The Murmur of Bees

by Sofía Segovia

  Who was this Pedro Ronda, the True Wonder, who would sing before all of Linares while submerged in the river in front of La Verdad Mill? What gift did this human have that even fish did not?

  The truck and its racket drove off and turned down another street to continue announcing the party. The voice, which for a moment had been clear as it passed in front of him, turned back to metal and recovered its shrill meaninglessness. Once again it reverberated on the drugstore, faded among the trees, then bounced back off the Arab’s store. The people who did not follow the truck went back to their work, emptying the square: the ladies returned to their contemplation, shopping, or housework; the men to their businesses; and the teachers to the more difficult task of shepherding their pupils back into their classrooms.

  Simonopio decided to spur on Thunderbolt, who in the ruckus had made no attempt to move a single leg. He turned the horse around to follow the truck. When he reached it, he directed Thunderbolt toward the right side of the crowd. Then he spotted him: Francisco Junior had climbed onto that side of the vehicle and, as if he were part of the show, was waving at the people on the street, ready to remain with the caravan until the end.

  Francisco Junior did not see Simonopio approach and get into position to heave him down and onto Thunderbolt’s back, in front of him. Battling with a boy whose adventure had been interrupted and with a horse that was unaccustomed—and did not like—carrying the weight of two people, Simonopio turned around again to head to the Cortés house and return the child to school for the second time in less than fifteen minutes.

  Francisco Junior kicked and waved his arms angrily. He seemed to think that he would miss all sorts of things if he did not go with the truck, but Simonopio also knew he took any opportunity to avoid being shut away for hours with his teacher.

  “The show’s not today; it’s on Saturday. Today’s a school day.”

  “It’s ages till Saturday.”

  “It’s just five days.”

  “That’s ages. I can’t wait five days.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  It seemed like a very long time to Simonopio too. But he would wait and so would Francisco Junior.

  “Will you take me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you swear?”

  “I swear.”

  Simonopio figured he could quite easily raise the forty centavos it would cost the two of them. He would sell some jars of honey to the people on La Amistad. It was expensive, but it might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Nothing in the world would have made Simonopio miss the chance to see Pedro Ronda, the True Wonder, who, with more talent than any fish, was going to sing underwater with no equipment.

  53

  Alchemy

  Francisco Morales was in a bad mood. It was his normal state, of late, every time he dealt with Espiricueta, whether it was to agree to a date to inspect the land he had assigned the man more than nineteen years ago, to hand over the season’s seeds or a new box of ammunition for his Mauser, or simply to ask amiably after his children. There was no getting through to the peon, who grew ever more uncommunicative and unsociable. He always put off the inspections that Francisco routinely conducted on all of his sharecroppers’ land with the aim of finding ways to make it more productive. If Espiricueta answered a question, he always mumbled his response with his head down, without looking Francisco in the eyes like any upright man should address another upright man.

  The years of protection had not been of any use to the southerner. The parcel Espiricueta occupied was the only remaining land on the Amistad estate that had not been planted with orange trees, because he refused to change. Francisco did not understand why, considering that, for some strange reason, the maize crops Espiricueta insisted on sowing did not thrive. Sometimes he suspected that the peon did not give his crops the care they needed, but whenever he decided to pay an unexpected visit, the son—what was his name? Francisco could never remember—was always plowing the land with his own sweat and brute force or irrigating it during their allocated irrigation time.

  Even so, the Espiricuetas’ harvest was never good. It was never even sufficient to cover the rent agreed upon in 1910. Now Francisco was reaching the limits of his patience. First out of pity and later because of the simple convenience of keeping his land occupied, he had overlooked this ineptitude and lack of productivity.

  He could not put it off any longer.

  He thought he had managed to frighten the agrarians away from his land, but they were not the only ones threatening the family property: there was also the agrarian bureaucracy, which never tired of sending official letters demanding to inspect the entirety of his properties, to check the deeds of ownership, and to confirm the legality of the transferals of land he had conducted years before to some trusted friends.

  Francisco felt harassed. He seemed to spend more time doing paperwork and providing explanations now than he spent on the orchards and ranches. In Tamaulipas he had already had to give up a ranch, but in Linares he avoided expropriation through the deals he had struck, handing over more and more of the land in Hualahuises, which was the property that interested him the least.

  He had defended his land in Linares by any means possible.

  The orchards were gathering momentum: the orange trees had proved very productive, and there were ever-fewer setbacks from the army or bandits ambushing the shipments of fruit to various parts of the country and to Texas, where the market paid good prices.

  With a great deal of pride but even greater relief, he had, in a relatively short space of time, been able to put back the large withdrawals that had depleted the bank account. However, that no longer mattered: two years before, in 1928, the Milmo Bank, which the Morales family had entrusted with their money for generations, had suddenly gone bankrupt, without warning or mercy. One day he received a letter informing him in very formal terms that everything he had believed he had—decades of savings, his inheritance—had vanished. His mind was still trying to solve the financial riddle, the alchemy, that had turned more than a hundred thousand gold pesos into nothing more than a piece of stationary full of apologies as empty as his bank account.

