The Puma Years: A Memoir

by Laura Coleman

  Catching my breath, I gaze into the bright candlelight of the comedor. People are laughing, eating dinner. The smell of fried garlic makes my mouth water, but I’m exhausted, sweaty and my hair . . . I don’t even want to think about what my hair looks like.

  I find the door to La Paz. There are candle stubs on the floor. When I light one, eerie shadows flutter across the cobwebbed brick. I don’t know what time it is, probably not much later than seven. The dorm holds three bunks, six beds in all, with just one tiny window at the back. There’s stuff everywhere: rucksacks, shoes, old boots, ropes between the beds acting as washing lines. Wet clothes draped along them, giving the impression of a mouldy, damp cave. I inspect an empty top bunk and find that the mattress is hay, hard and unforgiving, sheathed in plastic. Well, that’s not going to be sweaty at all, I think with a desperate laugh. There’s no sheet but there is a mosquito net that even with a cursory glance reveals rips and bloodstains. The implications of this are too horrific. I launch myself up fully clothed. Then, even though it’s too early and I’m so hot I could puke and I haven’t brushed my teeth, I just pull my sleeping bag over my head, close my eyes and pray that no one—and no thing—notices me.

  When I wake up, something is roaring. There’s a lion in my room. I jolt upright, hitting my head on the beams. Light is creeping through the green window netting. Where am I? What the . . .

  There’s a monkey by my feet. It’s not a lion. I’m light-headed with a moment’s relief, then I realise: there’s a monkey by my feet. On my sleeping bag! He’s the one without the beard, and he still doesn’t look happy, not happy at all! I edge away as quickly as I can until I’m smushed against the wall. I don’t want to touch anything. Not the monkey, nor the mosquito net, the cobwebbed brick, the shiny rock-hard, lumpy mattress that’s slick with my sweat, probably seething with bed bugs, fleas. The monkey pauses. His brown eyes are full—pity, anger, misery . . . I can’t tell. He takes another breath, puffs out his chest and lets loose another gigantic howl. I put my hands over my ears.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just his morning ritual. He likes to meet the new girls.”

  A head pops up. Bushy curls, a strawberry-blond beard, rugby player’s neck. The face is startlingly pale, covered in freckles. Grey-blue eyes. English with a Mancunian accent. He reaches out to give the monkey a stroke, smiling. The skin around his eyes crinkles.

  “Hola Faustino,” he whispers.

  “He should not be in here!”

  We all jump. I peer through my net. In the middle of the room, a girl has her hands on her hips. Dark curls cascade from the top of her head, and her face is scarlet.

  “Thomas!” She glares at the guy. “Get that monkey out of here. Damn it Tom.” She points her finger accusingly at all of us, as if for some reason this is my fault too. The monkey just sticks his tongue out at her. She lets out a loud exclamation of disgust, then runs over to a backpack leaning against the wall and starts rummaging aggressively. Her accent is thick, Eastern European, I think. “If he’s been through my things again—”

  “He hasn’t, Katarina. He’s not a thief, are you Foz?”

  The monkey looks at Tom pathetically. Then he crawls into Tom’s arms, and they both shoot the girl baleful looks as they leave the room, the door rattling as it closes behind them.

  “Where is it?” Clothes are flying now.

  “What have you lost?” I peek out from under my net.

  The girl peers up at me, still scowling. “Oh, you’re alive. We weren’t sure.” I blush as she goes back to the pile of clothes. “My bra. He’s taken my fucking bra again.”

  “There was a pig yesterday. It had a bra. A red one.” I laugh, suddenly aware of how stupid this sounds. But I want her to forgive me for the monkey intrusion. Her large brown eyes expand.

  “Panchita?”

  And before I can say anything else, she’s hurtling out the door. Her accusatory yells spread across the patio. I lie back down, looking up into the rafters. I hope I haven’t made a massive mistake. The last thing I want to do is piss off that pig.

  I stand on the patio. It’s barely six thirty and I’m surrounded by a hive of activity. I wish fervently that, instead of spending my youth daydreaming and smoking behind the gym, I’d actually learnt something useful, like woodwork or how to scale trees with just my wits. Everyone here looks seamless, like they’ve been in the jungle their whole lives. I stare at them all, awed. There are a mixture of ages and nationalities, more Bolivians than foreigners, and children too—I see at least five. One chubby-cheeked boy who looks no more than eleven is carrying the racoon creature in his arms—Teanji, I’ve heard someone call him. The racoon, not the boy. They are having some kind of conversation, conducted in beeps.

