Kingdom of the Golden Dragon

  He never said a word about Nadia Santos, or Eagle, as he called her. His family knew that he had left a friend in the Amazon, but only his mother, Lisa, guessed the depth of their relationship. Eagle was more important to him than all his friends put together, including the beautiful Cecilia Burns. He had no intention of exposing his memory of Nadia to the curiosity of a mob of ignorant teenagers who would never believe that the girl could talk with animals, or that she had found three fabulous diamonds, the largest and most valuable in the world. And certainly he couldn’t mention that she had learned the art of making herself invisible. He himself had witnessed the Indians disappear at will, like chameleons taking on the colors and textures of the jungle; it was impossible to see them in broad daylight and from only six feet away. He had attempted their disappearing act but had never learned the skill. Nadia, on the other hand, did it as easily as if becoming invisible were the most natural thing in the world.

  Jaguar wrote to Eagle almost every day, sometimes a paragraph or two, sometimes more. He stored up the pages and every Friday mailed them in a large envelope. The letters took over a month to reach Santa María de la Lluvia, which was on the border between Brazil and Venezuela, but the two friends were resigned to the delays. Eagle lived in an isolated and primitive little village where the only telephone belonged to the police, and e-mail had never been heard of.

  Nadia answered his letters with laboriously written brief notes, as if writing were a difficult task for her, but all it took was a few words from one of her letters and Alexander could sense her beside him, like a real presence. Each of those letters brought a breath of the jungle to California: sounds of water and concerts of birds and monkeys. Sometimes Jaguar thought that he could actually smell the damp of the trees, and that if he held out his hand he would be able to touch his friend. In her first letter, Eagle had told him that he should “read with his heart,” just as before he had learned to “listen with his heart.” According to her, that was the way to communicate with animals, or to understand an unknown language. With a little practice, Alexander learned to do that; then he discovered that he didn’t need paper and ink to feel that he was in contact with Nadia. If he was alone, and if it was quiet, he simply thought about Eagle and could hear her. But he enjoyed writing her anyway. It was like keeping a diary.

  When the door of the plane opened in New York, and the passengers finally could stretch their legs after six hours of immobility, Alexander exited carrying his backpack, hot and cramped but very happy at the idea of seeing his grandmother. His tan had faded, and his hair had grown; it now covered the scar on his head. He remembered that on his previous visit Kate had not met him at the airport, and he recalled how upset he had been. It was, after all, the first time he had traveled alone, but now he laughed to think how afraid he’d been. This time his grandmother had been very clear: they were to meet at the airport.

  Almost as soon as he came off of the long ramp into the gate area, he saw Kate Cold. She hadn’t changed: the same spiky hair, the same broken eyeglasses mended with tape, the same jacket with a thousand pockets—all filled, the same knee-length, baggy shorts revealing thin, muscled legs scored like tree bark. The only surprise was her expression, which ordinarily conveyed concentrated fury. Alexander had not often seen his grandmother smile, although she frequently burst out laughing at the least opportune times—an explosive laugh like yipping dogs. Now she was smiling with something that resembled tenderness, although it was highly unlikely that she was capable of such a sentiment.

  “Hi, Kate!” he greeted her, a little frightened by the possibility that his grandmother might be going a little soft in the head.

  “You’re a half hour late,” she spit out, coughing.

  “All my fault,” he replied, calmed by her tone. She was the grandmother he’d always known; the smile had been an optical illusion.

  Alexander took her arm as unemotionally as possible and planted a loud kiss on her cheek. She pushed him away, wiped off the kiss, and invited him for a soda, because they had two hours to kill before taking off for London on their way to New Delhi. Alex followed her to the clubroom for frequent flyers. The writer, who traveled often, at least allowed herself that luxury. Kate showed her card and they went in. Then, only nine feet away, he saw the surprise his grandmother had prepared for him: Nadia Santos.

