The Secret Life of the Panda

by Nick Jackson

  And one day Papita went to Sao Tomas and failed to come home. So, Fortunata was on her way to Barbosa’s to buy a rope. In red or blue or metallic purple, any colour as long as it wasn’t green. She was going to buy a strong rope, stronger and better, longer and more supple, than anything that could be made in the village.

  She stopped by a stream to taste the slow brown water. The surface of the water fizzed with mosquito larvae that she sieved out with her lips as she drank. A snake, patterned in bands of pink, yellow and black like a bracelet, paused as it slid through the tangled heliconia and ferns, when it saw another had come to drink.

  “I’m off to the store to buy a rope,” said Fortunata to the snake.

  “What for?” enquired the snake, edging a little closer.

  “Because we are leaving the forest,” replied the girl.

  “Stay here,” invited the snake, peering at the girl with its lidless eyes. It had existed in this place for over two hundred thousand years, in one form or another, and saw no reason to be anywhere else.

  Fortunata watched the snake coiling itself into a tight knot in the undergrowth, mesmerised by the colours and the banded pattern. Once, according to her grandmother, there had been a god in every leaf. There had been the god of the stepping stones and another god in the old mango tree before it was chopped down to make way for the electricity and the wide black road; there had been a god of the river and a god of rain drops.

  She felt a sudden lethargy take possession of her limbs. The rope in her mind turned into a snake that slithered off into the undergrowth.

  She woke to the song of the oropendola like gurgling water. Her grandmother had often told how the bird weaved its basket nest. It was the oropendola that, in the beginning of time, weaved the rope by which the spirit of the sun climbed up to heaven to bring back the light which had been stolen by his jealous brother the moon. And it was the oropendola which took care of the souls of dead men, weaving a basket of light to take them up to heaven. Mamita had been angry when grandma told these stories. “How can you fill the child’s head with such rubbish!” she’d complained. But the song of the oropendola bird made even Mamita prick her ears.

  It was pleasant to lie in the sun by the pool and for a time Fortunata was content to be a part of the stillness around her, but finally she shook herself: “I have to go,” she said firmly.

  She walked across the bridge made of old railway sleepers. There was a railway once that took away the massive red logs and brought orchid hunters wrapped in clouds of white muslin to keep out the flies. Now nothing of the railway remained, except the mouldering bridge and the vague outline of an embankment by the river.

  Uncle Mathias had been so good at shinning up the trees to fetch down the clusters of flowers, with leaves and roots intact, that he earned his family a small fortune until he fell and broke his neck. Still, Emilia, the eldest, married a store-keeper from Sao Cristobal and now lived in a glass castle somewhere in the city. No one remembered what she looked like.

  Mamita wanted to live in a glass castle. She wouldn’t make corn cakes; she would have the food ‘sent up’. She told Fortunata this and Fortunata was convinced, though she hadn’t quite formed in her head a clear idea of Mamita’s castle of desire.

  The forest was growing dark. The sweet sour sickly blackness sucked everything into itself. The girl wrapped herself in one of the great leaves that grew out of the river bank. The rain hissed down, but in the crook of the leaf she was dry except for a thin trickle of rain worming its way down her spine. One day she would live in a room like a tent made of light and the rain would never seep in, but for now she’d be content with the leaf.

  The following morning she continued threading her way through the thinning trees; there were fewer and fewer big trees now and it became more and more difficult to shelter from the sun. From time to time she passed small-holdings, each one with its hedge of thorn bushes.

  On a narrow stretch of the path, the men came marching past. She froze when she saw them, still as the dead branches, not moving a muscle. “Stand still,” Mamita had said, “Don’t move, don’t look. Whatever you do, don’t look in their eyes and if they speak to you, pretend that you didn’t hear.”

  As the men strode past, Fortunata could feel the heat of their bodies and her nostrils twitched at the rancid smell they carried with them but she stood stock still. One man stopped and his boots shuffled in the dust in front of her downcast eyes.

  “I can smell pineapples. Is it pineapples you’ve got?” He dropped his cigarette and ground it into the dirt with his heel. “D’you want to sell me your pineapples?”

