Lost in the Jungle Read online

When I returned, it was still perched on the rock. I crept through the reeds, trying to get as close as possible. I took aim but couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger. The bird was so beautiful, and we had enough food here in the village. It would be wrong to kill it. But masculine pride and the need to be admired by my peers won out. I took a shot. The bird fell silently into the river. The current was strong, and as the bird began drifting away, I noticed that it was still alive, trying to fight the current. I was dismayed that it might simply vanish in the water. It would be a shame to have killed it for nothing. I took off my clothes and dove in. The bird saw me and sensed that I was coming after it. It ceased struggling and gave itself up to the current as if it preferred drowning to the ignominy of death at human hands. I swam after it in the swift waters. I was nearing the point where the Asriamas emptied into the Tuichi when I caught the bird by one wing. It pecked fiercely at my hand and let out a strangled screech, but I didn’t let go. I kicked my feet and used my free hand to make it back to the riverbank. I climbed out of the water and dropped the bird on the shore. It lay there bleeding profusely. I ran back to get the shotgun and bashed its head with the butt. The soft ground cushioned the blow, and the bird writhed in pain. I put a rock under its head and brought the butt down again. This time the bird was still.

  Don Jorge’s children met me outside the village. They had heard the shot and came running to look the bird over. Don Jorge’s wife also came to greet me, and I asked her to prepare the bird for our supper, but first I just had to show it to Kevin, who was properly impressed by my marksmanship.

  Karl and Marcus came back empty-handed that afternoon. Before I even got the chance to give them a good ribbing, Karl asked me, ‘What’s the story, Yossi? What kind of weird bird did you shoot? I saw it in the kitchen. We can’t eat it.’

  ‘Why not?’ I demanded to know.

  ‘It eats all kind of carrion, snakes. It isn’t fit for humans.’

  ‘Yuck!’ Marcus exclaimed in disgust.

  ‘But Karl,’ I protested desperately, ‘that bird eats fish. I saw it with my own eyes, trying to catch a fish.’

  ‘You were mistaken,’ Karl waved me off. ‘It’s not fit to eat.’ I felt humiliated. Karl was only saying that because I was the one who had shot it. I knew that if he had killed it, he would be telling us what a delicacy it would be. Marcus bugged me more than anything; he was so happy to see me put down.

  The bird was served for our dinner, but no one took a bite. I thought sadly of the graceful bird whose life I had taken for nothing. A huge lump of frustration caught in my throat, and I felt tears gathering in my eyes.

  A strange thing happened a couple of days later. Marcus, feeling somewhat better and encouraged by Karl, surprisingly had changed his mind and decided to join us on the raft.

  ‘But how come?’ exclaimed Kevin. ‘You should go out on a mule, meet us in La Paz. You don’t feel good, your feet are inflamed.’

  But Marcus insisted on it; he wanted to join us. ‘We started up together,’ he said. ‘We should finish it together.’

  ‘What the hell are you trying to prove? I don’t understand you, not at all.’ Kevin was very upset and Marcus adamant.

  The tension didn’t cease. On the next day another unpleasant incident took place. Marcus and Karl had gone to check on the progress of the raft, and a short while later Lázaro, Don Jorge’s young brother-in-law, came to our hut.

  ‘The gentlemen want you to come see the raft,’ he informed us.

  ‘What for?’ I asked. ‘We’ve already seen it.’

  ‘It’s ready now. They said you should come see.’

  ‘Tell them we have complete and absolute faith in their judgment,’ Kevin said irritably, never taking his eyes off his book.

  I explained to the boy that since we had already seen the raft, if Karl and Marcus weren’t in need of help, if they just wanted us to come take a look, we would rather stay where we were and rest.

  ‘Forget it, Yossi,’ Kevin interrupted me suddenly. ‘Let’s send them a message.’

  Kevin dictated a silly letter, and I wrote it down:

  Dearest Karl and Marcus,

  As you are already only too aware, we are lazy slobs and goof-offs, and are quite content lying here in the shade. We have complete, total, and absolute confidence in your inspection of the raft, but if you should be in need of our assistance, you have only to take off your boots, Karl. The smell of your socks will come wafting our way, and we’ll be there like a shot.

