A Bright Moon for Fools (28 page)

“I’d rather have sex with your donkey than your wife, Gustavo – she looks like a knee in a wig.”

Some asked for money, the refusal process infinitely eased by the truth: he was potless. The men asking him were always the same – members of the small but highly visible fraternity of
serious crack smokers. They looked like Old Testament prophets, weather-beaten and bearded, with eyes like fire behind burnt glass. Robbed of the ability to steal – the village was far too
small and remote – they were the hardest working men in the population. They ferried goods around in wheelbarrows. They collected the rubbish. They cleaned the streets, delivered beer crates,
unloaded cargo boats, painted houses. Then, at night, they smoked their daily fortunes and forgot to wash.

Christmas entered into a routine with one of these men. He was known as
El Perro
, ‘the Dog’. He wore two baseball caps, one on top of the other, the visors parting left and
right. His torso looked like a woven tree root.

“Give me ten bolívares,” said El Perro, putting down his wheelbarrow as Christmas walked by.

“No,” said Christmas.

So it continued, several times a day, with no animosity on either side. Christmas couldn’t help wondering if there was not some lesson here with these industrious addicts, some wider truth
for the nation. Perhaps Chávez could employ all the crackheads in Caracas on community service projects, pay them one crack rock an hour, call it
Misión Crack
. Perhaps the
mayors of Britain should do the same. Perhaps crime would plummet, perhaps cities would be clean, perhaps junkies would be taken care of. Had not these men just slipped as he had, though down a
different mountain? Christmas resolved to think about it some more, wondering once again if he had not missed his vocation as a politician.

There was one basic shop in the village that sold
ocumo
, yucca
, pan de año
, onions, garlic, eggs, oil, rice, curry powder, salt, pepper, tinned sardines, corn flour, fizzy
pop, soap, detergent, shampoo, toilet roll, razors and Alka Seltzer, but he soon learnt behind which doors mothers made freshly baked bread, home-made sorbet, pastries and cakes of every type,
hamburgers and hotdogs, sweetbread, yoghurts, cheese and ice-cold fruit juices. For a village surrounded by cacao, there didn’t seem to be much chocolate. “The people don’t have
the machines here,” the old man explained. “We do it all by hand. It’s too much work. But we’ll make some for the festival. Arri, it’s going to taste like whooompf!
You mix it with rum and whaboooof!”

“Whooompf
and
whaboooof? In the same glass?”

“That’s right, gringo man!”

“I am not a—”

“Bleurrgh,” said the old man, changing channel.

When Saturday came the fishermen got paid. As Christmas walked through the village, men with bottles of Cacique stuffed into their belts cornered him and demanded he take a
swig. He declined.

The night was hot. The sea was the colour of wine. Music hammered out the dents in their lives and everyone wanted to talk to the foreigner. There was a great deal of interest in England amongst
the men, largely because of football, and Christmas secured impact by describing the country as a ghost story: “It is dark. Fierce winds howl through the streets. Everybody is angry. Then
suddenly the snow arrives and everything turns pure white, everything you can see, and the people are happy. For one morning. Then they are angry again for six months until the sun arrives. You
wake up one morning and there it is. Everybody goes crazy and strips naked. They get drunk in the sun and they are happy. Until they get too drunk. Then they are angry again.”

“Is it true,” asked a woman, “that men in your country ...” and she made a V-shape with her fingers and began to simulate oral sex. The other women with her cackled
uncontrollably.

“I’ll tell you this,” he replied, putting one foot on their stoop and pushing up the brim of his baseball cap, “whatever you ladies think, there are plenty of husbands
here who do it. Only they make their wives not tell anyone.” The women hooted. “You, for example,” he pointed to the youngest, who was covering her mouth. “Definitely
you.” Stifling giggles, she raised a finger in denial as the others pushed and poked her. Christmas straightened up. He saw Lola walking down the street eating a mango. He readied himself to
greet her. She threw the mango stone at his head.

Lola, undeniably, had a growing affection for Harry Christmas. In San Cristóbal, even this clumsy pink bear counted as exotic. His behaviour was certainly unusual. What
other man in this village always offered up his seat if she was lacking? Who else rushed to open doors for her, or thanked her for everything she did, however small? And he was funny. That morning
he had been in the kitchen, a ventriloquist singing English songs with fish heads for puppets. Even the old man had joined in, clapping and banging on the floor.

