Pig's Foot: A Novel Part 11

'Son of a b.i.t.c.h!' he cried, and ran to help Jose. El Mozambique blocked his path, smashing an elbow into Malecio's face that knocked him unconscious. Then he grabbed one of his machetes, the one he used to cut the throats of horses, and stepped towards Jose who was howling with pain and bleeding like a stuck pig. El Mozambique lifted him off the floor, looked him in the eye and gave a twisted smile.

'Now do you understand what life is, Jose? Who would have thought that these very hands would be the ones to end yours? Nothing is written. There is no justice, none at all. Everything is a lie.'

'That's what you say,' said Jose. 'But I'm sure your death will be much worse.'

El Mozambique's smile faded. For a moment, everything was stilled: the roar of the villagers, the wails of the women, the barking of the dogs. There was only the quiet buzz of flies and the echo of an agonising silence that sent a shudder rippling through everyone. In that moment, El Mozambique swung his machete, aiming to cleave Jose's head from his body. He did not succeed: his arm was blocked, something held him back, a strength greater than his own. When he turned, he found himself face to face with Grandpa Benicio.

'What . . . What are you doing? Let go the machete, Benicio.'

'No. Your journey ends here.' This was all Grandfather said. Lifting El Mozambique by the throat, he slammed him with all his strength against the floor. The giant hit his head and pa.s.sed out. Then everything happened quickly. In a split second, the thirty people who had witnessed what was happening rushed into the garden, some smashed windows the better to see, others peered through cracks between the timbers waiting for the fatal blow that would satisfy once and for all their thirst for blood.

'Kill him, Benicio! Kill him now!'

Grandpa Benicio pinned El Mozambique to the ground. Reaching down, he picked up the giant's machete and held it aloft. 'Kill him, d.a.m.n it! Kill him now, Benicio!' He looked first at Jose who lay sprawled on the floor nodding his head in agreement. Then he looked round for Melecio, but his brother still lay unconscious on the ground. Scanning the faces outside he saw Betina and she, too, nodded. Lastly, he looked for Gertrudis who was standing in the midst of the mob, tears in her eyes, her hand over her mouth. Then he brought down the machete and embedded it in the floor next to El Mozambique's head.

'This ends here,' he roared.

'What do you mean, it ends here?' roared the crowd. 'Kill that son of a b.i.t.c.h!' Benicio did not listen. He got up off the floor and ordered everyone to go home, saying that though El Mozambique might be a monster, that was no reason for anyone else to become one. 'This ends here,' he repeated.

For a while, the crowd went on protesting, waving their arms, shouting, cursing the Blessed Virgin and all the saints. Then gradually the flame inside them guttered out and slowly they began to trudge home.

Benicio picked up Jose and sat him on one of the chairs that was still in one piece. Betina and Gertrudis kneeled next to Melecio, who had come round. Grandfather brought water from the kitchen for the wounded.

'Water is not going to help me,' said Jose. Then they noticed that the nail, a long spike used to secure railway sleepers, was deeply embedded in his back. There was little anyone could do. Still, Benicio refused to admit defeat. 'It's all over now, Papa Jose,' he said. 'Let's go home.' Everyone, including Jose, turned to Benicio in surprise. His eyes were different, filled with tears and remorse. Benicio explained that he had arrived back from the river famished to find a cake sitting on the table. He ate a slice of the exquisite delicacy and then found Ester on her bed sobbing uncontrollably and Juanita trying to comfort her. The santera told him what had happened and the news was like a body blow. The cake had a curious effect on him: suddenly his head was filled with all the terrible things he had done, with how he had torn his family apart. In his mind he saw the face of everyone he had ever hit, among them the twisted rictus on Jose's face; he wept to think about how heartless he had been to Melecio, to Betina, and especially to Gertrudis. Juanita shook him hard and told him this was no time to cry, that Jose was in danger, that saving him would be his own salvation.

'But there is nothing to be done now, my son,' said Jose. Betina, Melecio and Gertrudis watched as Benicio began to weep. Jose asked him why he had not killed El Mozambique. He dried his eyes and turned to look at his family, then turned and looked at Jose as though he did not understand the question. 'He is my blood father, Papa Jose. Besides, if I had killed him, I would have become a murderer like him.'

Melecio finished his gla.s.s of water and said that Benicio had done the right thing and that El Mozambique could not have been other than he was. 'What can you expect of a man who has never known a friend, a mother, a father; who has never known the love of a woman? Can you imagine the hatred he must feel? Knowing only hatred, anyone might become a killer.'

'How many times do I have to tell you,' came a booming voice. 'Hatred is not so bad.'

