her with the antibiotics he always carried—wrestling her to get them down.
She found herself in an endless dream, trying to get a nest of snakes to a hospital. They were in a Pyrex custard cup, writhing and spilling and shooting out over the lobby of a hotel. She kept gathering them, and they’d shrink and pulse, then shoot out again. The dream went round and round, and she began to cry, out of frustration and helplessness.
And then her skin began to cool. Her eyes opened and fell onto Ian. No disintegrating heavens, just the two of them camped under a couple of dwarf baobab trees, the sun coming up warm and bright over the pan, doves making their mournful sound in the trees. His face was deeply lined, dark bags under his eyes.
“You’re back,” he said, holding her.
“What do you think it was?”
“Tick bite fever.”
“How do you know?”
“Between your toes. I found the evidence last night. There’s a streak of red running up your leg.”
“If it had reached my heart, would I have died?”
“No. No, you wouldn’t have. I was going to pack you straight into the Land Rover, but I didn’t know if I could find my way in the dark.”
“What did I say to you last night?”
“Best goes unrepeated. You were a wild animal …”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re all right, my love, that’s what matters. What do you want for breakfast? I’m thinking we should eat and then go get a proper antibiotic for you.”
“What did you give me?”
“Erythromycin, I think.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Sometimes I switch the bottles.”
“Well, it’s working … and I don’t want to go. Why should we?”
“It seems like a good idea.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“All right, but what do you want for breakfast?”
“A cup of tea?”
“And what else?”
“Some porridge?”
“And what else?”
“That’s it.” She held out her hand to him.
He grabbed it and grew quiet. “Don’t ever do that … I couldn’t bear it, Alice … ”
He turned to go, but she hung onto his hand. “It goes both ways.”
They stayed there that day and another night. He made stew, and they sat in the shade on the camp chairs, watching the birds come and go, the light shift over the pan. “If that tick hadn’t gotten me,” she said, “we would have left this morning and we would have missed all this.”
Toward nightfall, she said, “I’ve been thinking that I’m not going to be able to come with you after all. My legs are weak as noodles. There’ll be another time. I’d like you to drive me back to Francistown tomorrow and put me on an overnight train.”
“I’d carry you up those hills if you want.”
She touched his lips.
“Or I can drive you back to Gaborone.”
“The conductor will bring a blanket roll. I’ll be rocked all night. I’ll call my neighbor and ask her to pick me up on the other end.”
“I want to drive you.”
“I want you to be doing what you were planning to do. You’ll tell me about it. Maybe we can meet halfway in a couple of weeks when you come back.”
“It’s what you want?”
“It’s what I want.”
That night, they lay together in the big tent. She was still feverish, and when he came into her, she felt his coolness against her heat. She would have liked him to stay there forever. They moved together gently, peacefully, stopping, beginning again, her fever knocking down the borders between them.
They slept, and woke early. Morning Star was brighter than ever, hope on the horizon, the howl of the hyena banished. Ian drove across the pan, then northward, back to Gweta and east to Francistown. They ate dinner together, and he walked her to the platform where the southbound passenger train waited. “Stay here tonight,” he said, “and let me drive you in the morning.”
“No,” she said, kissing him. She let him go, and he put his arms around her again and kissed her harder. She climbed up the steps into the train. When she opened the window of the compartment to wave, he was already walking down the platform. He didn’t turn.
31
In his mind’s eye, he saw her face flushed with fever, her hair stuck to her cheek with sweat, her eyes swimming. Driving her back out to the main road, he’d wanted to keep harm from her forever. But that feeling was mixed with something stronger that had nothing to do with keeping her safe. Once he’d seen pictures of the living bridges of Cherrapunji in northeastern India, made from the roots of