“What’d he say?”
“He wants to go back!” Omar shouted.
“In one minute, I turn around!” the pilot blurted in Spanish.
Omar gripped his shoulder. “Keep going, we have plenty of gas. Get to the airstrip!”
But the forest was an immense mask, hiding everything that lay beneath. The pilot wordlessly dipped toward an opening in the green where the river was widest.
“There!” Omar barked.
The pilot swooped down deeper into the trench of the river, struggling mightily to keep the wingtips between the branches as they flashed by on both sides. We were so close I could see individual leaves, purple and red bromeliads blooming from the crowns of the trees. We banked as the river turned, the pilot paling at every tight curve. Giant white birds burst from the banks at our approach. Beneath us, a small semicircle of cleared land edged the river, just a few dozen huts, a longhouse, everything on stilts.
“Panchito!” Omar leaned forward gripping my seat, his breath heating my bare shoulder. “Where’s the airstrip?”
“Grown over!” Panchito yelled into the noise of the engine. “We have to use the river.”
“No, we’re fucking not,” the pilot said, tendons on his neck standing out in gristly cords as he hauled back on the choke, tearing a stretch of canvas on the floor of the plane. The nose yanked up and we slammed back against our seats; again, the cargo shifted. Pistons ground together, screeching; the air filled with smoke.
Omar looked at me big-eyed, grabbed my arm. “Change places with me!” Not waiting for a response, he flipped my buckle open and yanked me toward him. I rolled onto the floor and looked up at Panchito, his face pale and clammy, fear in his eyes mirroring mine.
“Pull up the wheels!” Omar commanded the pilot, who sat motionless at the controls as we sped farther and farther from the village.
“We go back to Cochabamba!” the little man shouted.
“Pull up the fucking wheels!” Omar held a knife to his throat, nicking him. Fat drops of blood bloomed, painting a red line alongside his bobbing Adam’s apple. “Do it!”
As the pilot struggled to keep us airborne and his throat from the blade, Omar reached past him and turned a metal crank that moaned even louder than the engine. The teeth of the gear caught, grinding and clanking deep in the guts of the machine. “Now turn around and go back to Ayachero, you weak piece of shit.”
We pulled up and zoomed just under the boiling belly of clouds, banking and turning so hard I slammed into Panchito’s gut, pressing against him before the plane swung around again, releasing us from each other. We dipped, leaning again into the slipstream, but for an entire minute, the clearing seemed lost, eaten by the jungle. Just as I dragged myself back into my seat, the village came into view again, announced by a break in the bulwark of treetops. People spilled out of their huts and streamed out onto the bank, waving at us.
“Now!” Omar grunted, the knife still a breath away from the pilot’s throat.
Grim faced, never meeting Omar’s furious stare, he began our descent toward the river.
SEVEN
We dropped down from the sky tilted sideways, clipping off tree branches with a series of violent thwaps, until the left edge of the plane’s landing gear sliced into the brown water once, then twice; only when Omar flung his weight against the right side of the plane did we level out. For a few beats we skipped across the surface like a stone before smacking down hard. Chocolate-colored water sent up white foaming waves. We hurtled toward a stretch of silt—a sandbar—that ran parallel to a mildly sloping mud beach, the thick water steadily checking our speed.
No one spoke for several seconds. Shoulders and neck rigid, arms out straight, palms flat against the bug-smashed window, the reality that we were no longer airborne filtered into my consciousness a bit more with every breath.
We had landed headlong into the current, which without delay began to nudge us back and away from the narrow cut in the jungle; the huts already disappearing from view. The pilot, his mouth a sullen line, revved the engine against the braiding water; cargo and canisters rolling and banging drunkenly until they found their new equilibrium. The propeller, late to stop as well as start, finally began to slow, taking dull slices at the still air. We coasted into a cathedral of green.
