“But this is your best knife—”
“It’s just a knife. For God’s Sake will bring me another when he comes back.” Without another word, she picked up the pot of dirty dishes and brought it downstairs so the rain could wash the plates clean.
* * *
The rest of my goodbyes took all morning. People surprised me with their warmth; some were tearful, and soon I was, too. Each farewell gift moved me in its own way: Franz’s jaguar-tooth necklace Omar had made for him when they were children; Panchito’s little flask of pisco “for the flight home”; the Frannies’ heartfelt hugs and benedictions; Anna’s set of three smaller-to-larger calabashes carved with beautiful images of anaconda, pink dolphin, and jaguar. She told me all the women had had a hand in making them, all sent their best wishes.
By late morning, it was time to meet For God’s Sake at the dock. He made sure baby Omar and I were settled comfortably under the palm canopy that tented his well-loved dugout canoe for the journey to San Solidad. As I watched the last hut disappear behind the towering wall of trees, a wave of loss crashed over me—for Omar, for the people who had cared for me, for the child-self I would never be again. My face must have said it all: For God’s Sake kept quiet as we chugged our way upriver.
Finally I said, “What’s the real reason you came back?”
He laughed and took off his scratched aviator sunglasses. “Well, you know, Lily, ca’ah is not a simple thing. I am making peace with complicated ca’ah. Do you know what I’m talking about? How that is? How sometimes you think you know something, and you are quite sure it is the truth, and there is only one truth, but then, the next day even, you wake up and realize, How can I be so stupid? You say, what about this, or what about that, over?”
I had to laugh at that, at my own shifting beliefs about what was true and what wasn’t.
“I said to myself, okay, For God’s Sake, this is not your God, this skinny man on a cross, but I can still help, you know, I can still bring the people of Ayachero foods and medicines, I can still be on this river and be Tatinga in my heart, and that will have to be enough for me. But also I was afraid, Lily. I will tell you that truth. Those men the Tatinga killed would have killed me to know about the grove. And it’s not over, this bad story no one can get away from. There will be other poachers. This is not the end of those bad men, of these terrible times. So I am sorry to be a coward, I’m ashamed to be a coward, and I am sorry about Omar, because I loved him like my own brother, over.”
“I know you did.”
“But there is also the good things, too, you know? We forget those things. We are in a big rush to go on to the next thing that makes us afraid, that makes us sad. Beya is with the Tatinga again. She is home. After all these years, Tatinga saying no, Ayachero people being afraid of her, but then accepting her gifts when she gave them. That is all over. And the Tatinga have killed the jaguar. She was a man eater, there was no doubt. They will use every part, nothing goes to waste. That is how it is there, over.”
He paused as he paddled hard now, urging the dugout toward the black waters of a much wider tributary, so much larger in volume than any part of the Amazon I’d ever seen. This was the mighty river itself—no strangled creek—its far bank just a watercolor smudge of green and brown in the distance.
“So I’m back now, you see. I’m not going to run away again, no matter how afraid I get, because now at least I know that much about my ca’ah, that this place is part of me, over.”
“It’s part of me, too, For God’s Sake.”
A surge of cold air dropped down over us then, something I had never experienced in ten months in the jungle. It smelled of peat, of ever faster cycles of death and rebirth; it felt strange and foreign and foreboding.
The rainy season had begun.
EPILOGUE
Omar was nine when he really asked me about my scars, like he wanted to know the story and was ready to hear it. He’d taken them for granted before. Saw them as just part of his mom, instead of an actual piece of my history, our history, written on my skin.
I suggested we take a walk in the woods near our home in Western Massachusetts, something he loved to do. It was a beautiful fall day, the air dry, fresh and cool, the kind of day I had craved in the jungle. We stopped to sit at a wooden bench overlooking a pond where an orderly row of three painted turtles sunned themselves on a fallen log near the shore. He listened with rapt attention to my stories: meeting his father in Cochabamba, Ayachero and the villagers, Beya, Fat Carlos and Dutchie, our journey to the Tatinga, his birth in the boat, and the jaguar—probably an overwhelming first installment for him, but the floodgates had opened.
