In the Beginning Was the Sea

by Tomás Gonzáles

  Octavio and his wife had now been living on the finca for almost two months. Winter was finally over and the nights now were cloudless and strewn with stars. In the two months since their arrival, Octavio’s wife had not once washed the coffee pot. At night, J. sometimes heard the old man beating her, heard the woman crying or laughing hysterically. “I need to get rid of them as soon as possible,” thought J. “Either they leave, or I do.”

  He began to consider the idea of hiring a competent estate manager and moving back to Medellín. Sometimes, he almost accepted that the finca was going nowhere; that without Elena it was hardly worthwhile; that he was sick and tired of the forest and the roar of the sea. But the prospect of moving back to Medellín, finding a job, having Ramiro or someone like him as a boss, brought him out in a cold sweat. He vaguely considered various business possibilities—a ceviche restaurant, a bar, a bookshop—but nothing seemed to fit. Besides, he was up to his neck in debt that he would have to pay off before he could even consider raising money for a new venture. Nor did he relish the thought of returning to the life he had lived before running away to the sea, the familiar routine of alcohol- and cocaine-fuelled sessions in dreary apartments and pounding rock music in nauseatingly “hip” nightclubs.

  Sometimes, when he had a particularly brutal hangover, or during long afternoons spent drinking on the veranda alone—he felt uncomfortable drinking with Octavio—J. saw everything with such crystal clarity that he felt as though the land had trapped him here for all time. He wrote to a woman who had been his lover years earlier, telling her he felt so alone it sometimes seemed as though his life were drawing to a close. “But I plan to go on living,” he wrote. “After all, the sea is not so bad and even the palm trees are beautiful in a way.”

  He had word from Elena that she was thinking of going to stay with one of her brothers in Venezuela. The job prospects there were good, apparently, and the pay for people with no qualifications was better than in Colombia. It was not a letter, but simply a scribbled note—Elena was busy preparing for her trip—that informed him that she was leaving. In it she gave him a forwarding address on the Isla Margarita and promised that as soon as she felt less stressed she would come back to him, to the finca. It ended with the words “I love you”.

  For two months they exchanged increasingly infrequent letters, but still J. languished in this listless, indolent state, not knowing whether he could leave, where he could go, or why he might stay. He had lost any sense that his actions served a purpose. He tried to justify his life through the sensual pleasures offered by what passed before his eyes: the seagulls, the flaring sunsets, the sail of a fishing boat far out on the open sea. He drank in order to escape the endless turmoil of the house. He had still not found anyone to replace Octavio; people seemed to fear him and no one dared take his place. He began to hear rumours about the man, none of them good; people said he had murdered a neighbour on his finca in Balboa; they said the old man had spent time in Quibdó gaol where he had stabbed and been stabbed many times. People said all these things, as usual, only after it was too late. Other than Elena, the only person to actually warn J. was Doña Rosa. She told him to be wary of Octavio, that there was evil in his eyes.

  J. wrote to one of his brothers-in-law who owned a sugar cane plantation in the Valle del Cauca asking whether there might be work for him there, perhaps as an overseer.

  If there came an answer, he never received it.

  36

  ONE MORNING, J. got up early despite drinking all night. The moment he opened his eyes he was wide awake and convinced that the time had come to dismiss the lumbermen, to dismiss Octavio, to find someone to manage the finca and to leave this place forever. Stepping out onto the veranda, he saw an emerald-green iguana basking on top of one of the fence posts. “I’ve never seen a stamp with an iguana on it,” he thought. He considered this notion and realized he was happy. The sea was glassy as a mirror and the sound of the waves breaking was fitful as the breathing of a sleeping animal. “A huge, slumbering beast,” he thought. “A pathetic literary cliché—you’re not exactly inspired this morning, little man. But there’s a grain of truth in it.”

  He was happy.

