Gone to the Forest: A Novel (3 page)

Tom remembered how his father caught the dorado on the line. How he began
to reel it in. The fish rose out of the water and dropped back in. It appeared to Tom as
large as a grown man, as large as his father. It jerked through the water, under the
boat, into the air, back into the water. The rod almost bending in two. Tom was not
certain that his father would bring it in. He thought surely the rod would snap.

But his father brought the fish in. It was a giant. Male, with the alien
crested forehead, the yellow body thrashing against the line. His father lifted it high
in the air. He admired the heft and weight, the golden turn of the scales, the
tremendous girth of the fish. Then he placed it in Tom’s arms. Tom almost fell
with the weight of the dorado, the coldness of the scales, the inner muscle of the
animal shuddering hard against its death.

When he came to, his father was standing above him, holding the fish by
its tail. Tom watched as he seized a knife and dug into the belly of the fish. He drew a
long vertical slit and the crimson guts of the animal tumbled out onto the deck. He
ignored his son as he scooped the intestines into one hand
and threw
them back into the river. The dorado swarmed the boat, jaws snapping.

The fish became their livelihood. Running a farm was an expensive
business. The river supported the farm and allowed them to maintain the large holding of
land. More and more tourists came to the province in search of the mighty dorado. His
father took them out on the boats at dawn. He taught them to cast out and reel in. He
brought in the fish and gutted them before their eyes, he treated them the same way he
had treated Tom, years ago.

When his father arrived in the country he was a young man. Now he is old.
Now he sits—he squats, he straddles—the land. But his presence has been
heavy from the start. He picked out the land by riding in the night with a torch held
high above his head. A native dug a trench in the soil behind him. The next day they
went back with wood and wire and it was done. The old man makes his choice. He grips it
out of the air with his hands. He is essentially a violent man.

Tom is different. He does not force himself upon the land. He does not
force himself upon anything. There is very little that Tom can call his own. Tom is not
like his father, Tom has chosen nothing. He did not choose the country or the piece of
land. He did not choose the business of the farm. He did not choose the house, with its
dark rooms and corridors. All this was chosen for him, and Tom barely aware of it. It is
simply his world.

F
OR SEVERAL YEARS
the pool of guests has been dwindling. There have been empty rooms at high season and
the river has remained full of fish, something impossible even a few years ago. Across
the province there are fewer visitors. They are far from the cities to the north. The
cost of travel is high. And there is unrest in the country, Tom has heard it said. It is
growing and the news of it is spreading abroad—bad stories, violent stories that
do not inspire confidence.

One by one the gentleman farmers are moving. The idea of living in open
land surrounded by natives is no longer appealing. Those with houses in the cities are
giving up the country life and moving north. They are closing their farms and estates,
which are becoming too hard to protect, having always been vast and exposed. They leave
them in the hands of the hardier settlers who remain in the province and are a restless
and violent presence. They do not say when they might return.

The circle of refined company is shrinking day by day. Once there were
dances and banyan parties—once there was a social calendar! Tom and his father
remain. His father does not believe in the city. The other farmers tell him to move out
of the country, that it is dying in front of them, that soon it will no longer be safe.
His father chooses to stay on the side of the land. He cannot imagine being without the
farm. In this, father and son are united.

It is now near evening. Tom stands in front of the mirror in his room. It
is large and crowded with things. Furniture brought over from the old country by his
mother or father. Objects shipped to them by strangers. He finds these histories
oppressive but has essentially grown used to it. Tom does not
expect privacy, even in his own room. Carefully, he adjusts the lapel on his jacket and
smooths his hair back with grease. He checks the crease in his trousers and then leaves
the room, closing the door behind him.

He walks the house in search of his father. He goes across the foyer,
which is full of potted trees. Miniature orange trees. Plum trees. He passes the dining
room and notes the good linen and silver and china. He sees that the table is now set
for five. Five plates, five sets of glasses and cutlery. He pauses, and then walks out
to the veranda, slowly.

