The Devil's Garden (20 page)

‘ To one of the river cities – a favela, probably. Lothar says that’s where they all end up.’

My eyes sought our formicarium, travelling over the plastic tanks and the test-tube trees where we kept our colonies and our specimens. When I looked back, though she had made no sound, there
were tears on Kim’s face.

I rose and went around to her but she motioned me away so I wandered over to look through the glass at my
Daceton
. When ants die, their sisters bear them from the nest. They recognize the
pheromone. You can paint a live ant with the death chemical and its sisters will pick it up and carry it out. But you cannot paint a dead ant with anything that will make the others believe it is
still alive and carry it back in again.

‘I think we should stay,’ she began. ‘I think we should finish our work. I don’t think it’s dangerous for us.’

I did not speak. Her face fell. Instantly, she regretted what she had said – the ‘we’ and the ‘them’ – but still her eyes glittered.

‘I think we should finish what Dr Quinn started,’ she repeated.

‘We will come back,’ I said. ‘We will finish this work, Kim. But now we need to go out to the storage hut and bring back everything that belongs to the department. Then we pack
up and we leave. I’m going to tell people what’s happening here.’

‘You don’t
know
what is happening here.’

Another voice spoke. ‘I do. I know.’

We looked around. Lothar must have stepped inside as we were speaking.

‘I know what is happening here,’ he said. ‘We are in the middle of a small war. That is what is happening.’ Though he had washed and dressed in clean clothes, the night
seemed to cling to him and add a weight of weariness to his shoulders as he straddled the bench. ‘The Colonel is cleaning up the area because there’s an oil company coming
in.’

‘What?’ I came over and sat down beside Kim. ‘They’re prospecting – right here?’

Lothar raised two fingers to his temples, pushed back the brim of his hat and nodded slowly. ‘Welcome to Lot 13,
meine Freunde
,’ he said. ‘They have granted the rights
to the subsoil. I thought we were too deep into the interior. But I was wrong. According to the reports, we can expect seismic testing and pipelines and a hundred and sixty-six heliports and more
than a thousand unloading zones for the drilling equipment. And that’s before they even find a single drop.’

‘I don’t get it. What do you mean, the Colonel is cleaning up?’ Kim asked.

‘I mean cleansing. Maybe that’s a better word.’

‘Cleansing what?’ Kim persisted.

‘Not what – who.’ He spoke with a deep and heavy resignation that I had never heard from him before. ‘To begin with – the drug-processors and the drug-traffickers.
That’s why there is a war. They’re forcing them off the map. These rivers – they’re important because they flow down from the coca-growing fields. It was quiet in the past
because there was an agreement.’ He shrugged. ‘Last year, the army was
supporting
the drugs people – a different colonel, a different policy. Now, they have lowered the
royalties on oil exploration, which has intensified interest from foreign companies. So there are many new concessions becoming active. But the oil companies, they will not pay the government all
the money on the deals unless they have guarantees that the Indians and the traffickers will not attack them.’

‘What about the Judge?’ Kim’s voice had lost all vitality. ‘What about the registration?’

Lothar shook his head slowly. ‘Because of previous actions from the pressure groups, the oil companies also ask for the cover of the vote. The registration is real but only so far: they
want to collect all the new voters possible – so they can fix a referendum and make it look OK if they need to. But they will only start bribing the Indians once they have cleaned up the
drugs people. What is happening right now is that the traffickers are fighting back – and they have some very good weapons and plenty of money.’ He scoffed. ‘And – oh yes
– I am told that the oil people will be setting up health-care centres, too,right next door to Tord’s schools.’

‘What about the Matsigenka and the others?’ I asked. ‘What’s happening to them?’

‘It is the same as it is every time – the Indians are caught in the middle. Some of them are being paid by the traffickers to come out of the forest and kill the soldiers. Some of
them are being paid by the soldiers to go back into the forest and kill the traffickers. Some of them – Sole’s people – are furious because they are organized and they have
already been made to buy their own land rights off a government that is nothing to do with them – only to find that this same government can still sell the subsoil out from under them. Others
are happy for the oilmen to come and pay them for what they cannot use themselves – after all money is always money.’ The mobility had gone from Lothar’s face; it was as though
his rubbery features had finally set hard. ‘Half a village maybe wants the white man’s bribes and half a village maybe wants the white men dead. There are disputes even between families
– never mind the different tribes.’ He took off his hat and laid it down slowly. ‘It is a total mess. Everybody is fighting everybody. And of course, the traffickers and the
soldiers cannot distinguish between one tribe and another. So people are being murdered for all the small wrong reasons as well as all the big wrong reasons.’