  He decided not to have breakfast at the house and walked to the village where they fed him eggs and fried plantains. He had already begun to see things through the eyes of someone about to leave. He felt a pang of nostalgia. He loved the village, the orange grove, loved Doña Rosita and the locals, loved the smell of smoke wafting from the houses and the scent of soap that drifted from the villagers. He took a short walk through the forest, trying to avoid the workmen and, at noon, as he passed back through the village, he bumped into the wife of Miguelito, one of Doña Rosa’s sons, who offered him lunch. They ate together and then he and Miguelito—who was sweet and terribly shy—walked back to the house. As they arrived, he saw that the iguana had not moved, something he found strange. It seemed stranger still that the animal did not scuttle away when he approached. It was warm from lying in the sun all day but had probably been dead when he first saw it that morning.

  At five o’clock he went out to the mango tree and picked a few green fruits. He sat on the veranda to drink one last bottle while he stared out at the sea. “A week from now, I’ll be in Medellín,” he thought. “Or maybe I should head straight to the Valle del Cauca, see if they’ve got any work for me.” He drank slowly, careful to pace himself so that he did not miss the sunset. Then the vast night drew in and a bright crescent moon blazed on the horizon. And with the night came Octavio, who greeted him and went into the kitchen where his wife could serve him dinner. Gilberto passed in front of the house on his way back from town and J. invited him to come up and have a couple of drinks.

  J. informed him that he was leaving and that Octavio and the lumbermen would be leaving too. He would need someone to check on the finca now and then; he also wanted to give the horses to someone who could look after them and find a use for them. “I’ll have to come back from time to time, Gilberto,” he said. “For the moment, if I can make a little money, I’ll invest it in having the house done up so it can be rented out to tourists. One way or another, Octavio will be leaving so if you know anyone who would be prepared to live here and keep an eye on things, please, let me know.” Their elbows on their knees, the two men talked in whispers so the old man would not overhear.

  Before he left, Gilberto promised to help as much as he could.

  By ten o’clock, the moon had risen over the sea and was glistening over the forest, silhouetting the house from behind and casting a silvery shadow over the meadow in front of the house. The moonlight glittered on the spray of the phosphorescent waves as they crashed on the beach. J. knew that tonight he would have to fire Octavio. He could hear the man in the kitchen talking to his wife. But since the old man went to bed late—he slept little, less than five hours—J. postponed the difficult conversation for as long as possible. He saw the lights of a passing shrimp boat out on the open sea. He heard the muffled rumble of the engine. He saw Kaiser walking along the beach, heading for the village, and watched until he melted into the shadows of the forest. J. had already drained half the bottle of aguardiente and the more he drank the more desperate his need to be rid of Octavio and his wife. He felt trapped by them, as though tangled in a mass of seaweed dragging him down into the murky sands of a world he did not recognize at all. Anger welled in him. A small, jet-black cloud covered the moon for an instant and the shades of night were plunged into the sea. Then the cloud scudded on and the darkness was made light once more. From the village came the sound of dogs yapping.

  Talking to Octavio was not easy; he liked to remain aloof and aguardiente did little to mellow him. Between sips, vast silences extended like murky lakes. Stripped to the waist, the old man was sitting in a chair leaning back against one of the pillars, his back to the sea. The paraffin lamp cast a dim glow on his chest, matted with grey hair, and glistened on the scar snaking across his belly. J. had once asked a
bout the scar and the old man had told him it was from an operation on his liver. “The old bastard has his liver where his stomach should be,” J. thought but did not enquire further. Now, unwillingly, his eyes were drawn to the gleaming weal. Suddenly, realizing he was afraid to fire the old man, J. felt a surge of anger: he needed to act quickly, to settle the matter once and for all.

  “I’m selling the finca, Octavio,” he said brusquely. “I need you and your family to move out within the next three days because I have to leave.”

  He took a long swig of aguardiente as the words hung in the air, echoing like a church bell. For a moment, the old man said nothing. He looked dumbfounded.

