Pale moths float by, like ghosts that need to be gone before the sunrise. He hears dripping water, then realizes it’s an oropendola. Other birds, bestirred by the dawn, begin to sing their songs and utter their cries.
Roque walks ahead of him with his machete, while Daniel is dragging along behind him. They have not stopped walking all night. Hardly a word’s been said. The closest thing to a conversation was when Roberto heard a growling in the darkness and asked Roque if it was a jaguar, and he replied no, it was a monkey pretending to be a jaguar to keep the jaguars away.
They go down a slope into a hollow filled with thick white mist. Their legs below their knees disappear as they walk through it. Roberto looks at Roque eerily drifting over the mist and wonders if his spirit girl that lives in the trees helped him out last night.
Roberto’s passed into some state beyond exhaustion. It’s like he’s lost the last shred of himself and has become an automaton programmed to go forward, only forward. As the night fades from the jungle, he feels no pleasure that it’s gone, just a dull wonder that he’s still alive.
In a small clearing on a little hill, Roque calls a halt, and they all sit down. Roque has water and food in his pack. Roberto and Daniel tear open cellophane packages of raisins and nuts, while Roque eats a tin of sardines.
“How much longer to Diego’s?” asks Daniel.
Roque shrugs. “Two hours?”
Roberto knows Roque has a slippery sense of time, and things usually take “two hours” with him.
“What happened to your finger?” he says to Roberto.
Roberto tells him about Colonel Luna, and he nods.
“He was tall and had very light skin, yes?”
Roberto’s surprised. “You saw him?”
And now Roque tells him what happened after Roberto and Lina left the house at El Encanto.
He, Daniel, Quique, and Ernesto rested. After about twenty minutes, he heard what he was certain was a gunshot. The others were dozing and didn’t hear it, but everyone trusted Roque’s ears. They all jumped up and grabbed their packs and also Roberto’s and Lina’s and took off for the lake. Halfway there they ran into Jota. After Jota’s encounter with Roberto and Lina in the library, for the fun of it he’d followed them to the lake. He was spying on them from the trees as Roberto danced with Lina on the pavilion, and then he saw the arrival of the Black Jaguars and Roberto struggling with Lina over her gun and the gun going off. At that point, he turned and ran back toward the house to warn the others. They got to the lake just in time to see Roberto and Lina being led away as prisoners. They followed at a distance and saw them entering the guesthouse along with their five guards.
Quique called his superiors in the TARV on Lina’s sat phone. He was hoping they could send help, but he was told they were on their own, and they were ordered to attempt a rescue under cover of darkness. When night fell, Jota sneaked up to the guesthouse and looked through a window and saw Roberto sitting in a chair and Lina on the couch.
“Wait a second,” says Roberto. “Jota was looking at us through a window?”
Daniel laughs. “Yeah, does that kid have balls or what? He said all your guards were sitting around drinking and watching television.”
“I’m surprised they let you come,” Roberto says to Daniel.
Daniel pops some peanuts into his mouth. “Well, they didn’t want to.”
“Daniel told them to fuck themselves, he was coming,” Roque says.
“We were going toward the guesthouse,” Daniel says, “and we heard a scream and we thought it was Lina. There was a guard outside. Quique killed him with a knife. But we were too late for Lina.”
“What happened to Lina?” says Roque.
Roberto tells him.
“And what happened to Ernesto and Quique?”
Roberto tells him that too. His eyes well up, and he is silent. Roberto asks him what happened at the lake.
He says shortly after Daniel and Ernesto and Quique left, he heard voices and saw a flashlight. He managed to carry all the packs into the trees and hide there, and then five or six Black Jaguars walked up. They were drunk and talking loud and laughing. They went out on the pavilion, and then Roque heard gunfire. It got louder and Roque could see the flashes of it through the trees. He kept expecting Ernesto, Quique, and Daniel to return with Roberto and Lina, but no one came. The gunfire passed the lake and moved toward the pasture, and Roque followed in the darkness. He crossed the pasture and then heard gunfire coming from the sugarcane field. He saw the Black Jaguars were searching the field. He was hoping that at least some of the five others had been able to escape into the jungle. He entered the sugarcane and came out the other side. He went into the jungle and tried to find them or at least some trace of them but there was nothing and he was afraid they were all dead, and then he heard the banging on the ceiba tree. He hoped to find all of them there, but he was glad the mother tree had saved at least Daniel and Roberto.
Daniel lights a cigarette. Monkeys move in the treetops. Daniel takes one of his cameras out of the bag, aims it upwards.
“Thank god we still have this,” says Roberto, indicating the camera.
Daniel lowers the camera and looks at it. “That’s right, Roberto. We still have what we came for.”
“But I’ve lost my notebook. And my voice recorder. I got some great interviews yesterday, and now they’re gone.”
“So how bad is it you don’t have them?”
Roberto shrugs. “I can still write my story. It just won’t be as good.”
Roque goes into his pack, pulls out Roberto’s blue spiral notebook and the ziplock bag containing both his cellphone and his voice recorder. He hands them to Roberto.
Roberto looks at them. He fights the urge to burst into tears. Three people have died for this.
“Thank you, Roque,” is all he says.
* * *
They’re walking through the swampy area near Diego’s house. Roque points out some vertical grooves on the trunk of a tree.
“A jaguar was sharpening his claws,” he says.
“Was it recent?” asks Roberto.
He touches the grooves. “Yes. The scratch marks haven’t dried out yet.”
Roberto looks around. He hasn’t given up hope of seeing a jaguar. He wonders if it’s watching him now with its savage golden eyes.
“Do you smell that?” asks Roque.
“What?” says Daniel.
“Smoke.”
Neither Daniel nor Roberto does. They continue through the forest, under the great, still trees, past the gleaming pools of water, across the planks and the slippery logs. And now Roberto smells it too.
