At Play in the Fields of the Lord

by Peter Matthiessen

  3

  WOLFIE WORE HABITUALLY, EVEN AT NIGHT, A BLACK BERET, OUTSIZED dark glasses, the green fatigues of one or more foreign armies, and a gold earring in his left ear. He had been talking loudly when he lost his footing in the slime and fell, and because he was drunk he continued talking in mid-air and while still on his hands and knees, as if nothing were amiss. He was still speaking as he rose. He was a broad squat powerful man, with big loose hands and a big shaggy head, a chest like a nail keg, and small feet, and he was tightly sprung; one had the impression that Wolfie, fitted out with rubber soles, could bound five feet straight up into the air from a standing position.

  “How come he wants to see us!” Wolfie shouted; they had been summoned by a soldier to an audience with El Comandante. “There ain’t enough bread to pay this Guzmán, anyway!” When Moon did not answer, Wolfie said, “Look, we got thirty-four pesos and we was into him for more than that ten days ago. And I ain’t goin to no calabozo, never again, not in this town and not on this whole lousy continent. I’m very particular about the pens I go to.” He stopped short in the street. “Remember down in Paraguay? Like, that food, man. Are you kiddin? That’s food? And also those are very unhygienic conditions, not to mention stink. It stinks in there worse than it stinks out here.” He drew in a violent breath of the sweet jungle night. “Phoo!” he said. “This jungle! How can you stand it—you depraved or what? I mean, this is where God farted.”

  “It smells to me like the night was full of flowers.”

  “Oh man,” Wolfie said. “Flowers. Flowers, he says. Oh man.” He walked on a little way. “Lissen. I am very serious,” he resumed. “I don’t dig this jungle scene. I wanna split, and we ain’t got bread enough to gas up the lousy aircraft. I am being very serious with you. If there ain’t a solution around here pretty fast, we’re screwed.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And when you showed him them river diamonds, he told you they looked phony.”

  “All diamonds are white, says the Comandante.”

  “I tell you what I think. I think this Guzmán, he’s gonna hang in there a little more and then he’s gonna grab the aircraft.”

  “That’s what I think too.”

  “Well, we ain’t gonna take the screwin lyin down.”

  “We’ll have to take it standing up then.”

  “Yeah, yeah, so all right. So I’m gonna send a letter to the American ambassador and sign it ‘An Outraged Citizen.’ What do you say to that?” Wolfie shadowboxed, punching and snorting in the open street, but almost immediately gave it up. “Okay, never mind, don’t talk to me, I forgot Cuba. So we lost our citizenship—that was my fault?” He shook his head and sighed, then laughed. “Old Wolfie,” he said, “the Wandering Jew. Only why in Christ did we wander into this place for—it wasn’t funky enough in all them other jungles? Why don’t we ever wander along the Riviera, maybe? La dol-ce vita, right, Lewis?” He sighed mightily, enjoying himself. “And just to think, only twenty years ago I was Fat Morty, the best kid on the block. I took my bar mizvah and I never ate goy dreck, and I was goin to be, like, a Talmudic scholar. And now I’m the Man without a Country. There ain’t no justice, right, Lewis?” He grinned. “I got an idea, Lewis. If we go to the calabozo, we might as well go there flat, because they’ll grab the thirty-four anyway. So first we’re gonna go back to La Concepción, Lewis, and have a little drunk for ourselves, all right, Lewis?… I said, all right, Lewis?”

  “Afterwards,” Moon said.

  THE Gran Hotel Dolores was a structure of twelve rooms; except for the church and mission of the Iglesia de la Virgen, it was the largest building in the settlement, and the only one besides the sawmill which was roofed with tin instead of thatch. The hotel had been erected in the great era of the rubber boom, in anticipation of a prosperity that came but did not remain; it gave shelter to transient timbermen and plantation patrones, to explorers investigating the wild tribes and rivers of Oriente State, and to missionaries, as well as to such rare visitors as the state’s political representatives in the capital.

