by James Runcie
It was a veritable Camelot of chocolate.
Yet the actual taste was extremely strange. The milk was boiled on a low heat in a vacuum, and developed a curdled flavour: sour, unfamiliar and yet redolent of the odour of milk pails on the farm in Vienna. This did not seem to worry my American benefactor, who was convinced that he could sell such a heady creation ‘in every five and dime store from Pennsylvania to Oregon,’ but it did give me cause for concern, particularly when I was asked to. assume the position of Director, Quality Control.
I was, at first, horrified. Determined to turn the job down, since I could not abide the taste of the bar, I remonstrated, as tactfully as I could, that my talents must lie elsewhere. I would rather inspect the original beans that arrived in our warehouse, checking each one for quality in order to ensure that, whatever the recipe, the finished product should be of the highest possible standard.
My benefactor, although surprised by my insistence on this, was mollified by my assurance that the quality of chocolate must always be dependent upon the nature of the original beans. And although I did not so much mind what he did to the cacao after it had arrived, I knew a good bean when I saw one, and am proud to say that we produced over one hundred thousand pounds of chocolate in the first year of my employment.
I had, of course, another reason for my desire to spend so much time inspecting beans, for much of the cacao was supplied by a certain plantation in Mexico.
Could my life turn full circle at last?
Each time I winnowed samples, or ground them in a pestle and mortar to check their quality, my dreams returned, and my head was filled once more with Ignacia.
I was a child, high up in a tree in the forest, and she was an old woman, making chocolate in the clearing where we had first known and loved each other.
She held up a chalice of chocolate and began to drink it, smiling strangely.
An enormous fire rolled over the top of the forest towards the hut.
I could sense the heat of the flames coming towards me.
A cacophony of distant voices shuddered on the wind and in the darkness, increasing in volume as they approached my ears.
Quien bien ama tarde olvida. The new love, the true love, the old love, the cold love. Zwei Seelen und ein Gedanke. Vous pleurez des larmes de sang? Two souls with but a single thought Liebchen, Liebchen. Querida. Querido mio. Love knows no winter. J’aime mieux ma mie, au gué, j’aime mieux ma mie. Das Leben ist die Liebe. True love does not rust with age. Even the beautiful must die. Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse.
Fire swept through the forest, blinding me, the voices rising and shouting, until it seemed to burn through me, tearing my insides, cleansing me with its scorching power, before moving on into the distance like a passing storm, leaving only the blackened landscape remaining.
Yet Ignacia was still standing outside her hut, waiting for me, surrounded by blackness and devastation.
Her eyes were filled with sadness.
I knew that I could no longer imagine living without her. For this was what love meant to me now: a recognition of solitude, the need to be completed. Al cabo de los años mil, torna el agua a su cubil. At the end of a thousand years, water returns to its cask. We always return to our old loves. I will see you again, amor mio; mis amores.
Still within the dream, I now fell from the tree, hurtling towards the earth and awaking with a terrible shudder, as if I was a small boy again, alone after the death of my mother.
And then, perhaps more awake than I had ever been, I knew, for certain, that whatever happened, I would never find peace until I returned to Ignacia’s grave once more. I could not believe that I could dream so vividly, or that the emotions I felt could have no value in my waking life. I even began to think that she was still alive: a living presence, a tangible memory. My heart could not accept the possibility of absence. I had to return to Mexico once more, even if it meant living by the grave. I could no longer tolerate this lingering existence of longing and despair.
I began to save as much of my earnings as possible, determined to leave as soon as I was able, to seek, once more, the woman I must love for ever.
‘Well, I’ll be damned.’ My benefactor smiled benevolently when I told him. ‘Why do you want to go there now?’
‘To make things right. To redeem my history.’
‘You want to find that girl?’
‘I do.’
‘After so long?’
‘I will never be happy if I am far from her.’
‘Your mind is certain?’
‘Never more so.’
‘I never heard anything crazier …’
‘Or, I hope, more true.’
I stopped for a moment, uncertain as to whether I should continue. This man had been so generous to me.
‘I cannot thank you enough for your kindness,’ I continued.
‘Well, you gave me the greatest idea.’
‘Not me, my dog.’
‘Ah yes! Your dog, God bless him.’
I reached out my arms and this great bear of a man hugged me to him, as if I had been the son that he had never had.
‘I do not believe I can live alone any more,’ I continued.
‘I think you only understand love when you have lost it. If you can find it again, then there can be no greater happiness.’ My patron smiled.
‘I have met many people in my life, known hope, and tasted grief. I have tried to remember the events which have changed me and the beliefs to which I have stayed true. And I know now, that although I have enjoyed friendship, and tasted desire, I have only loved once. I must find that love again.’
My benefactor took my hand and shook it warmly for the last time. ‘You are my very own knight of the doleful countenance. You deserve to find your Dulcinea.’
