Through the Arc of the Rain Forest

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  There were, of course, smaller events of less than international significance: Candomblé affairs and the wild, exuberant presence of African gods, weddings, folk-dancing, operas, stand-up comedy, scenes provided for daily television soap operas, prayer meetings, magic shows, intrigues. Many couples claimed that they had experienced love at first sight on the Matacão. One mother and father decided to have their baby born there, while an old woman insisted on fasting there to complete the cycle of her life on what she considered sacred ground. The Matacão had become a stage for life and death.

  PART IV:

  Loss of Innocence

  CHAPTER 17:

  The Ball

  Upon arriving at the Matacão, the tug on me was so strong that Kazumasa had difficulty at first in securing his balance. After several hours, he found himself plagued by pains in his neck and a splitting headache. In the early days, when we first arrived in Brazil and while traveling the Brazilian trains in the north, we had experienced a similar sensation of being jerked inexplicably in one direction or another. But this had never lasted for any period of time, and as the train sped on, the sensation disappeared altogether. We could never account for this problem; it was not due to track wear. Kazumasa supposed it to be one of the quirks of my otherwise good-natured personality. A ball cannot be expected to be perfect—round, but not perfect. But here, near the Matacão, Kazumasa felt me jerking in a direction opposite the one in which he wished to direct himself, his head yanked around by some odd force.

  Kazumasa confessed his discomfort to J.B. Tweep, who had personally gone up to the heliport on the roof of GGG headquarters to meet him. We should have realized that something was wrong when J.B. had to grab Kazumasa and physically push him inside the building to prevent us from falling off the building. J.B. thought Kazumasa was just a little off-balance, nodded understandingly and calmly tossed Kazumasa’s concerns aside. “Probably jet lag,” he remarked matter-of-factly. But after escorting Kazumasa into a room in a plush hotel on the north end of the Matacão and having to grab the Japanese with all three arms to prevent him from tumbling over the balcony overlooking the vast plain, both J.B. and Kazumasa realized my undeniable attraction to the large slab.

  “This is first time has ever happened,” said Kazumasa feverishly. “Only other time, I feel something like it when working in Pará, but I thought it was because no sleep.”

  J.B. nodded, “Pará? Is that so?” J.B. took a feather out of his pocket and rubbed it over his ear with one of his hands. “What do you think is going to happen if you go down there to the Matacão?” J.B. asked.

  Kazumasa sighed and pressed his lips together. He imagined himself with his face plastered to the floor of the Matacão and me, his ball, hugging what he imagined to be my true mother. Here then was a force greater than himself, Kazumasa, my lifelong friend and brother. Kazumasa wanted to cry. He had often thought of himself as my mother or father or closest earthly relation. He felt crushed at the suggestion that I had a family of my own that, having been attached to Kazumasa, I had been denied all these years. Kazumasa suddenly felt guilty. Of course, I should be allowed to join other material of my own kind. It was only just. Kazumasa stood up resolutely and said, “Mr. J.B., I must go down there. It is my duty.”

  J.B., too, stood up with alarm, setting his body and three arms squarely between Kazumasa and the open balcony. “Now, Mr. Ishimaru, let’s be reasonable.”

  Kazumasa ignored J.B.’s ridiculous stance before the open balcony and said, “Mr. J.B., you will accompany me down the elevator. You will be my witness. Whatever happens, you let my cousin Hiroshi in São Paulo know. I remove you from any responsibility.”

  “But, but, I don’t understand. What on earth do you mean by ‘your duty’?” protested J.B.

  “Perhaps there is great reason for my coming to Brazil and to this Matacão,” answered Kazumasa. “Perhaps this is moment of truth. This,” Kazumasa pointed to me, “is not ordinary ball.”

  “Well, I’m well aware of that,” said J.B. “But I can think of a number of reasons why going down there might be dangerous.”

  “I’m not afraid of danger,” said Kazumasa.

  “Well, if not dangerous, then, complicated, embarrassing!” exclaimed J.B.

  At that Kazumasa sat down. Together, they examined all the possibilities of what might happen once Kazumasa was actually on the Matacão, everything from the possibility that I would be permanently torn from Kazumasa’s sphere of influence to the possibility that Kazumasa might be flung bodily into the Matacão, crushing his skull in an untimely death. The physical, psychological, and social damages might be irreparable.