  Fortunata’s eyes flickered but she said nothing. Then the man laughed loud and raucous: “Someone’s cut out her tongue!” And he swung back into line.

  When they had gone, she crept forwards again and, finally, she arrived at the road. Her feet were sore with walking along the hard soil of the forest tracks.

  *

  Barbosa’s store had everything that was to be had: table cloths and wall clocks and electric lamps full of oil that glittered when heated up, boxes that snapped shut and tall pink plastic tumblers. There was always a stack of coiled ropes and basins in all colours.

  There were some things—the white powders and little oval beans like drops of dew—which he kept locked away in the tall cabinet in the back of the store. You needed a lot for the those things; more than most people could afford. If your head ached, as though a hammer was chipping away at your skull, the white powder or the glass bean would take away the pain. It was magic and those who had taken the powder said it was like being surrounded by a cold white light, as though all the ice cubes in the world had been crushed up.

  Barbosa stood at the back of his store in the shade watching for customers. He slipped a piece of ripe mango into his mouth. It slithered there for a moment until he sucked it down, amber juice oozing from the corner of his mouth. He watched the girl as she ran her hands over the plastic basins and the coils of rope. He’d seen her before: a ‘bugre’, a poor urchin from up the valley with no shoes and a grubby shift. He didn’t mind. He put down the mango he was peeling and called to her.

  “What you want missy?”

  “A rope.”

  “You have money?”

  “No, but I’m going to sell the pineapples and the plantains.”

  “Ah,” said the storekeeper. “But you’ll never have enough for one of those ropes. Show me your plantains.”

  She unwrapped the contents of the sack. The pineapples smelled over-ripe and the plantains were getting black and squashy.

  “No one will give you a cent for this load of shit,” he said kindly.

  He stroked his knee and looked at the girl for a long time in silence.

  “Listen. I’ll sell you a rope. You just give me the plantains and the pineapples and come to the back of the store and show me how you can do jiggy-jiggy and we’ll call it a deal.

  “And two pink tumblers. I’ll throw in two pink tumblers,” he added. He was a handsome man, according to his friends, with a generous heart and a fine moustache. His eyes were shiny and black, like pebbles in the stream bed. He tried to be very gentle because that’s the kind of man he was.

  *

  As she emerged from Barbosa’s store, Fortunata saw a bird flutter up into the tree growing in the forecourt. The oropendola sang in the top of the tree at such a pitch that Barbosa came out to take a shot at it with his gun but the wily bird just settled higher in the dense foliage and carried on singing.

  “Those damn birds,” he cursed as he pulled his shirt straight over his plump belly. “That song’s enough to drive a fellow mad. Now, off you go missy.” He helped Fortunata shoulder her burden and slumped in the shade of the porch with a bottle of beer.

  So she set off back home with a long nylon rope, braided blue and yellow—two colours for the price of one. The tumblers rattled around in a white plastic bag. She scurried along the side of the road as a lorry lumbered by a
nd a bright yellow bus with people hanging out of the doors, yelling.

  She found the forest track again where it joined the road and began the long journey back to the village. The white plastic bag hit her ankles as she walked and became muddied. The thorns of trailing vines caught at the smooth material and small tears appeared in the sides of the bag, but she carried her booty past the old bridge made of railway sleepers and the remains of the mango tree; all the way along the looping black wire.

  The sweltering insect-scratched darkness came down but she knew the path so well that she carried on walking. She paused to drink at the pool with the stepping stones but there was nothing to see except the shuddering starlight.

  It was full morning when she appeared at the door of the hut, clutching the tattered bag. Mamita greeted her with a rare smile and put out a tired hand to stroke her hair. Fortunata thought of the man in his store and wanted to tell Mamita everything that had happened, but the words fluttered and died in her throat.

  Mamita made corn cakes with the last of the maize, rolling the paste between her palms and smiling a strange elastic smile that stretched like the maize dough.

  As Fortunata and her brother Francisco finished their meal, Mamita assured them that one day soon they would live in the city in a tent of light.

