by Wilbur Smith
They headed southwards for the next six days, over progressively rougher unmade roads, through jungle and mountains. At some point they left the state of Colombia and crossed another river by ferry into Venezuela. At each stop along the way the driver climbed into the back of the truck and gave the girls a shot of intravenous heroin. By this stage, as soon as they saw the needle, the sisters were holding out their right arms willingly, eager for the solace that the drug provided them.
As soon as they were revived the driver’s mate flagged down any other passing vehicles on the road and opened the canvas flap on the back of the Ford to display the girls to these prospective customers. If the girls tried to resist they were beaten, and denied their next fix of heroin. By the time they reached Minas de Ye each of the sisters had been used so often that they had lost count of all the men who had climbed into the back of the old Ford to be with them.
Minas de Ye was deep in the jungles of the Amazon basin. It was an area along both banks of the Rio de Oro, a tributary of the Amazon, which cut through the mountains. An army of illegal gold miners laboured in the diggings, risking their lives for a few grains of the alluvial yellow metal.
The truck stopped for the last time at a large ramshackle building on the river bank, where one of the many gold buyers from the city of Calabozo had set up business. The buyer was a fat and shaggy rogue named Goyo who sat behind his gold scales on the veranda and haggled with the miners who brought down the meagre yellow flakes and beads from their sluice boxes in the hills.
Goyo’s woman was a shrewish creature, as thin as her husband was fat. Her name was Dolorita. She sold marijuana, heroin and homebrewed tequila to her husband’s customers. She also operated a brothel in the back rooms of the rambling building. Sacha and Bryoni were unloaded from the truck and handed over to Dolorita, who seemed to be anticipating their arrival. She at once forced the girls to strip off the rags that covered them and she examined them quickly.
‘They have already been used up. This was not what I saw in the photographs,’ she complained when she saw their bruises. ‘But it is too late now. I can’t send them back. I have already paid over a hundred dollars each for them. Anyway, we always need new girls.’ She turned to her overseer. His name was Silvestre and he was a villainous-looking brute with a marked squint. When he smiled, which was seldom, he exposed one gold tooth and another jet black one sitting side by side in the front of his lower jaw.
‘You better try to get some of my money back, Silvestre. Do you hear me? Make them work hard,’ Dolorita ordered him.
Silvestre led the two sisters around to the back of the building and shoved them into a dingy little room in which they would live and work on the two filthy mattresses that were laid side by side in the centre of the mud floor. There was no plumbing, and the girls had no alternative but to bathe in and drink from a bucket of river water in one corner of the room. There was an identical bucket standing beside the first one. This was the latrine which served not only Sacha and Bryoni but any of their clients who felt the need. The contaminated river water gave both the girls intermittent low-grade dysentery.
Dolorita set her prices so low that at all times there was a line of three or four men waiting their turn at the door. They were all miners and their bodies reeked with the sweat of their labour, while their mouths stank of rotting teeth and cheap tequila. Their bodies and ragged clothing were plastered with red mud from the gold diggings.
Bryoni never knew how many other girls were working in the adjacent rooms. All she knew was that there were many of them. Dolorita fed her working girls on a diet of minimal amounts of plain boiled cassava and much larger doses of low-grade heroin. Her turnover of girls from disease, malnutrition and drug overdose was brisk.
The roof of the shack was thatched with palm fronds. The tropical rain dripped through and the girls were seldom completely dry. Within the first week Sacha developed a persistent cough. She refused to eat more than a few mouthfuls of the foul food, and she lost weight at an alarming rate.
The walls of their room were made from unpainted cardboard packing cases, so flimsy that they were able to hear almost everything happening in the other rooms around them. Two or three times a week Bryoni would hear Dolorita call Silvestre and tell him, ‘This bitch is finished. Take her down to the farm.’
Bryoni had no idea what she meant by the farm. She had long ago descended into a fog of pain, exhaustion and heroin. Like Sacha, she was slowly losing her grasp on reality.
