by Katie Crouch
Mark had leased a second car since he’d started taking his trips. When she pulled in through the electric gate, she was both relieved and furious to see it was there.
“Mark?” she called across the patio. “Are you here?” Her husband must have heard her come through the gate, because he shot out of the house as soon as she called, looking flustered. Goddamnit, she thought. It’s totally true.
“Hey,” he said, his voice flat. Had she been willingly ignoring his weird behavior?
“What were you doing just then?” she asked.
“I was…” He paused. “I was reading your email.”
Amanda blinked rabidly. “What? Why?”
“Yeah. I know. It’s nuts, because I was so disapproving about you disregarding Meg’s privacy. But, Amanda, you’ve been acting weird lately. Ever since we came here.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was this all just an elaborate plot to make her crazy? “I’ve been acting weird?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t come closer, but instead stood a few feet from her, his arms crossed, as if they were about to have an old western showdown. “So I looked through your emails. It took me like five seconds to find out what’s been going on.”
“What could you possibly be talking about?” Her indignation grew as she realized she wasn’t going to immediately be able to stomp on her high ground, which seemed like the only bright side to all of this.
“Ronnie?” Mark said quietly. “The guy who keeps emailing you about your night together?”
Amanda shook her head in disbelief. She fought the urge to burst out laughing. “Oh my God. Ronnie? That’s who you think I’ve been having an affair with?”
“You can’t get out of this one, Mandi. The messages are right there.”
“Get out of what one?” Her voice was shaking. “Mark, think about it. When have I ever tried to get out of anything?”
“He emails you all the time. You email him back. Yeah, I can see you’re trying to cool him off. But I don’t blame him. Sounds like it was quite an experience, his night with you.”
“No,” she said, attempting to sound composed. “You’re misinterpreting … the material.” Oh God. She was awful at fighting.
“No way.” Mark shook his head. “No way could I have it wrong. I mean, the guy’s not talking about a night of bowling.”
“Look,” Amanda said. “First of all, I can’t believe I’m getting beaten up here. You’re the one who messed up, not me. I was just coming to—”
“While that’s usually true and probably is now, I don’t think it’s fair of you to change the subject.”
“Fine,” Amanda said, trying to slow herself down. “It was the night of that goodbye party they threw me. When you were being a total asshole and wouldn’t help with any of the packing or the shitty logistics that came with this trip. And then you didn’t come to the party.”
It was true. After putting his stake in the ground about how it was his turn, which meant uprooting themselves and moving to a new, wild land, Mark had handed all the details of the transition to her. When she’d task him with chores like going to UPS or looking for storage, he’d procrastinate until she did it, or do such an inept job, she couldn’t help wondering if he was failing on purpose. The straw that broke that particular camel’s back was a shipping quote—he had spent an hour on the phone and gotten prices, but only for the cost of sending his two mountain bikes.
“Well, you were being a total bitch!” Mark retorted. “You wouldn’t even let me be happy about the Fulbright for two seconds! So, what, you got pissed and went and screwed some guy?”
The rawness of his anger was so out of character for Mark, it startled her. “We didn’t have sex,” she said in a low voice. “I was really drunk, and we made out. It was gross. Normally I would have told you, because it was just this funny thing … but then we weren’t speaking, and by the time we were, I’d forgotten about it.”
“No way do I believe you.” He shook his head. “You’ve been barely able to stand touching me since we’ve come here.”
Amanda considered this. “Well, that’s just … resentment. Textbook.”
“Then why do you email him back? Why not just blow him off?”
“Because I was his boss. Do you know how much I could get sued for?” Mark put his hands in his pockets. She could tell that he was doing that thing where he chewed the inside of his cheek. “Anyway,” she said. “What right do you have to accuse me of these things? After what you’ve been doing?”
“What I’ve been doing?” Mark repeated.
“Yes, Mark. I know everything, okay? So just stop blowing smoke and tell me what the hell is going on.”
Mark leaned against the railing and threw up his hands. “Okay, Mandi,” he said. “Fine. So you know. I’m glad you know. It’s a huge relief, actually.”
Amanda’s knees felt weak, but no way was she going to sit if he wasn’t. In business school, there had been a whole week spent on something called “body tactics,” during which she and the other aspiring businesspeople had studied body language. If it was your office, the professor said gravely, sitting while the others stood indicated power. In any other situation, you stood until everyone else was down.
She’d also learned from business school that in negotiation, it was important to let the other party talk so that they felt (falsely) that they had some control. So right now her tactic was to remain standing, unfold her arms, lean loosely against the wall, and shut up and listen.
“I met her in Oshakati,” Mark said. “Before I knew you.”
The weight of this statement—before I knew you—bore down on her. It was so completely not what she thought he would say, she could feel its actual heft pressing down on her body.
“We were only together for a day. I mean, physically. I knew her, back, uh…” He paused, as if choosing the right words. “Back when I was a volunteer. And then I got into that accident, and I didn’t know if she was dead or not. So I knew I had to … that we…”
When Amanda looked back on this morning later, she saw, in hindsight, that this was the point where she might have steered them all away from the upcoming danger. She might have said, You know what? Never mind! I love you—let’s forget it! Let’s just go get Meg from school and take a surprise vacation to Cape Town! And everything might have gone along, exactly as it was.
