Unforgiving Years (43 page)

The horses trotted down a narrow lane of emerald green. It could have been the entrance to a labyrinth of vegetation. On both sides tall, rigid cacti raised airy walls traversed by light and breeze, bristling on every side with nasty spines … Planted this way, these
órgano
cacti were used to fence-in yards. The stony soil was red as rust. There was to be no labyrinth; the countryside opened out, or rather the desert, surrounded in the distance by a broken line of glinting arid peaks … Makeshift crosses leaned here and there by the side of the track. Don Gamelindo remarked, “Our ‘little dead.’ All in the prime of youth. Quick little bullet, quick little death. Youth must have its day,
verdad
?”

The graves took up very little space under the brilliance of the morning sun. To their left shone the Lagoon, like a sheet of quicksilver.

“It’s not like this in your country, Señorita?” inquired Don Gamelindo, easy and heavy in the saddle, barely remembering back to when he was young himself, lying in wait at sundown behind these rocks to settle family scores with the Menéndezes … He was a better shot than any of them, shooting only when he was sober, whereas they would drink before an ambush, boasting that mezcal sharpened their eyesight. Big mistake. “May God forgive them!” The tombs of the three Menéndezes — Felipe, Blas, and Tranquilino — had long since disappeared, and in the mind of their now-respectable assassin the memory of those treacherous Sunday evening gunfights had become depersonalized into a tale of manly murder among others … Folks nowadays are going soft, there are too many laws, the slightest brawl makes headline news because reporters —
¡Hijos de puta!
— need to earn their tortillas and greasy refried beans … Don Gamelindo jogged along, lively yet unhappy to be growing old in an aging world … In some faraway land, for a woman like this — and young! — a few skulls must lie buried by the side of the road … This thought made him swivel gracefully in the saddle toward the woman riding behind him.

“In my country,” Daria answered, “there was the war … And if, in my country, we were to plant little crosses by the wayside for every murder victim, they would spread over the immensity of the continent to the horizons, to the pole …” Even at this image, Daria remained smiling, because her joy — trotting through these spaces of pure barrenness, pure sunlight — was stronger than all else, was pure.

Don Gamelindo encouraged his mount with a soft cluck of the tongue.

“I heard about that,” he said. “The war between the Jews and the Nazis. War is impious. God preserve us from wars and revolutions, eh, Señorita?”

By luck, Daria’s horse made a bound forward, so she didn’t have to answer him.

* * *

The sierra was becoming more and more torrid; the lake gleamed like molten metal in a crucible. They rode through the fiery monotony without talking, without thinking, without dreaming, with no sensation other than the furnace above them. The plantation came into view, an oasis of green. They entered the enclosure, a wall of rough stones. They saw a man in white standing under a cluster of big, smooth-barked trees nearly bare of leaves but sprouting white flowers. Hands on hips, he was overseeing the work of two half-naked Indians as they shoveled earth from a trench. From behind Daria’s eyes floated the memory of an illustration from a childhood book or perhaps a propaganda manual: “The Planter and His Slaves.” The planter turned toward them. He raised a hand in greeting. A floppy palm-fiber hat obscured much of his face. Not until they were three steps apart did Sacha and Daria recognize each other, and the look they exchanged was so fraught with apprehension that they had to feign joy at seeing each other, force themselves to smile while shaking hands as though they had parted the day before. The presence of Don Gamelindo, far from being an encumbrance, made it easier for both of them to put the right face on things.

Bruno Battisti’s first thoughts were: Why is she here? To kill me? Unlikely after all these years. I sank into obscurity, I kept quiet. To escape herself? Then she’s probably being followed. Women are never rational enough about covering their tracks. It’s her they’ll be after, but they’ll throw us in for free. Nothing could be easier, in this place … Accustomed to ordinary, everyday dangers, but long out of the habit of those mysteriously organized threats that close in out of nowhere to ensnare you, he shuddered. “Is it really you?” he said to Daria. “What a happy surprise …” “Sacha, I’ve run away,” Daria whispered, aware of his fears, yet ecstatic — as if a cup of joy, downed in one draft, was going to her head. “Don’t look at me like that, there’s nothing to be afraid of …” (Not that assurances made any difference!) His gray eyes brightened the way they used to. He shrugged his shoulders; older, stronger, sunburned.

“That’s magnificent, my friend. Here you’ll be safe. Life. The desert. See how beautiful it is.”

