by B. TRAVEN
When the knocking had no effect, he yelled. “Hey, hombre, abre, levántate, we got the goddamn hell to talk to you.”
That proved they knew perfectly well that I was in the house, for otherwise they wouldn’t have called.
Stubbornly they continued knocking and calling. But I didn’t move a lip, that is, not voluntarily. My lips quivered all right. Whose wouldn’t?
Now they talked again to one another. Then they stamped down the stairs and shuffled over the sand. I thought that at last they were convinced that I was not at home. My mistake. Miscalculating things mostly happens when one wants to believe something to be of some benefit to himself.
For half a minute or so they walked about as though not knowing what to do now and then stopped exactly at that part of the wall against which the cot on which I slept was set up. They knocked on this wall with full force and continued to call: “Abre, señor, abre!”
Now I realized that among them must be one who knew the inside of my bungalow very well; otherwise he would not have known where I slept. I was cornered perfectly and had to admit that I was in.
I got up, prepared to look cold death in the face without moving an eyelash. It wouldn’t be a glorious death with no one to take notice of the sneering and cold laugh with which I accepted, even welcomed death, because there was no newspaperman present to tell posterity how bravely and nobly I had behaved during the last hour of my life. Bandoleros don’t care much whether or not one trembles and shakes from cold fear. Neither does a hangman care. It is business, sober and plain business, not a bit sophisticated as some other business.
Although they obviously had expected me to jump up quickly, I did not move. Every minute I gained was wrested from old man death. So I said sleepily: “Hey, you, out there, what’s the matter? You goddamn muledrivers, stinky arrieros, can’t an honest man sleep one single night in this here godforsaken burg of whores, thieves, and violators of decent women-folk? What kind of a drunken lousy pack of cabrones is there shuffling at my door? Not a single stinking goddamn drop of tequila have I got here in my house. To hell with you, you filthy worm-eaten dogs. Hear me! I want to sleep.”
I got talking louder and louder on purpose, trying to get as angry and beastly furious as I possibly could, for if these had to be my last words on earth I wanted them to be added to my last prayer so that eternity should be less boring.
Anyhow, by now it had become obvious these fellows out there wanted very much to get me up. But for what reason, this I could not even guess.
When they heard me answer their harsh tone changed immediately into a very mild one. Perhaps they had imagined until now that I was not at home and that they would have to leave unsuccessfully.
One of them spoke up: “Please, señor, por favor, come to the door just for a moment. We got to talk to you very urgently. It’s a serious matter.” There was a tone of pleading in his voice. Almost pitiful.
Indios and medium-Indios have no conception of time. When their heart is full of sorrow they will come to you at any time be it day or night. In this particular case it might of course have been a trick to lure me to the door and whatever they had in mind doing would thus have been easier to accomplish. But no matter what there was in store for me I had to open the door at last. They could have broken in anyway, had they wanted to.
“Hello, there, señores!” I said sleepily, leaning against the open door. “Welcome. Bien venidos, amigos. What can I do for you on such a night of romantic love?”
Because the moon shone so brightly I could see them very clearly, though I did not recognize one of their faces, shadowed by big palm hats. They were robust types, without coats, clad only in white pants and white, very clean cotton shirts open at the neck. One wore as far as I could make out in the semidarkness of the night leather leggings and yellow boots with high heels, which were completely run down. The second wore brown leather boots that were torn at many places. The third wore—as I had concluded before by hearing his light step—huaraches. The two men with boots on each carried a rifle of the kind used by the army and which they held ready to shoot. Of these two one had, besides, a revolver stuck into a shabby holster. Both wore belts adorned with a full row of cartridges. The man with huaraches on his feet had for his whole armament only an ordinary machete.
It was this man with the machete who seemed to know me. I thought that several times I had seen him around the village. The other two were complete strangers to me.
Instinct told me that the man with the machete had peaceful intentions toward me, and that the other two were not after my riches or my life, but needed help instead. The one holding the machete said: “Would you be so very kind, señor, as to come to our house? My nephew is lying there, sick. I don’t know what ails him. They brought him in, awfully sick. He won’t wake up. He will not come to. So we ask you, very much, please, go with us. Perhaps you can help him. We’re sure you can. We know you’re a very wise man, in fact a great doctor.”
“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what we don’t know and why we ask you so very much, please, do come and see what’s the matter with him.”
The nearest doctor lived about forty miles away. The round trip on horseback would take him three days at least and he would charge no less than one hundred pesos, a sum that had to be put on the table before he would even saddle the horse. Who of these villagers to whom one hundred pesos was a fortune could pay such a sum? No doctor comes without previous payment. He, the medico, is primarily a businessman. No mistake about that. In this world in which he lives he has to be a businessman. No one will give him credit for his rent, and if he does not pay his bill the baker or the grocer, medico or no medico, neither will lend him the following month as much as a pound of potatoes. He who cannot pay has no right to live; he must either die or try to live without a medico. That is the reason why most people of the Republic stay alive for more than ninety years unless someone shoots them.
