Pig's Foot: A Novel Part 4

'Why then did you not tell us what was going to happen to Malena and Oscar?' asked Jose.

'Because it is impossible to change a person's destiny and, alas, there was nothing that could be done,' said Juanita, then served them some coffee in two polished cans.

They sat there for a little while, talking about Gertrudis, who had grown up to be a sensible girl who did not have to be asked twice to wash clothes in the river or clean the house; they talked about how much they still missed Malena and Oscar. They speculated about the future of Pata de Puerco, about whether it would one day be a town with cobbled streets like El Cobre and other cities around the country. Then Juanita walked them to the door and they made to leave.

'Not you, Jose. I'd like you to stay a little longer. There's something I want you to see.'

Betina protested, asking why she could not stay too, and Juanita explained that what she had to say concerned Jose alone, that no one else could be present. Grumbling, Betina headed down the dirt path to their house.

'Sit over there,' said Juanita, gesturing to a stool next to the altar. The seat, carved out of wood, was sculpted in the form of an Indian, almost life-size, wearing a headdress of eagle's feathers, surrounded by cauldrons filled with river stones, metal artefacts, pieces of dried coconut rind, a pair of maracas and a dozen candles. The santera lit the candles, grabbed a flask of rum and drank straight from the neck then spat at the figure of the Indian. She picked up the five dried coconut rinds and with a flick of her wrist tossed them on the ground.

'What is already known should not be asked,' she said aloud.

'What is already known should not be asked?' repeated Jose.

'Five coconuts face up, not one face down. This confirms that I was right. Every time I have asked about your future I have received the same answer: five coconuts face up. It means there will be war.'

'Another war? But what has that got to do with my future? Don't tell me I am to be drafted to fight in another war.'

'No. This war will be fought in your house, and it involves Benicio.'

Once again Jose insisted that Grandfather was a good boy and said he believed Juanita's saints had a grudge against poor Benicio. Juanita threw the coconuts again, and once again they fell face up.

It was dark by the time Jose got home, pale and silent as though he were in another dimension.

'What happened? Why the long sad face?' asked Betina.

Jose looked at her as though for a moment he did not recognise this woman who had opened the door to him. His expression changed suddenly. He hugged Betina and said that he was hungry. He asked after the children. Betina served him a plate of yams and rice and then they went to bed.

In the days that followed, Jose thought about their visit to El Cobre, about the American soldiers who now occupied the zone, about Emilio Bacardi and his coachman. He thought about how times had changed, and more than ever he realised that time did not exist in Pata de Puerco, neither the hours, the days, nor the months. Those who lived here were invisible, impervious to the march of progress. He felt sad to realise that in the grand scheme of things, the village was not even a dot on the map, and that the lives of the villagers did not even make up one melancholy moment in the immensity of life.

During those days, he talked a lot to Betina, who told him that she agreed with the white man who had offered to help Melecio. It was clearer than water that nature had bestowed their son with a gift, she said, a gift that needed to be nurtured, and that they could not help since their knowledge was limited to working in the fields. 'Pata de Puerco is not right for Melecio, Jose. We have to get him out of here.' Jose repeated his old arguments about how white men were to be feared. Bacardi, he said, probably wanted Melecio so he could turn him into a coachman. But above all, Jose spent his time brooding about Grandpa Benicio. The more he watched him, the more certain he was that Juanita's orishas were mistaken.

On Sunday, as usual, the village celebrated the Festival of Birth. Evaristo gave every boy a kite and every girl a doll he himself had carved from dried coconut. This time, Jose and Betina brought sweet ca.s.sava, potatoes and lettuces they had picked from their vegetable garden. Miriam, the wife of Justino the coal merchant, cooked the stew. To it she added bacon from the Santacruzes, yams from the Jabaos and the chicken brought by the Aquelarres. Juanita the sorceress and Epifanio Vilo agreed to cook the rice, and the whole village had enough to eat. The boys flew their kites while the girls drove their coconut dolls around in toy carriages that were little more than broken branches snapped from the trees by the wind.