Betina was the first to scream, then everyone turned to face the fearsome figure of El Mozambique who was now standing, laughing, brushing dirt and blood from his hands.

'What did you think? That a little knock on the head would kill me? Did you really think it would be so easy? And you . . .' He pointed at Benicio. 'Expect no mercy from me, do you hear? You will pay dearly for what you've done.'

El Mozambique launched himself at Benicio and grabbed him by the throat. The villagers reappeared and once again took up their posts, peering through windows and cracks in the boards, hurling insults and obscenities as though watching gladiators in the arena. Jose sat in his chair, unable to do anything.

'Get ready to join that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Oscar!' roared El Mozambique. He began to throttle Grandfather with both hands. 'The monster,' yelled the crowd, 'he's going to kill the boy!'

Grandfather was on the point of being strangled when the back door of the shack was thrown open and, like a thunderbolt, Ester suddenly appeared in the room. 'Let him go, Mangaleno!' screamed Ester.

'You? You f.u.c.king wh.o.r.e, what are you doing here? Get out and go home, you wh-'

Ester did not allow him to finish. From the folds of her skirts, she took an axe and with a single blow sliced Mangaleno's head clean from his shoulders. The hulking body crumpled. The head rolled out of the door, past the neighbours. Epifanio Vilo picked it up and spat at it several times. Someone else punched it. They were about to toss it into the swamp when Melecio came outside and reminded them of Benicio's words earlier: they were not brute beasts but human beings.

Melecio and Ester rushed back to where Jose was sitting. Benicio was already by his father's side. The moment his real father had been felled, he had not wasted a second. Betina ran, Gertrudis ran and lastly Juanita the wise-woman who had just arrived. Through the shattered windows and the cracks in the boards, the neighbours stared at the b.l.o.o.d.y body of the Mandinga. There was so much blood, seeping through his clothes, pooling on the floor, that it seemed hardly possible he could have any left.

'Do you know what your first word was?' said Jose, squeezing Benicio's hand. 'Tell him, Betina.'

'Papa,' said Betina, drying her tears.

'One day you just looked me right in the eye and said "Papa",' Jose went on, squeezing Benicio's hand, struggling to breathe. 'I wanted to cover you in kisses.'

'Forgive me, Papa,' said Benicio.

'There is nothing to forgive. I am the one who should be asking for forgiveness, son. Now I realise that Juanita was right when she told me you were different. And you are, Benicio. You are different for the simple reason that you are better. We all wanted blood, and what did you do? You stood up for something none of us cared about. Loyalty, Benicio. That is something truly important. To be loyal to those who gave you life, to your sons, to your family, however bad they may be. It was something I did not think about when I threw you out. That's why, for all your faults, you are a better man than I.'

Benicio squirmed at every word, unable to accept this obvious truth. Jose told him there was no reason to cry, that he had lived a long life and a good one and that his last wish had just been granted: he had been reconciled with his son before he died. 'I'm dying in peace,' he said and kissed Benicio on the cheek. He looked at Melecio. Then at Gertrudis. Lastly he gave Betina a long look and whispered: 'I love you, mi amor.'

He was buried in a dark hole next to Malena and his inseparable friend Oscar. The day after the funeral, Grandpa Benicio and Grandma Gertrudis said their goodbyes to everyone; they could not go on living in Pata de Puerco because the memories were too painful. Betina and Melecio and all the other villagers watched sadly as they moved off down the Callejon de la Rosa, heading nowhere. This was how they came to live in Havana, to settle in a barrio called Lawton. The death of Jose and the departure of my grandparents Benicio and Gertrudis closed for ever an important chapter in the history of that long-forgotten village.

Part Two.

To the Roots.

The Road to Lawton.

All the stuff I've just told you makes me terribly sad, and that's the honest truth. That's why I never talk about it to anyone. Commissioner Clemente, with his bald head and his moustache like some Mexican bandido, forced me to tell him the whole story and then the son of a b.i.t.c.h refused to believe me. He looked at me like everything I'd said was gibberish, like I was insane. All he wants to know is how I came to be here and why I smashed in the face of that rat whose name I hope I never have to mention. This was the real reason for the hours of cross-examination when he wormed his way inside my brain. So that's how things stand now, me with the blues, reliving the story of my grandparents and the chrome-dome commissioner with that look that says 'like I give a f.u.c.k'. You don't have to worry: I'm going to tell you what Clemente really wanted to know about all that murky business about the Nicotinas. But before I get to that part, let me get a gla.s.s of water because my throat's parched from all this yammering.

