City of the Beasts

by Isabel Allende

  “Whichever it was, I am guessing that the Indians and these sloths have had a symbiotic relationship for centuries,” Alex replied.

  “What?” she asked, for she had never heard that word.

  “That means they need each other to survive.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. I read once that the gods need humans as much as humans need their gods,” said Alex.

  “I know that the Beasts’ council will be very long and very boring. We’d better try to get a little rest now, that way we’ll be fresh in the morning,” Nadia suggested, settling down to go to sleep. She had to make Borobá move away a little because it was too hot to have him right next to her. The monkey was like an extension of her being: they were both so accustomed to the contact between their bodies that a separation, however brief, felt like a premonition of death.

  With the dawn, life stirred in the city of gold and the valley of the gods was illuminated with every tone of red and orange and pink. The Beasts, nevertheless, lingered many hours before they brushed the sleep from their eyes and one by one emerged from their dens among the rock and crystal formations. Alex and Nadia counted eleven creatures, three males and eight females, some taller than others, but all adults. They did not see any examples of the young of that unique species, and wondered how often they reproduced. Walimai said it was very rare for one to be born; it had never happened in his lifetime. He added that he had never seen one die, either, although he knew a grotto in the labyrinth that held their skeletons. Alex concluded that this information fit with his theory about their living for centuries, and he imagined that these prehistoric mammals had only one or two offspring in their lifetimes, so that witnessing a birth would be a rare event indeed.

  When he observed the creatures at closer range, he realized that given their limitations in mobility, they would not be good hunters, and so must be vegetarians. Their tremendous claws were not for killing but for climbing. That explained how they were able to go up and down the vertical trail the three of them had climbed at the waterfall. The sloths used the same niches, bumps, and cracks in the rock the Indians did. How many of them were there outside the tepui? Only one, or several? He wished he could bring back proof of what he was seeing.

  Many hours later, the council began. The Beasts gathered in a semicircle in the center of the city of gold, and Walimai, Alex, and Nadia stood opposite them. They looked tiny among these giants. They had the strange impression that the bodies of the creatures were vibrating, and that their outlines were fuzzy; later they realized that in those centuries-old hides nested entire colonies of insects of various sorts, some flitting around them like fruit flies. In the steamy air, that motion gave the illusion that the Beasts were enveloped in individual clouds. The young visitors were not far from the creatures, close enough to see them in detail, but also far enough to escape should they have to—although they both knew that if any of those eleven giants decided to spray their scent, there was no power in the world that could save them. Walimai’s attitude was solemn and reverent, but he did not appear to be frightened.

  “This is Eagle, and this is Jaguar,” said the ancient. “They are friends of the People of the Mist, and they are here to receive instructions.”

  An eternal silence greeted this introduction, as if the words took forever to make an impact in the brains of these creatures. Then Walimai recited a long poem that contained news of the tribe, from recent births to the death of their chief, Mokarita, and included the visions in which the Rahakanariwa had appeared, the Indians’ visit to the lowlands, the arrival of the foreigners, and the election of Iyomi as chief of chiefs.

  A painfully slow dialogue began between the witch man and the creatures, which Nadia and Alex had no difficulty understanding because there was time to think and consult after every word. That was how they learned that for centuries and centuries the People of the Mist had known the location of the city of gold and had zealously guarded the secret, protecting the gods from the outside world, while in turn those extraordinary beings had served as the storehouse of every word of the tribe’s history. There had been times of great catastrophes in which the ecological bubble of the tepui had suffered serious imbalances and there hadn’t been enough food to satisfy the needs of the species that lived in its interior. During those periods, the Indians had brought “sacrifices”: maize, potatoes, cassava, fruit, nuts. They left their offerings near the tepui, not entering the secret labyrinth but sending a messenger to inform the gods. The offerings included eggs, fish, and animals killed by the Indians; over the course of time, the vegetarian diet of the Beasts had changed.

