City of the Beasts

  “Were you able to trap it?” Alex asked with assumed innocence, because he knew the answer all too well.

  “It does not exist, young man. The supposed creature of the Himalayas is a hoax. Perhaps this famous Beast will be as well.”

  “People have seen it,” Nadia declared.

  “Ignorant people, no doubt, child,” the professor scolded.

  “Padre Valdomero isn’t ignorant,” Nadia protested.

  “Who?”

  “A Catholic missionary who was kidnapped by the savages and has been as crazy as a loon ever since,” Captain Ariosto intervened. He spoke English with a strong Spanish accent, and as he was always chomping on a cigar, he was not easy to understand.

  “He wasn’t kidnapped and he isn’t crazy!” Nadia exclaimed.

  “Calm down, sweetie.” Mauro Carías smiled and patted Nadia’s head; she immediately slipped out of his reach.

  “Padre Valdomero is actually a very wise man,” César Santos interjected. “He speaks several Indian languages and he knows the flora and fauna of the Amazon better than anyone. He can set fractured bones, pull teeth, and once or twice, he has operated on cataracts with a scalpel he made himself.”

  “Yes, but he has had no success at all in cleaning up Santa María de la Lluvia, or in converting the Indians to Christianity. You’ve seen how they still go around stark naked,” Mauro Carías mocked.

  “I doubt that the Indians need to be converted,” said César Santos.

  He explained that the indigenous peoples were very spiritual. They believed that everything had a soul—trees, animals, rivers, clouds. For them, spirit and matter were one and the same. They could not understand the simplicity of the foreigners’ religion; they said it was the same story over and over, while they had many stories of gods and demons, and spirits of sky and earth. Padre Valdomero had given up trying to explain that Christ died on the cross to save humankind from sin, because the idea of such a sacrifice left the Indians dumbfounded. They had no concept of guilt. Nor did they understand the need to wear clothing in this climate, or to accumulate wealth, since they couldn’t take anything to the other world when they died.

  “It’s a shame they’re condemned to disappear; they are an anthropologist’s dream, don’t you think, Professor Leblanc?” Mauro Carías’s tone was mocking.

  “That is true. Fortunately I have been here to write about them before they succumb to progress. Thanks to Ludovic Leblanc, they will live on in history,” the professor replied, totally unaware of Carías’s sarcasm.

  That evening, dinner consisted of servings of broiled tapir, beans, and cassava tortillas, none of which Alex wanted to try, even though he was as hungry as a wolf.

  After dinner, while his grandmother was drinking vodka and smoking her pipe in the company of the men, Alex went down to the river with Nadia. The moon was shining like a great yellow lamp in the sky. They were surrounded by the sounds of the jungle, like background music: bird cries, chattering monkeys, croaking toads, and crickets. Thousands of fireflies darted past them, brushing their faces. Nadia caught one in her hand and placed it in her curls, where it kept on blinking like a little light. She sat down on the dock and dabbled her feet in the dark water of the river. Alex asked her about piranhas; he had seen dried ones in the souvenir shops in Manaus, looking like miniature sharks. They were about eight inches long and provided with formidable jaws and teeth as sharp as knives.

  “Piranhas are very useful; they clean dead animals and junk from the water. My father says that they only attack if they smell blood or if they’re hungry,” she explained.

  She told Alex about the time she had watched as a caiman, badly wounded by a jaguar, dragged itself into the water, where piranhas ate into the wound and devoured the caiman from the inside in a matter of minutes, leaving its hide intact.

  At that moment, Nadia sat up straight and made a sign not to speak. Borobá, the little monkey, began to jump up and down and shriek, very agitated, but Nadia quickly calmed it by whispering in its ear. Alex had the impression that the monkey understood its owner’s words perfectly. All he could see were the shadows of the vegetation and the black mirror of the water, but it was obvious that something had captured Nadia’s attention, because she got to her feet. In the distance, he heard the sound of someone strumming a guitar in the village. If he turned, he could see lights in the houses behind him, but they were alone at the river.

