He didn’t answer, though he must have heard her; he stood with Omar at the edge of the camp near the gift rack, smoking and talking. All manner of trinkets: spoons, hand mirrors, a pair of sunglasses, an empty plastic water bottle, and cigarette lighters dangled from a fifteen-foot-long liana strung waist-high between two trees like a clothesline.
“Of course his name is unfortunate—forces me and everybody else to take the name of the Lord in vain every time it’s said—and believe me, I’ve tried talking him out of using it, but you know . . .” Here, she let her hand rest on the radio dial; it spun uselessly. “None of these people—in any of the tribes around here—will tell you their real name. It’s a quirk of theirs we just have to live with.” For God’s Sake remained mum, stringing up a few small flashlights before pausing to take a swig of rum from a flask in his pocket. “But For God’s Sake loves Jesus, don’t you?” she called out to him.
“I love Jesus, over,” he said, facing the tangled mask of forest.
“See that? It took a while, but now—well, I don’t know what I’d do without him. He’s my mouthpiece to his people, even though we haven’t quite broken through yet. But that’s our work.” I followed her out of the house. She fingered the hanging gifts strung out along the line, squinting into the malingering green. “That’s why we get up in the morning, and it’s a blessing to have a reason, so who are we to complain, right, A?”
FrannyA laid down a capybara, a jungle rodent as big as a small dog, on the beaten earth, its face in a death rictus, distended belly about to pop. She took a step back from it. The smell was overpowering. “Don’t know how we missed this, B. Looks like it’s been here a while.”
Suddenly my head swam with bright, sick color. I stumbled to the boundary of the compound near the gift rack, just before falling to my knees and throwing up. In a moment, Omar’s hand rested on my back, but I pushed him away. My ears buzzed; the heat of the afternoon threatened to shut me down completely. All I wanted was to curl up in my hideaway in the storeroom away from everyone.
“Let’s get the sewing machine loaded up,” Omar said, helping me to my feet. “We have to get moving. We can’t lose the light.”
* * *
It took all five of us to deadlift the sewing machine desk onto Perla’s back and strap it on tight. We tried to balance out the weight by loading a bag of books and magazines on her other flank. She didn’t seem to mind the clumsy, heavy load at first, but when we got walking, she began to snort and whinny, especially as she navigated under, around, and over the drooping vines. All three of us worked our machetes hard to make the path wider for her; my hands chafed and bled with the effort. When we saw that her fur was being rubbed off in places by the machine, Omar took off his shirt and tucked it between her and the sharp-cornered desk. Mosquitos and flies swarmed him, but he brushed them off and kept going, his face steadfast.
As we made our way through the choking green, I couldn’t help recalling Doña Antonia’s threats to kill Perla for meat. She really was achingly slow, and ate a lot for her size, and tended to get in trouble: sticking her big nose into people’s stores of corn or rice, knocking over piles of wood, braying in the middle of the night just to hear her own voice. I’d lay there smiling as I listened to her, happy to hear a friend in the darkness. But the truth was, I badly needed her to carry the wet laundry up the hill, which she did without complaint; I was lost without her. After my close call, I’d begun washing clothes in a big shallow tin pan Anna lent me; still, I couldn’t keep Perla from lollygagging in the shallows nearby, cooling off, grinning with pleasure. I was terrified the eels would get her, or piranha. I loved that fucking donkey.
The sewing machine clanking and squeaking, we slogged another hour on the narrow path until pale stabs of evening light cut through the dense green: we were almost to the village. Perla stopped short, her wide body swaying before it stilled. For God’s Sake landed his machete in the base of a tree with a sharp crack before racing past me. Ahead of us on the trail tumbled a mass of fur, fluff, and feathers, a muffled, high-pitched screaming coming from it. It looked like two puppies rolling around in a ball, playing, but there are no puppies in the jungle.
“What is that?”
“It’s okay, Lily, stay calm,” Omar said.
“A wolf spider,” For God’s Sake said. “Eating a chicken baby, over.”
The pitiful keening stopped, the chicken’s life over, but the frantic rolling continued, now with a snapping and hissing. “I was wrong. Two wolf spiders, fighting for the chicken baby, over.”
