The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts

by Louis de Bernières

  In her hacienda Dona Constanza instructed her maid to bring her a huge jug of lemon juice sweetened with panela and cooled with ice. Then the maid was dismissed and Dona Constanza removed her towel and lay suffering and naked beneath the slowly rotating fan. She put down the copy of Vogue because the sight of all those tight clothes made her feel all the more unbearably hot, and she, like all the nation, oligarch and peasant alike, lay stricken and hopeless in the state of necessary torpor that makes siesta the only refuge of the sane.

  If the rest of the world does not always need a siesta, it does always need money, and Remedios’ group was no exception. Indeed, the thing which is frequently most galling to good Communist guerrillas is that they have to trade with capitalists, and become capitalists themselves in order to fund the revolution. More often than not, they are obliged to pay gunrunners in the hated yanqui dollar – contrary to popular myth, the USSR has given no direct aid since 1964 and the many groups that fund themselves by means of the drug trade are obliged to demand payment in dollars in order to buy the guns. In this case the revolutionaries at least have the satisfaction of knowing that the cocaine paid for in dollars goes straight to the hated USA and eats away at the lives of its citizens and its social fabric. Thus it becomes the victim of the strength of its own currency, and as Lenin said, often quoted by Remedios, ‘The capitalists will sell us the weapons with which we will destroy them.’

  Connected closely with this irony is another, namely that in order to secure peace, justice, and a better distribution of wealth, revolutionaries must prosecute war, perpetrate injustices and immoralities, and appropriate cash and goods from those whose interests they may have at heart – the ordinary people who cannot afford it. Like most groups, that of Remedios issued receipts for all goods appropriated, to be redeemed after the victory. Most of the people could not read these receipts, and those that could did not know what to do with them. In some places that had been cleaned out of pesos these receipts became a substitute for currency, their value depending upon the amount of writing upon them, so that one could hear such remarks as ‘I paid fourteen words for this machete’, or ‘One word for four mangoes’. People being raided by guerrillas would beg their raiders to write their receipts in even greater detail; this caused, however, a kind of word-inflation and the guerrillas eventually ran out of the good will to write them. Nonetheless, the receipts of the various guerrilla groups, even though they were interchangeable, never achieved a status equal to Pancho Villa’s amazing feat in the Mexican revolution of 1913 – that is, entirely supplanting the federal currency.

  There comes a time when the revolutionary conscience becomes troubled by revolutionary justice, and the revolutionaries try something that actually affects those against whom they struggle – the establishment and the oligarchy.

  Thus it was that four of the People’s Vanguard crashed through the door of Dona Constanza’s hacienda as she lay stark naked and torpid beneath the fan. Dona Constanza sat bolt upright, emitting little shrieks, her hands flitting from one part of her body to another in an effort to cover herself.

  The four guerrillas lowered their weapons and stood goggle-eyed and gaping before the spectacle. ‘Madre de Dios!’ exclaimed Tomas. Rafael giggled nervously and wanted to make a dirty remark without being able to think of one, and Gonzago, in an absurdly formal tone of voice, said, ‘Good afternoon,’ whereupon Rafael giggled again. Gloria snorted with amusement, bent down, handed Dona Constanza her towel, and said, ‘Callate!’ sharply to Rafael. ‘Basta ya!’

  ‘Perdone,’ said Rafael, still chortling, ‘but I find this very humorous.’

  ‘I do not!’ exclaimed Dona Constanza.

  ‘One day you will see the funny side of it,’ Gloria attempted to console her.

  ‘I doubt it. Now get out of my house or I will call the police.’

  ‘How?’ said Tomaso, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘We went round the house twice looking for a telephone-wire in order to cut it. You do not have a telephone. No one has a telephone around here.’

  ‘Perhaps she is telepathic with the police chief in Valledupar,’ commented Gonzago.

  ‘He has no thoughts for anyone to read,’ said Rafael.

  ‘Shut up all of you!’ ordered Gloria, and she turned to Dona Constanza. ‘You must get dressed in something very practical. We are taking you hostage against a ransom of half a million dollars. Behave and we will treat you with respect. Misbehave and we will shoot you. It is simple.’