We were both silent.

Lothar looked at the roof that he had helped Quinn to build. ‘Then there are still a few Indians – some Yora, the Mashco Piro – who never wanted to buy or sell anything. And
they are disappearing deeper into the forest to get away – disappearing straight into the territories of other Indians . . . Which means more displacement and more fighting between groups . .
. More of what we seem to be best at:
Scheiße
and death.’

Kim glanced sideways at me. ‘How does this end, Lothar?’ she asked quietly.

‘It doesn’t. It just goes on and on. When there is nothing left, there will be nothing more to fight for. We are not a moderate species. We are swarming across the world.’

I swung my legs back over the bench. ‘Listen: we need to go out to the storage hut now and collect our stuff. We need to go together and we need to stay together. I will see if Felipe can
help us. Then we must start packing things up here and—’

The door was thrown open and Cordero entered followed by three men.

The lab seemed to shrink – close and full with human bodies. I felt the sudden, tight-keyed, animal concentration of the others.

Heavy booted, procedural, the soldiers took up station either side of their leader, their eyes incurious beneath their caps.

Cordero hooked his thumb through his belt as he assessed our workplace. His gaze halted a moment on the dry room beyond.

‘You are well kitted out here,’ he said. ‘Impressive.’

Nobody spoke.

‘You are powered by the main generator? Or you have your own?’

He already knew the answer.

‘We use communal power,’ I said. ‘Oil.’ He nodded slowly.

‘What do you want, Colonel? This is a scientific laboratory. We’re working.’

‘So I see.’ He thinned his nose. ‘Very well, let me ask directly: are the prisoners dead?’

‘We do not—’

‘Dr Forle, if you don’t mind. I would like to have a simple answer.’

Kim spoke. ‘What prisoners?’

‘Please, Miss Van der Kisten, I’m extremely busy. One of my men has been seriously injured. Now I’m told the prisoners have gone.’

‘Miss Van der Kisten went to bed,’ I said, ‘last night – before your soldiers came in.’

Kim looked at me and then at Cordero. ‘I went to bed before Tupki arrived, if that is who you are talking about.’ She was careful to use his name – and placed a world of
defiance in the emphasis with which she pronounced it. ‘Your Judge was drunk again. He assaulted me. So I left. I don’t know what happened afterwards.’

The Colonel inclined towards his aide, who stood, vaguely effete, and nodded assent – he must have been one of those who had arrived with Lugo.

‘Good,’ Cordero said. ‘And you? What is your name?’

Lothar had replaced his hat. ‘I am the same. I was at the
comedor
. I left a little later when the Judge went to collect some beer. I didn’t come back.’

‘I did not ask you if you came back.’

Lothar was silent. Beneath his brim, I could not tell where his eyes were. He had not given his name.

Again Cordero looked to the other. Again the nod.

‘And so we are back to you once more,Dr Forle. What happened to you last night? Where are my prisoners?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I took them to my hut. I dressed their wounds. I took pictures of their injuries. And gave them what painkillers I had. Naturally, I did not sleep in there myself.’

‘Where did you sleep?’

‘That’s not relevant. I didn’t sleep with the prisoners – with Tupki and Kanari.’

For the first time, I saw the contours of anger in Cordero’s features.

‘Dr Forle, are my prisoners alive?’

‘I would be very surprised after what your men did to them.’

