Fever Dream

by Samanta Schweblin

  How long does that take?

  Right away, she forgets right away. So do I.

  Are you going to wonder again what it was that got you wet?

  No, David.

  Are you going to smell your hands?

  No.

  You’re not going to do anything?

  No, David, I’m not going to do anything. We’re going to walk and I’m even going to wonder if I’m doing the right thing by leaving. We talk, we stay there under the sun with the grass up to our knees. It’s an almost perfect moment. Carla talks to me about Sotomayor. Your mother has made some decisions about how to arrange the order spreadsheets, and Sotomayor has been praising her all morning.

  Don’t you realize what’s happening right now?

  I can’t realize, David. Nina sees the well and runs over to it. The stables don’t have a roof, there are just some burned bricks. It’s a beautiful view, but also desolate, and when I ask Carla how they burned, she just seems annoyed.

  “I brought mate,” she says.

  I tell Nina to be careful. I’m surprised by how much I want to drink a few mates, how little I feel like getting into the car and driving four and a half hours to the capital. Returning to the noise, the grime, the congestion of everything.

  Does this place really seem better to you?

  A group of trees gives us some shade, and we sit near the trunks, close to the well. The soy fields stretch out to either side of us. It’s all very green, a perfumed green, and Nina asks me if we can’t stay a little longer. Just a little.

  I’m not interested in this anymore.

  “A lot of things have happened,” I say to Carla.

  She wrinkles her brow while she takes out the mate, but she doesn’t ask what I’m referring to.

  “I mean, since you started telling me about David.”

  Really, this won’t get us anywhere. If you knew how valuable time was right now you wouldn’t use it for this.

  I like this moment. We’re good, all three of us at ease. After this everything starts to go bad.

  When does it start to go bad, exactly?

  “What happened with David? What was it that changed so much?” I ask Carla.

  “The spots,” says Carla, and she shrugs one of her shoulders, almost nonchalantly, like a little girl. “At first the spots were what bothered me most.”

  Nina walks around the well, and every few steps she stops and leans over the bricks toward the darkness. She says her name, she says “We adore it” in her noble tone of voice, and the echo of her voice is just a little deeper. She says “Hello,” “Nina,” “Hello, I am Nina and we adore this.”

  “But there were other things,” says Carla, and she hands me the mate. “You think I’m exaggerating, and that I’m the one who’s driving the boy crazy. Yesterday, when you yelled at me after David went into your house . . .”

  Where are her gold straps? I think. Carla is pretty. Your mother, she’s very pretty, and there’s something in the memory of those straps that moves me. I feel so bad for yelling at her.

  “The spots appeared later. Because the first days, even though the woman in the green house said David would survive, his body was boiling and he was delirious with fever. It wasn’t until the fifth day that it started to subside.”

  “What was it that poisoned him?”

  Carla shrugged her shoulder again.

  “It happens, Amanda. We’re in the country, there are sown fields all around us. People come down with things all the time, and even if they survive they end up strange. You see them on the street. Once you learn to recognize them you’ll be surprised how many there are.” Carla hands me the mate so she can take out her cigarettes. “The fever passed, but it took a long time for David to start speaking again. Then, little by little, he started to say a few words. But really, Amanda, the way he talked was so strange.”

  “Strange in what way?”

  “Strange can be quite normal. Strange can just be the phrase ‘That is not important’ as an answer for everything. But if your son never answered you that way before, then the fourth time you ask him why he’s not eating, or if he’s cold, or you send him to bed, and he answers, almost biting off the words as if he were still learning to talk, ‘That is not important,’ I swear to you, Amanda, your legs start to tremble.”

  And isn’t this important, David? Aren’t you going to say anything about this?

  “Maybe it’s something he heard the woman in the green house say,” I tell her. “Maybe it’s part of the shock from everything he went through when he had the fever.”

  “I thought something like that, too. Then one day, I was lying on my bed and I saw him in the backyard. He was kneeling down with his back to me, I couldn’t really understand what he was doing, but it bothered me. I couldn’t tell you why, but something in his movements alarmed me.”

  “I understand perfectly.”

  “Yes, it’s an instinct that comes with being a mother. Anyway, I stopped what I was doing and went outside. I took a few steps toward him, but when I realized what was happening I stayed where I was, I couldn’t take another step. He was burying a duck, Amanda.”

  “A duck?”

  “He was four and a half years old, and he was burying a duck.”

  “Why was he burying a duck? Do they come from the lake?”

  “Yes. I called to him but he ignored me. I knelt down, because he was looking down and I wanted to see his face, I wanted to understand what was happening, not just with the duck, but with him. His face was red, his eyes swollen from so much crying. He was digging up dirt with his plastic shovel. Its broken handle was lying on the ground to one side, and now he was digging with only the spoon part of the shovel, which was only slightly bigger than his hand. The duck lay to one side. Its eyes were open, and stretched out like that on the ground, its neck seemed longer and more flexible than normal. I tried to figure out what had happened, but at no point did David look up.”

  I want to show you something.

  I’m the one who decides what to focus on in the story now, David. Doesn’t what your mother is telling me strike you as important?

