A wind sprang up and stirred the palm fronds into life. The fronds kept whispering and whispering in an unknown tongue. Then the hut was filled with Indians, grinning like gargoyles, their naked bodies swaying in the red glow of the fire and Caine no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t. The chanting went on and on to the rhythm of the whispering palms. Beads of sweat rolled down his face and he felt himself floating on a burning stream of molten lava, down the countless miles of the Amazon to the distant darkness of the sea.
He was swimming in the dark ocean, riding the roller-coaster waves. Then he sank into the green depths and a giant starfish wrapped its arms around him, pulling him into its mouth. Caine struggled desperately against the suction of the arms. He cut off the tip of one of the arms with his machete and then he was free. He rose through the water for a long time, and when he finally broke the surface, he was back in the fetid darkness of the mangrove swamp. He began to wade through the still, black water.
Then he was caught in the quicksand again and above him was a wildly screaming chorus of giant spider monkeys, each of them with a human face and he knew them all. There were so many of them. He hadn’t realized that his life had touched so many. Lim, pleading for her unborn son, and Dao, screaming about the war. His mother with her green eyes. Wasserman telling him about his father’s accounting firm in Leipzig. Chong, his bleeding, mutilated monkey face looking as it had when Caine had straightened his body at Nong Het. The old Gypsy at Auschwitz. Müller screaming “Peru.” And Cunningham and Koenig and Hudson. Harris saying something about how oil is the only thing that counts these days. Inger, drooling, and Pepé, still pierced by the arrow. Mengele screamed, “Is there no redemption?” Father José said nothing, but only stared at him with sad, black eyes. A monkey with sleek blond fur and C.J.’s face swung from a vine and repeated, “you never came back” over and over, until Caine couldn’t stand it and he cried out, “I’m coming back, you bastards! I’m coming back!”
He sank into the quicksand, down to an underground river, and then somehow he was floating on a raft down the Amazon. A lithe, naked Achual maiden ran her hands along his body, a sly smile on her brown face in the flickering firelight and then she straddled him, her belly rippling in slow, sinuous curves, like a snake. She uttered a cry of pleasure and moved faster as he entered her, her sweat dripping onto his belly. From inside her he could feel her entire body surging around his penis, beating like a giant heart, with the timeless rhythm of the surf. He came with a shuddering groan and the woman bathed his body with cool water from the river. He could see the stars, like distant campfires in the night. The rustling wind blew them out one by one, like candles, and then it was dark at last.
He awoke to the sound of retching. The morning was hot and clear and all around the village the Achuals were matter-of-factly vomiting. A slim, young woman brought him a large gourd of bark tea to drink. She smiled slyly at him and he wondered if she had been the woman in his dream and whether any of it had been real. He drank the medicinal-smelling tea, which she called wayus, and he quickly toddled on rubbery legs to the edge of the hut and threw up. The wayus was a violent emetic. Apparently it was the Achuals’ normal practice to start the day by clearing their stomachs and surprisingly enough after retching he felt much better.
The woman brought him a breakfast of fried plantain and a number of characins, a kind of freshwater sardine, which she had broiled over the fire. He felt stronger than he had in days. His fever had broken and his skin was no longer so tender. Even his stomach had stopped rumbling. That brujo could make a fortune in southern California, he mused.
They had dressed him in his filthy clothes once more. The woman took a thin strip of saw-toothed grass and stretched it taut. She rubbed the grass strip along his face and he was surprised to find that it took off his beard as cleanly as a steel razor. She had nearly completed shaving him when the chief entered the hut.
Caine got to his feet and regarded the chief for a long moment. Then he took off his watch, wound it, and gave it to the chief. The chief examined the watch curiously, then held it to his ear. A delighted smile broke over his face.
“Tick-tick-tick-tick,” he said, and clicked his tongue appreciatively. Caine hoo-hooed and placed the watch on the chief’s wrist. The chief swaggered out of the hut and soon he was surrounded by Achuals, who clicked their tongues and hoo-hooed in admiration. Caine smiled broadly. The watch was a complete success.
