first night

The heat smothered us like the belly of a big sweaty fat person pressing down on us from above. The second we stepped off the plane, we were soaked in sweat; the air was stifling, and all my complaints about the lack of air conditioning on the plane trailed away to silence. The humidity alone slapped us like the aftermath of a shower, invisible steam soaking through our clothes. Having chosen to wear sweatpants for comfort on the plane, I was given ample opportunity to regret the choice during the short passageway between the plane and customs. Breathing was too difficult to leave any energy for whining.

"My God," I whimpered, and occupied myself with gaping like a landed fish.

Despite puffy marshmallow clouds hanging overhead, the temperature was well into the nineties, as was the humidity. We slumped our way outside the airport, where the Guy's brother and wife were waiting for us: a slim, mite-bit couple from Ireland, both relatively cheerful after two days of acclimitization but grateful enough for pockets of shade, regardless. "We need some whiskey for the banquet after the funeral," the Guy's younger brother greeted us, taking possession of our luggage cart. "Alain says that they don't really drink wine here, and it's cheaper to get it through duty free."

"This is Yuhri," the Guy introduced, and presented Younger Brother and Younger Brother Wife to me. They smiled at me in turn -- his was more of a grin, engaging, charming, and instantly heart-warming -- and reached for me; I blinked and allowed my cheeks to be kissed in the continental fashion, taken completely by surprise. This, like the hurricane business, was something the Guy had neglected to prepare me for. "She's my girlfriend," the Guy added, proudly.

The Guy and I trooped back in to purchase whiskey: Johnny Walker Red Label, at 90 rupees a bottle. I winced at the price, unsure of the conversion rate as I was; we trooped back out into the heat and instantly wilted. Younger Brother steered us to the car. We opened all four doors and backpedaled hastily, forced back by a surge of scalding heat.

"Hurricane, huh?" the Guy commented, eyeing the interior of the car.

"Two days before we got here," Younger Brother confirmed, and grinned again. "They haven't gotten electricity up everywhere yet. Veggie Tombeau," -- what? -- "has some water in its tanks, but we can't flush the toilets every time. You should be able to take a shower though, maybe."

"Welcome to a third world country," the Guy said wryly, and packaged me inside the car.

'Veggie Tombeau' turned out to be 'Baie de Tombeau,' mangled in the free-flowing, lazy-tongued fashion of Creole. We discovered in the car that the air conditioning was a fickle thing, -- it liked the cold, but only if someone else was providing the chill, and was therefore non-functional in heat, -- and rolled down the windows to circulate hot air through the compartment. I watched Younger Brother Wife scratch in a hopeless fashion at dozens of little red welts on her pale legs and wondered aloud through the roar of wind, "Got bit?"

"Mosquitoes," she confirmed, sadly, and scratched some more. Wide blue eyes turned to me. "Except I think there's something else. Mites, maybe, or fleas. I've sprayed citronella on, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. And the bites are all around my ankles, do you see?"

She displayed more wounds, but I was already lost in the heart-sinking horror of her first word.

Mosquitoes.

I, sadly, am of that blessed few, that hapless company of people who seem to excrete some intangible mosquito perfume, the pheremone of delight that seduces blood-sucking insects from miles around. Given a bare-skinned buffet line of bodies to choose from, a hungry mosquito will invariably elect to burrow through layers of heavy wool for a taste of my sweet veins. In the great menu of parasitical entrees, Japanese is the flavor of choice; Japanese Yuhri, specifically, is the entree of the true connoisseur: like wine-in-a-box for pre-law college freshmen.

I've always been particularly bitter about the fact that only female mosquitoes bite. It shows, I think, an incredible lack of sisterly solidarity that mosquitoes will choose to suck blood from me rather than any of a dozen eligible males that might be wandering about with their heads uncovered, in short sleeves and shorts. Only after I met the Guy did I find any true protection from this incomprehensible allure I seem to have for my mosquito sisters; of the two of us, they prefer him. In the car, I planned my strategy for the coming two weeks, all revolving around the Guy's close proximity. Despite the fact that I was wearing sweatpants, a high-collar shirt, and was leaking more moisture out my pores than the Titanic before Celene Dion started to sing, I felt a definite chill up my back. It's not the bite that gets you. It's the anticipation of the bite.

"Dammit," I muttered, and for the first time noticed that we were driving on the wrong side of the road. I also noticed for the first time that driving in Mauritius is a contact sport, and that traffic laws -- not to mention sidewalks -- are optional. I spent the rest of the trip clinging desperately to various parts of the car.

There was a bewildering array of the Guy's relatives waiting for us at the family house in Baie de Tombeau, cousins to the Nth degree and assembled aunts and uncles, all trooped by me in a confusing assortment of names and relationships. The heat was stifling; the cousin who lived there the most, Marie, announced that the electricity hadn't come back on yet, before launching into a joyous argument in Creole with another relative. The four of us -- the Guy, his brother, his brother's wife, and me -- wandered into the living room and slouched into chairs, panting with the same unenthusiasm displayed by the household dogs.

Creole cousins bounded in to greet us, all in various stages of undress. "Hot," they all said in turn. Not a one of them was perspiring. They regarded us with warm pity. "Hot?"

"So hot," they said, for variation, and bounded away to start other, agitated arguments.

Creole is a language created for arguments: a biting, loud, rambunctions language that demands raised voices and waving arms. I listened to Marie wage a pitched battle with one of her nephews, both shouting at the top of their lungs and loving every minute of it. The Guy's mother popped up out of nowhere and joined in the fray, gleefully waving her own arms after her plump young cousin. ". . . Bloody hell!" she shouted after the boy, who carped something back before bouncing into the living room to strike up a new argument with the Guy's younger brother.

Sweat trickled off my nose and dribbled down my chin in a steady stream. The very air was too hot to breathe. One hand after another pressed water bottles and glasses of cola at us; I inhaled every one of them, only to bleed all the same fluid out my pores a few seconds later. Who needed running water and toilets?

The news that the Guy had come back into town after fifteen years was making its way around the island, and one by one, his relatives came to call. Two of them, a short, cheerful couple, came to report that they had electricity back on their side of the island. The husband of the pair sat the Guy down and talked at him loudly, recalling the Guy of yesteryear.

The Guy wasn't visibly enthused.

"You take after your father, heh?" he was congratulated. His cousin patted himself on the stomach, then on the head, and grinned. "Pretty soon you'll be bare on top, like him. Naked." His palm slapped against his scalp.

The Guy glazed over. "We'll see," he said, wearily.

The electricity, despite promises, failed to come back on that night. The Guy's younger brother told us that we would be staying there tonight. "It's too hot up at Grand Baie," he explained apologetically. "We tried it without the air conditioning, but it was impossible. We'll stay here, and hopefully by tomorrow they'll get the electricity up and we'll be able to head up to Mom's house. . ."

No great work of fiction ever spends time worrying about the toilet facilities; perhaps this is why most adventure books involve men rather than women, who are less biologically inclined to be selective about their waste recycling and placement. If I ever write a book, I promised myself, there would be some mention of toilets and bathing facilities, too long ignored in the annals of literature.

We stared at the ceiling for the night, watching heat make waves of the walls.

"Are you sorry you came?" the Guy asked at one point.

I slapped at my arm, where I thought I felt something touch down.

"Urgh," I said.