Pig's Foot: A Novel Part 3

'It's the saddest thing I've ever heard,' said Abel Santacruz, 'and it's true. We can't go on like this. We have to improve our lives.'

Everyone agreed; everyone except for Evaristo who carried on insisting that this was a celebration and that they should not allow their joy to die. But no one had the heart to go on celebrating. Their joy, like a rickety shack dragged along by a storm, had been knocked out of true.

Jose thanked the kite-maker and all those present, saying that the food and everything had been wonderful but that it was time to go home.

'Don't go now, caballero . . .' Evaristo protested. 'Have you heard the one about the deadly avocado?' But Jose, Betina, Gertrudis and Benicio had already set off, carrying on their shoulders little Melecio as though he were some treasure that had suddenly been revealed to them. The wind blew gently, whipping away the dry dust only to bring more, suffused with the smell of horses.h.i.+t common to country paths. And so night began to draw in, and Pata de Puerco sank into utter silence.

A Trip to El Cobre.

One day, Jose borrowed the old mare belonging to Evaristo the kite-maker to take his children to El Cobre. Evaris...o...b..gged him to bring the mare back with all four legs and Jose a.s.sured him that he would not allow G.o.d Himself to touch the old nag's tail. He yoked the beast up to the cart and they set off while the dawn sky was still dark and the dew still settling.

It was a long journey. Geru's little cotton skirt embroidered with flowers grew damp with dew, as did Benicio's s.h.i.+rt and his patched shorts. Benicio tried to touch Melecio's shorts to see whether they too were wet, but his brother quickly covered himself with his hands.

They stared at the cows, at the mud-caked farmers tilling the earth, at the steep mountains of the Sierra Maestra which looked like giants standing guard over the valley. b.u.t.terflies and dragonflies were beginning to flutter across the lush green plain. It was a glorious day and, for the first time in a long while, Jose and Betina seemed happy.

'Hey, Benicio, you see those canebrakes over there on the left? That's where we used to work, me and your fa-' Betina gave Jose a clip round the ear. 'You and who?' my grandfather asked. 'Me and a good friend.' It was a terrible job, Jose added, telling his children that when they grew up they should plant crops or raise animals, because working on a sugar-cane plantation was backbreaking and badly paid. They would soon be adults and it was time for them to think about what they were going to do with their lives. At this point, Melecio said he wanted to be a cook. Grandfather protested that the kitchen wasn't his and pinched his arm.

An hour later, the family found themselves in the little square of a small town with stately detached houses, most of them built from stone. In earlier times, El Cobre was known as 'el barrio negro' the black neighbourhood. The area had been populated by 'the king's slaves', some of the few slaves in Cuba to receive an education. Most of them worked in the copper mines, and they were educated because the work required a greater level of knowledge.

The Americans had taken control of most of the strategic sectors of the Cuban economy. In addition to sugar production, they held sway over the mines, public services, banks and much of the land; they also owned the Cuban Electric Company and the Cuban Telephone Company, and much of the power industry including coal, oil and alcohol. The first thing Jose, Betina and the children noticed when they arrived was the number of white men, all of whom spoke a strange language.

'Look, Mama, milk men,' shouted Melecio.

'They're not made of milk,' said Benicio. 'They're white because they come from a faraway place where the sun doesn't s.h.i.+ne.'

Geru pointed out that the sun shone everywhere, so that could not be the reason they were white. In the end, they asked Betina who said, 'Where do white men come from? Juanita says they come from Alaska.'

'Alaska! What's Alaska?'

Betina explained that, according to Juanita, Alaska was a place where ice came from, where everything was white and it was always very cold.

'Well then, that's where these men must come from,' said Jose, 'because they're the coldest people I've ever met.'

'So they come from Alaska,' Melecio concluded and Betina nodded slightly.

None of the children had ever seen anywhere like this: concrete houses, cobbled streets; here was a town with no gra.s.s, no trees, no animals. They studied everything with great curiosity. Jose tried to recognise some of the places he had haunted years earlier before Oscar rescued him and signed him up to the war, but all of the old taverns were gone now, as were the markets and the grocery stores. The town was brand new with signs everywhere in English. 'It's time to go,' said Jose and turned the mare towards the outskirts of the town where the old church stood.

