Based on the Myth of Cupid and Psyche
She sat at a rickety wood table writing in her journal. A lantern glowed softly beside her, casting more a shadow then any kind of useful light by which to function. A lock of hair, a long wispy strand, hung limply over her cheek and moved rhythmically with each breath, but much of her rich, coffee-colored hair was pulled back behind her head in a shaggy, unkempt ponytail. As she stared apathetically into the dancing flame, she let the only thought that mattered work its way to the surface. “Will I ever really make in in this business?”
It was then that she heard it, a faint buzzing sound filtering through the loosened slats of the roof. Her heart awoke from its slumber and raced. She doused the flame in the lantern, pulled at her burnt-orange rucksack and dragged it out the door. A gust of wind hit her instantly and almost knocked her backwards. The wind howled riotously day and night on the Oksapmin plains and threated to blow the roof right off the hut on more than one occasion. The Peace Corp workers, Tom and Becky, had seen it happen, they had mentioned. They had been good to her, inviting her to dinner and even allowing her to choose a few treasured tomes from their sacred bookcase. They were stuck here for two years, sent to set up a fish farm in this protein-starved country, something that had yet to materialize. They could see the Jane Sykes did not have the same patience and had her own agenda. She hated this wind-swept hell and couldn’t wait to move on.
Jane had been stranded in the valley for one week now, and this was only the third plane she saw. Two of them flew low overhead but were just passing by, the second false alarm causing her to throw her rucksack in anger and shake her fist at the fortress-like walls enclosing the plains, where she had been held incommunicado for just about the longest period she could remember in her trim life of 35 years. Not even a bird had flown over the airstrip for four days now.
Unable to quell her hopes, she followed the small plane as it skimmed the cloud-capped mountain tops and banked sharply towards the grassy airstrip. It struggled against the wind and disappeared behind the low clouds then re-emerged and dipped over the final craggy peak, drafting sharply downward. The people of the village ran toward the airstrip and Jane knew it was for real this time. She lifted her rucksack and ran hard against the wind. She had been warned once the plane landed, it would take off within fifteen minutes and it was a least a five-minute run from her hut. Too endure another week here was unthinkable. She ran faster.
The plane had already killed its propeller when she arrived, and a white man of forty or so jumped down from the cockpit. On the side of the beige plane was printed Mission Aviation Fellowship. The pilot walked around to the side door and grabbed the latched, pulling hard. As he did so, the F and part of the E swung outwards revealing a cargo bay crammed full of crates and tins.
“Apinun,” said the pilot to the village chief, using the local dialect of Pidgin. The chief nodded but was clearly more interested in the contents of the cargo bay.
“Wanem name bilong yu?” said the chief, who was dressed in black trousers and a ragged white button-down shirt, untucked, courtesy of the Lutheran Mission. His feet were dirty, thick, and swollen, and had obviously never had the pleasure, or displeasure, of wearing a shoe.
The pilot turned and said “Nem bilong mi Angelo. Angelo Cupido.” He broke into a thick Australian accent and added,”G’day, mate.” Turning to the large group of pikinini, or children, he grinned and said “Yu pikinini, two kina, yu hep plis.”
The kids were more than happy to oblige and launched themselves at the cargo bay, thrilled to be getting kina, or money, for unloading the plane. Angelo ran a weathered hand through his thick, black hair before noticing the woman standing there. She came forward and introduced herself.
“My name is Jane, Jane Sykes. I was told you sometimes carried passengers, for a price, of course. Can I hop a ride to Ambunti, on the Sepik River?”
Angelo studied her thoughtfully. “Why, sure you can, Jane,” he said. “Be glad to have the company, I would. You’ve got permission from the Minister of Interiors to go rambling through those parts, do you?”
She pulled a document from her day bag and handed it over to him. It was nothing more than a slip of crumpled paper with writing penciled in. “Pretty unofficial looking, I’ll admit,” she said jokingly.
