The Darkest Heart

by Dan Smith

  I held a hand to my brow and squinted into the clear expanse of blue, as the grumble grew louder.

  ‘What is it?’ Daniella came to my side. She sounded groggy, her voice still lazy from sleep.

  ‘A plane,’ I said. ‘Right there.’ I pointed to the sky, where the tiny smudge of a plane moved north-east of our position.

  ‘It looks low,’ Daniella said.

  ‘It’s going to land.’

  She looked at me. ‘At Piratinga?’

  ‘Mm-hm.’

  ‘It’s too early for the Bandeirante.’ She was talking about the small passenger plane that hopped from town to town twice a week.

  I nodded and watched it descending, the sound of its engines becoming louder, and then it was out of sight behind the trees.

  I stared at the empty sky for a while longer, then turned and sat down, taking off my cap and running a hand over my short hair.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Daniella asked.

  ‘No, I’m just tired, that’s all.’ The plane bothered me, though. It had to be Sister Dolores Beckett, and that meant I didn’t have as much time as I needed to get ahead of her on the river. Piratinga was only twenty or thirty kilometres away and if her meeting with the bishop was short, she could be on the river soon. Santiago’s boat would catch us quickly, I had no doubt about that, and if they passed us, Sister Dolores Beckett could get to Mina dos Santos and leave before we even reached there. If she left the main river and headed deeper inland, finding her might be impossible.

  ‘We should go,’ I said. ‘We have to leave now.’

  I couldn’t think of any circumstances under which Costa would be pleased to see me return, knowing that the nun was still breathing.

  37

  The course narrowed as we pushed deeper up the River of Deaths. In places, it was as wide as five hundred metres, but in others it closed around us like the shadow that always followed me. The trees drew in, the branches reaching over the water, and the world was filled with the warm, damp smell of the forest.

  ‘It’s strange here,’ Daniella whispered, scanning the jungle that pulsed just a few metres from the boat. ‘It’s like ... we’re in a different world.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘I can imagine the mapinguari out there, right now, hoping we’ll get off the boat.’

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ I told her. Two metres tall, ferocious, clawed and impervious to bullets and arrows, the mapinguari was one of those forest legends that sounded incredible during the hours of daylight. Once the sun was down, though, and the haunting cries of the wild began, almost anything seemed possible. ‘And we’re not getting off,’ I told her. ‘You don’t get out of the boat here.’

  I took my eyes off the river and scanned the forest before looking at Daniella sitting beside me. Her hair was not combed and cleaned like when she was working or ready to go out. It was not tied back in the usual careful fashion, and she wore no make-up to hide her true face.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ I told her. ‘Natural.’

  ‘Really? I thought I’d look like shit.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have a mirror in my bag,’ she told me. ‘I could—’

  ‘You don’t need it. Not here. Not on the river.’

  I could see every pore on her face. The shine on her nose. There were tiny beads of sweat on her upper lip. Her skin glowed with the sun and the air and the reflection of the water, and I studied her as never before. I noticed the faint hairs on her forearms, the tiny half moons on her fingernails, the veins in the back of her hands. I liked it that she had no make-up. It was like a mask that hid what she really was.

  ‘It suits you.’ I said. ‘This place makes you even more beautiful.’

  She smiled, a hesitant look, uncertain if I were teasing her or not.

  ‘I mean it.’

  She put her hand on my knee. ‘Ask me. Ask me now.’

  ‘Ask you what?’

  ‘What you almost asked me yesterday.’

  ‘It’s not the right time.’

  ‘It’s the perfect time.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Daniella sighed and looked away to hide her disappointment.

  ‘Take the wheel,’ I said to her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s important for you to know how to control the boat. It makes sense if something happens to me.’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked. ‘What’s going to happen to you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I shrugged. ‘Anything. Nothing. I was just saying it. Come on, this will help to pass the time, that’s all.’

  She nodded slowly, narrowing her eyes in wariness before taking the wheel in both hands, and I set about showing Daniella the rudiments of how the Deus worked. How she sat in the water, where she was able to go, how deep the water needed to be. I pointed out the signs of the river and how to read them best.

