Journey to the River Sea

‘Come,’ he said, making signs that she was to be quiet.

Maia followed him. She was puzzled – during the day the Indians always ignored her; it was only at night that they showed her their true selves. Tapi and old Lila were standing at the door of their hut, smiling, but they said nothing, and Maia followed Furo to the creek she had found on the day she tried to go to Manaus.

By the wooden bridge, a shabby dugout was moored. It was the one Furo used to go fishing in the evening.

‘In,’ he said, holding out a hand.

She hesitated only for a moment, then obeyed him.

They travelled down a number of twisting rivers. Sometimes Maia thought she had been there before; sometimes everything looked different. Whenever she tried to question Furo he shook his head, but he went on looking pleased. No one could have been more different from the surly boatman who had brought them to the Carters in the first place.

They paddled down a side stream, and now Maia did feel uneasy because Furo took out a square piece of cloth, put it over his own eyes to show her what she was to do, then over Maia’s.

‘Put on,’ he said, and when she shook her head, repeated it, leaning forward to tie the blindfold over her eyes.

She began to be frightened. The boat eased slowly forward; she heard rushes making a dry sound against the side of the canoe, felt branches brushing her arm. Then the boat surged forward, and Furo leant forward to unbind her eyes.

They were in a still lagoon of clear, blue water, shielded from the outside by a ring of great trees. The only entrance, the passage through the rushes, seemed to have closed behind them. They might have been alone in the world.

But it was not the secrecy of the lake that held Maia spellbound, it was its beauty. The sheltering trees leaned over the water; there was a bank of golden sand on which a turtle slept, untroubled by the boat. Clumps of yellow and pink lotus flowers swayed in the water, their buds open to the sun. Humming birds clustered in an ever-changing whirl of colour round a feeding bottle nailed to a branch...

On the far side of the lagoon, in the shade of two big cottonwoods, was a neatly built wooden hut and in front of it, a narrow wooden jetty built out over the lake. A small launch with a raked smoke stack and the letters Arabella painted on the side, rode at anchor near by, and made fast alongside was a canoe which Maia recognized.

But she did not at first recognize the boy who stood outside the hut, quietly waiting. He seemed to be the Indian boy who had taken her to Manaus, but his jet-black hair had gone, and so had the headband and the red paint. With his own fine, brown hair, he looked like any European boy who has lived a long time in the sun.

Except that he didn’t. He looked like no boy Maia had ever seen, standing so still, not waving or shouting instructions, just being there. And the dog who stood beside him was unlike other dogs also. A thin dog, the colour of dark sand, he knew when to bark and when to be silent, and as the punt drew up alongside the wooden platform, he permitted himself only a half wave of his tail.

The boy stretched out his hand and Maia jumped out.

‘I’ve decided to trust you,’ he said in English.

She had known really before he spoke. Now she was sure.

Maia looked into his eyes. ‘You can do that,’ she said seriously. ‘I wouldn’t betray you to the crows – not for the world.’

‘The crows... yes, that’s the right name for them. So you know who I am?’

‘You’re Bernard Taverner’s son. The boy who Professor Glastonberry said didn’t exist. But I don’t know your first name.’

‘It’s Finn. And you’re Maia, and you sing beautifully but you don’t like beetroot and sums.’

Maia stared at him. ‘How do you know all that?’

‘The Indians tell me. They see everything. Old Lila used to be my nurse when I was a baby. I go and talk to them sometimes – at least I used to before the crows came – but only at night. The Carters have never seen me and they never will.’

His voice, when he spoke of the Carters, was suddenly full of hatred.

‘It was you then,’ said Maia. ‘It was you who whistled Blow the Wind Southerly the first night I came! It was such a comfort!’

Finn turned and said a few quick words to Furo in his own language. ‘He’ll fetch you in a couple of hours,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll show you everything. And then I’ll tell you why I sent for you.’ He grinned and pulled himself up. ‘I mean, why I wanted you to come.’

When Furo disappeared through the narrow channel of rushes the silence seemed overwhelming – yet she heard the noise of the water lapping the Arabella, the whirr of the humming birds’ wings, the dog yawning. It was as though sounds had been freshly invented in this secret place.

Finn led her to the door of the hut. ‘My father built it and we lived here whenever we weren’t away on collecting trips. I still can’t believe he isn’t coming back, though it’s four months since he was drowned.’