The Encounter Page 4
things that we’ve experienced. Could we even be conscious
without our pasts, I mean, is consciousness possible without
memory? I think not.
This was recorded six months ago in my flat.
Over here is my desk. And here is a window…
Opens the window and the sound of the street comes
rushing in.
Closes the window.
That was the street outside my flat in London. And there’s a
sink here. I’ll just go and wash my hands…
SFX: water running.
You should hear that just behind your right ear.
The following conversation is between the
ACTOR
, live, and
Noma McBurney, aged five, recorded at home.
NOMA.
Dada, who are you talking to?
ACTOR. And that’s my daughter, Noma. I’m not talking to
anybody, sweetie.
NOMA.
Yes, you are!
ACTOR. No I’m not. Well, I am in a way…
NOMA.
But there’s nobody there!
ACTOR. That’s true, there’s nobody there.
NOMA.
Dada, how long is this head going to be in our house?
ACTOR. Well, sweetie, it’s just while Mama’s away. I’m going
to record you, just for this evening.
NOMA.
Where’s Mama?
ACTOR. Mama’s just gone away for a couple of days, my
sweetie.
NOMA.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half-crazy…
(
Continues.
)
ACTOR. That’s a recording I made about a year ago. When she
was five. She’s six now. So we’ve got three times going on.
We’ve got this time, present. Six months ago there’s me
remembering stuff, and then we’ve got a year ago when I
recorded my daughter. But is that possible? Surely we only
live in one time? This is just something we’ve achieved with
some sound recordings. Maybe…
Marcus, would you like a cup of coffee?
The following is a conversation between the
ACTOR
, live,
and Marcus du Sautoy, recorded. All other times are still
‘running’ concurrently.
MARCUS.
No, I’ve already had one, thanks.
ACTOR. So, Marcus, you’re a scientist. I want to ask you about
time. Leaving aside whether time even exists or not, I
wanted to ask if this time that we’re living in is the only time
that there is? Is it possible that time is not just a single thing
that we experience, there might be more than one time at any
given moment?
MARCUS.
Yes, there are models of time where there are many
kind of dimensions of time. So we tend to think of time as
one-dimensional, a line that we’re sort of running, but there
are models where time is two-dimensional…
(
Continues.
)
ACTOR. And this is a conversation I had about two years ago
with Marcus du Sautoy, who is the Simonyi Professor of
Scientific Knowledge at Oxford University and he said that
yes, the latest thinking about time is that it is possible that
more than one time can be running parallel to this one. This
is how many physicists are now thinking. But of course one
of the dominant feelings about time is that it’s just a fiction; a
story and it doesn’t exist. Something that we have made up
in order to –
The
ACTOR
’s phone rings.
– make sense of the world. Oh my god, I knew this would
happen. I’m the only person who hasn’t turned their phone
off. Just hang on one moment whilst I get rid of this.
The
ACTOR
answers the phone. The following is
pre-recorded.
Oh, Rebecca. Thank you so much for calling me back. Yes,
that’s right. About the piece I’m making. I really want to talk
to you about your experiences with the Mayoruna in Brazil
and Peru.
The
ACTOR
resumes talking to us live, over the recording of
themself and Rebecca in the past.
And of course as you’ve already guessed that’s also a
recording. I was talking to a woman – and that’s about two-
and-a-half, three years ago – called Rebecca Spooner from
Survival International, an organisation that looks after the
rights of indigenous people all over the world.
Gradually we encounter other voices, of activists,
philosophers, writers, and scientists, whose words begin to
layer over the top of one another eventually forming a
cacophony that rises and rises until it becomes the sound of
a machine, a motor, an engine that is in fact the engine of a
Cessna plane…
2. Over the Ocean Forest
SFX: interior of a Cessna aeroplane.
A
PILOT
is flying. Behind him sits Loren McIntyre. The text of
Loren McIntyre is pre-recorded using the pitch-down voice
modification demonstrated in the introduction. The
ACTOR
,
shouting over the engine sound, plays the
PILOT.
PILOT. We can’t go on for much longer. We have to land soon.
LOREN.
Where’s the village? If this is the area where you saw
the village, let’s go on as long as we can. Make sure at least
it’s still there.
PILOT. In two minutes I have to turn back or we’ll be out of
fuel.
LOREN.
First find that village. Climb a little higher and see
where we are.
The sound of the plane banking rises. The
ACTOR
turns.
PILOT. I’m looking. I can’t… There it is! You see that clearing?
LOREN.
