The Devil's Garden (4 page)

There was a shriek. Inhuman. High-pitched. Some night bird very close. Yet such a screeching cry that surely I must have heard it before? I told myself that the Station was known-of,
long-established, an outpost of science.

Lights. Not at the
comedor
, but beyond. I stole forward silently. Around the back of the building, they had started a fire. The jungle beyond was no longer a dark wall but branches,
leaves, vines, fronds, all balking and shrinking in the updraught. They were too close.

I stood at the corner of the
comedor
and looked on. The capped man and the other two had their backs to me. They were standing around a fourth who was tied to one of our dining chairs
with a sack on his head. He was naked. Sole was leaning in towards the ragged hole in the bag where his mouth must have been. She had to shield herself from the heat. The bag turned from side to
side. The fire whispered and muttered. She straightened.

The capped man hooked his thumbs through his gun belt as he spoke to one of his subordinates who now approached the fire, crouching and picked something up . . . a stick, a thin metal rod? I
could not be sure.

Sole was bending in to the prisoner again.

The subordinate stayed down on his haunches. In the firelight, I saw his face as he turned. He was a boy, fourteen, fifteen perhaps – no more. And he was not wearing a pilot’s
headset but some kind of heavy-duty old-fashioned dental brace. Two thick wire tubes emerged from the corners of his mouth, looped back along his jawline and then fixed into heavy leather straps
that were fastened tight around his head.

I saw now that the soldiers had taken out the seat so that the prisoner was tied only to the frame and his lower body sagged through the hole where the base of the chair should have been. The
Boy brandished the pole. The end glowed a bluish white-hot in the darkness. He came in behind and underneath the prisoner. I understood his intention at the same moment as Sole.

She turned and screamed in fury at the capped man. And this time I heard her clearly – a boiling stream of curses. She pointed sharply at the Boy. He hesitated, staying low. She extended
her hands high into the air, halting him and driving him back. Reluctant, he withdrew and placed his pole back into the heart of the fire. Sole leaned into the chair again. And at last I grasped
what was happening . . . she was translating. She did not know these men. This was nothing to do with her.

I dropped away from my corner. My plan – ludicrous, infantile – was to fetch my torch and then to walk casually around the
comedor
and up to the fire as though I was out on
some innocent night stroll.

Another shriek in the trees then a gruff grunt-growling sound. Not a bird, I realized, but a red-necked owl monkey – swollen-eyed and yellow-toothed, a claw on the fourth digit of both
feet.

Inside my hut, where before I had seen order, I now saw only contingency. I found my torch. I extracted my key from the inside of the door and turned the lock behind me.

I ran. In the darkness, there were yet darker black fists that swooped and darted. Bats.

She was coming down the path.

‘Sole.’

She did not stop.

‘I woke up,’ I said. ‘I came over. You weren’t there. What’s happening?’

She did not speak.

‘Sole, where have you been? What’s happening?’

She shut her eyes as she pushed past me. I walked beside her, lighting her way as if she needed me to do so.

‘Are you all right?’

She was silent.

‘Sole?’

‘I’m going to bed.’

I could not say what I had witnessed at the fire.

‘Sole, stop. Talk to me.’

‘This has nothing to do with you.’

I reached for her.

She turned but kept on. ‘Why don’t you go and ask the soldiers what’s happening?’

‘I will.’ I stopped and softened my voice. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

‘Be careful.’ She spoke tersely over her shoulder: ‘People are killed here all the time.’

The prisoner had gone. The Boy and the other remained. They had replaced the seat in the frame and fetched out a second dining chair from the
comedor
; they seemed
incongruous – absurd – sat thus in the crimson light with the jungle wall, lit and shadowed, a thousand gaping throats behind them. I noticed the smell for the first time. A metal grill
lay in the ashes. They must have been cooking. Meats. Before the questioning began? After?

The second man was wiry and wore his hair short in the military style though with a long rat’s tail hanging down at the back as though he could convince himself of neither his brawn nor
his wits. He must have been ten years older than the Boy. He was still eating, leaning forward on the edge of his chair.

The Boy looked up.

