A Handful of Dust

Mr. Todd has lived in the Amazon for “nearly sixty years” (215), yet only the Indigenous people know of his existence. He lives in a small village that is not marked on any map and has only a vague connection with the trade networks that stretch this far into the jungle. One of the locals comes to tell him that a white man has been spotted in the forest, “alone and very sick” (215). Mr. Todd finds the feverish Tony and urges him back to the village, making him walk under his own strength. He provides local medicine for Tony’s fever and gradually nurses him back to health.

As Tony recovers, Todd explains that his mother was a local woman and his father was from missionary from Barbados. Like his father, Todd has married many of the local women and he considers them to be his wives, so that “most of the men and women living in this savannah are [his] children” (219). Todd is illiterate but he loves books. An Englishman came to the village some years before, Todd explains, and often read aloud from Todd’s collection of Charles Dickens novels. That man died, however, so Todd is enthused that someone else will be able to read to him.