At Play in the Fields of the Lord (28 page)

But when Hazel sank onto her knees and held up her hands in prayer, the naked people imitated her so readily that afterward Huben exclaimed, “Yet you say you have no converts here!
Not a single believer in all this time!”

“You knew that, Leslie.”

“Not even that old woman wailing, the one who greeted me yesterday?
Surely Taweeda wishes to believe!”
Huben grasped Quarrier in a rough embrace and smiled at him, tears in his eyes.
“The Lord is here with us this morning, Martin Quarrier!
I can feel it in my heart—these lost souls are ready for the Lord!
Did you see them on their knees?
And perhaps the Lord, in all His wisdom, has seen fit to take Billy Quarrier to His great fold in order that these poor souls might see the light and know His Son Jesus Christ at last!”
Huben gazed skyward.
“Let us lift up our voices!

Quarrier, gone pale, waited for Huben to stop singing.
Hazel, who was struggling to sing also, began to falter.
“Martin—” she said, for her husband wore such a look of rage and grief that it seemed to her he might go mad.

“The Lord,” Quarrier said in a strange voice, “did not take my son.
Death took my son.
But if He had, the Lord would not be welcome to my son.
Do you understand that?
He is not welcome to my son!
”

The Indians watched, and the warriors beside the headman, Boronai, pointed at Huben, grumbling.
Boronai observed the white man without expression.

“May the Lord forgive you,” Huben said.

“You were kind to come here,” Quarrier said.
“It took courage.
But I must ask you to leave me alone; I will try to make my own peace with the Lord, and if I cannot—why, I cannot.”

P
REPARATIONS HAD BEEN UNDER WAY SINCE THE MOMENT THAT
the Indians knew the child would die.
The women had gone out to the plantations along the jungle edge and had brought back large bundles of manioc to make masato.
Now the men were using the utensils of the women, and the women and children were nowhere to be seen.

A rude tray was taken from the women’s cooking fires, and onto this tray was scraped the bark layers of a woody vine.
A mortar was brought, and the reddish shreds of bark were ground up in water in the mortar.
Leaves of another plant were added, and the resulting infusion placed in a clay pot.
The men squatted in a stolid circle and watched it boil.

Quarrier approached the fire.
Intent upon the flame, the Indians took little notice of him.
He picked up a flowering length of the vine, with its neat leaves and small clusters of flowers, saying to one of Boronai’s men, “Why do you make nipi?”

“Boronai will drink nipi,” the one called Tukanu said.
“Then he will speak to Kisu.”

“No,” Quarrier said, “no, he will not speak to Kisu.
A man cannot speak to Kisu except through prayer.”

“Boronai will speak to Kisu,” the one called Aeore said; it was this man who had once stabbed Quarrier in the chest.
For Quarrier’s benefit he spoke slowly, as to a child, and his contempt was open; with Billy the Indians had spoken naturally.
“He will speak to Kisu, and Kisu will tell him the name of Billy’s enemy.
We will revenge the death of Billy.”
Aeore’s face grew sullen; he blew air suddenly from his mouth to indicate impatience, and would not speak further.
He was a hawk-faced Indian whose muttering ways recalled to Quarrier the Sioux troublemakers in his former mission.
Aeore was the worst sort of savage, lazy and arrogant, vain, volatile and treacherous.

To Tukanu, Quarrier said, “Billy’s enemy was the mosquito.
You must not kill any man.”

Tukanu, a short heavy man with a stupid face, said something rapidly and angrily, then heaved around on his buttocks so that his back faced Quarrier.
But Quarrier understood.
Tukanu had said, “The enemy sent the mosquito.”

Kori’s men imitated Tukanu and Aeore and turned their backs to him, though Boronai still watched him from the head of the oval circle.
Gazing down at the impassive backs, Quarrier felt a wild impulse to kick them.
After all his work with the Niaruna, this sullen resistance was the only thing he could count on.
To Boronai he said, “You must not try to speak with Kisu.
You must not kill.”

