Your breath alone my consolation,
Your voice alone my voice.
‘Who taught you that, Melecio?’ asked José.
‘Answer your father, Melecio, where did you learn to talk like that?’ said Betina.
Melecio looked up into the faces all around him, shrugged his shoulders, incapable of explaining whence this curious ability had come.
‘Well, well, he has recited a different poem,’ said the white gentleman, applauding and patting Melecio on the head. ‘This boy really is a phenomenon.’ He apologised for not having introduced himself. His name was Emilio Bacardí, he owned a modest rum distillery on the outskirts of Santiago which had afforded him sufficient money to build a successful business. He went on to say that he did not know what José and Betina’s plans were for Melecio, but that whatever they were he would like to help.
‘We do not need your help, thank you,’ said José brusquely.
‘I can understand why you might not accept. I know that past deeds linger on, that spilled blood is still fresh, but perhaps you might do for me as I did for your son, by which I mean do not assume a collier has a heart of coal. I know that it is difficult to believe, but perhaps you might try to see beyond the white man who stands before you and not assume that I wish to exploit you, though well you might after so many centuries of . . . Well, as my father used to say: opportunities are bald and you have to grab them by the hair. Believe me, I am thinking only of your son’s talent, but I realise you have many other things to think about.’
‘The only thing we need to think about right now is finding our cart and heading back to Pata de Puerco,’ said José abruptly. ‘So if you’ll excuse us . . . Let’s go.’ Betina hesitantly turned towards the man. José gave her a gentle shove. The man continued on his way and once again people swarmed around, eager to greet him. The coachman with the scar across his face, who had been talking to José only moments earlier, courteously opened the carriage door.
‘Melecio, if I catch you talking to a white man again, I’ll split your skull,’ said José.
‘Opportunities are bald, Papá, and you have to grab them by the hair.’ Melecio stared at the cloud of dust left by the carriage as it passed.
When they came to the place where they had tethered the cart, they found the mare lying dead on the ground, her tongue sticking out, her body twisted like a hank of barbed wire. One of her legs had been hacked off.
‘What do you mean, someone killed the mare?’ Evaristo clapped his head in his hands. José said he was sorry. Evaristo worriedly asked how José planned to pay for the beast, since it was the only horse he had. ‘Before the month is out I will buy you a new mare,’ said the Mandinga. Someone had done the same thing to Oscar, José went on, and one day he would get his hands on the son of a bitch and string him up by his balls from the nearest pine tree. The strangest thing was that he had had a premonition. From the moment they arrived in El Cobre and seen the soldiers bustling about, the Negroes begging and the rich white people glaring at them scornfully, José had sensed it was not a good day to make this trip. And to make matters worse, one of the rich bastards had had the nerve to pester them, offering to help Melecio. ‘Can you imagine, Evaristo? A white man offering to help us! There he was wasting my time while some bandido was hacking off the leg of your mare. If it hadn’t been for this Emilio Bacardón, or Bacardín . . .’
‘Emilio Bacardí?’ said Evaristo.
‘That’s the man. If it hadn’t been for him, right now you would have your mare here exactly as you lent her to me.’
‘Wait a minute. You’re telling me you talked to Emilio Bacardí, the mayor of Santiago?’
‘Chico, I don’t know if he was a mayor or a priest. Besides, they all speak some strange language round those parts, it’s like a different country. But the fact is this Bacardí held me up talking about how Melecio had a gift for poetry and how he wanted to help. The things you have to listen to. Thirty years we fought these people and now they want to help us!’
‘What are you talking about, José? Don’t you know that most of the rifles we had during the war of independence were bought with this man’s money? Don’t you realise that Bacardí’s own son fought shoulder to shoulder with Maceo? You must have met him. He stood right there right next to you wielding his machete.’
‘Only two or three white men fought alongside Maceo. And the only one who proved himself a good soldier, not afraid of bullets and bayonets, was a scrawny lad with a moustache they called Emilito.’
‘That’s him. Emilito was the son of Emilio Bacardí.’
