State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [37]
When the rains came hard and caught her out too far to run back to the hotel, Marina would go to the Internet café and pay five dollars to look up information about Dr. Swenson or her tribe, but as she sat there trying not to let her hair drip on the keyboard she found there was remarkably little information to be had. Google Annick Swenson and there were course descriptions, appearances at medical conferences, papers—mostly related to gynecological surgery—some tedious postings from medical students who complained that Dr. Swenson’s classes, and probably all of their classes, were unfairly difficult. Most of the mentions of Lakashi linked back to the New England Journal of Medicine article, although the name also came up in relation to the famous Harvard ethnobotanist Martin Rapp, who had first interacted with the tribe while taking plant samples in 1960. His interest in them as a people appeared nominal, as his writing about their habits was limited to which species of fungi they did and did not consume. There was a single picture of him, an extremely thin sunburnt man with light hair and a straight English nose who stood a head above the natives on either side of him. They were all holding up mushrooms. Marina read everything she could find about Dr. Rapp and the Lakashi in hopes that there might be some clues as to their location, but the most specific directive she found was “central Amazon basin.” Leave it to Dr. Swenson to somehow manage to keep the Internet out of her business.
“Tell me they’ve found the suitcase,” Mr. Fox said as soon as he answered the phone. Mr. Fox had somehow become more focused on whether or not she had made successful contact with her luggage than with either Dr. Swenson or the mythical Bovenders.
“Apparently the airport code for Manaus is MAO. Madrid is MAD. The theory is that an O starts to look like a D after a certain number of suitcases and so they start sending bags to Spain.”
“I’m going to mail you another phone,” he said. “I’ll get it programmed and shipped down there tomorrow. You’re going to need more Lariam soon anyway. Make a list of what you want.”
“Nothing,” she said, looking at the rings of insect bites that braceleted her wrists and ankles, hard red bumps that she longed to dig out with her fingernails. “I don’t need anything. The second you send another phone my suitcase will show up and then I’ll have two.”
“So then you’ll have two. You can give one to Dr. Swenson. There may be someone she wants to call.”
In fact, Marina enjoyed not having a telephone. She had started out as an intern with a pager and then added to that a cell phone that later turned into a BlackBerry. In Manaus, there was an almost indescribable sense of freedom that came from wandering around in a strange city knowing that she was unreachable. “Speaking of Dr. Swenson, I’ve been reading about the Lakashi.”
“It’s always good to read up on people before you meet them,” Mr. Fox replied.
“It’s an interesting article but she doesn’t exactly give anything away.”
“Dr. Swenson doesn’t mean to give things away.”
“So what’s the secret ingredient? Does she even know? Certainly the Lakashi don’t know. I don’t care how primitive these women are, if they understood what they were doing that was causing them to remain fertile unto death they’d stop doing it.”
Mr. Fox fell silent on his end and Marina waited.
“You know and you don’t want to tell me?” Marina said, laughing. Surely his secretary, the very serious Mrs. Dunaway,