by Nahum Megged
Still lost in the visions of the diary, I forgot the customary greeting and did not rise to welcome the sacred guest. Yankor did not wait for me to rise and sat beside me silently.
“I’m going out to my people,” he finally said. “The earth is coming apart and impostors are turning into gods. My people are anxious for a living god and are willing to accept him, just as they have before, but they listen to impostors…” A sadness veiled his face.
“Marikitare,” I said, “once, many years ago, white people came to the forest and said they were Omauha or his messengers, but other than a few stones they left behind and distant memories, the forest has already buried everything. Are there those among your people who believe, just as they had once believed, that those who had appeared at the beginning of time are about to return?”
The old shaman looked at me as if asking how I could know that which I could not know. Still looking me steadily in the eye he said, “And when will you be returning? That young woman should be returned as well.”
I looked at him in confusion, trying to understand his words. “Who? Marina?”
The old man nodded and looked at me with heavy eyes.
“Why should she be returned?” I asked. “She never belonged to the forest.”
Yankor looked around, as if making sure no one was listening, leaned over, and whispered, “Marina’s real father is not the man she thinks of as her father.”
A few seconds passed before I fully fathomed his words. “And who is her real father?” I finally asked.
“He is already in the world of mountains, gone to his Tepoi. Once, there was a famous Mashko warrior, and the mother would go into the forest to meet him. They were attracted to each other just like Omauha had been attracted to the fish woman, the one born from the river. When the girl was in her body, the bearded Nave came to town. They started living together and everyone believed the girl was his.”
“And the bearded man believed it too?”
“No, he knew the truth. He also had another woman in a distant place.”
“And the girl knows the truth?”
“No. Her mother had kept in contact with the famous warrior. When she found out he had left for his Tepoi, she began to act strangely, as if her shadow had left her. Everyone thought it was because of the bearded one who had left for the forest and did not return.”
I said nothing, thinking of Marina and her lover, whom she had mistakenly thought to be her brother. Then I heard the marikitare’s voice again.
“I will leave this very night, because tomorrow, evil men will return to burn my house again. I will pray in the cave and ask for the gods to help us. I will continue between the trees all the way to a hidden lake. From there, another road leads to the river. At the river, I will board a boat. The forest is dangerous, everyone is fighting everyone. When your day to leave arrives, I will come to take you down the same route.” He stood, hugged me, placed his hand on my head as a blessing and left.
16
Assassination
The following morning, the distinctive smell of a forest fire hung in the air. Everyone looked upriver to seek the source of the smoke with fear in their hearts. An unplanned forest fire was virtually impossible during that season of heavy rain. The stranger left the hotel. I watched him searching for a good vantage point to observe the opposite direction, that of the nearest forest. I remembered Yankor’s words, so I looked in the same direction and saw a column of smoke rising next to where the soldiers’ temporary camp had been. The crackling explosions coming from the burning trees indicated a highly flammable material. Yankor, the wise old man, had known exactly what was about to happen. Still, how could he have known that the stranger would order to have his hut and its surroundings burnt on that same exact night? Could it be that there was a spy among the criminals, who had told Yankor of their plan? Or I supposed there could be some truth to the belief that shamans are in direct contact with all-knowing spirits that can even predict the future.
The smell of damp, burnt wood mixed with that of oil and completely changed the usual mixture of morning scents in the town. I took a short walk and met Francisco sitting on a stone outside his office, his head sunk in his hands. He was so submerged in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed I was standing next to him. Only when the rising sun cast my shadow on him did he raise his head to look at me.
“The instructions from the capital are far-reaching,” he immediately said. “They want the natives to attack the town so they can retaliate, destroy the forest dwellers, and take control of all sources of gold and precious stones.” His words surprised me with their clear and determined logic.
“But who do you think started the fire? Who is doing the dirty work for them?” I asked. “There aren’t any soldiers here.”
“There’s never a shortage of people without a job or a conscience who would be willing do anything,” Francisco answered. “Maybe some of the slave hunters have returned to town and are now willing to perform other types of crimes. You don’t need too many people to burn a hut. I suppose they will start committing more crimes in the next few days, maybe even in the town itself, then blame the rebel Indians for them.”
I shuddered. Francisco’s words were clear, almost obvious, yet still difficult and horrifying. Then I was struck by another thought. “I wonder if that stranger who speaks my language is also here, in the town, and is one of the raiders.”
Francisco looked at me with tired eyes. “Anything’s possible,” he said.
I left my friend to his worries and decided to go to the burning forest. On the way, I met Grisella’s mother walking alone.
“Are you worried about the shaman?” I asked.
“No,” she answered, “he managed to get out in time.”
I gave her a surprised look. “How do you know?”
“Because I was the one who warned him,” she said. I hadn’t expected that answer.
