City of the Beasts (21 page)

The fire ants crawled over his skin for a few seconds before biting him. When they did, he felt as if acid had eaten his flesh to the bone. Horrific pain stunned him for several instants, but through a brutal effort of will, he kept from pulling his arm from the sieve. He remembered Nadia's words when she was trying to teach him to live with mosquitoes: Don't try to defend yourself; ignore them. It was impossible to ignore fire ants, but after a few moments of absolute desperation, in which it was all he could do not to run and jump in the river, he realized it was possible to control the impulse to flee, to choke back his howls, to open himself to suffering without resisting, to allow the pain to penetrate his body and his consciousness. And then the searing pain went through him like a sword, emerged from his back, and, miraculously, he was able to bear it. Alex would never be able to explain the sense of power he felt during that torture. He felt as strong and invincible as he had in the form of the black jaguar, after drinking Walimai's magic potion. That was his reward for having survived the test. He knew that, in truth, he had left his childhood behind and that from that night on he would be able to look after himself.

"Welcome among men," said Tahama, removing the sieve from Alex's arm.

The warriors led the semiconscious young man back to the village.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Sacred Mountain

BATHED IN SWEAT, battered, and burning with fever, Alexander—Jaguar—walked down a long green corridor, stepped across an aluminum threshold, and saw his mother. Lisa was lying back among pillows in a large chair with a sheet pulled across her body, in a room where the light was as clear as moonlight. She was wearing a blue wool cap over her bald head and headphones on her ears. She was very pale and thin, with dark shadows around her eyes. Yellow liquid dripped from a plastic bag into the IV inserted into a vein beneath her collarbone. Each drop penetrated, like the fire of the ants, directly into the bloodstream to his mother's heart.

Thousands of miles away in a hospital in Texas, Lisa was receiving her chemotherapy. She tried not to think about the drug that, like a poison, flowed through her veins to fight the worse poison of her illness. To distract herself, she was concentrating on each note of the flute concerto she was listening to, the one she had heard her son rehearsing so many times. At the same moment that Alex, in his delirium, was dreaming about her deep in the jungle, Lisa saw her son with absolute clarity. She saw him in the doorway of her room, taller and stronger, more mature and more handsome than she remembered. Lisa had called him so often in her thoughts that she was not surprised to see him. She didn't ask how or why he had come, she simply gave herself to the pleasure of having him at her side. "Alexander… Alexander…" she murmured. She held out her hands and he moved forward to touch her; he knelt beside the chair and put his head on her knees. As Lisa repeated her son's name and stroked the back of his neck, from the earphones, through the diaphanous notes of the flute, she heard his voice asking her to fight, not to give in to death, telling her over and over,
I love you, Momma
.

Alexander's meeting with his mother might have lasted an instant or several hours, neither of the two knew for sure. When finally they said good-bye and returned to the material world, they were strengthened. Shortly afterward, John entered his wife's room and was surprised to find her smiling, and with color in her cheeks.

"How do you feel, Lisa?" he asked with concern.

"Happy, John, because Alex was here," she replied.

"Lisa, what are you saying…? Alexander is in the Amazon with my mother, don't you remember?" her husband murmured, frightened about the effect the medication might be having on his wife.

"Yes, I remember, but that doesn't change the fact that he was here a moment ago."

"That isn't possible," her husband rebutted.

"He's grown, he looks much taller and stronger, but his left arm is very swollen…" she told John, and closed her eyes to rest.

In the middle of the South American continent, in the Eye of the World, Alexander awoke. It was several minutes before he recognized the golden girl bending over him to give him water.

"You are a man now, Jaguar," said Nadia, smiling to see him back among the living.

Walimai prepared a paste of medicinal plants and applied it to Alex's arm, and within a matter of hours, the fever and swelling had subsided. The shaman explained that just as there are poisons in the jungle that kill without leaving a trace, there are thousands and thousands of natural remedies. Alex described his mother's illness and asked Walimai if he knew of any plant that could help her.

"There is a sacred plant, but it must be mixed with the water of health," the shaman replied.

"Can I find the water and that plant?"

"Maybe yes and maybe no. You must perform many labors."

"I will do anything I have to!" Alex exclaimed.

The next day Alex was bruised, and a red pimple marked each ant bite, but he was on his feet and hungry. When he recounted his experience to Nadia, she told him that the girls of the tribe did not go through an initiation ceremony because they didn't need it; women know when they have left their childhood behind because their body bleeds and tells them.

This was one of those days when Tahama and his companions had not had good luck with the hunt, and the tribe had only maize and a few fish. Alex decided that if he had eaten anaconda on a spit, he should be able to eat the fish, even though it was covered with scales and spines. Surprised, he discovered that he liked it. "And to think that I have deprived myself of this delicious treat for more than fifteen years!" he exclaimed at the second mouthful. Nadia told him to eat well; they would be leaving the following day with Walimai on a journey to the world of the spirits, where there might not be food for the body.

"Walimai says we're going to the sacred mountain where the gods live," she said.

"What will we do there?"

"We're going to look for the three crystal eggs I saw in my vision. Walimai believes that the eggs will save the People of the Mist."

