Pig's Foot: A Novel Part 5

Benicio told them everything that had happened. Then all three glared at Ignacio el Jabao, walking hand in hand with his father, laughing as he pointed at them. Lastly, they glanced back at El Mozambique who was standing where they had left him, staring at them with his pale eyes, cackling malevolently and licking his lips.

The Village Schoolteacher.

When they reached home, Betina was sitting waiting angrily in the doorway. She asked Benicio what had happened and Grandfather explained that it had all been Ignacio el Jabao's fault for saying he was a f.u.c.king p.u.s.s.y if he didn't throw a stone at El Mozambique. Betina's eyes grew wide with horror. Jose started to laugh. 'Don't laugh, Jose, this is not funny. Benicio, what kind of language is that? Don't ever let me hear you say a word like that again or I'll cut your tongue out. The only one in this house allowed to swear is me. Even your father would not do such a thing, do you understand? And all three of you are forbidden from hanging around with Ignacio. As punishment, you can all go to your rooms.'

Geru slowly headed for her room but Melecio, considering the punishment was unfair, bowed his head, saying that he was to blame for everything. Benicio planted himself in front of Betina and told her not to listen to Melecio, that what had actually happened was that Ignacio had said he was nothing like his father, some man called Oscar.

'Who is Oscar, Mami?'

Betina and Jose looked at each other conspiratorially and Betina told Benicio that he shouldn't listen to that little monster Ignacio and once again told all of them to go to bed.

The children did as they were told, but it did not end there. Every time Ignacio encountered Benicio, under the flame tree, in Chinaman Li's store, or at the Festival of Birth, he repeated the same taunt: 'Your papa's name was Oscar.' This went on, until one day, unable to bear the insults any longer, Benicio threw a stone that cracked Ignacio's skull and the poor boy ran home howling, his head streaming blood. His parents immediately went to see Betina and Jose to find out what had happened.

'Ignacio won't leave me alone,' said Benicio, sobbing. 'He's telling everyone that you're not my parents and it's driving me mad.'

The four adults decided that the moment had come for the boy to learn the truth. The Jabaos went back to their house and Betina made linden tea for the children and coffee for the adults. Then she sat all the children around the table and told them what had happened to Benicio's true parents.

'So Ignacio was telling the truth, you're not my real parents.'

'Of course we are,' said Jose, putting a hand on Benicio's shoulder. 'Parents are not those who give birth to you, they are the people who raise you.' The boy bowed his head and pressed the amulet to his chest. It was hard for him to accept that his mother had died at the very moment he was born, and that his real father had chosen to take his own life, leaving him in the care of his friends Betina and Jose. He wondered how an orphan was supposed to feel. He wondered this and as he did so he felt a sharp pain in his head, a pain that made it impossible for him to clearly see the origin of things. He got up from his chair and ran to the flame tree.

'Let him go, Betina. It's normal for him to feel this way. He needs time to think.'

Betina closed the door. Jose put an arm around her shoulders and they went to their room.

Melecio and Gertrudis went looking for their brother beneath the flame tree.

'I knew it,' said Melecio. 'You look nothing like me, and besides your bellyb.u.t.ton sticks out. But it doesn't matter,' he added. 'No one can ever say that we're not brothers.'

The three children hugged. Benicio ate the cracker Gertrudis had brought him and a few minutes later in the company of his half-siblings he felt much better. The sky grew thick with dark clouds and, in the wink of an eye, the three figures were gathered into the darkness.

The third Sunday came and, as agreed, the villagers discussed who would go to study in El Cobre so they could teach everyone to read and write. They cast votes, a show of hands for each of the various options: Juan Carlos (another Jabao), Anastasia Aquelarre, Ana Cabrera, Silvia Santacruz and Melecio Mandinga. Since everyone voted for their own family, it was logical that the largest family would win, meaning that Juan Carlos would go to El Cobre.

'One moment, senores,' said Jose, rising from his chair. 'This is not right.'

Pablo, the head of the Jabao clan, protested that the voting had been fair, that no one had cheated.

