Are you awake?”
Pieter nibbled the back her neck as she stretched, yawned, and opened her eyes to the peach glow of dawn. “I am now.”
“Sorry to wake you.”
“Sorry?” She giggled and flexed into the curve of his body. “You feel pretty happy to me.”
His hand drifted from her breast down into the valley of her waist and then up over her hip. “You are shaped rather like a cello.”
“You’ve got this backwards.” She flipped over to face him. “The cello is shaped like a woman. Ladies have been around much longer than any stringed instrument.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Come here. You on top for a change.”
Sweet and languid at first, like a graceful pas des deux, as if they were the only people in the world and they had all the time in the universe. Then passion took the reins and they galloped across the plains until they tumbled over a cliff, and the world became a kaleidoscope.
She fell into that space between his arm and torso, watching his chest heave as he caught his breath.
He turned and touched her cheek. “Did you know that you are totally irresistible?”
She wondered if he said that to all the girls.
He rubbed her shoulder. “Making love to you is like playing a Stradivarius.”
“Really? I didn’t know you could play the violin.”
“Saaraah,” he whined. “Can’t you ever take a compliment?”
“Sorry. You were sweet to say that.”
“Say something nice to me.”
“Well … you’re not shaped like a cello.”
“Is that the best you can do?”
“You’re like a bass viol.” She laid her face on his chest. “I can feel your voice. Like when we were dancing. Remember?”
“Mm-hmm.” He stroked her hair. “David was crazy to let you come here alone.”
Sarah sat bolt upright.
“Sorry. Come back.”
She lay back down to face him in the morning light. She had always avoided staring at him. Now she felt entitled to gaze directly into his clear blue eyes.
She tapped him on the nose. “Tell me about this Eva person.”
“Ahh, no.” He flopped onto his back and folded his arms under his head. “You don’t need to hear about her.”
“Why not? I told you about David.”
“This is different. She’s a just a friend. But …” He tapped the empty ring finger on her left hand. “He gave you that ring.” He laughed. “A chastity belt would have been more effective.”
“Pieter!”
“What does Eva do? Is she a doctor? A lawyer?”
“She sits on the board of her father’s company.”
“So, she works for her father?”
He rolled his eyes. “Did I say she works? She does not.”
“Oh.”
He sat up. “I have to be at the hospital soon. Can you cook us some breakfast?”
“You said you could cook.”
“Only my boiled eggs. You could make something much better.”
She crawled out from under the mosquito net and pulled on a T-shirt. “Let’s go see if there’s anything worth eating in my kitchen.”
“Mind if I take a shower while you cook?”
“The water heater’s not on yet.”
“No problem.”
Cold shower. She shuddered at the thought.
The eggs and long-life milk in the fridge were still okay, and she had some frozen bread, so she made French toast, which Pieter proclaimed to be the best he ever tasted.
He barged into the bathroom while she was on the toilet and asked to borrow her toothbrush.
“It would be polite to knock. I prefer to pee in private.”
He laughed, tried to cover his mouth, but white speckles spewed onto the mirror. His voice was muffled. “I wot witning.”
“You’re not listening, eh?” She feigned indignation, flushing the toilet with a flourish. “I’ve heard that before. You have totally blown your credibility.”
He rinsed his mouth and tapped the toothbrush on the sink. “A little white lie is okay, isn’t it? Once in a while?”
She bumped her hip against his. “Move over so I can wash my hands.”
He reached around her to wipe the spots off the mirror, slipped his hands around her waist, and winked at her reflection. “You might like Holland. We keep our toilets in little closets.”
The kitchen was spotless, pans and dishes drying on the counter. “Pieter, you cleaned up. How nice.”
“I am compensating for my lack of credibility.” He paused with his hand on the door knob. “Are you coming to the operating room today? Or do you need to recover from jet lag?”
“I’ll be in midwife class this morning, and I have to go to market this afternoon. My cupboard is bare. Hopefully I’ll have time for a nap some time.”
“So.” It was an awkward moment. He cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
“RATS.” SHE'D LEFT her phone on airplane mode. When she switched it back on, the messages appeared in reverse order of transmission. The last and most frantic message appeared first, in all caps: “CALL ME NOW!”
David was not happy when he answered the phone. “What the fuck?”
“Did I wake you up?”
“Of course not. How the hell am I supposed to sleep? Jesus, Sam.”
“I forgot to take my phone off airplane mode Sorry. I—"
“The ring. You left it. Taped to the mirror.”