Later Caine called Huey over and asked him about the Ucayali. At first Huey seemed embarrassed.
“Where is the river?” Caine asked in Spanish. Huey shrugged.
“Where?” Caine repeated, and pointed in various directions. The Achual laughed and pointed toward the rising sun.
“Is it far?”
“Sí, sí,” Huey laughed.
“How many days?”
“Sí, sí,” the Indian said amiably.
It was frustrating and Caine tried to think of another way besides Spanish to communicate. Then he pointed to the sun and described an arc across the sky from east to west. He repeated the gesture until Huey laughed, holding his stomach with merriment. Then he shook his head at Caine and made a single arc from east to west, with a cutting gesture when his finger reached halfway across the sky. Caine laughed and shook his head. It was only a half-day’s march to the river!
The Indian began tugging at his arm, as though wanting to show Caine. Caine brought his thumb to his first two fingers in the Spanish gesture that means wait. He walked back to the hut and got his machete. The chief glanced curiously at him. Caine put his hand around the chief’s neck and touched his forehead to the chief’s. The chief smiled. As he walked away to join Huey, Caine thought that the savage Achuals were really no different from anybody else. Then he followed Huey on down the relatively easy trail.
They reached the broad expanse of the Ucayali by midmorning. Huey cavorted and pointed excitedly at the brown water and the two men embraced and touched foreheads. Caine began searching along the bank and Huey followed him curiously. It took Caine more than an hour before he found a grove of suitable balsa trees. He began to chop at the soft, porous wood with the machete and Huey immediately understood what Caine wanted and enthusiastically pitched in.
The soft wood was easy to work with, and in an hour Caine had half-a-dozen logs trimmed and laid side by side on the riverbank. Each log was about ten feet long and close to a foot in diameter. About a foot from each end, Caine cut a triangular notch for the crosspieces on the top and bottom side of every log. Each notch had the apex of the triangle on top and the baseline about two inches deep in the wood. When all the notches were cut, four to a log, two at each end, top and bottom, Caine cut four relatively straight branches and began fashioning triangular-shaped crosspieces with the machete.
Huey watched with fascination as Caine worked, nodding excitedly every so often. The Indian intuitively grasped the superiority of using the triangular-shaped crosspieces. When the crosspieces were wet and began to swell with water, they would bind the logs securely together, even without lashing. While Caine smoothed and shaped the crosspieces, Huey found green coconuts for drinking and mature nuts for eating, and they stopped for lunch. Then while Caine worked at fitting the crosspieces into the notches, Huey pounded the white coconut meat with a shell and left the pounded meat in the shell to heat in the sun.
Once the crosspieces were slotted across the logs, the two men lashed the ends of the crosspieces with liana vines. Then Caine cut two long branches, trimming one for a pole, and the second, broader branch he fashioned into a paddle-shaped sweep. The raft was ready to go.
Huey handed Caine the shell of heated coconut meat. It was brimming with oil and he gestured for Caine to smear on the oil. Caine stripped and smeared the oil all over his body till he glistened in the sun. The oil would help protect him against sunburn and insects. Then he pulled on his grimy rags once more.
The two men looked at each other. Caine didn’t know what to say or
do. These people had saved his life. He had nothing left to give them. Then he remembered his Meo bracelet, the one Dao had given him. He pulled it off his wrist and handed it to Huey, who blinked his eyes self-consciously. Then with great reluctance he handed Caine his precious shotgun in return. Caine pushed the gun away emphatically, but the Indian stubbornly resisted. Caine knew he couldn’t shame the Indian, so he looked around for something else. He pointed at the toucan feather headdress and the Achual gratefully took it off his head and adjusted it on Caine’s head.
