The Sunflower: A Novel (20 page)

“And where are you?”

“I’m on the other side of the camp in
Vampiro.”

She stood. “Would you like to come by for a visit?”

“Actually, I had other plans for you. I need to meet with the staff, then I’ll be over.”

Christine smiled. “I’ll be waiting.”

I took Christine out to the lake, hunting crocodiles by moonlight. She returned to camp exhilarated by the experience. We never feel more alive than when our existence is uncertain.

PAUL COOK’S DIARY

The Makisapa Lodge consisted of nine bungalows connected by a network of paths lit by tiki lamps. The buildings looked as Christine had imagined them, constructed from dark hardwood cut from the surrounding jungle. They each had a thatched-palm roof, a front porch and a large screen window. Inside the huts there were three beds each with a mosquito net tied in a massive knot and suspended from the ceiling above it. There were two electric lights—one in the middle of the room, the other in the bathroom. The bathroom had a curtain instead of a door, a shower, and a porcelain toilet and sink. There was only one temperature of water and that was whatever the jungle provided. The shower’s drain emptied beneath the hut. The room was clean but smelled of petroleum oil.

“What’s a
guacamayo?”
Joan asked. “Sounds like a chip dip.”

Christine grinned. “I think it’s a parrot.”

Joan untied her mosquito netting, letting it drape down over the bed. “Ever slept under a mosquito net?”

“No,” Christine said. “I’ve never even been camping.”

“What do you think that smell is?”

“Maybe it’s jungle wood.” Christine leaned against the windowsill and looked out. The teenagers were in the middle of the compound aiming flashlights at monkeys hanging in the trees.

“It’s hard to believe it’s winter at home,” Christine said.

“I’m not missing it. I hope there’s a raging blizzard.” Joan sat on her bed. “So what’s the deal with you and Paul?”

The question surprised her. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen the way the two of you look at each other. It’s not a whirlwind like Jessica and Jim, it’s just kind of…sweet. Besides, he’s a fine-looking man. If I were twenty years younger and twenty pounds lighter…”

Christine sat back on her bed, eager to change the subject. “I wonder how Jessica and Jim are doing.”

“We’re lucky that boy’s still alive.” She squinted. “What’s that on your arm?”

Christine lifted her arm. “Oh, I got some mosquito bites. There were a million of them in Puerto.”

“You better use more repellent.”

There was a knock on their door.

“Come in,” Christine said.

Paul stepped in. He was wearing his fedora, and a camera hung around his neck. “Evening, ladies. Is everything okay with your bungalow?”

“Fabulous,” Joan said. “Except for the smell. What is that?”

“The wood’s treated with motor oil. It discourages the termites. There are more than ninety-one species of termites out here.”

“Fascinating,” Joan said facetiously.

“Sorry. I’m really a jungle geek. Anyway, it also protects the wood during the rainy season, and it helps to keep the mosquitoes away, so triple benefit. You’ll get used to it.”

“I kind of like the smell,” Christine said. Joan just looked at her.

“So would you gals like to join me? I’m taking a group out crocodile hunting.”

“At night?” Joan asked.

“It’s the best time to catch them.”

“And vice versa,” Joan said. “I’ll pass.”

“I’ll go,” Christine said.

Paul looked at her with surprise. “Really?”

“I trust you. You wouldn’t take me if it weren’t safe, would you?”

“Reasonably
safe,” he said.

“When are we going?”

“Right now.”

She stood up. “Let’s go.”

They walked out and Paul called to the teenagers. “We’re going.” Five of them joined in, as well as Gilberto, who was sitting on the steps of the
comedor
feeding watermelon rind to the macaws. Paul pulled his machete from the bare stump he had stuck it into and carried it as they hiked back down the incline to the dock. As everyone walked out to the canoe, Christine stopped. “We’re going out in a boat?”

Paul turned and looked at her quizzically. “Of course. How else would we catch a crocodile?”

She looked out over the ink-black lake. “Can’t we just do it from here?”

