Forest of the Pygmies (26 page)

Angie Ninderera decided to try to rid herself of her fear of crocodiles by negotiating. She and Nadia peered over the wood-and-vine fence around the well and offered a deal to the monstrous reptiles. Nadia translated to the best of her ability, though her familiarity with saurian tongues was minimal. Angie explained to them that she could shoot and kill them if she wished. Instead, she would lead them to the river where they would be set free. In exchange, she demanded respect for her life. Nadia wasn't sure the creatures had understood—or that they would keep
their word or be able to convey the terms of the deal to all the rest of Africa's crocodiles. She chose, however, to tell Angie that from that moment forward she had nothing to fear. She would not die in those big jaws, and with a little luck she would get her wish to die in a plane accident, she assured her.

Kosongo's wives, now happy widows, wanted to give their gold ornaments to Angie, but Brother Fernando intervened. He spread a blanket on the ground and asked the women to put their jewels in it. Then he tied up the four corners and dragged the bundle to Queen Nana-Asante.

“This gold and a pair of elephant tusks is all the wealth we have here in Ngoubé. You will know how to use it,” he explained.

“What Kosongo gave me is mine!” Angie protested, clutching her bracelets.

Brother Fernando demolished her with one of his apocalyptic glances, and held out his hands. Grumbling, Angie removed the bracelets and handed over the ones she already wore. He made her promise in addition that she would leave him the radio in her plane, so they could communicate, and that she would make a flight every two weeks, at her expense, to supply the village with essentials. In the beginning she would have to drop them from the air, until they could clear a bit of jungle for a landing field. Given the terrain, that would not be easy.

Nana-Asante agreed that Brother Fernando could stay in Ngoubé and set up his mission and his school, as long as they agreed on one premise. Just as people had to learn to live in peace, so, too, the gods. There was no reason why different gods and spirits could not share space in the human heart.

A
LEXANDER
C
OLD CAME TO THE
door of his grandmother's apartment in New York carrying a bottle of vodka for her and a bouquet of tulips for Nadia. She had told him that at her graduation she was not going to wear flowers on her wrist or bodice, like all the other girls. She thought corsages were tacky. A light breeze relieved the May heat slightly, but even so, the tulips were fainting. Alex thought he would never get used to the climate of this city, and was happy he didn't have to. He was attending university in Berkeley and, if his plans worked out, he would get his medical degree in California. Nadia accused him of being a little too comfortable. “I don't know how you're going to practice medicine in the poorest corners of the earth if you don't learn to get along without your mother's spaghetti and your surfboard,” she teased him. Alexander had spent months convincing her of the advantages of having her study at his university, and finally had succeeded. In September she would be in California, and he wouldn't have to cross the continent to see her.

Nadia opened the door, and Alexander just stood there with red ears and the drooping tulips, not knowing what to say. They hadn't seen each other in six months, and the young woman who appeared in the doorway was a stranger. For a microsecond he wondered if he was at the wrong door, but his doubts dissipated when Borobá leaped on him to greet him with effusive hugs and nips. He heard his grandmother calling from the back of the apartment.

“It's me, Kate,” he replied, still a little disoriented.

Then Nadia smiled, and she was again the girl of old, the girl he knew and loved, wild and golden. They embraced, the tulips dropped to the floor, and he put one arm around her waist and lifted her up with a shout of joy as with the other hand he struggled to free himself from the monkey's grip. Kate Cold showed up at that moment, dragging her feet. She seized the bottle of vodka that he was about to drop and kicked the door shut.

“Have you seen how awful Nadia looks? You'd think she was the girlfriend of some mafioso,” said Kate.

Alexander burst out laughing. “Tell us what you really think, Grandma.”

“Do
not
call me that! She bought that dress behind my back. Without asking me!” she exclaimed.

“I didn't know you were interested in fashion, Kate,” commented Alexander, eyeing the shapeless shorts and parrot design T-shirt that were his grandmother's uniform.

Nadia was wearing high heels and a short, tightly fitting, strapless dress of black satin. It should be said in her favor that she did not appear to be in the least affected by Kate's opinion. She did a slow turn to show off the dress to Alexander. She looked very different from the girl he remembered, the one in khaki shorts, with feathers in her hair. He would have to get used to the change, he thought, though he hoped it
wasn't permanent. He liked the old Eagle a lot. He didn't know how to behave before this new version of his friend.

“You'll have to go through the torture of going to the graduation with that scarecrow, Alexander,” said his grandmother, waving toward Nadia. “Come in here; I want to show you something.”

