Winter Garden

“You’re having a lot of those lately. ”

She couldn’t tell if there was a hint of accusation in his voice or just a simple honesty. “You know what winter is like. ”

“And spring. And summer. ”

There was her answer: accusation. Even last year she would have asked him what was wrong with them. She would have told him how lost she felt in the gray minutiae of her everyday life, and how much she missed the girls. But lately that kind of intimacy felt impossible. She wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, or when, but distance seemed to be spreading between them like spilled ink, staining everything. “Yeah, I guess. ”

“I’m going to the office,” he said suddenly, reaching for the jacket he’d draped over the back of the chair.

“Now?”

“Why not?”

She wondered if it was really a question. Did he want her to stop him, to give him a reason to stay, or did he want to leave? She wasn’t sure, and really, she didn’t care right now. It would be nice to take a hot bath and have a glass of wine and not have to try to think of what to say over dinner. Even better not to have to cook dinner at all. “No reason. ”

“Yeah,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Th at’s what I thought. ”

Two

It had taken two weeks hiking through the jungle to find the kill.

Bugs had alerted them; and the smell of death.

Nina stood beside the guide who had led her here. For a terrible instant, she experienced it all: the flies buzzing in the clearing, the maggots that turned the bloody carcass almost white in places, the stillness of the African jungle that meant predators and scavengers were nearby, watching.

Then she began to compartmentalize the scene, to see it as a photographer. She pulled out her light meter and ran a quick check. When that was done, she chose one of the three cameras hanging from around her neck and focused on the ruined, bloodied body of the mountain gorilla.

Click.

She stepped around, kept focusing and snapping shots. Changing cameras, adjusting lenses, checking the light. Her adrenaline kicked in. It was the only time she ever really felt alive, when she was taking pictures. Her eye was her great gift; that and her ability to separate from what was going on around her. You couldn’t have one without the other. To be a great photographer you had to see first and feel later.

She paused long enough to put a little more Vicks under her nose and then squatted down closer to focus on the severed neck. From somewhere, she heard the sound of vomiting; it was probably the young journalist who had accompanied Nina. She could hardly worry about that now.

Click. Click.

The poachers wanted only the head, hands, and feet. The money items. There were places in the world where a gorilla’s hand was an ashtray in some rich asshole’s library.

Click. Click.

For the next hour, Nina framed and shot, changing cameras and lenses as often as she needed to, putting used film into canisters and labeling them before tucking them into her pocketed vest. When dusk finally fell, they began the long, hot, slippery trek back down through the jungle. The air was electric with sounds—bugs, birds, monkeys—and the sky was the color of fresh blood. A tangerine sun played hide-and-seek through the trees. Though they’d all chatted on the way up, the descent was quiet, solemn. The immediate aftermath was always worst for Nina. It was difficult sometimes to forget what she’d seen. Often, in the middle of the night, the images would return as nightmares and waken her from a dead sleep. More often than she liked to admit, she woke with tears on her cheeks.

At the bottom of the mountain, the group came to the small outpost that served as a town in this remote part of Rwanda. There, they climbed into the jeep and drove several hours to the conservation center, where they asked more questions and she took more photos.

“Mrs. Nina?”

She was standing by the center’s door, cleaning a lens, when she heard someone say her name. Putting the camera away, she looked up and saw the center’s head guide beside her. She smiled as brightly as she could, given how tired she was. “Hello, Mr. Dimonsu. ”

“I am sorry to bother you when busy things are happening, but we forgot to give you most important phone message. It from Mrs. Sylvie. She say to tell you to call her. ”

“Thank you. ”

Nina took the bulky satellite phone out of her bag and carried all the gear to a clearing in the center of the camp. A quick compass check identified the satellite’s direction. She unfolded the dish part of the sat phone, set it on the ground, and pointed it at sixty degrees northeast. Then she hooked the phone up to the dish and turned it on. An LCD panel blinked to orange life, giving her the signal strength. When it looked good, she made the call.

“Hey, Sylvie,” she said when her editor answered. “I got the poacher photos today. Sick bastards. Give me, what, ten days to get them to you?”

“You’ve got six days. We’re thinking of the cover. ”

The cover. Her two favorite words. Some women liked diamonds; she liked the cover of Time magazine. Or National Geographic. She wasn’t picky. She actually hoped someday to get the cover and about sixteen pages for her photographic essay titled “Women Warriors Around the World. ” Her pet project. As soon as she was done—whenever the hell that might be—she’d submit freelance. “You’ll have it. And then I’m meeting Danny in Namibia. ”