  Alex gave a shout, dropped his backpack, and opened his arms impulsively, but immediately contained himself, embarrassed. Nadia, too, blushed and hesitated a minute, not knowing how to act before this person who suddenly seemed like a stranger. She didn’t remember his being so tall, and in addition his face had changed, his features were sharper. Finally happiness overcame confusion, and she ran and threw herself against her friend’s chest. Alexander found that Nadia hadn’t grown at all during those months; she was still the same ethereal little girl, honey-colored from head to toe, with a ring of parrot feathers holding back her curly hair.

  As she waited for her vodka at the bar, Kate pretended to be giving all her attention to a magazine. The two friends, overjoyed at being reunited after their long separation and at starting off together on a new adventure, kept murmuring each other’s totemic name: Jaguar . . . Eagle . . .

  • • •

  The idea of inviting Nadia to come along on the trip had been in Kate’s head for months. She kept in touch with César Santos, the girl’s father, because he was supervising the programs of the Diamond Foundation in their effort to preserve the native forests and indigenous cultures of the Amazon. Santos knew the region better than anyone; he was the perfect man for that job. Through him, Kate learned that the People of the Mist, whose leader was a colorful and ancient woman named Iyomi, showed signs of adapting rapidly to the changes they were being forced to make. Iyomi had decided to send four young people—two boys and two girls—to Manaos to study. She wanted them to learn the customs of the nahab, as her people called anyone who was not an Indian, so they could serve as a link between the two cultures.

  While the rest of the tribe stayed in the jungle, living off what they hunted and fished, the four representatives were dropped right into the middle of the twenty-first century. As soon as they got used to wearing clothes and had mastered a basic vocabulary in Portuguese, they threw themselves valiantly into learning “the magic of the nahab,” beginning with two formidable inventions: matches and buses. In fewer than six months, they had learned of the existence of computers, and at the rate they were going, according to César Santos, one day in the not too distant future they would be able to engage in cutthroat combat with the feared lawyers of corporations that were exploiting the Amazon. As Iyomi had said: “There are many kinds of warriors.”

  Kate told César Santos that it was important to let his daughter come visit her. She argued that just as Iyomi had sent the young people to study in Manaos, he ought to send Nadia to New York. The girl was old enough now to leave Santa María de la Lluvia and see something of the world. It was all very well to live with nature and to know the ways of the Beasts and the Indians, but his daughter should also be receiving a formal education. A couple of months in civilization would be very good for her, the writer maintained. Secretly, she was hoping that a temporary separation would ease César Santos’s mind, and then maybe in the near future he would decide to send his daughter to the United States to study.

  For the first time in her life, Kate was willing to be responsible for someone. She hadn’t taken responsibility even with her own son, John, who after her divorce had lived with his father. Her work as a journalist, her trips, her eccentric lifestyle, and her chaotic apartment were not ideal for taking in visitors, but Nadia was a case apart. It seemed to Kate that this girl, at thirteen, was much wiser than she was at sixty-five. She was sure that Nadia had a very old soul.

  Of course Kate had not spoken a word of her plans to her grandson, Alexander; it wouldn’t do for the lad to think she was getting soft. There was not an ounce of sentiment in her plan, the writer reasoned, her mo
tives were purely practical. She needed someone to organize her papers and files, and besides, she had an extra bed in her apartment. If Nadia came to live with her, Kate planned to work her like a slave—there would be no babying. Of course that would be later, when she came to her house to stay, not now, when the hard-headed César Santos had finally agreed to send his daughter to the States for a few weeks.

  Kate had never imagined that Nadia would arrive with nothing but the clothes she was wearing. Her luggage consisted of a sweater, two bananas, and a cardboard box with holes punched in the top. Inside was the tiny black monkey that was always with her, Borobá, as frightened as she. It had been a long trip. César Santos had driven his daughter to the plane, where a flight attendant took responsibility for Nadia until she landed in New York. In case she got lost, Santos had taped strips of adhesive with Kate’s telephone number and address to his daughter’s arms. Getting the tape off was not an easy job.