“I wanted to be sure you saw it.”
“You just left it! What’s that supposed to mean?”
She switched from defense to offense. “I felt stupid wearing that ring. We’ll never—"
“If you really want to get married, then just come back home right now. We’ll fly to Vegas or something.”
Her voice oozed with sarcasm. “Oooh, that’s really romantic.”
“So, is this it? Are we through?”
“No.” That thought made her shiver. “Maybe I just need a little space.”
“Space? As if the Atlantic isn’t wide enough for you?”
“Technically, I’m still living with you. You have all my stuff.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Sorry.”
“I guess I’m not scoring many brownie points, ranting on like this.”
“I can understand why you’re upset.”
“Do you still love me?” His voice had never sounded so weak.
The pause was only a couple of heartbeats. But it was there. “I still love you. You don’t just stop loving someone.”
“I don’t want to lose you, Sam.”
“I should go now. Got to get to class.”
“Call me when you can. Please.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t give up on me. Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to pay attention to the lecture, even though it was important. Oral medications to control postpartum bleeding. Should TBAs be allowed to dispense it? It was controversial. Sarah was not just jet-lagged. They hadn’t spent much time sleeping during the night. Her brain was in a fog as she struggled to wrap her head around her train wreck of a life. Whatever possessed her to leave the ring? It was a stupid snap decision. And she hadn’t really intended to get tangled up with Pieter.
Okay, she had fantasized about it. Still, she couldn’t believe it had actually happened. Was that really her last night? She didn’t consider herself to be a cold fish, but she had never thought herself capable of such—it felt weird to even think the word—such passion.
She had to put it behind her. Pieter was a player. It was a one-night stand. She would be a big girl, wouldn’t let it get weird. Not like it did after that night up in the mountains. Still, as she dozed off, her mind drifted off into the moonlight, the owl hooting, the creaking glider …
She nearly fell off her chair when her cellphone buzzed.
A text from Margo: “Need help in ER. STAT.”
THE YOUNG WOMAN lay prone on a stretcher with a deep gash in the back her neck. Her right arm was slashed, and the left hand was nearly severed from her wrist, hanging by a thin strip of flesh. Her husband had attacked her with a machete. Fortunately, the neighbors heard her screaming and chased him off. Margo wondered if they could save the dangling hand.
Sarah examined the wound. “It’s reasonable to try. The hand should survive if at least some of the blood supply was spared. She might even regain some useful motion. Many of the muscles that move fingers are up in the forearm.”
In the operating room, Ruben repaired the right arm while Margo and Sarah worked on the left wrist. They were ecstatic to discover an intact artery and vein. Sarah tugged on a tendon. “This one moves the index finger. I can’t believe her husband did this. Have you ever seen an attack like this before?”
“Once in a while. It’s a good thing they always chop from the back, so the spine can stop the blade. I’ve never seen a complete decapitation.”
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you? I mean, a person being headless and all—they wouldn’t bother bringing her to the hospital.”
“You got me there. But domestic violence is very common in your country, too, isn’t it?”
“Sure, beatings, shootings … I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Aaahh, shootings. So, they wind up dead instead of just mutilated.”
“I see your point.”
Margo paused in sewing, as though she had a sudden inspiration. “We need to teach about domestic violence in our course.”
“Talking to women.” Sarah sighed. “That’s the main strategy in the US. Educating women, providing shelters, public service announcements. Still, it never ends.”
“Maybe Pieter should talk to the men in some of the villages. Give a class or something. What do you say, Pieter?”
He was hanging a unit of blood. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening. Just back here keeping the patient alive.”
After the long and tedious wrist repair, the women left Reuben to sew up the neck. Pieter joined them in the lounge.
Margo sat down with a cup of tea. “So, Pieter, what about addressing domestic violence in our course? You know, what we asked you about during the case?”
“I didn’t hear. Ask me again.”
“Sarah and I can only do so much by talking to the women about domestic violence. We think you should have some sessions with the men.”
“I can’t see how me talking to a few men would change anything.”
“It couldn’t hurt to try,” said Sarah. “Who knows—change one or two minds and it could snowball. Or maybe you save at least one life.”
He shrugged. “Sure. Okay.”
“I’ll go check on Ruben.” Margo downed the rest of her tea and headed out the door.
Pieter and Sarah sat in awkward silence, avoiding eye contact. After a few minutes he asked, “Did you get to the market?”
“No.”
“Would you like to share a take-out pizza?”