  “You don’t have to go down there,” J.B. asserted. “Think of it this way: Your ball’s obvious attraction to the Matacão is something that should be studied. We can’t subject you to some unknown danger. You and your ball might be the key to a lot of unanswered questions!” J.B. was getting excited as he spoke. “Didn’t you say you felt this way in Pará?” This time, J.B. stood up. “Think of it! There may be other uncovered Matacãos! That’s it! You’ve got to discover them, Mr. Ishimaru! Your ball knows!” J.B. threw up all three of his arms in genuine excitement.

  “My ball knows.” Kazumasa smiled, even as he had to grab the sofa to stay seated.

  J.B. sent down for several rolls of sturdy velcro and a bottle of aspirin. He velcroed Kazumasa to the sofa and poured him a drink. Even then, we were being pulled with the sofa imperceptibly toward the Matacão. I felt sorry for Kazumasa, but there was nothing I could do.

  “Well,” said J.B. “This will do for the time being, but we really have to find some other accommodations for you, Mr. Ishimaru, farther away from the Matacão. My people are looking into it right now. I wonder how far away you must be to be comfortable?” J.B. pulled out a silver case in the smart shape of a paper clip. “Well, Mr. Ishimaru, these are really unforeseen circumstances, but I had intended to present you with this.” He gave the silver paper-clip case engraved with the letters GGG to the velcroed Kazumasa.

  Kazumasa opened the case. Inside was a rare tanager feather. The light glistened off it in iridescent shades of black and blue.

  “That’s what we’re about,” J.B. nodded proudly. “We captured the market, and no one can match us. We’ve anticipated everything. Cases, accessories, post-yuppie tastes. We’ve been studying this very carefully. We’re the best. Now, that is the top of the line, for the more affluent customer, you understand. But we’ve got a sort of “Bic” line, you might say. We sell it in a shiny package, very chic, but less expensive, and by the pack. We’re also looking into a line of disposable stuff using dyed chicken feathers.”

  Kazumasa nodded carefully, the pain in his head still throbbing. He thought the feather was beautiful, but he did not understand what it was for. He had seen the commercials on television with the beautiful women and the handsome men casually enjoying themselves in different posh situations with feathers held elegantly like antique fans. He noticed that Hiroshi had been given to taking out a feather from time to time and rubbing it inconsequentially behind his ear while he enjoyed Lourdes’s coffee after dinner.

  The phone rang, and J.B. picked it up with his third hand. “Sheik who?” he asked the phone. “One of Mané’s friends? Ah. Well, I see.” J.B. nodded. From the balcony window, we could hear the roar of a growing crowd of people from below. J.B. ran to the balcony in time to see the Matacão flood with a great mass of people. They ran around and pressed upon a single man at the center of the commotion. When the crowd was just below the balcony, J.B. could see from above that the man at the center was blond and seemed to be carrying a cage of some sort. The man was Chico Paco, just arrived from his long pilgrimage from São Paulo for the promise of a small crippled boy named Rubens. Suddenly, Chico Paco was lifted on the arms of the crowd into the air, and the whole mass of humanity seemed to sail away in smooth waves above the Matacão toward the distant shrine of Saint George.

  J.B. returned to the living r
oom where Kazumasa and I were still velcroed tightly to the sofa. He turned on the television, and we watched the commotion on the Matacão with great interest. “That is Shiko Pako,” nodded Kazumasa. “He arrived safe!”

  “You know him?”

  “Yes. He brings prayers from Lourdes for her son Rubens. Rubens, a very nice boy.”

  “Rubens?”

  “Yes. Rubens fell from window. Fourteen floors.” Kazumasa made a ducking motion with his head and let me fall symbolically fourteen floors to demonstrate. Then with his free hands, he showed the truck catching the falling boy. “A miracle from Saint George, Lourdes is convinced.” Kazumasa concluded.

  The reporter on the television concluded the same thing, only that it was a much greater miracle. They said Rubens had become crippled from falling out of the window of an apartment house; that the boy, playing with other children, got left behind in a truck full of rags, which drove out of the city; that the frantic mother Lourdes prayed to Saint George; that she promised the angel Chico Paco would walk to the Matacão if her prayers were answered; and that Rubens was suddenly cured and miraculously walked all the way home, eighteen kilometers from the Freguesia do Ó.

