Through the Arc of the Rain Forest

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  When an enormous truck filled with more pigeons—the words “Djapan Pigeons Incorporated” and “Pomba for Lovely Clean Skin” painted across it—drove up behind Batista, he was already approaching the Matacão. Chico Paco was about a week behind, walking in the rain, and Batista just wanted to get his remaining batch of pigeons to the Matacão and into some dry place. He had hoped that the timing would be better and that he would be able to release his pigeons upon arrival at the Matacão. But if the rain did not stop, he would have to wait. He thought he would wait at least until Chico Paco made it to the Matacão. He had an idea that it would be a special event to send the pigeons off just as Chico Paco arrived. God willing, it would be a sunny day.

  Batista squinted through the rain at the truck in wonder, unable to acknowledge his own name painted across its side. Two men got out and sauntered up to Batista importantly. “Seu Batista?” they asked.

  Batista nodded.

  “Dona Tania sent us.”

  “Tania Cidinha? Has she gone out of her mind?” Batista surveyed the truck full of pigeons. “Where did she get all these birds?” he cried.

  “We did our best, Seu Batista,” one of the men assured Batista. “Not a one of them is dead. Dona Tania said you’d confirm it.”

  “We’ve been giving it the gas, and if it weren’t for this rain, we would’ve caught up sooner.”

  Batista scratched his head in confusion. “What do I need with another truckload of pigeons?” he asked.

  “Well, sir,” said one of the men. “The way Dona Tania explained it to me, it’s what they call a joint venture. See now, look at this.” He went to the cab of the truck and pulled out a handful of tiny pigeon-carrier tubes from a large box.

  Batista took a tube from the handful, opened and unwound the tiny message. He read, “Pomba for Lovely Clean Skin?”

  “They all say that,” said the other man.

  “Pigeon advertising,” nodded the other. “Dona Tania invented it.”

  Batista read Tania Aparecida’s letter that came with the shipment of pigeons: “Batista, honey, how I miss you. Mother and I have been very busy. You can check your release times but Gugu came in at 2:30 PM on Tuesday the 4th, and Kaka came in at 6:00 AM the next day. Well, to get to the point, I met Sr. Carlos Rodrigues, who owns the Pomba Soap Company. What a cute old man!” (Batista cringed.) “Well, he really liked the idea. I mean, really, it’s very brilliant. He is sure to sell more soap than anybody else. Imagine people all over Brazil will get the message about Pomba Soap. We got a very nice commission, you know, and a year’s worth of Pomba soap. What do you think? Kisses and hugs, your Tania Cidinha.” (Batista pulled at his hair. What was that woman doing anyway? You just don’t go and make a deal with one of the largest soap companies in the country!) “P.S.: Good news! Gigeta’s Pizzas and Hiro’s Karaoke want an account with us. Anyone who finds a pigeon with a message gets a free pizza or a night at Hiro’s! More later.”

  CHAPTER 16:

  The Matacão

  They wept like anything to see

  Such quantities of sand:

  ‘If this were only cleared away,’

  They said ‘it would be grand!’

  ‘If seven maids with seven mops

  Swept it for half a year,

  Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said,

  ‘That they could get it clear?’

  —Lewis Carroll

  Through the Looking Glass

  Since everyone in this story seems somehow headed for the Matacão, perhaps it would be appropriate to stop for a moment and discuss it. I don’t claim to be an expert on the Matacão, but I did gather some interesting facts.

  The Matacão has been, since its discovering, a source of curiosity and confusion in the scientific world. Geologists, astronomers, physicists, archaeologists, and chemists were suddenly thrown into an unsettling pre-revolutionary state where the basic parameters of scientific truths were undergoing a shift similar to that experienced when Einstein redefined the Newtonian world. Nowadays, scientists cannot present papers or new findings without having to answer the now-common retort, “But what bearing does the Matacão have on your findings?” or “How do you reconcile your hypothesis with the Matacão?”

  How or why the Matacão came about is a puzzle for which no clear answers exist. The speculations about its origins have been as varied as the people who came to visit, gasp, grovel, get a tan, pray, relax, study, wonder, hang out, make love, worship, meditate, or pay homage to its existence.

