Mentally, I’d prepared for a meltdown once we got back to the privacy of our hut, but as soon as Luka and I walk in the door, only relief floods me. I need to think this through. I want to go out there a few more nights, make sure I didn’t misinterpret what happened. It’s just, I’m starting to think that Raka was fighting her grief and not the men that came to her.
In the three weeks we’ve been here, Luka and I have been together a few times. The more time we spend together, the more he protects me and reads my mind, the more natural it feels to curl into his touch. It never depends on him. If it were up to Luka, we’d be on top of his sleeping bag, naked, with mine covering our entangled bodies. He’s a man, after all, an incredibly virile one at that, so I understand when he groans out his relief as I welcome him completely.
It’s become harder and harder to hold off. Oddly, the lack of showers, our scents growing stronger on us, makes him even more appealing to me. Then again, maybe it’s not our scents or our instincts growing stronger under this wild forest roof. Maybe it’s just that I need him more and more.
Now, my fingers feel like they should be crawling over him, touching and absorbing inch after inch of skin and damp muscle. I turn my back to him. All I’m wearing is my bikini bottom, and it feels like too much.
With a glance over my shoulder, I see him close the door but leave the torch in a corner, steadied by his tipped-over backpack. Still standing, I lower my bikini bottom. I’m not thinking while I do it, but even to me it comes off as an invite.
Naked and wanting.
I hear his relieved exhale behind me. The sound closes in before it ends, and I hold my own breath. His arms fold me in, back to his front. His cock is already hard and jutting against my butt as if it’s fitted to it. I moan.
Luka’s hands move upward until they cup my breasts, narrow the cracks between his fingers until they roll over my nipples and make them ache with desire.
“There’s no one like you,” he whispers. “No one. I couldn’t believe he found you first. All these years...”
“Please, don’t.”
His hands keep caressing me. Hungry teeth sink into the fat muscle over my collarbone, bringing his mouth up my neck and nibbling on my ear. A chill rushes through me, making me shiver, before he moves back down again and sinks behind me. I shiver again. What will he do next? I want him to do it all.
He takes small bites of the back of my thighs, kneading them with sharp teeth. A moist tongue sucks off salt on its way up until he’s kissing my butt cheeks, first one, then the other. He spreads me there, giving a small nudge to my lower back so that I bend at the waist. It’s not hard to follow his orders when he desires me so.
My first moan sieves out while he licks my tightest little entrance. It puckers against his tongue, wanting and not wanting. He moves downward, finding my most delicate flesh in soft folds. He separates them with his fingers until he’s beneath me, spreading my legs so he can eat me from the floor.
That little nub he finds is so ready. It wants to explode between his lips on the first suckle. My legs tremble. I have nothing to hold on to. For a second, Raka against the tree flashes through my mind, the vision of her out of place, but I’m made of sensation and can’t control my thoughts.
Luka lets go and stands while I complain wordlessly. He turns my face up to him and kisses my lips, the wild-woman taste of me bitter on his mouth. He sets my body on fire.
“You want me inside of you, baby?” His endearment sounds too innocent for what he suggests, and it makes me desperate for him.
“I do—badly...”
“Badly?” His voice is the sexy purr of a king jaguar. I have become a part of the jungle when he lowers me to the ground on our haphazard lair, and I hook my legs around his waist. I whine when he breaks to put on a condom.
“Sshh,” he tells me, eyes simmering in the tropical night. “I’ve got you. I’ll sate your fire.”
That first breach, the crown of him intruding and finding a home in me. It’s like nothing else when hard muscle moves over me, penetrating, claiming me from the inside. My channel contracts around him, keeping him snug, god so moist, and he groans, tells me I’m beautiful, that he’d live in me forever.
“A thousand and one nights,” I breathe.
“A million and more.”
He holds me still when I bow upward, my body shaking in an orgasm that’s unyielding to the fear of the night, the heat, and the emotions of Tujy’s feast.
“I love you.” He jerks inside me, sending a spasm of post-orgasmic bliss through my body.
When he falls asleep, arm over my stomach in the early morning greys, it streams through me that he said those three words in passion.
I have my first meeting with Yarunami today. It’s early morning, and the village is alive outside our door, children running and calling to each other. Women shout orders to them. It sounds like any other day. As I precariously clean up with a wash cloth dipped in a basket of water, Luka hunches down next to me and strokes my cheek.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Oh no, I’m fine.”
“Okay. I’ll take a look at the chief’s son then. I don’t want his cough to get any worse.”
“You think we brought the cold to them?” I ask.