  The hotel bar, which occupied one flank of the whitewashed lobby—dining-room—salon, was the center of Madre de Dios, for the rest of the settlement, unequipped with generators, was plunged into darkness by the jungle night. Hence the people were drawn like insects to its light. Those with money and those who had spent money at the Gran Hotel in the recent past congregated inside, while the rest gathered on the sidewalks, content with the glow from the large windows in the white plaster wall. Here, as the evening passed, they might speak softly or sing; the townsmen at the tables inside sang rarely and spoke loudly. Having neither glass nor screen but only large wooden shutters to be closed in time of storm, the windows were used periodically for sudden entry and exit. The bar was located on a corner, and since its two doorways serviced each of the only two streets in town, the clientele commanded a view of almost everything of importance that took place in Madre de Dios.

  A further attraction of the Gran Hotel was a radio that played full blast all day and night, as if—since all jungle radios were overpriced—its listeners were entitled at the very least to all the volume it was able to deliver. The radios were cheaply made, and since it was never certain that, once silenced, one would ever speak again, and since there was no one for two hundred miles who could repair it, the usual practice was to turn it on immediately upon purchase and leave it on for the rest of its natural life. Once dead, it remained in its place of honor forever: a mute radio, all set about with Spanish doilies, artificial flowers and a hand-tinted portrait of the Virgin Mary, was in Madre de Dios a symbol of prestige. Behind the bar of the Gran Hotel two dead radios flanked the live one.

  These were but a few of the unusual features which made the bar of the Gran Hotel Dolores the heart of this jungle capital, and it was to this place that there came each night, in a private car with a soldier-driver, its proud owner, El Comandante Rufino Guzmán. Since no road in Madre de Dios went farther than the airstrip, the car, brought in by lumber raft, was used almost exclusively to conduct El Comandante between his house at the army post and the hotel. El Comandante invariably sat himself behind a table in the corner, opposite both doors and beneath the enormous fan. Here his townsmen could come to him as to the Judgment Seat, and here he could witness and preside over almost everything that took place, not only in the bar itself, but in his entire kingdom.

  On this February evening one of the two Americans who had sat down with Guzmán stood up almost immediately and walked about the room; he returned to the table but did not sit down again. In the two weeks since their arrival in Madre de Dios, Moon and Wolfie had put on a bold face, ordering the best that the Gran Hotel Dolores had to offer, but the Comandante had not been taken in, and now he was baiting them at his leisure. Collecting their passports that first day, he had grinned in a way that had alerted them to the dimension of their predicament, saying, “Of course the señores pilotos are very welcome in my humble city; it is only a formality, and soon the pasaportes will be returned.” Wolfie, thinking to put this greaser at his ease, had yelled out, jerking his thumb at Moon, “Amigo mío him also heap big indio!” The Comandante, who was not an indio, had gazed briefly at Moon, a gaze that made Moon coil and stiffen; he had not returned the papers, and meanwhile their bill at his hotel had mounted remorselessly.

  Now he pointed at Moon’s chair, as if Moon, standing, made him nervous.

  Moon remained standing, hands in pockets.

  The Comandante took note of this small rebellion; he lifted the glass, poured the liquor down his throat like a man filling a hole, and blew the air back out at Moon in a huge belch, as if to send him flying from his sight. The people in the bar sniggered expectantly, nudging one another. They watched the Comandante wipe his mouth with the back of one hand and with the other signal for another drink. Over the back of the wiping hand, which he held for a long time at his mouth, his eyes were hard as points.

  Inexplicably, Rufino Guzmá
n laughed: “Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

  “This is some terrible kind of a jungle beast,” Wolfie observed, sincerely impressed; he hitched forward in his chair to stare more closely at the Comandante.

  In this place, all but isolated from the world, the big pale man beneath the fan was the natural enemy, and their enmity was an old one; Moon reacted to his gaze with the clutched fear and hatred that he had once felt for the county sheriff. Though he kept his expression blank and casual, it was all he could do to face him. They had met on all the earth’s frontiers, in all its jungles; this was the strongman unrestrained, the incensed executor of his own law, swollen and jovial with power.

