Tommy Wieringa - Little Caesar

The prospect of being alone with this man in the jungle frightened me. I could see myself dead, buried carelessly beneath a layer of leaves. That someone like this could love Mozart seemed a comic misunderstanding.

‘Two hundred is okay,’ I said. ‘When can we go?’

Again, indifference. I said I’d like to leave the day after tomorrow, before sunup. His hands lay motionless on the table in front of him. Did I need to bring things, food, water? Ché Ibarra shook his tired head — that would not be necessary.

Thirty-six hours later, almost empty-handed, I found myself at his door. A backpack containing a few odds and ends. The house was dark. A lemon-yellow moon was lingering over the trees. The chirping of geckos, and the impression that the buzzing and shrilling of insects must be loudest just before dawn. You could lose yourself in that noise, an electrifying tapestry. Just as I started climbing the steps to the veranda, I heard footsteps on the road. Ibarra had already left his house, perhaps he had been picking up a few necessities for the trip. He was wearing a half-filled backpack, he looked like nothing so much as a soldier.

‘ Venga, vamos .’

Then he gave me my first view of the prospect that would lie before me all day long, the army-green backside of a man who seemed to consist entirely of sinew and stolid willpower. I felt lucky, and I was on my way, it was going to work out. We plunged into the head-high elephant grass. The last stars in the sky were growing pale, we were rotating again into a new day. The pain in my foot was bearable, the skin had healed over. I picked up the pace, but he was far out in front of me. We crossed a path lined by a dyke that seemed built for irrigation and disappeared into the blue embrace of the forest. Ibarra put in the earbuds of his Walkman. Every once in a while he looked back. The final shadows of the night had tucked themselves away amid the trees, they would quickly be chased away by bundles of sunlight falling through the high crowns. I barely realized that I was on my way to my father. The effort it had taken to get there had relegated my goal to the background. But now every step was taking me closer to him, every meter counted; the less I thought, the better off I was, that would help me to ignore the pain in my foot that was acting up now, the shortness of breath and the sweat seeping through my shirt — I counted my steps, up to one hundred and then back down again. The fanatical hiss of insects had subsided, as it grew hotter that sound was replaced by a low, constant drone. We arrived at a brook that could easily have flowed in England, silver water rolling over a copper-colored bed, to cross it was an act of blasphemy; clouding the holy water, muddy feet on the gold brocade of the temple garment.

We clambered across the mossy, moist roots of trees, climbed hills of mud, stones shot out from under the soles of my shoes. We still had not stopped for a rest. My mouth was dry. Ibarra warned me not to step on a coral snake that was almost completely hidden beneath leaves and humus. My hands began swelling again and itched. I did my best to keep up with him, while he listened composedly to piano concertos or the requiem Dies irae — baroque absurdities of this continent. I was no longer worried about him gutting me with his knife, I was too exhausted to be afraid. We stopped beside a dark pool amid the trees, a place where elves and sorcerers wrote the course of lifetimes on the black mirror of the surface. Ibarra handed me a bottle of water. He put the earbuds back in and stared into space. Later he gave me a banana. Then a piece of bread and a can of sardines. I dunked the bread in the leftover oil. Ibarra stood up. Apparently he was not planning to take the rubbish with him. Conscientious European that I was, I put it in my backpack.

The forest showed itself to me as an entity, an organism specialized in brief, flagrant blossoming and sudden death. Minor revelations flared up between the trees, birds like hellish-red flames. I was startled by the fleshy wings of a butterfly that fluttered in my face. I slapped at them. There were animals — insects? — that sounded like a plane flying over, there were others that made the sound of a chainsaw, a dying lamb, marbles knocked together. This was how the forest sounded at a noon hour giddy with heat. My thoughts took on the form of hallucinations. Flowers fell from the sky, in front of me walked a man who, I was suddenly certain, had served with the FARC, a runaway guerrillero — so light-footed and purposefully did he move through the trees. A new storey was built onto my fear: what if he were taking me to a rebel camp where I would be held hostage? Did the FARC operate this deep within Panama? What time was it? Was this the day that I was going to meet him, the man of whom I had no other memory but the rustling of his trouser legs? And what day was that then?

Ibarra was waiting for me beside a little waterfall. Kneeling, he drank from the stream and gestured to me to do the same. He sat down on the stones and unlaced his army boots. Then he undressed and dove into the pool under the cascade. He swam like a little dog. My sock was red with blood. The sole was soaked. From the rocks along the bank I slid into the water. Little fishy mouths nibbled at my flesh. I went under and drifted over the smooth stones at the bottom. When I resurfaced, we were no longer alone. A man was looking at us. Soiled T-shirt and fatigue trousers, a machete hanging from his belt. They were talking, Ibarra and he. Ibarra was standing naked on the bank, solid as the trunks along the banks of the creek at El Real, seeming completely at ease. They tossed the occasional glance in my direction. While Ibarra was getting dressed, the other man shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack. I climbed onto the bank and caught a whiff of sulfur. An unpleasant kind of watchfulness had settled on the things that happened.

‘ Hombre ,’ the unknown man said to me.

He shook his head and said things I didn’t understand. A gate was being closed, I understood that much. I breathed deeply in and out to ward off a panic attack. I understood the word prohibido . An obstacle, no more than that. An obstacle.

‘No,’ I stammered. ‘ No es imposible .’

He raised his chin.

‘ Vamos a señor Schultz ,’ I said.

The thin valor of those words, spoken to two men who had only to walk away in order to ensure my certain death. I began speaking in English. That I sure as hell had not come to Darién just to let myself be turned away by the first hillbilly I ran into. That I was his son, that he was expecting me, that he had been waiting for me all his life, that’s right, sir! Waiting for me, his son, the hijo of señor Schultz , and now you — my hand cast lightning bolts in his direction — are not going to try to tell me that I’ve come to the end of the road here, oh no, you are going to let us through, what’s more, you’re going to take us there, me, hijo de señor Schultz , and my man Friday here.

His head moved slightly, doubtfully, he asked, ‘ Usted es el hijo de señor Schultz?’

I tapped my finger against my chest.

‘ Hijo .’

I pointed to the countryside behind him.

‘ Padre .’

He took a drag of his cigarette, then squished the glowing cone between thumb and forefinger. It was impossible to tell whether he was thinking about a great many things at the same time, or thinking very slowly about one little thing, stuck between his teeth like a bothersome piece of gristle. The smoke from his cigarette hung between us. When it had drifted away the man shrugged and said something to Ibarra, but against the rocky surface of my guide’s expression all announcements dashed themselves to pieces. We started moving. First the unknown man, then Ibarra, then me. That was how we moved through the forest, like the ants at our feet, who carved out narrow roads with snippets of bright green leaves on their backs, heading home to their republics. A shiny blue butterfly flew out in front of me, amid the treetops the embers of the day died out. Dull pain wedged itself between my temples, every single footstep resounded in my head.