  ‘But,’ replied Dona Constanza, her eyes wide with astonishment, ‘he would never pay it!’

  ‘Does he not love you?’ asked Tomas, genuinely concerned.

  ‘Quiet Tomas!’ said Gloria. ‘He will have to pay it or he will be shot some other time.’ She took from the breast pocket of her khaki shirt the receipt book. ‘You will write a letter to your husband which we will dictate to you.’

  Dona Constanza, her lip and her hands trembling, and her eyes brimming with tears, took down the following note:

  I have been taken hostage for half a million dollars by the People’s Vanguard. If you do not pay I will be shot and you will be shot at some other time, either before or after the victory. The money will be paid in cash and must be left beneath the arches of the bridge at Chiriguana at 7.00 p.m. on Friday, 15th March in two weeks’ time. You will be alone or both you and I will be shot. I will be released some days later. You can trust the People’s Vanguard if they can trust you. Onward to victory! Patria o muerte!

  Constanza.

  Underneath Gloria wrote, ‘Respected Sir, this is witnessed by Gloria de Escobal and hereto I append my signature. Gloria de Escobal.’

  Gloria escorted Dona Constanza to her dressing room and ensured, against the latter’s protests, that she dressed in the toughest and most practical clothes and shoes, took no more than two pairs of underwear and two shirts, and nothing else.

  When they returned to the living room, Rafael, Tomas and Gonzago were all poring over the three-year-old copy of Vogue.

  ‘They are strange women,’ said Tomas.

  ‘They are all skinny and they have no hair on their legs or in their armpits!’ remarked Gonzago.

  ‘Why would anyone want a book of pictures of white women who are obviously ill?’ demanded Rafael.

  ‘I would like to take this with me,’ said Dona Constanza, reaching over to take it.

  ‘You may,’ said Gloria. ‘Give it to her.’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ asked Rafael, and Dona Constanza looked at him contemptuously.

  ‘No, I am cultivated.’

  ‘Like a field?’ asked Tomas, puzzled. ‘How?’

  Dona Constanza was instructed to summon her maid, who was plainly terrified and could barely understand what she was being told. Gloria handed her the receipt and her eyes lit up. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘you are appropriating the mistress and redeeming her after the revolution?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Gloria. ‘You must give this to Don Hugh Evans without fail, or both he and Dona Constanza, and probably you, will be shot. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Madam,’ said the maid tearfully, and she curtsied out of force of habit. Rafael giggled.

  ‘Come,’ said Gloria. ‘We have many miles to walk. It is cool now and we should be back by dawn.’

  ‘Walk?’ said Dona Constanza. ‘I cannot walk!’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Gloria.

  ‘I have never walked. I would die in five minutes.’

  ‘You have never walked?’ said Gloria, astonished. ‘Well, you are going to have to.’ She prodded Dona Constanza in the back with her rifle, and the group filed out of the back door and passed beneath the bougainvillea above the terrace. The maid watched them go past the swimming pool, full as ever with algae and contented frogs, and saw them disappear into the dusk in the direction of the foothills. Then she ran back inside.

  Don Hugh Evans returned twelve days later from the capital. He was a very tall, dark-haired and distinguished-looking man of sturdy
and athletic build, having used his extensive leisure time playing rugby at the Welsh and Irish Club, and playing tennis at the Club Hojas. As he drove through the village, scattering the chickens, he felt that the people were looking at him in an odd way, and he was still wondering why when he brought his Japanese jeep to a halt outside the hacienda. Inside he found the maid tearfully biting her lips and twisting her skirts as she anticipated the storm.

  Don Hugh strode from room to room looking for his wife, and then came back into the hall. ‘Where is your mistress?’ he said. ‘Is she out riding?’

  ‘No, Sir,’ replied the maid, choking back her sobs. ‘The revolution came a week ago and took her away, Sir.’

  ‘The revolution?’ He took her by the shoulders, towering over her, and shook her. ‘For God’s sake, you mean she has been kidnapped?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. It was a week ago, Sir.’