  Giving my attention to teaching Daniella took my mind off what I was really here to do, but a festering nervousness grew with every metre of river we left behind us. My future was clouded and I couldn’t see anything there other than Sister Dolores Beckett. Her face was beginning to haunt me, the black and grey dots swimming in my mind, swirling like smoke, forming an image of her face. Never before had such a thing affected me and deep down, deeper than all the murder and the sadness and the darkness that lay in the furthest corner of my soul, there was a light that had been crushed and hardened like a diamond. And in that place of light, I knew this was wrong; that no amount of money or threats could make it right.

  I glanced back, as if I might see my future creeping up on me, and I didn’t know if I was ready to meet it.

  After an hour or so, Daniella was able to take control of the Deus. Leonardo hovered about with an uneasy expression because someone inexperienced was controlling the boat.

  He was growing more agitated with the passing of every minute, and I felt his tension like electricity charging the close and humid air around us. He moved about the boat, pistol in hand. His limp was more pronounced and he winced in pain from time to time, so I guessed the cocaína had run out and he was missing the effect it had on him.

  ‘We haven’t got time for this.’ He waved the pistol in Daniella’s direction. ‘She’s too slow. If we’re not in—’

  ‘It makes no difference,’ I told him. ‘We couldn’t go any faster if we wanted to. All we have is time.’

  Eventually he moved up to the bow so he could spot the river and warn of any possible danger. He was a nuisance, calling out the slightest ripple, and I tried to ignore him, glad that he at least had something to do.

  ‘It’s getting hotter,’ he called back. ‘Does it feel like it’s getting hotter?’ His face glistened with sweat, and dark patches had formed on his shirt.

  ‘It’s hot,’ I agreed.

  ‘If I’ve caught that old man’s sickness ...’

  I watched Leonardo and swallowed my anger and frustration. ‘Dengue isn’t contagious,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t—’ He stopped and leaned over the bow, squinting at the bank to our left.

  ‘You see something?’ I asked, standing and trying to see what he was looking at.

  ‘There.’ He pointed. ‘Is that jacaré?’

  About fifty metres upriver, on a narrow bank, three or four objects lay stretched out on the blazing white sand. As we approached and the shapes came into focus, Leonardo straightened and set his face firm. ‘Fucking monsters,’ he said, then turned and hurried along the side of the boat, limping on the bandaged leg. He kept one hand on the gunwale to steady himself as he went to the box seat. His movements were quick and agitated as he unfastened the padlock and yanked it from the fixture, throwing open the lid and grabbing the old man’s rifle. He stuffed a handful of cartridges into his pocket before looking back at me and snapping the lock shut again, then he hurried to the gunwale and checked that the weapon was loaded.

  I’m going to kill the bastards.’ He raised the rifle to his shoulder, took aim and fired.

&
nbsp; The sound of the small-calibre rifle was like the crack of a whip. Anywhere else, it might not have sounded so loud, but here it was intrusive and out of place. A scattering of birds broke from the trees and came out over the water, fluttering in confusion before returning to the darkness. Others made a break across the river, heading for the other side.

  Leonardo’s first shot splashed into the water half a metre in front of the largest of the jacaré. The creatures snapped their jaws shut and lifted off their bellies as they raced for the safety of the river. Leonardo worked the bolt and fired again. His movements were quick and angry, and I could see a real need in him to kill something.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ I said to Daniella. ‘Don’t do anything to make him angry.’

  ‘He’s already angry.’

  Leonardo fired a third and fourth shot, but the jacaré were too quick for him. They might look like slow beasts, but they moved like lightning and could be just as dangerous on land as in the water.

  When they were gone, Leonardo kicked the gunwale and slammed his hand on the edge of it, glaring back at the place where the animals had been sunning themselves. He stood for a long moment, breathing deeply, composing himself, then turned and came back to the bow.

  ‘Tell me if you see any more,’ he said as he passed us.

