You are kind with my mother. My mother is not sweet. She had only boys, so she does not understand girls. She lost me to you. I am the favorite boy, and I come back with you, a white girl, so she thinks of poachers, she thinks of loggers, of a big country up north full of ice and hungry for drugs.
We will not live here forever. Ayachero has problems, more problems than I can solve. I made a promise to you, I remember it well.
Maybe someday you say why you love me. This is an assignment for you.
TWENTY-EIGHT
– OCTOBER –
Their fluffiness leaving them, my two little macaws hopped in their basket. With their technicolor feathers sprouting, gorgeous tails longer day by day, each day I wondered, Were they ready to fly? If I put the basket on the window, would something swoop from the sky or slither up the sill and make a meal of them before they had the chance to try their wings?
With trembling hands I lifted the nest to the long wooden plank. The birds strutted around, jabbing at the seeds at their feet, gnawing on the rim of the basket.
I looked up. Shouting came from beyond the longhouse, calls for help spiked over the early-morning birdsong. Heart pounding, I left the birds on the sill and raced down the stairs as quickly as my big belly would allow.
The main room of the longhouse was deserted. Hammocks hung empty, a few still swaying as if vacated in a hurry, cooking fires still smoked. Hurrying down the hall past the storage rooms to the far east end of the building, I saw a crowd had gathered near the opening of the Fire Ant Path.
More shouts, cries. I made my way down the long set of stairs to the hard earth and took off toward the cropland. Paco ran to meet me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me along through the crowd of families and children.
FrannyB staggered along, one arm around FrannyA’s waist as she half carried, half dragged her down the narrow path along the manioc gardens. Exhausted, she lurched a few more steps forward, then dropped to her knees; FrannyA’s limp form tumbling into the sharp grasses of the field. By the time I reached them, one of the men had picked her up and was running with her to the clinic, followed by the buzzing crowd.
FrannyB spoke to anyone who would listen. “She got so sick, so fast! I didn’t think we’d make it. I had nothing to give her . . .” She covered her mouth, didn’t recognize me. Did I look that different? “Lily,” she finally said, “have you seen For God’s Sake?”
“No.”
Wild-eyed, she turned to Doña Antonia, who hurried ahead toward the clinic carrying a bucket of water. “Forget about him,” she said, face set.
“Forget about him? What’s going on?”
“We sent Panchito to find him. We haven’t heard anything. What difference does it make? Is he here now to help us?”
* * *
I stood in the shadows of the clinic, filled with dread at the scene unfolding before me. Two small fans, motors whining, clipped at the dull hot air. After the batteries inside died, there would be no more.
Her face naked-looking without her spectacles, FrannyA lay on her back on a thin straw mat on the floor, her arms secured to her body with lengths of liana, her bare feet tied snugly to two stubby poles the men had pounded into the soft wood. After their task, they stood around looking awkward, arms looped loosely behind their backs.
“Get out of here,” FrannyB barked, sending a few young boys out for more water. “And bring clean cloth, as much as you can find. Go!”
FrannyA moaned, her head rolling back and forth on the meager pillow, spittle dribbling from the corners of her mouth. She struggled weakly at her ropes as she tried to lift her arms, turn from side to side, or bend her knees. Sweat greased her face and drenched her thin gray hair, soaking the drab cotton sheet she lay on. Doña Antonia busied herself loosening the cords while still keeping her immobile, all the while making small sounds of comfort, sounds I hadn’t known she was capable of.
Eyes swimming in reddened sockets, FrannyA turned to me, looking me up and down, my gaunt face, my big belly, my sack dress, and purple-stained skin. “You are going to have a bastard child. You are not married in the eyes of God. I’m dying, Lily, but I’m going to a beautiful place—”
“Shut up, A,” FrannyB said. “You’re not dying. We’re going to get this all cleared up.” Kneeling, she held her friend’s fine-boned hand with her ham-fisted one, gazing at her with so much love I had to look away. Doña Antonia handed me some folded-up sections of cloth, motioning to place them under the ties, which were already cutting into the thin skin of the sick missionary’s scrawny ankles.
“Oh, B,” FrannyA said. “You know and I know. You can’t do this thing . . .”
