In Time, Out of Place

by You Jin

  That afternoon at three we flew from Lima to Equitos, a small village on the banks of the Amazon River. When we arrived, it was already six in the evening.

  The arrival hall at the airport was small and stifling, and there were a dozen or so indigenous children running about, helping passengers with their luggage in order to earn some money. The noise of human traffic and smell of human presence intermingled in the air. Mosquitoes flew rampant, biting everyone indiscriminately.

  When we picked up our luggage and went out, Quillis-Sacha was already there waiting for us. He wore an orange short-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of black pants washed until they had almost turned white. He was small of build, but so fit that he looked like he was made of steel.

  His complexion was very dark, with large white eyes standing out in lively, startling contrast to his face. His smile started from his two rows of extremely big, perfectly white teeth, rising up and settling in the corners of his eyes. Seeing his face, we were immediately overcome with a feeling of happiness.

  We went to the hotel and put our luggage down, took a shower, then followed Quillis-Sacha to a hotel on the banks of the Amazon River for dinner.

  Sitting at the wooden table lit with candles, and looking at the river moving quietly in the night, I was overwhelmed by the surreal feeling, of being in a dream.

  Quillis-Sacha ordered a favourite meal of the indigenous people for us—palm tree’s core mixed with lime juice and a fresh grilled fish. Pointing at the strip of milky white palm core, he said, with a playful smile on his lips, “We call that spaghetti. My parents eat it for every meal. If you eat it with homemade tapioca liquor, it’s even better.”

  “Do your parents still live in the jungle?” I asked.

  “Yes, they are used to the primitive life there where they are self-sufficient. They cannot get used to life in town. You know, the noodles and fruits they eat, and the coffee and cocoa they drink, they grow it all themselves. They even catch their own fish and meat. Their lives are simple and happy. If they have an especially large catch of fish or a good crop of fruit, they will send someone to town to tell me so that I can go and get it and bring it to town to sell.”

  “Why don’t people go from the city directly to the jungle to buy it from them?”

  “Not possible.” He shook his head. “If you are not familiar with the layout of the rainforest, or understand the local dialect, it would not be very safe. Oh—it won’t hurt for me to tell you this. Some indigenous tribes deep in the jungle, about three hundred kilometres in, still practise cannibalism today. In the past, some explorers who wandered into their territory by mistake became their dinner. They were gone for good.”

  I could not hide a shiver. Extremely anxious, I asked, “When we go to the jungle to stay tomorrow, will it be dangerous?”

  “Don’t worry. Tomorrow I will only bring you to a place about a hundred kilometres from here. The people who live there belong mostly to one of the indigenous tribes who have already been modernised, making up about seven per cent of the whole jungle’s inhabitants. You won’t be in danger.”

  When I asked him about how he came from the rainforest to the village to serve as a tour guide, he said calmly, “There are hundreds of indigenous tribes living there. I am of the Jivaro tribe. When I was seven, an American missionary team came to preach, and that changed my whole life. During the time they were preaching, they also conducted language lessons, earnestly persuading all of the tribes to send their children to school. At first the response was cold, but later, they did all kinds of good deeds, and finally they won the indigenous people’s confidence, and more and more children were sent to school. This missionary team stayed in Jivaro for over seven years, and within these seven years, I learnt English and Spanish. When they decided to leave our tribe, I asked for my parents’ permission, then offered to go with the missionary team as their cook, following them to another tribe. After living outside for three years, I was seventeen when I went back to Jivaro, partly to help my parents gather crops and fish, and partly to continue language studies on my own. That went on for a couple of years. Then one day, I felt that I was ready, so I said to my parents: I want to see the outside world. They didn’t object, and just nodded in agreement…”

  Quillis-Sacha was already twenty-five, so he had been working in the city for six years.

  “Did you decide stay in town forever?” I asked.

  “No, definitely not,” he said decisively and coolly. “I came to town to work and, more importantly, to experience a different way of life. I’ve always believed that nothing in town belongs to me, and wealth is as transient as smoke. Only when I go back to the jungle do I have any real sense of belonging. So, when I feel I have seen enough and I’m ready to go back, I will definitely return to my tribe.”

