The river was impassable at this point. Octavio walked along the bank towards a rain tree at a bend in the river. Here it opened out onto a rocky bed where the water rumbled more quietly and reached only waist height. A clay-built house with a roof of palms stood on the bank like a sentry box.
Don Octavio clapped his hands to attract attention, but no one came to the door. There were corn husks piled up by the corner of the house. He lay down in the shade of the building, but no sooner had he closed his eyes than the silence shook him awake.
The torrent had gone quiet. Only the gentle lapping of water on stone could be heard way off in the distance. He circled the house and found to his surprise that the torrent had shrunk to a trickle of water narrow enough for a child to jump over. Yet as he drew nearer, the stream began to widen and resume its deafening drumming, swelling and chattering. With every step he took, the babbling brook became more like a torrent again.
‘Who are you?’
Don Octavio turned round. The man who had spoken was standing behind him dressed in a tunic like a Jesuit, and with his hair pulled back. He was long and thin, with a chest no broader than a bulrush and bones that jutted out beneath his skin in places. He was so light on his feet that he had made no sound on approaching Octavio, like a shadow.
‘I’m a traveller who’s lost his way,’ replied Octavio.
The man took in Octavio’s solid frame without a word. All at once his expression softened as an idea came into his head.
‘Let’s get away from the torrent,’ he said at last.
They entered the house. The front door opened into a fairly bright room which smelt of wet oak and musty straw. The walls were made from a mixture of sand, clay and dung, the floor from old planks found in an abandoned shack, the windows from the windscreen of a truck. Water was brought straight from the torrent by way of a makeshift system of pipes. There was no electricity, but the house did not lack light. The hard wood of the mangrove tree had been used to build the rafters. By the entrance, hunks of meat were kept cool in a clay-walled dry well. The smell of ash wafted from a metal brazier.
‘You can overcome any obstacle to get a house of your own,’ the man explained with no word of introduction. ‘All you need is land. With land, you have power.’
He pushed two glasses and a jug of water across a low table. Tallow candles had been stuffed into bottles and lit. An engraving of St Christopher carrying the Christ child hung behind him.
‘Have we met before?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I never forget a face.’
‘Nor me.’
The man was now thicker set. His cheeks had filled out and his neck had widened. He told Octavio he owned some land not far from Valencia which gave him a small income, as well as rabbits which he bartered for cloth. He said he had been a travelling salesman, a farmer and a worker on the pipelines. His life seemed to be defined by metamorphosis, to fall within a shifting outline. He had been born in a tired and barren land shunned by everyone. Now he lived off the fruits he picked, the birds he hunted, and silence.
‘Well, almost silence,’ he clarified; ‘the torrent is always roaring away. Sometimes I hear its death rattle in the distance, only for it to come back to life.’
‘Is it a torrent or a stream?’
‘It’s a prison.’
‘What’s on the other side?’
‘Forests. But you need legs like tree trunks to get across. Travellers are always wanting to get to the other side. They try to throw logs across, but they end up walking the length of the bank instead. The ground is so swampy, it’s been ages since anyone dared to wade across. You can drown in it.’
Don Octavio wanted to stay a few days and, without further discussion, the man hung a hammock between two breadfruit trees. Day after day, Octavio watched his curious host spend hours under the rain tree, lying flat on the grass so as not to block out any light. Every so often he would lift his head and glance at the horizon to gauge the time by the height of the sun.
Away from the water, his body was taller and stronger. At this distance he could lift beams, change the straw, carry twice his own weight. But when he approached the stream, he became visibly smaller, while the weak little stream rose up and roared once more. Don Octavio saw how the water gained the flesh the man lost as the two came together. Like two bodies sharing a common muscle, they seemed bound by the same miracle that pulled them apart again moments later.
