Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo Page 3

  After the meeting many of the participants came up to me and told me they would like to help with our project, and we would see that there would be a large majority in favor of a contract with us. Such meetings had always gone this way, they said, and in the reality of life things had never been changed by them. I wanted to retreat back down the river, out of the Wawaim region, and wait to see whether a contract was feasible and supported by a large majority. I felt somewhat encouraged and also took comfort in the simple fact that the Indian cook who had arrived from Santa Maria de Nieva was called Grimaldo. I find the sound of that name comforting somehow.

  An agreement with the family whose chakra is located outside the Aguarunas’ territory. We can establish a beachhead here, and as soon as we started clearing the underbrush people came from Wawaim and asked whether they could work for us. I took a machete and joined in for a while. Like a scythe when you are mowing, a machete has to be sharpened constantly. For that purpose we use a large, smooth rock on the riverbank, near where our luggage is strewn about: tools, chain saws, kitchen utensils. White vapor streams through the Pongo, floating upstream, and the sun shines on it from above and turns it into a delicate, blinding web. For a while a dragonfly hovered in the air in front of me, taking my measure. Now and then chickens flail around as they lie in the shade with their legs tied together. A liberating feeling to be working in the brush with a machete; limbs falling, lianas hacked through as if they were air. The lianas hesitate before they fall. Every machete has its own sound, tuned like an instrument in an orchestra; together they create a unique music. No one here wears a watch; I gave up mine long ago because the humidity plays havoc with the works. In the sand there are traces of gold. When I stamp my foot, nearly transparent spiders with skinny legs dart along the shore and continue their headlong flight out onto the river, skimming along the surface of the water.

  A machetero had hacked himself in the toe and was being treated. Young women came with their infants, which they carry in a piece of cloth slung diagonally across their chest. They shield the children’s faces with banana leaves. It seems almost deceptively calm, as if there had never been any uproar about our project.

  Saramiriza, 9 July 1979

  A parrot at my feet is devouring a candle, holding it with the toes of one foot. The people are rescuing their possessions from the huts, because the riverbank has eroded even more. In some places the embankment protrudes far over the water, and you can knock off large sections with your foot. A hen and her chicks came into the store, a wooden shack with a corrugated tin roof, where we were having some food fixed for us, and attacked the almost naked parrot, tearing one of its last arse feathers out and pecking several times at its sore bald head. Afterward the hen wiped her beak clean on the ground. We are all still shaken from the terrifying impression of the rapids, and are behaving with almost mathematical correctness toward each other. At the military outpost of Teniente Pinglo none of the soldiers knew how high the water level was. They merely pointed out that a few days ago a boat with eleven men on board had disappeared without a trace. But the men had drunk too much aguardiente, sugarcane brandy, beforehand, and had not sailed into the gorge until nightfall. After considerable reflection we concluded that it had to be doable, because the Río Marañón was very shallow; the night before the level had sunk by a good two meters, and in the morning we had found our boats so high and dry that we could hardly drag them into the water. What did not bode well was the Río Santiago. There must have been terrible downpours along its upper reaches to the north, and where the river joined the Marañón it was alarmingly high. Before the first rapids, which formed an isolated prelude to the Pongo de Manseriche, a blast of bitingly cold air struck us, coming from the narrow passage between the mountains; here it would still have been possible to turn back. With the cold came a distant rumbling from the chasm, and no one understood why we sailed on, but sail on we did. Suddenly we were facing a wall of raging water, into which we crashed like a projectile. We received a blow so powerful that the boat went spinning into the air, the propeller howling in the void. For a moment we hit the water vertically, and I saw like an apparition a second wall of water towering in front of us, which struck us even harder, twirling the boat into the air again, this time in the opposite direction. Before we entered the rapids I had already secured the anchor chain so firmly that it could not fly overboard and get tangled in the screw, and the gas tank was fastened in place with iron clamps, but suddenly the battery, as big as a truck’s, went hurtling through the air. Or rather, for a moment it hovered in the air on its straining cables directly in front of my face, and my head collided with it. At first it felt as though my nose were broken at the root, and I was bleeding from my mouth. Then came moments when there was nothing but waves all around and above us, but it was more the rumbling that I recall. Then I recall that we were through the rapids, drifting backward. On the steep jungle slopes to either side monkeys screeched.

