The Gene of Life

by Tetsuo Ted Takashima

  Max and Katya had left Berlin during the night, transferred in São Paulo and were headed for Manaus.

  “The river with the most water in the world,” Max said. “It starts where the Negro and Solimões rivers meet, about five miles downstream from Manaus. If you include all of the tributaries, it is more than 4,000 miles long by the time it reaches the Atlantic Ocean. It’s 200 miles wide at its mouth.”

  “It’s like a giant carpet of green. And, it’s the planet’s conscience.” Katya sighed.

  “Some trees there are over a hundred feet high. It’s the last vast rainforest on Earth.”

  “We’re in uncharted territory. It feels like the Earth started here.”

  “There’s no such thing as uncharted territory anymore. Every inch of the planet is now part of an economic machine. The Amazon is like a promising diamond mine. Ever since anticancer plant roots were discovered there, all the biotech companies have been sending their researchers.”

  Katya looked down.

  “They collect plants, insects, soil samples . . . ,” Max continued. “It’s a treasure trove of new species. There are endless numbers of bacteria in the soil. They bring them back to their labs, cultivate them and analyze them, looking for molecular structures and genes that will make them money. As a result, the rainforest is disappearing.”

  “Is the Brazilian government doing anything to stop it?” Katya turned to look at him. There was a red mark on her forehead from the window frame.

  “They’ve banned the removal of animals and plants. But human greed knows no bounds. People think that rules are made to be broken. Poachers and plant hunters, some sent by multinational corporations, take what they want, pretending to be tourists. Then there are the people who collect as a hobby. Some botanists say that the forests along the Amazon River have been shaped by human hands.”

  “Shaped by humans? This forest? I don’t believe it.” Katya put her forehead to the window again.

  “About 15 million species have been identified. It was thought that no new species were left to be found in the Amazon, but when a French researcher was able to look down at the canopy from the air, he found tons of new species. Now they think there are three times as many species in the Amazon alone.”

  “When did you learn that?”

  “Last night. I read it on National Geographic’s website.”

  “Has civilization reached where we are going?”

  “I didn’t find much about it. Most of the Amazon has been surveyed, but one area seems to have remained untouched.”

  “Near the Venezuelan border?”

  “Expedition teams and media people have been there. We’re going a few hundred miles south. It’s not clear why, but the Brazilian government hasn’t surveyed that region. And it’s cut off from development pipelines, too.”

  “Must be the Nazis . . .”

  “In their heyday the Nazis had their hands in the governments of Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. There’s a good chance they’re still exerting their influence.” Max retrieved a folder from his backpack. Inside were five pages he’d printed out, entitled “The Fourth Reich.”

  “Can I read it?”

  “That’s why I brought it.”

  He handed it to her, and while she seemed to hesitate for a moment, she put it on her lap and started reading.

  The car left Teafair and we drove for three hours on a bumpy road less than ten feet wide. It wound through an undeveloped stretch of jungle, and I didn’t know where it would end. Looking at the virgin forest all around, it was strange that there was even a road like this. I knew we were near the border of either Colombia or Brazil.

  We’d had enough. It was hot, dusty, and the humidity was unbearable. Our shirts were drenched with sweat, and our mouths were gritty with sand. It was like hell on Earth.

  All five of us started to think this was all just a big farce.

  It seemed the rumor I heard a week before in a bar in Cusco was nonsense. No one would divulge something like that just for some booze. We were angry with ourselves for going all that way on the ramblings of some dirty drunk.

  That man, Tom Douglas, showed up while we were playing poker. “Buy me a drink,” he said, dressed in frayed work clothes and reeking of booze. We refused. Douglas said he’d tell us about the City of Gold if we gave him a drink. The name was Estancia.

  One of my mates put down his cards and looked up at him. That was the beginning of our little excursion.

  It began to rain. The downpour was so heavy our windshield was a miniature waterfall, and the wipers were completely useless. We couldn’t see ten meters in front of us. About an hour later, the squall suddenly stopped.

