Pig's Foot (9 page)

‘As you can see,
amigo
José, 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 José 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 asserted 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 José. 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 damned 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, José’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 José 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 noble, almost aristocratic expression radiated authority.

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

‘Not at all, señora. 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. José and Geru rushed up a moment later, pouring with sweat. ‘There he is. Melecio, what did I tell you . . .’ roared José 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.’

José 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 José 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 José.

‘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, señor. 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 José.

‘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 Bacardí, 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 José 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 José 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 assume 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 assume 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 José abruptly. ‘So if you’ll excuse us . . . Let’s go.’ Betina hesitantly turned towards the man. José 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 José 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 José.

‘Opportunities are bald, Papá, and you have to grab them by the hair.’ Melecio stared at the cloud of dust left by the carriage as it passed.

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. José said he was sorry. Evaristo worriedly asked how José 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, José went on, and one day he would get his hands on the son of a bitch and string him up by his balls 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, José had sensed it was not a good day to make this trip. And to make matters worse, one of the rich bastards 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 Bacardón, or Bacardín . . .’

‘Emilio Bacardí?’ 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 Bacardí, 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 Bacardí 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, José? 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 Bacardí’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 Bacardí.’

José 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 José 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, cumin 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, José 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
santería
altar and told Juanita about their worries and their doubts.

‘So you think I was mistaken . . . ?' said Juanita. José 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 José, 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 José had mentioned, but he could rest assured that in matters of magic she was never mistaken.

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

‘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, José. 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 José 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.