The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [112]
"Like binding the feet of aristocratic Chinese women."
"Perhaps. Yes, maybe it was something like that. It killed Marc. He never stopped bleeding. He— I tried to explain to them about putting pressure on the wounds. But he never stopped bleeding." He stared at his hands a while longer but then looked away, blinking rapidly.
"You were hurt, too, Emilio."
"Yes. I was hurt, too. I watched him die."
Somewhere in the distance, a dog started barking and was soon joined by another. They heard a woman shouting at the animals and then a man shouting at the woman. Sandoz turned away, bringing his feet onto the bench, and lay his forehead on his drawn-up knees. Oh, no, John thought. Not another one. "Emilio? You okay?"
"Yeah," Sandoz said, lifting his head. "Just an ordinary headache. I think if I could just get some unbroken sleep ..."
"The dreams are bad again?"
"Dante’s Inferno, without all the laughs."
It was an attempt at humor but neither of them smiled. They sat for a while, lost in their own thoughts. "Emilio," John said, after a time, "you told us that Marc began eating the native foods at the beginning, while you and Anne Edwards were still acting as controls, right?"
"Shit, John. Give me a break." He stood to leave. "I’m going down to the beach, okay?"
"No. Wait! I’m sorry, but this might be important. Was there anything you ate that Marc didn’t?" Sandoz stared at him, his face unreadable. "What if Marc Robichaux was developing scurvy? Maybe that’s why he died. Maybe because he’d been eating their food longer than you, or maybe you were getting vitamin C from some food he didn’t eat. Maybe that’s why he didn’t stop bleeding."
"It’s possible," Sandoz said finally. He turned away again and had walked a few steps into the sunlight when he jerked to a halt with an involuntary cry and then stood still as a pillar.
John got up instantly and moved around the table, squinting in the dazzle as he went to Sandoz. "What? What’s wrong?" Sandoz was bent over, breathing hard. Heart attack, John thought, frightened now. Or one of the spontaneous bone fractures they’d been warned about. A rib or a vertebra simply shattering without warning. "Talk to me, Emilio. Are you in pain? What’s wrong?"
When Sandoz spoke, it was with the precision and clarity of a linguistics professor explaining something to a student. "The word hasta’akala is a K’San compound probably based on the stem sta’aka. The suffix ala indicates a similarity or a parallel. Or an approximation. The prefix ha makes the stem take on an active aspect, like a verb. Sta’aka was a kind of ivy," Emilio said, his voice regulated and even, his eyes wide and sightless. "It was very pretty. It would climb on larger, stronger plants, like our ivies, but it had branches with a weeping growth habit, like a willow." He held up his hands, the fingers falling gracefully from the wrists, like the branches of a weeping willow, or sta’aka ivy. "It was symbolic of something. I knew that, from context. Supaari tried to explain, I think, but it was too abstract. I trusted him, so I gave my consent. Oh, my God."
John watched him labor to bring this new understanding to light. It was a bitter birth.
"I gave consent for Marc, as well. And he died. I blamed Supaari, but it was my fault." Bleached and shaking, he looked at John for confirmation of what he took to be an inescapable conclusion. John resolutely refused to follow Emilio’s logic, unwilling to assent to anything that would add to the burden of guilt the man carried. But Sandoz was relentless. "You can see it, can’t you. Hasta’akala: to be made like sta’aka. To be made visibly and physically dependent on someone stronger. He offered us hasta’akala. He took me to the garden and showed me the ivy and I didn’t make the connection. I thought he was offering Marc and me his protection and hospitality.