Angelo handed her back the paper and told her to load her rucksack into the now empty cargo hold. While she reached for her backpack and moved toward the plane, Angelo took her in for the first time, noting the slim waist and slender legs and the way her khaki pants tapered to just above her tanned ankles. She was wearing a tight white t-shirt, which complimented the swell of her breast. She was very beautiful, Angelo acknowledged. In fact, she might just be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He chuckled to himself; spellbound might not be the right word, but it sure was close, he thought. Maybe this was a sign he had been in this country too long. His attention was redirected by the pikinini dancing around him, playfully demanding their kina.
Angelo returned to the business at hand. “All right, anything going out to Morseby,” he said, indicating the capital of Papua New Guinea. The chief nodded at several parcels of mail and the children loaded the plane on his command. Angelo paid the two kina, and watched as the children ran and skipped away, flailing their arms and yelling about in joy. He smiled broadly, revealing pristine dentition.
He turned to Jane and swept his arm with an overly grand gesture toward the cockpit door that implied, “Welcome to my humble abode.”
Jane stepped on the brown crate on the ground and Angelo helped boost her up and into the small plane. The brown crate followed her in. There were only two seats, set in tandem. Angelo hopped in after she was properly situated. She stretched her legs out on either side of the pilot’s chair, her feet coming to rest on the lower console of the control panel. She looked around. There was nowhere else to put them, and Angelo didn’t seem to notice. She felt crammed and squirmed in her seat. She sighed.
Angelo began flipping switches and, at his signal, a man gave the propeller a turn. The engine coughed and stuttered, then died. Angelo ran a finger along his brow and scratched his head. He adjusted the mixture control knob that controlled the fuel and gestured again toward the local. The man was small in stature, had no shirt, and sported a pig bone through his nose. He gripped the blade again and this time put more weight behind the crank. The engine engaged noisily.
Angelo talked in a loud voice, swiveling his head toward her and shouting over the din of the bellowing motor. “Just as no two landings are ever the same in these valleys, same goes for takeoffs. The wind streams and eddy currents are bloody incredible. That’s because of the warm air, ya see. It rises from the floor of the valley and meets the cold air circulating on top of these here peaks,” he said, pointing upwards. “It creates quite a bloody vacuum when you cross that demarcation point. Plus, you have the winds sweeping down those mountains and onto the plains, and they just kind of bang around the walls and recycle. It feels like you’re in a bloody’ pinball machine. “You’ll see,” he added.
Jane was getting nervous. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead. It was early morning and already hot. She pulled at her t-shirt to let a little air in. She was used to DC-10’s and 727’s, not two-seater prop planes, for God’s sake. It was better not to know these things about temperature inversions and whipping winds and the challenges posed by the fortress-like walls. Just get on with it, she thought.
She tried to distract herself but soon found herself watching him over his shoulder. He was taking his time making notations in the logbook. The thought snuck up on her out of the blue, but she had to admit, he was a very attractive man. Travelling around New Guinea for nearly a month now, she passed off this initial attraction to being on the lonely side. But, studying him further, his brown eyes, his sharp nose and high cheek bones, and those wonderfully broad Aussie shoulders, he was quite a man, and tall to boot.
The plane turned and started its bumpy taxi towards the beginning of the airstrip, hopping and lurching over clumps of grass and small stones and going into and out of ruts. Jane felt each jarring bump. Angelo was shouting at her again. “I was reading about one of these here Cessna 206’s in an aviation magazine last year. It was saying that one of the 206’s had logged over 12,000 flying hours. They considered that the most hours ever flown by this type of aircraft. I told my boss, Venus, that I had to write to them and set them straight, because this plane, the one you’re in, has logged over 16,000 flying hours. That would make this beautiful baby,” he said, patting the console with his hand, “the most used Cessna ever flown. Now how ‘bout them apples?” he asked, craning his neck toward her, excitement evident on his stubbled face. “Have a look,” he said, handing over the logbook. Jane wished he would just concentrate on the runway and getting them off the ground safely, but she politely took the book.
