State of Wonder

Marina’s first evening on the Amazon is a memorable one. In the twilight, hordes of insects descend on the boat and its passengers, attracted by the two bright lights on either side of the vessel. Under this swarm of insects, with the river narrowing and the jungle pressing in closer and closer, Marina begins to feel trapped and claustrophobic. Dr. Swenson orders Easter to shut off the lights, and the veil of insects instantly dissipates, allowing Marina to experience total darkness for the first time in her life. Inexplicably, Easter is able to guide them in this complete blackness. When Marina asks how he can do this, Dr. Swenson tells her to “open [her] eyes” (184) and “look at the stars” (184). Looking up, Marina sees more bright and brilliant stars than she has ever seen before. She realizes that Easter, like many mariners over thousands of years, is using the stars to navigate.

Looking down the river towards the horizon, she sees another small orange light that scatters and spreads into dozens upon dozens of fires as the boat comes closer.

These fires are the Lakashi greeting party, which marks their arrival at the research station. Moving closer to the station, they are greeted enthusiastically by the Lakashi men, who chant a welcome song in unison. Many of the men swim towards them, boarding their pontoon boat, and greet her rather too intimately for Marina’s comfort; touching her cheek, petting her hair, and running their fingers down her arm. Shocked by their familiarity, Marina is relieved when Dr. Swenson intervenes with a sharp clap. She tells Marina that for the Lakashi, “if they can’t touch it, it doesn’t exist” (188).

Later, on the shore, Marina encounters the tribe’s women, who also greet them with a song. They wear homemade shift dresses, keep their hair in long braids, and carry children tied across their chests or balanced on their hips.

Dr. Swenson, who is all too familiar with this ritual, goes to bed, leaving Marina alone in the darkness with the strange Lakashi all around her. Terrified of making her way through the dark jungle alone, she waits until Easter finds her and guides her to a cot in the storage room. Just as Marina is about to go to bed, she realizes that she has left her luggage back at the boat. Unwilling to make the trip back to the boat for her luggage alone, she decides to stay put for the evening. She soon realizes that her cot is probably the same one where Anders slept, and eventually died.

With Easter fast asleep, she takes his flashlight and tours the storage room, discovering a metal box under Easter’s hammock. Opening the box, she finds several feathers, no doubt collected by Anders, a passionate birder. Then, she makes an even more jarring discovery, a letter, written in Anders’ handwriting that reads: “Please do all that is within your power to help this boy reach the United States and you will be rewarded. Take him to Karen Eckman” (193). Along with the letter, she discovers Anders driver’s license and passport.

She closes the box, puts it back beneath Easter’s hammock and goes to sleep, only to be woken up by Easter, who is screaming in his sleep as the result of a nightmare. After she comforts him, he follows her back to her hammock where she wraps the child in her arms and they fall fast asleep.

The next morning, the Lakashi seem to have been transformed from the torch juggling, jubilant tribe of the previous night into a “working-class tribe” who soberly attend to their daily tasks. Making her way back to the pontoon boat, she discovers that her luggage, and the phone that Mr. Fox gave her, is gone.

Soon after this discovery, she meets Dr. Thomas Nkomo for the first time. A Senegalese research physician who has a knack for languages, he has even mastered the Lakashi language. Dr. Nkomo reveals that he knew Anders, and asks about Karen and the boys. While he expresses more sympathy about Anders than Dr. Swenson, he is just as evasive when it comes to revealing the details of his death.

Before Marina is able to probe Dr. Nkomo further, he urges her to follow him towards the lab. Along the way, they are invited into one of the Lakashi huts, which are built on stilted platforms that rise like trees from the jungle floor, and are only accessible by ladder. Accepting the invitation, Marina and Dr. Nkomo climb the ladder and enter the hut, discovering a whole family sharing the relatively small and intimate space.

Marina is shocked to see a toddler crawling unattended along the floorboards. Another toddler plays with a sharp knife, while a nearby infant is about to crawl right off the edge of the platform. Seeing this, Marina springs into action, immediately seizing the infant. The gathered Lakashi seem completely unfazed by the whole scene, only reacting when the baby Marina saved proceeds to urinate on her, sending the Lakashi into a fit of laughter.

 The eldest Lakashi, a woman in her 70s, whom Marina realizes is the unlikely biological mother of the children insists on taking Marina’s shirt, presumably to wash it. The older woman, who is visibly pregnant, sits so close to Marina while unbuttoning her shirt, that Marina can literally feel her baby kicking in the womb. Marina’s shirt is replaced with a native shift dress, and the women begin to braid her hair in the Lakashi fashion. Although much taller than the natives, Marina’s braids, dark skin and shift dress make her look more and more like a Lakashi. This dress will become her primary item of clothing, given that her luggage has been lost or stolen. The chapter ends with Thomas beckoning for them to make their departure.