moment all was well. When she went on board the men who had been scraping at the log stopped what they were doing and stood up straight to stare at her, their curved knives tapping against their thighs. It was a matter of seconds before she established her bag was not on board. The deck was empty and there was no place a piece of luggage could be hidden away. Marina ran her tongue over her teeth and thought again of her toothbrush. The morning was already hot and the air was thick with the smell of leaves rotting and leaves unfolding. Down by the water the mosquitoes helped themselves to her ankles and dug a well into the nape of her neck. One flew down the back of her shirt to bite beneath her shoulder blade in a place she would never be able to scratch. She wanted this suitcase much more than she had wanted the one that never arrived in Manaus. She wondered if somewhere in the storage shed where she was sleeping there might be a case of insect repellent, and for the first time she considered the word insecticide in relation to the word homicide. Suddenly she felt a shift among the Lakashi, a collective straightening of spines that was followed by an animated chatter she could not parse into any words she knew. Then she saw a very tall black man as thin as a drinking straw emerge from the jungle, his small wire glasses glinting sunlight. He dipped his head in every direction in a gesture that was less than a bow but considerably more than a nod, and from every corner the people stood and dipped their heads in return. A few of them called out a phrase of greeting and he repeated it back to them, capturing perfectly the same rhythmic swing at the end of the sentence that threw the crowd into raptures. The women held up their babies and wagged them towards him, the men laid down their knives. They proceeded then to engage in a sort of call-and-response, a person in the tribe throwing out a phrase and the tall man repeating it. No matter how complicated a sentence they served he managed to volley it back. The Lakashi were rocking side to side in complete satisfaction, at which point the man gave a much lower bow that seemed to indicate it had all been great fun but now was the time to return to work.
“Dr. Singh, I presume,” he said, walking around a fire to offer his hand to Marina. He wore khaki pants and a blue cotton shirt that looked as if they had been banged out repeatedly on rocks. “Thomas Nkomo. It is a pleasure.” His English was so musical and so clearly not his first language that Marina wondered if he had learned to speak it through singing.
“A pleasure,” she said, taking his long, thin hand.
“Dr. Swenson told us you would be returning with her. I had wanted to meet you last night, to say welcome, but with everyone turning out to greet you I could not even get close.”
“I don’t think it was me they were coming to greet.” Dr. Swenson told him she would be returning with her?
“The Lakashi like to make things happen. They’re always looking for reasons to celebrate.”
Marina nodded to the crowd behind them who had sat down to watch their conversation as if it were a theater piece. “You speak their language beautifully.”
Thomas Nkomo laughed. “I’m a parrot. What they give me I can return to them. It is the way I learn. They know some Portuguese, the traders come through or they go to Manaus, but I make an attempt to speak Lakashi. One must not be shy where language is concerned.”
“I wouldn’t know how to start with this one.”
“You must first open your mouth.”
“Do you understand Lakashi?”
He shrugged. “I know more than I think I do. I have been here two years now. That’s time enough to pick up something.”
Two years? Just behind the thick scrim of leaves Marina could make out the shape of some huts, a vague outline of civilization. Was there a sort of suburb in the trees that she couldn’t see, a place where people could bear to live for years at a time? “So you’re working with Dr. Swenson?” Surely Vogel knew and failed to mention to her that they were paying other doctors to work on-site.
“I am working with Dr.