Books Burn Badly

The Price

‘WHAT IF YOU lose an eye in one of those fights?’ asked the engineer Roque Gantes from the deck.

‘If I lose an eye,’ replied Korea ironically, ‘then they’ll have to pay for it.’

‘Why do you fight over neighbourhoods, between Mau Mau and Red Devils?’

‘Why? You don’t ask why.’

‘You’re an idiot. An idiot, gentlemen, an idiot!’ shouted the crane operator.

‘If I lose an eye,’ continued Korea, ‘they’ll have to cough up for it. You bet they will.’

‘Ten thousand pesetas,’ said Gabriel suddenly.

‘You sure about that, judge?’

Korea thought about Medusa with her red tights.

‘And if a relative does the damage, your father, for instance, how much?’

‘Nothing.’

Everyone was talking about a boy who’d been kidnapped in the city. Pepito Mendoza. A crazy woman who’d wanted a child of her own had taken him.

‘Hey, judge, how much they pay for a slave?’ Korea asked Gabriel.

‘For cotton, in Virginia and those parts, three hundred and sixty dollars per head.’

Pinche became thoughtful. In Ovos Square and Santa Catarina, you could change dollars, pounds, pesos, bolivars. In secret. Under the eggs.

‘How much is three hundred and sixty dollars?’ asked Pinche absent-mindedly.

‘You wouldn’t fetch that much,’ said Korea, ‘if that’s what you mean. Besides, you’re boss-eyed. That lowers the price. You couldn’t even fight.’

Pinche did not reply. He had two eyes. Trouble is one of them was lazy and they were using a patch to correct it. If the guy in white shoes caught him for making a fire with planks of teakwood to warm twenty-five workmen’s pots, he really might take out his good eye. But he wasn’t going to catch him. Despite having a lazy eye, he could see much better than Korea. Which is why he was the first to sound the alert and start running:

‘Mau Mau!’