FOUR
– APRIL –
We met at dawn on the mornings I worked the night shift at the Versailles and couldn’t stay with him. Just to have a few minutes together before the work and grind of the day. Steps from his shop was an outdoor breakfast hole-in-the-wall that served vegetable truckers and farmers bringing their animals through town for the morning markets. A grungy, impossibly dusty place where the owners would call back to the cooks when we arrived, to say, simply, los amantes están aquí—the lovers are here—and in moments our coffees and pastry would arrive, the waiter all smiles and winks.
One bright cool morning, Omar shuffled to our table with a book bag slung over his shoulder, a pleased grin on his face.
“Sorry this is late,” he said, sliding in next to me. “But you keep me pretty busy, you know.” He tore some sheets from a notebook and handed them to me.
I swept the papers around to have a look. Omar in English. I couldn’t even picture it, but there they were, pages of his words in blocky capital letters.
“It was harder than I thought, Lily. I had to use the dictionary for almost every word. Okay,” he said with a smile. “Every word.”
I laughed, glancing it over. “This is really good, Omar.”
“So you’re giving me an A for ‘excellent’?”
I slid the papers back to him. “Not until you read it aloud to me.”
“What? No.” He shook his head. “That wasn’t part of the assignment.” He glanced around at the rough men who filled the place, as many of them drinking cerveza as coffee before eight in the morning.
“So you’re just going to hand out written notes when you’re a guide?”
“Come on, it’ll sound like a five-year-old wrote it.”
I smiled. “Omar, no one is listening but me.”
He snatched the papers up. Sighing heavily, black bangs badly in need of a trim sweeping across one eye, he pulled his battered reading glasses from his bag and slipped them on. “Okay, Señorita Lily Bushwold. Here it is: ‘Why I Want to Be a Jungle Guide,’ by Omar Mathias Alvarez.” He spoke in a low voice, his eyes glued to mine when he wasn’t reading from the page.
I nodded, elated to play teacher with him.
“ ‘I love the jungle. It is my home. I leave the jungle to make money repairing many motorcycles. I think, this is why I am on earth. Motors and wheels. But when I leave Ayachero and try the city I am unhappy. I am surprised.’ ” He rolled his eyes. “Well, the Cochabamba story is another story,” he added in Spanish.
“Go on. English.”
“ ‘I am angry about roads coming in the jungle, about poachers who kill rare game, mahogany prospectors, narcos, ranchers who burn the forests. I know, I am part of this problem, maybe, because I kill animals in the jungle, but only for saving people or to have food for the villagers. These men destroy my paradise, the paradise that belongs to the world. I call these men los hombres de oportunidad. In English, “men of opportunity.” Maybe they drive a barge that leaves poison chemicals, mercury, in ten kilometers of river to pull only ten grams of gold from the mud. Everything dies. Maybe they kill the giant pregnant mother tortoise for her shell, the baby caiman to make stupid dolls. Maybe they look for big mahogany. They don’t care what they destroy, they want the money, the money, the money.
“ ‘One of these men is Fat Carlos. His friend is Dutchie. These are men of opportunity. Five men are with them when I live there, always they kill the rare game. When I am fifteen or sixteen my belief is to fight them, fight all of them. With my hands, with guns or knives. I have violence inside. But now I am older, and I know I am one man only. What can I do?’ ”
Enamored with his story and him, I reached out for his hand; he gave me a nervous smile and continued.
“ ‘It is maybe a contra-dic-shun, but now I believe the only way to save the jungle is bringing people from all over the world to see it. Next they love it. Next they want to save it. How else to teach about jaguar, anaconda, giant river otter who is two meters long, the hilarious bird that looks insane with spikes on his head and smells bad and can barely fly, this bird is called hoatzin. How else to teach about spider monkey, titi monkey, or howler monkey you can hear from ten kilometers, about white-lipped peccary who can attack you but taste delicious, about plants that give you fresh water from their bodies, plants that heal your skin, that heal your belly, heal your mind? This is why I want to be a jungle guide.’ ” He tossed the paper on the table. “The end.”
