City of the Beasts (30 page)

"Do you know something about the Beast you haven't told me, Alexander?" she asked her grandson.

"Maybe yes and maybe no," he replied, lacking the nerve to look her in the eye.

"What kind of answer is that?"

About midday, there was an alert: A figure had come out of the forest and was timidly approaching the camp. Mauro Carías made friendly signals, and ordered the soldiers to stand back and not spook her. The photographer Timothy Bruce handed his camera to Kate and picked up a video camera; the first contact with a tribe was a unique occasion. Nadia and Alex immediately recognized the visitor. She was Iyomi, chief of the chiefs of Tapirawa-teri. She came alone, naked, incredibly ancient, all wrinkled and toothless, leaning her weight on a twisted pole that served as a staff and with the circle of yellow feathers pulled down to her ears. Step by step she came, to the stupefaction of the
nahab
. Mauro Carías called Karakawe and Matuwe to ask if they knew the tribe this woman belonged to, but neither did. Nadia moved forward.

"I can speak with her," she said.

"Tell her we mean her no harm; we are friends of her people and they should come to us without their weapons because we have many gifts for her and all the others," said Mauro Carías.

Nadia translated freely, without mention of the part about the weapons, which she did not think was a very good idea considering the numbers of arms the soldiers had.

"We do not want the gifts of the
nahab
, we want them to leave the Eye of the World," Iyomi replied firmly.

"It's no use, they won't leave," the girl explained to the ancient woman.

"Then my warriors will kill them."

"More will come, many more, and all your warriors will die."

"My warriors are strong; these
nahab
do not have bows or arrows, they are slow, clumsy, and they have soft skulls; besides they frighten as easily as children."

"War is not the solution, Chief of Chiefs. We must negotiate," Nadia urged.

"What the hell is the old crone saying?" asked Carías, impatient because the girl had not been translating the exchange.

"She says that her people have not eaten in several days and she is very hungry," Nadia invented on the fly.

"Tell her we will give them all the food they wish."

"They are afraid of the weapons," she added, although in truth the Indians had never seen a pistol or a rifle, and could not suspect their deadly power.

Mauro Carías ordered his men to put down their arms as a sign of goodwill, but Leblanc, frightened, intervened to remind them that the Indians often attacked treacherously. With that in mind, the soldiers laid down the submachine guns but kept the pistols in their holsters.

Iyomi accepted a large bowl of meat and corn from the hands of Dr. Omayra Torres, and started back the way she'd come. Captain Ariosto tried to follow her, but in less than a minute she had turned to smoke in the vegetation.

They waited the rest of the day, staring at the undergrowth, without seeing anyone, while they put up with the warnings of Leblanc, who expected a contingent of cannibals to burst out of the jungle at any moment. The professor, armed to the teeth and surrounded by soldiers, had been petrified ever since his first glimpse of the naked great-granny in her crown of yellow feathers. The hours went by without incident, except for a moment of tension caused when Dr. Omayra Torres surprised Karakawe snooping through her boxes of supplies. It was not the first time that had happened. Mauro Carías came in and told the Indian that if he saw him near the medicines again, Captain Ariosto would immediately arrest him.

That afternoon, just when everyone thought the old woman was not coming back, the entire tribe of the People of the Mist materialized in front of the camp. First they saw the women and children, insubstantial, dim, and mysterious. Several seconds passed before they saw the men, who in fact had been there longer and were standing in a semicircle. They surged out of nothingness, mute and proud, headed by Tahama, painted for war with the red of the
onoto
, the black of charcoal, the white of lime, and the green of plants, adorned with feathers, teeth, claws, and seeds, and with all their weapons in their hands. They were right in the camp, but they blended so well with their surroundings that the
nahab
had to blink their eyes to see them clearly. They were airy, ethereal; they seemed barely sketched upon the background, but there was no doubt that they were also fierce.

For long minutes, the two bands observed each other in silence, on one side the transparent Indians and on the other the dumbfounded foreigners. Finally Mauro Carías shook himself out of his trance and took action, instructing the soldiers to serve food and hand out gifts. Heavy-hearted, Alex and Nadia watched the women and children accept the trinkets intended to draw them into the camp. They knew that those innocent gifts signaled the end of the tribe. Tahama and his warriors stood alert, weapons still in hand. The most dangerous were the thick clubs, which they could swing in a matter of seconds; aiming an arrow would take longer, giving the soldiers time to shoot.

"Explain to them about the vaccine, sweetie," Mauro Carías directed.

"Nadia. My name is Nadia Santos," she repeated.

"It's for their good, Nadia, to protect them," Dr. Omayra Torres added. "They will be afraid of the needles, but actually, it's not as bad as a mosquito bite. Maybe the men would like to be first, to set an example for the women and children."

"Why don't you set the example?" Nadia asked Mauro Carías.

The perfect smile that never left the tanned entrepreneur's face faded at the girl's challenge, and an expression of absolute terror flitted across his face. Alex noted Carías's extreme reaction. He knew people who were afraid of getting a shot, but Carías looked as if he had seen Dracula.

Nadia translated, and after long discussion, in which the name of the Rahakanariwa came up often, Iyomi agreed to think about it and to consult with the tribe. They were in the midst of these conversations about the vaccine when suddenly Iyomi murmured some order—imperceptible to the foreigners—and the People of the Mist vanished as quickly as they had appeared. They returned to the forest like shadows, without so much as the sound of a footfall or a single word or one baby's cry. The rest of the night, Ariosto's soldiers stood guard, expecting an attack at any moment.

