State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [59]
The night air was heavy and warm but there was a slight fish-smelling breeze coming from the river. Marina and Milton found the other three on the great tiled landing in front of the opera house, their faces turned in the direction of that breeze. Countless thousands of insects poured towards the electric lights that bathed the sides of the magnificent building and flooded over into the terraces and the streets below them. Even in the noise of the crowd Marina could hear the thrumming of wings, the various pitches of buzzing sounds they made. Their enthrallment of the light reminded her of the audience at the end of the final aria. They were driven mad by it. They could never have enough.
“The Bovenders tell me that nothing has changed since I’ve been gone,” Dr. Swenson said as Milton and Marina approached them. “Is that true? An entire city and nothing changes?”
“I can’t think of any changes in the last ten years,” Milton said.
“There must be something,” Dr. Swenson said. Her face was tilted up and the spotlight above her head seemed to shine on her alone. It was as if she had been cut out of light and pasted onto a dark background, powerfully removed from the crowds around her the way she was in memory. Even though this was exactly the person Marina had been looking for, she could not overcome the feeling that two very distant points in her life were now colliding in a way that should be relegated only to bad dreams. The last time she had actually seen Dr. Swenson was the day before the accident. Throughout the inquisition they had no contact and after the inquisition she left the program. She hadn’t thought of that before.
“Well, Marina’s here now,” Jackie offered.
“I would prefer something I didn’t already know.”
Milton thought for a moment. “Rodrigo is stocking flea collars in his store. He says you can put them under your pillow, it keeps things out of the bed.”
Dr. Swenson nodded her head approvingly, as if this were exactly the piece of information she had hoped to uncover. “I’ll get some in the morning.”
That was when a slightly built boy, a Brazilian Indian, wandered towards them, slipping easily between adults without touching their clothes. He was noticeable even in the crowd because he represented two groups that were largely absent from the evening: children and Indians. He wore a pair of nylon shorts and a green T-shirt that said “World Cup Soccer.” He looked like the boys who sat on blankets in the square selling bracelets and small animals carved out of nuts. He had the same dark silky hair and eyes that appeared overly large, when in fact it was his face that was too small. Logic would dictate that this child would be selling something as well, children were industrious in Manaus: hawking fans and postcards and butterflies in wooden boxes, but his hands were empty.
“Easter!” Barbara Bovender cried, and dropped down to sit on the back of her heels, a perilous maneuver in so short a dress. She held out her arms to the boy who ran into them, burying his face in her neck.
“It’s the hair,” Dr. Swenson said. “He never can get over it.”
Jackie leaned over to pick the child up and his wife came up as well. The boy had filled both of his hands with her hair and was studying it intently, a luminous rope thrown down from the gods. He was too old to be picked up and clearly it delighted him. “I think you’re bigger,” Jackie said, jostling him up and down as if trying to guess his weight.
“He isn’t bigger,” Dr. Swenson said. She tapped the boy on the chest and when he looked at her she spoke. “Dr. Singh.” She raised her right index finger and touched that hand to her left wrist, then drew a line up her throat with one finger and pulled that same finger into the air from her mouth. Then she pointed at Marina. He let go of Barbara’s hair and gave Marina his hand.
“Look at that!” Jackie said, as if this were a particularly clever trick for a boy. “He can shake.” As a reward he tossed the child up in the air a few inches,