The Bridge in the Jungle (12 page)

It was night. It was a pitch-black night. It happened in a tropical jungle. I was in the midst of Indians, very few of whom I knew, and even those few I only knew superficially. What was it the old woman had just told me? What she had told me was something out of their everyday life, an ordinary thing. I wondered which of us was mad. One of us surely was. Anyway, in such a night, in a jungle, among Indians, whatever else the old woman might have told me would have sounded unnatural. The old woman simply could not talk any other way than she did. It was in harmony with everything. I saw clearly what the men were doing on the river-bank, so it could not be a dream. I was awake. And I remained squatting beside the old woman. She spoke no more, enjoyed her cigar immensely, and with a bored look in her eyes she watched the group of men preparing the mysterious ceremony.

The old Indian began to speak in a loud, chanting voice. What he said I could not understand, because I was still on the bridge.

Now he ceased speaking and moved the board before him three times up and down and three times sidewise and then once more up and down. After a short silence he raised his voice and again chanted a few lines. This time his chant was taken up by a dozen of the men standing around him and they repeated these lines as a kind of response.

All the men had taken off their hats. Everybody near followed the ceremony with solemn zest.

I leaned forward to try to catch the words, for I would have liked to know them. But I preferred to stay away even if I had to miss the words. Theirs was a religious service to which I had not been invited, so I considered it rude to go close when everyone was aware of the fact that I was not moved by faith, but by curiosity.

I could pick up some phrases. I learned that in the main it was Spanish they spoke. Yet this Spanish of theirs was blended with words and phrases taken from the Indian idioma, which was still spoken by hundreds of families in that jungle region. However, the expression 'Madre Santisima!' was used so frequently that it stood out clearly. I felt, however, that they prayed to the Most Holy Virgin only with their lips while with their hearts they were calling upon their ancient holy mother, perhaps to Cioacoatl.

This ceremony lasted about ten minutes. The old Indian raised the board high above his head. The light of the candle was reflected in the water. While holding the board in this position, he chanted a few lines more. The audience joined him before he ended. And they all finished together. I listened carefully, but there was no Amen, only a sound like an owl's hoo-oo.

Quick as a flash Perez stripped. He stood in the water for a while. Then with arms stretched forward he strode slowly towards the old Indian, who also came forward until he too was standing in the water. With a solemn gesture he handed Perez the board and mumbled a few words. Perez gestured with his right hand over his chest and then over the board. Perhaps it was the sign of the cross that he made — perhaps another sign. When he received the board he also said a few words in a low voice as a response to the old man's chant. As soon as the board was in Perez's hands, the old Indian made similar gestures with his right hand over the board and then over his heart. After this he stepped back to the bank, walking backwards with his face to the board.

Perez carried the board high above his head. He waded into the river until the water reached his chest. Now he stopped and waited until the water had calmed down again. Then he set the board upon the water with infinite care. When the board was floating he waded slowly back to the river-bank, facing the strange little raft as he did so.

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The board rests quietly on the water as if it were deciding which way to go.

Perez wraps his shirt around his loins and steps back from the river-bank. With his eyes fixed upon the board he keeps walking backward, then turns to the bridge, from where he can see better what is happening. As I was told later, the board might go straight to its goal, but it might also merely wobble, and in that case the right direction could be determined only by an expert.

All the people present are spellbound. For moments on end they forget to breathe and then have to catch up suddenly, so that a ceaseless moaning comes from their lips. They seem to force themselves not to wink and their eyes redden and widen, which gives the crowd the appearance of being in a deep trance.

