by Nancy Burke
“Sodeis?” called Dabimi into the blackness of the forest, eager to take charge of the strange reunion he anticipated.
The answer he received, however, wasn’t Sodeis’s, but Joaquim’s, who stepped from behind a kapok with his arms extended. Larry froze and stared at him, unable to sort through the thoughts and impulses that fell in torrents around his head and threatened to overtake him.
“Desculpe, Larry,” said Joaquim, approaching slowly, as one would a cornered animal. “Desculpe, desculpe. I’m so very sorry!” He stopped within ten paces of Larry and lowered his hands to his sides.
“What are you doing here?” Larry rasped out at last in English, amazed to see that his face too, was covered with tears.
“I know I can’t ask you to forgive me,” Joaquim went on. “And I won’t insult you like that. But to see that you’re alive! May I?” he said, stepping forward tentatively and pulling Larry in to him.
“Joaquim?” said Larry, dazed, over his shoulder, still not able to make sense of what he saw.
“We’re here, Larry,” said Jorge, stepping from behind another tree, pulling Martina along by the arm. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not him, it’s the other one! That’s not the one who asked for you!” squeaked Dabimi, but no one turned to him.
“Why are you here? Why are you here? Why have you been buying him? Why are you his friend? Why are you betraying me?” Larry said again and again as he caught a fleeting glimpse, out of the corner of his eye, of what he thought was confusion, or even panic, on Dabimi’s face. He turned from one to another while Jorge and Martina and Sam came up on all sides of him, excluding Dabimi from their circle. He looked at Jorge with sudden rage in his eyes, taking a step back, onto Sam’s foot. “You told them,” he said accusingly.
“I told them,” said Jorge. “I betrayed you. And now it’s too late to turn back. We’re going to need to act quickly. There is no other choice.”
“There is,” said Larry, turning away. “I’m going home.”
“Where?” said Jorge after him.
“Home and I’m begging you not to follow me.” He gestured to the others, who sat motionless, staring in disbelief.
“Larry?” Joaquim called after him, taking a step to follow. He walked up and stood between Larry and Pahquel, looking straight into his eyes.
“Mboa,” answered Larry before he had time to stop himself. “Mboa, tuara, mboa.” He glanced over to see Dabimi shaking his head, horrified to note that through this momentary, incongruous encounter, they had, for a moment, truly become kin. He turned and readied himself to run.
“Larry,” Joaquim called again. “They’re going to destroy Pahquel if you don’t help us. We need you and you need us. Jorge is right. There is no other choice.”
Slowly, with all their eyes watching him, Larry turned back and walked with Joaquim toward the rest of them, like a fugitive giving himself up. “What are you saying?” he said finally, unwilling to offer anything of his own.
“Larry, Pahquel’s been noticed, and it’s been noticed by someone in a position to exploit his discovery. About that, you can ask your friend here, who’s been in contact with him, I’m sure of it.”
The cord between Larry and Dabimi, formed moments before, was just as suddenly tensed and broke with a furious snap. “Who gave you this?” he said in Pahqua, pointing to the pan in Dabimi’s bag.
“Luma,” said Dabimi. He did.
“Who gave you this?” said Larry, lifting the twine and dropping it back into the basket.
“Luma,” said Dabimi.
“This?” he said.
“Luma,” said Dabimi.
“And this,” he said, pointing to Dabimi’s watch. “Who is he?”
“Ata patari” Sky person, Dabimi answered, sensing the drama in the situation and now clearly trying to make himself the master of it.
“Who?” said Larry, turning to Joaquim.
“A guy named Kamar Sodeis. Mining, logging, hardwoods, burglary, extortion and more, a long list of accomplishments” said Joaquim. “And who’s this?” he added, gesturing toward Dabimi.
“That cabrao?” said Larry fiercely, with hatred in his voice. “That’s our chefe.”
“That’s what I figured, and that’s why Sodeis is after him. They’ve clearly made a deal, and you’re going to have to convince him that that deal is off, and find a way to stop it.” Joaquim turned to Dabimi and addressed him in broken Pahqua. “You listen to him and do what he says,” he told him.
“How do you know Pahqua?” said Larry.
