Night of the Parakeet

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A sudden sharp clop of horses’ hoofs broke the somnolence of the afternoon. Footsteps crunched on the gravel below. Instructions were shouted in Portuguese. Distant doors slammed. Then silence. He lay on in the half-shuttered room, in the drowsy heat, the lingering scent of blossom hanging in the air.

 

“Delighted to have you with us, Charlie.” His uncle’s mocking face gazed at Charlie over the dinner table, the eyes so dark they appeared fathomless, as though layer under layer of meaning resided there – like native Indians’ eyes, Charlie suddenly thought.
He was not too keen about his Uncle’s use of the word ‘us’. This was, after all, his mother’s house and she the hostess. Uncle Hiram was merely her cousin, unexpectedly arrived from his country estates that very afternoon.
The meal over, his uncle, impeccably dressed in evening clothes, lounged back in his chair, one arm casually draped over the back. The footman, Jose, glided over to re-light his cigarillo which was burning low. He brushed the young man aside with a wave of a manicured hand.
“And does the French style please you? Is it to your taste?” Hiram’s voice drawled out the question.
“The French style?” Charlie was nonplussed – put at an immediate disadvantage.
“This house, these furnishings.” Hiram drew the silver candelabra towards him and re-lit the cigarillo, cupping his hand to ward off the dank night breeze that blew in from the great river through the half-opened windows. The flame leapt up, flared, and then subsided.
“This house? Very fine,” Charlie responded – for undeniably it was – although for him the furnishings held no particular interest.
“All authentic, you know.”
Charlie was lost for words. He knew nothing about architecture or about furnishings. He was sure that his uncle was aware of this, was playing with him.
“All shipped over from Paris.” The butt of Hiram’s cigarillo glowed in the shadows.
And Charlie now realised that there was a feminine touch to the striped chairs and chaise longue and silken curtains. Up to now he had simply taken it all for granted as being his mother’s environment, quite unlike the domestic setting she had inhabited in England, but then this was Brazil. ‘Shipped over from Paris’ – but how had his mother afforded it? Dr Featherstone, her late husband, was not wealthy as far as he knew. His thoughts were cut into.
“Excellent architect employed to design the house – a perfect reproduction of its kind.”
Who had employed the architect? But perhaps his mother had not been the original occupant of the house?
“What did you think I meant by the ‘French style?” His uncle’s stance all at once had a charged energy, quite the reverse of his previous languid pose. “Did you imagine by the term ‘French style’, that I was enquiring as to your taste in women?” He resumed a casual pose, as though his question had been quite throw-away and any response was of disinterest to him.
For Charlie, it was a genuine affront. His Mamma was sitting at the head of the table opposite Uncle Hiram and to Charlie she appeared in the full dignity of her womanhood; her lustrous hair set off by a yellow silk sheath dress, jade earrings embedded with gold tracery swinging hypnotically as she moved, the fine lines of her skin softened by the candlelight. At Hiram’s remark she had flicked open her fan and was now fluttering it before her face, so that her expression was veiled.
Charlie had found the remark offensive, coarse in the presence of a lady, and in particular because that lady was his mother. He looked at his uncle with open contempt but could think of no cutting response, for he was also embarrassed.
“No offence meant, dear boy, no offence.” Hiram dropped the words lightly, then signalled with a flick of his finger for his crystal glass to be re-filled. As the footman bent solicitously over him, and the aroma of the woody dark red wine drifted down the table towards Charlie, he spoke musingly, almost as though to himself. “We do things differently here.”
The young footman, Jose, stepped softly back into the shadows behind his uncle’s chair and for a moment his dark eyes, bent on Charlie, were as fathomless as Hiram’s own. With his arcane blue satin jacket gleaming in the candlelight, he could have been a portrait of one on Hiram’s ancestors, hanging on the wall behind his uncle.
For Charlie, the dream-like quality had ended. Those drifting, languorous days had been abruptly and rudely terminated by the arrival of his mother’s cousin. Yet, already his uncle had stimulated a strange energy within the house. The feminine, seductive world had been rudely interrupted but simultaneously a new excitement had entered in.

