Undergrowth Read online

  “I think Joaquim’s going to owe me one hell of a favor by the time this week is out,” he interrupted her, as though walking between her and the drama she was watching. Unlike the other women he had known, her attitude towards him was less of deference than of pity, and to bring up Joaquim’s name was in itself a risk; whenever he did, he hated the way she admonished him to remember that Joaquim wasn’t his father.

  But then at other times, she surprised him. “Do you want me to come with you?” she asked, leaning towards him, looking straight into his eyes. She had pulled the straw out of the glass, and a drop of juice fell from the tip of it onto the table. Jorge watched it fall, relieved to pull his eyes from hers.

  “You can’t, you know that,” he said quickly, as though to give himself no time for hesitation. Of course she knew that. She always knew that sort of thing, or knew what was true about it and what wasn’t. She sat silent for a few minutes, and resumed her tapping of the straw against the glass, as though a clock that had stopped had once more begun to tick. When she leaned in towards him, her voice was almost a whisper.

  “Neither one of us has a choice,” she said.

  X

  LARRY SPENT A long afternoon sitting in the shade of the palms and the chichas, drinking fruit juice and looking around, distracted rather than curious, at the circumscribed world of the Museo de Santarem’s inner courtyard. He passed an hour watching a pair of lizards dart back and forth over the lip of a small fountain, and another watching a spider weave the stem of a lily into the stucco flank of a wall. When the rain came, he walked slowly through the exhibits, past cases of pottery shards, past his own reflection, repeated again and again like a film over each display, and when it stopped, he walked at the same slow pace towards the Avenida Tapajos, to the place where the vast bodies of two rivers lay side by side.

  The harbor in Santarem was peaceful from a distance, but grew noisier as Larry approached. He chose a cafe outside the ring of restaurants that lined the waterfront and sat down to wait for James, growing impatient when the waiter, noticing his book on the table, spoke to him in English, the language he had hoped to leave behind. The capacity to leave things behind seemed to Larry, over the past week, to be a gift of almost limitless beneficence, allowing him to fill the spaces where thoughts had been erased with images of rock and water, with the sharp sound of his footsteps on gravel, with the shadows of birds moving over the uneven surface of the river, with the taste of orchids in the air. In the late 1800s, the town of Santarem had swelled with an influx of American refugee slaves and confederate soldiers, each escaping to the same bluffs and forests, living together in exile, the sort of peace whose precondition is forgetfulness. Larry wouldn’t have hesitated, had he thought about it, to credit the town itself with the capacity to absorb human resentments and fears into its thick, humid air and release them in its downpours into the massive rivers, for which memory was no match. This freedom from his own thoughts and worries had allowed him to join the conversations at meals, surprising everyone at dinner at Jorge’s on Friday night by answering a question, for the first time, in Portuguese. Most surprising of all was that their compliments on his accent didn’t seem to bring with them the same sense of humiliation that, in his experience, compliments tended to elicit. Jorge hadn’t leaned in too closely, and James had tapped the back of his hand in an unconcerned, distracted way.

  From the very beginning, Larry had been intrigued by the way Jorge’s small round glasses drew his features into a tense knot at the center of his face, and by the way he was constantly brushing the hair from his wide forehead, pulling at his shirt, adjusting his posture, as though to demonstrate that the parts of his own body had never managed to coalesce. He was younger than the others, and deferential to James, a fact which James seemed to find alternately endearing and irritating. Larry imagined that, like himself, Jorge’s place at the table was secured not so much by virtue of the strength of his personality as by where he came from, and by what he had to offer them. James rarely mentioned anyone to Larry before he introduced them, perhaps assuming that Larry knew them because he did, or else that it was unimportant whether Larry knew them at all. Jorge was the only one he talked about beforehand, as the best of the SPI pilots, as someone Larry would come to consider a friend. The Lamurii had killed Jorge’s father when he was still young, James had told him, a fact that accounted for the troubled look he always wore even when he laughed. Thus, Larry wasn’t immediately alarmed by the air of worry Jorge conveyed even at a distance as he came towards him from the direction of the Museo to tell him that James was at a house at 11 Rua Galdino Valoso, appearing to be ill.