  “You are not going to sell the finca,” he said finally.

  J. stared down at the bare boards of the veranda, feeling his face flush with rage.

  “Whether or not I sell is my business,” he said slowly. “One way or another I need you out of here by Wednesday.”

  “This is what always happens with rich fuckers like you: you bleed a man dry and then toss him on the scrapheap.”

  “I’m not rich, I’m not throwing anyone on the scrapheap, and I have not bled anyone dry.”

  “You know how hard I’ve worked.”

  “That’s enough,” roared J. “The finca is mine and I don’t have to justify myself to anyone.”

  “There’s no need to humiliate me.”

  “I’m not humiliating anyone! I’m sick to the back teeth of you and your pig of a wife and your children. I don’t want to have to deal with shit all over the veranda, and I don’t want to have to listen to those fucking brats squalling.”

  Octavio turned pale, got to his feet and challenged J. to a fight. The situation was absurd. J. was thinking that the old man had spent all day working in the forest and probably stank of sweat. The idea of him and the old man wrestling on the ground was insane. J. became very calm. He felt no fear now.

  “I am not about to fight anyone, Octavio. You’re a much stronger man than I am, you could do me serious damage. Now go and pack your things. If I see you here tomorrow morning, I’ll get the police and have you thrown off my land.”

  “You’re a pitiful excuse for a man.”

  “Don’t talk such shit,” J. said almost affectionately. “I think it might be better if you went to bed.”

  J. stared out at the luminous waves crashing on the beach. He felt the aguardiente, cold and harsh, trickle down his throat. He listened as the waves retreated in a soft clatter of shingle. Octavio, he sensed, had gone back into the house. He had just started to urinate when he heard the first shot, felt the bullet hit him, and collapsed. He was bewildered. He felt a tingling in his right arm. Looking down, he saw his shirt was soaked with blood. “Dear God!” he said. He tried to get up but his right arm was too weak and he slumped back onto the grass. He put his weight on his left arm and managed to struggle to his feet. He felt sick. Just as he was about to run, he heard the second barrel and collapsed again onto the meadow.

  “Dear God,” he said, “I’m dying.”

  He lay motionless for a moment, staring at the blades of grass.

  He turned his head and saw Octavio standing on the veranda, holding the still-smoking rifle.

  “That’ll teach you to humiliate poor people.”

  “Octavio, I need a doctor.”

  But the old man had already disappeared. He locked his family in their room and set off for the village to announce he had killed J.

  “Octavio, get a doctor.”

  There was a sibilant hiss now as he breathed. In the locked bedroom Octavio’s wife and children were crying. Branches brushed against the old man’s face as he raced along the dirt track like a lunatic, aiming the shotgun at the darkness.

  “A doctor,” J. groaned.

  He no longer tried to get up. He knew he would not be able. He gazed at the shimmering waves as they broke, listened to the whispered drone of the fishing boat out at sea.

  “Oh, God!”

  Salomón arrived and told him the best fishing would come with winter. When J. opened his eyes Salomón was gone and still the waves shimmered as they broke. He called again for a doctor. He closed his eyes, and heard Salomón telling him the best fishing would come with the rainy season.

  It was the last human voice he would hear.

  By the time the tide ebbed in a soft clatter of shingle, he could no longer hear it.

  Octavio returned, followed by several shadowy figures—none of them dared come close—and walked over to where he lay, now motionless and deathly pale. Octavio gathered him up as one might a sleeping child, climbed the steps to the veranda, walked as far as the bedroom and laid him out on the bed. Then he set off on the road to town.

  He was going to turn himself in.

  37

  TWO DAYS LATER, Guillermo was the first member of the family to arrive at the finca. He found J. laid out on a table, his body bloated and purple. Seeing him, Guillermo felt his testicles draw up. Doña Rosita, who had washed the body and kept vigil for two nights, told Gilberto to get him a shot of aguardiente. Guillermo drank it and slumped into a chair, his face in his hands, and began to cry.

