At Play in the Fields of the Lord

by Peter Matthiessen

  “This has been Billy’s home,” Quarrier said coldly. “It is the only home he knows. He will die among people who love him in their way, and he will die in truth, without hypocrisy, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He stared pointedly at Huben. “Amen,” he said.

  Huben looked discomfited and vexed. “Home!” he said, glancing around the muddy yard. “My goodness!”

  Hazel said to her husband, “Leslie has had the kindness and courage to come to us in our time of need, and all alone, and you are rude to him. You are a stubborn and willful man and you have taken upon yourself the sin of pride. May the Lord have mercy on your soul!”

  “Amen,” Quarrier said. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said to Huben. “I’m only trying to think clearly.”

  “This is a terrible time of trial for you both,” Leslie said, trying to mend things. “Now let us pray.”

  WHILE Billy lived, the Indians came to him one by one, paying no attention to his parents; they did not speak to Billy but simply laid a hand on him, in parting, and went away again, expressionless. Only the old women, chanting their singsong in the huts across the clearing, gave any evidence of grief. The silent procession filled Hazel with horror; Martin had to restrain her from seizing her broom and driving the naked mourners from the shed. “They are paying respect,” he said to her, over and over. “It is their way.” During the visits, Billy smiled a little in a sleepy way, as if remembering something.

  By nightfall Billy was unconscious; he did not wake again. Hazel and Leslie sat with him throughout the night, but Martin lay down on his bed and stared straight at the ceiling. He rose only when his son’s breathing broke and faltered; then he hurried to the bedside. When Billy breathed peacefully again, he turned away. “Perhaps you would like to watch over your own son,” Hazel whispered, “and give poor Leslie a rest.”

  “Watching won’t help him,” Martin said harshly. “Leslie can sleep whenever he likes.”

  Even now, he thought, she’s scoring points in her private war; she can’t restrain herself. And he thought bitterly about Hazel’s love for Billy, a love that was most lavish and emotional at those times when she felt sorriest for herself. It was not Billy she embraced but the child Hazel; not Billy whom she cherished but the Hazel who, at Billy’s age, had felt unloved, and whose injury was recalled to her by the smallest rejection or rebuke. A quarrel sent her running to her child in an excess of crooning love which had nothing to do with the real love she actually felt; it sickened Quarrier, not because it was insincere but because the true object of it went unrecognized. He had known his wife to rout their child out of his sleep to bathe them both in her own emotion; the snuffling and wallowing was at times more than he could bear. Even when still very young, Billy had sniffed out the strangeness of this behavior, and with a vague, dignified expression had searched his father’s face for some sort of explanation. Once he had tried to question his father, but Quarrier had only hushed him: “Another time,” he said.

  Another time, another time. Ah Christ, who would have thought that time would have run out so very suddenly? The time to convey his love for his own son before he died, was that so much to ask—this love choked him now for want of a way to shout it out. But wasn’t this the charge that he had made against his wife? Martin Quarrier, are you not sorry for yourself? I am; before God I am. I am heartily sorry. Perhaps Hazel knew, perhaps she knew … something I did not know. The doom and bafflement that came in time to every face—perhaps she had glimpsed this even in Billy’s shining eyes, had anticipated all the wounds to come, and rushed to cover him. He stared at Hazel’s back, at her bent neck; he felt sick to the heart.

  Ah, Hazel, poor dumb suffering brute …

  That huge bafflement was the inescapable affliction; he had seen it on every face he knew. The startled look on Andy’s face when, once or twice, he had seen her lift her head from knitting to stare at Huben: Who is this man? Why am I with him? Or Leslie himself, under God’s new outboard power, roaring up triumphantly to greet his flock, only to be met with a sullenness close to hostility: But I’ve given you love; why is it you dislike me? Or that man Wolfie, stunned by the curtness of his partner so soon after he had saved Moon’s life: How do ya like that? Well, how do ya like that? At moments, stunned and groggy at the hands of life, even the hardest face looked innocent: Where has life gone? What will become of me?

  Another time, another time.

