Excerpt: Else They Will Fall

Chapter 1

Damiano speaks softly to the gringo couple kneeling before him as the villagers gather around to witness the confrontation. Damiano, sick of being portrayed as evil, needs to impress upon everyone that he is a businessman pure and simple; something the righteous Americanos fail to respect. This is Brazil, not America. This wild part of Amazonia is his territory to rule.

“It is the law of the jungle for the strongest to survive.” His English separates him from the primitives who stand at a proper respectful distance. The tribal natives speak Portuguese, Spanish or Tupi. Even these half-naked savages understand power. It is time they also understand that they have more to fear from Damiano Guerra than from the foreigner’s god.

In Portuguese, Damiano orders his three men to shoot the man and woman. One man crosses himself. The other two back away. He expected them to fail this test. They are weak.

The villagers cry out and step toward the couple. Damiano raises his machine gun aiming it in a sweeping arc toward the villagers. They freeze but continue to cry out and wail. It is intolerable that his men refuse to follow his order in front of the villagers. He promises himself to deal with their disobedience later. He must impress everyone that he is serious.

Damiano swings the barrel of his gun back down and shoots the couple with short burst. Colors explode from the nearby trees, oranges, yellows, reds and blues flap furiously rising out of view. A sharp, high-pitched shriek rings down from the tree canopy. All turn toward the sound. He glares in the direction of the shriek and calculates it is about a half mile away. He tells himself it is a howler monkey startled by the gunfire. They usually make a throaty deeper growl. Perhaps it is a young male.

The villagers set to wailing. They swat their faces and slap their chests.

Damiano pivots on his heel and slings his gun over one shoulder as casually as hefting a backpack. His three cowardly cohorts file in behind him heading north on the trail along the south bank of the Jurua River toward the Solimoes, the western part of the great Amazon River.

Damiano looks back from the trailhead. An old woman raises her arm pointing at him. She shouts in Portuguese that “God will punish you.”

He laughs and steps into the shadows.

Two weeks later, Senator Hamilton Jenkins is lying in bed beside his wife of thirty years. Louise is blissfully asleep, each exhalation sounds like a low hum. It has been weeks since Ham fell to sleep quickly or stayed asleep through the night. His acid reflux has been under control since his doctor told him to take a daily over-the-counter antacid. He closes his eyes and turns his head to the right toward Louise and then back up at the ceiling. When he opens his eyes the sensation of turning continues and though he is lying flat on his back his body senses that he is still turning to his left away from Louise. Vertigo. Vertigo, like an echo, repeats a sensation.

When he was a child he suffered from it. His mother and grandmother declared it perfectly normal for a Jenkins. The women nodded in agreement over it. They were both batty. They believed in many things he grew to reject.

He longed to ignore his vertigo as if doing so would make it go away. He knew better. Turn fifty and everything falls apart. Next comes the obligatory surgeries and conversations dedicated to bowel movements and heart attacks. The news of friends and colleagues in their fifties roll in regularly through emails, that most impersonal form of communication. The alumni news dedicates the final pages of each publication to listing the dead by graduating year, name and cause of death. Louise was right when she told me to name the Roman letter for the number fifty. I’ve gone to L. Fifty is not the new thirty. Fifty is the halfway point between birth and surviving a century. So much history, so much change, who could stand it?

He sits up. Flipping the cover and sheet off, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed. The vertigo spins the fluid inside his inner ear creating the sensation of turning. He focuses on the mahogany dresser near the doorway to his bathroom. The Chinese brass design on the handles glints in the reflection of a nightlight plugged in the wall. It is never completely dark or completely quiet in the suburbs of Washington D.C. Louise attempted to make the bedroom more conducive to sleep. She installed thick draperies to dampen the street noise and darken their bedroom. The room was so dark that Hamilton kept banging his shins on the lovely mahogany bench at the foot of the bed, so Louise installed a small light in an outlet to illuminate the bench. Hamilton gazes at the dresser handles, reflecting the outlet nightlight, until his vertigo abates.

“Honey?”

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“What’s keeping you awake?”

Louise’s inquiry reminds him of a therapist’s. The concern in her voice makes him feel old and weary. She worries about him. She is all he has since her parents passed away.