She didn’t even think to look through it, just stared blankly ahead, even more conscious of the uncomfortable seat, and began fanning the book in front of her face and trying to hold back the panic. She became cognizant of her own heartbeat and tried to slow it down, then concentrated on breathing exercises she had learned in yoga class at the 92nd street Y in New York. Just breathe, she willed herself; that’s it, in through the nose, and then exhale fully, and don’t forget to contract contracting the muscles of abdomen during the exhalation. Breathe. That’s it. She kept repeating this to herself, like a mantra, as she peered down the airstrip. The engine hit full throttle; they were committed now, hurtling down the runway, approaching a wall of mountain impeding their way.
She tried to focus on the relaxation techniques but gave up. It was fine for the 92nd street Y but this was something different altogether. She was too stressed in this vibrating bucket of bolts, purported to be the oldest plane in the world, or some such nonsense, which was catapulting her down this makeshift runway, in gusty wind, mind you, and heading directly for a huge slab of granite wall in front of them! Oh, great! Way to settle your mind, Jane! And just to what lengths are you willing to go to get a story?
The plane pitched and climbed vertically with frightening speed. Jane was thrown back into her chair and she gasped. A few poorly fastened boxes behind them shifted towards the tail of the plane. The aircraft lurched violently this way and that before smoothing out in the low clouds. They were flying blind, but the turbulence was gone. Jane was soaked in sweat.
Angelo. Turned and said, “Just what ARE you doing in New Guinea?”
Jane managed to collect herself and answered civilly, “I’m working for Time Magazine. I’m writing a story on the Cargo Cults.”
“Cargo Cults?” he said. “I’ve heard about them but can’t say I know too much about ‘em. Seems like that was a long time ago.”
“It’s really been a struggle to get much on them, really,” she said. “Most of the older folks who would have known have died off, it seems. I guess I was expecting people from these parts to have the kind of life spans like we do in the west.”
“Well, what da ya know,” he replied to no one in particular.
Jane wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “What can you tell me about them, Angelo?”
“Well, from what I remember now, when the first Aussie patrol officers started to work the land, trying to bring civilization to the savages, in their minds,” he added, for emphasis, “the Papuans were mesmerized by the things these blokes carried with them. Then Leahy came along, prospecting for gold, and carrying Bolt-action rifles, maps, compasses, altimeter’s, dynamite. The people were blown away. They thought these magical things could have only come from the gods. When World War 2 hit this area, these natives started to see giant metallic birds flying overhead, at least from their perspective. Men with radios and walkie-talkies were somehow able to communicate with these birds, which would release pallets of food, weapons and supplies, which would float down from the heavens on parachutes. This was all too much for the Papuans to process. They were convinced supernatural powers had to be responsible for the cargo and wealth these white people had at their command.”
Angelo hesitated, wondering if Venus would object to having an innocent conversation with a reporter. She was like that. He had a feeling about Jane, though. She could be trusted, though he knew not on what grounds he was basing this assumption. Besides, trying to protect and preserve the culture from tourists and the like was one thing, but secrecy and paranoia was another. He shrugged and decided to continue.
“The villagers believed it was the gods and spirts who gave the white men great machines and weapons of death and mysterious powers. In the past, their way of ensuring, say, a good yam harvest, was to give respect and praise to the spirits through rituals. This was natural to them,” he said, running a hand over the stubble of his face.
Jane listened intently.
“The natives theorized that the way to acquire these goods from the gods, and other “cargo,” was to imitate what the white men did and apply their rituals. They believed that the white men were probably intercepting cargo that should have been bound for New Guineans, ya see, and that by following white men’s rituals, they could attract the cargo to themselves. Bloody brilliant linear thinking, eh?” he said, craning his neck around to see her reaction.
