by Sunniva Dee
Pap engulfs my hand in both of his and performs a quick handshake in the true meaning of the word. I feel the muscles of my upper arm loosen from the small but quick thrusts. Levari translates over his staccato explanation that since we’re to live among them, we’re being renamed.
“You are Eva, and Luka is Luck.”
“Does he know what Luck means?” Luka asks.
“Oh yes,” Levari says, smiling. “He thinks you need it.”
It’s incredible to experience firsthand what you’ve only studied from afar. I knew the jungle night isn’t quiet, but I had no idea how loud it really is until darkness falls, blackening the surroundings completely.
Luka and I have been given a small hut with a hard-packed, dirt floor. The Amazon hosts one third of all living species in the world, and it seems half of them are nocturnal. I hear buzzing of wings—insects, bugs, large and small. Flapping of feathers. High-pitched calls. It turns out that slithering is distinguishable to the human ear if you’re wide awake and hold your breath.
I thought I had prepared myself for this experience, studying the flora and the fauna as well, but when howls reach us from afar, there’s no way to tell if they’re human or some animal’s. There’s a deep growl too, and that makes me sit up fast. It sounds like it’s right outside our door.
“Shh,” Luka whispers and pulls me down beside him. “Don’t be scared.”
Before bedtime, he suggested, mischievous grin in place, that we zip together our sleeping bags. I told him that we could definitely do that—in his dreams.
“That was a growl though,” I explain in case he missed it.
“Yes, but do you hear anyone stirring? It’s completely quiet out there.”
“Oh my god,” I start, but he cuts in, mouth against my ear.
“No, not oh-my-god. Oh-my-god would have been if the Lara’ were freaking out. Since they’re not, it means they’re not concerned.”
My head thumps back on the sweater I’m using as a pillow. “That’s true, huh?”
“Yep.”
He lays down again too, and we wait, breathing together. Luka’s arm touches the length of mine.
“Lots of sounds out there,” I murmur. “It doesn’t scare you at all?”
He turns toward me and strokes my cheek. A section of his hair falls over mine on the yoga-mat-like mattress. “Have you ever used sleep apps on your phone?”
“Sure, why?”
“It drowns out the sounds around you. So now we’re in the middle of a live sleep app production.”
My laughter creaks out through my nose. “What an urban thing to say.”
“Hey, call it what you want. Makes sense though, doesn’t it?”
I turn too, feeling closer to this man; there’s something about being alone together in the middle of a nowhere that’s green and fragrant and wet.
When I was little, I learned that it doesn’t matter how dark the world around you is. If you stare long enough, you will distinguish shadows and light. Now, I stare toward the faint scent of shampoo and man. Toward the barely there breathing of someone who decided to put his life on hold to follow me into the wilderness.
Blunt fingertips stroke me again, pulling sections of hair away from my temple. I stop his movement with my hand. He halts under my grasp, but I don’t free myself of his touch. Instead I leave my hand there, keeping him close, and I watch him until the glint in his gaze becomes visible.
“Thank you,” I say. “You were right. I do need you here. Thank you for coming along on this trip.” It’s overwhelming to say out loud, because I’ve harbored resentment for so long. I’m glad he can’t see my throat bob as I suppress my emotions.
He could have done what he’s good at: rub it in, saying he was right and what took me so long. He could have gone the tepid polite route too and said “No problem. I needed a break from my studies,” like he did at home. But he does neither of those things. Instead Luka’s tone is humble when he says, “I’m where I want to be.”
When the rain starts to tickle the forest roof above us, lending more sound than humidity, I feel a sigh press out of me. “They’ve got their camp set up nicely, don’t they?”
“Yeah, they do. The trees are so thick, so full of leaves, I bet they can fend off even the wet season here.” Luka touches the dirt at the base of the wall behind me. I study his arm extended over us on its way back, the lines of muscle and joints shadowing the darkness of our new home.
“I like the sound of rain,” I breathe, my heart speeding up a little.
