The Last Place God Made

SEVEN

I didn't see anything of Hannah on the following morning. When I took off for Manaus at nine, he was still dead to the world and Mondays were usually busy so I didn't have time to hang around.

There was not only the mail but a parcel of diamonds from Figueiredo in the usual sealed canvas bag to be handed over to the government agent in Manaus. After that, I had two contract runs down-river for mining companies delivering mail and various bits and pieces.

It added up to a pretty full day and I arrived back at Manaus in the early evening with the intention of spending the night at the Palace and the prospect of a hot bath, a change of clothes, a decent meal, perhaps even a visit to The Little Boat, was more than attractive.

There wasn't much activity at the airstrip when I landed although on some days, you could find two or three planes parked by the hangars, in from down-river or the coast. There were still a couple of mechanics on duty and they helped me get the Bristol under cover for the night, then one of them gave me a lift into town in the company truck, an ancient Crossley tender.

When I entered the hotel, there was no sign of Juca behind the desk. In fact there was no one around at all so I went through the door on the left into the bar.

There seemed to be no one there either except for a rather romantic, or disreputable-looking figure, depending on your point of view, who stared at me from the full-length mirror at the other end.

I was badly in need of a shave and wore lace-up knee-length boots, whipcord breeches and leather flying jacket open to reveal the .45 automatic in its shoulder holster which Hannah had insisted on giving me in place of the Webley, his theory being that there was no point in carrying a gun that wouldn't either stop a man dead in his tracks or knock him down.

I dropped my canvas grip to the floor, went behind the bar and helped myself to a bottle of cold beer from the ice-box. As I started to pour it into a glass, there was a slight, polite cough.

The woman who had come in through the open french windows from the terrace was a nun in tropical white, a small woman, not much over five feet in height with clear, untroubled eyes, not a wrinkle to be seen on that calm face in spite of her age which must have been fifty at least.

She spoke with the kind of accent that is associated with the New England States which made sense, for as I discovered later, she had been born and raised in the town of Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

‘Mr Mallory?’ she said.

‘That's me.’

‘We've been waiting for you. The comandante said you were expected back this evening. I am Sister Maria Teresa of the Little Sisters of Pity.’

She had said ‘We’. I looked for another nun, but instead a young woman sauntered in from the terrace, a creature from another world than this, cool, elegant in a white chiffon frock, wide-brimmed straw hat, a blue silk scarf tied around it, the ends fluttering in the slight breeze. She carried an open parasol over one shoulder and stood, a hand on her hip, legs slightly apart, casually insolent as if challenging the world at large.

And there was one other peculiarity that made her herself alone — a silver bracelet about the right ankle, studded with tiny bells that jingled rather eerily as she walked, a sound that has haunted me for years. I couldn't see much of her face for with the evening sunlight behind her, the rest was in shadow.

Sister Maria Teresa said, ‘This is Miss Joanna Martin. Her sister served with our mission at Santa Helena.’

I knew then, I suppose, what it was all about, but played dumb. ‘What can I do for you ladies?’

‘We want to go up-river as soon as possible.’

‘To Landro?’

‘To start with, then Santa Helena.’

The simple directness of that remark was enough to take the breath away. I said, ‘You've got to be joking.’

‘Oh no, I assure you, Mr Mallory. I have complete authority from my Order to proceed to Santa Helena to assess the situation and to report on the feasibility of our carrying on there.’

‘Carrying on?’ I said stupidly.

She didn't appear to have heard me. ‘And then there is the unfortunate business of Sister Anne Josepha and Sister Bernadette whose bodies were never recovered. I understand that in all probability they were taken alive by the Huna.’

‘That would depend on your definition of living,’ I said.

‘You don't think it's possible?’ It was the Martin girl who had spoken, the voice as cool and well-bred as you would have expected from the appearance, no strain there at all.

‘Oh, it's possible.’ I swallowed the impulse to give them the gory details on the kind of life captive women in such a situation could expect and contented myself by adding, ‘Indians are very much like children and subject to sudden whims. One minute it seems like a good idea to carry off a couple of white women, the next, equally reasonable to beat them to death with an ironwood club.’