XII
I travelled in a trance of desperation, by railroad and by boat, in wagons and on foot, through Washington, Charlotte, Atlanta, Montgomery, New Orleans, and San Antonio until I reached Laredo and crossed the border into Mexico. Here I bought a horse and rode through the vast landscape of the Sierra Madre and on through Salamanca, Celaya and Acámbaro. A whole series of hallucinated cities blurred in the memory, just as if I was travelling towards Chiapas so many centuries before, as if my journey would never cease, until I finally arrived on the plantation where I had last seen Ignacia.
So much had changed, but when I saw the cacao beans and felt the heat of the sun against my face it was as if I had lost all of the four hundred years since I had been here last. I walked once more in the shade of the densely canopied trees and felt the weight and billowed softness of the fertile ground under my feet.
Some areas had been fenced off, and fierce security guards with thick moustaches and menacing dogs were on patrol. Seeing these animals made me think again of Pedro. How gentle he had been, how uncomplaining, how faithful.
Perhaps it was the thought of him that prompted the strangest of coincidences, for in the distance I saw a dark-coated lurcher with an uncanny look of Pedro about him.
The nearer I approached the closer the resemblance became.
I began to run towards the dog.
Thinking this a game, the lurcher ran far and away into the distance, until soon we were chasing each other across fields and track, through dense foliage and open glade, when we emerged at last, breathless and exhausted, into a vast and seemingly endless field of poppies.
‘Pedro?’ I cried.
The dog hesitated for a moment, but then ran on past a party of women who were making deep scratch marks in the poppy seed heads.
‘Wait!’ shouted one of the women, but I pressed on until I sensed the sudden approach of heavy footsteps behind me. Before I could turn to see who might be following, I was pulled to the ground and my hands were wrenched behind my back.
A gun was pointed to my head, and I was greeted with the words: ‘Feel like dying?’
‘Who are you?’ asked a second man’s voice. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Don’t lie to me, punk.’
‘It’s true.’
‘What are you doing in this field?’
‘Don’t hurt me.’
‘Answer the question.’
I had no choice but to be honest, for my past had taught me that however fantastical my story might seem, further invention had only tended to make my trouble far worse.
‘I was looking for a woman called Ignacia.’
‘Who?’ shouted one of the men, ramming what seemed to be another gun into my back.
It was impossible to reason with people I could not see and with my face so tightly pushed against the soil.
‘Ignacia.’
‘Do you know any women name of Ignacia?’ I heard one ask the other.
‘Ain’t no Ignacia here.’
I felt a sharp blow to my head.
‘Get up.’
I was hauled to my feet.
One of the men had a shaved head and a fierce demeanour. The other had, if such a thing were possible and I was not suffering the desperate delusions of the optimist, a more kindly disposition, and was chewing on a large green leaf that stained his teeth.
‘She’s not here,’ said the fiercer of the two.
‘You’ve got the wrong dog and the wrong woman.’
‘Not doing so well, punk.’
‘I am very sorry.’
‘You know this is the Carlos plantation,’ continued the bald man. A second gun gleamed in his pocket.
‘No, I did not.’
‘And you know what happens to scum who think they can get a little junk for free.’
‘Junk?’
‘Junk.’
Yet again a man was taking me for a lunatic, but I had learned by now that silence was the best course of action in order to avoid an antagonistic response.
‘Scag,’ the man continued, ‘you know, smack, H, snow.’
Still I did not understand.
‘Call it what you like,’ said the man.
‘All I did was follow the dog,’ I began.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Spain.’
‘No kidding?’ said the man with the stained teeth.
‘It’s a long story. You won’t believe me.’
‘Try us.’
I took a deep breath.
The story of my life.
Again.
‘It’s about a woman.’
‘The Ignacia chick.’
‘I haven’t seen her in a long time, and it’s taken me an eternity to realise that I love her and cannot live without her.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Many years ago.’
‘And you’ve come from Spain to find her? What she look like?’
I looked at the women working in the fields. Perhaps one of these might be her?
‘Like no one else on earth,’ I replied at last.
‘Beautiful or ugly?’ asked the fiercer of the two.
‘She is beautiful.’
‘She must have moved on,’ said the contemplative guard.
‘Quiauhxochitl. That was her name – in times long past,’ I said, quietly.
‘Quiauhxochitl?’ said the fiercer guard. ‘Isn’t that the name of the malinchista in the canteen?’
‘I don’t think so.’
My heart missed a beat. Could she really be alive after all?
‘You mean there’s a woman called Quiauhxochitl in the canteen?’
‘I think so.’
‘Would she be about fifty years old, with long dark hair, and eyes of darkest amber?’
‘That’s the dame.’
My heart stopped.
