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The Initials of the Earth
By Jesús Díaz Duke University Press
Copyright © 1999 Piper Verlag GmbH, Munchen
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-8223-3844-0
Chapter One
From the snows of Kilimanjaro, Carlos looked into the jungle and yelled "Tarmangani!" three times, but neither Tantor the elephant nor Cheeta the chimpanzee nor the damned pigmies answered his call. Boredom overcame him, and he wished he had a Monopoly there, the game he'd gotten hooked on once he discovered the winning tactic: to buy up everything, Water Works, Electric Company, the railroads, Vermont, Illinois, Kentucky, where he'd build houses and hotels his opponents would land on, then they couldn't pay the rent, and they'd be ruined, go bankrupt, while he'd burst into stentorian laughter suddenly interrupted when he discovered an Apache girl watching him from the palm tree.
He decided to impress her and mounted his horse, Diablo, black with a white mane and a white star on his forehead. He did it in one jump over the croup, like Robert Taylor in Ride, Vaquero; from the side, like Alan Ladd in Shane; from a tree, like the Durango Kid, and jumped off at a gallop over the precipice, the cliff stained so many times with the blood of men and beasts. He was in the air, wrapped in a blanket, a hat, and a sheet of mist, firing his Winchester, letting go of the reins, and jumping over the abyss, better than Shane, when he heard her laughing. He pulled up the horse in the air and headed towards that mocking renegade who had just signedher death sentence. But the Indian girl ran away, losing herself along the banks of the Amazon, and she stuck her tongue out at him from the other shore before going into the terrible African jungle. It was impossible to swim across the Nile, the bare bones of a great prairie antelope revealed the presence of piranhas, and he didn't have a damned wounded cow to throw in as fodder to get them away from him, like John Wayne would have done.
He discovered a big white stone and dragged it to the banks of the Mississippi, sweating like a pig. It weighed too much to throw it into the water and use it as a bridge over the River Kwai. He sat down, thinking about putting together a Kon-Tiki with palm bark, but there was no bark on the ground. There was no other solution, he put his right thumb between his ring and little fingers, put the fingers of his left hand together and started jumping around the stone singing, "Pow-Wow, the Indian Boy." That would make him strong. When he'd jumped seven times, he picked up the stone and tried to throw it, but it almost fell on his foot. It was only then that he realized he had been tricked, the stone was kryptonite. He climbed up a liana and described the panorama with the voice of the No-Do newsreel: "We are in central Africa. Our expedition marches through the jungle. Yikes! What's that? Elephants over here, elephants over there! Jump, parrot, jump!" While the parrot jumped, he realized that the herd of elephants was led by Tantor. He yelled "Tarmangani!" again, but the stupid elephant was deaf. He looked for a thick vine, and swinging over the choppy Amazon, landed on his feet on the other bank of the Orinoco. Then he saw the Sioux again, but she turned out to be an impostor. She was wearing some ridiculous men's shoes, as if he didn't know that Indians don't wear shoes. He decided to give her what she deserved for making fun of him, a white man. He ran towards the reeds, but when he got there she was gone. He sniffed the air-nothing. He fingered the dust on the road-nothing. He put his ear to the ground-nothing. The laughter came from the river when he was among the reeds, from the palm tree when he got to the river, from the aroma when he reached the palm. He yelled, "Red ants, everybody run, the red ants are coming!" but the Stupid Girl in Men's Shoes didn't come out of her hiding place despite his warning of an invasion by the terrible killer ants. He sat down under the liana, and there, for the third time, the Cochise's evil laugh broke out.
He didn't chase after her. He had decided to hunt her for what she was, an Indian. He took out his knife. He opened it, holding the tip. He gave it a kiss. He threw it at the palm tree and watched it twirl in the air, tip, handle, tip, handle, tip against the trunk, stuck in. He walked over to the palm. He pulled out the knife. He turned around slowly and saw the Indian girl standing next to the orange tree, bug-eyed, as Grandfather Álvaro, his guide, would say. He held back his desire to run towards her. He showed her the knife, and she approached very slowly, suspiciously. When he had her close he thought how easy it would be to stick it into her aorta and then suck, like the bats in his nightmares. He showed her the knife, asking, "Do you want it?" and when she said yes he grabbed her wrist, bent her arm across her back, yelling, "Kreegor! Bundolo! Kill!" and put the blade to her throat.
