by Edward Docx
Some other soldiers must have radioed in Tord’s position, because a third boat had evidently been despatched to arrest him. Halfway back to the Station, where two channels met, they had been waiting for us. Tord had waved across. And ever since, he had seemed almost pleased to have been taken – the chance to work among the servants of the enemy; courage was only ever madness anointed.
Now there were orders to climb the rope ladder up to the river path. I followed Lothar and Tord. We stood on what was left of the jetty, batting at the mosquitoes, waiting for the other men to come up while the Boy watched us – zealous, proud. I had not seen him close in daylight before. Behind his metal brace, his lower teeth were misshapen and twisted, sharp.
Tord began to speak softly: ‘The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.’ His hands were clasped. ‘And he saveth those who are of a contrite spirit. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy on him.’
I thought the Boy might strike him. I feared nothing save exertion and I doubted my strength even in getting out of the way. But the Boy seemed oblivious and simply continued to watch us – blank-faced but with an unnatural intensity in his eyes.
We were told to walk. Generators had been pushed into the undergrowth on either side of the path. They banged and throbbed, discharging heavy black fumes that were trapped in the understorey and that caused me to cough and smart as we passed. We emerged to sagging cables and lights above our heads; the deranged fizz of electricity. The makeshift registration desks had been extended – so that there was now a row of three or four structures built with corrugated iron and tarpaulin that flanked us as we walked in toward the comedor.
On our left, two soldiers guarded boxes of electrical goods, their rifles crisscrossed on the tables. On our right, another was selling beer to tribesmen who turned to watch us. More onlookers gathered as we passed. We were a freak show prodded forward by a juvenile circus master. My skin had become encrusted so that even to move the muscles of my jaw felt as though I were cracking my own face apart. Blood, sweat and the river had smeared themselves in dried rivulets on my arms where I had rolled my sleeves so that I seemed in part to be a striped creature. I was hobbling; half from the pain in my hips where I allowed my body almost to die in the tree; and half from the pain in my boots where I was sure that I had cracked my nails from kicking the doors. But I sipped from my bottle, amazed at the miracle of the water in my throat.
Ahead, where Jorge’s canteen had been sited in front of the comedor, there was now a line of ramshackle stalls that curved from the stairs up towards their huts. Jorge himself was standing beside a fire in the middle, his uniform stained and his smooth head shiny with sweat. Half a dozen squirrel monkeys were hanging from rusted hooks that had been slipped over a portable clothes rail; they dangled – heads down, stretched and sagging in their skins, filmy-eyed. Above the fire, two or three had been skewered – anus to throat – so that they seemed to be crawling along the spit.
The Boy overtook us.
‘Wait,’ he said.
We stood – Tord praying quietly on one side, Lothar like a stone on the other. The older soldiers closed up from behind and bunched around us. They paid us no attention. Either they knew that any escape on our part was risible or they intended casually to shoot us if an attempt was made. Pleased to have returned to base, they talked among themselves, smoked and looked up at the women who were sat in frayed denim skirts on our lounge chairs at the lip of the comedor. In response, the women crossed their legs with studied casualness. Two or three of the soldiers pressed us forward so that they too might go closer. The women began smirking and giggling and turning away. A fat man with a chess clock on his knee sat beside them, drinking coffee through pursed lips. And I saw that the women were wearing their make-up to look older, not younger.
My side stung and ached where I had gashed it beneath my ribs. I was afraid I would faint. The smell of the cooking flesh was loathsome. I shifted my weight. I sensed Lothar stand in closer beside me. Jorge had stopped turning the monkeys on his spit and now stood staring – he must not have recognized me at first. He passed his hand across his head and flicked away the sweat. There was an acrid taste in my mouth. I swilled some water and spat.
The Boy reappeared, coming down the stairs eagerly. ‘Captain Lugo is busy,’ he said.
