. “Finish your tour and then I’ll take you back. You can catch me up on everything I’ve missed at work.”
Mr. Fox agreed to this and went off with the Saturns. Marina listened to their voices—Martins and martinets and not a single mention of Rapps. She leaned forward from where she was sitting and picked one, the smallest, bluest mushroom that grew at the base of the tree. It was hardly bigger than her little finger. She brought it to her nose and sniffed it like a daisy and the woman who was braiding her hair began to laugh. She leaned over Marina’s shoulder and sniffed the mushroom herself, then she put her arms around Marina from the back and hugged her, giggling into her neck until Marina had to laugh herself. When the woman finished Marina’s hair she took the mushroom from her fingers and, giving a quick, furtive glance to either side, popped it in her mouth and walked away.
The Saturns stayed behind with their litmus paper and their cotton swabs while Marina walked Mr. Fox back to the lab. The Lakashi trickled past, raising their hands to her.
“You’re popular here,” he said.
She stopped and turned to him. She took his hands. They had gone to Chicago together once, gotten a fancy room at the Drake and stayed in bed until noon. “I wrote to you. Some of the letters will get there eventually. The second suitcase was lost and I didn’t have the phone.” Three more women came by. One of them reached down and slapped Marina’s thighs and Mr. Fox let go of her hands. “Don’t worry about them,” she said. “They don’t report back to anyone.”
“Still,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marina said. “No one cares what we’re doing. It didn’t matter before either.