Not caring if anyone was watching, I pulled him in for a long kiss.
“Pretty bad, huh,” he said, slipping his glasses off. “Was that a pity kiss?”
“Don’t be insane. That was incredible. You get an A plus. Are the river otters really that big? Can you really drink from the plants?”
“Yes about the plants, and we call the river otters river wolves. It’s not safe to be in the water with them, but when they play together, there’s nothing more fun to watch.”
“Now, Ohms, I want you to tell me a secret. About you, or the jungle.” His incredible story had only whetted my appetite for more.
He folded his arms, considering me. “Why?”
“Well . . . I’ve told you some things about myself I’ve never told anyone. It’s only fair . . .”
He pushed aside his assignment and we leaned in close to each other. His face grew serious, his voice almost a whisper.
“You promise to keep my secrets?”
“I promise.”
“All right.” He took my hands in his. “There’s a huge grove of mahogany, several hectares, a rare thing because there are very few groves of anything in the jungle. There’s a tribe that lives two days into the jungle from Ayachero, called the Tatinga. Only the Tatinga know where it is. When I was a kid, I hunted with them, and one day we found the grove. If the wrong people find it, like Fat Carlos, everything in that part of the jungle will be destroyed. Roads, machinery, destruction. It’ll be the end of Ayachero, the end of the Tatinga. This is sacred knowledge, Lily, and I’m trusting you with it.”
FIVE
I skipped up the stairs to the raised patio of the cantina where we met each Friday at eight. We loved this place because of the band that played slow songs; we’d dance a few before heading off into the night, drunk with each other. The evening was cool and calm, the sky rang with bright stars. I took off my backpack and had a look around. No Omar. For the first time ever, I had beat him to our usual table.
In minutes a man approached me, open shirted, big gutted, flirting hard until I slapped back with some real nasty fuck-you Spanish Omar had taught me. His face screwed up in a lemon-sucking grimace and I was rid of him. It was 8:23 by the Mickey Mouse watch I’d found on the street.
My mind raced. Maybe he was still at the shop, cranking on a busted engine he’d promised some friend would be fixed by the end of the day; he was always doing that, staying as long as it took to get the job done. Or maybe I got it wrong, and we were supposed to meet at his place first . . .
8:45. Impossible to sit there one more second. I paid for my cerveza and sprinted from the place, bounding down all the shortcuts and alleys, rats snacking on garbage lumbering out of my way as I ran. I flew up the rattling fire escape—his “private” entrance. Knocked hard. No answer. Called his name, my voice wretched in the night. Hands shaking, I got out my key and let myself in, locking the door behind me.
* * *
The overhead bulb swung back and forth, casting monstrous shadows. Suddenly cold, I opened his closet, grabbed his warmest shirt, and slipped it on. I scouted out the bottle of tequila we’d tapped the night before, took a big gulp, and sat on the bed, rocking and humming the theme song to a forgotten television show from my childhood. A few flights up, a man and woman argued loudly, their baby chiming in with its own high-pitched misery.
Half an hour crawled by. Plenty of time to listen to the scratchings of whatever lived in his wall, plenty of time to imagine terrible things, plenty
of time to finally get that I was crazy about this guy, to have no concept of how I could go on without him in my life. To feel gutted like a gourd by the prospect of being without him.
He had to be at the shop. I bolted down the rickety stairs. Head down, shoulders drawn tight, face flushed with an old shame—a chronic fear of being deceived—I jogged down the crowded streets, parting the waves of Friday night revelers, the tourists, the hustlers. Had he decided to leave me, just like that? Just get to Omar, I told myself. Then everything will be all right.
I turned the corner to the motorcycle shop. Even from a block away, I could see it was dark and shuttered, the wide garage doorway closed and chain-locked, all the display bikes rolled in for the night. Still, I banged at the window, resting my hot forehead on the cold metal of the door, searching for the calm core of myself that did not exist.
