Stranger Read Online Free Page B

foreigners at the clinic. She stood and said that Doctor Mann had asked after the girl. He was concerned. She said that if there was any problem—if there was more blood, or if the girl fainted or felt weak, or if she noticed that the baby was not moving—she should come back to the clinic. Okay?
    The girl nodded.
    The abuela spoke. She said that she herself had had six children, all girls. And she’d had two children who were born dead, and these two were both boys. She said that a child knows if it’s healthy. And if this is so, it will come into the world. Otherwise, it won’t. She said that her granddaughter’s baby would be born in twelve weeks, and it would be a boy. She took Íso’s hand and thanked her.
    The following day, Íso told Doctor Mann that the girl was fine. She said that the abuela knew everything there was to know aboutchildbirth, and she even knew the sex of the baby. The pregnant mother was in good hands.
    Doctor Mann said that every grandmother in the village believed she was a midwife, or a doctor, or a soothsayer, and that had proven to be a problem in the past. They don’t know about malpresentation, he said. They don’t understand preeclampsia.
    Not the words, Íso said, but they know the physical problem. They are women. They’ve had babies before.
    He studied her. He asked her age.
    She said she was twenty-two.
    He said, You seem older.
    This was obviously flirtatious, almost wrong, but she didn’t care, and it surprised her that she didn’t care. He asked where she had learned to speak English without an accent. She said at the American School in Panajachel. He asked about her intentions. Did she plan to stay at the clinic, working as a keeper? She said that once she had enough money, she planned to go to the city and continue studying medicine. Her goal was to graduate and then work at a local hospital. She wondered, when she said this, if he might think that she was making this up on the spot, or that she was only trying to impress him, to match him in some way. But it was true, medicine was her intention. And it was the dream of her mother, who had spent much of the money she had made from the tienda on sending Íso across the lake to the American School. She was an only child. There were hopes and expectations.
    W HEN Doctor Mann arrived one day at the door to her mother’s tienda, it appeared to be by chance, but it wasn’t. He’d come looking for her. He bought a quart of ice cream and ate it as he stood beneath the awning of the shop. It was a Sunday, his day off, and her day off as well. They spoke English. He told her that her English was very smooth and pure. This is how he put it. Pure. He was flattering and clear and kind, and he looked her in the eyes as he spoke these words, and because he wasn’t a doctor at that moment and she wasn’t a keeper, she looked at his eyes and saw that they were blue.
    He offered her some ice cream, but she refused because it hurt her teeth. He said that she should call him Eric. The other makes me feel old, he said.
    She asked his age.
    He said he was thirty. Is that old? he asked.
    She said it didn’t matter to her.
    You’re a strange one, he said. And then he said he would see her again, and he climbed on his motorcycle and left her standing in the street. She sat behind the counter in the tienda and tried not to think of him, but this was impossible. And so she thought about the colour of his hair and the colour of his eyes and the slight crookedness of his mouth that made it seem as if he was just about to smile, and the manner in which he leaned into her as he asked her questions, as if no one else existed save her. Even later, when they became very close, and when they were out with a group of interns or other foreigners, she was aware of how explicit he was in his attention to the person he was speaking with. It didn’t haveto be her. Though she wanted it to