“If it starts to rain you’ll get stuck in the mud, you won’t get out.”
They walk together toward the car, now with more distance between them. Then my husband sees you. You’re sitting in the backseat. Your head barely clears the backrest. My husband approaches and looks in through the driver’s-side window, determined to make you get out. He wants to leave right now. Upright against the seat, you look him in the eyes, as though begging him. I see through my husband, I see those other eyes in yours. The seat belt on, legs crossed on the seat. A hand reaching slightly toward Nina’s stuffed mole, covertly, the dirty fingers resting on the stuffed legs as if trying to restrain them.
“Get out, please,” says my husband. “Get out right now.”
“As if he were going somewhere,” says your father, opening the back door of the car.
Eyes desperately seek out my husband’s gaze. But your father unclasps the seat belt and pulls you out by the arm. My husband gets into the car, furious, while the two figures walk away, return to the house, distant. First one enters, then the other, and the door closes from inside. Only then does my husband start the car, drive down the hill, and take the gravel road. He feels like he’s already wasted enough time. He doesn’t stop in town. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t see the soy fields, the streams that crisscross the dry plots of land, the miles of open fields empty of livestock, the tenements and the factories as he reaches the city. He doesn’t notice that the return trip has grown slower and slower. That there are too many cars, cars and more cars covering every asphalt nerve. Or that the transit is stalled, paralyzed for hours, smoking and effervescent. He doesn’t see the important thing: the rope finally slack, like a lit fuse, somewhere; the motionless scourge about to erupt.
About the Author
Samanta Schweblin was chosen by Granta as one of the twenty-two best writers in Spanish under the age of thirty-five. She is the author of three story collections, which have won numerous awards, including the prestigious Juan Rulfo Prize, and been translated into twenty languages. Fever Dream is her first novel and is a finalist for the Mario Vargas Llosa Prize and winner of the Tigre Juan Prize. Originally from Buenos Aires, she lives in Berlin.