The lost city, p.29
The Lost City, page 29
Look, señor, she caught us these.
He opened his mochila and pulled out a sleek folded grey bird, and some small brown squirrel-like mammal. The cat yawned, as if it knew it was being discussed.
How did you find me?
I followed you, señor. You walk round and round all over the forest. I could tell where you had been. I found these things.
Ignacio held up a box of matches and a plastic bag with some grain in it.
And your bag.
Rice, Jackson said. We can have it with your squirrel. His throat ached again.
Ignacio pulled out a pocketful of leaves that looked like watercress. Good, señor. We cook these, and this.
From another pocket he pulled out a white bulb with a green stalk.
We cut it. It makes you strong, señor.
The cat appeared periodically with its mouth stuffed with a small bundle of fur, and sometimes of wet feathers. It truly was a good hunter. It was as if it had found some secret store, some tame population it could plunder at will.
Ignacio had already made a fire. A circle of ash lay a few yards away beside the trunk of a tall sapling.
The first hot thing Jackson consumed was a mug of tea. A mix of tea leaves and other larger leaves that Ignacio must have gathered in the forest floated in it. Jackson sipped slowly. It was bitter and sour, but the warmth travelling down inside him felt so good he lay back and closed his eyes.
He instructed Ignacio on how to cook the rice. The boy brought the pan to him every so often, carrying it carefully from the fire with the edge of his poncho, and Jackson tested the grains with a spoon. When it was done he told him to bring the tin plate and he strained it, the hot milky water steaming into the ground beside his sleeping bag.
From the village it took four days to find you, Ignacio told him.
He was sitting on the tree trunk again, looking past Jackson down the hill into the trees.
I followed the signs. Once I found where you left the stream the rest was easy. I see where you stop and camp, and the cat helped find the way. She is very good. She catches the food, she knows the way.
What village?
The old woman there, she told me you had been.
Jackson lay still.
How did you know to go there?
I hear you talking about Choctamal. When we were at the farm.
They sat in silence awhile.
Jackson was full of a kind of silent brightness. It made it hard to think. He could feel the thoughts rising and getting in a tangle and falling away again before they could form in his mind. He lay still a long time.
I’m lucky, Jackson said after a while. Thank you.
I hear the señora talking, señor, Ignacio said.
The señora?
The americana. Sarah. Ignacio said her name quietly, as if embarrassed by it. Sí, he went on. So I think I must help you. She is very afraid for you. They talk about you, they say you are lost. So I came to find you. We must use the radio, señor, Ignacio said.
The radio?
Ignacio held up the transmitter-beacon.
I found this, he said. We can call for help.
Jackson’s head began to swim. A worried feeling started in his belly and he lay back and closed his eyes, and the feeling subsided.
I found many things, Ignacio said. I found your bag, your sleeping bag, your food.
Later Ignacio brought him some small charred carcass on a stick. Half the innards were still in place, blackened by fire.
Jackson gnawed at the thing as he lay on his back, little flecks falling onto him. He didn’t mind. The taste was rich and fierce. He pulled off little sheets of flesh from the ribs, and strings of meat from the limbs. It took a long time to chew.
We have to get to a river, he said. That’s the only way it will work. A river. Somewhere we can be seen from the air.
From the air?
From the sky. Or a clearing. Somewhere without trees.
Ignacio stared at him, not understanding.
The next day Jackson was roused by Ignacio’s voice calling to him.
I found a clearing, señor.
At first Jackson had no idea what he meant. Then gradually sleep drained from his mind.
Where? How far?
Jackson tried getting up. As soon as he was crouching he became intensely dizzy and fell back. When he came to, Ignacio was squatting beside him with another mug of his tea.
There was nothing for it, they had to move camp.
A day and a half now Jackson had been drinking Ignacio’s forest infusions and eating the scraps of food he brought. He could sit up without fainting, and stand with the help of a stick.
They set off after breakfasting on the last of the rice. Jackson wore the pack, which they filled together, and Ignacio let him lean one hand on his small shoulder, while he grasped a stick in the other.
At first Jackson had to stop every few steps and crouch with his head in his hands to bring the dizziness under control. But he didn’t mind. There was no need to hurry. Ignacio knew the forest and they could survive in it. He trusted that. Jackson was happy because the boy was with him. He had the feeling time was on his side.
But it was hard going, and took a long time. At one point Jackson had to lie down and at once dropped into a deep slumber. He woke to find Ignacio nudging his foot, breathing, Señor, señor.
They stopped often to drink water from a clear plastic bottle Ignacio had.
The trees’ shadows were long, the ground striped all over with them. They came out onto a patch of hillside, a broad ridge where there were rocks and the trees stood back to let the stony ground rise up.
Here, señor.
Jackson saw it was a clearing, and the sky grew wide as they moved onto it, a hard sheet of metal overhead. It was too much. His heart began to race and his breathing came quick, and he lay down before he fainted again.
When he opened his eyes he saw that it would do.
Tomorrow morning, he said. Bring me the beacon.