They reach the hill Diego’s house is built on. Roberto can see the smoke now, wisping through the treetops. As they climb the hill, he hears, very close at hand, “Hello! Hello!” and then “Lucho! Lucho! Hello!” He looks up and sees Lucho, Diego’s blue and yellow parrot, sitting in a tree.
“How come Lucho’s loose?” says Roque.
Daniel takes his pistol out of a pocket. Now Roberto sees Duque, Diego’s shaggy, brown and black dog, at the top of the hill, barking down at them. A moment later, Amparo appears behind him. She smiles when she sees them, and then calls over her shoulder, “They’re here! They’re back!” She hurries down the hill to meet them, but her smile fades as she sees only three.
“Where are the rest?”
“Amparo,” says Roberto. “We have terrible news.”
Her eyes widen. “What?”
“They were killed last night. By the Black Jaguars. In El Encanto.”
“Lina? She’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“No!” Amparo wails. “No!”
Roque puts his arms around Amparo, and she sobs against his shoulder.
“It can’t be! It can’t be!”
“Amparo, I’m sorry,” says Roberto, “but is everything okay here? Why is there smoke?”
“They burned it,” she says. “The house. But they’re gone now.”
And now the four of them go up the hill. Alquimedes, shirtless and bathed in sweat, stands in the little graveyard among the eight white crosses, shoveling dirt into a new grave. He regards them with his single eye as they approach.
“Why’s she crying?” he asks.
“Lina, Ernesto, and Quique,” says Roque. “They’re all dead. They were killed by the paramilitaries.”
Alquimedes seems unsurprised. He leans on his shovel and gazes down into the grave.
“It’s a day for death.”
The grave is half filled in with dirt.
“Who’s in there?” Daniel says. “Diego?”
Alquimedes shakes his head. “Marco.”
Roberto looks off across the hill, sees among the scorched palm trees the charred and still-smoking ruins of the house.
“What happened?” he says.
“We’d just finished breakfast, and then Duque started barking. Then we heard helicopters. We looked out the window and saw two Army helicopters landing right there.” He points toward the open space where Roberto and Lina sat together beneath the stars. “Diego kept an automatic rifle hidden in the wall behind a board, and he ran and got it. He yelled at us to run and hide in the jungle and he’d hold them off. Amparo and I started to run out, but Marco was hanging back. He said, ‘Dad, I can’t leave you here!’ Diego said, ‘Go, my son, please!’ and then he looked at me and he said, ‘Alquimedes!’ I grabbed Marco and pulled him out of the house. We ran down the hill toward the jungle. Marco had tears streaming down his face. We heard guns beginning to fire. Marco said, ‘I have to go back, I have to help Dad!’ Amparo and I tried to stop him, but he was young and strong, and he broke away from us and ran back up the hill. Amparo and I ran into the jungle, we ran for a long time. And then we stopped, and we waited for a long time.”
Alquimedes’ fingers pluck absently at the necklace of bright feathers. A fly lands on his cheek. Roberto thinks it’s about to crawl into his empty eye socket, but then it flies away.
“Maybe it wasn’t my bravest moment, I don’t know. But at least I can tell myself I was protecting Amparo. Finally we came back here. The helicopters had left, and the soldiers were gone. The house was burning. We found Marco lying on his back in front of the house. He’d been shot several times. But not in the face. His beautiful face was like it always was. You could still see the tears on his eyelashes.”
“And what about Diego?” asks Daniel.
“Diego was nowhere to be found. The soldiers must have taken him with them. Why, I don’t know.”
“Did you get a look at the soldiers?” says Roberto.
“Yes. Just a glimpse.”
“What kind of uniforms were they wearing?”
“I just remember they were wearing hats, and their faces were painted black and green like wild Indians.”
They were almost certainly with the 1st Special Operations Battalion, the unit that conducted the massacre at Jilili. Alquimedes resumes filling the grave with dirt.
“Let me help you with that,” says Roque.
“No thanks.”
“What are you going to do, Alquimedes?” asks Roberto. “You can’t stay here.”
“No, no. We can’t stay here.”
“You’re welcome to come with us to Tarapacá,” says Daniel.
“There’s nothing for me in Tarapacá. No, I was thinking about going down the river the other way, to a town called Cenizo. When I was going up and down the river, I was always falling in love with girls in these little towns, and I fell in love with a girl in Cenizo. She married someone else, but I’ve always remembered it as a happy place. But maybe Amparo would like to go with you. Amparo, do you want to go with them to Tarapacá?”
Amparo’s staring at nothing, her arms hanging limply at her sides, her long black braid gleaming in the morning sunlight.
“Amparo?” says Alquimedes. “Did you hear me?”
“I don’t want to do anything,” Amparo says. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“Well, you can’t just stand there like a statue the rest of your life. The birds will build a nest in your hair, and then what?”
“Amparo,” says Roberto, “why don’t you come with us? Daniel and I won’t just leave you in Tarapacá.”
“That’s right,” says Daniel. “We’ll do whatever we can to help you.”
But Amparo doesn’t answer. She just walks slowly off toward the pirarucu pond.
“Ah, she’ll be okay,” says Alquimedes as he throws more dirt in the grave. “There’s nothing like being young. What I wouldn’t give to be her age again.”
Roberto looks around the hilltop for the monkey.
“Where’s Chico?”
“I haven’t seen him since the shooting started,” Alquimedes says. “I guess he ran and hid in the jungle like me.”
* * *
Roberto walks toward the river with Roque and Daniel. He’s afraid the soldiers might have destroyed the boats, leaving them stranded, so he’s relieved when he looks down the hill and sees the boats pulled up on the bank, just as they left them. They need gasoline for the return trip, and Roque leads them to a storage shed where Diego keeps a supply. The door has a padlock on it. Roque whacks the lock a few times with the blunt side of his machete and pops it open, and then they carry red metal containers of gas down the hill. Roque and Daniel stay with the boat as Roberto goes back to find Alquimedes and Amparo.
