Obabakoak (23 page)

She was listening to the songs of all these fish and of a hundred more and of another hundred still.

But she was not only listening to the fish and the birds, she was also listening to the snakes that slither up and down the trees, as she sat there at the door of the shack, looking out at the jungle and thinking about the letter she had received a year before in Dublin: If lost, return to sender: Doctor Thomas Sheldon, Napo Street, Iquitos, Peru, said the return address on the letter, in which her husband declared his intention of journeying deep into the jungle. He wanted to forget the faces of the soldiers he had seen die in Verdun and in Arras, he wanted to forget the terrible bayonet wounds that—God knows—he had been unable to treat; he felt terribly disillusioned with himself and with the world and his primary aim was to cast into the Amazon River the medal awarded to him for his work as Medical Captain. It was a year since she’d received the letter in Dublin and after that there had been nothing, only silence. And Laura Sheldon (maiden name, Laura Sligo) feared that Thomas might already be dead and lying at rest near the source of the Unine, in that same Tierra Alta she was contemplating then as she listened to the fish, the birds, and the snakes of the jungle, to the
afaninga
that whistles like a young boy, and to the
mantona
with its ten colors, and to the
naka,
which is small but very poisonous, and to the black
chusupe,
that grows to a length of sixteen feet and bites like a dog, and to the giant
yanaboa,
with a body the thickness of a well-built man, and to the
sachamana
and the
yakumana.

Laura Sheldon (maiden name, Laura Sligo) was listening to the way the songs of all the snakes—and the songs of a hundred more and another hundred still—blended with the songs of the fish and the birds, as she sat there at the door of a shack in La Atalaya, thinking about her husband and unconvinced by what César Calvo and I kept telling her:

“I think the doctor went up the Ucayali and then bore left toward the Unine,” César Calvo, the wise man of Iquitos, was saying. “And if that is the case, then you’ve no need to worry. The doctor will now be among the Ashaninka, who are a good people. The Ashaninka don’t attack
viracochas
like your husband. I mean, white people who come in peace.”

As well as being a wise man and an expert on everything to do with the jungle, César Calvo was also a good and prudent man. He spoke of the Ashaninka, but not of the Amawaka, the tribe living to the right of the Ucayali, by the shores of the Urubamba, an option that would prove fatal to a
viracocha,
whether he came in peace or not.

“Now you have less reason to despair than ever, Laura. For the first time in three months, we have a firm trail to follow. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will find your husband, I’m sure of it,” said I, the man she had hired as a guide in Cuzco, when she was still a beautiful girl just arrived from Dublin, and not a woman worn out and wasted by the jungle. I was fond of her, I felt myself to be her friend, and I would have given anything to be of consolation to her.

But she wasn’t listening to us, only to the inhabitants of the jungle: to the
carachupausa,
the
papasí,
the
huapapa,
to the
yungururu,
the
ayaymaman,
and to the
yanaboa
and the
nak
a
; and also to the
makisapa
monkey and to the
wapo
toad and to the
cupisu
turtle.

And then, suddenly, the whole jungle fell silent. The birds fell silent, the fish and the snakes fell silent, all the other animals fell silent, and, alone in that silence, only the lament of the
ayaymaman
could be heard, calling out like a lost child again and again. Night had fallen on the Amazon.

Laura Sheldon (maiden name, Laura Sligo) turned her head in the apparent direction of that solitary song, and then, huddled in her chair, she burst into tears. And for a long time there were only two songs in all that vastness: Laura’s sobs and the cry of the
ayaymaman.

It had grown completely dark when César Calvo, the good man of Iquitos, went over to her and spoke to her like a brother.

“We will find him. But now you must sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, seven hours to the Unine and then about the same again to the land of the Ashaninka. You must sleep. I’m going to see if the canoes are ready and to reach an agreement with the Indians. I hope they’re in the mood for rowing,” he added before going off toward another of the shacks in La Atalaya.

Then it was my turn to go over to Laura, not like a brother, but like a man who could not recall ever having met a woman quite like her: so intelligent, so brave, so very nice.