  Yours truly,

  Kevin and Yossi,

  the good-for-nothings

  I handed the note to the boy and asked him to deliver it to the two gentlemen.

  Half an hour later Karl appeared. ‘What’s with you guys? Why the hell didn’t you come down to the river?’

  ‘What for?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘We have to check the raft’s buoyancy with all four of us on it. Besides us, we’ll still need another two Indians to represent the weight of our provisions and equipment,’ Karl explained.

  Kevin apologised. ‘We didn’t understand the kid. He didn’t tell us that you needed us.’

  ‘Well, no big deal.’ Karl smiled congenially.

  We walked to the river with him and boarded the raft. The logs were a bit paler than they had been but still green. The raft was heavy. It sat too low in the water and was clumsy to handle.

  ‘No good,’ Don Jorge said. ‘You have to wait longer.’

  ‘I don’t have a lot of time,’ Karl said with evident concern. ‘We may not have any choice but to walk back to Apolo.’

  ‘There is another alternative.’ Don Jorge said. ‘On the other side of the village my brother’s neighbour has four strong, dry balsa logs. Go see him. If he’ll sell them to you, we can add on the dry logs, two on each side, and they’ll make a big difference.’

  We all went back to the cabin. I hurried in ahead of Kevin to get dibs on the bed. Kevin accepted defeat and sank down on the straw mat. Karl went off sniffing around the cookhouse. Marcus stood restlessly in the centre of the room, obviously upset.

  ‘Yossi,’ he said suddenly.

  I looked up at him. He looked strange.

  ‘Yossi, you can have your shitty note!’

  He took the crumpled note out of his pocket and threw it in my face. It landed on the floor. The room was silent. Kevin looked on without a word.

  ‘Pick up your shitty note, do you hear me?’ Marcus was hysterical. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself! It was contemptuous of you to have written it, an insult to the Indian. He isn’t your servant. He went to the trouble to come and give you a message, and you shouldn’t have made fun of him.

  ‘For the past week Karl and I have been making all the arrangements, waiting on you hand and foot. All you do is sleep. When we finally ask you to do one thing, you screw around and weasel out of it. It’s an insult to Karl, after all he’s done for us.’

  It all came pouring out in a shrill voice. When he had finished, he stood there, glaring reprovingly at me. He probably had taken a long time building up his nerve for the outburst.

  I floundered awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Marcus had recognised my handwriting and blamed the note on me alone.

  ‘I was only kidding around, Marcus,’ I said in a low voice. ‘I didn’t know exactly what the boy wanted and had no intention of insulting anyone. If I did, then I apologise. But if you can’t take a joke, that’s your problem.’

  Kevin intervened. ‘Hey, you two,’ he said, ‘how about knocking off this crap? Can’t you behave like adults? Come on, let’s all sit down and talk it over. There’s no point in keeping this up. We can’t let our personal relationships ruin the whole trip. We’ll get everything off our chests, once and for all, out in the open.’

  Kevin looked at us, awaiting our response. Marcus said nothing.

  ‘It’s OK by me,’ I said, ‘but I think it’s between me and Marcus. So maybe we should do it, just the two of us. Do you agree, Marcus?’

/>   ‘Yes,’ Marcus answered meekly.

  After dinner I suggested that Marcus and I take a walk outside the village. There was a large, grassy clearing where the horses grazed. I loved to sit there on a fallen log and watch them. I had noticed one particular horse, strong and sinewy, noble and unbroken. I went there alone every evening and hadn’t shared this spot even with Kevin. I would sit on the log and enjoy the solitude, singing aloud in Hebrew.

  Marcus and I seated ourselves on the log. It was difficult to begin, but Marcus finally did.

  ‘I didn’t think we’d ever speak to each other again,’ he said. ‘There were so many times when I’ve wanted to talk with you, but you always avoided me. Whenever I tried to get near you on the trail, you hurried over to Kevin. You were always with him. Talking to him. Telling him stories. I would try to join in, but you just ignored me.

  ‘I’m stuck hanging around Karl all day, listening to his idiotic stories. I don’t have anyone else. You’re always talking to Kevin, and I’m left out. I wanted to talk it over with you, to ask you what happened, but you always avoided me.

