Tales from the Town of Widows (13 page)

She rose from the floor with trembling hands and legs and undressed completely. She piled up, in the middle of her living room, all her new clothes and shoes, her expensive accessories and her stacks of pesos, all of them. Then she drizzled, with the only liquid left in her house, the heap of goods in a ritualistic fashion: her right arm turned into a long feather flying gracefully in the air. She stepped back from the pile and looked around her house, giggling. She went inside the kitchen, grabbed a box of matches, walked toward the door, opened it, turned around, struck a match and threw it onto the drenched pile. She waited for the flames to swallow the pile and sear the roof. Then she stepped out, shut the door and walked slowly across the street to the mango tree, giggling, giggling. The sun was now setting, and there she stood, stark naked, watching the smoke and the flames come out through the holes in the roof and the open window; hearing the church bell peal insistently and the many voices of neighbors and friends calling for water; giggling, giggling, giggling.

Jesús Martínez, 48
Ex-colonel, Colombian National Army

A man had just moved into the room down the hall, but no one in the house had seen him yet. “He’s an ex-guerrilla who suffers from amnesia,” our landlady confided to one of the lodgers. “Please don’t tell the colonel. He’s crazy!” I’m not crazy, just pissed off. Ten years ago, a guerrilla land mine blew off my feet in combat, ending my military career. But in this second-rate lodging house, secrets aren’t kept much longer than a few minutes. And when I heard about it, I thought, Amnesia? I’ll help that motherfucker get back his memory, and then I’ll blow his fucking head off.

In my room, I loaded my pistol and hid it under a white poncho neatly folded on my lap. I drank half a glass of rum and lit a cigarette, took two drags on it and stubbed it out in the ashtray. I checked my hand. It was steady enough to shoot him. I wheeled myself to the door and opened it slowly, wincing when it squeaked. After looking in both directions, I wheeled myself down the narrow hallway. I wasn’t nervous. My heart didn’t beat any faster than it usually does, and I didn’t gasp for breath. My hands worked the wheels until they put me barely two inches away from my victim’s room. I heard him cough, the bastard. I knocked three times on his door with my left hand. My other hand was under the poncho, clutching the pistol so tightly that it was beginning to hurt. He coughed again. I’d soon put a stop to his coughing, I thought. There was a brief silence. Then I heard a familiar sound, but before it registered in my mind, the door opened abruptly and there he was, right in front of me, the new lodger, the ex-guerrilla, the monster. He had no legs, only stumps, and he, too, was sitting on a wheelchair.

We stared silently at each other for a while. As if looking at ourselves in a mirror.

“Hi,” he finally said, a friendly smile on his face. “Vicente Gómez, at your service,” he added, holding out his hand to me.

I let go of my pistol, still hidden under my poncho, and involuntarily waited a moment before shaking his hand. “Jesús,” I said. “Jesús Martínez. I rent the room at the end of the corridor.”

“It’s a pleasure meeting you,” one of us said.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” the other replied.

Mariquita, December 7, 1997

A
S HE HAD EVERY
night for the past five years, Santiago Marín sat on his steps, shirtless and barefoot, staring into the darkness, waiting for Pablo. Tonight he also lit candles to the Virgin Mary, who according to tradition, traveled on December 7 from house to house and town to town, giving away blessings for every candle burned.

He heard the roar of a car in the distance. At first he remained uninterested, but when the sound became louder, he quickly gathered his long hair into a ponytail, wiped a rag over his oily face and lit one more candle. Then he saw the headlights of a car coming down the rise. The last car to drive on the unpaved streets of Mariquita had been the rattletrap of a Jeep that had brought Francisca viuda de Gómez and her numerous suitcases back from her trip to Ibagué over a year ago. Except for its black color, the car approaching town tonight was no different: an old, beat-up Jeep with a loud engine. The driver went twice around the dilapidated plaza before stopping at a corner to greet the town’s magistrate, the priest and the schoolmistress, who, together with numerous women and children holding candles, had come out of their houses to welcome the visitor. After assuring the magistrate twice
that the government hadn’t sent him, and getting directions, the man drove slowly through the growing crowd, down a narrow side street, and pulled over in the middle of the block, in front of the Jaramillo widow’s house, across from Santiago’s.

“Let me out,” the driver said to the half-naked children surrounding the car, a hint of irritation in his voice. The women pulled their children aside and waited quietly. “Get out of my way,” he yelled. He sounded arrogant and contemptuous despite his slanting eyes and dark skin, despite his straw hat, ragged poncho and sheathed machete at his waist that clearly indicated he was a man of Indian descent—nobody important. He stood in front of the Jaramillo widow’s doorway, thinking perhaps that the noises made by his car and the crowd were enough to draw the woman out. The widow hadn’t lit any candles tonight because she’d lost hope of blessings a long time ago (she had gone mad after her husband and two of her sons were shot dead by guerrillas, and at present she had nobody to look after her). When the Jaramillo widow didn’t come out, the arrogant driver knocked on the door and waited. He knocked a second time, then a third and a fourth, louder each time until the widow finally opened the door, barely poking her nose around it. The man whispered something to her, and without replying the insane woman slammed the door in his face.

