Shabono: Part 1 - Chapter 03.

Shabono. ©1982 by Florinda Donner.

Part 1 - Chapter 03.

Machete in hand, Milagros led the way on the narrow path bordering the river. His muscular back showed through his torn red shirt. The khaki pants, rolled halfway up his calves and fastened above his waist with a cotton string, made him look shorter than his medium height. He walked at a fast pace, supporting his weight on the outer edge of his feet, which were narrow at the heel and spread like an open fan at the toes. His short-trimmed hair and the wide tonsure on the crown of his head reminded me of a monk.

I stopped and turned around before following on the trail leading into the forest. Across the river, almost hidden around a bend, lay the mission. Shrouded in the early morning sunlight, it seemed like something already out of touch. I felt oddly removed, not only from the place and the people I had been with for the past week, but from all familiar things. I sensed some change within me, as if crossing the river marked the end of a phase, a turning point. Something of this must have shown in my face for when I looked to my side and caught Angelica's gaze there was understanding in it.

"Already far away," Milagros said, stopping next to us. Folding his arms across his chest, he let his gaze wander along the river. The morning light dazzling over the water reflected in his face, tinting it with a golden sheen. It was an angular, bony face in which the small nose and full lower lip added an unexpected vulnerability that contrasted sharply with the deep circles and wrinkles around his slanted brown eyes. They were uncannily similar to Angelica's eyes, with that same timeless expression in them.

In absolute silence we walked beneath the towering trees, along trails hidden by massive bushes entangled with vines, branches and leaves, creepers and roots. Spiderwebs clung to my face like an invisible veil. Greenness was all I could see, and dampness all I could smell. We went over and around logs, across streams and swamps shaded by immense bamboo growths. Sometimes Milagros was in front of me; at other times Angelica was, with her U-shaped basket on her back, held in place by a tumpline of bark that went around her head. The basket was filled with gourds, cassava bread, and cans of sardines.

I had no sense of which direction we were going. I could not see the sun- only its light, filtering through the dense foliage. Soon my neck was stiff from looking up at the incredible height of the motionless trees. Only the straight palms, undefeated in their vertical thrust toward the light, seemed to sweep the few visible patches of sky with their silver-shaded fronds.

"I have got to rest," I said, sitting down heavily on a fallen tree trunk. By my watch it was already after three in the afternoon. We had walked nonstop for over six hours. "I am famished."

Handing me a calabash from her basket, Angelica sat next to me. "Fill it," she said, motioning with her chin to the nearby shallow stream.

Squatting in the river, with his legs apart, palms resting on his thighs, Milagros bent forward until his lips touched the water. He drank without getting his nose wet. "Drink," he said, straightening up. He must be nearly fifty, I thought. Yet the unexpected grace of his flowing movements made him seem much younger. He smiled briefly, then waded downstream.

Angelica smiled mockingly, and exclaimed, "Watch out or you will be taking a bath!"

Startled by her voice, I lost my balance, and toppled over headfirst into the water. I handed her the filled gourd, and casually said, "I am no good at drinking water the way Milagros does. I think I will just stick to the calabash."

Sitting next to her, I took off my soaked tennis shoes, and said, "Whoever says that sneakers are the best thing for the jungle has never walked for six hours in them."

My feet were red and blistered, and my ankles were scratched and bleeding.

Angelica examined my feet, and said, "It is not too bad."

She ran her fingers gently over my soles and the blistered toes. She suggested, "You have pretty good calluses. Why not try walking barefoot? Wet shoes will only soften your feet more."

I looked at the bottoms of my feet. They were covered by thick calloused skin that I had acquired from practicing karate tor years. I asked, "What if I step on a snake? Or on a thorn?"

Although I had not yet seen a single reptile, I had watched Milagros and Angelica stop at various times to pull thorns out of their feet.

Angelica pushed my feet off her lap and said, ""One has to be pretty stupid to step on a snake. Compared to mosquitoes, thorns are not too bad. You are lucky the little devils do not bite you the way they do the racionales."