  It was getting late. We left the restaurant and strolled back to our hotel.

  At night, Equitos was hot and dark. The depressing streetlights overhead were few and far between, reluctantly letting out only a dim light. The street was filled with electric bikes, buzzing all around us as they dashed madly about.

  Feeling very excited and unsettled, I could not sleep. In the middle of the night, I finally could not stand it anymore. I shook Risheng to wake him and asked, “Hey, if we really meet a cannibal, whom should we sacrifice, you or me?”

  “Oh, we can each just give them one leg and that should do,” he said in a muffled voice, rubbing his eyes. He turned over and went back to sleep.

  I lay there, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling as I waited for dawn to arrive.

  The next morning at eight, Quillis-Sacha took us in a high speed motorboat down the Amazon River deep into the jungle.

  The river is over six thousand kilometres in length—the world’s longest river—with myriad scenes along its banks. Crystalline ripples danced as the breeze blew on its surface. The gentle morning rays fell onto the muddy yellow surface of the river, making it glisten. At a glance, it looked like countless transparent silver fish wiggling in the waters.

  Looking at the vast, boundless Amazon, I muttered to myself, “Hey, it really doesn’t seem like a river.”

  “Yeah, it really doesn’t.” Quillis-Sacha was loading numerous packages onto the tiny motorboat as he answered. “Do you know how broad it is at its widest point? A full twenty-five kilometres!”

  At a little past nine, we finally set out, all of us in high spirits. The motor roared to life, stirring up waves that leapt higher than the sides of the boat. The wind whipped at us from all directions. I lifted my head, letting my hair fly in the wind and the waves splatter on my face, feeling a joyous connection with all the world’s creatures.

  The motorboat flew along the river at high speed for more than three hours. We gradually slowed down, then finally stopped. Quillis-Sacha smiled and said, “We’re here!”

  I looked at the bank. It was completely covered in thick forest, without a trace of human inhabitants, not to mention any houses.

  Quillis-Sacha dragged the packages, one by one, from the boat and tossed them into a hessian sack. Then, throwing the heavy bag over his shoulder, he said, “Follow me!”

  The jungle road was not a product of human engineering. It was a path the indigenous peoples had made through regular walks, so it was uneven and covered in overgrowth, and very difficult to walk on. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that some parts had been wet for many years and were very muddy. Although I was wearing flat rubber-soled shoes, I slipped and fell several times. I looked at Quillis-Sacha, walking ahead of us. Though he carried a heavy load, he still breezed along so quickly!

  When we had walked for about half an hour, I was exhausted and could hardly catch my breath. We finally saw a dilapidated hut on stilts, standing alone in the middle of the shadows of the dark jungle. A huge dog rushed out from the hut, bounding up onto Quillis-Sacha in a friendly greeting. Quillis-Sacha hugged it, kissed it, and shouted, “Charlie!”

  A plump middle-aged woman walked out and smi
led as she helped carry our luggage in.

  “She’s cooking for you,” was all Quillis-Sacha said by way of introduction.

  I held on tightly to the rickety ladder and climbed into the hut. It had three small rooms, in addition to a dining area with a wooden table and stools, and a resting area with four hammocks. Only the bedrooms had wooden doors; the dining and resting areas were open on all sides.

  I threw myself into the hammock, rattling it. The lack of sleep the previous night and the difficult trek up the mountain road were catching up with me. I yawned, thinking I could catch a short nap. But Quillis-Sacha’s energetic voice came to my ears, saying, “Hey, I’m going to the river to catch some fish for your lunch. You want to come?”

  I wanted to go—really wanted to—but my eyes were closing, too heavy to stay open.

  “You two go. I’ll stay here and take a nap…”

  When Quillis-Sacha woke me, lunch was ready. There was grilled fish, one on each of the three plates. They were huge.

