The Longest Way Home

by Andrew McCarthy

  Eventually everyone is snapped out, the monkeys disappear deeper into the jungle, the driver slams the throttle down, and we’re off, looking for more.

  And the pattern is set. We zip along; Ricardo stands in the back of the boat, eyeing the passing rain forest through his binoculars, and when he sees something, anything, he motions for the driver to slow and we try to spot whatever it is that has caught his eye—scarlet macaws; a massive wasp nest; a great black hawk perched high in a cecropia tree, draping his wings to appear even larger; toucans flying overhead; a crimson-crested woodpecker on the twig of an acacia. At the sight of a red howler monkey in a ficus tree, I think Ricardo might faint. “Oh my God, I’m gonna die!” he shouts. “This is unbelievable. Shoot it! Shoot it! Shoot it quick!”

  As the others click away, I turn back to Ricardo and ask quietly, “When was the last time you saw one?”

  He stops pointing and leans in close to me. “Two days ago,” he says softly, and shrugs.

  If it weren’t for an innate innocence, Ricardo’s hard sell might be off-putting. He comes from “five hours down the river,” from a village called Indiana. “The missionary who came there last century was from Indiana. He was very proud of his home. When he died, they named the village to honor him.”

  A few hours later, the skiff returns to the boat. “There it is,” Ricardo says when we reemerge into the main river and see the riverboat glistening in the sun, “Da cutest little boat in da Amazon.” Emanuel greets everyone solemnly as we board, and when the heat of the day passes, we load up into the skiffs and do it again.

  After dinner, during dessert, Ken comes over and joins our table. Ruth asks Ken to explain “what exactly is this thing called ‘gumbo.’ ” And while everyone is living up to stereotype, I’m able to slip away once again, without having to spend too much time plotting my exit. Just when I think I’ve made a clean getaway, I hear Catherine say behind me, “There he goes again.”

  I make my way toward the bow. This is the first moment of solitude I’ve had on the boat without having to resort to hiding in my cabin.

  The writer Paul Theroux was a great early influence on how I chose to travel, and he has always made a strong point for going alone. Only in the “lucidity of loneliness,” as he calls it, can we see what we came to see and learn what it is we came to this spot to learn.

  The humid air has the beginnings of a chill as the boat’s movement creates a breeze that doesn’t otherwise exist. The sky on the river is vast, even the night sky. Clouds gather on the horizon where lightning bursts like a cluster of flashbulbs popping. Another front is far off to my left, where distinct and jagged bolts silently slash open the sky at regular intervals. The Southern Cross hangs low to my right, and the canopy of the rain forest is a dark mass spreading out on either side of me. Occasionally the small orange glow of kerosene lamps from the dark shoreline can be seen—the only proof of villages whose names I’ll never know. When the moon comes clear, the Amazon shimmers as it rolls under the boat.

  The following days pass in similar fashion, two daily excursions in small boats to spot giant Aztec ant nests and three-toed sloths, and to hunt for anaconda. “Remember,” Ricardo warns us, “if an anaconda attacks you, the best defense is to bite it.” When we pull up close beside one of the other skiffs they are looking at a four-foot-long iguana sunning itself on the limb of a dead tree.

  “I’ve seen them before,” Ken says from the back of the other boat.

  “Where?” Ricardo asks. “Costa Rica?”

  “My backyard.” Ken yawns.

  Often, in the evenings, we go out hunting for predators. “There are thousands and thousands of eyes on us, and we don’t see them,” Ricardo whispers, his sense of melodrama heightened in the dark. He shines a strong spotlight along the edges of the river in the darkness. When we see a pair of shining red marbles we zero in and suddenly Ricardo is lunging over the side of the small boat, rocking us badly in the water, and comes back with a three-foot juvenile caiman in his hands. Then we head deep into a close cluster of trees until we find a goliath tarantula the size of my fist, clinging to the trunk of a cecropia.

