Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (21 page)

“We yakked all night—that Fer-de-lance
is a whiz with nuances and complexities—jabbering about the pitfalls of
morbidity, about levity versus gravity, struggle versus play, me mostly
mouthing other people’s ideas, but your
curandero
man contributing some
fairly engaging wrinkles of his own. He said, for example, that in order for
his people to withstand the assault of the white man, they must fashion shields
out of laughter. He means that literally, I think. Speaks of laughter as if it
were a force, a physical force or natural phenomenon. And within the realm of
laughter, he says, light and darkness merge, no longer existing as separate or
distinct conditions. A people who could live in that realm would be free of all
of life’s dualities. The white man can’t do the trick because he lacks the
Kandakandero knowledge of the different levels of reality, and so far the
Ka’daks can’t do it because they lack the buoyancy of the white man’s humor.
The person who successfully combined the two would move through the world as a
‘shadow of light.’ Can you picture a shadow of light? A person in whom the
luminous and the dark are inseparable? Reminds me a bit of neutral angels, if
you’re familiar with the term.”

“Um. I daresay he’s evolved
intellectually since I had a go at him.”

“For a dude whose brain is stuffed in
a pyramid, that’s hardly surprising. That laugh of his is starting to get out
of control, though. Sounds a lot like Woody Woodpecker. Friend of mine used to
cackle like that to amuse the bar girls in Bangkok.”

“Indeed? Well, do continue. What
else?”

“Ah, well, gee, I don’t know. We just
kicked that gong around all night, like I said. Then, for breakfast, we ate my
grandmother’s parrot.”

Switters had not eaten Sailor Boy on
purpose. At the time, in fact, he wasn’t aware that it was Sailor Boy he was
eating. The gourdful of thin gray stew contained, so he presumed, the rubbery
flesh of an overage chicken. It wasn’t until later in the day, after awakening
from a four-or five-hour rest, that Fer-de-lance showed him the headdress
that, prior to his departure, End of Time had woven from Sailor’s feathers. By
then, it was too late to retch.

The shaman had eaten the parrot to
appropriate its magic. “You’re lucky he didn’t eat you as well,” Fer-de-lance
had snarled when Switters expressed outrage. “Who do you think you’ve been
dealing with? Some quaint poseur from central casting?” The parrot stew was
served to Switters as a test. “He wanted to see how strong you are,” said the
mestizo.

There were other tests in line.
Fer-de-lance challenged Switters to don the headdress at sunset and go stand
alone in the forest. That would be the signal for End of Time to return,
whereupon he would reveal himself, pyramid and all, and personally administer
to the
gringo blanco
the vision root.

“What was I going to do,” asked
Switters, “turn tail and run? I’d come this far. My courage was in question.
And, besides, I’d yet to lay eyes on the guy. Before curiosity kills it, the
cat learns more of the world than a hundred uninquisitive dogs.”

Thus, he replaced his Panama hat with
poor Sailor’s plumage (How would
that
look on video?) and as dusk
pressed the dimmer switch, transforming the verdant disorder of the diurnal
jungle into a muscular monolith, an enveloping solid throb, a Stonehenge of
whispers, a phantom colonnade, he walked gingerly away from the lodge to go
stand alone in the gloom. He neither saw nor heard End of Time’s approach.
Switters was standing there, staring, listening, barely breathing, unable, for
some reason, to remember a single lyric to “Send in the Clowns,” when he felt
something touch his shoulder, causing him to nearly jump over a treetop.

“How did he look?”

“You know how he looks. Like a
youngish Amazonian Indian with the skyline of Cairo on his shoulders.”

“His facial decoration? What color,
what pattern?
Achiote
berry or
tinhorao
bark? His necklace? Bone,
feathers, claws, seeds, or teeth? These details are significant.”

“For Christ’s sake, Pot!”

“You took no notes?” The tone was
accusatory.

“Not after that turkey bone went up
my snout. I spent the next eight hours riding the quark. Pursued by my own
ghost down the Hallways of Always. Hobnobbing with giant metallic cockroaches
and transgalactic jive bulbs. You’ve been there. What do you expect?”