  Alexander reasoned that had these ancient creatures with their slowed-down intelligence needed a sense of the divine, their gods would have been the invisible Indians of Tapirawa-teri, the only human beings they knew of. For them, the Indians were magical: they moved quickly, they could reproduce with ease, they had weapons and tools, they were masters of fire and of the vast universe outside the tepui; they were all-powerful. But the giant sloths had not as yet reached the stage of evolution in which they contemplated death, and so had no need of gods. Their infinitely long lives were lived on a purely material plane.

  The memory of the Beasts contained all the information the messengers of man had given them; they were living archives. The Indians did not know writing, but their history was never lost because the Beasts forgot nothing. By questioning them, patiently and over long periods, they could retrieve the tribe’s past from its beginnings twenty thousand years before. Shamans like Walimai visited to keep them up to date by reciting the epic poems recounting the past and recent history of the tribe. Messengers died and were replaced by others, but every word of those poems was stored in the brains of the Beasts.

  Only twice since the beginning of history had the tribe come inside the tepui, and on both occasions they had been fleeing from a powerful enemy. The first time had been four hundred years before, when the People of the Mist had had to hide for several weeks from a party of Spanish soldiers that had succeeded in reaching the Eye of the World. When the warriors saw that the strangers could kill from afar, with no effort beyond pointing sticks of smoke and noise, they realized that their weapons were useless against the invaders. They dismantled their huts, buried their few belongings, covered the rubble of the village with dirt and branches, erased their tracks, and with their women and children retreated to the sacred tepui. There they were sheltered by the gods until, one by one, the foreigners were all dead. The soldiers were searching for El Dorado, so blind with greed that they ended up murdering each other. Those few who were left were exterminated by the Beasts and the Indian warriors. Only one lived to get away, and somehow managed to find his compatriots. He spent the rest of his life insane, tied to a post in a madhouse in Navarre, ranting about mythological giants and a city of pure gold. The legend survived in the pages of the chroniclers of the Spanish empire, feeding the fantasy of adventurers to the present day.

  The second time had been three years before, when the nahab’s great birds of noise and wind had landed in the Eye of the World. Once again, the People of the Mist had hidden until the foreigners left, disillusioned at not finding the mines they were searching for. The Indians, however, warned by Walimai’s visions, were preparing for their return. This time it would not be four hundred years before the nahab came to the altiplano, because now they could fly. That was when the Beasts had decided to come out from the tepui and kill them, never suspecting that they numbered in the hundreds of millions. Accustomed to the reduced number of their own species, they believed they could eliminate their enemies one by one.

  Alex and Nadia listened to the Beasts recount their history, drawing many conclusions along the way.

  “And that’s why there haven’t been any dead Indians, only outsiders,” Alex marveled.

  “What about Padre Valdomero?” Nadia reminded him.

  “Padre Valdomero lived with the Indians. The B
easts must have identified the scent and so didn’t attack him.”

  “And me? He didn’t attack me that night . . . ,” she added.

  “We were with Indians. If the Beast had seen us when we were with the expedition, we would have died like the soldier.”

  “So if I understand it right, the Beasts have come out in order to punish the foreigners,” the girl concluded.

  “Exactly, but the result has been just the opposite. You see what’s happened? They have focused attention on the Indians and on the Eye of the World. I wouldn’t be here if my grandmother hadn’t been hired by a magazine to look for the Beast,” Alex said.

  The afternoon went by, and then it was night, and still the participants in the council had not come to an agreement. Alex asked how many gods had gone out from the mountain, and Walimai said two, which was not information that could be trusted, it could just as easily be a dozen. With the help of Nadia, who translated for him, the American explained to the Beasts that their one hope of salvation was to stay inside the tepui, and, for the Indians, to establish some controlled form of contact with civilization. Contact was inevitable, he said. Sooner or later the helicopters would land again in the Eye of the World, and this time the nahab would come to stay. There were some nahab who wanted to destroy the People of the Mist and claim the Eye of the World for themselves. It was very difficult to make this point, because neither the Beasts nor Walimai could comprehend how anyone could own land. Alex said that there were still other nahab who wanted to save the Indians, and that because the gods were the last of their species on the planet, they would do everything they could to save them, too. He reminded the shaman that Iyomi had named him, Alexander, chief of negotiating with the nahab, and that he was here to ask permission and seek help in carrying out his mission.

