The Puma Years: A Memoir

by Laura Coleman

  “Laura,” Mila turns back to me. She says my name with the Spanish inflection that I love. It rhymes with flower. “¿Cuándo te vas?”

  I close my eyes. When am I leaving? “Tengo un vuelo en una semana.” I have a flight back to England in a week.

  “¡Qué macana!” Mila exclaims. “¿Solo una semana más?”

  “Wow,” Sammie says. “Your month went quick.”

  I open my mouth to say yes, I can’t believe it, but Harry cuts me off with a groan.

  “It’ll almost be wet season again before we know it.”

  Sammie yelps and pushes him. “No! Don’t even say it. The mozzies will hear you.”

  They all laugh and I close my mouth, realising it’s not about me. My short time here is just a scale to mark the turnings of the year for them.

  Mila sighs. “Entonces tenemos que buscar un nuevo voluntario para Wayra.”

  I sit up with a start and say louder than I expect to, “¿Para Wayra?”

  She tiredly runs her hands through her hair. “Sí. Tal vez mañana lleguen nuevos . . . con suerte.”

  “I . . .” I can’t believe it. A new volunteer for Wayra? To take over from me? “No!”

  Mila laughs and pats me on the hand. “Así es la vida.” She sighs again and starts to get up. “Entonces, me voy a mi cama.”

  I watch her unfold herself. I’m desperate to protest but I don’t know what words to use. No! I don’t want you to find a new volunteer for Wayra. Harry and Sammie follow suit, and soon it’s just me left on the road. Sammie pauses before they turn in, the path to camp obscured by clumps of overhanging trees silhouetted against the scatterings of stars.

  “You could always stay, you know,” she says, over her shoulder.

  I gaze at her, the candle guttering next to me. And then she’s gone, under the canopy. I have a flight, I say to myself. I have a flight.

  As Mila predicts, a new volunteer does arrive the following evening. He trots onto the patio, eyes wide and bright, trekking shoes clean. I see him with a sinking heart as I stand on the stoop of La Paz, balancing on Bryan’s shoulder, trying to remove my boot. I spent the day convincing myself that leaving was the right thing, the responsible thing. I’d gone over it so many times that in the end, Jane had had to yell at me to go and sit by myself until I sorted my head out.

  All of us on the patio look up. He’s got long hair, a dark beard. Tall, handsome, nice eyes. Coco and Faustino are sitting, as is their want, on a hanging platform underneath the eaves of Santa Cruz. There’s a rare chill tonight, so Agustino has wrapped them in purple blankets and given them hot porridge to eat. Coco is furthest from the door, so I don’t hear his grunt or see when he launches himself into the air, but I jump back when his bowl clatters to the ground. Tom and Harry, both of whom are filling water jugs at the standing tap, freeze. Osito, Teanji, and the girls, Mariela and Juana, sitting on the patio, all jump. Teanji falls out of Osito’s lap with a beep of alarm. I hear from the direction of the aviary a violent squawk: “Don’t do that!”

  Osito yells, “Agustino!”

  It’s Mila who appears, but for once she’s too slow. Coco’s already lunging. It happens so quickly my brain can’t keep up. His fur is so puffed he’s double the size, and he has pulled back his lips like a dog or, scarier still, a human entering a fight. His thick muscular arms propel him fast along the ground. Monkeys shouldn’t be on the floor. There’s something wrong if they’re on the floor.

  “Coco, no!” Mila shouts, but Coco just snarls. Agustino races out from behind the animal kitchen then, his face flushed. When Coco sees him, the monkey hesitates, giving just enough time for Agustino to grab his tail. Coco howls and tries to leap away but Agustino holds on.

  “No. No, chico.” Agustino’s face twists. “La puerta, por favor.”

  I right myself, uncurling my fingers from where I didn’t even realise they’d been digging into Bryan’s shoulder, and push open the door to Santa Cruz. Coco shits violently down Agustino’s back. Once the door is closed on him, we all listen as he howls in earnest. Faustino, still up on the shelf, has lain down with his chin in his hands and watches the scene with a look of sad inevitability on his face.

  “My name is Uri.” The guy’s voice is shaking. “What . . .”