‘I heard a noise,’ I said.

He licked at the metal where it emerged from the corner of his mouth so that it glistened.

‘I don’t sleep.’ I added this as a fact, but perhaps I intended it as an obscure warning. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Who are you?’ the Boy said.

Somehow, though there was no wind, I was standing in the smoke.

‘I’m a scientist. I work here. Why have you lit this fire?’

‘We’ve been keeping warm,’ the other said.

I saw that the order of things between the two was inverted: the older man looked to the Boy; and the Boy considered him in some way his associate.

‘We’ve got a prisoner,’ the Boy said, his voice still toneless.

‘We’ve been keeping him warm, too.’ The associate sniggered.

‘The woman you took from the hut – she works with me. She told me what happened.’

The associate grinned. ‘She is working with us now,’ he said. ‘And she likes it.’

‘Where is the Colonel? Who told you to light this fire?’

‘Captain Lugo gives us our orders,’ the Boy said.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s right here.’

The Boy was looking around me. I glanced over my shoulder. The capped man was coming towards us from the
comedor
. I turned to face him.

Lugo was a short squat man – gaucho-legged and densely muscled from training. He stood with the attitude of someone for whom every encounter was a confrontation.

‘You’re the doctor?’ he asked. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m a scientist.’

‘But you’re a doctor?’

‘I’m not a medical doctor.’

I realized with a shock that he was younger than me. He said nothing. Either he did not understand or he was not interested in the distinction.

‘What do you need?’ I asked.

‘I need disinfectant. Maybe a breathing tube. Do you have supplies?’

‘What happened?’

‘It doesn’t matter what happened. Let’s go.’

I held the ground a moment and then turned back to address the others. ‘You should build your fire away from the edge of the forest . . . and away from the buildings. This is the end of
the dry season. Everything is tinder.’ My trepidation had disappeared and now I included the captain as I spoke: ‘And if you want to cook, you can use our kitchen. We’ve already
got the biggest rats in the world here. We don’t want to encourage them.’ I did not allow him to respond. ‘The medical store is round the other side. I’ll see what
we’ve got. What happened?’

‘We have a prisoner.’

‘I know. What happened?’

‘That does not concern you.’

‘Everything concerns me.’

‘Ask the Colonel.’

‘I will.’

I

My dreams were murderous and full of lust. I woke hot and dank in the close-wrapped darkness. But I did not wish to disturb her so I eased myself beneath the net and
slipped on my boots.

Outside, the light had not yet cracked the sky, for there are no horizons in the forest. Instead, the dawn was being born in the trees a wan and smoky blue. The clamour of the canopy had hushed
and I stood a moment on her steps. It seemed that all the beauty of the world had come and lain down in the clearing. Thin fingers of mist curled through the trunks in search of something lost. If
ever I were going to see a jaguar, then it would be a moment such as this: the great cat stepping silent from the half-dark wall of the jungle, head low, quartz-eyed and lazy-tailed.

The water in the bathing hut was tepid and smelled of cold tea and clay; but I was pleased to wash the night from my skin. My intention was to confront them as soon as they appeared. My
intention was fury. And yet, even as I stood towelling myself dry in our crude cubicle, I was aware that fury could not really be intended and that anger in primates is only ever fear by another
name. I dressed in my boots and my field clothes – a uniform of sorts. As I passed the lab on the way back, I realized that I was taking conscious comfort in the satellite link of our
computer. Civilization was my authority. Already, I could smell the heat gathering energy; rich and close and foetid.

I was confounded: the Judge was at the
comedor
ahead of me. He was sitting on one of the lounge chairs, wearing striped pyjamas, with his feet propped up in expensive
shoes on our low table. He was peeling fruit with a knife too big for the task and he regarded me with neither geniality nor hostility.

‘Good morning, Dr Forle. You seem in something of a hurry. Are the ants on the march? Have some fruit.’ He indicated the pile of
tucumã.
‘I found them myself.
They’re delicious.’

‘I want to speak to you.’

And I want to speak to that disgracefully obese cook of yours. I was hoping for eggs. Various teas.’