Caine took off his shirt and the two men loaded coconuts on it and tied it into a bag. They pushed the raft into the warm brown water, and without any further ceremony Caine hopped on and he was off. He poled away from the shore, the Indian watching him with his impassive gaze. When Caine reached the middle of the river, where the current was stronger, he sat down and began to use the sweep. He glanced back at the shore, but the Indian was gone, as though he had never been.
The tropic sun glinted cruelly off the surface of the water. The raft bobbed gently downstream, the balsa logs riding buoyantly on the placid surface. Caine wondered how long he had before the porous wood became water-logged and sank. He hoped to hit a village and get a boat before then. All he could do was trust to luck. After all, with a raft one doesn’t have much choice.
A sense of peace enfolded him as he drifted downstream. He was heading back into the world. Once again the brooding green hedge of the jungle slipped by. Along the near bank he could see what seemed like an endless carpet of giant Victoria water lilies. The pads were thick with bullfrogs croaking a loud chorus that could be heard for miles. He began to feel drowsy in the steaming heat as the current carried him ever downstream. He was on a journey without end. He remembered a lyric from a Janis Joplin song: “Honey, the road don’t even end in Khatmandu.”
CHAPTER 17
“Did you find Dr. Mendoza?” Father José asked.
“I found him,” Caine said.
“How is he?”
“How should I know? I’m not his damned keeper,” Caine snapped. The priest looked at Caine with his sad eyes, then he looked at the river. Violet and gray clouds covered the sky over the river with a thick woolly blanket. The large lancha trembled with the throb of the engine. A light wind stirred ripples on the surface, where the deep current ran. Soon it would rain.
“You murdered him, didn’t you?” Father José said, and looked back at Caine. It was not a question. Caine didn’t say anything.
“My God, did you think that sort of thing can be kept quiet? The word has spread like wildfire through the jungle,” Father José said.
“Has the news reached Iquitos yet?”
“Not yet,” the priest admitted. He struck a match and lit his pipe. The smoke wreathed his face like a halo.
“Why did you wait till now, before bringing it up?” Caine asked. After all, they had been together on the river since Flor de Punga two days ago. The priest shrugged wearily, resting his chin on his chest His thick black beard covered the grayish cassock over his chest like a bib.
“I thought you were too weak. Besides, who am I to judge you? Judgment belongs to God. Besides, I didn’t want to know.”
“No,” Caine said quietly. “You don’t want to know.”
“How could you do such a thing?” Father José said suddenly, his face reddening, as though he were embarrassed.
“How could I not do it?” Caine retorted. “Dr. Mendoza’s real name was Josef Mengele. Does that mean anything to you? Yes, I can see that even here in the middle of nowhere you’ve heard of the Angel of Death of Auschwitz,” Caine said, his green eyes glittering. “He was responsible for more human suffering and death than any man in the world. What’s one death amid all that carnage?”
“One death is what it’s all about,” the priest said.
“It doesn’t do any good to talk about it. I’ve seen Auschwitz and I tell you Mengele wasn’t fit to walk the earth. I’m not sorry about any of it.”
“But who nominated you to do it?” Father José asked. Caine shrugged and spat over the gunnel. His spittle was touched with pink. His gums still bled a little from where Rolf had knocked out one of his teeth.
“It just happened that way. Besides, I was the right man for the job. You said it yourself. I’m a hunter. God didn’t create the jaguar to be a vegetarian,” Caine said.
“I should turn you over to the authorities when we reach Iquitos,” the priest said unhappily.
“Are you going to?”
Drops of rain with the size and force of marbles began to fall into the river. The surface of the river looked like a vast field of water flowers splashed up by the raindrops. A small waterfall cascaded over the edge of the canvas sunscreen under which the two men sat. Father José stretched his bony frame and sighed.
“‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone,’” the priest said, staring into the gray wall of rain. “No, I won’t betray you to the authorities. But when, we dock in Iquitos, let’s just pretend we never met.”
