VI. Jew of the Jungle, Part Two

I was lost in the jungle in Thailand.

And I was responsible for three other lives, armed with nothing but a map that might as well be drawn on a cocktail napkin. How the hell did I get here? One week ago I was in the States, sitting on a couch, watching Star Trek reruns and now…

I don’t know how long I was standing there retracing my life steps, no doubt with some dopey look on my face, but the group sensed that something was amiss. Maybe their Mighty Jungle Guide didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe he was just a guy like them who happened to fall into the job with nothing but a cocktail napkin to guide him. What would they do? Would they panic? Would they mutiny? Would they take my napkin?

“What’s that in your hand?” Cost finally took off his headphones. Now he’s aware… great.

“This? Nothing…”

“Here, let me see that,” Adolph snatched it from my hand and inspected it, “It’s a piece of crap drawing! What’s going on here?!”

“Oh my God!” Frannie hyperventilated, “We’re lost!”

“We’re not lost,” I assured them.

I slowly surveyed their faces; Panicked Frannie to Bemused Cost to Seething Adolph, who I just knew was thinking, “Jew Bastard!” But they weren’t circling in on me, not yet. I stalled for time, trying to figure out my next move. Should I brass it out, pretend I knew what I was doing? They would probably see right through me. I decided to come clean, in a way.

“We’re not lost. We’re just slightly off-trail.”

“What does that mean?” Frannie demanded.

“It means we’re going to back-track. We’ll find where we came in and retrace our steps until we get back to the main trail, okay?”

After a bit of grumbling and what-choice-do-we-haves, everyone took a section of the clearing’s perimeter, searching for a small trail, footprints, broken rattan, anything that might suggest we came from there.

“I found something,” the Dutchman yelled, his headphones back on.

It seemed right, so we went, back through the rattan, back through the deer trail, and finally to the elephant trail. Amid great relief there was still a problem. We couldn’t follow it all the way back, we would end up where we started. Our only option: continue backtracking and hope that the right way to the waterfall would present itself. We carried on, arriving again at the wrong way red arrow.

“Here it is. Here’s where you went wrong,” Adolph proclaimed.

… filthy Jew! Come on, say it, you know you want to.

“No, I told you before. This arrow is wrong.”

“You also said to trust you and we got lost.”

I glanced up ahead at the alternate path. It was clear, wide, easy to follow. I began to doubt Tom myself. After all, what did I really know about him? I just met him the other day. He could be wrong. Worse yet, he just might have a warped sense of humor. I didn’t know what to do. I waited for some kind of divine guidance, and maybe that’s what it was: I heard the sound of rushing water. Was it there all along?

“Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“The river!”

“So?”

“We’re going to the waterfall, right? That’s where the river has to be heading! Everybody stay right here! I’ll be right back!”

I ran, following the sound of the river, hurtling through rattan and, after several yards, there it was; whitewater, gloriously rushing downhill and, thank God, in only one direction. If we kept the sound of the river close and to our right, it would have to lead us to the waterfall. That would show the German. I turned to strut back, then stopped. I couldn’t see where I came from. I was lost again.

“Hellooooo…” my deflated cry.

“Helloooo…” I heard back in German and English accents.

“Keep yelling so I can find you!”

I followed their sounds, most of it curses. On the way, I don’t know how I missed it before; I stumbled across a clear path, complete with a red marking. An elephant path, and it followed along the river.

“I found the right trail!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive! Let’s go! Follow my voice!”

In my excitement, I ran down the trail, the group behind me, shouting at me to slow down.

At the end of the trail, Tom was waiting for us on a large flat boulder with our picnic. Behind him, a lake with a misting, thundering thirty-foot high waterfall. Overjoyed, we stripped to our underwear, jumped in, splashed around, and then ate the best cold fried rice in the world.

After lunch, sitting alone on the boulder, I worried that Tom would be informed of my mishap -- no, incompetence. Adolph and Frannie walked by, stopped, and discussed something, glancing in my direction. Here it comes, I thought, the big showdown. Adolph climbed the rock and sat next to me.

“You know, in Germany, I am a schoolteacher. Young children. One thing I have learned is that if you don’t know the answer, the children can always tell, and if you pretend or lie, they will lose faith in you. What you did back there was the right thing,” he slapped me on the back, jumped off the boulder, and returned to his wife, who forced a smile. I wondered if there was a word in German for feeling relief, pride, and shame at the same time

Behind me, Cost was dancing, waist-deep in the water. He saw me and waved. I asked him his real name, but he couldn’t hear me.