"Oh my god," I muttered to myself. "Raimundo is disgusting!" I flipped curiously through the magazine for a few moments, wondering whether anyone else knew about the teacher's dirty little secret, when another devious thought occurred to me and I beamed with delight at the prospect of it. Raimundo would be angry to find that Joabe had been in his room, but even more
so if...
Laughing at my own brilliance, I posed the open magazine on the bed just right and then dropped Joabe's horrible little hat next to it.
Perfect.
I skipped to the door and, with one last look at the brilliant trap I had laid, slipped out of the room and sprinted back across the yard to the schoolhouse.
The rest of the morning passed as slowly as any I could remember. I desperately wanted to tell everyone what I had done, but I was afraid Raimundo would overhear and my plan would be ruined, so I stayed quiet, shifting in my chair and willing time to hurry up. Finally the little bald teacher collected our work, and our pencils, and allowed us to leave.
"Wait here!" I hissed, grabbing Sandra and then Laura as they left the building and pulling them to one side.
"What's going on?" asked Laura, confused. "What are you up to?"
"Look at this," said Joabe, jumping out of the door and looking from Sandra to Laura and back again, "charcoal and paper."
"Oh go away you horrible little boy," Laura muttered, irritably. But I was smiling. My eyes were looking past Joabe to where Raimundo was now making his way across the yard towards his room.
"Go on then," Joabe said to Sandra, his eyes narrowing, "draw on her."
I grabbed both of my friends' arms and squeezed them gently as my anticipation bubbled over.
"What's the matter with--" Laura began, turning towards me, but her question was interrupted by an almighty shout.
"Joabe!" came the roar from Raimundo's room. The two girls next to me jumped in fright, and Joabe almost fell over as he span around to face the voice. Next moment Raimundo had appeared in the doorway, and then he was marching towards us, the little cloth hat clenched in his fist. "How dare you go into my room!" he shouted. He was almost upon Joabe now, and the little boy cowered in fear and confusion.
"What?" he stammered. "I didn't..."
"Don't lie to me!" snapped the teacher, shaking the hat in Joabe's face, from which the colour was rapidly draining. "I will go to your house this evening and talk to your father about this."
"I didn't!" Joabe protested again, practically in tears now. "I swear--"
"Get out of my sight!" shouted Raimundo. His face was so red with fury that even I was a little scared. I tugged my friends’ arms and we ran away together, glancing gleefully over our shoulders at the crying little boy.
"What did you do?" asked Sandra, smiling for the first time since I had met her. I grinned back.
"Come on," I replied, "let's get some cake and go down to the river, and I'll tell you all about it. Have you ever had sweetcorn cake?"
Sandra shook her head, and I smiled. "You're going to love it," I replied as the sweet smell of my mother's cooking drifted around us on the warm air like a gentle, invisible hug. Life here wasn't so bad sometimes, I thought. Sandra would realise that soon enough.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kindness
I DUG MY my fingers into the soft, crumbly earth and pinched out the little green shoot, its fine roots trailing behind it like tiny whiskers. It didn't look like much of a threat, but the rainforest was the embodiment of nature at its most pure and powerful, and everything grew fast here. If the weeds were not plucked in their infancy, by the end of the week they would have engulfed the entire plantation. If the bugs, and mites, and caterpillars were not seen off in short order, they would burrow into stem and leaf and destroy the precious coffee harvest from the inside out. Growing season was like a war against the forest itself, every day a fresh battle to keep it at bay. On a hot afternoon like this, the rows upon rows of crops to be rescued seemed to stretch on forever, and when you did finally reach the end it was time to begin again. No rest. No respite. Whether my father had chosen this way of life or it had chosen him, the two were ideally suited for each other. Both represented endless, joyless misery from which there seemed to be no escape.
