The Doctor and the Diva (50 page)

The pain in his voice increased. The Moorish girl sat motionless in her chair, the insteps of her white pumps drawn together while she listened. “My wife never loved me as I loved her,” Peter went on. He described how Erika had gone to Italy and left Quentin motherless.

The room filled with stark brightness, the last harsh rays of the day. Atop a minaret a lone man chanted prayers from the Koran, calling others to face east and touch their foreheads to the ground. Peter felt overcome by despair. Why was he reciting his heartbreak to a strange woman who did not know the words he used? What did he expect from her? He had expressed more of his anguish to her than to anyone. Why was it easiest to be open with a stranger whom one would never meet again?

This young woman with her glossy pompadour would soon leave his life forever, just as his wife had done.

The girl touched his knuckles, and let her head fall sideways to show that she respected his sorrow. She stood up. He assumed that she was worried about the hour, signaling that they should leave. Then she surprised him by settling herself on the arm of his chair. She slipped her cool hand against the back of his neck. The hairs on his nape stood up, tingling. He waited for a long moment, and then he put his mouth against hers.

When he led her to the bed, she did not resist. He helped unfasten her corset, for he knew how to unlace it better than she. Her back flexed into a cool little arch as she let the undergarments drop to the floor. Her breasts were small and cone-shaped. He drew one into his mouth and tasted a strange fluid that came from the nipples. He sucked harder— there wasn’t much of it, just a sweet flavor, like dew on a leaf. Against the bed, her arms were flung over her head in surrender, her eyes closed. He heard air catch in her windpipe.

He had not been with a woman in the eighteen months since Erika left. Remembering things that had pleasured his wife, he now did them to the Moorish girl. Startled, her eyes blinked open. She was very young, and perhaps no one had cared about her enjoyment before. Eyelids shut, her head fell back against pillows, her dark hair unspooling from its knot. A humming sound came out of her as they rocked.

Eventually her head thrashed from side to side against the pillow and she let out sharp cooing cries, her black hair loose across her shoulders, her body coming to rest after one final, delicious twitch. Triumphant, he let the girl from Mousky Street recover her breath, and he restrained his own pleasure in order to do it to her again. The second time he imagined that his wife lay under him, and he pumped with vengeance, each pump inflating her with gasps. As long as he was inside her, he controlled the helpless curve of her throat. As long as he stayed inside her, she could not go anywhere.

Ravell had heard nothing from Erika in eight years. He did not know what information Peter might offer about his former wife, but if he joined Peter on such a journey, he felt certain that he would learn more about what had become of her—perhaps even her exact whereabouts. A simple remark might lead him solidly in her direction. Maybe as they traveled upriver, Peter would name a maestro with whom she was studying, or refer to a theatre in Florence where she performed.

Ravell wondered, with trepidation, what exactly Peter wished to discuss with him. For once he was glad that he had never sent Erika a letter, and that she had never corresponded with him. No love letters existed for a wronged husband to stumble upon.

They arrived in British Guiana feeling anticipation, and much curiosity. As he and Peter walked together through the capital, Georgetown, Ravell felt he had never seen such a potpourri of humanity. Along the streets they saw copper-skinned Indians with scarlet loincloths, Hindus with topknots, and Chinese workers with pigtails—not to mention the Portuguese and the British.

They were on their way to meet a fellow named Manthorne, the person in charge of mail delivery to remote destinations in Guiana’s interior. A friend of Peter’s from the Colonial Bank had suggested that Manthorne might help arrange their expedition to the Kaieteur Falls.

So far Peter had said little about Erika, his allusions to his former wife so fleeting that Ravell wondered if he should dare to ask about her. He felt an unbearable curiosity welling up.

When he and Peter paused at a street corner, a Hindu with his whiskers dyed magenta rode by on a bicycle, but nobody else’s eyes lingered on him. Then a naked man passed by—with hair that stood on end, as if he’d been electrocuted—and not a single citizen of Georgetown turned to gape.

“If Erika were meant to be famous,” Peter said suddenly, “don’t you think it would have happened long ago?”

Ravell did not reply. He hardly knew what to say.

As they hurried toward Mr. Manthorne’s office, Peter’s pace was so vigorous that Ravell had to double his steps to keep up. The drought that plagued Trinidad was worse in Guiana, and they both wondered how this might affect their journey.

“The problem is this,” Mr. Manthorne said. “In this country where rain normally falls every day, we have had scarcely any rainfall in six months.”

“In Trinidad we’ve been luckier,” Ravell said. “Although the drought has been quite serious there as well.”

“I would strongly advise you to postpone such a trip,” Mr. Manthorne said. “Such travel would be most difficult. In certain places rivers are shallow. Even if you did manage to reach the falls, it would hardly be worth it. They’ve slowed to a trickle, eyewitnesses say.”

“How long does it take to reach the Kaieteur Falls?” Peter asked.

“Ordinarily a week. These days—who knows? Rivers have dried up, and crops have been ruined. The country is headed for much suffering.”

Peter was hardly daunted. “I’m afraid we’re a rather determined pair,” he said, and he shot Ravell a conspiratorial smile.

“All right, then.” Mr. Manthorne slapped both of his palms against his desk. “I will get you up as far as possible.” He pulled a blank paper from his desk drawer, ready to list the provisions he’d arrange. “Brace yourselves for a bit of discomfort. Despite the drought, in some spots you’re liable to be thrown out of the boat. You may find yourselves standing on your heads in the midst of rapids.”

“I’m an excellent swimmer,” Peter said. “And so is Doctor Ravell.”

A ghostly mist rose from the river on the morning they started up the Essequibo. Ravell and Peter stayed in the forward part of the launch; the after part carried the engine and crew. To either side of the main launch, another bateau was tied, weighted down with a half dozen black passengers and cargo.

They felt their way slowly at first. On either bateau a man with a pole took soundings. A black boy named Thomas had been assigned to serve Peter and Ravell. The boy prepared a luxurious breakfast for them—with tea, bread and jam, sweet potatoes, and even a chicken that had been roasted earlier.

Even in a season of drought, the river spread a mile wide. Out of the dense forest, a figure in a canoe would appear, and that person would retrieve a fistful of letters.

The crew consisted of two blacks in charge of the engine, two who steered, and a man stationed on each parallel bateau. All of them shouted orders and suggestions. The crew member whose voice blared loudest had skin as dark as oil, and a neck and shoulders so powerful that he awed Ravell. “That one’s built like a gorilla,” Peter said under his breath. Ravell stepped hard on Peter’s foot and glared at him in warning. Did Peter think, in these close quarters, that he could mutter what he liked, and not be overheard?

In the afternoon they struck a rock. Havoc and shouts from the blacks ensued. They reached an area so shallow that crewmen got on either side and pushed and hauled the boat upstream, until they reached a second, smaller launch. Ravell and Peter were transferred into the next little boat with their luggage.

Ravell stared at Peter’s canvas bundles. Inside those bags, along with his pen and writing things, did Peter carry a small book that listed Erika’s address?

Ravell pictured himself waiting on an Italian street corner. When she approached her front door and paused to open her purse and fish out a key, she’d use her teeth to tug the tips of her long gloves from her fingers.

“Erika?” he’d say, stepping out from the shadows. For the first time in eight years, her face would turn toward him.