Every few days Amaranthus would come to drink tequila with Silvestre and to take more film footage of Bryoni and Sacha in their squalor. Bryoni was hardly aware of his presence. The only thing that she agonized over was the swift deterioration of Sacha’s health. Bryoni realized at last that Sacha was dying.
She pleaded with Dolorita and Silvestre in her elementary Spanish to fetch a doctor, but they laughed at her.
‘Who is going to pay for this doctor, querido?’ Dolorita mocked her. ‘If your sister worked harder, I might buy a little medicine for her cough, but she is a lazy cow. Why should I spend good money on her?’
Three days later Sacha developed a burning fever, and again Bryoni begged Dolorita to get help for her. ‘My sister is very sick. Just feel how hot her body is.’
‘Bueno! The men they like it that way. They like putting their bread into a nice hot oven.’ Dolorita cackled with laughter.
In the early hours of the following morning Sacha died. Bryoni was holding her in her arms as she felt the life go out of her. Her body began to cool and Bryoni hardly had the strength to weep for her one last time.
In the dawn Dolorita and Silvestre came to the little room and stood over Sacha’s skeletal naked body.
‘Si,’ Dolorita said briskly. ‘She is finished. Take her down to the farm, Silvestre.’
Bryoni still did not know where or what the farm was and she did not care. She had lost Sacha, and after that nothing else mattered. At last she had given up the struggle. She just wanted to die and be with Sacha, wherever she had gone.
*
Amaranthus the cameraman came the next afternoon and he was furious to learn that Sacha was dead. Bryoni heard him shouting at Silvestre on the veranda. ‘Why didn’t you send for me? They are going to be angry with me now. This is going to cost me money. It is my job to film everything; especially if one of the bitches dies. They will cut my pay. You should have sent a message to me.’
One of the gold miners was with Bryoni while this conversation was going on outside her window. He was rutting noisily on top of her, grunting like an animal in her ear, so she had difficulty understanding what Amaranthus had said, but she heard clearly Silvestre’s reply. ‘Don’t worry, Amaranthus my friend. The other puta won’t be too far behind her. I will call you when it happens. Now, come and I will let you buy me a glass of tequila.’ He took Amaranthus by the arm and led him up to the barroom. They sat at one of the small and grubby tables and drank the first tequila. Amaranthus’s mood improved and he brought Silvestre a second drink.
‘I would like to see this farm that you and Dolorita are always talking about. I would like to take some film. Will you show it to me, Silvestre?’
‘Buy me one more drink first.’
Silvestre drained his glass and then stood up. ‘Bueno, amigo. Come with me and I will show you our famous farm.’
He led Amaranthus down through the banana plantation towards the bank of the river and then turned into a grove of cashew trees. Suddenly Amaranthus sniffed the air and exclaimed with disgust, ‘Poof! What it is that revolting smell?’
‘What you smell is our butchery and hog pens.’
‘It’s a pig farm, is it?’
‘Yes, our pork sausages are the finest in South America. We send all we can make to the big towns.’
They came out of the trees into a large clearing in the jungle. Silvestre led him down a path between two rows of hog pens. The animals in them were black Iberian pigs.
Silvestre stopped
beside one pen in which there were eight enormous boars. Each of them stood as high as a man’s hip. Short sharp tusks protruded from their jaws. The coarse bristles on their humped backs formed a dense mane. They snuffled the air hungrily and champed their jaws, grunting with excitement, watching Silvestre with glistening and greedy eyes.
‘They recognize you. They are very happy to see you,’ Amaranthus remarked.
‘They are my pets,’ Silvestre agreed. ‘I am the one who feeds them.’ He pointed at the largest animal. ‘That one is called Hannibal. By the time he goes to the butcher shop to be made into sausages, he will weigh three hundred kilos.’
‘He is a monster,’ Amaranthus agreed. ‘What do you feed them on? Cassava?’
