Fever Dream

by Samanta Schweblin

  Why does she do that?

  It’s a routine she’s gotten into here. She runs two or three times around the house at every lunch.

  This is important. This could have to do with the worms.

  When Nina passes the kitchen window, she presses her face against the glass and we smile at each other. I like her bursts of energy, but this time her running makes me anxious. My conversation with Carla pulled the rope that ties me to my daughter even tighter, and the rescue distance is shorter again. How different are you now from the David of six years ago? What did you do that was so terrible your own mother no longer accepts you as hers? These are the things I can’t stop wondering about.

  But they aren’t the important things.

  When Nina finishes her salad we go out to the car together, carrying our empty shopping bags. She gets into the backseat, buckles her seat belt, and starts asking questions. She wants to know where the woman went when she got out of the car; she wants to know where we are going to buy the food, whether there are other kids in town, if she can pet the dogs, if the trees around the house are all ours. She wants to know, especially, she says as she buckles her stuffed mole in too, whether people here speak the same language we do. The car’s ashtray is clean and the windows are rolled up. I lower mine, and I wonder when exactly Carla could have gone to the trouble to tidy up the car. A fresh breeze enters with the sun, which is already burning. We’re driving slowly and calmly; that’s how I like to go, and when my husband drives it’s impossible. This is my moment to drive, when I’m on vacation, skirting potholes of gravel and earth between the weekend estates and the locals’ houses. In the city I can’t drive, the traffic makes me too nervous. You said these details were important.

  Yes.

  Twelve long blocks separate us from downtown, and as we get closer the houses grow smaller and more humble, fighting each other for space, with tiny yards and fewer trees. The first paved street is the boulevard that crosses the downtown from one end to the other, around ten blocks. It’s paved, yes, but there is so much dirt that the feeling inside the car as we drive hardly changes. It’s the first time we’ve made this trip, and Nina and I talk about how nice it is to have the whole afternoon ahead of us to shop and think about what we’re going to have for dinner. There is a small market in the main square, and we park the car so we can walk a little.

  “Let’s leave the mole in the car,” I say to Nina.

  And she says, “Yes, m’lady,” because sometimes we like to put on airs and speak to each other like rich nobility.

  “And how would the lady like some candied nuts?” I ask, helping her out of the car.

  “We would love some,” says Nina, who has always been convinced that lords and ladies speak in the plural.

  I like that, about the plural.

  There are seven stalls improvised using boards and trestles, or just with canvases on the ground. But it’s good food, artisanally produced or grown on the local estates. We buy fruits, vegetables, and honey. Mr. Geser had recommended a bakery where they bake whole-grain rolls—apparently they’re famous around here—and we go there, too. We buy three, to give ourselves a real bellyful. The two old men who work there give Nina a doughnut filled with dulce de leche, and they almost cry with laughter when she takes a bite and says, “How divine! We adore it!” We ask where we can find a blow-up toy for the pool, and they give us directions to House & Home. We have to go from the other side of the boulevard, some three blocks toward the lake, and since we have energy to spare we drop our purchases in the car and walk there. In House & Home, Nina picks out a killer whale. It’s the only one, but she points to it without hesitation, sure of her decision. While I’m paying, Nina walks away. She’s somewhere behind me, walking among the appliance display racks and the garden tools; I don’t see her, but the rope pulls taut and I could easily guess where she is.

  “Can I get you anything else?” the woman at the register asks.

  A piercing cry interrupts us. It’s not Nina’s voice—that’s the first thing I think. It’s high-pitched and clipped, like a bird imitating a child. Nina comes running from the kitchen aisle. She’s flustered, somewhere between amused and scared, and she grabs hold of my legs and stands staring back toward the end of the aisle. The cashier sighs in resignation and turns to come out from behind the counter. Nina pulls on my hand so I’ll follow the woman down the same aisle. Ahead of us, the woman puts both fists on her hips, pretending to be angry.

  “What did I tell you? What did we talk about, Abigail?”

  The cries repeat, clipped but much quieter now, almost shy at the end.

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  The woman reaches out her hand toward the other aisle, and when she turns back toward us, a small hand comes with her. A little girl slowly appears. At first I think she is still playing, because she hobbles so much she looks like a monkey, but then I see that one of her legs is very short, it barely goes past her knee, but she still has a foot. When she raises her head to look at us we see her forehead, an enormous forehead that takes up more than half her face. Nina squeezes my hand and laughs her nervous laugh. It’s good for Nina to see this, I think. It’s good for her to realize that we aren’t all born the same, and to learn not to be scared. But secretly I think that if the girl were my daughter I wouldn’t know what to do, it would be horrible. Then your mother’s story pops into my head. I think about you, or about the other David, the first David without his finger. This is even worse, I think. I wouldn’t have the strength. But the woman comes toward us dragging the girl patiently; she wipes her bald head as if it were dusty, and she talks to her sweetly in her ear, saying something about us that we can’t hear. Do you know that girl, David?