He held her like that a few minutes, murmuring, "Stupid Blackbeard Girl! You're in the hands of Saquiri the Malay, none other than Saquiri the Malay!" and he kept her awhile longer so she'd feel the terror of finding herself at the mercy of such a bloodthirsty being. Then he let he, go, but she made the mistake of trying to escape. He tripped her and fell on top of her, brandishing his knife with the evil murderer's laugh, "Heh heh heh, did you think you'd escape Saquiri, oh Stupid Girl in Men's Shoes?" She spit on him, and he dug his knees into her shoulders, to keep her from moving and to clean off his sullied face. "Ah, you swine," he yelled, "now you'll get what you deserve!" At that moment he realized she was crying sad tears like in Never-Never Land, and he started to let her go bit by bit, saying, "You Jane, me Tarzan" smiling at her and giving her soft, timid little taps on the chest while he repeated, "You Jane" and beating himself harder as he said, "Me Tarzan." But she didn't smile; she kept on crying even after he let he go free, showed her the knife, and murmured, "Here, you can have it." Then she stood up slowly, pointed towards a tree and warned, with a dry, faraway voice:
"The daño's waiting for you under the ceiba." Then she ran off.
He couldn't manage to find her all afternoon, and at night he again felt the sad gnawing of nostalgia, telling himself that if his grandfather Álvaro were alive the plantation would be the best in the world, he'd be sitting on his lap asking what time is it, his grandfather answering seven o'clock, and Carlos asking again when would it be one, saying he wanted to be up at one o'clock. If his grandfather Álvaro were alive he'd send Chava into town to bring back sugar candy, and he'd tell him how Chava was just the same as when he met him seventy years ago. Chava was much more than a hundred years old and he was Grandfather's friend, and he'd been Great-Grandfather's slave, and Chava was never going to die. That was why they had fiestas at night in the old cabins, where the slaves lived before the Great War, when they went off into the swamp with Great-Grandfather against Spain. That was why the white hens, the beheaded roosters, and the U.S. copper pennies that showed up even when Weyler decreed his concentration-camp policy and everyone went hungrier than under Machado. That was why the red rags, the food left for the saints, the burned corn, the sugarcane brandy, the drums' monotonous call, the raw goat meat, and the güijes, goblins with liquid eyes that came out of the lake to frighten off the jinx; that was why, so Chava wouldn't die, because that black man had business with the devil.
Then Carlos would hide his head in his grandfather's chest and Grandfather would tell him no, Chava was a decent black man, and a decent black man would never do anything to a little boy. Chava was a decent black man, he had been a good mambí, and when the Great War ended he returned to what was left of the plantation to work for food. He was there when Grandfather was born, taught him how to mount and to rope, to hunt and to plant, but he was respectful, he never taught him his black things. Grandfather went with Chava and Great-Grandfather into the swamp for the War of Independence, and they spent three years fighting in Máximo Gómez's troop. Carlos liked it when his grandfather pronounced that name, Máximo Gómez, because he did it with a deep, proud voice, and then he cried, "The torch, damn it, the torch!" remembering the immense fires that turned night into day on the island, as happy as a kid riding horsy on a stool telling him, panting, about the fierce combat they fought tot such a puny independence. Then he got sad, Great-Grandfather died in the war from a gunshot wound for which Chava's herbs could do nothing. Grandfather returned with Chava to what was left of what had been left of the plantation, an abandoned field of weeds, because his mother and sister had been sent to camps in town, accused of giving food to bandits, and died there of fever or starvation.
If his grandfather Álvaro were alive he'd want to go off to war again, he'd put him up on a horse and Carlos would shout, "The torch, damn it, the torch!" so that Grandfather would be happy again, would dig in his spurs and take him at a gallop through the burning cane fields of his memory to the ruins of what had been the mansion of the marqués de Santacecilia. They would make out the fallen walls, always wet, carpeted with moss dampened by the tears of all the wives and all the daughters and all the daughters of the daughters of the blessed lineage of the marqués, who had lost everything in the Great War, and fought again in the little one and the one for independence, and vowed still another war against the puny republic that had just been born, because there were too many dead with claims against it. The horse would be uneasy, sweaty, and Grandfather would make it bite at the bit, promising Don Antonio Santacecilia that someday, damn it, the fires would turn the night into day again, and then Cuba would be free forever.
If Grandfather Álvaro were alive he'd wake Carlos up by rubbing his mustache on his check, and telling him to keep quiet with a finger, he'd carry him out to the patio, and in the midst of that very white light coming down from the sky to the liana and then to his shirt, he'd say, "It's one o'clock, right now." Carlos would stay still looking at the lacy shadows and lights, listening to Grandfather saying, "It's a dead man's moon" surprised that the dead man's moon would be so pretty and one o'clock so radiant and dark.
But Grandfather wasn't there, he had died of fever, and without him the plantation was as boring as a Sunday afternoon. Carlos had to spend his vacation there because his father was saving up money and working like a demon to buy a new house, and he had left them, Jorge with Uncle Manolo and him here, asking why Carlos was crying when he'd always liked the plantation. Carlos tried to explain to him that what he liked was Grandfather Álvaro, but his father left without understanding, leaving him in those empty fields where nothing happened.
