“This is a very special moment, the most important moment in the history of your tribe. I think you should hold the ceremony in the village of the ancestors,” Alexander suggested.
The hunters were dumbfounded at the total ignorance of the young foreigner, and asked if perhaps in his country they had no respect for their ancestors. Alexander had to admit that in the United States ancestors occupied an insignificant place in the social scale. The Pygmies explained that the home of the spirits was a forbidden place; no human could enter there without perishing immediately. They went only to take their dead. When someone in the tribe died, a ceremony was held that lasted one day and one night. Then the eldest women wrapped the corpse in rags and leaves, bound it with rope made of bark fibers—the same they used for their nets—and carried the dead to rest with the ancestors. They approached the village with all haste, deposited their burden, and ran away as quickly as they could. This was always done in the morning, in the full light of day, after many sacrifices. Morning was the only safe time, since the ghosts slept during the day and came to life by night. If the ancestors were treated with the proper respect, they never bothered humans, but when they were offended they were unforgiving. The spirits were feared more than the gods. They were closer.
Angie Ninderera had told Nadia and Alexander that in Africa there is a permanent relationship between human beings and the spiritual world.
“African gods are more compassionate and reasonable than the gods of other peoples,” she had told them. “They do not punish like the Christian god. They do not have a hell where souls suffer for all eternity. The worst thing that can happen to an African soul is to be lost and alone, forever roaming. An African god would never send his only son to die on a cross in order to redeem the human sins he can erase with a single gesture. African gods did not create humans in their image, nor do they love them, but at least they leave people in peace. The spirits, in contrast, are more dangerous because they have the same defects people have: They’re greedy, cruel, and jealous. They have to be brought gifts to be kept happy. Fortunately they don’t ask for much: a splash of liquor, a cigarette, the blood of a rooster.”
The Pygmies believed they had greatly offended their ancestors, and that’s why they were suffering at the hands of Kosongo. They didn’t know what their offense was, or how to mend it, but they believed that their luck would change if they soothed the ancestors’ anger.
“Let’s go to their village and ask them why they are offended, and what they want of you,” Alexander proposed.
“They’re ghosts!” the Pygmies exclaimed, horrified.
“Nadia and I aren’t afraid of them. We will go talk with them; maybe they will help us. After all, you are their descendants; they must feel a little sympathy for you.”
At first the idea was rejected out of hand, but the two foreigners insisted and, after debating a long while, the hunters agreed to go as far as the outskirts of the forbidden village. They would stay concealed in the forest, where they would be preparing their weapons and holding a ceremony while the foreigners attempted to talk with the ancestors.
They walked for hours through the forest. Nadia and Alexander let themselves be led without asking any questions, although sometimes it seemed to them that they had passed the same place several times. The hunters moved forward confidently, always at a trot, without eating or drinking, impervious to fatigue, sustained only by the black tobacco in their bamboo pipes. Except for nets, spears, and darts, those pipes were their only earthly possessions. Alexander and Nadia followed along, stumbling and tripping, dizzy from exhaustion and the heat, until they simply sat down on the ground, refusing to go any farther. They had to rest and eat something.
One of the hunters shot a dart at a monkey, which fell like a stone at their feet. They cut it into pieces, skinned it, and sank their teeth into the raw flesh. Alexander lighted a small fire and roasted the pieces he and Nadia ate, while Borobá covered his face with his hands and moaned. To him it was a revolting act of cannibalism. Nadia offered him bamboo shoots and tried to explain that given the circumstances they could not refuse the meat. Borobá, however, unnerved, turned his back and would not let her touch him.
“How would you feel if a group of monkeys were eating a human in front of us,” Nadia said.
“I realize that we’re doing something really awful, Eagle, but if we don’t have food, we can’t go on,” Alexander argued.
Beyé-Dokou explained what the Pygmies planned to do. They would go into Ngoubé at dusk the next day, when Kosongo was expecting his quota of ivory. He would, predictably, be furious when he saw them coming with empty hands. While some of them distracted him with excuses and promises, others would bring weapons and would open the pen where the women were kept. They were going to fight for their lives and rescue their children, they said.
“That sounds like a very brave decision, but not a very practical one,” Nadia protested. “It will end in a massacre, because the soldiers have rifles.”
“They’re ancient,” Alexander reminded her.
“Yes, but they still kill from a distance. You can’t fight firearms with spears,” Nadia insisted.
“Then we have to get control of the ammunition.”
“Impossible. The weapons are always loaded and the soldiers wear cartridge belts. Is there some way we can disable the rifles?”
“I don’t know anything about those things, Eagle, but my grandmother has reported several wars and lived for months with guerrillas in Central America. I’m sure that she’ll know how to do it. We’ll have to go back to Ngoubé and set things up before the Pygmies come in.”
“How will we do that without the soldiers seeing us?” Nadia asked.
“We’ll go in at night. It’s my impression that the distance between Ngoubé and the village of the ancestors is relatively short.”
“Why is it you’re so set on going to that forbidden village, Jaguar?”
“They say that faith moves mountains, Eagle. If we can convince the Pygmies that their ancestors are protecting them, they will feel invincible. And they also have Ipemba-Afua; that will make them even braver.”
