The jungle gave me three weeks of solace from myself and my mind. Work can be solace too, but this job leaves me with a strain on frayed heartstrings.
The night after Tujy’s death, his funeral feast abounds with nuts and fruits and vegetables and meats served in waterproof baskets. There’s homemade wine and no laughter, just low keening that breaks into song and a swaying that looks too painful to be called dance.
The chief is solemn and regal in a headpiece of dark parrot feathers. Tonight, every guest is stripped of their earthly threads, greeting the king jaguar with bare skin and amulets worn around ankles and wrists.
“Alrighty. Looks like we need to shed some clothes,” Luka murmured as we registered the state of the group.
“Oh no, I don’t think so,” I said, because we should meld with them, not stand out, like Luka would naked.
“No hanging loose?”
“In your case, absolutely not.”
“Aww. Well, let’s get rid of our shirts, at least. We want to blend in, don’t we?”
Hesitantly, I agreed. It was an easy task for Luka, who pulled the shirt over his head and left it in a heap on the floor of our hut. Me, I inhaled deeply while Luka watched me with bright eyes.
“Come on. Don’t be a sissy. They’ve seen the like before.”
“Shut up, I know.”
It’s midnight, and so far the only smiles I’ve seen was when we returned from our hut, Luka in a skimpy pair of black boxer briefs that showed entirely too much of his packed crotch, and me in my bikini bottoms.
The chief gave me an appreciative grin with two teeth missing. Then, he said to Levari, who translated, “Your wife has beautiful nipples.”
Luka didn’t help my embarrassment by nodding and adding that actually my whole breasts were fantastic.
“Raka isn’t here,” I say, voice low, to Luka.
“Maybe she isn’t allowed to participate?”
“Could be. I haven’t found any detailed studies on the Lara’ funeral party, so this is new to me.” I say it with the cool voice of a scientist. It’s good. I need to be that person more than the other me. “Seems that for most anthropologists, the allure of endocannibalism had them running to the Wari tribe instead of the Lara’.”
“The allure of what?” Luka is whispering to not interrupt the sad, beautiful chant of the chief’s wife. She has the children around her, their hands flat on the ground in front of her while she teaches them about the king jaguar and how he receives their dead. Levari is a miracle. Through quiet tears, she keeps us abreast of all that is said. We are lucky, so lucky to have found her.
“Endocannibalism. The Wari tribe feasted on their dead. It was in their honor.”
“Jesus Christ.” Luka puts down his parrot leg. I send him a quick side-glance and find his Adam’s apple bobbing repeatedly. He’s making me want to laugh.
“More meat?” I discreetly extend my chunk of capybara to him and watch disgust color his gaze. Also funny.
“The tradition of endocannibalism died out. No one enjoyed the meal, and usually they would get sick afterward, because the bodies would be partly decomposed by the time their out-of-town villagers came back for the ceremony.”
“Geneva. You have got to stop right now.”
I hand him my wine, and he takes a swig.
“But their goal was beautiful,” I whisper against his ear. “It was to honor their dead and make them live on within them.” I stifle my smile, because I get that this is shocking for someone who doesn’t live and breathe my field of study. “Think about it.”
“Right, or I could simply not think about it.” He commits the sexiest display of a half-assed eye roll I’ve ever seen, and the way it warms my lower region has no place in this setting.
There’s a shift in the group. Warriors rise slowly, the bonfire flickering its glow over their bodies as they straighten and begin to move. Sorrow permeates each swing of one, two, three, a dozen warriors beseeching their god, guttural calls flowing in the air and carrying off to an afterworld they have yet to see.
Levari sighs besides us. It’s stuttered, one of the deep-loss sighs I did a few months ago. “Raka’s grandmother just arrived. She usually lays low at the west end of the village. You could say she’s the Lara’ version of retired.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m glad to hear retirement exists. What’s her name?”
“Her name is Yarunami.”
I’m stunned. Normal people fangirl over bands and politicians. Me, I can’t take my eyes off Yarunami, the survivor of unspeakable grief and hardships, who is still alive and breathing.
