The Secret Life of the Panda

by Nick Jackson

  “My lunch.” Chino was trying to cover up his little package of masa when José, who was pissing against the wall at that moment, swung round and the stream of pee spattered off the wall and hit Chino’s lunch.

  They roared with laughter at Chino, clutching his package. But Chino sat, serious behind his black, expressionless eyes. Rubén stopped laughing, it didn’t seem amusing any more.

  “I peed on Chino’s lunch!” shrieked José.

  “Oh, shut up,” Rubén blurted out, then wondered why he should stick up for Chino. After all, he wasn’t crying over his lunch. He realised he was a little afraid of him, afraid of his isolation. Chino was very strong, sitting by himself. With slow deliberation Chino unfolded his little leaf package, kneaded the contents for a moment and began to stuff the ball of dough into his mouth.

  “Chino’s eating his lunch that I peed on!” José shouted. “I peed on it and now he’s eating it!”

  Chino couldn’t really do anything to make them despise him more so, after that, they ignored him and he became almost invisible. Like the animals in the fields, he was just there.

  *

  “So you were heading for Santa Clara?” sneered Bordón, “To visit your sick mother?”

  “We may as well drop the pretence.” Clavel spoke with the quiet dignity of his rank. “You can see I’m no peasant labourer. I was going to Santa Clara to join up with reinforcements. There are a thousand members of the National Guard entrenched in Santa Clara. Your intelligence should have let you know.”

  “We intend to march into Santa Clara before the end of the week.”

  “It will be impossible to root out the National Guard. They’re too powerful, even for the rebel army.”

  “You’ll never hold the city.” Bordón swiped at flies with his cap. “And you know why? Because the National Guard has no popular support. The people won’t help you.”

  Clavel was watching an egret hunting along the riverbank. It searched with sharp yellow eyes, peering intently into the reeds, thrusting its long head this way and that.

  “You have a reputation, Captain Bordón,” said Clavel, his eyes fixed on the egret.

  “Is that so?”

  “People speak well of you within the National Guard, it may surprise you to know.”

  Bordón curled his lip and snorted with laughter.

  “People say that you are respected,” Clavel continued, shading his eyes against the midday sun, “more than any other commander in the rebel movement.”

  “And which people are they? The bourgeois commanders of the National Guard? Power belongs to the people, that’s my belief.”

  Clavel watched the egret as it probed delicately in a patch of mud. He spoke carefully, knowing that he was taking a risk with his words: “That’s what the socialist propagandists tell you. That’s how they compel you to work like a dog, carrying out their orders. But your leaders will never recognise that; they want all the power for themselves. They will never reward you as you deserve.”

  “My reward is in serving the people.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Our orders are to shoot deserters from either side.”

  “I’m not a deserter.”

  The egret picked its way slowly through a patch of water lilies that glimmered in the gathering dusk. The feathers were so fine and white, they reminded Clavel of the white shirts he used to wear to school.

  *

  Chino was sitting by himself watching the oily surface of the river when someone sat down beside him. It was Rubén. If he’d been asked why he did this, Rubén would not have been able to say. It was just that the river and the silent boy sitting there seemed to draw him.

  Chino carried on sitting, motionless. He would have reached out to touch the clean white sleeve of Rubén but his damp fingers trembled and pulled back. He knew, however, what the cloth would feel and smell like. He sat, pulling the leaves from the twigs that overhung the water.

  “What are you doing?” Rubén slashed the trunk of the tree with a dead branch.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Chino doesn’t think,” said Chino and continued systematically stripping the leaves, until his fingers were stained a greeny-brown. His eyes were blank as pebbles. It was true, you could never tell what Chino was thinking.

  *

  Lieutenant Carvajal appeared in the doorway of the guard hut, balancing a tin plate of food, which he handed to Bordón. Taking the plate, Bordón hesitated then jerked his head towards Clavel. The lieutenant disappeared and returned a moment later with a plate of fried plantains and rice for the prisoner.