  Over dinner one evening, Catherine scolds me for always leaving early. So I make an active effort to connect more with my fellow travelers. I mention my stargazing spot on the rail and linger longer than usual at the dinner table. I chat with Ken long after the others have gone.

  I’ve come to enjoy Ken’s company; he is decidedly himself. His wife died several years ago and he has been traveling the world extensively ever since. Having never left Louisiana for the first sixty-seven years of this life, Ken has now seen all seven continents and been on all seven seas. He’s lonely but content.

  “There’s something about the moving that I like,” he says. “You know what I mean, An-drew?”

  Ken says my name in a lazy southern singsong that makes it sound like two words. I know he’s not really asking me a question, but I answer him anyway. “I do, Ken.”

  After Ken heads off to bed, I pass the lounge on the way to my spot on the rail. Suddenly one of the Canadians, a retired engineer named Bob, whom I haven’t spoken to at all, corners me in a conversation on immigration. He’s lamenting a Royal Canadian Mountie of Indian origins who sued the government so that he could wear the traditional garb of his homeland.

  “If he’s gonna come live in Canada,” my traveling companion complains, “then he can act like a Canadian.”

  I wonder to myself what exactly that might mean.

  “In the end, they let him have his turban, but they wouldn’t let him carry his knife.”

  “Well,” I say, “at least that’s something.”

  “I guess I don’t like change,” Bob says, and goes to the bar for another pisco sour.

  By the time I get to my usual spot on the rail, the ladies are already there. I curse myself for mentioning it at dinner—serves me right for trying to be social. Ruth is trying to point out the Southern Cross to Catherine and Stella. They’ve never seen it before and are not sure what to look for in the night sky.

  “There, see?” The German woman points to a spot not far above the horizon. Because the moon is out, the constellation is not as bright as it might be, but it’s clearly visible, the dominant sight in the western sky.

  “No,” say the cousins in unison.

  “There.” Ruth thrusts her finger with more authority toward the stars. “There are three bright ones, and the one at the bottom is dimmer. And there’s the one on the side.” The cousins still don’t see it. The German woman is becoming frustrated. “There.” She jabs her finger into the air again.

  Eventually one of the cousins exclaims, “Oh, there it is.”

  The other quickly follows suit. “Oh, yes, there it is. Lovely.”

  Satisfied, the travel agent marches away.

  “Do you see it?” the librarian whispers.

  “No, I do not,” the other replies.

  Without contact with D—the intermittent phone calls, e-mails, and texts throughout the days that would anchor me to my familiar reality—I lose rhythm and time lunges forward through spots of deadness that would otherwise be filled with the news of life’s daily micro-dramas coming across the line or over the web. I feel the void; my spirits sag. But as the days wear on, I become aware that my thoughts and observations pass without any desire on my part for communication. I pay attention only to the solitary processing of my own reaction to them. My internal world grows smaller, more self-contained and self-involved, reminiscent of my life before children.

  Then, one afternoon, we’re out on a tributary of the Pacaya River. We’ve already stopped for all the requisite monkeys and birds.

  “Now we’ll go to a village,” Ricardo announces. A buzz comes over the skiff. A village visit, to see how the “natives” live, is one of the highlights of the trip. The three skiffs pull close together. The two couples from Canada prepare the pencils that they’ve brought along to give to the local children. The boats are al
ive with anticipation. I wish I could jump overboard.

  The village we draw up to consists of ten to fifteen wooden huts with palm-frond roofs built on stilts above the river. We are days away from electricity and running water. A hole in the floor over the river serves as toilet. Despite the huts being built on stilts fifteen feet off the ground, many of the homes are flooded and empty. We float past a few deserted shacks; filthy, threadbare clothes hang from lines in the damp breeze. A lone white dog hunches on the edge of a platform, watching our progress. His coat is matted and wet and clings taut over his jutting ribs. We drift on. The skiffs are silent. We come to a platform that’s nearly a foot above the still-rising water. The village has gathered here. Two dozen children and half that many adult women stand behind rows of beads laid out on display, strung together in an effort at jewelry. A few of the children hold simple carvings, offering them up to us as we arrive.