Like any good journalist, Jane knew when to interrupt and when to listen. She encouraged him to continue.
“Following this simple logic, the deities were summoned, and docks were prepared and crude airstrips made, in preparation. The even set up bloody offices, passing bits of blank paper back and forth all day long, and trying to look busy. They were pantomiming how we conducted business, which they saw as the best way to attract the attention o the gods, and thus get the cargo. They even constructed fake radios. The colonial government wasn’t buying any of it, so they had the patrol officers arrest some villagers and destroy their makeshift offices, torching them to the ground.
“This only seemed to confirm their suspicions that they were being subjugated and cheated of their share of the cargo, I’d imagine,” she said.
“Yep, so that’s the Cargo Cults. There’s been only sporadic outbreaks ever since. The last one I heard of was rumored to have been in the 1960’s, I think.”
“Fascinating,” she said, tightening her ponytail and looking out the window.
“So, how did a Sheila like you manage to find your way into the highlands?” he asked. “You should be on the coast working that story, eh?”
“Sheila?” she asked, confused. “Who’s Sheila?”
Angelo burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Jane. That’s a bit of Aussie slang, I’m afraid.”
She still looked confused. “A Sheila is a woman, ya see? It’s what blokes like me call women. Sheila’s,” he said, with emphasis. “Go on now, what brings ya up to God’s country. It’s hard to believe you're investigating the Cargo Cults, to tell you the truth.”
“Just fate I guess,” she said. “I wanted to see what it was like up here. This was the last place in the world Stone-Age people lived, as late as the 1930’s, before they were first contacted. Michael Leahy found people up here using stone axes, a rock tied to a stick for God’s sake, and they were cannibalizing their dead. I wanted to see how and why they could have been so isolated for so long.” She looked outside at the steep, rugged mountainous terrain and the tangled jungle below. “And now I know.”
Angelo nodded his head in affirmation and pointed below. “The mountains,” he shouted. “They’re huge and practically vertical. Not only a barrier that keeps people out but one that keeps people in, too,” he explained, letting go of the controls and using his hands for emphasis. “Whole tribes could be damn-near right next to one another but so physically partitioned by the dense jungle and steep mountains…that one tribe might never even know the other existed! And because the natives are so territorial and bellicose, when you went walk-about you pretty much took your life into your own hands.”
Jane was relieved when he put his hands back onto the yoke, or steering control. She was starting to relax and stopped picking at the thread she was unraveling from the well-worn fabric of the old chair. “I’ve certainly seen some wonderfully primitive people, though,” she said, smiling to herself. “But the missionaries seem to be everywhere now, and it just looks like it’s all spoiled now. All the discovery, I mean. And the culture; I can see the beginning of the end. No offense.”
Angelo shook his head, heard the disappointment in her voice. “None taken. I feel the same way, although I guess I may be part of the problem by that definition, though I feel I am actually part of the solution. I love these people. I’ve made it my own personal mission to keep it like I found it, so to speak, as much as possible. And Venus demands that. But the outside worlds comin’ hard and fast, dear Jane, and little ‘ole me can’t keep it back, strong as I am. It’s downright sad, really. You and I don’t feel differently in that regard.”
Jane nodded. The plane dipped below the clouds. The mountains were gone and the oxbows of a giant brown snake known as the Sepik River, one of the world’s mightiest and deepest rivers, gleamed below. The sight was mesmerizing, and Jane took a moment to appreciate what she was seeing. The unimagined beauty of this country sure made up for the harsh realities of trying to travel it, she thought. But despite the land’s innate winsomeness and serenity, Jane’s real attention was still mostly focused on a city of concrete, glass, and honking horns, worlds away.
