by B. TRAVEN
'Muchacho!' Sleigh shouted. 'What about the milk?'
'Estoy volando, jefe, I am flying already,' the boy yelled back.
'Hurry up! And no maybe from your lips. Senor Velasquez will beat the hell out of you if you bring him sour milk.'
In spite of his harsh words Sleigh was not a bit worried or angry about what might happen to the few quarts of milk, and he was still less concerned about what Senor Velasquez might say or do. Senor Velasquez was the owner of the general store in a village located near the depot. Should Senor Velasquez complain about the milk when Sleigh visited him to check the accounts and collect the money that had to be sent to the owner of the ranch, Sleigh would lend a deaf ear to him. He would turn his back to him, mount his horse, and ride back home. If Sleigh loved anything at all, it was the cattle he was in charge of, but he did not care a rap about his boss, or about Senor Velasquez, or about the milk. In his opinion it was only incidentally that his boss or Senor Velasquez or the milk had anything to do with the cattle.
We returned to Sleigh's hut to breakfast on an old kerosene box. A not very clean newspaper served as a tablecloth.
Sleigh looked the table over as if something were missing from it. He then said to the girl: 'Fry each of us another coupla eggs.'
'Si, patron, ahoritito!' the girl answered.
She went to a dark corner of the hut where a basket was tied to the post which supported the roof. A sleepy-eyed hen was sitting comfortably in this basket, obviously brooding over nature's whim which made her sit there while all the other hens could go about and wink at the rooster. The girl snatched the hen by the neck, threw her out of the basket, picked up four eggs, and returned with them to the hearth.
The hen cackled noisily and ran around the hut violently. She jumped on our table, kicked over our coffee cups, flew up, glided down again, and ran back to her basket, where for a while she sat on the edge and looked inside. Then she hopped in, moved the eggs around, counted them with her claws, and, finding none missing, sat down quietly and closed her eyes, once more satisfied with the world. She was happy and satisfied with everything on earth because she could not count correctly. It is the ability to count correctly that causes so many tragedies among men. Since counting-machines have made mistakes practically impossible, tragedies resulting from counting have become more intense and greater in number.
After we had had our breakfast, we thought it time to get some sleep.
30
Music awoke me. The two musicians who should have been here last night and who, if they had come then, might not now be needed to play for the funeral, were presenting a lively foxtrot as an introduction.
Sleigh had arisen long ago. He was crawling through the brush because a calf had broken out of the corral. I washed up, shaved, gulped down two cups of hot coffee, swallowed a few spoonfuls of beans wrapped in hot tortillas, and then went over to the Garcia's.
Here I found a great and animated assembly. To every tree, shrub or post, a horse, a mule, or a burro was tied — some with the saddle still on, others without. Women dressed in their Sunday garments, men clothed as on week-days were standing around or squatting on the ground. A crowd of children filled the air with shouts and shrieks. Most of them were naked, the rest half naked, the latter being mostly girls.
More fireworks had been brought by the new visitors and there was a cracking and shooting and a tremendous noise all over the place.
The musicians who had played the whole night through were now no longer playing. They preserved their strength for the long march through the bush to the cemetery.
A few men were lying about drunk. Others were still sleeping here and there on the ground. Nobody disturbed them.
The sun was high and blazed down without mercy. The drunks caught in this broiling heat became uneasy, woke up, crawled to the shade, and fell back into stupor. One or two failed to reach the shade, dropped, and remained lying like shapeless bundles.
Goats and hogs were running around freely and getting in the way of the people,;who kicked them and pushed them without any result. A multitude of dogs were constantly fighting each other or playing or chasing the hogs. Chickens were fighting with turkeys over worms and crumbs of food. The horses, burros, and mules which were not tied up or which had freed themselves were walking among the crowd looking for a green leaf which had not yet been trodden into the ground. Yesterday there was much green to be seen near the broken-down fence and in the corners of the yard. Now the soil looked as if locusts had passed over it.
All these animals were a nuisance to the people, but nobody got seriously angry over the annoyances they caused. Now and then an animal would be kicked. A woman would shout: 'Hi, you perro, you miserable dog, get away!' Another: 'Hog, don't push me down!' Occasionally a boy was called to chase a dog or a hog away. Or a stone would be thrown, but so gently that it could not hurt the animal. It was meant to be only a warning, not a punishment. But if a dog or a hog was fresh enough to try to get away with the whole morral, the little bast bag in which the family carried their provisions for the trip, a club or a big stone thrown at the thief would remind him to have more respect for other people's property.
Some groups were all laughter. Other groups entertained themselves with animated conversation. Groups of youngsters sang and played mouth-organs. Here and there men were appraising horses and mules. Some women were telling others about the troubles they had with their children or with their relatives or their neighbours. It wasn't all love and kindness. They told how greedy a sister-in-law was or an uncle, and what a beastly neighbour Don Chucho was.