“You never know. At least, the Lara’ have had visitors from the outside before and are acquainted with the virus. I think you can look at it the same way we do in the U.S.: it’s a virus, and we’ll catch it from other people.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
“Breakfast first?”
“Levari said Yarunami wants to feed us.”
As I meet up with Levari outside, I notice the bonfire from yesterday. It’s reduced to embers and a single coil of smoke. It dawns on me that it’s situated right where they buried Tujy. Decomposition occurs quickly here where the ground itself must be like a compost bin on speed. For a second, I wonder if they bury everyone in the same spot. I shake off the thought because it’s more than I can take in.
Yarunami meets us at the low entrance to her hut. Her eyes are alive today, the worry from last night having receded a little. I greet her the way Levari taught me, forming a double palm hug around her hand. She surprises me by stepping closer and pulling Levari into the same sort of huddle-embrace I impulsively started last night.
I let out a giggle of surprise, and Levari joins me. Then the old woman laughs too, a low snicker that keeps me grinning.
“She likes you,” Levari says.
We settle in on a mat of palm leaves and watch Yarunami deftly form balls of grated fruit and manioc. She leaves them to dry while she pours hot water into miniature baskets for our morning drinks. At the bottom, I distinguish the ground guarana seeds that create a miracle concoction I know well by now. It completely outshines coffee in the energy department.
As I take my first sip, I consider how to start my interview. Yarunami and I have initiated a frail new friendship, and she knows that she’s special to me. But how can I ease into what I need to learn?
“I sort of want to tell her that I watched what happened to Raka last night,” I confess to Levari.
“I’ll let her know.”
“But wouldn’t she feel betrayed?”
“No, that’s not how we see it. Chief Pap wouldn’t have let you go if we did.”
“Okay.” I breathe out quietly and find Yarunami’s eyes. “I went to see what happened to Raka. It’s different to how we do things after someone’s husband dies where I live.”
Yarunami nods. “I know tribes who don’t have our customs too. The Huruza and the Faraki. I don’t know how their women survive the loss of their husbands.” She lifts scrawny shoulders in something that looks remarkably western. So many gestures are universal. “Ours is a good practice.”
Her words surprise me. “You went through it when your husband died.”
“Both of my husbands died. I’m the eldest living person in Lara’ Nation.” She lifts her chin, eyes glittering with pride.
Someone moves behind her, inside the hut. They’re not coming out to greet us. I send Levari a questioning look, and she mouths, Her children and grandchildren.
“After my first husband, a great warrior, died, the men of our people came to me in the forest. But when my second husband died, I was old and could no longer have children.”
“Were you alone in the jungle then?” I ask.
“No, not alone. My sons took turns, sleeping one night each in a hammock next to me, and then my grandsons. It is a good thing. This way, my grief wouldn’t bring our people more misfortune.
“After many moons, I was still sad”—she shows me her empty palms—“so they built me a new hut, here, at the edge of the village as soon as the hurt in my heart was bearable. I’ve lived here since, always with someone visiting. I have a good family.”
“She’s birthed ten daughters and three sons,” Levari says. “Seven of them are still alive. She’s very lucky.”
“That’s amazing.” I accept the fist-sized manioc ball Yarunami deposits in my hand with a bow of her head. I bow back and take a bite. The sweet, soft consistency makes my mouth water. I chase the first mouthfuls with sips of guarana, and my stomach settles nicely around the food.
I want to ask the tough questions, the important ones that could be painful, but send Levari a tentative glance as I express my next one. “Raka didn’t seem to want the men to come to her last night.”
Levari nods, agreeing to my question and translating it.
Surprised, I watch as Yarunami spreads into a bright smile. “We never do! Why don’t the young ones learn from the elder ones, you can ask. I didn’t either. Widows only want our husbands. We want his hands on us, his lips, and his touch, and so our bodies want to hide from the comfort of others. But our men are wiser. We need to live in harmony with the king jaguar once he takes our husbands away. We grieve, and that is not the hard part. No, it is harder to allow the goodness from those who care about us to lead us back home again.”
I suck in a breath at the clearest declaration I’ve ever heard. How has no anthropologist asked the women of the Lara’ these questions before? I understand why they didn’t ask Yarunami back when she was drowning in sorrow. It would have been unethical to breach her grief at that point, but what about later? The male anthropologists must not have been interested enough to coax out the truth.
“But wouldn’t it be good to not have to... have sex with men you’ve never known that way before?” I ask, for my culture—not for me; Yarunami and I are much alike. Space and time, modern world and primitive world; our similarities must be biologically ingrained.
