The ride had calmed Chris, though he was still wondering why they were out here. Iwati had removed his headdress but not the shrunken head from his neck. The thing was repulsive, more so than a freshly severed one. This obscene parody was somebody's art. Iwati had sworn that his people had long ago given up cannibalism and headhunting-that only a few remote tribes like the Okamolu still maintained the practice in the belief that by consuming their enemy's flesh they absorbed his life forces.
Chris eyed the talisman, thinking how much he didn't know about Iwati. Yes, they'd been childhood pals, but twenty jungle years had separated them. Iwati could have been a physician practicing in Port Moresby or Sydney had he pursued his education, but he had chosen instead to return to the Stone Age-to the time-frozen ways of his ancestors, wearing grass skirts and shrunken heads instead of surgeon's white and stethoscope, and treating people with ground beetles and plant pastes instead of penicillin. No, much more than two decades had separated them: millennia. In his mind Chris saw Iwati hunched over the head, meticulously scooping out the eyes and picking brain matter from the sockets, crushing the skull and jawbones to be removed in pieces, stitching closed the eyelids and mouth with strips of wallaby gut, basting the skin sac with pigfat, and filling the sac with hot sand until it was cured and tanned and shrunk into that obscene little monkey face and shiny hair to be worn around his neck like a school ring.
"Iwati, what happened back there? Those men were spooked, and I think you know why."
Iwati puffed without response. Nor did he explain his shaman attire which, Chris understood, had been reserved for village rituals and intertribal sing-sings. But Iwati had brought it on the expedition.
"I asked you a question," Chris insisted. "You saved my life, but I'm not sure how."
Nothing.
"Then tell me why in God's name you dragged me all the way out here, man. I've got to leave the country in five days, and it's going to take us two just to reach the river, and two more to get to the coast." And then it was another four days of stop-and-go flights before he made it back to the clean well-lit world of Boston. "And while you're at it, why in hell are we out here and not back at camp? And by the way, what's that stink?"
From the fire Iwati relit his pipe. "Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I'll explain to you. But you must promise not to tell anyone, my friend." Iwati kept his voice low even though his men were back at camp across the water, and none spoke English.
"Okay."
"Swear on your soul."
Chris began to smile at the silly old schoolboy ritual, but Iwati was dead serious. "I swear on my soul."
"Swear on your grandmother's soul."
"I swear on my grandmother's soul."
"Swear on the Queen's soul."
"I swear on the Queen's soul."
"Swear on the soul of Jesus."
"For godsakes, man, stop playing games."
"Swear it!" Iwati's eyes were intense.
"Okay, I swear on the soul of Jesus."
Iwati hadn't forgotten the order-the oath they had shared as kids sneaking cigarettes. But there was nothing in Iwati's face that said he was playing games.
When he was satisfied he uttered a single word: "Tabukari."
"Tabu what?"
"Tabukari."
Iwati walked over to a tree growing up from the water's edge. Hanging like pythons were thick vines clustered with small white flowers-the source of the sickeningly sweet air. He cut off a length of vine and gave it to Chris. "Tabukari. Special flower."
In the firelight the petals were thick and white, the interior funneling into a bloodspot. It was some kind of orchid, but unlike any other Chris had seen. The fleshy petals and bloodspot gave it a sensual, almost animal quality. But most unusual was the odor. From a distance it was a fruity perfume, but up close the sweetness yielded to a nauseating pungency-apples undercut by the stench of rotten flesh. What Eve passed on to Adam, Chris would later tell himself.
"The smell brings insects," Iwati said. "And the insects bring water birds."
"Which explains the croc."
"Yes. They come for the birds. This is the only place tabukari grows in the whole bush."
Chris was not a botanist, but he was certain its uniqueness had to do with the locale: the volcanic ash lacing the soil, the mineral-rich lake, the foggy elevation, and, of course, the rain forest. "What's so special about it?"
For the first time all evening Iwati smiled. "Everything." But he wouldn't elaborate.
"How do you use it?"
Iwati blew a cloud of smoke toward him. He'd been smoking the flower all along. "Sometimes I make tea. Sometimes put it in yam mash. But just for the medicine man. You want to try?"
"No."
A four-day side trip through a jungle full of mosquitoes, cannibals, and Godzilla crocs just to view Iwati's own private dope garden. Chris was tired and filthy and anxious to get back to camp and curl up in his cot. He couldn't wait to get back to Boston where the air was cool and dry, where he could eat a good steak and take a long hot bath without worrying about leeches and crocodiles. Where he could finally dry out. Where he could snuggle up against Wendy and Ricky and not fight off millipedes. Iwati had let him down.
"The name means 'forbidden flower of long day.'"
It struck Chris as a silly name, but he didn't say that. "And, I suppose, it makes you feel good."
"Yes."
"Well, so does scotch-and you don't have to cut through half the bloody bush."
"No, no, not like that." Then he added, "It's dangerous. Very addictive."
Probably a local species of coca, Chris guessed. "I see."
"No, you don't see. Addictive to the soul," he said and tapped his chest. "More dangerous than all your powders. Why it's called tabu." Iwati held up the vine and whispered, "Never grow old."
"Beg pardon?"
"Never grow old."
For a long moment the words hung in the air. Chris stared across the circle of embers at Iwati, whose eyes had deepened with shadows and looked like holes in his skull.
"I don't understand."
Iwati nodded. More silence.
But the ground seemed to shift slightly, as if a ripple of awareness had run through the earth and back. "You're saying this flower… prolongs life?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Long long."
"So, what has it done for you?"
He smiled. "I'm still here."
Through his grin shone teeth brown from years of smoking the stuff. But how many years? Twenty years ago in school Chris was sixteen, and he had assumed Iwati was about the same. The interim hadn't changed him much, though it was hard to tell with Papuans. Their skin was oily and they smeared themselves with vegetable pastes and mud for protection against the sun and insects. And being slender, Iwati could pass for a teenager.
"So, how old are you supposed to be?"
Iwati shook his head.
"You're not going to tell me that either?"
"I don't know how old."
Bush people lived by the movement of the sun; they took note of the years. Besides, Iwati loved watches. "How can you not know how old you are, man?"
"I was born before the missionaries come."
That made sense. "The Red Cross missionaries were here during the war." Which meant he was born sometime in the early forties.
"Not Red Cross missionaries," Iwati said. "The Marists."
A cold rash ran up Chris's back. "Marists? That was 1857."
"Yes."
"That's impossible! That would make you at least… a hundred and twenty-three." He started to laugh but the intensity in Iwati's eyes stopped him. "That's impossible. You can't be more than forty."