 

They were hunting at night.
The lights on the canoe cast beams on the fast-flowing black water. A dim, oblong shape appeared beside them as a log rushed down river on the swirling current. The smell of the tropical night hung on the air.
Two Indians navigated the speeding boat, long black hair sweeping around their bare shoulders. Uncle Hiram leant forward, tensile, alert, throwing out rapid instructions in a tongue so strange to Charlie that it was as though he were again caught up on the edge of a dream.
A gravel shoal. The boat ground to a halt and there was another volley of native tongue, this time from one of the men.
“All hands on board, Charlie,” and his uncle was in the water, thigh high, followed by the Indians and then Charlie, shocked awake by the rapid immersion in those waters. He was pushing at the boat with all his might, slipping and falling on the river bed. His uncle was caught in the lamplight, water-sodden shirt clinging to his muscular body, working as one with the men, yet subtly still their leader. Harsh, rapid interchanges took place and finally the canoe shifted.
Back on board, the slim prow of the canoe cut a trail like a knife. His uncle tossed back his damp hair, shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, splayed fingers resting on his knees and a heavy silver cross gleaming at his throat. Charlie remembered with a jolt that there were alligators in the river, for this night expedition was a hunt for caymans, then this realization was lost as they wove between the rocks, which glinted dangerously in the darkness, and sensed the pull of the rapid against them.
A deep pool by the river bank, overhung with black, sweeping branches. The canoe stilled. The lights extinguished. Waiting. Only the sounds of quiet breathing and, from the jungle, rustles and the odd night cry.
A movement in the water. Lamps flooded on, searching. The water still, unruffled. Lamps out. Waiting again.
Then, a very distinctive rock to the fragile boat. Lamps circling the water, and yes, there it was, red eyes above the water-line, fractionally dazzled by the light. Spears looping instantly, silently, across the water. An exclamation from his uncle, standing leaning over the prow, lamp in hand, casting a pool of light.
“We’ve got it,” and on Hiram’s face, half in darkness and half caught in the light, was an expression of exultation, a curious, almost gloating satisfaction as he watched the cayman thrashing its tail, in the death throes from the spears and poisoned darts.

 