Nadia awakened at midnight when she heard Omayra Torres leaving the tent. She supposed the doctor was going outside to relieve herself in the bushes, but she had a hunch that she should follow her. Kate was snoring away, deep asleep as usual, and had no inkling of her tent-mate's activities. Silent as a cat, using her newly learned talent to be invisible, Nadia moved forward and hid behind a huge fern. The doctor was silhouetted against the pale moonlight. A minute later, a second figure approached and to Nadia's surprise took the doctor in his arms and kissed her.

"I'm afraid," the doctor said.

"Nothing to fear, my love. Everything will work out fine. In a couple of days, we'll be finished here and on our way back to civilization. You know how much I need you…"

"Do you really love me?"

"Of course I love you. I adore you, and I will make you very happy. You will have everything you desire."

Nadia made her way back to the tent, lay down on her mat, and pretended to be asleep.

The man with Dr. Omayra Torres was Mauro Carías.

The next morning, the People of the Mist returned. The women brought baskets of fruit and the meat of a large tapir to repay the gifts they had received the day before. The attitude of the warriors seemed more relaxed, and although they did not put down their clubs, they exhibited the same curiosity as the women and children. They watched from a distance, and though they didn't go near the extraordinary birds of noise and wind, they felt the clothing and weapons of the
nahab
, pawed through their belongings, went into their tents, posed for their cameras, decked themselves in plastic necklaces, and tested the machetes and knives with wonder.

Dr. Omayra Torres thought the climate was right for undertaking her project. She asked Nadia to explain once again to the Indians the urgent need to protect against epidemics, which she did, but they were not convinced. The only reason for Captain Ariosto's not forcing them at gunpoint was the presence of Kate and Timothy Bruce. He could not use intimidation before the press, he had to keep up appearances. There was no choice but to wait patiently through the eternal discussions between the girl and the tribe. The absurdity of shooting them to death to keep them from dying from some disease never crossed the captain's mind.

Nadia reminded the Indians that she had been named by Iyomi to appease the Rahakanariwa, which had the habit of punishing humans with terrible epidemics; therefore they should do what she said. She offered to be the first to submit to the shot, but that was offensive to Tahama and his warriors. They would be the first, they said finally. With a sigh of satisfaction, she translated the decision of the People of the Mist.

Dr. Omayra Torres had a table set up in the shade, and laid out her syringes and vials while Mauro Carías tried to organize the tribe in a line to assure that no one would miss being vaccinated.

In the meantime, Nadia took Alex aside to tell him what she had seen the night before. Neither of them knew what to make of that scene, but they felt vaguely betrayed. How was it possible for the sweet Omayra Torres to have a relationship with Mauro Carías, the man who carried his heart in a totebag? They concluded that there was no doubt that Mauro Carías had seduced the good doctor. Didn't everyone say he had great success with women? Nadia and Alex could not see anything the least bit attractive about the man, but they supposed that his manners and his money could deceive others. The news would fall like a bomb among the doctor's admirers, César Santos, Timothy Bruce, and even Ludovic Leblanc.

"I don't like this one bit," said Alex.

"Are you jealous, too?" Nadia joked.

"No!" he replied, indignant. "But I feel something here in my heart, something like a terrible weight."

"Does it have to do with the vision we shared in the city of gold? You remember? When we drank Walimai's potion and we all dreamed the same thing, even the Beasts."

"Right. That dream was like one I had before I came on this trip: a huge vulture kidnapped my mother and flew away with her. I interpreted that to be the cancer threatening her life; I thought the vulture represented death. In the
tepui
, we dreamed that the Rahakanariwa broke out of its cage where it was prisoner and that the Indians were tied to the trees, remember?"

"Yes, and that the
nahab
were wearing masks. What do masks mean, Jaguar?"

"Secrets. Lies. Betrayal."

"Why do you think that Mauro Carías is so interested in seeing the Indians vaccinated?"

The question hung in the air like an arrow stopped in midflight. The two friends looked at each other in horror. In a flash of insight, they realized the terrible trap they had all fallen into: the Rahakanariwa was the epidemic! The death that threatened the tribe was not a mythological bird but something much more concrete and immediate. They ran to the center of the village, where Dr. Omayra Torres was just touching the needle of her syringe to Tahama's arm. Without thinking, Alex threw himself like a battering ram against the warrior, sending him sprawling to the ground. He jumped back up and raised his club to crush the youth like a cockroach, but a cry from Nadia froze his arm in the air.

"No! No! This is the Rahakanariwa!" the girl screamed, pointing to the vials of vaccine.

César Santos thought his daughter had gone mad, and tried to hold her but she pulled away and ran to join Alex, yelling and pounding her fists on Mauro Carías, who had stepped in front of her. As quickly as she could, she tried to explain to the Indians that she was wrong, that the vaccine would not save them, just the opposite, it would kill them, because the Rahakanariwa was in the syringe.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bloodstains

DR. OMAYRA TORRES did not lose her calm. She said this was all some fantasy of the young people and that the heat had made them a little crazed, and she demanded that Captain Ariosto take them away. She tried to resume her interrupted task, despite the fact that the mood of the tribe had changed completely. At that moment, with Captain Ariosto ready to impose order by force and as the soldiers were wrestling with Nadia and Alex, Karakawe, who had not spoken more than a dozen words the whole trip, came forward.

"Just a minute!" he cried.

To everyone's surprise, this man who had scarcely opened his mouth for days announced that he was an officer of the Department for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples, and explained that his assignment was to find out why the Amazon tribes were dying en masse, especially those who lived near fields of gold and diamonds. For some time, he had suspected Mauro Carías, the man who had benefited most from exploitation in the region.