  Nadia gave a long, sharp cry that to Alex’s ears sounded exactly like an owl, and an instant later, a similar cry answered from the other bank. She repeated the call twice, and both times got the same response. Then she took Alex by the arm and motioned him to follow. He remembered César Santos’s warning to stay inside the boundaries of the village after dusk, as well as all the stories he had heard about snakes, wild beasts, bandits, and drunks with guns. And best not even think about the ferocious Indians described by Leblanc . . . or the Beast. But he didn’t want to look like a coward in the eyes of the girl, so he followed without a word, grasping his opened Swiss Army knife.

  They left the last huts of the village behind and moved forward with caution, their only light the moon. The jungle was not as thick as Alex had imagined; the vegetation was dense along the banks of the river but then it grew more sparse and it was possible to walk without much difficulty. They had not gone far before the cry of the owl was repeated. They were in a clearing, and they could see the moon shining in the heavens. Nadia stopped and waited, not moving a muscle. Even Borobá was quiet, as if it knew what they were waiting for. Suddenly Alex jumped with surprise: less than ten feet away a figure had materialized from the night, suddenly and silently, like a ghost. He raised his knife, ready to defend himself, but Nadia’s calm attitude stopped him in midair.

  “Ah-ee-ah,” the girl murmured in a low voice.

  “Ah-ee-ah, ah-ee-ah,” a voice replied that to Alex did not sound human but more like a breath of wind.

  The figure stepped forward until it was very close to Nadia. By then, Alex’s eyes had adjusted a little to the dark, and by the light of the moon he could see an incredibly ancient man. He looked as if he had lived for centuries, even though he stood very straight and he moved nimbly. He was very small. Alex calculated that he was shorter than his sister Nicole, who was only nine. The man was wearing a brief apron of some plant fiber, and a dozen necklaces of shells, seeds, and boars’ teeth covered his chest. His skin, wrinkled like a thousand-year-old elephant, fell in folds over his fragile skeleton. He was carrying a short spear, a walking stick hung with a number of small leather pouches, and a quartz cylinder that clicked like a baby’s rattle. Nadia reached up to her hair, pulled out the firefly, and offered it to the man. He accepted it, placing it among his necklaces. Nadia knelt down and signaled Alex to do the same, as a sign of respect. Immediately, the Indian also crouched down so the three were at the same level.

  Borobá gave a leap and landed on the shoulders of the old man, tugging at his ears; his owner batted him away, and the ancient burst out with a happy laugh. As far as Alex could tell, Nadia’s friend did not have a tooth in his head, but since there was so little light, he could not be sure. The man and the girl became involved in a long conversation with gestures and sounds in a language as gentle as the breeze, as water, as birds. He supposed they were talking about him, because they pointed to him. At one moment, the man stood and shook his spear, very angry, but she calmed him with long explanations. Finally, the ancient pulled an amulet on a cord from around his neck, a piece of carved bone, and held it to his lips and blew. The sound was that same owl’s call they had heard earlier, which Alex recognized because there were many of those birds around his house in northern California. The amazing old man hung the amulet around Nadia’s neck, placed his hands on her shoulders in farewell, and disappeared as silently as he had arrived. Alex could have sworn that he did not see him step back; he simply evaporated.

  “That was Walimai,” Nadia said quietly in his ear.

  ??
?Walimai?” he asked, impressed by that strange encounter.

  “Shhhh! Don’t say it aloud. You must never speak the true name of an Indian; it’s taboo. It’s even worse to name the dead; that is a much stronger taboo, a terrible insult,” Nadia explained.

  “Who is he?”

  “He is a shaman, a very powerful witch man. He speaks through dreams and visions. He can travel to the world of the spirits anytime he wants. He is the only one who knows the road to El Dorado.”

  “El Dorado? The city of gold the conquistadors invented? That’s a crazy legend!” Alex replied.

  “Walimai has been there many times with his wife. She is always with him.”

  “I didn’t see her,” Alex admitted.

  “She is a spirit. Not everyone can see her.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. She is young and very beautiful.”

  “What did the witch man tell you? What were you two talking about?” Alex asked.

  “He gave me this talisman. With it, I will always be safe. No one—no person, no animal, no ghost—can hurt me. I can also use it to call him; all I have to do is blow and he will come. Up till now, I’ve not been able to call him, I’ve had to wait until he came. Walimai says that I am going to need him because there is much danger. Rahakanariwa is walking again; it is so creepy, a spirit cannibal-bird. Whenever it appears, there is death and destruction, but I will be protected by the talisman.”

