City of the Beasts (29 page)

"They're invisible."

"Let's be serious, child!" he exclaimed.

"I always am."

"Are you going to tell me that these people can fly like witches?"

"They don't fly, but they run really fast," she clarified.

"Can you speak the language of these Indians, sweetie?"

"My name is Nadia Santos."

"All right, Nadia Santos. Can you talk with them or not?" Carías insisted impatiently.

"Yes."

Dr. Omayra Torres stepped in to explain the urgent need to vaccinate the tribe. Their village had been discovered; it was inevitable that sometime soon they would have contact with outsiders.

"As you know, Nadia, without wanting to we can infect them with diseases that are deadly for them. Whole tribes have perished in two or three months' time because of a common cold. Measles are an even graver danger. I have the vaccine, I can immunize these poor Indians and they will be protected. Can you help me?" the doctor begged.

"I will try," the girl promised.

"How can you communicate with the tribe?"

"I don't know yet, I have to think about it."

Alexander transferred the water of health to a bottle with a waterproof cap and carefully placed it in his knapsack. His grandmother saw him and wanted to know what he was doing.

"It's water to cure my mother," he said. "I found the fountain of eternal youth, what people have been looking for, Kate, for centuries. My mother will get well."

For the first time since he could remember, his grandmother initiated a show of affection. He felt her thin, sinewy arms around him and smelled her pipe-tobacco scent as her thick, self-cut hair and her dry, leather-tough skin brushed his face; he heard her hoarse voice saying his name, and he suspected that maybe she loved him a little after all. The minute Kate realized what she was doing, she stepped back, pushing Alex toward the table where Nadia was waiting. The two hungry, tired adventurers fell upon the beans, rice, cassava bread, and nearly burned fish bristling with bones. Alex devoured all of it with a ferocious appetite before the amazed eyes of Kate, who knew how picky her grandson had always been about food.

After they ate, the friends went to the river to bathe. They knew they were surrounded by invisible Indians who were following every movement of the
nahab
from the undergrowth. As they were splashing in the water, they felt eyes on them as clearly as if hands were touching them. They concluded that the Indians were not coming close because of the presence of the strangers and the helicopters they had seen in the sky. They tried to move a little away from the camp, thinking that if they were alone, the People of the Mist would show themselves, but there was a lot of activity in the village and it was impossible to drift into the forest without attracting attention. Fortunately, the soldiers did not dare step outside the camp because the stories about the Beast and the way it had gutted one of their companions had terrorized them. No one had ever explored the Eye of the World before, and they had heard tales of the spirits and demons that roamed in that region. They were less afraid of the Indians; they had their weapons to rely on, and then they themselves had indigenous blood in their veins.

At nightfall, everyone except those on guard duty sat in groups around the bonfire to smoke and drink. The atmosphere was dreary and someone suggested a little music to lift everyone's spirits. Alex had to admit that he had lost Joseph Cold's famous flute, but he couldn't say where without telling about his adventure inside the
tepui
. His grandmother shot him a murderous look, but didn't say anything, sure that her grandson was hiding a lot from her. A soldier produced a harmonica and played a couple of popular tunes, but his good intentions dropped into a black hole. Fear had possessed them all.

Kate led Nadia and Alex aside to tell them what had happened in their absence, from the moment the Indians had taken them away. As soon as it was realized that they had vanished, a search was begun; everyone was provided with flashlights, and they spread out through the forest and called for them almost all night. Leblanc contributed to the general anguish with another of his helpful prophecies: They had been dragged off by Indians and at that very moment were being roasted and eaten. The professor seized the opportunity to enlighten them on the habit of the Caribbean Indians, who hacked chunks of flesh off live prisoners to eat. Of course, he admitted, they were not among the Caribs, who had been either civilized or exterminated more than a hundred years before, but you never knew how far their cultural influences might have spread. César Santos had been close to pounding the anthropologist into the ground.

By the afternoon of the next day, a helicopter had finally arrived to rescue them. The boat with the unfortunate Joel González had reached Santa María de la Lluvia without incident, and the nuns from the hospital took over. Matuwe, the Indian guide, found help, and he himself went with the helicopter to pick up Captain Ariosto. His sense of orientation was so extraordinary that, although he had never flown, he was able to locate their position in that vast green expanse of jungle and to indicate with precision the place where the
International Geographic
party was waiting. As soon as they landed, Kate insisted that the captain call for reinforcements and organize a systematic search for the missing young people.

César Santos interrupted the writer to add that she had threatened Captain Ariosto with the press, the American embassy, and even the CIA if he did not cooperate; that was how she had obtained the second helicopter, which brought more soldiers and also Mauro Carías. She did not intend to leave there without her grandson, she had assured them, if it meant searching the entire Amazon on foot.

"Did you really say that, Kate?" asked Alex, amused.

"Not because of you, Alexander. It was a matter of principle," she growled.

That night, Nadia, Kate, and Omayra Torres stayed in one tent, Ludovic Leblanc and Timothy Bruce in another; Mauro Carías had his own, and the rest of the men hung their hammocks in the trees. Guards were posted at the four corners of the camp and oil lanterns were kept burning. Although no one said it aloud, they thought that would keep the Beast at bay. The lights made them an easy target for the Indians, but up until then, the tribes had never attacked in the dark because they were afraid of the nocturnal demons that escaped from human nightmares.

Nadia, who was a light sleeper, slept for a few hours and was wakened after midnight by Kate's snoring. After she checked and saw that the doctor, too, was fast asleep, she ordered Borobá to stay where he was and silently slipped out of the tent. She had studied the People of the Mist very closely, resolved to master their ability to move about unseen, and had discovered that it was more than a matter of camouflaging the body; it took a strong determination to dismiss the physical being. Concentration was required to reach the mental state of invisibility in which it was possible to stand three feet away from another person without being seen. She knew when she had achieved that state because her body felt very light, then seemed to dissolve into thin air. She had to hold to her goal without being distracted and not allow her nerves to betray her, the only way to remain hidden from others. As she left the tent, she had to pass a short distance from the guards patrolling the camp, but she did that without fear, protected by the extraordinary mental field she had created around herself.

