Paul Theroux - Blinding Light

The enclosed interior of the forest with its dome of branches and leaves prevented them from seeing the progress of the helicopter, yet they still heard it and were able to follow its percussive sound, the drumbeat of its engine burps in the distance.

They were off the path now and chest-high in ferns and big leaves as they saw ahead a brightness, an opening in the forest, perhaps a clearing, and then the descending darkness of the helicopter settling to earth.

Hernán and the boy were hunched in stalking postures, signaling for Steadman and Ava to stay behind and keep low. The brightness led them on and dazzled them, too, for the whole morning they had been walking in the dappled shadow of the rain forest, and now sunshine poured through the trees.

They were stopped by a head-high chainlink fence that ran through the forest, razor wire coiled along the top edge and skull-and-bones signs lettered in red, Prohibido el Paso, every twenty feet or so. Sunlight scorched the clearing within the fence — sunlight and steel towers and boxy prefab structures and oil drums and the huge sputtering helicopter, its twin rotors slowing as men in yellow hard hats rushed back and forth from its open cargo bay, unloading and carrying cardboard cartons.

The encampment was entirely encircled by the fence and the forest. No road penetrated here. And there was no break in the fence — no opening, not even a gate. Thus, the helicopter. When the sound of it died down, they could hear the softer but regular pulsing of an engine and could see a steel cylinder moving up and down in the center of the clearing, pounding the earth, pumping with gasping and swallowing noises and the lurch of unmistakable grunts that sounded like squirts of satisfaction.

“Mira. Gringo,” Hernán said, seeing a tall man in a checked shirt and boots waving the workmen along.

But to Steadman that American was not the oddest aspect of the clearing, for near the entrance to one of the new bright boxy buildings was an Ecuadorian all in white — white shirt, white apron, tall white chef’s hat — and he was conferring with another swarthy man in a short black jacket and striped trousers and bow tie. This second man, obviously a waiter or a wine steward, held a tray on his fingertips, and on the tray were a pair of thin-stemmed wineglasses and a wine bottle in an ice bucket.

Another man was climbing out of the cockpit of the helicopter. Steadman could tell from the casual way he walked, almost sloppy as he staggered on the gravel, and from the flapping of his big hand, his easy wave of greeting to the other man, that he too was an American. He had the carelessness of confident ownership.

“Es él quien tiene la culpa,” the boy said.

Hernán translated: “That one’s fault.”

The two men shook hands and conferred, and the waiter approached with a flunky’s obedient walk, upright and smiling and presenting his tray, and was rebuffed. The Americans walked toward a shelter — an awning propped up like a marquee — and the waiter followed them, the chef behind in his spotless whites.

“ Petroleros Hernán said.

The boy appealed to Steadman, saying, “Nos gustan los Estados Unidos” Then he made a face and gestured to the oilmen: “Pero!”

“I wish I weren’t seeing this,” Steadman said to Ava. He regretted being there and for a moment forgot why he had come to Ecuador.

Then Hernán said, “We go now. We get ready.”

Only then did Steadman remember the ceremony. As he walked the narrow path back to the village and the riverbank, the rain forest seemed much more fragile and less wild, not as shadowy, but part of a captive and violated world that he had always known.

THEY WERE GATHERED at the thatched pavilion in the failing light of day, looking pale and uncertain. Each person carried a hammock and a change of clothes and the items they had been instructed to bring: a sleeping pad, a poncho, socks and a jacket, and a bottle of drinking water. The shelter had looked simple enough from the outside, but now that they were inside and choosing places to sit, they could see how carefully the shelter had been made, the peeled logs lashed together, the slanted split-bamboo roof covered with tight bundles of thatch, the upright poles like columns that had been rubbed smooth. The whole structure now seemed less like a pavilion than a chapel in the forest, lit by sooty lanterns and flickering candle stubs.

Don Pablo and Don Esteban sat on stools at the far end, at what would have been the altar, had it been a chapel. They were monkish in their solemnity and their simple red smocks, with necklaces of orange beads and crowns of plaited feathers on their heads. Each man held on his knee a gallon-sized plastic jug sealed with a carved wooden stopper, dark liquid sloshing inside.

Other Secoya men, in T-shirts and shorts but just as serious as the two ornamented and costumed old men, were stamping on the earthen floor. There was no music, no sound at all except for the bird squawks and the piercing insect wail of the forest.

Some more Secoya men walked out of the darkness from the direction of the village, holding torches. Their entering the shelter, and lighting its interior, seemed to animate Don Pablo and Don Esteban, who began chanting, first in a murmur and then in a low growl that sounded to Steadman like the groaning syncopation of Tibetan monks at prayer.

Steadman and Ava had unrolled their sleeping mats to one side, near a lantern. They set out their clothes, their pillows, their water bottles. Steadman kept his notebook and pen by his side.

Manfred was at the front, nearest to Don Pablo, and the other four were gathered behind him, Janey leaning on Hack’s shoulder, the Wilmutts squatting, coaxing their air mattress.

“They’re supposed to be self-inflating,” Wood said.

“Who’s first?” Hack asked, and Steadman heard a note of apprehension, a quaver in the man’s voice.

Sabra said, “It’s like, ‘Take a number.’”

Hearing her, Don Pablo stopped chanting and waved her away, and when she hesitated, he rose and stepped forward and poked her shoulder with his staff. Sabra backed away, glaring at the shaman.

Manfred was kneeling, leaning forward, holding an empty cup, so that when the moment came he would be ready, he would be first. He was watching Nestor for a sign. .

But Nestor ignored him. He had been glaring with disapproval at Sabra all this time, hoping to catch her eye. He had told her before that because she was having her period she was not permitted near the shelter. Don Pablo had poked her so hard with his stick she was rubbing her shoulder, as though in pain. She backed out of the shelter, looking wronged, and became a shadow, slowly retreating.

Nestor said, “Okay, we can start, but it is not a good idea to be in a big hurry. Calma. There’s lots of different energy here.”

Manfred hesitated, the others murmured, Janey stepped back as if she had been asked a question to which she did not have the answer, and now Steadman was glad that he had not come alone. He could see that Ava was relieved that Manfred was going first.

“Don Pablo wants to show you the vines that went into the mixture,” Nestor said, following the old man.

Manfred said, “Tell me the names of the others you mix with it. I mean, to the caapi maybe they add rusbyana .”

“I don’t know the names.” He spoke to the shaman, then said, “Tobacco. And sometimes toe. What you call the datura.”

“I want to know more about this.”

“Do me a favor!” Hack said. “Like you want to do lunch at the Four Seasons and they show you the fucking kitchen. Hello! Can we start now?