  Don Hugh stepped back and put his palm to his forehead. He wiped away a trickle of sweat. ‘Well, why in God’s name did you not tell me before, you stupid woman? Are you a complete cretin?’

  The maid shrank back before his fury. ‘Only the mistress knew where you were, Sir. We went to Chiriguana with the receipt to use the telegraph but the station was destroyed by the revolution months ago, Sir.’

  ‘Christ in Heaven!’ shouted Don Hugh. ‘What receipt? Tell me what receipt?’

  ‘The one they made Dona Constanza write to you, Sir.’ The maid was by now sobbing bitterly and barely capable of speech.

  ‘Well, where is it, woman, show it to me!’

  ‘Oh, but Sir, I cannot. We spent it.’

  ‘You spent it? What do you mean you spent it, you disgusting mulatta bitch?’ Don Hugh advanced upon her, his eyes darting fire and his hand raised to strike her.

  ‘Please, Sir,’ pleaded the cowering maid, ‘we could not contact you so it was no use. We could not tell the police because the revolution said they would kill you and my mistress if we did. So we spent it.’

  ‘How in God’s name can you spend a receipt, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘It was one hundred and twenty-two words, Sir. We bought a lot of things and had a fiesta in the village for three days, Sir.’ Her eyes lit up at the memory for an instant, and she looked coyly up at Don Hugh. ‘Everyone got very happy, Sir.’

  ‘Oh did they?’ he yelled. ‘And who has the receipt now. Tell me before I twist your head off!’

  ‘Oh Sir, it is in the provisions shop in Chiriguana. Please do not hurt me.’

  Don Hugh put one huge hand around her neck and suspended her ten centimetres above the floor against the wall. ‘When I get back, you half-breed moron, I am going to tear you into fragments and feed you to the vultures!’

  He dropped her and turned on his heel. Back in his jeep, he set off with a screech of tyres and stopped for neither man, chicken nor dog until he arrived outside Pedro’s Grandiosa Tienda de Ultramarinos in Chiriguana. He kicked out at the chickens as he went in and marched up to the proprietor, who, sensing great peril, nipped smartly round the back of the table.

  ‘Can I help, Sir?’ he asked unctuously. ‘Ron cana? Aguardiente? Avocados? Anticonceptivos?’

  ‘I want the receipt, now. Come on, the receipt!’ demanded Don Hugh, snapping his fingers in the man’s face. ‘The receipt, or you are a dead man!’

  ‘The receipt?’ said the shopkeeper, puzzled. ‘What receipt?’

  ‘The one for one hundred and twenty-two words!’ shouted Don Hugh. ‘Give it to me!’

  ‘But it was spent in my shop, so it is mine,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘So you can’t have it. And anyway, I have already spent it myself.’ He dodged Don Hugh’s attempt to grab his collar. ‘I bought something substantial from the policeman.’

  ‘The policeman!’ exclaimed Don Hugh in astonishment. He turned, and in his rage and frustration he kicked out at a stack of guavas, sending them careering across the floor and further startling the chickens. The dog who had been dozing by the door slunk out with his tail between his legs, whining.

  ‘Where the fuck is the policeman?’

  ‘He’s gone away. He went to Valledupar, but he said he would be back in four days.’

  Don Hugh returned to his hacienda blind with fury, cursing the country that could have its policeman take four day’s unofficial leave and for no good reason. When he arrived he found that the maid had already disappeared forever. Not having one inkling how to cook, he despatched Sergio under threat of dismissal to find a cook by that evening. Sergio set off about his mission good-naturedly and returned with Consuelo the whore. ‘Oh my God!’ was all that Don Hugh could say, and soon found out that Consuelo was over-generous with pimienta sauce. His mouth and throat on fire, he threw her out of the hacienda and spent four days alternately drunk and apoplectic with rage and indignation before driving at horrendous speed back to Chiriguana.

  The policeman, a bloated, bleary-eyed pig of a man with cross-eyes and a scar across his nose, was milking a goat in his kitchen when Don Hugh arrived. Five minutes later Don Hugh emerged still shaking with fury and this time agog with disbelief. For one hundred and twenty-two words, the policeman had bought the use of all the whores in the puteria as often as he liked for six months.

