Night of the Jaguar jp-3

by Michael Gruber

  She didn’t know why the Professor didn’t drive. Her personal theory was he was too old, but Kevin said he was a drunk and they took his license away. Although she had never seen him drunk, so that might be one of Kevin’s stories. When she thought of that, she recalled the story he had made up about the Indian getting lost, which even she didn’t believe, and when she asked him later why he did it, he was nasty, and that’s when he got his headphones on and cranked the music up so loud she could hear the punk squeaking through around the edges, and that was that. Sometimes he got so mad at her she thought he was going to hit her, but he never did, not like some guys she’d been with, so she thought it was mainly a pretty good deal, Kevin and her.

  It was not much of a drive from the property to Fairchild, a couple of miles at most, and Jenny could have dropped him off and come back and picked him up later, but she decided instead to hang around the Gardens. There was an atmosphere on the property just now that made her uncomfortable, a miasma of irritability because of Kevin, and also maybe things weren’t going so good with the Forest Planet Alliance. Luna was frosty to her at breakfast and spoke to Rupert in whispers, and they had both looked at her in a funny way. Like it was her fault, Kevin being a jerk. She welcomed the chance to get away for a while until it all blew over. And she liked being with the Professor.

  “What are you going to talk about?”

  “Agaonid wasps.”

  “I got stung by wasps once,” she said. “I was about, I don’t know, six or something, and I was chasing a ball. I was living with this farm family, like on a farm? And I stuck my hand into this hole where the ball went, and holy gee, they were all over me! I thought I was going to die.”

  “Yes, well, these particular wasps don’t sting. They fertilize the fruits of fig trees. Each species of fig has its own species of fertilizing wasp.”

  “Like bees?”

  “Exactly. Except that bees are indiscriminate foragers attracted by the color and scent of flowers, and these wasps pollinate only one sort of fig, and are attracted by hormones. The female has to burrow into the unripe synconium, which is a tough pod containing immature blossoms, through a hole so tight that she rips her wings and antennae off.”

  “Oh, wow! That must really smart. How does she fly out again?”

  “She doesn’t. She has fulfilled her function and spends the rest of her short life entombed in the synconium. Her eggs hatch, and her female descendants pollinate other fig trees. A demonstration of the power of instincts driven by chemical stimuli. A great deal of interesting work has been done on plant-insect pheromonic interaction, actually: for example, Kostowitz and Petersen found that trees of the genus…”

  Once you got Professor Cooksey started on his bugs he went on for a good while, which Jenny didn’t mind too much, she was used to tuning stuff out, and with that voice it was like doing ironing with Masterpiece Theatre or a nature show on in the background. She had once stayed in a foster home where that was all they would let you watch, educational programs and nothing with sex and violence, not even cartoons. Oddly enough, some of what he told her seemed to stick in her head by accident and would pop out later with her not even knowing it was there. She occasionally wondered what it was like to know a lot and read the kind of books that Professor C. had, with small printing and no pictures, although he had a lot with pictures, too, that he didn’t mind her looking at. When she did think about it she felt a heaviness grow behind her eyes, and she felt kind of sorry for those people, like there would be no room for their own selves inside their heads with all that stuff pressing down.

  She parked the car, and he walked off with his stiff birdish stride to the Garden House Auditorium, and she strolled off toward the lakes. The day was bright, the air mild, and the tall palms swayed in a gentle breeze from the bay. As always the foliage and the precision and artfulness of the plantings had a psychedelic effect, even, as now, when she wasn’t chemically stoned. She thought that if there was a heaven and if it was like Fairchild, then death could have no terrors. Although she had been turned off religion at an early age via the never-fail method of enforced churchgoing, she retained an ample capacity to experience awe, and this was now well exercised as she entered a corridor of gigantic royal palms interspersed with dense plantings, many showing their seasonal blossoms-pink trumpet vine, bird-of-paradise, bellflower, ground orchid. She stood before the blooming plants in thoughtless delight, as a peasant might before an ancient Madonna, quite lost to the world. Flowers made her happy, and she stumbled over the vast question of why everyone just couldn’t be happy with what simply was. A motion attracted her eye: an anole lizard had run out on a branch of a lignum vitae tree. She moved closer to inspect it. It was vivid green, a traveling exhibit of what green was, and in full male mating fig: as she watched, it shot out a vivid red throat pouch three times, advertising this state, and then scuttled away.