  I tried to ignore him, like I tried to ignore so many other things, but his voice intruded into my thoughts, asking, You smell that? Is that burning?’

  When the bow cut through the first of the smoke, there were just a few wisps of it, accompanied by the gentle scent of burning wood. The coils of grey twisted in the air over the river, shifting and merging, flattening to hang across the surface like a sheet stretched from one bank to the other.

  ‘Where’s that coming from?’ He scanned both sides of the river, each no more than a hundred metres from us, but there was no clear indication of its origin.

  Once we had pushed around the gentle curve of the river, though, we were able to see what the closeness of the trees had concealed.

  Ahead, fingers of smoke curled from between the dark trunks on the bank to our right. They slipped through the vines and the undergrowth, coming together to form a mist that drifted across the water in a grey haze. Beyond that, the clouds darkened to a dense black, billowing and moving like a living creature. Forming and deforming. It rose from the treetops, filling the sky, touching everything.

  ‘What is it?’ Leonardo asked, glancing back at me.

  I shook my head. ‘We’re still a long way from the mine. Maybe it’s Indians clearing land for planting.’

  ‘Do they do that?’ Daniella asked.

  ‘Maybe it’s something else,’ I said, taking the wheel and wondering about those guns we were carrying. Perhaps this was all connected. When profiteers opened the forest, fire and guns were a major part of it.

  Coming closer to the thick of the smoke, I slowed the engine and moved towards the far bank to keep away from the worst of it. But there was no avoiding it. If we were to go on, we would have to head through it.

  ‘Can we go around?’ Daniella asked. ‘Is there another way?’

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t want to get lost out here.’

  ‘Do we need to stop, then?’

  ‘As long as we can see a couple of metres in front, we’ll be all right,’ I said, hoping she didn’t hear the doubt in my voice. ‘It’ll take longer, but it’s possible.’ I slowed the engine even further and we chugged on into the blackness of the Devil’s heart.

  38

  The smoke shrouded us, splitting at the bow and swirling in our wake. It filled the spaces between us. Only the water immediately in front was visible, and I slowed the Deus until she was almost at a standstill.

  ‘We can’t stop now.’ I coughed as the hot, harsh smoke slipped into my throat and stung my eyes. ‘Not in here.’

  ‘We should have stayed back there,’ Daniella said.

  ‘Too late now.’

  I told her to wet some cloths so we could hold them over our faces, and we pressed on and on, deeper and deeper into the dreadful, dense smoke. It was pushing in on all sides now, closing around us and blocking out the glare of the sun, as if we were moving through dusk and heading into night.

  Leonardo propped the rifle in the bow and leaned over the edge, holding a damp cloth to his face and watching the river. Every now and then he would call back in a muffled voice to warn us of any hazards. An hour ago, his warnings had irritated me; now they might save our lives.

  ‘What happens if we run aground?’ Daniella asked as I guided the Deus around a sandbank.

  I looked at her, seeing the worry in her red-ringed eyes and knew it had been a mistake to head into the smoke. I was in a hurry to reach the mine and return home to my friend, and I had allowed it to put us in more danger.

  ‘We have a shallow draught,’ I told her. ‘We should be fine.’

  ‘But if we do?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be impossible to get out, but it would take time.’

  ‘We’d have to get out and push?’

  ‘On this sand? The stuff under the water? Uh-uh.’ I shook my head. ‘We’d need another boat. Maybe two. You can’t stand on this sand; it shifts and moves all the time. And you don’t want to be standing on it when it shifts; it’ll slip away under your feet and suck you down. People have disappeared like that.’

  I looked over at Leonardo who had turned to listen. His eyes were red, too, and there were dark circles under them. I would be the same. Both of us with raspy stubble piercing the skin on our faces, stale breath, stomachs that tumbled with the lack of good food and sleep.

  There is a surreal edge to the world when you haven’t slept; a dreamy quality to everything. Like treacle is flowing through your veins instead of blood. And with the smoke billowing around us, killing the day, it was as if we were living through a nightmare.