  No.

  Your mother is smoking, and Nina takes a few spirited laps around the well. This will now be the important thing.

  “Really,” says your mother, “if your son beats a duck to death, or strangles it, or kills it however he killed it—it doesn’t have to be so terrible. Here in the country those things happen, and worse things probably go on in the capital. But a few days later I found out what happened, I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “Mommy,” says Nina. “Mommy.” But I don’t pay attention. I’m focused on Carla, and Nina moves away again.

  “I was sunbathing in the backyard. About a hundred feet away we have wheat growing. It’s not ours, Omar rents the land out to the neighbors, and I like it because it makes our yard smaller, more intimate. David was sitting near my chair, playing on the ground with his things. Then he stood up, looking off toward the wheat field. I saw him with his back to me, small and strange with his arms hanging down by the sides of his body and his little fists clenched, as if he’d been startled by something threatening.”

  I feel something strange in my hands, David.

  In your hands? Now?

  Yes, now.

  “David was motionless, his back to me, for about two minutes. That’s a long time, Amanda. And that whole time I was thinking about calling out to him, but I was afraid to do it. Then something moved in among the wheat. And then a duck appeared. It was walking strangely. It took one or two steps toward us and it stopped.”

  “Like it was afraid?”

  I heard Nina running around the well. I heard her say, “We adore it, we adore it, we adore it,” her laughter and the echo of her laughter coming closer and moving away. Carla exhaled her cigarette smoke and
kept thinking about my question.

  “No. Like it was exhausted. They looked at each other, I swear they did. David and the duck looked at each other for a few seconds. And the duck took a few more steps, one foot crossing in front of the other like it was drunk, or had lost control of its body, and when it tried to take the next step it slumped to the ground, dead.”

  My hands are shaking now, David.

  They’re shaking?

  I think so, yes. They’re shaking, I don’t know. Maybe it’s Carla’s story.

  Do you feel like they’re shaking, or are they really shaking?

  I’m looking at my hands now and I can’t see them shake. Does this have to do with the worms?

  It has to do with them, yes.

  I’m looking at my hands but your mother keeps talking. She says that the next morning, while she was washing the dishes, she saw that there were three more dead ducks in the yard, stretched out on the ground just like the day before.

  I want to know what else is happening with your hands.

  But is it true, David? Did you kill those ducks? And now your mother tells me that you buried them all, and that you cried each time.

  “I saw it all from the window, Amanda, one hole beside the next and all that time I was standing with a half-washed saucepan in my hand. I didn’t have the strength to go outside.”

  Is it true?

  I buried them. Burying isn’t the same as killing.

  Carla says there’s more, that there’s something worse she wants to tell me.

  Amanda, I need you to pay attention, there’s something I want to show you.

  She says it’s about a dog, one of Mr. Geser’s dogs.

  Each thing she tells you is going to be worse, but if you don’t stop this story now we’re not going to have enough time for what I have to show you.

  I’m confused. Right now I can only concentrate on Carla’s story.

  Do you see me?

  Yes.

  Where am I?

  I’d forgotten, but yes, you’re here, sitting on the edge of my bed. It’s high, and your feet hang in the air. When you move, it makes the iron frame creak under the mattress. It’s been making noise this whole time.

  Where are we?

  I know where we are. In the emergency clinic, we’ve been here awhile now.

  Do you know for how long?

  A day, or five.

  Two.

  And Nina? Where is Nina right now? The men unloading the barrels smile when they pass us, they’re nice to her, but now she gets up from the grass and shows me her dress, her hands. Her hands are wet, but it’s not from dew, is it?

  No. Can you get up?

  Get out of bed?

  I’m going to get down.

  The bed is creaky.

  Do you see me?

  What makes you think I can’t see?

  Put your feet on the floor.

  Why are you in pajamas?

  If you take twelve steps forward we’ll reach the hallway.

  Where is Nina? Does my husband know I’m here?

  If you need, I can turn the lights on.

  Your mother tells me that the dog made it to the stairs of your house, and sat there for almost a whole afternoon. She says she asked you about the dog several times, and each time you replied that the dog wasn’t the important thing. She says you locked yourself in your room and refused to come out. She says that only when the dog finally slumped to the ground the way she’d seen the ducks do, only then did you come out of the house. You dragged the dog to the backyard, and you buried it.

  If you need to, you can lean on my shoulder.

  Why is Carla so afraid of you?

  Do you see the drawings on the walls?

  They’re children’s drawings. Nina draws, too.

  How old are these children? Could you say how old they are?

  David.

  Yes.

  I’m confused, I’m mixing up times.

  You told me.

  Yes, but I understand clearly what is happening, at certain moments.

  I think that’s true.

  What are you going to show me? I don’t know if I want to see it.

  Careful with the stairs.

  Slower, please.

  There are six steps and then the hallway continues.

  Where are we?

  These are the rooms in the emergency clinic.

  It seems like a big place.

  Everything is small here. It’s just that we’re walking slowly. Do you see the drawings?

  Are there drawings of yours?

  At the end of the hall.

  Is the clinic a day-care center too?

