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 shower. She was still bleeding from her period. He wasn’t irritated. He was singing as he kneaded her dry.
They took a taxi to the train station. She had her backpack between her knees. She was very weak; she couldn’t handle the weight on her shoulders.
The bus was old and worn out and was quickly filled with people. Ben had made sure that they all had places together. The seats were jammed tight; there weren’t enough for all the passengers. Some young boys had to sit on folding chairs. She felt immense sympathy for them.
The group received her with great warmth.
“You really need to forgive me,” she said.
“Well, our turn next time,” said the Icelander. She liked his accent.
Heinrich had bought her a small bag of rock candy. “You need a little sugar,” he said, as he gave her a friendly nudge. “At home in Hannover, we always used to get a little sugar when we were small and sick.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re all being so kind.”
Martina had gotten the seat in front of Justine.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
Justine nodded.
“I had something similar in Peru. It hung on in my eyes afterwards. I was afraid that I was going to go blind. Imagine trying to fumble your way around a foreign country without anything but darkness in front of you.”
“How did you manage?”
“A man I got to know found me some kind of powder, something the Indians used. It stung like hell, but the next day, everything was all right.”
“To think you’d dare try it! You could have really been blinded!”
“Yeah, you could say that after the fact. But sometimes, you have to take a risk.”
“I got a fantastic medicine from Ben.”
Martina snorted.
“Our Swedish social system would shit on themselves if they saw the stuff you get here.”
“That’s true.”
“Try and rest during the drive. It’ll probably take all day.”
A fat, temperamental Chinese man drove the bus. He stopped twice, once for a quick lunch and the second time for an eight-minute bathroom break. He held up his sausage-like fingers with thumbs folded in: “And I tell you! Only eight minutes! After that! Bus is gone!”
The toilet was unbelievably dirty and consisted of a hole in the floor. Justine barely kept her balance in there, and her shoes got wet.
There was no such thing as toilet paper.
She said so to Nathan.
“Do they have to have such dirty toilets? It smelled disgusting in there; how can they not notice that?”
“Do your best to put up with it,” laughed Nathan. “It’ll be better in the jungle. At least there you get fresh air and leaves.”
“Also leeches!” Martina added.
Justine didn’t understand the English word leeches. She waited a minute and then asked Nathan. He glanced at Martina and smiled conspiratorially.
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.”
In the bus, Martina sat turned toward them with her legs in the aisle. The arm rest of her seat was long gone. She had a fine little face with dark eyebrows. A vague smell of soap surrounded her. She took some photos of them.
Suddenly the bus lurched so strongly that she almost dropped the camera.
“Damn idiot!” she cussed.
Nathan had caught her.
“You okay?”
“Oh, yeah. But that asshole up there has certainly not gone to driving school.”
“That’s for sure, but you have to realize that we still have a lot of miles to go and he probably doesn’t want to drive in the dark. God knows if there’s any headlights on this monstrosity.”
“In Guatemala, I rode the whole night long in a vehicle that makes this one seem like a luxury bus. We rode from Tikal to Guatemala City, and the bus had stone-hard seats without any cushioning… talk about a sore butt when we finally arrived at the crack of dawn.”
“Were you reporting?” asked Nathan.
“Yeah, I sold a piece to the travel magazine Res. They gave me a number of pages and even the cover.”
He ruffled her hair.
“Well done, Martina. Do the same here.”
“How much are you offering?”
“How about, you know, in natura? We’ll come to some kind of agreement, you and me.”
She gave him a shrewd look.
“There’s an old English saying, old but true: Don’t screw the crew!”
The Icelander said, “Martina, weren’t you nervous in Guatemala?”
“Oh yes, the soldiers stopped me a few times.”
“I think that’s unwise, even stupid, to tempt fate like that, going out into the world as a young woman on her own.”
“Why not? Shouldn’t a gal have the same freedom of movement as a guy?”
“You understand what I mean.”
“Well, no one ever tried to rape me, if that’s what you mean. The worst thing that ever happened was once I lost my passport. But the embassy fixed that up.”
“Have you seen the whole world?” asked Justine.
“Never been to Iceland, but I don’t really have any desire to go there, either.”
They arrived late in the evening. It was still very hot. The air was filled with birds; they looked like swallows. Their shining silver bodies filled the telephone wires, which ran back and forth over the streets. Ben was thrilled.
“Oh, I’m so glad that you get to see this. They’re migratory; they’re only here a few times a year.”
“But I don’t think you’re supposed to walk under them,” said Nathan. “I hear that’s unlucky.”
Everyone laughed.
They were quartered in a bare and simple guest room. Justine was very tired; she stretched out on the bed. The room was as hot as a Swedish drying cabinet. She would need to wash up a bit; she smelled funky; her whole body was itching.
“How are you feeling now?” asked Nathan. He had already taken a shower; he was standing with his feet wide apart, under the ceiling fan to dry off. The golden hair on his legs. He was handsome. She longed for him, that he would embrace her and kiss her, reassure her that nothing dangerous was going to happen, and that they always, always would be together. “Fine,” she whispered.
“You seem down.”
“Nothing, I’m just tired.”
“Let’s go downstairs and eat something.”
She shook her head.
“Not me.”
“Well, I have to get something to eat.”
He left. There were no sheets on the bed, just a thin, flowery spread over the mattress. It felt like she was lying on sand, but when she tried to brush it off, she saw that it was smooth. She wanted to wrap something around herself, not because she was freezing, but because she was used to it. She felt naked and unprotected.