State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [45]
“Marriages have been built on less,” Marina said, although in truth she didn’t think this was the case.
“Do you swim?” Milton asked her. He was wearing his trousers and his white short-sleeved shirt. He showed no signs of removing them.
“I know how,” she said, “if that’s what you’re asking.”
Barbara stretched along her towel, her oiled body reflecting light from every surface except for the few discreet areas covered by fabric. There was a small, circular diamond hanging in the gold chain of her anklet and it glinted along with her skin. “It’s so hot,” she cried quietly.
“Hot is what we do best,” Milton said. He had a little straw hat sitting on the top of his head and somehow it made him look cooler than the rest of them.
“Let’s go for a swim,” Jackie said, and leaned over to smack his wife’s stomach lightly with the flat of his open hand. Her whole body jumped an inch off her towel.
“The water is only going to be hotter,” she said.
“Up, up, up,” he said, and stood himself, leaning down to pull her to her feet. She paused a moment to shake the sand out of her pale hair. It was for the other beach-goers as great a spectacle as her husband standing on his hands. They were halfway to the water, their arms draped against each other’s naked waists, when they turned back to their compatriots. “You’re coming, aren’t you?” Jackie asked.
Marina shook her head. “Go, go,” Milton said. “We’ll come and watch.” He got up stiffly and helped Marina to her feet. “They want us to see how pretty they are in the river.”
“They were pretty enough just lying there,” Marina said.
“We are the parents,” Milton said. “We have to watch.”
Marina went along with a sullen sense of duty, but out from under the umbrella the world was a different place. It had not been cool beneath the candy colored stripes, but away from them the sun meted out a pummeling that was stunning. She stopped for a moment to spot the Bovenders as they walked into the brown water holding hands. On a few occasions since arriving in Brazil she had been as hot but she had always been able to step into the shade, to go into a café for a can of soda, return to her hotel room and stand in a cold shower. She had come to know in advance when the heat was about to overwhelm her as clearly as if there had been a thermometer built into her wrist and so she had been able to save herself accordingly, but looking out at the water and the sand she was uncertain of where she could go. She was melting into the people around her, into Milton. There was a little ice chest beneath the umbrella that Milton had brought with them—cool bottles of water and beers for Jackie. She could rub a piece of ice against her neck. Far ahead of them the Bovenders sank into the water and blurred into all of the other children around them as they swam away. With everything in her she cursed them for being unwilling, unable, to wake before nine. After all, she had been tired herself. She had taken a Lariam fresh from the new bottle Mr. Fox had sent the night before and at three in the morning she had woken herself, and no doubt everyone else in the Hotel Indira, with her interminable screaming. Someone is stabbing a woman to death, was the thought she had swimming up through sleep before she realized where the sound was coming from. After that she was finished for the night, no more sleep, just waiting.
“You do a good job of this,” Milton said, keeping his eyes towards the river. “I admire your patience.”
“Believe me, I have no patience.”
“Then you create the illusion of patience. In the end the effect is the same.”
“All I want to do is find Dr. Swenson and go home,” she said slowly. The words coming out of her mouth felt hot.
“And to get to Dr. Swenson and to get home you must first get past the Bovenders. The Bovenders are the guards of the gate. It is their job to keep you away from her, that’s what they’re paid for. I have no idea