Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast

One day, following some of the Zambus who were clearing land, I came upon a bird jerking in a clump of grass. But it was not the grass that held it — it was a web, a thick wet spider web, like a hank of wool. I knelt down and untangled it, and I had let it go before I thought to look for the spider. Then I saw it — as big as my hand, and brown and hairy, and matching the color of the fever-grass roots. The Zambu Bucky said it was a Hanancy spider and not only did she catch birds but she ate them as well, and she would eat me too if I was not careful. The bird, a peachy-gray color, was one that Bucky said just came a few weeks in the year. I guessed it was a migratory bird, too innocent to be wary of the spiders in the jungle grass. It worried me to think that we were a little like that bird.

There was everything in this grass — scorpions, snakes, wire, chicken bones, mice, pacas, wine bottles, ant nests, and shovelheads. We cut the grass so that mosquitoes would not have a place to breed, but in the process we often found other useful things. For example, while the clearing went on (it was supervised by Mother, who was infected by Father's desire to shave the whole of Jeronimo and rid us of bugs), Mr. Maywit and Father were digging postholes for our new house. Father kept saying that what they needed was a posthole digger. Later that day, Francis Lungley clanked his machete against a metal object. He brought this thing to Father, who said it was the business end of a posthole digger.

He worked its blades, which were like jaws, and said, "All she needs is a couple of handles and we're on our way."

It took him less than an hour to get it working.

"I needed a posthole digger, and a posthole digger was found. Now I ask you — was this accident or was this part of some grand design?"

The best find in all the land-clearing was a stack of wood, cut into planks. Father said it was the best grade of mahogany — so good, he said, that he had half a mind to make it into a piano. It was too heavy for the house, but he said he knew just what to do with it. It was put aside, and the snakes swept out of it, and it was left to dry.

"Find me some more of that lumber over there," he said, and that same day some more wood was found. The Zambus laughed, because it was right where Father said it would be.

Mother worked alongside the Zambus, wearing one of Father's shirts, with her hair done up in a scarf. This was Father's idea — he said that none of the Zambus would stop working while a woman was on her feet cutting brush. Soon, most of Jeronimo was slashed and burned. It looked as though a battle had been fought there — black land, black stumps, steam and smoke issuing from cracks in the earth. Mr. Maywit's rusty hut stood hanging with morning-glories on an island of its own banana trees. What was to be our house was a rectangular corral of thirty posts sticking about six feet out of the ground. Once the floor was set on these posts, the cooking apparatus was moved to it from the guanacaste tree. This underfloor part of the house became our kitchen.

Some corrugated iron sheets were uncovered in the land-clearing. But Father did not like the look of them, and for a number of days he went upriver with three of the Zambus to cut bamboo. He left early in the morning, and an hour or so later the bamboo in eight-foot lengths would appear, floating down the river into Jeronimo. These were brought ashore by the other Zambus, the Maywits, and Mother. But most of the carrying was done by the river, Father said. He had a genius for simplifying any job.

These bamboos, about five inches thick, were carefully split in half and smoothed inside to resemble gutters. By laying them over the roof beams and fitting them like tiles — locking them together lengthwise and cupping the line of grooves with an overlapping series laid face-down — a completely watertight roof was made. Father was so pleased by this, he sang.

Under the bam!

Under the boo!

He made the walls in the same way — we had four rooms and a porch, which Father called the Gallery. The whole thing had overhanging roof eaves, like an enormous birdhouse.

Father was so taken up with the house and the work projects in Jeronimo that our lessons stopped. Mother said they were neglecting us. They ought to be spending some time with the kids, she said. What happened to our education?

"This is the very education they need," Father said. "Everyone in America should be getting it. When America is devastated and laid to waste, these are the skills that will save these kids. Not writing poetry, or fingerpainting, or what's the capital of Texas — but survival, rebuilding a civilization from the smoking ruins."

It was his old speech, War in America, but now he felt he had a remedy.

The Maywits and Zambus regarded the bamboo house as a miracle.

Father said, "They don't paint pictures, they don't weave baskets or carve faces on coconuts or hollow out salad bowls. They don't sing or do dances or write poems. They can't draw a straight line. That's why I like them. That's innocence. They're a little touched with religion, but they'll get over that. Mother, there's hope here."

During the house raising, Father encouraged us to watch him with the Maywit children. Clover and April got on well with the Maywit girls — though Clover bossed them by making them recite the alphabet over and over again — and Jerry played with the boy called Drainy, who was also ten. None was my age, so this left me free to help Father, or play by myself.

Drainy was a bug-eyed boy with a shaven head and spaces between his teeth. He had a collection of little cars and toy bikes made out of coathanger wire. As he was playing with Jerry, I found some of these wire toys and rattled them along the ground. Father asked me what they were.

I showed him. They were ingeniously made. They had moving parts, and one resembled in the smallest detail a tricycle, with pedals and wheels.

Father was fascinated by anything mechanical. He sat down and studied them. After he had meditated over them for several minutes and tried them, he said, "These were made by some very sophisticated instruments. See how that wire is twisted and joined? There's no soldering at all, and the angles and bends are perfectly formed."

He looked at me and winked.

"Charlie," he said, "I think someone's hiding tools from us. I had these people all wrong. I could use the kind of precision tools that made these."

He showed Mr. Maywit, who said sure enough, they were Drainy's. Drainy was summoned to the Gallery.

"Where did you get these?" Father asked.

"I make um."

"Take your time, son," Father said. "I want you to show me exactly how you made them. I'll give you some wire. Now you get your tools and make one for me."

Father gave the boy some fine strands of wire, but Drainy did not move. He held them dumbly in his dirty hand, and sucked his teeth.

"Don't you want to show me your tools?"

Mr. Maywit gave the boy a poke in the shoulder.

"Ain't got no tools."

Father said, "So you can't make them after all?"

"Kin," Drainy said. He squatted and took the wire in his teeth, and by chewing it and drawing it through the gaps like dental floss, and champing it like a marrow bone, he formed it into a sprocket and held it up for Father to admire.

Mr. Maywit's excitement made him gabble—"He make em wif his teef!"

Father said to Drainy, "You take care of those choppers and brush them every day. I'm going to need you later on."

IT WAS NOT an easy life these first weeks in Jeronimo. It was no coconut kingdom of free food and grass huts and sunny days, under the bam, under the boo. Wilderness was ugly and unusable, and where were the dangerous animals? There was something stubborn about jungle trees, the way they crowded each other and gave us no shade. I saw cruelty in the hanging vines and selfishness in their root systems. This was work, and more work, and a routine that took up every daylight hour. On the Unicorn and in La Ceiba, and even in Hatfield, we had done pretty much what we pleased. Father had left us alone and gone about his own business. Usually I had helped him, but sometimes not. Here, things were different.