But that’s not what she said. Instead, she pointed to a chair for him to sit, and when he did, she pulled another over and sat across from him.
“So,” she said. “What happened?”
/ 25 /
As Mark sat across from his wife, with her tan runner’s legs, her sensible haircut, her impeccable sense of right and wrong, he felt an enormous flood of relief. He’d been holding all of it back—this terrible thing that marked him as an awful person—for so long. Finally, he wouldn’t have to be alone with it.
* * *
Mark and Esther made their way to the Engen station at dawn for the combi back to Oshakati. They were sheepish with Amber, having not seen her for two days. But Amber just laughed and punched them. She smelled of old liquor, and seemed smug.
“She’s had a good time,” Esther whispered.
It drove him wild, when she whispered. He could feel her breath in his ear, could smell the clean-soap/new-rain scent of her. They were in that new-lover time, brief and precious, when everything the other person did was wizardry. He knew she felt it, too. He caught her smiling at his calves and fingering the worn material of his T-shirt. She liked to kiss the place his cheek left his upper nose. Was it the apple? She couldn’t leave it alone. She said it was delicious.
It was dangerous and heady and everyone noticed. The driver, upon seeing him—a white American—had pulled the people out of the front row to give him the prime seating.
“Go to the back!” he said. “We need that seat for the meneer.”
“No, no,” Mark said, insisting that the boy and his mother stay in the front along
with himself and the two girls. Once they were settled, though, he’d pretty much trained his focus forward. He hated to admit it, but the heat and the smell of so many bodies, along with whatever food and the exhaust fumes, made his stomach turn. Anyway, it was just a short ride from Swakop to Karibib, where they would get out and hitch north. Two hours, at most. But this leg of the route was packed. Amber leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. Esther sat on his lap, her hips moving with the bus’s rhythm.
And that was the last he remembered. The sweetness of that feeling, the hot combi, Esther swaying. The rest he learned only later, when he woke up in the private hospital in Windhoek. He’d been thrown, the doctor told him gravely, his spine bruised and his knee torn.
“Still, you’re one of the lucky ones,” the doctor said. “You’re alive and your brain is in your skull, and not all over the highway.”
“But how did I get here?” Mark whispered hoarsely. The room was white, the bed was white. “Where is Esther? Where are the girls?”
“You have to understand, you came here privately,” the doctor said.
“Privately,” Mark repeated.
“You were picked up by some Afrikaans farmers,” the doctor said. “They did not think it was wise for you to stay in the road.”
“But I was with friends,” Mark said. “Two girls. What happened to the girls?”
“No. No one was with you.” The doctor shook his head. “The farmers brought you to Swakopmund. They went through your things and found your identification. American. They called the embassy, and those people had you flown here.” He paused. “Were the girls American?”
“No! No, they were Namibian.”
“I see.” The doctor looked at him. “Then they were taken care of, sir. Namibians take care of their own people.”
“But where are they?”
“I can’t know that. I don’t know anything about the people on your bus. The farmers brought you first to Swakopmund. You are white, so you went to the private hospital. Maybe your friends are there, too.”
“They’re not white.”
The doctor looked at him. Mark was too drugged to read his expression. He guessed it was disapproving. There was a pressure against the back of his head that wouldn’t be ignored. A sensation ripped through his knee as if it were being torn from the socket. He arched his back, groaning.
“Ah! You’re in pain. Just a moment.” The doctor fiddled with a dial connected to Mark’s IV drip, and a warm, thick syrup of bliss and utter lack of care coursed through him. “Is that better?”
“Where are the girls?” Mark mumbled with what remained of his consciousness.
The doctor looked thoughtful. “If they are not white, then they were taken to the Central Hospital. Which is also fine. Namibian doctors are South African doctors. Educated in Cape Town. They should be fine.”
“But how do I…”
Only it didn’t matter anymore as Mark relaxed into an opiate sleep.
The next steps happened very quickly. The colored doctor performed an excellent operation, leaving Mark only a tiny scar and a knee even better than the one he’d had before.
“And now it’s filled with titanium and what-what-what!” said the nurse cheerfully. She was lovely, her eyelids painted gold. (Or did Mark just imagine it that way?) But she wasn’t nearly as pretty as Esther, whom he loved. Love? Did he love her? He didn’t know if he loved Esther. But he certainly wanted her to be here, and alive.
Yet no one would help him. Someone had talked to his mother, who had become hysterical and pleaded her case to his stepfather. Mark’s stepfather was the mayor of their little suburban town outside of Chicago, and he knew someone who knew the governor. So the governor called a senator, who in turn called Al Gore’s office, and it was decided that Mark should be discharged from the Peace Corps due to “hardship.” Never mind that Mark didn’t want to go home. He tried to explain as much to the doughy, sympathetic man from Maryland who was sent from the consular office to take him to the airport.