Not once since we came here have I asked about her. The average life expectancy in the tribe is forty-seven years, so a sixty, seventy years old woman should not be alive in this merciless, primitive reality.
“I can introduce you,” Levari murmurs, studying me.
“Introduce me?” I let a huff of incredulity out through my nostrils.
“You want to meet her, yes?”
“So much…”
“Then, come.”
I turn to Luka, who’s being crowded by a group of teenagers. Virility doesn’t have cultural bounds I’ve learned in the time we’ve been here. One of the girls bites her lip in an unconscious replica of western flirting.
“Wow. Go talk with her. It’s a dream come true, right?” he murmurs.
“Oh my god, yeah.” My gaze goes to the hands of another Lara’ girl. They travel up his forearm.
“I’ll be okay,” he says, and suddenly, in the midst of my awe over Yarunami, over this situation, I realize that I’ve never actually asked him if he’s all right. Not once after Julian. Not even in dark mornings at the Queen when his eyes were pink or when hangovers were crushing him.
“You sure?” I ask now and watch him nod slowly.
Curiosity and attraction steer the teenaged fingers pressing into his skin. I bob my head back, and with a last glance, I follow Levari.
Yarunami sits with a group of women at the far end of our circle. Her hazelnut skin shines in the erratic flares from the bonfire, giving depth to the pleats of her wrinkles. Her eyes have seen much, but she seems at peace where she is, among friends and family.
My heart commits an offbeat thud-thud.
Levari takes my hand and speaks to her. Chin rising, her stare meets mine—and it’s her! It really is her, the one who set me on my path to my profession. She floods me, and I swallow, stretch my mouth in a trembling smile. Levari forms both of my hands around Yarunami’s one hand.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” I whisper. “I have read about you.” As I say it, I realize that this won’t make an impact on her. Levari translates. Gestures to the little notebook I carry, but Yarunami’s face remains blank.
“She says she knows you from Casuri’s hut.”
“Oh?”
“He lived in the hut Luka and you have, until he died a few months ago.”
“Oh goodness. Was he... old?” I ask, hoping.
“He was bitten by a pit viper.”
“The snake?”
“Yes. We use its venom for our arrow tips, but sometimes they’re faster than us. If they strike, it’s hard to survive.”
Yarunami quietly makes room beside her, and I sink down. Crisscross my legs and lean forward, staring into the flames like she does. How you start a conversation with your subject means everything. If they don’t trust you, the information you receive will not be what you seek. In my whole career, past, present, and future, I can’t imagine a more pivotal moment than this one.
“I’m so sorry for your granddaughter and her baby,” I murmur.
Yarunami accepts my message by lowering her head. “She loved him much. He was a good husband. They are not always good.”
I’m curious, but I can’t pick up that thread. It would be digging, and I don’t want her to clam up. I want to earn her trust. “Maybe she will get a good husband again.”
“Two moons and we will know.”
“Two moons?” I ask, and Levari explains the time it takes to find a new man for a widow can be short or long, but in general he’s found within two months.
“I’m new among you. A child to your customs,” I tell Yarunami. “It’s why I have so many questions and so few answers.”
A small twitch of her lip shows that Yarunami has the sense of humor I’ve come to expect from the Lara’ people. It makes me relax; if she likes me enough for a lip-twitch, we can be on good terms soon.
Levari cracks out a chuckle, and I send her a quizzical look.
“Yarunami says, ‘The big pink woman is like a small child.’”
I grin. “Sure am. Can you ask her if she can be my teacher? I have so many questions.”
Levari asks. Yarunami’s mouth twists out intricate words, fast and staccato, and I can’t tell her verdict by her expression. Levari seems to argue with her though. Pointing at me. Pointing at herself. In the end, she swings to me again.
“Yarunami has only been the teacher of her children and her grandchildren. Never has she been the teacher of grown women and doesn’t think she can do this. I explained that your life will not depend on her talents as your instructor. I also told her I’ll always come with you to visit her, and I’ll be happy to be her teaching assistant. She said yes.”
