The Mosquito Coast

by Paul Theroux

  In the early days, we spent the dark mosquito hours between supper and bedtime in the insect-proof gazebo. After the house was finished, we sat on the Gallery (also insect-proof) until it was time to turn in. The Maywits often joined us. Mr. Maywit told us about the Indians in the mountains and up the rivers. He liked giving information. He said it was true what Mr. Haddy had told us, about some of the Indians having long tails. He said one tribe of Indians was all giants, and another pygmies.

  Mr. Maywit’s strangest story was about some Indians he called Munchies. He said that Munchies lived in a certain part of Mosquitia, and he confessed that he had thought, on first seeing us, that we might be Munchies. The Munchies kept themselves hidden in secret cities in the jungle. They had been here longer than the Miskito Indians, or Payas, or Twahkas, or Zambus. But there was nothing to be afraid of in the Munchies, because they were peaceful and virtuous. They were also very tall, and built pyramids, and were in all respects a noble people.

  Father said, “You forgot the important part, Mr. Maywit. They’re white Indians. Whiter than me—even whiter than you.”

  The Maywits were the color of instant coffee powder and had burned hair and green eyes.

  “You see them?” Mr. Maywit said.

  “Dad knows everything,” Clover said.

  “I know about these Munchies,” Father said. “Tell us about their gold, Mr. Maywit.”

  “I ain’t know nothing about no gold.”

  “They’ve got gold mines,” Father said. “Nuggets as big as walnuts. They hammer it thin and write on it. They roll it and make bangles. Gold dust and gold slabs—ingots a yard wide.”

  “Haddy tell you this?”

  Father said, “Nope. But save your breath, Mr. Maywit. I don’t want to hear about white Indians who are angels. I want to hear about the devils from Nicaragua.”

  “The ones they carry ruckboos?”

  “Not only them, but the ones that make things go wrong, give you headaches and toothaches and flat tires, let the mosquitoes in, and hide things that belong to you, so you never find them again. The ones that make funny noises at night and keep you awake and pull your house down and set you on fire.”

  “Never hear of them,” Mr. Maywit said. “Where you hear?” “Stands to reason. If there’s golden white Munchies in secret cities, there’s got to be horrible devils that do you wrong, isn’t that so?”

  Mother said, “Allie’s pulling your leg, Mr. Maywit. He doesn’t mean a word he says. I think that’s a darned interesting story about the Munchies.”

  “But he hear it before.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Father said. “Forget the Munchies and the devils. If you believe in them, you never get anything done—spend half your life looking over your shoulder. Personally, I don’t believe in Munchies, unless I’m a Munchy.” He frowned. “Which is entirely within the realm of possibility.”

  Jerry said he did not believe in Munchies, and April said it was a silly superstition, like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and God.

  Mr. Maywit said that we could think what we wanted, but for true he believed in God and so did Mrs. Maywit. They had seen God with their own eyes at the Shouter church over in Santa Rosa. “What exactly did God look like?” Father asked.

  “Like a bill-bird in a cloud,” Mr. Maywit said. “That is what Ma Kennywick say.”

  “So you didn’t see God?”

  “No, Ma Kennywick see God, and I see Ma Kennywick.”

  “Up the Shouters,” the chicken-eyed Mrs. Maywit said.

  “It was a speerience,” Mr. Maywit said.

  “I’m sure,” Father said. “Now tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Know about Duppies?”

  I said, “Mr. Haddy knows about them.”

  “But Mr. Haddy has flown the coop,” Father said. “So let’s give this gentleman the floor. Go on, sir, you’ve given us your proof for the existence of God—that is, Ma Kennywick’s shouting that the Almighty looks like a bill-bird in a cloud. Now tell us what a Duppy is.”

  “The Shouters tell me about them, and lots of folks, even Zambu fellers, believe in Duppies. Mainly, Fadder, they is ghosts.”

  “Of dead people,” Father said.

  “Of alive people.”

  “I see.”

  “Everyone got a Duppy. They is the same as youself. But they is you other self. They got bodies of they own.”