My imagination began to wander — I could see her lying in the bed of the man at the hotel while he bragged to her about his plans. I chased these unworthy thoughts from my mind and continued to walk beside her.
“Unless we stop the fire,” she whispered, as if talking to herself, “it might reach the town, and then what will we do?”
We saw them as soon as we approached the hut — the evildoers who had started the fire and were now keeping it alive. About a dozen people, wearing barely any clothes, some of them drunk, celebrating the great pyromaniac holiday, the sacrifice to the gods of money. They didn’t even try to stop us, as if they weren’t afraid of us. It was obvious whoever had sent them promised them immunity and they were not afraid of the law. Drinking and happy, they looked at the ashes that had once been a hut and in between their incomprehensible, gleeful cheers I could actually hear someone say, “This time he’s finished.”
I went to the one who appeared to be the gang leader. “What are you doing?” I asked.
The man looked at me as if I were vermin that had crawled from the charred grass and offered no reply. Two of the revelers stared at the woman beside me. I immediately realized what intent lay behind the staring eyes.
“Run, do it now, before it’s too late,” I shouted at Grisella’s mother, and the beautiful woman, no stranger to flight, ran off like the wind.
The drunk men began to give chase, but she was much quicker than her pursuers, and a few moments later she disappeared from sight. The hunters gave up and turned their anger-filled eyes on me. And so, I thought, Yankor’s prophecy about my ultimate return to the forest had been wrong. The story of my life in the visible world was about to end there and then.
But their hateful glances weren’t followed by violence. A figure I recognized from afar because of his attire approached the fire. Here comes the big boss, I thought. He came closer and looked at me with surprise. His eyes mirrored the same question in mine: What are you doing here? And i
ndeed, what was a man whose work was always done from the shadows doing out in the open? He stood next to me and examined me as if it was the first time he’d seen me. He obviously knew I wasn’t one of the revelers; my age and clothing distinguished me from them.
I decided I should be the first to speak. “What is a respectable businessman like you doing in the company of arsonists and cutthroats?”
“And who are you?” he asked dismissively.
“Many people saw me coming here,” I answered, “and many more saw you as well. I would indulge in criminal activities a little more cautiously if I were you.”
The arsonist gang members surrounded me, waiting for the boss’s command. His lips twitched, but the rest of the muscles in his face remained still. He clapped me on the shoulder as if we were old friends. “You could be my father,” he said. “You’re white and a Westerner like me. I’m sure you want our side to come out the winner in this terrible war.”
I shrugged his hand from my shoulder, hissed a quiet curse, turned my back on the hoodlums, and slowly walked back to town. Behind me, I could hear voices calling for the leader to kill me right away. One of them insisted I was a dangerous witness and my testimony might find its way to the press. But the order to kill me did not come.
When I reached the town limits, I found a few of the townspeople waiting for me, headed by the hotel manager. They had already heard rumors about what was going on at the edges of the forest. The hotelier was particularly upset.
“What will we do now, sir?” she asked anxiously.
The others spoke nervously about what had happened and were convinced the Indians would retaliate, and we were all about to pay for the murder. The chief of police came to me and asked if I intended to file a complaint.
“And what good will that do?” I asked.
He shrugged in agreement. “You know I can’t anything,” he said apologetically.
Clara showed up as well. “I sent a telegram to the institute offices and reported what is happening here. They’ll know what to do!” She was the only one who had taken action, but it was difficult to guess what consequences it would bring.
I kept walking, trying to understand how the information had reached the town so quickly. I suddenly noticed Grisella’s mother standing beside me and raised my eyes to hers inquisitively.
“I told everyone what happened,” she answered my unspoken questions with just a few words, “but they don’t know Yankor wasn’t in the hut and was saved.”
I smiled at her and asked how she had found out about the planned murder.
“The hotel manager asked me to cook for a group of people the guest had invited. That’s how I make my living. You should know, in case you ever have guests. I cooked and served the food to the guests. They didn’t speak our language and didn’t suspect that I might understand theirs.”
I looked at the beautiful young woman walking barefoot, as the natives do, unafraid of snakes. “What language did they speak?” I asked.
“Creole,” she answered.
I was surprised she understood that foreign language, originating in the Caribbean and mostly used by those whose ancestors had come from Africa. But her unexpected knowledge put me one step closer to identifying the source of the threat.
“Where did you learn Creole?”
“The story of my life is complicated,” she answered, “but I will try to tell it to you briefly. My father used to own plantations on one of the islands, and I learned the language from the laborers. To be honest, Creole was my mother’s language, but unfortunately, I never met her. She was a mulatto, and I was probably taken from her right after being born. The laborers told me she was one of them, and I don’t know where my father sent her when he decided to raise me as his own. The laborers taught me everything I know — their customs, songs, and witchcraft. The cook in my father’s house also taught me the secrets of Creole cuisine.