  “You’ve caught it and grilled it, just like that!” I gladly picked up fork and knife.

  “Hey, I have never seen a river so rich with fish!” Risheng said excitedly. “The net was cast and pulled, and the boat was overflowing with fish. Look over there. There’s still half a bucket of fish!”

  I looked over and it was true. I really regretted missing the chance to see them in action as they fished.

  “Come, eat whilst it’s hot.” Quillis-Sacha popped a huge chunk of fish into his mouth. “I bet you’ve never had fish this fresh.”

  The fish was really delicious. It was unfortunate that it had been salted a little too much when it was grilled, making it a little hard to swallow. Whilst we were eating, our cook brought out a huge plate of some fried yellow stuff. I thought it was potatoes, but when I tasted it, it was something else. It was very dry, very hard, and very plain.

  “It’s fried banana slices,” Quillis-Sacha explained. “It’s also part of the daily diet of the local indigenous people. They can’t do without it.”

  “Banana slices?” I asked in surprise. “How come it’s not sweet at all?”

  “The bananas were plucked when they were still green, and cut and fried in oil. If you fry them when they are ripe, they’re too sweet, and they can’t be used as a staple food.”

  Saying this, Quillis-Sacha puckered up his lips and made some strange sounds. After a few seconds, three monkeys jumped in agilely and climbed onto the stools, reaching out unabashedly to take the fried bananas from the wooden plates on the table. What was even more interesting was that two colourful parrots also flew in and stood on the table, eating food out of the plates and drinking from the cups without any reservation or fear.

  “Which do you want for dinner, parrot or monkey?” Quillis-Sacha asked in a natural tone.

  I gently stroked the wonderful watery blue feathers of the parrot and said confidently, “You really are a joker.”

  “Joker?” he said seriously, without a hint of joking. “The things we eat often, besides fish, are monkey, wild boar, snake, parrot, and all sorts of meat. These few monkeys and parrots are kept especially for guests who come a long way. But to tell the truth, we’ve kept them so long, I couldn’t bear to kill them. Look, tomorrow I’ll bring my gun to the jungle and kill a different monkey for you.”

  I was a bit horrified, but I thought, When in Rome…, and so did not say anything.

  After our meal, it was already four in the afternoon. I sat there playing with the three monkeys. They really had personality, their faces very expressive as they twisted their brows, shifted their eyes, and contorted their noses and mouths. I could not help but laugh at their expressions. Ah, such cute creatures. How could anyone bear to put them on a plate and consume them?

  That evening at around six, Quillis-Sacha said to me, “I’ll take you to the homes of some indigenous people by the river. It’s about a two-or three-hour walk. You’ll need some insect repellent.”

  I looked at the sky darkening outside the house and asked anxiously, “Are there many wild animals in the jungle at night?”

  “Mostly we see snakes and wild boars,” he said, as if it were nothing. “But don’t worry. I’ll manage.”

  Saying that, he went into the house. When he came out, he had a long machete and a rifle.

  “The knife is for the snakes, the gun for the boars,” he said simply. He put on his rubber boots, hung his rifle on his shoulder, and took his machete in hand. Then he called out excitedly, “Come on! Let’s go!”

  The big white dog followed closely behind us. And so we went, three adults and a dog, trekking through the undergrowth, heading into the confusing, deep jungle.

  Night came especially early to the rainforest, and when it came, it was several times darker than in most places. There was a moon on this night, its delicate yellow light falling through the thick leaves, shining on the machete in Quillis-Sacha’s hand and creating a circle of eerie green light.

  The Quillis-Sacha before me now was not at all the same reserved person I had met in the city. He had become a living creature of the jungle, more alert than a monkey, nimbler than a boar, and more ferocious than a tiger or panther. I suddenly felt shivers go down my spine. At this critical, scary moment, of all the things to think of, The Water Margin and the slaughterhouse that specially made dumplings of human meat came to my mind.