Four hours of engine roar had deafened me; my ears buzzed. I dropped my head into my hands, seeking stasis, replaying Omar holding a knife to the little pilot’s throat. Who is this man? I thought, gripping my thighs, forcing breath back into my body, forcing myself to recall his words of love, the cherished way he made me feel, all the reasons I pushed him to bring me here. Soon, I heard the slap of the water against the floats, my own breathing rough in my lungs, the muffled sound of people talking and babies crying. The mournful whistle of a bird from one side of the river was answered by another of its kind on the opposite bank, like lovers in search of but never finding each other.
Omar stepped out onto one of the floats, a couple of paddles under one arm, a rope looped over his shoulder. As soon as the nose of the plane carved into dark wet sand, he drove the paddles deep into it, lassoing the rope around the handles and securing the plane at both ends. Head down, the pilot opened his own small, creaking door and leapt through it; wasting no time, he turned to the task of emptying the plane’s cargo onto the sandbar as Panchito gathered his belongings in the back.
Lined up along the shore, a silent wall of several dozen people stood staring at us, their faces hard, eyes beetle dark. The women were in rough dress: peasant shirts and skirts or brown sack-like dresses, babies strapped across their breasts and shielded from the sun by banana leaves tied loosely over their shoulders. The men were mostly bare chested or in ragged shirts, including an occasional pajama top, and sweatpants, cutoffs, or sun-bleached polyester gym shorts and flip-flops, hair worn short and greased back and parted in the middle; long or in braids for the women.
A burnt-meat smell, the reek of stale water, and a stray sweet whiff of pig dung merged with a humid, breathless heat. Rough-hewn ladders leaned against square or round huts perched on twenty-five-foot stilts. Crowned with palm-thatched roofs, the huts dotted a wide stretch of cleared land, much larger than it had looked from the air. A few long, open-air rectangular buildings—also on stilts—sat interspersed between the smaller ones. Hammocks strung from the rafters with balsa-cord ropes hung limp in the heavy air, while hollowed gourds brimming with rainwater were lashed to roof corners. The biggest building of all, the longhouse, stretched almost the whole length of the cleared land, at the back perimeter of the settlement. The jungle loomed just beyond, its reflection in the river doubling its enormity.
Balancing on the float, Omar looked back at me quizzically. “Welcome to Ayachero.”
I stepped out onto the float next to him, listening to the gentle whispers of the crowd, scanning the sad eyes that looked me up and down, searching for a glimmer of a welcoming smile. Nothing. But really, what was I expecting? A round of applause? Some random white woman shows up with the town’s golden-boy hunter who’d abandoned them a decade ago—of course they were apprehensive. Of course they weren’t jumping up and down with excitement, but I was too young and self-absorbed for that to occur to me.
Panchito scrambled out onto the floats and threw himself onto the sandbar, landing with stunning agility. The heat of the place rose up and wrapped itself around me like a wet woolen blanket; I had never felt anything close to it. I took a deep breath almost against my will, searing my lungs. The stink of diesel dissipated, replaced by the green vapors of countless trees mixed with cloying tropical jasmine. I climbed down onto the spit of sand.
A rush of mostly naked children—dozens of them—came galloping from between the spindly legs of the buildings, squealing as they raced toward the water. They weaved among their stone-faced parents, then hurled themselves in the river, swimming and splashing their way toward us, crossing the narrow channel to the sandbar in no time. They climbed up onto the fl
oats and into the cabin of the plane, where they bounced on the seats, imitating the sounds of a small plane’s engine, giggling as they turned the wheel and twisted the knobs. I had to laugh. They reminded me of my foster brothers and sisters when we were young, and all the crazy shit we got into; sure, there were hungry days, but there were moments of joy as well. That jolt of familiarity comforted me a bit. A few of the kids climbed onto the wings, creeping out to their very tips, where they balanced for a few thrilling seconds before somersaulting into the current, screaming with delight as they burst out of the water.
I wasn’t spared either. Two little girls flung their arms around my legs and hugged them, while another leapt up to touch my hair. I bent down and let her. Once I did, she turned shy, smiling as she gently patted my head with her small hands. Her own blue-black hair shone in the intense sunshine; a braided liana vine was wound several times around her taut belly above torn red shorts; she was otherwise naked.