The phone rings. Hamilton checks his watch. Eleven thirty.

Louise flops back onto her pillow.

Hamilton takes a deep breath before he lifts the phone off the cradle to his ear.

“Hello, this is Alfonse Morales.”

“Yes, Al, this is Ham. How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you.” His Excellency, Alfonso Morales, the Brazilian Ambassador to the United States, clears his throat. “I regret to bring you sad news.”

The trade bill for ethanol has hit a snag? Hamilton listens intently. He is alert.

“The U.S. Embassy at Manaus notified me that two bodies have been delivered to them by villagers from a remote Jurua River settlement. The villagers have identified them as Paul and Marta.”

Recognition hits Hamilton. This is the source of my unease. As mother used to say, such brothers share a special connection. Paul is dead. That void has been keeping me awake at night because I could identify it. The void is a double loss. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. Shall I have the bodies brought to Brasilia for autopsy?”

“Do they suspect something other than disease or accident?”

“It took the villagers two weeks to transport the bodies by boat.”

“Yes, yes.” Images of bloating decayed bodies slam into Hamilton’s mind. “Please do autopsies.”

“The villagers were thoughtful enough to bring all their personal belongings as well.”

“I appreciate their kindness. It must have been a difficult task for them.”

“Paul and Marta were greatly loved by the river people. The men who brought them said that they called out to the other villages on their journey to tell the news. The people gathered at the riverbanks for miles holding up crosses and singing hymns.”

Hamilton’s eyes burn so he rubs them with his free hand. Paul is gone. Oh, Lord.

“They also apologized for not finding something they called Nefi. They said Nefi ran away.”

“What’s that?”

“There is no word for this in Portuguese or Spanish. Nefi is probably a name.”

“Like a pet?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know.” Ambassador Morales sighs. “We have a diplomatic flight leaving tomorrow morning for Dulles airport. I’ll send their belongings.”

“Oh, Al. I was afraid of this when they left.”

“Like you, Paul felt a calling to public service.”

“To the ends of the earth.” Hamilton combed his fingers through his thin grey hair.

“They reached many forgotten people in sixteen years.”

“Has it been that long?” A pang of guilt jabbed Hamilton in the heart. So long and now so final. Many years of silence pile up at once in a great weight. Should have, would have, could have, but didn’t. Too late.

A soft hand rubs his back and warm breath puffs against his shoulder blade. She is close enough to hear Al speaking.

“I’m so sorry, Ham. Please give Louise my love.”

“Thank you, Al.”

He sets the phone in the cradle before the news racks his body. Louise’s arms reach around his ribcage and her face rests on his back. She, too, shakes with sobs. Too many tragedies at once fall on them with so little time to recover, that they cling to each other and cry again. Sorrow is too familiar, too deep to face alone. Facing it with Louise makes it nearly tolerable. She is tougher than outsiders imagine. She is also tender hearted enough to carry sorrow for long periods. Tomorrow, I will call Doctor Sloan. He will help us through this.

“Oh, Ham, we need to call Marta’s parents.”

“We can call them in the morning.”

“But what if it appears on the news?”

“Al would never . . . .”

“Al is not the only one who knows.”

Hamilton pats the arms that hold him. “Get their number.”

Louise squeezes once before she pulls her arms away. The bed bounces lightly as she climbs off. The sound of her slippers flapping on the carpet grows softer.

“It’s almost midnight, are you sure?”

Louise returns with a slip of paper marked with numbers. “Would you want them to find out by watching the news in the morning over breakfast?”

Hamilton picks up the phone. Louise reads the number to Marta’s parents aloud. They live in the same time zone, but in upstate New York, in the Hamptons. Hamilton and Louise like them though they have not been close. Marta’s parents are democrats to the core.

The line rings four times.

“Hello?” Marta’s father sounds annoyed. His tone of voice begs for a reason to hang up.

“Ted, this is Hamilton. I’m sorry to call so late.” He takes a breath allowing time for Ted to prepare for the devastating news. “I’ve been notified by the Brazilian authorities that Paul and Marta have passed away.”