‘Last night, your men – your captain – broke into the hut of one of our staff and attacked her.’

A parrot squawked – ridiculous, ridiculing.

‘I’m not at all surprised. That man is an embarrassment to evolution.’

‘I’m being serious.’

‘So am I.’

‘They forced her to help them interrogate one of the tribesmen.’

The Judge looked up at me from his fruit. I found his eyes disconcerting. Glacier-blue, they did not belong here.
Terra del fuego
.

‘Your staff ?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ I was further annoyed at myself for using that word. ‘Her name is Soledad.’

He continued to peel. ‘I know her name.’ He blinked slowly as if he were negotiating some narrow mental pass. ‘I have always liked women who do not like me. I admire their good
taste. Have you noticed how in the beginning we are aggressive and awkward with the people to whom we are attracted? But she’s old for a childless Ashaninka. What is she – twenty-five,
would you say? What do you think she is waiting for, I wonder, Dr Forle? A decent man?’

‘Your captain went to her hut. He pushed his way in – threatened her – then dragged her out. If I hadn’t got up to—’

‘Threatened her or attacked her?’

‘They were torturing him.’ The word should have resonated but it drowned in the sticky air and I had to speak again almost immediately – against the insect hum and the chirping
of the birds and the Judge’s silence: ‘I want the captain reported.’

‘To whom?’

‘If you won’t do it, I will.’

‘You may well have more effect than I would.’

It was impossible to sustain any kind of conversation with the man.

‘I find that hard to believe. You are a judge. You are—’

‘Everything is hard to believe, Dr Forle.’ He looked up again with a disturbing fixity. ‘I am from the Ministry of Justice. They are from the Ministry of the Interior. An
entirely different thing. They are not
my
men any more than Sole is
your
staff.’ He softened his expression – and I realized that he was smiling sympathetically as one
might smile at a simple patient. ‘But you are in luck.’ He gestured with a flourish. ‘For here comes the Colonel – to whom I suggest you make your concerns known.’

Cordero’s step was dense on the wooden floor. The timber shifted, creaked, shifted back. He was dressed in fatigues. To my surprise, Jorge was following him – already wearing his
apron. I would not be deflected.

‘Good morning, Colonel. I need to talk to you.’ I glanced in the Judge’s direction. ‘We were deciding what to do about what took place last night.’

‘What about last night?’ He passed his tongue from one cheek to the other.

‘Your captain attacked Sole – the woman who works here. She’s an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture.’

A twitch or a fleeting smile. ‘Captain Lugo?’

‘Yes.’ The fact of having dealt with Lugo as a captain seemed to elevate Cordero as Colonel and now I felt as though I was petitioning rather than requiring. ‘The woman is
frightened and upset. Your captain forced his way into her hut and then dragged her out against her will.’

‘At what time did this occur?’

‘I don’t know – late.’

‘And you were awake?’

‘No, I woke up – because of the noise.’

‘There was a lot of noise?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did anyone else hear – or come out?’

He was interrogating me.

‘No. Yes. They must have done.’

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘I don’t know. Felipe, the guide, might have heard something.’

‘Is this woman injured?’

‘Her name is Soledad. No, thankfully not. I intervened.’

‘You intervened?’ The suggestion of disparagement became tangible. Behind him Jorge shifted. The wood moaned.

‘Your men forced her to go with them to a fire they had lit – too close to the trees.’ I raised my arm in the direction of the forest. ‘They were holding a man there.
They had him tied to a chair. He had shackles on his feet and a bag on his head.’

The Colonel was silent.

‘They wanted Sole to translate what the man was saying. They threatened her.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘She is in her hut – I told her to wait there.’

‘Can she speak for herself ?’

‘She is very upset.’

‘Of course. But if she has a formal complaint to make, then she must make it to me herself.’

Now he was using the policeman’s manner of exaggerated calm.

‘Fine – but your captain cannot stay here – on the Station. Not after this.’

‘If she wishes to come and see me, then I will talk with her.’ He pulled out a chair and spoke over his shoulder at Jorge. ‘Bring coffee and whatever else you have.’