Novel Excerpt: Land Without Evil
by Matthew Pallamary

Author's Introduction
This scene takes place soon after the confrontation Avá-Tapé witnesses between Avá-Nembiara, his real father the shaman, and Father Antonio of the Jesuits. In this passage Avá-Tapé is sick with a fever and doesn't know it. At the end, where he loses consciousness, is the point where he has his first visions of Tupa.

I wrote this scene—of the ants in the church and the altar— after finding it as an actual event recorded from the writings of the Jesuits.

Avá-Tapé awoke blinking at the brightness. The shaft of sunlight coming through the tiny window in the adobe wall hurt his eyes. He rubbed them, sat up, and stared at the softer patch of yellow that shone on a small square of the hard dirt floor. Even that hurt. He closed his eyes and felt a trickle of sweat run down his bare back, soaking into his loincloth at his waist. His headband was wet and his hair hung damp over his ears. His skin felt warm.

Propping himself up on one hand, he looked around and saw that his mother and sister had let him sleep. Without them the house looked vacant. A few skins on the floor, two pots by the hearth, a couple of scooped-out pumpkins they used for mugs, and a small chest for clothes. Nothing more.

Reduction. Another name for the mission. That’s what had happened to his life and his world. The Jesuits taught him the meaning of the word. He remembered the way the voice of Tupá boomed through his father, adding to its meaning to it. "The Earth is old; our tribe is no longer growing. Our world is bloated with death and weary with decay."

Since the white men appeared, his people had been reduced by half. His father said that death had come to so many because of the spirits of sicknesses that the white men had brought to them.

Avá-Tapé rose from his jaguar skin and looked out the front door to see more proof that Tupá's words were true. A line of low, white-washed houses with sagging walls lined the dusty street with roofs supported by wooden posts forming a continuous veranda. Some houses had small windows shut with wooden grates. The rest had a single opening for a door. Their insides were as sparsely furnished as the one he shared with his mother and sister.

The air felt thick and hard to breathe. Though his skin felt hot, Avá-Tapé could feel the moisture. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He widened his stance, closed his eyes, and waited for the spell to pass.

After last night's spectacle he didn't know what to do. His mother and sister had already gone to work in the fields. He had lived through sixteen harvests and was too old to work with the women and children. He had to decide how best to benefit his people.

His father, Avá-Nembiará, stayed in the forest where he could purify himself through fasting and dancing. Away from the white men. He only came to the mission to heal the sick and visit his family. Avá-Tapé’s mother, Kuñá-Ywy Verá, didn’t like being apart from her husband, but she had resigned herself for now.

The rest of the people clung to life in the mission, torn between their devotion to their Lord Jesus and the mystical ways of the paí. None had believed that the end of the world was upon them until hearing the spirit of Tupá speak through his father. Avá-Tapé suspected that more of them, particularly the older ones, would soon abandon the mission and move back to the forest, closer to Avá-Nembiará.

He stepped out into the hot sun and headed toward the forest on the other side of the mission. Except for a few small children and older women, the streets looked empty. More of the now familiar anthills had appeared. Another house tottered on the edge of collapse from the water-filled burrows left by ants. Avá-Nembiará said that the nature spirits had come to take back the land stolen from the forest.

Passing rows of houses, Avá-Tapé peered in at their darkened interiors. He saw different versions of the same scant furnishings and various degrees of dilapidation.

He turned a corner, stumbled, and wiped sweat from his brow. His skin felt hot, his throat dry. He needed water. He looked up at the sun. Well past morning. Why had he slept so late? He waved away a large flying black ant that buzzed by his ear, then heard the familiar voices of the people rising up in song. He recognized the words.

Ave Maria.

He stopped and listened, picking out the sopranos of the younger children. Their voices never failed to move him. It seemed odd that they'd be singing on this day. A Mass? Were the Jesuits performing their rituals because they didn't want the people to stray from Jesus?

