by B. TRAVEN
When his eyes got used to the darkness inside the church and he approached the image of the Holy Virgin, cold shivers ran up and down his spine. He had to look several times before he could convince himself that what he saw was real and not a dream.
The dogs in their fighting for the tortillas had pushed the Most Holy Mother of God into the fire, where She lay helplessly and with the same natural consequences as any other piece of wood when tossed into any fire. Cipriano, without being told so, knew at once that Satan had sent the dogs to keep him out of heaven.
With a resolute grip he rescued the Godmother from the fire. Her left hand was held pressed to Her heart hanging outside the center of her body from where rays of gold, red and bronze radiated in all directions. Her right hand was raised to the level of Her chin with the palm down in a gesture as if to bless someone, or cover the head of an invisible child. This hand the fire had completely charred. The right side of the image was blackened in a most ugly way.
Cipriano extinguished the still burning parts of the figure with the last few drops of his coffee. When this did not altogether help he used his spit. Not for one moment did he consider this spitting on the Virgin an act of disrespect. In spite of all his education as a faithful Christian he, without realizing it, turned heathen again when confronted by reality.
Now he had to think of what to do. He completely forgot that he held in his hands the Mother of God who was worshiped and prayed to as if she really was the Mother of God alive and in person and not just a wooden figure.
Automatically he closed the church so that nobody should come in to witness the damage that had been done. He was aware of the fact that there was no excuse for his negligence. He would lose his position and, what was a hundred times worse, he might even be excommunicated. Not that his job brought in much money, ten centavos for a baptism, twenty-five centavos for a good wedding, fifteen centavos for a funeral. But what bothered him more than the possible loss of his job as sacristan was to lose the respectful position he now held. If the disaster for which he alone was to blame should become known he no longer could be the one closest to the padre, no longer would he be allowed to attend to all that was holy, no longer would he substitute for the padre during his occasional absences, nor would he have the envied privilege to light the candles in the presence of the whole community, nor would he have the unbelievably great honor to hand the wash basin and towel or the chasuble to the padre. Nobody would ask or heed his advice, there would not be any more chicken or rooster on his saint’s day, no tequila here or pumpkin cooked in wild honey there. In other words, life would not be worth living anymore. In his thirty years of service he had become so involved with the church that nobody could even imagine the church without him. The present generation had been raised in the belief that his person was irreplaceable. Perhaps, so he thought, he might pray very ardently and a great miracle would happen, and the hand of the Mother of God would grow again. But Cipriano’s belief did not reach out that far. He was too much Indian to know that charred wood does not grow under any circumstances, no matter how much you pray for that to happen.
After hours of thinking and speculating he contemplated the idea of sawing off the charred hand, carving a new one and gluing it onto the stump. He then would apply a thick coat of paint, and once the image was again set up over the altar nobody would notice the difference. The carving of the hand would take a day. During this time the Virgin would have to be in Her place or the worshipers who come to pray would surely miss her immediately. Without the image before him, an Indian cannot concentrate on his prayers but thinks of his corn, his goats, his sheep and his wife instead.
Cipriano clothed the Virgin again in her dark-blue velvet mantle and put Her back on Her little stage over the altar once more. He arranged the candles in such a way that in the twilight of the church one would not easily notice the charred hand. He draped some folds of the cloak over the hand in such a smart way that no one could easily distinguish the charred hand from the dark cloth. Before the padre returned, a new hand perfectly well painted would have been glued onto the arm.
Meanwhile it became late, Cipriano opened the main door and a few elderly women entered to pray. When it was time to close he locked the church and went home reassured that during the night nothing would happen to make the calamity known. He looked for a piece of wood and started to carve the hand as best as he could. The finer points he would do in full daylight during the next forenoon. He worked fast and figured that he would have his job finished by noon the following day.
While he was busy carving a terrific storm broke loose. Thunder rattled from all sides, lightning flashed over the skies and tore the black night into flaming shreds. A more pious person than Cipriano would have connected the storm with the Virgin in disgrace. And surely the padre would have said: “There you are, Cipriano, see what you did, the wrath of God Almighty is over you. Repent, Cipriano, repent!”
Capriano was pious but not pious enough to believe for one moment that the storm happened in consequence of his carelessness in regard to the Virgin’s image. As an Indian he was well acquainted with nature and he had already seen in the early afternoon how heavy storm clouds gathered far out on the horizon. In fact he had told his neighbors Mateo and Eusebio when they came visiting for a while in the churchyard: “Watch out, you cuates, we’ll have a severe storm such as we haven’t had for a long time. Who knows whether or not a few jacalitos might not burn down.” And that happened at least one hour before the hand of the Virgin was lost. So what had the thunderstorm to do with that lamentable mishap?
