Bridge in the Jungle

by B. TRAVEN

  I was sitting on a box a few feet from the door. Whoever came in or went out had plenty of room to pass by without disturbing me in the least. Nevertheless everybody, man, woman, or youngster, who passed stopped in front of me and said: “With your kind permission, señor!” And only after I had answered: “Pase!” or “Es su propio!” would he go out or enter. He did not do so because I was a white man. If an Indian peasant in rags had been sitting on this box, all the people passing by him would just as seriously have asked his permission to do so. To them it was impossible to cut through the breath of a human being without having his permission to do so. Of course, I did the same thing when passing an Indian. Suppose I should be as courteous back home as I was here; everybody would believe I had come home with a tropical disease. Back home I bleat exactly as do all the other sheep. I know it is easier on the nerves if you don’t try to lift people up to your own standard and it makes you only yellow in the face or gives you high blood-pressure to insist on reforming people who are convinced that they know better than anybody else what is good for them. One becomes a philosopher by living among people who are not of his own race and who speak a different language. No, no matter what happens, you had better stay firm in the belief that there is no better country in the world than God’s own great land of the free and then you will feel fine and be a respected citizen. Aside from the fact that that philosophy actually pays if you know how to handle it right, experience has taught me that traveling educates only those who can be educated just as well by roaming around their own country. By walking thirty miles anywhere in one’s home state the man who is open minded will see more and learn more than a thousand others will by running round the world. A trip to a Central American jungle to watch how Indians behave near a bridge won’t make you see either the jungle or the bridge or the Indians if you believe that the civilization you were born into is the only one that counts. Go and look around with the idea that everything you learned in school and college is wrong.

  29

  As I was feeling hungry I went to see what Sleigh was doing.

  The girl had long been up. She had ground the boiled corn on the metate, toasted tortillas, cooked black beans, and set the coffee on the fire.

  “Coffee isn’t ready yet,” Sleigh said the minute he saw me. “We’ll have to wait a quarter of an hour or so. It would be different if my wife was here. Hell, I’m sleepy. Christ, I should say, I am damn sleepy, that’s what I am.”

  He dozed off. Right away he was awake again and asked me: “Haven’t you seen the boy? I mean that lazy stick that works with me. He has to carry the milk to the store.”

  “He is at the fire helping the half-wit along with the fireworks.”

  “So that’s where he is. I’ll kick him in the pants. He knows he has to attend to the milk or it will turn sour in that blazing sun before he gets it to the store.” He rose from his seat and both of us walked back to the Garcia’s.

  On arriving at the yard we saw Garcia returning from his mysterious trip.

  Out of his bast bag dangling from the saddle horn he took a bundle of candles, a package of oily ground coffee, four cones of crude brown sugar, and three quart bottles of mescal. One of the bottles was half empty. Of course, there was a good excuse for that. The way was long, and he was heart-broken, old man Garcia was. So there was nothing to wonder at that he had such brilliance in his eyes. His face was red and had a spongy appearance. He was honest and did not pretend to be sober. Right away the bottle was handed to the friend who was holding the horse while he dismounted. The friend took a shot and then the bottle went the rounds.

  When he had arrived at the general store, Garcia had had only a few pesos in his pocket, but because of his sad loss the storekeeper had been willing to charge what he needed for the funeral. Garcia would have felt humiliated if he had had to celebrate the funeral of his son without mescal, coffee, sugar, and sufficient candles. The storekeeper knew, of course, that while other debts might be difficult to collect, the expenses incurred on account of the funeral would be paid as soon as Garcia had the money. As all prices at this general store were more than twice as high as in the town stores, the storekeeper would make an excellent profit out of this sale; in fact, the cash Garcia had paid amounted to practically four-fifths of the storekeeper’s costs for these goods. As elsewhere, no battlefield is so sad and horrible that some men cannot make a good profit out of it. Everything under heaven can be turned to dollars or pesos. It really does not matter whether it is the tears of a mother or the laughter of a child or the sufferings of the poor, there is always money in it. Man has to pay for his grief as well as for his joys, for his stumblings as well as for his dances. Even his last little cave under the ground, where he no longer will be in anybody’s way, has to be paid for, or he goes into the ashcan, unless a kind student of medicine takes pity on him and relieves him of such a shameless finale. Were it not so, the world would be a lot less entertaining.

  “Muchacho!” Sleigh shouted. “What about the milk?”

  “Estoy volando, jefe, I am flying already,” the boy yelled back.

  “Hurry up! And no maybe from your lips. Señor Velasquez will beat the hell out of you if you bring him sour milk.”

  In spite of his harsh words Sleigh was not a bit worried or angry about what might happen to the few quarts of milk, and he was still less concerned about what Señor Velasquez might say or do. Señor Velasquez was the owner of the general store in a village located near the depot. Should Señor Velasquez complain about the milk when Sleigh visited him to check the accounts and collect the money that had to be sent to the owner of the ranch, Sleigh would lend a deaf ear to him. He would turn his back to him, mount his horse, and ride back home. If Sleigh loved anything at all, it was the cattle he was in charge of, but he did not care a rap about his boss, or about Señor Velasquez, or about the milk. In his opinion it was only incidentally that his boss or Señor Velasquez or the milk had anything to do with the cattle.

