In the Beginning Was the Sea Read online

  “Well, it’s not exactly attractive,” said J., “but it’s sturdy as hell.”

  When he had finished, Gilberto used the leftover timber to build a bookcase as large, sturdy and rustic as the bed. J. took great pleasure arranging his well-thumbed books. The complete works of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Lagerkvist, Camus and Neruda, the volumes about animal husbandry, coconut farming, Bertolt Brecht, tropical fruit trees, Hermann Hesse, Hegel and many others quietly took up their positions on the shelves, disturbed only by the occasional lizard scuttling across their spines as flocks of parrots flew above the house and barefoot black men with machetes slung over their shoulders walked along the beach, whistling and trailing behind them the faint scent of tobacco. Very occasionally, J. took the time to read a poem or a favourite page after it was dark, lying on the bed with a candlestick balanced on his belly. The dim glow rose and fell with his breath, moths darted through the flame—something J. found faintly disgusting—while outside the waves thundered.

  7

  THE MATTRESSES arrived a week after the bed was completed. J. had sent a message to Julito with one of Gilberto’s relatives who was heading for Turbo asking him to buy the mattresses and transport them to the finca. And so one day, in the blazing noonday sun, Julito’s boat puttered into the cove with the boatman sitting swigging rum on top of a huge package encased in plastic while his assistant manned the tiller. This time they came ashore on the beach in front of the house.

  When sober, Julito seemed strong and healthy; drunk, he looked feeble and decrepit. He dropped limply from the mountain of mattresses into the sea. Clutching a bottle of aguardiente, he waded towards the shore, staring at the water which came up to his waist. It took him an age to reach them. Having reached the beach and hugged J., he offered him the bottle. “Mucho gusto, seño,” he said to Elena, but she did not respond. This time, both Julito and his compadre were wearing trainers, clearly planning to unload their cargo on the rocky stretch of coast.

  In the sweltering heat, Gilberto and the assistant carried the mattresses onto the beach. There was no wind. A few birds glided lazily out over the open sea. Julito and J. sat on a tree trunk under one of the palms and while the boatman, in his reedy voice, droned on about his life, J. watched as the mattresses were unloaded, swigging rum from time to time.

  By the time they headed back, Julito was fast asleep in the bottom of the boat. As it disappeared over the horizon J., a little dizzy now, climbed the steps to the veranda.

  “Did you see that?” said Elena.

  “See what, mamita?”

  “This time those idiots landed right in front of the house?”

  J. did not want to get into an argument.

  “Why don’t we go and try out our new bed?” he said.

  “You go try it out by yourself! I’m not going to bed in this heat.”

  8

  TWO LEAGUES from the house, on land directly adjoining the finca, there was a little village; an hour’s walk—or fifteen minutes on horseback—was the seaside town of Severá; Turbo was four and a half hours away by boat or half an hour in the little plane that made irregular trips to a small town—one inland rather than on the coast—which was some two hours’ ride from the farm.

  J. had been to the village with Don Carlos E. on his first visit, before he bought the finca. He and the old man had walked a little way along the beach before trekking up a hill through sparse woodland where J. saw tall cashew trees hung with wisps of liana, kapok saplings and the stumps of older kapoks that had clearly been huge.

  “Is the hunting good around here, Don Carlos?”

  “Agoutis, armadillos, a few wild turkeys,” said the old man, “though they’re all dying out… or rather we’re killing them off.”

  Suddenly they came to a clearing in the woods and saw about a dozen shacks with cob walls and palm-thatched roofs. The dirt track that also served as the village square was impeccably swept. At the end of the path was an orange grove which looked extraordinarily verdant and cool.

  As they strolled through the village, faces appeared from windows. People sitting on their porches called, “Salud, Don Carlos!” and he greeted each of them by name. The old man had already mentioned the village: it was inhabited by a single family and every time a couple married they were apportioned a plot of land and the villagers helped build a new house; everyone was ruled by the moral authority of the grandmother.

