Pig's Foot: A Novel Part 7

'I'm not much good at telling jokes. The only thing I'm good at is climbing trees. Do you want me to climb one for you?'

'Climb a tree? What for?'

Time flew by, March rolled around and with it a heatwave so intense it felt like summer. Then something strange happened. One morning while working in the vegetable garden, Benicio suddenly felt short of breath. It was not the breathlessness he often got when tilling the ground, nor was it because of the midday sun which sometimes makes you want to peel off your own skin. It was a weird feeling, as though his lungs were blocked. He saw Jose working out in the back yard and, for the first time in his life, he experienced something he recognised as hatred. An overpowering hatred for this man who had raised him, for his family, for the whole world. Benicio loved Jose very much, much more perhaps than even he could imagine, but in that moment he wanted to strangle him. 'It's this d.a.m.ned sun,' he said, staring up at the sky.

The following day the same thing happened, but this time with Betina when she came to wake him for breakfast. 's.h.i.+t, Mama Betina! Leave us alone, can't you see we're still asleep.' Gertrudis immediately jumped out of bed and Benicio sat staring at her, not knowing how to explain what had happened. Betina roared into the room like a hurricane and gave him a slap across the face that left him reeling. 'Speak to me like that again, and I'll rip your head off!' Grandfather and Gertrudis did not move. Betina turned on her heel without a word and went back to the kitchen.

'How could you talk to Mama Betina like that?' said Geru, getting to her feet. Grandfather bowed his head while Geru lectured him about how you had to respect your parents, and not just parents but people in general, going on to say that he had to learn to control his temper. Benicio said that he didn't know what had come over him, but that it would never happen again. But still these flashes of fury kept coming, this murderous desire to throttle everyone, the foul-mouthed impudence to Betina's orders. His family no longer recognised him; even Benicio himself could hardly believe the filth that came out of his mouth.

One day, Benicio went with Geru to bathe in the river and seeing his reflection in the water, noticed for the first time that he had changed and now had a thick bull-neck and powerful veiny arms. He also realised he was more than six feet tall.

'Geru, have you noticed anything weird about me?' he asked his sister. Gertrudis told him that he had grown into a giant; she had been meaning to mention it for some time but that she had not wanted to embarra.s.s him. On their way home, they met a boy from the village bringing a bunch of flowers for Geru. Ignoring the look on Benicio's face that glowered, 'How dare you?', the boy offered the flowers to Geru who never even managed to accept them since, as she reached out her hand, the boy keeled over. The blow had been swift and powerful and the lad dropped to the ground unconscious. Benicio hurled himself at the boy and continued to beat him until Geru screamed something that brought him to himself.

'Benicio, you're going to kill him!'

Only then did he stop, but by now the boy's face was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess. At his sister's insistence, he picked the boy up like a dead cat and carried him home. When asked what had happened, he lied. 'A coconut fell on his head,' he said.

That night the parents of the injured boy went to speak to Jose and Betina.

'Out of the respect I have for your family and the past that we share, I am not going to kill Benicio yet, I will give him an opportunity to leave the village,' said the father. Mortified, Jose and Betina swore that they would punish their son and this they did. Benicio was locked in his room for a week. When eventually he was allowed out, he grabbed every boy he met by the throat and forced him to strip in front of everyone to humiliate him; the adults he encountered he shoved brutishly aside like rag dolls, such was his phenomenal strength.

'You can't go on treating people like this, Benicio. You have to control your temper,' said Geru, but Grandfather simply said, 'I can't help it.'

Every night he would weep helplessly, cursing every inch of the person he had become. Gertrudis too would cry and dry his tears. In her eyes, Grandfather was still the n.o.ble Benicio no one ever saw, like a prisoner condemned to live in some cramped s.p.a.ce inside his chest. Gertrudis's sweet smile reminded him that life was not about a.s.saulting people, throwing stones at cows, or wringing the necks of the neighbours' chickens in order to start a fight; it was not about finding some excuse to vent his fury, pounding someone's face to a pulp without caring how much that person might mean to his family, without thinking of the ties of friends.h.i.+p between them since everyone in Pata de Puerco had watched Benicio grow up.