“Cheer up, Laura. Tomorrow we’ll find your husband, you’ll see. And when you throw your arms around his neck I want to see you laugh out loud because I’ve never seen you laugh. And it’s about time I did, I think.”

She forced a smile, put a hand on my arm, and told me not to worry, she was feeling better already.

Shortly afterward César returned, saying that everything was in order and that each of us would go in our own canoe with two rowers, at least as far as the Unine.

“Only as far as the Unine?” I asked.

“That’s right. Once we reach the Unine we’ll have to shift for ourselves. The Indians from La Atalaya will have nothing to do with the Ashaninka.”

We remained a little longer beneath the starless night sky, looking over in the direction of the green Tierra Alta we hoped to traverse. Then we went into the hut and lay down to sleep, wrapping ourselves up in great sheets of canvas, a protection against the tiny
piri
bats, the most efficient bloodsuckers in the jungle.

However, it wasn’t the
piri
that kept me from sleep a good part of the night, it was concern about the Amazonian rains that would soon be upon us. César Calvo, the wise man of Iquitos, never spoke of them but I knew he was worried too. If we didn’t hurry, the rains would cut off our path back, forcing us to remain among the Ashaninka, isolated from civilization, until the waters of the river became navigable once more.

The Ashaninka were good people, of course, excellent people, but, nonetheless, nothing had been quite the same in the jungle since the advent of the rubber tappers and their Winchester rifles. It was best not to take risks and to make the return journey as quickly as possible.

The following morning, once we had each taken our place in the three canoes César Calvo had hired, we began our journey up the Ucayali, the canoes forming a line with Laura and her two rowers in the middle. Seven hours later, having met with no mishaps, we could see the waters of the Unine, almost yellow in color, mingling with those of the Ucayali, and we knew the moment of truth had arrived. We would soon be among the Ashaninka. Laura would at last know her husband’s fate.

Almost immediately, the Indians raised their oars and pointed to the red trees rising before us on one of the small islands in the river. As César explained later, they were
palosangres,
a species typically found at the mouth of the Unine.

With extreme caution, the Indians replaced their oars in the water and rowed us to the shore. As far as they were concerned, the journey was at an end.

“Are you sure you won’t go on?” César asked them once he had handed them the money promised them in La Atalaya. “I’ll pay you double if you’ll take us up the Unine,” he added.

But it was useless, they were much too frightened. After a curt farewell, they climbed into two of the canoes and rowed off toward their village. All about us screamed hundreds of monkeys, the half-crazy
makisapa
of the Upper Amazon.

Then César Calvo, the wise man of Iquitos, looked up at the sky and said:

“There’s still plenty of daylight; our best bet would be to continue our journey on foot along the banks of the Unine, that way we’ll avoid the whirlpools at the mouth of the river.”

“Fine,” I said, and, taking out my machete, I plunged in among the
palosangres
and began to clear a path ahead. He and Laura followed me, carrying the one canoe the Indians had left us.

We walked for about four hours, never leaving the shores of the Unine and guided by the sound of its rushing waters. Then we looked for a beach and settled down to spend the night, our first night in Ashaninka territory.

“Who’ll take the first watch?” asked Laura Sheldon (maiden name, Laura Sligo) once the tent had been put up and fires lit around it.

“I’ll take two watches, yours and mine,” I answered.

She shook her head and frowned, as she always did when she was about to get angry.

“And no arguments,” I said to her, sitting down on a tree stump on the beach and making it clear that my watch had already begun.

“He’s a strong young man. He’ll survive,” smiled César Calvo, the good man of Iquitos, and any dispute was thus resolved. Shortly afterward, the two of them were sound asleep in the tent.

The only sound in the whole jungle was the murmur of the Unine flowing close by and the crackling flames of the fires protecting the tent. Where were the birds and snakes whose songs had accompanied us all day? Where were the boisterous
makisap
a
? Perhaps they were hidden among the branches of the
palosangres
that fringed the beach, watching us, waiting for a moment’s inattention on our part to leave their lairs and attack us. But I was in no mood to give them that chance. I kept my eyes fixed on the jungle, alert to the slightest whisper, the slightest crack of broken twigs, and only looked away when, getting up from my seat to stretch my legs, I glanced across at the tent and comforted myself with the thought of Laura. I was the guardian of her sleep and that made me happy.