She rubbed my arms and hands as if expecting to find a clue there, and commented, "I wonder why?"

Angelica had already marveled at the mission that I slept like the Indians, without mosquito netting. "I have got evil blood," I said, grinning. Seeing her puzzled look, I explained that as a child I had often gone with my father to the jungle to look for orchids. Invariably, he would be stung by mosquitoes, flies, and whatever biting insects were around. Somehow they never bothered me. Once my father had even been bitten by a snake.

"Did he die?" Angelica asked.

"No. It was a most curious incident. The same snake bit me too. I cried out right after my father did. He thought I was making fun of him until I showed him the tiny red spots on my foot. Only it did not swell and turn purple the way his did. We were driven by friends to the closest town, where my father was given antivenin serum. He was ill for days."

"And you?"

"Nothing happened to me," I said, and told her it was his friends who said half jokingly that I had evil blood. They did not believe, as the doctor did, that the snake had exhausted its supply of poison on the first bite and whatever it had left had been insufficient to have any effect on me. I told Angelica that on one occasion I was bitten by seven wasps, the ones they call mata caballo- horse killer. The doctor thought I was going to die. I only developed a fever, and in a few days I was fine.

I had never seen Angelica so attentive, listening with her head slightly bent as if afraid to miss a single word. Then she said, "I was also bitten by a snake once. People believed I was going to die."

She was quiet for a moment, deep in thought, then a timid smile creased her face as she said, "Do you think it spent its poison on someone else first?"

Touching her withered hands, I said, "I am sure it did,"

She smiled, and said, "Maybe I have evil blood too."

She looked so frail and old that for an instant I had the feeling she might disappear amidst the shadows.

Looking at me as though I had expressed my thoughts out loud, she said, "I am ancient. I should have died a long time ago. I have kept death waiting."

She turned to watch a row of ants demolish a bush as they cut away squares of leaves and carried them off in their mouths. "I knew it was you who would take me to my people- I knew it the moment I saw you."

There was a long pause. She either did not want to say anything else, or was trying to find the appropriate words. She was watching me with a vague smile on her lips. Finally, and with utter conviction, she said, "You also knew it- otherwise you would not be here,"

I giggled nervously. She always succeeded in making me uneasy with that intense glint in her eyes. I said, "I am not sure what I am doing here. I do not know why I am going with you."

Angelica insisted, "You knew you were meant to come here."

There was something about Angelica's sureness that made me feel argumentative. It would have been so easy to agree with her, especially since I did not know myself why I was in the jungle on my way to God knows where. I said, "To tell you the truth, I had no intention of going anyplace. Remember, I did not even accompany my friends up-river to hunt alligators as I had planned."

As if she were speaking to a stupid child, Angelica assured me, "But that is exactly what I am saying. You found an excuse to cancel your trip so you could come with me."

She laid her bony hands on my head and continued, saying, "Believe me, I did not have to think much about it. Neither did you. The decision was made the moment I laid eyes on you."

I buried my head in the old woman's lap to hide my laughter. There was no way to argue with her. Besides, she might be right, I thought. I had no explanation myself.

Angelica went on, saying, "I waited a long time. I had almost forgotten that you were supposed to come to me. But when I saw you I knew that the man had been right. Not that I ever doubted him, but he had told me so long ago that I believed I had missed my chance."

I lifted my head from her lap, and asked, "What man? Who told you I was coming?"

She replied, "I will tell you another time."

Angelica pulled the basket closer, picked out a large piece of cassava bread, opened a can of sardines, and said, "We better eat."

There was no point in insisting. Once Angelica had decided not to talk, there was no way to make her change her mind. My curiosity was unsatisfied, and I contented myself in examining the neat row of fat sardines lying in the thick tomato sauce. I had seen that kind in the supermarket in Los Angeles. A friend of mine used to buy them for her cat. I took one out with my finger, and spread it on the piece of flat white bread.