‘Let me explain something to you.’ He passed his tongue from cheek to cheek. ‘There are several lawless groups in this area – well supplied with arms and transportation.
They seek to sabotage our efforts to ensure that the people here are registered and that some sort of order is created and maintained. But I am determined not to let that happen. This country
will
develop wherever and however it can. But my job is not made any easier by the fact that these terrorist groups are somehow being told of our positions and our plans ahead of time. My
men were ambushed yesterday and again on tour this morning.’ He took out a white handkerchief and dabbed at his crown. ‘Now, I understand that you have chosen to take the side of these
two drunks for some reason. I had thought them inconsequential. But this morning . . . I am forced to reconsider. Another of my men has been shot and this time seriously wounded. The situation is
deteriorating.’ A second dab, of his neck. ‘You see the problem: we have an informant in our midst and had the prisoners still been here, we might have been able to eliminate them as
suspects. Likewise if we knew them to be dead.’ He put away the handkerchief, folding it down deep into his groin pocket. ‘But now – because of my stupidity in allowing you to
play the doctor – we are unable to draw that conclusion. You are helping nobody, Dr Forle. So, please, one more time: what did you do with the prisoners? Is that boy alive?’

One of the other men cleared catarrh from his throat and for a moment I thought he might spit.

‘The boy is dead,’ I said. ‘And when he left my sight the father was in no fit state to give anyone any information about anything. I hold you personally responsible for what
has happened.’

‘When was this?’

‘About two hours before dawn.’

‘Good. Thank you. That is something.’ Cordero hoisted up the muscles around his mouth before releasing them just as suddenly. ‘We can be sure that this morning was nothing to
do with those two at least.’

‘Not unless the dead have learned to speak,’ I murmured.

‘Which means that we will have to look somewhere else for our spy. What is in there?’

‘That is our dry room.’

‘Who uses that computer?’

‘Everybody within a radius of fifty miles who can type and quite a few that can’t.’ I shifted so that I was more squarely on to him. ‘Colonel, we are leaving the Station
today.’

‘I’m afraid that I cannot let you leave.’

‘All the same, we will be packing up and leaving today. Unless you intend to keep us here by force.’

‘It is too dangerous for you to go anywhere at the moment. And there are now questions that we do not have the answers to.’

‘Then you’d better ask them quickly,Colonel, because we will be gone as soon as we have collected and packed up our equipment. These people are my responsibility. Just as your men
are yours.’

‘Captain Lugo will be back in the hour. I will know more then.’ He smiled his mechanical smile. ‘I will see you at the
comedor
in two hours, please, with Miss Van der
Kisten and the German.’

‘We won’t be here in two hours.’ A monkey was running across the roof. ‘As I said, we will be out collecting our equipment.’

‘Then you will be accompanied there and we will speak after you return,’ he said. ‘To be clear: you do not leave the Station without my order. For your own security. The
captain will detail some men to come with you on the river.’

‘I doubt that whatever you are afraid of hunts scientists, Colonel.’

He stepped forward towards me and in that moment I saw the strange disunity between the heaviness of his frame and the delicacy of movement. And I saw how violence might breed in the cracks
between.

‘Is this the camera that you took your pictures of the prisoners on?’ he asked.

‘That is the camera that we use for our exp—’

I got no further. Carefully, so as to avoid an unnecessary splash, he placed the camera into the wooden pail of water Felipe had so recently filled.

III

On the far side of the kapok tree, we saw that the
comedor
had been all but overrun. There were people everywhere – milling, mustering. A temporary shelter
had been erected in front. Beneath its blue tarpaulin, there was a wooden bench on which metal cooking trays, plates, mugs and pots had been placed; and behind this bench stood . . . Jorge. He was
wearing uniform. He had pulled down his cap regulation-low on the brow, mirroring the men he served and preventing him seeing too much of what went on about him.

The soldiers slouched forward in a desultory line, their plates held like idle tambourines, until they reached the front and they offered them up, suddenly attentive. There must have been a
dozen – all of them armed.

To our left, two smaller temporary shelters now flanked the mouth of the river path. More tarpaulins. Two desks; at one sat the Judge; and at the other, Felipe. Men, mostly tribesmen, grouped
and drifted around, many of them holding incongruous pieces of paper, careful not to go near the soldiers or the
comedor
. Felipe appeared to be admitting them; one by one, they sat in the
chair opposite him while he took their pictures. The Judge, meanwhile, looked like he was then discharging them – more or less immediately. A soldier was handing out parcels.