Perla whinnied, wagging her head in fear, the whites of her eyes big, mouth frothing as she attempted to rear back on her hind legs, but the weight of the sewing machine kept her solidly on the ground. I stroked her tangled, rough mane and cooed to her, but she was shaking and refused to take another step forward. The three of us spoke to her in low tones as the ball of furry legs and bobbing abdomens as big as fists entwined, eventually rolling off the path into the forest. In moments Perla settled, perhaps forgetting she’d seen anything at all, and followed her nose to the light.
TWENTY-TWO
That evening, For God’s Sake offered us his hut to give us a break from the longhouse. In fact, he said we were welcome to it as long as we wanted, since he was leaving for San Solidad soon anyway and a hammock in the longhouse would suit him just fine. Grateful and exhausted, Omar and I settled into his small but well-kept hut. I decided to wait till the next morning to deal with Charlotte and the birds.
Under a tattered, moldy poster of the Virgin Mary, we woke the next morning on a thin straw mat under wilted mosquito netting. As he dozed, arms around me, I turned the moisture-swollen pages of my battered copy of Pride and Prejudice, mesmerized. My head swam with elegant balls, where glorious food was served and uptight white people who never said exactly what they meant swirled in bodice-cinching gowns on a marble dance floor, holding each other at arm’s length while staring meaningfully into each other’s eyes.
Omar stirred; he rested both hands on my belly, as if weighing me, assessing me. “Lily,” he said. “Put the book down. Look at me.”
All I wanted to do was read, but something in his voice was so serious that I slipped a piece of straw between the pages and turned toward him. A window-shaped square of yellow sunlight burned into the far side of the hut, but we lay in shadow.
He gently traced the contours of my face. On his—an expression of wonder, of rapture, all mixed with a trace of confusion. It frightened me. I thought, What have I done wrong now? He said, “Why didn’t you tell me you’re going to have our child?”
“What? What are you talking about? I’m not—”
But I couldn’t finish my sentence because I had to run down the stairs and hurl. I stayed on my hands and knees like an animal, eyes closed, breathing the smell of jungle rot and half-digested banana as I finally let myself listen to what my body had been screaming for months: you are not just yourself anymore; your body has said yes to Omar in every possible way; you have another life growing inside of you that will do what it needs to survive—make you puke, make you exhausted, make you swell, make you cry at nothing, make you a mother.
Oh sweet Jesus, Omar was right.
I wiped my mouth, spat, sat back on my haunches and laughed a short, rueful laugh: Ignore what’s happening to you, Lily, that will make it go away. All my life I was so busy protecting myself emotionally; my strategy with my physical body was to pretend it didn’t exist. Menstrual pain? What’s that? I barely had my period anyway; sometimes I didn’t get it for months at a time. Besides, what a luxury to piss and moan about some fucking cramps. I felt nothing, thank you. It was amazing what I could tune out. But look where it had gotten me . . .
Omar helped me to my feet. Held me while I cried, said, “Lily, why are you sad? This is our child—”
I pushed him away. Stood in my sack dress, filthy, frightened, the sun already beating me senseless. How did I get here? A year ago I was in Boston, sleepin
g in church basements, skimming singles at my cashier job to save for a flight to South America. “I don’t want to have a kid. Are you crazy? This is nuts.” I gestured helplessly at my belly. “I’m a freaking teenager. I can’t take care of anything.”
“You take care of Charlotte, and those macaws.”
“I don’t even like kids.”
The rapture left his face, and I was ashamed. “Yes you do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Paco loves you.”
A sweetish mealy smell drifted by. A pot of farina boiled on a nearby stove. My stomach heaved again, then settled for the moment.
“What happened to his parents?”
“His mother died in childbirth. His father drank himself to death. His face—no one will take him in like a son. They say he has the mark of the devil.”
“When you say stuff like that, I think Ayacherans are no better than the Tatinga, even though they act like they are. Didn’t the Tatinga kick out For God’s Sake because of his leg?”
His shoulders slumped. “Old ways of thinking die hard.”