"I wonder where Milagros is," I said, biting into the sardine sandwich. It tasted quite good.

Angelica did not answer; neither did she eat. From time to time she sipped water from the gourd. A faint smile lingered at the corners of her mouth and I wondered what it was that the old woman was thinking about that created such a look of longing in her eyes. All of a sudden she stared at me as if awakening from a dream. "Look," she said, nudging my arm.

In front of us stood a man, naked except for the red cotton strands around his upper arms and a string around his waist that circled his foreskin, tying his penis against his abdomen. His whole body was covered with brownish-red designs. In one hand he held a long bow and arrows, in the other a machete.

"Milagros?" I finally managed to mumble, recovering from my initial shock. Still, I barely recognized him. It was not only that he was naked; he seemed taller, more muscular. The red zigzag lines running from his forehead down to his cheeks, across his nose, and around his mouth sharpened the contours of his face; erasing its vulnerability. There was something else besides the physical change; something I could not pinpoint. It was as though by discarding the clothes of a racional, he had shed some invisible weight.

Milagros began to laugh in a loud, uproarious manner. A laughter that sprang from deep inside him, it shook his whole body. Echoing and booming through the forest, it mingled with the startled cries of a flock of parrots that took flight. Squatting before me, he stopped abruptly and said, "You almost did not recognize me." He thrust his face so close to mine that our noses touched, then asked, "Do you want me to paint your face?"

"Yes," I said, taking the camera from my knapsack. "But can I take a picture of you first?"

"That is my camera," he said emphatically, reaching for it. "I thought you had left it at the mission for me."

"I would like to use it while we are at the Indian settlement." I began demonstrating to him how the camera worked by first putting in a roll of film. He was very attentive to my explanation, nodding his head every time I asked if he understood. I hoped to confuse him by pointing out all the intricacies of the gadget. "Now let me take a picture of you, so you can see how the camera should be held."

"No, no." He was quick to stop me, taking the camera from my hands. Without any difficulty he opened the back cover and lifted out the film, exposing it to the light. "It is mine, you promised. Only I can take pictures with it."

Speechless, I watched him, hang the camera over his chest. It looked so incongruous against his nakedness I was unable to repress my laughter. With exaggerated gestures he began to focus, adjust, and point the camera all around him, talking to imaginary subjects, telling them to smile, to stand closer or to move farther apart. I had the strong urge to pull at the cotton string around his neck that held the arrow-point quiver and the fire drill swinging from his back.

"You will not get any pictures without film," I said, handing him the third and last roll.

"I never said I wanted to take pictures." Gleefully he exposed the film to the light, then very deliberately put the camera in its leather case. "Indians do not like to be photographed," he said seriously, then turned toward Angelica's basket on the ground and searched through its contents until he found a small gourd sealed with a piece of animal skin. "This is onoto," he said, showing me a red paste. It was greasy and had a faint aromatic odor I was unable to define. "This is the color of life and joy," he said.

"Where did you leave your clothes?" I asked him as he cut a piece of vine, the length of a pencil, with his teeth. "Do you live nearby?"

Busying himself with chewing one end of the vine until it resembled a makeshift brush, Milagros did not bother to answer. He spat on the onoto, then stirred the red paste with the brush until it was soft. With a precise, even hand he drew wavy lines across my forehead, down my cheeks, chin, and neck, circled my eyes, and decorated my arms with round spots.

I asked, "Is there an Indian settlement around here?"

He replied, "No."

I asked, "Do you live by yourself?"

His expression of annoyance, was heightened by the sharp lines of his painted face, which matched the irritated tone of his voice as he asked, "Why do you ask so many questions?"

I opened my mouth, uttered a sound, then hesitated to say that it was important for me to know about him and Angelica, and that the more I knew, the better I would feel. I sensed he would not understand the fleeting anxiety that I tried to alleviate by asking questions. Knowing about them, I thought, would give me some sense of control. After a few moments, I simply said, "I was trained to be curious."