She led the two young people to the tiny, dusty office where she wrote. As always, it was crammed with books and documents. The walls were papered with photographs she'd taken in recent years. Alexander recognized the Indians of the Amazon posing for the Diamond Foundation; Dil Bahadur, Pema, and their baby in the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon; Brother Fernando at his mission in Ngoubé; Angie Ninderera on an elephant with Michael Mushaha; and many others. Kate had framed a 2002 cover of
International Geographic
that had won an important prize. The photograph, taken by Joel in a market in Africa, showed him with Nadia and Borobá, confronting an irate ostrich.

“Look, Alex. Here are your three published books,” Kate said. “When I read your notes, I realized that you will never be a writer; you don't have an eye for details. That may not be a drawback in the practice of medicine—the world is full of incompetent doctors—but in literature it's deadly,” Kate assured him.

“I don't have the eye, and I don't have the patience, Kate. That's why I gave you my notes. I knew you could write the books better than I could.”

“I can do almost everything better than you, Alexander.” She laughed, ruffling his hair.

Nadia and Alexander looked through the books, feeling a strange sadness because they contained everything that had happened to them during three marvelous years of travel and adventure. In the future they might never experience anything comparable to what they'd already lived, nothing as intense or as magical. At least it was a consolation to know that they, their stories, and the lessons they had learned would live on in those pages. Thanks to what Alex's grandmother had written, they would never be forgotten. The memoirs of Eagle and Jaguar were there in
City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon
, and
Forest of the Pygmies.

About the author

Isabel Allende on Destiny, Personal Tragedy, and Writing

About the book

A Conversation with Isabel Allende

Read on

Have You Read? More by Isabel Allende

About the author

Isabel Allende on Destiny, Personal Tragedy, and Writing

© William Gordon

“Life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.” Can you describe that noise, what it is, and what it means to you?

We have very busy lives—or we make them very busy. There is noise and activity everywhere. Few people know how to be still and find a quiet place inside themselves. From that place of silence and stillness the creative forces emerge. There we find faith, hope, strength, and wisdom. Since childhood, however, we are taught to do things. Our heads are full of noise. Silence and solitude scare most of us.

You often talk and write about destiny. What is destiny for you?

We are born with a set of cards and we have the freedom to play them the best we can, but we cannot change them. I was born female in the forties into a conservative Catholic family in Chile. I was born healthy. I had my shots as a child. I received love and a proper education. All that determines who I am. The really important events in my life happened in spite of me. I had no control over them: the fact that my father left the family when I was three; the 1973 military coup in Chile that forced me into exile; meeting my husband Willie; the success of my books; the death of my daughter; and so forth. That is destiny.

Just before your daughter, Paula, went into a coma, she said, “I look everywhere for God but can't find him.” Do you, can you, have faith in God after such a tragedy?

Faith has nothing to do with being happy or not. Faith is a gift. Some people receive it and some don't. I imagine that a tragedy like losing a child is more bearable if you believe in God because you can imagine that your child is in heaven.

Do you think that fiction has a moral purpose? Or can it simply be entertainment?

It can be just entertainment, but when fiction makes you think, it is much more exciting. However, beware of authors who pound
their “moral messages” into you.

You have written letters all your life, most notably a daily letter to your mother. You've also worked as a journalist. Which form or experience of writing helped you most when you started writing books?

The training of writing daily is very useful. As a journalist I learned to research, to be disciplined, to meet deadlines, to be precise and direct, and to keep in mind the reader and try to grab his or her attention from the very beginning.

“The really important events in my life happened in spite of me. I had no control over them.”

Does writing each book change you?

Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul. Why do I write only about certain themes and certain characters? Because they are part of my life, part of myself, they are aspects of me that I need to explore and understand.

You loved science fiction as an adolescent. Do you think it inspired your love of creating other worlds?

Science fiction reinforced the idea—planted by my grandmother—that the universe is very strange and complex. Everything is possible and we know very little. My mind and my heart are open to the mystery.

You always start writing on January 8th, but when do you finish? How long does it take you to write your books?

I write approximately a book per year, but it takes me several years to research a theme. It takes me three or four months to write the first draft, then I have to correct and edit. I write in Spanish, so I also have to work closely with my English translator, Margaret Sayers Peden. And then I have to spend time on book tours, interviews, traveling, et cetera.

Do you have a favorite among your books?

I don't read my own books. As soon as I finish one I am already thinking of the next. I can hardly remember each book. I don't have a favorite, but I am grateful to my first novel,
The House of the Spirits
, which paved the way for all the others, and to
Paula
, because it saved me from depression.

You grew up in Chile but now live in the United States. Which country has had the most influence on your writing and why?

It is very easy for me to write about Chile. I don't have to think about it. The stories just flow. My roots are in Chile and most of my books have a Latin American flavor. However, I have lived in the United States for many years, I read mainly English fiction, I live in English, and certainly that influences my writing.