Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (32 page)

Everything looked calm as he approached the plaza. There was no commotion, no crowd waiting to bombard him with questions about the whereabouts of the barber. Everything seemed perfectly under control. The Gringito was asleep as usual beneath the eucalyptus tree.

‘Bloody
hipi
,' he said under his breath. ‘The first foreigner to make it here in years and we get one who can't stay awake for longer than ten minutes.' And he made a mental note to put an official notice on the tree banning people from sleeping under it. ‘I will have him behaving like a bloody tourist before the day is out, whether he likes it or not,' he muttered. From the direction of his approach, the front part of Don Bosco's shop was obscured from
view by the corner of the town hall. As far as he could discern there were no signs of activity coming from it. He decided to go straight to the town hall to find Ramon and gather the equipment he needed for the next stage of his plans. He had plenty of time to get everything under way. Even if the letter had been a little delayed getting to him, the district officer had promised he would telephone him to give him ample warning of the visitors' arrival. Then he stopped in his tracks with a gut-churning realisation: the telephone lines had been down for weeks.

‘Where is it?' the mayor shouted as he stormed into the building. There was no sign of life in the deserted offices, apart from the scurrying of a family of rats who, recently dislodged from their home, were making their way down the corridor. He looked into the little room in which Ramon was supposed to perform his administrative duties; as usual it was empty. He then went straight to his office, took one look inside and bellowed, ‘Ramon, I've been burgled.'

Ramon, certain that the mayor would be waylaid at the barber's shop, had not expected his patron to arrive at the town hall quite so quickly and was under the desk at the time sorting through the remaining paperwork. He leapt up, banging his head as he did so. ‘I've had a little tidy-up, señor,' he announced, rubbing his head.

‘For heaven's sake, Ramon. How many times have I told you not to do that?' the mayor said, clutching his heart. ‘Where is everything? Where have all my things gone?'

Ramon looked round the room at the empty desk and chair. ‘What things are those, señor?' he asked.

‘My things. My files. My paperwork. My official business. Where has it all gone?'

‘Well, señor,' Ramon replied, ‘I decided that there was no space in here to file everything, as a lot of the paperwork was quite old. I thought it was becoming a health hazard, gathering all that dust. Some rats had even made a nest in the corner of one of the piles of folders. So I decided that perhaps it was wise to reorganise.'

‘So where is it?' the mayor said, glaring at Ramon.

‘It was all getting a little out of hand,' Ramon continued.

‘Where is it? And where is the letter?' the mayor asked, walking towards Ramon, who took a step backwards. He pointed at the empty desk on which now lay a single sheet of paper. The mayor picked it up.

‘This was sent nearly a month ago,' he said, looking at the date on the letter. ‘Why didn't you tell me it had arrived?'

‘I did, señor,' Ramon replied. ‘At least, I remember putting it there on your desk in the “To-be-urgently-attended-to pile”. But with things being so busy I think it must have got overlooked.' The mayor had stopped listening. He was reading the official notification of the planned arrival of the visitors. He stared at the letter, then at the calendar on the wall, and then at Ramon.

‘It's tomorrow,' he said.

‘Is it? Already? How can that be?'

‘The visitors, Ramon. The date in this letter. Their estimated arrival time. It is lunchtime tomorrow. “We are giving you due advance notification,”' the mayor now read out loud, ‘“as we will expect you as leader of your esteemed town council to host the official welcome according to the protocol that has been sent to you ahead of this notice.”' Enclosed was a brief itinerary of what was to follow the official welcome, which included a tour of the
town to take in the antiquities, the tourist attractions and all the recent developments in which the provincial authorities had invested their money.

‘Protocol documents? Ramon, where are the protocol documents?'

Ramon scanned the empty room. ‘I can't be certain,' he said, ‘but I think I may have filed them with all the old paperwork.'

‘And where is that?'

‘I burnt it.'

By the time the mayor reached the backyard of the town hall there was little remaining to show for years of unattended-to official business but a pile of smouldering ashes.

‘What is it?' Ramon said, staring at the black box on the mayor's desk.

‘It's the future, Ramon,' the mayor said.

‘Really?' Ramon said, taking in a breath, and he reached out to touch it. ‘It looks like a television. Like the one in Don Bosco's shop. Can we watch football on it?'

‘I expect so,' the mayor said. ‘That and much, much more besides.'

‘What does it do?'

‘It will connect us to the world,' the mayor said, borrowing the phrase he had learned from Consuela and her bright young assistant.

‘How?' Ramon asked.

‘What do you mean “how”?'

‘Well, how will it connect us to the world?' Ramon asked, pressing a button on the lifeless black box.