‘Yes, cassava.’ Silvestre tapped his nose with one finger and his expression became cunning and conspiratorial. He dropped his voice. ‘But meat also. We feed them plenty of meat.’
‘Where do you get meat from to feed pigs?’ Amaranthus wondered. ‘Few men in Minas de Ye can afford to eat even a little of it more than once a month. Meat is very expensive.’
‘Not if you run a bordello in Minas de Ye.’ Silvestre was still grinning.
Amaranthus stared at him. ‘No!’ he exclaimed as he caught on to Silvestre’s meaning. ‘No. I don’t believe it.’ Then he began to grin also. ‘The girls? Is that it?’
‘Si!’ Silvestre was snuffling and grunting with mirth, very much like one of his own pigs. ‘Si! When they finish work at the bordello for ever, Dolorita sends them down here to the farm.’
‘Is that what you did to the first Yanqui cow when she died?’ Amaranthus demanded. ‘You fed her to the pigs?’
Silvestre was laughing so much he could not reply. Amaranthus turned away and leaned over the low wall of the hog pen. His mind was racing. As he rolled a joint of marijuana, his hands were trembling with excitement. He lit the joint and turned back to Silvestre. ‘How would you like me to pay you one hundred dollars americano?’
Silvestre stopped laughing abruptly. He thought about what he could do with a hundred dollars. He decided he could do a great deal with that sum of money. It was almost twice as much as Dolorita paid him for a week of hard work.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to let me film when you bring the other Yanqui puta to the farm, to visit your pet Hannibal.’
Silvestre grunted with relief. ‘That is no problem, amigo. I will send word to you as soon as she dies. I don’t think she will last much longer. She is pining for her sister. Soon she will give up. For a hundred americanos you can shoot all the film in your bag.’
‘No!’ Amaranthus contradicted him. ‘No, you don’t understand. I want you to bring her to the farm before she dies. I want you to bring her to see Hannibal while she can still struggle and kick. I want to film her while she is still able to squeal.’
Even Silvestre was stunned by the enormity of the proposition. His face paled and he stared at Amaranthus.
‘You mean alive?’ he stammered. ‘You want me to let my pigs eat her while she still lives?’ He could hardly believe what he was hearing.
‘Si, amigo. Alive!’
‘Beloved Maria! Now I have heard everything. Give me a suck on your porro.’ Silvestre needed time to regain his wits. Amaranthus handed him the cigarette. Silvestre inhaled deeply and held the smoke as he spoke.
‘One hundred dollars is not enough!’ he wheezed. ‘I want five hundred.’
‘Three hundred and fifty,’ Amaranthus countered.
‘Four hundred.’
‘Okay! Four hundred,’ Amaranthus agreed happily. He had heard of someone who had made a hundred thousand dollars with a six-minute tape by selling it on the black market. He had seen that tape. It was as nothing compared to what his tape would be.
A million! he dreamed. It could make me a million; perhaps even more.
*
It was Monday morning so Silvestre knew that Dolorita and Goyo would be locked in their office behind the bar. They were counting the takings of the week before Goyo carried them down to the bank in the town. Silvestre knocked on the door.
‘Who is it?’ Dolorita screeched. ‘What do you want? We are busy!’
‘It is me, Silvestre. The second Yanqui puta, the cheeky one, she died during the night.’
‘So what do want me to do about it? Take her down to the farm, and leave us alone. You know that we are busy.’
‘Perdóname, señora. I will not bother you again.’
Silvestre went around to the back of the house. Even this early in the morning there were two miners waiting at the door of Bryoni’s room. The door was open and the men were smoking and watching with interest what was happening inside. Silvestre shoved them away from the door, and pointed down the veranda.
‘Go to one of the other girls,’ he told them. ‘This one is finished for the day.’
‘I want this one,’ one of the miners started to argue. ‘I know her well. She is lively. She fights. She does not just lie there like a dead catfish…’
Silvestre turned on him with a scowl. The man backed down hurriedly. Silvestre’s reputation as a knifeman was almost as ugly as his face.