'There was no cheating, but in a vote it was inevitable that your family would win because there are more of you. We have to think of another way to decide.'

'All right. Why don't we decide by having a sack race?' suggested El Jabao.

'Pablo, you know very well that your family would win a sack race as well,' said Jose, and all the neighbours agreed.

Everyone began to advocate contests that their family was likely to win.

'It should be the person who sews best,' proposed the Santacruz family.

'The best storyteller should decide it,' suggested Evaristo.

Juanita the wise-woman continued to insist that she should be the one to go and threatened that a flood lasting three months would descend upon Pata de Puerco if she were not chosen.

Suddenly, a distant rumbling attracted everyone's attention. It sounded like a carriage moving at great speed. The villagers went out on to the Callejon de la Rosa to witness the miracle: a stranger arriving in the village for the first time. The carriage was moving at great speed, raising clouds of dust that made it impossible to see anything.

'Didn't I tell you? I knew that sooner or later it would have to come this way,' said Jose.

'What are you talking about, Jose?' everyone chorused.

'At last! The streetlights have arrived!'

People began to jump for joy. According to Jose, the country had finally realised that Pata de Puerco existed and soon perhaps builders would come to build schools and hospitals which would mean it would no longer be necessary to send Juan Carlos or anyone to El Cobre. Civilisation had finally come to the village.

As the carriage drew closer, the patapuercanos grew more and more confused. 'I think you're wrong, Jose. I don't think it's the streetlights. It's a private carriage,' said Evaristo, stepping into the middle of the Callejon de la Rosa the better to see. The carriage was being driven by a black coachman dressed in red wearing a large black hat. Immediately Jose realised who it was.

'Melecio, come here.'

Melecio ran over and stood next to Jose. Gertrudis and Benicio stood next to Betina, watching. Aureliano, the coachman, greeted them with a magnificent bow and, without wasting a moment, stepped down from the carriage.

'I have heard of exotic places, but this truly is a wonder. Green, very green, and not a single lamppost.'

Everyone was staring at the white man stepping cautiously out of the carriage.

'h.e.l.lo, Jose. Do you remember me?'

'How could I not remember you? You'd do well not to come any closer; it is your fault that the leg of my mare was hacked off.'

'You don't say! When was this?'

'While you were telling me that my son Melecio was gifted and that you wanted to help him. That was the very moment the bandido chose to strike.'

'I beg your forgiveness. It's true I did detain you for some time. Here you are, Jose.' Don Emilio had Aureliano unhitch one of the thoroughbred horses and handed over the reins. 'Once again, my sincere apologies.'

Jose looked Emilio Bacardi up and down incredulously and eventually pointed to Evaristo the kite-maker, explaining that the mare had been his.

Evaristo hesitantly stepped towards the white man. 'I . . . I . . . I . . . don't know . . .'

'Allow me . . . Is the gentleman a stutterer?' asked Don Emilio. 'Because I have the perfect cure. It is called Indian honey and is a syrup confected from a variety of psychotropic plants which restores the balance of the central nervous system. The problem is centred in the brain. I shall send you a bottle.'

Evaristo was incapable of responding, his stutter growing ever worse. No one present had ever seen him in such a state, his eyes welled with tears and he trembled with excitement. The villagers had not yet decided whether to trust the stranger. Again and again they weighed him up, inspecting his coachman and his carriage and finally looking back at Jose waiting for some signal that would tell them how to behave towards the outsider.

El Jabao was first to break the ice. He walked up to Don Emilio and said cordially, 'No, senor, Evaristo is not a stutterer, he is just nervous. Don't worry about what happened just now, he will be fine in a moment. It has been a long time since an outsider has visited our village, so you can imagine how curious we are. The truth is that you could not have arrived at a better moment. What is your name?'

'Emilio! His name is Emilio Bacardi,' Evaristo said finally, without stuttering.

Emilio Bacardi looked at him, smiling. El Jabao went on, 'Well, Senor Emilio. Before you arrived, we were discussing which of the villagers here should go to El Cobre to study and become the future schoolteacher for our village. The options are these . . .'