  In Borja at the lower end of the Pongo they did not want to believe their eyes, because no one had survived the passage when the water level was sixteen feet above normal, and our level had been eighteen. The village pongeros clustered around us, not saying a word. One of them inspected my swollen face and said, “Su madre.” Then he let me have a swig of his aguardiente.

  The previous day we had sailed up the Marañón far past the confluence with the Cenepa. Several minor rapids. We registered with the authorities our intention of building a temporary camp. Returning only after nightfall; a white full moon shone enigmatically on the mist that had settled over the river. Several times we ran aground on hard gravel, but the screw did not break. We could proceed only very cautiously, soaked through, our hair dripping from the mist, and not until almost midnight did we reach our camp, where in the meantime a hut had been built, not much more than a sheltering roof. We all slept crowded together on the ground, freezing and fighting off the ants, which had a highway right by our heads. The situation seems completely free of tension. The Indios working here were very content, and Wawaim sent some extra men.

  There is nothing to buy in Saramiriza but warm beer. The plane that supposedly lands on the river three times a week has been out of commission for a long time, but is slated to be repaired somewhere along its route. We assume, however, that the Estación Cinco, where the pipeline begins, needs to be supplied, and accordingly there will be a plane sooner or later.

  Iquitos, 10 July 1979

  In the afternoon a plane showed up with young pilots, quite bored, who allowed the plane to be even more hopelessly overloaded at every stop. We left Saramiriza behind, doomed to certain death, crumbling with its eroded riverbank into the water. Since there is almost no one left at the pumping station, the village hardly receives supplies anymore. But the tavern keeper at the shabby bar in the wooden shack tells himself that sometime a new boom will occur, and he is waiting for it languidly, without lifting a finger. In a month at most the river will have claimed his shack, too.

  The city of Iquitos, although cut off from any connecting road, seems to take no notice of the ocean of jungle that holds it in a vise. Slow but visible progress on our work here. The members of our team are all over the place, in Lima, in Miami, laying in supplies—any sort of infrastructure is completely absent here. Uli’s acquired a still young tigrillo, an ocelot, and a large, splendidly colored parrot. The mosquitoes right now are particularly aggressive; even repellent does not keep them away.

  Iquitos, 11 July 1979

  During the night Henning came back from Lima, bringing mail from Munich; life in the outside world does not stop. The boat, the Huallaga, is gradually taking shape; there are twelve welders constantly at work, and on land we have a field kitchen, operated by soldiers, who are earning some pocket money during their off-duty hours. From Lima, or rather from the port of Callao, where the more capable workers come from in any case, four carpenters arrived, sturdy as oxen, who are now working on the boat along with the welders. On the very first
day they quit at noon because the food was not sufficient, and from today on they are going to have T-bone steaks every day, as big as wagon wheels. I went with Uli to the wood shop, an impenetrable chaos of trash, chickens, children, open fires, and pinups on the plank walls. Ducks and pigs wallow around in the dirt with the children. We ordered four wooden lifeboats for Fitzcarraldo’s ship. In a workshop next door huge tree trunks were being stripped of their bark by means of crowbars, then loaded by crane onto trucks. Not far from us the wood is being processed into thin layers for plywood. The road to us and out to the Río Nanay is collapsing into mud, and the depth of the potholes is impossible to judge because they fill up with muddy water. At night Uli fell into an unexpectedly deep hole on his motorcycle and hurt his head. I dabbed iodine on the wound.