Sister Maria Teresa closed her eyes momentarily and Joanna Martin said in the same cool voice, ‘But you can't be certain of that?’

‘Any more than you can be that they're alive.’

‘Sister Anne Josepha was Miss Martin's younger sister,’ Maria Teresa said simply.

I'd suspected something like that, but it didn't make it any easier. I said, ‘I'm sorry, but I know as much about Indians as most people and more than some. You asked me for my opinion and that's what I've given you.’

‘Will you take us up to Landro with you in the morning?’ Sister Maria Teresa said. ‘I understand from the comandante that we could fly from there to Santa Helena in under an hour.’

‘Have you any idea what it's like up there?’ I demanded. ‘About as bad as any place on this earth could possibly be.’

‘God will provide,’ she said simply.

‘He must have been taking a day off when the Huna took out Father Conté and the rest of them at Santa Helena,’ I said brutally.

There was the briefest flash of pain on that calm face and then she smiled beautifully and with all the understanding in the world. ‘The comandante told me you were one of those who found them. It must have been terrible for you.’

I said slowly, ‘Look, Sister, the whole area comes under military jurisdiction.’

Joanna Martin came forward to join her, opened the embroidered handbag which hung from her wrist and took out a folded document which she tossed on the bar.

‘Our authorisation to travel, counter-signed by the president himself.’ Enough to bring Alberto's heels together sharply, so much was certain and enough for me.

‘All right, have it your own way. If you want to know what it's like to fly two hundred miles over some of the worst jungle in South America in the oldest plane in the territory, be at the airstrip at eight-thirty. As it happens, the rear cockpit's been enlarged to carry cargo, but there's only one seat. One of you will have to sit on the floor.’

I swallowed the rest of my beer and moved round the bar. ‘And now you'll really have to excuse me. It's been a long day.’

Sister Maria Teresa nodded. ‘Of course.’

Joanna Martin said nothing, simply picked up my grip and handed it to me, a gesture totally unexpected and quite out of character. My fingers touched hers as I took it and there was the perfume. God knows what it was but the effect was electrifying. I had never experienced such direct and immediate excitement from any woman and my stomach went hollow.

And she knew, damn her, I was certain of that, her mouth lifting slightly to one side as if in amusement at men and their perpetual hunger. I turned from that scorn and went out quickly.

There was still no sign of Juca but when I went up to my usual room, I found him turning down the sheets.

‘Your bath is ready, Senhor Mallory,’ he told me in that strange, melancholy whisper of his. ‘You wish to eat here afterwards?’

I shook my head. ‘I think I'll go out. If anyone wants me I'll be at The Little Boat.’

‘The senhor has seen the ladies who were waiting for him downstairs?’

‘Yes. Are they staying here?’

He nodded and withdrew and I stripped, pulled on an old robe and went along the corridor to the bathroom. The water was hot enough to bring sweat to my face and I lay there for half an hour, soaking away the fatigue of the day and thinking about the two women in the bar. Sister Maria Teresa was familiar enough. One of those odd people who live by faith alone and who seem to be able to survive most things, protected by the armour of their own innocence.

Joanna Martin's presence was more difficult to explain. God knows who had advised her to come. Certainly they must have an awful lot of pull between them to get hold of that authorisation with the president's signature on it. Colonel Alberto was not going to be pleased about that.

I went back to my room, towelling my head, briskly and started to dress. I'd actually got my trousers on and was pulling a clean linen shirt over my head when a slight noise made me turn quickly, one hand sliding towards the butt of the .45 automatic which lay on the dressing-table in its shoulder harness.

Joanna Martin moved in from the balcony, closing her parasol. ‘Don't shoot,’ she said coolly. ‘I'm all I've got.’

I stood looking at her, without saying anything, noticing the face for the first time. Not really beautiful, yet different enough to make her noticeable in any crowd. Auburn hair, obviously regularly attended to by a top hairdresser. Good bones, an upturned nose that made her look younger than she was, hazel eyes spaced widely apart, curious golden flecks glinting in them.

