Pedro knew how to read the jungle. He interpreted variations, decoded shapes, sensed dangers: insects, snakes, spiders, which sometimes dropped at their feet like writhing clusters. With precise movements, he sliced through tangles with his machete, forging unlikely paths. He, Lucie, and the two Indians had plunged into the green vise, rifles in hand, packs on their backs. All around them, the jungle expanded, contracted, devoured. Endless stalks of bamboo stood together like prison bars, branches of rubber and teak trees stretched their formless webs. Docking the boat along the marsh had been impossible; they’d had to walk up to their knees in the stagnant water for a good ten yards. Lucie was soaked. Her forehead, back, and neck were dripping. Every breath seemed to burn her lungs like ammonia. With a knife, Pedro had cut a small hole in his new shoes so that the water could escape more easily and help avoid blisters. He chopped with his machete at the base of a bamboo stalk. Water poured from the hollow cylinder; he put his flask against it and filled it without a word. His eyes were moving constantly, running down the dark perspectives. Farther on, he bent toward the thick vines wrapped around the black tree trunks.
“Look here—they’ve been broken off.”
He moved a bit farther forward, showing other breaks. A narrow, unsuspected pathway had recently been opened.
“We call this the Indian path: a thin trail through the jungle . . . No doubt about it, the Ururu are here.”
Anxious, Lucie looked all around her, but she couldn’t see more than a few yards. Even the blue of the sky had disappeared, giving way to endless rolls of greenery. Here everything was outsized, including the ants. Pedro poured a little cool water over his curly hair, then looked at his waterproof GPS.
“We won’t go too far from the boat. In two hours it’ll be dark. Let’s walk a little farther, just straight ahead. They’ll be here before nightfall, I can feel it . . .”
They continued forward, alert. The branches and leaves trembled with every step. Lucie couldn’t help comparing the jungle to a human brain: a vast, interconnected network sending signals back and forth, adding to and subtracting from each other, in cooperation or competition. Symbiosis, osmosis, but also predation and parasitism. Each fundamental element constituted a small knot, which formed a larger knot. Death led to rot, rot spawned the bacteria that enriched the earth, the earth created leaves, leaves bred species, species formed an ecosystem—a fragile entity of awe-inspiring richness, in constant equilibrium between life and death, degradation and majesty.
Finally, they reached a kind of clearing, where from below came the rumble of a mountain stream. Everything, even the tree bark, oozed dampness. In the Amazon rain forest, the staggering level of humidity—nearly 100 percent—was the worst adversary. It made it difficult to light fires, rotted the skin off your feet, and fostered diseases. Standing back, Lucie was catching her breath. Her entire body was in pain. Far from Rio Negro, the mosquitoes came fast and furious. Suddenly, she thought she saw a silhouette in the dense trees behind her.
It moved quickly, easily.
Branches began to wave, vines vibrated, on all sides of them. Silence, movement . . . silence, movement . . . As if figures were suddenly gathering around them, dancing to a slow rhythm. Lucie remembered the horrifying faces in Chimaux’s book.
They were there, encircling her.
At Pedro’s orders, the two Indians set their weapons down at their feet, then raised their hands in a sign of peace. Around them, the shadows came into focus. Eyes, noses pierced with bones, faces appeared among the bamboo, before disappearing again, like floating masks. Then there were cries, shrill chants, bursts of sound that made the monkeys scatter deep into the canopy. Pedro explained under his breath that they must absolutely not move, just wait until Napoléon Chimaux deigned to show himself. Lucie did her best to stand straight, look self-assured, but she was trembling all over. Her life, her future—none of it was hers to decide anymore.
How long did the intimidation last? She couldn’t be sure. Here, time dissolved, reference points fell to pieces. Finally, the palm leaves parted and the anthropologist appeared, seemingly alone, apart from the fact that everything around him was vibrating, like a steamroller just waiting to advance. He was tall, powerful; he stood firmly, dressed in khaki fatigues. His head was bald and his large, dark eyes were bloodshot. His forehead and cheeks bore ochre markings in broken lines, like furious zigzags. Hands on his hips, he sniffed the air as would a predator stalking its prey. Lucie recalled the images from the Phoenix tape: the boot nudging the corpses in the huts . . . She wanted to grab a rifle and jam the barrel between his eyes, until he told her the whole truth. But if she so much as twitched, she’d be dead: a good thirty hatchets and lances must have been aimed straight at her, ready to slice her skull clean in two.
Chimaux’s deep voice dripped like slow poison.
“Give me one good reason not to kill you where you stand.”
The man ignored the guides, spoke directly to Lucie. She raised one hand in a sign of peace, and dipped the other hand, slowly, cautiously, in the front pocket of her shirt. She held out a photo.
“Here’s my reason. Eva Louts.”
She had answered in a dry, no-nonsense tone. She wanted to appear strong, fearless, because she had reached the end. The end of her search, the end of the world. Everything had to end now. Chimaux gave an evil smile.
“Come closer, closer . . . so that I can see the picture better.”
Without hesitating, Lucie walked forward, away from her guides. They were now less than three yards apart. Chimaux held out his arm, a sign for her to stop. Then he squinted at the photo.
“It looks like her. Eva Louts . . . But what else, young lady? Have you no more to tell me? Arouse my curiosity.”
“Arouse your curiosity? Try this on for size: you’re waiting for Eva Louts, but she’s not coming back, ever. She’s been murdered.”
Chimaux raised one eyebrow slightly, but otherwise showed little reaction.
“Is that so?” he grimaced.
Lucie pushed further.
“Mutilated in a chimpanzee’s cage. Stéphane Terney is also dead, with his iliac artery slit. Does that remind you of anything? I know about the mothers who died in childbirth, the brains that turn to sponge and drive people to murder. I saw the first Phoenix tape. When Eva Louts came here, you accepted her because she was able to surprise you. She knew the Ururu were left-handed and violent. She’d found a link that no one who came before her had suspected. So you decided to let her into your world. You forged a trusting relationship with her, and you sent her back to France with a mission: bring you back the names of extremely violent left-handed prisoners. You’re looking for those cursed children who are starting to slaughter for no reason, is that it? Why? Is it because they’re the final fruit of Phoenix, and the killer is preventing you from coming out of the jungle to see their faces? I’ve come here to find answers. Finish with me what you started with her.”
Chimaux tilted his head to one side, then the other, his eyes open wide, as if he were trying to read deep within Lucie. He looked like a strange animal suddenly confronted with its own reflection. His face and forearms were a maze of scars. His chest swelled under his military shirt, and he gave out a long, raucous cry. Instantly, dozens of naked silhouettes surged from the trees, hatchets in hand, and ran screaming toward Lucie. Paralyzed, she didn’t have time to react. A hideous creature, twice as heavy as she, grabbed her. Another opened the palm of his enormous hand and blew a white powder into her face. Lucie felt a burning in her nostrils and windpipe. A second later, her legs gave way. Hands kept her from falling. Damp skins pressed against her. She smelled plant odors, mud, and sweat. Everything started spinning; trees and faces seemed to twist out of shape, melt away like wax. She saw herself lifting away from the ground, unable to move. And then, as the black flies poured into her skull, she felt Chimaux’s warm breath against her neck.
“You wanted to know what Phoenix looks like? We’re expecting a birth tonight. You’ll be in the front row. And afterward . . . I’ll drink your soul.”
They carried Lucie into the jungle.
The palm leaves closed behind them, like a theater curtain. A few cracking branches. Then silence.