My hands lift on their own until my arms are around Levari, then Yarunami. This moment is so big. The grief-stricken village, the dream come true of having met that one person I never thought I’d meet. And now she has agreed to meet with me—repeatedly—and teach me the ways of the Lara’ women.
They accept my embrace. Levari, smiling, and the older woman with a small grunt of approval. We huddle in our tropical, skin-to-skin embrace on the ground, legs crossed, knees touching, until my happiness has stabilized enough for me to let go.
“Thank you,” I say. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“She says she knows,” Levari replies, and when I glance at Yarunami again, I see a small smile has sprouted on her face.
“Raka will feel better soon,” I whisper in my American way, although I don’t know that and it’s what I’m here to find out.
Levari’s eyes widen. She still translates what I say, and Yarunami’s gaze locks on me. “She will. But first she will be in the king jaguar’s inferno.”
Raka has been brought small handbaskets of the funeral meal all day. She’s been left alone, a woven hammock her only comfort in a jungle full of wild creatures. My heart hammers for her because the moon is high and tonight it begins.
“Are you sure you want to see this?” Luka asks when he learns from Levari what’s about to take place. “I can go for you. I’ll describe it when I come back to the hut, and you can write it down.”
I shake my head. “I have to. An anthropologist can’t let personal discomfort intervene with her research. Also, I have survival techniques I can pull out.”
“The kind you used during Julian’s funeral?”
I turn to meet his gaze. “You noticed?”
“It was obvious. You didn’t allow yourself to feel anything at the St. Tatiana.”
“Yeah, I made the funeral into a virtual reality game and was in charge of the game controller.”
Luka’s gaze shows only understanding at my harsh description. “Who holds the remote tonight?”
“They do.” I puff out air, steeling myself. “And I can do nothing about it. I have to look at it as... as...”
“As a virtual reality film, in which we’re just spectators.”
“Yeah.”
The women remain in the camp, children sleeping at their feet and in their laps. Many of the men remain too. It’s the younger ones, warriors, who get up and start on the walk into the jungle. Luka and I share a look.
“Levari, are you coming?”
She shakes her head slowly. “It’s not for women. What goes on out there, is only for the men. I can’t go.”
My heart speeds up. “Do all those men...?”
“Not all, and not at once. They take turns.” She blinks, and I can’t tell if she’s as disgusted as I am.
I inhale the soft humidity around us and let it out through pursed lips. My emotions need to leave me. Only the anthropologist can come with me into the forest.
The Lara’ men light their way with their versions of torches. Luka and I follow behind. They’re quiet, and I want to know if it’s intent, grief, or reverence that makes them so.
Raka is a curved shadow in the hammock. When she discovers us, she lets out a small yelp, one of knowing what is to come and dreading it, I think. I don’t realize I’ve tensed up until Luka’s hand on my back makes me jump.
I erase my presumptions. Leave my slate blank to absorb what’s to come.
Raka throws her feet over the edge of the hammock and hops to the ground. The warriors stride forward, picking up speed when she bolts into the jungle. It can’t be safe in there, in the black night, I think—she should stay with the hammock, but then again I understand. I’d have run too.
She screams when two of them catch her, and the tallest flings her over his shoulder. He speaks to her in hushed tones, rapidly, rapidly, and I wish I understood their language.
The other clamps his hand over the back of her thigh, and this way they walk her back where she came from, straight to the hammock that swings and waits.
I count eight men. “There’re so many...”
“Yeah.” For all the times Luka has finished my thoughts and understood my dilemmas, I feel that he doesn’t understand tonight. How could he?
“You’ve probably done this, haven’t you?” I ask, disgust rising in me again.
“Been one of many guys to sleep with one woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course, but never without consent.”
“And that’s not consent,” I say, pointing at the hammock. Her feet are kicking as they try to lay her down.
“Isn’t it?”
“How can you ask that?”
“Because I can’t tell yet,” he says, squinting.
The eight warriors crowd her now. She’s crying, a whimpering sound that comes from her stomach, and I want to run forward, break my way through the men and hug her, rock her, tell her everything will be all right.
