27 Short Stories Read online

  To her surprise, he answered in halting Portuguese. Most of these Yanquis never bothered to learn the language at all, expecting her and everybody else to speak English. "Posso ajudar?" he asked. Can I help?

  "Nao," she said. "Mas pode olhar." You can watch.

  He looked at her in bafflement.

  She repeated her sentence slowly, enunciating clearly. "Pode olhar." "Eu?" Me? "Voce, sim. And I can speak English." "I don't want to speak English." "Tanto faz," she said. Makes no difference. He followed her into the hut. It was a little girl, lying naked in her own feces. She had palsy

  from a bout with meningitis years ago, when she was an infant, and Anamari figured that the girl would probably be one of the ones for whom the benaxidene came too late. That's how things usually worked-the weak suffer most. But no, her joints were flexing again, and the girl smiled at them, that heartbreakingly happy smile that made palsy victims so beautiful at times.

  So. Some luck after all, the benaxidene had been in time for her. Anamari took the lid off the clay waterjar that stood on the one table in the room, and dipped one of her clean rags in it. She used it to wipe the girl, then lifted her frail,

  atrophied body and pulled the soiled sheet out from under her. On impulse, she handed the sheet to the boy. "Leva fora," she said. And, when he didn't understand, "Take it outside." He did not hesitate to take it, which surprised her. "Do you want me to wash it?" "You could shake off the worst of it," she said. "Out over the garden in back. I'll wash it

  later."

  He came back in, carrying the wadded-up sheet, just as she was leaving. "All done here," she said. "We'll stop by my house to start that soaking. I'll carry it now." He didn't hand it to her. "I've got it," he said. "Aren't you going to give her a clean sheet?" "There are only four sheets in the village," she said. "Two of them are on my bed. She

  won't mind lying on the mat. I'm the only one in the village who cares about linens. I'm also the only one who cares about this girl." "She likes you," he said. "She smiles like that at everybody.

  "So maybe she likes everybody." Anamari grunted and led the way to her house. It was two government hovels pushed together. The one served as her clinic, the other as her home. Out back she had two

  metal washtubs. She handed one of them to the Yanqui boy, pointed at the rainwater tank, and told him to fill it. He did. It made her furious. "What do you want!" she demanded. "Nothing," he said. "Why do you keep hanging around!''

  "I thought I was helping." His voice was full of injured pride. "I don't need your help." She forgot that she had meant to leave the sheet to soak. She began rubbing it on the washboard.

  "Then why did you ask me to ..." She did not answer him, and he did not complete the question. After a long time he said, "You were trying to get rid of me, weren't you?" "What do you want here?" she said. "Don't I have enough to do, without a Norteamericano

  boy to look after?"

  Anger flashed in his eyes, but he did not answer until the anger was gone. "If you're tired of scrubbing, I can take over." She reached out and took his hand, examined it for a moment. "Soft hands," she said.

  "Lady hands. You'd scrape your knuckles on the washboard and bleed all over the sheet." Ashamed, he put his hands in his pockets. A parrot flew past him, dazzling green and red;

  he turned in surprise to look at it. It landed on the rainwater tank. "Those sell for a thousand dollars in the States," he said. Of course the Yanqui boy evaluates everything by price. "Here they're free," she said.

  "The Baniwas eat them. And wear the feathers."

  He looked around at the other huts, the scraggly gardens. "The people are very poor here," he said. "The jungle life must be hard." "Do you think so?" she snapped. "The jungle is very kind to these people. It has plenty for

  them to eat, all year. The Indians of the Amazon did not know they were poor until Europeans came and made them buy pants, which they couldn't afford, and built houses, which they couldn't keep up, and plant gardens. Plant gardens! In the midst of this magnificent Eden. The jungle life was good. The Europeans made them poor."

  "Europeans?" asked the boy. "Brazilians. They're all Europeans. Even the black ones have turned European. Brazil is just another European country, speaking a European language. Just like you Norteamericanos. You're Europeans too."