  We returned to Sleigh’s hut to breakfast on an old kerosene box. A not very clean newspaper served as a tablecloth.

  Sleigh looked the table over as if something were missing from it. He then said to the girl: “Fry each of us another coupla eggs.”

  “Si, patrón, ahoritito!” the girl answered.

  She went to a dark corner of the hut where a basket was tied to the post which supported the roof. A sleepy-eyed hen was sitting comfortably in this basket, obviously brooding over nature’s whim which made her sit there while all the other hens could go about and wink at the rooster. The girl snatched the hen by the neck, threw her out of the basket, picked up four eggs, and returned with them to the hearth. The hen cackled noisily and ran around the hut violently. She jumped on our table, kicked over our coffee cups, flew up, glided down again, and ran back to her basket, where for a while she sat on the edge and looked inside. Then she hopped in, moved the eggs around, counted them with her claws, and, finding none missing, sat down quietly and closed her eyes, once more satisfied with the world. She was happy and satisfied with everything on earth because she could not count correctly. It is the ability to count correctly that causes so many tragedies among men. Since counting-machines have made mistakes practically impossible, tragedies resulting from counting have become more intense and greater in number.

  After we had had our breakfast, we thought it time to get some sleep.

  30

  Music awoke me. The two musicians who should have been here last night and who, if they had come then, might not now be needed to play for the funeral, were presenting a lively foxtrot as an introduction.

  Sleigh had arisen long ago. He was crawling through the brush because a calf had broken out of the corral. I washed up, shaved, gulped down two cups of hot coffee, swallowed a few spoonfuls of beans wrapped in hot tortillas, and then went over to the Garcia’s.

  Here I found a great and animated assembly. To every tree, shrub, or post a horse, a mule, or a burro was tied—some with the sa
ddle still on, others without. Women dressed in their Sunday garments, men clothed as on week-days were standing around or squatting on the ground. A crowd of children filled the air with shouts and shrieks. Most of them were naked, the rest half naked, the latter being mostly girls.

  More fireworks had been brought by the new visitors and there was a cracking and shooting and a tremendous noise all over the place.

  The musicians who had played the whole night through were now no longer playing. They preserved their strength for the long march through the bush to the cemetery.

  A few men were lying about drunk. Others were still sleeping here and there on the ground. Nobody disturbed them.

  The sun was high and blazed down without mercy. The drunks caught in this broiling heat became uneasy, woke up, crawled to the shade, and fell back into stupor. One or two failed to reach the shade, dropped, and remained lying like shapeless bundles.

  Goats and hogs were running around freely and getting in the way of the people, who kicked them and pushed them without any result. A multitude of dogs were constantly fighting each other or playing or chasing the hogs. Chickens were fighting with turkeys over worms and crumbs of food. The horses, burros, and mules which were not tied up or which had freed themselves were walking among the crowd looking for a green leaf which had not yet been trodden into the ground. Yesterday there was much green to be seen near the broken-down fence and in the corners of the yard. Now the soil looked as if locusts had passed over it.

  All these animals were a nuisance to the people, but nobody got seriously angry over the annoyances they caused. Now and then an animal would be kicked. A woman would shout: “Hi, you perro, you miserable dog, get away!” Another: “Hog, don’t push me down!” Occasionally a boy was called to chase a dog or a hog away. Or a stone would be thrown, but so gently that it could not hurt the animal. It was meant to be only a warning, not a punishment. But if a dog or a hog was fresh enough to try to get away with the whole morral, the little bast bag in which the family carried their provisions for the trip, a club or a big stone thrown at the thief would remind him to have more respect for other people’s property.

  Some groups were all laughter. Other groups entertained themselves with animated conversation. Groups of youngsters sang and played mouth-organs. Here and there men were appraising horses and mules. Some women were telling others about the troubles they had with their children or with their relatives or their neighbors. It wasn’t all love and kindness. They told how greedy a sister-in-law was or an uncle, and what a beastly neighbor Don Chucho was.

  Any outsider who had come along here at this time would never have thought for a minute that the assembly was there for a funeral. But now and then people were reminded of the fact and they became serious as befitted the situation. At such moments groups suddenly ceased being jolly or loud. Someone would then say: “Well, all of us have to die some day, one sooner, another later, and some will die before they are out of their babyhood. That’s only natural. Poor mother! She’ll have to bear it and live on.” And a sigh from all the women in this group confirmed the truth of that philosophical statement.

  Again, in another group which had become too noisy, a man’s voice would be heard saying: “Get quiet, all of you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself making such a row and laughing as if you’d burst. Don’t you know that there is a dead baby close by, and that woman crying out her guts? You’ve not got a bit of decency left, that’s what I say.”

