The Gene of Life

by Tetsuo Ted Takashima

  “You sprayed enough to kill a person, never mind bugs,” Max said.

  “Do you know the number one killer in the Amazon?”

  “Yes. People. I think people are the deadliest and most evil creatures on Earth, let alone the Amazon. If the world ever falls to ruin, it will have been because humans once walked it.”

  “Do you have some kind of grudge against humanity, Professor?”

  “Homo sapiens is the only species stupid enough to destroy its own habitat. And the only species with boundless appetites beyond just reproduction.”

  Katya sighed. “All right then, what’s the second most dangerous?”

  “I can’t think of any. The impact of the number one deadliest species is too great. Other species don’t cause more harm than what’s necessary for their survival.”

  “It’s mosquitoes, Professor. Not crocodiles or piranhas or venomous snakes. By morning they’ll have eaten you alive.”

  “Did you learn that on the web?”

  “No, a friend told me.”

  Katya was right. They hung up mosquito nets, but they were awakened several times by mosquitoes that got through the gaps. Each time, Katya’s swatter dispensed the invader. Once, Max put his tongue to the mark left behind by the insect that was squashed in the dark—it tasted strongly of iron.

  The temperature dropped as the night went on. Max got up and threw on a windbreaker but was still cold.

  The next day everyone woke up at dawn. Everyone but Bocaiúva and the porters had bloodshot eyes and had been bitten by mosquitoes all over their bodies, including their faces. Around the red, swollen rashes, there were crushed mosquito corpses and splotches of blood. Jake had applied anti-itch cream and insect repellent; he looked miserable. Anyone who got near him was hit with a whiff of the strange odor of the two mixed together.

  A river flowed in front of the hut. It was one of the tributaries of the Negro River, whose black, muddy, calm waters cut across the Amazon for more than six hundred miles.

  A few Indigenous people were waiting on the riverbank. They lived in a nearby village and they were going to take them to the next dock. From that point on, they would have to rely on Bocaiúva’s experience and Jake’s GPS.

  Three kayaks with outboard motors were floating next to each other. They split into groups, with Max, Katya, and Bocaiúva sharing one.

  “Don’t put your hands in the water,” Bocaiúva told the others.

  “If you’re worried about piranhas, they don’t come up to the surface.” Katya paddled her hands in the water contentedly.

  Bocaiúva pointed to the side. A few yards away, a footlong red and black creature was floating.

  “It’s a snake. If it bites your hand, then we’ll have no choice but to amputate before the venom circulates.”

  Katya hurriedly took her hands out.

  “There are also leeches and nematodes. Nematodes enter the body through any orifice and feast on your insides, down to your organs and brain matter.”

  Katya raised her hands above her chest. Her face went pale.

  They had lunch as they floated. The outboard motor buzzed as if to intimidate the dense jungle on both sides of the river. When the sun began to hang on the treetops to the west, they arrived at the pier, which was nothing more than a few wooden planks in a row. There was no sign of people living in the area. Max stood on the pier and looked at the river and the forest surrounding it. The virgin forest, which stopped at the very edge of the water, stood high and dense, as if to rebuff intruding humans.

  The porters gathered around the kayaks. The Indigenous people navigating the kayaks pointed to the forest upstream and said something in a language Max didn’t understand. The porters were nodding and listening; judging by their expressions, they were afraid.

  “What are they saying?” Max asked Bocaiúva.

  “They’re talking about the forest, the people, the animals and plants. And about the gods and evil spirits,” he replied nonchalantly, before instructing the porters to unload quickly.

  After their things were unloaded, the kayaks returned to their village.

  “From here, we walk. Our destination is thirty miles away.” Bocaiúva pulled out a machete that was more than a foot long and peered into the jungle.

  “How long will it take?”

  “I don’t know. It’s my first time going down this path.”

  With Bocaiúva in the lead, they started walking into the lush virgin forest. He hacked away at branches and vines in their way. The sunlight and the scents of the forest and soil wrapped around the party like a choking miasma. Their hiking shoes sank into the spongy mulch.

