by Nahum Megged
I went to greet her and we shook hands. She sat across from me, took off her hat, and let her hair fall on her thin shirt.
“I imagined you to be older,” she said. Then she told me that years ago, she had read my articles, some of which dealt with this part of the world. Since then, she had studied anthropology, and as a student had been active in several environmental organizations aimed at saving rhinos, elephants, whales, and the rainforests. Over the years, she worked her way up to the directorship of one of the institutes fighting for the preservation of rainforests.
“Your daughter told me you were living here, and your address is the same as that of a local female anthropologist whose name has become legendary.” The stranger paused, took a sip of water, and continued. “One of our active institute members is Herbert William, Jr. He had militant plans of action aimed at stopping the devastation threatening the forest and its inhabitants. He set out for this town, lived in the very house you now live in, and disappeared off the face of the earth. We fear the worst.
“Lately, we have been getting messages in his name. Being quite familiar with Dr. William, I am convinced those messages are fake. If he is still alive, he must be the prisoner of English-speaking people. These are probably people with financial interests, and Herbert must have stood in their way.” She sighed deeply. “I asked the government to allow me to come here as a researcher, with a team of photographers, to try and track Dr. William in the forest. I haven’t received an answer from the authorities and decided to take the initiative. With the authorization of the institute, I came here to meet you and try to find out what happened to Herbert William.”
Following a long silence, I expressed my appreciation for her courage. The last few days had not been kind to the forest, I told her. Wars between the tribes had worsened, and for the first time, white people were among the casualties. I added that I knew Herbert, Jr., had set out to the forest to search for his missing father, and that after some time, he had disappeared as well. The Indian who used to come bearing messages from the forest in his name had been found dead in the river. I asked her to tell me more about Herbert William’s militant plans.
“He never gave us any details,” she replied, “but often spoke of the need to retaliate in order to deter those planning to disturb the delicate balance in the forest.”
While she spoke, I considered the possibility William had been murdered by the very people he was trying to rescue.
“My name is Clara Enriques,” the stranger introduced herself. “My father was a native of this continent, so I speak Spanish as well. Because Spanish and Portuguese are sister languages, I can also understand the local dialects in the border regions.”
I suggested she not disclose her identity to the local authorities. If she did, she would lose her chances of finding out any important information, and worse, she might be forbidden to go into the forest, and possibly be expelled from the town. I wished her luck with her plan to go into the forest. I even expressed a willingness to join her, though I had no desire to leave Don Pedro for the time being, then I went on my way.
When I left the hotel, I saw a ship that had finished offloading its cargo at the port and was about to put out to sea. My eyes were drawn to a figure standing close to the boat. It was Marina, and she was speaking with one of the ship’s officers. I headed in her direction.
“I left you a note at home,” Marina said when she saw me. “I am trying to reach the coastal city. From there, I will take a plane to the capital and visit my mother. I haven’t seen her in a long time, and this morning, just before waking, I dreamed that she was calling me.”
She held a travel bag, and it was obvious to me that this woman, who had given me so much pleasure the night before, was about to leave for a long time. We hugged and remained entwined until the ship’s officer urged Marina to board. When I disentangled myself from Marina, I noticed Clara, standing close by and watching us.
Marina, Marina, I silently said. Just like that, without a second thought, you left the forest where I had found you.
The ship set sail, and I followed it upriver with tearful eyes.
Clara came to me. I didn’t want her company. All I wanted was to explore this new loneliness that had been forced on me. I did not want to be bothered by anything else, not even Dr. Herbert William, Jr,. and his fate.
“A beautiful young woman,” said Clara. I nodded. “I assume she is Beatrice’s daughter. I’ve heard she too was a very beautiful woman in her youth. If you don’t mind, I’ll walk you home. I have nothing else to do, anyway,” she said.
A young Indian, sloppily dressed, his face as furrowed as an old man’s, waited for me by the door and addressed me in Yagori, one of the forest dialects. The Yagori lived in the very heart of the jungle, and it was rare for one of them to visit the town. I invited him into the house.
Inside, ignoring Clara’s presence, he shed his cotton garment and removed a bag he had strapped to his chest. From the bag peeked a journal that looked like Herbert, Sr.’s forged one. So, I hadn’t hallucinated it after all. The paper was smeared with more than a few water stains, many of the letters were completely erased, and a lot of pages were torn. I might have ripped one of them during my struggle next to the jetty.
“For this paper, I would like three sacks of flour from Andiuka,” said the youth. I promised to give him the flour by touching my right hand, like the forest people do. I sent the boy, who was very frightened by the sight of the guest I had brought into the house, and asked him to take a wheelbarrow and bring the flour. I didn’t want to go to the store myself and possibly face unnecessary questions, and I preferred not to leave the Yagori man with Clara. I was afraid he might have shot the poisoned arrow at the previous messenger, the snake man.