  A laugh burst from her. “Guys,” she said out loud. She often talked aloud to herself while in the Gardens, or to the plants and animals there. It was a habit she had acquired as a child, to keep herself from dying of loneliness. She had lived in places where no one actually spoke to her, except to give an order, for months on end.

  She walked around Royal Palm Lake and past the amphitheater and then to the rain forest exhibit. One of her secret shames was that, even though the rain forest was really, really important, and even though she drew her sustenance from an organization dedicated to its salvation, she didn’t really like it all that much, even the compressed simulacrum of one presented by the Gardens. She found it dank and gloomy and clammy hot, and she didn’t care for the way everything crawled over everything else grasping for light and things to eat. In a strange way it reminded her of winter in an Iowa kitchen, steam and bad odors and the adults looming overhead and the unwanted children on the rough floors clamoring and striving and pushing one another. Still, she visited the place every time she came, hoping that she would get it, and feeling down when she did not.

  When she came to the little path that led to the entrance to the great conservatory that housed the more delicate tropical plants, Jenny was passed by three running men in the tan uniforms of Fairchild groundskeepers. They seemed to be searching for something, calling to one another, and pausing at intervals to peer behind branches. Shortly they came back along the path at a slower pace with a blue-uniformed security guard in tow.

  “Did you get him?” one of them asked the others, and was answered, “No, he must have left over the wall.”

  Jenny asked, “What’s going on?”

  One of the groundskeepers, a portly woman with cropped gray hair and rimless glasses, said, “Some guy stealing plants. He was just standing there like he was shopping in a supermarket, taking cuttings with a little knife and sticking them in a bag.”

  Another groundskeeper added, “Yeah, they usually come over the walls at night. What’d he get, Sally?”

  “Not a lot, from what I could see. Usually they dig up plants, but he was just doing snips. Some bark peelings, too.”

  The security guard spoke. “You say he was a black guy?”

  “Not really. I didn’t get much of a look at him, but I’d say he was an Indian of some kind-brownish red skin and straight black hair. He was wearing some kind of bathing suit, a bare chest anyway, and boy, could he disappear. I mean I was ten feet from him and I saw him chopping at the jatoba, and I yelled, ‘Sir, excuse me, you can’t do that,’ and then he was just gone.”

  The guard’s radio burbled, he spoke into it, and then said, “Well, we’ll keep an eye out for him, but he’s probably back on the reservation by now.”

  He left, and the group dispersed. Jenny walked back along the path into the rain forest exhibit, looking at the plant labels, laboriously sounding out the names on each until she came to one that read HY-MENAEA COURBARIL — JATOBA TREE, and then some fine print about what all the natives used the tree for, which she didn’t bother to read but looked upward along the trunk. The groun
dskeeper had said he’d been cutting on this tree, and Jenny figured he was probably still around it. At least it was a place to start looking.

  It was a gray-barked tree, around forty feet tall, with shiny thick leaves and dark brown podlike fruit. Its foliage started about three-quarters of the way up and was tangled in some thick climbing vine. She stared up into the green gloom and called out softly, “Hey, Juan! Whatever your name is! Are you there?”

  No sound but the breeze whispering among the branches and a lawn mower off in the distance. She continued staring upward, and as her eyes adjusted to the shade, she saw something brown that was not a fruit, or bark, or shadow. At first she thought it was an animal, a coon, or, absurdly, a sloth, but then she saw that it was a man’s face, his.