“One day, a man appeared in my life. My father said he wasn’t reliable and that he was probably married. Still, I ran away with him. That is how we reached the jungle areas of the neighboring country, then the forest of this country.
“We lived together in an Indian village before coming here. When Grisella was about to be born, my lover brought me to Don Pedro. She was born and her father disappeared. I had a difficult birth, and the doctor instructed me to remain on bed rest. An Indian woman took care of my baby girl. The money for covering the expenses was always paid on time, but her father never showed up.
“Gossipmongers say that when I was bedridden, he lived with Marina in her house. They say he went out to the forest and never returned. The money stopped coming as well. I had to get up from my sick bed to look for work so I could support my daughter.
“I work as a cook in the labor camps and for the hotel when there are guests. This is how I survive and wait, hoping I’ll hear from him yet. Meanwhile, I learned that my father had died and left me nothing. My brother from his white wife had inherited all the plantations. I wrote to him, hoping he would invite me to return, but I haven’t heard from him either.”
We sat on a wide stone by the side of the dirt road and said nothing. I distractedly scratched the moss that clung to the stone and exposed a carving. I leaned next to the stone and kept cleaning the moss from it. Eventually, a smaller and somewhat worn-out version of the clasped hands was revealed, the copulation of the sky god and the forest goddess. The thought came to me that this woman, sitting on the stone next to me, might be the forest goddess too. I asked for her name.
“Christina,” she answered, “my friends called me Chris.” We sat silently for long minutes until Francisco showed up.
“I’ve always said you are a lucky man,” he said without taking his eyes off Christina. “You were very brave this morning,” he said after a brief silence, “but I’m not sure you were wise. Clara’s telegram will wake those sleeping far from here, and they in their turn will wake those sleeping very close to us…this is only the beginning.”
“The copulation has already taken place and destinies already determined,” I said, not knowing why I spoke such strange words.
“I received a telegram from Marina,” Francisco said, ignoring my bizarre remark. He handed me the paper as if he didn’t know what it said.
I read it hungrily. Darling, I will be coming with my mother in two weeks. I will write you before I leave so that you and Tourki can prepare the house for her. Mother will be returning to her room. I told her about us. She eagerly waits to meet you.
I said goodbye to Chris and Francisco and made my way to Marina’s house. When I arrived, I immediately told Tourki that Marina and Beatrice were soon to return.
“So the madam is feeling better!” she said with bright eyes and a kind smile that smoothed her wrinkled face.
“It seems so,” I replied with a smile, not wanting to say more than I actually knew. I wandered off to my room to read some more of the mysterious journal that had disconcertingly begun predicting the future instead of providing a history of the past.
I got the feeling that someone had leafed through the pages of the book during my absence. It might have only been the wind, or Tourki, who had cleaned the room, and was distracted by the illustrations. But something in my heart told me it had been someone else.
I decided to read the page that opened before me, thinking it might contain a message. It was almost entirely covered with drawings. One of the drawings depicted a snake with the sky drawn on his body and in it, the sun and the moon were joined together in coupling. Beneath the sky, streams and forests were bound together with a rope and tied to the sea, and light-footed people roamed or flew in the body of the snake. There were more drawings beneath the snake, more abstract, and featuring something that looked like braids bound together to form a chain that looked like a genetic code. Beneath and above the drawings were the following words: I managed to copy the d
rawings of the ancient manuscript. I don’t believe the man from Malaga drew them. This might be a myth describing the creation of the world or the creation that will reoccur once the opposites that had been separated reunite. I asked Yakura to help me understand the drawings. Yesterday she showed up in the cave and decided to stay in it, perhaps to take care of me. “I don’t think you should read it,” she said. I asked her why not. “Because if you become one of those who know, you will need to go to the world of those who know.” I understood her words: Only the gods or the spirits understand the writings of creations, the coupling or the connection. Whoever comprehends the meaning becomes a part of the divine reality and so must leave the world of mortals. The meaning of such a departure is clear to me. When Xnen came I asked him when would this pandemonium take place, when will the couplings birth the world anew. “Soon, very soon,” was his reply. “The days in which all the days end and all the days begin are fast approaching…”
I stopped reading, thrilled, but my eyes quickly returned to the journal. I am back to the place where the will to know spells a death sentence, but at this point in time, the will to know is one with the will to exist again. I suddenly had a profound realization about my life: I came to the forest to gain knowledge, but the forest people guided me from the path of knowledge to the path of being. They taught me that man is finite, while the child of myth is eternal, and reliving the mythic story means a return to life and to being; it is not just about gaining knowledge. But it could be I am seeking my own death so I can at last solve the contradiction between these two paths. I think of my two sons, who share my life and my work. When I finally understand the great secret, I will have to remain silent forever. One of the details in the drawings I had copied is troubling. It depicts a man walking inside the body of the snake — a bearded man holding a lantern and seeking something. Am I this man? And what is it that I seek?