I asked the native how he had obtained the journal and why he came to me with it.
He smiled, ignored my first question, and said, “Everyone knows that you are looking for strange things and even buy stones from the forest.”
I wanted very much to flip through the journal but managed to hide my curiosity so as not to raise the price. When the boy came back with the flour, we helped the guest down to our private jetty, where his boat waited. He paddled to the forest and disappeared. I sighed in relief.
When I got back to the house, I saw Tourki looking at the pages of the journal. She continued even after seeing us coming inside. “These drawings look so much like the ones the master used to draw when he lived here,” she muttered, just loud enough for us to hear.
I explained to Clara what the stranger from the forest had brought. “It is the forged, or partially forged, journal of Dr. Herbert William, Sr.,” I told her. “But we can still learn a lot, even from a fake. Now that I’ve finally come into possession of this journal, I’m curious to read it. I might even discover why it was forged in the first place.”
Clara looked at the pages with growing anxiety. “This handwriting seems so familiar,” she said, “but I just can’t recall where I’ve seen it.”
Inside the journal, there were a few stapled pages with a roughly drawn map. I had no doubt it was a map of the trails leading to the mysterious prairie bordering on the Yarkiti’s dwelling places. Next to the drawing of a hill, a cave was marked and a number appeared beside it. I guessed it was a page number, and I turned to the corresponding page.
Some of the words were deleted, but I could still easily read it: When I got to the cave, to which I was led by Xnen and Yakura, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Ancient sculptures belonging to the Peruvian mountain culture. It appears that its priests or tribe leaders who retreated from the Spanish forces, arrived in this forest bearing the large stone sculptures. They must have built the abandoned temple containing the god of the hands the forest people recognize as Omauha.
Some of the sculptures were engraved with elaborate inscriptions that appear like handwriting, but as far as I know, the people of
the Peruvian mountain culture never wrote on their sculptures. There were also some painted urns and embroidered cloths that had partially rotted. The especially large urns contained shrouded bodies. All this at the heart of a forest that, according to all known records, had never seen a developed civilization.
I walked about the cave as if dreaming. Then I saw a handwritten book. The color of the ink reminded me of the body paints the forest people use. I worked to decipher the writing. It took me some time to understand the text was written in several different languages. I recognized three of them. Another was a Romance language I couldn’t recognize, written in mirror-script. I tried to focus on the Romance language and the story became even more far-fetched. Among the words I could understand in the mirror-script were words whose origin weren’t Latin. These might be code words. If my theory is correct, it is a very tonal language, perhaps even onomatopoeic, related to the language of animals. There was also a completely indecipherable line. The letters in it were different. They reminded me of the little Hebrew I had studied in my youth. I am copying these marks, written in several different lines in the original.
The following words were written in unsteady Hebrew: I, Yoezer, son of Moses from Malaga… (deleted) … full moon… found… escaped from them… have taken those who ran to a place of heavenly grace… said the god was like… (deleted all the way to the end).
I continued to read William’s words. There were drawings next to the written words, depicting people of various races. I asked Xnen if he recognized the people, and he told me they were the ancestor-gods who came from the edges of the world beyond the rapids, and called them by name. He recognized the man as Omauha’s double and the woman as Minare’s double. There were also drawings of imps and spirits. One spirit carried a carving of clasped hands. “It is the higher mating from which the forest was born,” Xnen said.
With Xnen’s permission, I remained a few days in the cave, communing with the sculptures and reading the manuscript that must remain inside, as it was forbidden to remove any object from the cave. Yakura had told me the cave leads to the world where everything began. It is from there that the water that is the source of all things flows, from there that one can walk the forest beneath the forest.
They brought me food every day, and I became desperate because of the words I called “codenames,” which remained completely unintelligible to me. From what I could figure out, I understood a white man who had lived among the locals — I do not know if he was one of the people of the mountain who had immigrated here, or one of the people of the forest — had turned into a god or a spiritual leader. And possibly there were more like him. He knew much and wanted to reveal his knowledge, but he also wanted to conceal it from unwanted prying eyes. His words related to an ancient event that had taken place in the forest, an event that was also a revelation.
During that revelation, languages boiled out of a stone, and the languages then wrote their shapes on other stones, and each such stone was given to a different tribe, to “mute” tribes, or to tribes that swore never to speak their former language and committed to live only with the language that was given them. If I could only unlock the code, I would know more, not only about the beginning of things, but also about the way they will end… At that point, half a page was torn.
I was enthralled by the text. Even if it was merely a forgery, the story it contained was magnificent. I suddenly had no doubt about the purpose of those who had sent me the journal: They wanted to draw me back into the forest, back to the tribe and Omauha’s cave. I told Clara what I had read, and her eyes opened wide with excitement.
“We need to go out there!” she announced.
I asked her if she could remember where she knew the handwriting from. She leaned on my shoulder as if we were old friends and shook her head.
