“Been on holiday?” the man next to her said pleasantly.
Fernanda was caught off guard. She had spent three months in the coastal jungle studying the drought, counting dead trees, making measurements of humidity, temperature, and rainfall, and, on one occasion, fighting a forest fire started by an agricultural company to clear the forest. Her left forearm still hurt from a burn. The team had camped in the hot, barren expanse, and after two months she and Claudio had broken up, which is why she was coming back alone. They’d established beyond doubt that barren wasteland was hotter than healthy forest, and that less rain fell here, and that it was similar to an urban heat island. Far from being able to regrow the forest, they had to fight greedy marauders to prevent more of it from being destroyed. Claudio remained behind with the restoration team, and the rest of them had trekked through the deep coolness of the remaining healthy forest until they had got to civilization. She had grown silent as the forest muttered, called, clucked, and roared around her, had felt its rhythms in some buried ancestral part of her, and her pain had quieted to a kind of soft background noise. Now she looked at the man in his business suit and his clean-shaven, earnest face, the shy smile, the hint of a beer belly, and thought how alien her own species seemed whenever she returned from the forest.
“Business,” she said coldly, hoping he wouldn’t inquire any further. The plane began its descent.
The city was the same and not the same. She found out within the next few days that the cheerful family gatherings at Tia Ana’s, which she’d always enjoyed, were a lot more difficult without Claudio, mostly because of the questions and commiserations. Tia Ana had that look in her eye that meant she was already making matchmaking plans. Her mother had tickets for two for a performance of Aida at the Teatro Amazonas, no less, which was something to look forward to. Inevitably she thought about that last fight with Claudio, when he accused her of being more sexual with her saxophone than with him. Not that she’d brought her sax into the rain forest—but she hadn’t been able to take it out of its case as yet.
What was different was that there wasn’t enough rain. When the clouds did gather, there might be a scant shower over the city, but most of the rain would fall about fifty kilometers downwind. Meanwhile the humans sweltered in their concrete and wooden coops—those who had air-conditioning cranked it up—the poor on the city’s east side made do without, some falling victim to heat exhaustion. But for the most part the lives of the middle and upper classes went on much the same apart from the occasional grumbling. It seemed peculiar to Fernanda that even in this self-consciously eco-touristy city, people whom she knew and loved could live such oblivious lives, at such a remove from the great, dire warnings the biosphere was giving them.
The other thing that was different was the artist.
An anonymous graffiti artist had hit the streets of Manaus. Sides of buildings, or walls, were transformed by art so startling that it slowed traffic, stopped conversations. She heard about all this with half an ear and didn’t pay attention until she went running the day before her new project began. White shorts and tank top, her black hair flying loose, along the harborway, through the crowded marketplaces with their bright awnings and clustering tourists, she ran through the world of her species, trying to know it again. She paused at a fruit stand, good-naturedly fending off the flirtations of two handsome youths while she drank deeply of buriti juice. There were ferries as usual on the Rio Negro, and the water was as she remembered it, dark and endless, on its way to its lover’s tryst with the Solimões to form the Amazon, the Amazon she had known and loved all her life.
She turned onto a side street and there was a jaguar, about to leap at her from the windowless side of a building. She stopped and stared. It was abstract, rendered in fluid, economical brushstrokes, but the artist knew which details were essential; whoever it was had captured the spirit of the beast, the fire in its eyes, what Neruda had called its phosphorescent absence. For a moment she stood before it, enthralled, the jungle around her again.
After that she looked for more of the work, asking at street corners and market stalls. The drawings were everywhere—a flight of macaws, a sloth on a tree branch, or an anaconda about to slide off a wall onto the street. Wherever they were, there was a crowd. The three-dimensionality of the drawings was astounding. The ripple of muscle, the fine lines of feathers, the spirit come alive in the eye. She was contemplating a particularly stunning rendering of a sauim-de-coleira that a real monkey would be forgiven for mistaking for its relative, when a car full of university freshmen went by, loudly playing what passed for music among the young (she was getting old and jaded at twenty-seven!). The car stopped with a screech of brakes and the youngsters piled out, silenced, and Fernanda thought in triumph: This is the answer to the oblivious life. Art so incredible that it brings the jungle back into the city, forces people to remember the nations of animals around us.
But the next day, looking at the data from her rooftop lab, she was not encouraged. The city’s pale roofs were glaring back at the sun. What impact did the city’s heat island have on the local climate, compared to the drought-ridden sections of the forest? The drought was mostly due to large-scale effects connected with warming oceans and coastal deforestation, but she was interested in seeing whether smaller-scale effects were also significant, and by that logic, whether small-scale reparations at the right scale and distribution might make some difference. It was still a controversial area of research. She spent days poring over maps on her computer screen, maps generated by massive computer models of climate, local and regional. Could the proposed green-roofing experiment be significant enough to test the models? How to persuade enough people and institutions to install green roofs? Scientists were notoriously bad at public relations. Tia Ana would say they weren’t good at other kinds of relationships either, although that wasn’t strictly true. Her former advisor, Dr. Aguilar, had been happily married to his wife for half a century.
