Page 4 of Factory Controller

Unless what she needs is time to get away…

HEATHER

The taxi lets us off at a wooden dock.

The misty Amazon is so wide I can’t see the other side. Feeling the enormous amount of water flowing beneath my feet when I stand on the docks is a humbling experience.

Isabella takes note of my reaction. “It’s really something, isn’t it? I’ve been here for years, lived right on the river, and it still can take my breath away.”

I nod but do not comment.

A worn power boat rattles up to the docks. It’s smaller than I expected, with a corrugated aluminum canopy to protect the passengers from the sun. We climb on board, seat ourselves on spartan wooden-plank seating and rumble toward Ipixuna.

Isabella said the ride would take six hours, but we chug away forever. After what seems like an eternity, we stop for a pit break. I barely have time to stretch my legs before everyone is ordered right back on.

Eight hours later we arrive in Ipixuna.

I’m hungry, hot, and my lower back aches.

I’m in a foul mood and would like nothing more than to go to bed. Right now, I could crash for a good night of sleep, but I won’t do that. I now sincerely believe she didn’t expect me to come all the way here, and I do not want to give her an opportunity to get her act together while I rest. No sleep for me tonight; I need to go right to work and keep at it until my eyes close.

Ipixuna doesn’t boast any of the big chains of fast food, but there are restaurants and bars and what looks like brothels to service the largely dam-worker population. I read many of them are displaced local people, forced to labor for the very industry destroying the way of life of their ancestors.

According to my research, the place is a dangerous hotbed of crime and roughhousing, connected to the rest of the world only by the Amazon. There are no roads leading out of Ipixuna other than the one lane dirt trail the construction workers take to the dam site.

“I can’t stress enough that you shouldn’t wander around the streets here at night, Ms. Duncan,” Isabella cautions while glancing frantically around us after we’ve left the boat. “We should hurry.”

She takes me to the charity’s headquarters, a converted Spanish mission on the very edge of the town. There’s a small trailer attached to the main building by a short hallway. I believe it constitutes the daycare center she bragged so highly of.

“My office is through here,” Isabella says, leading me through the kitchen. Tired-looking native women are preparing large vats of some kind of soup or stew. I guess this is the hot meal Isabella mentioned earlier.

Isabella takes me into a tidy office, decorated with her awards and commendations. She’s arranged her office so that anyone sitting in the very low chair opposite her desk can’t help but look up and see them right behind her.

I ruin this scheme of hers by taking her seat behind her desk.

“Show me the files, starting with the invoices.”

“You want to do that now? Aren’t you tired?”

“I’m exhausted, but I think you agree that we want to make my audit as short as possible, so yes, I want to do it now.” I rub my face and sigh. “I’m pretty sure I saw a coffeemaker in the kitchen. I’m sure you can see to it that a pot is brewed. We’re in for a long night.”

Isabella walks out in silence, hopefully to get the coffee going, and I set to work. Many of the invoices that were scanned and sent out to the Factory’s headquarters are what one would expect. Kitchen supplies, utility bills, maintenance work done on the charity’s buildings, but numerous invoices have no designation. None of them mention a product, or a service, or an individual. In short, they’re like blank checks the Factory has been writing for Isabella.

If the results of her work had been fabulous, the Factory would have looked the other way—no one enjoys studying invoices, but since it’s not, I was sent here for a thorough investigation.

When Isabella returns, I confront her about thepoeticnature of the invoices in the files. She immediately grows defensive.

“I don’t know why you’re being so hard on us, Ms. Duncan. We work hard to make these people’s lives better, and to tell you the truth, I’ve had a very long day. I’m too tired to have that discussion tonight.”

Okay, so I’m not going to get anything else out of her tonight.

“Then I guess that will be all for now, Isabella, thank you.”

“But—”

She stops talking, and I can see plain as day in her eyes that she wants me out of her office right away. That’s not going to happen. Not a chance.

I act as if I don’t understand and smile as I say, “I understand. We’ll start fresh tomorrow, but I will stay up a bit longer. Don’t worry about me, you can leave now.”

---