  The guides all step out onto the deck. They playfully shoo the children into the dugout canoes tied nearby and invite the passengers up to get a closer look. No one moves. The self-conscious resistance and the fear of filth of my fellow travelers make me nervous, and I’m self-conscious before the humbly eager and defiant looks from the deck. I stand with a lurch. The boat rocks back and forth. I stumble over the two cousins from Cornwall and climb quickly up on the platform. I pick up the first two red and white necklaces I see, thrust twenty soles into the hand of the closest woman, and climb back into the skiff.

  Soon everyone is out on the deck, trying to chat and barter, pushing pencils into the hands of children who have no paper. Everyone is happy. Both locals and travelers are laughing and smiling. The children orbit around, between and beneath the adults, smiling, playing. I remain in the back of the skiff.

  To my right, alone in a dugout canoe is a young girl, facing away from the others. She’s my daughter’s size and build. She wears a dirty pink T-shirt and aqua sweatpants. Her hair is tied back in two braids, like my daughter often wears hers. She turns to get a peek at the goings-on. There’s something sticking out of her mouth—she’s eating something or sucking on something. She turns away again and then turns back once more. Whatever she is sucking on is the size of a large banana, but it’s pinkish and has a black tip. Her jaw is extended as far open as it will go. And then I realize that what is sticking out of her mouth is her tongue. And the black on the end of it is a rotting infection. The mangy white dog swims over and climbs into the canoe with her, rocking her boat only slightly as he slips aboard. The girl swallows often and her swollen tongue rides only marginally in, still protruding hugely, and then juts back out completely. The girl turns her back on the proceedings.

  I’ve seen poverty and starvation in Africa, I’ve been silenced by squalor in Asia, but suddenly I’m crying behind my sunglasses. The singularity of her shame punctures my detachment.

  The medic who travels with the boat quietly searches for the girl’s mother. He hands the exhausted-looking woman a few white pills. She receives them without comment.

  When we return to the riverboat, the medic tells me the girl has a clot so the blood can’t drain. The tip of her tongue has begun to rot, similar to frostbite. She can no longer eat properly. She will die soon, he tells me, without a ninety-minute operation in Lima.

  I hover on deck, aimless, long after the other passengers have gone back to their cabins to shower for cocktails. I hear a splash and then voices, shouting and calling. One of the skiff drivers has fallen overboard while climbing back onto the boat. He can’t swim. The current is strong in this part of the river and the boat is driving hard against it. Quickly, there is a good deal of distance between the driver and us. There’s more shouting, a buoy is tossed to him, and he’s able to grab it. His T-shirt and jeans cling to his body as he’s hoisted back on deck, confused. Someone gives him a hand towel, the kind usually doused in cool, perfumed water and offered by Emanuel to guests returning from excursions. Nervous laughter follows, and then backslapping, and then the half dozen men are silent. Some look out over the water, others stare at their shoes. I watch them, unseen, from the deck above, with the growing realization that life on the river is cheap.

  It no longer feels like a game that I’m not in contact with D. I’m far from home, and to what end? My son and daughter are reading their bedtime stories while I am thousands of miles away, heading deeper into the Amazon. I feel foolish and selfish.

  At dinner, I mention the young girl with the infection. None of the passengers had noticed her. People seem relieved when the subject is changed to the downloading and sharing of photos. Then one of the cousins from Cornwall, Stella, the librarian, asks me again about the girl. We talk quietly between ourselves, but soon the table can feel the weight of our conversation and they fall silent.

  I’ve often kept important moments in life to myself, fearing they would be received as mere anecdotes, without the significance they held for me. As with the first time I acted, I worry that my experiences might be diluted and diminished, their import minimized. I don’t know why I brought up the little girl. I’m surprised at myself but also somehow relieved that I have.