Aaaaah, lovely. Just what I needed. I have to say right now what I'd really love is a sticky guava masa real, or a traditional Cuban cake. What I'm saying is this is the hunger hour, though in this part of the world hunger has no hour, it's as contagious and as commonplace as madness. These days anyone who's starving is labelled mad not that I give a s.h.i.t. The important thing for me is to cure my weakness, it's just that I'm not used to going hungry. In 1995, what with the 'special economic period', everyone is used to running on empty, as though we're all sleepwalkers wandering through a dream that seems as though it might never end. I call it a madhouse. But, well, madness is a different story, it has nothing to do with the one I'm telling. Or does it?

This is exactly what my grandparents Benicio and Gertrudis discovered when they arrived in Havana: a madhouse. It was the capital in the 1920s, the capital of noise, of chaos, but also of progress. A vast metropolis full of automobiles roaring up and down the streets at all hours. Full of streetcars, of hawkers selling fruit, of well-dressed gentlemen, of ladies mimicking the latest American fashions, with their hair crimped and straightened like Bette Davis. Full of men wearing straw hats and white linen suits. Full of flower shops and shoe shops. A powerful city with a thriving commerce and billboards in American.

All this, my grandparents saw in the moment they stepped out of the train station; it was as though they had been transported to another galaxy. Naturally, curiosity got the better of them and they strolled around, studying this landscape peopled by alien life forms, by individuals from a different species, trying to work out whether this new world were innocuous.

As you probably know, El Capitolio The National Capitol Building started out as a patch of swampland, a rubbish tip dotted with slaves' huts, then a botanical garden was planted there before they built the Villanueva Railway Station which in turn was torn down so they could build El Capitolio. My grandparents watched carts and trucks transporting sand and blocks, cement and steel raising clouds of dust that blotted out the sun and impregnated everyone's clothes. There were trees here and there, struggling up between the rows of buildings and more trees in the Parque Central and the Manzana de Gomez. Benicio and Gertrudis walked on, carefully studying every detail. They pa.s.sed the Teatro Nacional and the Hotel Inglaterra and walked slowly down the Paseo del Prado to the sea. On the Prado there were more trees, more well-dressed people, more hawkers. They did not stop but carried on walking as though hypnotised by the sea. 'I swear the waves were calling to us,' Grandma Gertrudis would tell me years later as she remembered her first encounter with the ocean and her first frightening, thrilling glimpse of Havana. According to her, the waves were shrieking at them, screams that were more enthralling than the monumental buildings or the automobiles and the trams they were seeing for the first time.

They carried on walking, ignoring everything, until they stepped into the crystal-clear waters of the sea. Only then did they feel at peace. For a moment, they forgot the recent events in Pata de Puerco, the death of Jose, the regret they felt at leaving their mother and their brother and their arrival in the unfamiliar world of the capital. They stood in the waters off the Malecon, arms around each other, for a long time. They were in no hurry since they had nowhere to go and at that moment the ocean offered everything they needed to allay their exhaustion and their fear. Eventually a policeman appeared, asked what they were doing and pointed out that Negroes were not allowed to bathe on this section of the beach. Immediately, they collected their belongings and left.

They walked for miles, taking the first direction that occurred to them. After a few hours, Grandma Gertrudis was so exhausted she could not carry on. Their feet were swollen and tinged with purple. Grandpa Benicio asked a mule driver with a cart to take them as far as possible from the centre of the city, somewhere there would be no automobiles, no infernal tramways, somewhere they might be close to the soil and animals.

Were it not for the fact that by now Grandma Gertrudis could barely walk, Benicio would never have dared to speak to a stranger. He was a white man, but he was dressed in rags like a backwoodsman, a white shirt stained with mud, a pair of filthy green trousers and a hat woven from yarey. Despite his being white, he seemed to my grandparents to be the only man with whom they might have something in common in this strange modern world.

'Somewhere outside the city?' said the stranger, doffing his hat. 'You're in luck then, that's exactly where I'm headed.' He had dark hair, though this was barely noticeable since his high forehead extended beyond the hairline to the middle of his head. His face was deeply lined but genial, his eyes as keen and wise as those of a cat. Everything about him seemed friendly.

'Pilar, go on, budge up and make room back there,' he said.

'Excuse me, senor, but my senora's name is Gertrudis,' said Benicio.

'No, no, I was talking to my nephew.'

My grandparents stared at the child with the mane of black hair who seemed both wary and intrigued. Benicio and Gertrudis glanced at each other and then looked at the child again, still puzzled by what the man had said.

'Don't worry, most people have the same reaction,' said the man. 'I've said it to my brother a thousand times. With all the names there are in the world, what possessed you to give the boy a girl's name? My name is Augusto, what about you?'

'I'm Benicio and this is Gertrudis. We've just arrived from Pata de Puerco.'

'Pata de Puerco? And where might that be?' asked the man, scratching his head.