  “Be careful where you step,” Katya said. “Leeches can get at you through the gaps in your socks. The leeches around these parts rend your flesh and enter your blood vessels to reach the heart.”

  “Another tidbit from the web?”

  “No, this was something my old friend told me, too.”

  Meanwhile, Bocaiúva and the porters kept hacking a trail. The branches and leaves that hit their heads and faces were full of venomous insects and mites. Jake screamed each time one hit him.

  “There are venomous snakes, venomous spiders, and more here. Don’t touch them, don’t step on them, and don’t get close to them. Pay attention to where you’re walking so others don’t have to do it for you.” Bocaiúva pointed to a black and yellow spider on a leaf.

  “Then I have no choice but to stand still,” Jake blubbered.

  “Humans are the outsiders here. They are beings of little significance. The protagonists are the jungle and the flora and fauna that live there. Keep that in mind if you don’t want to die.” They felt the truth in Bocaiúva’s words.

  The tangle of vines continued on like an endless maze. Trees over a hundred feet high blocked the light and trapped in moisture; Max could almost swear they were confined under a huge dome.

  They were sweating buckets. Their sweat formed a film on their skin that attracted insects even more.

  “The humidity is 100 percent,” Katya said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if water came oozing out of the air.” Katya stopped, wiped her sweat, and sprayed her whole body with insect repellent again.

  “Zero appetite is great for dieting, but I’m thirsty.” Jake took out a water bottle and drank from it.

  His diarrhea hadn’t abated, and every time they took a break, he squatted away from the others. His face and body had changed over the last few days.

  “Bocaiúva said that if you drink too much, you just get tired.”

  “I know, but my body won’t listen to me.”

  The moisture didn’t evaporate, instead becoming another coating of sweat. They felt sticky all over, and had a sensation that insects were crawling all over them. Max looked up; the branches and leaves of the broadleaf trees were layered, and he felt like a prisoner in a green cage.

  “Even America is outmatched here,” said Katya. “NASA’s satellites were only able to take photos of leaves.”

  “The village has been found. The Brazilian government has also allowed us to visit,” Jake argued, but it sounded like excuses to them.

  “What if it’s not a village, but rather something that looks like a village? Also, permits are one-sided. You used your connections to get a signature on a document. That doesn’t mean the villagers are going to welcome us. We don’t even know if the village actually exists. Did they use infrared to find the village?”

  “It was something like that.”

  “A few years ago,” Max said as he walked, “four corpses were found downstream of the river we just went up.”

  “What did they die from?”

  “Impossible to tell. The corpses were rotten and fish-eaten. They were researchers and guards at a German pharmaceutical company.”

  “Run!” shouted Bocaiúva as he swung his machete. The porters followed him, pushing their way through the branches as they ran.

  From overhead, a shower of avocado-sized bluish-black masses
rained down on them. The screams of Jake and his assistants echoed through the trees. Max’s group ducked down and got out of the avocado shower.

  Katya shrieked. Max checked under her shirt collar and found a two-inch-long leech on her neck. Max tried to get it off with a knife.

  “If you take it off wrong, a piece of it will sneak into her body!” Bocaiúva pushed Max away and pushed a lit cigarette into it instead.

  Now the back of Katya’s neck was swollen, reddish purple, and bleeding. Bocaiúva looked around and cut a three-foot-tall tree at the roots. He grasped the opening he’d created in the tree with his fingers, then grabbed Katya’s neck and bent it closer. When he let go of the tree, clear water began to flow from the trunk. He washed Katya’s neck with the water, and told her to drink if she wanted to.

  “Cold, delicious water.” She was hesitant, but kept drinking anyway.

  “Shippo de Agua—the ‘water tree,’” Max said.

  Bocaiúva nodded, as he drank from it too.

  “Is that also from National Geographic, Professor?”