“It’s natural, you know.”
I don’t reply. I just wait for him to continue, and he does.
“It’s white noise, like in a mother’s womb. People talk about it being peaceful in there before you’re born, and it might be, but it sure isn’t quiet.”
“Why isn’t it quiet?”
“The mother’s intestines are loud when they work. Our intestines always work, digesting food, and so forth.”
“Eww.”
He breathes a low chuckle at my response.
It’s easier to be forgiving of mistakes and lifestyles when you share a home with someone in the wild. So when Luka traces my lip with a finger, I let him. When he kisses my lips chastely, softly, I let him.
It takes us a few weeks to adapt to the slow rhythm of the jungle. When Luka and I arrived here, we didn’t bring what we had shipped to Tacua. The plan was to see how we would manage with only our backpacks filled with the essentials for my studies, our first-aid kit, and the small handheld camera we brought to document my encounters. It has worked so far, but it’s nice to know we have backup.
Most of the day among the Lara’ consists of house chores if you’re a woman, and hunting or fishing if you’re a man. A small river streams quietly beyond the clearing, and with scouts on the lookout for predators, we bathe there and wash our clothes.
Children splash water at each other, shouting and laughing. Raka, a young newlywed with a baby on her hip, teaches me how to scrub my clothes. Her eyes seem to reflect the sun whether it’s there or not, narrowing with humor over mistakes only she sees in my technique. Her husband, Tujy, is the only warrior visiting us at the riverbank. Sinewy and bright-eyed like his wife, he’s generous with kisses to his baby’s head and Raka’s lips. The two of them make me feel light inside.
Lara’ Nation has a shaman, Kumunja, who communicates mystically with the age-old jaguar Syriyu, a large male that has watched over the village for generations.
Kumunja explains that if they don’t share their grilled deer and parrots with the king jaguar, the Lara’ people’s luck will run out. He doesn’t believe their new large, very white mascot, Luck, can alter this fact. He side-eyes Luka impishly while Levari translates.
For now, there has been no sign of grief in women or men. Their sense of humor is infectious, and the little ones love to spy on Luka and me. Whenever there’s an especially delicious meal to be had, we’re called to the bonfire and get to be second, after Chief Pap, to taste it. On these occasions, the little Lara’ women sit clustered together, watching Luka savagely bite through his chunks with little to no fear of the unknown.
I used to despise how he ate, but after three weeks with the Lara’, I understand the rapt admiration from the cooks. I see his ardor with their eyes. They press their hands together over necklace-adorned breasts and grin while he devours their treats. I’ve seen them fight to get to Luka first and be the one hand-delivering their offerings. Playful, Luka bows his head to them, and later, he laughs as he wipes his glistening mouth with the back of his hand.
“The jungle isn’t so bad,” he murmurs lazily from the hammock he built himself the other day. “I’m thinking I’ll stay here when you leave.”
“Yeah, right.” I laugh, patting his stomach. “If they keep feeding you like that, you’ll end up with an old-man gut.”
“Yeah?” He tenses his stomach, displaying heart-stopping ridges. “I guess I’ll have to be careful then.”
Hysterical wails reach us from the forest behind the head warrior’s hut. In a flash, all women within eyesight drop what they’re doing and rush to the edge of the clearing. Children stumble after their mothers and grandmothers, cries and howls increasing and multiplying. I don’t need an interpreter for this feeling, because this, this is how Lara’ Nation speaks disaster.
It’s why I’m here, in the jungle, but my heart can’t accept it.
“Oh no,” I hiss, while Luka jumps out of the hammock and latches onto my hand. For a split second, I glance down at our grimy fingers. They entwine us hard. There’s poetry in it, in our hands—
Until we run toward tragedy.
Grief strikes Lara’ Nation like a band of rabid monkeys. It’s so big, so loud that I shrink from the cluster of our people. Yeah, it’s how they feel to me: our people. They’ve accepted us as equals and tribesmen. They’ve allowed us into their laughter and their struggles.
