by Bruce Wydick
After going through the standard list of questions, they asked him how the machine worked. Maximo was like many Guatemalan men, who could be shy when first approached with a question, but once engaged with a comfortable subject, often yielded an enchanting fountain of information.
“Well,” he began, “I first must convey to you what I deeply believe is the right way and the wrong way to process the coffee cherry.”
“Let’s start with the wrong way,” Rich broke in with a grin.
“Yes, the wrong way . . .” It seemed as if Maximo had prepared to discuss the right way first. He cleared his throat and began, “The wrong way—in my opinion, of course—is what is called the dry method. This is when a farmer takes the cherries and sorts them by hand or with a screen. Then he spreads them out in the open air, sometimes on trestles and sometimes just on the ground, for anywhere from ten to thirty days. By then, if the grower is lucky and it doesn’t rain, the beans have lost almost 90 percent of their moisture, and they are ready to be shelled.”
“So why is the dry method the wrong way?” asked Angela.
“Well, it works all right when you know you won’t get any rain. And it works all right when you know exactly when to shell the dry cherries, but this leaves your quality to chance. If you let them dry too much, you get cracked beans. And for buyers, a cracked bean is a bad bean. If you don’t let them dry enough, or if it rains too much, you can get mildew, fungus, or other bad things. Esto no me gusta.” He obviously didn’t like the dry method.
“Is that partly because you own one of the local pulping machines that use the wet method?” asked Rich. Angela cringed inside a little at Rich’s unremitting predisposition for directness.
“I am not biased because I own a pulping machine, Señor Rich. I own a pulping machine because I am biased!”
“Touché,” responded Rich, smiling at him as he took down notes.
But he obviously had taken Rich’s accusation of bias to heart and felt that he needed to justify his stance more fully. “With the wet method you need a lot of water. No water, and you are stuck with the dry method. But if you have water, you immerse the cherries in a tank. And here is the beautiful part: the good cherries sink to the bottom, but the bad, unripe ones float to the top. This makes the sorting easy. Then the pulping machine pops the seeds through a screen, separating them from the husks and the pulp. The pulp actually makes excellent fertilizer too. It takes less than two days, and you end up with higher quality beans in less time. This is why I prefer it.”
“But isn’t it more expensive than the dry method?” asked Rich.
“Yes,” he maintained, “pero vale la pena.” It was worth the trouble. “The only people who use the dry method around here are very poor people, or people who don’t know what they’re doing, en mi opinion, of course.”
“What do you charge the other growers for pulping?” asked Rich.
“Ten or twelve quetzelitos per sack,” Maximo replied. It was about a dollar-fifty. “There are others who will do it for this price if I tried to charge much more.”
Angela could see that this was clearly not a major profit center along the value chain. They would have to look elsewhere to see where all Fernando’s profit was going.
“Gracias, Don Maximo.” Angela and Rich each exchanged a final bone-crushing handshake with Maximo, and they walked down the road to interview their next grower.
CHAPTER 14
From her new vantage point in the barn, the young woman could make out the officer with a heavy mustache at the opposite end of the village. He wore the uniform of an army lieutenant. His voice was like the growl of a rabid dog as he snarled orders through a megaphone to the villagers who had sought refuge in the church. It was not her church, but it was the church of many of her friends in the village, the church of the evangelicos. Maybe those seeking refuge in the church thought that the soldiers would have orders not to kill people in such a church. The president was an evangelico. Would the president allow the army to kill members of his own church? Of this, the young woman was not sure.
She decided to return to her place behind the feeding trough. If the soldiers looked in the barn, perhaps they wouldn’t see that there was space behind it to hide. Perhaps they would be in a hurry and search other places. She prayed that this might be the case.