He walks past the guesthouse and peers in at the brightly colored hammocks. Everything he sees is making him think of Lina. How can she not exist anymore? It seems not possible.
He stops at the wooden shed where the anaconda’s kept. Remembering that Lina was standing right there in the grass. Her hair was wet. She smelled of soap. He never got a chance to ask her how she chipped her tooth.
He opens the door of Princesa’s palace. She’s coiled in one dim corner. Grunting with the effort, he picks up her cold, twisting body and carries her out. He lays her down, and immediately she starts gliding through the grass toward the jungle.
“Hello!” he hears. “Lucho!”
Alquimedes is approaching with Lucho perched on his shoulder. The parrot and his empty eye socket and his bare dirty feet and his drooping bedraggled pants make him look like a shipwrecked pirate. He shows what few teeth he has in a delighted grin.
“I called his name like a dog and he came flying out of the jungle! Soaring like an eagle! It was a thrilling sight to see!”
“We’re leaving,” says Roberto. “So what about Amparo?”
He shrugs. “She still won’t talk to me. She’s being difficult, like a typical woman. Maybe you should give it a try.”
She’s sitting by the pirarucu pond.
“Amparo?” says Roberto.
She doesn’t even glance at him. He sits down beside her.
“We’re about to go now. You need to make a decision about what you want to do.”
“Just leave me alone,” she says in almost a whisper. “Please.”
“I know how heartbroken you are, but you can’t just stay here. Remember after your father was killed and you were lost in the jungle? You were just a little girl, but somehow you found the strength to survive. You have to do that again.”
“I wish I’d died in the jungle. I wish the Indians had never found me.”
“Lina thought very highly of you, Amparo. She cared about you very much. You know that, don’t you?”
Amparo looks at Roberto, and nods.
“You told me how much you wanted to leave here and see the world, and you said Lina was going to help you. She’s gone now, but she can still help you. Just ask yourself what she would want you to do now.”
Amparo’s silent. There’s a splash and a swirling in the green scum on the pond as a pirarucu breaks the surface. Now Amparo stands up, and so does Roberto.
“Are you coming with us?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve loved four people. My father, Lina, Marco, and Alquimedes. I think I should go with Alquimedes.”
Alquimedes calls for Duque and he comes running, and then Roberto walks with the old man, the teenage girl, the dog, and the parrot down the hill and along the path that leads to the river. He sees below him Roque and Daniel, waiting by the boats. Daniel’s smoking a cigarette. No doubt he’ll be as glad as Roberto to get back on the boat that will take them to Tarapacá.
Alquimedes climbs into Diego’s long blue boat, then moves beneath the tin roof toward the motor in the back. Roque is helping Amparo into the boat when Roberto hears a series of shrill piercing cries, and Duque begins to bark. They all look around and see the chorongo monkey, hysterical at the prospect of being left behind, running at breakneck speed down the hill.
“Chico!” says Amparo. She holds out her arms, and Chico launches himself into the air.
* * *
The yellow boat and the blue boat motor at a steady pace down the Maniqui River. Roberto sees all the birds that Roque’s given names to and turtles and monkeys and a cute family of capybaras, a kind of giant rodent, at play along the riverbank. He sees a swarm of black and red dragonflies, and the head and back of a pink dolphin emerging from the murky water and glistening briefly in the sunlight, and then a beautiful mermaid comes swimming up to the boat. Her long black hair streams around her shoulders and swirls over her breasts, and the lower half of her is covered with sparkling emerald scales. She looks like the sculpture of the mermaid at the lake at El Encanto. She smiles up at Roberto and says some words in a language he can’t understand or maybe it’s not even a language but is like the cry of a bird or the rain falling on leaves, and then he sees the black caimans. Half a dozen of them are lying on the bank, and now they slide into the water. They’re swimming toward the mermaid, and Roberto looks around and sees that caimans are on every side of the boat, the river is filled with them. He knows he’s going to have to pull the mermaid into the boat to save her. He makes a lunge and grabs her but she’s slippery and frightened and she fights him, and then he loses his grip and starts to fall into the water and his head lifts up and he opens his eyes. He hears the drone of the monotonous motor. He sees Daniel lying asleep in the bottom of the boat. Did he look the dolphin in the eye, is that why he had the nightmare? Or did he dream the dolphin too?
As the sun reaches its zenith, the two boats come to the end of the Maniqui and enter the Gualala. Alquimedes raises a bony arm in farewell as he points the blue boat down the river toward Cenizo where fifty years ago he met a girl. Amparo waves good-bye forlornly. This morning they had a place in life and they woke up in their own beds and now those beds have been turned to ash and they possess nothing except the clothes they’re wearing and a parrot that says hello and a dog and a monkey that hate each other. But Roberto guesses that’s better than being buried in grave number nine or carried away in a helicopter by sadistic soldiers. The yellow boat heads up the Gualala toward Tarapacá. After a while Roberto looks back over his shoulder for the blue boat, but it’s already lost in the shine and glitter of the river.
Daniel’s lying in the bottom of the boat like a man that’s been hit in the head by a board. Roberto hopes he’s okay. All last night as they walked through the jungle Daniel would periodically groan and drop his pants and squat and leave behind smelly dumps like a howler monkey. He needs some Lomotil. Roberto’s sleepy too but he knows Jilili isn’t far, and he wants to see it as they pass. He’s still a reporter, after all.
He glances back at Roque. His face under his baseball cap is blank, impassive. He must be in a state of shock. He’s such a gentle soul to have been plunged into such horror. Perhaps Roberto ought to go back and talk to him, but what is he supposed to say? Sorry your friends were killed. Thanks for saving our lives. Can’t you make this boat go a little faster because Daniel and I really want to get the fuck out of here.