  XI

  BOOKSHELVES LINED THE longest wall of the room in which they stood, and an overstuffed sofa covered with dark red pillows pushed its back against the wall opposite. The house, Jorge mentioned quickly to Larry as they entered, belonged to Sara, a woman with whom Larry wasn’t familiar. That the room was of a sort that appealed to Larry made him all the more resentful suddenly, of James’s connection to her, whatever it was. In all the time that he had been aware of James’s life outside the family, he had never so much as heard his uncle refer to any close association with a woman. The idea that James might have had such an involvement of any kind made him feel fearful and alone, his dread of James’s death amplified by the intrusion of the unfamiliar into life.

  “He’s in the bedroom,” said Jorge from behind him. He walked around Larry and led him down a hallway to the semi-darkened room in which James was lying, his head propped up by pillows, alive and quite awake.

  “I got the hammocks and the netting,” James began before Larry had fully entered, “but we’re going to have to wait until tomorrow for the rope and the tarps.”

  Ashamed of having been fearful, Larry came over and sat down in a chair by the head of the bed. “I would have done the shopping,” he said, realizing as soon as he spoke that James had probably insisted on going alone because he had planned to stop at Sara’s also.

  As though sensing his thoughts, James said, awkwardly, “I’m not sure you’ve met Sara.”

  “No, you’ve never mentioned her,” said Larry, not intending to be harsh.

  “Well, you’ll get your chance. She’s out at the market, but she should be back.”

  “Are you resting?” asked Larry, aware that something should have been mentioned by now about his supposed infirmity.

  “I think I’ll take a few more minutes,” said James, addressing Jorge for the first time. “The bags are on the counter by the sink. Why don’t you unpack them and see what’s there?”

  As they stood in the kitchen, rolling mosquito nets and hammocks and tying them with string, Jorge said in a low voice, “she’s gone to the Fundacao Esperanca to talk to the doctor. James won’t see him.” He looked at Larry as though expecting a reply.

  Larry was grateful for the texture of the netting on his hands, for the roughness of the string and the subtle sea smell of the rope from which the hammocks were woven.

  When he saw that Jorge was still watching him, in place of a response, he offered to hold a roll of netting so that Jorge could use both hands to tie it with. He was just about to reach for another when he heard James call out in a soft, raspy voice and took off down the hall.

  His first glimpse of the inside of James’s room was of an empty indentation at the center of the pillow at the headboard. Despite himself, he addressed that place guided by the fact that it’s easier to face a ghost than a living man. It took another sound from the foot of the bed to make him turn towards James, who was sitting crumpled up, holding his knees to his forehead.

  “Shot,” James hissed.

  Larry looked around for James’s bag and prepared the syringe, unaware of his hands as he worked. He tried to pry open James’s grip but couldn’t, so he sat down behind him and circled him with his arms, threading his hands through the open triangles made by James’s elbows. With his chin on his uncle’s shoulder, his cheek pressed against ha
ir and sweat, Larry slid the needle into a fold of flesh and pushed the plunger down. The smell of James’s suffering, the press of his spine against his chest, the barely audible, piercing scream of the ceiling fan in its socket, the distant sound of a key in a lock; no one could be expected to bear such things. When James began to loosen his fingers, Larry pulled him up toward the top of the bed and lowered him until his uncle’s head rested on the inside of Larry’s thigh. Breathing heavily, James looked up at him and cleared his throat to speak.

  “Larry, this is Sara,” he whispered, turning his eyes to the door.

  “You need to leave now,” said Larry in desperation, unable to look up.

  “I’ll be in the other room,” said a woman’s voice from the doorway.