  When Don Hugh entered the brothel, which was easily the best appointed building in the whole pueblo, he was instantly set upon by half a dozen gaily chattering girls of all different shapes and sizes making salacious suggestions. Don Hugh bellowed and threw them off. Just after he did so the Madame appeared; she was a huge mulatta as tall as Don Hugh, and possibly half as heavy again. The sight of this formidable lady had a calming effect upon the desperate husband, and in a voice that was almost controlled he asked if he could have the receipt for one hundred and twenty-two words.

  ‘No, Senor,’ she said, ‘it is mine, why should you have it?’

  ‘Then let me read it. The life of my wife depends upon it!’

  ‘Very well, Senor, but if you try to steal it Felicidad will shoot you.’

  In the corner of his eye he saw that an innocent looking whore of about fifteen was very expertly aiming a revolver at him.

  ‘I will not steal it, just let me read it!’ Don Hugh was pleading.

  Slowly the gigantic mulatta lifted the hem of her taffeta skirt, and from the top of her bulging thigh she took the receipt. Don Hugh took it from her and read it. He sank slowly onto a chair and buried his head in his hands. It was already too late.

  Dumb with disbelief he stumbled back out into the sunshine only able to think about one thing. It was completely irrelevant, but it was all he could think of. He called back in on the policeman. ‘What was the substantial thing that the shopkeeper bought from you? I’d just like to know.’

  The policeman looked up from his milking. ‘It was my niece from Valledupar. The man’s a paedophile; it is really disgusting.’

  Don Hugh passed the shop on the way back to his jeep. There was a skinny little girl of twelve piling up cassava, and as he walked by she caught his eye with a saucy, coquettish glance before she turned away.

  ‘My God,’ he thought, ‘truly this country of mine is a sink of abominations.’

  He was already nearly home when he heard a huge explosion. He stopped the jeep and looked back, to see a monstrous cloud of dust and debris ascending into the sky over Chiriguana. Unable to resist his curiosity, he turned the jeep around and sped back.

  17

  * * *

  A LETTER HOME

  La Estancia

  Ma chère Maman,

  I am writing to you with the heaviest of hearts, for it seems that if anything can go wrong, it assuredly will. Everything, in fact, is going so badly that I am thinking seriously of putting an end to my seemingly futile endeavours and coming home to France, where at least I know that a warm and loving family awaits me, though who knows what kind of job I can take there after fifteen years of farming in the tropics?

  To begin with, ma chère Maman, Françoise is terribly ill. Her health was n
ever good at the best of times, but the heat and humidity of this place has so enervated her and depleted her resources that every mosquito bite seems to turn into an ever larger and more intractable sore. Believe me, I have tried everything. First I tried lemon juice because its acidity makes it antiseptic; it stings formidably but I have always found it effective on my own cuts and tropical ulcers. Secondly, I tried the purple ointment which I use on the cattle; this stings even worse, but is also useless. Then, and this shows the measure of my desperation, I brought in the local hunter, who is a brujo, a kind of witch doctor. His name is Pedro, very tall and grizzly, and he has a huge reputation locally for his powers. They say he is in communication with angels, and he knows spells that he calls ‘secretos’.

  Now, Maman, I know what you are thinking, that this is plain diabolism, and that as a good Christian and a Catholic I should heartily excoriate it, but truly this place can drive one to such extremes of helplessness and desperation that one’s choices are taken away.

  Anyway, Pedro came by and laid his hands on Françoise’s neck and looked very hard into her eyes. He whispered something into her ear which she did not understand even though her Spanish is, as you know, quite fluent, and then he came to see me privately. He told me that there is a lot more wrong with her than ulcers. As if I did not know already!

  At about the same time I found some antibiotic powder in a cupboard that was three years out of date and sprinkled it on her wounds. She was better in a week! Perhaps I will never know whether it was the powder or the secrets of Pedro that cured her, or perhaps it was both – in this country reason does not apply to anything.