  The Comandante was a massive man, quite unlike the small brown halfbreeds of his town, a big thick man with a pale thick unshaven face. He had a coarse small crown of hair, more like a tuft, and a tight potbelly like a swallowed ball. Ever since Wolfie had boasted of Moon’s Indian blood, the Comandante had called Moon piloto with heavy sarcasm, in a way which suggested that Moon’s status as señor piloto was a tremendous joke. So intent was Guzmán on conveying disdain for Moon that he addressed all his remarks to Wolfie, even though Wolfie spoke almost no Spanish. In this way Moon was made to serve the white caballeros as interpreter. Wolfie was quite oblivious of this situation, and for the moment it amused Moon to pretend that he was oblivious of it also.

  “How long do you plan to be our guest in Madre de Dios then?” the Comandante said to Wolfie.

  “Bueno,” Wolfie said. “Right, Lewis?” Behind his hand he said loudly, “I’m just kind of stringin this beast along.”

  “We will leave when you return our passports,” Moon said, after a moment. The United States had revoked their passports in absentia; there was no sign on the documents themselves.

  “But of course, and I will be delighted to return the passport of the caballero”—Guzmán bowed to Wolfie—“when the caballero regulates his accounts at the hotel. I am an understanding man. I do not even ask you why you have no visa for this country, or inquire where you have come from. On the other hand, I am not stupid. Your airplane is full of armaments. It has bullet holes in its wings. I know where you have come from. And I also know that if I send you back there …” He smiled broadly. “You chose the wrong side, no?”

  “Caramba!” Wolfie said, judicious. “How’m I doin, Lewis?”

  Moon said, “We have no money, and apparently there is no work we can do here.”

  The Comandante nodded. “I much regret it, of course, but even if there was work that you could do, I am not empowered to issue work permits to foreigners. I am sure you understand my position.”

  “You own the hotel, you own this town. We are living at your expense; therefore we figure you have something in mind.”

  The Comandante sighed. “If you cannot regulate your accounts in a very short time, you will force me to confiscate your property.”

  “The airplane.”

  “The airplane. Precisely.”

  “And you know what the plane is worth.”

  Guzmán grinned. “As a matter of fact, I do. I have made inquiries.”

  “We are American citizens. Suppose we complain to our ambassador?”

  Guzmán grinned still wider, a grin that shot straight back along his jaw without curling upward. “I beg of you,” he said, “please do so. Your embassy will advance you funds and you may regulate your accounts, no?” His tone changed, and for the first time he spoke to Moon directly. “I have been waiting for you to do this, piloto. Why have you not done it, eh?” When Moon was silent, he continued, “Because you do not wish to do it. Because you are fugitives, perhaps, or criminals.” He banged both hands flat upon the table. “All the more reason why I must protect my country!” He waved his hand toward the door, dismissing them. “I will give you three more days,” he bawled, and jammed his face into his glass again, surfacing a moment later with a blast of air.

  “Hey, momentito,” Wolfie said. “Hey, Lewis, remember what we heard about them Indians?”

  “Guzmán,” Moon said.

  The man whirled on him. “Mestizo! You will call me Comandante Guzmán!” he shouted. “Be very careful! I can send you back where you have come from, do you understand? And there you will be shot!”

  Moon was listening to his partner, his face expressionless. Then he said to Guzmán, “It is your job to develop this region, no?”

  “Eh?” Guzmán placed his fingertips on the table, as if about to spring. “What is it?”

  “The Niaruna are still not pacified, and the news is getting out, and yet your hands are tied because the law prohibits you from sending your soldiers in to kill the Indians.”

  Guzmán nodded, looking carefully at Moon. “I am quite able to take care of our poor Indians.”

  “We were just thinking that a foreign plane loaded with armaments …? On its way elsewhere …?”

  Guzmán kept on nodding. “Claro,” he said. “Sí. Claro.”

  LATER, on their beds upstairs, they discussed it further. They were both irritable, Wolfie because he felt Moon had not really told him what had been decided with the Comandante, and Moon because he did not want to think or talk at all. He lay on his back and stared at a huge moth pasted on the ceiling.

  “Lewis,” Wolfie said. “I ain’t as stupid as I look, so level with me. Something happened there right at the end, I seen his face.” He heaved over on his side. “That bastard’s got a plan he didn’t have before, now ain’t that right? He kinda likes the Old Wolf’s idea about goin out and leanin on them poor motherin Indians we heard about, the ones that’s buggin him out to the east. Right?”