* * *
Roberto cleans his glasses with his blue bandana and puts them back on and looks at Jilili. It seems deserted, except for some vultures on the white beach. He sees a dark area on the sand where the young woman and her unborn child were killed, but he doesn’t see any bodies anywhere. All the fishing boats are gone too.
Roque slows the boat and takes it closer to the village. Roberto looks through Roque’s binoculars at the burned-down houses in the shade of the trees. Again, no bodies, and no living people either. What’s happened to Conchita and her son Pedro and the other survivors? Did they leave in the boats? Are they hiding in the jungle? Or did the Army come on a humanitarian mission as they did in Santa Rosa del Opón and take them away?
A small brown dog comes out on the beach and barks at the boat. Perhaps the last inhabitant of Jilili. Roberto hands Roque back his binoculars.
“Thanks, Roque.”
“You’re welcome.”
Roque speeds the boat back up.
“How are you?” says Roberto.
“Okay. Sad.”
“Don’t worry, Roberto. You and Daniel will be home soon.”
Roberto goes back to his seat. Above him, a loose piece of the green plastic roof is flapping in the wind. He knows the way home remains fraught with danger, they might encounter a boatload of paramilitaries around the next bend or a helicopter could come along and shoot them to pieces, but still he feels they’re going to make it. Not like in the sugarcane field, not like in the swamp. He looks down at Daniel in the bottom of the boat and wonders if Daniel really would have shot him.
Roberto lies down in the bottom of the boat too. He curls up on his side, with one arm as a pillow under his head. He wiggles around, trying to get comfortable, expecting to fall asleep quickly, and yet the state he enters is less sleep than delirium. The boat seems to be moving, not on a river, but on a sea of suffering, an ocean of agony. The earth churns with life but to what end? So that its beautiful creatures might die and pass into oblivion. He sees the snake Quique cut into two equal pieces twisting on the forest floor, and the green light fading from its flesh as it becomes food for ants. The guesthouse turned into a slaughterhouse by Quique and Ernesto, and the body on the bed, the red stare of death. The danse macabre of the old people burning up in Jilili, and Willie Hernandez on Mount Cabanacande admiring Memo Soto’s watch. Not long before Willie took it off Soto’s bullet-riddled body, Soto had heard the thunder of the approaching helicopters and called his daughter Lucero on his cellphone to tell her he loved her and to say good-bye. If even a monster like Memo Soto is capable of tenderness and love, how much more love and tenderness is there in the good people? But it’s all for nothing, it dissipates like smoke, it’s like grains of sand dragged back into the ocean by a receding wave. Teresa will lie in bed waiting for Roberto but he will never come. Lina will never be a college girl again and take her dog for a walk in the park. His father will drop dead of a heart attack on the tennis court, and Clara’s beauty will wither, she’ll become old and dry, and no one will come to her dinner parties anymore. And nothing Roberto writes will matter, none of it will change things, all the beautiful creatures of the earth will continue to perish, to gasp out their last breaths, to be thrown away like trash—
Roberto moans and sits up, clutching his belly. He seems to have what Daniel has. He tells Roque to hurry to the bank, or else he’ll have to hang his butt over the side of the boat and befoul the river. The boat grounds on a sandbar, and Roberto hops out and runs across it and then splashes through some shallow water and clambers up the bank and then he’s back in the jungle. It’s like moving into a different element, earth to air or air to water, the green humid light, the ancient silence. He fumbles at his pants and jerks them down and squats and the shit flows out of him like warm mud. There are three separate spasms of it, and then he grabs a handful of leaves. He wipes himself, hoping the leaves aren’t coated with some virulent poison, and then he sees the jaguar. Just a few meters away.
He’s lying on one side, calm, at ease, watching Roberto. As if to prove he’s not some trick of light and shade, he lifts one paw and licks it a few times, then lowers it and looks back at Roberto. Roberto basks in the golden light of the jaguar’s eyes. He can’t see his balls, but he knows somehow he’s a real jaguar and not a shaman. Roberto’s not afraid. Even if the jaguar were to leap at him and devour him, he doesn’t think he’d be afraid. After all, isn’t this why he came to the jungle? To rendezvous with him? The jaguar knows him better than he knows himself, loves him with the profoundest love.
The jaguar’s eyes rise as Roberto rises. His eyes never stop looking into Roberto’s. And then Roberto zips up and buckles his belt and walks out of the jungle. He walks through the water and then onto the sandbar. He sees an orange butterfly, and then a yellow one, and then suddenly he’s in the middle of a fantastical swirl of orange and yellow butterflies. He lifts up his arms and begins to slowly turn around as if he wants to become a part of their swirl. Orange and yellow, yellow and orange, orange and orange, yellow and yellow. They seem to be flying faster—
“Roberto!”
“Roberto, are you all right?”
“Roberto!”
He opens his eyes. He’s lying on his back on the sandbar. The worried faces of Daniel and Roque are hovering over him. He sits up slowly.
“I’m okay,” he murmurs.
“What happened?” says Daniel.
“I just passed out, I guess. I’m okay now. Really.”
They help Roberto stand up, and then they help him get back into the boat.
* * *
The river’s broad and peaceful and the wind hits Roberto in the face and he drinks some water and feels better. Roque says there’s a town up ahead where they can get some Lomotil for him and Daniel.
A few minutes later, Roque ties the boat up at a floating dock, and the three of them walk into the town. It’s called Occo. Roberto didn’t see it on the trip down the river three days ago because they passed it during the night. It’s dirty and wretched and seems hopeless in the heat. They walk by a tiny post office with the national flag that courageous Colonel Cordoba gave his life to protect drooping from a slightly crooked pole. A shabby schoolhouse is deserted because it’s Saturday. Dogs wander around panting with their tongues out or lie sprawled and dead-looking in the shade. The only sign of energy or enterprise is a man mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow but even he seems to be at the point of toppling over like Roberto at the sandbar.
