Raised from the Ground Page 8

  Sometimes when people get married, there’s already a baby on the way. The priest blesses the couple and the blessing falls on three, not two, as you can see by the sometimes quite prominent bump beneath the woman’s skirt. But even when that isn’t the case, whether the bride is a virgin or not, it would be very unusual for a year to pass without a child being born. And if God so wills it, it’ll be one child out, another one in, for as soon as the woman gives birth, she falls pregnant again. They’re real brutes these people, ignorant, worse than animals, because animals aren’t in heat all the time, they follow the laws of nature. But these men arrive home from work or from the inn, get into bed, their blood inflamed by the smell of their wife or by the wine they’ve drunk or by the sexual appetite that comes with tiredness, and they get on top of her, they don’t know any other way, they huff and puff, they’re not exactly subtle, and leave their sap to soak in the mucous membrane inside the woman’s incomprehensibly intricate innards. This is a good thing, better than going with other women, but the family is growing, more and more children are born, because they don’t take precautions, Mama, I’m hungry, the proof that God does not exist lies in the fact that he did not make men sheep so that they could eat the grass in the fields, or pigs so that they could eat acorns. But even if they did eat acorns and grass, they couldn’t do so in peace, because there’s always a warden or the guards around, with eye and rifle cocked, and if the warden, in the name of Norberto’s lands, doesn’t shoot you in the leg or kill you right off, the guards, who will do the same if they’re ordered to, or even if they’re not, can choose the more benign options of prison, a fine and a beating. But this, ladies and gentlemen, is a bowl of cherries, you pull out one and three or four come out together, there are even estates that have their own private prison and their own penal code. Justice is done every day on the latifundio, what would become of us if the authorities weren’t here.

  The family grows, though many children die of diarrhea, dissolving in their own shit, poor little angels, snuffed out like candles, with arms and legs more like twigs than anything else, their bellies distended, until the moment comes and they open their eyes for the last time to see the light of day, unless they die in the dark, in the silence of the hovel, and when the mother wakes and finds her child dead, she starts to scream, always the same scream, these women whose children have died aren’t capable of inventing anything, they’re speechless. As for the fathers, they say nothing and, the following night, go to the taberna looking as if they’re ready to kill someone or something. They come back drunk, having killed nothing and no one.

  The men go far away to work, wherever they can earn some money. At bottom they’re all itinerants, they go here and there, and come home weeks or months later to make another child. Meanwhile, as they labor on the cork plantations, watched by the overseers, each drop of sweat is a drop of spilled blood, and the wretches suffer all day and sometimes all night as well, counting the number of hours worked on the fingers of three hands, except when they have to resort to a fourth hand, like the four-legged beasts they are, to count the rest, their clothes don’t dry on their backs for a whole two weeks. To rest, if such a word can be used in the circumstances, they lie down on beds of heather with some straw on top of them, and, dirty and bruised, they moan all night, it’s quite wrong, how can they believe in Father Agamedes when they see him coming back from his Sunday lunch at Floriberto’s house. Judging from the loud belch that echoes around the estate, it was a very good lunch indeed.

  This is the power of the heavens. It is, besides, an oft-repeated story. The men are in the hut, exhausted, still clothed, some are sleeping, others can’t sleep at all, and through the gaps in the cane walls there enters a never-before-seen light, the morning is still far off, so it’s not the morning light, one of the men goes outside and stands frozen with fear, because the whole sky is a shower of stars, falling like lanterns, and the earth is lit more brightly than by any moonlight. Everyone comes out to look, some are really terrified, and the stars fall silently, the world is going to end, or perhaps begin at last. One man, with a reputation as a sage, says, When the stars are restless, so is the earth. They are standing close together, looking up, their heads right back, and they receive on their grubby faces the luminous dust from the falling stars, an incomparable rain that leaves the earth with a different and much greater thirst. And a rather dim laborer who passed through there the following day swore on his mother’s life that those celestial signs were announcing that in a ruined shepherd’s hut, three leagues from there, a child had been born of another mother, probably not a virgin, a child who couldn’t be said to be Jesus Christ only because he had been baptized with another name. No one believed him, and that general skepticism aided Father Agamedes, who, on the following Sunday in a church unusually full and abuzz with excitement, mocked the fools who believe that Jesus will return to the earth just like that, I, your priest, am here to tell you what he would say, I have my holy orders and instructions and am mandated by the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, do you hear, because if you can’t, I’ll open another ear on the top of your head.