  “Yes,” she reiterated, securing one end of the rope to the strong roof beam, “there will be no more need of corn cakes and the hut with the broken furniture.”

  Mamita looked through the loop of rope at them and her eyes glittered: “We’ll all live together and never do any more work.”

  “How?” asked Fortunata.

  “How?” A small frown disturbed Mamita’s smooth forehead but, before she could answer she was interrupted by the rustle of wings.

  The oropendola bird, which all the time had been watching from the branches of a tall ceiba tree, fluttered down and perched in a bush next to the hut. It rattled its wings and turned itself upside down for a better look into the interior of the dwelling.

  Mamita had made a noose out of the loose end of the rope and placed it around the slender neck of her son. She was about to haul the crippled child aloft but, when she saw the bird, she paused for a moment in her work, staring up at the creature which was observing her intently. “I hear you,” she said as she hauled on the rope. She hauled up Fortunata next to her brother, sweating with the effort and finally, when her daughter’s legs had ceased kicking, she stood up on the rickety little table, tightened the noose around her own neck and swung from the sturdy roof beam.

  Meanwhile the oropendola soared into the air. The feathers of its wings spread like fingers in the fractured light. There was a commotion inside the hut—a crashing and thrashing and all the time the bird swept to and fro above the hut with a rush of wings, singing. As it flew, streaks of light began to materialise and the pouring out of its liquid song grew louder and louder until it drowned out the last feeble cries. The threads of light and the phrases of the bird’s song weaved into each other to create a glimmering pulsating cable that bound up the limp occupants of the hut and drew them upwards into the sky. The song became fainter… glug glug loog loog loog… like the last dribblings from a bottle lying on its side.

  The eyes of Fortunata looked down at the hut with its roof of palm leaves as she was swept up. Eventually, when she was no more than a confused dot above the sea of leaves, silence returned to the hillside with the view across the wilderness to a faint cobalt line—the edge of the visible world.

  Shell Fire

  When Vernon held the crimped lip of the shell to his ear, he could hear the faint rush of the sea. It was a miracle to hear the waves distantly crashing, especially when he knew the sea was hundreds of miles away. He wondered which waves on which sea, as he turned the shell. He looked into the curling antechamber that led into the smooth interior, inserted a finger and waggled it around, wishing he were small enough to crawl inside and see what was within. He wanted to penetrate the innermost chambers of the shell, to sit in the ultimate and smallest recess. He was sure he’d be happy there. Then he pressed the shell once more to his ear to hear the sea.

  In the weedy plot behind the house were snails. When he touched them gingerly, they pulled in the stalks of their eyes and sucked themselves into their homes. In winter they clung together in brittle bunches like desiccated grapes. But Vernon’s shell was different: it had a flush of pinkish bronze and sometimes a trickle of coarse white sand emerged.

  He still had the shell, forty-five years later, and sometimes, when he was in a good mood, he’d take it down from its shelf above the fireplace, running his fingers over the grooves and ridges.

  *

  Vernon Bradley threw his mop into the cleaning cupboard and tried to slam the door. But instead of the satisfying slam, the handle of the mop slipped forward and jammed in the door; then the mop and bucket fell out into the corridor, leaving suds on the parquet. When he had cleared up, Vernon took his broom and prepared himself for the job of sweeping leaves.

  As he worked, he was transfixed by the way the wind whirled the leaves, drawing them into a tight cone and then flinging them up in an eddying vortex of russet fragments which were caught by the light as they turned. He leaned on the handle of his broom and watched this game of leaves and wind, the way he sometimes watched a breeze ruffling a puddle or the shapes of clouds over the playing fields. At these times it seemed that the world was made for him alone, and that these effects of nature were unobserved except by him.

  He bent down and picked up one of the leaves, turning it in his fingers. He let it fall back into the pile of leaves and slowly straightened up. He began to sweep again, feeling contentment in the comfortable sound of the broom, the rhythmic motion of his arms, the contraction of his muscles.

  *

  The headmaster, Mr Kelly, looked out of his office window. The school playground was empty, just the acres of tarmac and the dilapidated toilet block. The caretaker was fussing in the corner with a pile of leaves. What was that man doing?