I lifted my head. A light in the back of the shop, dim, flickering. I beat at the glass, pausing only to rub a spot clean with the palm of my hand. The sound of boots on concrete. Tumblers turned in the lock, a metal finality. The heavy door creaked open. Pride long gone, I threw myself at Omar. He wrapped his arms around me, dipped his head in my hair and breathed me in.
“Where were you?” I cried.
He held me for another moment, then took me by the shoulders and pulled me away. I glanced behind him. The shadow of a person sat at a table in the back of the room. “I’m sorry, Lily. There was an emergency, and you don’t have a phone, so I couldn’t—”
“You could have come and gotten me, why didn’t you—”
“I went to the restaurant. You’d already left. Then the Versailles.”
“I went to your place, Omar. Where else would I—”
“Calm down.” He drew me to him, obviously unnerved and surprised by how upset I was. “Try to calm yourself.”
I shuddered into him a few extra seconds before he took my hand with a firm grip. I followed him past rows of bikes leaning low into their stands like dozing animals, to a shadowy alcove in the back of the store.
A heavyset man sat at a card table nursing a beer and a smoke. He wore a filthy madras shirt and ragged cutoffs. His eyes were slits in his chubby face, clipped black hair slicked back. One foot wore a rope and leather sandal, the other leg was missing from the knee down; a complex system of straps and clasps held a roughly carved wooden prosthetic. His belly was a perfectly round ball straining the two remaining buttons of the shirt.
He pushed himself to standing and held out his hand for me to shake.
“Lily, this is my brother Panchito.”
“Encantado,” he said. He smiled briefly, his eyes disappearing in puffy cheeks.
“Panchito came from Ayachero to tell me some bad news.” Omar sat heavily in a blown-out armchair, rubbing his face with his hands. “Have a seat, Lily.”
The weight of exhaustion and sorrow in the room mixed with the reek of crankcase oil, rubber, and gasoline. I pulled out a rickety stool and tried to get comfortable on it, while Panchito awkwardly took his seat again, setting his leg at right angles to his knee under the table with his hands.
“A jaguar has killed our brother Franz’s son, Benicio,” Omar said. “He was only four years old.”
Panchito stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing tray. “We saw jaguar prints at the far end of the Tortoise Beach. Way down past all the boats. We think he wandered off to play with the baby tortoises. Or maybe to gather some eggs for dinner to surprise his mother. It was Anna’s birthday. He was always trying to help. He looked a lot like you, Omar, everyone said.”
He handed Omar a beat-up photo. Omar gazed at it, then handed it to me. A little-boy version of Omar straddled an overturned canoe, grinning as he held an enormous fish to the camera.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“We haven’t found a body. No clothing, nothing. But we’re sure. The way his prints went, and then the jaguar’s . . .”
“No one heard anything?” Omar leaned forward in his chair, shoulders rigid, strong hands hanging down loosely from his wrists. Harsh overhead light carved dark circles under his eyes as he focused on some distant point on the floor. Fear flipped my heart; I knew him, but not well enough to know how this would touch him.
“The men were hunting,” Panchito continued. “The women—mostly they were in the manioc fields. The Frannies were down from their camp teaching the older kids, but they do that in the longhouse. It’s hard to hear from up there.”
“The Frannies are two American missionaries,” Omar said, eyes still glazed over. “Both named Frances. I’m amazed they’re still around.”
Panchito crossed his arms high over his belly. “It’s not like it was. So many men have left, Omar, so many young families, off to San Solidad, then La Paz. We’re down to maybe a hundred now, lots of old people, lots of kids. Maybe half a dozen guys who can still hunt. You leaving . . . It gave everyone ideas.”
Omar hunched his shoulders. “How’s Mother?”
Panchito smiled a little, running a thick paw through his slicked hair. “She’s tough, you know, she can handle a lot. But this one hit her real hard. Her little grandson, you know. She wants you to come home, Omar. Everybody does.”
* * *
Later that night, we sat across from each other at a rickety table in his tiny kitchen alcove, the bottle of tequila between us.