Boronai watched him without expression.
Then he said, “We do not ask you to obey the Kisu of the Niaruna.
Why do you ask us to obey the Kisu of the white man?”

Over his shoulder, Kori said to Quarrier, “The people are angry with you.
Billy lived like a Niaruna, and yet you did not treat his spirit as a Niaruna spirit must be treated.
The spirit of Billy will be angry and will bring us harm.
Now Boronai will drink nipi.
He will listen to Kisu.
Then he will find the enemy of
Billy and kill him; then the spirit of Billy will go far away and sleep.”
Since Boronai had settled at the mission, Kori and his tame Indians had discarded all pretense of Christianity and were waiting to be bribed anew.
As for Boronai, he refused to listen to Christian teachings or even accept gifts, and his intransigence had infected all the rest.

In the afternoon the men of the village covered themselves from head to foot with the red achote, and a few smeared it in their hair.
By the sinking fire Boronai sat alone, staring fixedly at the pot.

“What are they doing?”
Huben inquired; he had joined Quarrier in the doorway of the shed.

“They are making nipi.”

“From a vine bark?
A vine with small white flowers?”

“Yes.”

“It is evil, Martin.
It’s
ayahuasca
, the same stuff that fellow Moon—”

Quarrier shrugged.
“Sometimes it’s used medicinally.
An emetic.
I haven’t discovered all its uses, but I am keeping notes.
Also it’s used for religious purposes—prophecy, divination, things like that.”

“What are you saying, Martin?”

“Ours isn’t the only religion in the world,” Quarrier said.
“If it was, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Do you know that this nipi of yours is a dangerous narcotic, that it turns men into maniacs, that life is often taken as a result of it?
Look what happened to that man Moon!”

Quarrier watched a bird fly across the river, black as a spirit of the dark to come against the last sharp silver light; the swiftness of the jungle night impressed him strangely every time he saw it.
He tried to concentrate on Huben, who looked offended that his outburst had gone unanswered.

“They will take a life this time too,” Quarrier said.

“And you’re not going to stop them?”

“I know I must try, but I also know I cannot stop them.”

“You admit that?”

“I don’t
admit
it, Leslie.
It’s a statement.”

“And what if I stepped over to that fire and dumped that cursed brew of Satan upon the ground?”

“I think Boronai’s men would kill you, because that stuff is sacramental.
They might let me get away with it because of Billy, but I’m not even confident of that.”

Huben shook his head.
“I’m beginning to believe you,” he said slowly.
“Not one soul in this whole wilderness realizes that God loves them!
These people are as savage as they were when I first made contact with them!”

Quarrier nodded.
“I have four wild Niaruna here, including the girl.
They haven’t killed us, they were fond of Billy and they have a word for our Lord Jesus Christ.
I can’t claim more than that.”

“But why?
What have you left undone?”

“You mean, I suppose,
what have you done wrong?
And I don’t know.”
Quarrier turned to go into the shed.
“I’ve prayed and prayed and I’ve racked my brain and I don’t know.
They don’t like me, and they don’t like what I teach.
If it hadn’t been for Billy, they would have killed us or driven us out long, long ago.”

H
IDDEN
in the darkness of their shed, they watched the savages.
Hazel watched with them, but she did not speak and did not really see.
She gazed steadfastly at the cross on Billy’s grave, which wavered in the shadows of the flames.

In the firelight, his warriors brought a feather crown to Boronai and fixed it on his head.
His arms and shoulders were painted bright rusty-red, and his face was smeared with whitish clay.
On this mask were drawn sharp lines of black, two beneath the eyes and two passing from the ears, skirting the corners of his mouth and forming a small cross at the chin.
Boronai maintained, as he had for hours, his squatting position by the fire and a fixed, unblinking stare.

