Along the Endless River

by Rose Alexander

Anselmo rolled over onto his side and took one of her hands in his. ‘Before we left,’ he said, ‘I was explaining to him how difficult it was all going to be on the little cash that I had. One needs capital, Katharine, to set up in rubber. There’s a lot of competition, as you’ve seen for yourself. And your father offered – I didn’t ask – his life savings. To help us with our dream. A small loan that would make us all rich in just a few years. He’ll get a return of 1000 per cent – more! – on rubber, instead of the paltry 5 per cent from the bank he’s got it stashed away in.’

  In the darkness, rendered speechless, Katharine’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Her father’s life savings. All his money, which wasn’t just for him and her mother but had presumably been put away for all the children, too. In fact, she knew that her parents wanted the younger children to stay on longer at school if they showed the aptitude for it, so that they could get better jobs in the future. The boys could be clerks! Bookkeepers! Engineers! Mabel already knew she wanted to be a teacher. And both her parents needed to give up work at some time in the future and enjoy a peaceful retirement, even if for only a few years. Without what they had so diligently put away over their entire working lives, that would be impossible.

  Anselmo seemed to take her silence as approval. ‘I told him, that money will have quadrupled in just a few years and he was properly chuffed about it. What could possibly go wrong, I said to him, and he volunteered it, all of it, no further questions asked.’

  Katharine pictured her mother and father and her little brothers and sister, sitting around a table bare of food, shoeless feet pitifully red and swollen in the cold of winter. She saw her father, slaving on at the docks for years, until the end of this century and into the next, despite his bad lungs, his constant coughs and chest infections, and her mother, worn ragged and half blind from taking in ever greater amounts of sewing to make ends meet. Neither of them was in the best of health, especially her father. One of her doubts about leaving had been whether they would survive until her return.

  How could Anselmo have let her father give him all his money? Why had her father offered it? How come she hadn’t known? She tried to convince herself that it would all be fine, more than fine, exactly as Anselmo said. Rubber was a dead cert, a sure-fire way of earning hard cash beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. But with a further journey of many days through the most hazardous part of the rainforest before they even got to their land, let alone recruited any labour to work on it, let alone made a single rubber bolacha, it was hard, impossible in fact, to have Anselmo’s sense of certainty. And then there were all the things she was finding out, the ‘rounding up’ of Indians that had such a ring of coercion about it, in addition to the fact that, however charming he was, they were effectively hostages to Mac when it came to his control of the isthmus.

  Her feelings had oscillated backwards and forwards so wildly during their trip so far, between admitting defeat, giving it all up and going back to the comfort and safety of home, to plunging on ahead into the forest and making their fortune while also having the greatest adventure of their lives. But now, everything was different. Now, there was no choice.

  She had something important she had wanted to tell Anselmo, but the shocking revelation he just shared had prevented her from going ahead. It wasn’t the right moment and would have to wait. Anselmo was snoring already anyway, tired out by hatching plans and working on strategies – not to mention the great deal of strong alcohol that had been quaffed.

  Katharine lay, struggling to nod off. Her last thought, before finally falling into a fitful sleep, was of whether they would ever be able to pay her father back.

  Chapter Six

  When she woke in the morning, Katharine was overwhelmed by a different agony to that caused by Anselmo’s late-night revelation. This pain was a physical rather than a mental one, an intolerable need to itch her head. Not one particular part of it, but all of it, her cheeks, chin, nose and forehead, her eyes and scalp and crown.

  She tried to sit up but found herself hopelessly entangled in the mosquito net which seemed to have become detached from its ceiling hook and to be swathing her in yards of gossamer-thin, grubby white fabric that became more knotted and invasive the more she attempted to rid herself of it.

  Battling frantically with the net, desperate to get a hand free so she could assuage the maddening itching, her contortions roused Anselmo, who blearily opened his eyes. After all the alcohol drunk the night before, it took a few moments for his vision to clear. When he did, his shriek of horror made Katharine jump out of her skin.

  ‘What? What is it? What’s the matter?’