  Billy had dignity, all right; he had integrity. He had never noticed such integrity in a child, though perhaps all children started with it. One day he had beaten Billy for disobeying Hazel, not because Billy had been bad—since the morning she had hurt the butterfly he had lost his last confidence in his mother and instinctively resisted her—but out of his own frustration with his wife. Billy had not given way to rage or tears but had remained dry-eyed and silent, craning his head back to stare straight into his father’s eyes, and regarding him in this thoughtful way for some time afterward—not in anger or contempt (he had actually taken his father’s hand after a minute, and had sat with him quietly by the river), but with that same questioning expression, making his father feel inept, unwise.

  Later he saw Billy walking alone across the clearing, trying to work everything out. The little boy was talking to himself; he stopped and raised his arms and let them fall again, walking onward.

  Toward dawn, Billy opened his eyes, strained forward, then fell back from life with a look of wonderment, staring ahead of him as at something astonishing, his small face wide-eyed, the clean mouth slightly parted, as if he were about to say, “Hey, Pa! C’mere, Pa! Lookit!”

  Hazel stiffened like an animal pierced through the spine. She made a tiny peeping sound, like a baby chick (now how in the world does she make a sound like that?) and Leslie wept, simply and quietly (well, Leslie, please forgive me). It was Leslie who closed the wide blue eyes (now why is he doing that to Bill?). Martin got down upon his knees and opened up the eyes again with a gasp of love and stared deep into them, but they were glazing so rapidly that all he could see was a mirror of his own disbelief. He took the dead boy in his arms. Billy’s body was so warm, and he still had that soft powdery smell that he had had as a small baby. “Good-bye, Bill!” he cried out, clutching him tight. “Oh Bill, oh Billy, listen—!” When Leslie touched his shoulder, he eased the body down again. Leslie closed the eyes a second time, and all three prayed.

  “As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.…”

  IN the morning, on the highest ground, Martin and Leslie dug a grave. Martin made a heavy red cross of mahogany; this was planted as a headstone. The Indians watched him, but made no effort to assist. Death was not inevitable; death was unnatural; the failure to name an enemy they saw as cowardice, and the rapidity of the funeral, with the imprisonment of Billy’s spirit in the dark cold earth, was an insult to the dead.

  Nevertheless, Kori’s men remained that morning in the village, and so did the wild Niaruna, and though Quarrier spoke the funeral service in English, every Indian was present in a sullen circle, and every one of them stared angrily at Hazel’s stony grief, offended that she did not wail and tear her hair.

  “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.…”

  But when Hazel sank onto her knees and held up her hands in prayer, the naked people imitated her so readily that afterward Huben exclaimed, “Yet you say you have no converts here! Not a single believer in all this time!”

  “You knew that, Leslie.”

  “Not even that old woman wailing, the one who greeted me yesterday? Surely Taweeda wishes to believe!” Huben grasped Quarrier in a rough embrace and smiled at him, tears in his eyes. “The Lord is here with us this morning,
Martin Quarrier! I can feel it in my heart—these lost souls are ready for the Lord! Did you see them on their knees? And perhaps the Lord, in all His wisdom, has seen fit to take Billy Quarrier to His great fold in order that these poor souls might see the light and know His Son Jesus Christ at last!” Huben gazed skyward. “Let us lift up our voices!

  “Waft, waft ye winds His store-ry

  And ye, ye waters roll

  Till like a sea of glore-ry

  It spreads from pole to pole.…”

  Quarrier, gone pale, waited for Huben to stop singing. Hazel, who was struggling to sing also, began to falter. “Martin—” she said, for her husband wore such a look of rage and grief that it seemed to her he might go mad.

  “The Lord,” Quarrier said in a strange voice, “did not take my son. Death took my son. But if He had, the Lord would not be welcome to my son. Do you understand that? He is not welcome to my son!”

  The Indians watched, and the warriors beside the headman, Boronai, pointed at Huben, grumbling. Boronai observed the white man without expression.

  “May the Lord forgive you,” Huben said.

  “You were kind to come here,” Quarrier said. “It took courage. But I must ask you to leave me alone; I will try to make my own peace with the Lord, and if I cannot—why, I cannot.”

