By Night the Mountain Burns

by Juan Tomas Avila Laurel

  We reached the south village, me, my surrogate grandmother and the mother of my friend, and told the few seasonal residents what had happened. The question of whether to begin an immediate search of the mountain was raised, whether to go to the big village right away or spend the night in the south village and go the next morning. Some people said there ought to be a search, that we ought to stop at nothing to find the boy, but that night was on the edge of the sky and the dying light, the crimson tide, would soon be upon us, so any search would be short-lived. Everyone would have to return to the village, for nothing could be done after nightfall, and it would be hard, very hard indeed on the poor mother to have to spend the night without her son. And this had become most evident because although everyone had come to help and offer support, the presence of the entire village in her house was what had saddened her most, for it felt like a wake, like her son had died, although nobody knew for sure. And it would have been a very hard night for her to get through with that heavy feeling in her heart. What’s more, she was not in the big village, where she could have drawn comfort, understanding and courage from her people, from more people. But some of the south villagers said it was too late to set off for the big village, that she’d only get there after nightfall anyway, so very few people would learn of what had happened. They said that no matter what was decided, it was better to wait until morning, when news of the boy’s disappearance could more easily be made known. But the woman was in a village where there was nothing to light the house with, and her son was lost in the bush. All the women of the village could come and keep her company, but nobody would say anything, for there was nothing to say. Everyone would sit outside the house until nightfall and then go inside to sleep on a big pile of dried banana leaves, people having brought them from their own homes, but still nobody in the big village would know what had happened.

  Given all these considerations, it was decided the woman ought to go to the next village, a village not far from the south village, but on the other side of the mountain. The two villages are not so very far apart but they are divided by a mountain range that runs down the centre of the island, so anyone wishing to walk from one village to the next has to go up the mountain, the same mountain we’d climbed in search of the bird, cross one of its peaks and go back down the other side. With the sun half down, a group of us set off from the south village, a group that included me, my surrogate grandmother and the mother of my friend. We were going to that other village to ask its few seasonal residents if they knew anything about the boy lost in the bush, the boy who’d been hanging over the precipice. By the time we got there, it was dark and everyone had shut themselves in their homes. They didn’t have anything to light their houses with either, so they’d gone inside to keep safe. Or if they weren’t inside, they were sitting in their doorways, but it was impossible to see them in the darkness. And because the few inhabitants of that village were quite spread out, not all of them noticed our arrival. One of the women who’d accompanied us had a house in the village and we followed her, took the criss-crossed sticks from her doorway and went inside to sleep on a pile of old banana leaves. We shook them first, to check for snakes and rats that might have nested among them, then shut the door and went to sleep. I wasn’t aware of anything else that happened that night, though things did happen. Walking through the bush at night had left me exhausted. It was something I’d never done before. In fact, other than when something serious happened, nobody ever went into the bush at night. No activity took place in the bush while darkness reigned over the island.

  We slept as best we could and woke to find that most people hadn’t slept a wink. Which was only to be expected given that we had a serious problem and nobody knew how it would turn out. But it was more than that, for something had happened in the night in that village on the other side of the mountain, something that had forced people out of their beds. A child who’d never been to the village before woke up in the middle of the night because someone was preventing him from sleeping. He screamed at the top of his voice because he felt like someone was squeezing his throat and he was choking. He thought he was dying. The adults in the house where he was sleeping realised he’d not spent a night in the village before and therefore probably hadn’t been presented to the village’s patron saint. And if he hadn’t been presented to the village’s patron saint, the patron saint wouldn’t let him sleep, wouldn’t let him remain in the settlement. The child went on screaming and they decided to go to the little church and make the presentation. But it wasn’t as simple as that, and now I’ll explain why. What we call being presented to the saint is a serious thing, though something we children never understood. In fact I still don’t understand it. On our island all children are born in the big village. Only in the event of an unexpected birth or a miscalculation by the mother does a child come into the world on a plantation, or on the way to one. In fact, whenever this occurs, the child is immediately given the name of the place it landed after coming out of its mother. For example, a friend of mine’s mother had put her load down to rest and quench her thirst at the river, a river where it was common for people on the island to stop for a rest and a drink, and that friend of mine thought it was a pleasant spot and pushed. And his mother had no choice but to let him out. When he was completely out, she bathed him in the river, tied him to her back and brought him home. And he took the name of that river. That friend of mine was very smart. His mother had just descended the steepest hill on the whole island. In fact, the hill was so steep that when the first white people came to the island and were faced with having to descend it, they turned right around and went back to the big village to get materials to build steps. Anyway, that boy’s mother had been returning to the big village from the other end of the island, and she went down the steep steps and got to the river. She put her load on the ground, or on a rock, and sat down on another rock, with her feet in the water. And she drank the fresh water from the river, which still had a fair way to travel before it reached the sea. She too still had a fair way to travel, for after her rest she’d have to put her load back on her head and start climbing up the steep steps and on towards the big village. And it was a tough climb. The thing was, that freshwater river lay between two big bodies of rock, like a creek in a valley, and the only way to get from one side to the other was by going down and up again. There was no way round, no other path that accessed the south of the island. And so that friend of mine must have thought about all the effort his mother would have to make to climb back up to the top and he decided to come out and lighten her load. He timed it well, for carrying a child on the back is far easier than carrying a child in the belly, especially with all those rocks jutting out into the path.

