Gone to the Forest: A Novel (2 page)

For many years, the old man used the land as a cattle farm. The vast
acreage turned to pasture, the herd growing by the year. A small crop also harvested.
Today, he runs the farm as a fishing resort, for tourists who come from all parts of the
world. The old man is imperious with the guests in the same way he is imperious with his
servants. They do not seem to mind. They stay in the guest wing of the house and pay
good money for the privilege.

Tom manages the farm. He oversees the daily operation of the cattle
pasture, the fields, the river and the house. It is a
great deal for
one man to handle but Tom is good at his job. He is good with the fluctuations of the
land, which he is able to read correctly. Also the domestic affairs of the house and
kitchen. Tom is diligent and has an eye for detail, in which he often takes comfort.

Tom is the old man’s first and only son. This means that one day he
will inherit the farm. He will run the fishing resort and that will be the whole of his
life. Tom can see no other kind of future. It is the only horizon before him, but he has
no sense of its constriction. Tom has a passion for the land. It is the one thing he
knows intimately. He burrows into it, head down in the dirt, and cannot imagine a life
beyond it.

Therefore, Tom sits beneath his tree.
He presses his limbs into the soil,
as if they would grow roots. It is the last week of the season but it is still hot.
Normally, the tourists would have stayed. For the sun and the fishing, and with winter
so slow to come. They would have sat on the veranda in friendly clusters, ideal for
souvenir photographs. The women in tea dresses and the men in linen suits. Drinks served
on the veranda after a hot day on the river.

Instead, the veranda is empty and silent. The radio having been returned
to the library and the chair righted. Tom looks up when the door opens. The old man
steps out onto the veranda. He is still in his work clothes, having spent the afternoon
shooting old livestock. It is a task he always does himself. There are traces of
gunpowder on his boots, the smell of fresh blood. The old man stands on the veranda, six
feet tall in his riding boots, and does nothing to acknowledge his son.

After a long silence, he calls to him.

“Thomas.”

He is called Tom by everyone except his father, who calls him Thomas. It
causes a split inside Tom/Thomas. He thinks of himself as Tom but only recognizes
himself as Thomas. He does not know his own name. He realizes, has been aware for some
time, that this is no way for a man to be. It is not something he can discuss with his
father. He rises to his feet and goes to the old man.

“Yes, Father.”

His father watches him and is silent. He looks at Tom like he has never
seen him before in his life. Possibly he wishes it were so. All this land and they
cannot get away from each other, though that is not the way Tom sees it. The sun glows
orange in the sky. For a long time his father is silent. Then he speaks.

“The Wallaces dine with us tonight.”

“Yes.”

“Have you spoken to Celeste?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

The old man nods. On the farm they squander money on food. The youngest
animals are slaughtered for the table. Pods stripped from the stalk. Roots upended from
the soil. And then there are the tins of foie gras and caviar, the cases of wine that
are flown in from abroad. Everything for the kitchen. Anything that could be needed.

Tom turns to go. He is not more than five paces away when
something makes him stop. He is already turning when his father calls him again.
Tom waits, some distance from his father.

“What is Celeste serving?”

“Tonight?”

His father ignores the question. Tom is immediately uneasy. It is not a
normal query. The old man treats Tom like his chief of staff. He manages for the old
man, sometimes he allows himself to imagine he is indispensable to him. But he is never
able to get used to the idea. There is never the opportunity. The old man does not allow
for it.

For example, now. His father is a man of appetite. He trusts Celeste with
his stomach and that makes Celeste the most trusted member of the household. But now his
father is asking what the menu will be and this is not normal. Fortunately, Tom has
discussed the meal with Celeste. He clears his throat—a habit the old man
hates—and begins.

“Oysters. Gnocchi. Lamb. Salad. Then cheese and ice
cream.”

His father nods.

“The oysters?”

“They were brought in this morning.”

His father nods again.

“No fish?”

“No.”

“Why no fish?”

“I will ask Celeste.”

