The Devil's Garden
Page 22
XI
Downriver, sudden shards of light and ethereal flames lit up the night and the water was amber and oily black. Smoke drifted the surface and hung in the trees of the banks. The air was heavy with the smell of greenery burning.
I sat on my haunches inside the jungle wall. There were boats taking to the water. Voices called. The sedges stirred and the clay glistened beneath me. I waited.
There came the quiet, rhythmic splash of a paddle – dipped and held and dipped again. Then I saw a black shape moving towards me, whispering through the reeds.
I rose up from the forest and went down to the river’s edge. I stood a moment. Then I walked into the water.
‘My mother has gone – with Kim and Felipe,’ Sole said. ‘They’re with the Matsigenkas. They’ll get out.’
Vinton, the boatman, awaited my instruction.
‘Upstream,’ I said.
I eased myself into the canoe and took the second paddle from Sole.
‘What I said to the Judge is true,’ she said, softly. Then she leant in and spoke her secret to my ear.
After a while, we found our rhythm and the noise behind us dropped away and I listened only to the sounds of the night. The river darkened.
I am to be a father.
Acknowledgements
My thanks go to my agent, Bill Hamilton, for his continuing comradeship. I am also deeply indebted to Kate Harvey, my editor, for her intelligence and perceptiveness – and for taking the time to know this novel so well. Also at Picador, I am grateful to Helen Guthrie for her enthusiasm and commitment; to Rebecca Ikin for her thoughtful reading and for helping the book on its way in the world; and to Nicholas Blake for his care and attention to detail.
In South America, I owe a great deal to my guides on the different trips, Juan and Abi; needless to say, I would not have lasted very long in the rainforest on my own and I’m beholden for everything taught, explained and demonstrated – especially how to spend the night ‘sleeping’ in a hammock. Back at the various base camps, my thanks to Christophe, Miguel, Jan and Manuela for your conversation and the benefit of your long experience of ‘life in the basin’.
Likewise, I am grateful to my guides in science. In particular, to Dr Megan Frederickson at the University of Montreal, the myrmecologist who is doing the real-life field work on the lemon ants that I have here described and who kindly answered so many of my questions. Also to Dr Charlotte Sleigh at the University of Kent, to Dr Cath Long, who explained why and how the politics really work, to Paul Eggleton at the Natural History Museum, to Tom Fayle at the Zoology Department in Cambridge and to Dr Charlotte Foley.
I must have read dozens of books in the course of writing this one – too many to list here – but I am indebted to the following in some very obvious ways: Journey to the Ants by B. Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson; Families of the Forest: The Matsigenka Indians of the Peruvian Amazon by Allen Johnson; The Spears of Twilight: Life and Death in the Amazon Jungle by Philippe Descola; and Indigenous People in Isolation in the Amazon by Beatriz Huertas Castillo. I have also plundered many papers, articles and commentaries from the science journals.
Some special acknowledgements . . . To Perry and Ross for the sanctuary and the pies. To Bob and Elisabeth Boas for the editing space. To Beatrice at Santa Maddalena. And to the rag-tag assortment of fellows who continue unawares to help and to hinder me in my work: Richard, Adam, Jon, Luca, Tim, Will,Dan, TT,Ian and Johnny who was there when we first met the ant men.
Closer to home, thank you to Adelaide and Leo for reading a late draft. Most of all this time, thanks to Gus, who lent me his quick and companionable imagination in the early stages. And finally, my heartfelt thanks as ever to Emma – for her constancy, her surety and her love.
The Devil’s Garden
EDWARD DOCX was born in 1972 and lives in London. His previous novels are The Calligrapher and Self Help, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007.
Praise for Self Help
‘Masterful. A gripping read that will engage, delight and engross’
Guardian
‘Unforgettable. Not since What A Carve Up! has there been such an absorbing indictment of the family’
Independent on Sunday
‘One of the brightest young novelists on the Man Booker Prize longlist’
Evening Standard
Also by Edward Docx
The Calligrapher
Self Help
First published 2011 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2011 by Picador
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