“And what if the ancestors don’t want to help?”
“There are no ancestors, Eagle. The village is nothing but a cemetery. We can spend a few quiet hours there, then go and tell our new friends that the ancestors promised support in the battle against Mbembelé. That’s my plan.”
“I don’t like your plan. When you’re not honest, things never turn out right,” said Nadia.
“If you want, I can go alone.”
“You know that we’re supposed to stay together. I’ll go with you,” she decided.
There was still light when they reached the place where they had earlier seen the bloody voodoo dolls. The Pygmies refused to go any farther; they could not take one step into the domain of the hungry spirits.
“I don’t believe that ghosts get hungry. How could they if they don’t have a stomach?” Alexander commented.
Beyé-Dokou pointed to the mounds of garbage scattered everywhere. His tribe made sacrifices of animals and brought offerings of fruit, honey, nuts, and liquor to lay at the feet of the dolls. At night most of it disappeared, swallowed up by the insatiable specters. Because of the offerings they lived in peace; if the spirits were fed as they were supposed to be, they didn’t attack human beings. Alex hinted that rats must have eaten the food that was left, but the Pygmies were offended and flatly rejected that theory. The elderly women who were responsible for taking the bodies to the entrance of the village of the spirits after the funeral rituals could testify that they saw food there. Sometimes they heard horrifying yells that reached such heights of terror that they turned the mourner’s hair white within hours.
“Nadia, Borobá, and I will go, but we need someone to wait for us here and take us on to Ngoubé before daylight,” said Alexander.
For the Pygmies, the fact that the two young foreigners were going to spend the night i
n the cemetery was absolute proof that they were not right in the head, but since they couldn’t dissuade them, they accepted their decision. Beyé-Dokou pointed out the direction they should take, told them good-bye with great outpourings of affection and sadness—because he was sure he would never see them again—but out of courtesy agreed to wait for them at the voodoo altar till sunup. The other Pygmies also bid them farewell, awed by the bravery of their young friends.
Nadia and Alexander were interested to find that in this voracious jungle, where only elephants left visible tracks, there was a path leading to the cemetery. That meant that someone was using it frequently.
“The ancestors pass this way,” murmured Nadia.
“If they did exist, Eagle, they wouldn’t leave footprints and they wouldn’t need a path,” Alexander replied.
“How do you know that?”
“It’s a question of logic.”
“There is nothing in this world that would get either the Pygmies or the Bantus near this place, and Mbembelé’s soldiers are even more superstitious; they won’t come into the forest at all. So tell me, who made this path?” she demanded.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
After a half hour of walking, they suddenly emerged into a clearing among the trees. Before them was a high, thick circular wall constructed of stones, logs, straw, and clay. Hanging on the wall were skulls and bones, the dried heads of animals, masks, carved wood figures, clay pots, and amulets. There was no visible door, but they discovered a round opening almost three feet wide located some distance above the ground.
“I’ll bet the old women who bring the corpses here push them through that hole. There must be piles of bones on the other side,” said Alexander.
Nadia wasn’t tall enough to see, but Alex looked inside.
“What’s in there?” she asked.
“I can’t see very well. Let’s send Borobá in to check it out.”
“Not on your life! Borobá’s not going in there alone. We all go or no one goes,” Nadia said decisively.
“Wait here; I’ll be right back,” Alexander answered.
“I’d rather go with you.”
Alexander speculated that if he crawled through the hole, he would fall on his head. He didn’t know what to expect on the other side; it made more sense to go over the wall—child’s play for him given his experience in mountain climbing. The irregular surface made the climb easy, and in less than two minutes he was straddling the wall, while Nadia and Borobá waited nervously below.
“It’s like an abandoned village. It looks very old. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Alexander.
“Do you see skeletons?” Nadia asked.
“No. Everything is clean and bare. Maybe they don’t put the bodies through that hole, as we thought . . .”
With her friend’s help, Nadia also climbed over the wall. Borobá hesitated, but the fear of being left alone galvanized him, so he followed; he was never far from his mistress.
At first inspection the village of the ancestors seemed to be a collection of clay and stone ovens arranged in concentric circles, in perfect symmetry. In each of those round constructions was a hole that served as a door of sorts, covered with lengths of cloth or tree bark. There were no statues, dolls, or amulets. All life seemed to have stopped in the area inside the high wall. There was no hint of jungle growth, and even the temperature was different. An inexplicable silence reigned; the hubbub of monkeys and birds was absent, as was the drumming of rain or murmur of the breeze in the leaves. The silence was total.
“These are tombs; they must bury the dead in them.
Let’s look inside,” Alexander proposed.
When they lifted some of the curtains veiling the openings, they saw pyramidal piles of human remains. The skeletons were dry and brittle, and perhaps some had been there for hundreds of years. A number of the huts were filled with bones; others were half filled, while some were entirely empty.
“What an eerie sight!” Alexander observed with a shiver.
“I don’t understand, Jaguar. If no one comes here, how can everything be so orderly and clean?” asked Nadia.
