A Handful of Dust

Tony is on a drab midsized vessel setting out from England. To an overly conversational fellow passenger asking about his destination, Tony replies that he’s looking for a city. The passenger thinks he’s crazy, but later apologizes, saying he hadn’t realized that Tony is actually an explorer. Tony reflects on how he got here, leaving England for one of the few times in his life: just two weeks ago, he was casting about listlessly for ideas at a travel agency, looking to go anywhere far away from Brenda, John Beaver, and Hetton, which for the moment was only a source of bitterness to him.

One afternoon, Tony was approached at a dining club by the eccentric explorer Dr. Messinger. Messinger informed Tony of his upcoming expedition to Brazil in search of a lost, glorious City in the Amazon, mentioned in various legends. Messinger seems to have detailed leads on the city’s possible whereabouts, speculating that it lies in the territory of the Pie-Wie Indians. Though a totally inexperienced traveler, Tony enlists with him on a whim. On board, he has vivid fantasies of the City as remarkably Hetton-like.

Amidst the weeks-long boredom of life at sea, while Dr. Messinger remains in his cabin with seasickness, Tony strikes up a romance with fellow passenger Therese de Vitre, an 18-year-old Trinidadian girl from a rich family. She’s taken with Tony’s status as an explorer, and he expounds on the dangers and difficulties of his upcoming journey. She regales him with tales of her home, where life is easy for the island’s few aristocrats. Tony quickly spoils the brief romance by revealing that he’s married. The ship reaches Trinidad and Therese disembarks quickly without much thought for Tony.

Tony and Dr. Messinger disembark at Demerara. They assemble supplies, a boat, and six Black hired hands. They then take to the river and set off upstream, well past the furthest trading outpost and inland into the heart of the jungle. Insects and unfamiliar noises assail Tony incessantly; sores, scratches, and bites proliferate all over his body. Dr. Messinger is more accustomed to the jungle surroundings and reprimands Tony for constantly scratching his bites. And yet, while sleeping, Messinger is bit by a vampire bat.

Tony reflects on the time change and speculates what may be going on in England at that moment. He remembers his days of courting Brenda. The narrative briefly pivots to Jock and Brenda, dancing at a party in London. Brenda mentions that John Beaver seems to be growing tired of her, and that her divorce cannot proceed without word from Tony. She wonders whether Tony is safe on his harebrained expedition, and Jock reassures her that “the whole world is civilized now.”

Tony and Dr. Messinger arrive at a village of Macushi Indians, where only women are present. Messinger tries communicating in Wapishiana and is surprised that they can’t understand him. One of them, Rosa, speaks English and clarifies that their tribe doesn’t speak Wapishiana. She explains that the men are gone for the next three days on a pig hunt, and then she demands cigarettes. Back at Westminster, Jock, a member of parliament, reads a long-prepared but trifling request on pig-farming legislation to an under-secretary of the Minister of Agriculture. He leaves feeling proud of having served his constituents.

When the Macushi men return, they have a drunken week-long feast. Finally, they sober up, but they are reluctant to join Dr. Messinger’s search for the Pie-Wie people, whom the Macushi dread. Eventually, Messinger succeeds in negotiating for 12 men and 7 of their wives to join and guide his expedition. The Macushi celebrate the agreement with another three-day binge. At last, they send the Black hired hands back downstream, leave a cache of provisions in the village, and set off again. Dr. Messinger proudly tells Tony that maps are useless henceforth.

Back in London, John Beaver fails to get elected into Brown’s social club, an effort for which he was relying on Allan and Reggie’s endorsement and support. He responds by displaying coldness to Brenda, whose own social stock has also fallen. His reaction upsets Brenda, who has begun to survive off sandwiches ordered from the corner deli as she spends two or three days at a time in bed. Even Jenny Abdul Akbar is now getting invited to more social events than Brenda. Mrs. Beaver is disappointed with the way things seem to be shaping up for her son. She decides to bring him along on a holiday in California in the coming summer.