He tried to fathom the actions of Father Antonio and the other priests. Did they fear Tupá? The stories he'd been taught about Jesus the Son of God told of a kind man. The priests often asked for His help in the mission church that the people had built. They said the building helped them get closer to their God. Inside, they performed ritual after complex ritual, but their God remained silent.

When his father, Avá-Nembiará, fasted and danced to be nearer to his Creator, the spirit of Tupá, the son of gods answered, speaking through him, but the priests drove Tupá away, calling him Satan, an unclean spirit and invading enemy. Why did these men of God, spiritual men, fear the world of spirits?

He thought of the Bible story that told of the Chosen Ones who allowed their Savior to be nailed to a cross. Were they afraid that the spirit of Jesus would seek its revenge on the living?

He made his way along another row of houses, turned a corner, and saw the church in the square at the center of the mission. The singing drifted toward him on the thick midday air. From the sound of the voices, most of the people were there.

Sweat rolled down his forehead and burned his eyes as he drew closer. The rain-filled holes that the ants had made around the foundation had grown deeper. More ants swarmed by the corner, and the walls had new cracks that made them slant outward as if a strong wind had tried to blow them down. Both sides were propped up with rough - hewn cedar logs.

Avá-Tapé's breath came hard, feeling heavy in his chest. He stopped at the front of the church and gazed up at its facade. His people had sculpted Jesus and His disciples on the front and sides, but they also had concealed small details and symbols from the spirit world of their own ancestors. He smiled when he spotted the images of Nanderú Guazú and Nandé Cy peering out of the sky above Jesus.

Even here the two worlds collided.

The singing stopped and the voice of Father Antonio began droning in the strange tongue he called Latin. Avá-Tapé went to the massive wood doors, pulled one open, and stepped into the shade of the interior. Most of the tribe crowded the pews. A life-sized wooden carving of the Lord Jesus hung at the back of the church, His hands and feet impaled on a cross.

Below it, Father Antonio stood behind the altar holding a gold chalice aloft in the air. Flickering candles behind him and to his sides glinted off the sacred gold utensils on the altar. The priest's dark curly hair had been cut close to his head. His broad face and wide shoulders stood a head above most of the people. He looked even more imposing in the glow of the candles, his purple and gold robes flashing silk and gold filigree.

Out of habit, Avá-Tapé made the sign of the cross. He didn't want to risk offending any gods. Father Antonio's fiery eyes glared at him, then went back to the chalice. Avá-Tapé felt lightheaded again. His vision grew hazy. He thought of his father alone in the forest and felt a sudden urge to run, but something made him stay.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

Father Antonio's voice boomed, jolting Avá-Tapé back to the moment. He heard a faint buzzing that grew louder. He looked behind him, then glanced up and saw ants swarming through the doors, windows, and cracks in the floor and walls. A low murmur passed among the people as flying ants filled the church.

Father Antonio raised his voice higher. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners..."

The ants seemed attracted to candles and the altar in the same way that moths sacrificed themselves to fire. Father Antonio waved his arms as the swarm fell upon him, the sacred utensils, and the altar. He brushed at his face and beat at his arms and the altar. His robes flapped like some huge demented bird. The ants kept landing on his face, hair, and robes.

Screams cut through the air and the people ran for the doors. Father Antonio continued to flail, knocking the gold chalice from the altar, spilling red wine onto the floor. Avá-Tapé saw ants crawling on his own arms. He brushed them off as people rushed past him, out into the square. Watching Father Antonio thrash around at the altar brought sadness to his heart. He turned and let the flood of people carry him out of the church.

He made it to the street before his knees started to wobble. His legs felt as if they no longer connected to his body. He stumbled and fell. In his mind he heard the voices of the people buzzing like thousands of ants. He clamped his hands to his head and the sound rose in pitch until the words of the Ave Maria thundered through his mind.

Pulling himself up, Avá-Tapé staggered a few steps more and slowed. Dizziness rushed through him like a powerful wind, its vortex swallowing him in a haze of gray. His stomach writhed. He closed his eyes as his thoughts took flight, then leaned forward and lowered himself to the ground, listening to the final strains of the Ave Maria.

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