Paul laughed. “No.”

“You expect me to go out in a boat over piranha-infested waters hunting crocodiles?”

“What happened to ‘trust’?”

She took a deep breath, then walked toward the boat, shaking her head. “I hate you.”

Paul grinned. He took her hand, helped her into the second seat of the boat and handed her a paddle. Then he climbed in front of her. As they paddled toward the opposite shore, the jungle noise seemed to increase. The low guttural moans of the red-throated Koto monkeys echoed across the lake followed by a deeper bellow that came from the blackness somewhere ahead of them.

“What was that?” Christine asked.

“Crocodile,” Paul said. “Probably Elvis.”

“You name them?”

“Just Elvis. He’s the granddad out here. He’s about sixteen feet long.”

“What exactly am I doing out here?”

Paul dug in with his paddle. “You’re having fun. You just don’t know it yet.”

Something suddenly swooped down through the boat, and Melissa, the girl behind Christine screamed. “What was that?”

“Vampiros,”
Paul said calmly. “Just vampire bats. They eat the mosquitoes.”

“Oh good, it’s
just
vampire bats,” Melissa said sarcastically.

The boat glided silently over the black water, and the dark shore opposite them slowly came into view. Trees hung over the water, and monkeys and birds scurried up them as the canoe approached.

“Don’t get too close to the trees,” Paul said. “Vipers sometimes hang in them.”

Everyone quickly stopped paddling. Paul panned his flashlight across the water in front of the bank. He immediately found two amber eyes glowing as brightly as roadside reflectors. “There’s a croc.”

Christine stared. “Look how bright its eyes are.”

“They’re like cat eyes. Only more reflective.” He changed the direction of the beam. “There’s another. It’s a little one.”

“How can you tell how big it is?”

“By how far apart the eyes are.” He turned around, speaking in a hushed voice, “Paddle toward it. I’m going to try to catch it.”

“With what?” Christine asked.

“My hands.”

“Are you insane?”

“We do it all the time.” Paul hung over the side, as the boat slid up to the crocodile. The reptile started to sink in the water and Paul reached in past his elbow to grab it. Suddenly his arm jerked and he dropped to his shoulder in the water. He shouted, “It’s got me! It’s got me!”

Christine screamed, and Paul fell back in the boat laughing, water dripping from his arm. “Just kidding.”

“You are
so
stupid,” she said and hit his back.

“Gilberto, vamos a tratar de nuevo.” Let’s try another one.

While Paul looked around with his flashlight, the rest of the group paddled. Gilberto sat in the back of the boat, using his oar as a rudder and keeping the boat moving perpendicular to the shore. It wasn’t two minutes before they found a new set of eyes. “There’s one,” Paul said. “He’s a bit bigger. Everyone stop rowing.
Gilberto, acércame.” Bring me closer.

Gilberto took long, steady strokes and they glided close enough for Paul to reach in. This time he snatched the crocodile by the neck. It thrashed its tail wildly until he pulled it from the water and it froze, stunned by its new environment.

“Give me some light,” Paul said.

Four flashlight beams illuminated the animal. “Gnarly,” someone said.

The crocodile was nearly three feet in length. Its eyes were yellow and catlike, its teeth visible around its closed snout, red from the meal they had interrupted. Paul held it up. “Notice that it’s missing most of its toes. When they’re little, the piranhas eat them.”

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” Christine said. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Here,” he said, holding it out toward her, “You hold it.”

She backed away. “Get it away from me.”

“I want to take a picture of you with it. You can do it, Christine.”

“You’re serious.”

“As malaria.”

She stared at the creature and couldn’t believe what came from her mouth. “How do I do it?”

“First, get closer.” She leaned forward.

“It’s like holding a snake. As long as you keep a hand behind its head, it can’t bite you. Move your hand up behind mine and when you feel you’re ready, I’ll slide my hand out and you grab it. Use your other hand to hold its tail.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She grabbed its tail. “It’s slimy.”

