The Economy of Light Read Online Free PDF Page B

going.”
    Genaro nodded; he stood beside me and fidgeted while Onca brought a bottle of wine to the table. I had asked him to stay to supper, but he had awkwardly and politely declined. Under normal circumstances, he would have made himself comfortable in one of the plush chairs by the fireplace, as if it was he who owned the ranch and not me. But tonight he was different, taut, as if he were a soldier out on a dangerous maneuver. “We must get to Manaus,” he said, “and then we’ll go up Rio Branco. We can rent a ‘motor.’ Then we go north, right up river, almost to Venezuela, I think. Maybe in Venezuela. I don’t know that. Wakatauteri country, not much on the maps. Dangerous.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Some tribes still eating people. The Inambu and the Casao. I saw Inambu once.” He shook his head slightly, which for Genaro connoted real disgust. And there is disease like black river febre , which kills you in a day. I know of this, too.”
    I nodded; we would be well armed; and I, at least, had little to lose as far as diseases went.
    “But more than that, something hard to put into words.”
    “Try, Genaro.”
    He looked even more uncomfortable and kept glancing at Onca, giving her nasty looks, as if it were her fault entirely that he was called in to talk to me. “It’s different up there from other jungle places,” he said after a time. “More dreams.”
    “What?”
    “Dreams, they are real, like us. You can see them. They are dangerous. They can look like animals, but they aren’t. You will see them if you go. You think not, but you will. Your dreams, too, will be real.”
    I glanced at Onca, who would not make eye contact with me. She seemed to be hearing these things for the first time. This whole thing was crazy. I should lay down in my bed and die in my house, not be planning my last adventure, this field trip into superstition. But somehow I was committed, as if indeed the dreams were in some sense real.
    “How long will it take us to get there?” I asked.
    “From Manaus?”
    I nodded.
    “With a motor?”
    I nodded again.
    “Maybe three days, including the walking.”
    I groaned just thinking about that, for I was in constant pain now. It was a dull ache, even with Onca’s herbs and the prescription drugs. But I continued on as if nothing was wrong, by sheer determination, for I knew that once I allowed myself to become bedridden, I would be finished. The pemphigus, which I had been treating with the methotrexate prescribed by my doctor, had responded somewhat to treatment; it did not clear up, but did not seem to get much worse. Onca, of course, firmly believed it was the soap she had given me; and when I stopped using the foul smelling stuff, I did, indeed, begin to break out. But I also broke out when I stopped using the prescription.
    “Will you make me a list of what we’ll need to take?” I asked.
    He nodded.
    “I’ll take care of the plane and the motor,” I said.
    “The boat it’s easier to work out when we get to Manaus. I know someone who will let us use his motor for fifty thousand cruzeiros.”
    That was about a hundred dollars.
    “Do you really believe that this...doctor can help me?” I asked as he turned to leave.
    “If he’s still there,” he said. “That is the chance you will take.”
    “Are you afraid?” I asked him.
    But Genaro just looked at me, his face tight, his eyes hard and glittering. I was reminded of the musselmanner in the camp—those internees who had given up life, but were still alive. The walking dead. But in that instant when our eyes met, everything seemed to change.
    I felt his fear like a spider crawling under my shirt.
    I felt a connection with him.
    I believed him.

CHAPTER FIVE
    THE MAGIC OF DARKNESS
    We left a week later and traveled light. I bought comfortable sneakers, much better in rain forest than combat or jungle boots, and stocked our first aid kit with extra medicine. I took cloroquine and Fansidar tablets, which would