Some men hold their hats in their hands; others have thrown theirs away. Nobody smokes any more. Not a word is heard, not even a murmur or a whisper. Only the singing, chirping, and fiddling of the jungle fills the night. This great jungle symphony is at times unexpectedly interrupted by a deep silence, as if the jungle insects were ordered to stop for two or three seconds, for no other reason than to break out again louder and more intensely than before.These sudden intervals in the jungle music deepen the mystery of the night and heighten the tension of the people who are wating almost ecstatically for the miracle to happen. No one knows whether the miracle will take place tonight as it took place, according to their traditions, five hundred, yes, ten thousand years back under similar circumstances. All present have a faith which no power could shake. There is not one in the whole crowd who even for a second thinks the light could fail to obey the call of the lost boy. Of course, it would fail if the kid is not in the river, for then he could not call, and the light has no will of its own; it can only go if it is called. It will float down the river and disappear if the boy is not in the water.

Suddenly that multi-headed body utters a cry and takes a deep breath as though there were only two very huge lungs in that body.

The board has started to move.

With infinite slowness it begins to sail away from the bank towards the middle of the river. Now it stops, wobbles, sways, trembles slightly. Then it takes again the same direction.

The bridge is crowded with people. Those along the rim are kneeling, tightly pressed against each other, their heads reaching as far over the edge as possible. With burning eyes they stare at the slowly moving board. Nobody breathes more than absolutely necessary, partly because of tension, but more because their breathing might throw the board ofi its course.

I stand on the bank near the end of the bridge, from which point I can see the face of everyone kneeling along the rim. This row of eager faces is lighted by the new bonfires on the banks. The fact is I am far more interested in these sixty or seventy faces and in these bronze and dark-yellow bodies than in what the board is doing at this moment. The board I am sure will do its job all right. If it does not, it will be of little concern to me. Yet during the rest of my life I may never again behold such a grandiose picture, such a huge human body with threescore and more heads, all thinking the same thought, all concentrated upon the same hope, all charmed by the little flame of an ordinary candle. Their deep brown eyes reflect that little flame as if each contained a tiny, forlorn star. There are half-naked bodies, stark naked bodies, bodies clothed in rags only, and bodies covered with white shirts and white or yellow cotton pants. So thick is their black wiry hair that it looks as if these men had heavy fur caps on their heads.

Against the simple and natural clothes of the men the women's dresses from modern sweat-shops make a pitiful contrast. What sin have these women committed that providence could allow Syrian jobbers to hang upon those beautiful bodies dresses designed by immigrant watch-repairers starving in New York's East Side? In their simple week-day skirts, even in their rags, these women are in harmony with the jungle, the river, the bridge, the asthmatic pump, the pack train, the alligators, the earth, the whole universe. Now they are aniline-dyed ghosts, foul bastards of the land, nobody's daughters. Thanks to a merciful God and to Nature with its eternal good taste, beautiful wild flowers still grow and blossom in jungle and bush, and these women can pick them at their hearts' desire and with them cover the ugliness of modern products. And it is only on account of the wild flowers and orchids of the jungle that these women do not lose all their contact with the earth which has borne them.

The mysterious performance of which I am a witness, the crowd's belief that the miracle will happen, the dim light of the lanterns in the pump-master's portico, the licking flames of the bonfires, the torches held by boys on the bridge, the floating board with the lighted candle in the river, that huge body of excited beings who are not my race, at this moment breathing as one, their eyes gazing without winking and each with a tiny star in it, the gloomy silence of that mass of men, the never ceasing whining of the jungle — all this depresses me and makes my heart heavy. My throat is parched. My tongue feels as though it were wood. Where is the world? Where is the earth on which I used to live? It has disappeared. Where has mankind gone? I am alone. There is not even a heaven above me. Only blackness. I am on another planet, from which I never can return to my own people. I shall never again see green meadows, never again the waves of wheat fields, never again shall I wander through the forests and around the lakes of Wisconsin, never again shall I ride over the plains of Texas and breathe the air of desolate goat ranches. I cannot come back to the earth, my true mother, and never shall I see the sun rise. I am with creatures I do not know, who do not speak my language, and whose souls and minds I can never fathom. One, only one out of this crowd has to stand up at this moment, only one has to point his finger at me and yell: 'Look at that man! Look at him! He is the white, who has not been invited to come here, but he came nevertheless. He is the guilty one. By his blue eyes and by his skin of the pale dead he has brought the wrath of our gods upon us poor people. He is a gringo. He has brought us misfortune and sorrows. He has come only yesterday and today our little boy had to leave us, driven away by that white man and making the kid's mother weep like the skies in the rainy season. He has been here only two days and the river, which hates him, has robbed us of our beloved little child. Look at his eyes and you will see that with those eyes he is poisoning our children and bewitching all of …. If I never come back again, if I am sacrificed here and now, tonight, nobody, no consul, no ambassador, no government, will ever know what has become of me and where my bones are bleaching under the sun. The buzzards won't leave anything of me that could be identified. 'Disappeared on a trip through the jungle.' Or perhaps: 'Caught by alligators on a fishing trip in swampy territory.' This will be the last the old folks at home will hear of me.