I wondered how she'd look after a week up-river. I also wondered how that hair would look spread across a pillow. The physical ache was there again and disturbing in its intensity.

‘The door was unlocked,’ she explained. ‘And the old man said you were in the bath. I thought I'd wait.’

I tucked in my shirt and reached for my shoulder harness. For some reason I found difficulty in speaking. That damned perfume, I suppose, the actual physical presence of her.

‘Do you really need that thing?’ she asked.

‘It's a rough town after dark,’ I said. ‘Now what can I do for you?’

‘Tell me the truth for a start.’

She moved back to the balcony. Outside the sky was orange and black, the sun a ball of fire. Standing there, against the light her legs were clearly outlined through the flimsy dress.

I said, ‘I don't understand.’

‘Oh, I think you do. You were being polite to Sister Maria Teresa down there in the bar. About my sister and the other girl, I mean. You were letting her down lightly.’

‘Is that a fact?’

‘Don't play games with me, Mr Mallory. I'm not a child. I want the truth.’

‘Who in the hell do you think I am?’ I demanded. ‘The butler?’

I'm not sure why I got so angry — possibly because she'd spoken to me as if I were some sort of servant, but there was more to it than that. Probably some weird kind of defence mechanism to stop me from grabbing her.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I was asked if it was possible your sister and the other girl were still alive and I said it was. What else do you want to know?’

‘Why would they take her? Why not kill her straight away. Even the older nuns were raped before being killed, isn't that so? I've read the report.’

‘They like to freshen the blood,’ I said. ‘It's as simple as that.’

I started to turn away, tiring of it suddenly, wanting to be away from her, aware of the strain finally blowing through the surface.

She grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me round. ‘I want to know, damn you!’ she cried. ‘All of it.’

‘All right,’ I said and caught her wrists. ‘It's a pretty complicated ritual. First of all, if they're virgins, they undergo a ceremonial defloration in front of everyone using a tribal totem. That's Huna custom with all maidens.’

There was horror in those eyes now and she had stopped struggling. ‘Then for seven nights running, any warrior in the tribe is allowed to go in to them. It's a great honour. Any woman who doesn't become pregnant after that is stoned to death. Those outsiders who do are kept till the baby is born, then buried alive. The reasons for all this are pretty complicated, but if you have an hour to spare sometime I'll be happy to explain.’

She stared up at me, head moving from side to side and I added gravely, ‘If I were you, Miss Martin, I'd pray she ended up in the river in the first place.’

The rage came up like hot lava and she pulled free of me, the left hand striking across my face and then the right, helpless, impotent anger and grief mingling together. She stumbled to the door, wrenched it open and ran into the corridor.

I walked to The Little Boat, a dangerous thing to do after dark, especially along the waterfront although such was the rage against life itself that filled me that I think it would have gone hard with any man who had crossed my path that night. I needed a drink and perhaps another to use one of Hannah's favourite phrases and a woman certainly — a dangerous mood to be in.

The Little Boat was not particularly busy, but that was only to be expected on a Monday night. The rumba band was playing, but there couldn't have been more than a dozen people on the floor. Lola, Hannah's girl friend from that first night was there, wearing the same red-satin dress. I rather liked her. She was an honest whore, but she was crazy about Hannah and made it obvious, her one weakness.

Knowing that he wouldn't be in that night she concentrated on me and she knew what she was about. Strange, but it didn't seem to work. I kept thinking of Joanna Martin and when I did that, Lola faded rapidly. The message got through to her after a while and she went off to try her luck elsewhere.

Which at least left me free to drink myself into a stupor if I was so inclined. I went up to that private section of the deck where I had dined with Hannah on that first night, ordered a meal and a bottle of wine to start with and closed the sliding doors.

My appetite seemed to have gone. I picked at my food, then went and stood at the rail, a bottle of wine in one hand and a glass in the other and stared out over the river. The reflected lights of the houseboats glowed in the water like candle flames. I was restless and ill at ease, waiting for something — wanting her, I suppose.