'That boy is a menace. He is worse than El Mozambique,' the villagers complained to Jose and Betina. The Mandingas did everything they could to calm them, promising to buy another chicken, or buy clothes for their child, promising to make sure it would never happen again.

One morning Geru and Benicio went off to buy groceries at Chinaman Li's store and, on their way back, they ran into Jacinta and her brother Ignacio. Ignacio el Jabao had also grown, but he was still shorter than Benicio. He was beginning to grow a blond beard which made him look much older.

'Hola, Benicio,' said Jacinta. 'We're heading down to the river later, do you want to come?'

'To the river? Um . . .'

'No, Benicio, you have too much work to do,' said Geru coldly. Benicio looked at her angrily. He did not want to argue, so he signalled to Jacinta, to let her know that he would come down to the river. Then Ignacio stepped forward and said, 'Geru, I know you'll think this is just me being dumb but I got a present for you a while ago and I was hoping to give it to you this afternoon.' My grandfather's ears began to burn and flushed a deep red. As he raised his fist, Gertrudis pushed him aside. 'You keep your nose out of other people's business, Benicio,' she said, then, 'Thank you Ignacio, that's very kind of you.'

'Have you gone mad, Geru? Remember what Papa told us: no Jabaos and no white people.'

'Jacinta is a Jabao too. Anyway, I'll do what I want. It's my life and I won't have Papa or you making my decisions for me.'

'Wicked!' said Ignacio, or whatever kids said back then. 'So you'll come and get the present?'

'Of course. Together to the end of the world.'

Geru slipped her arm through Ignacio's and together they walked back towards the village. Benicio watched them walk away and said nothing. Jacinta pressed her lips to his ear, whispering that Geru was a bore, that he should forget about her, while she had just made some delicious pan con tomate. 'Maybe you could tell me one of your jokes.'

Still Grandpa Benicio said nothing, he simply stood staring at Geru as she walked arm in arm with Ignacio. Jacinta went on talking, but her voice reverberated in his ears like a faint echo.

When they got to the village, Ignacio gave Geru a huge bunch of beautiful flowers unlike anything anyone had ever given her: roses, hibiscus, orchids; no one knew where Ignacio could have found such things. Grandfather witnessed the presentation.

'Pretty, aren't they?' said Ignacio, smiling, and Geru kissed him on the cheek before they wandered off together up the hill. Jacinta asked Grandpa Benicio what was wrong, but the truth was even he could not explain. He said perhaps they should go to the river some other day and then rushed home and shut himself in his room.

In his letters, Melecio had not described what it was like, the fire he felt when his hands moved over Maria's body. He had simply said it was intense and that it burned. He did not say he had trembled, that it was not just his skin, but his insides that burned; nor that his heart had hammered against his ribs and he had found himself weeping with sheer helplessness and rage; he had not said it was a feeling that went far beyond desire. For this was how Benicio had felt as he watched Geru's pursed lips graze Ignacio's cheek.

Many years later, Grandfather would consider himself a lucky man that he could pinpoint the precise moment when he knew he was in love. It happened on that day, in that unforgettable moment when El Jabao took his sister by the arm and walked her back towards the village. This was the first time Grandfather wept for Geru. And yet he did not know when it was he had come to love her in this way. Many years later, remembering the past, he came to the conclusion that he had been in love with her all his life. He had always been captivated by her delicacy, though Jose and Betina thought of her as a daisy surrounded by thorns because, according to them, she was sickly like her Aunt Malena.

Grandfather had slept beside her every night while she had suffered her various illnesses; he had even been there the night she became a woman. When she woke up the next morning in a pool of blood, Geru's first reaction was to check that Grandpa Benicio was not hurt. The blood was coming from between her legs, a sight that she found spellbinding, since her favourite colour had always been red. Neither of them understood what had happened. Benicio looked at Geru's delicate face in terror, but his sister laughed, revealing those teeth that were the sun itself.