  In one comprehensive survey, 18 percent of the people questioned believed that the Matacão was the creation of a highly sophisticated ancient civilization that inhabited the area thousands of years ago. This fraction believed that the Matacão, once penetrated, would produce one of the greatest treasures of ancient civilization. Another 9 percent of those surveyed believed that the Matacão was the result of a hot molten substance within the earth that had managed to seep into the upper layers of the its crust.

  A mere 3 percent believed the Matacão was the work of the CIA, that it was one of a number of air bases hidden in the tropical forest for staging short-range raids into Central America and exporting arms to fallen dictators and terrorist freedom-fighters.

  About 13 percent believed that the Matacão was a miracle from God, the great foundation for a great church or a new Vatican, while another 11 percent believed that the Matacão possessed supernatural powers, not necessarily from a single God, but beyond the ordinary realm of human reason or contemporary science. Those of the supernatural bent believed that unknown powers that were life-giving and rejuvenating emanated from the Matacão, and that these powers could be used to benefit humanity or to wreak havoc, depending on who was able to harness them. Of course, many of this latter group felt that the powers of the feather were only the tip of the iceberg. A few expressed genuine concern that the free world should maintain control of the Matacão.

  But the largest group, 33 percent, believed that the Matacão was of an extraterrestrial nature, a sort of runway prepared for the arrival of aliens. Of these, about half believed that the aliens were of a friendly or benign nature, while the other half believed that military precautions were necessary to prevent invasion. An insignificant number were undecided, and the rest had never heard of the Matacão.

  Numerous public and private entities other than GGG Enterprises were funding a variety of scientific research projects on the Matacão. The Brazilian Ministry of the Interior had to create a department to keep track of the projects and to act as a intermediary for overlapping projects. In order to keep a tab on these findings, the government had created a series of legal requirements and official documents to keep the wealth and value of the Matacão within its control. This, in fact, contributed to a growing system of favors and outright graft associated with getting concessions to study areas of the Matacão. Still, a number of congressional members were beginning to argue for greater restrictions on the use and study of the Matacão. Brazil had once before emptied its wealthy gold mines into the coffers of the Portuguese Crown and consequently financed the Industrial Revolution in England. This time, if there was any wealth to be had, it had better remain in Brazil. Some scoffed at the pretensions of certain congresspersons, saying that the treasure of the Matacão might, at best, make a small dent in their continuing interest payments to the International Monetary Fund.

  A few of these research studies actually did produce some significant findings. One study, after 5,381 hours of human input and 3,379 hours of computer output, was able to reproduce the complex molecular structure of the Matacão’s material composition. The computer was completely straightforward in proclaiming the nature of the material: “NHCOO linkages indicate rigid, tightly bound polymer. Polyurethane family commonly known as plastic.”

  Another study was finally able to arrive at a method of penetrating or cutting through the Matacão’s rigid plastic. It involved a complicated combination of laser cutting with amino acids and other chemical
compounds. When the process was refined, a core sample was extricated from the Matacão. It was discovered that the Matacão was a solid piece of plastic. This agreed with sonar information, which revealed a continuous block of plastic five feet deep. Subsequent tests showed that this plastic material was virtually indestructible, a substance harder than stainless steel—or diamonds, for that matter. This news excited the NASA researchers who were naturally at the forefront of these studies, anxious to find new materials for their space vehicles. This was a breakthrough tantamount to Teflon. Some people even believed that the Matacão was Teflon.

  There was, however, one significant but unaccounted-for property of this highly rigid polymer: it was for some reason magnetic. That would be the only explanation for the fact that Chico Paco’s altar to Saint George stuck to the Matacão. However, no one was certain what substances the Matacão attracted. Scientists studied with great care the nature of the strange altar and its physical properties in order to ascertain what caused the altar to “glue” itself to the Matacão. They discovered that Chico Paco had gathered an enormous amount of iron refuse, nails, aluminum cans, plastic wrappings and plastic containers from a garbage dump. He had filled a large base with all this trash, which he, in turn, melted down into a solid mass with a welding torch. The combination of these materials, in fact, simulated the physical structure of the Matacão itself, creating a magnetic attraction that proved irresistible. Of course, most people still held the belief that Saint George’s altar was a miracle sent to Earth by the saint himself.

