State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [73]
A double-decker tourist boat glided by without slowing and for a moment they were caught in its churning wake. As they pitched forward and back, rolling like a barrel in the little waves, Marina grabbed on to a pole and Easter raised his fist at the bigger boat. A tourist on the upper level pointed a camera in their direction. Dr. Swenson dropped her head for a moment, as if willing the other boat to sink through powers of concentration.
After the worst of the rolling had abated, Dr. Swenson lifted her head, her blue eyes bright and ringed in sweat. “Always buy a pontoon,” she said, panting lightly as if making an effort not to vomit. “You cannot imagine how hard that wake would have hit us had we not been in a pontoon. But I was making a point: Easter is a very small child, I would go so far as to say he is stunted. This could have been caused by a consistent lack of nutrition. It seems quite possible that no one was willing to give much of the tribe’s resources to a deaf child, or it could be that whatever illness rendered him deaf also rendered him small but now I am straying into what can only be called guessing, which is never helpful. Given his skills, his ability to learn, I would think him to be a twelve-year-old of normal, perhaps above-normal, intelligence. I’ll have a more precise judgment when he reaches puberty. The onset of puberty in the Lakashi male falls consistently between thirteen-point-two and thirteen-point-eight, a much narrower window than you find in American males. Whether or not this holds true of the Hummocca I am afraid I will never know. Do you have children, Dr. Singh?”
Marina was at least three questions behind. She wanted very much to know about the unpleasant encounter but, feeling she had been called on to give the easiest answer, merely shook her head. “None.”
“That’s good. Dr. Eckman had no business coming down here leaving three children behind. Are you married?”
“I am not.”
“Good again.” Dr. Swenson nodded her approval before turning her face towards the breeze. The sky spooled blue above the river in both endless directions. “This is a business for old maids, and I don’t say that derogatorily, being one myself. I feel better about you being on the boat knowing your circumstances.”
Speaking of suppositions, how much light could being unmarried and childless shed on her circumstances? Did it mean that no one would miss her terribly if she were to die, that there wouldn’t be the same set of complications brought about by Dr. Eckman’s death? Marina said nothing but sat down on the deck near Dr. Swenson’s feet. The sun edged beneath the boat’s awning and she wanted more of the shade.
Dr. Swenson leaned to the side and patted her case of canned hash with an open hand. “I prefer to sit on a box. A box doesn’t protect one from the roaches but I like to think it sends a message: We are on another level. There is a case of grapefruit juice there. I would recommend that.”
Obediently, Marina got up and pushed the box of juice forward, sat. They passed a handful of open houses built onto stilts. Several children, all of them too young to be standing alone in the water, were standing waist deep in the river, waving.
“As for Easter’s parents—” Dr. Swenson stopped then and looked at the captain’s small back. She tilted her head. “Parents seems a very sentimental word to use in his case. The man who inseminated the woman, the woman who pushed the child out of her body, other members of the tribe who may or may not have tried to raise that child when the original duo failed in their responsibilities: his parents have not been in evidence. The Hummocca left it up to the Lakashi, which, considering the nature of the tribe, strikes me as a startling act of humanity. I would have thought them more inclined to abandon a child in the jungle to starve to death or be eaten. All of which is to say he has been with me