Dance of the Dwarfs (4 page)

“For the honor of the house a horse must not be lost,” Mario insisted. “I shall put them, if the master permits, in the hall.”

I shrugged my shoulders and told him to go ahead. The hall is a ruin with hardly any roof, but it has four stout walls, a solid door and shuttered windows.

While the rest of the party were drinking rotgut and helping Teresa to pluck the duck, Captain Valera and I opened up the whisky which the Administration had sent me—presumably knowing that I might have visitors and wishing to reinforce my goodwill. I found Valera a delightful and intelligent companion. He had chosen to serve in the vast wastelands of Colombia and was supported in discomfort and hardship by a vision of what his country could become. He was the type of idealist who might well have joined the revolutionaries in the Cordillera, but he loathed them and their methods. They might, he admitted, bring more social justice to the Indian and the laborer, but then would stick fast in the mess of their doctrinaire economics, and take fifty years, like the Russians, to arrive at the same point that Western democracies had reached in thirty.

He knew all about the Mission and was enthusiastic over what he called my self-sacrifice. I explained that I hadn't any, that in me scientific curiosity took the place of patriotism in him. We were both doing what we most wanted to do.

“And what about women?” he asked. “Forgive me—but I don't see one.”

I replied that I was not too sure of government regulations. Laws for the protection of the Indians did exist, though they were somewhat starry-eyed and unenforceable. So I preferred to avoid illegalities which could be used against me if anyone wanted to stop my work.

I may have sounded prim, and he smiled at what he thought typical Englishness.

“I wonder Mario and Teresa haven't shoved something in your bed already,” he said.

“It would have to be pitch dark,” I answered. “The only possible candidate has not much nose left.”

He said that he might be able to do better for me than that. If I didn't like it, I could return it by government canoe. He would let me know.

I hope he does nothing of the sort. The casual way in which Latin Americans pass secondhand females to each other is inclined to inhibit desire. As soon as the rains come, I shall fly up to Bogotá and fornicate more artistically.

Teresa was using her longest spit for the duck and needed wood as well as charcoal, so we had to wait some time for our meal. Meanwhile Valera opened up the subject of his visit.

It appeared that guerilla activity had been spotted from the air before the commando could disperse and vanish into the foothills. The General Staff was not in the least bothered about an advance southeastwards in our direction which could get nowhere and occupy nothing. The guerrilleros might as well put out to sea. But since they had never come down to the llanos before, Military Intelligence was curious.

So Valera had been ordered to ask questions wherever there was any articulate soul along the banks of the Guaviare to answer them. He had called at Santa Eulalia and talked to Pedro, who had denied any knowledge of guerrilleros but had spoken of the mysterious doings of the Englishman at the estancia and his unknown visitors.

I said that I did very occasionally give hospitality to travelers who might be Marxists or horse thieves or Venezuelans on the run for all I knew. It was the custom in Argentina to keep open house and ask no questions, and I presumed that Colombian courtesies were the same.

That satisfied Valera. After all, no one could talk to me for long without realizing that I have no politics. I was determined not to mention my suspicions of the llaneros' cattle market. I shall not give away Valera's secrets either.

While we ate he told me plenty. His second task was to report on whether a small, airborne force could attack from this side and startle the revolutionaries into retiring further north where troops from Bogotá could get at them. After returning to his temporary headquarters he intended to do some mapping with this operation in mind. I advised him to leave his mapping for another month when the rains would reveal unexpected lakes and creeks. I could imagine his handful of troops boldly attacking some guerrilla outpost and finding too late that there was a sluggish river hidden in a fold of the ground.

He asked why I suspected that there was any guerrilla activity so far east. I could only answer that Pedro and the llaneros had told me so.

“That's a lot more than they ever told me,” he said.

I was saved from what might have been awkward interrogation by Mario and Teresa coming in to clear away and to report that the troops had gone over to their former cabin for the night.