In my possession I had an old cardboard case in which, once upon a time, shoes had been packed. This cardboard affair served me as my medicine chest. It contained some medicine, if you will call a few aspirin tablets medicine. But besides medicine there were sewing implements, trouser buttons, a torn typewriter ribbon, a few used razorblades, an empty tube of toothpaste, one big fishhook, two small fishhooks, five newspaper clippings, a pocketknife with a broken blade, the other small blade rusty but otherwise in good shape, strings in different thicknesses, four different screws, a few nails, a pencil stub, a leaking fountain pen, the tooth of a donkey, the tail of a rattler, and some few other things which I no longer remember.
During my early youth I carried all my earthly goods in my pants and coat pockets, that is when I had a coat, because I had to be ready to travel at any hour no matter where I happened to be, mostly on account of merciless truant officers. Since then, having become in the meantime well-to-do, I carried all my earthly riches in that shaky cardboard box. It makes you wonderfully independent.
Even had these good men not asked for it, even had they not so highly solicited my medical knowledge, I would still have taken the medicine box along with me. This I did entirely instinctively and out of long and often very bitter experience. For it had often happened to me in the past that, when I thought of leaving my residence for only one hour, upon regaining full consciousness I discovered that I had landed on a different continent. Through such experiences one learns to become careful, so that toothbrush, shaving kit and a little pocket compass were constantly buttoned up inside my back pants pocket. How would I know where I might land if I flew away with these three nightbirds?
“Is this your doctor box?” asked one of them.
“Si, señor, this is my medicine box,” I confirmed, and the men murmured something which sounded like satisfaction.
“Then let’s go,” said another one.
I bolted my door and off we went.
Quite naturally I had not the slightest idea of where we
were going. Nothing was said about that. After all it was useless for me to ask such a question, for if we were marching to Honduras or to Sinaloa, it was not up to me to decide. Whether I liked it or not this was determined by those who carried guns. He who carries a gun always has the right to give orders, and the one who has no gun always has the damn duty to obey. And that has been the law since that memorable day when the archangel Gabriel with his flaming sword in hand chased two naked people out of the Lord’s vegetable garden. Had they had a machine gun, everything would have turned out entirely different and giving orders or obeying them would have taken a different road. It was for that difference that anyone will understand why I wandered along with these three men through the night without complaint, without one word to ask where we were going.
We did not trudge through the center of the village, but kept along the periphery instead. On all sides dogs barked furiously. And those dogs that could not see us barked too, barked themselves hoarse so as not to make the impression they had not noticed us or to leave the pleasure of barking exclusively to the other dogs. There was a hellish noise in the whole village. Because of that horrible barking most of the roosters woke up and began crowing lustily, and then the sad braying of lonely donkeys fell in. Not a single living soul came out of his hut to see what was going on. Once these village dogs start barking they will stay noisy half the night through, whether there is a gang of bandits sneaking around or a mule wandering sleepily along the road or one cat chasing another, or whether nothing happens at all.
We left the village behind and marched a fairly long time through underbrush, then for a while through bush-land, when finally we reached a frame house. It had a well-kept, fenced-in flower garden in front, and on both sides there were vegetable patches which I could distinguish clearly in the moonlight. The house was not decrepit or covered with rags and reed mats like most of the homes in the village. From the outside it made a good impression. On the porch were innumerable plants and flowers, in pots and cans and pails, so-called macetas.
The good impression I had received from the outside was increased when I entered the living room. Neither in this village nor in the whole region had I ever seen such a clean and well-furnished house. The living house on a farm in Texas or Arizona, Coahuila or Sonora could not look more agreeable than this one. I had not known nor would I have believed that in this neighborhood there was a family able to keep a house in such fine order and pleasing shape.
The beds were of white lacquered iron. There were real chairs and even some rocking chairs. Large framed pictures adorned the wall. Lohengrin with his Elsa sitting on the bed, Othello holding forth speeches about his adventures in foreign lands. The march of the hero Hidalgo leaving the town of Dolores surrounded by Indian peasants swinging machetes. The Virgin of Guadalupe and a group of small and enlarged photographs of uncles, aunts, grandfathers, children carrying Communion candles, obviously all members of one great family. One could not think of a more respectable and honorable family than that living in this house. People who kept such a house and in such order and cleanliness could not but be citizens who fortified and preserved the pillars of the state and at the same time the columns of the only church which guarantees you a seat in heaven.
But a life full of experience teaches you not to take anything at its face value. There are beautiful plants in the Republic which tempt one to look closer, but if one only touches them or brushes against them with the naked arm one gets a rash which takes months before it can be cured, if at all.
In spite of being at this moment in this respectable looking house I did not forget for one minute that three men had brought me there and that these three men were armed. Neither did I allow my face to express my wonderment that the house and the appearance of the men were in sharp contrast. I accepted everything as if it could not have been otherwise. I looked with great interest at the pictures on the wall, and so as to make these people believe that I admired the pictures I said: “Very fine paintings, made by great artists.”
