by Hagen, Layla
At the word love, he focuses his eyes on me for a second before sliding away again. He lets go of my hand. I bring two blankets and throw them over him. He's shaking just as much as before.
"Cold," he mutters. "So cold."
"There are no more blankets, Tristan." My voice crackles and I realize he's not hearing me, or acknowledging me. I bring the basket of water next to him, making him drink and putting compresses on his forehead. They don't help at all. His skin gets hotter by the minute while his trembling worsens, repeating the word cold every few minutes. I cradle his head with my arms, perching myself on top of him under the blankets, hoping some of my body heat will seep into his.
To my astonishment, his eyes fly wide open. "You shouldn't be this close to me. You'll get sick…"
"Shh… I won't. Trust me on this, please."
"You can make it fine on your own. You can feed yourself and make fires." It takes all his strength to speak. "You're strong and brave. You can make it through the forest on your own."
"Don't talk like this, please. You'll be all right, you'll see."
"Aimee," his voice holds such urgency, horror trickles in my veins. "I might not wake up tomorrow.”
"I don't… No, you'll—”
"You have to accept that."
I lean in to kiss him, tears pouring down my cheeks. He refuses to open his lips, still afraid of making me sick. "If you don't wake up tomorrow morning, I don't want to wake up either," I whisper. He wraps his arms around me. I never want him to let go. He gives in to my kiss at last, and I coax his fever-cracked lips open with mine, caressing his tongue tenderly.
"You don't need me to survive," he says.
"You're right. I don't need you to survive. I need you to live." I bury my head in the crook of his neck, grateful to be feeling his pulse against my cheek.
"You don't need anyone. You're like a star, Aimee. Stars shine from within. They don't need anything else."
This talk of stars means that his delirium is bad. I fist his shirt with trembling hands, as if this will help me keep him from sliding into a world where I can't reach him.
"I'm not a star," I whisper. "I'm a satellite rotating around you. You're the star. I need your light to shine."
"I could say the same."
"Let's agree that we are each other's star, then," I say.
"You can only discover your own light in the darkness."
I've been in the darkness. There is no light to be found in it. But I don't argue with him. Light doesn't come from darkness, but from something else… from kindness and understanding, the kind he showed me. In sharing his pain, he took mine away. In sharing his nightmares, he showed me just how endless the darkness can seem. By letting me chase away his nightmares, we both learned how to find light. Together.
I wish I could find words to tell him how much he means to me. But I've never been good with words, and if I try to talk, I might end up speaking of stars, just like he has. But I'm not the one who is delirious, though the pain and fear of losing him may have spurred a delirium of their own.
I just say, "I love you, Tristan," and kiss him anew.
"You'll be all right. You'll do your best. Promise me," he whispers between kisses, tightening his hug even more. He still wants to protect me, like always, despite the fact that death is knocking at his door. He can't protect me from the one thing I fear most: his death. I want to tell him I won't be all right, that I can't be all right in a world where he is no more. But when we stop kissing, his eyes are burning with an urgency that sparks awareness as if the only thing keeping him in this world is the thought of knowing I’m safe. I’ll give him that peace. It may be the last time I'll be able to offer him any kind of peace before he’s ripped from my arms.
"I will take care of myself." Before I kiss him again, I add, "I promise." Internally, I scream, making myself a different promise altogether, hoping that nature—begging nature to side with me.
If he's a star and the night is claiming him, I want the night to take us both.
I undo the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against mine, to take some of the tremors shaking his body upon me. I kiss him again.
"Aimee, stop. I shouldn’t kiss you… I don't want you to get sick… please."
"I won't. Kiss me, Tristan. It’s the only way I will be all right."
I lose myself in the warmth of his lips and the weakness of his body as he kisses me sweetly, though it feels more like goodbye to the thousands of kisses that will never be ours. I kiss him again and again, hoping to catch his disease. Hoping that whatever will keep him from opening his eyes and drawing a breath tomorrow morning, will take me as well. Maybe his disease is not from the mosquitoes, but from something he can indeed pass on to me.