  Anyway, I was talking about being presented to the patron saint. It’s compulsory. You’re born in the big village and the first time you go to any smaller settlement on our Atlantic Ocean island, your mother has to take you to the little church before bedtime and present you to the patron saint. You go through the church door and your mother says a few words on your behalf, explaining that you’ve come to seek his protection. Then you go home and sleep in peace. If you don’t do it, if an adult doesn’t do it for you, it’s unlikely you’ll sleep at all that night. What’s more, in this case, the patron saint of the village we’d travelled to in the middle of the night was San Xuan. I suppose it’s like San Juan in Spanish. In any case, San Xuan is the most severe of all the patron saints on our island. He wears his severity on his face, if you look at the image of him that hangs in the little church. And so when that boy was choking and unable to sleep, they took him out of the house, thinking they’d take him to see San Xuan and ask for forgiveness, for it was too late for a presentation, that time had passed. But there were a number of factors working against them. First of all, the little church closed in the afternoon, and nobody on the island had ever seen anyone go into it or do anything inside it at night; there had never been a need to. And there was practically nothing on the isla
nd to make light with. There were a few seeds that burned with a flame, though finding them was another matter, and dry banana leaves were no good, for they flared as soon as you put a flame to them and the light they gave off would have burned out before being any use. So everyone knew that going into the church in the dark to speak to the saint was no easy thing, and nobody had ever done it before. For a start, few people would have the courage to. It’s thought the saint also rests at night and no man or woman should disturb him without good cause. Another problem was that the child, the boy who was frightened and choking, did not belong to anyone in the village and the adults who were with him did not know his real name, so they couldn’t speak to the saint, that very severe San Xuan, on his behalf. So, given the multiple problems of the night, the dark and his unknown name, it was decided that speaking to the saint to ask his forgiveness was an impossibility. But the child was choking, and he might die, and as far as they could tell from the crowing of the cocks, what few cocks there were in that little village, night had barely entered the small hours. So it was decided the boy must be taken to the big village by canoe. They found a man in the village who was willing to take him but, in order to do so, they’d first have to get the child to the nearest beach, and getting to the nearest beach from that village was one of the most difficult and hazardous tasks on the whole island. That’s because the nearest beach from that village could only be reached by a treacherous pathway. Even to reach the path itself required navigating difficult slopes. And the whole trip was considered extremely hazardous by day, never mind at night, never mind at night carrying a child who was choking because he hadn’t been presented to the patron saint, the very severe San Xuan! And there was more: the plan was to take the boy to the big village by sea, and this was the sea of the village of San Xuan! Only the very bravest canoemen lived in that village. Of all the island’s canoemen, they were the ones who most risked their lives, for it was very unusual for the waves to be still on that beach, a beach full of rocks and projecting cliffs, like all beaches in the south, but here there were so many it was more like a cave. Everything about that little village was dictated by San Xuan’s severity. At least that was my experience of the place as a child, and that’s what I heard the adults say about the dangers of that coastline and the moods of the patron saint. But anyway, they decided to take that boy to the big village, for otherwise he might choke to death or die from some other sickness. They were adults and that’s what they decided to do, though they knew it was a very difficult task. So they put that child on the back of one of the women and they started down the path, and the women said prayers behind them. This would have frightened me. Whenever there were prayers it was because there might be tears; that’s to say, if there were prayers there was danger. What’s more, those women prayed knowing that the whole drama was unfolding without the saint’s knowledge or consent. I think deep down those prayers were for San Xuan, that he might show them mercy and not cause their journey to end in catastrophe.

  I didn’t go with the rest of them down to the beach, for I was a child and they wouldn’t have let me, and anyway I was asleep, but I know they encountered many problems. Many, many problems. It would have been a problematic journey if they’d done it by day and without the fury of the patron saint hanging over them. To be honest, I’d rather not say any more about that patron saint, for I’ve told you my religion and said that I’m a believer. Suffice to say, anything involving the patron saints filled me with fear as a child. Looking back, I see that everything filled me with fear as a child, even things that seemingly had nothing evil about them.

  They went on saying prayers and they went on encountering many problems in getting that boy down to the shore and into a canoe, and in finding a moment of calm to push the canoe out into the water so that it might clear the rocks and other dangers. I know that beach well and I know you usually make several false starts before managing to launch out into the water, and to think they did it in the dark! And when I say dark, I’m not talking about any ordinary darkness. There was no moon and that beach was like a cave. I really think that to be an adult on our island back then was to live a life of extreme and constant danger.