  Nadia had never flown except in her father’s old prop plane, and because of her fear of heights she didn’t like flying in general. Her heart had turned over when she saw the size of the commercial airplane in Manaos and realized that she would be on it for many hours. She was terrified as she boarded, and Borobá didn’t feel much better. The poor monkey, accustomed to fresh air and freedom, was tortured by the sound of the motors. When his owner lifted the lid of the box in the New York airport, he shot out like an arrow, shrieking and leaping across people’s shoulders and sowing panic among the travelers. It took Nadia and Kate half an hour to catch him and calm him down.

  For the first few days, the experience of living in an apartment in New York was difficult for Borobá and his mistress, but soon they learned to find their way around the streets and made friends in the neighborhood. Everywhere they went they attracted attention. A monkey that behaved like a human, and a young girl with feathers in her hair created a stir. New Yorkers chatted with them, and tourists took their picture.

  “New York is a collection of villages, Nadia. Each neighborhood has its own character. Once you get to know the owners of the grocery store and the laundry, the mail carrier, my friend at the Italian coffee shop, and a few others, you’ll feel as much at home as you do in Santa María de la Lluvia,” Kate reassured Nadia, and soon the girl found that she was right.

  The writer treated Nadia like a princess, all the time saying to herself that there would be time later on to tighten the thumbscrews. She showed her all the sights: tea at the Plaza Hotel, a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park, the view from the top of several skyscrapers, the Statue of Liberty. She had to teach her about elevators, escalators, and revolving doors. They also went to the theater and to the movies, experiences Nadia had never had. What impressed her most, however, was the ice on the Rockefeller Center skating rink. Having known only the tropics, she never tired of admiring the coldness and whiteness of the ice.

  “You will soon be bored with ice and snow, because I’m thinking of taking you with me to the Himalayas,” Kate told her.

  “Where is that?”

  “On the other side of the world. You’ll need stout shoes there, and heavy clothes and a waterproof parka.”

  The writer thought that taking Nadia to the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon was a stupendous idea; she wanted the girl to see more of the world. She bought Nadia warm clothing and proper footwear; and for Borobá, a baby-size snowsuit and a special travel tote for pets, a black bag with mesh that allowed air to circulate and the pet to see out. It was lined with soft lambskin and had little ports for water and food. She also bought diapers. It wasn’t easy to get the monkey to wear them, even with Nadia’s long explanations in the language she shared with the animal. For the first time in his placid lifetime, Borobá bit a human. Kate went around with a bandaged arm for a week, but the monkey learned to wear the diapers, an indispensable step in preparing for a trip as long as the one they were planning.

  Kate had not told Nadia that Alexander would be meeting them at the airport. She wanted it to be a surprise for both of them.

  Soon Timothy Bruce and Joel González joined them in the airline’s clubroom. The photographers hadn’t seen the writer or the young people since their trip to the Amazon. They hugged each other warmly as Borobá jumped from one head to another, excited at seeing his old friends.

  Joel proudly lifted his shirt to show them the marks of the Amazon anaconda’s ferocious embrace. Several of his ribs had been broken, and his chest would always be slightly sunken. As for Timothy, he looked almost handsome despite his long horse-face, and, when questioned by the relentless Kate, he confessed that he had had his teeth straightened. In place of the big, crooked, yellow teeth of old, and the overbite that had made it difficult for him to close his mouth, he now displayed the resplendent smile of a movie actor.

  At eight o’clock that evening their party boarded the plane for India. The flight lasted hours and hours, but for Alexander and Nadia it seemed short: they had a lot to talk about. They kept checking, and were relieved to find that Borobá was quite content, cuddled deep in his lambskin. While the rest of the passengers tried to sleep in their narrow seats, the two young people entertained themselves talking and watching movies.

  Timothy Bruce could barely fit his long limbs into the small space of his seat, and every so often he got up to do his yoga exercises in the aisle, to avoid cramping. Joel González was more comfortable, because he was short and slim. Kate had her own system for long flights: she took two sleeping pills with several swallows of vodka. The effect was like being clubbed.