  Her house was located at the centre of the village.

  “Salud, Doña Rosa,” said Don Carlos as they came to the house.

  “Come in,” called a faint voice from inside.

  The house consisted of two rooms and a kitchen; the rooms were at the front while at the rear there was a lean-to kitchen. The first thing J. noticed as they entered was a plaster statue of the Virgin almost three feet tall which had pride of place on a low table and was lit by a votive candle. Next to it was a large, pale-green plastic radio. Doña Rosa sat enthroned in a red wicker chair. In the next room, he could dimly make out a mosquito net. The living room was cool and hazy and smelt of smoke.

  The old woman apologized for not getting up to greet them, explaining that her rheumatism always played up in cold weather. She gestured for them to sit in two rough-hewn wooden chairs that tipped backwards alarmingly like some prehistoric imitation of a rocking chair. Sitting in his anti-rocking chair, J. found himself facing a back door which led out into a yard where pigs and chickens scrabbled about under a grove of mango trees. On the ground were several windfalls already gnawed by the pigs.

  Doña Rosa and J. took to each other immediately. When Don Carlos explained who J. was and why he had come, the old woman stared at him with eyes that saw much more than she pretended and solemnly told him that the villagers would be at his service. Then she asked Don Carlos whether he was thinking of leaving the area.

  “J. has bought one of my fincas, but I’m keeping the other,” said Don Carlos. “You know I could never leave this place, Rosita.”

  The old woman looked pleased. She also looked happy when J. mentioned that he and his wife were planning to live on the finca.

  “When you come, call by and visit this old woman,” she said.

  Some days after they arrived, J. suggested to Elena that they visit Doña Rosa. The narrow path leading to the village seemed much less wild and overgrown. “I won’t let anyone cut down another kapok tree on this farm,” he said as they passed several large fresh stumps. In the village, they were greeted as before. Elena watched black faces appear at the windows and could feel the eyes of children staring at her through chinks in the walls. Outside Doña Rosita’s house, three naked youngsters were dragging along matchboxes tied together with thread. “Holaaaa!” people called when J. greeted them.

  This time, the old woman did not seem ill or infirm. She served them black coffee in floral cups of delicate bone china that starkly contrasted with the ceiling of palm fronds, the smoke belching from the kitchen and the beaten earth floor.

  Doña Rosita was not particularly gracious towards Elena—she served the first cup of coffee to J.—although she was friendly and talkative. She had twelve children, she told them, sixty grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Eight of her children were still living in the village—four girls and four boys, all but one of them married—while her four other daughters had been taken by their husbands to live elsewhere. She told them that she had been married four times and had buried four husbands. His previous visit had left J. with the impression of a weak, crippled woman; now he saw her as she truly was: a forceful woman trapped in a tiny body, wizened by the years.

  When they took their leave, the old woman addressed Elena as “seño” rather than Doña Elena though she had pointedly referred to Don Carlos’s wife as “Doña” during their visit. Elena was quick to notice the difference in address and only with some effort did she manage not to take it as a personal insult.

  “What a filthy dump,” was her only comment when they arrived back at the house.r />
  Three days later, at 6 p.m., a little girl appeared carrying a gleaming battered crockpot.

  “My grandma sent this for you,” she said.

  It was a crab stew. J. took it and poured the contents into a saucepan—the claws tinkling against the tin—and gave the pot back to the girl.

  “Here… for you,” he said, holding out a ten-peso note. The child looked at J., her eyes shining, almost coy, and thanked him. Before she left, she said if they had any clothes to give away they could give them to her.

  The dining room consisted of a simple rough-hewn table on a side porch that overlooked the yard. J. picked up the pot and a single plate and sat down to eat. He did not bother to call Elena, knowing how much she hated crab.