  Because of my fear, with every step I hesitated so much that Quillis-Sacha had to stop and wait for me several times. Later, when we reached a fallen log that functioned as a bridge, I missed a step and nearly fell into the canyon below, full of rocks and rushing water. Fortunately, Quillis-Sacha’s reflexes were quick enough, and he caught me, or it could have meant an unthinkable end.

  When we had crossed the log bridge, my confidence in Quillis-Sacha was restored and my mood also picked up. I asked, “Hey, how do you differentiate the paths in the jungle? How come you don’t get lost?”

  “The compass is in the sky,” he said confidently. “I rely on the stars to point the way.”

  “There are no visible moon or stars in the daytime. How do you know your way then?”

  “Oh, I’ve left many signs on the tree trunks in this part of the jungle for a long time. I can’t get lost!” he replied quickly. “Our jungle companions each have their own living habits. For example, you use your watch to keep time, but we use the changes in the type of birdcalls.”

  Saying this, he stopped, listened to the birdsong in the jungle for a moment, then smiled and said, “It’s eight-fifteen now.”

  I brought my watch close to my face, and found he was right on the mark. He went on to explain, “The birds have different calls at different times of day. If you listen long enough, you can differentiate them quite naturally.”

  I only partially believed him, but although I tested him many times, he was not wrong once.

  After an arduous trek, we finally emerged from the dark forest and arrived at a row of thatched huts beside the river. There were oil lamps lit in the huts. What I found unbelievable was that several indigenous people were lying on the floor of one of the huts, enjoying music from a handheld radio.

  “This is one of the least open of the tribes in the jungle. They have family members working year-round in town, and they brought back these luxury items for them,” Quillis-Sacha said.

  Unexpectedly, I found his tone and expression quite gloomy. Without waiting for me to ask, he continued, “Though I work in town, I don’t want my family or my tribe to be too influenced by modern civilisation because they don’t really understand it, and so they blindly pick up all the wrong habits. For instance, we were born and raised in the rainforest, and we were nurtured by the river. We drink river water, cook with it, wash clothes in it, and bathe in it. I feel there is no water sweeter or purer than that of the Amazon. But those people who come back from the city don’t want to drink the river’s waters anymore, thinking it dirty and unhygienic. They want to drink bottled spring water. Tell
me, isn’t that funny? Oh, and even worse is when they come back after living in the city for a few years, they don’t want to forage or fish, but only to lie about listening to the radio, smoking and drinking. Isn’t that infuriating?”

  To mindlessly abandon the goodness of one’s own traditions and blindly swallow the dregs of another culture was absurd and exasperating.

  Quillis-Sacha got angrier as he spoke. Unwilling to remain before this hut and watch these indigenous people who had lost themselves to the corruption of “civilisation” we turned and walked toward the river. A small boat floated serenely near the bank. Quillis-Sacha untied the knot and said lightly, “Let’s take a boat back from here. There may be crocodiles, but if we meet one, you two don’t be startled. The crocodiles in this part of the river are small. They won’t eat people.”

  Seeing me turn pale, he laughed and added, “I’ve got a crocodile-killing dagger hidden in my boots. It’s incredibly sharp, able to cut through metal or steel. I can kill a crocodile with just one blow of this knife. Just three weeks ago I killed a small one and took it back to the village to make soup. It was really delicious.”

  The big white dog wanted to get into the tiny boat with us. Quillis-Sacha said a few harsh words to it in his own language, and the dog dared not try to scramble aboard anymore, but just stood on the bank howling forlornly.

  “Why don’t you let it go back with us?”

  “I told him to walk back on his own,” Quillis-Sacha said as he helped me onto the boat. “The boat is too small. He’ll be in the way.”

  The water was quiet and smooth. In the gentle darkness, we could only hear the sounds made by the rowing movement of the wooden oars. It was monotonous, yet poetic. Fireflies flitted out of the bushes on both sides of us, flickering and sparkling like many pairs of prying demon eyes. It was quiet all around, as if the earth had stopped moving and the whole world was suddenly reduced to just the three of us. It was both a beautiful and sorrowful feeling.