  “Even if there’s a terrorist on board with a bomb, don’t wake me,” she instructed them before covering herself to her forehead with a blanket and curling up like a shrimp in her seat.

  Three rows behind Nadia and Alexander sat a man with long hair combed into dozens of small braids that were in turn tied back with a leather thong. He had a bead necklace around his neck, and a suede pouch tied with a black cord rested on his chest. He was wearing stained jeans, worn cowboy boots, and a Stetson that sat low on his forehead; they learned later that it was never removed, not even when he slept. Alexander and Nadia thought that he was a little old to be dressed like that.

  “He must be a rock star,” Alexander noted.

  Nadia didn’t know what a rock star was, and Alexander decided that it would be very difficult to explain. He promised that the first chance he had he would outline the basics of movies and popular music to his friend, something any self-respecting teenager should know.

  Judging by the wrinkles around the strange hippie’s eyes and mouth, and the deep furrows in his tanned face, they calculated that he had to be over forty. What they could see of the hair tied back in the ponytail was steely gray. In any case, whatever his age, the man seemed to be in good physical shape. They had first seen him in the New York airport, carrying two pieces of luggage: a canvas tote and, slung over one shoulder, a sleeping bag cinched with a belt. After that they had glimpsed him dozing, cowboy hat tipped over his face, in the London airport as he waited for a flight, and now they were on the same plane bound for India. They waved to him from their seats.

  As soon as the pilot turned off the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign, this odd man took a few steps down the aisle, stretching his muscles. He walked up to Nadia and Alexander and smiled. For the first time they could see that there was no expression in his startlingly blue eyes; it was as if he were hypnotized. His smile rearranged the wrinkles on his face, but went no farther than his lips. His eyes looked dead. The stranger asked Nadia what she was carrying in the case on her lap, and she showed him Borobá. The man’s smile turned into a laugh when he saw a monkey wearing diapers.

  “They call me Tex Armadillo, because of the boots, you know?” he introduced himself. “They’re armadillo hide.”

  “Nadia Santos, from Brazil,” the girl said.

  “Alexander Cold, from California.”

  “I noticed that you guys were carrying a guide book about the Forbidden Kingdom. I
saw you reading it in the airport.”

  “That’s where we’re going,” Alexander informed him.

  “Not many tourists visit that country. I understand they let only a hundred or so foreigners in every year,” said Tex Armadillo.

  “We’re with a group from International Geographic.”

  “That right? You seem pretty young to be working for a magazine,” he commented.

  “That’s right,” confirmed Alexander, who had decided not to be too forthcoming.

  “That’s my plan, too, but I don’t know whether I’ll get a visa once I get to India. They don’t have much sympathy in the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon for hippies like me. They think we come to get drugs.”

  “Are there a lot?” Alexander asked.

  “Marijuana and opium grow wild everywhere, it’s just a matter of going out and harvesting it. It would be a snap.”

  “So drugs must be a serious problem,” Alexander commented, surprised that his grandmother hadn’t mentioned that.

  “There’s no problem. The only thing they use ’em for is medicine. They don’t know the treasure they’re sitting on. Can you imagine the money they could make exporting them?” said Tex Armadillo.

  “I can imagine,” Alexander answered. He didn’t like the direction the conversation was going, and he didn’t like the man with the dead eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cobras

  THEY LANDED IN NEW DELHI in the morning. Kate and the photographers, used to traveling, felt pretty good, but Nadia and Alexander, who hadn’t closed their eyes all night, looked like survivors of an earthquake. Neither of the two was prepared for the spectacle of that city. The heat struck them like a slap in the face. The minute they stepped outside they were surrounded by a sea of men who rushed at them offering to carry their luggage, act as guides, and sell them everything from fly-covered bananas to statues of Hindu gods. Dozens and dozens of children crowded around them, their small hands reaching for coins. A leper, his face half-eaten by the illness, his fingers completely missing, pressed against Alexander, begging, until an airport guard threatened him with a club.