He missed Havana, that was where he had fun playing cowboys or Blackhawks or Cops and Robbers; there he could talk with Ángelo, the little black who knew songs and stories and how to make puppets for burning on St. John's Night, the one who brought a bat to the neighborhood and explained that it was a vampire, a bloodsucker, an animal that flew by night to bite the necks of white people. Carlos believed him, and the vampire settled in, living in his nightmares like a daily fright; but now he preferred that fear to this boredom, and finally he understood the answer his father and uncle gave when Chava asked them if they planned to come back to live on the plantation.
"Our plantation is Galiano Street," they said, "our country town, Havana, and instead of roots, we eat pork."
Chava became sad, murmuring that niño Álvaro was to blame for having separated his sons from the land, and Carlos didn't understand why his father refused to live on the plantation, it was so nice, or why Chava called Grandfather niño when he was so old, closed up in that gray box from which he would never get up again, according to what his mother had told him.
He told himself that Grandfather was sleeping and not dead, and when they led him into the parlor he slipped away toward the patio looking for that very white light in the branches of the liana. "It's one o'clock," he said. Grandfather didn't come and he, going back to the coffin, bent over Isis sleeping face, murmuring, "It's one o'clock, Grandfather," but now Chava, behind him, lifted him up off the floor to take him to the patio and sit him on his lap and let him cry. He felt better because being on Chava's lap was almost like being with his grandfather. Why didn't Grandfather talk? Chava looked at the very white dead man's moon and told him that niño Álvaro's soul had gone to his Lord in heaven, from where he would watch to see if niño Carlos was good and patriotic. Carlos wanted to ask Chava many questions but only voiced one:
"Do the dead watch us?"
"They watch," Chava replied, "and they'll always be watching, because the living betrayed their blood."
He liked it that his grandfather would be watching him, looking out for him, and he wanted to touch him like he was touching Chava, who was never going to die, right? Right, said Chava, one day he was going to go like niño Álvaro, however his gods were not in the sky but of the earth, and his spirit would be reborn as a majá snake or in a ceiba, and from there he would watch the living like niño Álvaro was watching them from his Lord's heaven.
Chava had gone, his light had gone out shortly after Grandfather's death, and his spirit had to be a ceiba or a majá, and Grandfather's a star or the moon, and Carlos felt lost on that plantation that his father and uncle had leased to Pancho José, a guajiro who only had time for work and now snored like a baby, while he fought not to sink into a sleep where the bat fluttered in the depths and despite everything clasped onto his blood, until the sound of a fingernail scratching the window brought him back to the light of day.
And there she was, with her old men's shoes, her little faded dress, her strange gray eyes. She said her name was Toña and she was from around there, she wanted to know who Saquiri the Malay, Jane, and Tarzan were, if they were from Havana, what did kreegor and bundolo mean, why did he drag around such a big stone, why did he jump while he sang, what was he singing, what was he laughing about so hard when he climbed up the liana. Carlos couldn't keep a mixture of rage and shame from making him run away, leaving her with yet another question on her lips. He mounted Diablo and galloped off ranting and raving against the Stupid Girl in Men's Shoes until he reached the cane fields, where he started to ache with the desire to see her. He turned tail thinking of answers for Toña, but she wasn't by the river. He began to cover the plantation and the surrounding area, felt like Diablo was too slow and decided to take the Batmobile, which made an enormous ROARRR! before rushing out of the Batcave. He went up and down all the roads through the cane fields, daring to go all the way to the ruins of the marqués de Santacecilia's house, where nostalgia for his grandfather attacked him again, but he didn't find Toña. Then he filled with courage and faced the dangers of looking for her in unfamiliar fields, where Spanish soldiers could be lying in wait. He was very tired when he discovered the huge iron weight next to the train track, in the middle of a solitary platform; a chain, battered by the wind, hit the metallic structure of the sad, empty transfer car, and for the first time he understood why grown-ups called those long months when there was no zafra the dead time.
He thought a lot about the dead during the unending hours that Toña didn't show up, and he asked Grandfather Álvaro and Chava to help him find her. They didn't, maybe because they had seen during their watch how he'd hit her, and he promised them he would treat her like Superman did Lois Lane and even better, because Superman tricked Lois by not revealing his true identity to her, and he was never going to trick Toña, he would treat her like Tarzan did Jane or Rodolfo Villalobos his sweetheart. The dead men heard his plea and promise, because Toña appeared in the same place where he had lost her, repeating her questions and gestures with such accuracy that he didn't know if time had really passed, or if he had only dreamed his punishment.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Initials of the Earth by Jesús Díaz Copyright © 1999 by Piper Verlag GmbH, Munchen. Excerpted by permission.
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