  Kazumasa scratched his head. “I don’t understand.” It was true. Kazumasa really didn’t. It was hard to follow the fast talk on newscasts. Still, he thought the reporter had gotten things mixed up. “I see Rubens only this morning. He still can’t walk,” Kazumasa assured himself and then wondered. He smiled wistfully, “But Lourdes would be very happy.”

  J.B. thought the television report was so much more coherent than Kazumasa’s illogical tale, that he assumed the Japanese had explained it poorly. J.B. said, “It’s a superstitious country, Mr. Ishimaru, but if it works, I’m for what works, you know.” J.B. found a particularly delightful spot on his ear to scratch. He pressed the feather there with special attention.

  “Ah,” exclaimed Kazumasa, pointing at the television screen. “The pigeon!” Sure enough, there was Rubens’s pigeon, the very one that had saved his life. Chico Paco took the pigeon ceremoniously from its cage, held it steadily for the cameras and then tossed the bird into the air. The pigeon circled the sky and sailed away over the forest. After the single pigeon disappeared, there was a sudden swoop of feathers and flapping. In the background, you could see Batista’s truck with the words “Djapan Pigeons Incorporated” and “Pomba for Lovely Clean Skin.” For a moment the sky above the Matacão seemed to reflect the same gray with a multitude of pigeons circling ever higher and higher. In a matter of days and hours, São Paulo would be sprinkled with exhausted pigeons, all carrying the same message: “Pomba for Lovely Clean Skin.”

  In the next few days, J.B. Tweep had a memo sent to himself ordering him to make every sort of arrangement for the very important stockholder of GGG Enterprises, Mr. K. Ishimaru. Even though all the best hotels were on the Matacão, J.B. managed to find a suitable place a good distance away. For precaution’s sake, J.B had the furniture screwed down to the floors in the hotel room and had an assistant come in and velcro Kazumasa to his bed at night, but this was probably unnecessary. Kazumasa and I were quite ready to leave the Matacão for an easier life of surer gravity, but J.B. was insistent that Kazumasa stay to take the special GGG Enterprises tour that had been arranged. J.B. was also curious about my strange attraction to the Matacão. GGG had a sort of side foundation devoted to the study of the Matacão, something called Matacão Scientific Research Institute, which claimed to be studying the origins of the Matacão and for which GGG got a substantial tax break. J.B. was privy to some important, but very secret, breakthroughs about the nature of that smooth mysterious plain. It was possible that my relationship to this place could be the the missing link.

  In order to provide Kazumasa with some comfort during his tour of GGG, J.B. had key areas recarpeted in velcro. He also had furniture upholstered in the same material. On the day of the tour, Kazumasa was given special velcro shoes and clothing. This must be, Kazumasa thought, what astronauts experience on the moon or how insects feel crawling up a wall. Kazumasa stuck to everything at GGG. He had to pry himself away from floors and chairs. At the same time, every time we passed a window overlooking the Matacão, Kazumasa would flail wildly off balance—his head jerked toward the Matacão while his feet were glued to the carpeting. It was a very tiring business.

  Kazumasa tried to listen politely to all the explanations about what this or that department did, who this or that vice president or director was. Kazumasa noticed that all the desks had a large supply of plastic-covered clips, that managers generally had stainless-steel clips, directors silver-plated clips, vice presidents pure silver clips, and that only the president used gold clips. He noticed that all the women on the first floor had red hair and nails, while all the women on the second floor had black hair and gold nails. As you went up the floors at GGG, the similarities between people were less conspicuous, until they actually became rather subtle on the upper floors. Kazumasa, who was so busy trying to keep his ground, could hardly appreciate these details, but I had nothing else to do but observe. The employees on the tenth floor all did crossword puzzles, while those on the eleventh were into pornographic video games. Everyone on one floor had secretly written a screenplay, and the vice president’s secretary on that floor was really a Hollywood agent. On one floor everyone was politically left and on another politically right. The people on these floors used only the left or right elevators, depending on their political preference. The left elevator was swamped with protest posters and articles cut out of Mother Jones. The right elevator had the photographs of great conservative icons—Nixon and Reagan—under glass. Occasionally, someone from the left elevator would sneak in and draw little mustaches on the glass under Nixon’s and Reagan’s noses. By the time you got to the top floors, the clone factor was so subtle that only I could have noticed it—the middle initial P. for Peter or Pedro or Pietro or Pierre, or congenital lobotomies, for example.