Lola was wearing a brightly-coloured wrap-around dress, hair pulled back against her head, face sparkling with make-up. All the women dressed up on Saturday night. The village had three bars and
they were all open, people crowding them inside and out, drinking rum and beer, playing cards and pool on uneven tables. As he watched Lola saunter off into a group of friends, he was beckoned to a
stoop where the fishermen from his first walk around San Cristóbal were drinking Cuba Libres from plastic cups,
Vallenato
shaking the house behind.

“
Epalé
! Hey, brother!” they welcomed him. “Sit down, sit down.” Orlando, Gabriel and Ricardo shook his hand, pulled him down and they all sat there,
spitting, drinking and watching the village alive.

“So,” asked Gabriel, “have you—” and he made an obscene gesture with his fingers, “with Lola again yet?
Hoch-too
.”

“No.”

“
Verga
! Why not, brother?
Hoch-too
.”

“For some reason, women don’t think hanging from a tree covered in vomit is very romantic.” The men collapsed over each other with laughter. “But you’re working on
it, right?” Christmas smiled. They all slapped him on the back.

“Good luck, brother. And if nothing happen, no problem. Plenty of women here, and they all like you. We hear them talking.
Hoch-too
.”

“Yes, man – don’t worry. We support the English team,
oíste
?”

“Roo-ney,” said Ricardo, pointing at him.

“Beck-ham,” said Orlando.

“George Best, more like,” said Christmas. They gave him a blank look.

“Can you dance salsa?”

“No.”

“Oooo,” they crowed in a low tone of disapproval, biting on tongues and shaking their heads. “If you want a Venezuelan woman, brother –
hoch-too
– you must
learn salsa. If you can’t dance with her, what’s she going to do? She’s going to dance with someone else.”

“Tonight we go to the disco. It’s just over there. Everybody goes. You coming, brother?”

“No,” replied Christmas, “Absolutely not.”

The disco was a youth club that had once been a basketball court. Roofed above the bar but otherwise open to the night, couples with expressionless faces simulated sex to
calypso music. Men and women of all ages crowded the tables, lined the walls and filled the street outside. They danced through the steam of cigarette smoke, bright ends blinking in the dark. The
music was so loud Christmas felt as if the beat was trying to take over his heart.

He sat with his companions a little way off from the dance floor. They had a bucket of Cuba Libre bobbing with ice and lime, from which they scooped full their plastic glasses. Christmas watched
them drink. He was given a glass of Coca-Cola. Again and again giggling women of all ages tried to pull Christmas onto the dance floor but he refused. He watched his friends dance. The steps were
simple but there was something too unfamiliar in the rhythm. He thought he’d look like a fool.

The music changed from calypso to soca and then to salsa. The younger ones sat down and the older generation stood up. Christmas felt some ice hit him in the chest. Lola had arrived with her
girls.

“
Verga
– why aren’t you dancing, gringo?”

“Because I have already suffered enough embarrassment in this village for one lifetime.”

She blew a note of disagreement through tightened lips. “Rubbish,” she said, scooping her glass into the bucket while his friends nudged him in the ribs.

“Christ alive, it’s like being a fucking teenager,” he mumbled in English. Lola and her group sat down on a nearby bench. Man after drunken man asked her to dance. She waved
her finger, tutting ‘no’. Ricardo asked her and he watched her pout towards him. The man returned slapping him on the shoulder. “OK, brother. Now you have to help me.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she would dance with me, OK? But only if you dance.
Hoch-too
.”

“With her?”

“She said she doesn’t want to dance with you.” Christmas deflated. “Anyway she says you won’t because you’re a coward.”

“What!” Christmas looked over. Lola bared her teeth at him with a smile. He tightened his lips and blew a note of disbelief. “Dammit,” he grumbled, “Dammit all to
hell.” Christmas stood up. His friends cheered. He walked over to Lola’s bench and bent his face down close to hers.

“Hello, gringo.”

“Good evening.”

“Do you want to say something?”