  They managed to get the canoe out into the water and the canoeman managed to paddle the child to the big village, the child who was choking because he hadn’t been presented to the patron saint. When we arrived in the big village the next day, around noon and after many hours of walking, I found out that the boy they’d taken in the canoe was my friend, the one I’d left stuck up the tree, shaking uncontrollably because of the lack of firm ground beneath him. The boy I’d gone to get help for was now in the house of the bone healer and, when I saw my friend, he was covered in bandages from head to toe, as if he’d broken every bone in his body. He couldn’t speak, but he heard my voice and he nodded his head. Only the inhabitants of San Xuan’s village knew how he’d ended up spending the night there, or not, as it proved. Because we’d become friends, he told me what happened once he got better, what happened to him after I’d left him stuck up the tree, inches away from wringing the neck of that bird we’d gone in search of because of our lack of fish. But in fact he knew nothing, or very little, about what happened. This might be because most of what happened happened in the dark. Or it might be because he had his eyes closed. The dark. It was something that always had to be taken into account on our Atlantic Ocean island. It was like an extra person. One of my main memories of the dark is that sometimes we’d be eating at night and an adult would take away the lamp. I didn’t like it because we carried on eating and by the time they brought it back I’d have nothing left on my plate. Eating in the dark wasn’t as satisfying as eating in the light. So when the lamp came back, I was tempted to ask for more food, because the food I’d put in my mouth in the dark didn’t count: it had been eaten in secret, or in hiding, and so I couldn’t feel it in my belly. So I sometimes waited for the light to come back before I went on eating because when I ate without it I felt cheated. It had nothing to do with whether what I was eating had bones in, or whether I was able to pluck the bones out in the dark without choking on them. It was just that I wanted to be able to see what I was eating. As far as I was concerned, eating in the dark was like going down a path in the dark. If for some reason you had to move about in the dark, you did it on all fours, to avoid dangers. It’s difficult to walk about upright in the dark, for there’s no knowing what obstacles you’ll encounter. You have to feel your way, keep touching the ground, reach out into the void. And it’s very frightening, so if you have to walk anywhere in the dark, let’s say down a deserted street, you put your hands wherever they make you feel safest. For example, by crossing your arms over your tummy and putting the palms of your hands on your sides, or by crossing your arms over your chest and putting the palms of your hands on your shoulders. This last one was the way we children felt most protected, the way we felt safest in the dark. The dark? We always thought something dangerous was lurking in the dark. Some of the littler children cried as soon as darkness fell. They screamed as if they’d been bitten. Bitten by the darkness. They felt they were in danger and they asked, they screamed, for the light to come back. And although we were afraid of the dark, we didn’t like the excessive light of the full moon either. As I’ve already said, on moonlight nights you felt too exposed. Things could see you from far away. So with the dark, you couldn’t see the danger, but with the moonlight you exposed yourself to the danger. Everything on the island brought fear. To be in the dark is to turn your back on life, for I don’t think anyone can really understand life in all its detail if kept in the dark. It’s like eating in the dark: you never get full, for you lose track of what’s on your plate. I think that the darkness in a person’s life is the darkest thing about living in hardship.

  What that friend told me was that when I left him stuck up the tree to go and get help, he looked down and could no longer see anything. It was as if he were in the clouds; that’s to say, up in the sky. I didn’t
believe him, but I’ll carry on with his story. He said he was up there, looking out to see if help was coming, but no help came and he became increasingly nervous. He was nervous and he was holding on to the tree trunk, and he was looking out for help, for someone to come and tell him what to do. But like I said, according to him, he could no longer see the ground, only clouds … So what was stopping him from coming back down the tree? That’s why I never believed his story. But anyway, he said he stayed up there and he started to hear the voices of the ministrants, many of their voices, although what he heard wasn’t specifically their voices but rather their prayers, prayers only the ministrants knew how to say. So up in the tree, he heard their prayers, or songs, and they were getting closer and closer to where he was. He was afraid. I would have been too. You’re alone in the bush, in some remote part of it full of mist, stuck up a tree, and suddenly you hear the songs of the ministrants: anyone would have been afraid. If it was me, and the songs got closer and closer, I’d throw myself over the precipice, if that was my only means of escape. I’ve already said how much the ministrants frightened me. If I’d been him, if the same thing had happened to me, what I would have thought when I heard the ministrants approaching with their mysterious songs was that there was an evil lurking nearby, the Devil even, and that was why they’d come, to drive the evil away. But then I’d have thought, and I don’t know why, that the evil actually came from the ministrants and their songs, that they brought the evil with them. And I’d have jumped out over the precipice, if that was my only way out. Anyway, the boy was afraid and he said he tried to escape. For just because the ministrants were coming didn’t mean they’d stop and help him down. We’d never heard of the ministrants stopping their singing and talking to anyone in a similar situation. Because as far as we understood it, from what the adults told us, whenever they were moving about in the bush they were guided by the Maté Jachín, and because the Maté Jachín wasn’t a person, no ministrant was allowed to act like a person in its presence. So, you’re in the tree and you sense the ministrants approaching, dressed in their white tunics. According to the number of voices in the singing, there are many of them, and you know they have the power to drive evil away, even if it’s the Devil himself. But what if they found the Devil in the same tree as you and decided to put a curse on it? Obviously the curse would affect you too. So naturally my friend was afraid and he wanted to get down and escape, and that’s just what he did. But after running for a while, he fell to the ground and couldn’t go on. The ministrants reached him and sang their mysterious prayers over him. That’s what he told me.