  For some reason, J.B. never thought it important to point these things out, and I suppose he was right. GGG was a great functioning miracle, a living, breathing organism that fell to the Matacão from the sky. J.B. would not have had it any other way. He had to move in and around it from the top to the bottom. Cloning helped him to remember what floor he was on. What was there to explain? Like the miracles associated with the angel Chico Paco, it worked, and J.B. was concerned with what worked.

  Kazumasa watched the videotape slickly produced in several languages for the astute stockholder. Kazumasa listened to the Japanese version and finally understood the feather business. GGG touted feathers as a natural, healthy habit, an intelligent replacement for tobacco and coffee and a variety of nervous tics. People who had smoked for years claimed that they had given up the dirty cancerous habit within a day, an hour, or a moment: it was that good. The surgeon general was even recommending it.

  And it was not simply healthy; hundreds of medicinal values were attributed to the feather. Where else but on the Matacão could one expect to find such a miracle drug? This alone was testimony to the great unknown value of tropical plants and animals still unclassified among thousands of species in the Amazon forest. There was a romantic shot of Mané Pena, the feather guru, walking barefoot across the Matacão at sunset, contemplating this wonderful world and the great mystery of the Amazon forest. Everything was enveloped in New Age music, and Kazumasa, who had a ball for a companion, even felt that feathers might bring him closer to this great ecological wonder.

  GGG’s marketing strategy was pure. You will recall that before J.B. arrived, GGG had no product on which to test its strategy; therefore, GGG developed a strategy that simply created a miracle product that would bring the greatest returns if GGG could control all the markets relating to that product. GGG had wrapped up the entire marketplace; there were no inroads, no avenues that had not been foreseen. GGG simply produced, controlled, and sold everything. Georgia and Geoffrey Gamble, inspired by raw halibut, were the rare genius
es of this impeccable phenomenon. But J.B. was still not satisfied.

  “Now,” said J.B., when he had accompanied Kazumasa up twenty-three floors to the conference rooms overlooking the Matacão and seated the Japanese with the ball securely in a velcroed chair. “About that ball of yours. I’ve been instructed to let you in on some of our newest developments in Matacão research. This is very secure information, but under the circumstances, we believe you are the one to help us fill in the missing parts of our research. We’ve discovered that the stuff that the Matacão is made of is a sort of, well, sort of miracle plastic—Matacão plastic, if you will. We’ve discovered that it is extremely resistant stuff; we’re the ones that have cracked the code in drilling and extracting the stuff, and now we’re on the verge of controlling it.”

  Kazumasa nodded.

  J.B. continued, “We know how to remove it from the earth, mine it, you know, but we’re also involved in researching how to use it. We’ve got the contract from NASA to develop a space material that won’t burn up when passing through atmospheres. This Matacão stuff is incredible. It is stronger than steel, resistant to extremely high temperatures, and,” J.B. emphasized, “totally moldable!” He threw up his three arms in excitement.

  Kazumasa was wondering what it was that J.B. wanted of him. He listened carefully.

  “But, this Matacão below us is a sort of, well, you’ve seen it, that shrine of Saint George, that Chico someone and those pigeons. People think it should be preserved. It’s practically a national monument—no, an international monument. The piece we got hold of was not easy to come by; we had to pull a lot of strings to convince the Brazilian government that this was scientific nonprofit research. When they hear that we want to start mining this place, we’ll have an uproar similar to the one Exxon had back in ’89 with that Alaskan spill or even this old hubbub over the destruction of the rain forest or what’s left of it. Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Ishimaru, GGG is committed to environmental conservation. You’ve seen our promotion; we want to bring people back to nature, back to health. We want them to be ecologically responsible too. Every time a person puts a feather to his ear, picks up the primary of a rare tanager or a scarlet ibis, they’ve got to think about the birds, about nature. My wife’s an ornithologist, a real bird fanatic. So I know what I’m talking about. What was I saying?” J.B. paused to gather his thoughts.