His first question was, “So, do you hear her anymore?”
“Beya?” I laughed. “Not for years.”
“Yeah, but have you tried?”
“Plenty of times.”
“Try now, with me.”
We sat cross-legged on the bench, facing each other. He closed his eyes. “Okay, Mom, concentrate.” He didn’t just look like his father, he shared his calmness, unflappability, a serene confidence. None of that had come from me.
“I’m not hearing anything, Mom.” He opened his eyes.
“Could be I’m a little rusty.” I caught a whiff of sage: faint, swift, passing. Was it the memory of the scent or the thing itself? Then—another jolt of it—stronger this time.
“Omar, do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“It’s okay, never mind.”
He turned back toward the lake, swinging his legs back and forth under the bench. “So, Mom, what did you do for the Tatinga? You made that promise, right?”
I draped my arm over his small shoulders. “When the tropical disease specialists in America examined me, back when you were still a baby, they asked about the plant. Where it grew. They’d never seen anyone so sick with the disease who’d lived to tell about it. It was a hard decision, Omar. Even though I knew I’d be helping a lot of sick people by telling the doctors where the plant grew, I also knew the Tatinga’s land would be destroyed if I told them the truth.”
“So you lied?”
“Yes.”
“What else have you done for them, the Tatinga?”
I looked at him. “I’ve been busy with you.”
“Is Ayachero still there?”
“Not like when I was there. The grove was found, a road was built.” I’d been following this for years on the internet. It felt devastating, yet inevitable. “Ayachero looks a lot like San Solidad now. The Tatinga have moved even deeper into the jungle.”
“Tell me about my dad’s letter to me again.”
Countless times I’d recited to him the parts I could remember. He leaned into me and closed his eyes. “The other tribes cannot kill you, because you are high up in the trees as they pass under. You hide in holes only you know exist. Your arrows fly sooner than theirs. The anaconda—he dies from your machete before he can close his jaws on your flesh, and always, dear one, your stomach is full from your own cleverness. Hold on to your little flame of self, because the world wants to blow it out, my beloved son.”
“So he was badass, huh.”
“Yes. Like you.”
He turned to look up at me, took my hand, and traced a scar on my forearm. “Do they still hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
Worry lines creased his brow. “So what’s my ca’ah, Mom? I don’t think I want to be a hunter.”
“You have plenty of time to figure that out.”
He jumped to his feet, excited now. “Maybe there’s something we can do together. We could, you know, put our ca’ahs together.”
“Okay, how?”
“Try to save the jungle like Dad wanted to. Save the animals and birds and land. Help the Tatinga. I want to meet Beya and see a jaguar. Drink a beer at the Anaconda Bar. We can wait till when I’m older. Do you want to go back there with me?”
I laughed. “Yes, honey.” I stroked his shining black hair,
hot in the sunshine. “I do.”
* * *
That evening, I sat by candlelight at the window of our small but cozy third-floor walk-up, closing for the moment my college textbook on invertebrate zoology. Thrillingly, I was just one semester from my undergraduate degree in biology.
I let my robe slip from my thighs. Pushed up my sleeves. The scars looked like shallow pocked lakes where the parasites had eaten their fill, or smooth and taut, like a burn. I hadn’t been quite truthful with Omar: the scars still ached, as if the muscles beneath held tight to the memories, the loss. But there was a sweetness in the pain: a reminder of a world that felt not of this one in its astounding beauty and strangeness.
I understand now that I will always be creating and re-creating my family; actually, I prefer it that way. Omar is keen eyed, sharp eared, curious, and kind; ready to spring forward into the future and explore all of life’s steaming jungles. We’re both determined to do something good for the world.
And we’re just getting started.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to the entire team at Simon & Schuster for making Into the Jungle a reality, especially to Jennifer Bergstrom for believing in me once again, and to my gifted, cheerful, and unbelievably patient editor, Kate Dresser, who with her unerring editorial eye macheted her way through some pretty gnarly early drafts. You slapped me silly but scared me straight. I owe you a thousand drinks. To my wonderful agent and champion, Erin Harris at Folio Literary Management, immense gratitude for your dedication to the success of this book: I am so lucky I found you.