“Yes, but you did agree. . . .”

“The Hallways of Always, pal. One
dies in there and is reborn. One doesn’t take notes. Come on, Pot. If not
watched carefully, you could turn into another tedious anthropologist.”

“Impaired while under the influence,
but what about prior to and following?”

“Very little of either. And somehow I
don’t believe ‘impaired’ is the right word.” He paused. “Listen, I’m quite
aware of the sort of stuff you’re after, and I’m sure that picturesque details
by the dozen will come to mind eventually. Right now, my biocomputer’s down.
I’m. . . . Death and resurrection, not to mention breakfasting on the longtime
family pet, can take a lot out of a guy. Okay?” Again, he closed his eyes.

Smithe walked away. Head bowed, nose
pointed at the toes that, like fans of pink pickles, spread over the tips of
his flip-flops, neck knotted, meaty hands clasped behind his broad back, he
paced.
Aware of the sort of stuff I’m after?
he thought.
Not bloody
likely.
Smithe, himself, was neither comfortably nor completely aware of
the “sort of stuff” he was after. Direct testimony, certainly, yet something as
far beyond ordinary field notes as End of Time was beyond Chief Sitting Bull;
data that might fuel disquisition and exegesis of an academically pragmatic
caliber, that might even make something agreeably quotidian out of the
bizarrely exotic, yet would not conceal from the sensitive some flavor of the
cosmological rites that had blown most of the patio furniture off his personal
lanai. He supposed, in short, that he was searching for planks to bridge a
rupture that had widened within him and without, ever since he had so unwisely
. . .

“Do you have to sulk like that?”
Switters’s voice was tired but tough. “If word gets back to End of Time that
you’re deficient in the category of joie de vivre, he’ll—”

“He’ll what?” snapped Smithe testily.

“He’ll cancel your damn rendezvous.”

Smithe halted in mid-stride. His chin
withdrew from his chest like a city slicker’s hand from a branding iron. “What
rendezvous?”

“The one I set up for you.”

“Are you ragging me?”

“Potney! If you can’t trust a Yank,
who can you trust?”

“He’s actually agreed to meet?”

“At the next new moon. Be here or be
square.”

“You’re serious. How in the world? .
. .”

“All in a night’s work.”

“For an errand boy?”

“Precisely. Although in the
gastrointestinal aftermath of ingesting fricassee à Sailor Boy”—he winced and
it was not at all contrived—”I watched the errand I was sent to run, run
through me.”

The bells of his own jubilation
prevented Smithe from hearing this last, which was just as well, regardless
that in his elated state he might not have found it egregiously offensive. He
was positively thrilled. His pale eyes sparkled, and strong white teeth,
heretofore unrevealed, came out of the lipwork. “Bloody marvelous,” he crooned.
“Bloody marvelous.”

Smithe struck a match to the
cork-tipped Parliament he’d removed from a case some minutes earlier but not
yet lit. “My work concerns itself with what Linton has called ‘social
heredity,’ which, as you might suppose, consists of the learned, socially
transmitted habits, customs, morals, laws, arts, crafts,
et cetera
of whole
cultures: tribes, bands, clans, villages. Groups of socially related people, in
other words. To focus on a single individual within a group, even such an
extraordinary individual as our End of Time, is virtually unprecedented. Unique
in the annals. Um. The paper I intend to prepare will be controversial, surely,
but if viewed in a broad light, could well, unless I’m rationalizing wildly, do
my reputation a power of good.” He said all this as if he’d just that moment
thought of it. “Could right things with Eleanor, too,” he added almost as an
afterthought.

“Wouldn’t be surprised.” Switters
smiled. “Nothing like a jolt of unexpected boldness to make a woman’s nipples
stiffen. Why, just before I left the hotel, I e-mailed a young Christian lady
of my acquaintance that I was coming to palpitate her clitoris the way a worker
ant milks its favorite aphid. That’ll burst her buttons, I guarantee. Unless my
aged grandmother intercepts and intervenes.”