  Yes, I know her.

  Is there part of you in her body?

  Those are stories my mother tells. Neither you nor I have time for this. We’re looking for worms, something very much like worms, and the exact moment when they touch your body for the first time.

  “Who is she, Mommy?”

  There’s no more put-on nobility now. When they are close to us Nina takes a few steps back; she wants us to move farther away. We make room for them by pressing up against the ovens. The girl is Nina’s height but I couldn’t say how old she is. I think she’s older, maybe your age.

  Don’t waste time.

  It’s just that your mother must know this girl, the girl and her mother and their whole story. And I go on thinking about Carla as the woman leads the little girl around the counter and the girl disappears from view because of her height. The woman presses the button on the register and hands me the change with a sad smile. She does all of this with both hands, one for the button, the other for my money, and just as I’d wondered a moment before how she could take that child’s hand, now I wonder how it’s possible to let go of it, and I accept the change thanking her many times, with guilt and remorse.

  What else?

  We go back home and Nina is sleepy. A nap so late is a bad business, later she has trouble falling asleep at night. But we’re on vacation—that’s what we’re here for. I remind myself of that so I’ll relax a little. As I put away the food we bought, Nina falls soundly asleep on the living room sofa. I know her sleep. If nothing loud wakes her up, she could be there for at least an hour or two. And then I think about the green house, and I wonder how far away it is. The green house is the house where the woman took care of you.

  Yes.

  The one who saved you from the poison.

  That is not important.

  How can it not be? That’s the story we need to understand.

  No, that’s not the story, it has nothing to do with the exact moment. Don’t get distracted.

  I need to measure the danger, otherwise it’s hard to calculate the rescue distance. The same way I surveyed the house and its surroundings when we arrived, now I need to see the green house, u
nderstand its gravity.

  When did you start to measure this rescue distance?

  It’s something I inherited from my mother. “I want you close,” she’d say to me. “Let’s stay within rescue distance.”

  Your mother isn’t important. Go on.

  Now I walk away from the house. It’ll be fine, I think. I’m sure the walk will take only around ten minutes. Nina sleeps soundly, and she knows how to wake up alone and wait for me calmly; that’s how we do it at home, when I go down to buy something in the morning. For the first time I walk in the opposite direction from the lake, toward the green house. “Sooner or later something bad is going to happen,” my mother would say. “And when it happens I want to have you close.”

  Your mother is not important.

  I like to look at the houses and the grounds, the countryside. I think I could keep walking like that for hours.

  It’s possible. I do it sometimes at night.

  And Carla lets you?

  It’s a mistake to talk about me right now. How is the walk, in your body?

  I walk quickly; I like it when my breathing grows rhythmic and my thoughts shrink to the essential. I think about the walk and nothing else.

  That’s good.

  I remember the way Carla’s hand moved in the car. “The people who live here take that way out,” she’d said. Her arm reached to her right, and her hand held her cigarette at the height of my mouth, the cigarette sharpening the directions. Over there the houses have a lot more land. Some have sown fields that reach back half a hectare; a few have wheat or sunflowers, but really it’s almost all soy. Crossing a few more lots, behind a long line of poplar trees, a narrower lane opens off to the right and goes along a small but deep stream.

  Yes.

  A few more modest houses stand along the stream bank, squeezed in between the fine, dark thread of water and the wire of the next estate. The next-to-last one is painted green. The color is worn but it’s still bright, it stands out from the rest of the landscape. I stop for a second and a dog comes out of the field.

  This is important.

  Why? I need to understand which things are important and which aren’t.

  What happens with the dog?

  He pants and wags his tail, and he’s missing a back leg.

  Yes, this is very important, this has a lot to do with what we’re looking for.

  He crosses the street, looks at me for a moment, and continues on toward the houses. There’s no one in sight, and since strange things always seem like warnings to me, I turn around and head home.

  Something is going to happen now.

  Yes. When I reach the house I see Carla waiting in the doorway. She moves away from the house a few steps and looks up, maybe toward the bedroom windows. She’s wearing a red cotton dress now, and the straps of the bikini peek out on her shoulders. She never goes into the house, she waits for me outside. Outside we chat and sunbathe, but if I go in to get more iced tea or put on sunscreen, she always waits outside.

  Yes.

  She sees me, she wants to say something to me and she seems not to know whether to walk toward me or not. She can’t seem to decide what’s best. Then I feel it with frightening clarity as the rope pulls taut: the shifting rescue distance.

  This clearly leads us right to the exact moment.

  Carla gestures, raising her hands as if she doesn’t understand what is happening. And I have a terrifying feeling of doom.

  “What? What’s wrong?” I ask her, shouting.

  “He’s in your house. David is in your house.”

  “What do you mean, he’s in my house?”