  “So half the world is people and the other half is Duppies, is that right?”

  “Never mind,” Mr. Maywit said.

  Mrs. Maywit was wringing her fingers. She said, “Cep you cain’t ketchum.”

  “Invisible?” Father said.

  “They is here,” Mr. Maywit said. “Somewhere. Waitin. They shows up every time to time. But they ain’t hot you. Make you shout, Duppies do. That is why Shouters see them. Me, I never see my Duppy.”

  Father said, “How do you know I’m not your Duppy?”

  Mr. Maywit did not say another word. He stared at Father and his coffee-dust face became slack with fear. His eyes grew another rim around the sockets. It was as if at last he understood who this man was, and was about to surrender to this belief.

  “That’s enough, Allie,” Mother said. She spoke to Mr. Maywit. “Can’t you see he’s joking?”

  “Never mind.” But Mr. Maywit’s voice trembled as he said so.

  ***

  Father was interested in what Mr. Maywit had said, but he went on joking about Munchies and Duppies. I was sure he believed some of it—it was too good not to believe. Live ghosts! White Indians! And I knew from past experience that Father was never more mocking than when he was discussing something serious. If someone was fearful, Father joked. If the person tried to be funny, Father quoted the Bible or said, “Haven’t you heard there’s a war coming?”

  He was complicated in other ways. After we got to Jeronimo he claimed that he could go without sleep. He was awake when we went to bed, and he was at work when we got up in the morning. He also said he could go for days without food, and never got sick, and wasn’t bitten by mosquitoes. This mystified the Maywits and the Zambus, but I knew he was trying to set an example—if he worked hard and did not complain, the others would have to. Work and lack of sleep did not make him irritable. In fact, I had never seen him happier. And Mother, who loved him in this mood, was happy too.

  Now we had a house and a number of inventions that made life convenient. The Zambus, whom we had met by chance on that Fish Bucket riverbank, seemed contented. They walked around in trunks and short-sleeved shirts that Mother had made for them out of sailcloth. And the Maywits, with Father’s help, improved their own house.

  Our miracle beans were more than half grown and already had pods that Father said would be ready for picking in a few weeks. The other crops flourished beside the spillways of irrigation ditches. Entering Jeronimo from the Swampmouth path, you saw something that looked like a settlement—houses, gardens, stone-paved paths, and the pump wheel flinging water into the drum. It was the civilized place Father had seen that first day, when all we had seen was tall grass and a mud bank and a smoldering armchair.

  I was luckier than anyone. When the twins went down with squitters because of stomach trouble, and then Mother and Jerry, I did not get sick. And I noticed that Father liked me a little better for that. He had a way of insinuating that if anyone was sick he was faking, or at least exaggerating. He never said “He’s sick,” but always “He says he’s sick” or “She claims she’s ill.”

  “I haven’t the time to get sick,” he said. “If I had a little spare time, I’d probably get sick as a dog!”

  One day, Mr. Haddy returned. By then, Father had started building what he called the Plant, which was so far only a large framework of peeled poles two stories high, in the hollow at the back of the cleared land. The boilers were dumped there. We heard the motor before we saw the launch. Father made me climb to the top of the poles to get a look at it.

  “Who is it?
” he said, sounding angry for the first time in Jeronimo.

  “It’s the Little Haddy,” I said. I could see the torn awning and the little wheel house.

  Father was glad about this, but when he got down to the landing he did not like what he saw. Mr. Haddy was not alone. There was a man with him—a white man, carrying a suitcase ashore.

  Mr. Haddy explained that he had pumped out the launch at Fish Bucket, and patched it. He had found that without the boilers and scrap metal there was enough freeboard for it to float easily in the shallowest river. After spending two weeks at Santa Rosa getting it properly fixed, he decided to see if he could make it all the way to Jeronimo, by sailing up the Bonito River, where it branched from the Aguan.

