by Satyajit Ray
Nakur Babu left.
Crole puffed his pipe and blowing smoke into the room said thoughtfully, ‘In case El Dorado is present in real, don’t we too need to see it?’
As I’ve told you before, Saunders is a staunch sceptic. In a standoffish tone, he said, ‘Hey, my dear German scholar, over the past three hundred years countless people have been searching all over Latin America in pursuit of their dream of gold but could find no trace of El Dorado and you’re getting provoked by a few words from this gentleman? If this humungous Jew being taken in by this tall talks goes into a jungle and becomes the victim of a jaguar I’ve no problem with that. But I’m not having any of it. I don’t want any kind of change in our chalked out plans. And I believe that Shonku too shares the same view.’
I nodded my head in agreement. Our plan was to catch a flight after breakfast to go to the north, to the city of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. After staying there for a day we would board a mini plane to go towards the northern part of the Xingu National Park to reach the city of Posto Diyauyarum. The rest of the journey will be on the river. We will go to Porori village on a boat by the river Xingu. In Porori live the Chukahamai, an ancient tribe of Brazil. Few of them still exist and till recently, they had belonged to the Stone Age. We will be accompanied by a specialist from Brasilia called a sertanista. In the local language, the word means a forest specialist. These sertanistas are very keen to establish relationships with this tribe; among other things they know their language very well.
After leaving Porori we will go further north to see the Von Martius waterfall and then we return to Brasilia and fly back to our own destinations. Our trip should be over within seven days but the government of Brazil is ready to extend their hospitality for another three days.
It was now 11.30 p.m. Both Crole and Saunders got up. That Crole begged to differ became apparent when before leaving he stood in front of the door and said, ‘I’m surprised, Shonku! That you cannot make out a person so close to you. The look on the face of your secretary was completely different. When he was describing El Dorado in the lobby, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.’
Hearing this, Saunders winked in my direction and gestured with his hand, as if he was holding a glass just to let me know that Crole had had too much champagne in tonight’s party.
It’s past midnight. The city is quiet. Let me go to bed.
13 October, Hotel Capitol, Brasilia, 2.30 p.m.
We arrived here a couple of hours ago. By ‘we’ I mean my two friends and I and Mr Lobo. Mr Lobo will stay with us all throughout this trip. At least I have not noticed any lack of courtesy in him.
Inadvertently, one ends up talking about Nakur Babu. In plain words, he has jilted me and it’s obvious that it’s in the greed for money.
Today in São Paulo my room boy brought me a letter along with my morning coffee. It was in Bengali and the writing was familiar to me. Compared to the previous one I have to admit the language this time was comparatively informal. This is the letter.
Dear Tilu Babu
Please pardon this worthless creature. I couldn’t resist the offer of five thousand dollars in hard cash. Over the past four years, my grandmother has been bedridden with an incurable illness. I lost my mother at the age of eight and a half. Ever since, I’ve been brought up by by grandmother. I heard that this country has come up with a new medicine for this disease. Medicine is very expensive. Thanks to Blumegarten’s generosity, I’ll have the fortune to return home with this miraculous medicine for her.
This morning we are flying off in Blumegarten’s personal helicopter. Our aim is to reach a forest area situated 300 miles northwest from São Paulo. El Dorado is located in the midst of this forest. Without my advice and help, Blumegarten can never reach this destination. Out of mere compassion I have agreed to give directions. After my mission is accomplished I’ll meet you. I’m aware of your itinerary.
May God bless you. By God’s grace if I am ever of some use to you I’ll be most obliged.
Your humble servant
Shri Nakurchandra Biswas
After inquiring at the hotel reception I found out that Nakur Babu had indeed left early this morning at 6 a.m.
‘Was that pot-bellied man with him?’
‘Yes, sir, he was.’
Saunders looked much more annoyed than I was. He was angry not just with Nakur Babu, but with me too. He said, ‘For people like you and me it’s best we stay away from matters related to the supernatural, spiritual and the mystical.’