  9

  GILBERTO BEGAN to do the weekly shopping at the market in Severá, usually on Sundays. He would set off early on horseback, with a second horse on a leading rein. Every Saturday night, Elena would give him a list of what he was to bring back and lecture him on brands of soap, the quality of the rice, and so forth. This was the only time when the two had anything that might be called a conversation; for the rest of the week, she simply gave him orders—almost always relating to odd jobs around the house—and occasionally enquired about the weather. Whenever she spoke to Gilberto, her voice became brusque and sharp. If there were any problem with the groceries—impurities in the sugar, weevils in the black beans—she would reprimand him twice: once when he got back from the market and a second time the following week while she was giving him the new shopping list.

  “If we’re not careful, that man will be bringing back whatever he feels like,” she explained to J. once, when she saw that he was uncomfortable with her curt manner.

  Gilberto would set off at first light and come back at dusk, usually stinking of booze, half a bottle of aguardiente tucked into the back pocket of his trousers and a certain awkwardness to his movements. He was never falling-down drunk. His eyes shining and a little glassy, he would take the groceries from the packhorse and carry them into the kitchen, then unsaddle his own horse and lead both animals to the stable where he had a few quick shots while doling out their feed. Then he would go into the house to listen to any complaints from Elena who, by then, would have unpacked the groceries while lecturing Mercedes on how to judge the quality of the produce, how certain things should be cooked and others preserved…

  In the early days, J. got drunk only once a week. Every Sunday, at about three in the afternoon, he would go out to the paddock and pick a few green mangoes from the tree which Mercedes would peel and slice. Then J. would settle himself at the dining table, sometimes with Elena, setting the fruit, a salt cellar and a bottle of aguardiente next to his chair. By the time Gilberto arrived, the bottle would often be half-empty. When Elena was not with him, J. was delighted by Gilberto’s arrival, knowing that as soon as he had carried in the groceries, he would come out and join J. on the veranda, take the bottle from his back pocket and offer him a drink. Between them, they would finish off Gilberto’s flask of aguardiente while discussing any work that needed doing—though more often in silence—then they would drink J.’s bottle.

  When Elena was out on the veranda, Gilberto would stop by only for a moment, offer them a drink and then take his leave.

  10

  ONE SATURDAY NIGHT, J. told Gilberto that he had decided to go with him to town. The following morning, just after sun-up, he was woken by the sound of hooves, the snorting of horses and Gilberto’s voice calling him.

  “Don’t bother saddling a horse for me, Gilberto,” he called back from the bed. “I’ll walk.” He took a shower, washed down the fried plantains Mercedes brought with black coffee, then set off on foot behind the horses.

  The two men walked some distance along the beach. The sea was calm and blue, the air was cool. J.’s shoes sank into the sand and his calves began to cramp. Gilberto rode slowly so that J. could keep up.

  They came to a spot where the mountain tumbled to the sea in a sheer cliff. This was the northernmost boundary of the finca. They turned off the beach and headed up a steep, overgrown slope.

  “Whenever you like, jefe, you just say the word and you can have the horse,” said Gilberto, seeing J. clutching at the surrounding plants to keep his balance. The dense forest was filled with bird calls. Feeling tired, J. agreed to ride for a while. Gilberto helped him into the saddle and then walked behind.

  They came to the top of the hill. To their left, the mountain and the forest rose away; to their right, a step path wound down towards the sea. They could hear the muffled roar far below. Gilberto managed the descent as effortlessly as he had the climb. The trail, though longer, was broader now and not as steep, which made the going easier.

  Suddenly, the mountain levelled off and the path ahead became less overgrown. The dense forest gave way to a banana plantation. Weaving between the banana plants, the path came to a house where three scrawny dogs were barking in the front yard.

  “Hola, Don Eduardo,” Gilberto called and, when no one replied, added, “He’s probably healing someone, or trying to convert someone…”

  Don Eduardo, like J., was from Antioquía, and suffered from a mild mystical form of madness. Gilberto’s voice was gently mocking as he told the man’s story, sprinkling the tale with interminable anecdotes that J. found tedious. To his mind, any man capable of applying plasters and giving injections was a boon to the area, even if he was best friends with God Almighty.