When the food was ready, Jose gathered all the villagers beneath the flame tree. 'Pata de Puerco cannot carry on like this. If the country is not prepared to look after us, we will have to do it ourselves,' he began. He suggested that together they make a collection in order to send someone from Pata de Puerco to school in El Cobre where they could learn to read and write so that they could pa.s.s on this knowledge to the rest of the villagers. While studying, the chosen candidate would stay with grandparents of the Carera family who had recently arrived from El Cobre.

'It is a little late for education,' said Epifanio Vilo.

'For us, perhaps, but not for our children,' said Jose. 'We have to think of them.'

There was a great debate. The Jabaos said they agreed with the idea and suggested sending their son Juan Carlos, who had shown a remarkable intelligence and refined manners. Juanita the wise-woman suggested they send her, since given her skills in the dark arts, she could learn to read and write in only a week. Her Angolan orchids had still not blossomed, the wise-woman added, which clearly meant that the hour had not yet come for her to die, that being so her dearest wish was to contribute to the prosperity of the village.

'My daughter Anastasia is intelligent too and she is the best laundress in Pata de Puerco,' said Silvio Aquelarre. 'I think she should be the one to go.'

In the end, all the villagers wanted a member of their family to be the one to escape this desolate life of trees and animals for civilisation. Jose explained that they did not have to decide immediately and suggested that they postpone the decision for three weeks while they considered how best to choose. Everyone agreed that on the third Sunday they would settle the matter of who was to be the future village schoolteacher.

While the meeting was winding up, Gertrudis, Grandpa Benicio and Melecio had been playing with their kites and coconut doll, but after a while they had grown bored and started competing to see which of them could make the loudest, smelliest fart.

'Look who's coming this way,' said Gertrudis. Melecio and Benicio ran over to Ignacio el Jabao, who suggested they go and taunt El Mozambique: throw stones at his shack to make him come out.

'What's the matter?' he taunted. 'Are you scared? I always knew you were just a bunch of f.u.c.king p.u.s.s.ies.'

Obviously Ignacio wouldn't have used those words back then. He probably said something like: 'You're just a bunch of lily-livered chicken a.r.s.es, little babies scared of El Mozambique.'

Melecio insisted that they were not scared, but the fact was that El Mozambique had seven dogs as big as lions. Nonetheless, all three turned on their heels and began walking towards the dreaded house. Ignacio brought up the rear.

'What has El Mozambique ever done to you that you want to pick on him?' asked Geru.

'He's never done anything to me, but he's eaten a lot of people,' said Ignacio.

'What if he eats you?' said Grandpa Benicio. Ignacio el Jabao stopped in his tracks.

'You see? I was right. You're all s.h.i.+tting yourselves, especially you, Benicio. A lot of good it did you having a famous father! My mama says your papa Oscar was a real brave man who wasn't scared of nothing or no one. And my papa says that one time working in the cane fields he got mad at El Mozambique and nearly cut his b.a.l.l.s off. Jose and your papa were known as the Duo of Death because they killed more Spaniards fighting with Maceo during the war than anyone else. And just look how his son turned out a gutless wimp with no b.a.l.l.s.'

'I don't know who this Oscar is,' said my grandfather. 'My papa's name is Jose Mandinga.'

'That's not what my mama says. Don't make no difference anyhow, you're still a gutless wimp with no b.a.l.l.s.'

Benicio hurled himself at Ignacio. Gertrudis and Melecio waded in to separate the two.

'You are too a wimp. If you're not, then prove it. Go and throw a stone at El Mozambique's shack,' said Ignacio el Jabao. Benicio felt his ears getting warm, and his judgement becoming clouded.

'Don't do it, Benicio, don't do it,' said Geru and Melecio, but Benicio ignored them and walked down the Callejon de la Rosa as far as the path leading up to El Mozambique's place.

