A Bright Moon for Fools (24 page)

“
Habla pues
!” Christmas blinked and looked about. The room was turquoise. There were diplomas on the wall, photographs of dead relatives, a clock made out of a ship’s
wheel and a thickly painted scene of a beach at sunset. The boy from his dream was still kneeling at the end of his bed. The tortoise snapped its jaw. Lola stared at him with eyebrows raised. He
tried to say her name. His throat made a high-pitched squeak.

Lola Rosa was from the village of San Cristóbal, thirty kilometres from Guiria along the southern coast of the Paria peninsula. Lola told all her friends about the
preening gringo she had picked up on her last trip to Caracas, enjoying many laughs at his expense, so it had been no small surprise to go out one night into her own village and find him hanging
from a tree.

News spread quickly about the foreigner who had arrived on a boat full of drunk fishermen, initially unconscious, then springing into a fit of dangerous activity. Raving and gabbling, he had
fought walls and bushes and other more invisible foes until his companions caught his foot, wrapped it in rope, and winched him to safety. Lola went to check on the commotion with everyone else,
only to be engulfed in double-takes. That she not only knew this foreigner, but had slept with him, was the kind of electric gossip that lights up any village. He had obviously remembered where she
lived and tracked her down.

“What you do in my village? Why you in San Cristóbal?”

“Lola ...?”

“What happen to you? Why you drunk like crazy man? Look at your face – why they hit your face? And the rest of you! Someone hit you with a car? What happened? What you doing
here?”

“Where ...?”

“You come from Guiria. You in San Cristóbal. You in Estado Sucre,
coño,
you in Venezuela!”

“You ...”

“Me! Why you come here, gringo? Why you come to this village? Why you here? You come to see me, like this, like a drunk? Because I don’t want to see you!
Idiota! Hijo de
puta
!” The boy at the end of the bed glared at his mother in reprimand. “You shut up!” she said to him in Spanish.

“How did I get here?”

“That is what I want to know! Why you here?
Verga
!” and with that she drained her beer and threw it out the door.

“Where is you hotel? Where you bags? You money? You stay in Guiria?”

“I don’t have anything” wheezed Christmas, more fragments of Guiria returning, “I had ... some bad luck.”

“It’s me with the bad luck, gringo,
oíste
? You don’t have no money?”

“I ... was robbed.”

“Of course you was robbed! You gringo. You can not to drink like that, the people will see you and they will take everything.”

“I was robbed before I got drunk.”

“And you think drink like that going to help you?
Verga
!”

“I was trying to get to Guiria ...”

“By drinking rum? You try to go to Guiria by drinking rum? Rum don’t take you Guiria, gringo. Boat take you Guiria!”

“But you ... Caracas ...”

“That was the house of my sister. This is my house. This is my son. He don’t speak no English.” The boy stretched forward to shake Christmas by the hand. He had an oval face
and a teenage moustache.

“Aldo,” said the boy, “Peace be with you.” There was a curious silence.

“I – I don’t understand ... ” Christmas began, “It’s too ... how did you find me?”

“
Verga, coño
! I didn’t find you,
oíste
? I didn’t find you. You come here on a boat with
borrachos
and you so drunk they tie you to tree and
then I see you. I don’t want to see you again! You come here drunk and without shame. Everybody see you! Like crazy man! Why you here!” She stood up. “I can’t to believe it!
En todo Venezuela ¿estás aquí? En San Cristóbal
? You tell me you not come to find me?”

“I had no idea ... I don’t even know where I am.”

“You lie!”

“It’s a miracle,” said the boy in Spanish.

“It’s a bad miracle!” she replied.

“There are no such things as bad miracles.”

“We’re all bad miracles. He,” she pointed at Christmas, “is just bad.”

“You didn’t – we were going to have dinner ...” started Christmas.

“Are you joking?” Lola folded her arms. “Eeeee,” she groaned, “You deaf, gringo? I said ‘no’ because I don’t want to see you again. And now I must
to see you again! In a tree!
Verga
, look at your face! Someone hit your face! Why are you here? Why are you in my house?”

“But you ... you must have brought me here.” Lola blew a note of disagreement through tight lips.

