She walked out right into the mud and almost slipped. Had to turn around, ask for a flashlight. Lit up the slimy, dark leaves. Stepped over the line of phosphorus and went a few steps beyond it. Sat in the dark.
It rustled. She saw a flecked branch that resembled a snake; her heart was pounding, a scream in her throat.
“Shut up!” she whispered. “Don’t be hysterical!”
She saw the camp down there, the flickering light of the fire and some paraffin candles. Ben and the men lying down under their own plastic covers. One of them was sitting and stirring the fire; he appeared to be a hunched shadow to her eyes.
When she came back, the others had already crept into their sleeping bags. Martina was lying next to Nathan’s right side. She was turned away from him. Next to her was Ole, and out on the edge was Steinn.
“Everything all right?” mumbled Nathan.
She didn’t answer. She kicked off her shoes outside the cover and pulled down the zipper on her sleeping bag. The ground underneath her was cold and lumpy. She longed for a pillow.
Nathan leaned over her and gave her a hard, silent kiss. “You’re ice cold,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of the night. Of the jungle. Of the fact we’re lying direct on the ground with all the snakes and tigers and elephants.” “I’m not afraid.”
“Great. Good night, then.”
“Good night.”
They fell asleep, one at a time; she heard how their breathing got heavier. She lay on her back; there was no other way to sleep. Her knee was throbbing. The sound of the forest came at her from all directions, shrill and piercing. She thought she saw two eyes. She turned on the flashlight, and they were gone. As soon as it was dark again, they reappeared.
A tiger? she thought. Well, come on then. Come here and rip out our lives with your strong jaws, kill us all!
The eyes stayed where they were. Nervously watching her.
She turned toward Nathan. He lay with his face away from her, bent like an embryo. She reached out and touched his lips while she whispered, “Nathan?”
He was sleeping.
“Good night,” she whispered. “Good night, then, my darling.”
The rain stopped at dawn. Instead there were layers of fog. As it lifted, the tree trunks slowly took shape. A new kind of noise took over, the sounds of dawn. The apes woke up, as well as the small swift birds.
Had she slept? Had she slept at all? She sat up in her sleeping bag; the others were sleeping with hidden heads. She massaged her sore fingers.
The sun broke through like a warm and bright curtain.
Justine took her towel and swimsuit and sneaked away to the river. In the cover of some bushes, she changed clothes and then stepped into the yellow, warm water. She was wearing her gym shoes. Who knows what lurked in the water, but she had to get clean; she felt the smell of her own stale, sour sweat.
She washed herself with sand, scrubbed the marks left by the leeches. They started bleeding again.
She stayed in the water for a long time. She thought that Nathan might come, that they would hold each other, that he would embrace her there in the water and reassure her that everything was still the way it was, that nothing had changed between them.
But he didn’t come.
At camp, Ben was busy making breakfast. The sun warmed them; they hung up their wet clothes to dry on branches and bushes. She saw two pale mushrooms. They were the eyes that were shining in the night. She would have to tell Nathan how they fooled her. Nathan would laugh and think it was a funny story.
But Nathan wasn’t there.
She asked Ben.
“They’re out to get some roots. I’m going to boil them for our breakfast.”
One of the Orang-asli men squatted and smoked. It was the same man who had accompanied her and Heinrich. They were always smoking, these men. They learned how to roll their cigarettes when they were only a few years old. It could take some time until the hunters returned to the village. Smoking held the hunger pangs at bay.
Justine tried to shape her tangled wet hair. The man gave her a quick look, smiling shyly, before he glanced away.
“Mahd is going out hunting,” said Ben.
“Hunt what?”
“Whatever we can eat. A monkey or a small pig.”
“Can people eat monkeys?”
“Sure they can.”
Mahd’s blow pipe was leaning up against a tree. When she touched it, it fell over. She hurried to set it right again.
The man named Mahd plucked a dart from his wooden quiver.
“Is it poisonous?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Ben.
She scratched her arm strongly. During the night, she had gotten a number of itchy small bites. She thought they might be ants. When she got up from the sleeping bag, she saw many of them scurrying about where they were resting.
“Would you like to go hunting with him?”
“Would he mind?”
Ben said something to Madh. Madh grinned. His teeth were long and uneven.
“He says it’s fine.”
He ran like a ferret through the bushes. Even though she had hardly slept, she felt strong. She followed him, tried to move as noiselessly as he did. At times he turned around to see if she was keeping up. They went along the river for a while. The heat was beginning to return; the sun glittered in the dark green leaves. The fog was almost gone.
He chose paths where she could walk. He held branches back for her. Once he took her wrist and pulled her up a hill. He was short, but very strong. She wanted to say something to him, but he couldn’t speak English. She was wondering about figuring out some sign language when the man suddenly stopped. Justine halted in the middle of a step. She could smell his odor-tobacco and something vaguely like vanilla.
He slowly lifted his hand and pointed through the bushes. She didn’t see anything. He placed the blow pipe to his lips; she held her breath. She saw his ribcage flatten. At that moment, there was a shrill shriek, which cut off. It seemed as if it came from a child. The whites of the man’s eyes were bloodshot. He made a quick grimace, then relaxed.
There was a body in the water. The body of an animal. When she came closer, she saw that it was a small wild pig. The dart had pierced its throat. Madh said something to her, which she didn’t understand. Then he imitated the sound of a pig. She reached out her hand and stroked the pig’s rough, muddy fur. The animal’s eyes were wipe open and appeared to look at her.
She felt something hard against her arm. The blow pipe. Madh gestured at her to try it out. He looked enthusiastic. She looked around, shrugged her shoulders.
He pointed to a tree hanging over the water. He walked over to the tree and put one of his long brown rubber shoes on a broken branch. He then returned to her and showed her how to hold the blow pipe. Pointed to his shoe and laughed, took hold of his knees and laughed again.
The blow pipe was long, but lighter than she thought. In one end, the end for blowing, there was a dry piece of resin. A simple design was carved into the bark right below it. The air was thick with sound; the heat pounded against her head.
She lifted the blow pipe to her lips. It smelled rancid next to the hole. She concentrated, took a deep breath, blew with her diaphragm the same way she had done at home with her horn. She noticed the dull thump of a dart that hit something. She heard Madh take a sharp breath.
The dart had gone into the tree, a few millimeters from his shoe. It sat so deep that he almost didn’t get it out again.
Their clothes did not dry during the night. There was the stench of them beginning to rot, but they still had to put them on.
They had struck camp and gotten ready to go further. Justine stuck her feet into her socks the stains had gotten stiff and brown.
Ben stood before them, looking worried.
“You think you’re wet now, but I’m afraid you’re soon going to be even wetter.”