I closed the journal and locked it in the cabinet where the snake had been hidden. Whoever was trying to draw me into the forest had tried to send me into the forest beneath the forest with the snake. Or had I simply become paranoid? Wasn’t it easier to assume a man who needed flour had come to see me and traded a bundle of pages he considered to be worthless for it?
Clara and I went to the post office to see Francisco and see what news he had. On the way, we saw a beautiful young girl, a mulatto — eyes black and bright, hair that fell all the way to her hips. Her dark-skinned body was covered by a white gown. I couldn’t help myself, I bent and stroked her hair.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Grisella,” the girl answered.
“And where do you live?”
She pointed at the outskirts of town. “There.”
“Where exactly?” I asked.
“We live next to the crying tree, my mother and I.”
“How I’d love to have such a child,” Clara sighed. “But I probably won’t be able to have a child of my own.”
I stroked Clara’s head as well.
Grisella walked beside us, happily skipping along as we continued on our way to the post office. Very close to Francisco’s “fortress” we saw a woman, a mulatto as well, young, tall and very beautiful, her hair black and thick. She came and greeted the girl. Their happy hug made their relationship clear. The young woman was Grisella’s mother. Perhaps a passerby had spent a few nights with her then went on his way, and now, in his remote home, didn’t know that he had such a beautiful daughter.
Francisco welcomed me happily. “You are a dangerous man,” he said, looking at Clara. “Women are attracted to you like bees to nectar, while I remain lonely.”
The three of us enjoyed a good laugh together. Francisco’s mood changed quickly though.
“Things are not going well for me,” he said. “People used to come here to exchange gold or diamonds for money or to pawn gold. Now it’s all over. I have no idea what happened, but if things continue like this, I will need to look for another place to conduct my business.”
I was baffled by his words. “People have stopped looking for gold and diamonds?”
He nodded. “Even if they stopped, the gold seekers should have come back to town to take a boat back to the shore. But lately, people have stopped coming out of the forest. I saw light planes flying above the jungle. Those weren’t government planes. They looked more like commercial planes. One of the pilots I spoke with at the bar told me that everything looks completely deserted from the bird’s-eye view. Even the landing strip looked abandoned, as if the earth had swallowed it all. They couldn’t have simply decided to disappear into the heart of the forest!”
Francisco’s words were in line with what Yankor and the chief of police had told me. Something strange, dangerous even, was taking place in the forest, and no one in town spoke about it, because the townspeople feared the colonel’s return. According to Francisco, the telegrams and phone calls had fallen off as well, even though you would expect concerned people to try and find out what was going on.
Grisella and her mother came into the post office, and Grisella’s mother asked Francisco if mail had arrived for her. I noticed his sorrow when he shook his head. Grisella clung to her mother and kissed her. The woman smiled at her daughter and they left.
“She’s been asking me if a telegram or letter has arrived for her every single day,” said Francisco, “and every single day I say no to her. I don’t know who the man is, but I simply can’t understand how he could have left such a beautiful woman. It’s truly heartbreaking.”
When we left the post office, I acted as if I were by myself and headed to Yankor’s hut. Clara didn’t know where I was going, yet she still followed me like a shadow. On the way, we met the chief of police. He looked at Clara and tried to recall her.
“You live in…?”
“The hotel,” she answered dryly.
“Oh, yes, yes, I received the forms. What is a woman doing by herself in a place like this?” he asked.
�
��I heard this is the nearest settlement to the forest. Sometimes you need to take a break from civilization, and I came here for a change of scene,” said Clara.
“Yes, everyone in this town has a story they want to hide…” muttered the chief to himself.
I asked him if he had heard from the miners or had any idea what was happening in the forest. He shook his head.
We continued to walk. The town looked sleepier than ever. Supply ships came to the port now and then, but it seemed they all left Don Pedro empty. The supply of fruit and metal from the forest had stopped. One day the ships might stop coming altogether, and then what?
Close to Yankor’s hut, we met an Indian who seemed to be heading in the same direction. “Where are you from?” I asked him.
“From over there,” he answered, pointing upriver.
“And where are you going?”
He did not answer and continued to walk beside us.
Yankor’s hut looked larger than before. I stole a glance at Clara and saw her devouring the surroundings with her eyes, trying to understand where we were and why I was there. Close to the hut, I sounded the customary native noise that meant a visitor comes in peace. Yankor peeked outside and saw the three of us.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said.
“May the spirits bless the walls of your house,” I answered. Two more heads poked through the doorway. “If this is not a convenient time I will come back another day,” I said.
“No, you are always welcome,” answered Yankor and asked for the identity of those with me. I began by telling him about the Indian we’d met on the way and about whom I knew nothing. Then I introduced Clara by saying she was one of the Nave who wanted to save the forest. Yankor studied her, trying to discover the secrets behind her face, as she remained expressionless.
