Fresh Complaint. Jeffrey Eugenides

he said. The German woman waded out to the boat and climbed aboard. She stood on deck, not waving, but looking in his direction. Mitchell watched her recede, growing smaller and smaller. When she disappeared at last, he realized that he’d been telling the truth: he was better.

      His stomach was quiet. He put a hand over his belly, as though to register what was inside. His stomach felt hollowed out. And he wasn’t dizzy anymore. He had to find a whole new aerogram, and in the light from the sunset he wrote, On this day in I think November, I would like to announce that the gastrointestinal system of Mitchell B. Grammaticus has hereby been cured by purely spiritual means. I want especially to thank my greatest supporter, who stuck with me through it all, Mary Baker Eddy. The next solid shit I take is really for her. He was still writing when Larry came in.

      “Wow. You’re awake.”

      “I’m better.”

      “You are?”

      “And guess what else?”

      “What?”

      Mitchell put down his pen and gave Larry a big smile. “I’m really hungry.”

      Everyone on the island had heard about Mitchell’s Gandhian fast by this point. His arrival in the cook tent brought applause and cheers. Also gasps from some of the women, who couldn’t bear to see how skinny he was. They got all maternal and made him sit down and felt his forehead for lingering fever. The tent was full of picnic tables, the counters stacked with pineapples and watermelons, beans, onions, potatoes, and lettuce. Long blue fish lay on chopping blocks. Coffee thermoses lined one wall, full of hot water or tea, and in the back was another room containing a crib and the Chinese cook’s baby. Mitchell looked around at all the new faces. The dirt under the picnic table felt surprisingly cool against his bare feet.

      The medical advice started up right away. Most people had fasted for a day or two during their Asian travels, after which they’d gone back to eating full meals. But Mitchell’s fast had been so prolonged that one American traveler, a former medical student, said it was dangerous for Mitchell to eat too much too quickly. He advised having only liquids at first. The Chinese cook scoffed at this idea. After taking one look at Mitchell, she sent out a sea bass, a plate of fried rice, and an onion omelet. Most everyone else advocated pure gluttony, too. Mitchell struck a compromise. First he drank a glass of papaya juice. He waited a few minutes and then began, slowly, to eat the fried rice. After that, still feeling fine, he moved cautiously to the sea bass. After every few bites, the former medical student said, “OK, that’s enough,” but this was greeted by a chorus of other people saying, “Look at him. He’s a skeleton. Go on, eat. Eat!”

      It was nice to be around people again. Mitchell hadn’t become quite as ascetic as he’d thought. He missed socializing. All the girls were wearing sarongs. They had truly accomplished suntans and fetching accents. They kept touching Mitchell, patting his ribs or encircling his wrists with their fingers. “I’d die for cheekbones like yours,” one girl said. Then she made him eat some fried bananas.

      Night fell. Somebody announced a party in hut number six. Before Mitchell knew what was happening, two Dutch girls were escorting him down the beach. They waited tables in Amsterdam five months of the year and spent the rest traveling. Apparently, Mitchell looked exactly like a Van Honthorst Christ in the Rijksmuseum. The Dutch girls found the resemblance both awe-inspiring and hilarious. Mitchell wondered if he’d made a mistake by staying in the hut so much. A kind of tribal life had sprouted up here on the island. No wonder Larry had been having such a good time. Everyone was so friendly. It wasn’t even sexual so much as just warm and intimate. One of the Dutch girls had a nasty rash on her back. She turned around to show him.

      The moon was rising over the bay, casting a long swath of light to shore. It lit up the trunks of palm trees and gave the sand a lunar phosphorescence. Everything had a bluish tint except for the orange, glowing huts. Mitchell felt the air rinsing his face and flowing through his legs as he walked behind Larry. There was a lightness inside him, a helium balloon around his heart. There was nothing a person needed beyond this beach.

      He called out, “Hey, Larry.”

      “What?”

      “We’ve gone everywhere, man.”

      “Not everywhere. Next stop Bali.”

      “Then home. After Bali, home. Before my parents have a nervous breakdown.”

      He stopped walking and held the Dutch girls back. He thought he heard the ringing—louder than ever—but then realized that it was just the music coming from hut number six. Right out front, people were sitting in a circle in the sand. They made room for Mitchell and the new arrivals.

      “What do you say, doctor? Can we give him a beer?”

      “Very funny,” the medical student said. “I suggest one. No more.”

      In due course, the beer was passed along the fire brigade and into Mitchell’s hands. Then the person to Mitchell’s right put her hand on his knee. It was Gwendolyn. He hadn’t recognized her in the darkness. She took a long drag on her cigarette. She turned her face away, to exhale primarily, but also with the suggestion of hurt feelings, and said, “You haven’t thanked me.”

      “For what?”

      “For the pills.”

      “Oh, right. That was really thoughtful of you.”

      She smiled for a few seconds and then started coughing. It was a smoker’s cough, deep-seated and guttural. She tried to suppress it by leaning forward and covering her mouth, but the coughing only grew more violent, as if ripping holes in her lungs. When it finally subsided, Gwendolyn wiped her eyes. “Oh, I’m dying.” She looked around the circle of people. Everyone was talking and laughing. “Nobody cares.”

      All this time Mitchell had been examining Gwendolyn closely. It seemed clear to him that if she didn’t have cancer already, she was going to get it soon.

      “Do you want to know how I knew you were separated?” he said.

      “Well, I think I might.”

      “It’s because of this glow you have. Women who get divorced or separated always have this glow. I’ve noticed it before. It’s like they get younger.”

      “Really?”

      “Yes, indeed,” said Mitchell.

      Gwendolyn smiled. “I am feeling rather restored.”

      Mitchell held out his beer and they clinked bottles.

      “Cheers,” she said.

      “Cheers.” He took a sip of beer. It tasted like the best beer he’d ever had. He felt ecstatically happy, suddenly. They weren’t sitting around a campfire, but it felt like that, everyone glowing and centrally warmed. Mitchell squinted at the different faces in the circle and then looked out at the bay. He was thinking about his trip. He tried to remember all the places he and Larry had gone, the smelly pensions, the baroque cities, the hill stations. If he didn’t think about any single place, he could sense them all, kaleidoscopically shifting around inside his head. He felt complete and satisfied. At some point the ringing had started up again; he was concentrating on that, too, so that at first he didn’t notice the twinge in his intestines. Then, from far off, piercing his consciousness, came another twinge, still so delicate that he might have imagined it. In another moment it came again, more insistently. He felt a valve open inside him, and a trickle of hot liquid, like acid, begin burning its way toward the outside. He wasn’t alarmed. He felt too good. He just stood up again and said, “I’m going down to the water a minute.”

      “I’ll go with you,” said Larry.

      The moon was higher now. As they approached, it lit the bay up like a mirror. Away from the music, Mitchell could hear the wild dogs barking in the jungle. He led Larry straight down to the water’s edge. Then, without pausing, he let his lungi drop and stepped out of it. He waded into the sea.

      “Skinny-dip?”

      Mitchell