“Shit,” says Daniel under his breath. “What the hell are they doing here?”
Four soldiers are sitting in orange plastic chairs at a blue plastic table in front of a green restaurant drinking beer. Their rifles lean against the table.
“Just keep walking,” says Roberto.
“They’re looking at us,” says Roque.
Roque is right. Roberto’s suddenly aware of how filthy and mud-bespattered he and Daniel are. Nothing to do but bluff their way through this.
“Good afternoon,” says Roberto to the soldiers with a smile.
The soldiers smile and say good afternoons of their own. Three of them could be teenagers, the fourth is a little older.
“Where have you guys been?” the older one says. He seems more curious than suspicious. They don’t really have any choice except to approach the table. If the soldiers ask for their IDs they’re fucked.
“We were hunting wild pigs,” says Roberto, “but we didn’t have much luck.”
“Well, that’s an understatement,” Daniel says ruefully, and now he points at Roque. “They told us in Tarapacá this little motherfucker was the best guide in town, but he’d get lost trying to cross the street.”
Roque looks sheepish as the soldiers laugh.
“But I always knew where we were,” says Roque. “We were never lost.”
“Is that why we spent eight hours walking in circles?” says Roberto.
“But we weren’t walking in circles,” says Roque, “we were tracking the pigs.”
Daniel rolls his eyes. “Is that what you call being lost? ‘Tracking the pigs’?”
The soldiers laugh again. Roberto notices under the table a little monkey tied by a cord to one of the table legs.
“Wild pigs are mean,” says one of the soldiers.
“I heard a pack of wild pigs chased a man down and ate him,” says another of the soldiers.
“On top of everything else, my friend here has the shits,” Daniel says, jerking a thumb at Roberto. “Do you know any place we could get some Lomotil?”
“There’s a store that way,” the older soldier says, pointing up the street. “They probably have some.”
They thank the soldiers and move on. Daniel and Roberto discreetly exchange that familiar look of relief at having gotten out of a tight spot. They do find Lomotil in the store, and also buy a six-pack of water and a six-pack of the apple-flavored soft drink that Willie Rivera likes so much and three cans of sausages and a package of cookies and a bag of Cheetos. The exhausted-looking woman behind the counter has a small baby in her arms, which is sucking from a bottle filled with coffee.
They walk back down the street past the soldiers.
“Did they have Lomotil?” the older soldier calls out.
“Yes,” Roberto calls back, “thanks a lot!”
The soldier smiles and waves. Under the table the monkey stares out at them, sitting in its own shit like Fercho in the pantry.
They go out on the floating dock and climb back in the boat.
“How much longer till we get out of Tulcán?” asks Roberto.
“We’re not in Tulcán anymore,” says Roque. “We’re in Chimoyo.”
* * *
Roberto doesn’t usually like sugary drinks, but he downs a bottle of the pink apple drink pretty fast; he feels his system could use a jolt of sugar. He eats several cookies, then pulls soft pink sausages out of their can with his fingers; god knows what they’re made of but they’re very tasty. Meanwhile, Daniel has turned his fingers orange emptying the bag of Cheetos.
“I’ll see my fish soon,” he says, licking his fingers. Now he looks out at the river and says in English, “Dark brown is the river, golden is the sand. It flows along forever, with trees on either hand.”
“You must be feeling good,” says Roberto, “if you’re reciting poetry.”
Daniel smiles. “I am, Roberto. I never thought we’d make it out of there.”
Roberto didn’t either. He knows that until the wheels of his plane lift off the runway at Robledo he’s not completely safe, but at least he’s not in Tulcán. As he leaves the jungle, the pull of the life he’s led before is like the gravitational field of a planet. He’s returning to not the real world, but another world, his world. Memories of the jungle are being supplanted by thoughts of his friends, his family, the future. Is it really possible that he’ll be at the airport at Saint Lucia tomorrow night, that Caroline will come running into his arms?
Daniel discovers one of the watermelons they bought from the twins still lying in the bottom of the boat.
“It seems a shame to let it go to waste,” he says.
“You’re right,” says Roberto. “Let’s eat it.”
Daniel borrows Roque’s machete. He puts the watermelon on one of the wooden seats and prepares to whack it open.
“Try not to cut any fingers off,” says Roberto. “I prefer my watermelon without blood on it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Whack. The green melon parts to reveal the crisp red meat. Roberto takes two wedges to the back of the boat. He hands one to Roque, and sits down and eats with him. The pink juice runs down their chins. He thinks about the twins and is drawn back into the past.
Roque waves at someone. Roberto looks and sees a man poling along a raft in the shallow water near the bank. The raft’s made of inner tubes tied together with wooden planking on top. It’s carrying an old bicycle, some wooden crates and burlap bags, and a wire cage with a couple of chickens in it. Roberto waves at the man too, and he waves back.
“How long till we get to Tarapacá?” says Roberto.
Roque shrugs. “Two hours?”
If Roberto wants to say anything to Roque, now’s the time.
“I don’t know what to say, Roque. Except I’m so sorry about Lina and Quique and Ernesto. We owe you guys our lives, we owe you everything. We’re hoping the story I’m going to write and the photographs Daniel took are going to make things better in Tulcán. Maybe they’ll help to stop the violence.”
“I hope so, Roberto. That would be nice.”
“You were very close to Lina, weren’t you?”
“Yes. She was like my sister. She always worried about me. She always worried about everyone, but never about herself.”
“Lina thought of you as her little brother. She told me that.”
Roque is silent. A tear eases out of an eye and slides down his face.