One rather undersized boy with a large, purplish birthmark that covered half his face and much of his neck—maybe six years old—squatted at my feet, chin in hand as he stared up at me, patiently waiting for the curious girl to go away. He wore ragged shorts held up by a rope. A necklace of black and red beads was looped several times around his slender neck. When the girl finally lost interest, he stood, reached up, and took my hand. After leading me a short distance away from the plane full of children, he asked me quite seriously in Spanish, “Will you be my mother? My mother is dead.”
My gut knotted up just looking at him, his solemn, handsome face that burst into a blazing white smile as if to say, Look, I’m friendly, this will be okay. Being my mother? Not such a big deal. Still, he gripped my hand so tightly it hurt.
“No sé . . .” I don’t know.
His smile faded. I died a little.
“But I am alone, miss. See?” He turned, pointing to his little shadow, stark on the hard mud. “I only have my shadow.”
Panchito splashed across the narrow tributary toward the bank, his shirt flapping behind him. A couple of the men on the shore gave him a weak greeting, a back slap or vague hug as he made his way along the line of people toward a middle-aged woman who stood hands on hips, head cocked and lip curled, her heavy breasts under her loose shirt grazing the waist of her sun-bleached skirt. She nodded at him, a walnut-sized goiter at her neck bobbing. A machete dangled from one hand; a dead duck was draped over one shoulder, orange feet pointed down ballerina-style. I caught her looking at Omar with what might have been longing, but she glared at me until I reddened and looked away. By the time I had the courage to glance back at her, she had turned from the beach and was walking toward the center of the village, shoulders hunched and defeated looking. Panchito followed her, vanishing into the maze of huts and smoking fires.
“What’s your name?” I asked the little boy, who still clutched my hand.
“Paco,” he said, bursting with pride. “What’s yours?”
“Lily. Lirio. Like the flower.”
“Te quiero,” he said. I love you.
I loved him already, but didn’t know it and certainly couldn’t handle it; his directness, his bald need. Like looking into a little mirror of my younger self.
The pilot, his T-shirt soaked through with sweat, lifted rubberized sacks almost as big as he was—of flour, lentils, farina, dried beans, sugar, and rice—from the hold, and dropped them in the water. Coated in liquid latex to keep water out, the canvas sacks bobbed a yard apart on a rope. A bag of machetes and shotguns floated by among the foodstuffs. Jumping into the waist-deep water, the pilot, with Omar’s help, began to drag the supplies to shore.
Paco tugged at my hand. “I’m a very good boy. I work hard. I can show you things.”
“Thank you, Paco. That’s very sweet.”
Not far from us, a little girl parted another little girl’s hair, picked out something black and squirming, and bit it in half with her gleaming front teeth. I bent down to Paco and uncurled his fingers from mine, turned away to grab my backpack from the plane. Holding it over my head, I jumped down into the river. The current was stronger than it looked from the sandbar, much colder near the silty bottom that sucked at my sneakers as I pushed my way toward the bank.
Back muscles corded and straining, Omar dragged the rope knotted with the rubberized sacks, seizing my hand with his free one as we waded to the shore. Afternoon sun blazed murderously onto my back as we stood dripping on the crescent of dark sand.
Unlike my reception with the children, the adults continued staring without expression. It never occurred to me then that they might have simply felt shy. Defiantly, perhaps stupidly, I mirrored their sullenness. Even the babies had stopped crying and turned a solemn eye toward us, their mothers’ glistening nipples abandoned for the moment. Three thirty-foot canoes carved out of immense logs knocked gently against one another at a small floating dock, just slabs of wood lashed over empty barrels. Two enormous fish—six, seven feet long—lay side by side on the shore, the lips of their gutted bellies red and swollen, mouths gaping open, eyes beady black coins. In the air: the stench of gas, fish, sweat, a heavy green rot.
From this relative silence, a huge pig, bleeding heavily from behind its massive head, came screaming from behind the longhouse on the hill. Its belly dragged on the dirt, short legs and hooves scraping for purchase against the grade of the slope, a braided liana leash dragging along behind. A few pink piglets tumbled squealing behind her, snouts twitching, little asses waggling. A small man wearing a pair of sagging shorts ran out after the sow, cursing, snatching at the leash as she dragged him down the hill. A few of the men ran to help wrangle the wounded animal back up the bank and out of sight.