  “Whose viewpoint is this from?” Katya looked at Max.

  “A self-proclaimed explorer. It’s an interview from a magazine by an American journalist. I found it online last night.”

  Katya’s eyes fell on the file once again.

  After the rains stopped it got a little cooler, but the air was still 100 percent humidity. It was awful; it was so damp that when we wrung out our clothes, water actually dripped out. We were the only organisms unhappy about the moisture, though. The trees on either side of us, and the creatures inhabiting them, were all flourishing.

  Finally we agreed to turn back if, after another half hour, we didn’t find anything. Then, all of a sudden, there it was.

  “I see the town,” our Indigenous Brazilian said.

  We couldn’t believe our eyes. After climbing a gentle slope, we saw it. A real town! White roofs surrounded by gaps of green. There were twenty, maybe thirty houses, and a white road cutting through the center. This was the “city of gold and jewels” that drunk spoke of. Our hearts soared!

  The bumpy dirt road suddenly gave way to pavement about twenty feet wide. On both sides were beautiful European-style houses with front yards. I couldn’t believe I was still in the virgin Amazonian rainforest. But we didn’t see a single resident. The car rolled along slowly. The road went on for hundreds of yards, and at the end of it was a European-style mansion surrounded by stone walls more than seven feet high. We got out of the car and walked up to the iron gate. It was locked, but we could see inside through a gap in the steel fence. A driveway lead up to the mansion, and the surrounding area was blanketed by a well-maintained lawn. There was even a fountain in the center.

  We clung to the steel fence and gazed at the grounds. We heard cars stop behind us. When we turned around we saw three jeeps surrounded by muscular, gun-toting blond men in black clothes. They looked stern, and looked like they could be German, but what removed all doubt was their swastika armbands. It felt like we’d stepped back in time. We showed them our passports and the Amazon research permit from the governor. They talked among themselves, and went back to the jeep to talk into their walkie-talkies. One of them removed his machine gun’s safety and pointed it at us. We were all scared for our lives. If they killed us and threw us into the jungle, no one would ever know. We’d be devoured by the animals, rot, and return to the soil. Our lives were in their hands.

  Nearly an hour later, we were separated and put into two jeeps. One of them drove the car we came in. We were dropped off about two hours away from the town.

  “That town is private property, as recognized by the Peruvian government. Forget everything you saw. If you’re ever spotted around there again, there’s no guarantee you’ll come out alive,” said a man who was probably their leader, and then they let us go.

  They returned our cameras after they removed the film.

  We drove all night and finally reached a small town at dawn. It had all happened in a few hours, and afterward, it felt like I’d been dreaming. Maybe it was actually a dream. A town suddenly appearing in the jungle after a fierce rainstorm? There’s no evidence that town exists. But we did see it. Estancia, a European-style town in northern Peru, and the site of the Fourth Reich. When I close my eyes, I can still see the beautiful town that appeared in the deepest depths of the Amazon.”r />
  Katya put the folder back on her lap. “The new Nazi city, I’ve heard of it. But I thought it was just a rumor, or a story in some novel.”

  “This account should be taken with a grain of salt. The reporter who interviewed him wrote that it might’ve been an illusion born of one too many coca leaves. It seems there are a lot of stories like this in South America, and they usually mention hidden Nazi treasures, too.”

  “So was Domba a town the Nazis created?”

  “I don’t know. All we know is that Gehlen is Dona’s husband, and that Dona was from that village. Even if that’s true, we don’t have any proof.”

  “Maybe Feldman knows the truth.”

  “I’m sure he knows some of it. Just not all of it. If he knew the whole truth, he wouldn’t have pulled us into this.”

  “We should have met with the self-proclaimed explorer before we got on the plane. Maybe he knows something about Domba, too.”

  “To do that we’d have had to find his tomb. A few days after he met with the reporter, he was found floating in a river in Peru with a swastika-shaped wound on his chest. He must’ve been made an example of—though I don’t know if that’s true.”