Big thanks to everyone at Gallery and Scout who accomplish so much, and always with kindness, warmth, and enthusiasm. A no-doubt incomplete list includes: Molly Gregory, Meagan Harris, Jennifer Robinson, Abby Zidle, Mackenzie Hickey, Diana Velasquez, Anabel Jimenez, Wendy Sheanin, Lisa Litwack, Christine Masters, and Stacey Sakal.
I love you, Pamela Rickenbach, executive director of Blue Star Equiculture, for inspiring me with your own adventure in the Amazon. Huge gratitude to Dr. Paul Beaver and Dolly Beaver, owners and founders of Amazonia Expeditions and of the nonprofit group Angels of the Amazon, who welcomed me to the Tahuayo Lodge deep in the Peruvian Amazon on the Tahuayo River, my base camp for conducting research. Thank you to the shaman Adolfo, who gave me hours of his precious time, sharing priceless knowledge about his life and work. To my (truly) fearless and knowledgeable guide, Adrian Gomez Villacorta, thank you for making me touch that foot-long caterpillar when all I wanted to do was run screaming back to my cabin.
For guidance, advice, insight, and information, big thanks to Jonathan Quint, Ned Strong, Dr. Biorn Maybury-Lewis, Michael E. Pereira, and Dr. Theodore Macdonald. For their inspiring, brave, and beautiful books, thank you to the authors Sy Montgomery, Lily King, Ann Patchett, Peter Matthiessen, Barbara Kingsolver, Joe Kane, Douglas Preston, David Grann, Dr. Paul Beaver, Candice Millard, Paul Rosolie, Scott Wallace, Buddy Levy, Chris Feliciano Arnold, Eugene Linden, Holly Fitzgerald, Edward Docx, Ed Stafford, Andrés Ruzo, Dr. Mark J. Plotkin, Petru Popescu, Yossi Ghinsberg, and Pablo Amaringo.
For guidance on the manuscript, cheering me on, putting up with my surliness when asked, How’s the book coming?, or all three: Nan Kellett, Lira Kanaan, Stephanie Schorow, Andy Mozina, Mary E. Mitchell, Betsy Fitzgerald-Campbell, Ray Bachand, Jude Roth, Jac-Lynn Stark, Nina Huber, Anne B. McGrail, Mary McGrail, Ruth Blomquist, George Ferencik, Katrin Schumann, Holli Andrews, Charles Andrews, Valerie Spain, Portland Helmich, Sandra Miller, Bill Nelson, CeCe Hansen, Drew Pearlman, Phillippa Benson and family, Cheryl Umana, Shannon Rano, Judy Quint, Tatiane Hatchoua, Monica DeOliveira, Amy Karibian, and Leah Parker-Moldover.
Special thanks to Linda Werbner, who read so many drafts with so much loving attention we both lost count.
Gratitude to the Amazon and all its inhabitants, its miraculous plants and creatures of the land, sky, and waters, which fill me with never-ending wonder. Apologies for the many liberties I took in the interest of writing this story.
I am forever grateful to my family for your love, patience, and encouragement: Alaska Grey Ferencik, Jessica Ferencik, Michael and Rebecca Ferencik, and the bravest man of all, my husband, George, who encourages me to venture into the vast unknown, trusting I will always make it back to him in one piece.
A Gallery Books Readers Group Guide
Into the Jungle
Erica Ferencik
This reader’s guide for Into the Jungle includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
Lily Bushwold thought she’d found the antidote to endless foster care and group homes: a teaching job in Cochabamba, Bolivia. As soon as she could steal enough cash for the plane, she was on it.
But when the gig falls through and Lily stays in Bolivia, she finds bonding with other broke, rudderless girls at the local hostel isn’t the life she wants either. Tired of hustling and already world-weary, crazy love finds her in the form she least expects: Omar, a savvy, handsome local man who’s abandoned his life as a hunter in Ayachero—a remote jungle village—to try his hand at city life.