Ignacio stared at him.
The radio. Let me see.
Ignacio made a fire and they ate a soup of water and leaves as the sun winked low through the crown of trees surrounding the knoll. At first light he would trigger the device.
First he heard a rhythmic knocking that could have been a woodpecker. Then it deepened to a drumming, then a kind of throb you could feel in your chest, and he knew for sure what it was.
Ignacio was standing and looking around. His cat crouched beside him, its eyes big and dark. Then they were both gone, Ignacio and his cat. They scarpered down the hill and were lost in the forest. Jackson called after them, saying it was OK, but he couldn’t have been heard. Already the noise was deafening, and the trees were hissing and seething. There was a whine in the air, and the machine rose over the nearest ridge of treetops, a red-and-white civilian helicopter. It circled the area, its tail swinging high, then hovered, and Jackson saw its door slide open. Against the bright sky he could hardly make out the man in the dark interior.
The wind was in his eyes and he had to look away. A storm of old leaves and dust and bark skidded past. He heard the engine pitch change and grow, and knew without looking that the helicopter was coming down. The wind lessened, though the pitch didn’t drop. He shielded his eyes and turned to look.
Two men carrying automatic rifles were coming toward him. He let them come. There was nothing he could do, whoever they were.
He called out a greeting as they came close, and one of the men lifted his gun with the barrel down. Jackson saw the swing then the butt cracked the side of his head and made him bite so hard his jaw rang. Singing burst in his ears, and everything went still for a moment, then black.
2
On the morning Brown was packing up to leave Chachapoyas, his mission aborted, having failed to locate the young man, there was a rapping on his door.
The hotel man was there with a note in his hand.
On the note was a phone number. It was the consul’s private line, except a digit had been taken down wrong.
At first Brown was tempted to leave, to ignore the message. He had half an hour to get to the bus station. It was Monday morning. If he caught the eleven o’clock bus he’d make it to the coast tonight, and be home tomorrow.
With a sigh, he locked the door and went downstairs to the telephone in reception.
The American anthropologist was down in the lobby seated in an armchair with his head gravely inclined toward a copy of Time magazine. He raised his face, stared at Brown for a moment, then nodded.
Wanker, Brown thought. All that fake gravity and sageness. You’re a grad student on the make, that’s all. He nodded back.
The consul’s voice in the receiver: I’ve had a message. Lord knows what you’re up to, you mysterious fellow, but the message is, apparently, that they think they’ve got him. Surveillance picked up the signal of a beacon. But by the time they got the chopper together and on its way the signal was moving. On and off—consistent with a flight through mountains. Low level. They think someone else got to him first. You’re to go back to your contact up there and try to find out.
For a moment Brown thought: why all the fuss? Why didn’t they just let it be? In a country like this, you could count on things to muddle along in their own chaotic way regardless of what you did. And anyway, wouldn’t Jackson surely be dead by now, after all those days and nights in the jungle?
Apparently the worry is secession, the consul droned on. The region is all but autonomous as it is. As you know.
Brown wasted no time and headed out into the street.
Montoya saw him right away. Yes, yes, he said before they even sat down in his stiff, ancient salon, before they even walked across its threshold. Montoya waved Brown to a hard wicker seat, and took his own place on a leather chair behind his desk.
Yes, I have had this message. Like you hope, I think. Carreras has the boy, the young inglés. He wants to know what you want to talk about.
Talks. The Americans are offering talks.
Brown said it abruptly, excitedly. His blood was pumping. He could feel a stool forming and pressing for release. At last. It was long overdue. He was suddenly full of excitement as if he really did care about all this. He felt for a moment that he actually did. He was beginning to see a way it might all unfold like clockwork. If the beacon wasn’t going to lead them to Carreras then perhaps Jackson himself could lead Carreras to them. He could hardly wait to find Sarah and tell her the good news. At least the potential good news. Her side of the good news. And there could be a welcome party waiting for Carreras. Brown would be the hero of the moment, the one who managed not only to get Carreras but to bring Jackson Small back from the dead. He’d get the credit and the raise. It was true it might get hot, anyone might easily find themselves caught in crossfire. Nor would Carreras like it when he realised he’d been brought into an ambush. He might well finish the young man off then and there, if he had a chance.
He could see it all. I’m so sorry my dear, he’d say to Sarah. I did try. I told Jackson to keep down. And she’d look at him with her eyes washed clear with grief, and gratitude for his efforts. Everyone knew bereaved women were the most seducible. But it wouldn’t just be about seduction—no, the gratitude would grow into lasting love. Yes, it could all work out like a dream.
Talks? Montoya asked. Really? You have their word? The Americans, they will press the government for this meeting?
That’s what they’re saying. Yes.
There is probably one minister they wish to talk with. Last time, Carreras demanded talks with the finance minister. My guess is it will be the same this time. If we’re lucky, that is, and he agrees to ask for anything. I will see the message is passed on and try to make some arrangements. I’ll call you at your hotel later.
