“Surely a man would manage better,” he said. “I know your husband doesn’t like to talk, but most men will listen to a man better. Maybe I should send someone else.”
“Listen,” I told him, hoping to win him back, “I’ve heard they run with a fat cock of a dog. Have you heard that? People have seen the vampire dogs drop sheep hearts at this dog’s feet. He tossed the heart up like it was a ball, snapped it up.”
The man smacked his lips. I could hear it over the phone. “I’ve got a place for him, if you catch him as well.”
“If you pay us, we’ll get him. There are no bonus dogs.”
“Check with your husband on that.”
I thought of the slimy black hole he’d dug.
“They say that if you take a piece of him, good things will come your way. People don’t like to talk about him. He’s taboo.”
“They just don’t want anyone else taking a piece of him.”
We moved to a new hotel set amongst the rainforest. The walls were dark green in patches, the smell of mold strong, but it was pretty with birdsong and close to the waterfalls which meant we could make an early start.
We ate in their open air restaurant, fried fish, more coconut milk, Greek meatballs. Gina didn’t like mosquito repellent, thinking it clogged her pores with chemicals, so she was eaten alive by them.
“Have you called Joe?” she asked me over banana custard.
“Have you?” We smiled at each other; wife and sister ignoring him, back home and alone.
“We should call him. Does he know what we’re doing?”
“I told him, but you know how he is.” She was a good sister, visiting him weekly, reading to him, taking him treats he chewed but didn’t seem to enjoy.
We drank too much Fijian beer and we danced around the snooker table, using the cues as microphones. No one seemed bothered, least of all the waiters.
The next morning, we called a cab to drop us at the top of the waterfall. You couldn’t drive down any further. In the car park, souvenir sellers sat listlessly, their day’s takings a few coins that jangled in their pockets. Their faces marked with lines, boils on their shins, they leaned back and stared as we gathered our things together.
“I have shells,” one boy said.
“No turtles,” Gina said, flipping her head at him to show how disgusting that trade was to her.
“Not turtles. Beetles. The size of a turtle.”
He held up the shell to her. There was a smell about it, almost like an office smell; cleaning fluids, correcting fluids, coffee brewed too long. The shell was metallic gray and marbled with black lines. Claws out the side, small, odd, clutching snipers. I had seen, had eaten, prawns with claws like this. Bluish and fleshy, I felt like I was eating a sea monster.
“From the third waterfall,” the seller said. “All the other creatures moved up when the dogs moved into Nine Waterfall.”
I’m in the right place, I thought. “So there are dogs in the waterfall?”
“Vampire dogs. They only come out for food. They live way down.”
An older vendor hissed at him. “Don’t scare the nice ladies. They don’t believe in vampire dogs.”
“You’d be surprised what I believe in,” Gina said. She touched one finger to the man’s throat. “I believe that you have a secret not even your wife knows. If she learns of it, she will take your children away.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She gave the boy money for one of the shells and opened her large bag to place it inside.
He said, “You watch out for yellow dog. If you sacrifice a part of him you”ll never be hungry again. But if you fail you will die on the spot and no one will know you ever lived. If you take the right bit you will never be lonely again.”
I didn’t know that I wanted a companion for life.
As we walked, I said, “How did you know he had a secret?”
“All men have secrets.”
The first waterfall was overhung by flowering trees. It was a very popular picnic site. Although it took 20 minutes to reach, Indian women were there with huge pots and pans, cooking roti and warming dhal while the men and children swam. I trailed my hand in the water; very cool, not the pleasant body-temperature water of the islands, but a refreshing briskness.
Birdsong here was high and pretty. More birds than I’d seen elsewhere. Broadbills, honey-eaters, crimson and masked parrots, and velvet doves. Safe here, perhaps. The ground was soft and writhing with worms. The children collected them for bait, although the fish were sparse. Down below, the children told us, were fish big enough to feed a family of ten for a week. They liked human bait, so men would dangle their toes in. I guessed they were teasing us about this.
The path to the second waterfall was well-trodden. The bridge had been built with good, treated timber and seemed sturdy.
The waterfall fell quietly here. It was a gentler place. Only the fisherman sat by the water’s edge; children and women not welcome. The fish were so thick in the water they could barely move. The fishermen didn’t bother with lines; they reached in and grabbed what they wanted.
Gina breathed heavily.
“Do you want to slow down a bit? I don’t think we should dawdle, but we can slow down,” I said.
“It’s not that. It’s the fish. I don’t usually get anything from fish, but I guess there’s so many of them. I’m finding it hard to breathe.”
The men stood up to let us past.
“There are a lot of fish,” I said. Sometimes the obvious is the only thing to say. “Where do they come from?” I asked one of the men. “There are so few up there.” I pointed up to the first waterfall.
“They come from underground. The center of the earth. They are already cooked when we catch them, from the heat inside.”
He cut one open to demonstrate and it was true; inside was white, fluffy, warm flesh. He gestured it at me and I took a piece. Gina refused. The meat was delicate and sweet and I knew I would seek without finding it wherever else I went in the world.
“American?” the man said.
“New Zealand,” Gina lied.
“Ah, Kiwi!” he said. “Sister!” They liked the New Zealanders better than Australians and Americans because of closer distance, and because they shared a migratory path. Gina could put on any accent; it was like she absorbed the vowel sounds.
I could have stayed at the second waterfall but we had a job to do, and Gina found the place claustrophobic.
“It’s only going to get worse,” I said. “The trees will close in on us and the sky will vanish.”
She grunted. Sometimes, I think, she found me very stupid and shallow. She liked me better than almost anyelse did, but sometimes even she rolled her eyes at me.
The third waterfall was small. There was a thick buzz of insects over it. I hoped not mosquitoes; I’d had dengue fever once before and did not want hemorrhagic fever. I stopped to slather repellent on, strong stuff which repelled people as well.
The ground was covered with small, green shelled cockroaches. They were not bothered by us and I could ignore them. The ones on the tree trunks, though; at first I thought they were bark, but then one moved. It was as big as my head and I couldn’t tell how many legs. It had a jaw which seemed to click and a tail like a scorpion which it kept coiled.
“I wouldn’t touch one,” Gina said.
“Really? Is that a vision you had?”
“No, they just look nasty,” and we shared a small laugh. We often shared moments like that, even at Joe’s bedside.
Gina stumbled on a tree root the size of a man’s thigh.
“You need to keep your eyes down,” I said. “Downcast. Modest. Can you do that?”
“Can you?”