When Omar learns that a jaguar has killed his four-year-old nephew in Ayachero and decides to go back, love-struck Lily goes along, following Omar into a ruthless new world of lawless poachers, bullheaded missionaries, and desperate indigenous tribes driven to the brink of extinction. To survive, Lily must navigate the jungle—its wonders as well as its terrors—using only her wits and resilience.
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. At the beginning of Into the Jungle, Lily describes herself as “a half-starved, high-strung wild child” (page 7). What were your initial impressions of Lily? Did you like her? Why or why not? What factors contributed to Lily’s wild nature?
2. Discuss the epigraph that begins Into the Jungle. Why do you think Ferencik choose to include it? How does it frame your understanding of the narrative? Who were the shamans that you encountered in Into the Jungle? How did they use their powers? What do you think makes a shaman worthy of the title?
3. Describe Omar. Would you have responded to his initial overture? Why does Lily? When Omar shows up at the Versailles the day after meeting Lily as promised, Lily says that it was “just a simple promise kept, but it gleamed and sparkled” (page 27). Explain her reaction. Even though Omar has shown himself to be trustworthy, Lily initially lies to him about her background. Why do you think she does so? What did you think of her lies?
4. Although Lily has been told that life in the jungle is hard and unforgiving, she “had begun to conjure some fairy-tale magical life under the stars in ‘nature,’ away from the filth and noise of the city” (page 43). Compare Lily’s imaginings of life in the jungle with the reality. How does she first react to life in Ayachero? What is her day-to-day life like and what challenges does she face? Why does she decide to go despite the warnings that she receives? What would you do if you were in her position?
5. Early in the novel, Lily muses, “Sex was nothing, or it was a violence, a currency; love a ruse” (page 31). What did you think of Lily’s views of love? Do her thoughts on sex and love evolve throughout the novel? If so, how and why?
6. When Lily first sees the Frannies, she is “struck by how American [their wave] looked and felt” (page 83) and wonders whether she is as brash and loud as she finds them. Were you surprised by Lily’s reaction to them? Why or why not? Who are the Frannies and what are they doing in the jungle? FrannyB describes the jungle as a “brutal place” (page 84). Compare her view of the jungle to that of Lily and Omar. How and why do their perspectives differ?
7. Omar questions Lily’s desire to know “everything,” saying, “You think knowing everything is good, Lily. Is that an American thing?” (page 97). H
ow does Omar’s view on knowledge vary from Lily’s? Why does Omar see withholding information as an act of protection? Do you agree with his perspective? Why or why not? Are there other notable cultural differences between the two of them? What do the people of Ayachero initially think of Lily?
8. Lily describes putting on her backpack as “a move that always comforted me” (page 76). Why does this action give her a sense of security? How does her backpack serve as a talisman? Do you have any objects in your life that provide you with a sense of comfort? What are they and why?
9. For God’s Sake plays an important role in the lives of many in the jungle. Who is he and how did he come to receive his name? For God’s Sake tells Lily, “sometimes I feel like I am the devil to wear four faces” (page 197). What are those “four faces” and why does For God’s Sake feel he needs to occupy each of the roles? How do each of the different groups he interacts with view him? What did you think of him and why?
10. Many of the inhabitants of Ayachero fear Beya. Discuss some of the stories that they share about her. Why is she shrouded in so much mystery? What did you think of Beya when you first encountered her? How did the mythology surrounding the woman compare with the reality of who she was? Lily confesses that “Beya obsessed me” (page 138). Why is she fascinated with Beya? Can you think of any similarities between the two women? Did you agree with Lily’s decision to go into the jungle to seek her out? Explain your answer.
11. Lily says, “I couldn’t remember having a more joyous day in Ayachero” (page 190) when recounting the afternoon that she spent working with many of the villagers to repair netting with her newly acquired sewing machine. What makes the day so special to Lily? Why do you think that Lily derives so much pleasure from working? Describe the ways in which her views on work evolve throughout the novel.
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