  "I was born in America," he said. "So were my parents and grandparents and great- grandparents." "But your bis-bis-avos they came on a boat."

  "That was a long time ago," he said. "A long time!" She laughed. "I am a pure Indian. For ten thousand generations I belong to this land. You are a stranger here. A fourth-generation stranger."

  "But I'm a stranger who isn't afraid to touch a dirty sheet," he said. He was grinning defiantly. That was when she started to like him. "How old are you?" she asked. "Fifteen," he said.

  "Your father's a geologist?" "No. He heads up the drilling team. They're going to sink a test well here. He doesn't think they'll find anything, though."

  "They will find plenty of oil," she said. "How do you know?" "Because I dreamed it," she said. "Bulldozers cutting down the trees, making an airstrip,

  and planes coming and going. They'd never do that, unless they found oil. Lots of oil."

  She waited for him to make fun of the idea of dreaming true dreams. But he didn't. He just looked at her. So she was the one who broke the silence. "You came to this village to kill time while your

  father is away from you, on the job, right?"

  "No," he said. "I came here because he hasn't started to work yet. The choppers start bringing in equipment tomorrow." "You would rather be away from your father?" He looked away. "I'd rather see him in hell."

  "This is hell," she said, and the boy laughed. "Why did you come here with him?" "Because I'm only fifteen years old, and he has custody of me this summer." "Custody," she said. "Like a criminal." "He's the criminal," he said bitterly. "And his crime?" He waited a moment, as if deciding whether to answer. When he spoke, he spoke quietly

  and looked away. Ashamed. Of his father's crime. "Adultery," he said. The word hung in the air. The boy turned back and looked her in the face again. His face was tinged with red.

  Europeans have such transparent skin, she thought. All their emotions show through. She guessed a whole story from his words, beloved mother betrayed, and now he had to spend the summer with her betrayer. "Is that a crime?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe not to Catholics." "You're Protestant?" He shook his head. "Mormon. But I'm a heretic." She laughed. "You're a heretic, and your father is an adulterer." He didn't like her laughter. "And you're a virgin," he said. His words seemed calculated to

  hurt her. She stopped scrubbing, stood there looking at her hands. "Also a crime?" she murmured. "I had a dream last night," he said. "In my dream your name was Anna Marie, but when I

  tried to call you that, I couldn't. I could only call you by another name." "What name?" she asked. "What does it matter? It was only a dream." He was taunting her. He knew she trusted in

  dreams. "You dreamed of me, and in the dream my name was Anamari?" "It's true, isn't it? That is your name, isn't it?" He didn't have to add the other half of the

  question: You are a virgin, aren't you?

  She lifted the sheet from the water, wrung it out and tossed it to him. He caught it, vile water spattering his face. He grimaced. She poured the washwater onto the dirt. It spattered mud all over his trousers. He did not step back. Then she carried the tub to the water tank and began to fill it with dean water. "Time to rinse," she said.

  "You dreamed about an airstrip," he said. "And I dreamed about you." "In your dreams you better start to mind your own business," she said. "I didn't ask for it, you know," he said. "But I followed the dream out to this village, and you

  turned out to be a dreamer, too."

  "That doesn't mean you're going to end up with your pinto between my legs, so you can forget it," she said. He looked genuinely horrified. "Geez, what are you talking about! That wo
uld be

  fornication! Plus you've got to be old enough to be my mother!" "I'm forty-two," she said. "If it's any of your business." "You're older than my mother," he said. "I couldn't possibly think of you sexually. I'm sorry

  if I gave that impression." She giggled. "You are a very funny boy, Yanqui. First you say I'm a virgin-•, "That was in the dream," he said. "And then you tell me I'm older than your mother and too ugly to think of me sexually." He looked at her ashen with shame. "I'm sorry, I was just trying to make sure you knew