“Tell her to put out the last of the caviar. I have no need of it.
And tell Celeste to set the table for five.”

Mr. and Mrs. Wallace are occasional friends. They are
marginal people of no interest to his father. The old man has made that abundantly
clear. He does not say who the fifth guest is. Tom waits. The old man looks up.

“Do you have something else to tell me?”

He thinks of the radio on the veranda. Who left it there? Tom shakes his
head. No. Nothing. His father nods and Tom goes. He walks to the kitchen to look for
Celeste. This time she is there, stuffing pastry for the farmhands. She palms the meat
into the pastry and slaps the food down on the tray. He stares at the meat. It is pink
and red and white. Raw and unformed. Celeste looks up.

“He wants to know if there is fish for tonight.”

She shakes her head.

“Ah no.”

“He would like fish.”

She sighs and wipes her hands on a tea towel.

“Why?”

He ignores the question.

“Also he says to serve caviar to start, and to set the table for
five.”

She shakes her head.
Tcha tcha tcha,
her tongue
in her mouth. She throws down the tea towel. Neither Tom nor Celeste wants to serve fish
at supper. But both know there will now be fish alongside the lamb, an additional course
in an already long meal. Celeste will dress the fish in saffron and butter. Jose will
pass around the table with the platter resting on his arm, lifting slabs of fish to the
plates. He will
use the silver serving spoon to pool sauce on top.
Tom clears his throat.

“Did you take the radio out to the veranda?”

She stares at him blankly.

“What do you mean?”

Tom nods, then leaves the kitchen and walks outside. The air is still. He
stands outside the house.

Something is wrong. The tourist season has been a failure. It was supposed
to refill the coffers. It was meant to provide security. But the season brought them
nothing and now the money is running out. Everybody knows the money is running out. It
is no longer secret, it can be seen everywhere on the farm.

But there will be caviar, and guests! He does not understand his father.
He goes up the steps and into the house. He walks along the veranda, along the perimeter
of the house. Everything is as it should be. He enters the dining room. The table has
not been set. Five, the old man said to lay the table for five. Tom stands for a long
moment. He looks at the heavy oak table and the chairs. He stares at the marble topped
credenza.

T
OM RETURNS TO
the row of trees. He sits
in idleness. It is the tempo of this place. It overtakes him, he has no resistance to
it. It is true Tom is a good manager, but that is almost despite himself, fundamentally
he is lazy. His father is different. His mother was different. His mother was like his
father, she was
not from this place. She was nervous, set to a tempo
that was out of pace with the draw of the land.

It could not be changed. His mother came ten years after his father and
left ten years ago, dead from exhaustion. They shipped her body back across the sea in a
bare pine box at the request of her family. The life had been too much for her. His
father said that the moment she set foot on the land.
Nobody was surprised when she
died. It took her twenty years to do it and they were surprised it took her so long. She
had been dying the whole time. She was half dead when she gave birth to him and after
that died by increments.

Tom remembered her sometimes. Early on she had been diagnosed consumptive.
That was a disease from long ago, an illness that no longer existed, but it still
managed to kill her. She ate up her body. In the last years of her life she burned
through her organs and limbs, she combusted inside her skin. Like she was in a hurry and
couldn’t wait any more. Sometimes he could smell the scent of her decay, lifting
high off her body.

That was his mother. She gave birth to him and he slithered from between
her legs and out into the land and dust. From the start he was of this place. He was
country born and at home with the bramble. For the first year Celeste nursed him at her
tit. She held him while he scratched and suckled. Celeste had a son exactly Tom’s
age, Jose. She raised the two boys together. Jose’s father being nowhere in sight.
However, the two boys did not grow up like brothers.

Jose was healthy, indefatigable, stubborn even as an infant.
Tom, on the other hand, was not a strong child. He had a skin
condition that weakened his body and stunted his growth. Dry scales grew at his elbows
and knees. Left alone, Tom would peel long strips of skin from his body. When Celeste
discovered the raw lengths she would take him to the river and press handfuls of mud
against his wounds. Covered in river sludge, he was left out in the sun to heal.