A few young boys entered the hut, eyes downcast, hushed by the thin veil that hung between life and death. They carried tin pails of water and armfuls of cotton cloth and burlap scraps, all ironed to board-like stiffness. Anna knelt at FrannyA’s head, cooling her forehead with a damp cloth.
FrannyB spread out one of the lengths of cotton next to FrannyA’s tortured body. When she knew FrannyA couldn’t see her face, she let her own terror show; the skin ashen, taut over her sharp chin and cheekbones. Out of a lumpy canvas bag, she removed and arranged on the cloth: a slender silver surgical-looking knife, a small pair of scissors, tweezers, a sewing needle, a bundle of waxy-looking black string, and a label-less bottle of pills. Water boiled in a pot on a brick stove nearby. She lay the sharp ends of the tools in the hot water, then held three white pills and a brimming tin cup of cool water to FrannyA’s lips.
“Why are you bothering with me?” FrannyA said, turning her head away.
“Take the fucking pills.”
FrannyA shut her eyes, a wave of pain rolling across her features, her face whitening. “If it will make you happy, my dear.” She opened her eyes, focusing first on the clipping fans, then on all the faces staring down. “But you know we’ve failed, don’t you? You know we haven’t made one bit of difference—”
FrannyB pushed a pill in her mouth, spilling water down A’s pointed chin; she gulped it all back, coughing, blinking, then opened her mouth like a little bird and accepted the rest, bony throat bulging. FrannyB exhaled heavily before pushing herself to her knees to free a hip flask from the pocket of her camo pants. She unscrewed the top, held the flask to FrannyA’s mouth, and tipped it.
“If you waste a drop of this, I’ll kill you myself.”
But the missionary, chastened, eyes never leaving FrannyB’s, was now accepting any and all liquids.
FrannyB turned to me. “Go find Beya. Now.”
* * *
Holding my belly, I marched off to the manioc fields, to the cow barn, to the huts where the lepers lived. Machetes strapped to abbreviated limbs, the group of four adults worked the fields in the oppressive sun.
“Have you seen Beya?” Faces obscured by straw hats, a couple of them looked back at me. They shook their heads and returned to their work.
Panting and sweating, I made my way to the far perimeter of the fields, to the mouth of the Anaconda Path. In the trees above, six king vultures peered out from under orange wattles with white-ringed, bottomless black eyes. All patience, all waiting. As long as death existed, so would they.
Under the vultures’ dull, hungry glare, I planted my tapir-clad feet wide. Cradling my belly with both hands, I shut my eyes, all energy focused on silencing my noisy mind—full of the usual deafening chatter: fear, worry, doubt, longings—until, for a few precious moments: silence, as after a heavy snowfall. In my mind, I heard myself say in Spanish:
“BEYA, WE NEED YOUR HELP. FRANNY-A IS SICK. SHE’S DYING. WE ARE IN THE CLINIC. PLEASE COME.”
As I spoke the words in my head, a buzzing sensation traveled through my teeth and jaw, down my neck to my shoulders, arms, fingers. I knew I had done it—even if she hadn’t heard me, even if she wasn’t listening or chose to ignore me—I knew I had spoken to her.
The sun beat at my face, the vicious jungle air seared my throat.
“ANSWER
ME . . .”
I made my mind an empty thing, a blank canvas on which she could paint her words back to me, send a picture, an emotion, anything.
Silence. Emptiness.
One of the vultures spread its enormous black-and-white wings as if to dry them in the sultry air; the others did the same, like a wave, one after the other, till the first one flapped his closed and the others followed suit, all one vulture mind.
I squeezed my eyes shut and silenced my clamorous mind for a second time. Waited for the delicious hush, the lull, the pulsing calm. In my mind’s eye I saw my open mouth, heard myself calling to her in English, then Spanish, then English again. I called up the image of FrannyA lying prone, suffering; I showed her the woman’s blank face staring at the ceiling of the hut, the way her ankles were tied and bleeding. I showed her FrannyB’s face in devastation; held all this in my mind’s eye until I couldn’t anymore and shards of the picture broke away into the smudgy blue and black shapes behind my eyes. Exhaustion and dizziness flooded me.
I opened my eyes.
