At Play in the Fields of the Lord

by Peter Matthiessen

  “Well, they never drink the way our Christian Indians do—just to get drunk.” He tried once more to put his arm around his wife’s shoulder, to comfort her, but she was stiff as chalk. When Billy died Hazel had said, “Suppose he hadn’t died in twenty-four hours? Suppose he hadn’t? Suppose, through blind stupidity and pride, you caused his death? I know you think that because you were right, I should forgive you, but I don’t. And I never will.”

  Boronai was bellowing incoherently; he had taken a second draught of nipi. His warriors kept a close eye on him and speeded the tempo of their dancing; the red bodies gleamed like salamanders in the firelight, coiling and sweating, and strange whooping calls were interspersed with heavy grunts and breathings. When Boronai, with a sudden screech, ran for his bow and arrows, the others scattered to the edges of the compound, trying to avoid him, but still they danced and grunted, jerking eerily in the far shadows of the firelight. In the center, all alone, the headman stood, enormous in his crown, the mouth hole in the ghastly mask twisted by a sound wrenched from his body; he fitted an arrow to his bow, and the head of the arrow moved in a slow circle, like the head of a snake. Then he circled, stalking the red figures in the background. Nearing the shed, his black silhouette sprang suddenly into its entrance; he jabbed the arrow toward the four corners, ignoring the white people drawn back into the shadows.

  Huben murmured, “What is he doing? I don’t like this.”

  At the sound of Huben’s voice, Boronai leaped back into the firelight and drove the arrow violently into the earth, then another, then another, so that all the arrows quivered in the same spot. He raised a final arrow and brandished it, then fell upon his knees and stared at the sky, bringing his hands up slowly before his face and clasping them, as if in imitation of Hazel at Billy’s funeral.

  The red bodies danced toward Boronai from the shadows and, grouped around him in a circle, imitated him. They maintained the eugh! aagh! eugh! aagh! of their grunting, and one man, then another, sat back upon his heels to belch out the yellow fluid of his masato.

  “It’s disgusting,” said Huben angrily, “disgusting, sinful drunkenness. To think they could pray and vomit drunkenly at the same time!”

  Quarrier said, “The vomiting is a purge. To clean their souls.” The expression that came to Huben’s face did him more good than anything in days.

  Hazel said, “You are insane. Even if what you say is true, you are insane.”

  A bat swirled in the golden smoke over the fire. Still on his knees, Boronai straightened and stiffened; muscles rigid, soundless, he fell forward across the fire logs. Aeore and Tukanu dragged him out and laid him down, brushing the cinders from his chest, while Kori’s men fetched a new calabash of masato. Drinking, they squatted by the fallen headman.

  AT dawn Boronai was still in trance, stretched out on the ground beside the fire. Around him the men curled, lying almost in the embers, for the dawn was dank and cold, and the early sun was sealed off by the green walls, the shrouds of mist. The forest macaws remained oddly silent; high off in the world of green they were content to ruffle their wet feathers, blinking slow reptilian lids and shifting big pale feet.

  As Quarrier and Huben came out of the shed, Tukanu rose unsteadily and grunted at the others. The cracked red of his face paint in the morning light gave him a swollen look; his eyes were red and there was dirt in the black disheveled hair cropped close around the ears.

  “The noble savage!” Huben said. “My goodness!”

  Tukanu turned his gaze from Quarrier, whose greetings he had ignored, to Leslie Huben. The others rose behind him, all but Boronai, who lay as still as death. In the silent clearing the women of Kori’s band materialized. With them was Pindi, Boronai’s young wife, who sauntered forward with a saucy swing of her big pregnant belly; she grazed Tukanu with her bare hip and confronted Huben. Taking hold of his shirt by the upper sleeve, she tugged at it, then pointed at herself: “Cushma le mato Pindi.”

  When the wild Niaruna had first come, Boronai offered to share this girl with Quarrier, not because he wished to—the idea plainly displeased him—but because, sensing the void between Quarrier and his woman, he saw the offer as an obligation to his host. Quarrier’s refusal had so astonished and insulted him that he threatened the white man with his lance. Quarrier called out to Hazel, and together they acted out a macabre charade of bliss, which sorely offended the headman’s idea of good taste. Under her breath as she stroked her husband’s head, Hazel said sarcastically, “You might have made the sacrifice, to spare our lives.”