“That was the idea of
him
!” Christmas followed her finger to the other side of the room. “He don’t speak no English.” There, on a sofa, lay an old man the
colour of cigars. He was grinning.

“I’m very sick,” said the old man in Spanish, “my legs don’t work.”

“Your legs stopped working because you smoke crack!” thundered Lola, “Last week your legs were fine!” The old man looked as if he had been poured onto the sofa. His head
was too big for his body. He had a long face with brown teeth that fanned out like monkey toes, except for the front two which were gold. He smiled at Christmas, twirling a finger next to his ear
in a ‘she’s crazy’ gesture.

“Now he’s awake, he can go back to Caracas!”

“He can stay as long as he likes.”

“No! He goes!”

“I am her father,” he confided to Christmas, pushing out his lips towards her, “and she shows me no respect.”

“You show yourself no respect!”

“You’re just in a bad mood because everyone’s laughing at you.”

“Shut up!”

“You shut up, woman! This is my house! If I say he stays – he stays!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Christmas, sitting up and shaking his hands before him, “I’ve got to – I can’t stay here; I have no money—” There was his
jacket beside him on a chair. He clenched it. The book was there, thank God – but his passport ...Where was his passport? Christmas lay down. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he whispered.
His passport was at Judith’s.

“Look at your face. You are still sick,” said the old man. “You are my friend. If you have no money, no problem. You get money later.”

“I’ve got to ... I have to—” whispered Christmas as a wave of shame broke over him. How had he ended up like this? What was happening to him? Something was very wrong.
Something terrible was on it’s way. He could feel the last ray of alcohol disappear from his system and the approaching storm of suffering.

“God has brought you into this house for a purpose,” said Aldo.

“Pah!” Lola stormed off into the kitchen, clipping her son round the ear as she went.

“I agree,” said the old man.

“Eeeeee!” Lola shouted back. “See, gringo, only an idiot could make these two idiots agree.”

“Do you read the Bible?” said the boy.

Christmas closed his eyes.
I am still dreaming
, he thought,
or I have died
. “I ... No.”

“Are you a member of the Evangelical church?” the boy tried again. The old man started to cackle.

Christmas sighed. “Are you?”

“Yes. How long have you been an alcoholic?”

“How long have you been an Evangelical?”

“Five days,” shouted Lola from the kitchen, “Last week he wanted to be a computer engineer.” The tortoise was biting the boy’s flip-flops.

“Before that he wanted to be a tattooist,” said the old man. “But his mother only let him give tattoos to the pigs.” The boy, affecting serenity, picked up the tortoise
and took it out into the yard.

“Peace be with you.”

“Bleeurrgh,” replied the old man, “So friend – your name is Arri?” He lit a cigarette.

“Harry.”

“Arri,” he nodded. “My name is Luis, but you can call me Papa.” Christmas looked over.

“No thanks.”

“You are from the United States?”

“England.”

“English ... really. Tell me, is it true?”

“What?”

“Is it true that you have carpet in your bathrooms?”

“Could I get a glass of water?”

“Have you been to Trinidad? It’s only an hour from here by boat. They speak English in Trinidad.” The old man reached for the remote control on the floor beside him and turned
on the television to an incredible volume.

“So Lola tells me you make movies – you make any famous ones?” he shouted.

“No.”

“What kind of movies do you like?”

“I don’t like movies,” Christmas shouted back. Then, thinking it left an odd moment between them, he said, “What kind of movies do you like?”

“I like the type of movies that start with Stallone having a bad day,” shouted the old man. Then, “You want some rum?” and produced a bottle of Cacique from under the
sofa. The old man took a swig and passed it over, but Christmas’ stretched, shaking fingers were denied the touch of glass. Lola snatched the bottle.

“You,” she said, taking a swig, “come here,” The old man raised his eyebrows at Christmas, pushing his lips out towards her. Such pouting was a popular gesture in the
village of San Cristóbal. It replaced pointing, but with an added dash of mockery. Christmas got to his feet. He followed her through the kitchen, supporting himself where he could, a
headache thumping him again and again in the back of the face.

