River stood at the stove working a skillet. Even from the rear, he looked a lot like Raven. Same long waist, same round butt, same arm motions as he shoved a spatula under the eggs that sputtered in his frying pan. Whorls of turbulent, lampblack hair curled against the back of his collar. His voice, albeit lower, was Raven’s voice, feisty and windswept. And engaging. Very engaging.
“Get away.” He grabbed a towel and swatted the tiny flies that swarmed over the sink. “Shit, I forgot to close the window screen.” He slammed it shut. “They’re awfully pesky. Between the flies and the cats, you’re going to think I live in a slum.”
Sid sat at the table with her elbows resting on the top and one leg curled beneath her. She nursed the warmth of her coffee cup with her hands. It had been years since she had eaten a leisurely breakfast in her pajamas. In college she had usually grabbed two stale doughnuts while Laurie slept and then dashed from their dorm room to her early morning classes. As a medical student, she bought pastries, which tasted like jelly-coated cardboard, from hospital vending machines before the early morning rounds. During her residency, if she ate breakfast at all, it was an uncooked Pop Tart. This morning, soothed by the eggy odors of River’s little house, she felt wonderfully lazy.
“Tomorrow’s our lab meeting,” Sid said. “Wonder how everyone’s doing?” She blew on her coffee to cool it.
Raven, also in her pajamas, sat across from Sid and cradled her head in her palms. “The topic of the lab is off limits,” she muttered. She stumbled into the back room and returned with two Tylenols. She popped the pills into her mouth, moaned “headache,” and washed them down with a swallow of orange juice.
“Yeah, still, I wonder,” Sid said. “Dr. Evans will be worrying about the lab finances. Eliot will be holed up in his nest, paging through microbiology journals and questioning the validity of what other scientists have published. I wonder who he’s annoying now that I’m away?”
“Miss him?”
That word again, like a steel-pointed arrow. Miss. Miss him. Why did Raven ask that? She looked at her friend, at her half-mast eyes, her swollen lips.
Sid sometimes thought that if she and Eliot had lived on a different planet, somewhere deep in outer space where only nice people existed, his keen intellect, his creativity, his single-mindedness—everything about him—might have appealed to her. But they lived on Earth, and the real Eliot, distant and critical, had been wearing her down. He was one of the reasons she was in Brazil. “No,” she said, “I don’t miss him.” She sipped her coffee. “Eliot needs to hear the old bromide about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar. That’s what my Belgian grandmother used to say.”
“Flies?” River, still stirring the eggs, called from the stove. “Did you find more flies in here?”
Sid shook her head and laughed. “No, we were talking about a guy in our lab who gets on my nerves. Need any help?”
Raven wrapped her arms around her head again. “When it comes to Eliot, you need a skin transplant, Sid. Ask for one that’s thicker than the one you’ve got.”
Sid glared at Raven. Her friend was unusually testy. Maybe driven by a hangover?
“Uh …” River laid a hand on the shoulder of Sid’s pajamas. His fingers were strong and electric. “You could set the table.” He handed her three plates, three knives and three forks. He unrolled three sheets of paper towels and set them on top of the plates. “These will do for napkins.”
After they sat down at the table, River passed Raven a plate of buttered, somewhat charred, bread.
Raven frowned. “Burned the toast, I see. Did you cook these eggs at all? They look slimy.”
The toast tasted fine to Sid. And so did the eggs.
“Burned toast?” River asked. He looked puzzled. “It’s done just right. Who likes raw toast? You?”
“No, I don’t like raw, but not carbonized either,” Raven said.
“And, the eggs are scrambled,” River said. “Yes, they’re moist. Dry scrambled eggs are like eating sawdust.”
“They’re too runny. See?” Raven tipped her plate and a stream of egg juice ran downhill.
“Sister, your usually sunny disposition seems to have darkened.” He flashed a playful grin. “You’re free to dine elsewhere.”
Sid ate her toast and eggs without a comment. The twins’ squabbling felt like the pull of a slingshot right before it releases its stone. She didn’t want them to quarrel; she liked them better as loving siblings. River and Raven also remained silent.
“On a different note, want to go on a field trip after breakfast?” River finally asked. “I have to visit several farmers out near the reservoir.”
“I’ve been wondering about your job,” Sid asked. “What exactly do you do?”
“I work for an agricultural program through the US Agency for International Development,” he answered. “We teach local farmers modern agricultural practices: how to plow their fields efficiently, which seeds to plant, what fertilizer to use. That kind of stuff. It’s great.”
“Did they grow crops in your commune? Is that where you learned about farming?”
“Well, our community had big gardens, but all I learned there was to distinguish the weeds from the vegetables. Yanking up dandelions and Bermuda grass was my job. We’ll be gone a couple of hours. I have new seeds to show the guys.”
