Tales from the Town of Widows (20 page)

W
HEN THE MAGISTRATE
arrived and learned the bad news, she wanted to see the boys, but the nurse wouldn’t let her. Rosalba insisted.

“But you didn’t examine them. How do you know they’re not lying?”

“Lying? Would you lie about something like that, Magistrate? If you had only seen their faces. They looked terrified. Hochiminh was covering his breasts with a large book, poor thing. And Vietnam couldn’t even talk. How disgraceful!”

“Ramírez, I must see the boys,” Rosalba requested firmly.

“Magistrate, you go inside that room, and you’ll have to stay in it with those infected boys for forty days,” Nurse Ramírez returned, in a harsh tone that to the magistrate’s autocratically trained ears invited confrontation. But the circumstances were so dire that even Rosalba recognized that they called for serenity and compliance. She gave the nurse her word that she wouldn’t see the boys but demanded the key to the room where they were kept. That way she could feel as though she were in control of the situation. She hid it in her bosom, then went to get the police sergeant, Ubaldina viuda de Restrepo.

The sergeant wasn’t given specific details about the boys’ medical condition—discretion wasn’t among her attributes. She was sent to look for the other three men of Mariquita (Julio Morales, Santiago Marín and el padre Rafael), and to bring them to the infirmary for a full medical examination.

T
HE SERGEANT FOUND
Julio Morales—Julia, as he was better
known—among the crowd of women waiting for the contest to begin. He was, as usual, dressed as a girl, her black hair arrayed with colorful flowers. “The magistrate wants to see you immediately,” the sergeant whispered in the girl’s ear. Julia gestured to her to go ahead; she’d follow her. Which she did with her back perfectly straight, her hips swinging side to side rhythmically, and each of her bare feet landing exactly in front of the other with every step—a bewitching gait that put the ungainly sergeant, with her linen pants, plaid shirt and worn leather boots, to shame.

Santiago Marín, the Other Widow, was found in his backyard, working on his small but flourishing garden, where he grew the best tomatoes in town. Ever since the night he sent his lover Pablo on his last, nonreturn trip, Santiago had grown introspective and quiet. He hadn’t turned mute like Julia; he just didn’t talk unless he had something meaningful to say. Today, after listening to the sergeant, Santiago put on a clean shirt, let his long hair down and left for the infirmary, escorted by Ubaldina.

El padre Rafael was the last man brought to the infirmary. The sergeant had found the priest eating breakfast at Cafetería d’Villegas, and after she informed him about “something terrible” scourging Mariquita, he begged for a few minutes with the Lord. Ubaldina walked him to the back entrance of the church. They didn’t want to be seen by the crowd gathered in the plaza—the women, by now, were getting impatient with both the boys’ tardiness and the fiery sun’s promptness. The sergeant waited outside the church, whistling old songs and stroking the butt of the old revolver she carried in her waistband. Four songs later el padre came out, and together they walked toward the infirmary.

T
HE BOYS
’
MOTHERS
were also sent for. They needed to be notified about the boys’ medical condition and the ordained quarantine. The four widows demanded to see their children, threatening to kick down the door of the room in which they were kept if the magistrate didn’t let them in. While Nurse Ramírez and the sergeant occupied themselves
with the potential multiple detentions, Rosalba decided it was time to confront the crowd of women at the plaza. They’d become so rowdy and unrestrained that their uproar could be heard from every corner of Mariquita. It was hardly ten in the morning, and the sun was already flaming. Rosalba went along dreary streets carpeted with thousands of leaves the wind had snatched from the mango trees earlier that morning. There was not a soul in sight. The contest had paralyzed the village’s activities, which on a regular Sunday morning weren’t many anyway: a few street vendors and a handful of God-fearing widows who attended the early services. Rosalba wondered how the women gathered at the plaza would react to the news. They’d grown resilient after enduring so many adversities over the years, but this really was the end of their hopes. If Nurse Ramírez was right about the boys’ disease, the women would never be with a man again. Or bear boys. Or girls. Or anything else. After today, they’d have to decide whether they wanted to rot in this wretched village waiting for male relatives or suitors that might never come back, or boldly cross those intimidating mountains clustered around them and find not a village, but a large city where guerrillas couldn’t kidnap every man at once, where there were enough healthy men to impregnate them, and electricity and running water and cars and telephones. Maybe even one of those electric machines that made cold air and blew it on you. Rosalba would give anything to sit next to one of those right now.

