In the Beginning Was the Sea

23

SMELLS. The murky smell of the mangrove swamps carried sometimes on the breeze. The musky, resinous smell of crabs, dead and still raw. The smell of paddocks pounded by the immovable hammer of the noonday sun. The smell of mingled smoke and coffee from the kitchen. The lunchtime smell of fried fish, fried plantains, the heavy scent of coconut rice. The smell of the suntan lotions and the moisturizers that made Elena’s perfect skin more perfect. The smell of her freshly washed hair, of shampoo enriched with seven herbs. The antipodal smell of the toilets where blowflies buzz lazily in the heat and geckos doze in the cracks of the adobe wall. The permanent, immovable smell of dust from the timbers of the house. The smell of freshly opened books — the pages bloating and buckling in the humid heat, spines falling apart from the salt breeze and from lack of use — like daisies wilting in a muggy attic. And, also new, the smell of freshly cut wood mingled with petrol fumes; the same petrol that purifies, burns and drives out life.

Nov. 16, 1976: The first shipment of wood was a success. The timber merchant was very complimentary about the quality, though he complained about some defects caused by mishandling of the chainsaws. He suggested I keep a careful eye on the loggers to make sure they do a proper job. Payment for the agreed sum received.

Nov. 19, 1976: Salomón’s wife has finally started bringing food to the labourers. Elena can’t stand having them around the house. This way she’ll only have to see them when they come to buy something at the shop — they’ve been running up a lot of credit — to buy petrol or to talk to me. Since they arrived, sales of aguardiente have gone up a hundred per cent.

Nov. 22, 1976: The weather is still mild, there’s been very little rain and we’re not being scorched by the heat. Since Don Eduardo last sorted it out, the water tank and the pump have given us no trouble. The man is good with his hands.

Nov. 25, 1976: Elena has finally come through her bad patch. Today we went swimming together. She’s absolutely right about the staring, these people are disgusting! Then again, I can’t really blame them: slathered in suntan lotion, her skin looks like polished copper. I’m sure they can see her shimmering from miles away. Besides, you never know when she’s going to fly off the handle.

Salomón ran the boat onto some rocks and put a hole in it, but he’s already repaired the damage and the boat is holding up better than it did before.

Nov. 26, 1976: Yesterday a motorboat pulled into the cove — a fancy fibreglass job with brand new outboard motors. Aboard it were five rich college kids from Medellín, two girls and three guys, all perfectly tanned and kitted out with harpoons, snorkel masks, flippers and whisky. The girls were really hot. One of them is the daughter of a certain Doctor Penagos, who owns a huge finca just north of here. I’ve heard rumours about him — he’s famous for being filthy rich and for evicting farmers from their land.

They came up and joined me on the veranda and we chatted for a bit. I’m so different to these city folk these days, it terrifies me to think I might have turned out just like them — or like Ramiro. Maybe it was the finca that saved me, or maybe the gods are on my side. One of the kids asked when we were getting a generator, another one saw my books and asked if I’d read Papillon. Obviously I’ve read it, but I said I hadn’t — I had no desire to talk about some shitty potboiler.

Just as we finished the bottle of whisky and I was starting to take to them, the two girls started bleating in that whiny fucking bourgeois accent, “We gotta go, Juan Camilo, it’s getting late, Papá will be so worried,” and shit like that. They piled the masks and flippers back into the boat and headed off, the outboard motors roaring and belching smoke. They said they’d come back but I hope to Christ they don’t.

Dec. 1, 1976: I think what I like best about the sea is the smell of the mangrove swamps. The fens in England are bland and insipid but here the swamps smell slightly of decay, of life and death, of a place where both meet.

I think maybe I’m a little drunk. I tend to come over all literary when I’m tanked up. Elena is sleeping, breathing slowly, one of her tits is exposed. I go over to her; she smells of Johnson’s baby oil. I suck on her nipple; it tastes of salt. Salt.

When I finish this book I’ll throw it down the toilet. It can moulder away inside this house, rot down into its basic elements — gases, ephemeral organisms, mulch, vegetation. Such is the humble, commonplace transubstantiation of all things, “brother”: the eternal return, the same worm, the same toilet, the same old shit.

Excuse me, I need to take a piss.

Dressed only in boxer shorts, J. went down the wooden steps feeling the prickly grass under his feet, walked on until he could feel the sand of the beach, and on to the shoreline until he felt sharp shells and smooth pebbles underfoot. He took three steps into the sea, careful not to stab himself on a sea urchin. He pissed into the waters.

Oh, yes. No thought is more powerful than the simple act of biting into a ripe mango — I truly believe that. Not to mention papayas, melons and guanábanas. On the other hand, no pain is greater than needing to take a piss and not being able to, and there is no greater achievement than pissing into the sea — water mingling with water — in the ghostly glimmering of the planets. Mercedes must be up already — I can smell coffee.

He took off his boxers and pulled on a pair of shorts. He found Mercedes perched on a stool, leaning back against the wall, breastfeeding her child — a great lump of a boy who was already beginning to say his first words.

“You’ll be lucky to get that boy weaned by the time he’s doing military service.”

Mercedes’s laugh was clear and musical.

“Oh, Don J.!” she said.

Cupping the child’s buttocks with one hand, she got to her feet, fetched a tin mug and set it down on the stove. Without using a dishcloth or anything to protect herself — something J. always silently admired — she picked up the steaming pan and filled the cup. J. sipped his coffee as he padded out of the kitchen onto the veranda, where he added a jigger of rum and sat down to wait for dawn.

Before long, the sun rose slow and golden above the horizon. There was a smell of bacon frying, a clamour of dogs and chickens. Out at sea, Salomón and his son were rowing steadily. The luminous world quivered in J.’s eyes. Mercedes brought breakfast out to the veranda and he ate hungrily. Then he showered and put on a clean shirt and a pair of sandals. J. slipped a ruler, a hammer, a notebook, and a half-bottle of aguardiente from the shop into his backpack. He kissed Elena and headed out to the forest.

The same night, he would reread the last pages he had written, tear out the entry marked Dec. 1, 1976 and throw it down the toilet. In its place he would write:

Dec. 2, 1976: Today we felled the largest cashew tree I’ve ever seen in my life. We’ll make a lot of money from the timber. I also saw a huge troop of monkeys. One of the loggers shot at them but he didn’t hit them.

A snake killed a young bull calf.