Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast

We trudged past the man with the net to where the shacks were banked against the beach. People lived in them, though they were no better than woodsheds and would not have done for chicken houses because of the loosely slatted boards and leaky-looking roofs. But humans were in them, cooking and sleeping — I saw their fires and their hammocks. Walking was hazardous here because of the shacks. From each back door there was a furrow of black water stretched across the sand — slime, suds, and worse, spewing into the sea. The beach was their junkyard and the sea was their sewer.

Mother said, "Allie, I've seen enough."

But walking back to the road and our cart in the twilight, we heard music. We saw a boy with a flute stumbling toward us. He played a warbling sundown song. It cast a soft spell on the beach, as purply-blue as the sky over the sea. It was a strange song, with a trickling melody, and it sweetened the air like raindrops. The boy was a shadow, and his flute no bigger than a twig, but the song was an invitation for us to stay a little longer on this Mosquito Coast. It had in it a promise and a plea, liquefied like the freshet of chirps from an oriole in a leafy tree.

Then he was gone and there were sharp voices in the sudden darkness. I was afraid. We were so far from home. Father and Mother walked ahead of us, holding hands and whispering. We children followed and I thought, What now?

Jerry said, "It's junk, it stinks, it's crappo, I hate it."

"Don't let him hear you," I said.

***

We entered the town at night, under the bright barnacled moon, and it was magic — the halos on old lampposts, the solid buildings, the sheltering trees, the half-deserted streets, and the snuffle of traffic. We went to a hotel, and from our bedroom the town was like velvet. I imagined the whole place to be made out of green pillows, creepy-quiet and cool. I dreamed of meadow grass and rolled over, put my arms out, and flew in buttery light over places I knew. I could often fly in my dreams — not high, but high enough so that people had to watch me with upturned faces. It was a lovely night and coming at the end of that stormy sea voyage, it was like arriving home.

But in the morning, birds I could not name yattered against the windows, and in the darkness of the dusty room cracks of sun showed in the shutters. I opened the shutters and saw that the town was burst open by the sunlight. It was cracked and discolored and mobbed by people actually screaming above the braying car horns. There was no magic now, nor even anything familiar. The smells and sounds were an idiot argument I could not win, and it was so hot I could smell the old paint on the windowsill. I had been fooled, and hated the sight of it. It had taken so long to get there — even if we left now it would be days before we could get back to our own house.

Mother and Father were in another room. We kids looked out of our own window at the town of small stores. There was a heavy whitewashed church across the palm-tree park in which men in hats were standing, doing nothing. The radio music in the street — the street! — was so loud the noise seemed to heat the air. I remembered the dismal beach, the boy prisoners shoveling sand, and one up to his shoulders in the hole. I had expected trees, jungle, stillness, and flitting birds. Father had promised us something better than home, not this dusty place. It was like a nightmare of summer ruin, a town damaged by sunlight.

The hotel smelled of its carpets and its kitchen. The room in which our four beds were stuck was a bare cell, but on one wall was a colored picture, probably cut from a gas-station calendar, of a New England scene — woods, a pond mirroring a green mountain, and a red canoe on the pond. Whoever cut it out and pasted it into the frame knew that it was prettier than this town. Jerry said, "It looks like Lake Wyola."

Father roused us. He blew cigar smoke into our room and said he was famished. "He's still happy," Clover said. But as we approached the hotel dining room for breakfast, we heard singing—"God who gave us Jeedoof's weal…" It was the Spellgoods, they were also staying here, singing with bowed heads over their helpings. Emily stopped scratching when she saw me. The dining room of this hotel was like the dining room on the Unicom, the Spellgoods at two tables, we at ours, and some Bummick-like fruit-company workers at other tables, all starting breakfast.

"Here you are, Mr. Fox," Rev. Spellgood said. "I guess the good Lord intends for us to team up after all! If you're going to be in the area any length of time, you scoop up your family and pay us a visit. You'll find us in Guampu, doing the Lord's work."

"The Lord hasn't mentioned Guampu to me," Father said. "I wish He would get in touch, though. I could give Him a few pointers if He's planning any other worlds. He certainly made a hash of this one."

Rev. Spellgood said sadly. - Friend, there's a lot of work to be done."

"So I noticed."

"You never did tell me what you're aiming to do here," Rev. Spellgood said.

"You're absolutely right, Gurney. I never did tell you." With that, Father sat down, and we had breakfast, which was mashed beans, like red clay, and a small square of damp goat's cheese, and a heap of hot tortillas.

Father said, "We're getting out of here."

"This town?" Mother asked.

"This hotel. Half the people in this room are packing guns. Even old Gurney's got one — he's wearing a pistol under his shirt. So much for putting on the whole armor of the Lord. I've been outside. It's all soldiers and shoeshine boys. I don't know which is worse, them or the missionaries."

Across the room, Emily Spellgood was staring at me.

"I don't see why we have to hang around," Mother said. "We could be on the road."

"There aren't any roads — that's the beauty of this country," Father said. "But we're not the Swiss Family Robinson, and we're not squatters. I'm going to buy a piece of land, cash down. I don't want any of these gunslingers giving me the bum's rush or stealing my soul at gunpoint. After that we'll be on our lonesome, and I don't care if — oh, Gaw, here he comes again."

It was Rev. Spellgood, leading his family out of the dining room. He winked at Father and said, "Guampu."

Emily sneaked behind my chair and whispered, "I'm going to the bathroom, Charlie."

"Charlie's blushing!" Jerry said.

We moved that very day in pelting rain to another hotel, called The Gardenia, at the eastern edge of La Ceiba, on a sandy road next to the beach. Still the rain came slapping down, tearing the leaves off the trees. It was straight, loud, thick, and gray, and it stopped as quickly as it began. Then there was sunlight and steam, and a returning odor.

The Gardenia was a two-story building covered with stucco in which cracks showed through the faded green paint. Its long piazza faced the sea and gave us a good view of the pier, where the Unicorn was still tied up. That ship was my hope. Men's voices and the racket of conveyor belts and bucking freight cars carried across the water. During the day, we were the only people at The Gardenia, but at night, just before we went to bed, women gathered on the piazza and sat in the wicker armchairs drinking Coca-Cola. Later, there was music and laughing, and from our room I heard men and shouts and slamming doors, and sometimes glass breaking. I saw this crowd though I was often woken by it — by tramping feet and songs and screams. In the morning, everything was quiet. The only person around was an old woman with a broom sweeping the mess into a pile and taking it away in a bucket.

The manager of this hotel was an Italian named Tosco. He wore a silver bracelet and pinched our faces too hard. He had once lived in New York. He said it was like hell. Father said, "I know just what you mean." Tosco liked Honduras. It was nice and cheap. You could do anything you wanted here, he said.