Benicio would always remember the night when Geru hugged him so hard he could not breathe. He might not have been as clever as Melecio, but he knew the meaning behind those hugs, Geru's sweaty fingers and her pounding heart against his back. He did not need to be told, since he felt exactly the same. From the moment they could express their thoughts, they had shared with each other their innermost secrets, their dreams, their confidences; there had always been a special chemistry between them. He never had the courage to tell her that he loved her more than anything, that to him she was the most important thing in the universe. He answered her with his silence, with deeds rather than words, as do those who truly love, and the pa.s.sing time simply strengthened the bonds between them.

That afternoon Benicio wept inconsolably, imagining Geru kissing Ignacio's freckled lips. Betina came into his room with a jug of linden tea, stroked his head and said nothing. She knew all too well what was happening. For some time now she had seen in her children's eyes the defiance and the arrogance of pa.s.sion. By the time Geru came back from her walk with Ignacio, Benicio was asleep.

'Wake up, Benicio.'

'What is it?'

'Nothing. I just wanted to say I'm sorry.'

'Sorry about what?'

'About what happened this afternoon. The truth is Ignacio and his flowers mean nothing to me. I only did it to make you jealous.'

Benicio choked back his words and, as always, answered only with his silence.

From that day, they became inseparable. Benicio watched Geru blossom into a woman whose beauty and radiance were obvious not only to him, who loved her already. Everyone in Pata de Puerco was bewitched by her beauty, because Geru was radiance itself. She had inherited the honey-brown eyes and purple lips of Betina but she was taller and more slender and her jet-black hair had a natural s.h.i.+ne that lit up her face. Everyone believed that the closeness between them was that of brother and sister. Only Betina noticed another bond between them, something more pa.s.sionate, more dangerous.

Benicio knew that his feelings would have grave consequences, that it would be difficult for others to understand since, at the end of the day, they were brother and sister. Though they were not related by blood. This was in their favour. Even so, Jose would see their relations.h.i.+p as a curse from the saints, a dark, bitter card that fate had dealt him; one he did not deserve since in spite of his failings he had been a good father, a good friend, and an excellent neighbour.

'Papa, I need to talk to you,' Benicio said to Jose one day when they were working together in the vegetable garden.

'Of course, son. If it's about you being in love with Jacinta, don't worry, she likes you. It's just a matter of time. Your sister is a different matter. I've seen that little b.a.s.t.a.r.d Ignacio hanging around her recently. That really is worrying, because the first boy to touch Geru, I'll cut his b.a.l.l.s off.'

Benicio changed the subject. He talked about the weather, about how they had had no news from Melecio, about how much he missed his brother. When they had finished digging, he went into the living room and found his sister coming out of her room. Geru looked different, there was an intensity about her and in her eyes he thought he could see that the same secret was eating away at both of them. Jose came into the house, took off his boots, kissed his daughter and went into the bedroom where Betina was already sleeping. They stood frozen, love driven like a spike into their hearts.

That night neither of them could sleep. Neither dared to move a muscle. Benicio remembered what Jose had said and the words drummed inside his head but, weighing the betrayal of his father's trust against what he felt for Geru, he came to the conclusion that his love for his sister was stronger than what he felt for Jose.

'This is unbearable,' he thought. He loved Geru more than he loved Jose and Betina who had raised him, given him a home. He spent the next week swimming against the tide of his conflicting feelings, feeling bitter at life when he thought of his incongruous situation. He tried to distance himself from his sister as much as possible, he moved out of the bedroom and began sleeping in Melecio's room; whenever he saw Geru coming he ran the other way; he even tried seeing Jacinta again, to make up for lost time, but none of these things worked: still the love lingered like a threat within his breast.

Jose and Betina were asleep the night that Geru came to him with tears in her eyes and confessed: 'I've been feeling different about you, Benicio. I don't know how to explain it.' Benicio looked up into her face but he could not think what to say. He did not have the courage to tell her he felt the same, that the feeling slowly eating him up inside was not the ordinary love between brother and sister.