Let’s go over twice.
PILOT. Alright.
LOREN.
Let’s do it twice. They’ll have seen planes before, and
know we’re heading upstream.
SFX on small hand-held speaker: sound of plane flying. The
speaker is moved over the binaural head. The audience hear
it as a plane flying overhead.
Music.
SFX: loud sound of a plane passing overhead. The
ACTOR
turns, stands, hat off, stick in hand: a man on the ground
looking up at the sky.
The
ACTOR
puts their hat back on and moves to the
binaural head to begin their narration.
ACTOR. They were hurtling along over jungle treetops at a
hundred miles an hour in a Cessna 206 floatplane. The limit
of their flying time was nine hours, of which four and a half
had already elapsed. They were looking for somewhere to
land. The river was a runway. But underneath the river were
hidden logs.
PILOT. I can’t see anywhere to land!
LOREN.
Not too far. Every minute of flight time is a day on
foot, remember.
PILOT. I know. I’m looking for a clear stretch.
LOREN.
You see that beach down there?
PILOT. Yeah. I’ll set her down.
SFX
: plane coming in to land.
LOREN.
I’ll set up camp there and you can pick me up in two
or three days.
PILOT. Okay. Here we go… She’s down.
SFX: plane landing on water.
Music continues.
The
ACTOR
takes a gulp of water from a large bottle, then
uses it to create the sound of lapping, splashing water. By
moving around the binaural head, this sound is looped to run
under the next section of narration.
ACTOR. The pilot helped Loren McIntyre jump ashore into the
shallows, gave him his waterproofed sacks. Within minutes,
the heat enveloped him like a fog. The plane taxied back.
The drone of the engine faded. Loren McIntyre was totally
alone. Four hundred miles of jungle in every direction. Four
hundred miles from what he called civilisation.
He was used to it, he’d been photographing in the rainforest
for more than twenty-five years. He prepared his cameras,
checked his film. A well-organised ritual. The looming forest
projected an air of distrust, watching him.
Mahoganies. Cedars. Palo sangres – wood so heavy it
refused to float and red it justified the name blood trees.
Huacapus – their wood so hard that nails wouldn’t penetrate
them. Giant Sumaúmas, and lupunas – known as river
lighthouses because boatmen used them as landmarks.
All these, and their retinue of parasites, bromeliads, vines,
mosses, bark mushrooms, exuded a tense, febrile stillness,
like a beast waiting to ambush its prey.
He washed in the river, prepared a simple meal and as the
light began to fade, he climbed into his hammock, pulled out
a notebook, a virgin notebook and a virgin page, and began
to write in an accurate, slightly slanting hand.
The following is spoken live, into the pitched-down
microphone.
LOREN. October 20th, 1969.
I’m here because of the Mayoruna. The cat people. Mayoruna.
Mayoruna. What a mystery there is in names. How does a
tribe come to name itself? How do words become formed; how
do they think them up, combining certain sounds and not
others? How did they choose which one they thought to be
real? What they played with until habit and general acceptance
confirmed them into the general vocabulary. Mayoruna. In
their language, it means people. (Looped.)
Petru recording, played on the
ACTOR
’s phone into the
binaural head.
PETRU.
He was incredible to be around, because he had a
million stories that… most of them will not be made into
anything. I mean, he had met people, he had been this, he
had been that. He had travelled extensively since he was a
kid. He started as a sailor. Then he served in the US navy. So
he was a fantastic character.
ACTOR.
He was charismatic?
PETRU.
Oh yes. In a sort of subtle, moderate way that was not
apparent right from the beginning. He was not always
making big gestures, he was always taking pictures.
IRIS.
He was like an American cowboy.
SFX: door creaking open. The following is a conversation
between the
ACTOR
, live, and a child, Noma McBurney,
recorded aged five.
ACTOR. Oh my sweetie, look, it’s…
NOMA.
I can’t sleep.
ACTOR. Listen, I’m in the middle of working.
NOMA.
Who’s like an American Cowboy?
ACTOR. Well… I’m just listening to Petru talk about Loren
McIntyre. You remember Petru?
NOMA.
What animals are in the jungle?
ACTOR. We’ve been through all this already. There are jaguars,
and monkeys, and birds…
NOMA.
What do they sound like?
ACTOR. You have to go to bed, my darling. Look okay, I’ll do it
one more time, then you have to go to sleep. Do you promise?
NOMA.
Yes.
The
ACTOR
creates the sound of the jungle, looping one
animal/bird/insect sound over another by walking around the
binaural head.
