In the Beginning Was the Sea

2

LEAVING THE PLAZA, J. threaded his way through the dusty streets. After a few blocks, the brick and concrete buildings gave way to wooden shacks mounted on short piles and the crawlspace underneath the houses teemed with chickens, pigs and children. He arrived at the docks. Here, finally, he could see the water, but this was stagnant water, rippled only by a slow, oily swell. There was not a single gull, not a single gannet, nothing that evoked the sea. Motorboats were moored next to short, worm-eaten wooden wharfs swollen with damp. The supporting posts were green with slime where they had been lapped by water and warped where they were covered at high tide while, above, the jetties were dry and splintered. The long, narrow boats that were — or had once been — painted in bright colours seemed weighed down by their huge outboard motors. On some, sweaty black men in cut-off jeans, their expressions solemn and grave, delved into the entrails of the engines.

“Do you own this boat?” J. asked one of them.

“She’s mine, but she’s not working,” the black man said without looking up.

“Who can we talk to about getting to Severá?”

The boatman did not answer immediately but went on rummaging in the belly of the engine.

“How many passengers?” he asked finally.

“Two.”

“How many bags?”

“One heavy trunk, two suitcases and a sewing machine.”

Three boatmen wandered over.

“Where you headed?”

“To a big estate, a finca.”

“How many bags?”

“A trunk and a few other bits and pieces,” said J., wearily, knowing they had already overheard his conversation with the man tinkering with the engine.

When yet another boatman appeared and asked how many were travelling, J. became irritated. Just then, the man with the malfunctioning engine leapt nimbly onto the jetty and came towards him.

“Julito can take them,” he said.

“Julito!” chorused the other men.

“Let’s go,” the first man said curtly.

J. watched as he strode ahead through the dusty streets. After three blocks, they came to the covered market, an imposing building tiled with asbestos cement. To one side of the plaza, men were loading a truck with cured fish while the driver, leaning against a wall, idly watched the proceedings. The windows of the truck were plastered with colourful decals of women in swimsuits and Stetson hats.

“How much would it cost us to take an express boat?” J. asked as they arrived on the market square, walking across gangplanks laid on the ground.

This timber corridor was lined on either side by grain stalls and J. constantly had to stand as men passed with heavy sacks balanced on their shoulders, their shirts protected by red flannel bayetillas.

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?” asked J.

“On Julito,” said the black man.

Having passed the grain stalls they came to the fritanguerías—the fried food stalls — where sweaty, plump women dropped thick pieces of fish into enormous frying pans. Laid out on the wooden trays that served as counters, the fillets of fried fish immediately cooled to take on an almost mineral appearance while thick slices of fried plantain—patacones—were heaped around them. J. hungrily began to imagine the slap-up feed of pescado y patacón they would have once he had made arrangements for the boat.

As they came to the end of the walkway, the black man disappeared through a door into one of the fritanguerías. When J. caught up, he saw the boatman sitting at the back. At the counter, a fat, sullen woman with a huge knife was chopping green plantains. Behind her were five large tables surrounded by long wooden benches, everything painted a pale green. The black boatman was sitting at one of the tables chatting to a short man who was also black. Aside from the boatman and the short black man — Julito, probably — the only customer was an old man slowly eating chicken and potato soup.

And indeed it turned out to be Julito, because the little man got to his feet with great solemnity as J. approached the table and introduced himself.

“Julio Alberto Gutiérrez,” he said, offering his hand, “your humble servant and friend.”

He was a thin, wiry man of about forty, with pale eyes. From his tone of voice as he asked the fat woman for another glass, J. realized that he probably owned the stall and that the woman chopping plantain was his wife or maybe his lover. Julito poured a large glass of aguardiente, which J. accepted.

“My friend Jesús here tells me you need a boat,” he said.

“If you’ll excuse me, señores,” said Jesús, getting up to leave. As he passed, he stopped to ask the woman at the counter about the health of some relative and she said there was no improvement. “Not good, not good,” said Jesús.

“We’re trying to get to a finca in Severá,” said J.

“How many are you?”

J. said there were two of them and told him about the trunk, the suitcases and the sewing machine.

“Salud!” said Julito knocking back his glass of aguardiente.

J. drained half of his.

Julito was drunk. With pompous pride, he explained at great length that, in addition to the fritanguerías, he owned three motorboats and that, aside from the fat woman who was now mashing the plantain slices with a flat stone, he had three other “wives”; though he was drunk, he insisted, he was also a gentleman and J., likewise, was a gentleman. Without waiting for J. to drink what remained from their last toast, he poured more aguardiente, raised a full glass and with a quick “Salud!” downed it in one. Then he went back to telling J. his life story: six years ago, he boasted, he had been living in a hovel without a peso to his name whereas now he had three boats, a house, four “wives” and this fritanguería.

“How much is it likely to cost, the trip?” asked J., wary now as Julito was beginning to repeat himself.

“When d’you want to go?”

“The day before yesterday…”

“Too late to set off today. We can leave first thing tomorrow if you like.”

“That would be fine,” said J.

Julito initially quoted a price of three hundred pesos, but after a little bargaining J. managed to get him to agree to two hundred and fifty. They settled on a time and then drank another toast. When J. got up to leave, Julito staggered to his feet and hugged him.