The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  The first signs of civilization were the sprawling shantytowns whose wooden shacks spread for miles along the river’s banks. Some children were splashing about in the oily black water. They laughed as we approached, their dark brown eyes framed in angelic faces. César threw a rope to the shore.

  A flight of steps was cut into the soft purple bank and we climbed up one by one. Kiato led the way between houses built on stilts. Piles of broken television sets were guarded by anxious children, as if frightened that we had come to rob them of their family’s assets. Pete shook hands with a line of smiling infants. Each was covered from head to toe in the slimy purple clay. Two of them began to fight over a dead cat which they had found. Children and babies squirmed about wherever one looked. Every woman held a child. Infant bodies were being scrubbed in tin baths, and bananas were stuffed down their throats by exhausted mothers.

  Kiato removed his shirt at the King Henry Hotel. Then he spent an hour writing postcards to his family in Kyoto.

  We had arrived in Manaus: capital of Amazonas, centre of Macumba.

  Whenever possible I would creep away in search of contacts which might introduce me to a Macumba group. Kiato was very inquisitive of my interest in the darker alleys of the town. But I was determined to keep all knowledge of my fascination away from him. I was adamant that he should be shielded from any possible danger by his innocence. I remembered Oswaldo and the Babalawo.

  Rudolf had read that one needed the Mayor’s permission to enter the famous botanical garden. He set off immediately, with Luigi in tow, to contact such a powerful pillar of society.

  We had taken accommodation in a green container box in the rougher area of Manaus. Kiato assured me that this bargain could not be passed by. One green container, such as are used for commercial cargoes, was piled on top of another: a spiral staircase linked them together. The group of six containers was grandly named the King Henry Hotel. I suspected that the real profit of the establishment derived from its manifest activity as a bordello.

  Shadowy figures trampled up and down the spiral steps both day and night. Whenever I dared to leave our windowless box, a group of naked Amazonian women sitting beside the stairs fluttered their eyelids, motioning towards another windowless green-walled room.

  Then Rudolf returned. Overcome by heatstroke, he lay supine on a smelly black mattress for three days. Luigi poured water from a jug into his master’s mouth, and fanned him with the Life and Work of Leo Tolstoy. The Mayor had left town.

  Manaus lies in the deepest part of the Amazon basin. At the turn of the century, the city became the world’s rubber capital. It was in those days that Amazonian trees supplied the world with caoutchouc, the sap from which rubber is made. Prosperity resulted in an extraordinary flamboyance.

  Monstrous buildings had been constructed in European styles, under the guidance of a handful of super-affluent rubber barons. The stage of the Teatro Amazonas, the opera house, was once graced by the world’s finest singers and dancers. They would perform to a thousand people at a time, drowning out the sounds of the jungle night.

  The cathedral stared down at a city bathed in pomposity and an ornamental opulence — a city that depended on the jungle — but was disconnected from it.

  When rubber trees were exported and successfully grown in Malaya, the empire of the rubber barons collapsed. Their great city lies dormant now, surrounded by a wall of jungle on every side.

  Kiato and I wandered about the cobbled streets in awe. In the main square, next to the university, a band was playing New Orleans jazz on an ornate Portuguese bandstand. Stuffed piranha fish were sold door-to-door by an old seaman with scarred ridges across his face. We sat at Café Florentina and sucked up bowls of fettucine. Kiato laughed; he was well again. He sketched the tiled Portuguese facades and tittered when I complimented him on his skill. Then we took refuge from the afternoon heat in the great cathedral.

  Generations of misbehaving children had carved their initials into the hardwood pews. Yellow sunlight poured in through the open doorway and illuminated the walls. They and the ceiling were adorned by frescos in the classical style.

  The latest Japanese technology was displayed at every shop. In an effort to popularize Amazonas, the government had declared Manaus a duty-free zone. Video cameras and notebook computers were demonstrated by hard-sell salesmen, of the type one finds in New York or Hong Kong.