  ‘Do you remember one night just the two of us were left sitting by the fire? I wanted to talk with you, but you just went into the tent. I stayed there outside, hoping you would understand, that you would come back out to talk with me, but I was wrong.

  ‘This whole trip is one big disaster for me. I’m miserable. I’m not enjoying it at all.’

  ‘I think you’re right, Marcus,’ I said. ‘Something has changed, but I don’t know exactly what. Nothing in particular happened. We just drifted apart. We don’t have the same relationship we did before. Maybe I’m coarse, not cultivated enough, and you, you just don’t feel at home in the wilderness.’

  ‘That’s a lie! A lie! Just a cheap excuse!’ Marcus burst out angrily. ‘Don’t try to hand me that again. It’s not true. I know that’s what Kevin says. He’s already told me that, and do you know when he told me? After two days on the trail. He had already made up his mind that I don’t feel at ease in the wilderness. He said that he didn’t get along with me and felt some hostility toward me, so it would be better if we kept our distance, if we spoke less with each other. Two lousy days after we started out he said that to me. That was a painful blow for me. I left Annick behind in La Paz to go off with two close friends, and after two days one of them abandoned me like that. And then, Yossi, you were all I had left. I needed a friend, I needed you. But you, you never noticed anything. You just wanted to be around Kevin. Why, why, did you shut me out like that?’

  He went on crying quietly, his whole body shaking. For the first time since we had set out on our journey, I felt sorry for my friend. I was no longer happy for his loss, that I had Kevin all to myself. I understood how important I had been to Marcus. I tried to console him.

  ‘Look, Marcus,’ I said, ‘let’s go back to being friends like we used to be. I don’t know what’s come over us in this jungle. We’ll go back to La Paz, and everything will be all right. It’s not true. I didn’t abandon you just because of Kevin. We were all together for a whole week in La Paz, and Kevin didn’t come between us. Let’s try to pick up the pieces. Let’s be friends again.’

  Words, words. Maybe I succeeded in cheering Marcus up a little bit, but we never were close friends again. We did talk to each other after that day, but it was forced, unnatural.

  We bought the four dried balsa logs. Kevin and Marcus went across the village to fetch them, floating them down the river. They were soaking wet when they got back. Marcus was in a better mood.

  Karl and I went out to cut more balsa bark panchos. We wove them into long ropes with which to fasten the additional logs to the raft. We went about our task with great energy. The new logs were dry and amazingly light. We attached them, two to each side, and the raft was now wider and far more buoyant.

  Don Jorge told us the raft would be safe. We decided to set out the next day.

  We kept on working that afternoon. Karl built a sort of raised platform in the middle of the raft. We would tie our food supply and the rest of our equipment down onto it the next morning and cover it all with nylon sheeting. That way everything would stay dry.

  Our last evening in Asriamas we gathered up all our gear and provisions. We had ten pounds of rice. We hadn’t been able to buy more, as the village had run low. We bought about seven or eight pounds of dried beans. We also had a large bunch of green plantains and the rest of the supplies we’d been assembling in recent days: yucca, cucumbers, onions, and a lot of hot peppers, a little ‘honey’ derived from sugarcane, salt, and spices. Salt was measured out like gold dust in Asriamas. We had paid for all these goods with a variety of gifts, according to the preference of the recipient. Karl was in charge of our finances, and he made a lot of mistakes. He traded off almost all our spools of fishing line, leaving us with only a few yards. He did the same with the fishhooks; he gave all but three away. We had had ten cigarette lighters with us when we got to Asriamas. We had only one when we left, and it was only half full. Even the insect-repellent spray, which was so essential, he left with Don Jorge, and we had only a small amount.

  That evening we had a festive going-away meal. Don Jorge had borrowed the shotgun and succeeded in killing an enormous boar. We wanted to pay him for the raft, our purchases, and his wife’s wages. He asked for only 1,450 pesos (less than 50 dollars): 800 for the sheep, 600 for the raft, and 50 for the rice. He didn’t want any remuneration for the food we had eaten in his home, for the chickens that had been slaughtered especially for us, for the fresh vegetables we had received each day, for the game he and his family had hunted, and for the enormous quantities of caña we had drunk. He also refused payment for the dozens of papayas we had eaten. We were his guests, he insisted, and he wouldn’t take money for his hospitality or for his wife’s work. After a quick huddle we decided not to take anything from him for the things he had bought from us. And we added 800 pesos to the amount he had quoted. Don Jorge was satisfied.