“You left the notebook,” said Joaquim. “You left it behind. If you hadn’t, you might have figured out by now that you’re in danger even without Sodeis’s interference.”
“What?” said Larry.
“So can we go back with you?” said Jorge, interrupting him.
“What if I say no?” said Larry, eyeing him.
“Then we’ll have to go with him instead,” said Joaquim, nodding at Dabimi. “We’ve prepared for the possibility that you’d refuse us. But better for you to introduce us to your companions instead.”
Larry looked from one to the other and then, in speech that was heavy and slow, addressed Joaquim. “I have two boys now,” he said. As he spoke, they all noticed, at once, a glow on the horizon that, unlike the sun, intensified without rising. Slowly, the black silhouette of a man appeared, obscured, suddenly, blindingly as he came upon them, by the beam of a miner’s headlamp.
“Look who’s here! My dear friends!” said the figure in Portuguese, taking a step towards Larry and extending his hand.
Larry squinted into the light. He somehow understood what the man had said, although he couldn’t identify the language. Joaquim and Jorge stepped forward, eyeing Sodeis, but waiting.
“Why are you here?” said Larry coldly.
“Sodeis. Kamar Sodeis,” said the man, extending his hand again. Behind him, Aran gasped and Larry knew she had recognized his name from Silvio’s list.
“What do you want with us?” The words seemed detached from him perhaps because they were in English.
“Us?” said Sodeis, laughing, gesturing first to Larry’s chest and then to his genitals, which he had, owing to the disintegration of his last pair of shorts, only recently begun to sheath, mostly to hide his circumcision. “Us?” he said again, laughing and shaking his head.
“What do you want?” said Larry, envisioning his hand around the handle of his knife, still ignorant of the fact that the right to kill had been rescinded by the ancestors twenty chajans before.
Joaquim stepped forward, but Sodeis motioned him away. “This is for your little charge to deal with,” he said. Turning back to Larry, he continued. “I’ve become good friends with your kin here,” he said, with a nod towards Dabimi. “He’s been teaching me Pahqua, in exchange for some tangible rewards.” Dabimi half staggered to his feet but then squatted down again into a disappointed slump when he realized that his so-called friend intended to dispense with him now that the meeting for which he had been the catalyst had taken place.
“Just tell me what you want,” said Larry again, taking a step towards him. His hands were shaking at his sides, the thumbs pushed out from the fingers as though preparing, on their own, to strangle him.
“And we’ve been doing business,” said Sodeis, dropping the pretense to friendliness. “I think you Americans call it closing a deal.” He pulled out a folded piece of paper and began to smooth it on the leg of his pants.
“I am not an American,” said Larry, immediately ashamed that the man had been able to elicit a personal retort, unaware that what he said wasn’t in fact true.
“You know, that’s not quite right,” said Sodeis, patting the front pocket of his flak pants. “I have reason to believe that you are here on an American passport and a visa which, I’d be willing to bet, have long expired.”
“So you’ve come to turn me in?” said Larry, the thumbs straining out from the fingers, twitching like sn
ake tongues, or like snakes.
“Turn you in?” he laughed. “Of course not. I’ve come to thank you,” he said, reaching up and switching off the headlamp. Larry was as blinded by the darkness as he had been by the light, and stood with his feet planted until the swirling residue of lines and shapes faded.
“Why are you here then?” said Larry, “Just tell me and go. You have no business here.”
“I have more business here than you do,” Sodeis said, pausing for emphasis, “but mine will be done within a week, and then I’ll leave for good, and so will you.”
“I’ll never leave,” said Larry, turning to shoulder his basket, reaching out to grasp Aran’s arm.
“You’ll all be leaving,” said Sodeis, gesturing with his hand around the circle, “thanks to the contract we’ve negotiated with your kin. I’ve told him he’ll be blessed by all his people for securing, on his own, without you, the future of every last one of you.”
“He said I stole from him, but look at how he stole from me!” Dabimi shouted drunkenly in Pahqua, gesturing toward Aran. Aran looked down and put her hands over her ears. Sodeis slapped him on the arm and he swayed in silence, as though collecting his strength to begin shouting again, pulling Larry back and forth with him.