The Cargo Cult article had some substance, but it was going nowhere. To her editors, the trip was going to look like a bust, and with a huge price tag attached. That’s what was keeping her here, and she knew it. She needed something more, something to come home with that would say, “Look out New York, Jane Sykes has arrived.” She wanted a story that would guarantee her a cover and a corner office looking out onto midtown Manhattan, where she would enjoy a perfect view. She watched the canopy glide by below, unbroken to the horizon, the remains of the morning mist hanging lazily above the treetops. The sun was shining, and the sky was a smooth sea of clear blue. She took a deep breath and shook her head at the frustration of her predicament, failing to appreciate the pulchritude of the heavenly land passing beneath her, the ultimate corner office in the entire world.
The plane taxied to a halt on the grassy runway in the village of Ambunti and Angelo killed the ignition. He unloaded a few packages and letters and introduced Jane to the Henry’s, Tom and Venus, who ran the Lutheran Missions throughout New Guinea. The dedicated couple that had been serving God from the trenches for over twenty years now.
Tom Henry, a slightly stooped, gaunt fellow standing not an inch below six feet six, with sandy-brown hair and a receding hairline, was busy shuffling through the mail. He gave several letters to Venus, who seemed less interested in its arrival. Jane surveyed the field. The mission house was only a football field away from the short airstrip, a small modern dwelling in the center of the village. Whoever erected the structure obviously made no effort to blend the building with the native huts or the surrounding countryside. Satellite huts with thatched roofs were dotted around the mission house, like so many dishes around a centerpiece.
Inside the mission house, they gathered in the living room and sipped Iced tea from tall, chilled glasses. A clanky motorized fan overhead was working hard but failing to create any comfort. It was merely re-circulating the same hot, humid air around the room. Everyone was sweating.
Angelo was the first to speak. “I hope you don’t mind me giving Jane a ride, Venus. She was really in a pickle, and I thought it best to be generous, considering.” When Venus said nothing, he added, “She’d been waiting for over a week, isn’t that right, Jane?”
Venus stared down at her glass while Jane echoed, “Yes, a week.” The dull whine of an electric generator could be heard in the background, over the fan. Tom Henry shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“Not at all,” said Tom. “Charitable work is man’s duty to God.”
“Amen,” said Venus.
Jane studied Venus. She was a striking woman, with long blond hair braided all the way down to the hollow of her back. It was impossible to tell her age, her face retained so much youthful beauty. Jane guessed she was in her late forties or early fifties. Lucky woman. Venus sat bolt upright, with a certain regal quality to her posture, as if she were holding court.
Angelo looked down at his hands but stole glances at Jane whenever he could, an act not gone unnoticed by Venus, who asked, “So, what does Jane do?” She directed the question, awkwardly, to Angelo.
“She’s a journalist actually. Isn’t that right, Jane?” he said, extending a hand, inviting her to chime in.
“That’s right. I work for a publication called Time Magazine. I’m here doing a story on the Cargo Cults.”
“Why were you travelling the highlands then, the last two weeks? Those supposed events happened along the coast,” challenged Venus.
Jane looked puzzled. How could this woman have known how long she had been traveling? And why would she even care?
Tom interjected, explaining, “Word travels fast on the ham radios.” He shifted in his seat and wiped his brow. “We don’t see many visitors who don’t belong…uhh, rather, we don’t see many tourists who are traveling through these parts. New Guinea only gets several hundred visitors per year, as you can imagine, and considerably less make it to the highlands or the Sepik, for that matter.”
Jane kept her composure and wondered where the problem lay. “I was just nosing around really, enjoying the beauty,” she said.
“Yes, nosing,” said Venus, pensive. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but we…the Lutheran Mission that is, frowns on distractions and outside influences. It makes our job harder with the villagers. We’re trying to preserve as much of their culture as possible.”
“But isn’t worshipping OUR God influencing and distorting their culture?” asked a flustered Jane.
“And to that end, continued Venus, picking up where she left off, “I believe it IS the natural order of things to worship the Lord, Jesus Christ. Even for the Papuans.” She sipped at her tea. “We don’t much fancy to people running around these areas with Walkman’s and such. I’m sure you can understand,” she said, somewhat condescendingly.