  Agustino wipes lumps of poo off his shoulder. Mila grips his arm.

  “Bienvenido. Me llamo Agustino. Coco . . . the monkey who live here. He’s scared of men who look like you.”

  Uri steps away, taken aback. “That look like me?”

  Embarrassed, Agustino quickly tugs his own dark hair. “And me, when I first met him. Long hair. Dark. Tiene fantasmas.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Agustino anxiously shuffles his feet, his bright-yellow gumboots incongruously shiny. “Coco has ghosts.”

  Uri looks around, baffled. “But he lives in a cage, right?”

  Osito has come up behind us now, half the height of Uri, and crossed his arms. His young face is set, and Agustino rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

  I like Uri. Within hours he’s teaching Doña Lucia how to make shakshouka. He sings folk songs to Lorenzo, Crazy and Big Red and schools López in the basics of Hebrew so he can flirt with a pretty Israeli volunteer. But Coco doesn’t let it go. He stalks Uri everywhere. He eyeballs him from outside the comedor. He slinks up and down outside the animal kitchen. Someone has to lock Coco in Santa Cruz just so Uri can visit the long drop.

  It’s three days after Uri arrives that I hear an awful scream. I run outside just in time to see Uri sprint out of the showers, blood dripping down his leg. The door bangs and Coco follows, eyes desperate. Uri runs into one of the rooms and out again, wearing the pair of leather gloves that Agustino has given him. Coco comes closer, baring his teeth. Uri steps back.

  “No, Coco!” Uri claps the gloves.

  Coco lunges and as he takes the leather in his teeth, Uri flings his hand, pushing the monkey back.

  “¡No más, Coco!”

  Coco circles him. What did they do to him in that hotel to make him do this? How hard did they beat him and how long did they keep him from seeing the sky? Coco drops his eyes, skulks backwards and Uri lets the gloves fall. He is crying. But then Coco turns, rounding for another attack. I race forwards without even thinking and grab his tail, easing him up onto my shoulders. Coco presses his head hard against mine, wraps his tail around my neck and slaps me. It hurts, my skull vibrating with the force of it. But as I steady his weight, he puts his tongue in my ear, like a wet finger, as if to steady himself, and I hear his familiar grunt. Agustino takes Uri to the clinic and gives him four stitches. Uri leaves on the bus two hours later.

  Coco goes missing that afternoon. I find him a little way down the road just as the sun is disappearing, the clouds a deep pink, the tops of the trees red. There is the far-away sound of wild howlers, making their raucous elegy to the dying day. I wonder if Coco can hear them. He is rocking, he pushes his lips out when he sees me and beats his palm on the ground. I try to pick him up but he’s too quick. He bares his teeth and crawls a little further down the road. His back is bent, and then he starts beating his shoulders hard with one hand, the sound of the slap harsh and loud. I sit down quietly next to him but he just crawls away and starts again. He refuses to look at me.

  The howls of the wild monkeys trail off. The patriarch often brings his troop close to camp to taunt Coco and Faustino. This patriarch is a big male monkey. Coco is bigger. Coco’s fur is a darker red, his beard longer and thicker. I know in my broken, breaking heart that if things had been different, if forests weren’t being cut down, if tourists like me weren’t fuelling the demand for exotic pets, if it wasn’t normalised to beat and push down those that are different, then Coco, with all his strength, passion and gentleness, could have been the leader of his own troop.

  Coco doesn’t move until Mila emerges, a dark silhouette. The sun falls below the horizon and the sky turns from pink to golden red, painting the tree tops bronze. A
flock of macaws flies above the road, their wingtips matching the sky. Mila walks towards us slowly, her long plait swinging, her cowboy hat shadowing her face. When she reaches us, she pulls a piece of cheese out of her pocket. Coco crawls into her arms, shoves the cheese into his mouth and presses his face into her chest as if he cannot bear to look at anyone. He is ashamed and he is in pain.

  I remember my life before, when animals were just animals, and I hate myself for it. How could I have ever thought this? And how could I have ever thought I was any different from them?

  “Mila!” I call as she starts to walk back into camp.

  She turns.

  “Can I go into town tonight?”

  “¿Por qué?”

  “I think I will try to change my flight. I want to stay, if that’s OK?”