  All of these findings were presented in an atmosphere charged with excitement and arguments. Where did the Matacão originally come from? How did it get there? What enormous force could possibly have been present in the Amazon Forest, other than decay, to mold such a perfect block of plastic? How was it possible that plastic could have magnetic properties? What did such an enormous magnet near the equator mean to Earth? to Earth’s gravitational pull in the solar system? to sunspots? to ecological systems in the forest? to human civilization? to extraterrestrial life in the universe? to the apocalypse? The questions seemed endless and fraught with speculation and wonder and outright fear.

  Of course, the area surrounding the Matacão had been in question ever since international ecological groups discovered that the Amazon forest was enormously photogenic and made beautiful calendars. Then, there had been that debate in the late eighties and early nineties about holes in Earth’s ozone layer and the greenhouse effect. In those days, everyone, whether they understood anything about it, seemed to blame Brazil for burning down the forest and replacing oxygen-producing plant life with roaming cattle and carbon dioxide. The big problem, people said, was that Brazil hadn’t asked permission to destroy the earth. But who had? At one time, there were as many “save the rain forest” groups as there were lambada clubs in L.A. and New York. People were madly grinding their loins in that lascivious dance and gasping and moaning about the dying forest thousands of miles away. Never mind the poor homeless forest people, the Indians in extinction, and most of the species of life on Earth. What about the air? But like lambada, all that became passé; the emergence of the Matacão changed everything.

  Still, the forest itself continued to attract interest. Teams of researchers with sophisticated measuring equipment, cameras, tape recorders, nylon tents, machetes, insect repellant, dictionaries, dried food, and native guides were constantly bumping into each other while contemplating the canopy. There were also teams of tourists looking for the tropical paradise, the opportunity to swing on vines, wear orchids over their ears, slide down cataracts into cool pools, hold monkeys on their shoulders, and teach parrots to speak in English, French, German, or Japanese. These safaris became so numerous that a series of outposts were established at key locations. Tourists soon discovered for themselves what Mané Pena and his family had felt in their guts, that the Amazon forest was a great decaying hothouse where all sustenance was sucked up immediately by the voracious flora and fauna, leaving nothing for the poor soil. This did not make the forest uninteresting, but after three days of 218 species of mosquito and other swarming insects; of tarantulas, foot worms, and itching welts; of trudging through an enormous sauna in drenched clothing; of poisonous snakes and 35-foot anacondas; of sloshing through streams harboring piranhas, alligators, electric eel, and giant catfish known for devouring entire arms and legs; of competing with monkeys, toucans, and fungi for forest fruit—after all that, the outposts presented to many a tired traveler the inestimable pleasures of a shower, an air-conditioned bar, a hamburger, and a coke. The franchise owners who managed a series of these outposts, called “Bromeliads” (named for the tropical plant that can draw sustenance from a leafy water cup filled with dead matter), found that they could charge just about any price for things as common as toilet paper, a bar of soap, or a cube of ice.

  There was, however, discovered in one region, about seventy-two kilometers outside the Matacão, an area that resembled an enormous parking lot, filled with aircraft and vehicles of every sort of description. The planes and cars had been abandoned for several decades, and the undergrowth and overgrowth of the criss-crossing lianas had completely engulfed everything. On one end of the field, a number of the vehicles seemed to be slipping into a large pit of gray, sticky goop, a major component of which was discovered to be napalm.