Smiling, totally oblivious to what I had said, Milagros looked at me askance, examined my painted face, then burst into loud guffaws. It was a cheerful, hilarious laugh, like that of a child. Wiping tears from his eyes, he said, "A blond Indian."

I laughed with him, and all of my momentary apprehension dispelled. Milagros stopped abruptly, leaned toward me, and whispered an incomprehensible word into my ear.

He put his hand over my lips to prevent me from repeating it out loud, and seriously said, "That is your new name."

He turned toward Angelica, and whispered the name into her ear.

As soon as Milagros had eaten, he motioned us to follow him. Disregarding my blisters I quickly put on my shoes. I could discern nothing but green as we climbed up hills and down plains- an unending green of vines, branches, leaves, and prickly thorns; where all the hours were hours of twilight. I no longer lifted my head to catch glimpses of the sky through patches of leaves but was content to see its reflection in puddles and streams.

Mr. Barth had been right when he told me that the jungle was a world impossible to imagine. I could not believe it was I walking through this unending greenness on my way to an unknown destination. My mind ran wild with anthropologists' descriptions of fierce and belligerent Indians belonging to unacculturated tribes.

My parents had been acquainted with some German explorers and scientists who had been in the Amazon jungle. As a child I had been bewildered by their tales of head-hunters and cannibals. And all of them told of incidents where they had escaped a sure death by saving the life of a sick Indian; usually a tribal chief, or one of his relatives. A German couple and their small daughter, who had returned from a two-year journey through the South American jungle, made the deepest impression on me. I was seven when I saw the cultural artifacts and life-size photographs they had collected during their travels.

Totally captivated by their eight-year-old daughter, I followed her through the palm-decorated room in the foyer of the Sears building in Caracas. I hardly had a chance to look at the assortment of bows and arrows, baskets, quivers, feathers, and masks hanging on the walls as she hurried me into a darkened alcove. Squatting on the floor, she pulled out a red-dyed wooden box from under a pile of palm fronds, and opened it with a key hanging from her neck. "This was given to me by one of my Indian friends," she said, taking out a small wrinkled head. "It is a tsantsa, a shrunken enemy head," she added, caressing the long dark hair as if it were a doll.

I was awed as she told me that she had not been frightened to be in the jungle, and that it had not been at all the way her parents described it. She said very earnestly, "The Indians were not horrifying or fierce."

Not for an instant did I doubt her words. She looked at me with her large serious eyes as she added, "They were gentle and full of laughter. They were my friends."

I could not remember the girl's name, she who, having lived through the same events as her parents, had not experienced them with the same prejudices and fears. I chuckled to myself, almost falling over a gnarled root covered by slippery moss.

Angelica's voice cut into my reveries as she asked, "Are you talking to yourself? Or to the spirits of the forest?"

I inquired, "Are there any?"

Angelica gestured all around her, and softly said, "Yes. Spirits dwell in the midst of all this. In the thick of the creeping lianas, and in company with the monkeys, snakes, spiders, and jaguars."

As we stopped by some boulders bordering a shallow river, Milagros sniffed the air and asserted, "No rain tonight."

The river's calm, clear waters were strewn with pink flowers from the trees standing like sentries on the opposite bank. I took off my shoes, letting my sore feet dangle in the soothing coolness. I watched the sky, a golden crimson, turn gradually to orange, to vermilion, and finally into a deep purple. The dampness of the evening filled my nose with the scent of the forest; a smell of earth, of life, and of decay.

Before the shadows closed in around us completely, Milagros had made two hammocks from strips of bark, knotted on either end to a suspension rope of vines. I could not disguise my delight when he hung my cotton hammock between the two uncomfortable-looking bark cradles.

Full of anticipation, I followed Milagros's movements as he loosened the quiver and fire drill from his back. My disappointment was immense when, upon removing the piece of monkey fur sealing the quiver, he took out a box of matches and lit the wood Angelica had gathered.