3. First Contact
Looped animal sounds continue.
All of the following text is delivered live, alternating between
the
ACTOR
and
LOREN
.
ACTOR. Daybreak, he was awakened as if by a silent clock. He
bathed in the river, dressed, cooked himself some oatmeal.
Slipped three rolls of film into his pocket and walked up the
beach towards the giant lupunas. He started to walk around
it, when somehow, on the screen of his mind:
LOREN. You are not alone.
ACTOR. He had a sensation of presence and almost
instantaneously saw a young man in the forest, naked. Two
plots of red urucu on his cheeks. Behind him appeared a boy,
another man and a third, with a dead red howler monkey on
his back. Spines bristled out of their lips, and there was no
doubt that these people were Mayoruna.
LOREN. Cat people.
ACTOR. Loren McIntrye looked at them. They looked at him.
His camera, a Minolta, weighed on his chest.
LOREN. Okay… I could shoot from the hip. No, let’s get it
through the viewfinder.
ACTOR. He raised the camera. No reaction. This was the
instant when things could go either way, towards friendliness
or hostility. He looked at them. They looked at him. He knew
the Mayoruna had never been successfully acculturated, and
at the turn of the century, as the rubber boom brought more
intrusion and conflict to upper Amazonia, they had simply
plunged into the forest and disappeared. And now they were
reappearing, undoubtedly still carrying memories of conflict,
brutality, and bloodshed. He looked at them. They looked at
him. The moment was wonderful and unrepeatable.
SFX: camera shutter.
LOREN. First contact. What a shot, that’s great. Ideal first
contact.
ACTOR. They stood. Looking at each other. And then suddenly,
they turned.
The
ACTOR
creates the sound of walking on leaves using a
box of loose videotape. SFX is looped. Sound of breathing,
looped.
Music.
During the following, the
ACTOR
takes photos. Repeated
SFX: camera shutter.
LOREN. Hang on, fellas!
ACTOR. They were disappearing into the forest. What to do
now?
LOREN. Okay, it seems okay. I’ll follow them.
ACTOR. The path followed a twisting trail, deviating right or
left practically every few steps.
The river, which had been straight behind him was now lost.
He didn’t remember where it was but he didn’t care.
LOREN. Great light!
ACTOR. He hurried on and caught up with them again.
LOREN. Change the roll…
SFX: roll of film being changed.
ACTOR. He was fa
r too busy photographing to break off twigs
and mark the trail.
He was excited and he expected a village to appear at any
minute.
Then he glanced at his wristwatch. He hardly ever checked
his watch in the forest; there was no reason to do so. He’d
been walking for more than an hour.
LOREN. I may not be able to retrace my steps to the river. I’m
sure their village is not far.
ACTOR. But the truth was, that being so fascinated with the
Mayoruna, he’d simply forgotten to mark his passage as he
normally did. He was so far in the jungle he had no way of
getting back. Time passed. Five, ten, twenty minutes later,
there was still no village.
LOREN. Just think about the pictures. Keep your mind on the
pictures
. (
Looped
.)
This could be it. Your chance at the big one.
SFX: camera shutter.
4. Encountering the Village
ACTOR. Suddenly the trees pulled back. Staring in surprise,
Loren stumbled. A narrow horizon of huts, perhaps six, seven,
eight or nine at a glance. It was a village, but everything was
half-finished. A provisional air hung about the place.
The man with red cheeks, the leader of the group he had
followed, turned to stare at him with eyes like black bullets.
The little boy walked towards Loren, curious.
RED CHEEKS. Tuti!
ACTOR. Was that the boy’s name? Or was it a warning? And
then he was immediately surrounded by tribespeople. They
showed their surprise by silence and an almost solemn
expression. They stood all around him.
LOREN. Hablas Español? Fala Português? Me llamó Loren.
ACTOR. There was no response. Strange, as over the years even
marginal tribes had borrowed from Spanish and Portuguese.
People got very close to him, and suddenly a man with a
conical hat of leaves hurried over, and then without being
physically pushed, he was made to advance along the body of
a tree, which had fallen through the clearing, towards a hut, as
unassuming as all the others. In front of it was a man with a
headdress of white egret feathers, sat on a carved stool. The
headman, if headman he was, had dry, crusty warts on his
ankles and calves resembling barnacles. He said nothing. He
was utterly immobile. He just looked at Loren impassively, an
arrow in his lap. The community stood all around him.
LOREN. Bom dia. Mi nombre es Loren. My name is Loren.