Out in the yard, Lola took the lid off the back of the toilet, pulled up a length of wire and showed him how it flushed. Suddenly in the sun, Christmas thought he was going to vomit. “We
have other toilet inside, but you use this one to make poo-poo, Ok, poo-poo man? I don’t want to clean up your poo-poo again,
oíste
, gringo? And no more drinking!”

The enclosed yard was full of junk and crisscrossed with washing lines. There were holes in the wall. It sloped to one side and at the far end was a concrete shower room, its blue metal door
swinging loose. Christmas followed her back inside and caught himself in a mirror: belly hanging over the ill-fitting shorts, hair awry, a boiled face. His black eye was now a grim yellow, the
whole right side of his upper body an ugly rainbow of harm.
Repulsive
, he thought.

As he re-entered the kitchen she told him to sit down at a round white plastic table. His knee joints cracked. On one side of the room there was a row of bedroom doors. On the other, an old
cooker attached to a rusting gas cylinder, the sink, wooden cupboards with a rack for plates, a sideboard, a shelf stacked with some glasses, well-used pans and a fridge. Lola took out a griddle
and put it on the cooker. Then she poured corn flour into a bowl with some water, kneading it until it was dough, pinching off a piece, rolling it into a ball, squeezing the ball into a disc,
patting the disc between her hands until it was a flat, round
arepa.
She put the
arepa
on the griddle and turned on the hob. She repeated the process several times. When the griddle
was full, she covered it with a saucepan lid, took a coffeepot from another hob and poured out two cups of coffee. Aldo stretched out on the camp bed to watch television with his grandfather.
Christmas felt his face. He was struggling to come to terms with his situation. He knew he must lie down again. His mind prickled with the onset of a terrible sickness.

She put the cup down in front of him. Christmas’ hands were shaking so much he could barely lift it. The smell of coffee yanked him further into the world. Some magic had taken place, some
stout movement of fate. He was with Lola Rosa. He was in her kitchen, sharing her coffee. Christmas took a sip. It hit his stomach. He only just made it to the toilet.

F
or four days Christmas lay there, churned by fever and withdrawal. Lola became less angry but only because she pitied him. He would wake, knowing
he had been crying out, to find her holding his hand against fading horrors. He felt as if he was on a laboratory slab, exposed, observed, the subject of an undefined experiment. The television
fused with his dreams and hallucinations; game shows and war. Sometimes he woke into darkness, trembling and fearful, a galaxy of bugs surrounding the naked bulb above him, thick shadows masking
the roof while the pulsing screech of crickets raged at the moon. Sometimes he thought Slade was attacking him and he would shriek out for help, the family holding him down, calming him, before the
tempest sleep of withdrawal pulled him back under. It rolled him and cast him out into a world where Emily was still alive, struggling from his bed to hold her before the vision receded into a
horizon, erupting, a tidal wave of energy crackling with electrical charge which bulldozed desert towns. He saw a tiger about to attack suddenly lying down in defeat, conscious of its own
extinction. He saw Emily with blisters around her neck as if strangled by a rope wet with acid. He saw a well full of chicken heads and Slade standing alone in an airfield, all the planes and
terminal buildings burnt out and rained on. Then there was an awful howl, as if the earth itself was a beast, curved and folded in like a sleeping cat with a mouth at its core. He covered himself
with the pillow as poison gas descended – thick, green and fast moving. It was dawn and everybody was dying. Christmas was by a low brick wall watching a crow that had a CCTV camera for a
face. Then he was with Emily, walking by a canal full of oil. He dreamed he was in a room full of sculptors. They were on ladders. He watched one drive his chisel into the shoulder blades of a
statue and take out something bloody and slippery. The sculptor dropped it into a bucket and it made a slapping sound. The bucket was full. He was in a field on bonfire night, eating a toffee apple
and smelling the sparklers. The smell changed. It became sickening. It was a bonfire of wigs. Dark shapes danced through the flames. An unseen hand began throwing open beer cans at him. He was
bellowing at a field of cows. He was walking to the end of a pier, only to turn round and see the mainland break off and float away. He woke. He was eating roast swan. He woke again. He was
suffocating, his face wrapped in caul. There was Aldo. There was the old man. He was on the floor in the shower room. They were washing him.