Chapter 14

14
ISLAND OF PARANEHO, STATE OF AMAPAS, BRAZIL

The State of Amapas stands by the Atlantic in the northeastern most corner of the country. Geographers attribute one or two humans per square mile in the dense rain forest, but a visit would suggest that figure to be overly generous. The southern border of the state follows the Amazon, touching the equator in its great Atlantic delta.

Due east thirty-five miles from the coast lays the lonely island of Paraneho. Scarcely eight miles long, it is kept company by two groups of rocks visible to the North even during the highest tides. Otherwise, from Paraneho one will view only open sea whether on the beach or at the island's highest point.

Two poor families live on the leaward side of the island. There is a corn field and vegetable garden. Happily the sea is filled with fish thanks largely to the outflow of nutrients from the river. Life on the island is in both isolation and poverty. The means to reach the mainland no longer exist. The primitive work of self-sufficiency in all things fills the days of its inhabitants. Everyone on the island settled into the strenuous yet comfortable life of equatorial peasants years ago.

Maria stood by the door to the hut. Next to her stood Juan's younger sister Victoria, sobbing. It was the sort of sobbing that a seven year old girl might do, serious to her at the moment but little more than a bump on the road to adulthood.

"You two come over here, right now!" With her hands on her hips, Maria was cast in the mold of angry mothers through out all epochs and eras of time. She mustered the most stern look that her loving and nurturing manner could impose.

The two young boys seen to be roughly in their young teens sheepishly approached. They were naked except for coarse canvas shorts, but each had covered his face in a horrible mask constructed of parrot feathers attached with bark sap. The feathers continued across each healthy young chest, arm and leg making each one seem to be a kind of jungle demon. The plan had worked only too well when they had lunged, screaming, from the dense vegetation announcing their intention to eat Victoria alive.

Victoria, unaware of their evil plan, had been caught off guard. She had dropped a bag of beans she had just spent the hot morning picking. The fruits of her labor were now mixed into the dust of the clearing between the two houses. Fearing for her life, the little girl now sought the judicial relief that only a righteous mother could grant.

"You two! Apologize to Victoria! And kiss her so she knows that you love her even when you have been so cruel, frightening her that way!" Maria had the finesse of seasoned practice in such affairs. The mother of every twelve year old unavoidably becomes at once the sage Diogenes and the loving Solomon, able to both discern truth and mete out justice on a moment's notice. "Now you'll both go to the ocean and wash away that mess of feathers. When you're clean and presentable little boys again, you'll gather every bean you made her spill. Now go on! Scrub that bark sap out of your shorts, too!" Maria brushed her hands as if she were done with it, yet spoke once more. "Pick up those beans and the dirt or the chickens will get them. Put it all in this pot, dirt and beans together. We'll sort them when you come back."

Jesus and Juan turned silently to sprint across the small clearing in the jungle, entering the path to the beach. A haphazard trail of bright feathers marked their passing. The clearing and the houses, if one could call them that, were perched on a high plateau less than a mile from the windward side of the island. Here it could catch the fresh breeze of the ocean, yet remain somewhat sheltered by the jagged ridge which topped the cliffs facing the wind. It was a rule of the settlement that no one enter the ocean on the windward side. The coast was sharp rocks, the waves could turn monstrous without warning.

The ridge itself was little more than a sharp wall, tall enough above the plateau to shelter the settlement from storms and provide welcome shade to the vegetables planted on the far side of the corn. Even the jungle relented a little up high on the plateau. Equatorial hardwoods furnished good fuel for the cooking fire as much as an aerial stop over for a hundred kinds of sea birds. At ground level, though, Prospero and Jose had to work almost everyday to cut back the growth. Otherwise the precious corn field would be lost in a month.

The way to the beach wound along the protected side of the island almost five miles before reaching the pounding of the surf on white sand. When the boys had gained the first corner in the trail they had passed beyond the realm of Maria's imposed penance. Bare feet seemed to barely touch the leafy jungle floor as the two sprinted along through the dense foliage. Once out of sight of the clearing they magically regained their identities as howling monsters, man-eating jungle demons. The dogs followed the teenagers, one in front of the headlong melee, one behind and one at flank, making a chorus of excited barking, a cacophonous background to the howls of the "demons."

Once at the beach, the shorts were off to soak under a stone in a tidal pool. The naked boys, still adorned in feathers, stood on the rocks, now high priests of a native tribe, commanding the ocean to do what it always did with strange chants in an unknown language. With its inevitable performance of his commands, each laughed in satisfaction at his authority and power.