Smithe looked him over with active
bemusement. The Englishman seemed incapable of judging when Switters was
speaking earnestly and when he was merely being flippant. (The truth of the
matter was, Switters could not always judge that, himself.)

In no way, however, did Smithe’s
confusion lessen his gratitude. He thanked Switters over and over for
interceding on his behalf. Then, abruptly he stubbed out his cigarette on a
blackened post and said, “It’s barely noon. If we set out at once, I daresay we
could reach Boquichicos by nightfall. What do you say, old boy? Shall we get
cracking? Brisk march will do wonders for your condition. You can impart
further detail over dinner at the hotel. My treat. Dinner.”

“The haute cuisine of Boquichicos is
a lovely prospect,” said Switters, but he made no move to extricate himself
from the hammock. Rather, he lay there looking troubled. He plowed his fingers
through his badly tangled curls. He ran his tongue over his palate, tasting the
bitter film left by parrot goulash and yopo vomit. He had to admit that he
could do with a bit of bodily maintenance. “I can’t . . . uh . . . End of Time
said. . . . There’s this. . . . Listen, I’ve been thinking that I might ask the
Nacanaca studs to
carry
me back. In the hammock. Like a hunting trophy.
A roll-up. Sedan chair sort of thing.”

“Really, Switters! How imperial.”
Smithe laughed, but he, too, suddenly looked troubled, as if he had a
premonition that things were about to go bad in a dramatic manner. “Are you
that short on stamina?”

“No, but . . .”

“Then buck up, old boy. Show us some
of the heralded Yankee spunk.”

Switters propped himself up on one
elbow but stirred no further. The hammock swung gently, to and fro. “This is
absolutely silly, I’m aware of that, but . . .”

“Do go on.”

“I’m under, I guess, a kind of
taboo.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Switters sighed, and for a second he
looked less anxious than sheepish. “Well, End of Time told me, right before he
left, that I had to pay a price for having been shown the secrets of the
cosmos. At first I thought he wanted money, like almost everybody else on this
pathological planet, and I objected because I’ve got barely enough cash to pay
my hotel bill and my river crew, and am counting on Mr. Plastic to take care of
me back in Lima. But that wasn’t the sort of price he had in mind.”

“No?”

“No. He said that henceforth I must
never allow my feet to touch the ground. I can stand on top of things, as I
understood it, but I can’t stand on the floor or the earth. And if I ever do,
if my feet touch the ground, I will instantly fall over dead.”

“The bleeding bugger.”

“Yeah. So what do you make of it?
He’s playing with my head, right? I mean, it’s silly, ridiculous.”

“Oh, without question. Quite silly.
Load of bosh.”

“I was hoping you’d concur. As an
experienced anthropologist, you must have come across this kind of thing
before. I know, for example, that West Africa is crawling with curses and
taboos—but there’re also a lot of credible witnesses who swear that they’re
real, they’ve seen them work. That’s why I was inclined to err on the side of
caution, to be perfectly honest.” He cloned the sheepish smile.

“Righto,” said Smithe. He paused, as
if pondering. “Fascinating, though. There’s a quite similar prohibition in
Irish folklore. Should a mortal ever stumble upon a fairy hill and be allowed
to fraternize with the fairies, watch their dances and so forth, then the chap
is warned that his feet may never thereafter touch the earth, under penalty of
death. Evans-Wentz wrote of this, as I recall. Stories abound of pixilated
Irishmen who, out of fear, spent the remainder of their lives on horseback.”

“Superstition, of course?”

“Of course. The Irish.”

“Flapdoodle?”

“Don’t rag me. I’ve been told more
than once that my manner of speech is a trifle old-fashioned. Blame it on my
school. Eleanor does. But you’re quite right. Flapdoodle. As a matter of fact,
End of Time, that scalawag, placed a comparable taboo on me.”

“No kidding?” For the first time in
that conversation, Switters looked relieved. “The same taboo as my own?”

“Uh, no, not
precisely
, though
promising identical consequences.”

“And you’re alive and ambulating.
That bodes well for me.” When Smithe didn’t respond, Switters asked, “Doesn’t
it?”