“In a way we never did,” Caine said, getting up. He walked to the prow of the lancha and just stood there in the rain. The raindrops smashed like bullets, soaking Caine’s new clothes and molding them to his body. He had bought the cheap slacks and shirt for a few soles at the one tin-roofed general store in Flor de Punga, a tiny riverfront village. He had landed the raft there and caught a lift back to Iquitos with Father José, who was taking the mission lancha downriver to straighten out a delayed shipment of medical supplies, which were being held up by the customs office in Iquitos. Father José told him that it would take a lot of palaver and a judicious bribe before he would be able to get the shipment released.
The lancha was piloted by a young caboclo seminarian, who drove the boat day and night with the reckless audacity, if not the skill, of a Grand Prix driver. By the afternoon of the fourth day they were approaching Iquitos, about a half-day’s journey downriver from the junction of the two great rivers, the Marañon and the Ucayali, which join to form the Amazon River. And Father José had waited all that time before confronting him.
The rain felt cool and refreshing to Caine. He was feeling much better. Maybe that was why Father José had held off talking about it. Out of a rare sense of delicacy, not wanting to confront Caine while he was still weak and shivering with fever. Well, at least it was out in the open between them, Caine thought with a sense of relief. Now he no longer had to pretend to be the oilman McClure for the priest. One of the real hardships for a spy is often trying to pretend to be less interesting than he really is. In fact, Koenig had once warned them about agents who deliberately courted danger out of pure boredom with their cover roles.
The priest had treated him with Lomotil, chloroquine, and penicillin. The medicine combined with canned food and lazy days of rest on the boat to bring Caine back into relatively good condition. At long last he felt that the nightmare was ending. Except for the Starfish. That was still running. For the rest all he wanted was to collect his money and C.J. from Wasserman and take off for Zurich. He wanted to make his dream about skiing in the Alps with her come true.
Father José came over and stood beside him in the rain. The priest’s head was bowed and his hands were clasped behind him in the posture of a penitent, submitting himself to the flagellation of the raindrops. They stood like carved figures, rocking slightly with the motion of the boat. Rainwater ran down their faces in tiny rivulets.
“I lied just now about not judging you. I’m still judging you—I can’t help it,” Father José said.
“I guess you’re as human as the rest of us, Padre,” Caine said.
“Just tell me this, was it truly necessary to kill him?” Father José asked, his earnest gaze searching Caine’s face.
“I don’t know,” Caine said softly, his voice almost lost in the hiss of the rain. For an instant their glances touched and they both looked away.
“I think you found the darkness I warned you abo
ut, didn’t you?” Father José asked.
“Yes, you were right, but there’s something else. I think it’s possible that killing Mengele was the first decent thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Caine said. “Maybe it makes up for … well, maybe it makes up for some of the other things I’ve done. I don’t know. But when and if the time ever comes for God to judge me, I’ve got a few questions of my own to put to Him,” he added.
“We all do,” Father José murmured sadly.
The two men stood side by side for a long time in the cooling rain, each of them locked into his own private world of darkness and light. Finally the rain began to slacken and Father José suggested a cup of coffee, which they brewed on the little Primus stove under the sunscreen. They shared one cup between them as though it were a kind of communion.
They docked at Belén, a floating slum of small boats and shacks on stilts which formed the port section of Iquitos. Belén was built on a long, narrow mud flat joined by a ramshackle wooden bridge to the town built on a bluff overlooking the river. It was late afternoon, the tropic sun caught in the distant treetops like a giant yellow balloon.
Caine helped Father José tie the lancha to a rotting wooden pier that balanced precariously over the river. The air was pungent with the smells of mud and garbage and decaying fish. Caboclos swarmed along the wharf, laden with heavy reed baskets and clay water jugs. Day laborers were loading bananas and animal skins onto a rusty Booth Line freighter. Scores of pirogues and lanchas were beached on the mud flat and the air was alive with the cries of Indians and traders hawking goods. After the isolation of the jungle the sudden return to the world startled Caine. All the noise and vitality stunned him, and he felt more than ever an alien in the crowd.
Hour of the Assassins Page 31