  17

  PREPARATIONS HAD BEEN UNDER WAY SINCE THE MOMENT THAT the Indians knew the child would die. The women had gone out to the plantations along the jungle edge and had brought back large bundles of manioc to make masato. Now the men were using the utensils of the women, and the women and children were nowhere to be seen.

  A rude tray was taken from the women’s cooking fires, and onto this tray was scraped the bark layers of a woody vine. A mortar was brought, and the reddish shreds of bark were ground up in water in the mortar. Leaves of another plant were added, and the resulting infusion placed in a clay pot. The men squatted in a stolid circle and watched it boil.

  Quarrier approached the fire. Intent upon the flame, the Indians took little notice of him. He picked up a flowering length of the vine, with its neat leaves and small clusters of flowers, saying to one of Boronai’s men, “Why do you make nipi?”

  “Boronai will drink nipi,” the one called Tukanu said. “Then he will speak to Kisu.”

  “No,” Quarrier said, “no, he will not speak to Kisu. A man cannot speak to Kisu except through prayer.”

  “Boronai will speak to Kisu,” the one called Aeore said; it was this man who had once stabbed Quarrier in the chest. For Quarrier’s benefit he spoke slowly, as to a child, and his contempt was open; with Billy the Indians had spoken naturally. “He will speak to Kisu, and Kisu will tell him the name of Billy’s enemy. We will revenge the death of Billy.” Aeore’s face grew sullen; he blew air suddenly from his mouth to indicate impatience, and would not speak further. He was a hawk-faced Indian whose muttering ways recalled to Quarrier the Sioux troublemakers in his former mission. Aeore was the worst sort of savage, lazy and arrogant, vain, volatile and treacherous.

  To Tukanu, Quarrier said, “Billy’s enemy was the mosquito. You must not kill any man.”

  Tukanu, a short heavy man with a stupid face, said something rapidly and angrily, then heaved around on his buttocks so that his back faced Quarrier. But Quarrier understood. Tukanu had said, “The enemy sent the mosquito.”

  Kori’s men imitated Tukanu and Aeore and turned their backs to him, though Boronai still watched him from the head of the oval circle. Gazing down at the impassive backs, Quarrier felt a wild impulse to kick them. After all his work with the Niaruna, this sullen resistance was the only thing he could count on. To Boronai he said, “You must not try to speak with Kisu. You must not kill.”

  Boronai watched him without expression. Then he said, “We do not ask you to obey the Kisu of the Niaruna. Why do you ask us to obey the Kisu of the white man?”

  Over his shoulder, Kori said to Quarrier, “The people are angry with you. Billy lived like a Niaruna, and yet you did not treat his spirit as a Niaruna spirit must be treated. The spirit of Billy will be angry and will bring us harm. Now Boronai will drink nipi. He will listen to Kisu. Then he will find the enemy of Billy and kill him; then the spirit of Billy will go far away and sleep.” Since Boronai had settled at the mission, Kori and his tame Indians had discarded all pretense of Christianity and were waiting to be bribed anew. As for Boronai, he refused to listen to Christian teachings or even accept gifts, and his intransigence had infected all the rest.

  In the afternoon the men of the village covered themselves from head to foot with the red achote, and a few smeared it in their hair. By the sinking fire Boronai sat alone, staring fixedly at the pot.

  “What are they doing?” Huben inquired; he had joined Quarrier in the doorway of the shed.

  “They are making nipi.”

  “From a vine bark? A vine with small white flowers?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is evil, Martin. It’s ayahuasca, the same stuff that fellow Moon—”

  Quarrier shrugged. “Sometimes it’s used medicinally. An emetic. I haven’t discovered all its uses, but I am keeping notes. Also it’s used for religious purposes—prophecy, divination, things like that.”

  “What are you saying, Martin?”

  “Ours isn’t the only religion in the world,” Quarrier said. “If it was, we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Do you know that this nipi of yours is a dangerous narcotic, that it turns men into maniacs, that life is often taken as a result of it? Look what happened to that man Moon!”