“Yes, of course,” said Jane, in submission.
“We’re going upriver tomorrow, and we’ll be gone for several days. But we expect you’ll have, uh, gotten on, by the time we return, unfortunately,” she added. “Do enjoy yourself during your stay. Tom,” she commanded, standing up. She glared at Angelo as they departed the room.
Angelo came over and sat down next to Jane and leaned in, sotto voce, “I apologize. I can honestly say I’ve never seen her act like that. I think you’ve stirred something in her, but heaven knows what.” He touched her gently on the chin with his hand and asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded but was clearly hurt by the unexpected attack. She reminded herself that all problems seemed magnified when one was traveling. Afterall, travelers were often vulnerable, both physically and emotionally, and she was no different. The melancholy soon lifted though, and the day brightened into a memorable one, as Angelo began introducing her around the village. She watched women at work knitting and dyeing bilums, brightly colored bags that were strong and durable and carried everything from coconuts to babies. The straps of the handbag were worn over the forehead of the woman, with the bag swung back, resting on the back of the neck and upper back.
That evening, they dined on sago and smoked fish on the floor of a long house, listening to villagers tout the legends of the crocodile, lord of the river. The men proudly displayed their stigmata, inch long scars representing the raised scales of the crocodile, sometimes covering their entire body, branded into their skin during their rite of passage.
To Jane this was the most wonderous day of her trip, largely because of her growing feelings for Angelo. She was captivated by his gentleness, and the way he treated the villagers, as equals. She became cognizant of a burning desire to spend time alone with him, and the anticipation of the Henry’s departure grew sweeter. That night, she dreamed of butterflies, hundreds of magnificently colored butterflies, dancing about in a lush tropical paradise.
The next morning, they helped Tom and Venus load the motorized longboat for their journey upriver. Most of the boxes contained bibles, crosses, and rosaries. There were no extraneous gifts. When asked by Jane about their destination, Venus was vague and mumbled something about a tributary called the Green River.
After their departure, Angelo sat with Jane and the pair talked non-stop, chit-chatting over coffee and hard biscuits until lunchtime. She learned he grew up in Cairns, Australia, and had been university educated in Sydney, something that surprised her and made her happy at the same time. She liked an educated man.
He had taken to flying immediately after his graduation and been in the skies ever since. An ethereal freedom seemed to resonate throughout New Guinea, he told her, one that captured his soul on his very first visit eight years ago. He felt a certain affinity towards the land and its people, and the flying was unrivaled anywhere else in the world, something that had been obvious even to Jane herself. He began working for Mission Aviation Fellowship shortly thereafter and has called New Guinea his home ever since. Jane soaked up every word, wanting to know everything about the man she had become so magnetically drawn to.
After a light meal, they walked along the riverbank stirring up butterflies in the brush. At one point, they were surrounded by them. The village children blushed and giggled as they passed. Out of earshot, the kids joined hands and imitated their flirtatiousness, then rolled on the ground in a tidal wave of laughter.
Later, Angelo took Jane flying where they enjoyed breathtaking views of the East Sepik Province. Jane marveled at her newfound happiness and shook her head with chagrin as she remembered the fear and dismay she had felt on the flight from Oksapmin. They spent much of the time laughing, trading barbs, and enjoying each other’s company.
Jane leaned forward from the back seat and put her arms around his broad shoulders. “I’m wondering how old you are?” she asked, coyly. “Not as old as this plane, I hope.” She laughed in his ear.
He banked the planed sharply then righted it just as fast. She screamed, then laughed. “Okay, okay,” she said. “You win. No more questions about age.”
Craning his neck toward her, he said, “Forty-one. How about you?”
“You can’t ask a girl that,” she said with mock indignation.