“Akara odama,” said the man in halting Pahqua to Larry, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. “A promise. You translate for your friend here,” he said, switching on his lamp again. To each of the half-lines, spoken now in Ge but then elaborated in Portuguese, Dabimi nodded with a sharp snap of his head that suggested his sense of importance, and his desperation to seem as if he understood. Larry remained silent.
“You will vacate the land bounded by the Inhambu, Mental, and Arua rivers within three days.” Dabimi’s head bobbed like a buoy. “You will continue on to the area located between kilometers 45 and 50 on the eastern bank of the Mental, and will present yourselves to the Abbe of the mission at St. Girard, who will assign you to your villages and help you move into your new homes.” Another nod and an attempt at a self-satisfied glance at Larry. Sodeis looked up from the paper. “I have described in drawings the living spaces to Dabimi, which will include kerosene lamps and blankets and comfortable beds and cooking pots and all sorts of amenities. You’ll all, of course, have work.”
“What are you talking about?” Larry shouted again, cutting him off. “Get out of here or I’ll kill you!” He shook himself free of Dabimi, who fell backward and slumped into a squat with his back against the side of the lean-to, which collapsed under him. Then he turned to Aran and pulled her by the arm.
“You’ll regret it,” said the man without moving. “It’s for them. It’s the only way they’ll survive. Anyway, you have no choice.”
“Get the hell out of here,” shouted Larry, dropping the bag and Aran’s arm at once as he turned on his heel. The two snakes twitched at his sides, savoring their imminent fulfillment.
Sodeis placed the folded paper into his shirt pocket, and then drew out another. “I’m speaking now on behalf of Incorporated Timber which, as you may or may not know, owns the land you and your friends have been living on. We begin on that particular parcel in three days, and if you don’t vacate, you’ll be forcibly removed for your own protection. That’s all. Your friend has been agreeable and we’ve arrived at something reasonable for everyone. Go home now and tell them all what they need to do. Make them understand how much better off they’ll be, and then go back to where you came from, or else tell them it’s your fault, that it was you who led us here, thanks to this note I found in the belongings of a friend of yours.”
The snakes hurled themselves outward and found their mark. The two men scuffled in the dirt, throwing up clumps of rotten leaves while the light flashed and jerked and the others stood back in horror. Pitar rushed forward and pulled Larry off Sodeis, leaving him groaning in the dirt. Joachim stepped forward and put the handcuffs on him. “Come on,” yelled Larry, and grabbed Aran’s arm. They ran together, holding onto each other, leaving Dabimi and the others slouched over the writhing figure whose headlamp, still on his head, swept back and forth across the ceiling of trees like a spotlight scanning the sky. There was no hope of finding the path in the dark, so they stopped in an indentation between the trees and squatted in a huddle so close that each could feel the breath of the others on his knees. Larry leaned forward, panting and shaking, barely aware of the trickle of blood that dripped off the edge of his chin and down the side of his neck.
“The ancestors will punish you,” said Aran at last, in a new cold, almost mechanical voice.
“I’ll go back. The person isn’t dying,” said Panar, rising to his feet.
“What was he talking about?” said Pitar. Panar squatted down again beside him and waited with the others for Larry to speak.
At first, he didn’t realize that the question was for him, knowing he had lost the right to make any sound at all, but Pitar jostled him, as though to start the flow of words through the pressure of his elbow.
“They’re going to take our homes,” he began, his voice cracking, and then corrected himself. “They’re going to take your homes.”
“Who?” said Pitar. “Which ancestor of yours is he?”
“He’s no ancestor, and neither am I.” Larry stopped and began to sob, and the tears flowed out and mixed with the blood, two rivers forming one stronger current in the dark.
“He’s not a person?” said Pitar, sounding confused.
Larry squatted in his pool of bloody tears, unable to respond.
“Ark pol,” said Panar. A monkey demon. “His curse is on Dabimi. We all saw it. Look at what happened to him when he took those things.”