But while I said this, I looked sidewise at everything in view. The windows were well barricaded and covered. No ray of light could escape out into the night. Little hope there was to escape through one of those windows if it should become necessary. Two doors led into two other rooms. Both men with the guns seated themselves near the entrance door in such a way that nobody could enter or leave without being carefully scrutinized by them. Putting the guns between their knees, they rolled themselves cigarettes.
“Sit down, señor, por favor,” said one of them and motioned me with a nod to an empty chair. I sat down and again looked around. The floor was covered with thick petate mats, fresh and yellow. Where the floor showed, I could see that it was scrubbed clean like freshly washed linen. In the farthest corner, in a sort of niche, there was a picture of La Virgen del Perpetuo Socorro with a small candle burning in front of it. Placed around it there were rosaries and cheap pictures of a dozen or so saints. On the table, which was covered with a multicolored cotton cloth, there stood a kerosene lamp, lighted.
I had not seen such a lamp for at least fourteen months, nobody in the village had one, nor had I. It was this kerosene lamp which had given me the first impression on entering that I was in a house of honest people well-off. On the table there was also a glass bowl of the kind one can win for ten centavos at a fair by throwing balls at objects until they are hit and fall.
When we entered the house the fellow with the machete immediately stepped into another room, closing the door tightly behind him. Since the walls were of rather thin wood I heard now and then voices in an undertone emanating from that room.
After a while the man came back with a glass and a bottle.
“First let’s have one,” he said and filled the glass.
“Salud!” I said and shot it down. It made me feel warm and I thought to myself that where such good tequila is offered there certainly would not be murder back of it. No one wastes such good Añejo on someone he wants to get rid of.
The two at the main door remained where they were sitting. Suddenly I had the impression that these men were not watching me to prevent my escape but rather sat armed close to the door to protect the people in the house against possible harm coming from the outside. Of this I became even more convinced when the two whispered to each other and one left to sit on the stoop outside, while the other took up a position inside in such a way that he could not be seen immediately by someone entering but could cover any intruder with his gun.
The glass was filled again. I was offered and accepted another drink. No one else got a second. Closing the bottle, the man said: “Now, let’s get down to business.” He rose and motioned me to follow him.
We entered that other room, where a very small lamp gave little light. The man returned to the main room, picked up the kerosene lamp and brought it in. Now I could see more clearly. Two women were sitting in rocking chairs, their rebozos wrapped around their heads and necks. Both were Indians, cleanly dressed, and in their speech and bearing not different from any woman of a ranch-owner. One of them was comparatively young, about thirty or so, and as I learned later she was the wife of the man with the machete. The other was older and could well have been the mother of either the man or his wife. Obviously the room was the bedroom of the couple. Judging from the two beds in the main room, several persons seemed to live in the house.
Both women got up and greeted me courteously. They shook my hands lightly and sat down again. A young man was lying on a bast mat, covered up to his chin with a white cotton blanket. His face was pale but full and I concluded that he could not have been sick very long but had probably been seriously injured. He did not move and appeared as if dead or nearly so.
“This is the boy I told you about,” said the man and put the kerosene lamp on a chair near-by.
“I’m sure you can help the boy,” the young woman said. “He’s my nephew and we don’t want him to die. Since our own son lost his life in some silly shooting, thi
s one has been like our own. We would really be very grateful if you could do something so he won’t die. He’s the last young one of the whole family left. All the others have been shot or stabbed to death at election time, even though none of them wanted a job for themselves. They just got mixed up for the sake of others.” The woman did not cry but spoke with touching emotion while the older woman now and then sighed.
The election fights took place in the city of the district to which men and women, young and old, went to enjoy the shootings and the yellings of “Viva” and “Muera.” Of those who went, not all returned; usually two or three, sometimes a dozen, fell and stayed on the battlefield.
There had been no election for some time, so it could not have been in an election fight that this young fellow got hurt.
I knelt down and began to examine him. His eyes were closed. On lifting the lids I saw that the eyes were sleepy but not dimmed and they reacted to light. The heartbeat was regular but very faint. The breath was slight yet fair enough.
“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.
“That’s just what we don’t know,” the woman answered. “They brought him to the house unconscious and he hasn’t come to since then. Do you think he will die, señor?”
“Sorry, I can’t tell that at this moment. Hasn’t he said something about what’s wrong with him?” I asked.
No one answered, and I looked up to see why there was no answer.
I noticed that the man shot a quick look at his wife, put a finger slightly on his lips and shook his head.
Immediately I looked away pretending not to have seen anything and let my eyes rest on the boy. I gave them time enough to finish their secret language. Then I asked: “Has he eaten something which did not agree with him?”
“I don’t believe so,” the man answered.
I sat down on a chair, my elbows on my knees, and buried my face in my hands as if lost in deep thought exactly the way all really big doctors do. In other words, I would not know anything until the sick himself would tell me where it hurt and what the matter was. After all I was no veterinarian.