  Every evening, at exactly the same minute, several hundred thousand golondrinas, a kind of swallow, come to roost for the night in the trees on the Plaza de Armas. They form black lines on the cornices of buildings. The entire square is filled with their excited fluttering and twittering. Arriving from all different directions, the swarms of birds meet in the air above the square, circling like tornados in dizzying spirals. Then, as if a whirlwind were sweeping through, they suddenly descend onto the square, darkening the sky. The young ladies put up umbrellas to shield themselves from the droppings.

  Since I took Walter and Gustavo to the airport for their flight to Lima, the house is almost empty. Henning is painting sketches in watercolors, I am listening to music, and someone is feeding fish to the ocelot. You could be seduced into thinking all was peaceful. Luciano, our Indian houseboy, tried to sing along with Schütz’s choral music as he swept the floor—“In the mountains a cry was heard, Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted, for they were no more.” Luciano is a reserved man who manages to make himself invisible, and I have become very fond of him. In the concourse at the airport a wounded hummingbird was fluttering along the polished floor, unable to get into the air. When it tired, the shoeshine boys nudged it with their toes, and it glided in crazed, whirring paths along the ground.

  For days a dead roach has been lying in our little shower stall, which is supplied with water from a gasoline drum on the roof. The roach is so enormous in its monstrosity that it is like something that stepped out of a horror movie. It lies there all spongy, belly-up, and is so disgusting that none of us has had the nerve to get rid of it.

  In Belén I was sitting in the marketplace talking with a boatman. A tarantula as big as a fist, all dark and hairy, emerged from the underside of the small table and scrabbled, as if in slow motion, past our beer bottles, disappearing under the table on the other side, where our legs were stretched out. We continued our conversation as though nothing had happened. On the filthy floor a woman was lying and snoring, drunk out of her wits. Her grubby skirt was hitched up, and you could see she was not wearing any underpants. I purchased a new net, woven of strong fibers, since I had hung mine on a post in the nonexistent village of Delfus and forgotten to take it with me, also a blanket, because it gets quite chilly at night, a large hammock, and two rubberized flour sacks as protection from the dampness in the jungle. Then I also found some sugar, which is not to be had anywhere, because whatever is left is being hoarded by the merchants. People stand in line to get it, but I found some and bought two kilos. Then alone in the house with the gangly young bookkeeper from the city, whose mere presence is death to any meaningful thoughts.

  Henning drew the sketch for the figurehead of Fitz’s ship, a naked Indian woman with a python curling around her and an alligator and a tortoise whose shell covers her pubic area.

  Iquitos, 13 July 1979

  The telex machine at the post office, the only means of communication with the outside world, was on the fritz again, and a repairman was taking it apart. No one can say if or when it will be working. At midday sultry, heavy, oppressive lassitude; it is hot, with not a cloud in the sky. With great effort I roused myself from my idle brooding and went out to the Río Nanay. Dust, heat. Empty sheets of paper staring at me. I returned to the house as the sun was setting. At every step mosquitoes flew up from the grass, glistening like gold dust in the evening sun. The chickens darted ahead of me toward their enclosure, followed by quacking ducks; the pig came galloping toward me, grunting, its legs stretched straight out, and it seemed as if these domestic animals were intent on getting a response from me. Only the tigrillo in its cage cautiously and dignifiedly approached the wire mesh, lowered its head a bit, and seemed ready to listen. A large squad of marines passed by on the street outside, in a sluggish jogtrot. They were holding their weapons at an angle across their chests, and were uttering deep, throaty chants in unison, answering their leader.

  In the morning I went to the museum, where you can see a row of extremely depressing aquariums, filled with disgusting putrid water that has killed off any living creatures. In only one of them, which has no rocks, no plants, only stale water that has not been changed in months, a few miserable fish have survived. Then there were a few badly stuffed birds, most of whose feathers had been torn out by previous visitors, as well as snakes, turtles, and a few plaster Indians—Yaguas and Ashininkas—hung with Indian everyday-use objects from the souvenir shop at the airport. The taxi I took today was completely stripped on the inside and had holes in the floorboards, like all the others here. I cannot recall taking a taxi whose doors shut properly. The only striking thing about today’s taxi was that it had no steering wheel; the driver steered it with a large monkey wrench, and did a good job. Even so, just the thought of what I have planned makes me dizzy.

