A Bright Moon for Fools

by Jasper Gibson

  Christmas stood on the porch inhaling animal waste and blossom and soil baked in sun. Hands behind his back, he walked over to inspect the pigs, one black and one pale, both agitated by his presence. Christmas pulled a face; the pale one had tattoos. They were bad tattoos: wonky gothic lettering; a Virgin Mary with a Mr Man face; a patterned band round one leg like a suspender belt. Christmas wondered if this pig had been to prison.

  In the hut, Christmas found the tattoo gun on a workbench amongst tools and old buckets. There were curled newspaper cuttings above it, tattoos of the famous, and a plastic water bottle full of ink. The gun itself was a home-made marvel: a transformer connected to a three-volt motor from a cassette player and strapped to a bent strip of aluminium. This was taped to the shell of a propelling pencil which had a wire soldered to a pin inside it. The wire ran up to a cog attached to the motor. As the motor and the cog turned, the pin was lifted up and down in rapid motion. Mystified as to how Aldo got the pig to stay still, Christmas went back inside the house, put on his shoes and then took them off again. It was too hot for shoes. It was too hot for anything but shorts and a hat. He found a red baseball cap and so, belly-led and barefoot, Christmas set off into the village.

  He followed the path through the cambur, the small green bananas bunched as yet unripe beneath wide drooping leaves, and came out onto another path, following it alongside a stream strewn with rubbish. He crossed it at a ford and came up through a narrowing of bushes into a wide street with one-storey homes set on either side, each one a different colour. The street looked deserted but was full of noise – mothers shouting at children, a steady hammering.

  Christmas walked down the road, his bare feet registering the change to weeds and sand. Villagers lounging in front of their houses noticed him. They waved and smiled. They shouted greetings. He had felt uneasy in just shorts but all the men were dressed the same. Even if they wore a T-shirt, it was rolled up over the paunch. Some were drinking beer. It was whistling to him, at a frequency only drunks can hear. He shut his ears to it. Kids cycled past. A group of young men clapped their hands, running out from under a tree to pass on incomprehensible information. He walked past a medical centre then an evangelical meeting room on one side of the street, and the cockfighting rink on the other. “Epalé!” said the people as he passed, “Como va, gringo?”

  “No gringo,” he corrected, “Yo soy Ingles.”

  A small Plaza Bolivar opened out on his right and beyond it a concrete stage with a mural of Christ and Columbus as its permanent set. Here the road was cobbled. The houses were older and larger, pitted and weather-worn, remnants of posters hanging ghostly in the paint. He turned left towards the noise of a turbine and past a group of little girls beholding this pink man in wonder. A car rumbled past. A donkey brayed. There was moss on the electricity lines and children asleep in the road. The buildings exhaled like the plants, the whole village sagging from heat. ‘Si! Con Chávez’ said the graffiti. Maybe after lunch said the birds.

  He walked on towards the electricity generator, thundering in a grand shed. On one side there was the village jail, on the other a boat yard, upturned ribs in a ruined warehouse of some former purpose. Opposite, a jetty ran out into the sea, boats rocking on tin-foil waves, while above them a great ridge stooped down to the headland that made up the eastern limit of San Cristóbal’s bay. Men were seated on a low wall, smoking and looking to the horizon. They greeted Christmas with a cheer. He noted with satisfaction that in San Cristóbal the moustache still reigned on faces of experience. They spoke in Spanish.

  “Verga!” said one, “You drink too much that night.”

  “Yes,” said Christmas, “I know.”

  “Verga!” said another, “We had to tie you to a tree. You were going crazy, brother.”

  “Yes,” said Christmas, “I know.”

  “Verga!” said a third, “In Caracas you boom-boom with Lola!”

  “Yes,” said Christmas, “I did.”

  “We’ve all been trying to do that for years. She didn’t let anyone, not anyone, and that’s the truth, brother.”

  “Really?”

  “The truth.”

  “Verga,” said Christmas. He sat down, and tried to apologise for his behaviour. They wouldn’t let him. He told them he had been robbed and was drinking out of sadness. They offered him cigarettes and patted his back. Then they asked him what sex with Lola was like. Every few seconds, everybody spat.