Octavio came to like this unburdened existence. Behind the hut there was a neglected kitchen garden that had once yielded plentiful crops. The soil was loose, ploughed over and enriched with mulch, providing fertile ground for planting. Octavio offered to work the ground and grow sesame, tamarind and passion fruit. He used animal gut as a fertiliser and successfully produced lychees, custard apples and milk fruit. In the middle of the garden there was a compost heap piled into a ditch and a heavy-leafed fig tree sitting on a throne-like trunk. Octavio liked the smell of humus and foliage, the cackle of macaws in the sky, the insects swarming in the air.
One day, the torrent became so wild that it carried off a leaning tree along with a heap of branches, clumps of earth and rodent carcasses. All kinds of flotsam and jetsam washed up on the bank near the house, including a tree log which caught the owner’s attention. With a blow of his axe he cut into it and stood back to consider the notch he had made in the wood.
‘You see,’ he said, as if reading something in the log’s fibres. ‘It’s dry inside. It’s only just been thrown into the water. We’ve got company.’
XI
A woman and a man skirted the edge of the forest and came to the door of the hut. They explained that they had walked upstream, thinking the torrent might prove less hostile closer to its source. They had climbed the bank and reached the top of the mountain from where they could see the sea and the islands of mangroves.
‘We tried to locate the source, but we never found it,’ the woman said. ‘No matter how far you walk, the water keeps gushing. We threw in a log and when we saw how quickly it was carried off we decided to come down again.’
‘This torrent has no source,’ the host replied.
‘Every river has a source.’
‘It’s fringed with mangroves whose seeds germinate on the tree. When they drop off, they fall at the base of the tree. Then a young mangrove begins to grow alongside its parent, pushing back the sea and wiping out the source.’
‘It’s only water after all,’ said the woman, exasperated. ‘We’ll just build a raft.’
‘You’ll drown.’
‘A bridge, then.’
‘The torrent will go into spate; it’s unpredictable. It’ll whisk away the first plank you put across it.’
‘It has to stop somewhere.’
Don Octavio, who had been following the conversation in silence, now stood up and cautiously approached the group, keeping his distance like a timid pet.
‘I can get across,’ he said.
The host turned round, surprised. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘My legs are solid enough. I know I can get across.’
‘You’ll drown, you fool.’
But for a moment Don Octavio’s self-assurance made them forget the force of the torrent.
‘I won’t drown,’ he replied. ‘I’ll tie a rope around myself. That’ll make it easier.’
No sooner had he said this than he tied a rope of woven rushes and horsehair to the trunk of the rain tree. He wound the other end around his waist and loaded a wicker basket full of large stones onto his back.
‘The heavier I am, the less likely I am to be swept away.’
As he came within a metre of the stream, the water seemed to swell, foaming, beating on the bank, roaring like an army. Don Octavio stepped onto a seaweed-covered rock. The torrent grew even stronger and wider, sending up mountains of water. The host threw him a staff and he managed to lean on it and find his balance before putting his
other foot down. His unsteady legs withstood the force of the current, feeling their way among the pebbles to avoid the deeper parts, seeming instinctively to thwart the hidden architecture of the riverbed.
Halfway across, Octavio was almost swept away. A stone moved on the bottom, causing him to stumble. The woman let out a cry from the bank, but he soon grabbed onto the staff, regained his balance and, surprising the onlookers with his remarkable composure, fought on tirelessly. He set off again with giant steps, determined, spurred on by vigour and courage. The water buffeted his waist and the wind nipped at his neck. Still he advanced unflinchingly, battling onwards. At times, the current became so fierce that Octavio could not go on. Lashed by the all-engulfing waves, he writhed as he waited for them to subside, huddled with his arms held to his chest, before continuing with a heavy stride, his body filled with a sudden burst of energy. There he was, unbroken by battle, overcoming every danger with the boundless perseverance common to all feats of human endeavour. A storm of spray enveloped him, causing him to vanish from sight. He reappeared further on, only a metre from the opposite bank: the forest was not vast enough to hold him back.
Once on the bank, chest heaving, Octavio lay down on his stomach to catch his breath. For the first time, he could look back at the hut from the other side of the torrent. It was small and isolated. The three figures in the distance were celebrating. There was a break in the cloud; the sun struck his face and planted in his flesh the seeds of victory. And Octavio felt far and ever further away.