  Microchip equipment of the greatest sophistication is assembled by cheap labor in factories deep in Amazonas. Paradoxically, Manaus is a city that — until recently — had no airport of any size and no road linking it to the outside world.

  Outside the opera house, the evening game of bingo was being set up. Kiato pushed a wad of notes towards the bearded woman in charge, and was handed a stack of bingo cards. An hour or so later he wandered away with the first, second and third prizes: three live chickens.

  Back at the green box Marvin was boasting. He held up a large X-ray, exclaiming that every bone from his thumb to his elbow had shattered while punching a barkeeper. The fight had arisen when the surfer made a pass at the barman’s wife. Putting his Hawaiian surfboard under his good arm, he left for Panama to have the bones properly set.

  Kiato gave Marvin one of the chickens and a handful of grain to feed it. We gave another to Rudolf, who threw it into the corridor late at night, roaring that it kept him awake. Kiato was grieved when, the next morning, he discovered a line of prostitutes sitting down to a roast chicken breakfast.

  The hole in my cheek, caused by the unknown rodent’s bone, became infected. One of the women, whose giant eye was often pressed against the crack in my door, took me aside. She rubbed roots from two plants on her hands and stuffed her fingertips into my mouth. As I choked for air, she forced the nails, with black beneath, deeper down my throat. When I managed to ask what she was doing, she cackled and winked. Then she strutted off to solicit customers and, strangely enough, the infection soon ceased.

  Three black panthers lay on their backs at the military zoo. They were too fat to move. The big cats and boas were fed a diet which looked like the zoo’s smaller mammals. The panthers chewed engagingly at a collection of sundried bones as the heat of the afternoon reached its peak.

  Kiato posed for a picture. Suddenly, he took to his heels screaming as I focused my camera. On turning I saw a leopard stalking towards me. A conscript dived at the enormous tail just as muscular back legs clenched to jump. He led the animal away for another meal, saying, “I told you about escaping before!”

  A lot of time was spent pursuing my quest for Macumba. Some locals shrieked when they heard the very word uttered; others simply shrugged or shook their heads. At the back of bars I had loitered, trying to make a contact. I had spoken to street-cleaners, to workmen, and even to a terrified lady missionary, but no one could help me.

  Kiato had begun to suspect that I had an ulterior motive for what I assured him were sorties to meet the people of Manaus. In desperation I went down to the fish market.

  Fish of all shapes lay belly-up in the heat of the cavernous market hall. The early evening light streamed down through multi-colored windows — stained by the Portuguese many years before. The stench reminded me of the tilapia at the source of the Nile.

  On one bench a pile of eels and other creatures twisted about awkwardly, before being hacked into even-sized lumps. Their blood dripped to the floor where it congealed in a few seconds.

  At one end of the hall a group of three or four men sat about smoking. Each had a pair of flip-flops molded to his feet; and each was drenched in blood as if he had taken a mortal blow. I sidled up. A sack was dusted off and laid down so that I might sit for a while. We talked of fish and the heat and then of fish again. The men were happy that I should want to spend time in their city.

  On meeting someone for the first time, the moment comes when one has done with the pleasantries, and either says nothing, or embarks on a major new subject of conversation. As we sat, the men smoked and the reek of rott
ing fish surrounded us. It was then that I decided to test for a knowledge of Macumba.

  “Someone was telling me,” I began with the usual unease, “that Brazil, and in particular Amazonas, is famous for some old idea called...” I paused to check that I still had the men’s attention: they stared into my eyes, waiting for the word; ‘something called Macumba.”

  The man covered in the most blood — the foreman — nodded slowly. He had learnt English while working as a taxi driver in Miami.

  “My friend,” he said, “a word may be simple but its meaning may fill many long books.”

  The butchers looked at me inquiringly and then the foreman began to speak again:

  “Remember that you must have a reason to follow a quest; you must understand why you are choosing to explore something, even if it is hidden behind the veil of a pretty little word.”

  The foreman and his colleagues seemed to realize that my interest in Macumba had not come about recently. It was almost as if they sensed that the thing had become an obsession. I replied:

  “I do understand the importance of this belief, and I have come to learn more of it and to pay my respects to it.”