  “We will be arriving at Manaus in thirty minutes,” said the cabin attendant in Spanish. “We are experiencing some turbulence. Please fasten your seat belts.” The message was repeated in Portuguese and English.

  Katya gave the folder back to Max. “Damn. This was my first time flying first class. I wanted to enjoy it for a little longer.” She put on her seat belt.

  Max reclined in his seat, feeling a dull pain in the back of his head that had been there ever since he decided to go to the Amazon. He was too afraid to dwell on what that pain could be. He closed his eyes. The plane was beginning to dip down. Below lay the city of Manaus.

  Max and Katya arrived at Eduardo Gomes International. The airport was crowded with people of all skin colors. Many were of mixed ancestry, from Indigenous to Black to white to Asian to some combination thereof. The atmosphere in this diverse city was friendly and lively; they could feel life was, in a way, simpler here than what they were used to.

  “We’re finally in Brazil!” Katya grabbed their luggage while Max looked around absentmindedly.

  The second they exited the building and stepped under the cloudless blue sky, they felt the merciless heat bearing down on them.

  “Did you enjoy the flight?” Jake asked, with an affable smile. Instead of his usual suit and tie, he had on a safari jacket and work boots—not exactly the image of a Nazi hunter. He looked more like a cheery American tourist. He started walking, and said, “Usually people travel the Amazon by going along the rivers with Cessna floatplanes, but with our luggage in mind, I chartered some helicopters. Helicopters are also easier to land. Actually, the Brazilian Air Force is doing us a favor.”

  At one end of the airport, two midsize helicopters were on standby for them.

  “Here’s our guide, Bocaiúva.”

  Bocaiúva had dark brown skin, a grumpy-looking face, curly black hair, and sharp eyes. He was wearing shorts and sandals. He was about five feet, three inches tall, and his body was thin and lithe, like a piece of wire. But not just any wire—he was like piano wire. His muscles were lean, without an ounce of fat. He was the opposite of Jake.

  “We leave in two hours.” Bocaiúva spoke in accented but perfectly fluent English.

  Two Indigenous porters were loading their luggage onto the chopper. Jake said that their supplies, food, and equipment weighed nearly 700 pounds.

  Max inspected the equipment Feldman had sent them.

  “There’s even a battery-powered cooler,” said Katya.

  “Shame we can’t take some beer with us.”

  Katya opened the lid. Inside the cooler were empty cases for blood collection.

  “It’s a state-of-the art cooler that uses liquid nitrogen,” said Max, as he examined the binoculars. “Blood or cells can be preserved in a culturable state for three days.”

  Feldman had prepared all of the equipment that Max had asked for: portable DNA sequencers, blood sampling devices, storage containers, everything. And they were all the latest, most cutting-edge versions. It would normally have taken months to get it all. The organization behind Feldman had to be huge.

  All together, they were a party of nine. Jake had two assistants, the man in his thirties and the man in his forties that Max had seen a few times at Feldman’s office. As for the native Brazilian contingent, Bocaiúva was joined by three porters, who were from a village near the Amazon River Basin.

  “Bocaiúva did well to find helpers. Even the Indigenous people dislike going into the back regions—especially the region where we’re headed,” Jake said, as Max watched the porters carry their luggage.

  They entered a restaurant inside the airport as the rest of their things were loaded onto the chopper.

  “Check if everyone has all their shots,” Max told Jake. “Measles, polio, the flu . . .”

  “Before I left Germany, the professor forced me to get all of them in one go,” Katya said, listening beside him. “I spent half the next day in bed. A little cold isn’t going to stop me, though.”

  “The shots aren’t for our sakes,” Max said, “but to protect the villagers from the contagions carried by us so-called civilized people. We’re going to a place that’s isolated from the world we live in. There were once nine million Indigenous Amazonians. Now there are only two hundred thousand. Europeans slaughtered a good number of them, but it was the infectious diseases that wiped out most of them.”