  She looks at me for a long moment and then nods. “Sí. It’s OK.”

  Town is like Santa María, only bigger. I go by myself, getting a ride on the bus. There’s a little internet café on the corner of the plaza where couples walk hand in hand in the evening, punctuated by popcorn sellers and coffee carts pushed by men in smart white uniforms. Motorbikes race around, decked with youths in their finest, blowing dust about the streets. The internet café burns with the heat of the computers. They work so slowly it’s possible to load about one email every half hour. I bypass them, busy anyway with rowdy boys, and go straight to the phone booths to call my mum. Condensation steams the glass and the plastic receiver feels slippery in my hand.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounds far away. The line buzzes, like there are bees in the receiver.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  “Hello?”

  “Mum, it’s me.”

  “HELLO?”

  “MUM, IT’S LAURA!” I shout and then hold the phone away as my words bounce back. I rest my forehead against the mirror in front of me. This is the first time I’ve seen myself in weeks. My face is pale, pitted with bites. There are hollows under my eyes. My short hair is a clotted mess. My cheekbones stand out more than they used to.

  “Laura! Are you OK? We’ve been so worried!”

  I laugh a little, imagining what she would say if she could see my face.

  “I’m good. How are you?”

  “Fine. Everything’s fine. Where are you? How are you feeling about coming home?”

  I close my eyes. The bees fade. I don’t know when it happened but I’ve started to think of this place as home. The double-edge of this almost floors me. The last email I sent was a few weeks ago. A one-liner. I’d meant to send others, but I’d not come into town. I’d been going to Wayra. It had seemed, somehow, more important.

  “I’m still at this parque.”

  She waits. When I say nothing else, she asks hesitantly: “And you’re OK? It doesn’t sound good in Bolivia. There’s been riots . . . We’ve been worried.”

  “Riots?”

  “Yes!”

  I shake my head. I guess half the world could have exploded. “We don’t get the news here.”

  “It looks scary.”

  I look around at the kids on their video games, at the lights of the motorbikes on the softly lit street.

  “It doesn’t feel scary.”

  “I hope your flight’s going to be OK.”

  “That’s the thing. Mum, I think I’m going to change it.”

  There is a long, slow silence.

  “What do you mean?” I hear Fletcher bark. “You aren’t coming home?”

  I watch the seconds tick by on the display, every moment adding another dollar to the total. In England the cost of this phone call would be the same as a night out. Here, it is another week with Wayra.

  “I don’t want to leave.”

  “Bolivia?”

  “This place. It’s . . .” I laugh, holding my head in my hands. “It’s ridiculous. It’s . . .” My mum works in a hospital for personality-disordered women. Wayra, Coco, Panchita . . . they’re as personality disordered as they come. I know my mum will understand. I just have to explain it right, but the words . . . I had so many of them when I was planning this on the bus.

  “It’s amazing.”

  “Well.” She laughs gently. “It’s nice to hear you so positive about something.”

  I reach for the stool and sit down. “It’s wonderful and hard. It hurts every day and I can’t stop smiling.” There’s a long pause. I think with a shock she might be trying not to cry. “There’s this cat,” I continue in a rush. “There’s a monkey who bites people.” I lean my face against the mirror again, suddenly feeling that I too might cry. How can I put these friends I’ve made—because they are, I realise, they’re my friends—into sentences? If I can’t explain every little thing, then I don’t want to explain anything. “I’ll tell you everything when I get back. I promise.”

  “When will that be Lau?”

  I gaze at the ticking clock. “Three more months maybe?” I imagine her staring out of the window into the garden. She can probably just see the edge of the little wood. I hesitate. “I’ve met someone.”

  “Really?” She tries to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  I laugh.

  “Well, come on. What’s their name?”

  “Wayra.” I pause, just for a second. “She’s four years old. She’s a puma.”

  “A puma?”

  I swallow a lump in my throat.

  “I’m happy.” I say it so quietly I don’t think she hears.

  “You know how I feel Lau,” she finally whispers. “I just want you to be safe. And I miss you, that’s all.”

  There’s an expansive pause. I’m meant to say I miss you back. Before I missed them so much it hurt, but now . . .

