Pig's Foot (4 page)

‘Come on, Oscar, and bring Malena, this calls for a celebration!’ he shouted.

Head in his hands, Oscar stared after his friend but did not say anything. He picked up his sacks and trudged home.

The house of José Mandinga and Betina de Flores, crafted from wood and royal palm, had three bedrooms, two for the children they dreamed they would have. That’s how my grandparents always described it, and though I never saw it, I feel I know the place by heart. The front door was flanked on either side by windows that were always wide open, letting air and light flood into a narrow rectangular living room that was simple and unadorned. A passageway led to the bedrooms which opened on to the corridor, so there was no privacy. At the end of the corridor was another door that led outside to the privy and the open fire on which they cooked.

Malena rushed in excitedly. The polar opposite of her sister Betina, who never conceded defeat in difficult situations, Malena preferred to let others make her decisions for her; she never offered an opinion, she was meek, quiet and withdrawn. Her dream was to have a son she would name Benicio. Like her sister, as a girl she had had no luck with men, but unlike her, Malena had waited in silence for her man to come, never complaining, but never giving up that faint, flickering hope. She was not pretty like Betina, but she had the look of a faithful wife about her that women have when they long to tend to a house, a husband or a child, and this gave her an alluring, mysterious air. An air that could fascinate men. But there were no men. War had done its work, carrying off the men, most of them to their deaths.

Malena hugged her sister and then hugged little Gertrudis. Oscar stood stiffly in the doorway staring at Gertrudis with owlish eyes.

‘I’m so happy for you, sister,’ said Malena. ‘Now I know I will never catch you up.’

Betina said that actually having babies was easy, they simply needed to try harder. At this, she shot a conspiratorial glance at Oscar, who was standing like a fence-post in the doorway. José told him not to look so glum.

‘Look, Geru, look who’s here . . . Uncle Oscar . . . remember Uncle Oscar? Go give him a big kiss,’ he said to little Gertrudis who tottered over to Oscar and grasped his thumb. José’s friend was sweating merely at the sight of the small child tugging at him. Betina asked when Malena and Oscar were planning to have a child, sarcastically insinuating that perhaps the long wait was because Oscar could not get it up. Malena tried to change the subject, asking her sister if she was having morning sickness yet, but Betina insisted that it was high time Malena had a baby, that it was foolish of her to hide the fact that she desperately wanted a child. Oscar set Geru down on the ground, walked over to Betina and said, ‘Maybe some day we might get a dog, but right now we don’t want anything that eats, shits and farts.’

‘Your selfishness will be your undoing, Oscar,’ said Betina.

Oscar drew his machete but José put a restraining hand on his friend’s chest and told him to hold his temper, not to forget that he was in his house talking to his wife. His stocky frame towered head and shoulders above Oscar.

‘She may be your wife, but she would be wise to hold her tongue if she wants to keep it. And she should stop meddling in our life.’

José told Betina to go and lay the table and told his wife and his friend that it was time to stop eating shit. ‘Let’s eat food instead,’ he said. Betina and Malena immediately withdrew to the kitchen.

While the women were cooking, the men sat at the table. José said that he would have to find work to earn some money because the land they farmed yielded barely enough for them to survive. According to Abel Santacruz, there was work to be had in the cane fields around El Cobre, and he planned to go there and try his luck. Oscar, intently observing every detail of what little Gertrudis did, was not listening. At one point, the little girl tottered over and stood in front of him, staring down at his bare feet, then she clutched her stomach and from her mouth spewed a thick liquid that befouled Oscar’s right foot. The Kortico immediately rushed to get a bucket of water and went out into the back yard. He tipped the water on to the ground and, having created a pool of mud, plunged his vomitous foot into the sludge. Malena asked what was going on. José watched, smiling to see Oscar rubbing his feet like a wild colt.