I hope so.
Later, I rest with my head on his chest, neither of us speaking. The sound of pain fills the silence. It's less intense than before, and I think I know why. Fear numbs it now. I remember the power of fear of the unknown. I remember waiting, crouched on my bed, for news of my parents after I learned the revolution had begun. I needed to find out if they were all right. It terrified me, imagining scenario after scenario. I wanted to know what happened to them. If they were still alive. I thought nothing would be worse than the uncertainty.
But the pain of losing them was a million times worse.
I wish I could pour some of my life into Tristan. Maybe that could buy him a few hours, a few days. Since there is no way I can do that, I hold out the hope that my own life will trickle out of me at the same time his leaves him. People enter and leave your life all the time; I've learned that long ago. But I've also learned that their loss makes you feel as light and meaningless as the wind yet at the same time your whole existence has an unbearable weight. When they leave, they punch a hole in your existence, and you never feel complete again. The memories they've left you with turn to shadows. You always carry them with you, but they are never whole, and you can never touch them. I've lived surrounded by shadows since my parents died. I can't live in a world where Tristan becomes a shadow too. Without the man who taught me what it feels like to be whole, I become a shadow myself. How lucky to be the one who leaves, and not the one who's left behind.
Everything crumbles inside me when sleep finally overcomes him and he closes his eyes. With every breath and every heartbeat he slips farther away from me. All I can hope for is one more breath, one more heartbeat. So I stay perched above him, listening, drinking each heartbeat in.
My last thought before sleep claims me is that I won't get to hear his last heartbeat.
I dream of a clearing inundated with light with Tristan, healthy and smiling, calling my name. "Aimee." Again and again. I don't open my eyes, too afraid of the reality where nothing more than darkness and silence await me. And no Tristan because, while last night the heat of his feverish body was burning me, there is no longer warmth around me, though I fell asleep in his arms.
That's when I realize he's no longer next to me, but he’s indeed calling my name. "Aimee."
I sit up, opening my eyes. Through the dim light I see Tristan hovering near the water basket. I leap toward him. Unable to utter a coherent sentence, I wrap my arms around him, gluing my ear to his chest, hungry to hear his heartbeats. Every muscle in my body mollifies when his rhythmic beats reach me, each one more precious than the last. I burst into tears as the realization of how close I was to never hearing it beat again seeps in.
"It's all right, Aimee. I'm fine. I feel better."
I just cling to him, sobbing.
"Your fever is gone," I say, pulling myself together.
"Apparently so."
"Do you still feel sick?"
"No, just hungry."
"The fever… will it come back?"
"Hard to tell." He shrugs. "No idea what disease I had—my guess is it was caused by a virus transmitted by mosquitoes. I might have a relapse, or I might be immune now to whatever I had. Do you feel all right?"
I nod, beaming. "I just want to stay in your arms for a long time."
So that’s what I do.
The disease might have granted us mercy, but the forest didn't. When we disentangle from each other's arms and leave the plane, we see the whole place has been trashed. The fence has numerous holes in it. The rudimentary shelters Tristan and I built for practice are in ruins, bearing traces of fangs and claws at work. This wasn't the doing of just one jaguar.
The mother and her remaining cubs are upon us.
The fact that we killed one of the cubs doesn’t seem like a victory anymore now that the rest of the pack is attacking us.
"We prepare for two days," Tristan says. "Then we leave." I don't argue, even though he is weak and I'd like for him to be in excellent shape when we leave. We can't afford to wait any longer. "In the meantime, make sure you carry your bow with you at all times. And stay in my sight." There's no jaguar inside the fence, but I don't feel safe. I shudder… they could be on the other side of the fence. How we'll manage to leave with the pack surrounding us, preparing to attack, I don't know. Tristan wants to mix some of the stored animal fat with blood and smear it on a freshly caught animal. He plans to use that as bait and throw it as far outside the fence as possible, hoping the smell will lure the jaguars long enough to give us time to escape. I'm not convinced it'll work.