  Clavel chewed thoughtfully on a strip of plantain. “It would be good to take a dip in the river.” A bead of sweat formed on Clavel’s upper lip, trickled down his neck and settled in the hollow between his collarbones. “I’ll splash some water on my face and chest. It won’t take a moment.”

  Clavel peeled the shirt over his head and went down to the river’s edge. Behind him in the dusk he heard the snap of a safety catch; a tiny metallic noise that echoed across the river. For a moment he froze, then slowly he advanced to the water and knelt in the dry leaf mould. The river lapped at his fingers. He remembered his mother calling out to him: “Come on in now, Rubén. Your dinner’s ready.” He cupped water in his hands letting it trickle through his fingers.

  Bordón chewed on a piece of bone, tearing off strips of flesh with his big yellow teeth. He watched Clavel crouching and dabbling his hands in the water. He was thinking of a time when he’d stood watching the other boys bathing.

  Clavel scooped up water into his face and allowed handfuls of water to run off the back of his neck down his spine. Mosquitoes gathered on his shoulders where the skin was damp. He didn’t seem to mind them. Slowly he stood and turned to face Bordón.

  “So,” he said, drawing out the words thoughtfully, “the rebels will consolidate their hold in Santa Clara under the command of Captain Bordón.”

  “You mock me.”

  “Not at all.” Clavel turned up his palms in an attitude of helpless innocence. Holding his shirt in one hand, he tucked the thumb of his other hand into his belt loop. He closed his eyes for a moment. Drops of water fell from the fringe of his dark hair onto his heavy eyelids. He looked as though he could sleep in this standing position. Bordón noticed a streak of mud across the other’s chest and felt a sudden compulsion to wipe it away, to restore symmetry.

  *

  In the soft warm mud at the river’s edge Rubén and Chino constructed elaborate edifices, castles in which doors and latticed windows were carved with a stick.

  The silver shadows flickered. The sunlight fell on the water and a faint breeze brought the scent of blossom from the orchards. Chino glanced sideways at the downy skin of his friend Rubén. He wanted to speak but his mouth was gummed up; the seams of his dry lips twitched. It was a wordless time as they moulded the mud into the foundations of walls and turrets. Only when Rubén murmured, “That’s a good tower.” Chino unglued his lips to whisper: “Like the one in Santa Clara.” Being with Rubén was like holding something ineffably fragile like an egg and trying not to crush it. He sat with his elbow scarcely touching Rubén’s sleeve and his happiness was like a warm full belly.

  Rubén made up stories about the people who lived in the buildings and they lost themselves in the world they’d created. Chino’s face shone with the light reflecting off the water. He looked up to see José peering at them from the shade of the trees.

  *

  Rubén had been thinking about Chino a lot, the hungry look of his slightly protuberant eyes. He was thinking about giving him one of his fishhooks. His uncle had given him seven steel hooks. Chino didn’t have much. The family was so poor they had no money to repair the oven and that’s why Chino’s mother couldn’t cook the maize dough like everyone else.

  Chino would be grateful for one of the hooks. Perhaps it would make up for the way they had treated him. He
chose a hook with a tarnished shaft and wrapped it with some scarlet thread to hide the spoiled steel.

  After school the next day, the air was full of buzzing insects, tiny plaguing sand flies that pricked them all over.

  At first Rubén thought Chino was going to cry. His mouth was turned down at the corners. “It’s a fishhook, a good one,” he reassured.

  “Yes, I can see.”

  “Is it OK?”

  “Yes, a fishhook is always useful.”

  “My uncle has lots of them.”

  Chino grabbed Rubén’s arm in a clumsy movement and held on to it, twitching as the sandflies pricked.

  “I have to go,” Rubén tried to pull his arm away.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Rubén almost wished he hadn’t given the hook. Chino stood close up. He was shorter than Rubén and only came half way up his shoulder. He sweated in the still shade, brushing sandflies away from his mouth.