Of the two, Juan, elder by two years, was tall for his age with an out of control mop of jet black hair. Even in his early teens, his broad shoulders and precocious muscles announced the arrival of an impending manhood, handsome and strong. Jesus, in contrast, had jet black curly hair atop a thicker, yet equally well formed body. His face was not that of an equatorial Indian. His eyes were not dark brown as with Juan, and He had the vestigial beginning of chest hair in a trail leading down from his belly button. No one had happened upon these observations nor pursued them to any apparent discrepancy. It was very difficult to see anything besides two very brown, very healthy, very active and very happy, inseparable teenagers. The two of them owned every inch of jungle on the island of Paraneho.

Finally, the two of them followed the dogs' lead, plunging into the cool blue water to perform a ritual sacred to teenagers since the beginning of time, namely "wrestling and dunking." This would have to pass for bathing. Such was life on Paraneho for Jesus and Juan.

Only when most of the bark sap was off and the dogs were resting in the sand, it occurred to them that they might return. Hoisting the wet shorts on sticks as flags, they marched, cleanly naked and presentable, back up the trail, now European explorers hoping to find the inhabitants of this mysterious island.

Clad in dry clothes when they reached the clearing and Maria's continuing civilizing influence, they joined the dogs at the pond for a drink before they returned dutifully to present themselves to Jesus' mother. She and Victoria were watering the orchids hung along the eve in woven nets of macrame. Maria sent the girl home to help her own mother.

It was beginning to rain as Juan and Jesus sat down in front of Jesus' home. Like all rain on Paraneho, it was only wet, not ever cooler than the hot equatorial air. Generally, no one who lived on the island noticed whether it rained or not. Life went on. Some days it rained. Some days it didn't.

Maria emerged from the house. "Now bring the beans and the dirt and we'll separate them. Be sure you get all the beans -- we won't waste God's bounty. He has given us plenty here and we would be ungrateful to waste it, so be careful. Juan, because you helped make this mess, you can help Jesus sort it out."

She placed a tattered cutting board before them. It had a broad depression hewn from the middle of it. She used it to make tortillas from the milled corn. The boys began, sorting a portion of the mixture at a time.

"While we sort the beans, mother, will you tell us about the mainland? Why have we always lived on this island?" Jesus asked as He concentrated on the task with His friend.

She was careful with her words, but also determined to fully explain Jesus' question. "You and Juan have always lived here, but Prospero and Juanita came here with Your father and me. We all used to live on the mainland, in the State of Amapa right over there where the sun sets. We were there for many years, but things there were difficult for native people like us. Amapa is a frontier state that is covered in jungle with very few people."

"Jose and Prospero had a small fishing boat together. They went fishing everyday. They are both good men, and they worked very hard to make a way for us to live. A French company in Guyana always bought the fish. They froze them and carried them to a cannery up north along the coast. For a long time, these men paid a fair price for the fish, but just about when Juanita became pregnant with Juan, they decided to pay a lower price. And even that price became lower and lower."

"Pretty soon Jose and Prospero could no longer pay to keep up the boat, much less buy food for all of us. They finally complained about the price. Then some men from the French company came to the house where we lived. They beat Prospero -- Jose was not there."

"They came back later and said that we were trespassing, even though Jose and Prospero had built the house themselves many years before. We had lived there since we were married. They said we couldn't live there any more."

"Your fathers decided that we must move somewhere safer, especially since Juanita was pregnant. They decided to move to this island, and keep on fishing from here. For a long time they did that. They actually caught more fish here than they had along the shore of Amapa. They cleared the jungle for our field. They worked very hard, usually at night after they fished in the daylight. They built our homes and brought what belongings we had over here."

"Sometimes we thought about returning, but the kind of thing that had happened to us became common in the fishing settlements. Had we gone back we would have arrived without any money or a house, or even food. We decided to stay here. We had what we needed, and it was a safe, comfortable place to live."

"Then years ago, one spring during the storms, the sea came up and caught the boat. A great wave came up and hurled it into the rocks. I'm sure you two have seen what's left of it on the beach. Jose and Prospero built a raft, but we could never get to the mainland in it. So after that, we really had no choice about leaving, but we do very well right here on our island. This is our home now." Maria looked at the beans. "These beans must be planted, not eaten. They have tasted the sweet earth. They don't want to go into the cooking pot now. Tomorrow we will plant them with fish heads. They will grow up and make your food, then you foolish boys will remember your silly game with the feathers."

Juan spoke, almost breaking the trance he had been in during Maria's tale. "I don't ever want to leave the island!"

"I don't either!" added Jesus. "I want to stay here with our families!"

Maria placed the beans in a square of cloth, gathering the corners to make a bag of sorts. "Oh, someday You will. When that time comes You will want to go off into the world and make Your own way. You'll see. Everything will be fine. Each of us has the opportunity for a full happy life, it's just that we must always work with what God gives us, not think only of what we want."

"Look, Juan! Here comes your father! And see what a great fine fish he has for our dinner!"