The head warrior, taller and elder than the others, hovers over her and holds her face still against the mesh. He sounds demanding. He pushes her down a little, but I can’t say that it’s violent either. Raka squirms. Keens some more. But then something surreal happens.
Six of the men stand back. Not far, only a few feet. They fan out a little so there is room between them, and then they lift their arms, spread their legs, and it’s as if they’re...
“Are they posing?” I ask.
“Sure looks like it. Hmm.”
Raka peeks out between her fingers. One of the men juts his hip a little, and in the torch light, I see her gaze draw downward. She hides again, sobs wracking through her.
The warriors close in again. One rocks the hammock, a nudge more than aggression. The head warrior speaks to her again, and when she doesn’t reply, he hoists her up by the arms until she’s sitting. Raka cries. He swings her head so she has to face the men waiting.
Suddenly, it happens, and I realize what this rite was about. “She’s supposed to choose a man for the night, isn’t she?” I’m so baffled. I can’t wait to speak with Yarunami about this tomorrow.
“Or a couple,” Luka responds.
The head warrior hikes her out of the hammock and pushes her toward one of the men. The chosen man lifts her by the waist, and Raka folds her legs around his middle. He steadies her against the tree that supports the head of the hammock, and then he begins to kiss her.
The others don’t leave. They watch quietly as the man becomes her lover. Touching her first, then entering her against the tree. She cries out. I can’t help walking closer, because I need to know if she feels invaded. Does she hate this? She must be dying for this horror to be over so she can be left to her grief. Right?
Raka’s head falls back while he moves slowly with her. Another man pulls a dead leaf out of her hair and pushes it back from her face before he steps back.
“She’s crying,” I say to Luka, because there are tears streaming down her face.
“She lost her husband. Of course she is.”
“But that, right there, is not consensual?” I can’t tell. Oh god, I’m supposed to be open to it all and believe in everything I see, but I can’t accept what my eyes are telling me.
“Look at her. That’s an orgasm.” Luka’s arms are folded. I want to say yeah, right, and what do you know? But he does know, probably better than I do, the varieties of female orgasms.
“Was it a game? She ran because it’s part of their ritual?”
Luka doesn’t answer. Just stands there with me, watching until she’s lowered to the ground and another man picks her up and deposits her in the hammock. The head warrior is there again. I recognize the intent stare that seems to accompany their questions. She nods. Raka nods, and she... points at another man!
“Yep. She just selected him. That was pretty clear,” Luka says.
“Whoa,” is all I’ve got. This changes everything, doesn’t it?
The other warriors retreat, a small humming in the back of their throats as they do. The one remaining is not the head warrior. He’s a young man, what seems like the youngest of them all, and he climbs into the hammock with her. Raka makes room for him. I watch his hands trace her arms, form around her breasts and squeeze. He trails lower too, and it becomes clear that he plans to make love to her in the hammock even though she just did this with another man.
The group of warriors start their walk back to the village. Luka shoots me a questioning glance, holding one of the battery-driven lamps we brought here. “Do you want to stay? See some more action.” He smiles a little.
“I need to know what happens after he gets his fill,” I say. “I want to see if this is for the men or for her. You know what I mean? So far, all written research has either left the question open or closed it with the act being abuse.”
“Okay, so we stay.”
I could have told him to leave without me, but I really don’t want to be out here alone. He closes the distance between us and stands behind me. We’re fifteen feet from the love in the hammock, and inches from each other. I lean my head back against his chest and feel him sigh. It’s a light sigh. A contented one, I think. Tonight is a strange night.
Luka’s arms come around me and lock over my stomach. “Do you see how she curves toward him? She just turned so he can feel her better.”
“Yeah.”
“You did that to me the first time you gave in.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
My stomach warms with remembered agony and pleasure.
“We did the same thing, Geneva, at the Queen.”
“Only if he stays,” I whisper.
I look at my watch when the sighs quiet in the hammock and the movements still. The two of them have been alone for half an hour. It’s two in the morning, and she cuddles against him. His arms are protective around her in that precarious hammock. We wait another twenty minutes because I want to be sure. Then we leave.