Free Roosevelt's Beast: A Novel by Louis Bayard Page A

ear. His mouth had swung ajar, and his hand had curled into a half talon. But the only thing Kermit could see in that moment was the cockroach that had climbed onto the old man’s face. Four inches long, translucently pale, with softly thrumming wings. Crawling through the gray underbrush of the old man’s mustache.
    Shuddering, Kermit knocked the insect away. He lowered his ear to the old man’s lips, then to his chest, then back to his lips. Waited, in a madness of suspense, for a sign of life. And heard at last the stream of breath, rasping but steady.
    Tears stabbed his eyes. He heard the woman say:
    “He will be well.”
    “No,” he answered, smearing a forearm across his face. “He will not be well.”
    “I am speaking truly. The … the physician— ” She was stopped by the squelch of her own laughter. “You will forgive me. You must forgive me. I haven’t spoken Portuguese in so long. It sounds funny now. What I would like to say is, the physician has looked at him.”
    “Physician,” Kermit repeated. “You mean some … some feiticeiro with feathers and beads shook a rattle over him and declared him well. Is that what you mean?”
    She said nothing.
    “My father is not well. He has not been well for some time. He will need a great deal more than rattles.”
    And what wouldn’t he have given, in that moment, to be proven wrong? To see the Colonel come roaring to his feet. Filling the air with words. Rot! Bunk! Flubdub!
    Kermit staggered to his own feet—and felt his head slam against a thick, rough thatching.
    “You are very tall,” said the young woman.
    “Yes,” he said, clutching his skull.
    “What is your name?”
    He looked at her for a long minute.
    “Kermit,” he said.
    “Kurr … meet.”
    “I am this man’s son. I have … I have enjoyed very friendly relations with the Indians of Brazil.”
    Wincing at his own phrase: friendly relations .
    “Indians,” she said.
    “Yes, like…”
    Like you, he wanted to propose. Only he was beginning to see she was a bit of an anomaly, too. Yes, her dark hair was parted down the middle in the native fashion, but her nose was long and full, her eyes—for these he could see clearly—a lightly flecked hazel. For the first time, he began to feel a trickle of hope.
    “Well, now,” he said. “You have the advantage of me, Senhorita. You know my name, and I don’t yet know yours.”
    “My name. ” For some time, she was silent. “Luz. Except that nobody calls me this anymore.”
    “That’s a very pretty name. May I ask you something, Luz? Do you think you might help us?”
    “I don’t see how.” Her brows crowded down. “Oh, wait! I can help you talk to them. How do you say that? The person who does such a thing.”
    “Intérprete.”
    “In-tér-prete.”
    “Luz, I don’t mean helping us that way. I mean: Can you help us leave this place?”
    “Oh, decidedly not.”
    Such a prissy formulation that, in different circumstances, he might have laughed.
    “You speak our language,” he pressed on. “One of our languages. You understand better than anyone that a great crime has occurred. My father and I, we have been kidnapped. Taken against our will.”
    She nodded absently.
    “And where there is crime,” he went on, “there must be punishment, is that not so? Any minute, I assure you, our comrades will come for us. There will be much bloodshed, do you understand that? For your people. I would not want this fate to fall on you. I can … I can give you my word as a gentleman that if you take us back to our friends—back to the river—you might—”
    “I am not so sure your friends will be able to find you.”
    She spoke without a trace of triumph. If anything, she was pitying him.
    “This man…” He jabbed his finger at the Colonel’s unconscious form. “He is a figure of great renown. The leader of a great nation. He has met kings —and … and…”
    Here was the trouble: Kermit had never had to apotheosize the