Quarrier said.
“Who will? Nobody will. And even if they did, they would not be believed. And even if they were believed, Guzmán might be embarrassed, but his action would be approved. I tell you, Martin, the government wants those lands developed. So who’s going to report him? Nobody will. Nobody gets in that man’s way!”
“Martin will,” Hazel said. “Won’t you, Martin?” Her tone was so cold, her voice so very different from the flustered voice of a moment before, that the Hubens stared at her.
“I don’t know yet,” Martin said.
“Why, I saw those men this morning, in the street!” Hazel acted flustered once again. “And they’re even more black-hearted than you say they are!”
I N an early light as clear and warm as melted amber, Quarrier would set forth with Billy to look at Indians in the market place, or to walk the river bank, keeping a sharp eye out for jaguars and anacondas, or to take a boat across the river to the jungle on the far side. There was so much to do. Yet in the end nothing happened; they never found what they were seeking. Even Billy tired quickly once the sun had leaped clear of the trees; the sun grew swollen, lost its outline, turning the sky from limpid blue to dull cooked white, like a gigantic frying egg, until the sun itself turned a sick white, in a white sky.
Though it was still early in the morning, they would retreat into the Gran Hotel, with its slow creak of ceiling fans and dusty purr of frazzled chickens in the kitchen court. In the bar of the hotel, the people sat all day waiting for rain to cool the air, and when the rain came, every afternoon, they waited for it to clear. The missionaries felt uncomfortable in the bar-salon and did their sitting in their rooms. They were waiting for supplies to come, and meanwhile they sweated like the damned, and sipped on orange
gaseosas
and prayed prayers.
For three days now, in time of worship, Andy’s right knee and his left had touched, and he was straining to touch knees again when the brutal shout of the gross bearded outlaw pierced the thin ceiling from the bar below; all four stared at one another, tense with dismay. Only the moment before, Leslie Huben had said, “… and we pray for the Niaruna, O Lord, that they may come to know Thy great love and the blessings of a Christian life in Thy sight and the joy of the hereafter in Heaven above—”
“—and blow them little brown pricks to Kingdom Come—”
“Amen.” Leslie, startled, concluded his prayer by mistake.
In the silence Martin thought, Can God be laughing at us? He really meant, laughing at
me
, for he realized that none of the others had grasped the juxtaposition of
Heaven
and
Kingdom Come
, nor even the obscenity, but only the dreadful callousness of that man’s exclamation mounting from the lower regions. It was left to him, Martin Quarrier, to see the lurid irony of the timing. Why had he seen it? And why—since the event was circumstantial, after all—had his first thought been that God was laughing?
Or had the Lord intended that hellish cry to draw his attention to his own behavior; for an instant his leg had actually been pressed to hers, because Andy had swung half about, and gazing straight through him, blind to his confusion, said, “May God have mercy on his soul.”
“Amen,” her husband said again.
“
No
,” Hazel said. She had started up like a goaded beast, then sank back heavily once more, her shoulders slumped, her ears protruding through her hair; her bun, ordinarily immaculate, had collapsed since their arrival, and reminded her husband of a loose rat’s nest he had once found in the barn. “Sometimes we ask too much of Him. Our God is a just God, and He will strike down such iniquity with His terrible swift sword!”
“On Judgment Day, perhaps,” Quarrier said. He rose and went to the window. In his guilt he did not wish to look at Hazel, who wore high sneakers and a big print dress with hearts and
Carmen Caine, Madison Adler