  “You are a very weird girl. . .” Alex sighed. He didn’t believe half of what she was saying.

  “Walimai says that foreigners should not go looking for the Beast. He says that several will die. But you and I must go because we have been called, and that is because our souls are pure.”

  “Who has called us?”

  “I don’t know, but if Walimai says so, it’s true.”

  “Do you really believe those things, Nadia? You believe in witch men and cannibal-birds, and El Dorado, and invisible wives . . . and the Beast?”

  Without answering, the girl turned on her heel and began walking toward the village; Alex followed close behind to keep from getting lost.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Plot

  THAT NIGHT ALEXANDER slept restlessly. He felt as if he were out in the open, as if the fragile walls that separated him from the jungle had dissolved and he was exposed to all the dangers of that unknown world. The hotel—wood planks, zinc roof, glassless windows—was barely enough shelter to keep out the rain. The outdoor sounds of toads and other creatures were added to the snores of his sleeping companions. His hammock turned over once or twice, throwing him onto the floor, before he remembered how to use it and stretched diagonally across it to keep from spilling out. It wasn’t hot, but he was sweating. He lay awake in the dark for a long while beneath his insect repellent–soaked netting, thinking about the Beast and tarantulas and scorpions and snakes and other dangers lurking in the shadows. He went over the strange scene he had witnessed between Nadia and the Indian. The shaman had predicted that several members of the expedition would die.

  It seemed unbelievable to Alex that in a few days’ time his life had taken such a spectacular turn that suddenly he found himself in a fantastic place where, just as his grandmother had announced, spirits walked among the living. Reality was twisted out of shape; he no longer knew what to believe. He felt very homesick; he missed his house and his family and his dog, Poncho. He was all alone, and light years from things he knew. If only he could find out how his mother was doing! But calling a hospital in Texas from this village would be like trying to communicate with Mars. Kate was not any company or comfort. As a grandmother, she left a lot to be desired; she didn’t even make an effort to answer his questions, because it was her opinion that the only way you learned was to find out for yourself. She maintained that experience was what you learned just after you needed it.

  He was tossing and turning in his hammock, unable to sleep, when he thought he heard the murmur of voices. It might simply have been the hum of the jungle, but he decided to investigate. Barefoot, and in his underwear, he crept to the other side of the dormitory, to the hammock where Nadia was sleeping beside her father. He put his hand over the girl’s mouth and whispered her name in her ear, trying not to wake anyone else. She opened her eyes, frightened, but when she recognized him, she calmed down and hopped from her hammock light as a cat, making a crisp gesture to Borobá to stay still. The little monkey immediately obeyed, rolling up in the hammock, and Alex compared Nadia’s companion to his dog, Poncho, to whom he had never been able to teach even the simplest command. The two tiptoed outside and slipped along the wall of the hotel to the terrace, where Alex had heard the voices. They hid in the angle of the door, plastered against the wall, and from there they could see Captain Ariosto and Mauro Carías sitting at a small table, smoking, drinking, and quietly talking. Their faces were fully visible in the glow of their cigarettes and the spiral from the citronella candle burning on the table. Alex congratulated himself for having called Nadia, because the men were speaking in Spanish.

  “You know what you have to do, Ariosto,” said Carías.

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “If it were easy I wouldn’t need you, hombre, nor would I have to pay you,” Mauro Carías remarked.

  “I don’t like those photographers, they could land us in a mess. As for the writer woman, she seems pretty sharp to me,” said the captain.

  “The anthropologist, the writer, and the photographers are indispensable to our plan. They will leave here telling the exact story we want them to tell. That way, no suspicion will fall on us, and we prevent Congress from sending a commission to investigate events, as they have before. This time a group from International Geographic will be witnesses,” Carías explained.

  “I don’t understand why the government protects that handful of savages, anyway. They take up thousands of square miles that should be divided among settlers, which is the only way progress will come to this hellhole,” the captain commented.

  “All in good time, Ariosto. There are emeralds and diamonds in that territory. By the time settlers come to cut trees and breed cattle, you and I will be rich. I’m not ready for adventurers to come nosing around yet.”