He walks in the direction of the river and finds his father within
minutes. The open land pulls to the river. Which has become the old man’s sole
preoccupation as the province empties and the tourism dwindles. A year ago they
installed the river farm. Now the pools float in the middle of the river like space age
contraptions. The fish birthing and growing, inside the skin of the device. The river
flushing in and out.

Tom frowns as he looks at the river. The old man has staked much on the
river farm. The pools were installed at vast expense and they sucked the
savings—the bounty of those years of lush tourism, now coming to an
end—right into the water. At first it did not seem promising. The natives talked
of evil and contamination. The eggs floated in the steel and mesh like a river
disease.

But then the fish grew. They grew until the pools were full of fish flesh,
pressed close together. Now it seems clear that the river farm is what will allow them
to live. It will sustain
the farm, through the rumors of unrest. It
will pay for the imported caviar, the cashmere blankets, the fur coats, the coffee and
tea. His father jokes that he is become a fishmonger but already there are plans for
more pools, placed downstream, placed upstream. The province empties of landlords and
tourists but there are always the fish and the natives.

Every week they drag the pools out of the water and the fish are culled.
Then they are sold to buyers in the cities. They are packed into ice and flash frozen
and shipped around the world. It is ridiculous, but they are earning themselves a
reputation. His father talks about sustainable models of growth. He says there will be
money soon, in the next year.

Tom does not like the river farm. When he looks into the water it is like
the river is choking on the pools. The pools hovering like prey amidst the hyacinth.
Being of the country, he cannot wish to dominate it in the same way as his father. Who
in some ways is still a visitor here. But Tom knows his father is right. Soon the river
farm will be established. The money will flow in like water. The money is floating in
the river now, and it will save them.

Which is why his father stands and stares at the water—the way a man
stares at a pile of gold. Tom watches his father looking at the pools. The pools can
only be seen by the clear-sighted. They are nothing but the faintest trace in the water.
The old man is dressed in dinner clothes. A rim of dust gathers around the toe of his
shoe, is lifted on a slow gust of wind. The wind goes, and the dust is gone and the old
man’s feet stand in the dirt.

The sound of a motor vaults across the silence. His
father looks up. Tom sees the Wallaces’ Ford pulling across the land. A small
cloud of dust follows as it kicks down the track. The dust pulls and tugs and puffs and
grows behind the vehicle. The motor rumble comes closer. His father stands and watches
as the car approaches. Tom has already turned and is walking back to the house. He turns
his head once to look back. The car is inching closer across the horizon. Tom quickens
his pace.

By the time the car has pulled through the gates of the house the servants
are ready and the ice in the liquor trolley has been freshened. Tom stands in the shadow
of the veranda and watches as the car pulls down the drive. His father stands at the
foot of the steps, one hand slipped into his suit pocket. His face is expressionless.
The driver pulls the door open. Mr. Wallace. Mrs. Wallace. A third figure steps out of
the car. A young woman, in a brightly patterned dress, emerges from the interior.

T
he dorado is served in green sauce. It is
served before the lamb and after the oysters and caviar. They sit around the table in
silence as the wine is poured. The sun is setting and outside the sky continues to give
off light. The dining room is open to the veranda but the room itself is half in
darkness. Jose returns and lights the candles. His father nods to him and they listen to
his footsteps as he goes. Then the room drops into silence again.

After a measurable pause—in which they sit and do not look at each
other, and the candles waver and tremble in the silence—his father leans forward
and picks up his wine glass. He takes a sip and examines the liquid hue. Mrs. Wallace
looks at him. He almost looks benevolent, sitting in the candlelight with his wine glass
in hand. Mrs. Wallace makes an attempt at conversation. (Mr. Wallace does not. Mr.
Wallace knows better.)