Crole had been looking rather downcast ever since he heard about Nakur Babu’s defection, but for a different reason. He said, ‘If your fellow is saying he will meet us again then it’s clear that El Dorado is not very far from our destination. In that case why can’t we all go there, too?’
Both Saunders and I didn’t pay any heed to his remark.
Though Brasilia is Brazil’s capital, there’s no way you can compare this city to São Paulo. As soon as we arrived at our hotel, we met Mr Heiter, the sertanista i.e. the forest expert who would accompany us. Even though he was quite young, he looked experienced. In addition, his even temper and restrained behaviour marked him as an ideal person to coordinate with tribals. Today Crole asked him about his views on El Dorado. Hearing this question he raised his eyebrows and said, ‘In today’s day and age we are talking of El Dorado? It has been declared a myth long ago. El Dorado is not just a city; it’s also a person. The word Dorado denotes both a city as well as a human figure in Portuguese. The tribals in ancient times used to worship a special person as a symbol of the sun and he was referred to as El Dorado.’
I’ve never seen someone look as disillusioned as Crole.
Tomorrow morning, our journey begins. What Nakur Babu has done is indeed wrong but I can’t help admitting that I’m also responsible for this and this is something I can’t deny. It was I who first invited him to come with me.
16 October, 4.30 p.m.
In a well-furnished canoe we have travelled almost thirty-three miles by the river Xingu. Other than the five of us—that is, Crole, Saunders, Lobo, Heiter and I—there are two South American Indian boatmen. Two more boatmen carrying our luggage and provisions are travelling by another canoe. After choosing a clean patch we have now set up camp by the riverbank. Near the camp we have fixed two hammocks in three trees nearby. Saunders and Crole have occupied two and are currently arguing about the well-known anaconda snakes of Brazil. One gets to know through accounts by travellers that on certain occasions they can acquire huge forms. According to Crole, it’s not surprising if they are as long as twenty feet. Saunders is not convinced by this. I must mention that none of us has seen an anaconda other than in a zoo. I’ve no idea if we will have the fortune to come across one in this trip. Even if it’s not to be I’ll have no regrets. There’s no comparison with the beauty that we have seen in Brazil’s jungle, which is replete with creepers, vegetation, insects, birds and animals. Even if the forest is deep and dark there’s no dearth of colour. We have observed lantana flower bushes, colourful butterflies and dazzling birds of the parakeet family. While we took the boat ride we were not allowed to touch the water as it’s full of the monstrous piranha fish. Yesterday, we spotted the carcass of a crocodile; apart from a portion of his head there’s no presence of any flesh; it was all bones. The flesh has gone into the piranha’s belly.
Many areas of Brazil have still been unexplored by people from the outside world. During the last few years, however, quite a bit of the forest area has been cleared to add land for cultivation. In addition to this, the Brazilian government continues to create highways by cutting forest land and by flattening mountains with dynamite. On our way here, too, we heard blasts. At midnight, we were all woken up in our camp by an ear-splitting blast. The resonance of the sound was so high that Crole’s beer glass broke into pieces. As I had a suspicion in my mind, this morning I asked Heiter if there was any volcano nearby. Heiter only nodded his head solemnly.
17 O
ctober, 6 a.m.
A strange incident occurred last night.
To protect myself from mosquitoes and the annoying barracuda flies, I had brought along some cream which I had prepared at Giridih. All three of us had applied it and had gone to sleep by 9.30 p.m. in our respective tents. Though there’s nothing like the stillness of the night—the chirping of crickets and the cries of the jaguars can be heard all through the night—one is so tired that one falls asleep in no time. But we were all suddenly awakened by a loud scream.
When both Saunders and I rushed out of our tents I saw that Crole too has come out of his and so had Mr Heiter.
But where was Mr Lobo?
Crole took out his torch and swung the light in different directions till we finally spotted him. Pulling a distorted face we saw him come out, limping towards us from behind a busch twenty yards away. He was crying out the name of Jesus in Portuguese.
Screaming out ‘I’ve been bitten in my leg, I’m no more!’ Mr Lobo rushed into Saunders’s arms.