  In many places blankets had been spread over sticks planted in the ground so as to make little roofs for protection against the sun. There were few trees in the yard big enough to give any real shade.

  Usually a fresh breeze would come up at about eleven in the morning. Today this breeze had failed to come.

  Now the shadows of humans, animals, trees, and posts were right at their feet and could hardly be noticed at all.

  I took off my hat and entered the hut to see what changes had taken place.

  The hut was crowded with women who were fanning themselves with pieces of cardboard and with fans made of pasteboard on which were printed advertisements of cigarettes, beer, tequila, habanero, and dry-goods stores, and kissing couples with titles of moving pictures. The women fanned themselves automatically, as if their hands were moved by a little machine.

  All candles were bent and at every candle a woman worked to keep it upright. This constant attention to the candles not only kept a number of women and youngsters very busy, but also served as a good show for the mourners, because each candle had its individuality and each attendant had a different way of handling the candle she was in charge of.

  The kid had become a very poor side-show and was not attracting any real interest.

  Then the Garcia once again took the cloth off the kid’s face. The face could no longer be recognized. It had become almost formless. The wound in his jaw had become an enormous ugly opening. His teeth were exposed like those of a skeleton. The gums were greenish. The little wound on his skull had also widened and the bared bone of the skull had become visible.

  It was not only the tropical climate that accounted for such rapid destruction; the process was also hastened by the water from the tropical river which had entered the body. The water of a river in the tropics contains billions of the most hungry, most voracious microbes, which attack a lifeless body a hundred times more savagely than those which infest water in the temperate zones. I for one could explain in no other way such a terrific and horrible decomposition in so short a time. I wondered what the body looked like under the sailor suit.

  But the sailor suit was no longer visible. These primitive women had perceived the ugliness of that monkey dress. They had better taste than the jobber who had shipped a gross of these suits down here in the belief that they were the right clothes for little Indian boys who lived in the jungle where nobody knew what a ship looked like and where nobody understood why sailors had to wear this sort of suit and why they could not do their work just as efficiently in overalls. Of course, intelligent people know that it is the uniform that accounts for a good sailor’s smooth and effective work. But while this may be known to the women in every port in the world, it is not known to the people in a tropical jungle.

  The women had covered the admiral’s overalls with a sort of frock made of red, green, blue, and yellow paper. This frock which had been made by simple Indian women had given back to the little Indian boy his dignity. I was surprised to see at least a dozen identical frocks on the kid. Soon I found the reason for this unnecessary abundance.

  Almost every woman had brought something with her to be used for dolling up the kid. There was no possibility of exchanging ideas over the phone before leaving their homes. Many had brought a dozen sheets of colored paper. Others had made paper frocks as soon as they had received the news of the tragedy. Since every woman had offered her gift with all her sympathy and love, the mother accepted them all with thanks and, with the assistance of each giver, dressed the kid in the new frock even though he had more than one on already.

  Fortunately, not all the women had brought frocks. Many offered little stars and crosses, some of them cut out of tin cans, others out of colored paper. These stars and crosses were pasted on the uppermost frock as extra decorations. A few women who had nothing better to give had brought brightly colored rags and ribbons, which were also pinned to the frock.

  A woman I knew entered. She was the mother of the boy whom I would have raised from the dead but for the Spaniard pushing me aside and applying another method. I was still pondering over the question whether I would be as highly respected today in that village if the Spaniard had not interfered with my handling of the dead. Well, perhaps the people of that village would admire me just the same, because working on a corpse with all sorts of rescue methods for six consecutive hours will always be highly appreciated even if the result is failure.

  That woman greeted me before anyone else, and she did so in a very friendly manner. She had brought
a pretty crown made of gold paper, but it had not been made with such good taste as the one made by the pump-master woman last night. She naturally believed, however, that her crown was lots prettier than the one the kid already had on his head. She stepped up to the body, and without asking anybody’s permission she took off the old crown and put on the crown she had made.

  The pump-master woman saw her do this, but did not interfere. When she had made that crown, with her tears running down over it, I had noticed how much kindness, neighborly love, and compassion for another mother in distress she had been weaving into it, and I also saw how happy she had felt when she had finished her job and examined it with the satisfaction of an artist whose work has surpassed his intentions. I shall never forget the look in her smiling eyes, still wet from tears, when she put that crown on the kid’s head and almost worshipped him as if he had now become a little saint.

  Now she glanced at her rival and for a moment I was not sure that a fight might not start. She made a gesture as if she meant to prevent the unceremonious exchange of crowns. But she stopped, and over her lips a kind smile fluttered. She put both her hands over her breasts and watched the somewhat rude exchange without anger. Being a mother, she perhaps realized that the other woman was also a mother and that only recently that mother had lost a beloved son and what she was doing at this moment was but showing her sympathy for the young mother. And so, the pump-master woman thought, why start a fight over Ac crowns? The first crown had served its purpose, so let the second crown have its turn.