  “We’re going to have to start again. It’s all gone, Beatriz.”

  “We have land and strength.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “What’re we going to do?”

  “You, you’re going to get up tomorrow morning like you do every day. Go to work on your land, like you do every day. And thank God that you were brave enough to use that money for useful things while you had it. And I, I’ll wait for you here, doing my own things, as ever.”

  Beatriz was right: the Morales Cortés family’s life had not changed because of the loss of a bank account that they did not depend on to live. Francisco had never stopped working for a single day out of the arrogance and vanity that comes with wealth. He had never lived like a rich man or envisaged himself living extravagantly in the future.

  Thanks to the fact that they had used the money in the bank while they had had it, and more recently to the bonanza that the orchards had provided, they had even been able to cooperate with the other members of Linares Social Club to finally fund the long-awaited construction of the club’s building, which was now making good progress. They also had the house in Monterrey and the land. They had the tractor that was so useful, though Francisco had to admit he was now admiring and stroking another cutting from the Farmers’ Almanac advertising a much more modern and compact model—albeit with a heavy heart, for they were unable to purchase it in their current situation. Thanks to that gold, he had been bold enough to change their land’s calling, and the investment had paid off twofold: with the success of the oranges as a crop and as protection from any major expropriation.

  He mourned the loss of the gold, of course—how could he not? He even joined a group of creditors from Linares and Monterrey to file a suit against Milmo Bank, though he could not see how, by legal means, the
y would be compensated for the loss of their fortunes. They organized meetings, they ranted and raved, they cursed, they complained, and some even cried. It was all for nothing: Francisco suspected it was much easier to make a mountain of gold disappear than it was to make it reappear again from nowhere.

  His fortune was gone, but his property was not, which was why, now more than ever, he felt not only the obligation but also the need to defend what he had left. Why he could no longer allow himself the magnanimity he had shown Espiricueta. Why he went to him to inform the man that, if he did not agree to plant orange trees on his allocated plot, he would have to leave.

  The news did not go down well with the campesino.

  “I been working my land nineteen years, but I wanna plant tobacco.”

  Francisco was surprised to hear so many words strung together coming from Espiricueta’s mouth. And the business with the tobacco was news to him.

  “Tobacco was planted here before the sugarcane, but it didn’t work. And you’ve been failing to fulfill our agreement for more than nineteen years. This is as far as it goes: you do what you’re told, or you leave. It won’t cost you anything. I’ll bring you the trees. You plant them and tend to them. Oranges sell, and it’s the best way to stop them taking our land, Anselmo.”

  Silence.

  “I’ll see you here on Saturday. I’ll help you get started.”

  54

  It’s the Best Way to Stop Them Taking My Land

  “Yes, I’ll see you here Saturday.”

  Instead of irrigating his maize, though it needed water, Anselmo Espiricueta went to practice with his Mauser.

  55

  Not All Saturdays Are the Same

  I remember those five days of waiting.

  When I climbed onto the pickup truck, I did so imagining that I was running off with the circus and would learn, like Ronda, the True Wonder, the trick of singing underwater. It’s not that I wanted to earn a living by singing under the surface; rather, I imagined that, if one was able to sing in such an unusual and adverse environment, first one would have to be able to breathe like a fish in water. And just think of all the big adventures that such a skill would bring me.

  How many Saturdays had I lived through until then? It was April 1930, so I calculate that, up to that point, there must’ve been 363 Saturdays in my life so far. Not that I paid much attention before I started school, but from then on, every Saturday seemed glorious to me because I didn’t have to go.

  At almost seven years of age, I had experienced seven Holy Saturdays, which were the most eagerly awaited because the color and activity returned to Linares life after what seemed like never-ending monotony, traditionally beginning on the first day of Lent. Then there were certain Saturdays when the Villaseca Fair came to town, when the best quarter-mile horse races were held. Those seemed special to me. There were also the Saturdays in the summers that we spent with my cousins on one of the ranches, trying to remain submerged for as long as possible in the pools that formed on the river banks—hence my intense desire to learn Ronda’s aquatic skill.

  That Saturday in particular was, for me, the Saturday of all Saturdays: my seventh birthday coincided with the underwater spectacle, and the whole town was gathering at the event that, at times, I persuaded myself was being held in my honor. I imagined Ronda, from his place underwater and with the show in full swing, saying clearly through the bubbles, May the guest of honor come forward! And there I’d be in the front row.

  Yes, the wait was long.

  During those torturous schooldays leading up to the Saturday that was so eagerly awaited, so widely publicized, and so very much mine, no one—neither pupils nor teachers—spoke of anything else. Impossible, the adults said. Impossible. The innocents said, But he said so! He said it through the megaphone and we all heard it! As if saying it through a megaphone was a sort of guarantee. But one and all would attend the aquatic recital: the line had been cast, and we were all fish ready to bite.