But what would these poor peasants do in a large city with no land for sowing? They’d end up working as domestics or prostitutes, the only professions for which countrywomen seemed to be qualified when they moved to the city. What would those provincial women do among so many sophisticated ladies and cultured gentlemen? People would laugh at them, at their ragged clothes and bare feet. They’d make fun of their plump, corn-fed bodies, their coarseness, their legs covered in mosquito bites. And if the plain women were to say that they’d come all the way from Mariquita, the sophisticated ladies would ask, “Mari what?” and roar with laughter.

No. These poor, simple women would never leave Mariquita. They’d stay right here, immersed in this routine where even the musty air they breathed smelled the same day after day after day; where everyone knew their names and their weaknesses; where no one was rich or sophisticated—merely less poor, less unrefined—and it didn’t matter anyway because in the end they were all marked for doom. Yes. They’d stay here, in purgatory. Because that’s what Mariquita really was. Purgatory. Only no one had realized it yet. No one but the magistrate.

“I have dire news,” Rosalba said to the crowd, looking unusually composed. “The boys,” she added, watching the women’s puzzled expressions, which in a second or two would turn into suffering. She proceeded to explain in great detail what had occurred to each boy, or rather what the nurse had told her. She told the women about breasts that mysteriously appeared and penises that shrank or left without so much as a warning. For an instant she considered taking advantage of the improvised gathering to ask the women to sweep the streets and alleyways. The many leaves made it unsafe for people to walk. But when her announcement was greeted by hysterical shrieks, Rosalba realized asking the women to sweep leaves might not be the most sensible thing to do.

Brokenhearted, Magnolia propped herself against a robust tree and wept. Not far from her, Luisa buried her face in Sandra’s bosom. Elvira and Cuba nursed their mutual sorrows on each other’s shoulders. Other women hid their faces behind their hands and wept through their fingers. What now? The four boys had been the only hope for all of them. From now on they wouldn’t have any expectations. They’d sit and watch days run into weeks into months into years…. And then one day, after a lifetime of loneliness, they would die; bitter old maids who never knew what it felt like to have a man other than the priest panting around their necks, his bristly face brushing against their breasts or between their legs.

“What has befallen me?” Magnolia Morales cried, kicking and hit
ting the blameless tree with her fists. “What a disgrace! What a terrible misery! I’ll never be happy.” But with her sobs came a certain relief: for the very first time in her life Magnolia confronted her biggest preoccupation. She tenderly stroked the scabrous surface of the tree as though it were her man bidding her a sad farewell. And she cried some more.

At that moment Nurse Ramírez arrived from the infirmary. Her face was shiny and sweaty and her eyes sunken. She was followed by el padre Rafael, Julia and Santiago. Santiago carried a large book between his hands. The nurse stood on the platform next to the magistrate and announced that she had examined the three men. But in reality, since they hadn’t complained of any symptoms, she’d merely asked them to undress and, from a certain distance, verified that everything was what it should be and where it should be. “None of them is missing anything. They’re complete and intact,” she announced to the crowd, under the obvious impression that she was the bearer of good tidings. But her tidings didn’t bring any relief to the women’s grieving. They’d never thought of Julio and Santiago as men—neither had Julio and Santiago—and as for el padre Rafael, that was all in the past; a nasty, shameful past of which no woman wanted to be reminded.

But the nurse wasn’t finished. She reported that she had found something. A lead, she said, in an old medical reference book that was like a Bible to her. “I presume that our boys are suffering from a condition known as…” She signaled to Santiago to come closer with the book. “Let’s see,” she said, opening it on a page marked with a corn husk, pulling her face away from it to better see the small print. “Here it is: Babaloosi-Babaloosi. A mysterious condition seen once in the late 1800s in a remote region of southern Africa. Babaloosi-Babaloosi is believed to have gradually turned infants of the Zukashasu tribe into exceptional creatures that were neither men nor women. The creatures, known as Babas, eventually became the tribe chief’s advisers due to their impartiality in all matters.”