When they reached the cathedral, Jose tethered the horse to a tree fifty metres from the church courtyard. Benicio, Geru and Melecio's eyes grew wide and their mouths gaped to see such a vast building with its towers and its belfry. Five black carriages drawn by white horses drove past and stopped at the entrance to the church. They watched as impeccably elegant ladies and gentlemen alighted and made their way into this palatial building.

The Negro coachmen, wearing frockcoats and derby hats, parked off to one side and waited for their masters. Ragged mendicants, all of them black, some missing parts of their bodies, begged for alms. Soldiers chased them off with kicks and insults. There were many of them. Men with no feet, no hands, children no older than Melecio, Benicio and Gertrudis. These people were forbidden from entering the church.

Ignoring the entrance, the Mandinga family walked to the bal.u.s.trade surrounding the basilica. From here, they could see the grounds of the cathedral which seemed to include the whole valley. In the distance, they could make out huts and shacks just like their own and next to them a vast gaudy tract of land ringed by lush jungle. This tract, Jose explained, was the munic.i.p.al rubbish tip. In the midst of this pestilential riot of colour, scurrying frantically up and down, were tiny coffee-coloured specks. 'It seems incredible,' said Jose, 'but Oscar was right. Thirty years of war and all for nothing. Everything is still the same.'

They stood looking at the men scavenging through the garbage and Betina put an arm around Jose's shoulders. He flinched and then sighed, then suddenly he began to laugh. The last time he had laughed like this was when he smashed the kitchen table at home, hurling it against the door. But Melecio did not care. Pointing to the largest, most elegant carriage, he said, 'I know what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be like that man.' They all turned to look in the direction he was pointing.

'A coachman?' said Jose. 'Over my dead body.'

'No, Papa, not a coachman. I want to be like the other man, the milky man getting out of the carriage.'

Melecio was referring to the white man in a black suit descending the steps of the most opulent of the carriages. He was a thin man with an aristocratic face. People crowded round to welcome him and as he pa.s.sed men and women greeted him with the same admiration they might a hero. Jose bent down so he could look his children in the eye.

'Listen carefully to what I'm about to say. That man is not one of our kind. Our kind are over there foraging in the garbage dump. These elegant people, with their horses and whatnot, these are the people who started the wars, the ones who cut the arms and legs off those children, the ones who invented black coachmen and slaves . . . don't you understand? He is our enemy and should be feared. If one of them should come up to you some day, the best thing you can do is run away, do you hear me? Run anywhere, run as far from them as possible, to somewhere where there are only people like us or plants or animals. Do you understand?'

The three children nodded though none of them had understood a word Jose had said. One of the Negro coachmen from the imposing carriages came over to them. He was dressed in a red jacket with a long tail at the back, belted at the waist. He doffed his large black hat and the sun glittered on his bald pate, emphasising the broad scar across one cheek.

'Excuse me, I couldn't help hearing you laughing and I thought to myself "at least there are still people who can laugh". You know, with all the terrible things you see these days, it's rare to meet someone cheerful. Today is your lady's birthday, is it not?'

'No,' Jose replied.

'One of your children then, surely?'

'No, I only laugh like that when I'm angry.'

Jose turned away from the man and back to his children. Betina stood staring at the coachman. Not prepared to give up, the coachman exclaimed that he had seen so many strange things in his life he had almost begun to think he had seen it all. Life was wise, he said, and constantly managed to surprise him and in the end many end up a fool. Jose turned back to the coachman, his face now was calm.

'Tell me, senor . . .'

'Aureliano. Aureliano Carabali, at your service.'

The coachman bowed and smiled, showing a yawning gap where four of his teeth were missing.

'Tell me this, Senor Aureliano, slavery has been abolished, has it not?'

The man nodded. Jose said that if this was true, how could Aureliano bring himself to serve a white man after all the terrible things they had done?

'The terrible things they did? I don't understand, senor . . .'

'Jose. Jose Mandinga.'

'Could you explain to me exactly what you mean, amigo Jose?'