Several of the soldiers laughed. Others gave mock cheers and balled their fists. And only then did I realize that Cordero had left and that the Judge had been right after his fashion: that it was indeed the Colonel who had been sustaining what had passed for civilization.
We were under arrest for spying, the Boy explained, as if relaying news of a successful job application. We were to be held in one of the huts with the blonde bitch. There would be questions later. He had no idea how long for. He did not know where the Colonel was. We could not speak to the Judge. We were thanked for our excellent whiskey and the generous supply of cigarettes. He said this last in such a way that I could not tell whether he was being sarcastic or merely relaying sarcasm without understanding.
Tord spoke quietly: ‘For the spirit of harlotry has led them astray. And they have played the harlot. And they have gone into the darkness.’
‘Let’s go.’ The Boy raised his rifle like the bar of a gate that he must close to shepherd us into a pen. His associate set off ahead, looking over his shoulder every few paces.
The shadows between the trees were deepening. Frogs were barking. We rounded the kapok. A woman with a long frizz of straw-dyed blonde hair was sat on Kim’s porch in red and yellow underwear. The Boy’s associate called out. She blew him a kiss, which he made a show of catching and rubbing on his rump as he looked back over his shoulder at us again. Somewhere a radio was playing country music. My eyes went to Sole’s hut. The door was open. I felt terror twitch inside me. Further down, towards the lab, vultures flapped the path like withered geese. My own hut was to be our prison.
Lothar went inside. I hesitated on the stairs. A pair of shear-tails fell and swooped and rose and darted through the clearing – so close that they must surely be lovers or deadly rivals.
‘I need to wash,’ I said.
‘Later.’ The Boy blinked.
Tord interposed. ‘Actually, you would be doing the Lord’s work if you accompanied him to the bathing hut.’
Still the Boy’s face was impassive. ‘Yes, later,’ he repeated. ‘Everybody will wash.’
He gestured for us to go inside.
A dog hovered below hoping for food or love or someone to throw a stick. The music had stopped. The radio announced the election of another president somewhere.
II
It was dark when I awoke. My body was stiff. And my mouth felt as though it were drying up like the forest. I rolled from the wall. My lamp burned on my desk. Kim was kneeling beside me, offering me water from a bottle. Her face was smeared and drawn and her clothes were stained with mud. Something had snagged her and she had a deep dark cut on the side of her neck.
‘They say we can wash now,’ she spoke gently. ‘I’m going to have to borrow some of your clothes. They won’t let us go anywhere.’
For the first time, I could smell myself. Shame rushed over me. I sat up, backing away.
Tord appeared and crouched down slowly, fingertips joined. ‘Can you get up?’ he asked.
I leaned against the wall. My skin was so itchy that I felt an overwhelming desire to tear it off and lay it down flat and work at it with a stiff-bristled brush.
‘Where’s Lothar?’ I began.
‘They took him.’ Kim was unable to disguise the anxiety in her voice. ‘They said to ask questions.’
Tord affected calm by way of contrast. ‘He said he would answer them only if they would allow us all to wash. We should move now though – if you feel you can – before they change their mind.’
Someone had rigged up electric lights in the other porches. The cable snaked aw
ay onto the path. I could hear the sound of bamboo rats – cor, cor, cor. Opposite, the hulk of the lab seemed to loom in the darkness, dense and square. I had assumed we were going to the bathing huts, but the Boy’s associate stopped at the bottom of my stairs and turned with a leer. There were three wooden pails.
‘What are these for?’ Kim asked. ‘Why can’t we go to the washhouse?’
‘This is an army camp – the showers are for soldiers and for whores only,’ the associate said with his twitching grin. ‘Maybe we should go together.’
The Boy spoke as though relaying facts. ‘We are not permitted to allow you into the forest after what happened with the prisoners. You are to wash here.’
His associate gestured at the pails with mock invitation: ‘And the Captain doesn’t like to work on prisoners who he can’t stand to smell.’