Juan Carlos, Anastasia Aquelarre, Ana Cabrera, Silvia Santacruz and Melecio took a step forward. One by one Emilio Bacardi studied them, with the exception of Melecio whom he treated as though he did not exist. Jose realised that the stranger's att.i.tude had changed; he glanced at Betina, but his wife gestured for him to remain calm and let matters play out.

'Now,' said El Jabao, 'I think the best way to decide the future teacher for our village is to have a sack race, but no one will agree. Nor are they prepared to simply put the matter to a vote, meaning a show of hands with the candidate who receives the most votes being declared the winner. And another thing, Juanita, the wise-woman, the woman at the back there, has threatened that if we do not choose her she will bring down a terrible curse on us. Perhaps you could help. What do you think would be best?'

'What I think is that now would be the moment to give you the gifts I've brought,' said Don Emilio and the coachman quickly began to unload from the carriage dozens of baskets of bread, roast suckling pig, legs of ham and earthenware bottles filled with rum.

The inhabitants of Pata de Puerco had never seen so much food. But they remained wary and n.o.body moved. The coachman told them to go ahead, the food was for them: that if they did not eat it, it would go to waste. Jose nodded. In the blink of an eye, the villagers fell upon this banquet. Everyone grabbed a leg of ham to take home while stuffing themselves from the other baskets and swigging rum. There was mango juice and guava juice for the children and toys the like of which they had never seen. Jose watched as Betina, Geru, Melecio and Benicio ate frantically, sampling every delicacy.

In the midst of this ravening ferocity, Jose walked over to the coachman and said, 'I was told your master's son fought with Maceo. Is it true?'

'Yes, senor. Emilito his name is. I told you, Jose, Don Emilio Bacardi is an extraordinary man. Not long ago he went to a far-off country called Egypt in mother Africa and brought back a dried-up body more than a thousand years old to put in the museum he plans to build. "If the world will not come to us, then I will bring it here so that my people can know it," he said to me once. And that's what he's doing.'

Jose listened carefully to Aureliano's words. He spat on the ground and then looked at Emilio Bacardi who was delightedly listening to the tales and stories of the candidates for the post of village teacher. Still he resolutely ignored Melecio.

An hour later, when everyone was sated and drunk, the stranger addressed the a.s.sembled crowd.

'How do you feel now?'

'Excellent! Fenomenal! This is the best food we've ever had in our lives,' they chorused.

'I am very glad. It has been a genuine pleasure to share it with you and I am grateful to you for sharing your concerns for the village. To turn now to the problem raised by Senor Pablo, I believe that the person best suited to a.s.suming the role of teacher is Melecio. I say this because I had the good fortune to witness the boy's talent and I can a.s.sure you it is truly exceptional. Believe me when I tell you this, senores. Moreover, I promised to teach this extraordinary boy everything I know.'

Bacardi hugged Melecio to him.

'Unless of course someone has a better idea. Is there anyone here who disagrees with the idea of sending Melecio?'

'No, sir, you are completely right. From the very beginning I thought as much, but no one would let me speak,' said Pablo el Jabao, staggering around clutching a bottle of rum.

'I agree,' said Juanita, unable to get up from her chair. 'Melecio is our man and if anyone doesn't like it, I swear I'll cast a spell that leaves him bald for the rest of his life. I completely agree with Senor Bacardon.'

Everyone began chanting 'Me-le-cio, Me-le-cio, Me-le-cio . . .', then the chorus changed to 'Bacardon, Bacardon, Bacardon . . .' Jose smiled to himself, he could not but admire the stranger's cunning. Don Emilio first winked at him and then walked over to where he stood, eyes twinkling, and whispered, 'Well then, Jose, you decide.'

Jose Mandinga looked at Betina and could tell by her eyes that she agreed. He looked at Geru, at Benicio and lastly at Melecio who stood, hands in his pockets, nervously awaiting the verdict. Then he turned back to Don Emilio.

'I have never trusted a white man, but I suppose there is a first time for everything. And as someone from El Cobre once told me . . .' Jose turned to look at Melecio who was smiling excitedly '. . . opportunities are bald and you've got to grab them by the hair.' Bacardi gave a satisfied smile.