Jose said there was no need, because the coachman knew very well what he was referring to. White men had spent their lives exploiting Negroes. They were to blame for the poverty, the misery in which the black man lived. For thirty years war had been waged with the sweat of the Negroes of this country, with slaves and those who were already freemen; that it had been the Negroes who had truly triumphed with their machetes. But even now, Jose went on, there were no white coachmen and Negroes were still in the same s.h.i.+t they had always been in while white men enjoyed every luxury. Of course there were exceptions, men everyone knew about, Jose Marti, Maximo Gomez, but in general, Jose concluded, that was how things were.

The coachman listened intently, all the while baring his broken teeth. 'I can tell you are a man of pa.s.sion and that you speak from the heart; this is why I am going to give you my honest opinion on the subject. I never talk about such things with anyone, certainly not with someone I have just met, but I feel I can trust you.'

The coachman told Jose his story. He had lived in slave quarters on a sugar plantation near Santa Clara, one of the most vile, where the food was poorer than the slaves themselves. They were never allowed to stop to rest, not even for a moment, because the overseer was always there with his whip ready to beat them. Aureliano hated the whip, but many times he bridled because he was stubborn. He was put in the stocks and was whipped until his back was lined and furrowed like a rice field. On other occasions he was shut up for weeks in one of the tiny recesses set into the walls, and when he was finally let out the pain in his back from being forced to squat for so long, unable to stretch his arms or his legs, was unbearable. And yet there came a time when he was to suffer a punishment far worse than whipping.

'A punishment worse than whipping? What can be worse?' asked Jose.

'To be betrayed by those closest to you,' said Aureliano.

These were the lashes that truly hurt, the coachman said, and he had endured them all his life. His sisters, his mother, everyone had betrayed him. When not robbing him, they were playing some other dirty trick. A boyhood friend had slashed his face. Another raped his wife. The worst thing of all was that they never justified their actions but went on living cheek by jowl with him, their consciences clear, as though nothing had happened. This was why when slavery was finally abolished he went far away, where no one would ever find him. This was how he had come here. He was lucky to find the man who engaged him as a coachman, who taught him to read and write, a white man, the most generous man he had ever known.

'As you can see, amigo Jose, my troubles have always been with black men, for whether you believe it or not, in my darkest hours when I found myself with nothing, with no one, it was always a white man who offered me his hand.'

'What about slavery?' asked Jose indignantly.

The coachman replied that slavery was as old as mankind itself; that it had also existed in Africa, and not just slavery but human sacrifices and even cannibalism.

'Slavery existed long ago, it is with us today, it will always be with us.' These were not his words, the words of an ignorant man, but what was written in books and therefore the best thing to do was believe the great thinkers who a.s.serted that in reality there are no colours: no black, no white, no red, no yellow. That colours exist only in the eyes and are interpreted by the brain.

'That is rank hypocrisy,' said Jose. Many white people affirmed such things, he went on, claimed all men were equal, but not one of them would sit down and break bread with a Negro. 'If I tell you that you are as worthy as I, but brush you aside and live as far from you as possible, am I not a hypocrite? White men are like palm trees; they never bend their trunks to offer you a palm fruit. Not like mango trees that bow down to the ground so you can gather their fruits. White men live their lives looking down from on high and we are the worms wriggling in the mud waiting for some crumb of earth to feed on. They do not share with us, they do not mix with us, they are like d.a.m.ned palm trees, Aureliano. I don't know about you, but me and my friend Oscar may he rest in peace did not fight so that we could go on living in slave quarters or garbage tips. Besides . . .'

At that moment, Jose's dark eyes became two huge, luminous spheres.

'Melecio! Where's Melecio?' Melecio had disappeared. They frantically rushed around, looking everywhere for him. 'Betina, where the devil can that blessed boy be?'

They divided up into groups. Betina and Benicio headed towards the valley while Jose and Geru ran back to where they had left the cart. The coachman, seeing the group had dispersed, walked slowly back to his carriage.