  One of the many safaris, this one made up of entomologists, had mistakenly discovered this metal cemetery while chasing after only one of several thousand rare forms of butterfly. The machines found all dated back to the late fifties and early sixties—F-86 Sabres, F-4 Phantoms, Huey Cobras, Lear Jets and Piper Cubs, Cadillacs, Volkswagens, Dodges and an assorted mixture of gas-guzzlers, as well as military jeeps and Red Cross ambulances. After so many years in the forest, the vehicles were slowly crumbling, piece by piece, bit by bit, into a fine rusty dust. Occasionally, a loud clanging noise echoed up into the arching trees, scattering the parakeets and sending a family of monkeys screeching into a panic. But it was only the door of a ’63 Plymouth banging off its hinges into the Thunderbird parked next to it or the rotor of a helicopter bouncing off the roof of a camouflaged jeep.

  The shiny bumpers from some of the cars had been torn away, and most of the rear-view and side-view mirrors had been stripped from the cars. This would account for the curious use of reflective materials in the masks, headpieces, and necklaces of some Indian tribes. It would also account for the odd tales and primitive drawings left by Indians, which has led to the intense debate about whether these Indians had in fact had contact with extraterrestrial life, that is, UFOs, or whether flying objects and moving vehicles could be classified as archetypes of the unconscious. Meanwhile, some anthropologist ran about frantically reediting and annotating a soon-to-be-published article about the primitive use of mirrors in ancient religious rites.

  What was most interesting about the discovery of the rain forest parking lot was the way in which nature had moved to accommodate and make use of it. The entomologists were shocked to discover that their rare butterfly only nested in the vinyl seats of Fords and Chevrolets and that their exquisite reddish coloring was actually due to a steady diet of hydrated ferric oxide, or rusty water.

  There was also discovered a new species of mouse, with prehensile tails, that burrowed in the exhaust pipes of all the vehicles. These mice had developed suction cups on their feet that allowed them to crawl up the slippery sides and bottoms of the aircraft and cars. The color pattern on their bodies was impressive; the females sported a splotchy green-andbrown coat, while the males wore shiny coats of chartreuse, silver, and taxi yellow. The mice were found to have extremely high levels of lead and arsenic in their blood and fat from feeding on chipped paint, yet they seemed to be immune to these poisons. Most animals who happened to feed on these mice were instantly killed, except for a new breed of bird, a cross between a vulture and a condor, that nested on propellers and pounced on the mice as they scurried out of exhaust pipes.

 
Finally, there was a new form of air plant, or epiphyte, which attached itself to the decaying vehicles and produced brownish sacklike flowers. The rare butterflies and other insects, attracted to ferric oxide, fell prey to these carnivorous flowers; slipping down into those brown sacks, they were digested in a matter of minutes.

  There were, along with these new forms of a life, a myriad of traditional varieties of flora and fauna that had somehow found a home, a food source or way of life in this exclusive junkyard. It was an ecological experiment unparalleled in the known world of nature. One of the more exciting studies being undertaken was the documentation of the social behavior of a tribe of monkeys that had established territory in the carcasses of the bomber planes and their relation to a second tribe whose territory was decidedly the fossil remains of former gas-guzzling automotive monsters. A number of monkeys’ skulls were found riddled with machine-gun bullets, which gave credence to the theory that the tribe established in the bombers had somehow triggered the mechanisms that led to their omnipotence in the monkey world. All this was naturally being documented in the authoritative and measured tones of NHK, PBS, and BBC.

  In the meantime, back on the Matacão, human life was adapting itself to the vast plastic mantle in ways as unexpected as those found in the rain forest parking lot and as expected as the great decaying and rejuvenating ecology of the Amazon forest itself. A number of travel agencies had found it lucrative to expand their activities to include the promotion and sponsoring of events on the Matacão. The Ringling Brothers Circus had already come and performed on the Matacão, as had the Peking Acrobats and the Shakespearean Summer Festival of Kansas City. There had also been a Live Aid event with at least one hundred big-name entertainers to raise money for the victims of nuclear fallout in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. The World Hockey play-offs were scheduled to be played on the Matacão this year, and there was even talk of having the skating events of the Winter Olympics on the Matacão. And the Pope himself had chosen to meet his South American flock on the Matacão. The place where he had kissed the surface, easily identifiable by the indelible smudge of his lips, not unlike an impression on a glass or mirror, was now permanently encircled by a decorative wreath.