  “It seems that the Amazon is full of God’s grace—as well as the Devil’s traps.”

  Jake and his assistants were breathing heavily as they sat.

  “We’ll be in leech territory for a while yet.”

  Everyone jumped up as if Bocaiúva’s words had lit a fire under them. They kept walking for almost two hours without stopping until Bocaiúva motioned for them to pass through the tunnel he had cut through the trees.

  Suddenly, the view opened up.

  Max stood there, speechless. Katya was staring beside him, as captivated as he was. Before them lay a huge trunk; it looked like a boulder, and it was more than fifteen feet in diameter. The upper part was hidden behind the surrounding trees. The trunk, covered in moss and ivy, crept over the earth like a huge living creature. Thick branches hung overhead, and thousands, no, tens of thousands of smaller branches covered completely by leaves jutted out from them, making for a single, gigantic life-form.

  “It’s a Samauma tree,” Bocaiúva said, looking up at the green giant. “I’ve never seen such a huge tree. It must be 300 to 400 years old.”

  Jake and his assistants stood around gaping at the tree as well.

  “God’s tree,” murmured Katya.

  The calm of the forest began drifting in the air, alongside hints of night.

  “We’ll make camp here today.” Bocaiúva set down his backpack by the tree.

  The porters came together and talked, shooting glances at Max and the group.

  The next morning, they woke to the sound of Bocaiúva’s voice. The porters were nowhere to be found. Jake was making a fuss about chasing after them, but Bocaiúva didn’t appear fazed in the least.

  “They only took their own portions of the food. Our destination is a day away. As long as we each take some of the luggage, we’ll get there.” Bocaiúva had seen this coming.

  “What do we do on the return trip? I won’t have any strength left,” Jake was beside himself.

  “You gringos always worry about pointless things. The gods of the forest will guide us. We humans have only to obey,” Bocaiúva said matter-of-factly as he began dividing up the luggage.

  As soon as they finished breakfast, they were on the move. They walked single file without a word. Jake kept checking the GPS and the map. By noon they encountered a spring that formed a small pond. When Bocaiúva said they could take a break, they all sat down at the base of a tree. They were drenched in sweat. All of a sudden they heard screaming and yelling. They looked over at the spring; a dark mass had formed in the air. Bocaiúva grabbed the jacket he’d just taken off and rushed over.

  “Blackflies!” Jake exclaimed.

  One of the assistants was shirtless in the water and the blackflies swarmed him. Bocaiúva tried to slap the flies away, but the black cloud clung to him. Max took a smoke bomb from out of his backpack and lit it. It blew white smoke, which enveloped the man and drove the swarm away. A few minutes later, the assistant got out of the water; he was red and swollen all over. Bocaiúva applied an ink-like salve he’d brought along. It reeked of ammonia.

  “It’s a quick remedy the people here make from bat guano—bat excrement. The swelling will go down in half a day. Next time, if you don’t want to die, stay still and hold your breath. Also, get it into your heads that in this forest, humans are outsiders.”

  The assistant couldn’t even open his mouth. He just grimaced and endured the smell.

  They ate lunch and set off once again. The burden on each of them grew since they now had to carry the assistant’s things. It was all they could do just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The sun was beginning to sink. Jake had been hurrying along, relying on the walking stick Bocaiúva had made him, but he was falling behind. Max asked him if he was all right, but Jake was breathing heavily; he couldn’t even speak. Unable to stand by and watch, Bocaiúva took Jake’s load. Max kept soldiering on; Katya was keeping pace behind him.

  A fallen tree blocked the way. Katya lost her footing and was about to fall when Max held out his hand. “First time doing fieldwork?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know it was necessary. I thought all we needed to do was to stay in our sterilized rooms and familiarize ourselves with microscopes, computers, cells, and blood.”

  “You’re half-right.”

  “When I was at Stanford, a biologist friend of mine did fieldwork all the time. He’d go to the Himalayas or Africa in search of undiscovered microbes or plants. He even went to the Amazon. He invited me to come with him, but I turned him down.”

