State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [80]
It was as if Dr. Swenson had vanished from the boat, as surely as Easter had vanished from it when he went over the side. Marina watched the hammock until its motion had settled. It was a magic trick: wrap her in a blanket and she’s gone. The quiet that was left without her was layered, subtle: at first Marina heard it only as silence, the absence of human voices, but once her ear had settled into it the other sounds began to rise, the deeply forested chirping, the caw that came from the tops of trees, the chattering of lower primates, the incessant sawing of insect life. It was not unlike the overture of the opera in which the well-trained listener could draw forth the piccolos, the soft French horn, a single meaningful viola. She leaned out from the shade’s protection and looked into the sun. Her watch said two o’clock. Easter sat on the deck in front of one of the many boxes that made up their furniture, a ballpoint pen in his right hand. Marina touched the empty hammock and then pointed to him. She folded her hands together and rested her head on them.
Easter shook his head, pointed to her, the hammock. He closed his eyes and dropped his chin. When she only stood there watching him he pointed again, this time using the pen for emphasis. She was supposed to go in the hammock.
It wasn’t a bad idea. She was tired. Still, she had the feeling that vigilance was in order. Didn’t someone need to stay awake and watch the jungle? Didn’t someone need to make sure the child did not fall overboard?
Easter got up and spread out the fabric with both hands, holding it open for her like an envelope and nodding instructively, as if perhaps the operation of a hammock was confusing to her. So he would watch the jungle. He would make sure she did not fall into the water. Obediently, she sat down, she lay down, and when she was settled in, Easter put his hand on her forehead and held it there as if she were a sick child. He smiled at her, and smiling back she closed her eyes. She was on a river in a boat in Brazil. She was in the Amazon taking a nap with Dr. Swenson.
She had had a good imagination as a child, though it had been systematically chipped apart by years of studying inorganic chemistry and charting lipids. These days Marina put her faith in data, the world she trusted was one that she could measure. But even with a truly magnificent imagination she could not have put herself in the jungle. She felt something slip across her rib cage—an insect? a bead of sweat? She kept still, looking out through the top of the hammock at the bright split of daylight in front of her. The midday heat tacked her into place. She thought about medical school, the fluorescent halls of that first hospital, the stacks of textbooks that made her back ache as she lugged them home from the library. Had she known that Dr. Swenson caught the last flight to Manaus after Thursday’s lecture on endometrial tissue, would she have wished that she could come along? Could she have seen herself in the Amazon at the side of her teacher on an expedition that forged ahead in science’s name? Dr. Swenson certainly had no trouble envisioning herself in the Amazon with Dr. Rapp when she was a student. Wasn’t it possible that she could have managed the same? Marina attempted to shift the knot of her hair to one side so that she was not lying on it so directly and in doing so set herself back into a gentle rocking. The answer was no. Marina had been a very good student, but she only raised her hand when she was certain of the answer. She excelled not through bright bursts of inspiration but by the hard labor of a field