He gripped the yoke as if to swerve the plane again. “Okay, okay, I’m 35 years young,” she said. “You’re forty-one years old, and I’m 35 years young. See how that works?” she said, tongue-in-cheek. She glanced down at the treetops and the big brown river below, snaking its way through the dense, unbroken jungle. Such beauty, she thought, as if seeing it for the first time.
“Where are we?” she shouted.
He pointed downward. “We’re coming up on the Green River down there, and the border of the other half of the island, Irian Jaya. That’s where the Henry’s are heading.” He hesitated, wondering if he should have said that. He turned around and looked her in the eye but said nothing. She ruffled his hair as if he were a dog, but he looked serious.
“What?” she asked.
He turned back around again and stated demurely, “They have a mission along the Green River. It’s relatively new. A few months old at most. Anyway, there have been stories, mostly by the villagers around this new mission, of a lost tribe. This mission is in a deep ravine, surrounded by the densest jungle you’ve ever seen, fair dinkum. We couldn’t even cut an airstrip. The only way into the settlement is by dugout canoe. It’s bloody isolated, it is.”
“Well, as the whispers of this stone-age tribe began to surface, the Henry’s have become very secretive about anything to do with the Green River mission. Even with me. I suspect they’re heading down tiny tributaries of that river, into Irian Jaya, looking for these headhunters, and I do mean bloody headhunters.” He looked back at her apprehensively. “I’m sure they wouldn’t want any other blokes to know about this, Jane. And even I only suspect what they are doing. I don’t know for sure.”
Jane sat back, her mind awhirl. They banked around, heading back toward Ambunti. Angelo cooked rice and fish, and they had a romantic candlelit dinner underneath a mosquito net in the warm night air. Afterwards, they snuggled and kissed on a blanket covering the ground, coming up for air only to peer up at the Milky Way overhead.
When he felt it was time, Angelo bent low and carried Jane up to his room, where they made love for the first time.
During the next few days, they fell madly in love. The entire village seemed to embrace the union, as if the gods themselves had approved and arranged it. Nearing the end of her stay in New Guinea, Jane grew sad and vowed to return, even if that meant losing her job.
Jane returned to New York, downcast and heartbroken, and wrote Angelo nearly every day. His letters took a long time to receive, but the ones that made it were voluminous and filled Jane’s heart with both joy and desire. She spent weeks pondering ways to reunite with her love. Unfortunately, she had very little vacation time left and was denied a request for sabbatical. If she left, she would have to quit. She fought inner demons, conflicted between love and ambition. Her work began to suffer. On one particularly lonely night, she thought, “Doing a second story on New Guinea was stretching it, unless….”
She made up her mind and picked up the phone. She pressed speed dial, and her editor answered. “Kathleen, have I got a story for you!”
The camera crews ran haphazardly over the muddy soil of the village. Most of the villagers had run off by now, surely thinking they had angered the gods and were now being invaded by an army of white ghosts. A few were shot dead, ones who seemed particularly threatening, by the Indonesian soldiers that accompanied the international journalistic flotilla. Artifacts were being recklessly horded: carvings, stone tools, blowpipes used to hunt tree kangaroos, snakes, and dragon lizards from trees. A chieftain with a spear shouted at a group of reporters and cameramen in an unintelligible language, one even the soldiers could not decipher. He was naked except for a penis sheath, arms and legs covered in ash. A pig bone speared his nose, and reddish ochre paint adorned chest and face alike with bizarre circular marks. An archaeologist standing by a make-shift wooden fence looked into a camera and pointed with a stick to a skull mounted on a picket. The camera zoomed in for a close-up. Photographers took pictures by the dozens of a burial scaffold where a body would be placed after death, then washed and dismembered. Women and children of the deceased would than consume the dead, piece by piece, including the brain, freeing the spirit and allowing the dead ancestor to remain a part of the living. Jane stood aside and looked on apprehensively with dreadful foreboding. This was not going as she had planned.