With the first consciousness of something growing inside me, I touched my belly with trembling hands and a squeamish fascination. It was no longer flat, but rounded, the flesh firm, as if my body already knew to protect its precious cargo. But how big was it? Like a peanut? All curled up like a little shrimp?
“Omar, we met at the end of March. It’s July. Think about it—I could be three, maybe four months along. Oh my God, I’m so stupid.”
He put his arms around me. “It’s going to be okay, Lily. I love you. I don’t say it very much, but I do. I’ll always take care of you and the baby, always protect you.”
“Who’s going to deliver it?”
“FrannyB’s delivered hundreds of babies. Beya has, too. All the women help. For God’s Sake brings all the medicines we need. But if there are any concerns, the women go to San Solidad.”
“How did we get here, Omar?”
He laughed and drew me to him. “Well, we haven’t been careful. What’d you expect, Liliana? I had this idea it was this unspoken thing between us, that we wanted a family. That of course a child would come from our love for each other, as a natural thing. And that’s what happened.”
“You make it sound so nice.” I began to cry. “So normal.”
“Come on, Lily. You’ll be the most beautiful mother. I can’t wait to see you with our child in your arms.”
We sat close to each other on a bench under the hut, crying and laughing together, watching the women of Ayachero go about their morning duties: lighting the ovens, chopping vegetables, combing their children’s hair. My feelings flipped from excitement to terror and back again as I watched the visibly pregnant ones go about their tasks. Soon, the smell of cooking gruel was eclipsed by that of grilled meat, which for the first time in memory smelled wonderful. I was dizzy with hunger. “Can you bring me some of that?”
“You want meat?”
“Maybe I won’t throw it up.”
In minutes he returned with two bowls of meat cut up into strips. He used a banana leaf to eat his, but I couldn’t even stomach the smell of that, so I ate with my hands from the ceramic bowl. It was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted; smoky and crisp and charred on the outside, barely pink on the inside. I felt much better afterward and headed up to the longhouse. It was past time to check on Charlotte and the baby macaws.
Just as I started up the hill, the sky—which had turned a murky green—opened up. A steady deluge transformed the earth under my feet into streaming mud that gushed past my ankles. Soaked to the skin, I charged up the steps of the longhouse, past several hunters sleeping off their sugarcane brandy in the slowly swaying hammocks, past Doña Antonia carving more meat at the fire. She didn’t raise her head to look at me.
My baby macaws nestled in their corn silk pillow in the storeroom. They squeaked when they saw me, flapping their little turquoise wings. Blue tufts fluffed off and floated in the heavy humid air as their beaks yawned open in a parody of hunger. I scrambled in my wet pockets to extract the handful of black aguaje seeds, their favorite. They ate every last kernel and clearly would have downed more if I had them. I tore a banana leaf from a heavy branch that grew near the window, filled it with rainwater, and dripped it into their mouths until they seemed to not want any more. That was when I noticed Charlotte’s leash lying on the floor, but no Charlotte. I examined the braided rope. The loop that had encircled her neck had been sliced open.
My hands trembled with rage. I gathered up the little birds—still begging for food in their sweetly pitiful way—grabbed the liana, and marched out to the main room of the longhouse. A few of the men had begun to stir, lured by the platter of the grilled meat.
Doña Antonia sat on a low stool, tending the meat with great attention. Breathless, I stood over her, dripping onto the thin plywood floor. “Where is she?”
She turned to me, wiped her greasy hands on her skirt. Steam sprung silver coils along her hairline, her thick braid a long, tight snake twisting to the floor.
I lay the birds next to my feet and thrust the liana leash under her nose. “Tell me where she is.”
Doña Antonia glanced down at the leash, then gave me a look I will never forget. A mix of pity, compassion, even the beginnings of a strangled affection. Finally she said, very gently, “Oh no, Lily. Charlotte is right here.” She gestured at the platter of meat by her side, then at the big iron pot where we cooked the food for the dogs.
“What have you done?”
She picked at a back molar with a stubby forefinger, gazing out into the wall of gray water falling just yards away. “Do you know, Lily, that twin baby girls were born here last night?”