No one ever saw El Mozambique. Much was talked about him, but no one knew anything about his past, where he was from or when he had come to the village. Some people claimed that he had always lived here in this tumbledown shack, set apart from the others on the outskirts of the village; they said he had arrived shortly after the Mandingas and the Korticos. But no one dared walk past his house or along the pathway. He was a violent man; Epifanio Vilo was the first to suffer his wrath when he organised a meeting one day to try to have El Mozambique thrown out of the village. This happened not long after Oscar and Malena died. Jose told Epifanio to leave El Mozambique in peace; we all have our faults, he said. But Epifanio was a mule-headed individual and he had made up his mind. So they called the meeting and after an hour it was unanimously decided El Mozambique should move far from Pata de Puerco and leave the villagers to live in peace.

'The very mention of your name terrifies people, Mozambique. They can't sleep for thinking about your dogs and the hides hanging in your back yard that look like the skins of murdered children pickled in alcohol. You're not wanted here, so get out,' Epifanio announced, acting as spokesman for the crowd of twenty neighbours gathered outside the despised creature's house.

El Mozambique, a giant of a man, tall and hulking as a palm tree, silenced his dogs with a wave of his hand, then he picked up Epifanio's thin frame and tossed him on to the ground in front of everyone including Epifanio's children as though he were nothing but a piece of wood.

'I would not give you all the satisfaction. You'll just have to kill me or wait for me to die, and I warn you: the next person to walk up my path, I'll rip him apart I'm always in need of fresh meat for the dogs.'

Epifanio Vilo and the other villagers took to their heels and vanished. From that day forward, no one ever walked down El Mozambique's path or exchanged a word with him. They left him to himself, living with his dogs as though he were a stranger. Only Ester regularly visited, bringing provisions from the grocery store. Before the confrontation with Epifanio, the neighbours had spoken to her, begging her to persuade El Mozambique to move away, but Ester ran off before they could explain their reasons.

As he crept up the path to El Mozambique's shack, Benicio pa.s.sed an avocado tree, a sweet apple tree and a ruined water tank that was utterly useless. He looked to one side then to the other but saw no one. Only the figures of Ignacio, Melecio and Geru far behind on Rose Alley. The wind began to blow, churning the earth into mud which it spattered against the branches of the trees. It was daytime, but the whole area was swathed in fog thick as an avalanche of spirits.

Benicio picked up a smooth river stone that lay, almost waiting, next to his feet. He walked as far as the fence of barbed wire and timbers studded with vicious nails. Just as he was about to throw the stone, the door to the shack flew open. Benicio felt a shudder of terror as he saw the burly giant, his bullish coa.r.s.e face, square jaw, pale eyes, step out into the daylight. His face looked as though it were incapable of any expression beyond the undying hatred for the world he wore like a mask. Seeing Benicio, his frown softened and his lips parted to reveal fangs as sharp as those of his dogs.

'Someone has finally come to visit me. And not just anyone, a boy no less. I knew some day my luck would change,' said El Mozambique with a n.o.ble expression that for a moment caught Benicio off guard. 'Come on, come in. Don't be afraid, I'm not as black as people paint me.'

'I'm sorry, senor. I wasn't going to throw the stone at you, I was going to throw it into the thicket. I'm going now.'

'What do you mean, you're going?'

El Mozambique's eyebrows resumed their original scowl. Benicio could see the thick veins pulsing in the man's throat. His arms were strange too, as though he had no forearms, just two huge biceps extending from shoulder to wrist. 'That's no way to greet someone. What am I supposed to do with the orange juice I've made? There's far too much to drink it by myself.'

My grandfather had no choice but to obey. Before he did so, he glanced back at Melecio, Geru and Ignacio el Jabao standing rooted to the spot, hands clapped over their mouths, watching everything.

The dogs looked at him mistrustfully but did not make the slightest sound. Inside, the shack was dark and shadowy as a cave and the smell of rotting wood hit Benicio. Pinned to the walls were rags to stop the light stealing through cracks in the boards. There were other smells too, the stench of old, dirty clothes. From the walls hung countless curious objects: machetes of every shape and size, garden tools, rag dolls that smelled of coal dust; a number of santeria cauldrons filled with metal objects were dotted around the room and there were bowls of rotting fruit that teemed with ants and blowflies. Through the noxious odours came the acrid, unmistakable smell of blood. The shack seemed like the very fount of stench and putrefaction.