Between themselves, the natives called him Lizard Boy. His father blamed
his mother for the boy’s condition but Tom always believed the weakness to be his
own. In the same way the land was seated deep inside him: it was a congenital disorder
of sorts. He also knew the weakness meant that he would not die like his mother. It was
self-preserving. He retreated into his weakness and lay down inside it. It was a thing
of comfort in a life that was not, on the whole, filled with comfort.

As a child he sought solace in lies, and has been a liar ever since. He is
not a good liar but he is a persistent one. The first time he lied over a plate. Tom had
been sent to the neighboring farm for the afternoon. The farmer’s son had a set of
plastic dishes. The colors were cheap and bright and when Tom pressed his thumbnail into
the plastic it left a crescent-shaped mark. Tom wanted one of the plates. He slipped it
into his pocket. Then he got up quickly and left without saying goodbye.

His father was waiting for him at the steps of the house, like he had seen
his guilt from a distance. He stopped Tom and lifted him from the ground, his fingers
digging into Tom’s armpits in a way that was not friendly. Tom kicked to
be lowered and the plate fell to the floor. The plastic sounded
ugly and hollow against the tile. Stupidly, he tried to conceal the plate with the sole
of his boot.

His father did not look surprised.

“Where is that from?”

“The boy gave it to me.”

“He gave it to you?”

“A gift.”

“The boy gave you a gift.”

“Yes.”

“You are lying.”

He was whipped by a servant. His father did not bother to listen. To the
whizz of the cane, to his miserable shrieks and howls. Nonetheless, Tom continued to
lie. His father asked him who broke the vase in the hall. Who left the gate open and set
loose the cattle. It was like the sight of his father’s face made the lie that
followed inevitable.

Even then, all Tom wanted was the old man’s approval. Unfortunately,
he was never able to act in a manner to win it. Tom knew he would not be punished for
the act itself, only for the lie. What his father did not understand was the lying. He
needed, on the whole, to dominate what he did not understand. Tom told one lie and then
another. He was whipped by the servants again.

T
OM WAS NOT
a good liar, but Tom’s
mother had been good enough to make a career of it. She lied to her husband for
the full course of her affair with a neighboring farmer. She used
Tom as an excuse. She said he was uncomfortable with himself and other children. He
needed to be socialized—that was the fashionable term she applied to her
son’s unfashionable condition. Every other day she walked him three miles to the
neighboring estate. She left him in the yard with the other children and disappeared
inside.

The children played in the dirt and listened to the shrieks that rang out
across the farmstead. Which sometimes sounded like an animal dying, painfully. She came
out of the farmhouse with her skin a hectic red and one hand pressed against her head.
Tom watched as she smoothed her hair into place. Calmed the surface of her dress. Then
they walked the three miles home, his hand sticky in hers. He knew but did not mind the
fact that she was lying. He thought the secret would bring them closer.

There were other flaws in his character, beyond dishonesty and
misapprehension, which together conspired to make the son incomprehensible to the
father. For example, Tom was a coward. He was easily frightened and physically
uncertain. He was not very old when the physical fear became a moral one. It was
therefore natural that his father held him in contempt: the old man does not recognize
fear as a valid emotion.

It did not help that Tom was especially afraid of the dorado. To him they
were a terrifying fish. The dorado grew four feet long in the river, larger than a child
and much larger than the child Tom had been. The male fish bore square blocked foreheads
and male and female alike their bodies turned gray as
they died out
of water. But while alive the fish were fearless and had tremendous appetite.

Tom’s father loved the dorado.
He is this fish: his father is the
dorado. Once, when Tom was a boy, he took him out on the river. He might have been
experimenting with the idea of being a father because he was unusually patient. He
taught Tom to cast out to the water. He showed him how to reel in. He said very little
but he told him that the dorado were a vicious fish that ate into a man’s
strength.