‘Through the superhighway,' the mayor replied.

‘The superhighway? So they are going to build a road after all?' Ramon said.

‘They will when I am done with them,' the mayor replied. ‘At least I'm prepared. Good thing you didn't have the key to my cupboard otherwise you might have destroyed this as well.' Ramon looked shamefaced and stared at the ground.

‘We will just have to make it up as we go along,' the mayor said. ‘But I tell you, this will impress the visitors, official protocol or not.'

‘So where is the superhighway?'

‘It's in the computer, Ramon. It is the pathway to the rest of the world. Through this, we can get any information we need.'

‘About what?'

‘About things, Ramon.'

‘What sort of things?'

‘Many things. Anything. About the places where the foreigners come from, for a start.'

‘Where did you get it?' Ramon asked.

‘Doña Consuela sold it to me. Have you any idea how difficult it is carrying a computer by donkey through the swamp? The days will soon be gone when I will have to make a trip like that again. This is what I have invested the remainder of the money in. Ramon, can you believe it? Consuela's business is doing so well that she was getting rid of these old computers and having new ones sent to her by boat from Manola.'

‘Where does she get all that money?'

The mayor took Ramon by the arm and led him to the window. ‘What do you see out there?' he asked.

‘The plaza of course,' Ramon answered, wondering why the conversation had suddenly changed direction.

‘And what else?'

‘The eucalyptus tree. Oh yes, and Doña Nicanora having an argument with Don Pedro.'

‘Wretched woman,' the mayor said, gazing out of the window. ‘I'll sort her out in a minute. Look again. What is the most valuable thing that this town possesses?'

‘Oh, the church and the Virgin,' Ramon said, suddenly feeling ashamed, and he crossed himself.

‘No, Ramon, I didn't mean the church. I meant the bloody
hipi
.'

‘The
hipi
?'

‘Yes, Ramon. Don't you see? He is our future. What do you think he is doing here?'

‘Sleeping,' Ramon said.

‘Well, yes, I think we got a bit of a faulty one there to be honest,' the mayor said. ‘The ones I have seen do things.'

‘What sort of things?'

‘They wander around buying things. And they sit and eat food, drink coffee and use bloody computers. Ramon, we need more of them here, lots of them. But better than the one we've got at the moment. I want this town to be rich, like it was in the days of our ancestors. I want it to be the centre of the province again. I think that is the least we deserve.'

‘Señor,' Ramon said, now really confused and trying not to undermine his boss's enthusiasm. ‘What has the computer got to do with it?'

‘That is what they will come here for.'

‘Why? I'm sure they have them in their own country, señor.'

‘I know they do, Ramon. That is the point.'

Ramon, who had been trying to hold his own in the conversation, now floundered. ‘Señor, there is something I really don't understand. Why would they want to come here to use a computer
to find out information about the places they have just come from? I know,' he said with a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘Nicanora said she thought the Gringito was lost. Is that why they need computers? To find out how to get home?'

‘They talk to people, Ramon. That's what they use them for. They talk to other gringos, in other countries. They talk to other people like themselves, when they are travelling.'

‘Don't the telephones in their country work either?'

‘No, they like to talk to people they don't know. People they have never met and never will meet, anywhere in the world, in other parts of the world.'

‘So let me get this right,' Ramon said. ‘They will travel all the way here to talk to someone they don't know, who is somewhere else altogether?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know, Ramon,' the mayor said, sitting down. ‘Probably to stop them feeling so alone. All I know is that there is money to be had from it.'

‘So how does it work?' Ramon asked, pressing a button again and waiting expectantly for the screen to burst into life.

‘I have no idea,' the mayor said. ‘But you had better find out by tomorrow.' And he handed Ramon a small book, a bag of cables and a set of round discs that looked like little saucers, given to him by Consuela's assistant.

‘Right,' the mayor said, getting up from his seat. ‘We have business to attend to. I am going to sort out that Nicanora woman, make sure all the arrangements are made and everything is in order by tomorrow morning.'

Ramon was left standing with a list headed ‘Visitor Protocol
Arrangements' in one hand, and a booklet entitled ‘Instruction Manual' in the other. He sat down in the mayor's chair, opened the drawer of the desk and for the first time in his life helped himself to a large glass of whisky.

It was mid-afternoon by the time the mayor reached the barber's shop. Don Julio and Don Teofelo were sitting at the little table and chairs playing dominoes, Don Teofelo absent-mindedly scratching at his chin.

‘I wish you would stop doing that,' Don Julio said. ‘You've got me started again now.' Don Teofelo placed a double six, followed by another five pieces.

‘Your turn.'

‘I thought you said she gave a smooth shave,' Julio complained.