“Yes. Would you –” and he turned to the women next to her “– like to dance with me?” Lola sucked her teeth. “What’s your name?” he
continued.

“Beatriz,” said the woman.

“Harry,” he replied and he lead her off to the middle of the dance floor, followed by Lola and Ricardo. He felt very pleased with himself, but his moment of victory soon dissolved.
Everyone was looking at him. They were laughing. He had no idea how to dance salsa. He held Beatriz’s hip. He held her hand. He wobbled about a bit. Beatriz was biting her lip, giggling,
trying to guide him. He looked at Lola, and she cocked her eyebrow. “It’s like a nightmare,” he whispered to himself, “a waking bloody nightmare.”

“
Como
?” said Beatriz. Christmas didn’t reply. He carried on tottering unevenly to the trumpets and drums as best he could, praying for the end of the song. He closed his
eyes. When he opened them again, a child was dancing beside him, doing an impression of his efforts. Overcome with this excuse to stop dancing, Christmas let go of Beatriz and chased the kid around
the dance floor to the whoops of the crowd. He caught the kid and tickled him without mercy. Sheeting with sweat, Christmas returned to his bench. He fanned himself with his hat and ran ice cubes
across his face and neck. With the confidence of having accepted her challenge, he tried to talk to Lola. She sucked her teeth and turned away.

“Hey, brother,” nudged Ricardo, “why didn’t you ask Lola to dance?”

“But she told you she didn’t want to dance with me.”

“Gringo,” he said, pouring Christmas another Coke, “you don’t know nothing about women.”

At that moment a scream went up beside them. A fight had broken out and a group of women were running out the way. Two men had each other by the T-shirt, throwing wide punches. They fell onto
the floor. Others tried to pull them apart. One wrestled free from the pack, picked up a length of wood and dodged around the side, swinging it into the other man’s face. It cracked into him
with a sound so sickening it stopped the fight. The unconscious man was lying in the dirt, surrounded, while the other was pinned up against the fence, men shouting into his face. Christmas watched
the loose body be picked up and carried away as other scuffles started, calmed, then started again. The music stopped. Everyone was shouting.

“Always the same,” said Lola beside him. “I’m going home.” He followed her out into the quiet of the village, people buzzing past them to get in on the action. The
night creaked with crickets.

“So,” he started, “you don’t have a boyfriend?” He couldn’t believe the stupidity of his question.

“Do you know,” she said, “the last boyfriend I had said he wanted to marry me –
si, Señor
– and he proposed to me, and when he proposed to me, he got
my name wrong. Not just a little bit wrong. Completely wrong.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. ‘Ah’.”

When they arrived home, Lola stopped at the doorway. The old man was on the sofa, stuffing white crumbs of crack into the end of his rough cigar. His hands were shaking. He hadn’t noticed
them.

Christmas expected Lola to start shouting and explode into the room, but she didn’t. She watched him hold a flame to it, inhale, hold the smoke, let it out through his nostrils, his face
licked with pleasure. Then he began to cough, an ugly cough that chipped and tore things out of him. Tears were running down her cheeks.

C
hristmas dreamed he was at an old friend’s house that was somehow also a pub. Emily was there but she was different. She was taller, with
long blond hair. She was in a glamorous dress and came out of a room with another man whom he didn’t recognise but then later in the dream became Simon, his business partner when he ran a
travel agency. Simon, his staunch friend and drinking companion, whom he had finally driven away by insulting his wife and children. Simon, who no longer accepted his calls, to whom he still owed
several thousand pounds, was smiling with forgiveness. Christmas was overjoyed. He rushed over to greet them.

“Simon and I are getting married,” she told him as his guts screwed into a jealous ball. “He’s good for me.”

On Sunday there was a storm. The mountains disappeared and the horizon came forward onto the quayside. Out of the haze, rain littered the ground before it beat the roofs,
silencing everything. They gathered at the doors to watch it rearrange the earth and bring that brewed stench of regions in the sky that filter black space. They monitored the water level in the
yard. They rescued clothes and machines.

The electricity still worked so, beneath the clatter, they watched television with the volume up high. Some senior officials in the state-run
Mercal
, the distribution network for free and
cut-price food for the poor, had been arrested on corruption charges.