  Moon was silent.

  “Oh that murderin bastard,” Wolfie said. “Like, shame on’m.” After a while he said, “Listen, Lewis, I don’t blame you, not wantin no part of this. I don’t blame you, only did you stop and think, if we don’t do it, somebody else’s goin to, and if we do do it, we don’t have to make no direct hits, just maybe like a little napalm upwind, know what I mean? Just run ’em the hell out of there.”

  “Um.”

  “Well, there’s always the diamonds, Lewis.”

  “Yeah.”

  “These greasers run a lousy jail, Lewis, and how about the aircraft? And also, these Neo-rooneys ain’t real Indians, Lewis. They ain’t like Blackfoots or Apaches or Cheyennes or nothin. They’re just a bunch of starvin jungle rats, just like you told me. This is South America, remember? It ain’t like they was your own people or nothin. So maybe you could kind of think of it like a mercy killin, huh, Lewis?”

  Wolfie cocked his hip and cheerfully broke wind. “I said, huh, Lewis? You ain’t startin to go soft on me, I hope?”

  Moon was staring at the moth so hard that it blurred and became two.

  He was still irritable when Uyuyu knocked on the door; he snapped it open, and the Indian leaped back toward the stairwell. In the cheap red shirt that the missionaries had given him, Uyuyu’s neck looked thin, and his face twitched in his attempts to smile. This Indian happened to have a bright red shirt with bright blue rockets on it, but otherwise he was identical to his counterpart in every frontier river town from Puerto Maldonado in Peru to Pôrto Velho in Brazil, from Riberalta in Bolivia to Bahía Negra down in Paraguay: the native with the bright smile and the Christian humility, the sharp eye and the crucifix. Moon demanded, “Did you bring it?” He did not know which gave him most shame—the stupor of the Indian defeated by the white man, or the hunger of the convert like Uyuyu, with his base imitations of the white man’s way.

  Another door opened down the corridor, and a girl appeared in a shaft of light. She closed her door and came toward them. Uyuyu tried to slip past Moon into the room. Perversely, Moon deterred him. Uyuyu was still pushing gently as the girl approached the stairs. She greeted him—“Uyuyu, buenos días”—and smiled inquiringly at his discomfiture. Glancing at Moon, she nodded politely, then looked carefully again. She was a small girl with straight brown hair to her shoulders and a clear open face,
sunburned, in hide sandals and a dress of pale blue faded linen. Moon had noted her nice legs while waiting to see her face, but it was the face that struck him. The skin was warm and clear and the mouth full—the line of the upper lip was a soft arch and white teeth touched her lower lip in a wistful way. So certain was he that she smelled good that his belly glowed and tingled, and at the same time he was overwhelmed by nostalgia for something lost. Frantic, he cleared his throat. She was turning toward the stairs. “I don’t guess we’ve met before,” he said.

  She gazed directly into his face. “No,” she said, “no, we haven’t.” She went on downstairs.

  “Misionera,” Uyuyu said, grinning tentatively. The Indian was prepared to speak of her with reverence or obscenity, according to the whim of his new master, but Moon only scowled at him and sent him off; Uyuyu was to seek out his friend, the ayahuascero, and bring Moon a fresh bottle of the drug by the next evening.

  Moon went back into the room. Wolfie lay flat out on his bed, his beret propped on his huge dark glasses, his gold earring on the pillow, snoring. At the rust-flecked mirror on the fly-specked sink Moon curled his lip at what she must have seen. Once, at a police hearing, he had heard a tape of his own voice, and the sound had seemed just as foreign to him as the face which now confronted him: a lean face, yellow-bronzed with sunburn and malaria, carved close around high cheekbones and an Indian’s broad mouth, a weathered face, so set in its expression that the dark eyes seemed to burn through a leather mask. The face was capped by a hood of blue-black hair as thick and solid as a helmet—a bad head, he thought, a dirty head, as the French say. It looked too big for the body, though the body was strong and quick enough—or had been before he had worn it out with lush and tail and junk, and now malaria. Well, he was scarcely a parfit gentil knight; as Wolfie said, he looked like some Hollywood Geronimo trying to kick a ninety-dollar habit.