  And Quarrier said brutally, “I didn’t refuse because I didn’t want her. I refused because I wanted her. If I hadn’t wanted her, God might have accepted such an act as sacrifice.”

  Later he had begged Hazel’s forgiveness, but Hazel had been cheerful. “At least you said something I could get mad at!” She laughed wildly. “Imagine being condemned to live with Jesus Christ!”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Cushma le mato Pindi. But Pindi’s smile was less cajoling than contemptuous; when Leslie did nothing, she tugged his shirt again, then yanked at its throat, tearing a button. When he reached down to pick it up, she stooped and snatched the button from beneath his hand, then sashayed fat-bellied around him, laughing at him.

  The Indians had picked up their bows and arrows and were forming a loose circle around the missionaries; they clearly expected Huben to be named as Billy’s enemy.

  Quarrier said, “I think you’d better go.”

  Huben said, “I think so too, but will they let me?” He cleared his throat. “I don’t like the look of this. Maybe you and Hazel had better come out with me.”

  Hazel, who had been watching from the doorway, came toward the fire with a big pot of rice and water. The fire was centered between the tips of three large logs, which were inched forward as they burned; an old woman came forward and moved one of the logs, and Hazel set the pot over the flame. This was their fire, and the food was meant for them; the Indians put down their bows, yawning and stretching. But Tukanu shot an arrow straight up into the sky, so skillfully that it thudded down again but a few yards away. He did this several times, bending his bow farther and farther, and each time stared at Leslie in triumphant malice. The Indians sighed restlessly at every shot, for it meant that they had to keep an eye out for the arrow; whether Tukanu took this as a sign of recognition or whether he was caught, like a small child, in the snare of his own bravado, he kept at his solitary game, the more intensely as his audience lost interest, until finally his bow snapped. The other Indians laughed at him, and though Leslie did not laugh, the furious Tukanu singled him out anyway and shouted at him, waving an arrow.

  Seeking to deflect Tukanu’s outrage, Leslie turned his back on him. At the fire, Hazel had uncovered the pot of rice, and the Indians, no longer concerned about Tukanu’s arrows, were squatting around it, dipping their fingers and yanking them out again, getting as much rice as they could without being burned. Huben had brought a big grin to his face, but Tukanu spun him around and shouted at him contemptuously; when Huben did nothing, Tukanu jabbed him in the chest with the point of his arrow, harder and harder, until he drew blood. Huben put his hands up to protect himself, and Tukanu jabbed him in the hands until they bled. The other warriors leveled arrows at the white men.

  Huben held his ground, but over his shoulder he said to Quarrier, “Can’t you control this? You had better control this.”

  Quarrier stepped forward and laid one hand on Tukanu’s shoulder; pointing the other straight at the sky, he shouted, “Kisu!”

  Tukanu shrank back, and all but one warrior lowered their bows; this one, Aeore, released his arrow at Huben, but caught it in the fingers of his bow hand as it left the cord. The warriors grumbled in excitement.

  “We’re going,” Huben said, “this very minute.”

  “All right.” Quarrier felt weak with fear. “Take Hazel to the boat. I’ll speak to t
hem.” To Hazel he said, “Never mind your things.” She followed Huben, who had assumed an angry expression and had marched straight at the largest group of Indians, and through them, toward the river. Neither he nor Hazel turned to look back. The big sweat-streaked back of Hazel’s dress, the baffled gait—Quarrier came to his senses, raising his hands high above his head.

  “You are bad people!” he shouted. “We have come as friends. We have brought presents, and now—” he could not find the Niaruna words. On impulse, he seized the arrow from the hand of Tukanu, who grunted in surprise. Around the circle the bows came up again. Quarrier pointed the arrow after Huben, then at his own chest, in imitation of what Tukanu had done. “You are bad people!” he shouted again.

  He intended to break Tukanu’s arrow, to hurl the pieces to the ground, but he caught himself in time. Tukanu stepped forward, his broad face thickening with anger. Quarrier handed him the arrow before he could demand it, then turned his back on the Indian and raised both arms into the air. “We are your friends,” he bellowed. “In the name of Kisu!”

