“I ran out of iodine,” I said sheepishly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.

“You’ve been gone for three weeks. How could I?”

“Take this dress off. I want to see.”

With great effort, I pushed myself up to my elbows and dropped my head forward. It felt weighted, like a sack of marbles. Omar loosened the string tie at my neck and gently drew back the rough material from my shoulder, drawing my arm out of the sleeve. He let out a low whistle. I watched his face as his eyes grew wet.

“Liliana, cariño.” My darling.

Fear at the possibility of being sick and shame about showing any weakness suffused me. Blowing the whistle about physical infirmity had never helped me before, so it hadn’t occurred to me to do it then, even though in some deep, inchoate part of me I knew how bad it was, knew I had been putting my head in the sand. The stupid truth was that my whole life I was used to feeling crappy, undernourished, vaguely sick, but had prided myself on toughing it out. Dukes up, ready to fight, my soft humanity a fiction I could rewrite.

But this time it was different; all I had to do was look at his face. In his eyes, I saw that I could end. And for the first time this possibility meant something to someone.

THIRTY-TWO

I lay on my side as FrannyB examined my shoulders and the backs of my legs, the whisper of air on my wounds like small daggers. She pushed herself to her feet with a sigh. From my mattress on the low platform bed, I watched her pace the hut, the rickety plywood floor creaking under her heavy steps, her face tacky with sweat. Omar stood silent, leaning against the open door. Our little lamp, a tin container filled with kerosene, a strip of wool stuck in the top for a wick, gave only a spark of light, lending a ghostly gloom to the hut and dousing it with smoke. Outside hung the noxious green flesh and weight of the jungle. A steady rain hammered the thatched roof. Night and all its terrors.

“She has it, Omar.” She folded her husky arms. “It’s a textbook case.”

“So we leave for San Solidad now,” he said. “We have enough gas.”

“You know that’s five days if you’re lucky. Could be six—more, with all this rain . . .” She didn’t, wouldn’t, look at me. Her voice dropped. “She doesn’t have five days, Omar. Take a look at the back of her leg—”

“What the hell do I have, can someone please tell me?” My intention was to sound sarcastic, strong, but my voice came out breathy and weak.

FrannyB dragged one of our two stools closer to the bed and sat. “You have leishmaniasis. Tropical misery. You get it from a sandfly. They’re tiny, smaller than a mosquito. They can get through this cheap netting. It’s a skin disease, a bad one, a microscopic parasite that can also get in your organs. Judging by your fever and a few other telltale signs, it looks like it has.”