Death of a River Guide Read Online Free PDF Page A

the dental asistant, takes and gives things only with her left arm. Her right arm seems to move not at all, seems to hang there like a hinged stick. ‘Excuse me,’ asks Aljaz, ‘but have you hurt your arm?’
    â€˜No. No, it’s fine.’
    Aljaz looks at the arm. He is not persuaded.
    â€˜It’s withered.’ Sheena says nothing. ‘Your arm.’
    â€˜So what?’
    â€˜This is a very physical trip, Sheena. You have to paddle a raft for ten days, carry heavy loads …’
    â€˜I am strong.’
    â€˜I am not saying you ain’t.’ Aljaz halts. What is there to say? She is there. It is his job to get her down the river. Somehow.
    â€˜Look,’ says Sheena, but before she can go on Aljaz interrupts, saying what he has to say.
    â€˜It’s fine. Don’t worry. You’ll have a great trip. Just let me know if ever things seem a bit hard.’
    Afterwards he goes over to the Cockroach, who is tying gear frames into the rafts, and tells him the story.
    â€˜He’s not supposed to take people who don’t meet the necessary physical requirements,’ says the Cockroach, referring to Pig’s Breath.
    â€˜Fit enough to sign the cheque. That’s Pig’s Breath’s sole physical requirement.’
    They look down at the river’s edge where Sheena is working, ferrying gear with her left arm from the trailer to the raft. There is about her something so determined that it makes Aljaz mad.
    â€˜Why the hell did she decide to come on the trip? She ought to have had the sense …’ He shakes his head.
    â€˜I had a polio victim once,’ says the Cockroach. And laughs. ‘Nice bloke, actually.’
    â€˜I’ll take her in my boat,’ says Aljaz without enthusiasm. ‘I suppose she’s my responsibility.’
    They finish tying the gear frames into the middle of the inflated rafts and begin to load up. I watch as Aljaz stands in the boat and calls for the gear in its correct order. First the big black plastic barrels full of food, each weighing in excess of sixty kilograms. It takes two punters to carry a barrel, but a guide must be able to carry one by himself. Aljaz grabs a barrel and feels its immense weight and wonders how he will ever be able to lift it. I can see that Aljaz is badly out of condition. But such things are simply matters of will. The customers believe they are weak and in this instance must act prudently. Aljaz, to the contrary, must look strong and fearless, whatever he knows himself to be, however weak and frightened he might feel inside. It is a charade that is necessary to sustain the whole trip. It is the antidote to fear that spreads like a contagion if it is admitted by a guide. There is a sad lesson in this: people must believe, even, if it must be so, in a lie. Without belief all is lost. And yet, like all blind faiths that seem to go so much against the evidence of reality, they in turn foster their own truths. As long as no fear is acknowledged, great things are possible and the punters are capable of feats of endurance and courage of which they never believed themselves capable. And so Aljaz lifts the barrel onto his shoulder, swings it around and gently deposits it in the cradle formed by the gear-frame netting. Beneath the load I can see his face smiling and laughing at the absurdity of it all.
    The beginning of the trip takes on something of a carnival atmosphere. A bottle of cheap rum is produced and passed around. All have a swig, some giggling at their boldness, others affecting a nonchalant air, pretending it is something they do regularly in their daily lives as accountant or nurse or merchant banker or public servant. The bottle comes to the Cockroach. He has already had a joint with Nino the busdriver in the dusty solitude of the empty microbus and is half stoned. The Cockroach drains the bottle, gives a yelp, and grabs Sheena and begins dancing with her on the river rocks. He