  “And I’ll be in my room, if you need me,” said Jorge, who had been standing next to him all along without his noticing. Larry looked up in time to see Jorge’s back disappearing into the hallway. He pulled a pillow from behind him and put it under James’s head, slowly sliding his leg away. Then he sat up next to James and rested his head on the headboard. Outside the window, the sun was setting. Larry got up to open the curtains and then sat down again, looking out.

  “I wonder if I’ve done right by you,” said James, his voice once again his own.

  “Of course you have,” said Larry, with the same panic as before. It wasn’t, at that moment, that he didn’t wonder too.

  “Are you in pain?” he asked, looking at James’s body, which now covered every corner of the bed except the one he was sitting on. He thought of ancient graves, in which the bones had become detached and spread over an area as large as that.

  “Better,” said James. “I think I didn’t give myself enough. In the heat of the moment, I don’t always pay attention.”

  “How long has it been like this?” Larry asked, his voice a bit calmer for his having found, at least, a direction for his thoughts.

  “I don’t know,” said James. “A month or two?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Larry asked. James was silent for a long time, until Larry began to wonder whether he was asleep. He watched James’s stomach move up and down. Finally, James opened his eyes and stared ahead.

  “Now you know,” he said.

  An hour passed. Larry had always wanted to spend a week watching a plant sprout, to witness imperceptible changes, so as at last to be able to believe in continuity. The shadows on the walls crept smoothly and then faded, but when he suddenly noticed that the room was dark, he felt cheated, as though he had missed some steps along the way. It was unsettling to think that the process into darkness was jagged and lurching, that there were holes in his perception of the flow of time. Perhaps his own lack of vigilance had prevented him from noticing James’s decline except in a few jarring, disconnected moments, from creating in his mind a path smooth enough to pull James back across it into what he used to be.

  “Why did Jorge say he’d be in his room?” Larry said at last into the darkness. “Does he live here?”

  “Not any more,” said James’s voice from beside him.

  “He used to?”

  “He grew up here. Sara’s his mother.”

  “And you’re his father?” Larry was gripped suddenly by outrage at James’s betrayal.

  “No,” James laughed. “I’ve told you who his father was.”

  “His step-father then?”

  “No,” said his uncle with another laugh. “The only ‘son’ I have is you.”

  Larry felt a swell of relief and shame, a gratitude so deep as to allow him, for just a fraction of a second, to forgive James even for dying. “Are you hungry?” he asked his uncle, to distract him from his gift so he couldn’t take it back.

  “I’m not so interested in food right now.”

  “I think I’d better eat.”

  “Sara will feed you well.”

  “I snapped at her,” said Larry, hoping despite his guilt that James would smooth the way between them. He knew though, that to ask reassurance from a dying man must be an unforgivable sin, especially since he had been given more than his share already. He got up quietly, as though James were asleep, and headed for the door.

  “I’ll get up in a bit,” said James after him.

  Larry walked alone down the dark hall toward the sound of voices. He could see the room up ahead, its soft yellow light swirling out to meet him, and felt, simultaneously, hunger and dread. He could hear the sharp rhythm of a knife against a wooden board, and the sound of water being turned on and off. Jorge ran to him as he stepped in from the hallway.

  “There you are!” he said, reaching out for Larry’s arm. “Come and talk to us.”

  Larry followed Jorge into the room. Sara looked up from the kitchen sink as they came in and stood, knife in hand, without saying a word. What Larry saw at that moment was Jorge’s face surrounded by a garland of white hair, the same density of features counterbalanced, this time, by a thick white braid that extended down to the small of her back. His relief at finding something in her that he knew allowed him to go on.

  “We’re almost done,” said Jorge. His voice seemed to re-animate his mother, who began again to move and talk.

  “Would you mind dicing tomatoes?” she said, handing Larry her knife. The three of them stood with their backs to each other, each engaged in a separate task, growing more familiar in light of the familiarity of each with the work. After a long silence, filled by the sound of knives against wood, Sara asked with her back still turned, “Is he in pain?”

  “I don’t think so now,” said Larry. “He says he didn’t have enough medication. Did you talk to the doctor?”