Brown could hardly keep himself from breaking into a jog as he went over to the priest’s flat to find Sarah. She had taken him there to meet Padre Beltrán, and he knew she could often be found there.
He knocked on the gate at the end of the alley where the priest lived but there was no answer. He called out, and heard no response.
Faintly he heard the sound of singing somewhere. Perhaps it was coming from the church. He walked into the little plaza and up the steps to the main entrance. He swung through the door, and heard a man speaking up near the altar, and a rapping of some kind that echoed through the cool dark of the tall edifice. The man’s voice ceased, and after a little pause the singing started again—high clear voices, just a handful of them, singing some kind of hymn. They were presumably local women, and for a second Brown wondered whether any of them might be young and good-looking.
A church choir, for God’s sake, he told himself. What’s the matter with you? And at once he thought of Sarah with a spasm of longing so intense it would have floored any arousal instantly.
He walked up the aisle. Through the carved wooden screen behind the altar he could make out a man’s arm moving. He walked around and saw Padre Beltrán with a music stand before him and a white candle in one hand, conducting a little line of local boys.
They weren’t very good. Beltrán said loudly, No, no, no, and tapped his makeshift baton on the music stand, stopping them.
Brown coughed in the susurrating quiet that followed.
Beltrán glanced at him, looked away, then looked back.
That young man we were talking about? They’ve got him.
Beltrán turned to face him and raised his eyebrows. He had this way about him, this priest, slightly supercilious. It was as if he wouldn’t quite trust you as an equal because he was so used to taking the moral high ground. He turned back to the choir. Boys, we must take a little break. Come back in twenty minutes.
Up in the flat, with Sarah in the room—she had been writing her journal, she said, on a terrace at the back—Brown didn’t beat about the bush.
They have him. We don’t know what kind of state he’s in but we think he’s alive, that’s the main thing.
He couldn’t help smiling as he said this.
He noticed the click as Sarah put down the cup of coffee she was holding. She stood up from the table where she had been sitting, and looked at him, her face bright. Bright was the word. It wasn’t just shining, it seemed literally filled with light. Brown felt momentarily winded. What a catch, he thought. What a catch for that useless half-baked explorer, that drifter with all his life ahead of him.
It was just like a film, Brown thought. The three of them standing in the kitchen, no one quite sure what to say, not quite sure of anything. The padre stood with his back to the sink nodding.
He had missed the bus but it hardly mattered now. He had made her happy. He had done some good in the world. Did it make any difference? Not really, not for him. After all this, what would he do but head back to the grindstone? But he felt that there was a certain kind of weary, familiar pleasure in that, in going back home having accomplished something; at least to some kind of home, however far flung.
3
Jackson woke in darkness. To the side of him he could see a single line of light.
He tried to turn his head to find out which way he was lying, on his back or his front. He moved a little and a fierce ache hit him. He was lying on a hard surface; it seared the back of his head. He must have a bruise there, a bad bruise.
A grunt escaped his lips and echoed. He wasn’t sure if it was resonating in his skull or in some small chamber. The line of light was a little way away from him. He stared at it.
It all came back: the forest, the gale of a helicopter overhead, the roar, the snarl of it, and the two men, the crack on his skull.
He forced himself to swing his legs down, knocking something over with his shin. He felt around for it. As he reached out there was a sharp pain in his forearm, and something metal clanged to the floor. He felt his arm. There was a plaster on it, and beneath it something small and hard, and from it a pipe came out, bendable and soft.
He reached down with his other hand and found the first thing he’d knocked over: a plastic bottle. In the dark he unscrewed the cap and put the neck to his lips, and pulled in a mouthful. The liquid tasted bitter, salty, and he spat it out at once. It left a dry, chalky taste in the back of his throat.
How long had he been out?
He waited a moment in case the liquid burned. The sip had awakened a desperate thirst. He guzzled from the bottle until he choked. Then his stomach began to ache. He curled up again on the hard surface on which he had been lying, the pipe attached to his forearm no longer pulling painfully, until the ache in his belly passed.
He lay still in the dark, growing ever more conscious of that line of light to his side. He could hear sounds—the crowing of a chicken, a faint babble of running water, and the distant gurgle of an engine. These sounds were pleasant. Now that the water he had drunk had entered his body and he could feel it being absorbed, he felt at peace. He lay still, weightless on the bench. He floated, the bench floated, the floor floated, this whole world floated.
Into this peace arose the question again: how long had he been here? The question brought with it a tight, uncomfortable feeling in his belly, which he would rather not experience, so he put the question away. He was capable of doing that. Another question arose: where was he? That too he put aside for now. He was able to. He had never known it could be so easy to choose your thoughts.
He was surprised at how easy it was to lie still and feel his breath rising and falling, and feel the peace of the whole world, inside and out, rising like dough, all through the sounds he could hear, through the light filtering into the room, through his own breaths and the rustling of his clothes as his chest moved and through his entire body. He knew he had once worried a lot, and now he could not think why.
The line of light lay along the foot of a door. It was a door of ribbed metal. He considered getting up and trying it but that too could wait.