José walked slowly back to the fence that surrounded his neighbour’s shack. He stared out at the infinite expanse of green that looked like an undulating emerald mantle. In the distance, he could make out pine trees, poplars and the tangle of vines that choked the pathway leading into the Accursed Forest which, in the gathering shadows of dusk, looked like tall windmills.
‘Give me a month and I’ll pay you for the mare, Evaristo,’ he said. Then he walked back to his house, head bowed, deep in his own thoughts.
Ignacio’s Idea
To continue. Someone had cut off the leg of Evaristo’s mare. There was something else José needed to do, something more pressing, and that was to visit the wise-woman Juanita. Her shack was little more than a hovel, set apart from all the others, which reeked of damp, dried plants, alcohol, cumin and tobacco. A narrow room crammed with cauldrons filled with husks, mysterious roots and snails of every colour, a single room with a privy in the back yard and a fire on which she cooked.
The santera opened the door and, for the first time, José and Betina saw her without her housecoat. Her hair was a hank of dry, dishevelled straw that smelled of rancid oil. They went inside, sat on a pair of stools next to a santería altar and told Juanita about their worries and their doubts.
‘So you think I was mistaken . . . ?’ said Juanita. José and Betina protested that, though they did not doubt Juanita’s gifts, they were confident Benicio was completely normal. He was sometimes naughty, as any child might be, he played war games and climbed trees. But there was nothing unusual about that. It was Melecio who was different. And this they found worrying. They reminded her about the poem he had recited beneath the red flame tree, told her what had happened in El Cobre. When they had asked the poor child, he himself did not know where he had found these words he had never heard before in his life.
‘Maybe the day you told us about the boys’ futures you’d smoked too much and made a mistake,’ said José, smiling. Juanita looked at them gravely. Her eyes narrowed like those of a Chinaman. She was not mistaken, she said; it was true that she liked alcohol and tobacco and the herbs José had mentioned, but he could rest assured that in matters of magic she was never mistaken.
‘Why then did you not tell us what was going to happen to Malena and Oscar?’ asked José.
‘Because it is impossible to change a person’s destiny and, alas, there was nothing that could be done,’ said Juanita, then served them some coffee in two polished cans.
They sat there for a little while, talking about Gertrudis, who had grown up to be a sensible girl who did not have to be asked twice to wash clothes in the river or clean the house; they talked about how much they still missed Malena and Oscar. They speculated about the future of Pata de Puerco, about whether it would one day be a town with cobbled streets like El Cobre and other cities around the country. Then Juanita walked them to the door and they made to leave.
‘Not you, José. I’d like you to stay a little longer. There’s something I want you to see.’
Betina protested, asking why she could not stay too, and Juanita explained that what she had to say concerned José alone, that no one else could be present. Grumbling, Betina headed down the dirt path to their house.
‘Sit over there,’ said Juanita, gesturing to a stool next to the altar. The seat, carved out of wood, was sculpted in the form of an Indian, almost life-size, wearing a headdress of eagle�
��s feathers, surrounded by cauldrons filled with river stones, metal artefacts, pieces of dried coconut rind, a pair of maracas and a dozen candles. The santera lit the candles, grabbed a flask of rum and drank straight from the neck then spat at the figure of the Indian. She picked up the five dried coconut rinds and with a flick of her wrist tossed them on the ground.
‘What is already known should not be asked,’ she said aloud.
‘What is already known should not be asked?’ repeated José.
‘Five coconuts face up, not one face down. This confirms that I was right. Every time I have asked about your future I have received the same answer: five coconuts face up. It means there will be war.’
‘Another war? But what has that got to do with my future? Don’t tell me I am to be drafted to fight in another war.’
‘No. This war will be fought in your house, and it involves Benicio.’
Once again José insisted that Grandfather was a good boy and said he believed Juanita’s saints had a grudge against poor Benicio. Juanita threw the coconuts again, and once again they fell face up.
It was dark by the time José got home, pale and silent as though he were in another dimension.
‘What happened? Why the long sad face?’ asked Betina.