“It’s very mysterious,” her friend agreed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Encounter with the Spirits
THE LIGHT, WHICH WAS ALWAYS faint beneath the green canopy of the jungle, was beginning to fade. For a couple of days—from the time they left Ngoubé—the friends had seen the sky only through occasional open spaces among the treetops. The cemetery was in a clearing, and overhead they could see a patch of sky starting to turn dark blue. They sat down between two tombs, prepared to spend a few hours in solitude.
In the three years that had passed since Alexander and Nadia had met, their friendship had grown like a great tree, until it had become the most important thing in their lives. The youthful friendship of the first months had evolved as they matured, though they never spoke of it. They lacked words to describe that delicate sentiment, and feared that if they talked about it, it would shatter like glass. To express their relationship in words would be to define it, put limits on it, diminish it. As long as they never spoke of it, it would remain open, and uncontaminated. So the friendship had quietly expanded in silence, without their having noticed.
Recently Alexander had experienced more rudely than ever the hormonal explosions of adolescence that most teenagers suffer at an earlier age. His body was his enemy; it would not leave him in peace. His grades at school had dropped, he wasn’t keeping up with his music, and even the climbing excursions with his father to the mountains, which had been such a basic part of his life, now bored him. He suffered fits of melancholy and fought with his family, and later, remorseful, didn’t know how to make peace. He did everything clumsily, tangled in a morass of conflicting emotions. He moved from depression to euphoria in a matter of minutes; his feelings were so intense that at times he seriously asked himself whether it was worth the pain to go on living. In moments of deepest pessimism he believed that the world was a disaster and that the greater part of humanity was hopelessly stupid. Although he had read books about adolescence, and it had been thoroughly discussed in school, he was suffering as if he had an incurable illness. “Don’t worry, we’ve all gone through the same thing,” his father consoled him, as if he had no more than a cold. But Alexander was eighteen, and he wasn’t getting any better. He could barely communicate with his parents; at times they drove him crazy. He thought of them as being from another era; everything they said sounded out of date. He knew that they loved him unconditionally, and he was grateful to them for that, but he was convinced that they couldn’t possibly understand him.
The only person he could share his problems with was Nadia. In the coded language he used in his e-mails, he could describe the things happening to him and not feel embarrassed, something he wasn’t able to do in person. She accepted him as he was and never judged him. She read his messages without offering an opinion, because in truth she didn’t know what to answer; her worries were different ones.
Alexander felt that his obsession with girls was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it. A word, a gesture, brushing past a girl, was all it took to fill his head with images and his heart with desire. The best treatment was exercise: He surfed winter and summer in the Pacific. The shock of the icy water and the marvelous sensation of skimming over the waves brought back the innocence and euphoria of childhood, though that state of mind did not last very long. The trips with his grandmother, on the other hand, kept him distracted for weeks. He was able to control his emotions in front of her, and that gave him a little hope. Maybe his father was right, and this madness would not last forever.
Ever since they had met in New York at the beginning of this trip, Alexander had looked at Nadia through new eyes, although he excluded her completely from his romantic fantasies. He couldn’t imagine her in that light; he thought of her in the same way he thought of his sisters, with a pure and possessive affection.
His role was to protect Nadia from anyone who might do her harm, especially other males. Nadia was pretty—at least he thought so—and sooner or later there would be a swarm of guys hitting on her. He would never allow all those drones to get near her; the mere idea made him frantic. He was aware of Nadia’s body, the grace of her movements, and the concentration of her expression. He liked her coloring: the dark blond hair, the toasty skin, the eyes golden as hazelnuts. An artist could paint her portrait with a minimal palette of yellow and chestnut. She was different from him, and that intrigued him: her physical fragility, which hid great strength of character, her quiet way of listening, the way she harmonized with nature. She had always been reserved, but now she seemed mysterious. He was enchanted to be near her, to touch her occasionally, but it was much easier to communicate with her from a distance. When they were together, he bumbled and stumbled; he didn’t know what to say to her and had begun to weigh his words. It seemed that sometimes his hands were too heavy, his feet too big, his voice too domineering.
Sitting there in the darkness, surrounded by the tombs in a centuries-old Pygmy cemetery, Alexander felt the nearness of his friend with painful intensity. He loved her more than anyone in the world, more than his parents and all his friends put together. He was afraid of losing her.
“Tell me more about how you like New York. Are you enjoying living with my grandmother?” he asked, just to start a conversation.
“Your grandmother treats me like a princess, but I miss my father.”
“Don’t go back to the Amazon, Eagle. It’s too far away; we can’t keep in touch.”
“Come with me,” she said.
“I’ll go wherever you want, but first I have to get through med school.”
“Your grandmother says that you’re writing about our adventures in the Amazon and in the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon. Will you also be writing about the Pygmies?” Nadia asked.
“It’s just notes, Eagle. I don’t pretend to be a writer; I’m going to be a doctor. I got the idea when my mother was ill, and I made up my mind that time in the Himalayas when I watched Tensing heal your shoulder with needles and prayers. I realized that science and technology aren’t enough to make someone well; there are other, equally important, factors. Holistic medicine. That’s what I want to do,” Alexander explained.