Finally he stood, and a calabash of the manioc beer was brought to him.
He raised it ceremonially, the light flickering on the broad muscles of his arms and legs; he returned it untouched
to Aeore.
The calabash was passed from hand to hand, and the red figures drank it off, refilled the calabash and drank it off again.
Standing there, they began a slow shuffling stamp while Tukanu filled the calabash another time.
Meanwhile Aeore took up the smaller pot that had been cooling near the fire and presented it to Boronai.

Now Boronai began to chant, more and more loudly, his mouth splitting the white mask; while his men stamped violently in rhythm he spread his legs wide, threw his head back and drank the nipi at a gulp.
He straightened again, breathing hoarsely, then turned slowly in a circle, arms extended toward the jungle night, which surrounded the clearing like a high black wall.

“Kisu!”
he shouted.
“Kisu, ne binde nipi.
Boronai u tima!”

“ ‘Kisu,’ ” Quarrier whispered to Huben.
“ ‘I have drunk nipi, that I may go to you!’ ”

“Are you sure of all this?”

“I’ve questioned them.
Billy spoke their tongue so well that I could use him as interpreter, and I deduced what I could.”
He pointed at a large packing box beneath his cot.
“Those are all notes on the Niaruna.”

“You’re not here as a sociologist, Martin.”
Huben was fretful and snappish; he was glaring at the Indians, who had commenced a monotonous grunting stamp, up and down, up and down, chanting in time to the slap of their bare feet upon the mud, and passing the calabash back and forth.
Each time it was emptied, a man fell out of line and filled it up again.
Stamp, scrape—
eugh!
aagh!
Stamp, scrape—
eugh!
aagh!
Before long, a man leaned out and vomited a gutful of the masato, forcefully and neatly, without losing step; when the calabash next came around to him he drank heavily again.

Stamp, scrape—
eugh!
aagh!
Stamp, scrape—
eugh!
aagh!

“
All
these tribes drink masato,” Huben persisted when Quarrier said nothing, “and most of them use nipi, and they all get drunk and disgusting like this, and fight and fornicate and kill!
That’s why we’re here, Martin, can’t you see?
Perhaps if you had spent less time taking notes …”

“Well, they never drink the way our Christian Indians do—just
to get drunk.”
He tried once more to put his arm around his wife’s shoulder, to comfort her, but she was stiff as chalk.
When Billy died Hazel had said, “Suppose he hadn’t died in twenty-four hours?
Suppose he hadn’t?
Suppose, through blind stupidity and pride, you caused his death?
I know you think that because you were right, I should forgive you, but I don’t.
And I never will.”

Boronai was bellowing incoherently; he had taken a second draught of nipi.
His warriors kept a close eye on him and speeded the tempo of their dancing; the red bodies gleamed like salamanders in the firelight, coiling and sweating, and strange whooping calls were interspersed with heavy grunts and breathings.
When Boronai, with a sudden screech, ran for his bow and arrows, the others scattered to the edges of the compound, trying to avoid him, but still they danced and grunted, jerking eerily in the far shadows of the firelight.
In the center, all alone, the headman stood, enormous in his crown, the mouth hole in the ghastly mask twisted by a sound wrenched from his body; he fitted an arrow to his bow, and the head of the arrow moved in a slow circle, like the head of a snake.
Then he circled, stalking the red figures in the background.
Nearing the shed, his black silhouette sprang suddenly into its entrance; he jabbed the arrow toward the four corners, ignoring the white people drawn back into the shadows.

Huben murmured, “What is he doing?
I don’t like this.”

At the sound of Huben’s voice, Boronai leaped back into the firelight and drove the arrow violently into the earth, then another, then another, so that all the arrows quivered in the same spot.
He raised a final arrow and brandished it, then fell upon his knees and stared at the sky, bringing his hands up slowly before his face and clasping them, as if in imitation of Hazel at Billy’s funeral.

The red bodies danced toward Boronai from the shadows and, grouped around him in a circle, imitated him.
They maintained the
eugh!
aagh!
eugh!
aagh!
of their grunting, and one man, then another, sat back upon his heels to belch out the yellow fluid of his masato.