Just the dusty path before me, the unforgiving sky above. Tapping one last dram of energy, I sent one more message: “WELL, FUCK YOU, THEN.” In defeat, I turned back to the clinic. I’d taken only a few steps before I heard the whoosh of a machete clearing a path. Bit by bit, as the vines and branches fell, Beya emerged from the matted tangle of forest.
TWENTY-NINE
Without a word to each other, we took slow steps up the ladder to the clinic. My body felt heavy, legs swollen, my shoulder blades burning, as if my bug bites had gathered together in one large wound.
The air in the hut was thick with heat. Rough cloth squares had been nailed over the windows. A half dozen votive candles flickered close to FrannyA, who had stopped fighting her bonds and lay muttering to herself. Her shirt had been unbuttoned to just under her breastbone and her belly lay exposed, the rest of her draped with the stiff cuts of cloth, modesty intact. Her rib cage rose sharply like two bony hands meeting; her belly concave, breaths quick and shallow.
Beya made her way to the sick woman’s feet. Candlelight sparked in each eye. Bright yellow feathers sprung back from her ears like canaries in a cage of blackness. Her net bag hung from a belt around her waist; the material jerking this way and that.
“Are we ready?” FrannyB said, her voice gravelly and low.
FrannyA’s eyes opened, widened. “Get that devil away from me!” she called out hoarsely, neck cording as she lifted her head.
Pressing the flask to her mouth, FrannyB forced more cane alcohol down her throat. “Relax, you fool. She’s here to help us.”
The ill missionary’s head dropped back to the pillow as she laughed maniacally, belched, then returned to her nonsense mumbling, eyes fixed on the dark conical ceiling, sooty from countless fires. Shafts of sunlight cut through the split bamboo walls, striping her stricken face.
Snapping on a pair of bright blue latex gloves, FrannyB opened a bottle of iodine and swabbed a purple circle on her belly with a piece of cotton from a decaying plastic pouch.
“This is going to hurt, for just a little bit,” FrannyB said.
“Ha ha ha, that’s okay,” FrannyA said, now in deep communion with the ceiling.
A couple of women who had been standing by with pails of water or cloths parted so Beya could walk around to FrannyA’s exposed belly. The old woman got to her knees. FrannyA panted, spilling nonsense words at the ceiling, or at her God, impossible to tell. Beya loosened her string bag and withdrew a fist-sized woven-palm box. A brilliant turquoise-and-yellow frog jumped within, its rubbery fingers probing the interlaced leaves, a black eye bulging now and again at an opening. From another, much smaller leather bag, Beya withdrew a long tobacco-leaf-wrapped package. Ceremoniously, she unwrapped it and arranged a few dozen needle-fine palm spines on FrannyB’s cloth.
The sick missionary turned to Beya, eyes narrowing. “Don’t let her touch me! B!” Fat tears rolled out of her eyes, darkening the thin cotton of the pillow.
FrannyB grabbed her by the chin and turned A’s face toward her own. “You just pay attention to me, okay? You watch my face. Every second.”
“But B—”
“We talked about this. You agreed, remember? You’re not going to leave me.”
“But she’s going to kill me, B. She’s going to—”
“Do I have to strap your head down? Because I will.”
FrannyA’s eyes squeezed shut; her eyeballs danced furiously under the thin skin.
FrannyB nodded at Beya.
The shaman drew hard on a hand-rolled cigar of wild tobacco she’d lit at the fire, forcing the air out with strenuous coughs before filling her lungs again. Clouds of musty smoke fogged the hut, swirling up into the shadows. Barefoot, Beya slowly walked around the prostrate woman, blowing smoke over her body and chanting nonstop, a song with no more than three distinct notes but a clear, syncopated rhythm. Finally she stopped where she’d begun, at FrannyA’s side.
She got to her knees and slid a palm-spine needle into the box, scraping quickly along the shining flesh of the frog. Placing one gnarled brown hand flat against FrannyA’s stomach—FrannyA jumped slightly at the contact but held steady—Beya slipped the needle at an angle into FrannyA’s taut little belly, entering a throbbing vein near her groin. FrannyA stiffened and cried out, thighs quaking under her rough black skirt.
“Hold her down,” FrannyB barked at me. I kneeled and dropped down over her, holding her shoulders to the mat, while Doña Antonia pinned her down at her hips. Anna sat at her feet, pressing them down and together. Strange but somehow right, the three of us joined in this task. “Don’t let go until I say so, no matter what happens. Got it?”