  Carla points toward my daughter’s room, on the second floor. The palm of a hand is pressed against the glass, and then Nina appears, smiling: she must be on a stool or her desk. She sees me and waves through the glass. She looks cheerful and calm, and for a moment I am grateful that my sense of dread isn’t working right, that it was all a false alarm.

  But it wasn’t.

  No. Nina says something that I can’t hear, and she repeats it, using her hands as a megaphone, excited. Then I remember that when I left the house all the windows had been open because of the heat, upstairs and downstairs. Now they are all shut tight.

  “Do you have a key?” asks Carla. “I couldn’t open either of the doors.”

  I walk toward the house, almost running, and Carla runs behind me.

  “We have to get in fast,” says Carla.

  This is insane, I think. David is just a little boy. But I can’t help it now, I’m running. I dig in my pocket for the keys and I’m so nervous that even though I have them between my fingers, I can’t get them out.

  “Hurry, hurry,” says Carla.

  I have to get away from this woman, I tell myself as I finally manage to get the keys out. I open the door and let her in behind me; she follows me very closely. This is terror itself, entering a house I still barely know in search of my daughter, so afraid I can’t even utter her name. I race up the stairs, and Carla follows me. Whatever is happening must be truly terrible to finally get your mother to come inside the house.

  “Hurry, hurry,” she says.

  I have to get this woman out of my house right now. We go up the first flight of stairs in two or three steps, then the second. The hallway has two rooms to either side. There is no one in the first, the one Nina was waving from, and I stay there an instant longer than necessary because I have the idea they could be hiding. In the second room I don’t see them either; I look in corners and unlikely places, as if, secretly, my mind were preparing to face something immense.

  The third room is mine. Like the previous ones, the door is closed, and I open it quickly, taking a few steps into the room. It’s David. So this is David, I say to myself. I see you, for the first time.

  Yes.

  You’re standing in the middle of the room, looking toward the door like you’re waiting for us. Maybe even wondering what all the fuss is about.

  “Where is Nina?” I ask you.

  You don’t answer.

  I don’t know where Nina is right then, and I don’t know you.

  “Where is Nina?” I repeat, shouting.

  You aren’t frightened or surprised at my excitement. You seem tired, bored. If it weren’t for the white spots you have on your skin, you’d be a normal, everyday boy. That’s what I thought.

  “Mommy.” It’s Nina’s voice.

  I turn back toward the hallway. She is holding Carla’s hand and she looks at me fearfully.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Nina, wrinkling her forehead, about to start crying.

  “Are you okay? Are you okay, Nina?” I ask.

  Nina hesitates, but maybe that’s because she sees how furious I am, indignant with Carla and all of her madness.

  “This is crazy,” I tell your mother. “You’re completely insane.”

  Nina pulls away from Carla.

  You’re all alone, I tell myself. You’d better get this woman out of the house as soon as possible.

  “Things always end up like this with David.” Carla’s eyes fill with tears.

  “David didn’t do anything!” And now I’m really shouting, now I’m the one who seems crazy. “You’re the one scaring us with all your delusions of . . .”

  I look at you. Your eyes are red, and the skin around your eyes and mouth is a little thinner than is normal, a little pinker.

  “Get out.” I say it to Carla, but I’m looking at you.

  “Let’s go, David.”

  Your mother doesn’t wait for you. She walks away and goes downstairs. She walks upright, elegant in her red dress and gold bikini. I feel Nina’s hand, small and soft, carefully take my own. You don’t move.

  “Go with your mother,” I tell you.

  You don’t refuse or answer. You’re just there
, as though switched off. I’m annoyed that you don’t move, but I’m more annoyed by Carla now, and I decide to go down and make sure she leaves the house. I have to do it slowly, waiting for Nina, who doesn’t want to let go of my hand. Now in the kitchen, before going out, Carla turns around to say something to me, but my look dissuades her and she leaves in silence. Is this the exact moment?

  No, this isn’t the exact moment.

  It’s hard when I don’t know what I’m looking for.

  It’s something in the body. But it’s almost imperceptible, we have to pay attention.

  That’s why the details are so important.

  Yes, that’s why.

  But how could I let them get between us so quickly? How can it be that leaving Nina alone for a few minutes, sleeping, could mean so much danger and madness?

  This isn’t the exact moment. Let’s not waste time on this.

  Why do we have to go so quickly, David? Is there so little time left?

  Very little.

  Nina is still in the kitchen, looking at me disconcertedly, shaking off her fear by herself. I pull a chair over so she can sit down, and I start making a snack. I’m very nervous, but doing things with my hands frees me from giving her explanations, it gives me time to think.

  “Is David going to eat too?” asks Nina.

  I put the kettle on the stove and look upward. I think about your eyes, and I wonder if you’re still standing in the middle of the room.

  Why? This is important.

  I don’t know. Now that I think about it, you’re not what scares me.

  What is?

  Do you know what it is, David?

  Yes, it has to do with the worms. We’re getting closer and closer to the exact moment.

  I sit up in my chair, alert.