As she nursed her baby in the hay, the thoughts of the young woman returned to Alberto. She and Mildred had asked Alberto many questions as he was recovering from his wounds, and he had told them much about his experience as a guerilla fighter. Why did he tell them these things? Perhaps he wanted them to sympathize with the guerillas? She didn’t know. With a warning that they should never tell anyone, Alberto told them how they would live in the forest, where they would get supplies, how they would obtain food. He even told them where they hid, and how they came to know where the government would look for them. There were informants in the government, he explained, those who sympathized with the plight of the people. The young woman didn’t understand much about how the government worked, but Alberto had told them how these people in the government had been very useful to the insurgency.
One time, he explained, they received word from one of these informants, a man named Felipe Perez. Señor Perez had told them about a military exercise that would be conducted by government troops. He even told them when and where it would happen. Alberto told them how his platoon carefully prepared to engage the enemy the night after the exercise when all the troops would be tired. They brought extra ammunition into the battle so they would not run out. They practiced exactly how they would fight, and how they would kill as many of the enemy as possible. They had surprised the government troops that night, firing shells into their tents while they slept after the day of hard exercises. Usually the guerrillas would flee from the government troops. This time they watched the government troops flee from them, into the jungle. And into the jungle they chased them, shooting many in the back as some ran helplessly in their underwear. It was a great night for the insurgency, he told them excitedly, a proud night. Alberto shared many secret stories like this with them.
Sometimes Alberto would linger with her after Mildred would say good night. It wasn’t often that a peasant woman who made her living tending coffee felt worthy of attention from such a brave fighter. They would sit by the place they had prepared for him to sleep in the shack behind their house. It was the shack where they kept food and hay for their animals. They would sit and Alberto would talk and she would listen. She listened to his stories late into the night and shared some of them with Mildred the next day. Some, but not all.
Mildred was her best friend, and she knew that Mildred only had one fault. It was difficult for Mildred to keep exciting thoughts inside her, especially when she knew something important that others didn’t. And the young woman learned while Mildred was washing clothes at the river with some of the other women, she could not resist the urge to tell them some of the exciting stories they had been told by Alberto. The young woman felt nervous when she learned that Mildred had told the others some of Alberto’s secret stories. But Mildred assured her that the women understood they mustn’t tell a soul; it was to be kept in confidence, and she had received assurances.
The young woman also understood the temptation to share Alberto’s secret stories. In fact, she had told one or two women herself, of course only very trustworthy women. But telling these secret stories made her feel good. Only an important woman would be privy to such information. Yes, Alberto had told them much about the guerrillas. Perhaps he had told them too much.
Alex
Fernando and Juana had invited the students to eat breakfast with them on a Saturday. Alex was looking forward to the promised meal: papaya from the coast, fresh eggs, frijoles, handmade tortillas, and some of Juana’s best goat cheese. They arrived at the door, and Ema, who was preparing the breakfast with her mother, greeted them with an enthusiastic wave.
They sat in the main room and talked for a wh
ile as Alex shared the story with Ema and Lourdes about their hike to try to visit Guillermo Ixicuat, about the snakes and how loud Sofia had screamed and how high he and Rich had jumped. This made the sisters laugh, and it reminded Alex how much he liked to hear Lourdes laugh.
Juana had joined the conversation and one of her small grandchildren slowly emerged from behind Juana’s skirt, seemingly entranced by something about Alex. As they continued to talk, the boy walked over and touched him on one of his arms resting on the wooden armrest of his chair. Focused on the conversation, nobody except Alex noticed at first as the boy examined it closely and then began stroking it slowly and curiously, back and forth. Alex sat there patiently with his arm on the wooden armrest, slightly self-conscious, but more amused by the little boy’s fascination. Suddenly the boy’s interest in Alex’s arm caught the attention of the group, and they began to laugh.
“He’s stroking that thing like it’s his new pet hamster,” said Rich.
“Es el pelo de su brazo,” laughed Juana. It was the hair on his arms.
“He must not have seen hairy arms before,” said Sofia.
The boy was also fascinated with the tattoo of a sea serpent on Alex’s right wrist.
“You can touch it,” said Alex. “It won’t bite.” Now the focus of unwanted attention, the little boy shyly retreated back to Ema, his young aunt.