  that I would never-" "You're trying to tell me that you're a good boy." "Yes," he said. She giggled again. "You probably don't even play with yourself," she said. His face went red. He struggled to find something to say. Then he threw the wet sheet

  back at her and walked furiously away. She laughed and laughed. She liked this boy very

  much. The next morning he came back and helped her in the clinic all day. His name was Sam Monson, and he was the first European she ever knew who dreamed true dreams. She had thought only Indios could do that. Whatever god it was that gave her dreams to her, perhaps it was the same god giving dreams to Sam. Perhaps that god brought them together here in the jungle. Perhaps it was that god who would lead the drill to oil, so that Sam's father would have to keep him here long enough to accomplish whatever the god had in mind.

  It annoyed her that the god had mentioned she was a virgin. That was nobody's business but her own.

  Life in the jungle was better than Sam ever expected. Back in Utah, when Mother first told him that he had to go to the Amazon with the old bastard, he had feared the worst. Hacking through thick viney jungles with a machete, crossing rivers of piranha in tick- infested dugouts, and always sweat and mosquitos and thick, heavy air. Instead the American oilmen lived in a pretty decent camp, with a generator for electric light. Even though it rained all the time and when it didn't it was so hot you wished it would, it wasn't constant danger as he had feared, and he never had to hack through jungle at all. There were paths, sometimes almost roads, and the thick, vivid green of the jungle was more beautiful than he had ever imagined. He had not realized that the American West was such a desert. Even California, where the old bastard lived when he wasn't traveling to drill wells, even those wooded hills and mountains were gray compared to the jungle green.

  The Indians were quiet little people, not headhunters. Instead of avoiding them, like the adult Americans did, Sam found that he could be with them, come to know them, even help them by working with Anamari. The old bastard could sit around and drink his beer with the guys-adultery and beer, as if one contemptible sin of the flesh weren't enough-but Sam was actually doing some good here. If there was anything Sam could do to prove he was the opposite of his father, he would do it; and because his father was a weak, carnal, earthy man with no self-control, then Sam had to be a strong, spiritual, intellectual man who did not let any passions of the body rule him. Watching his father succumb to alcohol, remembering how his father could not even last a month away from Mother without having to get some whore into his bed, Sam was proud of his self-discipline. He ruled his body; his body did not rule him.

  He was also proud to have passed Anamari's test on the first day. What did he care if human excrement touched his body? He was not afraid to breathe the hot stink of suffering, he was not afraid of the innocent dirt of a crippled child. Didn't Jesus touch lepers? Dirt of the body did not disgust him. Only dirt of the soul.

  Which was why his dreams of Anamari troubled him. During the day they were friends. They talked about important ideas, and she told him stories of the Indians of the Amazon, and about her education as a teacher in Sao Paulo. She listened when he talked about history and religion and evolution and all the theories and ideas that danced in his head. Even Mother never had time for that, always taking care of the younger kids or doing her endless jobs for the church. Anamari treated him like his ideas mattered. But at night, when he dreamed, it was something else entirely. In those dreams he kept seeing her naked, and the voice kept calling her "Virgem America." What her virginity had to do with America he had no idea-even true dreams didn't always make sense-but he knew this much: when he dreamed of Anamari naked, she was always reaching out to him, and he was filled with such strong passions that more than once he awoke from the dream to find himself throbbing with imaginary pleasure, like Onan in the Bible, Judah's son, who spilled his seed upon the ground and was struck dead for it.

  Sam lay awake for a long time each time this happened, trembling, fearful. Not because he thought God would strike him down-he knew that if God hadn't struck his father dead for adultery, Sam was certainly in no danger because of an erotic dream. He was afraid because he knew that in these dreams he revealed himself to be exactly as lustful and evil as his father. He did not want to feel any sexual desire for Anamari. She was old and lean and tough, and he was afraid of her, but most of all Sam didn't want to desire her because he was not like his father, he would never have sexual intercourse with a woman who was not his wife.