Behind me, the sliding doors opened, then closed again. I turned impatiently and found Joanna Martin standing there.

‘Do you think we could start again?’ she said.

There was a spare glass on the table. I filled it with wine and held it out to her. ‘How did you find me?’

‘Old Juca at the hotel. He was very kind. Got me a cab with a driver who bore a strong resemblance to King Kong. Gave him strict instructions to deliver me here in one piece.’ She walked to the rail and looked out across the river. ‘This is nice.’

I didn't know what to say, but she took care of it all more than adequately. ‘I think we got off on the wrong foot, Mr Mallory. I'd like to try again.’

‘Neil,’ I said.

‘All right.’ She smiled. ‘I'm afraid you've got the wrong impression of me entirely. Joanna Martin's my stage name. Originally I was just plain Joan Kowalski of Grantville, Pennsylvania.’ Her voice changed completely, dropped into an accent she probably hadn't used in years. ‘My daddy was a coalminer. What was yours?’

I laughed out loud. ‘A small-town lawyer. What we call a solicitor in England, at a place called Wells in Somerset. A lovely old town near the Mendip Hills.’

‘It sounds marvellous.’

‘It is, especially now in the autumn. Rooks in the elms by the cathedral. The dank, wet smell of rotting leaves blowing across the river.’

For a moment I was almost there. She leaned on the rail. ‘Grantville was never like that. We had three things worth mentioning, none of which I ever wish to see again. Coalmines, steelworks and smoke. I didn't even look back once when I left.’

‘And your sister?’

‘We were orphaned when she was three and I was eight. The nuns raised me. I guess it became a habit with her.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I'm doing fine. Sing with some of the best bands in the country. Dorsey, Guy Lombardo, Sammy Kaye.’ There was a perceptible change in her voice as she said this, a surface brashness as if she was really speaking for an audience. ‘I've played second lead in two musicals in succession on Broadway.’

‘All right.’ I held up both hands defensively. ‘I'm convinced.’

‘And you?’ She leaned back against the rail. ‘What about you? Why Brazil?’

So I told her, from the beginning right up until that present moment, including a few items on the way that I don't think I'd ever mentioned to another living soul, such was the effect she had on me.

‘So here we are,’ she said at last when I was finished. ‘The two of us at the edge of nowhere. It's beautiful, isn't it?’

The moon clouded over, sheet lightning flickered wildly, the rain came with a sudden rush bouncing from the awning above our heads.

‘Romantic, isn't it?’ I said. ‘We get this every day of the week at sometime or another. Imagine what it's like in the rainy season.’ I refilled her glass with wine. ‘Bougainvilleas, acacias and God knows how many different varieties of poisonous snakes that can kill you in seconds. As for the river, if it isn't the alligators or pirhanas, it's water snakes so long they've been known to turn a canoe over and take the occupants down. Almost everything that looks nice is absolutely deadly. You should have tried Hollywood instead. Much safer on Stage 6.’

‘That comes next month. I've got a screen test with M.G.M.’ She smiled, then reached out to touch me, her hand flat against my chest, the smile fading. ‘I've got to know, Neil. Just to know, one way or the other. Can you understand that?’

‘Of course I can.’ My hand fastened over hers and I was shaking like a kid on his first date. ‘Would you like to dance?’

She nodded, moving against me and behind us, the sliding door was pulled open. ‘So this is what you get up to when my back is turned?’ Hannah said as he came through.

He was dressed in flying clothes and badly in need of a shave, but he was a romantic enough figure in his leather coat and breeches, a white scarf knotted carelessly about his neck.

He smiled with devastating charm and rushed forward with a sort of boyish eagerness, hands outstretched. ‘And this will be Miss Joanna Martin. Couldn't very well be anyone else.’

He held her hands in his for what seemed to me no good reason. I said, ‘What in the hell is going on here?’

‘You might as well ask, kid.’ He yelled for the waiter and pulled off his coat. ‘A lot happened since you left this morning. Alberto got through to me on the radio in the middle of the afternoon. Wanted me to pick him up at Santa Helena and fly him straight down to Manaus. We got in about an hour and a half ago. Met Miss Martin's companion at the hotel. When I left, she and the colonel were having quite an argument.’