  Quarrier watched a bird fly across the river, black as a spirit of the dark to come against the last sharp silver light; the swiftness of the jungle night impressed him strangely every time he saw it. He tried to concentrate on Huben, who looked offended that his outburst had gone unanswered.

  “They will take a life this time too,” Quarrier said.

  “And you’re not going to stop them?”

  “I know I must try, but I also know I cannot stop them.”

  “You admit that?”

  “I don’t admit it, Leslie. It’s a statement.”

  “And what if I stepped over to that fire and dumped that cursed brew of Satan upon the ground?”

  “I think Boronai’s men would kill you, because that stuff is sacramental. They might let me get away with it because of Billy, but I’m not even confident of that.”

  Huben shook his head. “I’m beginning to believe you,” he said slowly. “Not one soul in this whole wilderness realizes that God loves them! These people are as savage as they were when I first made contact with them!”

  Quarrier nodded. “I have four wild Niaruna here, including the girl. They haven’t killed us, they were fond of Billy and they have a word for our Lord Jesus Christ. I can’t claim more than that.”

  “But why? What have you left undone?”

  “You mean, I suppose, what have you done wrong? And I don’t know.” Quarrier turned to go into the shed. “I’ve prayed and prayed and I’ve racked my brain and I don’t know. They don’t like me, and they don’t like what I teach. If it hadn’t been for Billy, they would have killed us or driven us out long, long ago.”

  HIDDEN in the darkness of their shed, they watched the savages. Hazel watched with them, but she did not speak and did not really see. She gazed steadfastly at the cross on Billy’s grave, which wavered in the shadows of the flames.

  In the firelight, his warriors brought a feather crown to Boronai and fixed it on his head. His arms and shoulders were painted bright rusty-red, and his face was smeared with whitish clay. On this mask were drawn sharp lines of black, two beneath the eyes and two passing from the ears, skirting the corners of his mouth and forming a small cross at the chin. Boronai maintained, as he had for hours, his squatting position by the fire and a fixed, unblinking stare.

  Finally he stood, and a calabash of the manioc beer was brought to him. He raised it ceremonially, the light flickering on the broad musc
les of his arms and legs; he returned it untouched to Aeore. The calabash was passed from hand to hand, and the red figures drank it off, refilled the calabash and drank it off again. Standing there, they began a slow shuffling stamp while Tukanu filled the calabash another time. Meanwhile Aeore took up the smaller pot that had been cooling near the fire and presented it to Boronai.

  Now Boronai began to chant, more and more loudly, his mouth splitting the white mask; while his men stamped violently in rhythm he spread his legs wide, threw his head back and drank the nipi at a gulp. He straightened again, breathing hoarsely, then turned slowly in a circle, arms extended toward the jungle night, which surrounded the clearing like a high black wall.

  “Kisu!” he shouted. “Kisu, ne binde nipi. Boronai u tima!”

  “ ‘Kisu,’ ” Quarrier whispered to Huben. “ ‘I have drunk nipi, that I may go to you!’ ”

  “Are you sure of all this?”

  “I’ve questioned them. Billy spoke their tongue so well that I could use him as interpreter, and I deduced what I could.” He pointed at a large packing box beneath his cot. “Those are all notes on the Niaruna.”

  “You’re not here as a sociologist, Martin.” Huben was fretful and snappish; he was glaring at the Indians, who had commenced a monotonous grunting stamp, up and down, up and down, chanting in time to the slap of their bare feet upon the mud, and passing the calabash back and forth. Each time it was emptied, a man fell out of line and filled it up again. Stamp, scrape—eugh! aagh! Stamp, scrape—eugh! aagh! Before long, a man leaned out and vomited a gutful of the masato, forcefully and neatly, without losing step; when the calabash next came around to him he drank heavily again.

  Stamp, scrape—eugh! aagh! Stamp, scrape—eugh! aagh!

  “All these tribes drink masato,” Huben persisted when Quarrier said nothing, “and most of them use nipi, and they all get drunk and disgusting like this, and fight and fornicate and kill! That’s why we’re here, Martin, can’t you see? Perhaps if you had spent less time taking notes …”