The crossing left a curious mark on the wood of his heart. He lost any desire to leave the hut. Instead he wished to serve that invisible master formed of foam and eddies, to hear its solitude echoed in his own. From that day on, word spread from town to town that a giant was carrying travellers across on his back in return for some food.
They came in their droves: debtors fleeing creditors, husbands fleeing wives, but also indigenous people fleeing the mines and farmers fleeing unjust landowners. Some came empty-handed, begging a favour, lambs of God. Others offered hens or pigs. Don Octavio never turned them down. This was not a case of a man becoming an animal, a beast of burden. The crossing had become essential to him because the alchemy that took place there had found its one true meaning in the rivers of his soul.
People brought him piles of smart clothes, glass-bead necklaces, cují-wood stools. They would place gutted hares, armadillo meat, iguana and crab eggs among the reeds, or spread out on the table squid and rainbow wrasse smelling strongly of brine. The women would take off the little gold brooches pinned to their chests and offer them to him. Don Octavio looked at these treasures, but would not touch them. As it once had been at the church, he went about his work, paying little heed to anything else.
What Octavio refused, the host accepted. He would speak knowledgeably to the self-made men and dance with folk singers, and he never confused the crosses of different parishes. Instead of his usual rags, he dressed up in delicate silks and fine woollen garments. He behaved in the manner of a gentleman, heaping compliments on the ladies. The wild vegetable garden became a neat little plot with concrete borders in which oil-rich fruits, exotic spices and pumpkins grew. Octavio grafted, tied back and watered the plants religiously so that no one leaf overshadowed another. It was a time when the wind blew in long gusts and the air was thick with butterflies. These were the early days of a civilisation, growing from community to hamlet, from hamlet to village, and from village to town. All around, life sprang from the bud of progress. Outside, the hut looked like a shack; inside, it became a palace.
The host had many mistresses. In order to give them a good welcome, he would bleed sows and dry the meat in a salt tub. He left Octavio to sleep outdoors, even when it was raining. When he was given a rifle with revolving barrels, he forgot all about the women. With childish excitement, he beat the tamarind trees with a pole to startle the sparrows and then shoot them. He neglected his vegetable garden in favour of hunting. When he headed into the forest to flush out giant coatis, it was Octavio’s job to beat the drum. When he approached nests in camouflage, Octavio had to have the net ready. When the host ran out of gunpowder, he exchanged his rifle for seeds from a poacher crossing the torrent. He decided to build a watermill. He had two sandbox trees cut down to make the blades and, while he chopped off the biggest branches with a machete, Octavio built a wheel that could withstand the rising waters. But the mill never saw the light of day.
The rainy season came and the banks were covered with silt. Nobody wanted to cross any more. The flow of travellers dried up. The host would look across at the mist-shrouded forests, his eyes saying something that Octavio could not fathom. His voice crumbled to ashes. His past encounters seemed to have left him with a taste for wealth and worldly things. Now the wind brought only swirls of spray, not music or flowers.
With no meat available, they had to make do with seeds. The soil became infested with larvae and the vegetable garden yielded nothing but dry roots. As the water flooded the furrows, the earth turned to bog. The fig tree died in the space of a few sorry days. Iguanas with scaly tails and amber eyes came down from the trees to eat what remained of the last shoots. The wind dislodged the grafts and blew down the arbours. Empty of butterflies, the nights fell without dusk.
The host spoke of emigrating to the city. He harked back to the good life he had known only yesterday, the food he had tasted, the women he had kissed. He constantly fought off memories, his heart full of disappointment. Within days, he was plagued by nightmares. He would wake with a start, talking of horned monsters that looked like devils, his sweat tasting of the torrent. Sobs quivered in his throat, but would not come out. Don Octavio made him infusions of nettles and cinnamon and purges that took away his appetite, and bled him until he became dozy. The host got worse, sinking into delirium, sweating profusely, eyes rolling.