“Where are you going after this?” says Roberto.
“Home. To my village.”
“Do you have family there?”
Roque smiles. “I have a wife. And a daughter. Her name’s Ana.”
“Really! How old’s Ana?”
“She’s only a baby. A few months.”
“So on her first birthday, are you going to give her that soup that makes her smarter? It’s made out of bird brains, what’s the name of the bird?”
“Caciques. Of course.”
“Thanks for teaching me about the jungle.”
“When I would tell you things, and you would write them down in your notebook? That always made me feel good. It made me feel that what I was telling you was important.”
“It was important. Very important.”
“Do you have a wife, Roberto?”
“Not yet, but I will soon. My fiancée lives on an island in the Caribbean called Saint Lucia. I’m flying there tomorrow. I plan to live there for a while. Saint Lucia’s very beautiful. You should come visit me there.”
“‘Saint Lucia.’ It sounds nice. Yes, I’d like to come.”
Roberto looks at him skeptically. “So you’re really coming to visit me, Roque?”
“Yes,” said Roque, and then he adds, with a sly smile, “Maybe on my way to Chicago.”
Roberto laughs. The boat drones on up the river. Near sunset, they reach Tarapacá.
It’s just routine civilian traffic on the bridge today. No convoys. Roque leaves the main channel of the river and enters the little inlet, which is crowded with boats coming back from the day’s fishing. The boat putters along till it reaches a dock, on which Yadier is standing. Roque has called him on his cellphone and already broken the terrible news. Tears are streaming down Yadier’s face, and he hugs each of them as they climb on the dock, pressing them against his fat belly.
“I can’t believe they’re gone, but it’s God’s will,” he says. “They’ll be happy in heaven forever now.”
Roberto can perhaps imagine Lina and Ernesto in heaven, but it’s hard to picture Quique with his jaguar whiskers there. Roque is going back to Yadier’s house with them. They trudge up the hill to Yadier’s white Corolla, and Roberto and Daniel get into the back. The radio’s tuned to a salsa station. Despite the lively music, Yadier sighs and sniffles and blows his nose as he drives into town. Motorcycles and motortaxis are buzzing and zipping all around, street urchins dash through the traffic, a woman with a grotesque purple growth coming out of the side of her head begs for money from passersby. They’ve returned to civilization.
Yadier’s car goes by the Park of the Parakeets. Bright fruit hangs in the mango trees. It must be about six, because thousands of parakeets are flying out of the jungle and over the town and converging on the park. Roberto gazes out the window at them, thinking the last time he saw them he didn’t know it yet but he was just about to meet Lina.
“Hey, Roberto,” Daniel says with a grin, “look who’s here!”
He’s pointing toward a man in a straw hat sitting on a bench.
“Napo!” says Roberto.
Napo seems to be in the same clothes he was wearing at the bar. He’s perusing a newspaper, his legs crossed in a relaxed way.
“You know, he was supposed to have gotten that check yesterday,” says Daniel. “If you wanted to stop, I’m sure he’d be glad to pay you back the twenty thousand pesos you loaned him.”
Roberto laughs. “I’d probably just end up giving him another twenty thousand.”
It’s dusk by the time they arrive at Yadier’s house. There’s Daniel’s yellow Twingo sitting under a tree. Yadier’s dogs bark at them, his numerous children stand around and stare. His wife asks if she can make Roberto and Daniel dinner, but they just want to change their clothes and hit the road. They go in the Happy Boys bedroom. Roberto opens his suitcase, is reassured to find his billfold and his passport still in the hidden compartment. As the Happy Boys watch from all the walls, Roberto and Daniel take off their muddy boots and clothes. They put on clean clothes and put the dirty ones in plastic garbage bags provided by Yadier’s wife. Roberto goes in the bathroom and washes his face and neck and hands and arms, and then he and Daniel go out to Daniel’s car and load their stuff in the trunk. Roberto thanks Yadier, who gives Roberto another hearty, tearful hug, and then Roque approaches and hugs him in a curiously shy way, barely making contact.
“Be safe, Roberto,” Roque says.
“You be safe too, Roque. I won’t forget you.”
Roque nods. Roberto and Daniel get in the car, and Daniel starts it up and turns on the headlights. He drives away down the dirt road. It’s dark now and he can’t see that Roberto’s crying. Soon Daniel reaches the main road, turns right, and heads for Robledo.
* * *
“You’re going to asphyxiate me with your cigarette,” says Roberto.
“Sorry,” says Daniel. He lowers his window. They’ve been on the road about an hour. There’s very little traffic. The jungle’s been left behind, and they’re traveling through dark fields planted in soybeans and cotton.
They should pull up at the old hotel that was once the hacienda of the Saldamandos around one or two in the morning. Since Roberto’s plane doesn’t leave till the early afternoon, he’ll have plenty of time to sleep late, to take a long hot shower, to have a leisurely breakfast with Daniel, to walk around the enchanting town, to look at the oak trees and the bright blue sky.
Roberto takes out his cellphone. He wants to check his messages to see if Caroline has left him any, but he discovers his phone is dead. He’d really love to hear Caroline’s voice. He considers borrowing Daniel’s cellphone and calling her now, but then he decides it would be a bad idea. He intends to maintain the fiction that he’s been in Contamana researching his book until he gets to Saint Lucia at which point he’ll tell Caroline everything (minus a few things about Lina, of course). But he’s so wiped out physically and emotionally that if he were to get on the phone with her now he doesn’t trust himself not to burst into tears and blurt out the truth. Better to get a good night’s sleep and call her tomorrow from Robledo.