  “So how long will you stay in San Cristóbal? Hoch-tooo.”

  “End of the month is the festival – hoch-tooo – the festival of San Cristóbal. Six days of pure fiesta. The music never stops, there are women everywhere, drinking all day and all night. It’s superfine, brother. Hoch-too.”

  One of the men stood up and started salsa dancing with a deeply-loved and invisible partner. Everyone cheered. They started singing, “Que se acabe la plata / pero que goce yo / que se acabe el dinero/ pero mi vida noooooo ...” A drunken man staggered towards them, attempting to join in with slurred and broken notes. The men winked at Christmas, pushing their lips out at the new arrival. The drunken man embraced Christmas.

  “Anything you want,” he insisted with disconnected eyes, “Me. Everyone. San Cristóbal. Me. Here.” Christmas thanked him. “I’ve been everywhere,” said the man, “I know everything.”

  “Well,” Christmas replied, “that is impressive.”

  The man bit down on the world with his face then, opening it again, said “Columbians!” and wandered off.

  With handshakes and smiles, Christmas left the fishermen and continued on by the shore, his mind full of the quarrels and longings of alcohol, past a small library and infocentro, back up the other main street. He walked to the end of the village, to the far curve of its bay, beyond structures storm-whipped and rusting; an abandoned cement plant, gutted workshops, a cemetery overgrown. He walked over a beach of stones, rounded yet square, as if ten thousand animals had discarded their hooves before transforming in the swell. He sat by the sea and eased his feet from the land. The sun pressed against his neck. His ribs and shoulder still hurt. He examined his bites, rubbing them, plotting their course into the water. Was this the right place for Emily? That beach over on the other side of the bay? Or just further along the coast here? Or round that next headland? Christmas watched the waves. He tried to follow the minute patterns that existed within their rhythm. Oh Emily, what have I become?

  The first few months after Emily and their baby’s death, Harry had barely left the house. He drank. After a year he moved back to London, back to his old ways. He started two businesses that failed, made bad investments, spent their savings. He borrowed money. He ran up credit card debts, pushing his friends away with unpaid loans and cruel remarks brewed in misery and the mash tun. He lived off the women he slept with. The drink took over. He doubled in size. Then the credit crisis came. He had trouble making his mortgage payments. The lender ended the period of leniency, he fell further into arrears and his flat was repossessed. When he met Diana he was squatting in his own home.

  Something caught his eye. It was a coin. He picked it up, a fifty cent piece from Trinidad and Tobago. His first thought was if he could buy a drink with it, but that would not do. The whole Harry Christmas show – none of that would work here. It wasn’t the right currency. He threw the coin into the sea.

  Further along the beach, Christmas could see a group of teenagers jumping and splashing with infants. He followed the horizon to the grey smudge that was Trinidad. Fishing boats careered across the bay, bouncing with speed. These were fishermen. What was he? He was a parasite. He was a broke, out-of-work parasite. He had not the worth of one of these stones. He thought of Judith and Bridget, wondering if they knew by now that he wasn’t Harry Strong. Christmas heard bird calls. He felt grain between his toes. A sudden claw gripped his heart. Pain.

  It held his chest, compressing. He inhaled to fortify himself. He looked about, but everyone he could see was far away. He took short b
reaths. He lay down, grabbing at his chest, and felt the full intensity of the sun, a shimmering disc dancing above him that winked and glinted and teased him with death. He closed his eyes. Was this a heart attack? He was frightened, his ankles digging into the sand and water, but the pain ebbed away. When he sat up again there was a shining blue butterfly on his knee. He had never seen such colour in nature. It applauded his surprise with its wings and rose into the air, instantly camouflaged.

  Christmas walked slowly back towards the house, testing if the pain had really gone with breaths of irregular size. He recognised the teenage mother on her stoop. Young children crowded round older brothers working on a motorbike. Others splashed about in a paddling pool in the street.

  “So you’re feeling better?”