'There you go,' said El Mozambique, handing Benicio a rusty can filled with orange juice. He apologised for the pestilential smell, explaining that he had never seen any need to clean the house since he lived alone and, until now, no one had ever visited. And so he had grown accustomed to the smell of s.h.i.+t and rancid blood.

Benicio stared at the contents of the tin can and saw eight or ten ants and a dead fly floating on the yellow liquid. His stomach heaved but, seeing the eagle eyes of his host widen, Benicio drank the contents, ants, flies and all, in a single gulp. El Mozambique smiled in satisfaction. He took the can from the boy's hand and set it on a wooden table on which stood one of the countless bowls of metal objects. Then, cradling his face in his calloused hands, he proceeded to stare at the boy as though studying some precious long-buried artefact.

'There is nothing more glorious than the innocence of youth. I had it once, you know, that innocence. Long, long ago. But then someone taught me hate, and since that time everything I have known has been coloured by that word.' An expression stole across the face of El Mozambique like that of a lost child desperate for affection. He tilted his head to one side and closed his eyes as though listening to distant voices, to thoughts from times long gone. 'But then I discovered that hatred can be a wonderful quality if directed as it should be. For example . . .' He got to his feet and grabbed a sharp machete from the wall. Benicio swallowed hard.

'People always wondered how I could cut so much sugar cane, how I could hack away all day and never tire. I'll tell you: hatred. It was hatred that drove me to be the best. With every swing of my machete, I vented my fury; I imagined the sugar cane was my enemy and so I hacked at it and sometimes howled with rage and I went on swinging late into the night, long after the other macheteros had gone home. Still the hatred would burn inside me and I would carry on until dawn; this is how I came to be the best. Do not fear being hated; hatred is not such a bad thing; it means people leave you in peace.' El Mozambique put the machete back where he had found it. Benicio felt himself relax.

'But we are not here to speak of unpleasant things, are we? You are wondering why I invited you into my house. Firstly, because no one ever visits me and secondly, because we have a mutual friend. Did you know that?'

'A friend, senor?'

'Indeed. It was she who said I should meet you. You know Ester?'

'No, senor.'

'Of course you know her! Ester, come out of the kitchen!'

The midwife stepped into the room. She was wearing the clothes she had been wearing the first time Grandpa Benicio ever saw her. She stopped, arms folded, right between them, and from the timid way that she moved it was clear she too was scared.

'Do you recognise her now?'

'Yes, senor. I know this lady, but I've only ever seen her once: the time she told me I was a sad child.'

El Mozambique let out a bear-like roar and doubled over. Benicio and the midwife flinched, then Ester smiled and Benicio noticed that all her upper teeth were missing. El Mozambique could not stop laughing. 'So you told the kid he was a sad child? The things you came out with, Ester. What do you know of sadness? Pay her no heed, Benicio, the weight of her t.i.ts has left her addled in the head. We like Ester when she keeps her trap shut, don't we, Benicio? So not another word out of you, Ester, do you hear me? Now go back to scrubbing your pots, we men have things to discuss.'

The midwife pouted and gave Benicio a miserable look. Then, head down, she trudged back whence she had come.

'Tell me a little about you,' said El Mozambique.

'About me?'

'Indeed.'

'Well, I have a sister and . . .'

'And a brother named Melecio who recites poetry. All this I know already. Tell me about . . .' The man's eyes had alighted on the amulet around Benicio's neck. He walked over to the boy, took the pig's foot in his hand and did as he had when staring at his face: he studied it as though he were a detective.

'I should have expected it. Who gave this to you?'

'It was given to me by my papa, Jose. I've had it since I was born. My father says it brings good luck.'