I'm not very productive in preparation, because I keep glancing at Tristan every few minutes, terrified he might get sick again. A few months into a new relationship, my friends would often wonder if what they felt toward the guy they were dating was love. How can you tell, they asked me (as if I was somehow a relationship specialist), if he's indeed the one. I was in the dark about the answer then, but now I am in the know. You feel complete, and you wonder how you could ever think you were complete before. It's a sensation that fills every pore, every cell with a devastating, almost explosive energy. Like loops of mist after a rain in the forest—it’s everywhere.
But another feeling also loiters around. Fear. Terror. Of losing him and that feeling of completeness. Here in the rainforest, where dangers await at every step, this fear follows me. Even more so now, after his illness.
Love has an effect few other things have: to empower you with happiness, and at the same time, strip you of all power, making you a prisoner of fear.
It's late afternoon when Tristan bellows, "Aimee." I spin around, a pit already forming in my stomach. But Tristan isn't alarmed or threatened in any way I can tell. He's staring at something high above us in the distance. I follow his gaze, baffled. The canopy, thick as always, doesn't seem to hold any more threats than usual. I squint my eyes in concentration. And then in the distance, where the canopy is sparser, I see the very thing Tristan sees.
It's not a threat.
It's hope.
In the form of thick, black smoke, rising in swirls up in the sky. Euphoria, the way I don't remember feeling for months, years, perhaps ever, rises from somewhere deep inside me, thick and furious, like the swirls of black smoke I can't take my eyes off.
"What does it mean? Is there a rescue team out there?" I ask.
"We'll find out in a second." Tristan strides toward the plane.
“Where are you going?”
"To get some of those mirror shards I took from the bathroom right after the crash. I can use them to reflect sunlight and send them signals. Keep watch while I get them."
I smile. We're finally a team. I eye the holes in the fence, my fingers tight around the bow, an arrow in place, ready to shoot at a millisecond notice. The swirls of hope inside me turn to tiny, sprinkly bubbles, as if I'm drinking glass after glass of champagne. By the time Tristan returns holding two palm-sized mirror shards, I am drunk on hope. At last, something to look forward to other than a jaguar attack or endless weeks of walking through the rainforest aimlessly. Something good for once. A thread of hope at last.
"I'll climb that tree," Tristan says, pointing to the tree I climbed on our first day. He’s also holding a sheet of paper and a pen. They were in the cockpit and we never used those in our poetry sessions because Tristan wanted to save them precisely in case something like this happened, and he needed to write a message. "On second thought, let's both climb it. I don't want you to stay here alone."
Tristan takes the lead, but between trying to be careful with the mirror shards and his weakness, he's slow. On a normal day, he can climb a tree twice as fast as me. Three branches separate us from the top of the tree when Tristan says, "There aren't enough strong branches at the top to sustain both of us. Wait for me here, all right?"
I'd like nothing better than to climb with him, and see the signals he's going to send with my own eyes, but I do as he says. I rest against a branch, careful to stay out of the way of any animal. I lean my head back, looking up at Tristan until I get dizzy and almost fall from the tree.
"What kind of signals are you sending them?" I ask.
"Morse code."
"Will they understand it?"
"If they set out to rescue us they should."
"Have you finished sending the signal?"
"Yes."
"Are they answering?"
Silence.
Sweat claims my skin as minutes pass with no answer. The euphoria from earlier turns to dread. What if it's not a rescue team after all? What if it's a native tribe that lit up a fire? Tribes can be friendly or hostile. That was always one of the risks awaiting us out here. No, it can't be a tribe. If there was a tribe nearby, we would've realized it before. Unless they migrate. Are there even tribes that do that? Has our own signal fire alerted them of a foreign presence, and they decided to deal with us now?