  “See you tomorrow.” Rubén walked briskly away, certain that Chino was going to follow, dogging his footsteps, but when he looked, Chino was gone.

  A week later Chino sidled up to Rubén in the schoolyard and offered a package. At first Rubén thought it was going to be one of the corn dough balls because it was wrapped in a leaf and about the same size. Instead, he found a small gold brooch set with an ugly seed pearl. The kind of thing old ladies wore on Sundays.

  “It’s yours,” said Chino looking out of the corner of his eye.

  “I can’t take this,” Rubén began. “It’s too…”

  “You have to have it,” Chino whispered urgently. “I want you to have it.”

  “I can’t take it. You have to give it back.”

  “You think I’d give you something I’d stolen?” He got up close so that Rubén could smell dough balls.

  “Of course not, Chino.”

  “You’re my very best friend,” whispered Chino.

  Across the yard, the gang sauntered towards them: Gaucho, José and Pato. Rubén tried to push Chino off in a panic but Chino held on so that finally Rubén had to thrust him off with both arms. The package and its contents fell into the dirt. Rubén kicked it away, terrified that someone would see it: the love token.

  When he glanced round, Chino was gone. A week later Rubén found the fishhook wound with red thread, on his desk.

  *

  There was a fly crawling on Clavel’s nose but he could do nothing about it; Bordón had bound his hands behind his back. He sat in the sweltering shade, waiting. He watched a trail of ants transporting pieces of leaf down the trunk of the mango tree. He reflected that the ants shared a common purpose and that he had never had this sense of purpose, that he was lost. The thought came to him that he would die, here in the Sierra at this forsaken checkpoint with a rebel bullet in his head.

  He was jolted out of his reverie by the sight of Bordón, emerging from the door of the hut, wild-eyed. “I remember,” said Bordón thickly, “when I first came to the Sierra, they couldn’t understand me. The way I spoke, they said, was alien to them.”

  Clavel looked at the sweat gleaming on Bordón’s upper lip, his thin hair, but said nothing.

  “I’ve been here a long time. I belong here now.”

  “Of course,” Clavel murmured. He could smell the alcohol on Bordón’s breath.

  “You’re the outsider. It’s you who has no place.”

  Clavel glanced down at the stream of ants still trailing across the path. “Perhaps neither of us belongs in this place. We are neither of us suited to a life of labour. We want too much for ourselves.”

  “You think that you can say what you like to me. You think that because you’re an officer that I have to respect you, hand you over to the authorities for a fair trial. Before our family came to the Sierra, long ago, my mother had a job cleaning. She cleaned the homes of the rich people in the city. She lost her job because she was accused of stealing, but it was a lie because she never stole a thing. My father laboured in the cane fields. He worked so that he could afford to rent a piece of land. Then, we left the coast and came to the Sierra. We thought things would be better. It took a long time for people to accept us. Now you are the outsider and you don’t understand our lives. You don’t understand what people want. They want a better life. They want justice.”

  “We all want a better society and a more democratic government.”

  “Don’t come at me with your smart ideas, Clavel.”

  “I’m just talking about progress.”

  “Oh, I know your kind of progress. I’ve been to Havana and seen the corruption for myself at first hand. I’ve seen the money and the luxury cars and the prostitutes on the waterfront.”

  “Even they have to live somewhere.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Clavel. When the rebels take over, all that will be swept away. There’ll be nowhere for people like that in the new society. We shall know how to deal with them. They won’t pollute the new country. There’ll be no place for them.”

  “You seem very sure of that.” Clavel smiled, a tired, benign smile.

  “You’re laughing at me, Clavel.”

  “Not at all, you’re mistaken.”

  “I can tell when I’m being made a fool of.”

  *

  Clavel sat for a long time listening to the sound of Bordón, crashing about drunkenly in the guard hut. He sat quietly, so still that a lizard ran up the leg of his trousers as if the man had become a part of the tree trunk. Poised on his knee, the tiny creature cocked an eye up at Clavel. He observed its pulsating throat; it was as though the creature’s heart was in its mouth. He felt his own breathing—a shallow palpitation. It occurred to him that Bordón had lost his mind in his drunken state.