There was a private home in the Cidade Nova area that was already green-roofed according to the design—native plants, chosen for their high rates of evapotranspiration, mimicking the radiative properties of the rain-forest canopies. If they could get enough city officials, celebrities, and so on to see a green roof in action, maybe that would popularize the idea. The home was in a wealthy part of town, and the owner, one Victor Gomes, was connected to the university. She went to see it one hot afternoon.
It was quite wonderful to stand in a rooftop garden with small trees in pots, shrubs in raised beds arranged with a pleasing lack of respect for straight lines, and an exuberance of native creepers that cascaded lushly over the walls. There were fruits and vegetables growing between the shrubs. This was the same model that the restoration team was using in the drought-ridden portions of the Atlantica forest—organically grown native forest species with room for small vegetable gardens and cacao, rubber, and papaya trees, inspired by the cabruca movement: small-scale agriculture that fed families and preserved the rain forest. Fernanda looked over the railing and saw that the foliage covered almost the entire side wall of the house. A misting sprayer was at work, and a concealed array of instruments on poles recorded temperature, humidity, and radiative data. It felt much cooler here. Of course, water would be a problem, with the rationing that was being threatened. Damn the rains, why didn’t they come?
But she was encouraged. On her way back, her smartphone beeped. There was a message from Claudio that the initial plantings had been completed in the experimental tract, in the drought-ridden forest, and that the local villagers were tending to the saplings. The grant would help pay for the care of the trees, and when the trees were older, they would bear fruit and leaves for the people. There were only a few cases worldwide where rain forests had been partially restored—all restoration was partial because you couldn’t replicate the kind of biodiversity that happened over thousands of years—but it was astonishing how things would grow if you looked after them in the initial crucial p
eriod. Only local people’s investment in the project would ensure its success.
Claudio sounded almost happy. Perhaps healing the forest would heal him too.
The heat wave continued without respite. Fernanda saw people out in the streets staring up at the sky, now, looking at the few clouds that formed above as though beseeching them to rain. The river was sullen and slow. Everyday life seemed off—the glitter of the nightlife was faded too, and the laughter of the people forced. She spent an evening with her cousins Lila and Natalia at the Bar do Armando, where the literati and glitterati seemed equally subdued. The heat seemed to have gotten to the mysterious artist too, since there had been no new work for several days.
Fernanda found herself making the rounds of the graffiti art in the evenings. There were tourist guides who would take visitors to the exhibits. Small businesses sprouted up near these, selling street food and souvenirs. There was outrage when one store painted out the drawing of macaws on its side walls. Each time Fernanda went to see the artwork there would be people standing and staring, and cameras clicking, and groups of friends chattering like monkeys in the jungle. Once she bumped into the man she had sat next to on the plane. He was standing with his briefcase balanced against his legs while he tried to take a picture. She thought of saying hello, apologizing for her coldness on the plane, but he didn’t look her way.
She noticed him on three other occasions at different parts of the city, clicking away at the graffiti with his camera. He was photographing the crowds as much as the graffiti. Just a businessman with a hobby, she told herself. But one day, he dropped his briefcase and papers flew open. There were sheets of accounts, tiny neat numbers in rows, a notepad, a notebook computer, a badly wrapped half-eaten sandwich, and a piece of black chalk. The chalk rolled near where Fernanda was standing. The people near the man were solicitously bending over and picking up his things, but he looked around at the ground wildly. Without thinking Fernanda put her foot over the piece of chalk. She dropped her bag, bent down to retrieve it, and got the chalk in her purse with a fluidity that surprised her. It was hard and oily, not at all like ordinary chalk. There was a loose sheet of paper not far from her that the crowd had missed—she picked it up, hurriedly scribbled an address on it, put her business card and the chalk behind the sheet, and gave the whole thing to the man, looking at him with what she hoped was the innocent gaze of a good citizen. She saw recognition leap into his eyes. Obrigado. He averted his gaze and hurried off.
She spent the rest of the day feeling restless. If only she could reassure him! She wasn’t going to give him away. She’d seen the name of the company where he worked on top of the sheets. Now if only …
At home she touched her wristpad, turning on her computer. She scrolled through the news. The tornado in an eastern state of India. Arguments in the United States Senate about the new energy strategy. Floods here, droughts there, the fabric of the biosphere tearing. She thought of the Amazon rain forest, so often called the Earth’s green lung. Even some tourist guides in the city, taking their mostly North American charges into the jungle, used that term. Did anyone know what those words meant? She thought of the predictions of several models, that the great forest, currently a massive carbon dioxide sink, might turn into a source of CO2 if it was stressed enough by drought and tree-cutting. What would happen then? “Hell on Earth,” she said aloud. She wondered how many people looked up into the sky and imagined, as she did, the invisible river of moisture, the Rios Voadores, roaring in over the Amazon from the Atlantic coast. It thrilled her to think of it: flying river, the anaconda of the sky, carrying as much water as the amazon, drawn in and strengthened by the pull of the forest so that it flowed across Brazil, hit the Andes, turned south, bringing rain like a benediction. What had human foolishness done to it that there was drought in the Amazon? The green lung had lung cancer. She remembered Claudio’s face in the lamp-light at camp, speaking passionately about the violated Atlantica forest, the mutilated Mato Grosso, the fact that nearly seven thousand acres of forest were cleared every year.