  “I did, and we can give him all the morphine he needs. If he revives enough, he should still be able to go.”

  Larry somehow hadn’t realized that the fluid in the vial was morphine.

  When the chopping was done, Sara called them all to the stove where they placed their offerings of onion and tomato and garlic and chiero verde, into a pan and watched them intermingle in the oil. Last of all came the shredded pirarucu, king of the river, which sat in a regal mound in the midst of the crackling mixture until Jorge stirred it in with a spoon.

  That night, they ate in James’s bedroom, one chair on either side of the bed and another at the foot. James told a story of once making Desfiado de Pirarucu without first soaking the salt from the fish, and after some quantity of wine, Jorge began to call him Master Pirarucu. They were in high spirits, aware that James had eaten his entire portion and Sara’s leftovers as well. A sense of excitement and anticipation had replaced the fear and sadness of the day, due equally, in Larry’s mind, to their having triumphed over some still mysterious threat to James’s life, and their having vanquished the awkwardness between them.

  It was well after midnight by the time they went to bed. Jorge had offered to make up the back bedroom, but Larry unrolled his sleeping mat on the floor in James’s room instead. He gave James a shot before they went to sleep, and another at 3 A.M. when he heard him whimper. James didn’t speak, but reached out in the darkness and patted the hand that held the needle, holding onto Larry’s finger as he snapped the cap into place. The night was full of sound, and the sound seemed to hold James’s breathing securely within it. Larry leaned back on his pillow and listened, encouraged to hear it so slow and deep. At last, he drifted off, and didn’t wake up until the sun was high in the sky, the smell of fried plantain had drifted in through the window between the curtains, and James, having pulled his knees up to his chest in the night, was dead.

  XII

  HOW DO YOU mourn something that never existed? In Pahquel, if a baby died before a hand and two of moons, it couldn’t be inscribed into a chajan, couldn’t be danced for or wailed for or sung about, couldn’t be claimed for a line. Without a name, how could you call out to it, in a night sky already crowded with insects and ancestors and stars? A mother who had lost a child before its name-ceremony—and there were many—was said to be rat rititi, out of t
he world. She too lost her name for the eternity of a moon cycle, and didn’t venture past her chajan even to haul water or tend the garden or cook. She took in gourds of food and drink and returned them full of urine and excrement, and waited for the moon to turn its face to her again, to call her name and lead her back into the world so she could speak.

  XIII

  LARRY COULD TELL by mid-day that the sun had in mind to burn the water away. A thin strip of off-white sand revealed itself at the edge of the river and intimated more. Larry turned his back on the water and walked up the Travessa dos Martires, pushing step by step against the sun’s weight, which he felt too weak to carry. By the time he managed to find the Telepar, his dread had gathered itself in the pit of his stomach, so that it was all he could do to keep himself from crouching down in the booth after he dialed.

  The sounds of the dial tone and the ring were unfamiliar to him, and for a minute they soothed him and held his interest, so that when his mother’s voice came on the line, he was startled by it.

  “Hi mom. It’s me,” he said.

  “Larry! Where are you? When are you coming home?” Larry was often struck by the capacity of her voice to convey urgency and indifference simultaneously.

  “I don’t know,” he said, emotionlessly. “James died last night.”

  There was a long silence on the line. At last, his mother said, bitterly, “He never should have gone back to that country.” In the silence that closed in again behind her words, Larry was horrified to hear what sounded like gasping noises through the receiver, which at first he couldn’t make sense of. It was unimaginable to him that his mother would cry—he had never seen it—and the thought of her wearing human emotions openly struck him as grotesque, against nature and utterly confusing. More grotesque and frightening still was his own sudden wish to hold her, to offer her comfort, or even forgiveness. As he stood paralyzed in his little glass booth four thousand miles away, listening to his mother as he had never heard her, weep, he felt the booth fill up, starting at his feet, with his own misery. The thought that things might have been different between them was far more unbearable to Larry than the fact that they never were.