"Cat food," I said peevishly as Milagros handed me an open can of sardines. I had envisioned my first dinner in the jungle consisting of freshly hunted tapir or armadillo meat roasted to perfection over a crackling fire. All the smoldering twigs did was to send a thin line of smoke into the air, its low flames barely illuminating our surroundings.

The scant light of the fire dramatized Angelica's and Milagros's features, filling hollows with shadows; adding a shine to their temples, above their protruding eyebrows, along their short noses and their high cheekbones. I wondered why the fire made them look so much alike.

"Are you related?" I finally asked, puzzled by the resemblance.

"Yes," Milagros said. "I am her son."

"Her son!" I repeated in disbelief. I had expected him to be a younger brother or a cousin. He looked as it he was in his fifties. "Then you are only half Maquiritare?"

They both began to giggle, as if enjoying a secret joke. "No, he is not half Maquiritare," Angelica said in between fits of laughter. "He was born when I was still with my people." She did not say another word, but moved her face close to mine with an expression at once challenging and bemused.

I shifted nervously under her piercing gaze, wondering if my question had offended her. Curiosity must be a learned trait, I decided. I was anxious to know everything about them, yet they never asked me anything about myself. All that seemed to matter to them was that we were together in the forest. At the mission Angelica had shown no interest in my background. Neither was she willing to let me know about hers, except for the few stories regarding her life at the mission.

Our hunger satisfied, we stretched in our hammocks.

Angelica's and mine hung close to the fire. She was soon asleep, her legs tucked under her dress. The air felt chilly and I offered the thin blanket I had brought with me to Milagros, which he gladly accepted.

Glowworms, like dots of fire, lit up the dense darkness. The night pulsated with the cries of crickets and the croaking of frogs. I could not sleep. Exhaustion and nervousness prevented me from relaxing. I watched the hours move by on my illuminated wristwatch and listened to the sounds in the jungle that I could no longer identify. There were creatures that growled, whistled, creaked, and howled. Shadows slithered beneath my hammock, moving soundlessly as time itself.

In an effort to see through the darkness I sat up, blinking, not sure if I was asleep or awake. Monkeys with phosphorescent eyes darted from behind ferns. Beasts with snarling mouths gaped at me from the branches overhead, and giant spiders crawling on legs as fine as hair spun silver webs over my eyes.

The more I watched, the more frightened I became. A cold sweat trickled from my neck to the base of my spine as I beheld a naked figure with bow drawn, aiming at the black sky. When I clearly heard the hissing sound of the arrow I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.

"Do not be afraid of the night," Milagros said, laying his hand on my face. It was a fleshy, calloused hand, and smelled of earth and roots. He fastened his hammock above mine, so close I could feel the warmth of his body through the strips of bark. Softly he began to talk in his own language. His procession of rhythmical, monotonous words shut off all the other sounds of the forest. A feeling of peace crept into me, and my eyes began to close.

Milagros's hammock no longer hung above mine when I awoke. The sounds of night, now very faint, still lingered between the misty palms, the bamboo, the nameless vines, and parasitic growths. There was no color in the sky yet- only a vague clarity, forecasting a rainless day.

Crouching over the fire, Angelica stoked and blew on the embers, bringing them to life again. Smiling, she motioned me to join her. She said, "I heard you in my sleep. Were you afraid?"

A little embarrassed, I replied, "The forest is so different at night. I must have been overly tired."

Nodding her head, she said, "Watch the light- see how it reflects from leaf to leaf until it descends to the ground, to the sleeping shadows. That is the way dawn puts the spirits of the night to sleep." Angelica began to caress the leaves on the ground, and said, "During the day the shadows sleep. At night they dance in the darkness."

I smiled sheepishly, not quite knowing what to say. After a while, I asked, "Where did Milagros go?"