  Yet when he walked into the village of Agualinda, he felt eager to see her again, and when he found her-the village was small, it never took long-he could not erase from his mind the vivid memory of how she looked in the dreams, reaching out to him, her breasts loose and jostling, her slim hips rolling toward him-and he would bite his cheek for the pain of it, to distract him from desire.

  It was because he was living with Father; the old bastard's goatishness was rubbing off on him, that's all. So he spent as little time with his father as possible, going home only to sleep at night.

  The harder he worked at the jobs Anamari gave him to do, the easier it was to keep himself from remembering his dream of her kneeling over him, touching him, sliding along his body. Hoe the weeds out of the corn until your back is on fire with pain! Wash the Baniwa hunter's wound and replace the bandage! Sterilize the instruments in the alcohol! Above all, do not, even accidentally, let any part of your body brush against hers; pull away when she is near you, turn away so you don't feel her warm breath as she leans over your shoulder, start a bright conversation whenever there is a silence filled only with the sound of insects and the sight of a bead of sweat slowly etching its way from her neck down her chest to disappear between her breasts where she only tied her shirt instead of buttoning it.

  How could she possibly be a virgin, after the way she acted in his dreams?

  "Where do you think the dreams come from?" she asked.

  He blushed, even though she could not have guessed what he was thinking. Could she?

  "The dreams," she said. "Why do you think we have dreams that come true?" It was nearly dark. "I have to get home," he said. She was holding his hand. When had she taken his hand like that, and why?

  "I have the strangest dream," she said. "I dream of a huge snake, covered with bright green and red feathers."

  "Not all the dreams come true," he said.

  "I hope not," she answered. "Because this snake comes out of--I give birth to this snake."

  "Quetzal," he said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "The gathered serpent god of the Aztecs. Or maybe the Mayas. Mexican, anyway. I have to go home."

  "But what does it mean?"

  "It's almost dark," he said.

  "Stay and talk to me!" she demanded. "I have room, you can stay the night."

  But Sam had to get back. Much as he hated staying with his father, he dared not spend a night in this place. Even her invitation aroused him. He would never last a night in the same house with her. The dream would be too strong for him. So he left her and headed back along the path through the jungle. All during the walk he couldn't get Anamari out of his mind. It was as if the plants were sending him the vision of her, so his desire was even stronger than when he was with her.

  The leaves gradually turned from green to black in the seeping dark. The hot darkness did not frighten him; it seemed to invite him to step away from the path into the shadows, where he would f
ind the moist relief, the cool release of all his tension. He stayed on the path, and hurried faster.

  He came at last to the oilmen's town. The generator was loud, but the insects were louder, swarming around the huge area light, casting shadows of their demonic dance. He and his father shared a large one-room house on the far edge of the compound. The oil company provided much nicer hovels than the Brazilian government.

  A few men called out to greet him. He waved, even answered once or twice, but hurried on. His groin felt so hot and tight with desire that he was sure that only the shadows and his quick stride kept everyone from seeing. It was maddening: the more he thought of trying to calm himself, the more visions of Anamari slipped in and out of his waking mind, almost to the point of hallucination. His body would not relax. He was almost running when he burst into the house. Inside, Father was washing his dinner plate. He glanced up, but Sam was already past him. "I'll heat up your dinner." Sam flopped down on his bed. "Not hungry." "Why are you so late?" asked his father.

  "We got to talking." "It's dangerous in the jungle at night. You think it's safe because nothing bad ever happens to you in the daytime, but it's dangerous."

  "Sure, Dad. I know." Sam got up, turned his back to take off his pants. Maddeningly, he

  was still aroused; he didn't want his father to see. But with the unerring instinct of prying parents, the old bastard must have sensed that Sam was hiding something. When Sam was buck naked, Father walked around, and looked just as if he never heard of privacy. Sam blushed in spite of himself. His father's eyes went small and hard. I hope I don't ever look like that, thought Sam. I hope my face doesn't get that ugly suspicious expression on it. I'd rather die than look like that.