  “We do not believe that the nahab can be more powerful than the gods,” said Walimai.

  “Sometimes they are. The gods will not be able to defend themselves against the nahab, nor will the People of the Mist. But the good nahab can stop other nahab,” Alexander replied.

  “In my visions the Rahakanariwa is always thirsty for blood,” said Walimai.

  “I have been named chief to pacify the Rahakanariwa,” said Nadia.

  “There must be no more war. The gods must go back to the mountain. Nadia and I will see that the People of the Mist and the dwelling of the gods are respected by the nahab,” Alex promised, trying to sound convincing.

  In truth, he had no idea how he could restrain Mauro Carías, Captain Ariosto, and all the other adventurers who coveted the wealth of the region. He didn’t even know Mauro Carías’s plan, or the part the members of the International Geographic expedition were to play in exterminating the Indians. The entrepreneur had said very clearly that they were to be witnesses, but Alex could not imagine to what.

  In his heart of hearts, Alex believed there would be worldwide excitement when his grandmother published information about the existence of the Beasts, and about the ecological paradise inside the tepui. With luck, and skillful management of the press, Kate could have the Eye of the World declared a nature preserve protected by world governments. That solution, however, might come too late. If Mauro Carías got his way, “before three months have gone by,” as he had said in his conversation with Captain Arioso, “there won’t be a living soul left in that area.” The one hope was that international protection would get there first. Even though it would not be possible to prevent the curiosity of scientists or television reporters, at least they could stop the invasion of adventurers and settlers planning to tame the jungle and wipe out its inhabitants. He also had a terrible premonition of some Hollywood impresario trying to turn the tepui into a kind of theme park. He hoped that the pressure created by his grandmother’s reporting could delay or totally prevent that sort of nightmare.

  The Beasts lived in separate chambers in their fabulous city. They were solitary creatures that did not share space. Despite their enormous size, they ate very little, chewing for hours: vegetables, fruit, roots, and occasionally a small animal they found dead or wounded. Nadia could communicate with them better than Walimai. A couple of the females showed interest in her and allowed her to come close to them—she wanted more than anything to touch them. But when she put her hand on the wiry pelt, a hundred assorted insects swarmed up her arm and covered her entire body. Horrified, she tried to shake them off; many clung to her clothing and her skin and she couldn’t get rid of them. Walimai pointed to one of the many lakes in the city and she jumped in. The water was warm and bubbly, and as she sank down she felt the tickle of the carbonation on her skin. She invited Alex in, and they soaked for a long time, clean, finally, after so many days of crawling through tunnels and sweating.

  In the meantime, in a large gourd Walimai had crushed the pulp of a fruit with big black seeds and mixed that with the juice of shiny blue grapes. The result was a purple brew about the consistency of the soup from Mokarita’s bones they had drunk during the funeral, but this had a delicious flavor and a lingering aroma of honey and nectar. The shaman offered it to the Beasts, then he drank and gave some to Alexander, Nadia, and Borobá. That porridgelike beverage satisfied their hunger immediately, though they felt slightly dizzy, as if they had drunk alcohol.

  That night they were given one of the chambers in the city of gold where the heat was less oppressive than it had been in the cave the first night. Strange orchids grew among the mineral formations, some so fragrant that it was difficult to breathe near them. For a long time a warm, dense rain fell, soaking everything and pouring like a river through channels in the crystal with a persistent thrumming, like drums. When finally it stopped, the air was cooler and the exhausted pair finally fell asleep on the hard ground of El Dorado with the sensation that their stomachs were filled with perfumed flowers.