  “Getting there.”

  “Do all the people in your country have yellow teeth?”

  “Yes. It’s extremely fashionable.”

  “Why are you sweating so much?”

  “I’m an Aquarius.”

  “You and Lola are about as fat as each other.” The girl shifted her baby. “How old are you?”

  “Fifty-eight.” At that moment two little boys ran past with spinning tops.

  “Will you look at that?” whispered Christmas to himself. “Unbelievable.”

  “They don’t have those in your country?”

  “Not any more.”

  “What games do the children in England play?”

  “It’s called ‘Stabbing each other to death’.”

  “You have beautiful eyes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Will you take me to England?”

  The motorbike roared into life. The younger kids backed away as it was revved and inspected. “So you’re up, gringo,” somebody shouted.

  It was Lola. She walked into the middle of the street, a machete over one shoulder, her baseball cap pulled down low against the sun. A thrill of children buzzed around her legs, tugging and giggling. She batted insults and greetings with every stoop she passed. Aldo pulled the donkey behind her, laden with sacks of cacao. When she got to the motorbike she gave her machete to a tiny child who ran back and handed it to Aldo. She was talking to the young owner, nodding with interest, until she suddenly pushed him off and into the paddling pool. She hopped onto the bike and zoomed away, her backside gripping the seat like a mitten, laughing as the boy scooped water at her, chasing her, round and round in circles, trailed by the kids and cheers from the stoops. Christmas realised he was chuckling. This mighty woman, he promised himself, will see a new Harold Christmas.

  Lola jumped off the motorbike and chased the boy who had been chasing her. Once she had pushed him back into the paddling pool, she jogged off to the house, following Aldo and the donkey, shouting things over her shoulder and peeling off kids from her legs.

  Christmas set off after them. He picked some flowers. When he came through the cambur into the yard, Lola and Aldo were heaving the sacks off the donkey.

  “Lola—” he began.

  “So you stopped shitting all over my house?”

  “I wanted to say thank you. For everything. I know you didn’t want to see me again and – but I promise you I wasn’t following you, I – my – it was just—” Christmas produced the bunch from behind his back. Aldo laughed through his nose. Lola smiled. She patted Christmas’ face, took the flowers and fed them to the donkey.

  “Hey,” cheered the old man as he went inside, “He’s up and he’s lost some weight! The fat gringo has lost some weight!”

  “I am not a gringo. I am not an American.”

  Lola came in holding two plant pots, both containing the dried and shrivelled remains of cacti. “In Venezuela the people say that Aloe Vera is a special plant. If you have enemies, if someone hate you, the Aloe Vera absorb the bad energy. Since you come these two have died.” She dropped the plant pots on the floor. She had a plastic bag hanging from her fingers. It contained a yellowtail tuna. She laid it down on the porch. Then she took a sturdy knife from the kitchen and hacked off its fins. She stabbed it through the top of its head, pulling downwards to cleave the skull in half. She cut into the jaw, loosening it, then returned to the body, sawing a line along its belly. The fish was split. She scraped out the viscera and the eggs. She dug out a worm burrowed in its flesh. Then she cut out each side into steaks. She ordered Aldo to fetch her a bowl, and piled it high with fish, the head saved for soup.

  While Aldo hosed clean the porch, Lola cooked some of the steaks with crispy fried arepas. She made onion and tomato salad with slices of avocado picked from the tree. Everyone sat down together at the plastic table in the kitchen. They cut open the arepas and smeared them with butter. They stuffed them with salad, mixing bites with the fish, fingers smeared and licked.

  “Everyone,” Christmas started, not sure how to proceed. “I just wanted to well, thank you, all of you, for looking after me and especially you, Lola – I – well, I am more than a little ashamed of myself – and – I am not making excuses here but I have behaved in a very bad – awful – I – things have not been – I just wanted to say that your kindness has helped me, I—”

  “What’s he saying?” the old man asked Aldo. Aldo shrugged.

  “I am going to be a better man,” said Christmas, finally. Everyone carried on eating. Christmas considered continuing with his speech, but decided to get back to his food.