“Bitch!” the man shouted. He began kicking the door with his pointy leather boots. “Open the door, you bitch. It took me hours to find this damn hole.” The crowd stepped back. The enraged man continued kicking the door and shouting abuse. “If you don’t pay me right now, I’m going to dump that sickening piece of shit on your steps,” he yelled, pointing toward the car with his index finger. “And you know what else I’m going to do? I’m going to take the damn suitcase with me. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Santiago quietly observed the scene from across the street. He asked his two younger sisters to go inside the house, and his mother to observe from a prudent distance. He didn’t move. He remained on the
same spot where he’d been every night for the past five years, lighting more candles to the Virgin, hoping for more of her blessings, staring into the darkness, waiting for Pablo to return to him.

P
ABLO AND
S
ANTIAGO
had both been born on the morning of May 1, 1969. Pablo was older by two and a half hours. Dr. Ramirez, the physician who delivered them, liked to say that except for a dark birthmark under Pablo’s right eye, the two boys looked identical when they were born: “Like twins, only born to different mothers.”

Growing up, Pablo and Santiago were the only children on a lonely street of Mariquita. The street was narrow and unpaved and lined with young mango trees. The houses had mud tile roofs, their adobe facades forever hidden under layers of dust. This street was known as Don Maximiliano’s street, because he owned all the houses up and down each side. He also owned three coffee farms near town. During harvest season, most of the men he hired to pick the crops were from around Mariquita. The women stayed home and tended their children, along with their cassavas, potatoes, cilantro and squash.

The two boys spent most of the day playing in the backcountry. They always went to one or the other’s house for meals, then went out again. It was not unusual for their mothers to see Pablo and Santiago walking around Mariquita hand in hand. “They’re like blood brothers,” their mothers agreed.

The two boys’ favorite game was playing father and mother by the river.

“I’ll be the father,” Pablo said.

“You’re always the father. I want to be the father, too,” Santiago complained. But he gave in every time. Pablo disappeared behind the bushes and pretended he was on Don Maximiliano’s coffee plantations. Santiago stayed by the bank impersonating his own mother: carrying water from the river in big clay pots, cooking, watering the garden,
cooking again, washing clothes, cooking one last time. After a few minutes Pablo came out of the bushes, acting dirty and tired.

“Buenas tardes, mi amor,” he said, kissing the back of Santiago’s neck.

“How was your day?”

“Oh, just the same. Too much work.”

The two boys sat on the ground and ate a pretend meal of rice and beans. After dinner, Pablo took his shirt off and lay in the grass, facing the sky, his hands beneath his neck. “I’ll do the dishes later,” Santiago said, and quickly moved on to a part of the game he liked better: the massage. He began with Pablo’s feet, gently rubbing each of his twelve toes (the boy had inherited his father’s six-toed feet). Santiago worked his way up slowly, massaging Pablo’s calves and knees and thighs, spending a good amount of time on his chest. When Santiago pinched Pablo’s little brown nipples, Pablo began to howl. And when Pablo began to howl, Santiago knew it was time to start playing with his friend’s small penis, pulling on it as if it were a tit on an udder, laughing heartily at the way Pablo’s body wriggled with pleasure, like a puppy. When Santiago stopped, Pablo took him in his arms and walked with him into the river. There, with the water up to his waist, Pablo rewarded Santiago with a tender kiss for being a good wife. They spent the rest of the day swimming naked in the river, drowning crickets, peeing on anthills, throwing stones at wasps’ nests and running back into the water. The kiss, however, was the part of the day Santiago liked the best, a true expression of love that to him was worth the boredom of impersonating his mother every day.

At night, the two boys sat on logs of wood outside Santiago’s house and listened to his grandmother’s magical tales, like the one about the old woman who turned into a cat to deceive death, or the one about the rich princess who didn’t know how to laugh. Almost every night Pablo and Santiago slept together on the bumpy earthen floor of Santiago’s house, wrapped in the same white blanket, dreaming different dreams.

R
ESOLUTELY
,
THE DRIVER
went back to the Jeep. He opened the back door and pulled out a shabby leather suitcase, unzipped it, took out a large white towel and zipped it back up. Before carrying on with whatever he was doing, the angry man looked toward the Jaramillo widow’s door, as though giving the woman a last chance to come out and settle up with him. Then he set the bag aside and from inside the Jeep he carefully pulled out a body by the legs. The body didn’t move, didn’t make any sound. The women stepped a little closer, illuminating the scene with the light of their candles. “Back off!” the driver yelled. He hastily stripped the body naked, revealing a scrawny man covered in sores and bruises, and took a cap off the man’s head with a swipe: he was almost completely bald.

“I’m cold,” the unclothed man cried softly.

“Ohhh!” the crowd whispered in unison, relieved to find out that the stranger wasn’t dead. The driver removed a golden chain from the naked man’s neck and a flashy watch from his wrist and put both things in the front pocket of his own dirty pants. Then he tried to pull off two rings from one of the man’s bony fingers.

“No,” the naked man moaned. “Not the rings, please.” He firmly clenched his hand.

