tattoos could be anyone. So we would have to identify ourselves in any case, present him for interviews….”
“No, it’s a good idea,” said Luna. “If we do it right, it’ll cause a sensation. He’ll be a public figure, and it won’t matter if he’s an illegal immigrant.”
“Why won’t it, Luna?” Rupert asked.
“Because if we do it right, a mass mailing of tapes, by the time the INS gets around to it, it’ll already have happened. We’ll have the interviews already. I could offer Sunny Riddle an exclusive on it, the epic voyage from the Orinoco. And after that, hell, let them take him and stick him in the jail. Let them repatriate him. He doesn’t want asylum, for God’s sake. He just wants his forest intact. And we could get a book out of it, too, we could get a grant, send a team back to Colombia, Moie in his natural habitat. Jesus, it would put this organization on the map!”
“I see we’re no longer concerned,” offered Professor Cooksey in a dry tone, “that this fellow might be in the habit of carving people up while in a drug-induced trance?”
“Actually,” said Rupert, “we have no real evidence of that, do we? It’s just, ah, speculation, as you admit yourself. And Geli’s right. And Luna. It could be a big breakthrough for us.” He turned away from Cooksey and regarded the two women with his benign brown eyes. “Now, how shall we arrange this taping? Perhaps a more anonymous location would be best, away from the property.” He took a large bite of chocolate chip cookie and awaited their response. Professor Cooksey turned his head and looked Jenny full in the face, as if he knew just what she was thinking.
Jenny got up and walked out, not bothering to collect the snack tray or ask if anyone wanted anything, as she usually did. She rarely felt anger, because what was the use of getting angry, anyway? But she had not liked what she’d heard. She thought Professor Cooksey could have made an objection, or she could have herself, although she never spoke up when organization business was discussed. The conversation had reminded her unpleasantly of other conversations she had heard, between social workers and foster parents, about her. They always spoke over her head, as if she wasn’t there, deciding what to do about her problem. Of course, Moie wasn’t actually there, but they were treating him the same way, as a hassle and not as a real person who might have something to say about what was going to happen to him. Professor Cooksey was the one who spoke most often to Moie, knowing the language and all, but he mostly talked about plants and the kind of weird stuff he did in his home in the rain forest, and about gods and spirits.
She walked through the courtyard and down a garden path to the pool. There, as she had expected, was Moie, gazing morosely at the waterfall and humming to himself. She squatted down next to him and asked him how he was doing.
He said in Runiya, “When I first came to the land of the dead, I thought you wai’ichuranan could move the stars in the sky and I was very afraid. Cooksey says that isn’t so. But this is nearly as bad. You make a little world here, as in this pond, as in your garden, but it is all wrong, all siwix, and it hurts my belly to see it. The creatures are alive, but the thing is dead. Have you never once listened to what a plant or animal has to say?”
She nodded and smiled. “Yeah. It’s pretty cool. See, it’s like all natural. The pump runs off solar. The sun, see”-she pointed to the sky-“it makes the water go around. Sun, waterfall, see?”
“You are a most strange being,” said Moie. “If I could speak to you properly, I would examine you and find out why you are barren, even though the Monkey Boy drags you into his hammock very often. I should ask Cooksey about this, although perhaps it is part of being dead that you make few children. Also I wonder where your elders are. I have heard some tribes eat their elders and so perhaps you do this as well. Again, I will ask Cooksey.”
“Cooksey’s having a meeting in the office,” she said, recognizing the spoken name. “We can go see him later. You want to come watch my program with me?One Life to Live? Jessica and John? And Starr?” She mimed turning on a TV and sketched a screen in the air. She backed away from him making come-hither gestures. A few minutes later they were settled in front of the screen, she in a worn but cozy rattan armchair, he on his haunches leaning against the sofa.