“What do you think—are we a stupid species, or what?” she asked the lizard on the wall. The lizard gave her an enigmatic look.
She rested her head on her arms, thinking of Claudio, his physical presence, his kindness. The work they had been doing had drawn them together—maybe the relationship had never been more than that. And yet … the work was important. To know whether such reparations would make a difference was crucial. She was usually so positive, so determined despite the immensity of the task. Perhaps it was the drought, the lack of rain when it should be raining buckets every day, that was making her feel like this. “What shall I do to bring the rain?” she asked aloud. The wristpad beeped, and then there was a kid’s voice, distorted by electronic translation software. On the computer screen he was sitting in a hospital bed, his dark, thin face earnest. His ears stuck out.
“Sing,” he said. Behind the translation she could hear the kid’s real voice speaking an unfamiliar language. He sounded tired. What had he said? “Sing,” he said again. “Sing for the clouds, for the rain.” He started to sing in an astonishingly musical voice. She could tell he was untrained, even though the musical style was unfamiliar. But it was strangely uplifting, this music that would bring the rain. She wanted his voice to go on and on, even though the translation software was off-key. Then abruptly the screen went dark.
Where had the kid come from? She had signed on to an experimental social network software device at a friend’s urging, but the kid wasn’t in her list of contacts. The connections were really bad most of the time. She hoped he was all right.
The next day the idea of music bringing the rain still haunted her. Of course such things didn’t happen in the real world—as a scientist, she knew better. The vagaries of the climate were still beyond them, and the reparations, the stitches in the green fabric of the jungle, had just begun. The trouble with repairing the forest was that it would never be enough, without a million other things happening too, like the work at the polar ice caps, and social movements, ordinary people pledging to make lifestyle changes, and governments passing laws so that children and grandchildren could have a future. The crucial thing was to get net global carbon dioxide emissions down to zero, and that would take the participation of nearly everyone. The days of the lone ranger were gone; this was the age of the million heroes.
Still, she opened her saxophone case the next day and caressed the cool metal. It drew her, the music she had put away from her. She hadn’t answered her bandmates’ e-mails. Now she had to run to the lab—maybe this evening, she told her saxophone. We’ll have a date, you and I.
But she never got to the lab, because her colleague Maria called her, excited. As a result she went straight to the home in Cidade Nova with the experimental green roof. She went around the house to the side wall, where a crowd had already gathered. People were getting out of cars, and there was even a TV truck. From behind the foliage cascading down the wall of the house peered a jaguar, a gentle jaguar, sleepy even, at peace with the world. Fernanda let out a long breath. The artist had understood her message. The owner of the house, elderly Victor Gomes, was standing with the crowd, his mouth agape.
Within a few hours, the news spread and the crowd swelled until the traffic became a problem. Sensing an opportunity, she talked briefly and urgently to Victor Gomes, and he gave an impromptu tour of the rooftop garden. Suddenly everyone was talking about green roofs. Imagine, if you went ahead and got one (and there was a grant to help you out with costs if you couldn’t afford it), not only did your air-conditioning bills go down, but maybe, just maybe, the artist would come paint the side of your house.
Two days later there was a gala fund-raiser and awareness event at the Hotel Amazonas. Fernanda played with her old band. She put her lips to her saxophone and into each note she poured her yearning for the rain, for a world restored. The music spilled out, clear as light, smooth as flowing water, and she sensed the crowd shif
t and move with the sound, with her breath. During a break, when she leaned against the side wall of the stage, watching Santiago’s fingers ripple over the piano keyboard, a waiter came up to her and handed her an envelope. Curious, she opened it, and inside was a paper napkin, and an Amazonian butterfly drawn on it, so vivid she half expected it to rise off the napkin. She searched for him in the crowd but there were too many people. Her wristpad beeped. “A butterfly,” she whispered, and she felt the wings of change beating in the light-filled air around her.
* * *
“… CAN CAUSE A TORNADO…”
“… but scientists now know more than they did only five years ago. We will now speak to an expert…” Can you please turn off the TV? I can’t bear to see anything more about the storm … it was the same program this morning.
I am too sad to tell this story. You’ll have to wait a moment.
I am sad because my grandfather the professor died. He was not really my grandfather, but he treated me like I was his own. I called him Dadaji. He let me sleep on the verandah of his bungalow, on a little cot. I felt safe there. I cleaned and cooked for him, and he would talk to me and tell me about all kinds of things. He taught me how to read and write. From the place where I slept I could look down a low incline to the village, my village.
The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirty-Second Annual Collection Page 46