  Here I am with the ducks, the dog, and the horses, this is my drawing.

  What horses?

  Carla will tell you about the horses.

  What are you going to show me?

  We’re almost there.

  Your mother has a gold bikini, and when she moves in the driver’s seat the perfume from her sunscreen wafts through the car. Now I realize: she makes that movement on purpose, she intentionally lets the strap fall.

  Do you still see me? Amanda, I need you to focus. I don’t want to start again from the beginning.

  From the beginning? Have we already done this other times? Where is Nina?

  We’re going to go through this door. Here.

  Is this happening because of the worms?

  Yes, in a way. I’m going to turn on the light.

  What is this place?

  A classroom.

  It’s a preschool. Nina would like this place.

  It’s not a preschool. I call it the waiting room.

  I don’t feel good, this isn’t a waiting room, David.

  What do you feel right now?

  I think I have a fever. Is that why everything is so confused? I think that’s why, and also because your attitude is not helpful.

  I’m trying to be as clear as possible, Amanda.

  That’s not true. I’m missing the most important information.

  Nina.

  Where is Nina? What happens at the exact moment? Why is all this about worms?

  No, no. It’s not about worms. It feels like worms, at first, in your body. But Amanda, we’ve been through all this, too. We’ve already talked about the poison, the contamination. You’ve already told me four times how you got here.

  That’s not true.

  It is true.

  But I don’t know, I still don’t know.

  You know. But you don’t understand.

  I’m about to die.

  Yes.

  Why? My hands are shaking a lot.

  I don’t see them shaking.

  Back in the field, they’re shaking now as I watch Nina leave the well and come over to me.

  Amanda, I need you to concentrate.

  Carla asks me if I understand now, if in her place I wouldn’t have felt the same way. And now Nina is very close by.

  Amanda, don’t get distracted.

  She’s frowning.

  Do you still see me?

  “What’s wrong, Nina? Are you okay?”

  Nina looks at her hands.

  “It stings,” she says. “My hands are burning.”

  “Then one day Omar wakes me up by shaking my feet,” says Carla. “He’s sitting on the bed, pale and rigid. I ask him what’s wrong but he doesn’t answer. It must be five, six in the morning, because there’s hardly any light. ‘Omar,’ I say, ‘Omar, what’s wrong?’ ‘The horses,’ he says. I swear to you, Amanda, the way he said it was terrifying. Every once in a while Omar could say some harsh things, but they never sounded the way those two words did. Sometimes he says ugly things about David. How he doesn’t seem li
ke a normal boy. That having David in the house makes him uncomfortable. He never wants to sit at the table with him. He hardly talks to him at all. Sometimes, we used to wake up at night and David wasn’t in his room or anywhere else in the house, and that drove Omar crazy. I think it scared him. We never slept well, because we were intent on any sound. The first few times it happened, we went out looking for him. Omar went ahead with the flashlight and I held on to his shirt from behind. I focused on listening for any noises and on always staying close to him. One time before we left, Omar got a knife out and brought it with us, and I didn’t say anything, Amanda. What can I tell you, it can get very dark in the country. Later, Omar started locking David in his room. He shuts him in before we go to bed and unlocks the door in the morning, before he leaves. There were times when David would bang on the door. He never calls for Omar. He pounds on the door and says my name—he doesn’t call me Mom anymore, only Carla. So that day, Omar was sitting on the edge of the bed, and when I managed to wake up and realize something strange was happening, I leaned toward the door to see what he was staring at. The door to David’s room was open. ‘The horses,’ said Omar. ‘What’s wrong with the horses?’ I asked.”

  “They’re stinging a lot, Mommy.” Nina shows me her hands, sits down next to me. She hugs me.

  I take her hands and plant a kiss on each one. She turns her palms up, to show me. Carla takes out a bag of little cookies and puts a handful into Nina’s palms.

  “This will cure anything,” she says.

  And Nina happily closes her hands and runs off toward the well, shouting her own name.

  “And the horses?” I ask.

  “They weren’t there,” says Carla.

  “What do you mean they weren’t there?”

  “I asked Omar the same thing, and he said he’d heard a noise in the shed, that’s what had woken him up. He saw David’s door was open though he clearly remembered having locked it, and he got up to see what was happening. The front door was open too, and outside there was already a little light. He went out just like that, Omar told me, no flashlight and no knife. He looked at the fields, took a few steps away from the house, and for a second he didn’t realize what it was that seemed so strange to him. He was half asleep. The horses weren’t there. None of the horses. There was only a little foal, one that had been born four months before. It was standing alone in the middle of the pasture, and Omar says that already then, from the house, he was certain that the animal was frozen in fear. He approached it slowly. The foal didn’t move. Omar looked to either side, looked toward the stream, toward the street, there was neither hide nor hair of the horses. He put the palm of his hand on the foal’s forehead, he talked to it and nudged it a little, just to test the waters. But the foal didn’t move. It stayed there until morning, when the police inspector and his two assistants came, and it was still there when they left. I saw it from the window. I swear to you, Amanda, I couldn’t get up the courage to go out. But are you okay?”