I was still thinking about her when I was startled by the triumphant call of a
makisapa.
“It must be dawn already,” I thought to calm myself. And just then a
naka
viper entered the circle of burning logs that protected me and buried his two small fangs in the ankle of my right leg.

“What’s wrong?” exclaimed César Calvo rushing out of the tent. My howls of pain had woken him.

I showed him the snake lying about a yard away from me. I had sliced it in two with my machete.

“A
nak
a
!” cried César, opening his eyes wide. Then he picked up the machete and made a long cut in the place where I had been bitten.

“What’s wrong?” asked Laura, who had followed him out of the tent. But her question remained hanging in the air, unanswered, for César was bending over me, sucking the blood from the wound.

“Oh, my God!” said Laura when she realized what had happened. And she said it with such sadness that, for an instant, I forgot the pain. It was proof that she was fond of me too.

After half an hour César said: “I think I’ve got nearly all the poison out.” It was daylight by then and the songs of the inhabitants of the jungle again enveloped us. By the side of the tent a great dark stain sullied the dry earth of the shore. The blood from my wound.

“Does it hurt?” asked Laura.

“It’s not too bad,” I lied.

I was determined not to slow our progress and I began taking down the tent and gathering up the things we needed to put in the canoe, more energetically than ever, in fact, as if the bite had given me renewed strength.

“Shall we go on?” I asked. They both looked at me apprehensively, afraid that at any moment I might collapse. But, as César had said, I was a strong young man. I could withstand the poison that was still inside me.

We dragged the canoe down to the water and, with all three of us rowing, we set off up the Unine, toward the green Tierra Alta where we hoped to find Dr. Sheldon. We had been on the river for about two hours when a new song joined the habitual song of the jungle inhabitants. It was monotonous, repetitive.

The wise man of Iquitos raised his head to listen harder.

“The
manguare
have begun to sound,” he said, explaining that this was the name the Ashaninka gave to their wooden drums.

“We’re getting near, then.” I sighed. I couldn’t wait to get there. I was feeling weaker and weaker and my ankle was terribly swollen. I wasn’t so sure now that I could withstand the
naka
’s poison.

The good man of Iquitos nodded. Yes, any moment now the Ashaninka would appear. Then he added something he had kept secret until then:

“The Ashaninka are good, honest warriors. They’d never kill anyone in an ambush,” he began. Laura and I remained silent. “They don’t use curare,” he went on, “it’s not the virulent, painful poison that the Amawaka, for example, extract from snakes. They use a poison taken from the
tohé
plant, which kills instantly and painlessly.”

I think it was then that Laura and I realized the great danger we were in. César Calvo certainly chose his moments for telling us such things.

“But I don’t think they’ll harm us. As I’ve told you before, they don’t attack
viracochas
who come in peace.”

Meanwhile, the
manguare
were beating in the jungle, growing louder and louder. The Unine River began to narrow.

I soon became incapable of rowing. I lost all strength in my arms and it hurt me just to move my leg. And yet I did not feel unhappy, it was as if the pain were unimportant. After all, I was next to Laura, the beautiful girl I had met in Cuzco, the woman I cared most about in the world, and what mattered was that she find Dr. Sheldon and return with him before the rainy season set in, so that she would not have to stay here among the Ashaninka. For the Ashaninka were a very noisy people, constantly beating those drums of theirs, their
manguare,
and that wasn’t what I wanted for Laura. I hated to hear her crying the way the
ayaymaman
cried.

“I’m not crying,” Laura said.

I sat up a little and opened my eyes. I was no longer in the canoe, but lying down on a beach by the Unine River. And indeed Laura wasn’t crying, she was smiling as she mopped the sweat from my brow with a white handkerchief.