They stayed for one week, wiring in stories from make-shift headquarters in Vanatu, on the coast. More news services poured into the region, scouring every inch of the jungle by foot and helicopter and upsetting the natural order of things. The Indonesia government sent patrols out into the bush, with orders to shoot any villagers not cooperating. The government, at this point, wished the whole embarrassing affair would end, and bullets seemed to be a promising solution.
Jane returned to Ambunti only to be shunned by the Henry’s. She was cast out and slept that night on the floor of a longhouse, shivering and alone. She left the next morning via the river. She inquired about Angelo, but Venus had given no information other than he had been fired.
Jane travelled to different villages throughout the highlands and the coast, chartering a private plane even, and hiring a motorized dugout. She spent over a month looking for him, her editors now happy to accommodate her sabbatical. Finally, she heard from one pilot that he may have gone back to Australia, and mentioned Queensland, in particular.
At once she embarked for Queensland and spent the next month searching in and around Brisbane, Rockhampton, Cairns without success. In Port Douglas, she spoke with a rancher who mention The Flying Doctors Service, a group of pilots who shuttled patients, medical personnel, and supplies to area of Cape York and the outback that were remote and had no medical system in place. Although she was discouraged and depressed, she tried to remain hopeful and drove to Proserpine to hunt down the lead. According to the office there, a new pilot had just joined the Flying Doctors and was now up on a mission in the Atherton Tablelands. There had been a terrible flash flood, and several campers had been killed and more injured at a remote campsite.
Jane rented a four-wheel drive and raced northward, unable to control her mounting anxiety. She arrived on the site the next day, and spotted a man with broad shoulder, resembling Angelo. He faced away from her, and she ran towards the man, calling out loud, “Angelo, Angelo,” over and over. Again. When the man turned, she stopped, despondent, and at the end of her wits.
The man called out to her, “Can I help you, ma’am?”
She frowned and shook her head dejectedly, turning to go.
At the same moment, a weary, mud-encrusted man struggled doggedly up a steep, slippery riverbank, nearly losing his footing at the top. “I think we’re pretty well through…” he said, stopping mid-sentence. He stood gaping in disbelief at the familiar figure a short distance away and a warmth flooded his chest.
“Jane,” he whispered. A smile, as genuine and real as the flood had been powerful, creased his tired face and he repeated, louder, “Jane!”
If not the bedraggled man, she recognized the voice instantly and ran recklessly towards him, slipping and sliding on the mud, and leaping onto his chest, knocking him over.
“Angelo,” she said with relief, tears incongruous with her smiling face. Pressing their mud-streaked heads together, they wrestled playfully in the morass, unaware of anything else.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry,” she cried again. “I only wanted to be with you. I know I screwed up. I know I screwed everything up bad. Do you think you could ever forgive me?”
A fleeting look of consternation crossed his face, but his true happiness in her presence could not be denied and it quickly melted away. He covered her checks with his large hands and said, “I never stopped loving you, Jane. I tried to, but I couldn’t. I’ve been bloody miserable without you, fair dinkum. I know you meant well.”
“I did,” she sobbed. “I did.”
They spent the rest of the day putting things in order, and Jane apologized again for her blind ambitions and her errors of judgement. Angelo, for his part, could see the good in her intentions and was able to fully forgive her. They married one month later in Adelaide, Angelo’s hometown.
Jane called her editor in New York and asked a favor. A month later, Venus and Tom Henry drew a generous stipend with which they made plans to open several more missions throughout New Guinea. They were also given access to medical supplies and a new airplane, all through the generosity of a philanthropist, care of his connections with the board of directors of Time Magazine. As a condition of the philanthropists “donation agreement,” Angelo was rehired by Mission Aviation Fellowship, and he resumed flying over the land he loved so dearly. Jane and Angelo Cupido never left Papua New Guinea again, living amongst the plentiful butterflies for the rest of their years and enjoying many simple pleasures.
