In no time, the bonfire blazed and the singing, drinking, and dancing had begun. There were no more batteries to play the radios, so a couple of the men brought out beat-up guitars and rapped on empty jerry cans for percussion as they gathered around the fire.
Step-by-step, I made my way to Omar; at eight months along, running was a thing of the past.
After unloading the enormous catch, Omar turned toward me. He looked thinner, exhausted, but all in one piece.
He put his arms around me and must have said something, but a hush of sound in my head blocked it all out.
Suddenly feverish and weak, I pushed him away, our baby in me kicking and turning, my swollen breasts aching with every step. I remember saying something about wanting to lie down for a few minutes in the longhouse. I staggered away, reaching for the smooth handrail, making it up three steps before a drunken sort of dizziness hit me. My grip weakened as my legs jellied at the knees; black curtains drew closed on both sides of my vision.
* * *
I woke to Paco’s little face hovering above mine. With great concentration, he spooned a kind of gelatin out of a clay saucer and held it to my mouth. It was steamy hot and cinnamon smelling, so much like America and diners and Cinnabon I wanted to cry. I swallowed some. It was sweet and warm and so fucking delicious.
“What is this?”
“A dessert. From the feet of the cow. Pregnant women like it.”
“The cow is dead?”
“Sí.”
Framed by our hut’s open door, Omar stood facing us. Evening light filtered in through the dark green pulsing rectangle. How long had I been sleeping?
“She got out,” Omar said. “Something got to her in the field. We think a fer-de-lance. Everybody ran to help her but it was too late. The women are working on her now. We’ll have to smoke the meat all night. I have to go help soon.”
In this place, you never named something that you would one day eat, but privately I called her Bella. It was true, giving her a name made her loss harder to bear. I pictured her sweet, dopey face, long lashes shading big brown eyes. As I pushed myself to a seated position, I noticed my dress had been lifted up to just above my knee, revealing an infected mosquito bite. But I knew then that it was something worse than that. The bite had craterized, widened, formed a crust around the edges. The itch was gone, replaced by a pulsing pain that reached deep into my flesh.
Omar pulled a stool close to me and sat by my side, his face stricken in a way I had never seen before. All the light gone from it, his lips a colorless line. Cavernous shadows dwelled under his eyes. He looked like an old man.
He gently touched the circle of redness that radiated out around the bite, the skin still purple from iodine. “How long have you had this one? This wasn’t here when I left.”
I pulled the cloth down to cover myself. “I don’t know.”
“Paco, leave us awhile, okay?”
Paco looked to me; I nodded in agreement with Omar. His little face drawn, he took his time gathering himself to leave.
“Listen to me, Lily. FrannyB was here. She looked at this.”
“While I was asleep?”
“Do you have any more of these on your body anywhere?”
Of course I did. The gloomy walls of the hut closed in. Something rustled in the thatched roof.
“What difference does it make? I’m taking care of them with the iodine, like FrannyB told me to.”
“Turn around and show me your back. I don’t like the way the skin looks by your neck. Pull your dress down and let me see.” His voice boomed; I felt his fierce strength above me, my complete helplessness.
He reached up toward the ties at the neck of my dress. I pushed his hand away. Realized: I and only I had gotten myself in this deep. In the silence that followed his command, I began to acknowledge the strange, faint voice that had been telling me something was terribly wrong with my skin, and had been for a while. “I need to see you,” he said more softly this time.
“I ran out of iodine,” I said sheepishly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
“You’ve been gone for three weeks. How could I?”
“Take this dress off. I want to see.”
With great effort, I pushed myself up to my elbows and dropped my head forward. It felt weighted, like a sack of marbles. Omar loosened the string tie at my neck and gently drew back the rough material from my shoulder, drawing my arm out of the sleeve. He let out a low whistle. I watched his face as his eyes grew wet.
“Liliana, cariño.” My darling.