  He was quite right, that wise man who predicted that if the stars are restless, then the earth will be too, the Abyssinians were the first to confirm this, immediately followed by the Spaniards, and later by half the world. Here, the earth is moving according to the old customs. Saturday comes and brings with it the market, but so poorly stocked that it’s hard to know how one will fill next week’s lunch sacks, it makes you shudder to think of it. A woman went to the grocer and said, Can I owe you for this week’s groceries, we’ve had a terrible week because of the bad weather. Or she would say the same thing in different words, but starting in the same way, Can I owe you for this week’s groceries, there was no work this week and my husband hasn’t earned a thing. Or perhaps, staring shamefaced at the counter, like someone with not a penny more to her name, Sir, my husband will earn more come the summer, then he’ll sort things out with you and pay what he owes. And the grocer, thumping his account book with his fist, would reply, Don’t come to me with that old story, I’ve heard it before, the summer comes and goes and the dog will still be barking, because debts are like dogs, a funny idea, I wonder who first thought of it, this is a people who come up with these sharp, urgent images, they imagine the account book of the grocer or the baker, the large numbers written in pencil, this much and this much, yes, it’s like a small, soft puppy that can grow into a beast with wolf’s teeth, last year’s still unpaid debt, Pay up or I’ll cancel your credit, But my children are hungry, and some are ill, my husband has no work, where can we find money, Too bad, you get nothing without paying for it. Everywhere the dogs are barking, we can hear them at the doors, they pursue those who can’t pay, bite their shins, bite their souls, and the grocer comes out into the street and says loudly enough for everyone to hear, Tell your husband, and we know the rest. Some people peer out of their doors to see who is being shamed, a poor person’s malice, today it’s me, tomorrow it could be you, you can’t really blame them.

  When a man complains, it’s because something must be hurting him. We are complaining about this nameless cruelty, and it’s a pity it has no name, What will become of us today, this is all the money we have, and we’re weeks behind in paying, the grocer won’t give us any more credit, and every time I go there, he threatens to cut it off completely, not a penny more, Go and try again, the husband says, but that’s just for the sake of saying something, he doesn’t really have a stone for a heart, No, not on my own, I can’t face going through that door again, only if you come with me, Then we’ll both go, but men are not much good at these things, their job is to earn the money and the wife’s to make it stretch, besides, women are used to it, they protest, swear, bargain, cry, are capable even of falling to the floor, give the poor woman a drink of water, she’s fainted, but a man goes in there and he’s shaking, because he should be earning and he isn’t, because he should be keeping his family in f
ood and he isn’t, How can I do what I said I’d do when I married, Father Agamedes, tell me that. We reach the shop, and other customers are there, some are leaving, some are going in, not all are there simply to buy, and we keep getting pushed to the back of the queue, standing here in this corner next to a sack of beans, let’s hope he doesn’t think we’re going to steal it. Finally, the other customers have all gone, and we make our move, I, the man, step forward, my hands shaking, Senhor José, you were kind enough to give me some credit, but I can’t pay it all back today, I’ve had a dreadful week, but believe me, as soon as my earnings increase I’ll pay it back, then I won’t owe you a penny. Needless to say, these are not new words, they were spoken on the previous page, spoken on every page of the book that is the latifundio, how could one expect the answer to be any different, No, I won’t give you any more credit, but before the grocer said these words, his hand greedily snatched up the money I had put on the counter to placate him. And I said, with all the calm I could muster, and God knows that wasn’t much, Senhor José, don’t do this to me, how am I going to feed my children, have pity on me. And he said, I don’t want to know, I won’t give you any more credit, you already owe me a lot. And I said, Senhor José, please, at least give me something for the money you’ve taken from me, just so that I can give my children something to eat, until I can sort something out. And he said, I can’t give you any more, this money won’t pay even a quarter of what you owe me. He thumps the counter, defying me, and I make as if to hit him, perhaps with the strickle, or else to stick a knife in him, this penknife, or yes, this curved blade, this Moorish dagger, What are you doing, man, think of our children, take no notice of him, Senhor José, don’t take it the wrong way, such is the despair of the poor. I’m bundled toward the door, Let me go, woman, I’ll kill the bastard, but my thoughts are thinking, I won’t kill him, I don’t know how to kill, and from inside the shop he says, If I give credit to everyone and none of them ever pays me back, how will I live. We are all in the right, who, then, is my enemy.