'But listen to me, Senor Bacardi. I want my Melecio to come back with all four limbs because if he doesn't, I promise I will come for you with a machete and for anyone who comes between us. I want him back in perfect condition, is that understood?'

'You have my word as a Cuban,' said Don Emilio simply, then held out his hand which Jose took and shook warmly.

'Bacardon! Bacardon! Melecio! Melecio! Jose! Jose!' everyone bellowed, tossing chicken bones, hunks of bread and pieces of ham into the air these are the bits of the story I really like, all the stuff about ham and chicken . . . but anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

The s.h.i.+mmering June sun was already beginning to set. All the villagers bid farewell to Melecio, hugging and kissing him. Betina shed a few tears as she reminded him to brush his teeth every day and make his bed every morning. Jose read him the riot act and told him to behave himself. The last to say goodbye were Gertrudis and Benicio.

'Promise me you'll take care.'

'Don't be stupid, Melecio, of course we'll take care. Besides, Papa is strong as a ceiba tree.'

'Not Papa, I'm talking about your secret, the one you both carry inside you, it is something truly special.'

Geru and Benicio looked at each other bewildered, then kissed Melecio on both cheeks and with tears in their eyes, they watched him set off, thinking that a great part of their lives was leaving with that carriage. Jose watched in silence as the carriage moved along the Callejon de la Rosa. He always had something to say, some opinion to offer, but at that moment he was speechless, as though his thoughts had been carried off by the gentle breeze that followed behind the carriage of Don Emilio Bacardi.

'Cheer up, hombre. It had to happen some day. We bring children into this world, but they are not ours,' said Evaristo, putting an arm around Jose's shoulder. Then the Mandinga family headed home, not realising that with those inconsequential words the kite-maker was saying goodbye. Had he been aware, Evaristo would doubtless have found something memorable to say, but he could not have known that the following morning he would wake up dead. He had no time to enjoy his new horse, nor to say farewell to everyone.

'Apparently his heart just stopped,' said El Santacruz. Juanita had a different version. She spent five minutes examining him, sucked in a deep lungful of smoke and, rubbing her hands, she said, 'This man has been poisoned.'

Jose suggested a whole day be spent keeping vigil over Evaristo, without speaking or eating.

'No one can live without eating, Jose. We'd all die like Evaristo.'

In the end, it was decided there would be eight hours of silence and fasting. Only two people fainted. Evaristo was buried in the same spot as Oscar and Malena. It occurred to several people that since the deaths of Oscar and Malena, no one had died in Pata de Puerco.

And this, according to my grandfather, was the end of Evaristo the kite-maker, one of the most generous men he had ever known.

Three Years Pa.s.s.

With Evaristo's death, the weekly Festival of Birth became a tedious ritual. Eustaquio the machetero attempted to take on Evaristo's role, but he was an oafish man who had spent all his life wielding a machete. Few were surprised when he suggested 'a scything compet.i.tion', which consisted of cutting back the brushwood in the area and stuffing it into sacks. Whoever filled the most sacks in the shortest time was to be the winner. Eustaquio was of the opinion that not only would this be a good exercise to build up the arms of both men and womenfolk, it would also improve the appearance of the village.

'Thanks, Eustaquio, but we don't want to cut back the undergrowth,' everyone told him. 'The village is fine just as it is.' The plants and the trees were a part of the lives of everyone. They had grown accustomed to dragging around the weight of years in the verdant world that was Pata de Puerco and thus, somewhat relieved of their pain, could stride on towards death. This wilderness was their universe and nothing existed beyond the borders of the Accursed Forest but an infinite emptiness. The modern world they so often heard of was a mirage, a dream, a tale oft told but never believed.

Shortly afterwards rains came that quickly turned into a tornado, winds gusting at more than a hundred miles an hour, ripping trees up by the roots. It was a curious thing, since no tornado had ever pa.s.sed near Santiago before. Many people were of the opinion that Melecio should not have left, that his departure had brought the cyclone.