  In the daylight, I cannot help but notice that camp looks worse than it did last night. Strange, busy animals wander around. Squirrels, guinea-pig-rats with spots arranged in lines, like racing stripes, that pig again—although I’m not sure anymore if it is a pig . . . It’s more of a massive tropical pig-boar hybrid. There are roughly maintained trails that lead off into the forest, and I feel a sort of pressing at the back of my neck where the trees lean in. Old tools, planks and rusty fencing are knotted among mud, loose bricks, decaying leaves, crumbling cement, and puddles. It looks as if there’s been some attempt to make the place cheery—the dorm building was once decorated with bright pictures of jungle creatures, but now it’s more peeling paint and cobwebs than toucans and parrots. When I look closely, I see thousands of tiny pink eggs nestled in the grout. I give an involuntary shudder, trying not to imagine what kinds of heartbeats are gestating in those eggs. Everything smells overwhelmingly of wet earth and rotting fruit.

  “Laura?”

  I turn. A woman is approaching. She’s Bolivian, short with a round face framed with thickly plaited black hair, reaching almost to her waist. She walks with a slouch and there are exhaustion lines around her dark eyes. She wears jeans, gumboots, a thick shirt and a battered old cowboy hat. She’s carrying a backpack, from which hangs a machete, ropes, carabiners, buckets. The way she walks is an attack, swinging her arms as if she’s pushing the air out of the way. I feel as if I have to step backwards to give her room. And I do, backing up against the door of La Paz. But then she’s there, next to me, and she’s smiling. When she smiles, the lines on her face smooth, her skin gleams and suddenly I want to step forwards, not back.

  “Vamos,” she says briskly.

  She’s already walking and I’m behind her, following through the netted door of the comedor, my hand opening as she passes me a steaming mug of coffee, my body folding obediently onto a bench, which wobbles. I have to grip the table for balance. She sits across from me and places her hands palm down on the cracked wood between us. Her hands are criss-crossed with scars.

  The room is . . . quaint. There are three long tables, capable of taking perhaps thirty people at a squeeze, although now it’s only us. The walls are brick until they just stop, at about waist height, replaced by that green netting. The floor is compacted dirt, the roof is made of panels of sheet metal. It feels as if we aren’t really in a room at all. The two red monkeys are sitting on a low overhanging vine just outside, eyeballing me hard. Coco and Faustino.

  I look down at my coffee, wrapping my fingers around the heat of the old plastic mug. I don’t drink coffee. It makes my atoms rattle. But I hold on to my coffee as if my life depends on it, because I know what this is. I know what this smells like. This is normal.

  “¿Hablas español?” The woman’s voice is low, as if she’s pitching to someone else, someone I can’t see. I think she’s probably in her thirties. Late thirties, perhaps.

  I grimace, making a so-so sign with my hand. “Más o menos.”

  She nods. “Entonces mi nombre es Mila.” She switches to heavily accented English. “I am in charge of this parque, with our vet, Agustino. You’ve met him, I think?”

  I nod rapidly.

  “We look after wild animals rescued from
the illegal pet trade. Monos, aves, chanchos, tapires, gatos—”

  “Gatos?” I stop her. Cats? I wonder if there are any dogs too. This cheers me up. I like dogs. But as I look around outside, having forgotten the word in Spanish, all I see are those monkeys. Some people have brightly coloured birds on their shoulders. I start when I see a boy with what seems to be a baby anaconda around his neck.

  “Sí. We have sixteen cats. Jaguars, ocelots. And pumas.”

  I stare at her dumbly. Right. Not house cats, then.

  “I have a puma you can work with.”

  “A puma?”

  She nods. “But if you want this, you must commit to a month. Minimum thirty days, for work with a puma.” Then she hesitates, staring at me hard. I pull at my collar anxiously, looking down at her scarred hands. “If not, you may stay shorter. Two weeks. Work with birds, monkeys.”