The padre though would have said: “The Virgin knew all this long before and therefore arranged the thunderstorm beforehand.” And Cipriano would have answered: “Si, Padre, that’s so.” For he had been taught as a little boy that one commits sin arguing with a priest. What a priest says is the truth of God. But to himself Cipriano would have said: “If the Virgin had known all this beforehand, She would also have known that a few hungry village dogs would throw Her into the fire. Would She really have allowed those dogs to do that to Her for no other reason but to cause me trouble? I can’t believe that, so help me the Lord.”
Cipriano rolled himself a cigarette and waited, for he knew that, in his situation, praying would not help anyway. The tempest would wear itself out. He remembered doña Lucina, the wife of Pancho Lazcano, who was killed by lightning while fingering the rosary. So it was better to roll a cigarette and stand in the open door to watch the splendor of the storm.
While he so watched the sky, a tremendous burst of thunder exploded right above his head which shook him so that he had to hold fast to the doorpost of his choza to avoid dropping to the ground. At the same fraction of a second he saw a flash hitting the roof of the church. Roof tiles crackled all over and he expected the church to go up in flames at any moment. But nothing happened. The dark outline of the church stood out quietly against the night. Slowly the thunders began to retreat, the flashes quivered away and a heavy rain started pouring down. After half an hour the rain stopped, the storm had abated, and only in the far distance could one see an occasional flash.
While Cipriano was still standing in his door, a few men came running, shouting: “Don Cipriano, did you see that last flash which hit the church? Quickly, bring your keys and open up. We must see if something is burning inside. Still time to put out any fire that may have caught on somewhere.”
When they arrived at the church many people were waiting already and many more were coming fast, men, women and children. Everyone had seen the flash strike the church straight over the altar and they now wanted to see what damage had been done.
Cipriano opened the door, the men went in and looked around but could see no fire anywhere. Until midnight they searched around. When finally they had made sure that not even a glimmer had been overlooked they all went home satisfied.
Very early next morning Cipriano opened the church and women entered to pray.
Having lighted the c
andles as usual, he stood near the door filling the font when suddenly two women right in front of the altar let out a shriek, crossing themselves violently at the same time.
Cipriano turned around, terribly frightened. He knew that everything had been discovered and that he only had to wait for the padre’s return to be dishonorably discharged from duty. Other women in the church also were running now toward the altar to see what had caused that horrifying shriek. Hardly had they come close when they stopped, screaming and crossing themselves.
Cipriano heard a word here and a scream there but finally he could make out what they were shouting: “A miracle has happened! A great miracle! Blessed be the Mother of God. Glory to the Holy Virgin! A great miracle!” The women hurried toward Cipriano, dragging him to the altar.
He had become entirely indifferent. He would have liked best to go home, lie down in bed and say that he was deadly sick. But they pulled him along, shouting at the same time: “Look, Don Cipriano! Have you no eyes for the great miracle that has happened? A lightning struck the church. Up there the tiles have fallen out from the roof. A great miracle has happened to our church. The hand of the Holy Virgin caught the flash! La Madre Santísima sacrificed Her adored hand to protect the holy flesh of Christ our Lord. She saved our church! Be She blessed for ever and ever, She kept the fire away that would have destroyed our church. A miracle! A great, great miracle has happened. Glory be to God!”
In less than three days the church was surrounded by Indians and Mestizos alike, thousands of people. Cipriano could not do anything anymore. He had become convinced that there surely must be a higher power which determines fate on earth, in particular his own.
In no time the church became an important source of income in solid cash and it has stayed so to this very day because faithful pilgrims adore that Virgin, praying for her protection against injuries lightning might cause.
It was only human that Cipriano never said anything. How would he dare tell the princes of the church, archbishops and bishops who came to celebrate Masses here, that a little error had occurred? These dignitaries would have laughed out loud and told him that he was getting too old and a little weak in the head.
A true Indian, he was endowed with an inborn worldly wisdom and knew when and how to hold his tongue. After all, he did not believe it his duty to reform religions. Less so as they were good enough for him the way they existed. Everything concerned, he thought it most beneficial for him to leave matters as they stood, because soon he learned that a sacristan of a rich church can live much better than one of a poor Indian community. No longer did he have to go out, cutting wood and burning coal in the bush under a tropical sun. And for this convenience he remained forever grateful to his half saint, Judas Iscariot.
Midnight Call
One certain night there was a hard knock on the light wooden wall of the weather-beaten bungalow in which I lived. I had no watch, but from the position of the moon I judged that it was about midnight. It happened in a village populated by Indian peasants which was known in the region as a nido de bandoleros, or as we would say, a nest of bandits.