“Please stop,” el padre Rafael called. “This whole thing is absurd. Are you all blind? Can’t you see that this is a punishment from God?”
He walked up to the magistrate, looking as though he was experiencing muscular dystrophy on his face. “You must do something about all this nonsense,” he hissed.

“Ramírez, please continue,” Rosalba said to the nurse. Furious, the priest stepped aside. He crossed his arms and shook his head repeatedly. The nurse went on.

“Babaloosi-Babaloosi was confirmed by the English doctor Harry Walsh, who began studying it during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, Dr. Walsh died of malaria in 1903, leaving inconclusive theories about the selective disease. The Zukashasu believed it to be a miracle, but medical records classified it simply as a mysterious condition of unknown origins.” The nurse stopped and asked if anyone had questions.

“Where’s Africa?” Francisca said, raising her hand in the air.

The nurse shrugged her shoulders and scanned the crowd, looking for Cleotilde. The schoolmistress always had an answer for every question.

“Africa is located south of Europe, between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans,” the old woman answered from the back. Francisca was just about to ask where Europe was when the priest spoke.

“Does your book say what happened to this wondrous tribe?” His words were filled with contempt.

The nurse took notice of el padre’s question but overlooked his sarcastic tone. She faced the book again and read, “The Zukashasu tribe was exterminated by their neighbors, the Shumitah tribe, in an ethnic war that killed thousands of native Africans in 1913. Nevertheless, they are remembered as one of the most successful forms of society ever seen in that continent.” She paused to look up and then said, in the ingenuous voice of a young girl, “Imagine that: an impartial human being, someone who won’t take sides because they are neither male nor female. I think the world needs people like that.” She closed the book, convinced she’d ended her speech with a profound sentence.

An absolute silence spread throughout the plaza as the women
began speculating. First, they tried to picture what an impartial human being would look like; and then they tried to conceive of a society with no prejudices, ruled with fairness and honesty. But nothing materialized. They had never seen either.

“No one’s as impartial as God. He doesn’t judge us,” the priest interrupted their thoughts, in the same tedious and sermonizing tone he used daily in church.

“But your God doesn’t live in this town, Padre,” Nurse Ramírez returned, feeling under attack. “He gave up on us, and you’re very stubborn to still believe in Him.”

“You’ll burn in hell, you blasphemous woman!” the priest shouted. He turned to face the crowd and said, “Turn a deaf ear to foolish fairy tales. The Bible says—”

“The Bible says nothing we can understand or relate to,” the nurse interposed suddenly, her cheeks flaming with rage. “How many times has manna rained from heaven when we’ve been hungry? How many of our dead relatives have been brought back to life? Your fairy tales are no more believable than mine, Padre.” Both the nurse and the priest turned to the magistrate, as though seeking support, and the crowd, which had detected the delicious prospect of a serious confrontation, also looked at the magistrate (nothing made their problems smaller than witnessing the difficulties of others).

But Rosalba didn’t respond immediately. She seemed to be considering both el padre’s and the nurse’s arguments. Whatever she said next, she knew, could calm them down or infuriate them even more. “I say we should write our own Bible,” she finally proposed with a giggle. “A Bible that speaks to us, that tells about towns devastated by guerrillas and paramilitaries. About doomed villages of widows and spinsters and penises that disappear overnight.”

Except for el padre Rafael—who rolled his eyes—and a handful of pious widows, the crowd found the idea amusing. The women nodded and murmured to one another, and some even laughed quietly. And so Rosalba, encouraged by the somewhat positive response to her witty
remark, went on, “We perform our own miracles, after all. Don’t we feed great crowds with very little food? Don’t we walk on water every October and November, when we have those hideous floods?” She chuckled.

“The only miracle we haven’t mastered yet is how to cast out demons,” Nurse Ramírez interrupted, giving the priest a vicious look. The crowd had a good laugh at this last comment.