  I barely hear anything after the word puma, though. I’m not quite sure what a puma is. I think it must be large, wild and powerful. Goose bumps come up on my arms, despite the heat. The hard flecks around Mila’s irises are like the swirls in a tiger’s eye. I’m not sure if I’m the sort of person she wants working with something large and wild and powerful. I’ve got weak ankles. Maybe I should just be getting my stuff. Maybe I should hail down a bus, or call a taxi? Can I, call a taxi?

  Her eyes rake over me.

  “This puma is called Wayra.”

  I press hard on the edges of my mug. When I don’t manage to say anything, it looks like she’s about to stand up. She’s realised that yes, actually this girl isn’t right for this.

  I look around desperately. My eyes land on the monkeys. Could I, be right for this? The one without the beard, the one that was in my bed, has The Bra. He’s clutching it in one hand, hairy fingers wrapped around the straps. My mouth opens and closes. The thief! Slyly, he raises it to his nose and takes a long, deep sniff before pushing it at Coco, who stares, askance. Faustino grunts, forcing Coco to pick it up. Coco scales the roof, shoving The Bra into a hole in the wall before sliding back down, guilt written all over his face.

  A puma. Me.

  I find that I’m nodding, a little dazed. It’s the exhaustion, the heat, those damned monkeys . . . But Mila’s smile, when she looks back at me and sees me nodding, is incandescent.

  One of my happiest memories is curling up with my sister on our parents’ bed and tracing the golden vines across the cover of Mum’s old, weighty copy of The Lord of the Rings. The darkness would be close outside the curtains, but we were safe. One night, Mum would read to us, the next, Dad would take over as the hobbits made their slow, tantalising, terrifying progress across Middle-earth. And later, as I grew up, I continued to inhale fantasy, sci-fi . . . I couldn’t get enough of dark forests, deep oceans and howling mountain peaks. But a big part of the fun was knowing that I was safe at home.

  I sit there, nodding and smiling like a fool to Mila across the table—desperate to please. And I think about what I’ll be going home to in a month. All those crushing jobs I’ve quit. The first wedding invites have started arriving, from all the girls I was asked to compete with at school. I’m not even dating unless you count the “friends” I’ve been hooking up with, once in a blue moon, drunkenly and in secret. Is it me who wants to keep it a secret, or them? I’m not even sure. Was it at school where I learnt my go-to survival technique?

  Smile when you get your arse pinched, your breasts poked, your fat laughed at. Sometimes it feels as if I’ve been smiling for so long, I do it in my sleep. Oh, person I thought was my boyfriend—you’ve been dating someone else for the last month? Not a problem. Smile. Parents—you’re getting a divorce? That’s a curveball. Not to worry though, if you’re unhappy. Smile. Boss is a wanker. Smile. And now, it seems I’ve managed to smile and nod my way into potentially being mauled by a puma.

  Breakfast passes in a blur of more coffee and bread rolls. People gradually filter into the comedor from outside, looking work-worn and extremely cheerful. There’s rat poo in the bag the bread arrives in, though, as well as armies of big black cockroaches. I attempt to eat anyway, as the others do, but as I bite down on my piece of stale bread, it’s hard to retain composure when a family of red ants explodes over my tongue. Sammie tells me in passing, with minimal concern, that it’s “just protein.” The result of trying to store bread in the jungle, I suppose . . . Food is fair game for everyone.

  I’m back on the road now. It seems to stretch and stretch into an eternity of nothing but jungle. It’s the cover of a cheap sci-fi novel where you just know everyone is doomed. The sky is no longer red or gold. It is bright, bright blue. The girl in front of me is rocking back on the heels of her boots. Jane. She’s brought me out here, in her oversized dungarees and a jaunty straw hat. Oscar is next to her, wearing a grin as jaunty as her hat. He’s tall like a giraffe, spectacularly handsome with a beard and pungent American accent. Jane is petite, an Australian with black curls and a button nose that makes me think they should be in some glossy magazine, Jane balancing on Oscar’s shoulders, a beautiful circus double act that has gone terribly wrong, and they’ve both lost their minds.

  Things are moving very fast.

  Mila had smiled so beautifully. She’d taken my hand, taken me to find old work clothes and boots, led me to Agustino so I could pay him. I’d handed over less than $200, which he’d promised would cover everything from food to accommodation for thirty days. And Puma was still imaginary, mythic.

  But now . . .

  “You walk jaguars and pumas? Outside of their cages? On ropes?” I’m trying to look like I’m taking this in my stride. Like this sort of thing happens to me every day.

