A New History of Torments by Ghose Zulfikar

Author:Ghose, Zulfikar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Peach Publishing
Published: 2013-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

They had a large-scale map of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and the eastern slopes of the Andes across their laps and pored over it as they flew to Manaus where their journey into the interior would really begin. They circled with a green felt- tipped pen the names of the villages and the abandoned missionary outposts that appeared in minute letters on the map and pinpointed the last-named place along the great river up to where they could find reliable transportation. It would be comparatively easy until they reached it; and at least on the map it was reassuring to see that from there to the area where they hoped to discover the lost land was really no more than three hundred kilometers, perhaps five hundred, allowing for the fact that they could not hope for a direct route in that terrain. It seemed to them almost an accomplished fact that within three or four weeks their names would be as well known as those of Fawcett, Rondon, Humboldt, Orellana, and Aguirre.

When they were waiting to collect their luggage in the crowded room at the airport, a boy of about twelve or thirteen came up to Bob and said, “Mister, you want hotel? I take you. Real cheap.”

“Oh, go away, stop being a pest!” Bob said to him.

“You wanta go river trip?” the boy persisted.

“I said, no!”

The boy turned to Jason and as if to suggest that the Englishman was being unreasonable, said, “Good cheap hotel. I take you.”

Planes from Europe and the United States had landed just before theirs and the wait for their luggage continued for twenty minutes.

“Many tourists come in jumbo,” the boy said, coming back to Bob and Jason. “All big hotels booked. Amazonas, Ipanema Palace, Lider, all booked. Many tourists. I do you favor. Take you to good hotel. Real cheap.”

“We’ll see,” Jason said to him.

When they had collected their luggage and found a taxi, the driver confirmed what the boy had said. The major hotels were all booked. The boy had followed them out and was standing near the taxi.

“We might as well take his offer,” Jason said to Bob. “It’s only for a couple of nights.”

“It probably stinks,” Bob said, with an expression of disgust.

They ended up by going to it. The taxi was an old Chevrolet, which creaked, bounced, and swayed although it did not go faster than twenty-five kilometers an hour.

“It’s like being on a bloody mule,” Bob remarked.

“We’re in the interior now, Bob,” Jason said. “And we’re not tourists, we have our work cut out for us.”

The hotel was near the market, two blocks away from the river. A pretty, young dark-brown woman with her hair in curlers showed them to their room. It was small with two low, narrow beds.

“No bathroom!” Bob said.

There was a communal toilet down the hall and next to it a small cubicle with a shower, and between these two facilities a small rusted washbasin stuck to the wall in the corridor.

“Stinko is the word,” Bob remarked when he had inspected the conveniences.

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