“Sure, I’ll come,” Sid said.
“Ah, count me out,” Raven said. “I’ll stay home and tend my throbbing head.”
“You sick?” Sid pretended to be naive. Of course, Raven was sick. Hung-over kind of sick.
“Well, too much fun, I guess.” Raven said.
“Too much rum is my bet,” River said. “The diagnosis is bottle flu. Do you agree, Doctor Sid?”
Sid shrugged.
Raven ignored them both. “I’ll just laze around here a bit longer. You two go ahead.”
The clouds, which dropped to the horizon ahead of them, threatened rain. As he drove along the dusty roads, River explained the crops that grew in the passing fields: sugar cane, cassava, corn. He recited the names of the tiny villages they passed through: Ursina Diana, Juritis, Brejo Alegre.
“They sound musical, like operas or something,” Sid said.
“Yeah,” he laughed. “They kinda do.” He explained the struggling economy of the region and the limitations of agriculture and hydroelectricity and cattle ranching to provide decent wages. “It’s beastly hot in the summer down here, and those folks are out in their fields in the worst of it. The weather is unpredictable for the crops, and the politics of the hydroelectricity plant range from muddy to ugly, and yet the farmers here manage to scratch out a living.” His fingers tapped the steering wheel as he talked. Sid watched the expressive gestures of his hands, remembered their gentle touch on her shoulder.
This was how it used to be with Paul, she thought, back when they shared ideas with each other, enjoyed being together. Paul, too, was confident, kind, smart.
“If you haven’t noticed yet, the folks here are the happiest humans you’ll ever meet.” A smile inched across his face. “They enjoy their lives. Like Cibele and Ana. Like the farmers we’re about to meet.” He pointed out the window. “Like those fellows out there.” Two young men, laughing, stood up to their knees in grass, one with a scythe in his hands, the other, a rake. Even from the car, Sid could feel the comradery that filled their hilarity.
He turned onto a dirt road and, after about ten minutes, parked behind several pick-up trucks. Beyond, ten or twelve men stood in the shade of a pole barn or leaned against the fence, smoking.
Sid climbed out of the car and followed River toward the men. Dry grass, stippled with occasional tufts of green, carpeted the ground. As they walked through the farmyard, she heard a car door slam. She turned. A woman walked quickly toward them. It was Cibele.
River waved to her. “She’s my translator. I’d be lost without her help with the technical language. Her father and grandfather are farmers, and she grew up with the lingo.”
Cibele didn’t look anything like a farmer. Her silk tunic billowed in the breeze; its green and blue print, like watercolor brush strokes on a camel-colored background, echoed tints of the sky and the distant treetops.
Sid continued to follow River toward the gathered men. Three steps later, the ground gave way under her left foot, and a barb of pain shot through her ankle. Her arms flailed as she tried to grab onto something, anything, to keep from falling. River leaned toward her and clutched her elbow. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I must have stepped in a hole. Thanks for catching me.”
He held her elbow as they continued to walk. His grip was strong. “You’re limping,” he said.
“I think I turned my ankle a bit. It’ll be fine in a minute.” He was a convenient crutch. As she hobbled forward, she tilted against his side, felt the warmth of his body.
“Oh, no. Let’s keep going.” She wanted to stay with him, wanted to watch him do his work.
When they reached the farmers, he guided her to a stump and let go of her arm. “Here’s a good place to sit.” Then he began talking to the men as he passed out samples of corn seeds from his backpack. Cibele stood beside him. Through her, the farmers asked questions, and through her, River answered. What kind of yield could they expect? How many bags of seed per hectare? When should they plant? When would they be able to harvest?
When the farmers had finished asking questions, Cibele walked over to Sid. “It’s good to see you, again. Sore leg?”
“Twisted ankle. My foot fell in a hole.” Sid asked about Ana and the little boy, Gilberto.
Cibele’s face glowed as she described her nephew’s antics. “He’s what we call a rocket child.” Then she said, “Come. I’ll introduce you to our friends.”
The nearest men, five of them, nodded as Cibele called to them. Cibele laid her hand on the arm of the tall, somber man with the straw hat. “This is Marcelo,” she said. “He’s the lead assistant to Mr. Ayrton Queiroz, who owns a large farm near here.”
Marcelo shook Sid’s hand. His eyes were deep and dark and seemed to cling to something far away and sad.
“And this is … Felix … Hermann … Philippe … Thiago.”
Sid shook their hands. Each man’s skin was rough with callouses, and each grasp was as vigorous and assured as River’s had been at the airport. While Cibele chatted with them in Portuguese, Sid studied their tanned faces, the intensity of their expressions, the earnestness of their voices. From the way they responded to Cibele, they clearly respected her.