It’s Tujy this time. I know it’s not uncommon for warriors to lose the fight against their prey. With still-primitive weapons, it’s man against beast, and sometimes man loses.
Tujy returns prone, held high on the arms of his warrior friends. Silent, they parade him into the uneven village square, and frozen, I observe death firsthand, not on a lit-de-parade in a church, not in my mind while I think I could have stopped it. This was unavoidable. This is life in the Amazon, life between the Lara’ where they live it as it’s supposed to be lived.
I bow my head.
“Baby.” Luka’s sigh at my ear. The compassion. His endearment. This isn’t about me, not at all, but his support softens a knot in my chest. I’m thankful that he doesn’t tell me it will be all right.
I die inside looking at Tujy’s wife. Raka was the sunniest of them all. I haven’t seen her without a smile on her face and their baby on her hip. He’s on her hip now, eyes larger than their future ahead.
I’m an anthropologist, and this is exactly what I’m here for. To study her, describe what happens in the Lara’ society when something like this happens. But this is Raka. It was Tujy. I don’t know the name of their baby, but that baby just became fatherless.
My mind is ruthless, an objective scientist’s brain that insists I pull out my camera to document, but I don’t, because above it all, I am human.
I wish I didn’t know what will happen to her next.
My fiancé died. I didn’t hurt anyone by wishing I had my notebook at his wake. Maybe I wouldn’t hurt Raka by filming her, but the thing is, it doesn’t feel right.
“It might not happen,” I whisper to Luka. “It’s been decades. Plenty of tribes have evolved beyond customs that hurt their villagers.”
Luka doesn’t speak as he pulls me in, thick arms drowning my face and shielding my head. He covers my view of villagers lamenting their jaguar god. He hides my view of Tujy’s wife at their center, on her knees, naked except for a string of leaves circling her hips and tracing the ridge between her buttocks.
“So alone,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry.”
It does start, the ritual I learned of when I connected with the Lara’s story back when I was thirteen. It slams me in the chest, but Luka is there to catch me when my knees buckle.
I’m the scientist, but I’m not good at this after all, this balance between compassion and description.
I lose all pretenses when they do what I knew they would, dig a hole between the head warrior’s and the chief’s house, at the center of the village square where everyone walks. I turn into Luka and let him hold me tighter than I’ve let anyone hold me since Julian.
“It’s okay. It’s what they do, baby. They do it because it’s right for them.”
“I know.”
Behind Levari, I catch the silhouette of a tribesman arching his neck in a wolf-like howl.
“Please, keep translating,” Luka murmurs to Levari, and grief-stricken gratitude bolts up my chest; I need to observe, but my emotions are in the way right now. I’d miss out on it all if it weren’t for Luka.
They strip Tujy of his loin cloth. It’s so he can meet the king jaguar man to man, predator to predator. I’m from a different place and a different time. A stab of pain smacks me in the stomach when they fold him in a way you don’t fold humans.
They stuff Tujy into the ground like we do garbage in the West. But he’s not garbage as they pack dirt on top of him, chanting prayers and well-wishes and thank-yous. He’s not garbage when they recount the story of every prey he caught, every meal he put on the table for the chief of the Lara’, for the shaman, and for his family.
Raka sobs. How old is she? So young. She wails the despair I never did. Now, I wish that I’d cried too.
They support her husband, while she’s just the mother of his son. It’s not easy to be an objective observer when all I want is for Tujy’s wife to have a word. I had the support she does not, but despite it all, Raka is lucky to know how to mourn.
I’m not cut out for this. Luka knows it even before I start to cry. My lungs contort with sadness and wheeze with the air I push out through my sobs. This isn’t about me. I shouldn’t fall apart right now. It’s them, all of them. The Lara’ people just lost one of their best warriors, and there’s a wife out there, one whose sunny eye-glint kept me scrubbing my shorts in the river even as I cursed inside over the lack of everything.