  On the little table, whose legs were cut shorter for me today because it was too high, a dim kerosene lamp is burning. Outside the sun is rapidly drawing the night after it like a curtain at the end of a play. The daytime birds are falling silent. For today the farce is ended.

  Iquitos, 14 July 1979

  On the way into town in the jeep, Uli picked up a marine who said he wanted to visit someone in the hospital. When they got to the hospital, the soldier had forgotten what he had come for, but he did not want to get out, and told Uli he should wait there with him. He sounded confused. Only then did Uli realize that his passenger was dead drunk, and he did not know what to do with the man. Finally he gave the soldier a friendly shove. The man tumbled out of the jeep and fell asleep then and there on the side of the road, in front of the hospital entrance.

  This sultriness is deadly. Midday weighs us down. In his sleep Henning is caught up in some vague struggle, from which he will wake up exhausted. When he is asleep, he looks more grown-up and manly. They say you look like a child when you are sleeping, but here in the tropics, with the leaden atmosphere crushing everything, that is not true. The pigs are snuffling in the rotting garbage. Outside a small child is crying. An enormous insect, searching for a favorable angle of attack, is buzzing around; the feverish oppressiveness in my somnolent state makes it seem as large as a helicopter, and though I am watching it the whole time as if through billows of fog and know that it wants to destroy me, I cannot summon the energy to get up and murder it with a dull blow.

  Iquitos, 15 July 1979

  Last night Andreas came. I was already in bed at eight o’clock and was reading Gregorovius’s History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, but was still intending to go to the movies. Not until several of us felt like going did I pull myself together. It was an Argentinean film, with one very thin man and one very fat one, blondes with bursting breasts and naughty lingerie, which was hanging up to dry in the kitchen belonging to one of the women. Because of his girth, the fat man could not duck down very well, so he kept bumping into the dangling panties and bras, rolling his eyes in ecstasy. Andreas’s girl screeched with laughter. In one scene the fat man was also playing tennis.

  We found our night watchman sound asleep, slumped down against the gatepost. He was drunk out of his mind. His head was sunk on his chest, his cap had fallen off, and he had thrown up between his splay
ed legs. He did not hear me, even though I had to stop the rattling motorcycle right in front of him, and I passed without being checked. Later, when Andreas arrived and was arguing loudly with the cabdriver, the watchman must have woken up, for he appeared, staggering, and aimed his flashlight in a slalom at our faces, although there were lights on inside the house, and joined in the conversation. Our watchman has only one tooth left in his mouth. In the morning Uli found him sleeping in the shed, lying on the boards on top of the ocelot’s enclosure.

  On the way to the airport in the morning, we ran into Huerequeque, who in spite of his big belly and his age was running with a surprisingly springy step. On the way back to the Nanay, however, he stops for a beer with each of his innumerable compadres, and often takes days to reach his house.

  In Lima with Walter, Gustavo, and Janoud; the mood very glum. In the afternoon two men from some ministry or other showed up. They seemed to be quite reasonable at first. But in connection with our contract with the community of Wawaim they had worked out an action plan that was utterly pedantic, with Point A, Point B, Point C, and subparagraphs for each. The whole thing smacked of wretched manuals for provincial administration, and it is clear we must avoid working with the government bureaucracy if we do not want to see the project killed in short order.

  At night waiting at the airport with torpid patience. The plane was supposed to take off at midnight, but when three in the morning rolled around, the waiter in the deserted restaurant showed us the empty room next to the bar where, he told us, he would lie down on the floor to sleep when no one was there but he was supposed to stick around. He had noticed that we had poked around the whole upper story looking for an unlocked office where we could lie down, but everything was shut up tight. We slept on the floor for an hour.