I nodded yes, my full weight pressing down on FrannyA’s shoulders, her sickness-fouled breath in my face, her pale blue eyes gazing through me.
“And don’t look at what I’m doing, all right? Keep your focus on her.”
I said nothing.
“Answer me, Lily.”
“Okay, all right.”
But I kept glancing down anyway. I couldn’t help myself. With a dozen swift, small jabs, Beya pricked the skin just below FrannyA’s rib cage; she winced but made no sound. Dosing the other palm spines briefly and lightly against the frog, Beya slid them in again and again on opposite sides of the tiny missionary’s gut, circumscribing a circle on the pale skin.
FrannyB palpated the shivering iodine-stained skin under her hands. “Do you feel that? Do you feel anything?”
“Just pressure.”
“Okay, that’s good. Really good.”
“I love you, B.” A few more tears rolled down the sides of her face, pooling in her ears.
“I love you too, A,” FrannyB said quietly, a note of embarrassment in her voice. She nodded at Doña Antonia, who with bamboo tongs fished the knife, tweezers, sewing needle, and scissors from the bubbling water and spread them out on the cloth.
FrannyB began her incision at the top left side of her abdomen, just below the rib cage, and continued in the shape of a smile down below her belly button and back up the other side. With a scrap of cloth, Doña Antonia soaked up the line of blood at the cut. A few of the young girls who had brought water waved palm fronds over the wound, whisking away the gathering flies.
As she lifted the flap of skin, FrannyB snipped at a thin membrane of white tissue. A firm nest of intestines lay glistening in the candlelight.
“Now, Beya. Call them.”
Beya’s mouth dropped open. A bass rumble rolled out of her, the lowest sound I’d ever heard emanate from a human being. Only when she paused for breath did the pain in my eardrums ease. I felt it in my bowel; my teeth thrummed with it. The floor of the hut vibrated beneath my knees where I crouched, my face inches from the sick missionary’s. But the part of her that could speak up and object was gone: oblivious, she’d switched back to humming, even singing snatches of hymns.
The thrumming noise deepened in round bellows, booming out
of the shaman’s chest, a living instrument. The sound came from above me, beneath me, from inside me. Forehead pearled with sweat, FrannyB never took her eyes off the opened gut as her bloodied gloves—knife in one hand, scissors in the other—hovered over the coiled purplish ropes.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” came FrannyA’s thin voice, her eyes unseeing. “I shall not want, he makes me lie down in green pastures—”
“A, be quiet. Shush.”
“He leads me beside quiet waters, even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil . . .”
Her voice drowned under Beya’s booming song. Every corner of the hut had filled with a sickly sweet haze, as if the cigar was smoking itself in its terra-cotta dish; the air shimmered with heat and closeness, sickness and sound, the smell of hot blood like iron in my mouth. Beya dropped her face closer to FrannyA’s open abdomen, calling and calling; all the while FrannyB’s hands trembled, waiting. Time stopped, taffied out, stalled again.
Two tiny white dots poked through a thick intestine that descended her left side. In seconds the dots turned into knobby, worm-like protrusions with their own tiny sucking mouths, their tube-like bodies stretching, then wriggling out. They waved their blind heads in the smoky air, reaching toward the sound of Beya’s voice. FrannyB cut into a rope of intestine just next to them; a fistful of parasites burst to the surface, waving and twisting. My own gut heaved—I couldn’t look away—but FrannyB had long since stopped caring about what I did. Beya dropped her head still lower, her face just above FrannyA’s open abdomen, her voice pulsing in punishing beats. Stars burst inside my head. The big missionary pulled out the horrid things and put them on a cloth; dozens of them. She cut the length of blackened intestine where the creatures had emerged, a foot or more of it, and lay that out on the cloth as well. Beya kept calling, hoarse now, sweat rolling down her face and neck, drenching her cotton shirt, her necklace of jaguar teeth clacking, eyes swimming to the back of her head; she was only sound, only calling, until she suddenly stopped, threw her head back and gasped for air. With infinite gentleness, FrannyB drew the two ends of intestine together and began to sew, joining them with tiny stitches as FrannyA hummed a tuneless tune.
Into the Jungle Page 21