  “I bring you some real food from Rosy—carkles and conks and wilks.” These shellfish were in kegs on the deck. Then he showed us a dead turtle. Its flippers had been hacked off, and its lizard head of beaky bone hung out of its big barnacled shell. “And a hicatee.”

  But Father was not interested.

  He said, “Who’s this hamburger?”

  “This here Mr. Struss from Rosy.”

  “How do you do,” the man said. He stepped forward onto the mushy bank and set his suitcase down. Then he took his sunglasses off and tried to smile, but his eyes wrinkled shut in the sunlight and gave him a squinched face. He was a bit older than Father, and fleshy, and there was a dark sweat patch on every bulge of his body—moons under his arms, and a belt of wet around his waist. He turned his suffering smile on us. “What lovely kids.” He looked beyond us. “And you’ve made yourself a beautiful home.”

  “What do you want?” Father said, blocking the path and keeping the man sinking in mush.

  The Zambus had put down their tools, and the Maywits had trooped from the garden. There were about seventeen of us here, watching Father and the stranger.

  “Mr. Haddy said he was coming up this way. He kindly let me hitch a ride.”

  Mr. Haddy said, “He a paying passenger, but I do all the steering. He work the sounding chain. He know the way.”

  “I’ve been here before. Mr. Roper knows me. Don’t you, Mr. Roper.”

  He was speaking to Mr. Maywit.

  Father said, “There’s no Mr. Roper here. It’s a case of mistaken identity. The heat is making you rave.”

  Mr. Maywit just goggled and kept his mouth shut.

  The man was confused. He put his sunglasses on again and picked at the sweat patches on his shirt and said, “I came here to ask you all a question.”

  “We’re not interested in your questions,” Father said.

  “You just answered it, brother. And I’m glad I came. Because the question is, ‘Are you saved?’ And I’ve got a funny feeling, the Lord—”

  “The Lord is up in that tree,” Father said, pointing with his finger stump at a bill-bird on a branch.

  The man stared at Father’s finger, and even adjusted his sunglasses to get a better look.

  “Go away,” Father said, and gave the man his deaf-man’s smile. “You can’t answer for these people here.”

  “I’m not answering at all,” Father said. “As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t even open your mouth or ask a question. You’re not allowed to. I own this place, and you don’t have my permission to come ashore. If you want to talk to these people, you’ll have to do it somewhere else, outside Jeronimo. About half a mile due north of here you’ll come to a little swamp. That’s Swampmouth, the Jeronimo line. Can’t miss it. You go there and do all the preaching you like. Start walking, Mr. Struss.”

  He handed the man his suitcase.

  “The Lord sent me here,” Mr. Struss said.

  “Bull,” Father said. “The Lord hasn’t got the slightest idea that this place exists. If he had, he would have done something about it a long time ago.”

  “This river doesn’t belong to you, brother.”

  “You planning to walk on the water?” Father said. “If so, don’t say another word until you’re midstream.”

  Mr. Struss looked us over. Flies had gathered on his shoulders and he was breathing hard.

  “You know I’m a fair man.” Father said to us. “If any of you people want to go with him. I won’t stop you. Hurry on down to Swampmouth and listen to what this gentleman has to offer. Anyone interested?”

  Mr. Maywit and his chicken-eyed wife looked anxiously at Father. The Zambus had started giggling.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Roper, will you please—”

  “Shut it,” Father said, and Francis Lungley laughed out loud.

  Mother said, “You’d better do as my husband says. There are some dugout canoes at Swampmouth, and I’ll give you a bag lunch. You’ll have no trouble getting back to the coast.”

  “The Lord wants me here,” Mr. Struss said.

  Father said, “That’s what I like about you people—your complete lack of presumption. But listen, I’m not going to tempt you with martyrdom, so just shove off and don’t come back.”

  A little while later, from the porch of the house, we saw Mr. Struss walking down the riverbank toward Swampmouth. He carried his suitcase in one hand and Mother’s lunch bag in the other. He was alone.

  Father said, “Imagine that hamburger coming all that way to ask a silly question.” He put his face close to Mr. Maywit’s and said, “Are you saved?”