The Indians led the way with lamps. It was mid-day, but dusk on the forest floor. Huge trees rose above them, vast pillars, as of a cathedral stretching to the sky, the canopy of leaves blotting out the light. Leafmould covered the path and termites scurried. Long roots tripped the visitors and hanging lianas brushed their faces as they passed. A bootlace-sized snake hung from a branch before Charlie’s face.
The ‘selva’ they called the forest locally, or, as his uncle turned to inform him now, ‘the green hell’. This was the name given to it by Europeans, fearful of being lost and swallowed up in that endless, uncharted land, with its fevers, heat, insects, snakes – and noise. Above all it was the noise, thought Charlie. Since they had disembarked from the boat and entered the forest they had been caught up in an infernal whirlwind of whistling, singing, screeching, whooping.
The heat was overwhelming. The humidity was such that Charlie was soaked in acrid sweat. With his footsteps leaden from the mud caked on his boots he began to wonder if they would ever reach their destination or if the guides had lost their way, trecking through terrain without apparent landmarks.
“Have you heard of Curipira?” His uncle’s voice echoed back to him from the path ahead.
“No. I haven’t.”
“It’s one of the Indians’ legends. Curipira dwells in the forest but his feet point backwards. He protects the selva from any trespassers by confusing them with his backward footprints, so they lose their way.”
On this, Charlie’s first venture into the forest, he could well believe the myth. In the haunting silence that followed his uncle’s words there came to him the old refrain of his childhood, “Willie’s walk to see Grandma, Willie’s walk to see Grandma,” and his brother Freddie sprang to mind.
There started up a pelting drumming from overhead. His chain of thought was broken. The sound was deafening.
“Rain,” shouted his uncle through the dinning noise. “Won’t touch us. Trees form an umbrella.”
The odour of rot and decay from the leafmould was overpowering. A shaft of sunlight cut through the dusk and illuminated an orange-red frog sitting by a pool of water.
“Poisonous. Natives use its saliva for their darts.”
A leaf on the ground appeared to move and then flew off, transformed into a soft grey moth. It was as though the whole forest floor was deceptively made up not of leaves but of camouflaged insect life.
“Stop!”
A rapid halt from his uncle. A warning gesture.
“Look.”
Charlie gazed at the forest floor to where his uncle pointed. A rustling in the leaf-carpet but he could see nothing untoward. Then a slight movement and he was able to discern the outline of a snake, almost indistinguishable amongst the shadowy stripes of leaves. A sudden slash of his uncle’s knife and the snake’s head was cut from its body.
“Viper. Absolutely deadly.”
Charlie was astonished, and impressed. He could not help but feel respect for his uncle, grudging as it might be. He was sure the Indians must feel the same. For a moment he was almost proud of his uncle, proud to be linked to him by association. The man was brave.
Beside their route he started to notice trees as straight as elms, with a series of circular incisions around their trunks and tins hung below to collect the sticky liquid that oozed from the bark.
“Here it is, Charlie, the cement on which Manaus is founded.” His uncle pointed to the tins. “Take note, my boy. Rubber. ‘Black gold,’ and well-named it is.”
As he ceased to speak a shape emerged on the path ahead, that of a man. Due to the surrounding dusk the man appeared in silhouette, his outline revealing the shapes of a sack, a rifle and a long curved knife, so that the momentary impression was of a murderer standing in their path.
They drew nearer and saw it was an Indian. He was collecting the latex and emptying it into a large churn. He turned, and Charlie’s immediate impression was that he was living rough. His uncle stopped, spoke to the man and gestured to a tree which had long, vertical stripes down the trunk. The man appeared to give a surly but cowed response.
As they proceeded his uncle commented: “Black stripe. That’s a dead tree. They’ve cut beyond the inner bark. He claims it’s because it’s been unseasonably cold and rainy. They always do – sheer carelessness.”
“Why does he carry a gun?”
“Snakes, wild cats.” His uncle replied.
In the twilight of the trees there was an uneasy sense of threat, with the sullen man and his gun staring after them, and suddenly a sharp report rang out directly behind them and Charlie jumped.
Hiram saw him start and laughed abruptly. “No, I’m sure he would shoot me if he could get away with it, but it’s just the sound of seed-pods from the rubber trees – bursting.”
Soon, they came across a primitive hut. It was more in the nature of a den than a human habitation and as Charlie peered into its dark interior, and thought he discerned a bundle of rags, he guessed that this was the man’s lair, that he crawled in here at night and lay on the oozing mud – too exhausted to move.
They were nearing the end of their journey. The path was growing brighter, and eventually they stepped out into a clearing.
The sudden burst of sunlight dazzled their eyes and, blinded for a moment, all Charlie could see was the outline of black huts and of figures watching them. Then his eyes adjusted.
It was like seeing a shanty town, placed in the middle of a forest. Instantaneously it breathed a poverty and decay so tangible that it could have been sensed and smelt even by one whose eyes were blindfolded. It was reminiscent of the shanty town on the river-front at Manaus but here it was more desolate, derelict – unseen. There was none of the vibrancy of the water-front, of the half-naked children thrusting their rude visages before the passing Europeans. These people were Indians, but quite unlike the ones who had accompanied them on the night river trip, who were skilled and treated with respect by his uncle. These men, women and children were shrivelled, aged. The mark of a thousand desolate days of relentless harshness was upon their faces. They exuded apathy, deadness, a lack of all expectation.
A stench of acrid burning hung in the air. It came from a long sideless shack, with palm-covered roof, and he saw that within men were holding huge paddles covered with latex over a fire – turning them, adding layer after layer to produce the hardened rubber. A man emerged choking from the shack. There were festering, running burns on his arms. A filthy pig grubbed on the ground for food.
Charlie turned to his uncle, “Who are they?” His incredulity must have shown in his eyes.
“Seningeiros. Rubber tappers.” His uncle answered brusquely and strode over to a group of men who were standing motionless in the clearing, watching them.
He exchanged a sharp word with one of the men who had a certain air that marked him out as the foreman. His uncle’s tone was harsh, almost threatening. The man pointed at the collected drums of rubber and his uncle, frowning, all jest utterly effaced, as though another man had taken his place, started to count them. Silent children, cowed, darted forbidden, sidelong glances at Charlie and a woman hurried them into a shack.
Hiram, having finished his counting, spoke to the man, and although his tone was now softer it held an underlying menace. The man appeared to be trying to give an explanation. His uncle responded with what sounded like an order, and the anxious, strained face of the Indian showed agreement, combined with an air of hopelessness. Hiram walked back over to Charlie.
“Ludicrous amount collected. Say they have the jungle fever. Three men laid up. They’ll say anything.”
“They don’t look well.” Charlie’s honest soul was in revolt. “Can’t we provide them with some medicine?”
“They have their own medicines. They can get on with it.”
His words had a brutal finality to them but Charlie could not let the matter drop.
“How many hours a day do they work?” He pushed back a lock of hair.
Now it was his uncle’s turn to regard him in an incredulous manner.
“As long as it takes to support us in all our finery – and don’t you forget it.” His voice was grim, all the charm exhibited in Manaus quite fallen away, and he added, “All this didn’t worry your stepfather, the good Dr Featherstone. He took to it like a duck to water.”
He looked at Charlie sardonically and under that dark gaze there was that sense of worlds which were so remote and unfathomable to Charlie that he was left without words to respond.
“And,” his uncle said as an afterthought, “don’t talk about it with your Mamma. The ladies are not to be concerned with these matters. Their sensibilities are too susceptible.”
Was there an implicit threat in his tone?
Then, seeing Charlie’s frozen expression, his voice changed. Cajoling, with an amused, almost affectionate air, he said, “You’ll get used to it my boy”. He touched him on a rigid, unflinching arm. “We do things differently here you know.”
As they re-entered the path into the jungle, Charlie, cursing himself for his inability to make a sharp rejoinder to his uncle, turned to look back over his shoulder. Dusk was ahead and behind, in the sunlight, stood a silent group of Indians, watching their departure.
A red parrot glided across the clearing and in the trees above a howler monkey suddenly began to shriek.