The Jabaos' house was swept away by the storm. Every neighbour contributed three or four boards ripped from their own walls or the roofs of their shacks, they made use of pine trees that had been felled by the storm to rebuild the frame, recycled all the dried palm fronds they could find from the old shack, and in less than two weeks the Jabao family had a new house that was st.u.r.dier and more comfortable than the old one.

The village was tidied up. Branches and tree trunks were cleared from the paths. The betel palm that had become lodged in the well was removed. They cut back the weeds, the sicklebush and brambles that had grown up during the rains and gradually taken over the area, threatening to create a th.o.r.n.y jungle. The village returned to normal. At Chinaman Li's store, the corrugated-iron roof had been ripped off, but his family some twenty strong soon returned the store to its original state.

The days became long and heavy. People ceased to dream about the possibility of progress. By the time they looked up and took notice, it was 1914.

During this time, Grandpa Benicio grew so much that Jose could not explain the change in him. One morning he simply woke up and he was not the same. Jose began to watch him closely, to follow him constantly; he even went into the bathroom when he was bathing, something he had not done since Benicio was a little boy. Sometimes Grandfather thought Jose had gone mad because at night when he was asleep he would creep into Benicio's room, slip a hand into his shorts and measure his pinga with a length of string. My grandfather woke with a start, as did Gertrudis, and they frightened him off. It was an obsession.

'I don't understand, Betina. Malena was small, Oscar was scarcely four feet tall and you've told me that your parents were not very tall either, so where the h.e.l.l does the boy get it from?'

Betina answered that it was simply in the nature of things, but she could not convince him. The truth was that every day Jose was growing older. He walked more slowly and constantly had to look down, careful not to trip. Overnight, he appeared with a walking stick which he had whittled from the branch of a ceiba. His hair had turned white, his shoulders had begun to droop and something like a hump began to grow on his back.

Yet still he went on working in the vegetable garden every day to feed his family. Benicio helped out as much as he could while Betina and Geru made a little money was.h.i.+ng clothes down at the river, or sometimes they would go to El Cobre and sell the skirts and trousers the Santacruzes made. This way they managed to get by.

Jose began to talk constantly about the past, almost always with a sense of guilt about the death of Oscar. No one could persuade him that he was not to blame for the death of his friend. Over and over Betina had to remind him that Malena had died in childbirth and that Oscar had simply decided to follow his wife into the next world. Jose would never listen. And so he got into the habit of walking to the cemetery every morning to talk to his friend. He would go very early, when the half-light still veiled the colours of day and the dew heightened the forest smells of the village.

Jose Miguel Gomez, who had been a general in the war of 1895, was the new president of the country. Everyone in Cuba knows that Negroes were not allowed to join the police force, could not take part in official ceremonies or hold public office; they were not allowed into hotels or anything of that kind. But very soon a wave of protests erupted across the island by unions, veterans of the war of independence, progressive movements campaigning against exploitation. And so the Partido Independiente de Color the Independent Party of Colour was founded with the aim of abolis.h.i.+ng the exploitation of coloured people and the death penalty, while supporting a policy of free education and other civil liberties. The movement grew to become a political party which partic.i.p.ated in elections; however the Morua Law introduced by Martin Morua, one of the few black men in the Cuban senate outlawed political parties based on race. At this point, the sectors of the oligarchy who had always lived in fear of a race war began to sow the seeds of hatred among the traditional parties and the wealthy cla.s.ses, accusing the PIC of seeking to impose black power in the island and spreading rumours of black men supposedly raping white women.

Matters became heated. The PIC mounted demonstrations in the streets and rose up in arms in Oriente, particularly in Santiago, Pinar del Rio, Havana and Las Villas. These rebel groups did not initiate violent confrontations; they were mobilised simply to put pressure on the government to recognise the demands of their party. The government of Jose Miguel Gomez responded by sending in the Rural Guard, the volunteers and all the heavy artillery, urged on by retired general Mario Garcia Menocal, who years later would become president of the republic. In less than three months, the 'rebels' and their leaders were all butchered. Three thousand black people died in the ma.s.sacre.