I reached the end of a row, set down my basket, and straightened up to look around. Nearest to me, head down and paying attention to my task, was Julia, then Lorin, then Jose, and in the distance the tall silhouette of Belizar, dark against the swathe of green coffee plants. It was a scene I saw daily, and yet I felt instinctively that something wasn't right. Three of the figures in my eye line were going through the familiar, almost robotic motions of checking and cleaning the plants, but one was not.
"Julia!" I called out to my sister. "What's wrong with Jose?"
Julia looked up at me, then followed my gaze to where our brother stood about a hundred yards away, his posture limp and loose like a doll hanging from a hook. Then as they both watched, he crumpled to the ground as if in slow motion.
"Jose!" we cried out in unison, sprinting towards him. Even though Julia was closer, I was quicker and more agile and I reached him first, vaulting the crops like a ginger cat.
"Jose!" I shouted in alarm at the sight of his twisted form writhing on the ground. He was crying out in pain, his eyes rolling in his head like a madman, and though I wanted to help him I was afraid and stood back, hesitantly.
"What happened to him?" asked Lorin, appearing at my side followed closely by his twin sister, who was breathing too heavily to speak.
"I don't know!" I clutched Lorin's arm in a panic. "One moment he was standing and then he just fell! What should we do?"
"Jose!" Lorin sank to his knees next to his brother and tried to hold his head still, "Jose what's the matter? What's hurting you?" But Jose didn't reply. He just kept screaming as though possessed by the devil himself.
"We should get him back to the house," said Julia, catching her breath at last. "Mama will know what to do."
"Can you carry him?" I asked Lorin. He hooked one of Jose's arms around his shoulders and tried to stand, but Jose was thrashing around so hard that it was impossible to lift him.
"Not like this," he replied, "not without help."
Belizar joined us now, having heard the screaming almost half a mile away. He took one look at his younger brother and then, without a word, bent down and effortlessly swung Jose’s small, skinny body up over his broad shoulder, and began walking swiftly back in the direction of the house.
I ran ahead as fast as I could, my bare feet skimming the surface of the worn dirt track between the trees, long, curly hair flying behind me, until I could see home.
"Mama!" I cried, hurtling towards the house. "Help! Mama!"
As I got closer, I spotted my father laid in the hammock on the front porch, his dirty leather hat laid over his face to shield it from the sun. He raised a languid arm to lift it as I approached.
"Father!" I cried breathlessly, coming to a halt before him. That his youngest daughter's eyes were not filled with either fear or hatred as I looked at him must have indicated to Moises that something serious had happened, because he swung his legs from the hammock and grabbed my wrist in one lightning motion, like a striking snake.
"What is it?" he asked, shaking my arm forcefully. "What's happened?"
"It's Jose!" I replied, close to tears, "he's dying!"
My father stared hard at me for a long moment, his dark eyes inscrutable. Did he think I was lying? Why wasn't he doing anything? Then something over my shoulder drew my father's attention and he let go of my arm, almost knocking me to the ground as he stepped forward to meet his son.
"Take him inside," barked Moises, taking charge of the situation. Belizar carried Jose past our frantic-looking mother in the doorway, and all three disappeared inside the house. I made to follow, but my father's hand was once again tight around my wrist. "Run to Carlito," he said firmly.
"He has a truck, he can take Jose to the city
."
I stared at him. My father... asking for help? He must be ill as well. Maybe they would all catch whatever it was and die.
"Well what are you staring at me for, you stupid little piglet?" he shouted at me. "Go!"
That was more like it. Jolted back into reality by the insult I had been expecting since I saw my father on the front porch, I turned on my heel and sprinted north along the edge of the trees, in the direction of Carlito's farm.
It was almost dark by the time I and the neighbour my father so disliked returned to the house to find my parents at Jose’s bedside; my father standing deep in thought and my mother seated, cradling a glass of strange green liquid that I recognised as a painkilling potion I had seen my grandmother make from some of the many herbs in the forest. My father really must have been worried, I thought, if he allowed my grandmother’s witchcraft to be used in his house, on his own son.