“Let me come with you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He grabbed the bottle and got up, leaning against the sill of the open window as he drank, stars glittering in the night sky behind him. Fuck, he was beautiful. His rugged jawline, that direct stare, his utter lack of self-doubt. This power he had. I felt a dropping sensation in the deep space of my pelvis, telling me what it wanted, yet again; I had a premonition of the beginning of a bad habit, a brand-new one for me—child that I was—but the part of me that should have been afraid—Jaguars! Snakes! Tarantulas!—was obliterated by the strongest pull of all, sweeter and darker and delicious. And who can argue with the body and biology, the thing that keeps the world spinning on its axis? I wasn’t the first in line for that.
The yellow liquid in the bottle swished like nausea in his grip, the blind tequila worm twisting in the dregs. He took another drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Suddenly he looked a decade older than his twenty-seven years.
I got up and snatched the bottle from him, took a gulp, my head already warm and runny and spinny after two sips. “I’m coming with you.”
All information to the contrary, I had begun to conjure some fairy-tale magical life under the stars in “nature,” away from the filth and noise of the city; just us in a hut making love endlessly for the rest our lives. He would kill the jaguar, and all would be well. His family would welcome me with open arms. Fruited trees would drop their bounty on us; the fields of manioc—whatever that was—would provide.
Everything I knew about the jungle then came from The Jungle Book. Surely a kind and wise panther animated by some baritone-voiced actor would guide me through the not-very-scary cartoon perils of a green and mysterious world.
“No electricity. No running water. No fancy restaurants, no roads, no stores, nothing. You live in a hut made of palm and bamboo.”
Stores? Really, I couldn’t care less. And fancy restaurants? Wasn’t that where rich people went to celebrate with their families? “I’m fine with that.”
“Have you ever fired a gun?”
“No, but I’ve seen plenty of—”
“Movies? Do you know how to use a bow and arrow?”
I shook my head.
He began to pace. “A slingshot? Blowgun? Spear? You afraid of blood? You’re a vegetarian, for crying out loud, you’ll be freaked out every second of every day. Everybody eats meat there, fish. Not from some market where it comes wrapped up all pretty, understand? Catch it yourself, clean it yourself, cook it yourself.”
“You’re not going to talk me out of it.”
H
e laughed and shook his head. “You wouldn’t survive. You’d be begging me to leave in a week.”
“Bullshit, Omar. I can handle it.”
“You can handle insects, and heat, and floods? Me being gone on hunts for days and days?”
I folded my arms hard over my chest. “Why don’t you think I can hack this? You think I can’t learn new things, I’m soft or something? You think I’ve never had to fight for my life?”
He couldn’t suppress a warm little smile. “Tell me about that.”
“This girl in a group home I was living in. She hated me, no idea why, still don’t know. She was in some kind of gang. I woke up one morning and she’d hacked off most of my hair while I was sleeping. She said, ‘Meet me outside tonight, six o’clock, all my girls will be there to beat the shit out of you.’ ”
“What’d you do?”
“I showed up.”
“Did you have your switchblade?”
It was my turn to pace. “Yes. But in the end I just used my fists. They made me fight this big girl, not the one who’d cut my hair. This one was twice my size, a monster. The rest of them stood back. Made bets. Cheered her on.”
“What happened?”
“She wasn’t as angry as I was. And no way was she as scared. She was just big. Slow.” Could never forget the look of surprise on her face as I jammed my knee in her back, her cheek grinding into the gravel. “My foster brothers showed me a bunch of tricks, because I was so small.”
“You’re very brave.”
“Maybe I’m just stupid.” I huffed back to my seat and plopped down, miserable in my stew of love and desperation. “Begging to go fight jaguars with you.”
“I love you, Lily. That’s why I’m telling you how hard it is.”
We were both quiet a moment, his declaration of love seeping into me like syrup into a cake.
“What the fuck, Omar?” I said more softly now. “What about learning English? What about being a guide? Don’t you want that anymore?”
Into the Jungle Page 4