The Last Place God Made

‘You used a phrase today,’ I said. ‘The Last Place God Made. Well, that’s the Rio das Mortes, Hannah. During the rainy season it never stops. At other times of the year it just rains all day. They’ve got flies up there that lay eggs in your eyeballs. Most parts of the Amazon would consider the pirhana bad enough because a shoal of them can reduce a man to a skeleton in three minutes flat, but on the Mortes, they have a microscopic item with spines that crawls up your backside given half a chance and it takes a knife to get him out again.’

‘You don’t need to tell me about the damn place,’ he said. ‘I’ve been there. Came in with three Hayleys and high hopes a year ago. All I’ve got left is the baby you arrived in today. Believe me, when my government contract’s up in three months you won’t see me for dust.’

‘What happened to the other two planes?’

‘Kaput. Lousy pilots.’

‘Then why do you need me?’

‘Because it takes two planes to keep my schedules going or to put it more exactly, I can’t quite do it with one. I managed to pick up an old biplane the other day from a planter down-river who’s selling up.’

‘What is it?’

‘A Bristol.’

He was in the act of filling my glass and I started so much that I spilled most of my wine across the table. ‘You mean a Brisfit? A Bristol fighter? Christ, they were flying those over twenty years ago on the Western Front.’

He nodded. ‘I should know. Oh, she’s old all right, but then she only has to hold together another three months. Do one or two of the easy river trips. If you’d wanted the job, you could have had it, but it doesn’t matter. There’s a guy in at the weekend who’s already been in touch with me. Some Portuguese who’s been flying for a mining company in Venezuela that went bust which means I’ll get him cheap.’

‘Well, that’s okay then,’ I said.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Go home – what else.’

‘What about money? Can you manage?’

‘Just about.’ I patted my wallet. ‘I won’t be taking home any pot of gold, but I’ll be back in one piece and that’s all that counts. There’s a hard time coming from what I read of events in Europe. They’re going to need men with my kind of flying experience, the way things are looking.’

‘The Nazis, you mean?’ he nodded. ‘You could be right. A bunch of bastards, from what I hear. You should meet my maintenance eingineer, Mannie Sterne. Now he’s a German. Was a professor of engineering at one of their universities or something. They arrested him because he was a Jew. Put him in some kind of hell-hole they call a concentration camp. He was lucky to get out with a whole skin. Came off a freighter right here in Manaus without a penny in his pocket.’

‘Which was when you met him?’

‘Best day’s work of my life. Where aero engines are concerned the guy’s the original genius.’ He re-filled my glass. ‘What kind of stuff were you flying with the R.A.F. then?’

‘Wapitis mainly. The Auxiliaries get the oldest aircraft.’

‘The stuff the regulars don’t want?’

‘That’s right. I’ve even flown Bristols. There were still one or two around on some stations. And then there was the Mark One Fury. I got about thirty hours in one of those just before I left.’

‘What’s that – a fighter?’ I nodded and he sighed and shook his head. ‘Christ, but I envy you, kid, going back to all that. I used to be Ace-of-Aces, did you know that? Knocked out four Fockers in one morning before I went down in flames. That was my last show. Captain Samuel B. Hannah, all of twenty-three and everything but the Congressional Medal of Honour.’

‘I thought that was Eddie Rickenbacker?’ I said. ‘Ace-of-Aces, I mean.’

‘I spent the last six months of the war in hospital,’ he answered.

Those blue eyes stared vacantly into the past, caught for a moment by some ancient hurt, and then he seemed to pull himself back to reality, gave me that crooked grin and raised his glass.

‘Happy landings.’

The wine had ceased to effect me or so it seemed for it went down in one single easy swallow. The final bottle was empty. He called for more, then lurched across to the sliding door and pulled it back.

The music was like a blow in the face, frenetic, exciting, filling the night, mingling with the laughter, voices singing. The girl in the red satin dress moved up the steps to join him and he pulled her into his arms and she kissed him passionately. I sat there feeling curiously detached as the waiter refilled my glass and Hannah, surfacing grinned across at me.

The girl who slid into the opposite seat was part Indian to judge by the eyes that slanted up above high cheekbones. The face itself was calm and remote, framed by dark, shoulder-length hair and she wore a plain white cotton dress which buttoned down the front.

She helped herself to an empty glass and I reached for the newly opened bottle of wine and filled it for her. Hannah came across, put a hand under her chin and tilted her face. She didn’t like that, I could tell by the way her eyes changed.

He said, ‘You’re new around here, aren’t you? What’s your name?’

‘Maria, senhor.’

‘Maria of the Angels, eh? I like that. You know me?’

‘Everyone along the river knows you, senhor.’

He patted her cheek. ‘Good girl. Senhor Mallory is a friend of mine – a good friend. You look after him. I’ll see you’re all right.’

‘I would have thought the senhor well able to look after himself.’

He laughed harshly. ‘You may be right, at that.’ He turned and went back to the girl in the satin dress and took her down to the dance floor.

Maria of the Angels toasted me without a word and sipped a little of her wine. I emptied my glass in return, stood up and went to the rail. My head seemed to swell like a balloon. I tried breathing deeply and leaned out over the rail, letting the rain blow against my face.

I hadn’t heard her move, but she was there behind me and when I turned, she put her hands lightly on my shoulders. ‘You would like to dance, senhor?’

I shook my head. ‘Too crowded in there.’

She turned without a word, crossed to the sliding door and closed it. The music was suddenly muted, yet plain enough a slow, sad samba with something of the night in it.

She came back to the rail and melted into me, one arm sliding behind my neck. Her body started to move against mine, easing me into the rhythm and I was lost, utterly and completely. A name like Maria and the face of a madonna to go with it perhaps, but the rest of her…

I wasn’t completely certain of the sequence of things after that. The plain truth was that I was so drunk, I didn’t really know what I was doing.

There was a point when I surfaced to find myself on some other part of the deck with her tight in my arms and then she was pulling away from me, telling me this was no good, that there were too many people.

She must have made the obvious suggestion – that we go to her place – because the next thing I recall is being led across that swaying catwalk to the pier.

The rain was falling harder than ever now and when we went up the steps to the pier, we ran into the full force of it. The thin cotton dress was soaked within seconds, clinging to her body, the nipples blossoming on her breasts, filling me with excitement.

I reached out for her, pulling all that ripeness into me, my hands fastening over the firm buttocks. The sap was rising with a vengeance. I kissed her pretty savagely and after a while she pushed me away and patted my face.

‘God, but you’re beautiful,’ I said and leaned back against a stack of packing cases.

She smiled, for the first and only time I could recall in our acquaintance as if truly delighted at the compliment, a lamp turning on inside her. Then she lifted her right knee into my crotch with all her force.

I was so drunk, that I was not immediately conscious of pain, only of being down on the boardwalk, knees up to my chest.