"I've come to take the boy to the hospital," said Carlito.
"No need," my father replied, without looking at him.
"I'm sorry?" said Carlito, frowning.
"The boy is feeling better," said Moises, "aren't you?" he asked Jose, who had at least stopped writhing and screaming much to my relief.
"Still," said Carlito, "to be safe..."
"I said he's not going," said Moises, turning his head finally to glare at Carlito. I could barely believe my father's arrogance. He had sent me to the neighbour for help, and now rejected that help without so much as a thank you for the offer, or an apology for wasting Carlito's time.
"Please," said my mother, gazing down at her sick son. "Please let him go, there might be something wrong--"
"If he gets sick again he can go," my father cut across her. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, and for a moment nobody spoke.
"I'm taking him," Carlito said finally, in a quiet yet firm voice. How brave, I thought. Not many people defied my father openly and walked away unmarked. But Moises did not object again. He simply shook his head and pushed past Carlito out of the room.
"Thank you Carlito," said Maria, managing to summon a smile for him. "Thank you for helping my son."
"We don't know yet if it will be any help," replied Carlito, "but I promised I would always be here for you and I will."
"You are so kind to us," said Maria helplessly.
"Dona Maria," said Carlito seriously, "you have lived with that man for so long, it's a wonder you still remember what kindness is." And with that, he crouched down to lift the stricken boy, blankets and all, and carry him out to the waiting truck.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Box
I NEVER SAW my brother again. Only weeks after collapsing on the plantation, Jose passed away in hospital from acute kidney failure. He was only twenty-six years old. I didn't cry when I heard the news. Living in the shadow of my father had desensitized me to pain. Life on the farm was one tragedy after another. At least Jose was out of it now. No more long days slaving away under the unforgiving sun for him. No more harsh rebukes from a father who never got over his disappointment at his own son's feebleness. Jose's spirit was free now, free to fly wherever it chose, to see the world outside of that jungle prison, maybe even to be reborn into a different family. No, I wasn't sad for my brother. I envied him.
Meanwhile the family that Jose left behind had fresh problems looming over us. My father was becoming even more erratic and bad-tempered by the day, snapping at the slightest provocation and muttering angrily to himself when he thought nobody was around. I bitterly suggested that he was not upset about losing a son so much as losing a worker, and though my mother rebuked me for it, her body seemed to concur with the suggestion and soon offered its own solution: another child.
"What's wrong with her?" snapped Moises, pacing like an agitated panther around the kitchen table where his wife sat slumped in a chair, her eyes closed and her skin pale.
"She’s exhausted," Firmina replied, dipping a folded cloth into a bowl of pale green liquid and pressing it to her daughter's clammy forehead. "Carrying a child at her age is very hard. She needs rest!"
"Hard?" Moises spat the word contemptuously. "What do women know of hardship? All you do it eat and sleep and live off your husbands."
"I'm okay," said my mother shakily, opening her eyes. "I'll be okay in just a minute." "You see," said Moises, "there's nothing wrong with her. You don't know everything after all, old woman."
"Carry on like this," my grandmother replied, turning her dull eyes in his direction, "and you'll be burying your wife next."
My father’s face flushed with anger. "Jose's death was my fault?" he snarled, taking a step towards her. "Is that what you think? My family never had problems like his; the weak blood must come from you." He jabbed a filthy finger at her.
"It's nobody's fault," said Maria quietly. "Sometimes things happen and they're nobody's
fault."
"You want to believe that," my father snapped back, "because you feel guilty for giving my weak children like Jose, like Dionizio..." his eyes flicked to me, sitting quietly near the door. "Like that little demon," he pointed at me.
"Enough!" said my grandmother sharply. "Take your anger elsewhere, it doesn't belong in this house."