“He’s a reptile. Okay, move your hand up. Are you ready?”

“No, no, no, not yet,” she said nervously. She slid her hand up its ridged back beneath Paul’s. The animal suddenly jerked and Paul clamped down harder. “He’s getting restless, we need to hurry. On the count of three. One. Two. Go.”

Paul released his grip as Christine moved her hand up and clamped down on the crocodile’s neck. The animal didn’t move and Paul pulled away. “You did it.”

Her face animated with excitement. “I’m holding a crocodile! Quick, get a picture of me. Jessica will never believe it.”

Paul lifted his camera and took the picture.

“What do I do now?”

“Let it go.”

“How?”

“Just drop it back in the lake.”

She held the crocodile over the side and released it. It splashed in the water, whipped its tail and disappeared.

“Who’s next?” Paul asked. All of the teenagers wanted to hold a crocodile, and Paul panned his flashlight across the shore until he found a marsh with no fewer than a dozen sets of eyes. “One for each of you.” As they paddled toward the marsh, he said to Christine, “I was thinking that for a crocodile this must seem like an alien abduction: a bright light comes out of nowhere, suddenly paralyzing you, you’re lifted into the air while strange, soft creatures look you over, then suddenly you’re dropped back into the water. I bet that little guy will be telling that story back at the marsh for the rest of his life.”

Christine laughed.

In all, they pulled out five crocodiles, the largest about forty inches from nose to tail. Around midnight they paddled back to the camp. They hiked the trail together and the teenagers ran back to their bungalows to share their stories. Gilberto went to the
comedor
while Paul walked Christine back to her bungalow. They climbed the porch and stopped at the door. Joan was asleep inside and they could hear her snoring.

“Want to talk?” Christine asked.

“Sure.”

They sat down together on the porch stairs.

“I’m proud of you,” Paul said. “You were really brave tonight.”

“That’s why you took me out, isn’t it?”

“If you can go out at midnight on piranha-infested waters, surrounded by vampire bats, and hold a crocodile, there’s nothing you need to be afraid of.”

She smiled. “I can’t believe I did that. You make me brave.”

“No, you already were. You just didn’t know it.”

“Don’t you ever get scared?”

“Of course I do.”

“Of what? What’s the most frightening thing that’s happened to you since you came to Peru?”

He thought about it for a moment. “That would be my brush with an anaconda.”

Christine leaned forward. “This sounds good. Go on.”

“It was about three years ago. I was in the jungle looking for this tree root that Gilberto told me cured kidney infections. The tree was close to our camp, so I didn’t bother to take my machete. I walked right into an anaconda. I’m not sure how big it was since it was coiled, but I’m sure that it was easily more than twenty feet long.” Paul held his hands about eighteen inches apart. “It was at least this wide.”

Christine’s mouth slightly opened. “How terrifying.”

“A little. Anacondas raise themselves to look their prey in the eyes. It was actually taller than I am. You’d think you could easily outrun something that big, but you can’t. But seeing how I didn’t have many options, I started running and it came after me. Then I had a stroke of brilliance. I slipped off my backpack. The snake immediately struck it and coiled around it. By the time it realized my pack wasn’t edible, I was back at camp.”

The story left Christine gaping. “I don’t know how you live here. I could never do it.”

She saw something flicker in his eyes and sensed that he was saddened by what she’d said.

“Actually, I’ve seen worse in America,” Paul said darkly. “I did my residency at George Washington University Hospital in D.C. One day we had seven people admitted to E.R. with machete wounds. Some guy went crazy at a bus stop and started hacking innocent bystanders. Another time a man was brought in unconscious from a stab wound to the heart. I cut open his chest and directly shocked his heart while my nurse tried to insert a catheter into the wound. Blood was spraying everywhere. In the middle of this he woke up, and there I am, literally holding his heart in my hands and he’s looking at me, wondering what’s going on. Some of the things I’ve seen in America make the jungle seem civilized.”