  “All things I’m aware of,” Jake said, before turning to Katya. “The Brazilian government recently enacted some laws. I mean, the flu has wiped out whole villages. First, we’ll take the choppers to a village near Boyas. From there, we have a half-day car ride to Umabes, where we switch to kayaks for another half day of travel. After that, it’s a day’s walk to Domba.”

  “Domba wasn’t on any map I saw.”

  “It might not be an official name. On the map, it’s just a point in the middle of the rainforest. And it must be small, since the Cessna pilots couldn’t spot it. Indigenous villages are usually guarded by government rangers. They have issues with food and medical treatment. There is no record of Domba. Even the Protection Agency officials knew nothing. Somebody must be pulling strings to prevent organizations and individuals from intervening.”

  Bocaiúva called them over. The chopper was ready.

  As they headed for the chopper, Jake whispered to Max, “Domba’s existence could just be a rumor. All we have to go on is a satellite image from NASA. Our experts say they found something in the jungle. To me, that ‘something’ looks like a scratch or a mark on a photo. But I’ll try to find the place. This is all we can rely on.” He took a device not unlike a miniature radio from his pocket. “It’s a GPS.” He flipped its switch, showing it off like a toy.

  They left in the two helicopters and flew upstream along the Amazon River. Pockmarks of red earth—Indigenous settlements—dotted the dense jungle. After about two hours, the helicopters landed in a small clearing. The “village” was only a few huts along the river.

  As they unloaded their luggage, a group of Indigenous children gathered to stare at them. They were all barefoot, with black hair, dark eyes, and brown skin.

  Jake quickly made his way through the children and headed to the lavatory. When he exited, he had a weary look. He’d had an upset stomach since they left, and he looked pale during the chopper ride. It was a sign of the toll the trip would take on their bodies and minds. It had only just begun.

  “This place was inaccessible by helicopter until just last year,” Bocaiúva explained, as he observed the children surrounding them and watching them from a distance. “We used to have to walk from Manaus. It was a three-day trip. That’s why there’s still some nature here. And the children still enjoy their traditional way of life. But soon they’ll be wearing sneakers, listening to the radio, and begging trav
elers for things.”

  “Are there still unknown villages around here?” Katya asked him.

  “Don’t know. I’d never heard of Domba, either. I’m just taking you to the place in the picture,” he replied in a less than friendly voice.

  “We found out about the village,” Jake said, watching Max’s reaction, “when we combed through NASA satellite and aerial photographs to search for the place Dona described. It’s the fruit of modern science. Not that any of us has actually entered the village. You can consider us true pioneers.”

  “Hold on,” Katya lowered her voice and looked at Max. “Dona spoke German and lived in Europe. Gehlen must have traveled all over Europe. I don’t think they could have lived in such a remote area.”

  Max took out his notebook and jotted something down.

  One of the porters walked over to Bocaiúva. “We’re ready.”

  They were divided into two pickup trucks. As they drove off, Katya opened the book Max gave her on the plane, entitled The Flow of the Amazon. It was about the native flora and fauna.

  The unpaved road along the river was flanked by jungle, just like the road to Estancia. They were rumbling through towering walls of green, the trucks bouncing and jostling as they went. Dust roiled like smoke behind them. There was no way anyone could read a book like that; Katya gave up and closed it.

  They arrived at Umabes a little after 5:00 p.m. The “village” was a collection of ten huts in cleared grassland. They were in the backcountry now. The villagers wore T-shirts and jeans. Half were barefoot. They shot curious looks at the party, but they didn’t come near.

  That night they stayed in a hut on the dock. They hung hammocks in a building that looked like a garage with a dirt floor. Bocaiúva checked for snakes, scorpions, and venomous insects. Katya sprinkled pesticides throughout the hut.

  “You’re still going to get tortured by insects tonight,” Bocaiúva said.

  “This is a special insecticide meant for Amazonian mosquitoes,” said Katya. “A friend told me I should bring it if I don’t want my face to get red and swollen.”