“Each day, I cried and starved myself. Each night, I was deep in darkness because that was all my day had held. Then they came, the men, at nightfall, always many at a time. They were there together, in case I resisted, because if I did, they would keep me still until I gave up.”
“They forced you.”
“They forced my mind to understand the difference between day and night.”
I feel my forehead crease over this. “What do you mean?”
“I needed to understand that the day was for grieving and the night for relief.”
“Couldn’t that relief have been to sleep with your child in your arms?”
“Not in the beginning. The relief had to coat me inside and out, and only a man can do that. No one can breach a woman and own her body and mind as completely as a man.”
I shake my head slowly as I jot down my notes. This is amazing. Their belief system is intricate and evolved and utterly different. It’s fascinating, and because of the Fratters, a huge portion of it makes sense to me.
“Did you feel guilty in the mornings when you woke up and they left? Did you feel like you shouldn’t have allowed yourself that cocoon of relief?” My voice breaks as I ask, and Levari glances up to make sure I’m okay.
“She’s sad,” Yarunami tells Levari. “Did she lose her man too?”
I tell them, then. I confess much more than I should as a scientist interviewing her informant. This isn’t about me, but their eyes are kind and understanding, and the silence lingers question-free around us once I am done. Yarunami lifts another manioc ball. She extends it like an offering of compassion.
“There isn’t supposed to be guilt,” she answers. “I still felt it when my hammock was empty and the warrior had left a cold spot at my side. The guilt said he was the wrong man, that I should have waited for my husband to return for me. But it is frowned upon to think like this, and so, after the first eye-blinks of each morning, I moved on and immersed myself in my loss again. Then, I would suffer until the night came back.
“Each day was a cycle. Around and around and around it went. It is painful, very painful. But when you know you can breathe at night, you fight it at first. Then you let the sorrow go and accept the relief they give you.”
“I think you found your second husband during the months in the hammock. Right?” I hold my drink basket out, and she refills for me, eyes on her task.
“We all do. For some, it takes a while; for me, it took almost three moons to see that Kuriki completed more than my body. We started speaking at night. He started coming more often than the others, until finally it was only he who came. No warriors had to accompany him to take his place in my hammock, because I didn’t want to fight him.
“When the days began to feel long and I looked forward to the night, that’s when the chief ordered our wedding ceremony. We were married three days later. A new hut was raised next to the chief’s, because my Kuriki was a good warrior. We were happy together. Soon after, Raka’s mother was born.”
Yarunami doesn’t come with us when we bring leftovers to Raka. Her presence will only disturb her grief, she says. It’s better for her granddaughter to have the days to herself. Raka sits the way she did yesterday when we passed by before dark, knees bent to her chest and rocking on the ground beneath her hammock. I wish she’d at least use the mat someone has left there for her.
“Come,” Levari whispers once our offerings have been lowered. Raka is unseeing, and another basket is already there with food that looks fresh. I nod and follow Levari toward the village.
Branches break, and leaves snap as the feet of a young boy carries him toward us as fast as they can. He puffs to a halt and talks to Levari between breaths.
“Oh. It’s about Chief Pap’s son. The youngest one. He’s very sick, and Luka wants you to hurry to his house. He wants to take him to the hospital.”
“Oh my god. I thought he just had a cold,” I breathe.
Luka meets me at the entrance. “Hey. We’ve got to leave now if he’s to have a chance. I wish they’d told me about him earlier. I might have been able to help him, but it’s way past that now.”
I look over Luka’s shoulder and see Chief Pap swathe his son’s shaking body in one of our blankets. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“Double-sided pneumonia, for sure. His chest rattles so hard I didn’t even need my stethoscope for that one, and his body’s burning up. I’m controlling the fever, but this stage is too late to be treated with my simple supplies in the jungle.”
“One second,” I say. “I’ll get ready.”
Luka bobs his head. “Chief Pap’s sending two of his most trusted men as his carriers. I wish I knew Portuguese right now so I could explain the situation at the hospital. Levari, can you accompany us as well?”
“Yes, I will come.”
I run back to our hut and pack up a few things of Luka’s and a few of my own. I bring our laptops too. My cool side reminds me that since we’re going to Tacua, we can replenish batteries, food items, and hygiene articles from the hotel/post office.
I take only minutes to pack. By the time I’m outside again, little Muku waits on a makeshift stretcher between two stone-faced warriors. They’re wearing t-shirts and shorts, suddenly out of place among their own.
As we leave, I steal a last glimpse of the villagers clustered together between the palm trees. They stare solemnly after us as we start on the long walk toward the river.