Those were revolutionary times; scores of small semimilitary groups that had lost contact with their regiments and whose little properties had been devastated had to keep alive with their families as best as they could.
Fact is, and I ought to know, that one can live securely in the countryside of the Republic in the very midst of so-called bandits if one is neither Indian nor Mestizo and does not care what the people there are doing or how they make their living. In addition I had learned from experience that one can live peacefully and happily in such a neighborhood if every inhabitant of the place knows that one owns only one pair of shoes with holes, a few worn shirts and one pair of pants which can no longer serve even to repair another pair of ragged pants. Aside from this, one may safely own a few pesos, some books, and a dilapidated typewriter without a Spanish type body.
The people of this village, bandoleros or no bandoleros—what did I care—would not let me starve. After I had lost my beautiful cotton because of the boll weevil, and so all the proceeds of my hard work of nine long months, I stared at the world discouraged and utterly dejected. Yet no sooner had I asked myself, What shall I eat, what shall I drink, to whom shall I turn now? when two men of the village appeared at my bungalow with an express desire to learn English and asked how much I would charge. I told them twenty centavos each for one lesson. They paid me ten hours in advance and so I was able to buy corn seed to plant in my ruined cotton field. It was just the right time to plant corn because the rainy season was to start in less than four weeks.
Through those two pupils I got five more within two weeks, because for some reason not clear to me at that time, several villagers had suddenly decided to study English. They all came regularly and paid for their lessons punctually. So all of us were satisfied with one another. Under such conditions I had no reason to bother about whether they were bandoleros or not. They let me live undisturbed and I left them alone. No better way to live on this earth.
Now, if someone in the countryside in the Republic knocks on your door around midnight, experience, advice, good taste and manners demand that you keep quiet, that you don’t answer and that you hold your breath as long as possible, because it might just so happen that at the very moment you open the door to see who is there—you wishing it might be the telegraph boy bringing you a hundred-dollar order—you have two or a dozen shots fired at you, and you withdraw safe and unharmed or filled with lead, alone or followed by some men who push you farther inside and not exactly in a friendly way.
There are people who don’t know better and who will claim that bravery is a great virtue on the battlefield, but bravery in certain places at certain times and in certain circumstances in the Republic is usually a sign of incurable and innate stupidity. No one around there is expected to be a juggler or to catch revolver bullets with his teeth. To see that you pay for it in a circus.
Because many years had elapsed since I traveled with a circus, I had, as is only natural, lost the ability to catch bullets with my hands open or with my teeth closed, so I kept as quiet as a buried chest full of money when I heard the knocking on my door. Whether I began to tremble and break out in a cold sweat I no longer remember now, but I don’t believe I did. If things have already gone so far that you hear a violent knocking on your door at night and the knocking gets more vehement every second, it will no longer be of any use to sweat from fear. Whatever is going to happen, whatever it may be, that has already been decided outside without consulting you and so you’d better save the cold sweat.
After several more of those violent knocks I heard half-loud voices. There were at least three men as far as I could distinguish from the different voices. The voices carried a strong and merciless tone, as of men who knew precisely why they had come and what they wanted.
Then I heard shuffling close to the door. They left the porch and I could catch their heavy steps on the sandy ground. From the sounds their feet made I gathered that two of them were wearing boots and one huaraches. I realized that my life was prolonged by the amount of time it would take them to decide what to do next.
Naturally I thought of escaping. The one-room bungalow had, like most houses in the country in that part of the Republic, two doors, one at each side. But I had barricaded both doors with beams. The loosening of these beams could not be done without noise, and with the least little noise I made the men would immediately be at the door through which I wanted to escape.
In spite of having just come out of a deep sleep, I tried to think of some medicine or trick by which I might save myself. However, at that precious moment I could not concentrate sufficiently on any sort of medicine that might be useful. After all, I had first to see the men and how they looked so that I could select the right medicine.
I had no gun. Anyway, a gun would not have helped me in such a situation as I was in. One might be lucky and shoot all three men. But it would b
e difficult to get out of a village in which one has shot three of its citizens, especially if the place is a hideout for bandoleros. Actually I was better off without a gun. What’s more, it eliminated any obligation to be brave. Always and everywhere bravery is badly rewarded. It’s always and forever the cowards who survive the wars. The really brave fall on the battlefield for the glory of those who march home under showers of confetti and ticker tape.
By now the men had returned to the door. Because of the annual tropical rains, the bungalow was built on posts and several steps led up to the doors.
I heard the men stamping up and, as the steps were narrow, only one could be at the door while the others had to remain on the lower steps.
The fellow at the door knocked hard with what seemed to be the butt of a revolver or a shotgun.