  The men glanced at each other through telepathic silence. Then the foreman spoke again:

  “Come here just before midnight. The market will be closed, so stand in front of the main doorway. I shall meet you here.”

  He stood up, stamped out his cigarette, and led the group back to work.

  Strolling back to the King Henry Hotel, I thought about my conversation with the men. It had all happened so easily: I had the feeling that one day I would look back and realize how naive I had been.

  Kiato had found some second-hand Japanese children’s books in a hat shop near the hotel. He said that their owner had been selling them as decoration, they had been very cheap.

  “The guy said they were Kolean! Can you berieve that he thought Japanese was Kolean?” he said, bursting into laughter. Then he began to sing a selection of his favourite Japanese nursery rhymes aloud, before stopping abruptly in mid-sentence.

  He peered up from above the vertical lines of text, narrowed his eyes until they were no more than a slit, and said accusingly:

  “Have you been eating fish?”

  Luiz was the man that Marvin had hit. Although the disagreement still stood, the surfers suggested that if we change money we should — for the best rates — do it with him. Luiz lived up a staircase in a darkened house. There was no sign of him at the residence, which would not have been out of place in a Hitchcock thriller.

  Luiz’s wife said that we should wait. Her name was Claudia. She was only twenty years old and sat with us talking. Long brown hair flowed down the edges of her face.

  She had a mischievous smile and dimpled cheeks.

  “My husband is much older than me,” she began in passable English, “he works so much, but I still have fun.”

  “How do you enjoy yourself in Manaus?” I asked.

  “I go to discolandia... and so many good parties in Manaus. Then there are my lovers...”

  “Rovels!” said Kiato, “but you’re so young, have you had more than one?”

  “Yes,” said Claudia, wriggling about, “I’ve had nine; would you like to see their pictures?”

  We nodded and she gathered up two armfuls of photographs, each neatly displayed in its own frame. She named them one by one: army officers and businessmen, doctors and pilots.

  “This was Sergio, he was so adorable; and this one is Leo, he knew exactly how to touch a girl; oh, naughty little Francois, see how he stares up, those eyes drive me crazy...”

  “What does your husband think?” burst out Kiato.

  “He’d used to my ways, but he gets so jealous. I don’t know why.”

  “Our friend, an American, had a fight with him,” I said.

  “The big one?” she said clasping her cheeks. “Was he very hurt? I shall never forgive Luiz for that.”

  A baby screamed in the other room. It was a lonely, pitiful cry.

  “That’s your baby?” I asked. She blushed.

  “Yes, his name is Sergio.” She went to bring the child, and continued to speak.

  “Of course it made Luiz very unhappy at first when he saw that his own child was black. I managed to persuade him that sometimes, even to white parents, a black child is born.”

  “Did he believe you?” I asked weakly.

  “Yes, deep down Luiz is a sweetie. But I named the boy after his real father, I shall never forget that brave, wonderful man.”

  Claudia lit another Hollywood cigarette each time the last had burnt down. She squirmed about on the tattered sofa, sitting with her knees pressed up against her chin, and told at length of discolandia and her friends.

  Sergio’s huge brown eyes swam in his face. His dark skin was soft and rubbed against the bare floorboards as he crawled about. A fat ginger cat appeared and the two began to spar. Sergio stuck one of the paws in his mouth, screwed up his face, and sucked.

  It was then that Luiz arrived. His body seemed as broad as it was tall. Two enormous arms sprouted from his shoulders and led to hands capable of wicked deeds. We were taken to the bathroom, where wads of notes were counted at speed. I stared up at Luiz’s crude, barbaric features: a nose deformed, no doubt, by many bar brawls, a cauliflower ear and eyes as cold as ice.

  “In future,” he growled, “make sure you don’t talk to my wife, she’d got enough to do without your distraction!”

  Kiato and I bowed in unison, and we returned down the ill-lit stairs and back onto the street.