There was a spider bite on his right foot. Lobo had gone behind a bush to relieve himself. His gold wristwatch was a bit loose and it had slipped off his hand to the ground. While looking for it with a torch his feet had landed on a spider’s den. The bite was definitely poisonous but not lethal. But looking at Lobo’s reaction, one wouldn’t have thought that.
As I was applying my medicine on his wound with the help of Saunders’s torch I suddenly caught Lobo’s peculiar expression—it was a strange mix of terror and guilt. He was also looking directly at me.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him.
‘I’ve sinned. Please forgive me.’ He uttered these words in a grief-stricken voice.
‘What sin are you talking about?’
Mr Lobo held my feet with his hands. His lips were quivering; his eyes full of tears.
Both Crole and Saunders stared at him.
‘That night,’ said Mr Lobo, ‘that night after bribing the guard I entered the exhibition hall and took out all your documents and notes. And then . . .’
He was in great pain, yet he seemed desperate to talk to me.
‘Then I replaced everything after xeroxing those papers.’
Now I asked him, ‘Then?’
‘Then I handed over the copies to Mr Blumegarten. He gave me cash . . . loads of cash . . .’
‘Enough. Say no more.’
Mr Lobo let out a deep sigh. ‘I feel so relieved after confessing. Now I can die in peace.’
‘You won’t die, Mr Lobo’, said Saunders in a dry voice. ‘By the bite of this spider you are wounded, but not killed.’
Mr Lobo’s wound will definitely heal but the damage he has done to me is irreparable.
Not a word by Shri Nakurchandra was out of place.
Can we then infer then that El Dorado exists for real?
18 October, Hotel Capitol, Brasilia, 10 p.m.
I must write down all about the unexpected, unforgettable ending of our trip to Brazil as we are leaving for our own countries tomorrow morning. I’ve to admit that Saunders’s reasoning and scientific outlook has for the first time received a big blow. He has relented to admit that not all things have scientific explanations. I feel this will be all for the better at the end.
Now let me come to the point.
Yesterday morning, in a canoe, all of us, including the bandaged Lobo, set off for Porori, the area inhabited by the Chukahamai tribe. We needed to travel for fifty kilometres. The more we travelled, the richer the array of trees, fruits, flowers and butterflies appeared. Everything seemed more exciting despite the underlying hint of terror in our expedition to this exhilarating land.
I know both Saunders and Crole share the same opinion. Their eyes were glued to the banks of the river, hoping to spot an anaconda. I had no hope of the same. After covering a few miles, we had to bring our boat to a halt. Three men had appeared on the bank of the river. They waved at Heiter to draw his attention and spoke with him in an unknown language. I know in this community there’s a prevalence of a language known as Gay, which Heiter is well familiar with.
After speaking with them, Heiter turned to us. ‘They are local Indians. They are forbidding us to visit Porori.’
‘Why?’ All three of us questioned together.
‘They are saying for some reason the Chukaihamas are in a state of great agitation. Yesterday a group of Japanese tourists had gone to Porori. The tribals killed two of them using poisonous spears.’
I know that these prehistoric communities often hunt using spears whose tips are laced with a dangerous poison, kurari.
‘Then what’s to be done?’ I asked.
Heiter said, ‘For the moment, let’s camp here. You all wait while I go further in a canoe to figure out what’s been happening.’
‘But can you guess the reason for this sudden aggression?’ asked Saunders.
Heiter said, ‘My conjecture is that this is related to the blast we heard the day before yesterday. If any natural calamity occurs they treat it as God’s curse and go berserk.’
With not much choice we disembarked from the canoe.
I could clearly see that this was not quite the ideal place for camping. In general, up to a point near any river the forest remains thick. If one proceeds further it starts thinning. But in this region even if you look further you see no signs of the forest growing sparse.