  “I miss you too,” I say, swallowing hard. The truth is I’m not sure if I do. It’s not that I don’t care, of course I do, but it’s just that this place is like the tree roots that suck up all the water and don’t leave any room for anything else. Any other thoughts I had, the anxieties, ambitions, the endless circling worries, they’ve gone. They’ve stopped breathing and all that’s left is this.

  On the way home, I hang my legs over the top of a logging truck and watch the orange lights of the town fading, the fields melting, the land rising, evidence of human existence softening, then disappearing altogether. The black sky opens, empty of everything but stars. As we set off, the driver offered me a handful of coca leaves, which I took, chewing them excitedly and trying not to gag as I climbed onto the top of his truck. It’s my first taste of coca. The leaves are a cultural staple, sacred. They’re meant to give you energy, suppress your appetite, help with altitude sickness in the mountains. But now, the taste is so bitter, the hard leaves so strange against my tongue, that I feel nauseous. Quickly, I tuck the chewed-up wad into the inside of my cheek, as I’ve watched others do, and swill the taste down with the warm beer the driver has given me. We swerve over potholes, over the broken cracks in the road, and I hang on tight as the magic of the coca beats in my veins. Trees swell, their bulk familiar, the branches of so many roadside witches curving into the starlight like broken, stuttering clouds. I can’t stop smiling. I open my mouth and let out a whoop, startling the hawks perched on the shoulders of the trees. I want to be loud! The jungle makes me want to open my lungs and sing. I don’t feel any kind of premonition, no uneasy tingling as I rest against a decapitated tree, its veins coated in centuries-old sawdust. I just watch the forest fly past and I think to myself in my selfish, naïve way that it’s endless. I can’t imagine the trees not being here and I can’t imagine not being here either.

  The next day we’re at Wayra’s lagoon, and Jane has left to go back to camp to bring out a picnic lunch. The lagoon is at the end of one of Wayra’s shortest trails, less than a few minutes’ walk from her cage. It’s milky brown, kidney-shaped, with shrubs and tall, thin trees huddling around the edges. The beach is sandy dirt, the colour of caramel. It angles sharply downwards, and another runner rope—not long, perhaps four metres—stretches parallel to the ban
k. Wayra stays here for hours. Soft green curtains of creepers trail into the water, which glistens as if made of glass. It smells of vegetation, rich, almost spicy. The ground is peppered with red and black seeds, the kind that are made into necklaces and waved at every tourist. I have a bracelet myself, buried in my backpack, which makes me feel strange when I think about it, like the person who bought that bracelet was another person entirely.

  A heron with a black cap frequents the opposite side of the lagoon, her stick-thin legs reflected in the mirror-still water. Macaws, hawks, kites and vultures circle above us. A family of small turtles sun themselves on a half-submerged tree root, and tamarins leap through a favourite clump of bamboo. Electric-blue butterflies land next to us and every so often we see the head of a black caiman gliding lazily by. When the sun starts to set, the whole lagoon turns gold, then scarlet. We can hear Coco and Faustino, sitting as they always do on the roof above Santa Cruz, howling.

  Today, though, it is not yet two and the sun is baking, a bright circlet in a blue sky. Wayra has slept here most of the morning but she is awake now, perched on the edge, looking into the water. The end of her tail is twitching. Something surfaced a few minutes ago and the ripples are still going. It must have been something large, I think. Wayra turns her head as if she’s heard me. Yes. It was a very big fish, she agrees, her eyes narrowing.

  “You should chase it, then!”

  She turns away as if I’m an idiot, returning her gaze to the water. According to Jane, Wayra has never been swimming and, although she can spend hours staring at the reflections, she shows no inclination to go further. Other cats swim. Yuma, Inti, Wara and Yassi, Rupi and Ru . . . They each have access to their own lagoons, or their own private spots on the river that I’ve been told runs around the south of the parque. They swim most days with their volunteers, and they would swim in the wild. I think sometimes that when Wayra’s staring into the water, she’s trying to find her courage. But she’s afraid. I understand this. The bravado, the hissing and growling, they’re her coping mechanisms, just as smiling and being fine is mine. When I step on a stick, she jumps a metre in the air. A puma who’s afraid of her own shadow. Who’s afraid of the wild.