Still, no one moved. Omar practically crushed my hand in his; I felt the bones of my fingers bending together.
A man and a woman solemnly descended the stairs of the longhouse and made their way down the bank; a little girl clutching her mother’s skirt. Grief informed their gaits with a broken, hurt quality; they looked old beyond their years. The man looked to be in his midtwenties, the woman a teenager, maybe younger than me. The crowd let them through with a quiet respect; some even bowed their heads, stroking the shoulders and bodies of their own children, pulling them close.
The couple and the little girl came and stood before us, the man a taller version of Omar, but thinner and with a heavy brow, cheeks cratered with acne scars, the woman quite pregnant, her smooth black hair pulled back from her wide, open face. Her eyes were pinched with sadness, but somehow I could picture a smile lighting up her features; she carried herself like the town beauty she was. She nodded at me. Omar held his hand out to his brother, but Franz pulled him into a tight embrace, his face over Omar’s shoulder, stricken. They held each other a long time, as if each second contained a year of missed history, before parting, both of their heads tilted at the dark mud.
“We’re all so happy that you’re here,” Franz said.
A few smiles, nods, and exclamations of agreement brightened a face here and there, and I was almost able to exhale.
“This is my wife, Lily,” Omar said. No one spoke a word. Keen embarrassment washed over me; what would happen if they knew we weren’t really married? But Omar’s face was serene, full of pride, and I loved him for it. He took his time making eye contact with each of the villagers in turn, securing at most a smile, at least the slightest of nods. “Please welcome her into your lives. Please help to teach her what you know, be kind to her.”
“I’m Anna,” the pregnant woman said. “And this is my husband, Franz, and Claudia.” She stroked her little girl’s head, drew her close. “Thank you for coming here. Thank you for bringing Omar to help us. We know it’s a lot to ask of both of you.”
“It’s good to be here,” I said, injecting as much sincerity as I could.
“You speak Spanish,” Franz said. “Where are you from?”
“Boston, Massachusetts.”
“You have terrible snowstorms there
, in the United States,” Anna said, passing one hand protectively over her belly. “People must freeze to death in all the ice. I’d be so frightened to go there. You must be quite brave.”
“I don’t know about that.” I shifted my weight, no idea how to proceed. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
She dropped her gaze to the hard dirt. “So are we.” Franz pulled her close to him.
Up on the hill, out of view, the pig screamed, its slaughter no doubt in full swing.
The pilot, finished with his duties, yanked at Omar’s shirt. “Hey, now you pay me.”
Omar handed him some wet bills from his back pocket. Without a second’s hesitation, he began splashing back to his plane. Please don’t leave me here, I thought.
We followed Franz, Anna, and Claudia as they climbed the muddy bank to the beaten earth of the village. The crowd of villagers parted and let us through. It was a relief to hear the rustling and soft chatter as they gathered themselves and made their way back to normalcy; somehow that helped break some strange spell. Still, I felt eyes darting furtively in my direction, at my parchment-white skin, my turmeric-red hair, my bright American clothes and backpack. We passed the man gutting the pig, scooping out its entrails with a halved calabash into the biggest pot I had ever seen. He stopped to stare a moment, nodded, then went back to his work. A dozen dogs, a ratty, nearly hairless, big-eared breed, lay dozing around the pot, a few with one eye on the proceedings. A pile of plantain peels sat nearby, buzzing with flies. Somewhere a tinny radio played a jangly love song Omar and I had danced to just weeks ago on the promenade in Cochabamba.
The green wall of the jungle hissed and steamed as we passed hut after hut, each with its own oven and fire, its own set of naked children running and playing, its own underfed, fly-bitten dog, until we came to the hut farthest from the river, its oven closed and dark. Franz and Anna said their goodbyes and turned back to the longhouse as we approached the empty, cupcake-shaped building, the roof thatched palm, the sides bamboo. A fifteen-foot ladder led to a roughly square opening, which I supposed was the front door.
Into the Jungle Page 6