It began to rain. Still Geru stared into Benicio's eyes then, bowing her head, she left the shack and headed for the flame tree, soaking her thin cotton dress. Benicio watched as her slim figure melted into the rain, as the dress clung to her skin, emphasising the curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the beauty of her exquisite body. Like a sleepwalker, he followed her. He watched as rain lashed her face, was.h.i.+ng away her tears of frustration. Stepping beneath the branches of the flame tree, they sought the warmth and shelter of the trunk. Geru and Benicio kneeled down. He took her in his arms, felt her warm breath against his throat.

'We are no longer brother and sister now,' said Geru.

'Why do you say that?'

'Because I want you to do with me as you will.'

His dreams were soaked by the rain. Geru pulled him to her nervously, opening the doors to his imprisoned desires. They rolled on the ground, heedless of the flame tree's roots which tore at their skin until they bled. Their screams were howls of freedom, of pain and pleasure. Benicio, who did not know what he was doing, let his intuition guide him, kissing Geru's body, pressing her to his chest as though she might pierce his ribcage and remain inside him for ever, and he went on hugging her to him until o.r.g.a.s.m came, hard and shuddering like a white-hot explosion. They tried to lie still, to recover from the pain, the frustration, the breathlessness of enchantment and pleasure, but it was impossible; their bodies continued to spasm as though they had a will of their own.

'Who's there?' said a gruff voice, booming like a thunderclap against the tree sheltering them. They knew the voice. 'What's all that screaming? Whoever you are, come out of there!' It was pointless to run; they would be recognised. Their hearts began to pound once more and Benicio, seeing the terror in Geru's eyes, stepped out from the shade of the flame tree and faced the man. 'It's me, Papa Jose,' he said standing in the moonlit clearing. 'Benicio. What was all that howling? You sounded like an animal.' Benicio watched as Jose's face grew harder, his brows knotting into an expression of concern. 'What . . . what are you doing out here naked?' Silence. 'I don't believe it. So you finally managed to conquer Jacinta?'

Geru emerged from beneath the tree, her shoulders bare, her clothes clasped over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her face wet, she stared shamefully at the ground. For the first time in his life, Jose did not know what to say. He stood, paralysed, staring at them as though they were ghosts, as though they were two phantoms returning to the forest from the river. There was not a single star in the sky although the night was cloudless: he could see every detail, every contour of even the smallest thing as though some angel had gifted him with night vision.

Jose said nothing. He did not howl with rage, nor did he beat them with the walking stick he had whittled from a ceiba branch. He tormented them with his silence, with the look of pained disbelief in eyes that flashed in the moonlight. Then he turned his back on them and, shoulders stooped, he hobbled away, drained of his customary vitality. Around him reigned an utter stillness, an emptiness.

When Benicio and Gertrudis arrived back at the house, Jose was sitting in his chair, and there he sat until the morning. He did not look at them now. His eyes were cast down. Betina did it for him, her gla.s.sy stare stabbing at her children's eyes. There was no place for Geru and Benicio in this room. Shamefaced, they retreated to their bedroom, Benicio hugging to him a sobbing, half-naked Geru, who buried her face in his chest as in some dark refuge.

The following morning they found Jose where they had left him, his mouth twisted to one side, his eyes filled with tears and clotted with sleep. Betina was hunkered on the floor next to him, her hair wild as though she had just escaped from an asylum. 'He's paralysed all down the right side of his body,' was the diagnosis of Juanita the santera. 'But don't worry, he'll recover quickly.'

Betina and Juanita took Jose by the shoulders and managed to lift him out of the chair. When Benicio tried to help, Jose jerked at his arm and mumbled something unintelligible.

'Owww . . . Oww of my hhhouse.'

Grandfather took a step back. He looked at Geru. They both stood, frozen. The silence was agonising and seemed to go on for ever. Grandfather could not bear it. 'To h.e.l.l with it, I'll go then. After all, it's not as though you are my real parents.'

Tears streamed down Betina's face. Jose's shoulders began to pump like pistons and the good side of his face shrank a little more, then he gave a curt wave of his hand to signal to Benicio to leave. Grandfather took some things from his room and left the house. Geru followed him.

'You know that what you just said will make them miserable for the rest of their lives,' she said, remaining a little distant.

'It will make me miserable too,' said Grandfather.