Fear at the possibility of being sick and shame about showing any weakness suffused me. Blowing the whistle about physical infirmity had never helped me before, so it hadn’t occurred to me to do it then, even though in some deep, inchoate part of me I knew how bad it was, knew I had been putting my head in the sand. The stupid truth was that my whole life I was used to feeling crappy, undernourished, vaguely sick, but had prided myself on toughing it out. Dukes up, ready to fight, my soft humanity a fiction I could rewrite.
But this time it was different; all I had to do was look at his face. In his eyes, I saw that I could end. And for the first time this possibility meant something to someone.
THIRTY-TWO
I lay on my side as FrannyB examined my shoulders and the backs of my legs, the whisper of air on my wounds like small daggers. She pushed herself to her feet with a sigh. From my mattress on the low platform bed, I watched her pace the hut, the rickety plywood floor creaking under her heavy steps, her face tacky with sweat. Omar stood silent, leaning against the open door. Our little lamp, a tin container filled with kerosene, a strip of wool stuck in the top for a wick, gave only a spark of light, lending a ghostly gloom to the hut and dousing it with smoke. Outside hung the noxious green flesh and weight of the jungle. A steady rain hammered the thatched roof. Night and all its terrors.
“She has it, Omar.” She folded her husky arms. “It’s a textbook case.”
“So we leave for San Solidad now,” he said. “We have enough gas.”
“You know that’s five days if you’re lucky. Could be six—more, with all this rain . . .” She didn’t, wouldn’t, look at me. Her voice dropped. “She doesn’t have five days, Omar. Take a look at the back of her leg—”
“What the hell do I have, can someone please tell me?” My intention was to sound sarcastic, strong, but my voice came out breathy and weak.
FrannyB dragged one of our two stools closer to the bed and sat. “You have leishmaniasis. Tropical misery. You get it from a sandfly. They’re tiny, smaller than a mosquito. They can get through this cheap netting. It’s a skin disease, a bad one, a microscopic parasite that can also get in your organs. Judging by your fever and a few other telltale signs, it looks like it has.”
I flashed on Angelina, the woman who’d walked naked into the jungle at night. In my mind I watched its monstrous green arms close around her tender flesh.
“I’m sorry, Lily. God loves you,” the missionary said without conviction.
The air thickened and stilled with a new presence. Beya stood in the doorway, soaked through her dun-colored dress, her long gray braid heavy and wet over one shoulder. Steam rose from her body.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“She came to my camp,” Beya said, nodding to FrannyB. “She told me about you.”
I closed my eyes, wishing everything and everyone away. “Why is everybody making such a big deal out of this?”
Omar pulled a stool next to our bed. “Let her look at you. She won’t even touch you.”
Beya took a step into the hut. Rainwater dripped off her derby hat, puddling on the floor.
“Look,” I said. “I just need some sleep. Which I can’t get with all of you poking at me all the time.”
“You’ve been sleeping for two days,” FrannyB said.
Beya came closer.
“Show her, Lily,” Omar said. “We have no choice.”
I tu
rned away from everyone, staring into the black corners of the hut. In full teenager mode, I hissed, “Everyone needs to leave right now.”
Pain bolted across my skull. This time, there were no words or whispers, only an image of myself, naked, gray-fleshed, huge-bellied, pocked with disease. Stiff and prone on the mattress, lifeless. Flies landed on my still-open eyes.
With a sharp cry, I shook my head and forced the image from my mind. I held myself, felt my belly, felt my baby shift under my skin, convinced myself I hadn’t seen anything, until the image returned, clearer and sharper than before.
“Stop it, Beya,” I whispered. “Please just stop.”
The picture blurred, but remained, an afterimage.
Omar touched my back; his gentleness astounding to me. Why did it still bring tears to my eyes? I knew—my cells knew—that Omar was right. That if I wanted to live, I had to cooperate. I had to show Beya my devastated flesh. I drew in a deep breath, turned back around to the sputtering lamp and three hovering faces.
“Okay,” I said. “But let me do it.” Fingers quaking, I untied the string that cinched the neckline of my dress and rolled back the mud-colored fabric, turning my shoulder toward the light. Beya held the hissing lantern close to my flesh; its heat seemed to set my wound on fire.