  It’s because of these and other, similar deficiencies that we invent stories about hidden treasure, or search out ones that have been invented already, proof of a very ancient need, it’s nothing new. There are always warnings that must be attended to, one false move and the gold turns into a fish and the silver into smoke, or a man goes blind, it’s happened before. Some say that one cannot trust dreams, but if, on three consecutive nights, I dream of a treasure and tell no one about it nor about the place I saw in my dream, it’s certain that I’ll find it. But if I speak about it, I won’t, because treasures have their fate too, they can’t just be distributed as man wishes. There’s that old story about a girl who dreamed three times that on the branch of a particular tree she would find fourteen coins and beneath the tree’s roots a clay pot full of gold pieces. One should always believe these things even when they’re invented. The girl told her dream to her grandparents with whom she lived, and they went together to the tree. There on the branch were the fourteen coins, so half the dream had come true, but they didn’t want to dig down into the roots because it was a lovely tree, and with its roots exposed it would die, well, the heart has its reasons. Anyway, the news spread, no one knows how, and when she and her grandparents went back, having thought better of their scruples, they found the tree had been dug up and in the hole was a clay pot split in two, and nothing else. Either the gold had disappeared by magic or someone, less scrupulous or with a harder heart, had taken the treasure and made off with it. Anything is possible.

  A still clearer case is that of the two stone chests buried by the Moors, one containing gold and the other containing the plague. It is said that, fearful of opening the wrong chest, no one had had the courage to look for them. But if that’s true, how is it that the plague has spread throughout the world.

  JOÃO MAU-TEMPO AND FAUSTINA are married, a peaceful conclusion to the romantic episode which, on a rainy, overcast night in January, with no moon and no nightingales, in a tangle of half-unfastened clothes, satisfied the desires of both parties. They have three children. The oldest is a boy called António, who is the very image of his father, although he is of a stronger build and lacks his father’s blue eyes, which have not as yet reappeared, where can they have gone to. The other two are girls, as gentle and discreet as their mother was and continues to be. António Mau-Tempo is already working, he helps out keeping pigs, for he isn’t old enough nor his arms strong enough to do any heavier work. The foreman doesn’t treat him well, but that’s the custom in this place and this time, so don’t let’s get steamed up over nothing. As is also traditional, António Mau-Tempo’s lunch sack is light as a feather, a banquet consisting of half a mackerel and a hunk of maize bread. As soon as he leaves the house, the mackerel vanishes, because some hungers simply cannot wait, and his is a very old hunger. The bread is all he has left for the rest of the day, just a mouthful now and then, as he nibbles away at the crust, taking scrupulous care not to let a single crumb fall into the grass, where the ants, their noses in the air like dogs, are desperate to fill their stores with any leavings and leftovers. The foreman, in his role as foreman, would stand on a patch of bare ground and shout, Run over there, boy, and see to those animals on the other side, and António Mau-Tempo, like a small broom, would run around the herd of pigs as if he were a sheepdog. The foreman, now that someone else was doing all the work, passed the time picking ripe pine cones, which he would first roast and peel and then extract the kernels, which he would carefully toast and put away in his haversack, all the while enjoying the rustic peace of the lovely trees. The fire would glow red, the resin-scented pine cones would open in the heat of the fire, and if António Mau-Tempo, mouth watering, found a pine cone that had by chance fallen within sight of his yearning eyes, he quickly hid it, so that it didn’t immediately go to increase the other man’s wealth, as happened on a few dramatic occasions. Childhood has its just revenge. One day, near some wheatfields, when the foreman was engaged in roasting pine cones, he said to António Mau-Tempo, as he often did, Keep an eye on those pigs over there and make sure they don’t get into the wheat. A really cutting wind was blowing that day, and, dressed as he always was in the skimpiest of clothes, António Mau-Tempo decided to give the pigs a holiday, while he took shelter behind a machuco, What’s a machuco, A machuco is a young chaparro, everyone knows that, And what’s a chaparro, A chaparro is a young cork oak, of course, So a machuco is a cork oak, Isn’t that obvious, Ah, As I was saying, António Mau-Tempo sat down behind a machuco, wrapped in the sack that served as his coat in all weathers, come rain or ice, a guano sack was all he had, may God suit the cold to the covering, anyway, there was, for once, general contentment, the pigs in the wheatfield, the foreman roasting pine cones and António Mau-Tempo in his shelter, gnawing away at his crust of bread. And to think that some people still have nothing but bad things to say about the latifundio. Now the trouble was that the foreman had a dog, a clever creature who, suspicious of what António Mau-Tempo was up to behind the tree, started barking furiously, It’s true what they say, that a dog is man’s best friend, It was no friend of António Mau-Tempo’s, however. The foreman leapt up in alarm and when he found the boy, he cried, So you’re asleep, are you, and threw a stick at him, which, had it hit its mark, would have been the end of António Mau-Tempo. No boy worth his salt would have given him a second chance, so António Mau-Tempo grabbed hold of the stick himself and hurled it into the middle of the wheatfield, there, go and find it if you can, and then he legged it. The pigs’ fun did not last very long either. Isn’t it always the way.