  Leonardo touched the figa that hung from the chain around his neck. His lips moved as he muttered a few silent words, then he went back to watching the river. The rifle was still propped beside him, close but out of my reach.

  ‘I see it,’ he said after a few minutes. ‘There.’ He raised a hand and pointed into the thickest black of the smoke.

  ‘I see it too,’ Daniella whispered, and when I squinted through the tears I also saw the flames, flickering in the trees on the far right.

  The temperature rose and rose. The air glittered with sparks that danced and frisked in the blackness. They leaped at us like devils, stinging our faces, then swirled away to flicker around the Deus. They settled on the gunwale and the canopy and the deck, glowing and dying, or lingering for a moment, hoping to find something to burn.

  Something like fuel drums.

  ‘We need to watch the boat!’ I shouted to Leonardo.

  ‘What?’ He looked back at me from his position in the bow as if not understanding, then his eyes widened. ‘Fire!’ He pointed behind me and I turned to see the canopy smouldering over the middle of the Deus.

  At first it was a glowing patch that spread outwards, consuming the canvas as it moved, then the flames sprang to life, growing as the fire took hold of the old, dry material.

  ‘Take the wheel,’ I yelled at Daniella and jumped from my seat, hurrying from the wheelhouse. ‘Listen to Leonardo’s directions.’

  I grabbed the bucket Daniella had been using and, leaning over the gunwale, I filled it from the river, then hurried to where the flames were devouring the canopy over the Deus. The thick smoke was filling my lungs, tightening my chest and stealing my breath. I could breathe only in short gasps as I tossed the water up at the canvas.

  Already the flames had spread and were beginning to take hold in other places, so I ran back and forth, refilling the bucket and tackling the fires rising above us. The embers flickered around me as I worked through the heat, and Daniella kept the boat on course, taking us slowly though the river, while Leonardo called out any visible dangers in the water.

  It was as if we wer
e journeying through hell. The smoke was at its blackest and the temperature was at its hottest. The flames flickered and the embers danced like devils. My skin stung with the pinpricks of their attacks, sweat poured from me, my eyes streamed and my lungs shrank with every metre of river. Blinded and choking, we had to escape this nightmare before we were overcome and left to drift into the bank as we slipped into the abyss.

  There was something else too.

  The horrific smell that lay within the smoke.

  It was the ugly smell of barbecued meat and burning fat, thick and cloying, filling me with its fleshy, yellow stink. Feeling sure I knew its horrific origin – what it was that was burning – I was desperate not to breathe it in. I was sickened that it was inside me and tried taking shallower breaths, forcing the stench from my lungs, wishing I couldn’t taste it in my mouth. But it was as inescapable as the dense smoke, so it invaded me, tainted the precious air I needed so desperately, and made me feel like an accomplice to its awful existence.

  Deeper into the smoke, and surrounded by that monstrous smell, I began to tire. My lungs shrivelled, my chest tightened and my arms and legs grew heavy as I battled the persistent fires, coughing and hacking, wondering when my body would fail me.

  Our eyes were burning and our faces were black when we finally broke through into the lighter smoke. Daniella pushed the engine harder, taking us into the fresh air, and I had never felt relief like it.

  I leaned against the gunwale, sucking the clean air into me, expelling the darkness I had swallowed. There was a greasy, lingering taste in my mouth, and my whole body ached, but we were free of the fire.

  ‘You did well,’ I said, tossing the bucket aside and returning to the wheelhouse. ‘You were amazing.’

  ‘Did you smell that in there?’ Daniella asked. ‘What was it? Was that animals?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Animals. Probably.’ But I couldn’t help thinking about the guns we had on board, and what Leonardo had said about expanding the operation at Mina dos Santos. If a land war was brewing there, perhaps the violence was spreading and territory was being reclaimed from settlers. It wasn’t unusual for landowners to use fire as a cleanser. The smell that had mingled with the smoke would be the stink of their animals burning. And it would be them, too.