The Puma Years: A Memoir

by Laura Coleman

  Dolf stares at me as I take the key out from around my neck. I slide it into the old, rusty padlock. Wayra is underneath one of her back platforms, the line of her spine dark against the sharp geometric shadow cast across the ground. She flicked her ears back when we arrived, but no more than that.

  “Come on,” I say, unhooking the padlock. My hands are shaking but I don’t want him to see, so I shove them into my pockets.

  “You’re going in?” Dolf breathes.

  I nod. A few months ago, when I was swanning around the continent, it was wet season here. And everyone who has experienced a wet season has told me that it’s shit. There are bugs and floods, worms that burrow under your skin. All the animals’ routines are messed up. There are no full days with a single cat. The animals get a few hours, here and there, because volunteer numbers are so low. But even though I know all this, and even though I’ve listened to Mila tell me how difficult wet season is for everyone, not just Wayra, I still feel terrible. Angry. Frustrated. I’ve read the notes that volunteers have made in Wayra’s “diary” while I was away. They say Wayra was tetchy, in words that do not hide their own misery. They say she was stressed out, miserable. They say she stopped walking entirely. I can’t see any record that anyone was able to clean her trails, go inside her cage with her, or sit in her runner space. No one went swimming with her. Maybe no one knew they could. She had a different volunteer every few weeks. And in their notes, they all sound terrified.

  I look down at myself. A bedraggled twenty-five-year-old wearing leggings with a hole in the crotch and a T-shirt that says: “Winner of Pennsylvania’s 2003 pie-eating contest.” A twenty-five-year-old who last year was a scared little kid.

  Dolf’s already on his feet, excitedly straightening his thinning, wispy blond hair and wiping a streak of dirt off his forehead. Surreptitiously, I straighten my ponytail and attempt to brush off some of my own dirt. It makes me feel better somehow, ready to greet her properly, and then I’m ducking into the doorway, closing the outer door behind me.

  “Hey, Wayra,” I say quietly. “I’m just coming in, OK?”

  She turns at the sound of my voice, craning her neck around with an incredulous expression. When she sees me, sees what I’m doing, her dark eyebrows pull together. Her eyes widen, goofy in the way that I love, totally incongruous, even as her furry grey ears slam back against her head. Her paw cranes to get the reach she needs to see me without expending the energy to actually uncurl from her self-made ball. I hear the low murmur of a growl and release a shaky breath. We’re doing this, Wayra. She narrows her eyes, then looks away, back down at her paws, as if they are suddenly very interesting and she doesn’t have the time to engage with any sort of people right now, thank you very much.

  “What if she . . . ,” Dolf whispers from outside, then hesitates. “Will she attack you?”

  I have another awful flashback of a whirl of grey, a flash of bared teeth, a swipe of claws, and for a moment I falter. She could cross this cage in less time than it would take for me to blink. But then I look at her again. She’s started to clean her backside with avid concentration, somehow grumbling and licking at the same time with a low num-num noise. I smile and raise my chin. I’ve swum with this cat. I’ve felt the sharp dent of her elbow digging into my stomach as she’s fallen asleep. I’ve closed my eyes while lying in the slippery mulch and been sure—surer than I’ve been with a lot of humans—that she’s not going to hurt me. I stand up straighter.

  “She might.” I look straight at Dolf. “It’s a risk. You don’t have to come in.”

  He gazes down at me, then gazes at her. She’s finished with her backside and has started with her tail. She’s got it half in, half out of her mouth, the black tip in her teeth. She is managing to look deeply annoyed, as if she is certain she will never be entirely clean and it is, without doubt, my fault.

  “I’ll come in,” he says firmly. The straightened wisps of hair have clumped again across his wide forehead. I nod, looking around. The cage looks very different once you’re inside. The platforms spread, a bit like a jungle gym, at various heights. Most of them are semi-rotten with green growing out of them, the effects of building in the jungle rather than in cool, sterile places, where termites and mould don’t thrive. The central tree, a wide dark-barked friend, spreads out overhead providing shade. Outside, the jungle tangles, curling up and around the tension wires. The fencing around the bottom has been made living with the tiny vines that constantly spread towards the light, despite the maintenance that we do. The whole thing gives it the effect, which of course is true, that the cage could be pulled down by the forest at any moment. It feels temporary and yet, like it’s been here forever.