  Back in my cabin, the Amazon keeps rolling past my window. I’ve felt alone for most of my life and never minded. I’ve considered it my natural state. I’ve longed for that solitude, sought it out, and lamented its absence. Yet it’s not the life I’ve chosen. I have two children I love and miss; I have a partner who stirs me. They all affect me the way no solitary pleasure can, and yet I continue to leave. The push-pull of my decisions strains any kind of stability I’ve created.

  The next few days feel much the same. We gawk at water lilies seven feet around and at a one-hundred-and-forty-pound rat. I take copious notes for the story I must report, all the while feeling increasingly detached. The joy I now take in the small boat excursions is limited to the thrill of racing along with the wind ripping loud through my ears, not in the endless stream of monkeys we stop to photograph. Only when we come upon a cluster of pink river dolphins in a tranquil pool am I brought back from my private thoughts. Their strange humped shape and peculiar color, coupled with their elusive movements, give them a prehistoric appearance and ethereal feel. I can understand my daughter’s attraction to them.

  “People believe the river dolphins can take on human form, your mother, your sister. For this reason, people don’t hunt them,” Ricardo explains.

  And in a tributary of the Yanallpa River we round a bend and come upon a half dozen young men standing atop a cluster of felled mahogany trees tied together and floating downstream. They eye us with suspicion as they slowly drift past in silence.

  “That didn’t look very legal,” I say quietly to Ricardo as the men recede.

  “The farther downriver they get, the more legal it becomes.”

  On the last evening on the boat, dinner is an elaborate tasting menu and drags on longer than usual. Over coffee, the two Canadian men, as well as Ken, pull up their chairs beside me.

  Each gives me his business card. “We want to do something for that girl you saw,” Bob, one of the Canadians, tells me. No one has mentioned the girl since I spoke of her several nights prior.

  “You said you met the owner of the boat, right, An-drew?” Ken says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you tell him what you saw and if he can arrange the logistics, we’d like to help,” Bob says, then points to his card. “That’s how you find us.”

  Suddenly tears are burning in my eyes; quickly I excuse myself. I’m not sure if it’s their concern or the feeling of unwitting connection with these strangers that has snuck up on me that has taken me so off guard.

  When I return to the dining room, the two cousins from Cornwall have also written their numbers down, and as the Russians pass on their way out of the dining room, the man drops his card on the table, points at me, and nods. I didn’t even know they were aware of our conversation.*

  The meal breaks up and I make my way to my spot on the rail, but after just
a few minutes I find myself returning to the dining room. Ken is still there, alone, finishing his coffee. He tells me that he’ll spend a few days in Iquitos.

  “I hear there’s not much to see,” he says. “I’ll have to give my travel agent some hell.”

  I tell him of my experience and that I think he too might recognize some of Iquitos’s more subtle charms.

  “I am glad to hear that, An-drew. Now I’m looking forward to it.”

  “And, Ken, when you go to Belen market, make sure you pick up a bottle of Rompa Calzones.”

  * * *

  * See Note.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE OSA

  “People Said to Avoid This Place”

  The day after I return from the Amazon, D e-mails me a sample of our wedding Evite she created. I don’t respond for two days.

  “Did you get my e-mail?” D asks finally.

  “E-mail?”

  She glares at me.

  “Oh, the wedding invitation?”

  “Yes, Andrew. The wedding invitation.”

  “I did, yeah.”

  “And?”

  “Well, when I read it I fell down and hit my head and got amnesia and I’m just now coming to and starting to remember things, so that’s why I haven’t said anything.”

  “You’re lucky you’re funny.”

  “We’re not going to have regular invitations?”

  “You said you didn’t want it to be a formal, big huge deal.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “But what?” D says.

  “Do you think anyone will take us seriously with just an e-mail, ‘Hey, come to Ireland for our wedding, it’s in a park, and bring a picnic’ invitation?”

  “Is that what it looks like to you?”

  On the invitation that D created, two bold peacocks flank the screen; their colorful tails hang down, framing a poem by Hafiz. The pertinent facts are placed discreetly below. It is an elegant, simple, and poetic invitation. “It’s beautiful, sweetheart,” I say, and kiss her.