One morning, panic-stricken by a vision, he woke Don Octavio and pointed wordlessly at the other bank. For the first time, Octavio caught the whiff of rotten flesh on him. He stood up, lifted the host onto his shoulders and waded into the torrent.
The waves let out a mad, deep moan. As Octavio moved forward, the torrent rammed into him. The host’s muscles shrank, his skeleton grew thinner, and Octavio felt him weakening, growing limper as they went. And yet, with each step, the load grew heavier. The host had stopped speaking now, and was gurgling like a baby. His legs dangled on either side of Octavio’s neck, and his hands waved in midair. The years were falling away from him.
A few metres from the bank, Octavio turned. What he saw, surrounded by a mysterious light, was a beautiful, smiling child, pure and white, who, for a split second, seemed to carry on his back the unbearable weight of all men. The child pointed at the bank with his fat, tiny little finger. The battle of the waves was ending. The host was no longer the host, but a trace of himself. The torrent had swallowed up his life, a life whose weakness possibly gave the river a fragile beauty it had previously lacked.
By the end of the crossing, of the two men, only one remained.
XII
From that day on, Octavio’s journey was no longer that of a mendicant. There was something pure about his wanderings that seemed to inspire others to blindly follow him. His turmoil at the host’s demise soon gave way to a fresh burst of curiosity. He did not leave the forest of San Esteban, but roamed the hamlets that lined the motorway to Morón.
Along the edge of the forest between Las Trincheras and El Cambur, he found villages so isolated there was no postal service. Wherever he went, he brought rich harvests, bumper crops and news of neighbouring hamlets. He walked the streets among the cats and goats, ankle-deep in mud, wearing light clothing with a bag of achenes and nuts tied to his belt. He carried two chicken legs over his shoulder, half eaten, the rest salted to feed a mouth other than his own.
He encountered evangelical preachers who exploited farmers’ superstitions for their gain, and black seers who made enigmatic gestures and read fortunes in seashel
ls. But Don Octavio had no need of religious education, of Santería or Gnosticism. He needed no altar to pray before or square to preach in. He went from house to house offering his services, repairing the wall of an infirmary or the roof of a school. With the help of other men, he carried out his good works, lay electricity cables along roads, put up fences in fields, and once, beside a barn, single-handedly castrated a bull no one else would go near.
He no longer stole from cemeteries; he built walls, weeded out niches and helped to fill in the graves. He slept in grain stores on a white baize sheet. He lived free of worry, knowing he would win back tomorrow what he lost today. He spent his richest hours in the service of the poor.
Women wanted him for their son; girls, for their husband. The hill at El Dique was bequeathed to him. Octavio continued on his way. As he walked, he felt an almost poetic devotion to the world. Some talked of a giant born of a torrent, others of a slave who had claimed his freedom. People asked where he came from and he told them: the earth.
He reached a cluster of homes encircled by trees. Beyond the village, the land sloped down to a river where tilapia were farmed in a small clay pool. The community was made up of indigenous families and Creoles who had tacitly agreed to live side by side in wattle-and-daub huts that stood on a large circle of rammed earth, separated by straw fences. During the day, men with goatee beards brought in the harvest, never looking up from their work, while the women treated asthma with seje oil and eczema with orange latex. Workers in espadrilles gleaned the wheat and, in the heart of the village, children were thrashed with violet lantana branches to drive off chickenpox.
Octavio stayed a few months. Illiteracy had cut the village off from the world. In the absence of teachers, the villagers could read only the whims of the sky and count to fifty. Since he knew nothing of the laws of pedagogy and had no example to go by, Octavio saw no reason why he should not attempt to impart the basics of the alphabet. Every weekday morning in a churuata that also served as sleeping quarters, infirmary and marketplace, a gaggle of indigenous and Creole children awaited him, playing rowdy games of catch on the sun-drenched road until they saw Don Octavio’s strong and solid frame loom on the blazing horizon.
Octavio's Journey Page 5