Any outsider who had come along here at this time would never have thought for a minute that the assembly was there for a funeral. But now and then people were reminded of the fact and they became serious as befitted the situation. At such moments groups suddenly ceased being jolly or loud. Someone would then say: 'Well, all of us have to die some day, one sooner, another later, and some will die before they are out of their babyhood. That's only natural. Poor mother! She'll have to bear it and live on.' And a sigh from all the women in this group confirmed the truth of that philosophical statement.
Again, in another group which had become too noisy, a man's voice would be heard saying: 'Get quiet, all of you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself making such a row and laughing as if you'd burst. Don't you know that there is a dead baby close by, and that woman crying out her guts? You've not got a bit of decency left, that's what I say.'
In many places blankets had been spread over sticks planted in the ground so as to make little roofs for protection against the sun. There were few trees in the yard big enough to give any real shade.
Usually a fresh breeze would come up at about eleven in the morning. Today this breeze had failed to come.
Now the shadows of humans, animals, trees, and posts were right at their feet and could hardly be noticed at all.
I took off my hat and entered the hut to see what changes had taken place.
The hut was crowded with women who were fanning themselves with pieces of cardboard and with fans made of pasteboard on which were printed advertisements of cigarettes, beer, tequila, habanero, and dry-goods stores, and kissing couples with titles of moving pictures. The women fanned themselves automatically, as if their hands were moved by a little machine.
All candles were bent and at every candle a woman worked to keep it upright. This constant attention to the candles not only kept a number of women and youngsters very busy, but also served as a good show for the mourners, because each candle had its individuality and each attendant had a different way of handling the candle she was in charge of.
The kid had become a very poor side-show and was not attracting any real interest.
Then the Garcia once again took the cloth off the kid's face. The face could no longer be recognized. It had become almost formless. The wound in his jaw had become an enormous ugly opening. His teeth were exposed like those of a skeleton. The gums were greenish. The little w
ound on his skull had also widened and the bared bone of the skull had become visible.
It was not only the tropical climate that accounted for such rapid destruction; the process was also hastened by the water from the tropical river which had entered the body. The water of a river in the tropics contains billions of the most hungry, most voracious microbes, which attack a lifeless body a hundred times more savagely than those which infest water in the temperate zones. I for one could explain in no other way such a terrific and horrible decomposition in so short a time. I wondered what the body looked like under the sailor suit.
But the sailor suit was no longer visible. These primitive women had perceived the ugliness of that monkey dress. They had better taste than the jobber who had shipped a gross of these suits down here in the belief that they were the right clothes for little Indian boys who lived in the jungle where nobody knew what a ship looked like and where nobody understood why sailors had to wear this sort of suit and why they could not do their work just as efficiently in overalls. Of course, intelligent people know that it is the uniform that accounts for a good sailor's smooth and effective work. But while this may be known to the women in every port in the world it is not known to the people in a tropical jungle.
The women had covered the admiral's overalls with a sort of frock made of red, green, blue, and yellow paper. This frock which had been made by simple Indian women had given back to the little Indian boy his dignity. I was surprised to see at least a dozen identical frocks on the kid. Soon I found the reason for this unnecessary abundance.
Almost every woman had brought something with her to be used for dolling up the kid. There was no possibility of exchanging ideas over the phone before leaving their homes. Many had brought a dozen sheets of coloured paper. Others had made paper frocks as soon as they had received the news of the tragedy. Since every woman had offered her gift with all her sympathy and love, the mother accepted them all with thanks and, with the assistance of each giver, dressed the kid in the new frock even though he had more than one on already.
Fortunately, not all the women had brought frocks. Many offered little stars and crosses, some of them cut out of tin cans, others out of coloured paper. These stars and crosses were pasted on the uppermost frock as extra decorations. A few women who had nothing better to give had brought brightly coloured rags and ribbons, which were also pinned to the frock.
A woman I knew entered. She was the mother of the boy whom I would have raised from the dead but for the Spaniard pushing me aside and applying another method. I was still pondering over the question whether I would be as highly represented today in that village if the Spaniard had not interfered with my handling of the dead. Well, perhaps the people of that village would admire me just the same, because working on a corpse with all sorts of rescue methods for six consecutive hours will always be highly appreciated even if the result is failure.
That woman greeted me before anyone else, and she did so in a very friendly manner. She had brought a pretty crown made of gold paper, but it had not been made with such good taste as the one made by the pump-master woman last night. She naturally believed, however, that her crown was lots prettier than the one the kid already had on his head. She stepped up to the body, and without asking anybody's permission she took off the old crown and put on the crown she had made.