“But I’m fine,” Mark said. His head ached. The doctor came in and gave him a pill. The pills helped with everything. He later came to believe they were a magic concoction derived from the desert plants of Namibia, because no doctor in the United States could (or would) give him anything like that ever again.
“I’m sorry. The organization has simply decided you are, well, a liability. This is a government organization, and the government, you must understand, no longer supports you.”
Mark pressed his hand to his forehead. He could hardly process the words.
“But what about my stuff?”
“A representative has already been to Oshakati to gather your things. Well, that was me, actually. Usually an assistant would have done it, but I don’t have one yet. The embassy here is still pretty new.” He drummed his hands on his knees. “Anyway, I paid up your rent and explained the situation to the people you served at your post. Everyone was very understanding.” He beamed at Mark. “They all like you very much, actually. You should feel good about your work here.”
Mark took a deep breath. Surely this man could help him. He was American. “So, the bus I was on—I was on a trip. To Swakopmund. With friends.”
The embassy man nodded. Mark felt a surge of hope.
“They were girls.”
The man nodded again, encouragingly.
“Can you help me find them?”
“Were they American?”
“No.”
The embassy man smiled again. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, then. We only have jurisdiction to track down Americans.”
“But they were on the combi with me. And I don’t know if they died. Did people die?”
“I can’t tell you that information, Mark.”
“It was in The Namibian, asshole. I know people died.”
“There’s no reason to get ugly.”
“Look. Mr.—”
“Call me Bill, okay? Bill Mulherin.”
“Well, Bill, I was with my girlfriend, okay? She was sitting in my lap. Help me out, here.”
Bill Mulherin looked as if this were entirely too much information for him to handle. “Look, when you get back to the States, you can make inquiries. But I’m sorry to say, right now your visa has been revoked. So you’re going to have to come to the airport tonight. The doctor has declared you fit to travel.”
“What?” Mark cried. As if he’d been eavesdropping, the doctor appeared in the door. “I’m still bleeding!” Mark shouted at him.
“The Namibian and American governments have made it very clear that you must go home,” the doctor said. “It’s quite safe. And your pain is perfectly managed.”
“This is fucking insane,” he said to them both, whereupon the doctor handed Mark another pill and a plastic cup of water. Mark knew, from the movies, that he was supposed to bat the pill away, or pretend to swallow it and spit it out, then make a run for it. Jaime probably would have done that. But he liked the pills, so he took it and swallowed.
“Listen,” Bill Mulherin said as Mark swam back into those warm, dreamy depths. “You can come back. Or make inquiries from home. People use email, you know. Even in Africa.”
Mark would have laughed if he could. He knew Esther and Amber were as likely to use electronic mail as they were to communicate via smoke signal. Yes, he murmured. He would find them later. Right now he was battered and high and twenty-two and penniless, and his much-alarmed family was waiting for him back home, so Mark went with Bill Mulherin and got onto the plane. The flights were a paper chain connected by pills and beer; Windhoek to Johannesburg to Atlanta and then at last to Chicago. His mother and stepfather met him at O’Hare Airport, and as soon as he saw them, he wept like the child he still obviously was.
* * *
“But wait,” Amanda asked now. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you go back … back then?”
“Because I was twenty-fucking-two,” he said. “I had no money of my own. And it wasn
’t like I stopped worrying about her. I did, all the time. I mean, I couldn’t sleep for months.”
Amanda looked at Mark for a moment, then got up and went to the kitchen. When she came back, she had the Brita pitcher full of water, and two glasses. She filled both, slid one toward him, and sat down again.
How like her, Mark thought grimly, to think about hydration at this time.
“But then?” she said.
“Then, time went on, and I got really scared,” Mark said. “What if I really had left her to die? If I came back, I’d know the truth. And it wasn’t something I could have done before now. I mean, I had to be older.”
Amanda nodded. It seemed like she understood. After all, she’d had her big secret, too. He’d deceived his wife, but he never actually cheated on her. Not the way she had. God, the thought of it. Her actually in bed with this prick named Ronnie. His stomach clenched dangerously.
“Anyway,” he managed, “then I went to Dartmouth for grad school, and then I met you, and then … and then…”
He made a rolling motion with his hands, then dropped them in his lap. They sat in silence for a while. It was the dead middle of the day now. Nothing was moving. No cars passed on the street.
“Anyway. What I found out a couple of months ago was … that she was dead. I mean, she died in the crash. I got the records from the morgue. So maybe it was lucky that I didn’t come back. I don’t think I would have been equipped to deal with that back then.”
“Wait. She died?” Amanda said. He could see a shock go through her. “Then why did you … I mean. Okay, one thing at a time. First of all, why didn’t you just tell me about her?”
“It was a pretty awful thing, really,” Mark said. “I didn’t think you’d see me in the same way. And I didn’t think you’d want to hear about her. She was the one person—”
Mark stopped himself. This was definitely not something he wanted to tell his wife. But like a terrier, her eyes brightened as she went in for her catch.