Their journey began at dawn, as soon as the first light appeared in the sky. Walimai went first, accompanied by his beautiful angel-wife, who sometimes walked hand in hand with the shaman and other times fluttered like a butterfly over his head, always silent and smiling. Alexander was proudly armed with a bow and some arrows, new weapons given to him by Tahama at the end of the rite of initiation. Nadia carried a gourd with plantain soup and some cassava flatbread Iyomi had given them for the trek. The witch man did not need provisions, everyone said that in old age he ate very little. He did not seem human: He nourished himself with sips of water and a few nuts that he sucked for long periods between his toothless gums, and he scarcely slept, yet he had strength enough to keep going when the young people were dropping with fatigue.

They started off through the tree-covered plains of the altiplano in the direction of the highest of the
tepuis
, a black, shining tower like an obsidian sculpture. Alex consulted his compass and learned that they were heading due east. There was no visible path, but Walimai plunged through the undergrowth with awesome certainty, orienting himself among trees, valleys, hills, rivers, and waterfalls as if he were carrying a map in his hand.

As they advanced, the landscape changed. Walimai told them that this was the kingdom of the Mother of Waters, and in truth there was an incredible wealth of cascades and waterfalls. As yet, the
garimpeiros
had not arrived here in search of gold and precious stones, but it was only a question of time. The miners worked in groups of four or five and were too poor to pay for transport by air; they explored the obstacle-filled terrain on foot or paddled the rivers in canoes. There were, however, men like Mauro Carías who had modern resources and who knew about the enormous riches in this part of the country. The only thing that stopped them from exploiting the land, mining with giant pressure hoses that destroyed the forests and transformed the countryside into a mud pit, were new laws that protected the environment and the indigenous peoples. The former were violated constantly, but it was not as easy any longer to do that with the latter; the eyes of the world were on these Indians of the Amazon, the last survivors of the Stone Age. They could not be gunned down—as they had been until only recently—without causing an international reaction.

Alex thought once again how important Dr. Omayra Torres's vaccines were, and about his grandmother's reporting for
International Geographic
, which would alert other countries to the situation of the Indians.

What did those three crystal eggs mean that Nadia had seen in her dream? Why did they have to make this journey with the shaman? It seemed to Alex that it would be more useful to try to rejoin the expedition, recover the vaccines, and have his grandmother publish her article. Iyomi had appointed him "chief for negotiating with the
nahab
and their birds of noise and wind," but instead of fulfilling that purpose, he was getting farther and farther away from civilization. There was no logic at all in what they were doing, he thought with a sigh. Before him rose the mysterious and solitary
tepuis
, like constructs from another planet.

The three travelers walked from sunup to sunset, maintaining a fast pace, stopping only to rest their feet or drink from the rivers. Alex tried to shoot a toucan perched a few feet away on a branch, but missed. Then he aimed at a monkey that was so close he could see its yellow teeth, but again missed the mark. The monkey made openly sarcastic faces in response. He considered what little good his brand-new warrior's weapons were; if his companions had to depend on him for food, they would die of starvation. Walimai pointed to some nuts, which were very tasty, and fruit on a tree that they were unable to reach.

The toes on the Indians' feet were widely separated, strong, and flexible; they could climb smooth trunks with incredible agility. Those same feet, with skin as tough as crocodile hide, were also very sensitive; they used their toes even in weaving baskets or rope. In the village, children began to climb as soon as they could stand; Alex, in contrast, with all his experience in climbing mountains, could not get up a tree to pick fruit. Walimai, Nadia, and Borobá were weeping with laughter at his failed attempts, and not one of them showed a drop of sympathy when he took a fall, bruising his bottom and his pride. He felt as heavy and clumsy as an elephant.

At dusk, after many hours of walking, Walimai indicated they could rest. He walked into the river up to his knees and stood motionless and silent until the fish forgot his presence and began to dart around him. When he had the prey within reach, he speared it with his short lance and handed Nadia a beautiful silvery fish, its tail still flicking.

"How did he do that so easily?" Alex wanted to know, humiliated by his earlier failures.

"He asks the fish's permission and explains that he has to kill it out of necessity. Afterward he thanks it for offering its life so that we can live," she clarified.

Before this journey, Alex would have jeered at such thoughts. Now he was absorbing what Nadia was saying.

"It understands because that fish has eaten other fish; now it is its turn to be eaten. That's how it goes," she added.

The shaman built a small fire for them to cook their meal, which revived them, but he took nothing but water. Nadia and Alex slept curled together among the strong roots of a tree. There was no time to set up the hammocks made with strips of bark, as they had in the village; they were tired and they had to start early the next day. Every time one of them moved, the other wiggled around to get as close as possible and share their warmth during the night. In the meantime, the aged Walimai, squatting motionless on his haunches spent those hours observing the heavens; his wife stayed by his side like a transparent fairy, clothed in nothing but her dark hair.

When the young people awakened, the Indian was in exactly the same position he had been the night before; invulnerable to cold or exhaustion. Through Nadia, Alex asked him how long he had lived, and where he got his energy and amazing health. The ancient explained that he had seen many children born who became grandfathers, and had seen those grandfathers die and their grandchildren born. How many years? He shrugged his shoulders; it didn't matter and he didn't know. He said that he was the messenger of the gods; he was used to going to the world of the immortals where the illnesses that kill men do not exist. Alex remembered the legend of El Dorado, where there was not only fabulous wealth but also the fountain of eternal youth.

"My mother is very sick…" Alex murmured, moved by the memory. The experience of having been mentally transported to the hospital in Texas to be with her had been so real that he recalled every detail, from the medicinal smell of the room to Lisa's thin legs beneath the sheet, where he had laid his head.