State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [32]
Marina shook her head. “Books,” she said, “a coat.” The manual for the phone that was lost. A neck pillow for sleeping on the plane. A copy of The Wings of the Dove, which she brought because she thought it was long enough to see her through the entire trip. A copy of the New England Journal of Medicine, which contained a chapter of Dr. Swenson’s report—“Reproductive Endocrinology in the Lakashi People.”
“Then we must get you some things tonight,” he said. His brother-in-law ran a store in town. Milton took out his cell phone, assuring her the brother-in-law would be amenable to meeting them with the keys despite the late hour, not a problem, and Marina, who very much wanted a toothbrush, accepted.
Milton was careful to maneuver around those potholes which could be maneuvered around. He drove cautiously through the ones that could not. People clumped together on corners of busy streets waiting for a light to cross, but when the lights changed they continued to stand there. Girls dressed for dancing pushed strollers past walls pasted over in handbills. An old woman with a broom swept debris through the middle of an intersection. Marina watched all of it thinking of Anders, wondering if he had seen these same people on the night he arrived. She couldn’t imagine things in Manaus changed very much from one night to the next. “Did you drive Dr. Eckman?” Marina asked.
“Eckman,” Milton said, as if it were an object whose English name was unfamiliar to him.
“Anders Eckman. He came here just after Christmas. We work for the same company.”
Milton shook his head. “Do many of your doctors come to Brazil?”
Exactly three, Marina thought, and then she said, “Not many.” Of course no one would have thought to get Anders a car and driver. Anders would have found his luggage and taken it to the taxi line, opened his Portuguese phrase book and rehearsed the sentence, “What is the fare to the hotel?” It occurred to Marina now how close she was to him here. She thought of him standing in that same airport, his feet planted on the same asphalt outside. They had been divided by only a scant handful of months, one of them slipping out the back door while the other was coming in the front. It was then that an entirely different idea came to Marina. “Did you ever drive a woman named Dr. Swenson?”
“Dr. Swenson, of course. She is a very good customer. Do you work with Dr. Swenson as well?”
Marina sat up straighter then and as soon as she did she felt her seat belt lock into place. If Vogel hadn’t bothered to hire a driver for Anders they certainly would have found one for Dr. Swenson, or Dr. Swenson would have found one for herself. It would be a car as clean as this one, a driver as strikingly competent. “Do you know where she lives?”
“In Manaus, yes. It isn’t far from your hotel. But Dr. Swenson is rarely in Manaus. Her work is in the jungle.” Milton stopped then, and Marina saw him glance at her in the rearview mirror. “You know her, yes?” He should not be talking about the people he drives. He should not be talking about Dr. Swenson.
“She was my teacher in medical school,” Marina said, offering up this bit of her past so easily it felt like a lie. “Many years ago. We work for the same company now. I’ve come here to find her. Our company has sent me to talk to her about the project she’s working on.”
“And so you know,” Milton said, his voice relieved.
“I have her address in town but no one is able to reach her where she’s working. Dr. Swenson won’t use cell phones.”
“She calls me from the pay phone at the dock when she comes to the city.”
“And it doesn’t matter if you’re driving someone else . . .” She was speaking from her own, distant experience.
Milton nodded then, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “There’s never any warning when she’s coming, when she leaves. Sometimes months go by and she doesn’t come in from the jungle. I grew up in Manaus. I wouldn’t spend so much time out there.”
“Nothing bothers Dr. Swenson,” Marina said.
“No,” Milton said, but after more consideration he added, “except not being picked up at