Ileana returns with the wine.
‘It could take a long time,’ she says, continuing their early conversation. ‘I mean for you to discover the trigger, if there is one. Years of investigation. Therapy. And even then there are no guarantees. After all, it was us Europeans who invented the talking cure. And most of the maladies it’s designed to treat.’ She snorts faintly.
‘There are other ways,’ says Adrian.
‘Like what, hypnosis?’
‘Yes. Have you ever tried it?’
‘No,’ replies Ileana. ‘I don’t know what Attila would make of it. I know I think it’s a bit early in the game.’
‘Of course,’ concedes Adrian. ‘It was just a thought.’
Ileana stands and scrapes the contents of one plate to the other, the debris of crab shells and empty claws. Out at sea a fishing canoe sits high upon the shallow waves, a line of buoys marks the shape of the net. Ileana is in the kitchen. Two women are walking along the beach; one of them waves at Adrian. A moment later she waves again. Politely, Adrian waves back thinking she must have mistaken him for somebody else. The women change direction and come up the beach towards him.
‘Hiya,’ says the one who waved. She is tall, her shoulders almost as broad as his, an athlete’s body, blonde hair and prominent teeth. Her companion is shorter, small-breasted though with a good figure, reddish hair and a red bikini, the pale skin of a true redhead.
‘Hello,’ says Adrian, shielding his eyes against the sun as he looks up at them.
‘We saw you and thought we’d come and say hello. Pedro’s, a couple of weeks ago.’ Her accent is American.
‘Of course,’ Adrian replies. He recognises her now as the woman from the bar the evening he drank beers with Kai. Kai had given her the brush-off, though she hadn’t seemed to mind.
‘Been having a good day?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Isn’t the beach great? But there are others that are even better, with some great beach bars, well, if you can call them that. Of course it takes them for ever to bring the food. And half the time they don’t have what you order. But then isn’t that the same every place? You get used to it. The lobster is to die for and just about two dollars for a whole one. Can’t get that at home. Some guy dives from the rocks for fresh oysters while you wait. They’re a dollar a dozen.’ She sits in Ileana’s chair. ‘Have you tried the Shangri-La?’
‘This is my first day out at the beach.’
‘You’re kidding! By the way, I’m Candy. This is Elle.’ They are both in the country working for aid agencies. In turn Adrian tells them about his position at the hospital.
‘So this isn’t your place then?’
‘No.’ Adrian mentions Ileana. Candy shrugs and shakes her head. Two men selling sarongs and souvenirs approach and begin to display their wares, batik cloths, haematite necklaces and glossy, carved animals. One of the men is in his fifties, the other in his twenties, shirtless with a smooth muscular chest. Neither Candy nor Elle pays attention to the men or their wares. Elle sits on the sand and, turning her back on them, rolls over on to her stomach on the sand; as she does so, she reaches down to adjust her bikini bottoms, flicking the elastic. There is no self-consciousness in the gesture, as if the men behind her don’t exist. Candy is still talking. Adrian looks at her, remembers the expression on her face the night she had approached Kai: self-confident, hungry. He thanks the two men, tells them they are not interested in buying.
‘Don’t bother, they never give up,’ says Candy. ‘So how long have you been here?’ For the second time that day Adrian is asked the question. He tells them and Candy laughs.
‘I thought you looked saner than the rest of us,’ and she laughs again.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You haven’t heard the joke?’ says Candy, flicking a look at Elle.
Adrian shakes his head, bemused.
‘You know the joke? About the tourist?’
He still has no idea what she is talking about.
‘What’s the difference between a tourist and a racist?’
‘I don’t know,’ he responds automatically.
‘Two weeks!’
Elle laughs supportively, though she has clearly heard the joke before. Candy is grinning at him. Adrian has no idea how to respond. He is silent.
Behind Candy the sellers are folding sarongs, putting them away. Adrian thinks of the obtuse police officers and the deaf boy, his frustration with the hospital administrator, the power cuts and water shortages, the heat, the clogged gutters and traffic jams in the city, the beggars. He thinks of the pregnant woman with the dead baby between her legs, of Kai, then of Agnes, of the young man he first brought to the hospital, of his friends among the patients at the hospital, the calm and beauty of the Patients’ Garden. Of Attila’s unbroken determination. Of his own strange happiness in that place. He is still unsure what to say when he realises the attention of both women has been redirected.
‘Oh, hi,’ Candy says, in a tone noticeably flatter to the one with which she had greeted Adrian. Ileana has reappeared with a dish of sliced fruit, mango and pineapple. She greets the two women and sets the plate down on the table.
‘Hey, that looks great!’ Candy says, her tone gushing now. ‘And this place, too.’
‘Thank you. I’ll get some more plates.’
To Adrian’s relief the moment has passed. He wonders if Ileana heard Candy’s joke, though if she did she gives no sign of it, disappearing for a second time to re-emerge with extra plates and cutlery. The fruit is fresh, sharp and clean, clears his taste buds of the residual flavour of crab.
Suddenly Ileana sets her plate back on the table and stands up. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says to the two women. ‘You don’t have anything to drink. What would you like? There’s wine.’
‘Hey. Awesome! We’ve lucked out here. Could a day get any better?’
Ileana nods graciously. She takes the bottle from the cool box beside Adrian and pours two more glasses.
‘This is really good.’ Elle, this time.
‘Do you know what the most popular white wine here is?’ asks Ileana.
‘No,’ say Candy and Elle and turn to her, Adrian as well. The two women open-faced and smiling.
‘It goes like this,’ says Ileana, and she affects a grating, high-pitched voice, a clear imitation of Candy’s nasal accents. ‘Christ, what’s wrong with these people? Can’t they do anything for themselves? If it wasn’t for us they’d still be in the trees.’ And with that she sits down heavily in her chair, takes a sip from her own glass. ‘Cheers! Good, isn’t it? The most popular white whine.’
That night it turns cold. There is no wind, no rain and yet, lying in his bed, Adrian feels a chill in the air. He gets up from his bed and switches off the ceiling fan. The movement sets his stomach churning. The crab perhaps, though it had tasted fresh enough. With these things one seldom knew until it was too late. And yet, if his memory serves, seafood poisoning came on quickly. He calculates how long it has been since he left Ileana’s. About five hours. Candy and Elle had stayed only a few minutes after Ileana’s remarks. ‘Silly tarts,’ she’d said as they watched the two women walk away. ‘Do you know how much they get as a hardship allowance?’ Fortunately, the tension caused by the women’s visit had vanished with them, Adrian and Ileana once more at ease between themselves. He had admired the sharpness of her response, and felt grateful for her apparent willingness to overlook the failure of his own.