“You need the sacred plant, Lily,” she said. “Don’t wait. You must go in person, otherwise they won’t give it to you.”
FrannyB gently covered me again. I searched her face, but it was unreadable. Beya and Omar stood at the doorway for several more minutes, speaking in low tones. Without a backward glance, Beya climbed down the steps in the rain. A minute later, FrannyB gathered herself to leave; I listened to her goodbye—low, dire, more warnings whispered urgently—before the squeak of her sneakers on the stairs as she left the hut.
Omar took both of my hands in his, his skin rough and dry. “Lily, listen to me, this is what we have to do. There’s a plant that grows on the land where the Tatinga live. A day downriver, then a day’s walk. It only grows there. We’ll make a poultice from the leaves, put it on your skin. It’ll take care of this, fast.”
“What’s wrong with San Solidad? That clinic—”
“There’s no time.”
“That’s crazy,” I said, as the words there’s no time slammed me deep in my gut. “Listen, Ohms, I’m not going, okay?” I closed my eyes against the memory of the vision. “Why don’t you go and bring it back for me?”
“You heard Beya. Splitfoot won’t just give it to me. The Tatinga aren’t like that. They need to understand who they’re helping, and why. Besides, that would mean four days before I got back to you, maybe longer.”
“Can’t FrannyB get it from them?”
He shook his head in exasperation. “The tribes only tolerate the missionaries. They like the gifts, otherwise they think they’re complete fools. We leave in the morning.”
I pushed myself to my feet, in defiance of my weakness, fever, the stabbing pain of the lesions. “I’m staying here.”
Rage contorted his face. “This isn’t a game, Lily. You think you’ll get better by doing nothing? You don’t care about our baby?”
I eased myself onto a stool. “Why would the Tatinga give us the plant? Give me the plant?”
For the first time, I saw fear creep into his face, a tightening around his eyes, helplessness in the cast of his shoulders.
“So what are you not telling me now? What are you leaving out, Omar?”
“I’m telling you what you need to know.”
“They might kill us, right? They might kill me . . .”
“We’re going to get you this plant, cariño. You’ll be cured, and I won’t have to hunt for weeks, we’ve got so much meat. We’ll leave this place soon. We can have our baby in the city if you like. We can stay there for a while before we decide what to do next. The men are better hunters now, and it looks like the jaguar’s moved on. Even if it hasn’t, we’ve done everything we can for this place. For God’s Sake has abandoned us, but Panchito will be back soon, I know it. He’s a good man. Even with his leg, he’d be an excellent river driver, if he can ease up on the booze. And Beya’s frightened off Fat Carlos and his gang. I think Ayachero’s going to be okay.”
He looked close to tears. I reached out and touched the contour of his cheek. “You can’t save everybody, Omar, you know.”
“Maybe not. But I can save you and our child.”
I nodded, but had no energy to speak after that. With great effort, my body slow, heavy, and awkward, I lay back down, closed my eyes, and watched the image of my dead self fade into tatters.
* * *
Dawn arrived full of fog and ghosts. Omar, his arm around my waist, half carried me down to one of the longboats, which he’d packed with all the supplies Ayachero could spare. It wasn’t much. A small bag of farina, a few strips of dried meat, torn cloths for bandages, a half canister of gas to get us back upriver.
Anna stepped away from her fire where she was making manioc cakes, her new baby girl snug in my old backpack, little Claudia clinging to her skirts. “Take this,” she said, pulling a black-and-red beaded bracelet off her own wrist. “It’s Tatinga-style. It’ll bring you good luck.” Around her eyes lingered traces of the grief I thought had eased. With a jolt, I realized hers was the face of someone saying goodbye forever. We hugged and held each other for a few extra seconds before she quickly turned back to her morning duties.
A little brown streak tore down the hill. Paco jumped in the water and flipped into the boat like a fish, settling himself down as if this was the plan. He carried his slingshot and a small canvas bag I’d sewn for him to hold his few belongings; he stashed everything at his feet in the bottom of the boat.
