next to her.
As the bus drove through the oil palm plantations, a torrential rainstorm battered the earth. The windscreen wipers flicked frantically, trying in vain to sweep away the cataract coursing down the glass. Headlights on, the bus moved cautiously while the passengers, disoriented by the rain hammering on the bodywork, felt shut in by the condensation gathering on the windows.
The storm eased just before they came to Turbo. By the time the bus pulled into the town square, it had slowed to a steady drizzle that seemed as though it might go on forever. The central plaza was a mire. People carefully picked their way across the streets, hiking up their trousers to avoid the mud.
Elena cursed the vast swamp.
When Julito’s boat finally pulled into the cove, Elena was surprised not to see J. waiting, waving to her from the beach. She felt disappointed. Though it was not raining, the sky was overcast, the sea dark. She found J. lying in bed, reading. His feet were pitted with fungal infection.
“It’s the rubber boots,” he explained, jerking his chin at his feet. “It’s agony, even when I’m sitting down.”
They kissed and she sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his feet.
“You’re in a terrible state,” she said.
The fungal infection presented as white pustules with tiny tentacles that buried into the skin causing terrible itching. When they burrowed beneath the toenails, the pain was unbearable. The pustules had to be carefully removed and the livid, pockmarked skin smeared with a thick layer of fungicidal cream. The treatment was lengthy, painstaking and painful. The pustules removed at night would reappear by morning.
Elena immediately took over caring for him with great success. Being a coward when it came to pain, J. needed someone to force him, almost bully him, into persisting with the treatment. A week after Elena came home J. was still unable to walk, and only after a fortnight did he take his first painful steps along the hallways.
16
G RADUALLY , the waters began to recede. As time passed, the clouds were slower to mass into rain-storms and the sunny interludes grew longer.
Elena had brought spare parts for the sewing machine from Medellín. Once it had been repaired, the Singer was set up on the counter in the shop so that Elena could sew while she worked. She had also brought back large bolts of cloth patterned with large red flowers. As soon as she got home, she began taking measurements, and by the time winter was over every window in the house was curtained.
J. liked the new drapes. Every time he came back from the fields he was struck by the curious sight of this crumbling wooden mansion festooned with chintz flowers. And in the afternoons, when squalls blew in off the sea, J. liked to sit out on the veranda and listen to the whipcrack of the wind lashing the strange flowers in the windows.
The rains had almost stopped by the time the coconut saplings began to bud. “Come, I want to show you something,” Gilberto said one morning after breakfast. Together they walked out to the seedbeds. Glistening buds thatlooked almost foetal had appeared on some of the saplings, while the fan-shaped leaves of others had already begun to unfurl.
J. had a crystal-clear picture of what the
finca
would look like a few years hence. These tiny, emerald-green fans would have grown to become a vast coconut plantation running the length of the beach as far as the house, and over the land on which the house now stood. Their new home—which would have no corrugated iron roofs, no stilts—would be built on the brow of the hill behind the current house. J. had never liked the noise and the stifling heat of corrugated iron roofs, and had always been disgusted by the unsightly crawlspace under the veranda which inevitably ended up full of useless rolls of wire, broken bricks and off-cuts of timber. The new house would look out onto the sea from a lofty vantage point far above the muddy paddocks which
As the bus drove through the oil palm plantations, a torrential rainstorm battered the earth. The windscreen wipers flicked frantically, trying in vain to sweep away the cataract coursing down the glass. Headlights on, the bus moved cautiously while the passengers, disoriented by the rain hammering on the bodywork, felt shut in by the condensation gathering on the windows.
The storm eased just before they came to Turbo. By the time the bus pulled into the town square, it had slowed to a steady drizzle that seemed as though it might go on forever. The central plaza was a mire. People carefully picked their way across the streets, hiking up their trousers to avoid the mud.
Elena cursed the vast swamp.
When Julito’s boat finally pulled into the cove, Elena was surprised not to see J. waiting, waving to her from the beach. She felt disappointed. Though it was not raining, the sky was overcast, the sea dark. She found J. lying in bed, reading. His feet were pitted with fungal infection.
“It’s the rubber boots,” he explained, jerking his chin at his feet. “It’s agony, even when I’m sitting down.”
They kissed and she sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his feet.
“You’re in a terrible state,” she said.
The fungal infection presented as white pustules with tiny tentacles that buried into the skin causing terrible itching. When they burrowed beneath the toenails, the pain was unbearable. The pustules had to be carefully removed and the livid, pockmarked skin smeared with a thick layer of fungicidal cream. The treatment was lengthy, painstaking and painful. The pustules removed at night would reappear by morning.
Elena immediately took over caring for him with great success. Being a coward when it came to pain, J. needed someone to force him, almost bully him, into persisting with the treatment. A week after Elena came home J. was still unable to walk, and only after a fortnight did he take his first painful steps along the hallways.
16
G RADUALLY , the waters began to recede. As time passed, the clouds were slower to mass into rain-storms and the sunny interludes grew longer.
Elena had brought spare parts for the sewing machine from Medellín. Once it had been repaired, the Singer was set up on the counter in the shop so that Elena could sew while she worked. She had also brought back large bolts of cloth patterned with large red flowers. As soon as she got home, she began taking measurements, and by the time winter was over every window in the house was curtained.
J. liked the new drapes. Every time he came back from the fields he was struck by the curious sight of this crumbling wooden mansion festooned with chintz flowers. And in the afternoons, when squalls blew in off the sea, J. liked to sit out on the veranda and listen to the whipcrack of the wind lashing the strange flowers in the windows.
The rains had almost stopped by the time the coconut saplings began to bud. “Come, I want to show you something,” Gilberto said one morning after breakfast. Together they walked out to the seedbeds. Glistening buds thatlooked almost foetal had appeared on some of the saplings, while the fan-shaped leaves of others had already begun to unfurl.
J. had a crystal-clear picture of what the
finca
would look like a few years hence. These tiny, emerald-green fans would have grown to become a vast coconut plantation running the length of the beach as far as the house, and over the land on which the house now stood. Their new home—which would have no corrugated iron roofs, no stilts—would be built on the brow of the hill behind the current house. J. had never liked the noise and the stifling heat of corrugated iron roofs, and had always been disgusted by the unsightly crawlspace under the veranda which inevitably ended up full of useless rolls of wire, broken bricks and off-cuts of timber. The new house would look out onto the sea from a lofty vantage point far above the muddy paddocks which
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