Tord addressed us all: ‘Who is a God like unto thee that passeth over transgression?’ At the jetty, I had thought that either he was about some devious psychological ploy, or that he was proclaiming his piety with renewed vigour out of a desire to match every raise the Devil might make. But now I saw that he was afraid. As others might rehearse the law, or become terse, or underhand, these citations were how he met the strain of iniquity; and I saw, too, that he had thus far found their power equal to anything he had encountered in the world. Now he turned to us and said: ‘I will wait. Your need is greater than mine, Doctor. Use my bucket.’
‘Good. So you go back in now, Jesus.’ The associate levelled his gun at Tord. ‘We didn’t want to see your shrivelled little dick anyway.’
Tord did not move. Without warning or changing his expression, the Boy, who was beside him on the porch, jabbed the butt of his rifle sideways, hard into Tord’s stomach. The shock of the pain contorted the missionary’s habitually tight features and he doubled, groaning, breathless. He struggled for a moment, almost on his knees, incoherent and gasping; then, with a great exercise of his will, he straightened up and mastered his expression. The Boy did not look down or even move his head.
‘My friend, before we strike one another, let us talk among ourselves and find what brotherhood there is between us. You are a young man. You have the luxury of years. Your life may yet be worth a great deal to yourself, sir, and to our God. Because Jesus saves.’
‘Go in,’ said the Boy, his voice again without emotion.
Tord hesitated.
Abruptly, I peeled my shirt from my skin. I bent to untie my laces. I took off my boots and my socks.
Tord stepped inside the door and the Boy shut it behind him.
Kim hung the towel and the clean clothes over the rail of the porch.
I became aware of three people sat on Sole’s stairs opposite. Others were on the path. The radio was playing a marching song. I unbuckled my belt and tried to remove my underwear at the same time as my grime-coated trousers so that I could discard them both without Kim seeing the filth and the mess. My feet were eerily white save for the dark u-shape of dried blood around my toenail.
‘We need soap,’ Kim said.
The Boy shrugged.
‘We need soap,’ she repeated.
‘There is soap in my hut,’ I said. Naked, I turned and walked up my stairs. My face and arms were black, my legs smeared where my trousers had been stained, my stomach scarred with bites and stings. I did not allow the Boy to look away. But neither did he attempt to do so.
Tord was kneeling inside – whether in pain or in prayer I could not tell.
In a hushed voice, I asked: ‘Can you walk out of here?’
He looked at me a moment, then fixed his eyes somewhere above my head.
‘No.’ He shook his head, his voice hoarse. ‘No, it is impossible. There is only the river – at least for three miles. After that, there is a path and you can go inland through the Matsigenka territories . . . but it would take days to walk anywhere – if you did not get lost.’
‘What about upriver?’
‘No. It’s too dangerous. The Yora have left their villages and the killing is indiscriminate. Even the Matsigenka are fighting now. The loggers are armed. There are rumours of more soldiers in the borderlands. And nobody really knows the interior. Only Lothar . . . Only Lothar could go upstream.’
‘Can you pilot one of the tribesmen’s canoes in the dark without an engine?’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘As soon as there is a chance, I want you to take Kim and get her out. Go down the river – do whatever you think is the safest. Avoid Laberinto. Pick up a passenger boat somewhere further down.’
‘Nobody steals canoes. It is the only law here.’
‘There are no laws, Tord.’
‘There are commandments.’
‘Bring it back if you feel guilty.’
He looked at me. And for an instant, something in his eyes admitted the possibility that he doubted what he preached and I saw fear there; but then it was gone – replaced by the warm pity that one man might have for his vanquished rival.
‘I will pray for you,’ he said.
‘Please do – there’s a lot that needs praying for.’ I took the soap from my wash bag and went back outside, six dozen devil flies following me as I went.
I held the Boy’s eye again as I passed. His associate was smoking and staring at Kim. I stood by the pails and stooped.
‘Let me help you,’ Kim said, gently.