  “Then they won’t. That’s why the army’s here, my friend Carías, to see that the law is obeyed. We have to protect the Indians, don’t we?” Captain Ariosto asked, and they both laughed.

  “I have it all planned; a person I trust is going along on the expedition.”

  “Who is that?”

  “For the moment, I prefer not to name names,” said Carías, but then explained further. “The Beast is the excuse for having that idiot Leblanc and the journalists go exactly where we want them to, and be there to cover the news. They will contact Indians; that’s inevitable. They can’t travel into that triangle of the Upper Orinoco to look for the Beast without coming across Indians.”

  “Your plan seems very complicated to me. I have some very discreet men; we can do the work without anyone finding out,” Captain Ariosto assured Carías, taking a sip of his drink.

  “No, hombre! Haven’t I told you that we must be patient?”

  “Tell me the plan again,” Ariosto requested.

  “Don’t you worry, I’ll take care of the plan. Before three months have gone by, there won’t be a living soul left in that area.”

  At that moment, Alex felt something on his foot, and choked back a scream: a snake was slithering over his bare skin! Nadia put a finger to her lips and motioned him not to move. Carías and Ariosto jumped up, alerted, and both drew their pistols. The captain turned on his flashlight and swept it all around, its beam passing only a few inches from where the two were hiding. Alex was so terrified that he would happily have confronted the guns if he could have shaken off the snake, which now was curled around his ankle, but Nadia was holding him by one arm and he realized that he could not risk her life, too.

  “Who’s there,” the captain asked quietly, not lifting
his voice in order not to wake the people sleeping in the hotel.

  Silence.

  “Let’s go, Ariosto,” ordered Carías.

  The soldier again swept his flashlight around the room, then both men retreated to the stairs that led to the street, still holding their guns. A couple of minutes went by before the two friends felt they could move without revealing their presence. By then, the snake was around Alex’s calf; its head had reached the level of his knee and sweat was pouring down his torso. Nadia pulled off her T-shirt, wrapped it around her right hand, and very cautiously seized the snake just behind the head. Immediately Alex felt the serpent’s coils tighten, and it whipped its tail furiously, but the girl held it firmly and unhurriedly started unwinding it from her new friend’s leg until it was free and the snake was dangling from her hand. She swung her arm like the blade of a windmill, faster and faster, and launched the snake over the banister of the terrace, into the darkness. Then she put her shirt back on, all with great calm.

  “Was it poisonous?” Alex asked as soon as he could get the words out.

  “Yes, I think it was a surucucú, but it wasn’t very big. Its mouth was still small and it couldn’t open its jaws very far; it might have bitten a finger, but not a leg,” Nadia replied. Then she translated what Carías and Ariosto had been saying.

  “What do you think those awful men are up to? What can we do?” the girl asked.

  “I don’t know. The only thing that occurs to me is to tell my grandmother, but I don’t know whether she would believe me. She says that I’m paranoid, and that I see enemies and dangers everywhere.”

  “For the moment, Alex, we can only wait and watch,” Nadia concluded.

  The young people went back to their hammocks. Alex was drained and fell straight to sleep. He awakened at dawn to the deafening howls of the monkeys. He was so starved that he would gladly have eaten his father’s pancakes, but there was nothing at hand and he had to wait two hours until his traveling companions were ready for breakfast. He was offered black coffee, warm beer, and the cold leftovers of the tapir from the previous night. He refused it all, repulsed. He had never seen a tapir, but he imagined that it looked something like a huge rat. He would get a surprise a few days later when he learned that a tapir is an animal that weighs more than two hundred pounds and resembles a pig, and is greatly prized for its meat. He tried a plátano, but it was very bitter and left a harsh taste on his tongue; he found out later that though it looked like a banana, it had to be cooked to be eaten. Nadia, who had gone out early to swim in the river with the other girls, came back with a fresh flower over one ear and the same green feather in the lobe of the other. Borobá’s arms were around her neck and she was carrying half a pineapple in her hand. Alex had read that the only safe fruit in tropical countries is something you peel yourself, but he decided that the risk of contracting typhus was preferable to malnutrition. Grateful, he devoured the pineapple she offered him.