  The brew Walimai had prepared had the magical power to carry them to the kingdom of myths and collective dream, where everyone—gods and humans— could share the same visions. In that way, many words and many explanations were spared. They all dreamed that the Rahakanariwa was a prisoner in a locked wooden cage, desperately trying to free itself with its formidable beak and terrible talons, as gods and humans tied to trees awaited their fate. They dreamed that the nahab, all of them wearing masks, were killing each other. They watched as the cannibal-bird destroyed the cage and was free to devour everything in its path, but a white eagle and a black jaguar stood in its way, challenging it to a fight to the death. There was no resolution in that contest, as there rarely is in dreams. Alexander recognized the Rahakanariwa because he had seen it before in a nightmare in which it appeared as a vulture; it had broken a window in his house and carried off his mother in its monstrous talons.

  When they awakened in the morning, they did not have to tell each other what they had seen since they had all been together in the same dream, even Borobá. When the council of the gods reconvened to continue its deliberations, it wasn’t necessary to spend hours repeating the same ideas, as they had the day before. They knew what they had to do; each knew his role in the events to come.

  “Jaguar and Eagle . . . will do battle . . . with the Rahakanariwa. . . . If they win . . . what will be . . . their reward?” one of the sloths asked, after intermittent silences.

  “The three eggs in the nest,” Nadia said without hesitation.

  “And the water of health,” Alex added, thinking of his mother.

  Frightened, Walimai told the visitors that they had violated the basic law of exchange: you do not take without giving. It was the law of nature. They had dared ask the gods for something without offering anything in exchange. The Beasts’ question had been only a formality and the correct response was that no reward was expected, that they were doing it out of reverence for the gods and compassion for humans. It was obvious that the Beasts were bothered by the foreigners’ requests. Some laboriously rose to their feet, threatening, grunting, raising arms as thick as oak branches. Walimai fell to the ground on
his face before the council, mumbling explanations and apologies, but he could not calm them. Fearing that one of the Beasts might decide to douse them with its scent, Alex held out the only possible peace offering he could think of: his grandfather’s flute.

  “I bring something for the gods,” he said, trembling.

  The sweet notes of the instrument floated tentatively on the warm air of the tepui. The Beasts, caught by surprise, took several moments to react, and by the time they did, Alex was into it, abandoned to the pleasure of making music. His flute seemed to have acquired Walimai’s supernatural powers. The notes multiplied over and over in the strange theater of the city of gold, ricocheted, transformed into endless arpeggios that set the orchids among the tall crystal formations vibrating. Alex had never played like this before, had never felt so much in control; he could tame creatures with the magic of his flute. He felt as if he were connected to an enormous synthesizer, that his melody was accompanied by a whole orchestra of strings, woodwinds, and percussion. The Beasts, at first motionless, began to move like large trees blown by the wind; their ancient feet thumped the ground and the fertile valley of the tepui resonated like a great bell. Then Nadia, on an impulse, leaped into the center of the council semicircle, leaving Borobá sitting quietly at Alex’s feet, as if he understood that this was a crucial moment.

  Nadia began to dance with the energy of the earth, an energy that shone through her fine bones like a light. She had never seen a ballet, but she had stored all the rhythms she had so often heard: the samba of Brazil, the salsa and joropo of Venezuela, the American music that came to them on the radio. She had seen Blacks, mulattoes, caboclos, and Whites dance till they dropped during Carnival in Manaus, watched solemn Indians dance during their ceremonies. With no conscious knowledge, she improvised her gift to the gods out of pure instinct. She soared. Her body moved on its own, in a trance, with no awareness or premeditation on her part. She swayed like the slimmest palm tree, she effervesced like the foam of the waterfall, she whirled like the wind. She imitated the flight of the parrot, the fleet course of the jaguar, the leaping of the dolphin, the buzzing of the insect, the undulation of the serpent.