  I take a step towards her. She immediately stops licking and flattens her ears. I hesitate. Her eyes are wide in the shrunken, dishevelled contours of her face. Her pupils are early-morning swollen. There’s still that patch of dried blood on her back, although she’s licked most of it off by now. Her nose has a crusty scab on it, healing, and the backs of her ears are pitted with scars, layered beneath new bloody ridges from the yellow flies. Even now I can see at least ten swarming around her. She flicks her ears irritably and hisses, attempting to snap at one of them. Then she sighs miserably, lies her head back down on her paws, and waits. Her pupils contract, making her eyes soft again. The same as the forest leaves, all their colours mixed into this single one, fluttering gently in the breeze.

  I relax and then I’m walking towards her. I don’t think about it. I know if I think, maybe I’ll stop, and I don’t want to stop. The adrenaline pulses hard. The cool shadow from the tree at the centre of the cage falls across my face, its whorled branches rustling. I can hear the beginnings of another growl starting in the back of her throat, but then I’m there and I’m crouching down, putting my arm in front of her nose. If she doesn’t remember me, and I’m still not sure if she does, I’m hoping she’ll remember this.

  My dad, a few years after he and my mum got divorced, took me and my sister out to dinner. We went to our favourite restaurant, the one by the sea that we used to visit every Saturday. It had been our ritual. I had the fried potato skins, which was part of the ritual. And the taste of it—the crispy, herby saltiness—made me realise how easy it is to forget, when you’re so angry, the things that you used to love.

  Wayra looks at my arm for a long, terrifying moment. With the cooler air, her coat seems to puff up, making ridges that scour the lines of her muscles. We’re surrounded by the aroma of musty hay and earth. Her pupils have shrunk to pinpricks, surprise written in them, black stars within a universe of yellow green. Around the edge of her eyes is that amber line, so familiar. An ink spot on wet paper. There’s a new mark on her nose, almost heart-shaped, cut through with a scratch from whatever has hurt her, I don’t know what. A spiky branch, or someone else’s claw. I’ll never know. She’ll never be able to tell me.

  “Wayra,” I whisper.

  I wait, not breathing. There is still the soft vibration of a growl. Her ears are still. She is barely breathing too.

  Then suddenly she raises her head and leans forwards. It’s a tiny movement, less than a centimetre. If she was the hand on a clock, it would be the click from 12:00 to 12:01. A very slight relaxing of her face, beginning with the widening of her eyes, the colour lightening ever so slightly to a soft shade of gold. It’s the sign I’ve come to recognise. The sign that it’s OK. I let out a breath and move my arm closer. She starts to lick, and the sound of her tongue against my skin is the most beautiful sound in the world. I am light-headed, blinking back tears, leaning forwards to touch my face to her neck. Relief squashes my ribs, then expands. The pull of her tongue is sharp and painful and wonderful. She smells of soil and a velvety wind, when it blows the branches of a tree at the lagoon. She’s leaning closer, pressing against me with disbelief and joy. I can feel the fast pounding of her heart. My heart. Our chests touch, our bones, our breath. When I scratch the fluffy white patch behind her ear, she p
ushes her cheekbone into my hand and looks silently up into my face. Her nose is pushed against my palm, cold and wet. She’s got her front paws on my boot, pulling me closer, and her head is cocked to one side.

  “You can come over,” I say quietly.

  Dolf lets out a whimper, a kind of yelp. I hear the noise of the door, then the careful, excited thud of his footsteps. When he reaches us and crouches down, folding his long legs clumsily beneath him, I take his arm and nudge it gently in front of her. Without missing a beat, she sits up on her haunches, stares up into his face, looking at him from under her long eyelashes, no sign of haughtiness, of irritation, of frosty anger. She just gives a contented grumble and starts to lick.

  “I love you, Wayra,” I hear him say, just under his breath. An awed tear falls down my cheek. One falls down his too. I remember the first time she licked me. It felt like the world was turning to butter. There is a smile I’ve never seen on his face before, stretching from ear to ear. Clumps of his hair are sticking out at right angles, his pale, grey skin is no longer grey. He gazes at her, besotted. She licks and licks and at the end of it, just after I’ve treated her wounds, after I’ve cleaned them with the same stinging disinfectant that almost made me faint and yet she lets me do it, doesn’t even question me, she gives an exhausted sigh, looks up into our faces, and meows.