  “So,” said Lola through a mouthful, “Who’s Emily?” Christmas stopped. His chin tightened. “You said her name many times when you were sick.” The family looked at him. He fought it, but the surprise of hearing her name out loud had caught him off guard. He blinked furiously. The more he fought it, cursing himself, the worse it became. He pushed back his chair and tried to leave the house but he only got as far as the porch. He couldn’t hold it back any longer. Christmas wept.

  Lola followed him out. Aldo bent his head around the door and disappeared.

  “Why is he crying like a woman?” he heard the old man say. Lola was beside him. Christmas hid his face.

  “Emily was my wife,” he said, pinching his eyes and trying to get himself together. “She died. With my daughter. They both died.”

  “Si, Señor,” Lola sighed, “people do that a lot.”

  41

  Christmas dreamed he was torturing a contortionist. He demanded answers, but as he bent the man’s limbs, the man laughed and bent them further. He woke to the battle drone of mosquitoes in his ear. He scratched. He swore. He thrashed and lashed out and turned like a broken handle in his bed. The old man’s snoring rang through the house. He heard a door open and spied the old man shuffle to the toilet, but the snoring continued. The snoring was Lola.

  Some time before dawn, the cocks crowed to signal another night stolen. He fell asleep. Lola woke him with a shake. “Up,” she said. “You come with us today.” He stared up at the corrugated roof. Today I will find Emily’s beach.

  Christmas got up and went out across the yard into the shower room, a cold tap six foot off the ground. He pulled back the plastic curtain to find the old man stuffing white crumbs into a home-made cigar. “I’m very sick,” he said. “My legs don’t work.”

  “Papi! Are you in there?” Lola was banging on the door.

  “Yes,” said Christmas.

  “No,” said the old man. Lola burst in.

  “Are you smoking crack with him?” she bawled in Christmas’ face.

  “I am naked,” he protested in despair, “I am trying to take a shower.” Lola looked him up and down, grunted, grabbed the cigar off the old man, took his wrist and led him jog-hobbling into the yard. The door slammed shut.

  After coffee, scrambled eggs with onion and arepas, Christmas, in shorts and a blue T-shirt that inexplicably said ‘Kazakhstan’, pulled his red baseball cap down against the sun and followed Aldo, Lola and the donkey out through the village. They took a pathway that ran along the shore to the eastern ridge. There it rose steeply over headland where Christmas had to rest a
gainst a large rock before following the others down into jungle, cutting past mango trees and a giant bristling of bamboo. Bushes rustled with unknown creatures, insects clicked and trilled.

  Aldo rode the donkey. When the boy was almost out of sight, Lola said, “You know, when my husband died he was already living with another woman in Carúpano. He got very drunk and tried to dance with a truck. Actually, I hated him, but I cried – si, Señor.” She tugged free a long blade of grass. “I lost a girl before she was three. I lost another child in the womb.”

  “I’m – I’m very sorry to hear that,” mustered Christmas, unsure of what to say, cursing himself for being unable to think of more. “How did your little girl die?” he said at last.

  “She got sick.”

  They turned off the path over a stream and into the cacao trees. Wandering Jew plant covered the ground. The sun left footprints of light. A narrow track took them through the orchards of other families until they crossed a rough hedgerow and came out into a clearing.

  Two heaps of old and blackened cacao pods were divided by two logs that made a passageway between them. They unpacked the donkey, Christmas swatting mosquitoes from his ankles. “OK, gringo?” Lola said. “You go with Aldo.” The boy was crouched on the ground, sharpening a billhook against a stone. He affixed it to the end of a long bamboo pole and then they toured the trees together, one lancing the cacao pods from the branches, the other collecting them in a sack.

  When it was full they delivered it to Lola, now joined by the old woman with hardly any hair. The two women sat on the logs between the piles of old pods, the ground between them covered by plastic sheeting. They split the pods open with a hatchet, gouged out the white slimy seeds with pieces of wood flattened at one end and tossed the empty husks over their shoulders onto the piles. The seeds smelled of sweet vinegar.