'Given you by your father Jose? Don't make me laugh. It's very handsome. Why don't we trade? I'll give you one of my puppies in exchange for your necklet.'

'I can't, senor.'

'What do you mean you can't?'

'I told you, it was a gift from my parents.'

The murderous expression returned to the face of El Mozambique. He grabbed the necklet again and began to tug. Benicio started to scream, flailing his thin arms, biting the giant's hand, struggling to stop him from taking the amulet. Just then the dogs began to bark.

'Benicio! Benicio, are you in there?' called a voice from outside. With a fierce wrench, Benicio managed to prise the giant's hand from the talisman and, like a flash of lightning, bolted outside where he found the whole village gathered. Melecio, Ignacio el Jabao and Geru were standing in front; behind them stood Epifanio Vilo and his brood, followed by a throng of people crowded around Jose, waiting impatiently for something they had spent years hoping might one day happen.

'Benicio! What possessed you to go bothering El Mozambique?' roared Jose, breaking through the crowd encircling him. The dogs were still barking. Abruptly, they fell silent as the imposing figure of their master pushed his way past and faced down the crowd.

'Uh . . . Mozambique, I apologise for Benicio's intrusion . . .'

'There was no intrusion. I was just telling him how much I admired his amulet.'

'He's lying, Papi. He tried to steal it from me,' wailed Benicio in despair.

Among the crowd, indignant voices began to clamour.

'Did you hear that, Jose?' said Epifanio Vilo. 'It's like we've been telling you for years. This man is a menace.' The a.s.sembled crowd chorused their support. The clamour rolled around the woods like a thunderclap.

'That's enough, senores, that's enough. El Mozambique has not harmed anyone. You may not like the way he lives, but every man has a right to live as he pleases. This is the great principle of freedom.'

'Perhaps, but that same freedom can become catastrophe if not used wisely,' said Abelardo Cabrera. 'Besides, we all hate the man. It is not merely one or two people, everyone despises him, so there must be some reason. As the old saying goes, when the river roars, there are rocks beneath.'

El Mozambique stood smiling at everyone.

'Hatred is a harsh word, Abelardo,' said Jose. 'When someone hates, he stoops lower than the man he hates, and that is not good. We hate in others that which we hate in ourselves; that is why I believe hatred is too strong a word.'

Everyone fell silent, shaking their heads in disbelief.

'It's true, Papa . . . El Mozambique tried to . . .'

'Shut your mouth, Benicio,' said Jose, taking the boy by the shoulders and moving him to one side. 'Mozambique, why don't we prove to everyone here that you don't devour people, why don't you come and join us for the feast, hey?'

'Never,' said El Mozambique categorically, 'You all decided long ago that I was the devil himself. Let us leave it so.'

'So you agree with these people?'

'Since when has anyone cared what I believe? I've already admitted that I am evil, and I am not about to try and change anyone's mind since the only one who needs to remain calm is me. I know that they are all simply waiting for me to die and perhaps one of these days I will give them that satisfaction. Who knows? Now get the h.e.l.l off my property, all of you, before I throw you to the dogs.'

Jose stood for a moment, brooding over what El Mozambique had said. The neighbours waited, impatient, each wondering how the Mandinga would react.

'You know something, Mozambique? You might not realise it, but if that is how you think, then you began dying long ago. If that is how you want to live, well then wallow in your contempt, but don't say we didn't warn you. All right? Let's go, caballeros. Let's go back to the fiesta.'

'But, Jose,' howled the neighbours in chorus, 'how can you do this?'

'Calm down, calm down,' Jose said firmly. 'Can't you see the man's a pitiful wretch? Leave him alone, he has enough misery in his life.'

With great misgiving, all did as Jose insisted. They headed back down the path towards the flame tree and the festivities, s.h.i.+elding their eyes against the dust whipped by the wind. Melecio and Gertrudis hugged their brother.

'We were scared we'd never see you again. Ignacio said children are El Mozambique's favourite food,' said Geru, giving him a kiss. 'So, are you going to tell us what happened or not?'