The pump-master woman saw her do this, but did not interfere. When she had made that crown, with her tears running down over it, I had noticed how much kindness, neighbourly love, and compassion for another mother in distress she had been weaving into it, and I also saw how happy she had felt when she had finished her job and examined it with the satisfaction of an artist whose work has surpassed his intentions. I shall never forget the look in her smiling eyes, still wet from tears, when she put that crown on the kid's head and almost worshipped him as if he had now become a little saint.
Now she glanced at her rival and for a moment I was not sure that a fight might not start. She made a gesture as if she meant to prevent the unceremonious exchange of crowns. But she stopped, and over her lips a kind smile fluttered. She put both her hands over her breasts and watched the somewhat rude exchange without anger. Being a mother, she perhaps realized that the other woman was also a mother and that only recently that mother had lost a beloved son and what she was doing at this moment was but showing her sympathy for the young mother. And so, the pump-master woman thought, why start a fight over the crowns? The first crown had served its purpose, so let the second crown have its turn.
The woman with the new crown had thrown the old one aside as if to say: Well, what sort of junk is that? The pumpmaster woman picked up her discarded crown, crumpled it in her hand so that nobody would pay any attention to it, left the hut, and threw it into the bonfire.
31
Suddenly voices were heard outside the hut.
Right away a man entered carrying under one arm the little coffin which he himself had made as his last gift to the kid. With his free hand he took off his hat. The moment he put the coffin on the floor the Garcia woman broke out into a fit of hysterical shrieking. All the other women in the hut and outside in the yard joined her as if they were all mad.
The coffin-maker wiped the thick sweat off his forehead with the backs of his hands and then dried his neck with a large red handkerchief.
Three men came in and went straight to the table. The Garcia woman yelled: 'Don't take him away from me! Let him sleep here only a few hours more, please, don't take him away!' She wrung her hands and ran around the hut, pushing her head here and there against the posts which supported the roof, shrieking and yelling all the time. Finally two women cornered her and took her in their arms.
In the meantime, with a short businesslike 'Con su permiso!' and ignoring the shrieks and lamentations of the women, the men pushed the women out of their way and got to work.
Sleigh was one of the three who had just come in.
The coffin was only a very crude box made of rotten boards taken from different kinds of old cases. Not a bit of this coffin was planed. The outside was covered with blue and red paper to give it a more decent appearance. The inside had been filled with dry grass and corn leaves, on top of which pieces of limestone had been laid.
The coffin was set on a box. Without any ceremony the four men grabbed the little body and tried to lift it from the table.
While lifting it the head dropped with a jerk as if it would break off. I jumped forward and held the pillow under it for support. The beautiful paper dresses spread apart and the whole laboriously achieved make-up turned into something horrible. But at last we got the body into the coffin. The pumpmaster woman jumped up and with her quick, expert hands arranged the dresses to give back the body its former illusion of beauty.
The coffin was then put on the table. At once the Garcia threw herself over her baby to kiss him good-bye. She was just about to press her lips to his mouth when she realized that his lips were all gone. Then she smelled the odour rising from the poor little body. She gasped for fresh air and drew back, almost falling over the woman sitting there.
She stood five feet away from her baby. She flung her arms up, waved them violently, then dropped them with a gesture of fatigue. Now her hands fumbled at her face, ran up and down her breasts, and finally glided down her belly, where she moved them around as if she were searching for something hidden there. Then her fingers climbed up her face like little snakes until they reached her hair. She pulled at her hair so savagely that two women fell into her arms to keep her from tearing her scalp off. Her eyes flickered about helplessly. She broke away from them, screamed, and dropped to the floor as if she had been struck by a club.
The women lifted her head, poured water between her tightly pressed lips, and tried to force open her clenched fists. First her lips and then her face got blue — but only for a minute. Slowly she came to. She opened her eyes, sat up on the floor, wiped her face, looked around, recognized her friends, and tried to smile at them.
That was her last good-bye to her beloved baby.
Her husband came in. Staggering towards her, he dragged out of one of his pockets, with great difficulty, a bottle of mescal and pushed it into her hands with a gesture of love and sympathetic understanding.
The Garcia, holding the bottle in her hands as if it were something very sacred, rose from the floor and disappeared into the little storeroom. I could watch her through the sticks which formed the wall and I saw her take a swig which would have knocked an old Norwegian sailor straight under the table. She took the bottle from her mouth, looked at it, and then took a shot that was not quite so big as the first one, but was still more than two fingers of a quart bottle. Having taken her consoling medicine, she came out and, good and honest wife that she was, returned the bottle to her lord and master. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand with a satisfied look in her hollow eyes.