José looked at her as though for a moment he did not recognise this woman who had opened the door to him. His expression changed suddenly. He hugged Betina and said that he was hungry. He asked after the children. Betina served him a plate of yams and rice and then they went to bed.
In the days that followed, José thought about their visit to El Cobre, about the American soldiers who now occupied the zone, about Emilio Bacardí and his coachman. He thought about how times had changed, and more than ever he realised that time did not exist in Pata de Puerco, neither the hours, the days, nor the months. Those who lived here were invisible, impervious to the march of progress. He felt sad to realise that in the grand scheme of things, the village was not even a dot on the map, and that the lives of the villagers did not even make up one melancholy moment in the immensity of life.
During those days, he talked a lot to Betina, who told him that she agreed with the white man who had offered to help Melecio. It was clearer than water that nature had bestowed their son with a gift, she said, a gift that needed to be nurtured, and that they could not help since their knowledge was limited to working in the fields. ‘Pata de Puerco is not right for Melecio, José. We have to get him out of here.’ José repeated his old arguments about how white men were to be feared. Bacardí, he said, probably wanted Melecio so he could turn him into a coachman. But above all, José spent his time brooding about Grandpa Benicio. The more he watched him, the more certain he was that Juanita’s orishas were mistaken.
On Sunday, as usual, the village celebrated the Festival of Birth. Evaristo gave every boy a kite and every girl a doll he himself had carved from dried coconut. This time, José and Betina brought sweet cassava, potatoes and lettuces they had picked from their vegetable garden. Miriam, the wife of Justino the coal merchant, cooked the stew. To it she added bacon from the Santacruzes, yams from the Jabaos and the chicken brought by the Aquelarres. Juanita the sorceress and Epifanio Vilo agreed to cook the rice, and the whole village had enough to eat. The boys flew their kites while the girls drove their coconut dolls around in toy carriages that were little more than broken branches snapped from the trees by the wind.
When the food was ready, José gathered all the villagers beneath the flame tree. ‘Pata de Puerco cannot carry on like this. If the country is not prepared to look after us, we will have to do it ourselves,’ he began. He suggested that together they make a collection in order to send someone from Pata de Puerco to school in El Cobre where they could learn to read and write so that they could pass on this knowledge to the rest of the villagers. While studying, the chosen candidate would stay with grandparents of the Carera family who had recently arrived from El Cobre.
‘It is a little late for education,’ said Epifanio Vilo.
‘For us, perhaps, but not for our children,’ said José. ‘We have to think of them.’
There was a great debate. The Jabaos said they agreed with the idea and suggested sending their son Juan Carlos, who had shown a remarkable intelligence and refined manners. Juanita the wise-woman suggested they send her, since given her skills in the dark arts, she could learn to read and write in only a week. Her Angolan orchids had still not blossomed, the wise-woman added, which clearly meant that the hour had not yet come for her to die, that being so her dearest wish was to contribute to the prosperity of the village.
‘My daughter Anastasia is intelligent too and she is the best laundress in Pata de Puerco,’ said Silvio Aquelarre. ‘I think she should be the one to go.’
In the end, all the villagers wanted a member of their family to be the one to escape this desolate life of trees and animals for civilisation. José explained that they did not have to decide immediately and suggested that they postpone the decision for three weeks while they considered how best to choose. Everyone agreed that on the third Sunday they would settle the matter of who was to be the future village schoolteacher.
While the meeting was winding up, Gertrudis, Grandpa Benicio and Melecio had been playing with their kites and coconut doll, but after a while they had grown bored and started competing to see which of them could make the loudest, smelliest fart.
‘Look who’s coming this way,’ said Gertrudis. Melecio and Benicio ran over to Ignacio el Jabao, who suggested they go and taunt El Mozambique: throw stones at his shack to make him come out.
‘What’s the matter?’ he taunted. ‘Are you scared? I always knew you were just a bunch of fucking pussies.’
Obviously Ignacio wouldn’t have used those words back then. He probably said something like: ‘You’re just a bunch of lily-livered chicken arses, little babies scared of El Mozambique.’