The earth had opened and swallowed up Melecio. No one had seen him, no one had spoken to him, no child had played with him. They wandered far beyond the railing to where the valley began, but there was no sign of him. Back at the church, a voice hailed Betina and Benicio as they were walking towards the cart: 'Would you perchance be looking for this little man?' Betina turned and found herself face to face with the white gentleman wearing a black suit and tie and a bowler hat, the very man Melecio had pointed out only minutes ago. His n.o.ble, almost aristocratic expression radiated authority.

'Excuse me, senor. Melecio, where did you get to? I told you not to leave my side. What were you doing bothering this gentleman?'

'Not at all, senora. Your son was not bothering me. In fact, he has clearly had a fine education,' said the gentleman, doffing his hat.

Betina looked warily at the man. Jose and Geru rushed up a moment later, pouring with sweat. 'There he is. Melecio, what did I tell you . . .' roared Jose but the other man broke in again. Although he did not know them, he said, from his brief conversation with this young gentleman, Melecio, he was convinced they were people of learning, something rare in these parts. He talked about an elderly Englishman who was convinced that the maxim 'appearances are deceptive' was simply a crude aphorism. '"Appearances tell us everything, Emilio," the Englishman used to say, "they are a true reflection of what is within us. A man who looks like a collier has a heart of coal. That is the truth of the matter, everything else is folk tales." I wonder what he would say if he were to meet Melecio here.'

Jose and Betina stared at the man, trying to discern the hidden intentions in his gentle, easy-going face. His manners were too seemly to be genuine. No white man had ever been polite to Jose and Betina, much less a rich white man.

'I'm grateful to you for finding our Melecio. Now we have to go and find our cart,' said Jose.

'I understand. And believe me, the pleasure was all mine,' said the man and bowed graciously. 'But before you go, I wonder if you might satisfy my curiosity and tell me who educated you in the poetic arts?'

'We cannot read or write, senor. Now, by your leave . . .'

'What do you mean you cannot read or write? That's impossible. Are you telling me that your son made up the splendid poem he just recited to me?'

'Poem? What poem?'

Melecio took a few steps back so that everyone could see him, and with his head turned heavenwards, waving his hands, he recited: Sky, who takes away the bitterness Of my imprisoning fears, The threshold to my refuge My hopes, my yearnings.

I fall insensate on my bed And yielding to despair I dream A wintertime of emptiness A lifetime of dread.

Tell me, eternal sky, who I am Where did I come from, where am I going?

Your breath alone my consolation, Your voice alone my voice.

'Who taught you that, Melecio?' asked Jose.

'Answer your father, Melecio, where did you learn to talk like that?' said Betina.

Melecio looked up into the faces all around him, shrugged his shoulders, incapable of explaining whence this curious ability had come.

'Well, well, he has recited a different poem,' said the white gentleman, applauding and patting Melecio on the head. 'This boy really is a phenomenon.' He apologised for not having introduced himself. His name was Emilio Bacardi, he owned a modest rum distillery on the outskirts of Santiago which had afforded him sufficient money to build a successful business. He went on to say that he did not know what Jose and Betina's plans were for Melecio, but that whatever they were he would like to help.

'We do not need your help, thank you,' said Jose brusquely.

'I can understand why you might not accept. I know that past deeds linger on, that spilled blood is still fresh, but perhaps you might do for me as I did for your son, by which I mean do not a.s.sume a collier has a heart of coal. I know that it is difficult to believe, but perhaps you might try to see beyond the white man who stands before you and not a.s.sume that I wish to exploit you, though well you might after so many centuries of . . . Well, as my father used to say: opportunities are bald and you have to grab them by the hair. Believe me, I am thinking only of your son's talent, but I realise you have many other things to think about.'

'The only thing we need to think about right now is finding our cart and heading back to Pata de Puerco,' said Jose abruptly. 'So if you'll excuse us . . . Let's go.' Betina hesitantly turned towards the man. Jose gave her a gentle shove. The man continued on his way and once again people swarmed around, eager to greet him. The coachman with the scar across his face, who had been talking to Jose only moments earlier, courteously opened the carriage door.

'Melecio, if I catch you talking to a white man again, I'll split your skull,' said Jose.

'Opportunities are bald, Papa, and you have to grab them by the hair.' Melecio stared at the cloud of dust left by the carriage as it pa.s.sed.