  But Anselmo seemed to have been rendered mute and could only point a wavering finger towards her.

  Finally free of the enveloping net, Katharine leapt out of bed and towards the dressing table, upon which was a looking glass. Picking it up, she held it in front of her. The sight that greeted her was nothing short of horrific. Her entire face was covered in mosquito bites, some swollen and red, some weeping a clear liquid and some bleeding freely. They were absolutely everywhere, from her eyelids to her ear lobes. She looked like an illustration from a penny dreadful, or an exhibit in a freak show.

  ‘Oh, my lord,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, good grief. What on earth…?’ Weakly, she replaced the mirror as tears welled in her eyes. ‘What’s happened to me?’ she pleaded to Anselmo.

  Each salty tear brought new agony as it coursed over the open wounds of the insect bites.

  ‘Your head must not have been covered by the net during the night,’ he said, ‘and the mosquitoes have had a feast. My poor, poor love. That looks…’

  ‘Say it,’ moaned Katharine, her fists clenched by her sides to try to quell the desperate urge to scratch. ‘I look horrendous.’ She slumped down onto the bed beside him. ‘I suppose my appearance doesn’t matter much,’ she wept, ‘there’s so few people here to see me. But still… it hurts, Anselmo. It really hurts.’

  It must have been her extreme anxiety about Anselmo’s confession that had caused her to toss and turn with such vigour that she brought the net down. What kind of a place was this that they had come to, she thought but did not say, that they now could not leave until they had made enough money? But how were they going to survive here, when everything around them seemed to want to kill them, from the savages to the wildlife?

  Lost in self-pity, she became dimly aware of a scuffling around her feet and snapped her gaze towards it, ready to stamp on any species of invertebrate life that might be looking to have another go. But it was just Esperanza, come to investigate the fuss. She must have been asleep, thought Katharine, or she would have covered my head with the net. The child took in Katharine’s hideous bites, shook her head in dismay and scuttled hurriedly away.

  ‘I’m even bad enough to frighten the Indians,’ she moaned, ‘and look at them with their war paint and tattoos and practice of head mutilation of their infants!’

  Anselmo was holding her hands, partly in sympathy, and partly to stop her from tearing at her skin with them.

  ‘It’ll get better,’ he urged. ‘In no time at all.’

  But they both knew that most Europeans reacted extremely badly to the bites of the Amazon’s voracious insects, that numerous hideous illnesses were carried by them and also that wounds of any kind took a long while to heal in this wet climate.

  Esperanza came hurtling back into the room. In her hand was a plate on which stood green hillocks of halved limes.

  Katharine grimaced. ‘I don’t want gin now, Esperanza. Thank you – but not now.’

  The little girl shook her head. Climbing onto the bed, she knelt beside Katharine, picked up a lime half, and tenderly dabbed at her skin with it.

  ‘Ow!’ Katharine winced and shrunk back from her as the acidic juice bit at her flesh.

  ‘Shhh,’ soothed the girl, the first sound Katharine had ever heard her utter.

  And it was true that, after the initial spike of intense pain, the lime did
provide some relief from the incessant, tormenting itching.

  Katharine sent down her apologies with Anselmo at breakfast time, telling him to let Mac know that she was indisposed. She lay on her bed, the limes by her side, continually dabbing at her poor swollen face, feeling utterly wretched. When Anselmo came back up to the room to tell her his plans for the day, she found it hard to summon the energy to even listen to him.

  ‘We’re going to take the steamer I’ve leased out for a spin,’ he said, clearly making a great effort to staunch his glee out of respect for Katharine’s misery. ‘Me, Charles and a few of Mac’s Indians who know the river well. Mac isn’t joining; he says it’s best if I establish myself as the one in command from the off. I’m sorry you can’t come, my love. But I’m sure by this evening you’ll be feeling a bit better.’

  Katharine nodded feebly, making her best effort to smile. She didn’t want her woes to dampen Anselmo’s obvious eagerness to keep their expedition upriver on track, to press on as soon as possible to their rubber land. And, given that turning back was no longer an option, she herself was gripped with an overpowering urge to get underway in order to begin repaying her father without delay. Just that today, with her poor face so mutilated and painful, and with an enormous headache, she couldn’t face going anywhere.

