Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

in Bangkok. He told me to go by Psalm 121—’I lift mine eyes unto the hills.’ I told him I’m a pagan. He insisted I read Psalm 121 every day while I’m traveling. So. Was he playing a game? Why tell me something like that?” He filled his bowl once more. Storm watched him eat.

“Because it was a message.” “A message, indeed. But who was the message for?” Storm didn’t tell him who the message was for. Johnny said, “I don’t like talking about religious things. It makes two

people unfriendly.” “No, Mr. John,” the Brit said, “we’re not going to argue, not about re

ligion. It’s too boring.” “What about a woman for you tonight? What about a massage?” The Brit looked disturbed by this talk and said, “We’ll mention it

later, all right?”

The next day Storm engaged Johnny to guide him into the government-owned forest. Three blocks from Johnny’s hotel they stepped into an open twenty-foot motorboat and were piloted up the Jelai River through a light rain by a man draped in several clear plastic bags.

“This man is from the primitives,” Johnny said. “But he is living in the city now, with us. We’ll meet his relatives, his clan. The government supports them. They live like a thousand years ago.”

They traveled upstream. The river flat, sinewed, brown. They said nothing. The outboard engine’s small clatter. Stink of its smoke. The town receded. At first, some occasional dwellings alongside their progress, then none.

Many miles upriver the two passengers stepped from the boat onto a wooden pier that seemed to serve no nearby village or any habitation at all.

“Where the fuck is he going?” They watched the boat head into deeper water and turn back downriver.

“He wants to see his people. He will be back. When we come at suppertime, he will be here.”

Storm tied a bandanna around his brow. They hefted their packs and took to the worn trail, Johnny leading, skirting frequent large cakes of elephant droppings sprouting tiny mushrooms. Somebody lived here: the wild rubber trees had been scored in spirals, and sap dripped into wooden bowls tied to the trunks at knee-level.

On the flap of Johnny’s large backpack was emblazoned an American flag. Storm watched it moving through the jungle, floating over the trail. In his own small pack he carried only cigarettes and matches and his notebook and socks and bandannas, all wrapped in a plastic bag, and a flashlight. And batteries. There was no use carrying a gun. You were always outnumbered.

The rain stopped. It didn’t matter—sweat or rain, he’d be wet. “Your name is Ju-shuan.”

“Ju-shuan?”

“So I was told.”

“Ju-shuan? That is a nonsense noise. Ju-shuan is not a Chinese name.” They were climbing, and they were breathing hard, but Johnny stopped for a quick smoke.

The trail made its way along the side of a cliff. They remained standing, looking down on the rough green canopy and the brown Jelai River cutting through it.

Johnny asked him, “What is your name?” “Hollis.” “How old are you?” “I’m forty-plus.” “Forty-plus,” Johnny said, “forty-plus.” A bit later he said, “Forty-plus.” “That means Fm more than forty.” “Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three.” “Forty-three.” “Forty-three years old.” “Yeah.” Johnny mashed his cigarette into the earth with the heel of his black

sandal. “I know you.” “Sure you do. And you knew Benęt.” Johnny’s eyes searched around for a lie. He tried candor: “I knew

him, sure.” “He’s dead. They hanged him.” “Of course, I know, it’s a famous case. That’s what I mean. I heard

about him from the newspapers, that’s all.” He began climbing again, Storm close behind. “Why don’t you talk? I have a lot of information about the region.

Why don’t you ask me?” “When I’m ready, I’ll ask.” After half a kilometer they stopped again to rest. The trail was narrow

here and they could only lean against the cliffside. “There is the top.

Then we’ll go down, and at the bottom we’ll find the caves.” Storm lit a cigarette. “I said seven and you came at seven,” Johnny said. “You’re very on-the-dot.” His face was not the inscrutable kind. He looked perplexed and

desperate. “That’s me.” “I didn’t sleep correctly,” Johnny told his patron. “I felt my soul de

parting from me in the night. Did you know that I pray? But in the past few days, nothing has gone correctly. When I pray, I see no shadow on the wall—but I am not superstitious.”

“You’re babbling.” Johnny pointed to an outcropping on a bluff across the gorge: “I see my father’s face in that rock.”

Storm made no answer, and they resumed hiking, Johnny still in the lead, his head turned three-quarters now at all times toward Storm behind him. “Look, I’m telling you two things,” he said as they walked. “I don’t know Benęt and also my name is not Ju-shuan.”

When they gained the ridge Johnny shed his pack and sat down beside it. “It’s too heavy. I have a small tent inside. After the caves we can camp. I have the food. Do you want some fruit?”

Storm devoured a mango and scraped at the seed with his teeth. The clouds had parted. The sunshine crashed heavily down on them and turned the canopy below a lively pulsing green and glinted sharply on the river far below. It was his first time in real jungle. He’d never seen the bush during the war except from helicopters high overhead. Spongy and multifariously green, like this, only sometimes with tracers rising out of it, or under flares at night.

“We must get a stick. If it’s too wet, we can slip going down.”

Each found a staff, and they headed down to the caves. At the bottom Johnny showed him a square-meter hole in the base of the cliff. “The natives took the boys here to be changed into men. To go inside you have to be born for a second time. You’ll see. That’s why they chose it. You’ll see. But first, are you hungry?”

They sat on a log and ate rice out of plastic baggies with their fingers while an angry monkey tossed dirt and bark down onto them from the cliff above. “It’s always good to eat,” Johnny said. “Now we’ll go inside. We must leave our belongings.”

Storm crouched before the hole. Pebbles dribbled down in front of his face—the monkey still at it up the cliff. He shone his light: the aperture narrowed within. “Bullshit.”

“It’s quite safe. No one is here to steal from us.”

“It’s a little fucking tube, man.”

“We can do it easily. I will go. It turns to the left. When you don’t see my light, you come, okay?” He went down on all fours grunting and crawled forward scraping his flashlight along the floor. Storm squatted at the entrance looking after him. In seconds Johnny’s light was gone around a tight bend. Storm followed on hands and knees. The beam from the torch in his hand leapt at the walls and flashed up at his face. After the bend he saw Johnny’s light pointing back at him. Within a few yards he had to stretch out and wriggle through the passage with his arms to his sides, flashlight directed backward, head laid flat. In Chinese Johnny talked to himself. Storm had to blow out his breath to go on, but he couldn’t see how to back out, and anyway the fat bastard had made it through and he had to stay with him—he’d do anything to keep with him and reminded himself that he didn’t care whether he lived or died. He slid face first through darkness, incredibly swiftly. Light bloomed around him. Johnny stood in a chamber whose walls lay too far off to see. With Johnny’s help Storm rose carefully from the slick floor but could hardly keep his feet under him. Johnny whispered, “Quiet, please.”

He shone his light upward. Bats covered the high ceilings like a shaggy carpet of drooping leaves. Tens of thousands of them.