"You think you can kick me out of my own house now?" he said, staring at her, his breathing loud and dangerous. For one terrifying moment I thought that my father might attack her, and when he reached for his rifle propped against the wall I ran to my grandmother to protect her. But Moises swung the weapon over his shoulder instead. "I have to go anyway," he said, flatly. "I have actual work to do, something none of you know anything about." He paused as though waiting for someone to disagree, and seemed to take their silence as a victory, slinking out of the door with a satisfied smirk on his face.
"Avo, I thought he was going to shoot you!" whispered I once I was sure my father was out of earshot.
"Oh child," Firmina replied, giving me a gentle squeeze, "he wouldn't dare. He's too afraid that I might come back and haunt him."
"I think you would!" said Maria. "You're stubborn enough."
"Of course I would," said Firmina with a wicked smile, "I don't get to have enough fun. I'm looking forward to it."
I giggled, then caught sight of something that made my heart skip a beat. Hanging on a peg by the door was the little shoulder bag that my father carried everywhere with him. Moises had made it himself out of animal skins and never went anywhere without it, but I had managed to peek inside once and I knew what was there.
"Don't even think about it," my mother's stern voice called out as I sprang towards the
prize.
"Aww, but mama!" I protested, spinning around to face her. "It's in there! The key to the treasure chest!"
"I don't care," Maria replied, "it doesn't belong to you, leave it alone."
"I know you want to know what's in there as much as I do," I appealed, my hand sneaking towards the bag.
"No!" said Maria firmly. "If your father finds out he will be angry, and god knows what he will do to us."
"Oh Maria," said my grandmother, getting to her feet, "he won't do anything. Besides, he isn't here, and who's going to tell him? You?" She strode across to where I was standing, felt for the bag, fished it down and handed it to me. "I think we should have a look in that box."
I didn't have to be told twice. I grabbed the bag and raced through to my parents' bedroom, followed by my mother and grandmother. Dropping to my knees at the foot of the bed, my hands shook as I pulled out the chest and dug my hand into the leather bag, fumbling around for the key that I knew must be there. My fingers barely managed to close around it, so much were they trembling with anticipation, and it took me several attempts to jam it into the lock. Finally it turned, and I lifted the lid.
"What's inside?" asked Firmina, laughing and feeling around in the box with her hands. "come on, describe it to me. I'm so curious!"
"Guns," I said, "two pistols and a shotgun," I went to pick up one of the pist
ols, but my mother's hand covered my own and she shook her head.
"Don't touch them," she whispered with an anxious glance towards the door, "he'll know."
"Don't be so paranoid," her mother chided her. "What else is there?"
"Another bag," I said, picking up a little leather pouch with its drawstring pulled tight.
"No," said Maria, snatching it from me, "no, we shouldn't be doing this."
"And a book," I went on, picking up a small, leather-bound notebook.
"What kind of book?" my grandmother asked. I unwound the tie around it and opened it up to a random page. My father's writing, scruffy like a child's, sloped across the yellowed paper.
"It looks like a diary," I replied, frowning, "I--"
Just then Maria gasped, and I looked around to find her staring into the little pouch that she had pulled open.
"Mama?" I asked uncertainly, craning my neck to try to see inside.
"Maria, what is it?" Firmina asked. "Come on, you know I'm half blind. Tell me what you see!"
Curiosity overwhelming me, I moved my hand towards the pouch, but my mother noticed and snatched it away from my creeping fingers.
"No!" she snapped. "Put everything back right now, put it back the way it was."
"But mama--" I began to protest.
"No," Maria repeated firmly, "put it back right now, I mean it."
"Maria, what's the matter?" asked Firmina, alarmed.
"Nothing," Maria replied, "just put it back." She snatched the book from my daughter's hands.
"But I didn't even get to read it!" I complained.
"You don't need to read it," said Maria, "it's none of your business. Go outside now."
"But--"
"Emilia!" said Maria, gazing down at me now with pleading eyes. "Please go into the garden and fetch some lettuces and spring onions for lunch.”
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