  She managed to haul herself from her bed to watch from the veranda as the little party boarded the boat. Mac’s soft voice with its lilting accent rose up to her in the clear air.

  ‘Take as much time as you need to check out the goods you’re paying for,’ he chuckled, genially. ‘The weather’s set fair for now. With the rainy season approaching, that isn’t guaranteed.’

  Anselmo grinned and then, looking up at the villa and seeing Katharine there, waved brightly to her. A sudden desire to share the news she had kept to herself the night before and to say a proper goodbye surged through her, giving her an energy boost. Forgetting about her grotesque appearance for a moment, Katharine picked up her skirts, ran down the stairs and along the boarded walkway to the dock, Esperanza following in hot, uncomprehending pursuit.

  Katharine ran to Anselmo and flung her arms around him. ‘It’s all right about the money,’ she said, her words muffled from being buried in his shirt. ‘You’re right, we’ll pay it back in spades.’

  Anselmo smiled and kissed her forehead.

  ‘And Anselmo – I have something to tell you.’

  He looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘I was going to last night but the news about my father’s – um, my father’s gift – took me by surprise and the moment passed.’ She paused to catch her breath before resuming. ‘The thing is that I think, I mean, I’m pretty certain – sure, in fact – that I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby!’

  The last words came out in such a rush that she had to stop, breathless again.

  Anselmo seemed as dumbstruck about Katharine’s announcement as she had been by his. But after a few moments of silence, he suddenly grasped her tightly to him, almost lifting off her feet, crying, ‘That is wonderful news. The best I could ever have. Well done, my sweet one, well done.’

  Katharine laughed out loud. Anselmo made it sound as if she had won a race or carried away a top prize, when all that she had really achieved was conceiving a child, and it hadn’t been that difficult! As they stood looking at each other, Anselmo beaming with pride and pleasure and Katharine with delight in his delight, the steamer let off its horn.

  ‘Time to get on board,’ Anselmo said, and turned to go. And then turned straight back and grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her towards him and kissing the top of her head. ‘I’m so happy,’ he whispered. ‘So, so happy.’

  But then Mac was calling, ‘You should be on your way,’ and, reluctantly, Anselmo followed the others up the gangplank and onto the boat.

  ‘Remember the days are short in the tropics,’ Mac added, ‘you want to make the most of the light, so you do.’

  He did not appear to have noticed Katharine and Anselmo’s exchange, and when his eyes fell upon her disfigured face, he merely looked politely away as if wishing to spare her embarrassment. Katharine presumed he had seen it all before, that all his years in the Amazon had exposed him to every one of its many afflictions and ailments. There was nothing he could do to help and he was probably thinking it would teach Katharine to be more careful with her net in future. An amateur mistake, a schoolboy error, he was probably thinking, so it is.

  ‘Goodbye, my darling love, my precious Katy,’ Anselmo called down from the steamer’s deck, looking wistfully back towards Katharine as if she already held their baby in her arms rather than it still forming inside her. ‘I love you – even if you do look like the Elephant Man.’

  Katharine had to laugh despite herself. He always had this power to lift her spirits. Thank goodness they had each other and were undertaking this epic journey together. It would be unthinkable to do it alone.

  Po-Po came to join her in seeing the expedition party off, lured out by all the activity from wherever he’d been hiding.

  ‘And I’ve got you, too, haven’t I?’ whispered Katharine to the little bird.

  The ship’s engines started up with a low, grumbling rumble, the water gurgled and churned beneath its bows and it was off, purposeful, like a pug dog running with its head down.

  ‘It will all be fine,’ called Anselmo to Katharine, clearly referencing the money and understanding that she still had doubts about it. ‘Trust me, Katy. Trust me.’

  ‘I do,’ she shouted back. ‘I always will.’

  Po-Po brushed against her legs and gave a long, slow whistle as if in farewell to Anselmo.