Alex noticed that Lourdes was beginning to show just a little bit, and he went over to her and offered to help her cut the papaya.
“In Guatemala men do not help women in the kitchen. It is considered unmanly,” she informed him.
“I think werewolf arms here has built up some credit in the manhood department,” shouted Rich from across the room as he looked for a place to stretch out. “Just keep the hair out of the papayas . . . por favor.”
“You know, I think I could become comfortable with this,” said Lourdes. “Do the European women expect that you will help them in the kitchen?”
Alex considered the question. “Well, I have never been married, of course, but I think if husbands never help with cooking and chores, the women where I come from get mad and call them lazy. In fact, I think I remember my mother calling my father that a number of times when I was little, before they got divorced.”
“They got divorced because your father didn’t work enough in the kitchen? That would not happen here.” Lourdes looked puzzled. “Is that common among Europeans?” she asked.
“Well, I think it was more than issues about kitchen work. Unfortunately, my father began to find other women more interesting to him than my mother, one woman in particular. And yes, it is unfortunately a little bit common,” said Alex.
“I’m sorry for you and your family. Here the men are sometimes unfaithful, but the women never divorce them,” Lourdes noted to him.
“If the men know that they will never divorce them, is that making it more likely they are to cheat?” asked Alex.
“Not if they are faithful Christians,” responded Lourdes. “Men who are faithful Christians respect women and do not have relations before they are married to them. And they do not cheat afterwards.”
“I suppose that is true, but we all do make mistakes,” observed Alex.
“Yes, but that is a very big mistake.”
“Isn’t your religion sufficiently large to have enough . . .” He fumbled for the word in Spanish. “. . . gracia? . . . to forgive when someone makes even a very big mistake?”
Immediately after he said this, he remembered, and he felt foolish. Moreover, a new and unsettling revelation swept over Alex. It was the first time in his life that he had ever personally encountered what he might have quaintly called “virtue” or “purity” and not been almost immediately repulsed by it. Indeed, everything about this girl and her family, whether relating to forgiveness, temperance, sexual restraint, or even concern for strange foreigners who ended up sick in their house—seemed to be part of a seamless garment woven around love and respect.
“I am sorry, Lourdes. Now I ask you to forgive me.”
“No te preocupes, Alex.” She smiled again. “Would you like to come to my church with me tomorrow?”
“Lourdes, I’m not sure about that. We have—”
She laughed and shook her finger at him. “I know you do not work on Sunday!”
He was trapped and acquiesced, “Of course . . . I would be . . . extremely delighted.”
Lourdes turned toward Angela. “Would you like to come with us?”
“No gracias, Lourdes. Sunday morning is para mi primer sueño.” It was when she got her beauty sleep. Lourdes laughed.
They settled down to a delicious breakfast, crowding around the small wooden table with some spare wood benches from behind the house.
“Doña Juana, I must say,” Rich said with both cheeks full of scrambled eggs, “these are the freshest eggs I’ve tasted south of the Mexican border.” A small portion of the delicious eggs had attached themselves to the beard stubble northwest of his mouth. Alex made a subtle wiping motion to him from across the table, and he quickly addressed the issue with one of the simple paper napkins Juana had placed next to each plate on the table.
“Absolutely agreed,” said Sofia, “and because I grew up south of the Mexican border, for me that covers a lot of eggs.” The Ixtamperic family laughed, happy to provide something new to people from abroad, who seemingly had already done and experienced everything before.
Fernando announced at the end of the meal, “Today is pruning day.” He looked around at the students. “Would you like to learn how to prune coffee plants?” They all were interested.
Fernando took them to his plot. A warm midmorning sun activated the natural humidity of the coffee field, yet the temperature was not stifling. It was a good temperature for work. He began his presentation. “The first thing to understand about arabica coffee plants is that the coffee should grow off a single stem system. That means you want one main stem going up from the trunk base with the secondary branches moving off from this main stem. These branches and the ones that shoot off from them are the ones that you want to produce the coffee.”