Moie watches the stolen ghosts of the dead people in the spirit box. They seem to be living the ordinary lives of dead people, although it is clear to him that the box is ruled by demons. Sometimes the dead people disappear and a demon appears and shouts and makes noises. As now, he sees a demon come out of a bottle and shout at a dead woman, who smiles at it. The demon flies around her hut making everything into metal, like an axe blade, with sun shining from the furnishings, although they are inside the hut and there is no sun. Then the demon returns to the bottle and the woman speaks of how she loves the demon. Her daughters will never have children, Moie knows. Now a dead person tries to poison a demon dog, but it doesn’t work. The dead person places poison in two bowls, but the demon dog picks the wrong one, and eats, and doesn’t die but instead talks to the man and tells him how foolish he has been-he should have put the poison in both bowls! It’s clear that the wai’ichuranan are not as clever as the Runiya when it comes to killing demons. Now some flashing that he can’t understand, one scene after another so fast he doesn’t know what’s happening, then come the humming, squeaking sounds that always presage the return of the spirits.
The Firehair Woman is talking, as she always does when the spirits are showing in the box. Moie thinks this is part of her worship. He himself can catch spirits in a box, if they are causing trouble in the village, for example, or if there is a bad person around, like a witch or murderer, then he would steal the man’s spirit and lock it away, so his body could more easily be burnt up. But no Runiya would think of talking to them. Only really stupid or bad people leave their spirits behind when they go above the moon, and what can be learned from talking to these? He wonders if these spirits are her ancestors. That would at least make sense, for the Runiya speak to their ancestors all the time, and for this purpose they keep their ancestors’ dried hearts in beautifully decorated pouches hung from the rafters of their longhouses. He wonders if there are dried hearts in this spirit box. Once, the first time she showed him the spirit box, he tried to pry the back of it off with his knife, but she became excited and pulled at his arm. He understood that looking into the spirit box was siwix for her, and so he didn’t do it.
She is smiling and pointing to the box and talking. She wants him to see something. He looks. In a room of one of the wai’ichura longhouses, two spirit wai’ichuranan are preparing to dopuwis. (There is a louder humming, which always comes when something important is going to happen; he has learned that much.) But he has seen this many times before. The dead spirits are always, always, preparing to dopuwis: they kiss, they rub each other, they take off their stupid clothing, or most of it, and yet they never do anypuwis. Of course, everyone knows that the spirits cannot dopuwis, it is only for the living.
So these dead people spirits are lying down on the platform where they sleep, covered with a blanket, and the dead woman spirit is making noises, similar to what this kind of woman would make in life; he has heard this many times now from the Firehair Woman and Monkey Boy when they dopuwis in their hut. Also Angry Woman and Hairy Face Man do it, but she makes a different sound. Moie knows that the spirits are not doingpuwis, for the woman is not on her knees showing the man the dark folds of heraka to excite him.
In any case, he is no longer able to see them. He can only see a hole in the wall of the longhouse. A window is their word for this hole. The humming increases. Now he sees the man and woman again, and it is as if he has passed through this hole. Moie can do this, too, going through the walls, and so he knows that anaysiri, a sorcerer, is somewhere around. Yes, now he sees the aysiri, who has made himself small to go into the spirit box. The Firehair Woman is talking, talking, and Moie wishes she would stop, because this is interesting, for a change. The aysiri has a pouch in his hands, and Moie knows just what it is, alayqua, a spirit catcher, for he has one himself, although he did not bring it with him to the land of the dead. His is smaller and has bright feathers on it.
Now the aysiri ’s head grows large, showing that he is very powerful, and Moie can see his spirit catcher more closely. He sees that there is a little spirit box attached to thislayqua, in which the sorcerer can see the spirits being captured. He shakes his head, and thinks that the wai’ichura sorcerers must be stupid to need such a thing, since Moie or any decent Runiya sorcerer would of course feel when the spirit he was aiming for was captured. But he has to admit it is clever and interesting for the aysiri to come right into his spirit box and show all those watching how he captured the spirits and demons in it. Moie thinks that it is because there are so many wai’ichuranan, no one can tell who is anaysiri, so he shows his power to those who watch the spirit box, in case they have troubling spirits they wish to capture, or if they have an enemy whose spirit they wish to steal and bind in the box, then they would know whom to consult. He is pleased with himself for having understood this; he understands so little of the dead people and their ways. Now there are demons dancing again, and loud unpleasant sounds, and he turns away.
“Do you understand?” Jenny asked again. “They’re going to make a tape of you. Like that private detective was taping Daniel and Lindsay?” She pointed to the TV screen and then mimed a video camera pointing at Moie. “They’re going to make a tape of you, so you can tell your story on TV. Maybe you’ll get famous and be on