  The dusk crept along the fringes of the river, bringing clouds of biting flies, tiny black points of irritation. He heard Bordón issuing a curt order, to no one it seemed: “Pull yourself together man. Stand to attention!” It was as if he were dealing with a particularly raw recruit: “Stand to attention, I said!”

  Clavel’s mind wandered to his flat that he’d left last Sunday. He imagined the chair by the bed on which he placed his alarm clock and the photograph of his mother. He had left his clothes scattered around because the cleaner would be coming to tidy up. He left money on the kitchen table and, as he left, he had taken one last sniff in the dim hallway. He tried to recall the smell that his flat had.

  *

  The lieutenant appeared in the yard, his face streaming with sweat: “Those boys are back, Captain. I can’t keep chasing them off. They think it’s a game. You might come and have a word with them.”

  “Lieutenant, you are continually interrupting. I’m interrogating Colonel Clavel. Deal with the boys yourself, or are you scared of them?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then do it. If you interrupt me one more time I’ll have you disciplined. I’m serious, Lieutenant Carvajal. One more interruption and I’ll have you arrested.” Bordón’s voice cracked.

  The lieutenant exchanged a look with Clavel as he turned to go.

  After the youth had shuffled off, Bordón turned to Clavel: “You’re trying to undermine my authority with these men.”

  “No.”

  “I saw you exchanging smiles with the lieutenant.”

  Clavel was silent.

  “I know when I’m being undermined.”

  Clavel picked up a leaf and examined it slowly.

  “You’re trying to corrupt my men, to get them on your side.”

  “You’re in charge here, Captain Bordón; I’m just a prisoner.”

  *

  On his watch, later in the night, Bordón looked in on the prisoner. He lay face down, his left arm under his chin, his right arm by his side, the palm splayed upwards. His damp hair glistened in the dimness. His shoulders rose and fell rhythmically but the rest of his body was motionless. His eyes flickered open. He turned onto his back, rubbing his eyes.

  “What’s up,
Bordón?” His hands hovered in a strangely animal gesture above his chest. “It’s not morning?”

  “No, Clavel.”

  “So?”

  “I wanted to ask a question.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Do you… Do you believe, Clavel, in God?”

  Clavel’s mind was blank. He noticed the moon hanging in the sky above the gurgling river. When he was four or five, Clavel had woken in the night and, seeing the moon shining into the room, had risen to go and stand in its crisp cold light. As he stood there cloaked in white light he had had the sense of being completely alone, despite the sleeping bodies of his brothers all around him. It was as if the moon indicated a pathway to him alone and that, if only he could follow the path to its conclusion, he would discover some truth.

  The moon shone now, surrounded by a frosted violet corona. He’d been a sentimental child: the sight of the moon was enough to make him weep for something he couldn’t have put into words. But the army had pushed those things deeper, so deep that now he could only shiver slightly at the memory.

  “I really don’t know what I believe.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “It’s the only answer I have.”

  *

  “Lieutenant Carvajal?” Clavel croaked through cracked lips, waking in the night.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you mind fetching me a drink of water?”

  “There’s a pitcher of water by your bed.”

  “Yes, but my arms are tied.”

  “I forgot.”

  “Could you?”

  Carvajal, fumbling in the darkness, collided with Clavel: “Sorry, my night vision isn’t good. I’ve got the water here. What’s that?”

  “My leg.”

  They laughed, brushing against each other in the darkness.

  “Is that your mouth?”

  “Hold it still, I can’t…” Clavel gulped quickly between stifled giggles.

  *

  Bordón stumbled towards sounds from Clavel’s hut. With each step, his heart pounded in his chest. The leaves crackled underfoot. The silvery fronds of the cohune palms shivered against the night sky but the path was invisible—it would be easy to step on a snake in the darkness.