Across the garden I could hear singing and general jollity. A red glow suspended in blackness showed that the five men had started to grill a second supper in the chimney. I knew that they had a plentiful supply of rum to go with it. It seemed a pity that Mario and Teresa, whose life was so lonely, should not join the party.

“Can any of your fellows play a guitar?” I asked Valera.

“My sergeant. Like an angel.”

I told Mario to drop everything and take Teresa and my guitar over to the other side of the garden, leaving us to look after ourselves.

He would not, though I could see he longed to. I was exasperated by his fear of the dark.

“Look, friend Mario, there are no duendes who can stand an electric torch!” I exclaimed. “It is as good as the sign of the cross. I will see you both over to your old house.”

He sulked but had to agree. Valera came as well, assuring him that duendes invariably respected his rank and uniform.

We stayed long enough to listen to a song and then relieved them of our presence so that they would be less inhibited. Teresa, as befitted a respectable matron, had withdrawn to the doorway of the next room—a shawl-shrouded figure with a black grin. Mario was becoming noisy. It was clear that I had done the right thing.

“Why wouldn't they go?” Valera asked when we had settled down for a last whisky before turning in. “Snakes? Or is this place haunted?”

I was surprised that he should accept the possibility so naturally. But he had an open mind and he probably knew deserted plantations on the riverbanks where there is something one might call an aura of despair and death.

“Not in the least. Thoroughly cheerful,” I said. “It must be the result of their loneliness before I came. In the forest I should not blame Mario. If a man is superstitious and cannot put a name to the night sounds, there is no place which is not haunted.”

“But here—” he made a magnificent Latin gesture to describe emptiness and knocked his glass over “—we have no companions but the stars.”

“That's what I feel myself,” I answered. “The forest is on our doorstep but we are not of it. Like a cinema screen. So near, so different a life, such limited values. And we observe it all from our seats.”

I was pleased with that. I usually approach truth through wine, not whisky.

This morning they rode back to Santa Eulalia. Valera intends to return to his headquarters and then run up to Bogotá to report. I think his party should travel in civilian dress, but they will all flaunt their uniforms. I know nothing of the military art, but personally I should never employ a Latin American on any secret mission. I wonder if the National Liberation Army can do better. Perhaps that is one of the ingredients of such success as they have.

[
March 23, Wednesday
]

Today I rode Estrellera over to Santa Eulalia and spent an hour or two with Pedro—ostensibly to buy rice and cans of sardines of which Mario and Teresa are very fond. Shortage of fats, probably. I have seen Teresa with an oily sardine in one hand and a sticky sweet in the other, quivering with delight at the sensation in her potbelly and regardless of the mess on her face.

Pedro is a curious character, fairly honest and utterly unimaginative—the typical corporal. One could not wish for a more useful companion in forest or on the llano; if there was anything edible about, he would climb for it, shoot it or dig it out. But it would be hard to stand his continual chatter. I should get so tired of the rise and fall of his scanty moustache that I should be tempted to pay him to shave it off. He would, too—on condition that everyone believed he had done it to please me and not for money.

Money. He'll need two crates to carry it to the bank when he retires: filthy little bits of paper and packets of small change. As a favor to him I took a sack of the stuff with me the last time I flew to Bogotá. He is not a miser. He knows what interest is, but wouldn't dream of charging it on debts at the store and small loans. He has not the aimlessness of his fellow citizens. He intends to buy a bar in some poor but honest quarter of Bogotá.

His wife looks after his capital and hides it away in small flour bags, reciting a spell over every cache. She is a pure Indian who never says much. She wouldn't have a chance anyway, since Pedro uses her as an audience when he can't find a better. All their children died young. On these over-violent llanos death in one's twenties is more common.

The store was empty. It always is till evening. Over the second rotgut Pedro said to me dramatically:

“One of these days I shall pop a shot in my head.”

He never will, but the fact that he can say it separates him from Indians and llaneros. For them suicide is just as impossible as for an animal. Their business is to live. They have no other.

“And why is that, friend?” I asked.