“Hey, stowaway,” Omar said sternly. “You’re not going anywhere.” A couple of dogs skittered along the sand and jumped into the boat—ready for a hunt—he slapped them on their rangy flanks and they leapt out again.
“I speak Tatinga,” Paco said.
“Out of the boat!” Omar pointed to the shore.
Little shoulders slumped, Paco slipped his slingshot across his back and reached for his bag. He dropped into the water off the lip of the boat, waded to shore and trudged along the bank, watching as Omar lifted and carried me to a thatch-roofed section of the canoe, under which he’d spread some rough blankets. I felt ridiculous, an invalid. I could have walked into the water and climbed into the canoe, but he insisted I keep my skin as dry as possible.
Paco splashed back in the water and handed me his slingshot, his most prized possession. I’ll never forget the look on his face, of love, of desolation. I told him no, I didn’t even know how to use it, but he pressed it into my hand anyway, before turning and running off, lost among the families cooking breakfast at their smoking ovens.
THIRTY-THREE
Clouds hung in a thick cottony mat over our heads. From where I lay: on my side, curled on top of the pile of thin woven blankets under the palm-frond roof, I watched Omar’s lean brown legs as he stood at the prow, guiding us through the strong currents with a leaf-shaped paddle. The banks of the river were soft brown clay, pitted with holes the size of softballs where armored catfish lay their eggs. Rain fell steadily, beating at the roof and coloring the air green, as though we were at the bottom of the ocean. Big blue kingfishers dashed at the water’s dimpled surface, emerging with wriggling fish. On a black shoal, an alabaster egret balanced on spindle legs. In waves from the river walls came the dense, half-rotted, half-sweet smell of flowers.
My baby was due in the next few weeks—that was FrannyB’s best guess—but Anna thought my baby would come late because of the shape of my belly. Though I’d felt glimmers of excitement and anticipation for this new life, my sickness had become inextricable from my pregnancy; both meshed into mere helplessness. Still, I conjured mental images of myself alive, the baby alive, all of us alive.
Omar called down to me. “Are you watching where we’re going?”
“No.”
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“Sit up and watch.”
“I can’t.”
He lay down his paddle, crawled under the roof, and squatted next to me. “Are you hungry? Why are you crying?”
I didn’t know I had been. “What do you want to name the baby?”
Rainwater dripped off his raven-black hair, ran down his handsome face. “We can talk about that later.”
“Are you excited?”
“Of course I am, cariño.” He stared at me a good, long time. “In fact, I’ve already started my assignment, my letter to the baby. But now, Lily, you need to sit up.”
Something in his voice compelled me to push myself at least to my elbows, where I could watch both sides of the jungle slip past. Now the rain came down softly but steadily, as if the air had always been suffused with water that way.
“There are two sorts of rain,” he said. “Men’s rain and women’s rain. Men’s rain comes down fast and hard and it’s over quick, like their anger, or their sadness. Women’s rain falls all day, into the night, it just goes and goes, because women cry so much, for so long.”
From the river rose the sad, beseeching limbs of submerged trees. Rain pocked the surface evenly, constantly. Definitely women’s rain. “So that’s why I’m sitting up? To look at rain?”
“You need to watch, Lily. Listen. Think. Look around. Up, down, everywhere. Do you know how many turns we’ve taken since we left? And which way?”
“No.”
“We’ve taken two left turns. How much time has passed?”
“I wasn’t really—”
“Three hours.”
He took my hand and helped me stand in the canoe. I clutched the palm roof for balance, the taste of the rain electric on my tongue. With his paddle he pushed deep into the belly of the river as we swung around a bend into an oxbow lake, a vast area where the river had doubled back on itself. The water lost its urgency, spread out, stilled.
“Lily, listen. I know you don’t feel well. I’m sorry. But you don’t wake up alive in the jungle because you were smarter or trickier. You stay alive here because you paid attention.”
Into the Jungle Page 23