“What does that have to do with me?” I gaped in horror now at the grilled strips of meat that I had so enjoyed barely an hour ago. At the velvety pink pig ears sizzling and spitting in a shallow pan of fat.
“What does that have to do with you, Miss America?” The compassionate look was gone, replaced by the usual ornery, impatient one. “It means,” she said, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together as if they held some sort of currency, “there are two more hungry mouths in this village, okay? Two more empty bellies to fill every day. Every day. Now, do you think I make some magic to get the food, the meat?”
“You killed my pig!”
The men looked up from their seats around the fire, clearly enjoying the show.
“It is not your pig. It’s everyone’s pig.” She turned and stooped, flipping the meat on the hot coals.
I went to slap her, but she whipped around like she had eyes in the back of her head and caught my wrist midair. I let out a whimper. The men stiffened, exchanged glances, weighed the cost of getting involved, and kept eating.
“You didn’t lock the gate. All the chickens escaped. Are you trying to call the jaguar down to eat us all?”
I gasped as I flashed on the chicken rolling around in the jaws of the wolf spider. All those chickens to be devoured by the jungle’s countless ravenous open mouths. My fault.
“I give you one job—one single job—and you’re too good to do it! Too good!” She spat with rage, goiter bobbing.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out.
She drew me closer and held me fast; her meaty breath hot on my face, her sunbaked skin the color of clay, her eyes searing into me. “Does sorry fill my belly? Twenty-five chickens into the jungle, hunted down by eagles, or jaguar, or anaconda, or wolf spider, you think that is nice for them? You think that’s a happy way to die?”
I shook my head.
“Look around. You think maybe somebody here wanted to eat the chickens? These men here, their wives and children?”
I nodded, my arm stinging in her grip.
“Now—no eggs for two weeks, until For God’s Sake comes back. No, four! He has to go get them and bring them back.” She threw my wrist back at me; I clutched it. “And who has to pay for the new chickens? Your m
an has to pay. You cannot pay. You’re a useless girl.” She jabbed her finger up in the air toward my face.
“That’s not true,” I said. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do. All the washing and ironing, gutting the fish, and—”
“You don’t clean game! The women clean game, but you are too high-and-mighty—”
“I don’t know how to do that. No one’s ever shown me—”
“You got my best son, woman. The best of the three. You need to be worthy of him.”
I bent down to gather up the baby macaws, but mostly to avoid her gaze.
Doña Antonia’s voice softened. “Besides,” she said. “The tapir was all eaten, and pregnant women need meat.”
I sprinted down the stairs with the birds and scrambled under the longhouse, stowing them next to one of the wooden pillars. I put my fingers down my throat. Nothing came up. Horrendous. I’d been puking steadily for three months and now I eat my own pet and I can’t get her out of me. I gave up, sat back on my haunches, eyes squeezed shut as I pictured Charlotte becoming part of me, my own flesh, my own child.
Cradling the two twirls of turquoise and yellow in my arms, I ran out into the deluge toward where I remembered our new hut to be, unable to catch my breath as the rain pummeled me, beating at the top of my head, my back and shoulders; I couldn’t see two yards in front of me. Each step became a slide until I skied down a valley of greasy mud, the birds flying from my arms. I howled into the thundering rain; it erased my voice. My body, hair, face slathered with mud, I scrambled on my hands and knees until I found one little bird, pitifully muddy and wet, mouth still open, then the other. I gathered them into the front of my dress. I kneeled like that, watching.
In seconds, the basket I had made with my dress filled with water, and the little birds began to float, drenched wings weighing them down, little heads dropping back and sinking until just their yawning pink beaks showed above the surface. In a state of fear and fury at every way I felt I’d been wronged in my life, Charlotte’s death stoking the fires of my self-pity, loneliness, and desperation, I watched them begin to drown. My teen brain screamed the world is turned against me, me, me, always and forever. I wanted to see those little birds die, to have some power over something, take revenge on something, get as used to death as everyone else seemed to be. Soon the water hammered at their squeezed-shut eyes and filled their diamond-shaped mouths, and they disappeared beneath the surface.
Into the Jungle Page 17