I also want you to be ready for what this expedition will mean… A few of you will think in the beginning that things are getting really heavy; we also have to carry our stuff. There are no roads or paths in the jungle. We will have to crawl, climb, and keep our balance. We will have to cut our way through with these
In the evening, Ben took them to a Chinese restaurant where there was beer. Justine would rather have had wine, but it appeared to be impossible to procure in this country. She ended up next to Heinrich, one of the Germans, with whom she felt an affinity right away. He and his wife had planned to start traveling once he had retired, but she got cancer and died less than a year ago.
“I stopped working when she died; now I travel for both her and me,” he revealed to her. “Sometimes it feels as if she were with me the whole time. I talk to her in the evenings; I tell her what I’ve been up to. Having someone to share experiences with is half of the enjoyment.”
The beer helped her relax.
“It’s not easy to lose someone you love,” she said. “Elsie was so sweet…” He took out his wallet and quickly showed her, somewhat embarrassed, a photo of his deceased wife. She looked rather plain. Justine didn’t know what to say. “We were married almost forty years. What about you? How long have you two been married?”
“We two? No, Nathan and I… we are, I don’t know how to say it in English. We are together, but we are not married and we don’t live in the same house.”
“Lovers?”
“More than that. We will probably get married, we’ve talked about it.”
Martina had changed into a dress; her hair was newly washed and shining. She kept silent for long stretches, observing them, one at a time. When she came to Justine, she said quickly in Swedish: “The first white women in this jungle. What do you think about that?”
The younger German man, Stephan, hollered and put his arm around Martina.
“Hey you! Only English, remember?”
“I just told Justine that she and I and your girl Katrine are going to have a great time out in the jungle with all these good-looking guys.”
When they returned to their hotel room, they packed their things; they were going to leave early the next morning. They were going to travel into the countryside by bus until they reached a small town on the outskirts of the jungle. There they would stay overnight and finish up getting whatever else they might need.
Justine was done, she crept into bed. An unusual melancholy had come over her. She thought it was due to her period; her body felt swollen and heavy.
“Have you met any of these people before?” she asked. “No.”
“But Martina said she’d promised you an article.” “I met her yesterday while you had your beauty sleep.” “You didn’t mention that.”
“Do I have to account for everything I do?”
“I didn’t mean it to sound like that…”
“You didn’t?”
“I think it’s a bit reckless, a young Swedish girl heading out all by herself like that.”
“You do? Girls are tough, nowadays.”
She couldn’t stop herself:
“Nathan?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think she’s sexy?”
“Don’t be silly. No one can compare with you.” “You sure?”
“She could be my daughter, for God’s sake.”
The fever and shakes came that night. She woke up right in the middle of a dream. A body in the leaves, herself. Thirst was eating her from the inside, unquenchable, plowed her tongue full of furrows. She felt around in the dark; everything was pitch-black. She lay on her side, one leg weighing down the other, knees and joints.
She cried without making noise.
“Nathan…”
When he came up out of sleep, he was angry.
“For Christ’s sake, we’ve got to sleep; we have a rough day tomorrow.”
It was five past two in the morning.
His fingertips.
“Dammit, you’re burning up.”
He got some Alvedon, a fever medication, and water. “Get better, my darling, it will be extremely difficult tomorrow otherwise.”
“I know, Nathan, I know.”
The call to prayer. That hard, echoing voice. She froze more than she ever had in her life.
“I have to go to the bathroom…”
He helped her out; he cleaned her face. She saw something move in the corner. She screamed and hit around wildly.
“It’s nothing, just a cockroach. Take it easy, Darling, take it easy…”
Then back to bed.
“I can’t, I just can’t…”
“Shall I get a doctor?’
“No, just let me be…”
He went down to the registration desk and came back with two blankets. It didn’t help. She grabbed his arm tightly.
“I can’t go with the bus…”
“I understand, Sweetheart.”
He had to go out. She hallucinated due to the fever. She was in the jungle and she was sinking; Martina stood widelegged in the river. Then it seemed she was lifted from the lumpy mattress, a shimmering flood of cockroaches; she hung down. Someone was holding her. Someone was rubbing ointment into her back. She was freezing between her shoulder blades. A glass came to her lips. Someone said, drink. She drank and fell back into the rising shadows.
In the evening, he was with her again.
“Nathan, I was calling for you so…”
He said, “I was sitting here pretty much the whole time.
I’ve been keeping watch over you; you have been very sick.” “What day is it?”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Tuesday was yesterday already?”
“Yes, it was Tuesday; you’ve been very sick… but now you’re better; the crisis has passed. I got some medicine from Ben. We can take the bus tomorrow.”
As soon as she thought of that, she wanted to close her eyes again; she tried to get more air.
“Ben said that you’d be much better tomorrow. You’ve gotten a fantastic medicine. But now you have to drink a lot. Drink both of these bottles.”
He did not let her sleep. If her eyes were closed for too long, he woke her up again and forced her to drink more water. She was no longer freezing. The aches in her legs were beginning to lessen. He was sitting next to her; he didn’t go out.
“Forgive me…,” she whispered. “Forgive me for hindering you… us.”
“You don’t need to ask for forgiveness; you couldn’t help it. On a trip like this, you have to expect that anything can happen.”
“What about the others?”
“It’s better it happened now than in the jungle. Right?”
“Ew,” she complained. “Do you think I’ll be able to go?”
The next day it was over. She was feeble and exhausted, but the fever had left her. Nathan helped her take a