  Behind him Tukanu grunted once again; whether or not the Indian had raised the arrow, Quarrier never knew.

  The Indians followed him to the river bank. They talked rapidly among themselves, pointing and spitting. Huben was adrift in his own boat, though well in range; the river here was scarcely twenty yards across. In the Quarriers’ boat Hazel awaited him; as he cast off he said to her, “Don’t look frightened, Hazel. Look angry if you can.” Hazel looked neither frightened nor angry. Later he wondered if it had not been the spectacle of this woman, so clearly undismayed by—scarcely interested in—anything they might do to her, which had impressed the savages and stayed their hand.

  The Indians were yipping and gesticulating, at a loss; seeking leadership, they clustered around Boronai, but he was still deep in his nipi. When Quarrier shouted, “Kisu!” Boronai had blinked and risen to his feet. Tottering, he had followed the procession to the bank. But now he only gazed at Quarrier, impassive. Then Aeore sprang free of the group and loosed a high arrow after Huben, but the gesture was tentative and the arrow struck harmlessly in the far bank beyond Huben’s boat, where it could be retrieved. Nevertheless, it served as an incitement; the savages ran down along the bank, fitting their arrows.

  Quarrier surged to his feet, nearly capsizing his boat. “Kisu!” he bawled. “Kisu is angry with you!”

  Again the Niaruna stopped and stared.

  A rage of pure despair came over him: so many long months of hard work, the loss of Billy, and for what? He circled the canoe and ran it full speed toward the Indians, ramming it high upon the bank. They scattered, grunting.

  “I am staying here,” he said to Hazel. “You can go out with Leslie.” He waved at Huben, who was already circling back.

  “I shall stay with you,” Hazel muttered, “until death do us part.”

  “What are you doing?” Huben called. “Come on!”

  Quarrier waved him off the bank. “We’re staying,” he yelled. “But you must go!” He felt certain that with Leslie gone, the Indians would calm down.

  “God bless you then,” yelled Leslie Huben. “Praise the Lord!”

  18

  WHILE LESLIE WAS ABSENT FROM MADRE DE DIOS, YOYO CAME TO notify Andy Huben that a large consignment of barbed wire had arrived on the plane from the coast and been dumped at the airstrip; Andy must come immediately and sign for it. This was quite unnecessary, since the local agent could just as well have brought the slip into the town, but the opportunity for a small ceremony was not permitted to go to waste. The citizens had assembled to view the epochal cargo, the like of which had never been seen in Oriente State, and the bolder among them were fingering the bales, which were lined up like soldiers for Andy’s inspection. Just as I thought, their judicious expressions said, the finest quality. Yoyo rushed forward, and with cries and kicks drove off a dog that had ventured to lift its leg upon the wire; as its official guardian, the Indian was extremely jealous of the wire, the transfer of which to the river front, the river barge, and Remate de Males promised no end of opportunities for self-assertion and abusive shouting.

  In the dull soft airs the wire gleamed; the sheer bulk of it broke down the stoicism with which Andy had received, that morning, the news of Billy’s death. When suddenly she wept, the airline agent was already launched on an official sort of speech. The onlookers nodded wisely. Such cargoes did not arrive in Madre de Dios every day, and with the emoción of the evangélica, the success of the presentation ceremonies had been assured.

  Andy’s simpático performance at the airstrip was so well received that her return to the Gran Hotel was attended by throngs of admirers; the soft-voiced men speculated loudly on the uses of barbed wire, hoping to be corrected and enlightened. Since the truth sounded so foolish—my husband prayed for this barbed wire to insure his privacy at the mission—she pretended not to hear, and the natives were much too timid and polite to question her directly. How hopeful they were, she thought, in the total hopelessness of their existence! If she was not careful, their childlike shyness would start her crying all over again. Overwhelmed, she turned in the hotel doorway to smile at them, tears in her eyes, and the small men, in consternation at this sign of favor, tossed bright bouquets of compliments and smiles, and nudged, wrestled and congratulated one another, disregarding the jeers of fat Mercedes in the window.

