Paul Theroux - Blinding Light

FROM HIS ROPE HAMMOCK strung between two trees, Steadman lay as if trussed in the rope mesh, seeing the others thrashing on the sleeping platform, the Wilmutts and the Hacklers, backlit by the lanterns and surrounded by clouds of fluttering moths; all night their muttered complaints.

Steadman said in a drawling voice, “Sure you think it’s romantic at first but wait till you sit there five days on a sore ass sleeping in Indian shacks and eating hoka and some hunka nameless meat, and all night you hear them fiddle-fucking with the motor.” He paused and listened to the insect howl. “Burroughs was right. Tomorrow the river will be higher.”

Manfred had slipped away. Perhaps he knew how persistently he talked in his sleep, asking questions, making declarations, usually in German, sometimes in English. Steadman had heard the gabble, and though he could not understand any of it, there seemed a coherence in its slurring narrative, like a story that Manfred had mumbled in his sleep many times before. But Steadman also guessed that Manfred had found a more comfortable hut or a better sleeping mat, or perhaps a companion.

Just as likely he had found a candle stump somewhere so that he could study his book of medicinal plants. The man was irritating, but in his reading and his note taking and his pedantry, the tenacity of his tactless honesty with the others, he was a reproach to Steadman, who swung in his hammock, regretting that his own notebook was so neglected. He told himself that he had refrained from writing so as not to appear conspicuous to the others, who might recognize him as the author and pester him with questions.

In her own hammock next to Steadman, Ava said, “That annoying woman is still reading your book.”

Dawn came early but dimly, the tentative sun not penetrating the trees but lighting portions of sky, which were visible as tiny blue patches through the canopy of leaves. Beneath those boughs the air was pale green, gassy-looking, and filled with flitting insects and lazy filaments that swayed like the torn veils of spider webs, yet they were high up, draping the green air, where Steadman had never imagined spiders to live.

The birds had begun shrieking long before dawn, and one had a monotonous voice of objection that nagged through the jungle. Nimble, darting, unswattable flies kept returning to settle on and sting Steadman’s face. Ants were everywhere, large and small, trails of them, clusters of them, black glossy ones, tiny flitting ones, some no bigger than sand grains. They gathered on Steadman’s sandals, delved into his bag. The heat woke them; the heat seemed to make all the insects active: biting flies, white moths, big furry beetles, foraging wasps, and glossy cockroaches with tortoiseshell wings.

Walking toward the covered platform with Ava, Steadman picked up a fist-sized snail that was leaving a track of slime across the beaten-down earth.

“ Desayuno he said to a small Secoya girl who was watching him, and seeing her look of wonderment, he realized she did not speak Spanish.

The others were seated cross-legged on the platform, looking fatigued and miserable in rumpled clothes.

“My hair’s a rat’s nest,” Janey said. She appealed to Ava. “We didn’t get a wink of sleep. This whole bally place is a tip. We’re so fed up we’re about ready to leave.”

Ava said, “I slept like a log.”

Nestor was mounting the ramp to the platform. In great contrast to the visitors, he looked rested and bright-eyed, his thick hair combed straight back, and wore a clean T-shirt and jeans.

“I want to give you some instructions from Don Pablo,” Nestor said.

Hack said, “Enough with the lectures.”

Nestor stared at him, saying nothing, but with ironic jeering lips. Though he was a big man, his face was narrow, his black eyes set deep in his face, and he was the more intimidating for being calm and saying nothing until Hack looked away.

“I want to suggest to you,” Nestor said, “that you are not home now. You are in Succumbios province.” With his tongue between his teeth, he added, “Oriente.”

Now Manfred appeared on the ramp, looking like a commando in his jungle gear. He swung himself onto the platform. He too looked rested, another reproach to the others who had suffered in the night. He was carrying a tin cup. He sat and sipped from it and swallowed with a hearty sigh.

“Ecuador café. Very delicious!”

Steadman smiled to see how Manfred aroused the hatred of the others, and how Manfred enjoyed it.

“Herr Mephistos,” Hack said, gesturing at Manfred’s shoes.

“I take from a pee-sant,” he said, sipping the coffee.

Nestor said, “Please eat some fruit for breakfast, then nothing more. No food all day. But stay busy. If you drink — just water. The ceremony will begin after sunset in the pavilion over there. Later I will tell you what things to bring. The main thing to bring is a clear mind and a pure heart. And an empty stomach.”

It was seven in the morning, sunset almost twelve hours away, and already the heat and the biting flies and the stink that rose from the sodden earth seemed unbearable.

“Why can’t we have the ceremony right now?” Wood asked.

“Night is for ceremonies. We need darkness,” Nestor said. “So you can relax.”

“I didn’t come all this way and pay serious money to relax!”

“You can maybe weed Joaquinas garden, then. She needs help.”

“Hard cheese on Joaquina,” Janey said. “She can weed her own garden. What a cheek. Imagine, faffing around on some scrubber’s allotment.”

“Or the Secoya women will show you weaving if you like. Or you can make pictures. Or Don Pablo will teach you the names of the plants.”

Wood turned aside to Hack with an incredulous glance, mouthing the sentence “Do you fucking believe this?”

“We’ll just hang out,” Hack said, as though to calm his friend.

“I’m unclean anyway,” Sabra said and, still sitting cross-legged, picked up her copy of Trespassing. “Look what this climate did to it!” The pages were thickened by the humidity, the binding curled, the whole book fattened and misshapen.

“At least you have something to read, to take the curse off this grottsville,” Janey said.

“Are you hot?”

“Not half,” Janey said.

“I wouldn’t put that drug in my body anyway,” Sabra said. “It’s like a pact with the devil, drinking the magic potion so you can get visions. I’m glad I brought this.” She tapped the book. “None of that tricky stuff in here. I mean, the whole point of this book is that you can test your limits without putting crap like that in your system.”

Steadman stared, his lips pressed together, and felt Ava’s eyes on him.

Nestor said, “Anyone who wants to go on a jungle walk, Hernán will take you.”

“That’s us,” Ava said.

They left after breakfast, just Ava and Steadman. Seeing them approaching the path with Nestor and Hernán, Manfred smiled at Steadman and said, “I would like to come with you.” He sounded sincere, but more than that he sounded familiar, using a tone with Steadman that he never used with the others.

Ava said, “I’m sure you have something more interesting to do here.”

“Yah. I want to see the cooking, for my notes. How the ayahuasca is prepared. How it is stewed. You say ‘to stew’? The yajé”

Nestor said, “We say hervir. We also say reducir. They mix in some other plants.”

“Of course, I know. I have read. They add other species of special plants. This I would like to see. You would like to see this?”

He was speaking to Steadman, but Steadman was so puzzled by the man’s unexpected friendliness he just shrugged.