Angelica did not answer. She rose, looking around her. "Do not be afraid of the jungle," she said. Lifting her arms above her head, she began to dance with little jerky steps, and chanted in a low monotonous tone that abruptly changed to a very high pitch. "Dance with the night shadows, and go to sleep lighthearted. If you let the shadows frighten you, they will destroy you." Her voice faded to a murmur. She turned her back to me and slowly walked toward the river.

The water was cold as I squatted naked in the middle of the stream. Its placid pools held the first morning light. I watched Angelica collect wood, placing each branch in the crook of her arm as if she were holding a child. She must be stronger then she looks, I thought, rinsing the shampoo out of my hair. But then she might not be as old as she appeared either. Father Coriolano had told me that by the time an Indian woman is thirty she is often a grandmother. If they reach forty they have attained old age.

I washed the clothes I had worn, impaled them on a stick close to the fire, then put on a long T-shirt that reached almost to my knees. It was much more comfortable than my tight jeans.

"You smell good," Angelica said, running her fingers through my wet hair. "Does it come from the bottle?"

I nodded. "Do you want me to wash your hair?"

She hesitated for a moment, then rapidly took off her dress. She was so wrinkled that not an inch of smooth skin was left on her. She reminded me of one of the frail trees bordering the path, with their thin gray trunks, almost withered, yet supporting branches with green leaves. I had never seen Angelica naked before, for she wore her cotton dress day and night. I was certain then that she was more than forty years old- ancient, in fact, as she had told me.

Sitting in the water, Angelica shrieked and laughed with delight as she splashed around, spreading the suds from her head all over her body. With a broken gourd I rinsed off the soap, and after drying her with the thin blanket, I combed her dark short hair, shaping the bangs at an angle. "Too bad we do not have a mirror," I said. "Do I still have the red paint on?"

"Just a little bit," Angelica said, moving close to the fire. "Milagros will have to paint your face again."

"In a moment we will be smelling like smoke," I said, turning toward Angelica's bark hammock. Easing myself inside it, I wondered how she could have slept there without falling out. It was barely long enough for me and so narrow that I could not turn to the side. Yet, in spite of the itchy bark against my back and head, I found myself dozing off as I watched the old woman break the gathered wood into even-sized twigs.

An odd heaviness kept me between that crack of consciousness that is neither wakefulness nor sleep. I could feel the red of the sun through my closed lids. I was aware of Angelica to my left, mumbling to herself as she fed the fire, and of the forest around me, pulling me deeper and deeper into its green caverns. I called the old woman's name, but no sound escaped my lips. I called again and again, but only soundless forms glided out of me, rising and falling with the breeze like dead butterflies. The words began to speak without lips. They mocked my desire to know, and my desire to ask a thousand questions. They exploded in my ears, their echoes reverberating around me like a flock of parrots crossing the sky.

I opened my eyes, aware of the smell of singed hair. On a crudely built roasting platform, about a foot above the fire, lay a monkey, complete with tail, hands, and feet. Wistfully, I eyed Angelica's basket, still replete with cans of sardines and cassava bread.

Milagros lay in my hammock asleep, his bow leaning against a tree trunk, his quiver and machete on the ground, within reach.

I was getting out of the hammock as I asked Angelica, "Is this all he killed?"

And I was hoping it would never be ready as I added, "How long will it take until it is done?"

Angelica looked at me with a rapt smile of unmistakable glee, and said, "A bit longer. You will like it better than sardines."

Milagros dismembered the monkey by hand, serving me the choicest part, the head, considered a delicacy. Unable to bring myself to suck out the brain from the cracked skull, I opted for a piece of the well-done thigh. It was stringy and tough and tasted like an old gamy bird, slightly bitter. Finishing the monkey's brain with rather exaggerated relish, Milagros and Angelica proceeded to eat the inner organs, which had been cooking in the embers, each individually wrapped in strong, fan-shaped leaves.

They dipped each morsel in the ashes before they put them in their mouths. I did likewise with the pieces of thigh, and I was surprised to notice thee added saltiness of the meat. What we did not finish was wrapped in leaves, tied securely with vines, and placed in Angelica's basket for our next meal.