  ‘It will, won’t it Po-Po?’ Katharine said, bending down to her pet. ‘It will all be fine.’ Po-Po put his head on one side in that endearing way he had, his darting, intelligent eyes seeming to see into her soul. And then he was off, attention taken by a beetle in the mud, no longer concerned by human affairs.

  Katharine looked back up, towards the boat, straining her eyes to see it, waving.

  ‘I love you!’ she mouthed, knowing that Anselmo could no longer hear as the boat receded into the distance. And then, as she watched, it disappeared from sight around a bend in the river and was swallowed up by the dark heart of the jungle.

  Chapter Seven

  The steamer did not return at the expected time that day. Katharine waited, on the veranda, on the dock, by the water’s edge. But its solid bulk never hove into view.

  In the afternoon, the sky darkened and a ferocious storm blew up, black clouds racing over the trees and catching in the branches. The tempest raged all through the evening and into the night, the wild wind whipping up towering waves and clouds unleashing torrential rain that fell like bullets on the saturated land. Squalls pulled young saplings out by their roots and flung them violently down to the ground where they broke like matchsticks.

  ‘They must have gone further than expected – but they’ll turn up soon, never fear. Time has no meaning in the Amazon, you’ll soon discover that,’ Mac assured Katharine and Laure, before lighting one of his noxious cigars and taking a puff. ‘Apart from anything else, no one has a watch that works! The mechanisms rust in the damp and you’re left using the sun like the damn natives.’

  His chuckles ricocheted through Katharine’s aching head, causing her to shrink back from him, from everyone.

  By the following morning, calm had been restored, a rosy dawn revealing a newly benign river under a clear blue sky, scattered piles of debris the only signs of the night’s savagery. The very air seemed freshly laundered, washed clean and full of hope.

  Then the Indians returned.

  Cries accompanied their arrival – of alarm and fear and consternation. Katharine, who had barely slept, rushed to the dock to be confronted by three prone corpses, lying in a row on the rain-dark wooden boards. Their faces were swollen and distorted from their time in the water, and their clothes torn to rags, but they were still identifiable. Two were Mac’s se
rvants who had gone on the excursion.

  The third was Anselmo.

  At first, Katharine could not comprehend it. She stood in stunned and silent disbelief, before sinking to her knees and throwing herself over the cold, wet figure of her husband. When she vomited, she just managed to miss the embroidered cloth that had been placed over him.

  They left her for a while, Mac and Laure, Philippe and Clara, kneeling over the corpse. Only silent Esperanza kept her company, appearing by her side and slipping her hand into Katharine’s in mute commiseration.

  Despair gnawed holes in Katharine’s stomach and grabbed at her heart, which felt heavy as a dead weight in her chest. Her bites itched and she scratched them, violently and vigorously, wanting them to bleed, wanting that physical pain to assuage the grief that was raging inside herself. It was too great for tears or sobbing or weeping or wailing. It was just a quiet, monumental agony that Katharine knew no way to express.

  Eventually, after how long Katharine did not know, Laure reappeared and pulled her gently by the arm. Dazed, Katharine stood up. Her head spun and her legs wobbled and she slumped against Laure’s petite frame, but somehow the two of them managed to stumble to a bench beneath the house’s overhanging roof. Katharine sank heavily down onto the rough-hewn wooden planks, and Laure sat down beside her.

  ‘Laure,’ Katharine murmured, ‘I’m so sorry. I haven’t asked about Charles. Is there no word?’

  Laure shook her head. Katharine could see blood on her lip where her anxiety had caused her to bite into it.

  ‘Oh, my lord,’ breathed Katharine. ‘I’m so sorry. But…’ the thought dawned on her as she was speaking, ‘perhaps that’s a good thing. If they haven’t found his… him – perhaps it means he’s all right.’

  Laure nodded, fighting back tears. ‘Maybe.’

  Her voice was almost inaudible. Katharine took her hand. It was limp. Her whole body was bent forward as if she wanted to fold herself in half and disappear.