“Politics.”

“They don't concern us here. Did Captain Valera want you to go along with him?”

No, no, he insisted. As the agent of Government he was too valuable where he was. A gallant officer such as Captain Valera knew the worth of a reliable ex-corporal at his post.

I think it likely that Valera was taken in. Pedro can play the old soldier very well. But I know that he is at least on speaking terms with guerrilla leaders, and that he tried to suggest the estancia as the cause of any rumors that Valera might have heard.

In view of what goes on at his store, his nerves ought to be proof against anything. But he is never in personal danger. He
is
Santa Eulalia. Without him it would have no official existence. Put it this way. Footballers assault each other, but not the referee. They are aware that if they had no referee, they would be left with only a field: a small, dull, flat llano.

So Pedro's courage—unquestionable in matters of survival and sheer endurance—has never been tested by worries. With one hand he performed his minimal duties to the State; with the other he took a small subvention from the guerrillas. It looked as if that could go on forever in his apathetic world. Valera's appearance was unexpected and alarming.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Who is going to win?”

“The government, of course. There are only a hundred of the others.”

“But more can come from Cuba. Where is this Cuba exactly?”

“An island twelve hundred miles away.”

“It is said that everyone is equal there.”

“So we are here.”

“But in the cities, too, over there. Think of it, friend! If the guerrillas capture Bogotá they will give money to the poor so that everyone is equal.”

He was off. He drew an eloquent picture of Utopia which I swear must have been influenced by some army chaplain's description of the joys of heaven. He left out harps and glassy sea, but gave me a clear impression of a smiling population sitting around listening to brass bands while shining Pedros marched up and down the main street. This stuff could certainly tickle the imaginations of the submerged Indian peons, release from hell in this life being a more substantial promise than release from hell in the next. By giving food to the partisans as well as money to the priests one could take out real comprehensive insurance.

“But do you believe it, Pedro?” I asked.

“I? Not I! There will always be rich and poor, officers and men.”

That was not put on to impress me with his loyalty to the government. It was his sincere common-sense opinion. The world's middle class of corporals distrust revolution.

“Then what are you worrying about?”

“Such cruelty! They take no prisoners, shooting them in the back and cutting their throats and worse! Crucifying them with their toes in an ant's nest! Making them sit on sharp bamboos till at last the end comes out of their mouths!”

He was away again—more ants, alligators, skinning with blunt machetes, anything he could think of.

I knew very well that while he was talking about prisoners he was thinking of traitors. So I reinforced his neutrality by assuring him that the army was just as cruel. I doubt if it is, except in rare cases of revenge. I also suspect that most of the rumors of guerrilla atrocities are set going by themselves. More borrowings from the Church. Threaten the opposition with devils, fire and pitchforks, and they'll behave!

“Thank God I do not mix myself in their quarrels!” he said. “And I advise you not to. I, Pedro, advise you.”

“Me? I'm a Government Servant! With the friends I have in high places in Bogotá it would be quite impossible.”

So it is. But I reserve the right to talk to guerrilleros if I want to until such time as they are deservedly wiped out. In a village—a true, tiled village—of the Cordillera that might be irresponsible. But here any humanity is welcome. Neither politics nor religion can override the claims of hospitality.

“You will tell your friends when you go to Bogotá?” Pedro asked anxiously. “You will tell them that I think only of my duty?”

Poor Pedro! Being questioned by Valera has let in the blank. I wonder how far he has committed himself. My guess is that he merely told a few of the wilder llaneros that if they were to drive cattle to some known landmark they wouldn't be the worse for it.

The llaneros live as best they can. The right way to look at them is not as cattlemen at all, but as hunters and conservers of semi-wild beasts. Since they have not received any wages for years they keep going by eating beef and rather reluctantly supplying—over vast distances—small herds to anyone who will pay cash. The identity of the customer does not interest them. Pedro could plead absolute ignorance that the cattle were being sold to guerrillas. The trouble is that nobody would believe him for long.