  Two days before, in the square, on the streets, everyone stopped to discuss the matter, asking one another, Are you going? Just like that—no need to specify what event or what day they were referring to. They all knew, and then they would say, See you there? What time are you going?

  Well, it starts at five.

  But we could go earlier. Take some food.

  We could spend the day in the country.

  Let’s take tortas and lemonade.

  Let’s meet at twelve, then.

  To get a good spot.

  Getting a good spot would be crucial.

  That Saturday, even the storekeeper Abraham closed up shop at four in the afternoon. All the field workers had asked for special permission from their bosses to work a half day. The barracks, which some years ago had appropriated the town’s largest hospital building, left just two soldiers—two that were being disciplined—so that the rest could join the party. And no parent, even the most skeptical, had been able to deny their children the Saturday outing.

  Except mine.

  Every day of those five I had to wait, I embarked on a new campaign to persuade my mama and papa to go, without success. I believe they must’ve been the only ones to categorically refuse to pay the twenty centavos each to someone they declared was a con artist exploiting the gullible people of Linares. Not even my own attempts at extortion—all my friends were going, it was my birthday—forced them to yield.

  I wasn’t too worried, because I had Simonopio’s promise: he would take me, and if my mama and papa wanted to miss out, that was their business.

  As ever, whether fast or slow, time always passes, and grain of sand by grain of sand, every date arrives. And so the Saturday that all of Linares had been waiting for also arrived.

  56

  Sharing Sweat and Shade

  She had brought up her children with discipline, following the rule that one should not say yes to everything, but by the Saturday in question, Beatriz Cortés de Morales had tired of saying No, no, no and Please, leave me in peace, because her petitioner, in spite of—or because—his seven years of age, was indefatigable and relentlessly stubborn.

  There were moments in the last five days—which had seemed like weeks to her—in which she had been about to give up and say, Go on then, go see that Ronda, that wonder, that good-for-nothing. But the family already had plans for Saturday, and they did not include wasting time and money on a refugee from some nearby village who, in the ten years he had spent living as a parasite in Linares, had done nothing but extract money from people of good faith using trickery.

  The event on Saturday was just another ruse.

  Beatriz did not know what people would find when they went to see the aquatic singer’s show. To some extent, she understood why—needing some kind of distraction after the years of hardship they had lived through and the years still to come—even the most suspicious townspeople would give in to their curiosity.

  The interest in Ronda was just a pretext for many people.

  With the excuse that Ronda had given them, why not enjoy what promised to be a warm, lazy spring day by the riverside, sitting in the shade of the trees, surrounded by family, games, good food, and friendship? Beatriz suspected that some were looking forward with glee to what the evening would end in: some good jeering—which Beatriz knew would be well deserved—at the performance of the supposed underwater singing. For them, twenty centavos each was money well spent, because they would enjoy the day, spend time with their neighbors and friends in the open air, and then enjoy the mass mockery—which they might even instigate themselves—of someone who undoubtedly deserved it.

  For twenty centavos each, they would have an anecdote to enjoy for years.

  For one reason or another, it seemed that everyone—both the credulous and the cynical—would meet at La Verdad Mill. Even Francisco’s workers had asked for a half day off, and while he refused Francisco Junior, as their boss, he had allowed them to go.

  He tried to dissuade them, but if they w
anted to spend twenty centavos on stupid things, it was their choice.

  That Saturday morning, when they woke Francisco Junior, his father said to him, “I need you to come to work with me today.”

  And his mother added, “And when you get back, I’ll be waiting with a birthday cake. What do you think?”

  Finally, they had found a way to silence the boy’s incessant begging to go to see Ronda.

  Francisco would not achieve what he had originally set out to do that day, but even so, he wanted to continue with the plan, albeit on a smaller scale: he would take Francisco Junior to start planting the orange trees he had set aside for Espiricueta’s land. Francisco did not believe it was too early to involve his son in matters of the land, to understand what would be his inheritance. And by the same token, it was time to strike up a closer relationship with his only son, a relationship he felt he had neglected, first because of the boy’s young age and later because of the problems and distractions of being the head of a family in troubled times.

  In the absence of any peons or Espiricueta—who Francisco assumed would make himself scarce that day, reluctant as he was to make the change Francisco had proposed, and who he assumed would be attracted, like everyone else, by the gathering at the river—the two of them would plant five or six trees by themselves. They would take a picnic, and then the father would give his son his birthday present: the old .22-caliber rifle that had belonged to his grandfather.

  “Yes, Beatriz: he’s old enough to use it. With me.”

  He would teach the boy to be cautious, to aim, and to fire, but also to care for the rifle and clean it in the way that it merited after use.

  Francisco was certain that this special gift would compensate for not being able to join the crowds at the river, which would end only in disappointment. The rifle, on the other hand, would offer excellent opportunities for father and son to spend time together. It would provide a way to find common interests that would remain with his son for his whole life, as Francisco hoped the .22 itself would, so that in the future, his son could leave the precious object to his own sons.