I take a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm. An impossible task. Horrifying images of natives and jaguars attacking us play in my mind until I'm so stiff with fear, I doubt I'll be able to move from here if Tristan tells me there is no rescue team after all.
"They're answering," Tristan's voice reverberates through the branches, liquefying me. "They're answering right now." In his voice I recognize the same euphoria that threatens to burst from my chest. I stay silent, much as I'm dying to learn what they're saying. I don't want Tristan to miss one single bit of whatever they are communicating to us. Morse code isn’t terribly difficult. Tristan explained it to me the first days after the crash. Each numeral and letter has an equivalent in Morse code—a combination of dots and dashes. One can use a mirror to reflect sunlight to send Morse code signals: moving the mirror quickly to reflect light in dots, and longer movements to reflect light in dashes. It’s tricky getting the right angle of reflection, but I have full confidence in Tristan. He taught me how to send an SOS signal. The letter S is made of three dots, and the letter O of three dashes. SOS, or the signal for distress, would mean three dots, three dashes, and three dots. Sending a longer message is possible; it just takes more time. And because it takes so long, it’s easy to forget parts of the message if you don’t write it down. I’m glad we kept the paper and pen, and that he brought them with him.
We stay up the tree for what feels like hours. It's not until after Tristan says, "Let's go down," that I speak.
"What did they say?"
"I'll tell you everything once we're down. Come on. There are ants up here, and they've already bitten the hell out of me."
I hurry down the tree, and when I'm on the last branch I take a good look around for any sign that the jaguars have returned. Nothing. I leap down, with Tristan on my heels. He leads me to the airstairs, and sitting there, he says, “There is indeed a rescue team out there.”
"How far are they from us?" I ask.
He looks down at the piece of paper where he wrote the message.
"They estimate they'll need about two weeks to reach us. If we leave tomorrow morning and keep a fast pace, and they also move toward us, we'll meet in the middle in a week. They have medicine and guns, and they will lead us to a place where a helicopter can pick us up."
"How far is that place?"
"They haven't told me."
"Why can't the helicopter come here to pick us up if they know where we are?"
"They said there is flight prohibition in this area. It must have been instigated after we crashed, because it wasn’t prohibited before.”
I stare at him. “Why would there be a flight prohibition here?”
“They didn’t explain. It’s possible they don’t know. Prohibition areas are decided by state organizations and they don’t always offer explanations for what they do. The fact is, there is no way a helicopter can fly here, not even to drop supplies or pick us up. It will wait for us just outside the perimeter of the prohibited area.”
“No one can make an exception for a rescue mission?” I ask incredulously.
“I really don’t think anyone views us as a matter of national concern in order to make such an exception. At any rate, maybe the rescue team tried to obtain a permit for bringing a helicopter here and was denied. Or they didn’t get an answer yet and grew tired of waiting. Knowing how slow these things are, it could take much longer to obtain a permit than coming here on foot and going back on foot too.”
I sigh.
“But it doesn’t matter. We are going home, Aimee.”
I beam as Tristan carefully folds the piece of paper with the message and tucks it in his pocket.
That's so much more than we could ever hope for. No more walking blindly, hoping against hope it's the right direction. I think of the future, when all that will remain from our time in the rainforest will be our memories. And well, the black scratch on my shoulder. I've been rubbing it every time I shower, but it won't go away. It hasn't lost any of its intensity either. No matter. My bones feel feather-light. The air seems less heavy and moist. I'm grinning like an idiot, but Tristan isn't.
The euphoria that colored his voice earlier still illuminates his face, but with a thin veil of uneasiness underneath it. It might not be recognizable to anyone else, but it is to me. I know Tristan so well, I can read even the smallest of signs. Like a twitch of his eye. The way he rubs the back of his neck with his hand, tugging with his teeth on his lower lip. I search for what might have triggered this but can't figure it out. There's nothing about a rescue team that can cause him anything but joy. Then I realize… there is one thing…
