In the Beginning Was the Sea

8

TWO LEAGUES from the house, on land directly adjoining the finca, there was a little village; an hour’s walk — or fifteen minutes on horseback — was the seaside town of Severá; Turbo was four and a half hours away by boat or half an hour in the little plane that made irregular trips to a small town — one inland rather than on the coast — which was some two hours’ ride from the farm.

J. had been to the village with Don Carlos E. on his first visit, before he bought the finca. He and the old man had walked a little way along the beach before trekking up a hill through sparse woodland where J. saw tall cashew trees hung with wisps of liana, kapok saplings and the stumps of older kapoks that had clearly been huge.

“Is the hunting good around here, Don Carlos?”

“Agoutis, armadillos, a few wild turkeys,” said the old man, “though they’re all dying out… or rather we’re killing them off.”

Suddenly they came to a clearing in the woods and saw about a dozen shacks with cob walls and palm-thatched roofs. The dirt track that also served as the village square was impeccably swept. At the end of the path was an orange grove which looked extraordinarily verdant and cool.

As they strolled through the village, faces appeared from windows. People sitting on their porches called, “Salud, Don Carlos!” and he greeted each of them by name. The old man had already mentioned the village: it was inhabited by a single family and every time a couple married they were apportioned a plot of land and the villagers helped build a new house; everyone was ruled by the moral authority of the grandmother.

Her house was located at the centre of the village.

“Salud, Doña Rosa,” said Don Carlos as they came to the house.

“Come in,” called a faint voice from inside.

The house consisted of two rooms and a kitchen; the rooms were at the front while at the rear there was a lean-to kitchen. The first thing J. noticed as they entered was a plaster statue of the Virgin almost three feet tall which had pride of place on a low table and was lit by a votive candle. Next to it was a large, pale-green plastic radio. Doña Rosa sat enthroned in a red wicker chair. In the next room, he could dimly make out a mosquito net. The living room was cool and hazy and smelt of smoke.

The old woman apologized for not getting up to greet them, explaining that her rheumatism always played up in cold weather. She gestured for them to sit in two rough-hewn wooden chairs that tipped backwards alarmingly like some prehistoric imitation of a rocking chair. Sitting in his anti-rocking chair, J. found himself facing a back door which led out into a yard where pigs and chickens scrabbled about under a grove of mango trees. On the ground were several windfalls already gnawed by the pigs.

Doña Rosa and J. took to each other immediately. When Don Carlos explained who J. was and why he had come, the old woman stared at him with eyes that saw much more than she pretended and solemnly told him that the villagers would be at his service. Then she asked Don Carlos whether he was thinking of leaving the area.

“J. has bought one of my fincas, but I’m keeping the other,” said Don Carlos. “You know I could never leave this place, Rosita.”

The old woman looked pleased. She also looked happy when J. mentioned that he and his wife were planning to live on the finca.

“When you come, call by and visit this old woman,” she said.

Some days after they arrived, J. suggested to Elena that they visit Doña Rosa. The narrow path leading to the village seemed much less wild and overgrown. “I won’t let anyone cut down another kapok tree on this farm,” he said as they passed several large fresh stumps. In the village, they were greeted as before. Elena watched black faces appear at the windows and could feel the eyes of children staring at her through chinks in the walls. Outside Doña Rosita’s house, three naked youngsters were dragging along matchboxes tied together with thread. “Holaaaa!” people called when J. greeted them.

This time, the old woman did not seem ill or infirm. She served them black coffee in floral cups of delicate bone china that starkly contrasted with the ceiling of palm fronds, the smoke belching from the kitchen and the beaten earth floor.

Doña Rosita was not particularly gracious towards Elena — she served the first cup of coffee to J. — although she was friendly and talkative. She had twelve children, she told them, sixty grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Eight of her children were still living in the village — four girls and four boys, all but one of them married — while her four other daughters had been taken by their husbands to live elsewhere. She told them that she had been married four times and had buried four husbands. His previous visit had left J. with the impression of a weak, crippled woman; now he saw her as she truly was: a forceful woman trapped in a tiny body, wizened by the years.

When they took their leave, the old woman addressed Elena as “seño” rather than Doña Elena though she had pointedly referred to Don Carlos’s wife as “Doña” during their visit. Elena was quick to notice the difference in address and only with some effort did she manage not to take it as a personal insult.

“What a filthy dump,” was her only comment when they arrived back at the house.

Three days later, at 6 p.m., a little girl appeared carrying a gleaming battered crockpot.

“My grandma sent this for you,” she said.

It was a crab stew. J. took it and poured the contents into a saucepan — the claws tinkling against the tin — and gave the pot back to the girl.

“Here… for you,” he said, holding out a ten-peso note. The child looked at J., her eyes shining, almost coy, and thanked him. Before she left, she said if they had any clothes to give away they could give them to her.

The dining room consisted of a simple rough-hewn table on a side porch that overlooked the yard. J. picked up the pot and a single plate and sat down to eat. He did not bother to call Elena, knowing how much she hated crab.