  Other pumas meow, all the time, when they’re happy. They purr too. I’ve heard Wayra growl, grumble and hiss. I’ve heard her snarl. I’ve heard her be utterly silent. I have heard her purr, once, that first time she swam. This though . . . it sounds like the squeak of air being let out of a balloon. It sounds like she doesn’t remember how to do it and it comes out higher pitched than she intended—I’m not even sure if she meant to make a noise at all—she looks surprised at herself, embarrassed.

  “Wayra!” I feel an inflation in my heart, a feeling that I don’t understand, that’s so huge it suddenly makes me very afraid. It makes me want to cry and dance at the same time. I laugh quietly, reaching for her. She arches into my hand. I stroke her neck, which is downy soft. I feel the reverberations of her happy grumble through the layers of my skin. Then she lies her head tiredly down on my boot. I continue to stroke her as she closes her eyes. With her front paws on my leggings, her toes curled like a child on the edge of sleep, she finally lets herself relax and fall away. There is a tiny drop of snot stuck on her left nostril. All I can hear is the sound of her breathing and my heart thumping alongside it. The sun falls behind a layer of new cloud, casting our faces in dazzling yellow, and none of us moves for a very long time.

  A few weeks later, I’ve just finished feeding Flighty and Bitey, the two toucans that live in the last cage in the aviary. Flighty has an orange beak, Bitey has a blue beak. Unless you’re particularly good with birds, which I’ve discovered many people, including myself, are not, it’s unwise to go into their cage unless you’re wearing boots (preferably with a steel-toe cap) and some thick clothing to prevent your feet/legs/arms/hands from being sliced. Flighty, eager for more mango, hops off a branch and lands at my feet with a savage snap. Bitey joins her, making a loud rattle as he gyrates, which is very intimidating.

  They’ve been here a long time, years, even longer than Agustino and Mila. Agustino tells me they originally lived in a hotel. In my imagination, they traumatised every one of the hotel’s residents until they no longer seemed such abiding tourist attractions. I like them. Finding a last piece of mango, I split it in two and throw the pieces in the air. The toucans jump in perfect tandem, snapping the sticky orange flesh in their beaks before landing proudly on one of the branches that are stacked up the sides of the tall cage. I laugh when they rub their beaks together, purring a little, hoping for me to play some more.

  “It’s past all our bedtimes!” I try to insist, opening the doors to their night enclosures. Bitey hops in easily and settles on his perch.

  “Thank you.” I close his door.

  But Flighty lets out a loud, dissatisfied croak and flies resolutely up to a very high branch, well out of my reach. I lean wearily on my broom handle as she cocks her head down at me. I look up into the twilight. Behind the aviary, the canopy opens out a little. The sun has already disappeared but the trees are bloodshot, the sky deep-navy. I smile. I can just see the massive posts that mark the beginnings of our new aviary. It’s going to be huge, almost triple the height of our current one. Birds like Lorenzo will be able to learn to fly by themselves.

  “Speaking of . . . ,” I mutter, peering through the layered fences. I can just see the little devil himself, terrorising Sammie and a young Scottish guy called Ned as they try to put Lorenzo to bed. Since he’s been free, his personality has exploded, along with his desire to find a mate. Unfortunately, Sammie is his love interest of choice and he’s turning out to be a jealous lover. Sammie reaches up to extract Lorenzo from a death grip on her head just as Ned reaches over to help. There’s a loud scream.