  “I’m sure your friend was an outstanding scientist.”

  “He was only able to graduate because I started writing his papers.”

  “You’re a good friend.”

  “If he’d been held back a year, that was another year I’d have had to look after him. Besides, we were engaged.”

  Max stumbled over himself for a second. “When are you getting married?”

  “We were engaged. Past tense. We broke it off.”

  “You got tired of writing his reports for him?”

  “I realized he hated studying. He’s the type of guy that likes using his body over his mind.” Katya’s breathing became unsteady. “One of the species he was always hunting was human females. He collected and researched them enthusiastically. The only things he exceeded me in were his physical strength and his insatiable spirit of inquiry with regard to new species.”

  “That’s the most important quality for basic research.”

  “The problem is he directed those rare talents only to the bedroom,” said Katya, as she swatted her neck. A mosquito died with a bloody splat. “You’re used to mountain treks, aren’t you, Professor?”

  “Ever since high school. The last time was when I was in tenth grade. I went camping with my dad.”

  “That sounds fun. You didn’t go again after that?”

  “He died on the last day of camp.”

  “I’m so sorry!”

  “No need to apologize. He committed suicide. When I woke up in the morning, I saw my dad wasn’t in bed beside me. I went to the lake, and there he was, floating in it.”

  “How do you know it was suicide?”

  “Because he was mentally weak,” Max said quietly. Then he picked up the pace, as if to deny her any follow-up. She chased after him.

  CHAPTER 10

  Bocaiúva held up his hand, signaling them to stop.

  The sun was shining through the gaps in the trees, and they suddenly came upon a small clearing with about ten huts. The walls and roofs were made of palm tree leaves, blending in with the trees behind them. No wonder this tiny village, enclosed by towering trees, couldn’t be spotted by helicopter. There was no sign of people. Two skinny dogs watched them. One hut was a little bigger than the others.

  “Is this Domba?” Max asked Jake without taking his eyes off the clearing.

  Jake hurriedly took out his GPS and map to
check. Bocaiúva motioned to Jake to stay put and entered the clearing. Max took a step forward. Katya came to his side and grabbed his arm; she was shivering.

  Before they knew it, they were surrounded by partially naked men and women, all about five feet tall, with black hair, dark eyes, and glistening brown skin. The men held small bows, but they looked like toys. They were barefoot and barely covered by cloth around their waists. They were expressionless apart from their harsh eyes.

  Katya trembled. Max hugged her to him, and told her with his eyes to look behind the men with bows. There were children behind the adults. They had their arms folded, and stared at them with piercing eyes. They looked stern, but there was no hostility there. Katya felt relieved, but her face quickly turned fearful. A group of men filed out of a hut wielding bows nearly twice their height.

  “They’re holding spears,” said Katya.

  “They’re blowpipes. They’re not for fighting. These people are hunters.”

  “Leave this to me,” Jake said, who was trying to seem cool under fire, but he’d turned pale, and his voice was quivering. “I have the government-issued permit.”

  Max’s gaze remained fixed on the men walking toward them. Their chests were proudly puffed out, and they radiated dignity. They stopped about five yards away.

  “Não somos inimigos,” Bocaiúva addressed the man at the head of the group. “We are not enemies.”

  They didn’t reply. It wasn’t likely they’d understood what he said.

  “Nosotros no somos enemigos,” he repeated.

  Still no response. A man at the center came closer. He sized them up one by one. Katya clenched Max’s arm tighter.

  “Bist du der Anführer?” he asked Max. “Are you the leader here?”

  Everyone looked at the man. He spoke with a bit of an accent, but his German was clear.

  “Nein,” said Max, pointing at Jake.

  Jake hurried to show him the government-issued documents, explaining how they’d been granted permission in São Paulo to trace the Amazon River to its source. The man ignored this and directed his piercing stare back at Max. Dozens of villagers now had them surrounded.