What was going on was this: the Korticos – a tribe in which the men, despite being only four feet tall, had penises that were abnormally long and thick – believed in African gods, as did all the slaves brought from Africa. Among the most important of these was Olofi, God of Creation, lord and master of all living things, who granted man the power to create other living beings, but only with His blessing. Olofi would mark those privileged to bear children with the vomit of a child. Once this had happened, the couple were obliged to conceive within a year. Men who were not marked out were required to tie their foreskin with string in order to avoid pregnancy. According to Kortico tradition, Olofi’s will could be negated only by a ritual performed on a riverbank that involved sacrificing an animal to the god and twenty lashes with a whip made of goat hide.

‘Come on, Oscar, sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way we plan. There’s nothing you can do.’

‘No,’ said Oscar, ‘There is another way.’

He explained to everyone how, according to tradition, the will of Olofi might be revoked. José and Betina looked into Malena’s sad eyes. It was not the best solution, but at least it offered a release from the spell, a way of circumventing the will of the African gods.

Heads bowed, Oscar and Malena returned to their shack which was green inside and out. It had a timber floor of royal palm through which grew weeds and wild mushrooms. The cabin had a living room and one bedroom and windows that were riddled with termites. Because of the damp, the walls inside were covered in moss, turning the shack into a green and fragrant forest.

‘Don’t you understand, Malena, I would do anything for you, but I could never be a good father to this child. What if he were to grow up to be more miserable than me?’ Malena stroked Oscar’s head as she gazed into his eyes: his happiness mattered more to her than anything in the world and so, if having a child would be a problem, it was better not to have one. Oscar was mollified. He smiled like a baby, kissed his wife tenderly and made love to her as never before knowing that, as long as Malena was by his side, he would never be lonely.

The following day, José went to talk to Abel Santacruz, Silvio Aquelarre and the father of the Jabao family and persuaded them to join him and Oscar working on the sugar plantations east of El Cobre. Each man chipped in two pesos for a horse and cart to make the journey there every day. They would get up at four in the morning and work eight hours a day for one peso a month. Though the pay was miserable, everyone – except Oscar – gave thanks to God that they had money to provide for their families. With one daughter growing up and another child on the way, José could ill afford the luxury of starting a revolution – something Oscar frequently suggested. Three weeks after they started working on the plantation, the five men set off as usual for the cane fields. When they got there, Oscar organised a meeting of thirty
macheteros
.

‘These white men are exploiting us, and I don’t want to go on being a slave. I have two solutions: either they give us better working conditions, or we cut the bastards’ heads off. I would be happy with either.’ José gave his friend a sidelong glance and spat on the ground, waiting for the reactions of the other workers. The first to speak was Señor Jabao, who said Oscar was right, that the
macheteros
at La Villas were paid three pesos a month while those they worked for were exploiters. Someone named Matías said that he was tired of revolution, that he had spent his whole life fighting war after war and now that he had his own house he simply wanted a little peace.

‘Your house doesn’t belong to you any more than mine belongs to me, or have you forgotten who owns the land? The war is still raging, but when it’s over, you’ll see, they’ll throw you off this land. Oscar here says that if we had a little more money in our pockets, we’d be better off. Why don’t we just make our protest and see what happens?’

José’s words were met with utter silence. One of the
macheteros
moved into the centre of the circle. A tall, black, broad-shouldered giant of a man with powerful arms, who looked as though he had been lifting weights since the day he was born. He was shirtless, and the muscles of his chest and abdomen were unusually chiselled. He wore the same sackcloth trousers worn by all the
macheteros.
Grandpa looked into his eyes and said they were unfocused, as though he was not actually seeing, but rather hearing voices no one else could hear.

‘Bravo, bravo,’ said the man, clapping his hands slowly as he stepped into the middle of the group, ‘Fine work from brothers Oscar and José. I can imagine what their wives will say when they come home empty-handed. With no job, no money, but their honour intact – because I think that’s what all these fine speeches are about. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but a man cannot feed his family with honour. And how many men here have children to feed?’ A forest of hands shot up. ‘Raise your hand, José, too; go on, Gertrudis is still a child. And we know your friend the dwarf here has no kids. He might have a wife, but the way he’s going he won’t have her long, nor will the rest of you if you listen to the shit that . . .’