“I have been saying to George, they must do something about this
unrest amongst the natives. It is the Government’s responsibility to take some
kind of action.”

The old man looks up from his glass of wine. He stares
at Mrs. Wallace from across the table. Bravely, she continues.

“They should send in soldiers. They should teach them a lesson,
before it gets out of hand. They are capable of anything, the natives. They are
dangerous and cruel. It is impossible to reason with them. I wonder that they
don’t see that.”

Mr. Wallace shakes his head.

“Enough, Martha.”

The old man ignores them both. He lowers his wine glass and looks across
the table at the girl.

When the girl stepped out of the car she was a thin ankle followed by a
ruffled tea dress. Her hair set in waves. Her mouth carefully rouged. She looked lost in
the dress and in the car, a pantomime of vulnerability. Tom sits beside her at the
dinner table. His father sits across. Tom watches the girl. He has no idea how old she
is. She looks like a child but he already knows she is no child.

He learns the facts about the girl. She is Mrs. Wallace’s second
cousin. She is twenty-nine and part French. She has won herself—through hard
application, nothing coming easy in life—a questionable reputation. Although
really there is no question about it at all, the meaning being clear to everyone. There
was trouble at home and she was shipped to Mrs. Wallace, for a length of time
unspecified. The meaning of that also being clear.

Mrs. Wallace does not know the girl but she is responsible for her. It is
evident, they are in this together. She looks at the girl and her gaze is complicit. Tom
thinks: being women
the collusion comes to them naturally. He has
heard it said before. Mrs. Wallace touches the girl on the wrist. She is careful but
proprietary, proprietary but wary. She will be happy when the problem of the girl is
solved and she will not miss her when she is gone.

For now she watches the girl. She measures up her assets and tests her
strength in performance. Tom also watches the girl. She sits at the table. She speaks
when she is spoken to. She is docile, she is polite. She is all this but there is
nothing about her Tom trusts. He tells himself that she is not especially pretty. It is
only her extreme pallor—she is so pale that when she blushes the color is hectic
like a bruise—and her air of apparent youth that give the impression of
attractiveness.

His father is a man of taste. The girl is nothing and yet—Tom
watches his father watch the girl. The old man is still handsome. He is vain and vanity
needs feeding. The women in the valley have been doing the feeding but the circle has
been shrinking as one by one the farms close and the whites retreat to the city. Now
there are not even the tourists to rely on.

This girl—sent out to Mrs. Wallace, small and pale and
cunning—is perfectly shaped to capture the old man. She is nothing special but she
is there and that is the difference. They are losing, have lost, the yardstick by which
to measure the company of women. Not that Tom was ever a judge. He has not exactly been
exposed to the female species.

Tom is filled with the urge to slap the girl across the face.
His own vehemence taking him by surprise. Tom’s eyes stay on
his father as he sips the wine and watches the girl.

“Carine.”

The girl looks up at him and then blinks. She waits for him to speak. Mr.
Wallace and Mrs. Wallace look up from their plates. Tom does not look up. He stares down
at his plate. He has not touched the food apart from the oysters. Topped with vinegar
and white pepper. He slurped them down one after the other. Now his appetite is gone. He
prods the food in front of him but does not eat.

“Do you like the fish?”

His father’s voice is slow and cajoling. The tone an offer, a
proposition to the girl. Tom sees her find her terrain in the words. She and the old man
look at each other. A transaction in their gazes and she opens herself up. Tom sees it
happen: so the girl has aligned herself with the old man. Some intimacy has been
established between them, in front of all of them, in that small and meaningless
exchange.

The obscenity of it is not lost on anyone at the table. Mr. Wallace clears
his throat and reaches for his wine glass. Mrs. Wallace looks down at her plate and
pushes a chunk of fish with the tines of her fork. She toys with the fork and then sets
it down without eating. Tom sees that they are ashamed. Of the trap that they have set,
that is now in motion.

“Do you? Like the fish?”