  I hear, “Lorenzo, come on!” and then a hefty sigh, and a lot of swearing. “You go, Ned,” Sammie mutters. “I’ll put him to bed.” Footsteps, then the clang of the main aviary door. Low singing, the Grateful Dead, I think, and not long after, the soft shutting of Lorenzo’s cage. More footsteps, the aviary falls silent. The navy-blue sky turns indigo. It’ll be black soon. I switch on my head torch and balance it on the nearest platform, illuminating a silvery beam of fence and branches. I pull my beanie down around my ears. It’s freezing tonight. In the last week, the cooling breeze has turned biting. It is an almost arctic cold. Utterly unprepared, we walk around with shocked expressions, bundled up in every single item of clothing we have stuffed in our backpacks. It makes for some strange-looking volunteers. I myself am wearing a huge fluffy mustard-yellow coat I found in the storage room over a pink eighties ski jacket. The beanie on my head is shaped like a frog. I hear Flighty rustle. A branch creaks, there’s a low, contented croak. I sense her head cocking again, peering at me with one orange-rimmed eye. My eyes start to close. It’s not even six. The days are getting shorter. I shiver, wrapping my coat around me. I’ve put hot water bottles in the birds’ beds tonight.

  When I see three lights bobbing down the path, coming from the direction of the river, I think I might call out but change my mind, preferring to keep the silence for as long as I can. I know they’ll see my torch. Harry is in front, striding with his characteristically hunched gait. Tom is loping a few paces behind. Towering over both of them, Dolf. We still have a lot of volunteers, about fifty, but of those fifty only eight are male. Of those eight only five are here for longer than a month. There are a number of cats that have to have male volunteers. Either they hate girls—sexist—or they love girls too much. Ru is one such, and Dolf has been commandeered in the afternoons to join Tom and Harry on his walks.

  Harry stops just before the animal kitchen, holding up Ru’s empty, dirty meat bucket.

  “Play for it?”

  Rapid, torchlit arm movements. A game of rock, paper, scissors. Dolf’s quiet “Fuck,” Tom and Harry’s laugh. Dolf takes the bucket and disappears into the animal kitchen to wash it. Harry and Tom, the winners, are about to head towards the comedor when Tom grabs Harry’s arm. He points in my direction. He’s seen my torch.

  I hear Harry’s audible curse as together, they start to plod around the front of the aviary, doing a wide circuit, before coming to a stop by me.

  “Frodo.” Harry leans against the fence.

  “Harry. Tom.”

  Tom smiles. “Do you need some help?”

  I grin, gazing up into the darkness. “She’s up there.”

  Harry groans. “We should wait a bit. She might come down on her own.” His voice is hopeful.

  I nod. I’m happy to wait. Tom rests back against a tree, crossing his arms over his broad chest. Harry tilts his head, switching off his torch, and looks up at the first scattering of stars. He’s wearing his Ru clothes. Boots, thick jeans, two thick shirts. Tom too. His clothes are just as battered. Just as dirty.
/>   “How was Ru?” I ask.

  Harry sighs. “I still don’t think he’s forgiven us for leaving.” Then he hesitates, chewing the edges of his moustache. “Well, me. You could do anything, Tommy, and Ru would still be in love with you.”

  Tom laughs. “Not true. Dolf’s his favourite now.”

  Harry looks at me sidelong and rolls his eyes.

  I chuckle. Wayra and I are pretty enamoured with Dolf too.

  “Ru’s got good taste, then,” I say.

  “Sure,” Harry snorts. “If sweet, sensitive, falls over his own feet more than you do is your type . . .”

  I look between the two of them. “You think Ru’ll ever forgive you?” I mean to say it lightly, but it doesn’t come out right. When Harry’s face falls, and Tom looks away awkwardly, I regret it. Neither of them reply for a long time.

  It is Harry who finally mutters, “How could any of them forgive any of us?”

  I try to laugh. It twists in my throat.

  Harry turns so that he’s facing me. When he speaks, his voice is savage. “Do you know how many logging trucks we counted on the road over lunch today?”

  I hesitate, not sure if I want to know. Last time I counted, a few weeks ago, it was around four per hour. None of the new volunteers sit on the road. They look at us like we’re nuts when we do.

  “Fifteen.”

  My jaw clenches involuntarily. But I hear the rumble of their engines as I lie in bed at night. Agustino has made a guess that with the rains fully dried up, access to the jungle is easier. And they—whoever they are: governments, multinationals, rich cattle farmers—are taking full advantage. Fifteen. If you took a conservative average of seven trees per truck and did the numbers, that’s two thousand five hundred and twenty trees a day. Just here. Just on this road.

  Tom stares up into the sky. “There were people on the other side of the bank today,” he murmurs.

  I turn quickly. “From Ru’s canoe?”