“Oh, God, no.” A muted rustling sounds through the phone. “Helen, pick up the other line. It’s Hamilton Jenkins.”

Hamilton braces himself to repeat the news and the reaction to it. The line clicks. Helen’s voice rasps on the line.

“Hello? Hamilton?”

“Yes,” Hamilton says, “I’m sorry to bring you bad news from Brazil.”

“Oh, no. What’s happened?”

“The Brazilian Embassy in Manaus has received two bodies.”

A muffled scream comes through the phone. It is loud enough for Louise to hear. She covers her mouth and turns away. A mother’s grief strikes deep. There is no other cry like it in the world.

“Are they sure?” Ted’s voice asks. “Are they sure it’s Paul and Marta?”

“The bodies,” Hamilton says in his authoritative tone, “will be autopsied in Brasilia. The Brazilian Ambassador Alfonso Morales attended Harvard with us. He knew Paul and Marta well.”

Helen’s voice cracks when she says, “They’re all gone?”

“I’m afraid so,” Hamilton says. “I authorized the consulate to perform autopsies.”

“Of course you did.” Ted fails to sound calm.

They have never been impressed by authority of any kind, as far as Hamilton can tell. It is because he made a decision without consulting them that Ted has decided to act contrary. For such liberals everything is a source of argument. Nothing a Republican can do could be suitable regardless of the circumstance. It is not bad enough that his brother’s in-laws were democrats, they had to be the greater offense—newspaper publishers.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Hamilton says knowing that his sarcasm is creeping in, “but Louise and I thought it would be better to find out from us than to hear it on the news.”

“Oh, don’t get testy,” Ted says.

Hamilton holds the phone at arm’s length and silently counts to ten. Louise slowly shakes her head. Hamilton pulls the phone back to his ear. He forces a smile on his face but it is only skin deep.

Helen’s voice comes through. “We’re properly impressed with your connections to foreign leaders. But how did Paul and Marta die?”

“That’s what the autopsies will determine.” Hamilton speaks in the most neutral tone he can muster. He fights the urge to hang up on the elitist bastards. He was taught to respect his elders, but it has always been a strain when dealing with Marta’s parents.

“They can’t tell us anything?” Helen asks in a politely demanding way.

“It took two weeks to transport the bodies by boat to a city with an American Embassy.” Hamilton matches her imperious tone.

“And they have no clue about the cause of death?” Ted challenges. His tone suggests what Hamilton has heard him say before, that all countries south of the United States are third world dictatorships corrupt and incompetent, populated by the great unwashed. Of course, they have never traveled to anywhere south of Key West.

“The autopsies will be performed in Brasilia,” Hamilton says.

“Will you quit pronouncing the name of the country in Spanish. We know they were in Brazil,” Ted says.

“And if you knew anything about the country,” Hamilton says, “then you would recognize Brasilia as the capital city. You know, like our Washington, D.C.”

“Maybe we should have the autopsies done in the states.” Ted’s voice is weak enough to suggest he is facing away from the phone. “What do you think?”

Hamilton is about to tell him what he thinks when Helen’s voice breaks through again.

“What about Nefi?”

Hamilton feels happy that he can fill the information void. “The villagers reported that Nefi ran away.”

“My God,” Ted says, “to where?”

“You tell me,” Hamilton, irritated and weary, says, “What’s a Nefi?”

Ted says, “You honestly haven’t spoken to your own brother in fifteen, maybe sixteen years?”

Hamilton is pushed over the edge of self-control. Between his grief and his annoyance at Marta’s parents, he snaps. “Does he even own a telephone?” He feels his face heat up. “Because I certainly can’t read smoke signals from here. And he damn well didn’t write to me. I suppose you’re going to publish that I’m a cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch because I don’t care if my dead brother and his wife had a pet?”

“My paper published the facts . . . .”

“Shut up, both of you,” Helen says. Her voice sounds constricted. “Ham, it’s time to use your influence.”

Humbled by the sound of grief in her voice, Hamilton says, “What do you want me to do, Helen?”

“Find out if Nefi is dead or alive.”

Dear God, spare me from save the whales and abort the babies liberals. “All right. But, why?”

“Nefi is my granddaughter.”