When the men returned to their trucks, Cibele said, “That first one, Marcelo? His little daughter Mariana died about two weeks ago. It’s been terribly hard on him and his wife. They are expecting another baby in a couple months.”
Sid looked at Marcelo again. His sad face, his stooped posture, his blank eyes all spoke volumes. She knew that look, had seen it before in the grief-stricken parents of her dying patients. Before she could say anything, she heard River call. “Ready to go?”
River appeared at her side and asked about her ankle.
“Still a bit sore. It’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
He offered his arm again. As she leaned against him and limped back to the car, she once more felt the warmth of his body. The familiar, haunting echo crawled over her like a specter at midnight. Her sobbing mother, the disbelief, the emptiness, the fury of the silence when no words would come. “Tell me about those seeds,” she said.
“They’re a new hybrid, developed at the University in São Paulo. Should give higher yields than the seeds these guys have used for generations.”
“Sounds important.” The leaden shadow from long ago began to dissipate. Slowly.
“It is. I’m excited about helping the people here maximize the yields from their crops. They’re not highly educated. Not at all. But they’re fast learners and willing to try new varieties in their fields. They have no reason to trust me, though. That’s where Cibele is invaluable.”
At the car, he helped her into the passenger seat. She held onto his arm a bit longer than necessary and searched his face for a response. But he offered no smile; she saw no sparkle in his all-business eyes.
“There you go.” He pulled away from her and slammed the door.
They followed Cibele’s Chevy away from the farmyard and down the dirt road. About three miles later, Cibele stopped behind a string of parked vehicles. She climbed out of her car and walked back to River’s Volvo.
He leaned out his open window. “What’s up?”
“Everyone’s here for a funeral. I heard about it from the guys back at the farm.”
Sid leaned her head against the back of her seat. She didn’t want to hear about another person dying.
“Anyone we know?” River asked.
“Yes,” Cibele said. “Eduardo Setti’s young daughter, Luiza.”
Sid closed her eyes. Another child. Another devastated parent. First Marcelo, and now someone named Eduardo.
“Oh, god. That’s awful.” River’s face darkened. “What happened?”
“Come on. I’ll explain on the way.”
He turned to Sid. “Eduardo is one of the farmers in my district. Want to go to a funeral?”
Not really, she thought. But she didn’t want to wait alone in the car, either. “Okay.”
He helped her out of the passenger seat and offered his arm once again. Hanging on to him, she tottered toward the crowd in the graveyard.
Cibele explained as they walked that Luiza had woken up with a fever and purple blotches on her legs and was dead by that night.
Fever and purple blotches. Sid tightened her hold on River. The ashen shadow began to gather over her head again.
“You’re a doctor, Sid,” he said. “What might have happened to her?”
“Hard to say. Sounds like sepsis of some kind.” She gripped River’s arm even harder. Sepsis was bad. Often really bad. “How old was Luiza?”
“About two years,” Cibele said, shaking her head. “Just a baby.”
Sid stopped walking and leaned against River.
“Ankle too sore?” he said. “We’re almost there.”
“It’s fine. Let’s go.”
At the graveside, she continued to lean against him and the rigidity of his muscles. The priest mumbled a blessing and sprinkled holy water over the child’s plain wooden casket. The onlookers crossed themselves and mumbled a response. A girl in a white dress placed a bouquet of flowers on the casket’s lid. She appeared to be about five years old. Could she be the dead child’s sister? Sid stared at the girl’s tear-stained cheeks, at her shiny black hair and delicate hands, at the pretty young girl who would carry the ghost of her lost sister forever.
A group of women—Sid guessed they were Luiza’s mother, grandmothers, and aunts—wailed even louder as the little box, buoyed by ropes in the hands of six young men, disappeared into the hole. The women were all dressed in black mourning clothes.
Then River let go of Sid’s elbow. Abruptly. Matter-of-factly. “Will you be okay standing here for a moment? I want to speak with Luiza’s family.” He edged into the crowd, wrapped his arms around one of the weeping women, and spoke into her ear. She nodded her head as she sobbed. He whispered something more to her, and she nodded again.
Now it wasn’t her ankle that bothered her most. It was the empty expanse of an absence. The inexplicability of it all.
As they returned to their cars, Cibele wandered over to Sid. Dark glasses masked her eyes. “How’s your leg?”
“It’ll be okay.”
“You know, she’s the third little child to die like this in the past two weeks.”
What? In this tiny little place? “Three deaths in young, healthy children?” Sid said. “In Promissão? Over two weeks?”
“Yes. Marcelo’s daughter Mariana was the first.”“What’s going on?”
“No one knows. They got sick, high fever and listlessness, and then they died. Within a day.”
“How about the local doctors? What do they say?”
“All we have is Dr. Alancar. I don’t know what he thinks of it.”
“We could ask him.”