Melecio insisted that they were not scared, but the fact was that El Mozambique had seven dogs as big as lions. Nonetheless, all three turned on their heels and began walking towards the dreaded house. Ignacio brought up the rear.
‘What has El Mozambique ever done to you that you want to pick on him?’ asked Geru.
‘He’s never done anything to me, but he’s eaten a lot of people,’ said Ignacio.
‘What if he eats you?’ said Grandpa Benicio. Ignacio el Jabao stopped in his tracks.
‘You see? I was right. You’re all shitting yourselves, especially you, Benicio. A lot of good it did you having a famous father! My mamá says your papá Oscar was a real brave man who wasn’t scared of nothing or no one. And my papá says that one time working in the cane fields he got mad at El Mozambique and nearly cut his balls off. José and your papá were known as the Duo of Death because they killed more Spaniards fighting with Maceo during the war than anyone else. And just look how his son turned out – a gutless wimp with no balls.’
‘I don’t know who this Oscar is,’ said my grandfather. ‘My papá’s name is José Mandinga.’
‘That’s not what my mamá says. Don’t make no difference anyhow, you’re still a gutless wimp with no balls.’
Benicio hurled himself at Ignacio. Gertrudis and Melecio waded in to separate the two.
‘You are too a wimp. If you’re not, then prove it. Go and throw a stone at El Mozambique’s shack,’ said Ignacio el Jabao. Benicio felt his ears getting warm, and his judgement becoming clouded.
‘Don’t do it, Benicio, don’t do it,’ said Geru and Melecio, but Benicio ignored them and walked down the Callejón de la Rosa as far as the path leading up to El Mozambique’s place.
No one ever saw El Mozambique. Much was talked about him, but no one knew anything about his past, where he was from or when he had come to the village. Some people claimed that he had always lived here in this tumbledown shack, set apart from the others on the outskirts of the village; they said he had arrived shortly after the Mandingas and the Korticos. But no one dared walk past his ho
use or along the pathway. He was a violent man; Epifanio Vilo was the first to suffer his wrath when he organised a meeting one day to try to have El Mozambique thrown out of the village. This happened not long after Oscar and Malena died. José told Epifanio to leave El Mozambique in peace; we all have our faults, he said. But Epifanio was a mule-headed individual and he had made up his mind. So they called the meeting and after an hour it was unanimously decided El Mozambique should move far from Pata de Puerco and leave the villagers to live in peace.
‘The very mention of your name terrifies people, Mozambique. They can’t sleep for thinking about your dogs and the hides hanging in your back yard that look like the skins of murdered children pickled in alcohol. You’re not wanted here, so get out,’ Epifanio announced, acting as spokesman for the crowd of twenty neighbours gathered outside the despised creature’s house.
El Mozambique, a giant of a man, tall and hulking as a palm tree, silenced his dogs with a wave of his hand, then he picked up Epifanio’s thin frame and tossed him on to the ground in front of everyone – including Epifanio’s children – as though he were nothing but a piece of wood.
‘I would not give you all the satisfaction. You’ll just have to kill me or wait for me to die, and I warn you: the next person to walk up my path, I’ll rip him apart – I’m always in need of fresh meat for the dogs.’
Epifanio Vilo and the other villagers took to their heels and vanished. From that day forward, no one ever walked down El Mozambique’s path or exchanged a word with him. They left him to himself, living with his dogs as though he were a stranger. Only Ester regularly visited, bringing provisions from the grocery store. Before the confrontation with Epifanio, the neighbours had spoken to her, begging her to persuade El Mozambique to move away, but Ester ran off before they could explain their reasons.
As he crept up the path to El Mozambique’s shack, Benicio passed an avocado tree, a sweet apple tree and a ruined water tank that was utterly useless. He looked to one side then to the other but saw no one. Only the figures of Ignacio, Melecio and Geru far behind on Rose Alley. The wind began to blow, churning the earth into mud which it spattered against the branches of the trees. It was daytime, but the whole area was swathed in fog thick as an avalanche of spirits.
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