  “Yes, Fadder.”

  He then asked everyone else in turn and they said yes and laughed along with him. He asked me and I said yes, but I was at the window and I saw that, hearing us laugh, Mr. Struss glanced up. He looked sick, but he kept on walking.

  The days passed. They were sunny, there was little rain, they were muffled by dust. But the nights were furious with the ringing cries of insects, and bird grunts that sometimes rose to screams. The darkness helped us hear the soft splash of monkeys on branches, and the chafing of crickyjeens was like combustion, as if every bush and tree were burning. And night heat was more suffocating than in the day, and made sleep seem like death. It was a dreamless plunge into that riot.

  Father spent these days hammering. He did not say why, but his eyes told me that his thoughts were storms. And every man in Jeronimo labored with Father at the plant. It was, so far, only a skeleton, with pipes buckled to poles and men hanging like monkeys to the crosspieces, where they followed Father’s orders. It was slow work, and for a long time it did not look like anything at all.

  The day after the bean harvest, Father declared a holiday. It was our first day off in six weeks of work. The Zambus shot a curassow and the Maywits brought cooked cassava and plantains and fruit. Father would not allow any of the Maywits’ chickens to be killed. “That’s living on your capital.” We had an afternoon feast in the front yard. Mr. Maywit and Mr. Haddy took turns telling stories about the Mosquito Coast—pirates and cannibals—and Clover and April sang “Under the Bam, Under the Boo.”

  Father gave a speech about us. We were bricks, he said. He went on to explain all the things you could do with bricks. And he got angry only once. This was when Mr. Haddy praised the food. Father hated anyone talking about food—cooking it or eating it. Fools did it, he said. It was selfish and indecent to talk about how things tasted.

  He called this our first thanksgiving.

  It was now August. Mr. Maywit said he knew this without looking at a calendar, because the sickla bird had arrived. The bird was shiny green and yellow, and very small, with a warbling song that reminded me of the fluting music we had heard the boy play on the beach our first evening in La Ceiba.

  Work on the plant continued. The mahogany planks were hoisted into position and bolted to the poles. The floors told me nothing, but when the sides went up it took on a familiar shape, and before it was finished I guessed what it was.

  14

  MOST OF THEM, including the Maywits (they had seen one in Trujillo), thought that Father had run mad and built a silo.

  “Shoo! What green you gung put in it?” Mr. Haddy said, speaking for everyone.

&n
bsp; Father said he was not going to put anything into it, and certainly not grain. “But just you wait and see what I pull out of it! And keep pulling! Listen”—he whispered and stared—“this gizmo is sempiternal. It won’t ever quit.”

  It was not the bottle that some silos are, nor was it a thermos-jug shape, and there were no feed bins. It was tall and square-sided. It had now windows and only one hatchway door, twenty feet up and no stairs to it. It was a plain wooden building, a huge mahogany closet raised up in our clearing in the jungle. A box—but a gigantic box, with a tin lid. It was an oddity of such magnificence that it was a thing in itself, like an Egyptian pyramid. Its great shape was enough. It did not need another purpose. But I knew it was the Worm Tub, enlarged a thousand times.

  No sooner was it raised than flocks of people came to look. I supposed our hammering was heard in the woods. Father made these strangers welcome. They were hill Indians and Spanish-speaking farmers, and Creoles and Zambus. The Indians did not stay, but the others did—Mr. Harkins and Mr. Peaselee, old Mrs. Kennywick (the very one who had seen God in the Shouter church), and some more. They said that they had watched the house—as they called it—rising. They marveled at it. It was taller than the trees and flat topped like nothing else around here. They had seen it from far-off.

  That was an advantage, their curiosity. Just when Father needed help, these people crept out of the trees and said they were willing. With the finishing of the other buildings and the first harvest and the rest of the crops coming along fast—all we needed—everyone in Jeronimo assumed our work was done. This made the plant—as Father went on calling it—a bewildering surprise. What was it for? What was it doing here?