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Back Into the Jungle Save as PDF
Contents ( 49)
  1. PROLOGUE
  2. ONE
  3. TWO
  4. THREE
  5. FOUR
  6. FIVE
  7. SIX
  8. SEVEN
  9. EIGHT
  10. NINE
  11. TEN
  12. ELEVEN
  13. TWELVE
  14. THIRTEEN
  15. FOURTEEN
  16. FIFTEEN
  17. SIXTEEN
  18. SEVENTEEN
  19. EIGHTEEN
  20. NINETEEN
  21. TWENTY
  22. TWENTY-ONE
  23. TWENTY-TWO
  24. TWENTY-THREE
  25. TWENTY-FOUR
  26. TWENTY-FIVE
  27. TWENTY-SIX
  28. TWENTY-SEVEN
  29. TWENTY-EIGHT
  30. TWENTY-NINE
  31. THIRTY
  32. THIRTY-ONE
  33. THIRTY-TWO
  34. THIRTY-THREE
  35. THIRTY-FOUR
  36. THIRTY-FIVE
  37. THIRTY-SIX
  38. THIRTY-SEVEN
  39. THIRTY-EIGHT
  40. THIRTY-NINE
  41. FORTY
  42. FORTY-ONE
  43. FORTY-TWO
  44. FORTY-THREE
  45. FORTY-FOUR
  46. FORTY-FIVE
  47. EPILOGUE
  48. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  49. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“I know your next assignment,” I said. “A letter to our unborn child. What do you think?”

“I like it very much,” he said in English. Cross-legged on the floor, next to our window, which rang with early-morning bird and monkey song, he read this to me:

Why I Love Lily Bushwold, by Omar Mathias Alvarez

I love that you are different from me. Your red hair, your pale skin warm me. Who can help but love the sun shining down?

You do not judge me, and I thank you. In my culture I am only the things I have done in my past, and I am behind that black curtain. You see me, Omar. You throw away the curtains and see my heart. And it is a good heart, it is not a perfect heart, but it is trying. You see that I am trying. I see that you are trying. I see the little flame in you. The little flame that makes you take a peccary life when he wants to take yours. I even like the little flame in you that makes you say: “Fuck this, and fuck that. I will do it my Lily way.” It doesn’t bother me. But when I say listen, or when I say slow down, or, be quiet to hear the jungle animals, you honor me. I love that flame.

You are kind with my mother. My mother is not sweet. She had only boys, so she does not understand girls. She lost me to you. I am the favorite boy, and I come back with you, a white girl, so she thinks of poachers, she thinks of loggers, of a big country up north full of ice and hungry for drugs.

We will not live here forever. Ayachero has problems, more problems than I can solve. I made a promise to you, I remember it well.

Maybe someday you say why you love me. This is an assignment for you.

TWENTY-EIGHT

– OCTOBER –

Their fluffiness leaving them, my two little macaws hopped in their basket. With their technicolor feathers sprouting, gorgeous tails longer day by day, each day I wondered, Were they ready to fly? If I put the basket on the window, would something swoop from the sky or slither up the sill and make a meal of them before they had the chance to try their wings?

With trembling hands I lifted the nest to the long wooden plank. The birds strutted around, jabbing at the seeds at their feet, gnawing on the rim of the basket.

I looked up. Shouting came from beyond the longhouse, calls for help spiked over the early-morning birdsong. Heart pounding, I left the birds on the sill and raced down the stairs as quickly as my big belly would allow.

The main room of the longhouse was deserted. Hammocks hung empty, a few still swaying as if vacated in a hurry, cooking fires still smoked. Hurrying down the hall past the storage rooms to the far east end of the building, I saw a crowd had gathered near the opening of the Fire Ant Path.