  Oscar nods cheerfully.

  “And that’s what we’re going to do right now?” I look between the two of them, and I know my voice is spiking.

  Jane’s eyes are green flashes in the dazzling sunlight, bouncing off the tarmac with a slap. “Yup.”

  I take a hefty drag of my cigarette. It’s not even nine, and it must be topping thirty-five degrees. The forest looms menacingly on both sides, glutinous and heavy. There’s an inch of sweat surrounding my body like the water layer in a wet suit. I shake my head, looking back at the hopeful faces of Jane and Oscar, at a forest that is a green I only ever imagined in my dreams.

  I think of all the times my parents lectured me about giving up. I wonder what they would say about this, and I chuckle. Give up! Give up right now!

  I attempt a brave smile.

  “Let’s go meet Wayra then.”

  Jane walks at a quick pace down the road, as if worried that if she doesn’t move fast enough, I will change my mind. She’s right. I’m trotting to keep up. Oscar meanders happily along behind, pointing at what he tells me are wild capuchin monkeys. They’re swinging along the edge of the road, chirping. Every now and then one makes a leap and misses, crashing into the bushes to sounds of derision from their peers. My heart goes out to them, and the first couple of times I gasp, straining my eyes to see if they’re OK, but they quickly bounce back as if their bones are made of rubber. Oscar has told me he’s been here five weeks. I have no idea how long Jane’s been here. Longer than Oscar, I think. She’s unconcerned by the monkeys and I stick close to her.

  “Wayra’s a wild animal,” she tells me over her shoulder. “We get her out of her cage so she can have some freedom, stretch her legs, get a little bit of that feeling she might have had if she’d been left to live as she should have, in the wild.”

  I nod rapidly. What I’ve understood: we’re working with rescued animals. Animals that have been taken out of the jungle illegally, sold as pets on the black market or housed in circuses and zoos, never to be released again. I’d probably feel more sad about this if there wasn’t just one huge question tearing around my brain.

  “Is it not dangerous?” I whisper.

  Jane doesn’t answer me at first, but she does stop walking. The green in her eyes turns bronze.

  “Maybe it is,” she finally say
s. “But we each have to decide whether we think these animals are worth it.” There’s tension in the way she looks at me, her shoulders up near her ears. Then she points to the left, where two tall trunks, their branches gnarled as witches’ faces, are set a little forwards from the rest. They’re angled towards the sun, giving their bodies a sheen like silk. “Just look for those two,” she says, as if they’re the ones who get to decide who goes in and who doesn’t. “We go in here.” Then she pauses, her shoulders relaxing. “Come on.” She smiles. “She’ll be waiting.”

  I stumble between the witches and into darkness. My feet hit uneven dirt and the smell of dew clogs my nose. I claw at the grass but it’s wild, high above my head, the edges razor-sharp. I can barely see more than a few feet in front of me. The jungle has two seasons, wet and dry. I’ve arrived in April, at the end of wet season. The jungle is rarely more beautiful than it is now, after five months of rain. Soon it will dry and the earth will parch, the mud crack and the leaves crumble. Right now though? It’s just staggering. Somehow, it’s a green made up of every single colour.

  I swing my head, taking a number of too-quick breaths. There’s no sky, just towering trees plastered with leaves as broad as wizards’ cloaks. There are trees that are so big they are giants, their heads swollen, skin peeling in rivers of bronze, their bodies armoured with thorns. Birds. Somewhere to my left there’s a woodpecker, a macaw too perhaps. High above there are monkeys, howlers the same as Coco and Faustino, their screams reverberating. There are curtains of bamboo that look like they belong in medieval torture chambers. Everywhere there are mosses, lichens, cascades of acid-green ferns, lianas like ropes, rainbows of fungus, aliens blooming blue, purple, sunflower yellow. Trees strangle other trees. Ants make moats. They carry leaves many times their body size, carcasses, dead things, seeds, flowers. Ants smaller than a freckle, bigger than my thumb, strawberry red, shiny black. Ants with pincers to stitch wounds. Beetles, their shells polished crystals, toads the size of tennis balls, termite nests like beach balls. Petals are splashes of yellow, copper, cobalt blue, ultramarine. There’s a tree with buttresses so large I could walk between them, standing up, and no one would find me. It’s covered with mushrooms the colour of poison, of primordial worlds.