He did not have time to finish his sentence. Oscar hurled his machete and, had the other man not ducked, it would have hit him square in the forehead. Instead the machete sailed past, wounding the
machetero
standing behind him. Before José could react, Oscar hurled himself on the man, grabbing his throat. The man was a giant and Oscar looked like a small boy climbing a coconut tree. ‘I’ll kill you, you bastard,’ screamed the Kortico. José and four of the other workers waded in to separate them. After a long struggle they finally managed to pull Oscar off.

‘You see what I mean? This man is an animal. That’s what you’ll all be if you carry on the way you’re going,’ said the big man, rubbing his neck. José told him to leave before the situation turned ugly. Then he walked back to the crowd of
macheteros
and told them to forget everything that had been said. Let each man go his own way. In the tense atmosphere, slowly, one by one, the workers headed off to the canebrakes to begin their eight hours of backbreaking labour.

‘Where did he come from?’ asked José on the road back to Pata de Puerco. The infamous Mozambique was the most hated man for miles around. He too lived in Pata de Puerco, on the outskirts of the village, though no one ever saw him. He never came out of his house, not even for a breath of fresh air. ‘One day we’ll pay that son of a bitch a visit, hey, Oscar,’ said José, whipping the mare to get her to move faster. Oscar simply stared out at the horizon. Señor Jabao told José to forget the idea because El Mozambique had seven vicious dogs that would not let anyone come near the house.

‘He really had it in for you! Are you sure you don’t know him?’ asked Aquelarre. Still Oscar stared into the middle distance. Then Abel Santacruz interjected to remark that while he hadn’t wanted to say anything, a bird in the hand was better than two in the bush. He apologised to Oscar, insisting that though he intended no criticism, but these were hard times and they should give thanks to God that at least they had work enough and money enough to put bread on the table. Oscar turned to glare at him and José immediately sensed what was coming next.

‘Gentlemen, let’s just forget what happened. Hey, Oscar, you know today is your goddaughter Gertrudis’s birthday? Don’t tell me you forgot.’

‘What do you mean, we should give thanks to God, Abel?’ said Oscar. ‘You’re talking as though God provides for us. Get it through your thick skull: we’re slaves, each and every one of us, and we’ll die slaves if we go on thinking like sheep. It doesn’t matter that people say slavery has been abolished, it doesn’t matter how much times have changed, the Negro is still a Negro, and he’ll live his whole life in mud and filth.’

At these words, silence closed in. All that could be heard was the creak of the cartwheels across the flatland. José went on talking about Gertrudis, about how much she’d grown, how she talked like a parrot, how she scampered around. Oscar interrupted him.

‘I’m not going back. So I want my
reales
.’

‘What
reales
?’ asked the others.

‘The two pesos I put in to buy this mare and cart.’

José said that if he wanted his two pesos he would have to wait until the end of the month when they were paid, because none of them had a
centavo
between them. Then he went back to prattling on about Gertrudis until Jabao tapped him on the shoulder to let him know that Oscar had jumped off the cart and was hurrying towards the overgrown hill. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll soon calm down,’ said José and spurred the cart on towards Pata de Puerco.

At three o’clock in the morning, José was woken by a hammering on his door. Half-asleep, he opened it to find Santacruz, Aquelarre and Jabao standing there with horrified looks on their faces. ‘You have to see this, José.’

The four men ran to the place where the cart had been tethered. The mare lay sprawled on the ground, her tongue sticking out. One of her hind legs had been hacked off with a machete. Having examined the body of the animal, the four men concluded that this carnage was motivated by old bitterness, the grudge of an unhappy man, it was an act of vengeance. José spat on the ground and said, ‘This is something I’ll never forgive him for.’