Silvestre kicked the naked buttocks of the miner who was on top of Bryoni. He jumped to his feet, hoisted the trousers of his overalls and scurried from the room. Silvestre went to kneel beside Bryoni.
‘Are you ready for a little of the good stuff?’ he asked her and took the box containing his heroin kit from his pocket. Bryoni sat up eagerly and offered him her left arm. He examined it briefly. The crook of her elbow was inflamed and ulcerated. One of the big veins had collapsed and the ulcers were festering and oozing pus. Her other arm was in a similar condition.
‘I will use your foot,’ he decided. He put the rubber tube around her leg just above the ankle and twisted it until the veins puffed up. He shot the drug into her leg. Bryoni closed her eyes in anticipation. Then she opened them again and smiled at Silvestre. She had lost two of her front teeth a few weeks previously in an argument with Silvestre, but that no longer mattered. All that mattered was the glorious surge of the heroin through her body.
‘Thank you, Silvestre,’ she whispered dreamily.
‘I am taking you out for a while,’ he told her.
‘Okay,’ she agreed. She had given up caring what happened to her next.
‘I am going to cover you with a blanket, so people won’t see you without your clothes.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured again.
He wound the mud-and-semen-stained blanket around her naked body, and draped a fold of it over her head to cover her face. He picked her up in his arms and carried her out through the back door of the building and headed into the trees. When he came out into the hog farm he saw that Amaranthus was there before them. Amaranthus had climbed onto the wall of Hannibal’s sty and he had set his camera on its tripod. The animals were milling around below him, grunting and squealing. They had seen Silvestre coming down the hill, carrying a familiar burden.
‘Are you ready?’ Silvestre called to him. ‘We mustn’t waste too much time.’
‘Camera is already rolling!’ Amaranthus laughed with excitement. Beneath where he stood Hannibal reared up on his back legs and placed his front hooves on top of the wall of the sty. He peered over it as Silvestre approached.
‘How do you want to do this?’ Silvestre asked as he placed Bryoni on her feet. He removed the blanket that covered her. With a puzzled expression on her face Bryoni stared at Hannibal’s massive black head that was looking at her over the wall of the sty. She cowered back against Silvestre’s chest. Hannibal was snuffling through his flat pink-blotched snout and champing his jaws.
‘I am ready if you are,’ Amaranthus assured him.
‘I think we need a little blood to get Hannibal worked up,’ Silvestre said. He stepped back from Bryoni. She was so fascinated by the huge animal in front of her that she did not notice what Silvestre was doing. Earlier that morning he had left a
flat-bladed spade propped against the wall of the sty. He picked it up in one hand and said softly, ‘Hey, Bryoni, look at me.’
She turned to face him and he swung the spade at the level of her knees. The steel cut through to the bone and shattered her kneecap. Blood spurted from the wound. Her leg collapsed under her and Bryoni shrieked with pain and shock as she started to fall.
Silvestre dropped the spade and caught her up in his arms. He glanced over her head at Amaranthus on the wall above them.
‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Do it!’ Amaranthus shouted.
With a heave of his shoulders Silvestre tossed Bryoni over the wall. She fell amongst the hogs on the far side.
Bryoni was stunned by the fall, but she recovered swiftly. She pushed herself up on her elbows and started to drag her body through the black filth of the sty, back towards the illusory safety of the wall.
Hannibal led the charge of great black bodies that descended upon her. He locked his tusks into her wounded leg. He worried the mutilated limb, trying to tear off a mouthful of flesh, dragging Bryoni on her back through the mud. Bryoni lifted her face towards the camera.
‘Please!’ she cried. ‘Please somebody help me.’
Then another animal bit into her shoulder and heaved back, until he and Hannibal had Bryoni’s body racked between them. A third boar surged forward and bit into her stomach and then pulled back, tearing out a tangled mass of her entrails.
Bryoni opened her mouth for the last time.