It’s nice to be back in the Twingo. It’s a return to normal life. He looks over at Daniel, smoking his cigarette, staring at the road, and then he thinks about last night at El Encanto. Daniel coming through the door of the guesthouse with his eyes so big and panicky as he waved his gun around. There would have been something almost comical about it if the circumstances hadn’t been so dire. Roberto doesn’t think anyone else he knows except his father or his grandmother would have been willing to do something like that for him. He’s not sure if he would have had the guts to do it if the circumstances were reversed. And this was just one moment of a trip on which Daniel’s life was in danger all the time. He wants to find the words to thank him, but just like with Caroline, he’s afraid he’d fall apart if he tried to do it now. Tomorrow over breakfast in Robledo.
The radio is on and an announcer is giving a news update, and now Roberto hears President Dávila talking today about Tulcán. “In Tulcán, the greatest evil known to humankind, namely terrorism, is being dealt with in an exemplary fashion.” The president’s voice is so resonant and smooth he could be a radio announcer himself. “The Army, under the able leadership of General Oropeza, is conducting counterterrorism operations in such a way as to minimize civilian casualties. Even one innocent life lost is one life too many. Unfortunately, our enemy has no such compunctions.”
“Excuse me, Roberto,” says Daniel. “I need to stick my head out the window while I puke.”
“You know, I think I prefer Landazábal to Dávila. At least Landazábal doesn’t pretend to be anything except what he is, an unrepentant old fascist. He’s not some phony ‘technocrat’ that acts like he’s on the side of the people.”
“I wonder what he’s going to say about Oropeza’s leadership when he sees the pictures of him at Jilili,” and now Daniel yawns. “Shit. Can’t wait to get into a real bed.”
“You want me to drive for a while?”
“No, I’m okay for now.”
Roberto settles into his seat, closes his eyes. He imagines sitting on a plane ten thousand meters over the earth, listening to the muted powerful roar of its engines as it takes him to Saint Lucia. “What would you like to drink?” a flight attendant asks him.
“Whiskey,” he replies. “A double whiskey. On the rocks.”
Next thing he knows, he’s waking up. Daniel’s parking the car in front of a restaurant.
“Where are we?” asks Roberto.
“That shithole town we stopped at to get my car alarm fixed. I need food and coffee. Especially coffee.”
They go inside and sit down at a table. The place is almost empty. A waitress wearing huge gold hoop earrings and red stretch pants comes over, not looking happy that they’re here.
“All we got left in the kitchen’s tripe soup and beef with beans,” she says. “But if you want any you’ll have to eat it fast because we’re about to close.”
“Will you agree to eat fast, Roberto?” Daniel says.
“Sure.”
“Me too.”
The waitress gives a weary sigh. “Tripe soup or beef with beans?”
“I’ll have both. Roberto?”
“I’ll have both too.”
“We’ll both have both,” Daniel says to the waitress. “And bring us coffee. Lots of coffee.”
The waitress nods, and walks away.
“She’s charming,” says Daniel. “I think I’m in love.”
Roberto laughs. He gets up and goes in the bathroom. He’s been taking the Lomotil, but it hasn’t quite done the job yet. The toilet’s filthy. It was actually more pleasant shitting in the jungle than here.
When Roberto comes back, the food and coffee are already on the table. He sits down across from Daniel.
“That was fast,” says Roberto.
Daniel nods. He drinks some coffee, looks out the window at an eighteen-wheeler rumbling by on the road. His mood seems to have changed in just the few minutes Roberto was gone.
“Everything okay?” says Roberto.
“I was just thinking about Diego.”
“Yeah. Poor guy.”
“That’s not what I meant. What if he told them about us?”
“The soldiers?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he going to tell them? He doesn’t even know our last names.”
“How hard will it be to figure out? How many reporter-photographer teams are there with the names Roberto and Daniel? I mean, you’re leaving the country tomorrow, but what about me? How long before they come for me?”
“Calm down, they’re not coming for you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’re not even sure what happened to Diego. He could have been seriously wounded, he could have died already.”
“Or else he’s still alive and he’s being interrogated. Tortured. Who knows what he’s told them? They could be looking for us right now.”
“I think you’re overreacting. Like with your fish and the crazy boyfriend.”
“Come on, Roberto. This is nothing like that.”
Roberto takes a sip of his coffee, and thinks about it. He sees the waitress glaring at them. Waiting for them to begin eating.
“Look,” says Roberto, “the Army didn’t know we were in Tulcán, so they’d have no reason to ask Diego about us. And I don’t think he’d volunteer any information. But if it’s something you’re really concerned about, maybe you should think about leaving the country too. At least for a while, till this all blows over.”
Daniel looks gloomy.
“Shit. I knew this was going to bite me in the ass.”
* * *
When they come out of the restaurant, Roberto takes the wheel of the Twingo and drives it out of San Lorenzo. Beside him, Daniel crosses his arms and turns away and is quickly filling the car with snores. Roberto thinks about Diego. Despite what he said to Daniel, he doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to be concerned about what Diego may have told Army interrogators. Diego knows not only that they were going to El Encanto but that they were present at the massacre in Jilili. If by some chance the Army’s already looking for them, there’s no way they could know where they are. If Roberto’s luck holds, he should be able to slip out of the country tomorrow, but what about Daniel? And even if Diego dies without telling the Army anything about them, what happens when Roberto’s story comes out? It’s possible that the photographic evidence the Army massacred the people of Jilili and the fact General Oropeza was there when it happened will be more important than his story itself. Won’t the government want to know who took the pictures? Roberto and Daniel can deny all they want that it was Daniel, but he’ll still be an object of suspicion. And in this country, suspicion is often all it takes to get you killed.
Roberto sees the half moon rising over the sugarcane fields. He’s starting to get drowsy. He turns up the music on the radio and lowers the window and the wind rushes in. It won’t be long till they get to Robledo if he can just stay awake. But his eyelids keep drooping, and his chin keeps dropping toward his chest, and then he snaps his head up and gives it a little shake. He’d rather be in a soft bed with fluffy pillows by himself than have the most beautiful girl in the world with him because all he wants to do is sleep. The bed begins to bump and jump and then he opens his eyes. They’re no longer on the road but are headed into a ditch. Daniel wakes up cursing. Roberto twists the steering wheel and returns the car to the road.
