For two days, at an ever accelerating pace, we walked up and down hills without rest. Apprehensively, I watched Milagros's silent figure slip in and out of the shadows. The urgency of his movements only intensified my feelings of uncertainty: There were moments when I felt like screaming at him to take me back to the mission.
The afternoon closed over the forest as the clouds turned from white to gray to black. Heavy and oppressive, they hovered over the treetops. A deafening roar of thunder broke the stillness: Water came down in sheets, tearing at branches and leaves with relentless fury.
Motioning me to take cover under the gigantic leaves he had cut, Milagros squatted on the ground. Instead of joining him, I took off my knapsack, untied the gourd filled with Angelica's powdered bones from around my waist, and pulled off my T-shirt. Warm and soothing, the water beat against my aching body. Lathering first my head, then my body with shampoo, I washed away the ashes, the smell of death from my skin. I turned to look at Milagros; his blackened face was drawn with fatigue, his eyes held such sadness that I regretted having cleaned myself in such haste. Nervously I began to wash my T-shirt and without looking at him asked, "Are we almost to the settlement?" I was certain we had walked well over a hundred miles since leaving the mission.
"We will be there tomorrow," Milagros said, unwrapping a small bundle of roasted meat held together with lianas and leaves. A peculiar smile lifted the corners of his mouth, and deepened the wrinkles around his slanted eyes. "That is, if we walk at my pace."
The rain thinned. The clouds dispersed. I breathed deeply, filling my lungs with the clear, fresh air. Drops continued to trickle from the leaves long after the rain abated. As they caught the reflection of the sun they glittered with the dazzling intensity of bits of broken glass.
"I hear someone coming," Milagros whispered. "Stay still."
I heard nothing- not even the call of a bird or the rustling of leaves. I was about to say so when a branch cracked and a naked man appeared on the path in front of us. He was not much taller than myself- perhaps five feet four. I wondered it it was his muscular chest or his nakedness that made him seem so much bigger than me. He carried a long bow and several arrows. His face and body were covered with red serpentine lines that extended all the way down the sides of his legs, ending in dots around his ankles.
A short distance behind him, two naked young women stared at me. A frozen expression of surprise held their dark eyes wide open. Tufts of fibers seemed to grow from their ears. Matchlike sticks stuck out from the corners of their mouths and lower lips. Fastened about their waists, upper arms, wrists, and below their knees were bands of red cotton string. Their dark hair was cut short, and like the man, they had a clean, wide-shaven tonsure on the crown.
No one said a word and out of sheer nervousness I shouted, "Shori noje, shori noje!" Angelica had advised me that if I ever happened to meet Indians in the forest, I should greet them by shouting: Good friend, good friend!
"A ia, aia, shori," the man answered, moving closer. Red feathers adorned his ears: They were sticking out of two pieces of short cane, the size of my little finger, which were inserted through each lobe. He began to speak to Milagros, gesticulating a great deal, motioning with his hand or a nod of his head toward the path leading into the thicket. Repeatedly he raised one of his arms straight above his head, his fingers extended as if reaching for a ray of sunlight.
I beckoned the women to come closer. Giggling, they hid behind bushes. When I saw the bananas in the baskets fastened to their backs I opened my mouth wide and gestured with my hands that I wanted to eat one of them. Cautiously the older of the two women approached, and without looking at me she unfastened her basket, then broke the softest, yellowest banana from the bunch. In one swift motion she removed the slender sticks from around her mouth, sank her teeth in the peel, bit along it, broke it open, then held the naked fruit in front of my face. It had an oddly triangular shape and was certainly the thickest banana I had ever seen.
"Delicious," I said in Spanish, rubbing my stomach. It tasted very much like an ordinary banana but left a heavy coating in my mouth.
She gave me two more. As she was peeling the fourth I tried to make her understand that I could not eat another. Grinning, she dropped the remaining fruit on the ground, then placed her hands on my stomach. They were calloused hands, yet the delicate, slender fingers were gentle as she hesitantly touched my breasts, shoulders, and face, as if she wanted to verify that I was real. She began to talk in a high-pitched nasal tone that reminded me of Angelica's voice. She pulled the elastic on my panties and called her companion to take a look. It was only then that I felt embarrassed: I tried to pull away. Laughing and squealing with delight, they embraced me, stroking the back and front of my body. Then they took my hand and guided it over their own faces and bodies. They were slightly shorter than I, yet they were massive: With their full breasts, protruding stomachs, and wide hips, they seemed to dwarf me.
"They are from the Iticoteri village," Milagros said in Spanish, turning toward me. "Etewa and his two wives, Ritimi and Tutemi, as well as other people from the settlement, have made camp for a few days at an old abandoned garden nearby." He reached for his bow and arrows, which he had left leaning against a tree trunk, and added, "We will travel with them."