  Oh Billy—she lay down on her bed and laid her pillow on her breast and hugged it. And Hazel, and Martin, that poor dogged Martin—what kept people going? The image of Martin Quarrier’s coarse red bewildered face brought on her tears again. Getting down on her knees beside the bed, she prayed for him, but in the middle of the prayer she caught a self-conscious note in her voice and stopped. On the bed again, she drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to squeeze the last tears from her heart.

  But her heart refilled, and filled again; she cried for everyone. Everyone seemed to her as innocent as Billy, an innocent encrusted over; even Guzmán, even that terrible rude fat Mercedes in Guzmán’s kitchen, even Lewis Moon, that night he was last seen on earth: Listen! I know something, Andy … And Yoyo. Running to fetch her, Yoyo had allowed his crucifix to slip outside the bright red rocket shirt given to him by Leslie, and in his haste to stuff it back in hiding, had dropped something from his breast pocket, where he kept old pencil stubs and scraps of wastepaper; she had picked up this paper scrap just now and looked at it. On the back of a leaflet advertising Rayo Blanco Aguardiente was pasted a picture-book Baby-Jesus-in-the-manger, so large and vigorous that his birth would have killed the Virgin outright; beside the picture was an inscription in crude Spanish:

  JISU LOVES UYUYU

  JISU LOVES UYUYU

  JISU LOVES UYUYU TODAY

  UYUYU DREAMS IN HEAVEN

  “Why, it’s like a fetish!” Leslie exclaimed when he saw it two days later. “Just like his crucifix!”

  She wished she had not shown the paper to her husband but had found a discreet way to get it back to Yoyo. “I suppose ‘Jisu’ means ‘Jesu,’ ” she remarked. “It shows more trust or faith or something than I gave him credit for.”

  Leslie’s sudden return had taken her aback; she needed more time to grieve and to compose herself. She had not been able to hide from him—or from herself, which depressed her even more—the disappointment she had felt at seeing him; in trying to redeem herself by fussing over his wounded hands, she had only increased her feeling of discontent.

  Perhaps Lewis Moon had been right, perhaps she was never meant to be a missionary’s wife; she was of old missionary stock like both the Quarriers, but she had never gotten a real “call,” as Leslie had. In fact, she had seen in Leslie an escape from the soul-crippling religious strictures of her father’s house; attended as she was by mild young men in rimless glasses, the handsome and adventurous Leslie, with his worldly past and his longing for foreign lands, had seemed an ideal combination of Christian decency and warm-blo
oded manliness, and she had been proud to walk out into the modern world upon his arm.

  Not that she did not love him still—and she had been frightened, goodness knows, by the tale of his near martyrdom—but in the end those hands in their clean bandages annoyed her. She wanted to feel as proud of Leslie as he wanted her to feel, but she did not.

  LESLIE had scarcely returned to Madre de Dios when the news came of a Niaruna raid against Remate. One savage had been killed—the only casualty on either side—but in their retreat the raiders had revenged themselves by murdering a Tiro family caught on the river. This news was gratifying to El Comandante, who immediately applied for government sanction of a campaign against the Niaruna.

  On the radio that morning Quarrier had said that he and Hazel were willing and able to continue at the mission without help. But in the turmoil of their grief, the Quarriers were hardly in a state to judge things fairly; the Niaruna raid, which Leslie had not mentioned to the Quarriers for fear of alarming them, was evidence enough that the mission was still in danger. When Andy said mildly, “I suppose we’ll be going right back in, to lend a hand,” Leslie had reared back, angry and defensive, waving his bandaged hands like a praying mantis.

  “You’re not going! It’s too dangerous!”

  “I’d be ashamed to stay here; I’m going with you, Leslie.”

  “All right then! All right then! But in that case, I’m going to ask Guzmán to give us soldiers!”

  She began immediately to pack her things. It was clear that Leslie had been badly frightened, which was natural enough, but since he could not bring himself to admit this, there was no way she could reach out and help him. He sat there glaring while she packed. When she paid no attention to his mood, he reminded her that he had still said nothing about the date of their return to the Espíritu, at which she straightened up and gazed at him and said, “I should think you’d prefer that I give you the benefit of the doubt.”