Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast

The women wore ragged dresses and the men wore shorts. But these clothes did not hide their nakedness. They seemed to represent clothes rather than serve any covering purpose. We could see their private parts through the rips and tears. And the children — Clover's age and mine — were stark naked, which was embarrassing.

"Carkles and wilks," Mr. Haddy said, and stuck his teeth out.

Father said, "They don't look so bad to me. Are you sure this is the place?"

Francis said it was.

We expected Father to say hello. He didn't. He turned his back on the people, as if he had known them a long time, and he said, "Okay, let's go" over his shoulder — meaning them. "Follow me — we've got work to do."

Three of the men — they looked a little like Francis, except that they were nakeder and had bushier hair — followed Father to the duckboards.

"You stay here," Father said to us. "Relax, get acquainted, make yourselves known."

He went off impatiently, whacking at flies with his hat, and then we heard him kicking the duckboards to scare snakes. The three men followed him without a word.

Clover said, "He's right at home anywhere." She sounded like Mother.

The people stared at Clover through the haze from the firepit's smoke. They had gray blurred faces and wore scorched rags. Mud was caked on their legs.

"See-ville, man," Mr. Haddy said. "What a spearmint!"

Francis said, "Almost went dead here, Haddy. Two time."

Now the people looked at us.

"What you do to these folks, Lungley?"

"Ain't do nothing."

"How is it?" Mr. Haddy spoke to the people. He stuck out his teeth and opened his mouth to listen.

No one replied. "Must be ailing," Mr. Haddy whispered. The naked children hid behind their parents. We looked at each other across the clearing, and it was like looking across the world.

They turned their heads. An old man limp-scraped into the clearing from the pillars of the forest trees. He wore a pair of cut-off striped pants, wire glasses, and socks but no shoes — his toenails were yellow in the rips. A rag was knotted around his neck. There were broken straws in his hair. He wore a bicycle clip on each wrist like a bracelet.

"That is the Gowdy," Francis said.

"Look like he require a bevidge," Mr. Haddy said. "Shoo!"

The next words we heard were Father's. He was hidden and saying, "Careful! Steady there! Don't drop them!"

We had packed the ice so carefully in banana leaves that the blocks were like parcels, tied with vines. The silent men carried two parcels apiece. Father led them to the middle of the clearing and directed that the parcels be placed on the ground.

"Who's in charge here?" Father said.

"Man with speckles," Francis said. "He the Gowdy." He nodded at the man who stood slightly forward of the group of staring people. Seeing our eyes on him, the old man clawed some of the straws out of his hair.

Father shook the man's hand. "You the Gowdy?"

"Gowdy," the man said, and he giggled.

"We've got a little surprise for you," Father said in his friendly way. "Want to get those other people over here?" He took out his jackknife and winked at us. "I'd like to show them something."

When the people were close, Father cut the vines and pushed the leaves aside, uncovering one block of ice. He stabbed his knife blade like an ice pick and hacked off a corner. He gave this hunk of ice to the Gowdy.

The old man bobbied it, just as Tiny Polski had done back in Hatfield, not knowing whether it was hot or cold. The people gathered around to touch it. They laughed and pushed to get near it and stepped on their children. The ones who touched the ice smelled their fingers, or walked a little distance away to lick them.

Father was still winking at us as he spoke to the old man, the Gowdy. "What's the verdict?"

"Good morning to you, sah. I am well, thank you. Where are you garng. I am garng to the bushes." The Gowdy's wire glasses had been knocked crooked by the pushing people. "Today is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thank you, that is a good lesson."

He bobbied the ice as he spoke.

"Hasn't the slightest idea," Father said to us.

The ice was melting in the old man's hand. Water ran down his arm, leaving dirt streaks on his skin. It dripped from the knob at his elbow.

"Completely in the dark," Father said. He put his arm around the old man's shoulders and gave him a wide smile.

The Gowdy shivered.

"What's that?" Father said, and pointed.

"Hice," the Gowdy said.

"Jesus Christ Almighty!" Father roared, and gave the Gowdy a shove, nearly knocking the old man over.

But no sooner had he spoken than every one of the people, including the Gowdy, dropped to his knees. The sudden movement startled the birds. A great uprush of them, big and small, shook the branches overhead, and these birds alerted the roosting birds, which took off like turkeys from the treetops. The sick puppy yapped and stumbled as the people knelt low, pinching their throats and murmuring.

" Ah Fadder wart neven hello bead name— "

"Cut it out!" Father said. "Get up — off your knees!" He tried to drag them up, then he turned to Francis and screamed, "You traitor, you gave me a bum steer! Thanks a lot!"

Mr. Haddy was laughing softly, relieved that they were Christians. And maybe he was secretly glad that Father, who seldom made mistakes, had blundered by taking ice here, when Mr. Haddy himself could more easily have shipped it to the coast and made a greater impression. He went forward to calm the confused people, who were still gasping and praying, and said, "You is good folks, but this is bush for true."

Father was so angry he vanished in the way the people in Seville had near the duckboards. He went up in a puff of smoke, leaving only his angry smell behind. We removed the rest of the parcels from the boat and talked to the villagers. They said that they had seen ice four or five times. They said it was wonderful stuff and they described it as cold stones that turned into water. Missionaries had brought it to them, and they believed that we were missionaries, too, and Father was our preacher. They wanted to know where we lived and if we had any food or salt to give them. The Gowdy boasted that everyone in the village was baptized.

He said they were waiting — waiting to go to Heaven and see the Lord Jesus. Mr. Haddy said it was a pretty rotten place to wait, full of monkey-shoo, but he could understand why they wanted to leave as soon as possible, for Heaven or anywhere else. Father returned — too late to hear any of this, which was just as well.

"I walked around the block," he said.

He would not speak to anyone in Seville. He said only that Francis had betrayed him. When the Gowdy tried to get the people started on a hymn, Father yelled as if he had hit his thumb with a hammer, and then said he would wait for us on the boat.

We left Seville. The people had begun to quarrel over the ice.

Father's moodiness made the trip back to Jeronimo mostly silent. But it was a faster trip. The contours of the river were not strange to us anymore, and the current was with us. Father made improvements on his map and we did not take any wrong turns. I worked the pedals. Father sat in the bow with Clover on his lap, sulking over his map, because the Seville people had seen ice before and because they prayed. "They might as well be in Hatfield, cutting asparagus," was all he said. He hugged Clover, like a big boy with a teddy bear. Francis and Mr. Haddy knew they were being ignored. They crouched amidships in the ice-storage vault with nothing to do.

After a while, Francis said he saw pipantos. Someone was following us, he said. Father did not reply or turn his head.

"Little one," Mr. Haddy said, looking past me. "Pipanto."