  “Hey, you can come down now. They’re gone. They think you’re out of the Gardens. Come down!” She gestured broadly and wished again that she wasn’t so dumb and could speak Spanish. But the Indian appeared to catch her meaning. In what seemed like no time at all he flowed down the trunk like a python and stood in front of her, regarding her gravely. He was wearing nothing but a breechclout and a kind of furry belt, and a thong around his neck with a little bag hanging on it. He had his cloth suitcase secured over one shoulder by a woven band, like a mailman carries his sack.

  “Wow, we thought we lost you!” she said. “You shouldn’t have gone away when you were with Kevin. Anyway, you could’ve got arrested. They don’t allow cutting plants and stuff here. See, it looks like a rain forest, but it really isn’t.”

  Blank stare from the Indian.

  “Look, man, here in Gardens you no pick! No do like this!” She went to a small bush and looked around to make sure no one official was watching, and plucked a leaf, while shaking her head vigorously. “No do this, see? Not allowed.”

  He took the leaf from her and examined it. In his own language he replied, “This is mikur-ka’a. I use it mainly for skin diseases, but it’s also good for headaches. Also, if someone has been cursed by a witch, I have them bathe in a decoction of the leaves, and it usually works pretty well, depending on the witch, and so on. We could try it, if you have that problem.”

  “That’s right,” she said encouragingly, “no do. No pick. Get in big trouble.”

  “Although you don’t seem witched to me,” he added. “It’s hard to tell with dead people.”

  “Right, but we can’t just stand around talking,” she said, “we have to get you to the car and out of here. Let me go ahead and check if the coast is clear, and then I’ll wave, like this, and you come on. Try to stay off the paths, okay?” She sighed. “Hide in bushes, yes. Si. We go car,si?”

  “Si,” said the Indian.

  She smiled. “Great! Okay, follow me!”

  She started off down the path that led from the rain forest area to the parking lot. She waited for a group of tourists to pass and then performed a come-along gesture. The path behind her was empty. “Oh, no!” she cried. “He got lost again!”

  But hardly were these words out when the Indian stepped from behind a large cycad three feet behind her. She gaped in amazement. “Wow, that’s awesome! How did you do that?” Receiving no answer, she said, “Okay, just follow me, then.”

  She started out again, without the gesturing now, but stopped every fifty yards or so to assure herself that he was still with her. Each time he appeared among the plantings almost within arm’s reach, although she didn’t see or hear him move. When they were nearly at the entrance, she led him through some narrow paths to the wall that separated the Gardens from Old Cutler Road.

  “Okay, you have to go over the wall here, because you can’t just walk out past the guard. I’ll get the car and pick you up. You comprendo? ” She gestured broadly, climbing and staying, repeating them until she was sure he understood. Which he did, apparently, for she drove around and retrieved him without incident. Then she drove the Mercedes back to the lot and parked in the shade of a cocolobo tree.

  She turned the radio on and adjusted the dial. “When I’m alone, I listen to country. Kevin hates it. He likes alternative/punk, Limp Bizkit and Maroon 5, like that. I mean, I can handle that kind of music sometimes, but country is more real, if you know what I mean, it’s about, you know, love and having hard times, like life is, or maybe I’m just a hick. That’s what Kevin says. Of course, compared to you, I’m like totally downtown.” She laughed. “God, what an idiot, Jennifer! You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you? But you sort of know what I mean in a funny way. I can sort of feel it. Like a dog does, but better. Maybe I could teach you English. Do you want to learn English? Okay, here goes: I am Jenny.” She pointed to herself and repeated the phrase, and then just her name, and then pointed to her mouth. “Jen-ny.”

  “Jenny,” said the Indian.

  “Good! Terrific! Now, what’s your name? Is it Juan? I’m Jenny, you are…” She pointed. The Indian made a little chin-raising gesture she had seen earlier and which she now understood was a kind of nod. But now he seemed to hesitate, and he stared at her, into her eyes, for what seemed like a long time, as if trying to make up his mind about something. Finally, he placed his hand flat against his chest and tapped it twice.