He showed them an example from a plant right next to them. “You see how many years ago I cut off a competing stem?” He pointed to a tiny stump on the main trunk. “This stem would have produced a lot of coffee, but reduced what the whole plant together would yield for us. With coffee plants, much of it is about competition for light. You maximize yield when you get every branch enough light.”
He took some weathered pruning shears out of an old leather pouch attached to his belt and pruned as he lectured. “Now when I start pruning, I cut off all the dead branches that don’t do anything except take away light and nutrients from the plant.” He demonstrated as the students watched. “Then I cut off all the branches that are drooping to the ground.”
He walked over to a shady area. “In the shady areas, sometimes vines grow up the trunk, and we have to remove all of this kind of thing. It hurts the yield.” He demonstrated by yanking off a strand of ivy that had begun to wind its way around one of the trunks. “See this,” he said, holding up the ivy to the students. “Malo.” He tossed the sprig into a burn pile.
“Now off the main stem, you don’t want the secondary branches that bear the cherries to be too close to each other. Notice, they should be at least thirty or forty centimeters from each other, so I cut off the little shoots that compete with these big, beautiful, cherry-producing branches. What you want is one main stem with a good number of coffee-producing secondary branches. But not too many. Me compreden?” The students nodded.
Rich walked over a few feet and pointed to an odd-looking plant that had all its branches chopped off on one side. “What happened to this poor specimen?” Rich inquired. “The thing looks like it’s been sideswiped by a runaway buzz saw.”
“Sí,” said Fernando, chuckling along with Rich at the bizarre-looking plant. “This is side-pruning, a technique I learned from an official in the a
gricultural service. Pues, to get more from an older plant, you cut off all the branches from the east side of the plant like this, see?” He pointed to the bare side of the plant. “Then you allow a shoot like this to grow up from the trunk along the eastern side of the main stem. When it reaches maturity and begins to bear cherries, you prune off the old main stem. This makes a coffee plant bear plentifully for many years.”
Sofia assessed the situation. “Well, let’s get at it!” she proclaimed. The others nodded.
“The students want to help?” asked Fernando, standing up, surprised.
“Sure, you shouldn’t have to do this all yourself,” said Angela. “We’ll be your mozos. You’ll never find labor as cheap as this.” Fernando laughed and feigned a new insight.
“Ahora comprendo. Now I understand. Gringos travel south, crossing the frontera to find agricultural jobs in remote areas that pay nothing. Happens all the time here. Okay, only if you let Juana fix you lunch.” They spent the morning pruning coffee plants and later enjoyed a delicious lunch of chicken, tortillas, and frijoles.
After lunch Rich and Alex fell asleep on a couple of mats in the main room.
CHAPTER 15
Angela
SOFIA AND ANGELA WERE ENGAGED IN CONVERSATION WITH Fernando, seated at chairs around the spartan dining table. Angela glanced over and noticed Rich and Alex still asleep, Rich snoring face-up with his mouth wide open. She motioned to the two with a cock of her head. “So much for your hardworking mozos.”
“They have earned their sleep,” replied Fernando.
Angela looked back at Alex. He was so much less infuriating when he was asleep. She studied his European features that now perhaps seemed less petulant than before.
Juana brought coffee to Angela and Sofia. They sipped their hot cups as Juana tended to the crackling fire. Outside it began to rain. Angela looked at the colorized picture hanging in its simple frame on the wall. It was a black-and-white photograph of a proud Mayan couple, perhaps taken in the fifties, maybe even the forties. The man wore the traditional male dress garments for the Maya of the Huehuetenango region—the vividly patterned shirt with embroidered collar, brown-and-white checkered skirt covering striped pants with a sash around the waist, topped off with a straw bowler hat. He stared proudly into the camera, arm around his wife, whose head was encircled by a cinta with brocaded designs, large tassels hanging from the left side. It was no wonder they wanted to colorize the picture. Black and white couldn’t capture the Mayan culture.