Tradition made the tribesmen jump on top of Tujy’s grave in a stark display of sacrilegious. When I couldn’t keep it together, Luka brought me back to our hut.
“You have to let it go.” Luka’s voice is firm. His hands squeeze my shoulders as I curve into my sorrow. I want to howl too, a shadow-howl directed inward. I want to scream over the unfairness of the loss of a twenty-year-old warrior with a baby and a wife who loved him. I want to rage over the loss of a flawed, dependent, sweet man whose secrets I didn’t learn until he was gone. It’s mixing in my head and in my eyes, which brim with it all, too much.
Luka jerks me to reality and swings me around. Grabs my cheeks harder than I expect, so I gasp, gasp through my tears and he hisses, “You’re losing it. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I know what you’re doing.”
I stutter syllables that break.
“In your head, you’re mixing Julian into what they’re doing. Geneva!”
“Wha-at?” I shout my reply.
He shakes my shoulders, rattling the now I’m in. “This isn’t it!”
“Then what is?”
He draws me against him, a big, tall wall of comfort. Dusk takes over, and our flimsy palm-leaf door can’t keep the village’s panic out. Because that is what it is out there. Panic. They were two hundred and fifty-three inhabitants. Now they are two hundred and fifty-two. That’s not enough when a big bread-winner just left.
“You want to know what is?” Luka rumbles against the length of my body. Pressed together, we stand on top of our haphazard sleeping bags, the would-be yoga mats, the would-be pillows.
“Yeah.”
“What is, is you. How you treat what’s happening right now. Why did you come to the Lara’ in the first place?”
“To...” I choke on an inward breath. “To study and describe the women and their grief.”
“Did you want to fix something for them by doing that?”
“Why are we talking about this? I... think I want to go home.”
“Did you?” Luka insists.
“No. We don’t do that. We just.... describe.”
“For who though? For yourselves?” he asks.
My hiccough takes over, but I know what I need to tell him, exactly what has the potential of making this situation bearable. “I want to... share what happens here. Make the world understand they’re complicated. Tha
t their customs and beliefs are intricate and... humane... and there is a complex system beyond what seem like barbaric rites.”
“And is that what you’re doing right now? Are you helping the world understand one of the last primitive tribes on the planet?”
I inhale, but the air doesn’t hit my lungs.
“Why. Are. You. Bugging me?” I feel so small. Here I am, the second western female ever to reside with the Lara’ people, bound for failure because I’m not ready to absorb and describe. No, no, I’m dying to let my own right-and-wrongs guide me to the chief of the Lara’ and shout how things should be done at him.
In one desperate instance, I want to dig up the naked remains of Tujy, swathe him in white cotton, and put him to rest in a coffin that’s expensive and beautiful and solid and has golden inscriptions like... Julian’s.
My face feels drenched. Luka’s hands go around it and angle me upward until I stare into pure compassion.
“Geneva. Listen. We’ll sleep, okay? According to Levari, nothing more will happen tonight. They’re waiting for far-away relatives to arrive before the funeral feast commences. You’ll see, baby. After some sleep, things will look brighter.”
Luka’s eyes shine in the darkness. “Then, you need to do what you’re here for. What happened to Tujy is horrific, but you have a job to do. You’re here to document. To write so later you can spread the word. You want to tell their story in a way no one else has before. Maybe you’re the one person who can do them justice.”
Lightness seeps into my grey, a sensation I shouldn’t allow. Still, I rise on my toes, craving more of this feeling. I tip my nose high so I can burrow into the nook behind Luka’s ear, and I allow his hair to veil me from reality. He smells like bonfire and insecticide and man. He smells like harbor. I kiss his neck, and for a moment, Luka stops breathing.
I turn his face to me, then, and kiss his mouth. I lick the straight, stubborn line of his bottom lip. Close my mouth over the twin arc of his upper lip. He lets me. Luka hikes me off the dirt floor and stands still in our hut until my arms wrap around his neck and he understands that I’m where I need to be.