From the height of his velvet-and-silver-decorated saddle, Don Gamelindo, framed in sunlight and by looming green shrubbery, smiled down at them like a grinning Chinese mask. To Daria, back in her picture book, he was the image of their master: “The Foreigner, the Planter, and the Great Cacique.” Banana trees bent their fronds over tumescent fruit. Coffee bushes climbed the slopes. At the end of the avenue of greenery appeared a plain white house surrounded by slender palms. “Please, don’t say anything upsetting in front of Noémi. She’s very vulnerable,” said Bruno Battisti.

“Please dismount, Don Gamelindo, and come see my improvements! We’re piping water in, and building a reservoir …” All that could be seen of the two men digging the trench was their bronze backs, gleaming with perspiration. Spadefuls of ferrous earth, as if tinged with blood, landed noiselessly at the horses’ feet. Daria, in her sad ecstasy, thought of a grave. An Indian led the horses away. Don Gamelindo was saying, “You should finish that reservoir. The rains are coming and the earth is parched. There were clouds over El Águila just now … A good sign.”

He crushed tender coffee leaves between his fingers and smelled them, raising a connoisseur’s eyebrow.

“Healthy plant, that, and the right species of Uruapan … Did you hear, Don Bruno, about what happened at Pozo Viejo the other week? Basilio Tronco killed young Alejo Reyes … That’s more trouble in the making. The Troncos have sent a calf to the chairman of the town council.”

“Ah,” said Bruno simply.

“And in San Blas, the youngest Álvarez girl has got engaged to the son of the lawyer Carbajo. You’re invited to the fiesta.”

“Please thank them for me. I’ll do my best to attend.”

Don Gamelindo took a moment to reflect on what further news was worth sharing.

“Yes … Sunday’s cockfight, you know old Tigre, well he killed the other one in seven minutes flat. I was eleven pesos the richer for it! I knew to bet on the old bruiser, even if he’s only got one eye. He’s crafty, that’s what it is. Not a cock to match him in the country. The loser was Dorado, Don Arnulfo’s little strutter. Evil-tempered, I always said so, but no good at pacing himself, too impetuous on the attack … You’ve got to be able to tell if a young cock’s got the brains, haven’t you, same as with a growing lad, true or not true?”

“True.”

“The fountain’s dried up in the square. People are fetching water from the lake, and there’s sickness about. At least I’ve got my well, though it cost me an arm and a leg.”

“Of course.”

All the news having been told, they fell silent. Great big black-and-yellow butterflies were flying in pairs through the warm air.

Noémi came toward them on the terrace. She had hardly changed: calm, the eyes perhaps a little larger, the sockets deeper; wearing a white embroidered Indian shift. She gave Daria a hug.

“I knew you’d come. Bruno didn’t believe me, he never does.”

“How could you have known, my love?”

“Through Doña Luz. She knows secrets. I don’t trust anyone else … We should be afraid right now, because she is, I can tell … I’m always afraid and I’m happy, would you believe it?”

* * *

The question was hanging so obviously in the air between them that Bruno Battisti gave voice to it himself: “So, what has become of me?” His eyes narrowed. He raised his hand and pointed to the contours of the lake and of the mountain. He began: “Listen to me, my friend. The plantation lives by the rhythm of seasons different from those of Europe. Our one earth has many faces. Here life is ruled by two primordial divinities: Fire and Water, Sun and Rain. They are the true mother-deities. The ancient brown race once adored them with a robust sense of reality. The Indios still bow to the maize on entering the field they are about to harvest, and I know they sometimes fertilize the soil with human semen. In the past, they used to regale the gods with their own flesh, their own blood, something which made unimpeachable sense: one nourishment for another, and all nourishment is terrestrial … They drowned small children in this lake so that the god of the water would allow for a plentiful crop. They tore out the hearts of prisoners and offered them up, still beating, so that a fortified sun would be sure to prevail over the darkness. You’ll note that the Nahua were not terribly confident of the power of the sun, whereas they lived in awe of the destructive forces, harboring an exaggerated respect for them rather like ours in some ways … They lived in an unstable cosmos, as we live in an unstable humanity armed with cosmic powers … I subscribe to a modern meteorological service whose bulletins are useless, for they always arrive too late. My real weatherman is Lame Pánfilo, a fellow who can read the path of storms and predict the coming of the rains … When he’s too drunk, I patiently await what no one can change.