  Kiato discovered that under his bed the air was cooler. Although the ground was infested with all manner of creeping things, he was prepared to sacrifice relative comfort to remain cool. At eleven-thirty that evening I slipped on my shoes and silently crept from the green box — leaving Kiato snoring beneath his bed.

  Outside the King Henry Hotel a group of men were lounging about. I suspected that they had been customers of the women who worked inside. As I walked by them I smelt their marijuana and heard their laughs as they discussed which woman each had visited.

  A figure was lounging with his back pressed to the main gates of the fish hall. He chewed at the end of a cigarette restlessly. I checked my watch, it was five to twelve. The man stood up straight, pushed his hand into mine, and said:

  “So you came, my friend! My name is Alfonso: stick close to me and then you will learn.”

  The former Miami taxi-driver had kept the appointment. Now the working apron had been replaced by a spotted white shirt and a pair of white pants which reflected the moonlight.

  Alfonso led me down a street behind the fish market where rows of boarded-up shops housed their sleeping owners. As we walked through the alleyways, which radiated in all directions, Alfonso clicked his heels on the cobblestones, and hummed a tune. His left foot tended to drag slightly.

  “Have you hurt your foot?” I asked.

  Alfonso stopped humming, and I could hear the tap of his boots more clearly. He breathed in deeper as we began to ascend a gradient. The clicking grew more irregular.

  “About ten years ago,” he said, “I was in a car crash when I was living in Belem. A bus smashed into my friend’s jeep. He was killed outright and I was left — thought to be dead by the people who found me. My foot was broken in six places... the doctors wanted to cut it off. They said it would never heal properly and I’d be better without it.” Alfonso paused: he pulled a cigarette from a soft pack, threw it in the air, and caught it between his teeth. “No way was I going to let anyone chop my foot off,” he said, ‘so I checked out of the hospital and, in desperation, I went to see an acquaintance whom I knew to practice Macumba. I’d never taken it seriously, but I was ready to try anything. My friend took me to a Babalawo, a healer... for eight days I stayed in his care and we prayed every hour to the Orishas.”

  Babalawo, the word was more than familiar. Oswaldo’s face came to mind, looking at me harshly, his forehead kn
otted with disappointment. Alfonso had more to say:

  “Macumba has great power. My foot is fine, see the proof! Respect it and it will respect you. But if you look towards it lightly, or don’t take it seriously, the consequences will be very terrible.”

  Agreeing to remember his words, I promised to stay by him.

  A narrow doorway was concealed behind what seemed to be a mulberry tree. There was the faint smell of its fruit — a smell that sent my thoughts back to Peshawar.

  Alfonso paused for a few seconds outside the doorway.

  “Is everything all right?” I felt distinctly nervous.

  “There is something different...” muttered the Brazilian.

  “Is it because I’m here?” I asked.

  “No, it’s not you... it’s something else, some strong force that isn’t human. I’ve only felt it once before...” Alfonso seemed quite dazed, giving me cause me to wonder whether accompanying him was such a sensible idea. It was almost as if he were frightened of this power.

  “C”mon,” he said at last, noticing my concern, “they’ll be waiting for us.”

  I followed him through the doorway into a courtyard. My feet trod exactly where his had. At the far end of the rectangular yard a curtain covered an arched doorway. We proceeded towards it. As we made the fifteen paces or so, I caught one last scent of the mulberries. Alfonso reached for the curtain but, before his fingers had touched the cloth, it was pulled aside from within. We stepped across the threshold and entered the Macumba shrine.

  Nothing had prepared me for the layout of the chamber, or for the atmosphere of the ceremony which was about to take place. I still wonder why I should have been permitted, as a complete alien to the society, to be present at such an orthodox Macumba ritual. Perhaps the reason was so that I, as someone who had come from Europe, might witness the unassailable energy and dynamism that is so deeply embedded in this faith.

  Alfonso began to remove his clothes. He passed me a loincloth and told me to put it on. Having wrapped the blue fabric around my waist, I placed my clothes on the floor together with the other bundles. It was only then that my eyes fully adjusted to the candlelight. I slowly scanned the room and its occupants.