Orphans of Eldorado - Milton Hatoum [37]
We left Manaus in a small launch, passing through the heart of the Anavilhanas archipelago in the mid-morning. The desire to see Dinaura made me lose my bearings. The desire, and the memories of Boa Vida. The sight of the Rio Negro defeated my desire to forget the Uaicurapá. And my childhood landscape lit my memory up, so long after. Ribs of white sand and stretches of beach contrasting with the dark water; lakes fringed by dense vegetation; enormous pools formed by the retreating waters, and islands that looked like mainland. Was it possible to find a woman in such a grandiose natural setting? By midday we reached the Anum branch of the river and sighted the island of Eldorado. The pilot tied the launch ropes to the trunk of a tree; then we looked for the trail marked on the map. The two-hour trek through the forest was painful and difficult. At the end of the track, we saw the lake of Eldorado. The water was bluish-black. And the surface was smooth and still like a mirror reflecting the night. It was unimaginably beautiful. There were a few wooden houses between the riverbank and the forest. Not a voice could be heard. No children—for in the most isolated settlements of the Amazon, children cannot be heard. The sounds of the birds only increased the silence. I thought I saw a face in a house with a straw roof. I knocked on the door—nothing. I went in and searched through the two rooms separated by a partition of about my height. A dark lump was trembling in a corner. I went over to it, crouched down and saw a nest of giant cockroaches. I felt stifled: the smell and the disgusting sight of the insects made me break out in a sweat. Outside was the immensity of the lake and the forest. And silence. This place, so beautiful, Eldorado, was inhabited by solitude. At the edge of the settlement we found a hut for making manioc flour. We heard some barking; the pilot pointed to a house in the shade of the forest trees. It was the only one with tiles, with a veranda protected by a wooden trellis, and a can with bromelias in it at the side of the steps. There was a noise. In the door I saw a girl’s face and went towards her, alone. She hid her body, and I asked her if she lived there.
I live with my mother, she said, jutting out her lips in the direction of the other side of the lake.
Where are the others?
They’ve died and gone away.
Died and gone away?
She nodded. And slowly she appeared, until she showed her whole body, shrinking back with shyness and mistrust.
Do you work in this house?
I spend the day here.
Did she know a woman . . . Dinaura?
She recoiled a little, joined her hands, as if praying, and turned her head towards the inside of the house.
The room was small, with a few objects: a little table, two stools, a low shelf full of books. Two windows opened onto the Eldorado Lake. I stopped near a narrow corridor. Before I entered the room, the pilot and the girl looked at me, without understanding what was happening, or what was going to happen.
~
I returned to Vila Bela and remained hidden away here, but I was much more alive. No one else wanted to hear this story. That’s why people think I live alone here, me and my madman’s voice. Then you came in to rest in the shade of the jatobá, asked for water and had the patience to listen to an old man. It was a relief to purge this fire from my soul. Don’t we breathe through what we speak? Don’t storytelling and singing blot out our pain? So much I tried to say to Dinaura, so many things she wasn’t able to hear from me. I wait for the tinamou to sing at the end of the afternoon. Just listen to that song. Then our night begins. You’re looking at me as if I was a liar. The same look as the others. Do you think you’ve just spent hours in this shack listening to legends?
Afterword
One Sunday in 1965, before there was TV in the Amazon region, my grandfather asked me to come and have lunch at his house in Manaus. I never refused these invitations, because I knew that, after eating