  “We need to bury him now,” he said when he had calmed down. “We can’t just leave him rotting.”

  “Don Eduardo has already embalmed him,” said Gilberto. “He should hold out until tomorrow. Is the coffin on its way?”

  Guillermo did not know. He had let the rest of the family know, but it had been decided that sending a coffin all the way from Medellín would take too long. As for Guillermo, he had not had enough money to bring one from Turbo.

  The following day one of the brothers arrived. He did not view the body. His face ashen, his eyes dry, he asked the police to make an inventory of the few things that had not been stolen, then he personally stored them in one of the bedrooms, which he padlocked. He said that bringing a coffin from Turbo was a ridiculous idea; besides there was no time.

  “The best thing is for us to knock up a wooden box here. Go fetch some wood… what’s your name again?”

  “Gilberto.”

  “Get some decent planks, Gilberto, and we’ll make the coffin ourselves.”

  But there was no timber. They searched everywhere and could find nothing that would serve. The brother suggested that the best thing to do was to dismantle the bed and use the wood to make the casket. The mattress, they burned down on the beach. Gilberto broke up the bed, took the best of the timber and set about looking for nails, but found none. And so using the nails he had extracted from the bed, he began to hammer the coffin together. The result was a long, ugly wooden crate that did not look fit to transport a body.

  Miguelito and Gilberto took the rowing boat; the others went on foot. The sea was calm. The oars moved swiftly, powerfully, through the dark waters. The two men did not speak. The crate containing the body sat between Miguelito in the bow and Gilberto in the stern. They passed within ten metres of one of the little islands in the bay. Rounding the headland, they saw the small, distant figures of people who had left the road and were following the coastline. The boat was moored next to the cemetery and, together, the people brought the coffin ashore. The ribbon of sand glittered in the midday sun.

  And together, they buried him.

  That same day as the sun set, a languid, tarnished sunset, Guillermo felt a stabbing in his belly. He was hungry. Slowly, he walked to the mango tree, picked up the bamboo pole J. had used to knock fruit from the high branches and picked three ripe mangoes. He sat on a pile of fallen leaves beneath the spreading branches and began to eat. “Honey, pure honey,” he thought as the juice trickled through his beard and ran down his neck.

  “Fucking delicious.”

  38

  HE DOES NOT know where he is, nor when he departed this life. He is dead. He cannot hear the breeze rustling the branches of the trees, nor the breath of the sea next to him; he cannot feel the fishermen as they walk past his grave, leaving imprints of bare feet on the sand and t
he faint whiff of tobacco in the air. The time that existed before birth has become one with the eternity that followed death to become a single entity with no beginning and no end, no before and no after. He does not know who owns his lands now. How he came to love it! Did he exist? Does the path still exist? He does not know; the strange flower that was his mind has withered and now, for him, there is no memory. He is lost forever in the vast totality that is now and always has been, this living thing that is at once remote and utterly present, this thing that is but water, though it blossoms as love, terror, wisdom and desire; water that blooms as beauty, blood and passion though always and ever it is water.

  And as his cheeks decay, his ears disintegrate, his heart is delivered up to other beings, the sun, this sun which is also fleeting, has not ceased to shine on other lives. On the monkeys leaping from bough to bough. On the cattle ceaselessly chewing their own weight in cud. On the white glare of gulls as they rend the air. On men sitting under trees and eating mangoes.

  But he no longer knows these things. He cannot hear the whisper of the sands shifted by burrowing crabs that trickle into his grave like some frantic sandglass. He cannot hear the frantic roar of the waters as the tide swells and the sea retreats, taking with it the sand he is becoming. In the beginning was the sea. All was in darkness. There was neither sun nor moon; no people, no animals, no plants. The sea was everywhere and everything. The sea was Mother. The Mother was not a woman, nor a thing, nor nothingness. She was the spirit of that which was to come and she was thought and memory.