Around twenty yards from the river we found a comparatively open space and decided to rest there. As we had no idea about how long we needed to wait, we decided to set up camp, keeping Lobo’s condition in mind. Despite signs of recuperation at regular intervals, he was sounding delirious, muttering the names of Jesus and Mother Mary. Perhaps he assumes after we return to the city we will lodge a complaint against him. He was not all wrong because even if I’m prepared to pardon him, both Crole and Saunders are determined to chop off his head. And if they find Blumegarten they will boil his flesh, look out for a cannibalistic tribal in Brazil and invite them for a gala feast. They feel his meat will feed twelve people.
All three of us were exhausted. After hanging some hammocks on the trees in the clearing we were gently swinging in them while occasionally listening to the hoarse calls of churiyangi birds when suddenly Saunders exclaimed in surprise. The two boatmen present with us also let out a shriek.
Ten to twelve yards away from us, a snake slithered down from a top branch of a huge tree directly moving towards us. I don’t think I’ve read such a description of a snake away from fairy tales or myths.
I know the name of this snake but under normal circumstances, out of sheer, wonder the name, as a reflex, would have come out my mouth. But in reality there was then no question of using my voice. Terror coupled with dizziness had gripped me, a feeling which I later found out had been experienced by both Crole and Saunders as well.
This humongous anaconda was climbing down from a height of twenty feet and was about to touch the ground even while the other half of him still rested on the tree. Which means his length was not less than sixty feet and the width was such that a person cannot hold him with even both hands.
While I was trying to figure out how much of my feelings were awe and how much fear, a familiar voice sounded, and the anaconda disappeared in front of our eyes.
‘Hope your curiosity is now fulfilled?’
We had no idea when a canoe had appeared behind us from which Shri Nakurchandra had disembarked.
‘Let me introduce you,’ Nakur Babu said, coming towards us and pointing in the direction of a gentleman. ‘This is Mr Blumegarten’s pilot, Mr Joe Hopgood. He brought me here in his boss’s helicopter. We had to take a boat ride for the last one and a half miles.
Crole was unable to remain quiet any more. ‘He made us see that snake!’
I said, ‘I did tell you I got an idea of his power while I was in India.’
‘But this is incredible!’
Nakur Babu blushed in embarrassment. He said, ‘Tilu Babu, please explain to them that
I can’t take any credit for it. The entire credit goes to—someone’s divine intervention.’
‘But El Dorado?’
‘I’ve already shown that to the gentleman from the helicopter. I showed it to him just as I showed you the snake. There were a few pictures drawn by Madan Pal in Baroda Banerjee’s book. These were pictures of snakes, El Dorado and the works. The pictures are dull and boring. The images of the gold houses looked warped and crooked. That man saw El Dorado just like these images and said, “El Dorado is breathtaking.”’
We were enthralled listening to Nakur Babu. ‘And then?’
‘What was to follow? The city was amidst the forest. How can a helicopter land there? We landed on this side of the forest. Master went inside the forest along with his two armed security guards and as promised I came here to meet you. I know what you’re thinking—how did Mr Hopgood agree to bring me here? Isn’t it? An agreement was made with Mr Blumegarten that the moment he gets to see El Dorado in real, he’ll hand over 5000 dollars in cash to me. I’d told Hopgood that I’ll give him 2500 dollars if he takes me to meet you here. Just see how he has kept his promise—what a generous heart he has! Moreover, Blumegarten had also promised that once he gets to see El Dorado he’ll return your documents. Here are those papers.’
Nakur Babu took out a fat bundle of papers from his coat pocket and handed them over to me. I was so stunned that I remained speechless. The next question was put forth by Crole.
‘But when Blumegarten realizes that there’s no El Dorado in real, then what?
Hearing this, Nakur Babu let out a hearty laughter which made a few macaws fly off the trees nearby. ‘But where’s Blumegarten? Is he still alive? He entered the forest at 5.30 p.m. Six hours later at 11.33 p.m., due to a meteor fall an entire forest measuring an area of three and a half miles simply vanished. I had foreseen this whole event thanks to your blessings, Tilu Babu! I am also grateful that I have enjoyed the company of someone of your stature. Moreover, thanks to you, I could purchase an expensive medicine for my grandmother, but how can I let this enemy live?