State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [151]
In her fevered dreams, Dr. Swenson often gave bits and pieces of lectures, and sometimes it was a lecture Marina remembered, “Ectopic Pregnancy and the Damage to Fallopian Tubes.” She fell into another broken sleep, the blood of Thomas Nkomo making a slow loop through her veins. Marina gave her fluids and tinkered with the antibiotics. For all that they lacked in the jungle their assortment of antibiotics was as comprehensive as any hospital pharmacy. She checked the incision, watched for excessive swelling. She sat in the small room with the door open and read the copious notes on malaria. As the days went by, Dr. Swenson’s fevers would stop and then start again. Marina upped the dosages, beat them back. It was days before they could sit her up, and then stand her up. Marina worried about clots. With Easter on one side and Marina on the other, Dr. Swenson walked halfway down the path to the lab. When she was safely back in bed, too tired even to sleep, Marina read to her from Great Expectations. That became their new routine, and if the chapter was particularly good, or the day particularly dull, Dr. Swenson would ask Marina to read her some more. Easter sat on the floor with his paper and pad and practiced bending straight lines into the alphabet. Marina wrote out Dr. Swenson and put it on Dr. Swenson’s chest. She wrote the word Marina and put it in her lap.
“Did you think I’d forget?” Dr. Swenson said, looking at the piece of paper when she woke.
“I’m trying to give him a few new words,” Marina said.
Dr. Swenson put the piece of paper back on her chest and patted it there. “Good. Let him remember this. Dr. Eckman was always trying to teach him to write Minnesota. That was never going to do him any good.”
“You never know,” Marina said.
“I do know. I think about Dr. Eckman now. There is something very specific about having a fever in the tropics, very unlike having a fever at home. Here you feel the air burning into you, or you are burning into it. After a time one loses all parameters, even the parameter of skin. I think he couldn’t possibly have understood what was happening to him.”
“Probably not,” Marina said. It had been almost a week since Easter had left one of Anders’ letters in the bed. He must have run out of them. Easter was sitting shirtless by the door and the sun fell over exactly half of him, one leg and one arm, the left side of his face. The bruises had in time faded down to a dull green.
“How well do you think I am now?”
“You’re through the worst of it but I wouldn’t say you’re well. That will take a long time. You know more about it than I do.”
Dr. Swenson nodded. “That’s what I’ve been thinking myself. Dr. Budi, Dr. Nkomo, even the botanist could look after me now.”
In fact they came to visit every day. Just that morning Dr. Budi brought a bouquet of pink blossoms from the Martin trees in a drinking glass, who knows how she had managed to get them. They were there on the bedside table, the heavy blossoms crossing the face of Dr. Rapp. The Lakashi came too, the women keeping a silent vigil outside the window while they unbraided and rebraided one another’s hair. Any one of them would have taken care of her if given the chance. Marina told her as much.
“None of them would do the job like you. I trained you myself, after all. You do your follow-up the way it’s meant to be done. I would like to keep you on, Dr. Singh. You certainly could manage Vogel, keep them happy while everyone else did their work. The other doctors