I turned to the gentler of the men, desperately hoping for sympathy.
‘And does she make the greatest chocolate you have ever tasted?’
‘I’m not really a chocolate kind of guy.’
‘I must see her.’
‘No, man, no dice, no can do. You’ve got to leave our land and never come back.’
‘No! I must see her.’
‘We do not bargain, man. You’re one lucky sonofabitch. We’re letting you go.’
‘Please. Let me find her,’ I begged, stepping towards them.
‘Get your ass away from my face.’
Had I come so far to leave now, with Ignacia so close and yet so unattainable?
‘Sylvester, please. Don’t talk to the gentleman like that,’ the second man interrupted, before spelling things out to me in a more kindly manner. ‘You gotta leave now without further questions. We’re taking pity on you, because you talked about love …’
‘And because getting rid of your dead body would be a considerable nuisance to us.’
I was in despair.
My life depended upon the outcome of this conversation.
‘Let me just pick her some poppies, and give them to her.’
‘Are you crazy?’
‘Look,’ I said, summoning all my feelings, in one desperate sentence, as if it was the last thing that I might say upon this earth. ‘I don’t think you understand. This is love. It is more important than anything in the world. It defines me. It is all I have and all that I want. If I cannot see her I would rather my life ended now. Shoot me if I cannot see her. Shoot me now and let me die rather than endure the torment of never seeing my love again.’
The men were silent
‘The disposal of the body would be a problem,’ said the stronger of the two.
‘I will dig my own grave for you,’ I continued. ‘But first, let me see if it is really her.’
The men stared at me.
‘Do you like to gamble?’ I asked desperately, remembering my reckless days in England.
They glanced at one another.
I kept talking, saying anything that came into my head, buying the time to persuade them to let me see Ignacia. ‘Let me make this proposition. If she recognises me, then I will leave here now and live with her for ever.’
‘And if she doesn’t?’
‘If she doesn’t then I will walk with you to the very edge of your land. I will step outside your boundaries. I will write a note explaining my suicide. I will borrow your gun.’
‘And then?’
‘And then I will lie down in a grave dug by my own hands and kill myself.’
‘Are you insane?’
‘I have never been more serious. You cannot lose. You will either witness a passionate reunion or a grateful death.’
They paused, looking each to the other.
‘I shall take silence as consent,’ I continued, and moved away into the field. ‘I am now going to pick a small posy of poppies.’
‘Only the flowers. Don’t touch the heads …’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
The men still seemed frozen to the spot.
‘Help me,’ I urged.
Hesitantly the two security guards now began to pick poppies by my side. The women in the fields continued their work, unaware of the drama unfolding before them.
I gathered a small posy and the two men, together with the intrigued dog (who had stayed by my side all this while), accompanied me to a low building in the distance.
I felt panic rising in me.
Was this the moment when Ignacia and I might be reunited? Perhaps I should warn her in some way, before she first set eyes on me? And what if she failed to recognise me? The encounter might be as empty and cold as my ill-starred reunion with Isabella all those years before. If so, then at least the comfort of death would be a merciful release.
I thought of what I might say to her – that love never tires, that it rules without laws, and that its power is determined by the strength our own hearts give it.
We arrived at the plantation canteen.
Sick with nerves, I pushed open the doors to the kitchen to reveal a sea of white aprons, gloves and hats amidst shining steel equipment. Dark chocolate revolved through the machinery ar
ound us, as if it had done so for all time.
Was she really here?
In the distance, a woman pulled off her hat and let her dark hair fall down onto her shoulders.
It was not Ignacia.
A second woman stared at me as if I had interrupted the most sacred of gatherings.
A third asked if she could help me.
Fear filled my being, and my head hurt so badly with the tension that I was worried that I would not be able to see.
I tried to focus on the far distance.
A woman in white was walking towards me.
Was this a dream?
The lady seemed to have a natural grace, unconcerned with the cares of the world as she carried a tray of newly made chocolate.
Then she stopped.
She looked about fifty-five years old, and was filled with beauty, sadness and wisdom; as if she had lived for all eternity and learned its secrets.
My God.
Here she was, extraordinary and unmistakable, the woman that I loved.
She looked up and smiled, as if she had been expecting me, as if she wondered why it had all taken so long, as if our reunion was the most natural thing in the world.
We looked across all the years of separation, across our dreams and our separate destinies.
‘Quien bien ama tarde olvida,’ I said. He who loves truly forgets slowly.
The workers looked on.
For a moment we simply stood there, staring at each other, as if we had done so for centuries, stupefied by love.
‘I am sorry for all that I was when I first came here,’ I began at last, ‘and for all that I have done.’
She looked down at the floor as if suddenly shy, and then up, her eyes filled with tears, staring beyond me into the distance: into the past, and into the future.
I could not stop now.