Once again there was silence, broken this time by a northerly breeze.

'I don't know if this will help, but I will say it anyway. I once knew a boy who saved a young ram that had been bitten by a dog. The poor animal was lying in the road and whimpering with fear. The boy picked it up and brought it home. He fed the ram until it could walk again. A lot of people would have raised it, fattened it up so they could kill and eat it. But this boy took it out into the Accursed Forest and, halfway up the hill, he set it free.'

'That was me,' said Benicio.

'Exactly. That was you. The real Benicio.'

And then they embraced. It was only in these moments of profound remorse that the good in Benicio resurfaced. But by then it was invariably too late.

'Think about that,' said Gertrudis again.

Benicio kissed her pa.s.sionately then set off down the path towards the Callejon de la Rosa heading nowhere. Geru stood for a while longer, watching as he slowly melted into the verdant sea of plants and trees.

Mangaleno.

On the Callejon de la Rosa, Benicio encountered Ester the midwife who looked as though she had been waiting for him for some time. She was wearing the same clothes as when Grandfather had first met her outside Chinaman Li's store. In a faltering voice she begged him to go with her to her house, insisting that he had to come right now. Having nowhere to go, Grandfather agreed and followed the midwife back down Callejon de la Rosa in the opposite direction to El Cobre.

They went into her house. Ester gestured for him to sit down on one of the four makes.h.i.+ft wooden chairs set around the table. The room was dark but this was partly because the day was overcast. There were two east-facing windows in front of which stood a table covered by a sun-scorched red tablecloth and a kerosene lamp. There were two more windows facing directly west. The bleached tablecloth was proof that Ester opened these windows every morning and her room was scourged by the sun from the moment it rose until the moment it set. This idea made Benicio think that, contrary to village gossip, Ester was a cheerful woman after all, or had been at some point in her life.

Ester reappeared with a can of guava juice, handed it to Benicio and then anxiously sat next to him, staring at him intently.

'You're the spitting image of him,' she said, with a look that was more sad than surprised.

'Of who?'

'Of your father.'

'You know my father?'

'Of course. These hands . . .' Ester held out her calloused hands in the lamplight. 'These hands were the first that ever held you.'

'If you were there when I was born, then you must have seen my parents die.' At this, Ester felt a lump in her throat, a lump that twisted her words, forcing her to swallow hard. 'My family would never tell me what happened. Papa Jose used to talk to me about his friend Oscar, but he never talked to me about Oscar being my father. They told me my mother's name was Malena and that she died giving birth to me. Were you there when my father killed himself?'

The midwife hesitated a moment.

'No, but I know what happened.'

'What did happen?'

'He cut his wrists.'

'Cut his wrists! That's a coward's way out.'

'Not everyone has the courage to go on living.'

They sat in silence for a moment. Grandfather did not want to keep digging up the past, he wanted to bury it. Now that Jose and Betina had thrown him out of the house, he felt as though he too were buried. It was perhaps the only thing he shared with his real parents.

'I had a premonition it would happen,' Ester went on, 'I knew it would happen sooner or later. I wanted to tell you that you are not alone.'

'What do you mean I'm not alone?'

'I mean you've got us.'

'And who exactly is "us"?'

'El Mozambique and me.'

Grandfather burst out laughing and got to his feet.

'Don't make me laugh, Ester. El Mozambique? The most hated man in these parts? I still haven't forgotten how he tried to rob my amulet. That man has never cared for anyone in his life.'

'You're wrong. n.o.body knows him as I know him. Believe me when I say that you and he have a lot more in common than you might think. Starting with the fact that you're both utterly alone.'

'I'm not alone. I have Geru.'

'You have Geru, that's true. But absence makes the heart grow cold. You'll see how things change, now you've been thrown out of the house. At first, you'll see each other every other day. Then days will turn into weeks until lack of physical contact chills your bodies and one day, when you least expect it, you'll find yourself no longer caring and in time forgetting. Give El Mozambique a chance, everyone deserves that. Besides, I know he likes you because you are the only person he has ever allowed into his house. The only one. That's why I think there's still a chance.'

'A chance?'

'To save you both.'