“Shut up,” the driver ordered. “You swore she was going to pay me for bringing you here, but she’s not, so you’d better let go of those damn rings now.”

“Please, not the rings.”

“Let go, or I’ll cut off your hand,” the driver shouted, reaching for his machete.

“Ohhh!” the crowd whispered again.

“Stop, please. Don’t do it. For the love of God, don’t.” The despairing voice belonged to el padre Rafael, who had just been notified of the situation and now rushed to the scene together with the magis
trate and the police sergeant. “Please let that poor soul die in peace.” He halted some distance away from the sordid sight and, producing a chaplet from within the pocket of his soutane, began murmuring a rosary. A few widows promptly joined him.

The frustrated driver ignored the priest’s request and kept struggling to open the scrawny man’s hand, but he wouldn’t let go.

“You leave that ill man alone right now, or I’ll blow your brains out.” The threat came from the magistrate, Rosalba viuda de Patiño. She stood right behind the driver, pointing a pistol at his head. Next to her, holding a revolver with both hands, was the police sergeant, Ubaldina viuda de Restrepo.

The driver turned his hateful eyes on the women and spat on the ground. He seized the white towel and wrapped it around the scrawny man, then carried the bundle of bones on his shoulder to the Jaramillo widow’s door, laid it on the ground near the steps and kicked the door three more times. “He’s outside your door,” the driver yelled. “Naked, because I’m taking his clothes. You hear me?” He went back to the Jeep, ignoring the two guns that followed his every move, and collected the ill man’s clothes and shoes and stuffed them into the shabby leather suitcase. He closed the back door, got inside the Jeep and started the engine. Through the window he screamed the words Santiago, sitting across the street, had been so afraid of hearing: “It’s your own son dying outside, you heartless bitch. You’re going to hell!”

Santiago remained still, staring in an absent way at the mass of familiar faces crowded before him; unable to see how they abruptly went from distressed to solemn. He didn’t see the women put their heads in their hands, or hold their quivering lips with the tips of their fingers. He didn’t hear their crying, or the loud engine of the Jeep as it drove away. At the moment, the throbbing of his heart in his chest was the only movement there was about him.

P
ABLO AND
S
ANTIAGO
began working the lands of Don Maximiliano Perdomo on a cloudy day in 1981. It was common for parents to send their male children to work as soon as they turned twelve, and sometimes even before if they were required in the fields. Harvest season had begun and hands were needed at Yarima, Don Maximiliano’s largest coffee farm. The two boys arrived at the farmhouse early in the morning and met with Doña Marina, an unfriendly midget who was in charge of the workers’ housing. She looked at the boys with disdain, grumbled something they didn’t understand, and, with her tiny fat hand, gestured that they follow her. Pablo and Santiago walked behind Doña Marina along a narrow, muddy path, kicking away the geese that chased the little woman as if she were one of them. Doña Marina took the boys to a large shelter where Yarima’s coffee pickers stayed during harvest season. She told them where to find the straw baskets they would tie around their waists, and sent them over to the plantation. “Follow this path until you see coffee trees,” she squeaked, and then, giving them an obliged look, she added, “Thank you for keeping those beasts away from me.”

The beans on most of the coffee trees had turned a dark cherry color. From the highest part of the hill the farm looked like thousands of Christmas trees decorated with little red lights. The steward ordered Pablo to follow, for half a day, an older Indian man with a long ponytail hanging down his back. Santiago followed a man nicknamed Cigarrillo, because he always had a cigarette in his mouth. The two men were to teach the two boys the easiest, fastest way to collect beans. Pablo and Santiago wished they could trail their own fathers, each with more than thirty years of experience in the coffee plantations, but they had been sent to Cabrera, a smaller coffee farm where bad weather was causing the crop to fail.

“Watch my hands, son,” Cigarrillo told Santiago. His fingers fluttered like birds among the branches, hardly touching them, as dozens of red beans fell into his basket. “We only want the coffee cherries that are ready, the ones you can pluck with your own hands.” His face was
sunburned, his mustache unkempt. “If there are any green cherries mixed, the coffee will taste bitter, and if there are any overripe cherries, it’ll taste sour.” Santiago checked the man’s basket for green or overripe cherries and found none. “A skilled picker will pluck the entire ripe crop in just one pass,” Cigarrillo went on, “and he should collect no less than one hundred pounds of coffee beans per day.” When the basket got full, he said, the picker must take it to the coffee mill, next to the storage building, where Doña Marina, the midget, would weigh and mark down the amount of coffee gathered, then he should go back to the plantation and do it all over again. Coffee pickers got paid, partly in cash and partly in produce, every Saturday according to the amount of pounds each man had picked during the week. “The most important thing,” Cigarrillo added, “is to have fun while you’re working. Sing songs, talk to the trees, tell them jokes. Pretend the trees are hundreds of naked women lined up, waiting for you to pull their tits.” The man guffawed. Santiago feigned a smile. He would think of pulling Pablo’s penis instead.

The first night in Yarima’s shelter Pablo and Santiago pushed their straw mats together to sleep close, like they always had. They held each other’s hands to say their prayers, and when finished they kissed good night.