  The plantation was bordered by a line of coconut palms and, beyond them, they came once more to the sea. Here, the coastline curved into a pair of claws to create a sweeping natural harbour some ten or fifteen kilometres wide. At the far end of the bay, J. could see the roofs of the town. Aside from the roofs, he could just make out a number of canoes and various piles of wood on the shore and, some two hundred metres out to sea, two ships floating on the glassy waters. Just then, like a waterbug, a canoe dropped away from one of the ships and moved slowly towards the strand.

  J. climbed down from the horse, called Gilberto and handed him the reins. The man slung them over his shoulders and they walked on together. The ships arrived three times a week to collect timber, coconuts and passengers, Gilberto explained, though the timetable depended on the weather.

  “I remember once it took us ten hours just to get to Turbo,” he said.

  Ten minutes later, they passed the cemetery. Some fifty graves were scattered over an area that looked more like a part of the beach than a separate plot of land. Most of the graves were marked with wooden crosses, some boasted concrete tombstones, two or three had vaulted mausoleums, but the shifting soil had given way under the weight, the concrete had fractured, and the tombs, like shipwrecks, lay half-buried in the sand.

  Even so, the cemetery did not seem sinister. Being so close to the sea, it was frequently flooded during high tides, which left trails of foam. The joyous way in which vegetation crept over the crosses and the tombstones and pushed through cracks in the concrete, the sight of crabs appearing suddenly from sandy tunnels dug into the graves, and iridescent lizards basking in the sun seemed to J. to represent the enduring triumph of life over death. Oblivious to the fate foreshadowing his own bones, it occurred to J. that of all the cemeteries he had ever seen, this particular one terrified him least.

  They left the cemetery behind and arrived in the town fifteen minutes later.

  There were four streets, some fifty houses, and a population of no more than five hundred. A broad stretch of beach served as the town square; here were the piles of wood and the beached canoes J. had seen from the distance. There was also an old truck which had obviously just arrived since he had not noticed it earlier. This, and a similar old rattletrap, were the only motor vehicles in the area. The truck looked as though it had been used during an evacuation, an invasion or some massacre. The bodywork was pitilessly eaten away by rust—the doors had gaping holes, the bumpers were corroded—and had recently been hand-painted a vivid red. The brutish,
warlike shape of the truck contrasted with the bright, jolly paint job, giving it a fantastical appearance. “This is how we in the tropics repurpose the grey cast-offs sent to us by shitty First World countries,” thought J.

  Passengers were gathered around the truck waiting for the loading to be completed so they could climb aboard. Other people stood in shop doorways drinking beer. J. could feel eyes boring into the back of his neck, something he accepted calmly and with a certain vanity. Some of the children blatantly stared at him.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked one of them.

  The little black boy answered with a smile and J. flashed back a fleeting grin that seemed to please the child.

  They bought the groceries in a lean-to shop which adjoined a house, with a wooden counter and, behind it, wooden shelves laden with foodstuffs which ran the length of the walls. The shop smelt of plastic and leather. Behind the counter sat the owner, a narrow-shouldered young man with a sallow complexion and a large pot belly, who wore his shirt rucked up over his chest in an effort to combat the sultry heat that gusted in from outside. The owner’s name was Juan, a man famous for buying stolen goods. J. found him simultaneously cynical and obsequious. He was helped out in the shop by his wife, a languid, overweight, proud woman of about thirty with pale olive skin and a beautiful face. She exhaled a breath of sensuality like the miasma of a flowering swamp.

  Gilberto was an old hand at shopping and J. scarcely had time to drink four beers before the groceries were loaded onto the packhorse. J. found everything outrageously expensive. This may have been the moment when he first considered opening his own shop on the finca.