‘It’s OK.’
‘I know it is OK but it will be easier if I help you. You can’t pour and use your soap at the same time. It’s too heavy.’ She raised the pail in both her hands. ‘Bend your head down a bit.’
The water streamed cold but only for a second before it became an intense bliss. I could feel mud running on my skin. I lathered myself – hair to toes until I was all but dry. Then Kim poured the water and I began again. My emerging hands were strangers to me – scratched and torn, arcs of dirt beneath every nail, pale aliens.
‘Put your arms up.’ She rinsed where I had washed. We had emptied the first bucket and started on the second. ‘After this, we are going to the store room,’ she breathed. ‘We need to stop ourselves getting infected. Do you still have a key?’
‘Yes.’ A third time I lathered, filling my lungs with the smell of the soap. Again, she poured.
I used the small towel to dry myself. Then I began to put on my fresh clothes. The clean was beyond anything I had dreamt of – a sacrament, a new life.
‘What happened to you, Kim?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. I went looking for you.’
‘What happened to your neck?’
‘I tried to go jogging in the jungle.’
‘Away from the soldiers?’
‘Well, not towards them.’
‘Did they hurt you?’
‘No. But they restrained me with their hands – a lot.’
Kim stood uncertain, seemingly far more in need of bathing now that I was washed myself. There were lines on her brow where smears of the forest had clung. I looked around at the gathering rag-tag of spectators.
‘You are not washing here,’ I said. ‘We’ll do it round the back of the hut. I’ll screen you.’ I picked up the full bucket and poured some of it into one of the others so that they were evenly filled.
The Boy stiffened.
‘He won’t shoot us,’ I breathed.
‘Where are you going?’ The Boy’s tone was neither sharp nor angry and yet all the more menacing for that.
‘We’re going around the back of the hut. My friend doesn’t wish to wash in front of those animals.’ I gestured to the figures sat watching.
‘You are not going anywhere.’ This from his associate.
I indicated to Kim that she should pick up her fresh clothes and walk in front of me and then I raised the two pails and, slowly, turned my back. I felt like every cell in my skin was excruciatingly aware – braced and tremoring.
But there was no gunfire.
Instead, they fell in close behind. Perhaps they preferred the ide
a of a private show.
We arranged the pails on either side. The Boy lit a cigarette. The associate stood beside him, stroking his moustache.
I turned my back to them again and held the towel wide, glancing over my shoulder as I did so. The associate moved round, not bothering to disguise his purpose. But where several onlookers would have been too many, it was possible to shield Kim from him wherever he stood. She raised her eyes to the darkening sky but he did not move a third time. I looked over the other shoulder. The Boy’s expression was hard to see beneath his cap. I knew neither his intention nor his capability.
‘Thank you,’ Kim said quietly.
‘Your turn,’ I replied.
Quickly, she crouched down and squirmed out of her shirt. The forest’s breath was more intimate here, warmer; the sound of the thumbed combs much closer. I held my eyes on the wall of the hut above her head.
She rose up before me and stepped out of her combat trousers, folding them and leaning to place them out of the way. Then she picked up the half-full bucket, bent her head and poured water on herself.
‘Tell me about you and Cameron,’ I said.
Her voice was little above a whisper as she turned her back. ‘I loved the work first – before I fell in love with him. I met him three years ago. It started before I came to the department.’
I stared ahead. ‘I am sorry – for your loss, I mean. I know what you must have felt. What you feel.’
Because I could not pour the water, she was using her underwear as a flannel. She spoke over her shoulder. ‘He talked of you often.’
‘We were friends.’
‘He said that he was always skidding across the surface but that you lived your life more deeply than any other man he had ever met.’
‘It’s not true – I never had his ambition. He wanted to change the way we think about ourselves – about life.’
She turned to face me. ‘What about you?’
I let my eyes slip down the fraction to where hers were waiting. ‘I don’t trust myself,’ I said.