“There’s the dry season, when the highlands become a yellow desert. During that time, only the cactuses survive, thanks to their bitter energy and what scarce moisture is condensed by the night … Proof that a humble, resistant victory is nearly always possible, even if it amounts to little more than holding out. There’s the rainy season, when huge clouds gathered over the Pacific suddenly burst open, raining tempests and lightning down over the thirsty land, fertilizing it with magnificent violence. Torrents spill gleaming down the mountain, the lake overflows its banks, life begins to ferment in the soil — where it was only suspended — and in the rocks themselves, if you believe your eyes. The storms calmed and the downpours spent, the green season arrives. From here to the farthest peaks, the country is nothing but an empire of rising sap. Every bit of basalt has its crown of greenery and flowers sprung from lifeless aridity. It’s the miracle of resurrection, like when the snows melt in our cold countries … For months there was nothing to see but a dried-up desert; who could guess that beneath the calcined ground, millions of invincible seeds were concealed, ready to germinate. We observe that the true power is not that of darkness, of barrenness, but of life. All that exists cries, whispers, or sings that we must never despair, for true death does not exist.

“The fire in the sky first blesses the sap, the loves of insects and birds, the euphoria of the herds, the darting quickness of tadpoles in the ponds … Then the fire in the sky turns to a burning hardness, as though the gods were reminding creation that no euphoria can last and that existence is not just the exultation of being; existence is also ordeal, courage, blind tenacity, hidden resourcefulness. The heavens’ severity becomes an outburst of angry luminescence, a vast fierce rapture insensible to being, destructive of beings, sufficient to itself, blazing, mindless, and superb.

“The herds graze the last yellowed grasses, which rasp their throats … Here at the plantation, the perennial problem is water. I drilled a well. The streams dry up … When all else fails I have to get water from the lake, an exhausting job for my peons. You see, the earth is dying of thirst at the water’s edge. And yet we’ve accomplished the miracle of rescuing this small piece of it. After the coffee is picked, I climb into my old Ford and go into town. I make just enough to live on and to order a few books from New York … I could easily get rich, like others do, lending to the poor against the next harvest and stockpiling maize and sugarcane against the inevitable rise in prices. The idea made me ashamed, and I chose instead to pass for a fool. Living among wolves, it would be reasonable to learn how to howl and bite like the wolves, but I preferred another fate, a more dangerous one I suppose because here as everywhere, a kind of sentence weighs upon the man who tries to be a bit more human than the general lot … I won’t pretend I wasn’t tempted to overcome this repugnance and make money so as to return to Europe when Europe is once again the continent of the most amazing germinations. These must come after the desert seasons. We shall see ideas, forces, men, and works sprouting up from the graveyards, no matter the rot and decay … Well, either I’ll never go back, or I’ll go back penniless and old, which is worse, to end in the midst of beginnings.

“Tropical countries are full of aging men who still remember having followed dreams, wanting to become artists, scientists, discoverers, revolutionaries, reformers, sages! But one day they said to themselves: Let’s make some money first, otherwise we’re powerless. And it was all the easier because it was diving into another powerlessness. They became wealthy; disillusioned with themselves and hence with everything, they frittered their lives away in gilding their cages, while a cynical bitterness grew within them. The best of them keep up subscriptions to high-minded journals of literature or theosophy, as a reminder of extinguished passions … They play bridge and continue to speculate in real estate and commodity values, largely out of habit … I know some of these men. We’ve smoked sad cigars together in good restaurants, pontificating about the war — not without flashes of insight. I’ve stopped seeing them, because some of them stupidly admire a dead revolution. They depend on it like an injection to prolong their final breathing.

“I work my peons and pay them well; they steal from me well too, but within reason; they’re aware that I know about it, but not that I judge them to be in the right. If I paid them any more, they’d lose motivation and the local powers would brand me a public menace … I’m up at sunrise, the dawns here are as fresh as the first day of creation. I supervise all the work … In the evening I lie in my hammock with a few books and newspapers, the papers several days old but it makes no difference, filled as they are with layers of lies and nonsense … In books, though, you may still encounter living men. I don’t much care for the literary fabrications in vogue today: they too often feed on baseness, cultivating a false despair. Genuine despair would disdain royalties. Why write, why read, if not to offer, to find, a larger image of life, an image of man as deep as the problems that make up his greatness? I prefer reading scientific works, they have more imagination, they induce in me a sense of dizzying precision.