‘What's it all about?’

‘That half-breed of Alberto's, the guy who'd lived with the Huna. Well, Alberto put him over the river last evening and by God, he was back at noon today.’

‘You mean he'd made contact?’

‘Sure had.’ The waiter arrived at this point with a couple of bottles of Pouilly Fuisse in a bucket of water. ‘According to him, all the tribesmen along the river had already heard what had happened to that village we visited and were scared stiff. A delegation of head men have agreed to meet Alberto a couple of miles up-river from the mission day after tomorrow.’

‘Sounds too good to be true to me,’ I said and meant it.

But Joanna Martin didn't think so. She sat down beside him and said eagerly, ‘Do you think they'll be able to get news of my sister?’

‘Certain to.’ He took one of her hands again. ‘It's going to be fine. I promise you.’

After that, to say that they got on like a house on fire would have been something of an understatement. I sat in the wings, as it were, and watched while they talked a lot, laughed a great deal and finally went down to join the small crowd on the dance floor.

I wasn't the only one who was put out. I caught a flash of scarlet in the half-light, Lola watching from behind a pillar. I knew then what the saying meant by a woman scorned. She looked capable of putting a knife between Hannah's shoulder blades if given half a chance.

I don't know what was said between the two on the floor, but when the band stopped playing, they moved across to the piano and Hannah sat down. As I've said before, he was a fair pianist and moved straight into a solid, pushing arrangement of St Louis Blues and Joanna Martin took the vocal.

She was good — better than I'd thought she would be. She gave it everything she had, a sort of total dedication and the crowd loved it. They followed with Night and Day and Begin the Beguine which was a tremendous hit that autumn and all one seemed to hear from radios everywhere, even on the River Amazon.

But by then I'd had enough. I left them to it, negotiated the catwalk to the jetty and walked morosely back to the hotel in the pouring rain.

I had been in bed for at least an hour, had just begun to drift into sleep when Hannah's voice brought me sharply to my senses. I got out of bed, padded to the door and opened it. He was obviously very drunk, standing with Joanna Martin outside the door of what I presumed must be her room at the end of the corridor.

He was trying to kiss her in that clumsy, unco-ordinated way a drunken man has. She obviously didn't need any assistance because she was laughing about it.

I closed the door, went back beneath the mosquito net and lit a cigarette. I don't know what I was shaking with — rage or thwarted desire, or both, but I lay there smoking furiously and cursing everyone who ever lived — until my door opened and closed again softly. The bolt clicked into place and there was silence.

I sensed her presence there in the darkness even before I smelled the perfume. She said, ‘Stop sulking. I know you're in there. I can see your cigarette.’

‘Bitch,’ I said.

She pulled back the mosquito net, there was the rustle of some garment or other falling to the floor, then she slipped into bed beside me.

‘That's nice,’ she said and added, in the same tone of voice, ‘Colonel Alberto wants to be off at the crack of dawn. Sister Maria Teresa and I have strict instructions from Hannah to be at the airstrip not later than seven-thirty. He seems to think we'll be safer with him.’

‘You suit yourself.’

‘You're a good pilot, Neil Mallory, according to Hannah, the best he's ever known.’ Her lips brushed my cheek. ‘But you don't know much about women.’

I wasn't going to argue with her, not then, with the kind of need burning inside that could not be borne for long. As I pulled her to me, I felt the nipples blossom on her breasts, cool against my bare skin.

The excitement she aroused in me, the awareness, was quite extraordinary. But there was more to it than that. I lay there holding her, waiting for some sort of sign that might come or might not — the whole world waited. And in that timeless moment I knew, out of some strange foreknowledge, that whatever happened during the rest of my life, I'd never know anything better than this. That whatever followed would always have the savour of anti-climax, just like Hannah.

She kissed me hard, mouth opening and the whole world came alive as lightning flickered across the sky and it started to rain again.