“Roberto,” Daniel says, “what the fuck?”
“Sorry. I fell asleep.”
“We need to stop someplace. We can’t go through all this and then get killed in a car wreck. Like those German tourists.”
“I agree, let’s stop. At the next motel.”
“You know, we’re not far from Ramiro Navia’s house. We should stay there instead of some fleabag motel.”
“Fine with me.”
Daniel gets his cellphone out, punches in a number.
“You said Ramiro’s not there, right?” says Roberto.
“No, but the caretakers are always there,” and now he says into the phone: “Gabriel! It’s Daniel. What’s happening, man? I didn’t wake you up, did I? Listen, I’m in the area with a friend, we were wondering if we could stop off and spend the night. Great. No, we already ate, all we need’s a couple of beds. Okay, we’ll see you soon. Bye.” He puts his phone away. “Do you think you can stay awake till we get there? Or do you want me to drive?”
“No, I think I’m okay.”
“Maybe we should think of something that will keep you awake.”
“Like what?”
“I could recite some Swinburne to you. There are parts of ‘Tristram of Lyonesse’ that are really amazing.”
“If you promise not to recite Swinburne to me, I’ll promise not to go to sleep.”
Daniel laughs, and lights a cigarette.
* * *
The road begins to rise into the mountains. Rain splatters the windshield. Roberto turns on the wipers, peers through them at the twisting road. It rains hard, but soon the splatters turn into speckles and then cease altogether. Just a passing shower. The wet pavement gleams in the headlights as he takes the Twingo up and up, and then Daniel says, “Slow down. It’s just around the next curve.”
Roberto turns left onto the eroded dirt road. It goes straight up the hill, and is dauntingly steep. Immediately the car starts sliding around.
“Gun it, Roberto!” says Daniel.
Roberto pushes the gas pedal, and the tires begin spinning and the car goes nowhere. The rain seems to have lasted just long enough to thwart their ascent.
“Get out,” says Daniel. “I’ll drive.”
Roberto shrugs. “Okay.”
He stops the car and they both get out. Roberto starts to walk around to the passenger side but Daniel says, “No, you walk up. We need to make the car lighter.”
Roberto stands by the car as Daniel gets behind the wheel.
“So you really think you can do better?” says Roberto.
“I can take this car up Mount Everest.”
The car moves forward, and Daniel skillfully slithers his way up the side of the hill in it. He stops at the top and waits for Roberto to walk up. He slips a couple of times in the mud and nearly falls as he did so many times in the jungle, and then he climbs back in the Twingo. Daniel regards him with a smirk.
“Don’t feel bad. You’re good at some things, just not at driving.”
“Shut up. Let’s go.”
Daniel laughs. He drives a minute or two along the road and then turns down another road, at the end of which a tall white wall and a wooden gate are lit up by the headlights. The gate is open, and a young man is standing there, along with two yellow Labrador retrievers. Daniel drives up to the gate, and the young man comes around to the driver’s side. His nose is covered with a white bandage.
“Hey, Gabriel,” says Daniel, “what happened to your nose?”
“I was clearing brush, and my machete hit something hard and bounced back and—” Gabriel shrugs and smiles. “I don’t know what I did, but I did it.”
“Sounds like me. Gabriel, this is my friend, Roberto.”
Gabriel and Roberto exchange greetings, then Daniel drives through the gate. He takes the car down a sloping brick drive and parks in front of the house. They get out and Daniel opens the trunk as Gabriel and the dogs come down the drive. The dogs jump up on Daniel as he pets and rubs them.
“Hey, Tantar, hey, Ramón, how are you guys?” and then he says to Gabriel: “Ramón’s gotten big.”
“Yes, he’s not a puppy anymore. But he’s still crazy.”
The house is white stucco with a red tile roof, with small palm trees and plants in pots all around. Gabriel grabs Roberto’s suitcase and Daniel’s backpack, and they follow him inside. They’re met by his wife, María, who’s slim and pretty and has a warm, welcoming smile.
“Are you hungry?” she says. “Let me make you something. Or let me get you something to drink.”
But they both want only to go to bed. Gabriel conducts them down a hallway. He opens a bedroom door and takes in Daniel’s pack. Daniel turns to Roberto.
“Well—see you in the morning, Roberto.”
Roberto nods. He and Daniel look at each other with one of those looks that convey more than millions of words, and then they hug. Then Daniel goes into his room and shuts the door and Gabriel takes Roberto down the hallway to his room. Gabriel puts the suitcase down on a carved wooden chest at the foot of the bed.
“If you need anything,” he says, “just let us know.”
Roberto thanks him and he leaves. The rough plaster walls are painted a soft green. There are lace curtains on the windows, and a very skinny and elongated Christ is nailed to a cross above the bed. It’s a little warm so Roberto turns on the ceiling fan. He goes in the bathroom and pees. The bathtub and shower look very inviting; he’ll enjoy them in the morning. He’d like to brush his teeth, but he realizes he doesn’t have a toothbrush or toothpaste; he left them in his backpack in El Encanto. There’s a glass by the sink and he fills it with water and takes it in the bedroom.
The bed’s been turned down. A bath towel folded in the shape of a swan and tied with a ribbon has been placed between the pillows. He puts the water on the bedside table and takes off his clothes and turns off the light and crawls into bed. The window’s open. It’s very quiet outside except for a cicada or two. No hooting jungle birds or growling beasts. The ceiling fan is loose in its fastenings, causing it to move back and forth and make a noise that sounds like tapping.