When they came to the place where they had tethered the cart, they found the mare lying dead on the ground, her tongue sticking out, her body twisted like a hank of barbed wire. One of her legs had been hacked off.

'What do you mean, someone killed the mare?' Evaristo clapped his head in his hands. Jose said he was sorry. Evaristo worriedly asked how Jose planned to pay for the beast, since it was the only horse he had. 'Before the month is out I will buy you a new mare,' said the Mandinga. Someone had done the same thing to Oscar, Jose went on, and one day he would get his hands on the son of a b.i.t.c.h and string him up by his b.a.l.l.s from the nearest pine tree. The strangest thing was that he had had a premonition. From the moment they arrived in El Cobre and seen the soldiers bustling about, the Negroes begging and the rich white people glaring at them scornfully, Jose had sensed it was not a good day to make this trip. And to make matters worse, one of the rich b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had had the nerve to pester them, offering to help Melecio. 'Can you imagine, Evaristo? A white man offering to help us! There he was wasting my time while some bandido was hacking off the leg of your mare. If it hadn't been for this Emilio Bacardon, or Bacardin . . .'

'Emilio Bacardi?' said Evaristo.

'That's the man. If it hadn't been for him, right now you would have your mare here exactly as you lent her to me.'

'Wait a minute. You're telling me you talked to Emilio Bacardi, the mayor of Santiago?'

'Chico, I don't know if he was a mayor or a priest. Besides, they all speak some strange language round those parts, it's like a different country. But the fact is this Bacardi held me up talking about how Melecio had a gift for poetry and how he wanted to help. The things you have to listen to. Thirty years we fought these people and now they want to help us!'

'What are you talking about, Jose? Don't you know that most of the rifles we had during the war of independence were bought with this man's money? Don't you realise that Bacardi's own son fought shoulder to shoulder with Maceo? You must have met him. He stood right there right next to you wielding his machete.'

'Only two or three white men fought alongside Maceo. And the only one who proved himself a good soldier, not afraid of bullets and bayonets, was a scrawny lad with a moustache they called Emilito.'

'That's him. Emilito was the son of Emilio Bacardi.'

Jose walked slowly back to the fence that surrounded his neighbour's shack. He stared out at the infinite expanse of green that looked like an undulating emerald mantle. In the distance, he could make out pine trees, poplars and the tangle of vines that choked the pathway leading into the Accursed Forest which, in the gathering shadows of dusk, looked like tall windmills.

'Give me a month and I'll pay you for the mare, Evaristo,' he said. Then he walked back to his house, head bowed, deep in his own thoughts.

Ignacio's Idea.

To continue. Someone had cut off the leg of Evaristo's mare. There was something else Jose needed to do, something more pressing, and that was to visit the wise-woman Juanita. Her shack was little more than a hovel, set apart from all the others, which reeked of damp, dried plants, alcohol, c.u.min and tobacco. A narrow room crammed with cauldrons filled with husks, mysterious roots and snails of every colour, a single room with a privy in the back yard and a fire on which she cooked.

The santera opened the door and, for the first time, Jose and Betina saw her without her housecoat. Her hair was a hank of dry, dishevelled straw that smelled of rancid oil. They went inside, sat on a pair of stools next to a santeria altar and told Juanita about their worries and their doubts.

'So you think I was mistaken . . . ?' said Juanita. Jose and Betina protested that, though they did not doubt Juanita's gifts, they were confident Benicio was completely normal. He was sometimes naughty, as any child might be, he played war games and climbed trees. But there was nothing unusual about that. It was Melecio who was different. And this they found worrying. They reminded her about the poem he had recited beneath the red flame tree, told her what had happened in El Cobre. When they had asked the poor child, he himself did not know where he had found these words he had never heard before in his life.

'Maybe the day you told us about the boys' futures you'd smoked too much and made a mistake,' said Jose, smiling. Juanita looked at them gravely. Her eyes narrowed like those of a Chinaman. She was not mistaken, she said; it was true that she liked alcohol and tobacco and the herbs Jose had mentioned, but he could rest a.s.sured that in matters of magic she was never mistaken.