  Chapter seven

  SHOOTING WHITE WATER

  ‘OK,’ Karl said, getting organised, ‘who’s the captain? Me or Kevin?’

  ‘You, Karl, you’re the captain,’ Kevin said.

  ‘OK, then I’ll be in the bow with an oar. Marcus and Kevin, you will each take a corner in the stern, holding a long pole. You’ll push us along with the poles. Lower them down to the river bottom and give a push. Yossi, you sit here by me holding a pole. Whenever we come too close to a rock or the bank, you use the pole to push us off and keep us from colliding. Understood?’

  ‘Captain,’ Marcus piped up. ‘The poles are too long and heavy. They’re hard to handle.’

  Karl picked up one of the long poles that the villagers had prepared and agreed, ‘Yes, you’re right. They made them too long.’ He took out the machete and hacked off the ends, leaving the poles shorter by about a yard. Then he put on my small backpack and tightened the straps. He had spent the day before cutting chips of dried balsa, filling the pack with them. He was the only one of us who couldn’t swim and was afraid of falling into the river and being carried away, so he had made himself a life preserver.

  Another shove, and heave-ho! We were caught up in the Tuichi’s current. The river, which had appeared fairly calm from the bank, did not feel calm at all. The current was extremely swift. Karl pulled hard at the water with his oar, trying to keep the bow pointed straight forward. He yelled instructions back to Kevin and Marcus.

  ‘If she pulls to the left, Kevin has to push her back from the right, and if to the right, then Marcus pushes.’

  That quickly proved to be impossible. The poles were now too short to reach the bottom of the deep river. Marcus had turned ghostly white, Kevin wasn’t displaying any emotion, and I was very excited. Karl was uptight.

  ‘If you can’t reach the bottom, row, row, pull hard!’

  ‘This is a round pole, not an oar. You can’t row with it,’ Kevin said.

  ‘Do as I say. Is that clear? Do as I
say!’ Karl yelled.

  Kevin rowed indifferently, not making much effort, and it did seem to be pointless. The Tuichi was straight and smooth, and so far we were cruising along without any problems.

  After about an hour we came to shallow waters where large rocks jutted out.

  ‘Watch out! Now pull to the left, Kevin, to the left!’ Karl pulled at the oar with all his might. ‘Yossi, get ready to push us off that rock with the pole,’ he said to me, as we rapidly approached a boulder. We all rowed. Marcus tried to push off from the rocks on the bottom. His pole snagged on one of them and was torn from his hands.

  ‘I’ve lost my pole!’ he cried. ‘I lost it!’

  ‘Mierda,’ Karl swore.

  ‘Here, take this pole.’

  I handed our only spare pole to Marcus.

  ‘Get ready, Yossi... push!’ Karl cried.

  I stuck the long pole out toward the rock that the raft was approaching. I pushed but didn’t have enough strength to prevent the collision. The raft took a severe blow and tilted up on its side for a moment, but then straightened out.

  We were moving along again but no longer passing through smooth waters. Every few minutes we approached another rock, and Karl was on the verge of hysteria. We somehow managed to smash into every one of them but suffered no serious damage. I lost a pole, and Marcus lost his second one. Things weren’t looking so good. We finally managed to pull over to the shore.

  ‘We can’t go on like this,’ Karl said. ‘It’s terrifying. Not one of you has the vaguest idea how to handle a raft.’

  ‘Take it easy, Karl, take it easy,’ Kevin said. ‘Nobody learns how to do it in an hour. We’ll get more practice. We’ll catch on. Everything will be all right.’

  ‘This isn’t child’s play, Kevin,’ Karl retorted angrily. ‘We don’t have time for lessons. I could be killed. You have to follow my instructions quickly, without hesitation.’

  ‘All right, Karl,’ Marcus said. ‘We’ll do just as you say. Tell him that you’ll do what he says, Kevin, please. Say it.’