  “Moie,” he said.

  She pronounced the name as he had, Mou-ee-eh. “Great! You Moie, me Jenny, this”-touching the interior, pointing broadly-“is car. Say car!” And so on, with objects and parts of the body. Jenny could not figure out how to show verbs very well, but she had a fine notion of how to teach a dull child, having been on the receiving end for many years, and they made good progress, she thought. After an hour or so of this, she brought out a vacuum bottle of iced tea she had brought along and a crumpled joint. She lit up, turned the music louder, took a hit, and passed the smoldering number to Moie, who placed the coal-end in his mouth and sucked.

  She watched, amazed, and after a while said, “You’re supposed to give it back, man.” This idea having been conveyed, in word and gesture, they filled the interior of the Mercedes with hypnotic fumes, after which Jenny opened the door and rolled down the windows. Moie pointed to the fading smoke.“Chaikora,” he said.

  “Yeah, we call it pot, or ganja, or marijuana. A lot of names. Dope. This is pretty good dope. We grow it ourselves. You like?” She mimed goodness, rubbing her stomach, smiling broadly, kissing her hand, to which he responded in his own tongue, “You dead people are very strange. You know chaikora, but you take it without chanting, and also you don’t mix it with its brothers and sisters, so that it can speak to you properly. We say that assua is the brother and uassinai is the sister of chaikora. Together they are one of the small holy families that help you listen to the animal spirits. Now, without the rest of the holy family, we can’t hear the animal spirits very well, but only the spirits in our own heads. What’s the good of that?”

  She giggled. “Yeah, I hear you, man. It’s dynamite boo. Oh, wait, this is a great song.” She leaned back and closed her eyes and listened to Toby Keith sing “I Love This Bar.” Time passed.

  The sound of a car door opening. Professor Cooksey slid into the backseat.

  “Well, Jennifer, I see you found our friend. You never cease to mystify and amaze me.”

  “Yeah, he was in the Gardens, stealing pieces of plants. He almost got busted, but I got him out of there. I’m trying to teach him English.”

  “Are you, indeed? Well, good for you.” Jenny saw that the Professor was staring at the Indian in a strange way, really hard, like he was trying to see into his head, and the Indian was staring back, like he was trying to do the same. She had a familiar and sad feeling that stuff was going to happen that she wouldn’t be able to understand.

  “My dear, could you turn that music down a bit? I’d like to see what this gentleman has to say for himself.”

  “He can speak Spanish,” she said. “Geli was talking to-”

  “Yes, but I doubt he speaks it very well,” said Cooksey, and then he began to speak in a language she had never heard befor
e, and she was about to feel kind of crummy about being shut out and all until she saw Moie’s face light up with sheer pleasure; a flood of the same speech issued from his mouth.

  “I’m amazed, Tayit, to hear Runisi in the land of the dead. Are you a priest?”

  “Not I, but I spent a lot of time in the Jimori country. Do you know them?”

  “I have heard of them, of course. They are vile and steal wives and eat babies.”

  “They say the same about the Runiya people. Also that you kill all foreigners in your country.”

  “They are liars, then, as well,” said Moie, and after a pause, added, “but we do kill foreigners. Or most foreigners. Did you know Father Tim? He was a dead person like yourself.”

  “Well, you know there are very many of us, too many to allow us to know all the others, as you can. Why do you call us dead people?”

  “Because we Runiya are alive in this world. We are inside it, and the plants and animals, stones and sky and stars, sun and moon, are our friends and relatives. That’s what it means to be alive. A fish is alive and a bird, too. But you are outside the world, looking in on it as the ghosts do, and making mischief and destruction, like ghosts do. Therefore we say you are dead like they are. Also, when a person is alive, they carry their death behind them, there”-and here the Indian pointed over Cooksey’s left shoulder-“and this is one way we tell a live person from a ghost. But you carry your deaths inside you all the time, so you can have the power of death over all things. So we call you dead people.”