For weeks, Dr. Messinger and Tony march deeper into the jungle, losing their bearings and struggling to communicate with their guides. Dr. Messinger’s confident assessments of the topography are repeatedly proven wrong. The land becomes more arid and desolate, and water grows scarce. Tony and Dr. Messinger rarely speak to one another due to their constant exhaustion. The mosquitoes are relentless around their camp. Tony and Messinger instruct the Macushi women to fan them away as they rest, but as soon as they fall asleep, the women abandon their post, and they awake covered in bites. The Macushi claim there is no game in this region, but Messinger speculates that they refuse to hunt out of fear of the Pie-Wie Indians.

Dr. Messinger resolves to have canoes made and travel down a nearby stream, since he calculates that the Pie-Wie City must be downstream of them. While the men are put to work on the canoes, Messinger and Tony spend the time guarding their sugar supplies from the Macushi women. After several days, the Macushi finish the canoes, but Rosa tells Messinger that they will not accompany him downstream. She repeatedly insists that the Macushi people and the Pie-Wie people do not mix. Bribes of cigarettes, and threats, are fruitless: Rosa and the Macushi will not budge, insisting on returning to their village. Messinger calls them cowards, but now Rosa says that they must return for the cassava harvest.

Finally, Dr. Messinger—claiming, “I know the Indian mind”—unveils a wind-up, green-and-white mechanical mouse and sets it ticking. The Indians are horrified and flee instantly. Night falls, but Messinger remains confident they will return. They do indeed return that night, noiselessly retrieving their scattered tools and then vanishing again, permanently. Back in London, John Beaver and Brenda eat breakfast at a restaurant after partying all night. Beaver reflects wistfully that the partygoing season is drawing to a close. Brenda asks him to pay, and he complains about the prices. He confirms that he’s heading to California soon with Mrs. Beaver, which spells the end of his and Brenda’s relationship, despite her apparent attempts to convince him to stay. She tells Beaver he shouldn’t bother to walk her home.

Tony and Dr. Messinger paddle on alone, hazardously and inefficiently, still spotting no signs of human life. The minimal supplies they decided to keep are still dangerously overloading the craft. Their journey at this stage is slow but peaceful, until Tony develops sudden and severe fever. The fever waxes and wanes in intensity, but it nevertheless majorly hampers their progress. Tony wants to wait and recuperate onshore, but Dr. Messinger insists that they paddle on.

Tony begins hallucinating: Brenda appears, nonsensically recycling fragments of speech and incident from throughout the novel. As he talks to her over the next day and a half, Messinger realizes how sick Tony is and sets up a “temporary emergency base camp.” The next day, Messinger explains to Tony that he’s seriously ill. He sets off alone downstream to find help for Tony but is sucked over a waterfall and killed.

Back in London, Brenda visits the family solicitor in desperate need of money, but he explains that Tony explicitly instructed not to give Brenda anything in his absence, and that Tony’s presumptive heirs are his cousins, the family of Richard Last. Brenda can’t believe that Tony meant to stay abroad for as long as he has, but her legal resources in the situation seem to be nonexistent. Later, in the flat, she cannot muster the will to feed herself with the meager food she has procured. She breaks down crying about all her friends abandoning her. John Beaver, Jock, Marjorie, Allan, Polly Cockpurse, even Jenny Abdul Akbar: all of them are off enjoying varied and fabulous summer vacations, while she lies miserable in bed.

Meanwhile Tony, alone, dozes at the camp in delirium. In a brief moment of lucidity, Tony recognizes that he’s too weak to feed himself, and he begins to cry. Later, he tries to refill the kerosene lamp but knocks over the oil keg, causing him to cry again. Soon, the fever returns.

Tony’s fever completely takes over his consciousness, subjecting him to a hallucinatory trial where the characters and events throughout the novel get nightmarishly refracted and redistributed at random. Reggie, Winnie, the Hetton butler, Mrs. Rattery, and others all appear before him in a terrifying phantasmagoria. Finally, he imagines that he’s approaching the City after all: it rises up before him in total neo-Gothic splendor. The gates are thrown open, trumpets hail his arrival, and everything is as beautiful as Hetton.