Why do I feel uncomfortable? There, only a few yards away, there stands Sleigh, my fellow citizen, white of colour like myself, thoughts the same as mine, brought up in the same traditions, speaking the same language. He is standing behind the men who are kneeling on the bridge, and he too has his eyes fixed upon the board slowly floating on the river. Suppose this crowd, stirred up by somebody gone mad, were to jump at me to make me pay for the lost kid, Sleigh would be my guardian angel, my life-saver; he would protect me with his very body. Certainly. Most certainly. Because he is my fellow citizen, singing with me. 'The Star-Spangled Banner'. He would save me. He would cock his hat slightly, with a lazy gesture, and he would say: 'Why now, see here, you folks, you can't do that. That is stupid. He didn't throw the kid in the river. I'm plumb sure he didn't. He is a mighty good fellow and nobody can deny that.' Having said this, he would turn to me and say: 'You must excuse me, I've got to look after that goddamned cow. Christ, if I only knew where to find that damn bitch. Perhaps she has come home at last. I'll go and see.' So he would go and leave me alone with that frenzied mob. After I have been torn to pieces he would return and talk to the neighbours, telling them that the cow has not come home yet and that surely a pair of tigers or lions must be roaming in the vicinity. Then, on seeing the last ragged shreds of me, he would say: 'Well, you men, you shouldn't have done that. It isn't right. I told you so before. Anyhow, who would have thought that of him? He seemed to be a fine chap. I don't think he threw the kid into the river. You shouldn't have done that. Well, well, who would have thought such a thing of him?'

Sleigh. Who is Sleigh? What is he to me? He was born in the same God's country I was. Nevertheless he is farther away from me than our president. Sleigh. He has lived more than half his life among these Indians. He is married to an Indian woman. His children don't speak one word of American, they know only Spanish and quite a few phrases of the Indian idioma. Sleigh. The meals he eats are Indian, and he eats as the Indians do, without using a fork, shovelling up his meat, beans, and gravy with a torn-off bit of tortilla, wrapping the whole thing up and pushing it into his wide-open mouth, swallowing the food and eating the tortilla-made spoon simultaneously. He lives in an Indian jacal on an earthen floor under a grass roof. He would feel most uncomfortable in a house or a bungalow. Without moving an eyelash he would stand by and look on should this crowd become infuriated and hammer me into a pulp. I am absolutely alone among these people. And I also know perfectly well that whatever might happen to me, no battle-cruiser will steam into this jungle with a crew yelling: 'Hip, hip, hi! Everything is under control, we have the situation well in hand!' It is a very good thing to know that. One thus becomes a fatalist. The more fatalistic I become, the closer I get to understanding these people. They could not bear life were they not all fatalists.

20

The board is some fifteen feet from the river-bank.

It stops for half a minute. Now it begins to whirl slowly and, still whirling, drifts farther towards the middle of the river, gradually nearing the slow current. For five feet or so it moves along that current. Then it stops again. And again it whirls as if it were trying to get out of the stream.

After a few minutes it again follows the current for a short distance. Then it stops abruptly. It begins whirling again. At first it does so very slowly, then quicker and quicker still, and at the same time it starts moving back towards the bridge and now, as can be clearly seen, it moves contrary to the current.