For himself, one of the last of life’s revelations would be a smell in the jungle, a smell he’d never known, after a life in which the vocabulary of sensations seemed to have exhausted itself early. By the second day of the New Jungle it was all around him, this odor. It wasn’t fruit, it wasn’t a plant, it wasn’t the water, it wasn’t the fine blue mist of the air; it was human. Not human in that the jungle was filled with humanity, though it might have been, but rather in that the boat was always entering a small black round cavity where the leaves had the purple texture of flesh pulled over a mass of broken capillaries and the branches clotting the river passageway were webbed with veins. The boat drifted farther into the dark epidermal tissue of the jungle, the smell getting stronger and stronger until he was mortified to even consider hacking through it, he was convinced it would splatter blood across his eyes. Huge drops hung from the trees. At the other end of the boat Catherine said to him, The jungle mourns that it has to foul itself with your death. Shut up, he whispered to her, peering around him.
The jungle got blacker. Have I been swallowed by a monster? he cried. She answered, You’ve been swallowed by yourself.
The river was moving faster, the momentary beams of sunlight that filtered through flashing by more and more quickly. Where does it go? he said, not really to her. There’s a hole at the end, she explained, where the water runs in. You lunatic bitch, he snarled, rivers don’t have holes. He watched the river carefully and tried to make out what was ahead. Of course he constantly had to keep his eye on Catherine too, who still had the knife.
Since she’d gotten the knife they’d been at a standoff. Coba had the oar of the boat, the reach of which was obviously a good deal longer than a knife’s, the same oar that had cracked the head of Catherine’s father. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure but that she couldn’t throw the knife; it seemed a more complicated skill than a young girl would have mastered, but cutting loose with her hands the very ropes that bound them was a complicated skill as well, and she hadn’t had much trouble figuring that out. It was to Coba’s credit that he didn’t underestimate her. So he stayed at his end of the boat and she at hers, each of them waiting. By their second day in the jungle neither had slept. You think you can outlast me at this? he said laughing, his bravado becoming increasingly transparent since the welcoming party had met them at Town Four. Do you remember, she asked calmly, how you came to my village? You came to my village because one night I climbed a tree and tied myself to it with my hair and signaled your ship till dawn. I slept with my eyes open that night. You never know whether I’m awake or sleeping, I can sit as still as sleep (she demonstrated this by becoming absolutely still) or I can sleep while I appear awake. How will you know? It’s fitting that having saved your life this way, I’ll end it this way too.
You’re a witch, he said to her, his voice breaking. I did your people a favor when I took you from them.
By the end of the second day he began to feel the mosquitoes; by the third day there were citadels of them, hovering over the river ahead. He might have taken refuge in the cargo hold, a blanket covering the open side; but to have confined himself to this space, without the advantage of the long reach of the oar, would have compromised his position of defense against Catherine, who wasn’t touched by the swarms at all. On the third day the vines of the trees seemed to be wrapping themselves around his limbs; he overcame his fear of splattering blood and hacked his way loose, no sooner loosening one than becoming caught by another. Of Catherine the vines took no notice. By the end of the third day Coba heard the sounds of the thicket, the crunching of grass and a distant haze of drums.
On the fourth day the river was moving faster than ever. The hole in the bottom must be close, said Catherine. There’s no fucking hole in the bottom of the fucking river, Coba screamed. The boat was spinning wildly and he had to use the oar to maintain whatever control was possible. Frantically he was trying to direct the boat and steer it clear of the hungry trees while watching Catherine at all times; any moment she might hurl the knife at him. You know you can’t survive the river without me, he said to her, we’re in this together.
We’ve never been in anything together, she answered.
By now he hadn’t slept in three and a half days. He hadn’t eaten since the last of the fruit just outside Town Four. The drinking water was virtually gone. Catherine was also hungry and tired, but he could tell by looking at her that she was nowhere near his point of exhaustion; compared to him, she appeared refreshed. He knew she had dozed here and there, fooling him with that sleeping trick of hers. Also, he didn’t understand how she could have been so unscathed by the mosquitoes and the vines of the trees.
At the end of the fourth day the river came to a sudden stop. It was in the middle of