  Mr Kelly tasted bile: “How long has Bradley been with the school, Miss Glacer?”

  “As long as I can remember.”

  “He must be…” Mr Kelly examined the husk of a fly that had died on his window ledge, “… sixty, would you say?”

  “Not quite that, I don’t think.”

  Mr Kelly shuffled a pile of papers, straightening the edges. He lined up a ruler with the edge of the pages. But he couldn’t prevent his eyes flicking back to the caretaker’s slow movements.

  “What is that man doing?”

  Miss Glacer glanced out of the window. She was thinking of succulent flakes of cold chicken, with thinly sliced gherkins. “Sweeping?” she suggested.

  “Could you ask him to come in here?” Mr Kelly used a thumbnail to clean between two of his front teeth. Then he brought up the budget spreadsheet on his laptop.

  Vernon was sweeping the leaves into a pile. Every time he got the pile small enough to pick up with a shovel, a puff of wind grabbed them and threw them about.

  He was surprised to see the school secretary walking towards him across the playground. She was hugging her mint-green cardigan tightly around her. She walked with tight little steps as though she had to keep to a line, buttocks clenched.

  “Mr Kelly wants to see you in his office, Mr Bradley, if you’ve a moment.”

  Vernon looked at her sideways, leaning on his broom. The yellowed whites of his eyes slid round.

  “I’ll be there directly, Miss Glacer. Directly I’ve finished sweeping up these leaves.”

  “Oh,” said Miss Glacer, pulling the sleeves of her cardigan tighter against the stiff breeze, “I wouldn’t worry about leaves.”

  “I’ll come now, then.” Vernon put down his broom and the leaves that he’d got together began to fly off.

  But Miss Glacer’s buttocks were in retreat. Her heels clicked. She’d decided that after the chicken, she’d have an individual ginger cheesecake with a square of c
hocolate.

  *

  Vernon turned the letter in his hands; eventually he set it down on the table amongst the breakfast things. While he was eating his toast he glanced at it. He didn’t like the look of the letter.

  After breakfast he took it round to Mrs Crabbe who always read his letters for him.

  “It’s a letter,” said Mrs Crabbe, adjusting the frames of her reading glasses on the her nose, “from Hawksmoor Roman Catholic Middle School.” She coughed and held the letter further off. “Dear Mr Bradley,” she read, “due to the current round of budgetary restrictions, the school is not able to offer a renewal of all the on-going contracts for hygiene employees and given the demands of the new hygiene delivery strategy for this institution, your qualifications…” Mrs Crabbe, gave a small gasp and ran her tongue over the tips of her dentures. There was something of the lizard about Mrs Crabbe. Her narrowed eyes shuttled sideways as if she’d spotted something edible on the kitchen surface and the wattles of skin at her neck quivered.

  “Oh dear, Mr Bradley,” Mrs Crabbe could only give a sympathetic wince. “It looks as if you’ve lost your job.”

  “Lost?”

  She licked her lips; they were so cracked and dry. “That’s it, Mr Bradley, in a nutshell.”

  “In a nutshell?” Mr Bradley’s soft brown eyes travelled down Mrs Crabbe’s house-coat, its hard buttons winked like the shards of beetles.

  Mrs Crabbe grasped her door handle under this scrutiny. She handed the letter back. “That’s what it says.” She peered out of her scaled eyes and blinked away the dust. She would go off to the mini-market presently for some water biscuits and a packet of seed for the canary. “It’s these Catholic schools, if you want my opinion.” She was holding the door open a crack still. “Now if it was the Evangelicals…” But he failed to catch the end of her sentence.

  Back home, Vernon sat meekly in his usual chair by the window; the shadows lengthened and still he sat and a skin formed on his cup of tea. It was only now that he began to relive his humiliation: standing with his big hands dangling beyond his cuffs in the headmaster’s study, looking at the trophies and framed diplomas while the man behind the desk shuffled papers. He’d begun to sweat and Mr Kelly had twitched his nostrils.