Larry pressed his forehead to his knees. His body jerked first to one side and then the other, as though he were hurling himself against a row of doors, none of which would open. There was a door labeled Iri, and a door named for Aran, and a door bearing only the sign of his shame. There were doors for James and Oji and Piri and Panar and Kakap, for terror and the escape from terror, but not one would admit him, would so much as vibrate on its hinges from the impact of his weight.
“I think they’ll come for us,” he said at last. “They’ll move us if we don’t move ourselves.”
“We always move,” said Panar emphatically, referring to the march of chajans—who could say if it was fast or slow?—from the river to the top of the hill in the direction of the jacu.
“Not that,” said Larry. “They’re going to take the chajan trees and then most likely burn the rest for farmland. They’ll burn our houses and us in them if we don’t leave.” The temptation welled up to tell them that it had been Dabimi who had led them to that fate, but the thought of him swaggering, drunk, utterly impotent, was enough to close up his throat again, and force the pressure to hiss out in a sound halfway between a moan and a sigh. The irony itself was enough to choke him, that Dabimi really was his kin, fellow member of the lineage of fools, deluded, unable to grasp the possibility that anyone outside himself existed, doomed to helplessness without reprieve. He stopped throwing himself sidelong against the row of doors and turned to face their unyielding blankness.
“There is no punishment enough for me,” he said mechanically, “but there’ll be time for that. Now, I’ll do what I can. Go back and help Dabimi,” Larry said, turning to Panar. “Wait with him until he sleeps it off. Then bring him here.”
Panar obeyed without question, standing up as soon as Larry fell silent, disappearing in the direction they had come from. In his absence, the sounds of weeping from the various points around the circle were like the smoldering outcroppings of embers.
“We have no mats to sleep on,” said Aran, her voice sharp with recrimination, her cold glare obscured by the dark. No person would ever stoop to sleeping on the ground like an animal, so they squatted with their backs against each other, or against tree trunks, Aran on one side of a thick Sapadura while Larry leaned against the other, unconcerned by the stinging ants that flowed in
silent streams through the crevasses in the bark.
At dawn, Panar returned not only with Dabimi, but with them all, with Jorge pulling Sodeis forward by the chain between his hands. The group was unwieldy, a caravan of the wounded, limping and vomiting and swaying from chill and lack of sleep; it was afternoon before they even cleared the outer logs. They were starved and bitten and disoriented as they stumbled upon a scene that had the same aura of surreal nostalgia as the paintings of skating parties and family dinners on the Christmas cards Larry’s parents used to send to relatives to whom they never spoke. There were clusters of people walking together, or carrying baskets between them, or sitting on their kaawas telling jokes about hunting and sex. There was the smell of cooking meat, and the sound of babies crying, and the glow of the fires, their smoke trails mingling with the halos of invisible stars. No one had spoken since Aran had made her comment about the mats; no one had asked the others to wait for him to eat or drink or defecate or rest, but had simply run to catch up after having fallen behind. Larry kept his back to Joaquim and Jorge at all times as though to deny their existence. The only constant sound had been Dabimi’s whimper, the static agony of headache and despair and shame, which penetrated their bones more relentlessly than did the heat or cold.
“Gather them,” Panar said at last as they stood together on the outskirts of the village, looking out onto a scene in which none of them belonged. As word spread from door to door, the assembly collected on Dabimi’s kaawa and spilled out onto the clearing, filling it as the rain had filled the river, one person from each household, one torch for every line. They waited for Dabimi to sing, but for a long time, he only stood, looking back at them. At last he began, in a voice so low that even those standing on the kaawa could barely make out the words; what they did hear was nothing but a whisper that gnawed its way into the foundations of their houses to create tiny cracks which grew, at first only slowly and then in a rush, due to the press of fear and bodies, until the world collapsed around them with a sudden roar such as none of them had ever heard, burying them in great clouds of terror and chaos and debris. Words flew up, screams like burning timbers, the stabbing edges of disbelief, as people clung to each other, not knowing whether to run or stay. The wailing from every corner rose and fell like sirens, echoing amid the flashes of the torchlight. People ran and then stopped and then ran again. They shouted at each other, having lost the ability to hear. Dabimi waved his arms helplessly, but no one responded. Larry slipped away and returned without attracting notice.