reading for an hour when he stirs and asks, as if talking in his sleep, if we can go to the waterfall. The heat has passed and the wind has picked up again. We take turns in the shower and in about forty minutes are walking on the road that skirts the meadows before it bends to the right to leave behind this town for faraway places. About a hundred yards from the bend eucalyptuses, standing in a series of hemicycles converging into one another, do their best to obstruct the view of the governor’s cottage. Somewhere near is the mud-trail that cuts through the forest and descends into the depths. A tin board affixed to the trunk of a pine points in the direction of the trail: it is two miles to the falls.
Hills seem to get taller and taller as we approach the falls. The leaves of trees that grow in these shadowy parts are of a pale green silhouetted against a sky, blue and full of light, where a half moon is already beginning to show. The trees are unusually silent, there are no birds or animals visible to the eye. My friend finds a second trail that saves us some walking and I am tempted to try. Halfway, we slip over dry leaves and it is only a miracle that we manage to come up on both legs on the other side. My sight falls on a kitten tearing apart a mouse in a cleft along the trail. We continue to walk, and soon we begin to hear the plash of water. Crossing a wooden bridge, which looks as if it will not see another summer, we go down a few steps cut into the hill,and find ourselves standing at the edge of the pool into which water is falling in narrow streams over the rocks on the other side: this is all that remains of the waterfall. We wash our faces and, removing our shoes, dip our legs in the pool. Its coolness makes us light and cheerful. Two boys emerge from under the waterfall, their brown skins glisten as they run naked towards the brush where they have left their clothes. Taking turns rubbing each other with a rag brought for that purpose, they talk in a language we cannot understand.
My friend is now telling me about his trip into the interiors with a tribal leader during his election campaign last winter: ‘Thick clouds had covered the moon. But on either side of the road, sleeping in the open, were countless people who had walked long distances through the forest to see their leader. People caught in the war between the government and the guerrillas. Uprooted and fearing for their lives. The guerrillas in the forests prodded them every now and then to join in
their
war, while the state was doing all it could to make them soldiers in a very special kind of ‘civil resistance’ – note the irony – by promising each of them a self-loading rifle and a paltry allowance. Moving them to camps set up for this purpose alone. Forcibly removing people from their homes and disrupting their peaceful existence to help the state fight the guerrillas. And when they tired of all this fighting they could always be useful to the industries in the region. What a scheme! Isn’t it incredible? And we still have a real beauty of that book with all the world’s protections against abuse of civil liberties.
‘A snake. A long, red snake melting into the horizon. That’s how I first saw all those people patiently walking to the assembly, to listen to their leader, to pledge support. I felt there was some point in all this.’ My friend has fallen silent, the way he does when he is confused or simply unwilling to waste more words.
I know what happened. I have heard it before. I have felt it before. You can taste the success on your lips, but it is only aword spiralling in your head. It never comes. Something else comes in its place. Failure. Disappointment. I do not say any of this to him. Instead I tell him we are, in our separate ways, in the lonely business of rolling dice and dealing cards. We may learn tricks on the way, but that is about all we can do.
It is getting dark and we have a long climb ahead. By the time we
Hills seem to get taller and taller as we approach the falls. The leaves of trees that grow in these shadowy parts are of a pale green silhouetted against a sky, blue and full of light, where a half moon is already beginning to show. The trees are unusually silent, there are no birds or animals visible to the eye. My friend finds a second trail that saves us some walking and I am tempted to try. Halfway, we slip over dry leaves and it is only a miracle that we manage to come up on both legs on the other side. My sight falls on a kitten tearing apart a mouse in a cleft along the trail. We continue to walk, and soon we begin to hear the plash of water. Crossing a wooden bridge, which looks as if it will not see another summer, we go down a few steps cut into the hill,and find ourselves standing at the edge of the pool into which water is falling in narrow streams over the rocks on the other side: this is all that remains of the waterfall. We wash our faces and, removing our shoes, dip our legs in the pool. Its coolness makes us light and cheerful. Two boys emerge from under the waterfall, their brown skins glisten as they run naked towards the brush where they have left their clothes. Taking turns rubbing each other with a rag brought for that purpose, they talk in a language we cannot understand.
My friend is now telling me about his trip into the interiors with a tribal leader during his election campaign last winter: ‘Thick clouds had covered the moon. But on either side of the road, sleeping in the open, were countless people who had walked long distances through the forest to see their leader. People caught in the war between the government and the guerrillas. Uprooted and fearing for their lives. The guerrillas in the forests prodded them every now and then to join in
their
war, while the state was doing all it could to make them soldiers in a very special kind of ‘civil resistance’ – note the irony – by promising each of them a self-loading rifle and a paltry allowance. Moving them to camps set up for this purpose alone. Forcibly removing people from their homes and disrupting their peaceful existence to help the state fight the guerrillas. And when they tired of all this fighting they could always be useful to the industries in the region. What a scheme! Isn’t it incredible? And we still have a real beauty of that book with all the world’s protections against abuse of civil liberties.
‘A snake. A long, red snake melting into the horizon. That’s how I first saw all those people patiently walking to the assembly, to listen to their leader, to pledge support. I felt there was some point in all this.’ My friend has fallen silent, the way he does when he is confused or simply unwilling to waste more words.
I know what happened. I have heard it before. I have felt it before. You can taste the success on your lips, but it is only aword spiralling in your head. It never comes. Something else comes in its place. Failure. Disappointment. I do not say any of this to him. Instead I tell him we are, in our separate ways, in the lonely business of rolling dice and dealing cards. We may learn tricks on the way, but that is about all we can do.
It is getting dark and we have a long climb ahead. By the time we
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