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By Root 903 0

coming,” she said. Her eyes shifted constantly from one side of the street to the other in a slow nystagmus. In order to steady herself, she made an organized list in her mind of all the things that were making her nervous: it was night, and she wasn’t exactly sure where she was, though she could have easily turned around and found her way back to the opera house and from there, her hotel; she was unsteady in her shoes, which, along with the ridiculous dress, made her the human equivalent of a bird with a broken wing to any predator who might be out trawling the streets late at night; if there was a predator, she now had a deaf child to protect and she wasn’t exactly sure how she would manage that; as she felt the blisters coming up beneath the sandals’ straps she could not help but think of the countless explorers throughout history who had been taken down by the lowly blister, then she reassured herself that there was very little chance that this was how she would meet her end given the three different types of antibiotics Mr. Fox had sent along with her Lariam and the phone; and since this was a list of anxieties, she could not neglect the most pressing fear of all: assuming she made it to her destination tonight, she was then to sit down with Dr. Swenson and have a discussion about what exactly? Vogel’s rights and interests in Brazil? The location of Anders’ body?

Then, without so much as a footfall to announce him, Easter came up from behind her and put himself in the lead. At first she thought he must be bored by how slow she was and figured he meant to leave her, but instead he aligned himself to her pace. He would have been in easy reach had she just put out her hand. He had made himself her seeing-eye boy. As she watched his back, his shoulders barely wide enough to hang a shirt on, half the anxieties on her list fell away. With one hand she held Mrs. Bovender’s wrap firmly to her chest while her other hand was full of the silk of her skirt which she held up in order not to trip on it or let it drag in the pools of muddied rain left over from the late afternoon deluge. The night air pressed against her, moving roughly in and out of her lungs. It was very recently that she had been ill. Despite the pins and the spray and the black lacquered sticks with the gold Chinese fans, she could feel random sections of her hair breaking free and sliding damply down the back of her neck. When they reached the corner, Easter turned right, and without question or thought, she followed him.

Two blocks later, at about the point she was certain she would not be able to take another step, Easter dipped into a restaurant Marina had never seen before, on a street she couldn’t remember. He could not have seen Dr. Swenson go in but there she was, sitting at a table in the corner, a bottle of soda water in front of her that was already half consumed. If possible, the room was slightly darker than the night she had come in from and a small, single candle on every table stood in place of the stars. Half a dozen tables were occupied, a dozen more were empty. It was late. The boy, having completed his job, cut the shortest path between the other customers and sat in a wooden chair beside Dr. Swenson. Had she brought him in with her from the jungle or did Easter, along with Milton and the Bovenders, have his place on Vogel’s payroll? Dr. Swenson tilted the bread basket towards him and he took a piece and laid it nicely on his plate. Marina tried not to limp as she made her way towards them. For a moment she stood at the table saying nothing, her resplendence melted in the heat, and waited for the other woman to acknowledge her arrival. She could have waited for the rest of her life. “I lost you,” Marina said finally.

“Clearly you didn’t,” Dr. Swenson said. “Easter knew where we were going.”

“I didn’t know that Easter had been informed.”

Dr. Swenson was looking at the menu through a pair of half glasses. “I’m sure you realized soon enough. This place is a bit farther but that’s why the opera crowd avoids it. I can always get a table.”