As soon as she felt she was safe in the forest, which was faintly lighted by the moon, she imitated the screech of the owl twice, and waited. A little later, she sensed the silent presence of Walimai at her side. She asked the witch man to speak with the People of the Mist and convince them to come to the camp and be vaccinated. They could not hide forever in the shadows of the trees, she said, and if they planned to build a new village, they would be discovered by the "birds of noise and wind." She promised him that she would keep track of the Rahakanariwa, and that Jaguar would negotiate with the
nahab
. She said that her friend had a powerful grandmother, but did not try to explain the value of writing and publishing; she didn't think the shaman would understand what she was talking about since he didn't know what writing was and had never seen a printed page. She limited herself to saying that the grandmother had a lot of magic in the world of the
nahab
, although it was of little use in the Eye of the World.

Alexander had tied his hammock outside, a little apart from the others. He had hoped that during the night the Indians would communicate with him, but he dropped off to sleep like a stone. He dreamed of the black jaguar. The meeting with his totemic animal was so clear and precise that the next day he wasn't sure whether he had dreamed it or if it had really happened. In the dream, he got out of his hammock and carefully walked away from the camp without being seen by the guards. As he entered the forest, outside the reach of the light from the fire or the oil lanterns, he saw the black feline stretched along the thick branch of an enormous chestnut tree, its tail switching, it eyes glittering in the night like dazzling topazes, just as it had appeared in the vision after he had drunk Walimai's magic potion. With its teeth and claws he could gut a caiman, with such powerful muscles he could run like the wind, with his strength and courage he could confront any enemy. He was a magnificent animal, king of the beasts, son of the Sun Father, prince of South American mythology. In the dream, Alex stopped a few steps from the jaguar, and, as in his first meeting in Mauro Carías's courtyard, he heard the cavernous voice speaking his name: Alexander… Alexander… The voice vibrated in his brain like a gigantic bronze gong, repeating his name again and again. What did the dream mean? What message was the jaguar trying to send him?

When he awoke, people were already moving around in the camp. The night's vivid dream upset him. He was sure it contained a message, but he couldn't decipher it. The one word the jaguar had spoken in his appearances to him had been his name: Alexander. Nothing more. His grandmother brought him a cup of coffee with condensed milk, something he had not tried before but that now seemed like a delicious breakfast. On impulse, he told her his dream.

"Defender of men," said his grandmother.

"What?"

"That's what your name means. Alexander is a Greek name and means 'defender.'"

"Why did they name me that, Kate?"

"Because of me. Your parents wanted to call you Joseph, like your grandfather, but I insisted on naming you Alexander, like the great warrior of ancient times. We tossed a coin, and I won. That's why you're called what you are," Kate explained.

"What made you think I should have that name?"

"There are many victims in this world, Alexander, and many noble causes to defend. A good warrior name helps in the fight for justice."

"You're in for a big disappointment, Kate. I'm no hero."

"We shall see," she said, passing him the cup of coffee.

The sensation of being observed by hundreds of eyes had everyone in the camp nervous. In recent years, several government employees who were sent to help the Indians had been murdered by the very tribes they were intended to protect. Sometimes the first contact was cordial, with gifts and food being exchanged, but suddenly the Indians would seize their weapons and attack by surprise. Indians are unpredictable and violent, according to Captain Ariosto, who was totally in agreement with Leblanc's theories, and that was why you could not lower your guard, you had to be on constant alert. Nadia tried to argue that the People of the Mist were different, but no one paid any attention to her.

Dr. Omayra Torres explained that for the last ten years her medical work had been principally among peaceful tribes; she knew nothing about the Indians Nadia called the People of the Mist. In any case, she expected to have more luck than in the past, and this time vaccinate them before they were infected. She admitted that on several previous occasions the vaccine had arrived too late. She gave the injections, but within a few days they fell ill anyway and died by the hundreds.

By then, Ludovic Leblanc had completely lost patience. His mission had been fruitless; he would have to return empty-handed, with no evidence of the famous Beast of the Amazon. What would he tell the editors of
International Geographic?
That a soldier had died in mysterious circumstances, badly slashed; that they had been exposed to a terrible smell; and that he had taken an involuntary wallow in the excrement of an unknown animal? Frankly, that was not very convincing proof of the existence of the Beast. Nor did he have anything to add about the Indians of the region, because he hadn't had so much as a glimpse of them. It had all been a wretched waste of his time. He could not wait to return to his university, where he was treated like a hero and was safe from bee stings and other discomforts. He felt that his relations with this group left a lot to be desired, and with Karakawe? A disaster. The Indian he had hired as his personal assistant had stopped the banana-leaf fanning the minute they left Santa María de la Lluvia, and instead of serving him, devoted himself to making the anthropologist's life even more unpleasant. Leblanc accused him of putting a live scorpion in his knapsack and a dead slug in his coffee, and of purposely having led him to where he was stung by the bees. The other members of the expedition tolerated the professor because he was such a character and because they could make fun of him to his face without his catching on. Leblanc took himself so seriously he could not imagine that others didn't.

Mauro Carías sent soldiers out to explore in various directions. The scouts left unwillingly and came back very quickly without any news of the tribe. They also searched the area by helicopter, even though Kate assured them that the noise would frighten the Indians. The writer suggested patience. Sooner or later, the tribe would come back to their village. Like Leblanc, she was more interested in the Beast than in the Indians because she had an article to write.