Meanwhile the women had discovered my wet T-shirt. Enthralled, they rubbed it against their painted faces and bodies before I had a chance to slip it over my head. Stretched and streaked with red onoto paste, it hung on me like a dirty oversized rice sack.
I put the ash-filled gourd in my knapsack, and as I lifted it on my back the women began to giggle uncontrollably. Etewa came to stand next to me: He stared at me with his brown eyes, then a wide grin lit his face as he ran his fingers through my hair. His finely chiseled nose and the gentle curve of his lips gave his round face an almost girlish appearance.
"I will go with Etewa to track down a tapir he spotted a while ago," Milagros said. "You walk with the women."
For an instant I could only stare at him in disbelief. "But..." I finally managed to utter, not knowing what else to say. I must have looked comical for Milagros began to laugh: His slanted eyes all but disappeared between his forehead and his high cheekbones. He put one hand on my shoulder. He tried to look serious but a flickering smile remained on his lips.
"These are Angelica's and my people," he said, turning toward Etewa and his two wives. "Ritimi is her grand-niece. Angelica never saw her."
I smiled at the two women: They nodded their heads as if they had understood Milagros's words.
Milagros's and Etewa's laughter echoed through the lianas, then died away as they reached the bamboo thicket bordering the path along the river. Ritimi took my hand and led me into the thicket.
I walked between Ritimi and Tutemi. We moved silently in single file toward the abandoned gardens of the Iticoteri. I wondered whether it was because of the heavy load on their backs or whether it gave their feet a better grip on the ground that they walked with their knees and toes pointing inward. Our shadows grew and diminished with the faint rays of sunlight filtering through the treetops. My ankles were weak from exhaustion. I moved clumsily, stumbling over branches and roots. Ritimi put her arm around my waist, but it made walking on the narrow path even more awkward. She pulled the knapsack from my back, and stuffed it in Tutemi's basket.
I was seized by an odd apprehension. I wanted to retrieve my knapsack, pull out the ash-filled gourd, and tie it around my waist. I had the vague notion of having severed some kind of a bond. Had I been asked to put my feelings into words I would not have been able to do so. Yet I sensed that from that moment on some of the magic and enchantment Angelica had transfused into me had vanished.
The sun was already below the horizon of trees as we reached a clearing in the forest. Amidst all the other shades of green I clearly distinguished the lighter, almost translucent green of the plantain fronds. Strung out on the edge of what once must have been a large garden were low triangular-shaped huts arranged in a semicircle with their backs to the forest. The dwellings were open on all sides except for the roofs, which were covered with several layers of broad banana leaves.
As if someone had given a signal, we were instantly surrounded by open-mouthed, wide-eyed women and men. I held on to Ritimi's arm: Her having walked with me through the forest made her different from these gaping figures. Encircling me by the waist, she drew me close to her. The rapid, excited tone of her voice kept the crowd at bay for a moment longer. Suddenly their faces were only inches away from mine. Saliva dribbled down their chins, and their features were disfigured by the tobacco wads stuck between their gums and lower lips. I forgot all about the objectivity with which an anthropologist is to regard another culture. At the moment these Indians were nothing more than a group of ugly, dirty people. I closed my eyes only to open them the next instant as an unsteady bony hand touched my cheeks. It was an old man. Grinning, he began to shout: "Aia, aia, aiiiashori!"
Echoing his shouts, everyone at once tried to embrace me, almost crushing me with joy. They managed to pull my T-shirt over my head. I felt their hands, lips, and tongues on my face and body. They smelled of smoke and earth: Their saliva, which clung to my skin, smelled of rotten tobacco leaves. Appalled, I burst into tears.
With apprehensive expressions on their faces, they pulled away. Although I could not understand their words, their tone clearly revealed their bewilderment.
Later that night I learned from Milagros that Ritimi had explained to the group that she had found me in the forest. At first she had believed I was a spirit, and she had been afraid to come near me. Only after she had seen me devour the bananas was she convinced I was human, for only humans eat that greedily.
Between my hammock and Milagros's burned a fire: Smoking and sputtering, it threw a faint light over the open hut, leaving the trees outside in one solid mass of darkness. It was a reddish light that, combined with the smoke, made my eyes water. People sat around the fire so close to each other their shoulders touched. Their shadowed faces looked all the same to me: The red and black designs on their bodies seemed to have a life of their own as they moved and twisted with each gesture.
Ritimi sat on the ground, her legs fully extended, her left arm resting against my hammock. Her skin was a soft deep yellow in the wavering light: The painted lines on her face ran toward her temples, accentuating her Asiatic features. Clearly I could see the small holes, free of the sticks, at the corners of her mouth, lower lip, and the septum of her wide nostrils. Aware of my stare, she looked at me directly, her round face creasing into a smile. She had square short teeth: They were strong and very white.
I began to doze off to the gentle murmur of their voices, yet slept fitfully, wondering what Milagros was telling them as I kept waking to the sound of laughter.