Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [20]
She was grateful when Armando brought a new drink, pinkish, and lifted it to her lips. It calmed her stomach immediately. He gave her water. For dinner that night, the last meal they would have for fourteen days, he boiled fish from the river and gave them its broth.
She had read many books about the rainforest, and had longed to meet it. She thought like this. That whenever you go someplace, you meet it, as if it were alive, which of course it is. Now she rested in her hut a few steps from the river and listened to this Being, the rainforest. Why had she ever thought it would be silent? It was the loudest thing she’d ever heard. Like trains and planes and the New York City subway at rush hour. It was so loud, in fact, it actually did remind her of New York. And she thought about the aptness of calling the city “the jungle.” Little did they know! Or perhaps they did. And every sound she heard that was not made by the vegetation, giant trees and tree-sized vines, groaning as they rubbed against one another, was made by creatures. Every Being was chatting, talking, whistling, singing. Singing. Lots of that. And everything was in motion. If she listened closely she could distinguish slithering, sliding, jumping, hopping, ambling, crawling, flying. The cry of a jaguar sent a ripple of fear through their little camp; she could feel it, even though their huts were spread out in the forest, out of sight of one another. It was so loud and offered with such proprietary authority she knew it would make most of them want to run. She thought about running, but where would she go? After a hot and dusty four hours to the river, in a grime-encrusted Toyota that seemed older than Japanese culture, it had taken them half a day on the river, to push off, paddle, and motor to the camp. The boat, an ancient dugout with a rusty outboard motor, had deposited them and left. The boatman promised to return in two weeks. The river was full of crocodiles and piranha. She watched the crocodiles slithering from river bank to river all along their route; though she’d read piranha ate you up only if you were already bleeding. Just her luck she’d tripped on a rock, in the seconds between changing boots for sandals to wear around the camp, and cut her big toe. Kate rummaged around beneath her mosquito net for her night bag. Finding it, she extracted crimson earplugs.
Yolo
Yolo? asked the desk clerk? That’s a name?
You betcha, said Yolo. And the other part of it is Day.
He thought, surely living in Hawaii with all these weird Hawaiian names for everything, including people, haoles should have no trouble with something as short and sweet as Yolo.
The guy was wearing one of those shirts every haole who goes to Hawaii buys at the airport. Red with white hibiscus flowers. His blond hair, very pale skin, and eyes just did not look Hawaiian. But Yolo decided not to be critical. He’d come to Hawaii on one of those cheap flights the average working artist can afford, and it had come with this hotel, which did sit, miraculously, right at the edge of the sea. It was ugly, the hotel, the same beige of office buildings in Washington, D.C., but sitting by the water his back would be to it.
He missed his old lady. He imagined her stoned out of her mind, hanging in a hammock in a jungle so far away he couldn’t even imagine it. Why do some people put themselves through it! he thought. Stumped by her persistence.
Up in his room, which faced the beach, he stripped. Throwing off his mainland clothes as if they were infested with lice. Instead of unpacking he simply dumped everything from his suitcase onto the floor. There in the pile was his new palm-green bathing suit. He put it on, facing the mirror that reflected the entire room, and grinned to see how trim and, well, cute he was. He had Frederick Douglass kind of hair, wiry and energetic, and looked