'Near Santiago,' said Benicio, though he was not very sure.

'Santiago? Now that's strange, I've been down that way many times and I've never heard mention of it. Is the old church at El Cobre still standing?'

'Yes. It's still there.'

'It's a beautiful building. Well now, you two make yourselves comfortable, it's a long ride. And, Pilar, you mind your manners.'

My grandparents settled themselves on the cart next to the boy named Pilar with the jet-black hair and the awestruck expression. Gertrudis offered him one of the sweets that Betina had given them for the journey while Benicio ma.s.saged her tired feet. Pilar ate the sweet without so much as a thank you. Gertrudis smiled, but the boy did not return her smile.

'If you're from Santiago, I a.s.sume you don't know anything about Havana,' said Augusto. My grandparents nodded. 'In that case I have no choice but to offer my services as your guide,' said the man and turned round to signal to them. 'Bueno, first off let me explain that this road is the Calzada de Jesus del Monte. Until the eighteenth century, it was known as the "Santiago road" since it leads to Santiago de las Vegas and Bejucal which are a few miles straight ahead. This used to be the only road leading out of the city into the countryside, and a dozen tobacco growers were hanged from the trees that lined this road for protesting against the Spanish Government's monopoly of the tobacco trade. Obviously, a lot has changed since then and, as you can see, there's not a single tree left standing.'

Augusto removed his hat and with a sweeping gesture indicated the utter lack of vegetation.

'The Camino de Santiago became the Calzada de Jesus del Monte sometime around 1800. Then, after 1918, it was renamed the Calzada del Diez de Octubre, though no one really calls it that. I a.s.sume you know the story of Pepe Antonio?'

My grandparents shook their heads.

'Pepe Antonio was the mayor of Guanabacoa, a little town over that way,' the man pointed to the north.

'In 1762, when Havana was captured by the English, Guanabacoa was known as Pepe Antonio's villa, because according to the stories he was a brave man indeed. I'm sure you know that Havana belonged to the English for a year before they traded it with the Spanish for Florida.'

'We don't even know how to read and write,' said Grandpa Benicio, and Grandma Gertrudis glared at him as if to say 'speak for yourself', since she had learned to read and write fluently at Melecio's cla.s.ses.

'Ah, I understand,' said the man. 'Well, anyway, Pepe Antonio was the man who led the resistance against the English. Even so, it came to nothing because one of his men ousted him and then rolled over for the enemy. Pepe Antonio died at home, his house is still there in Guanabacoa. After that, the English gave Havana to the Spanish in exchange for Florida, and the way things are going with the new president, it looks like he'll hand it on a silver platter to the Americans.'

'And who is the new president, if you don't mind me asking?' my grandfather said.

'Of course you can ask. His name is Gerardo Machado y Morales and everyone in Havana has high hopes of him, especially my brother Itamar who is in the army. He says Machado will do wonders for this island, but I have to say personally the guy gives me the creeps. I'm from the old school, like Maceo and Marti, I believe Cuba should belong to the people. But my brother maintains that an island the size of a sardine can't govern itself, that one way or another it is dependent on the whale in order to thrive. Are you interested in politics?'

'To tell the truth, I don't really know what it means,' said Benicio.

'Well, well, Benicio,' said Augusto, taking off his hat again and turning to look at my grandparents. 'You might not be able to read or write, but that's the most intelligent thing I've heard a Christian say in a long time. And the honest truth is n.o.body knows what it means. Some people claim it's the art of words and lies, but I think it's a weapon used to control the people for personal advantage because all politicians follow the same pattern: they say what people want to hear and once they're on the horse they make sure no one can unseat them. That's how it is with the new president. Now he's elected he's scheming to try and change the const.i.tution so he can govern for another six years. Can you imagine? A president ruling for eight years? That's a long time. But n.o.body will say anything, people will keep their mouths shut and the exploitation will carry on.'

'Who is being exploited?' asked Benicio.

'The Cuban people, who else? You and I are being exploited. That's why I'm on the side of Alfredo Lopez's Confederation of Cuban Workers; they're the only people who seem to be fighting against waste and inequality. But it'll cost them dearly, because our new president doesn't tolerate opposition. He's quick to get rid of anyone who opposes his policies. Not long ago Julito Mella and his troops actually Mella lives just down there,' Augusto pointed. 'Anyway, they organised a peaceful demonstration at the university, demanding freedom and improvements for the people, and the army waded in and arrested twenty of them. All this just for saying they didn't agree with some policy or other. So you should probably be careful while you're here, because things in Havana are pretty tense. I don't know what it's like in Pata de Puerco, but round here, every day you go out in the street could be your last.'

Gertrudis clutched her chest and looked at Benicio, petrified. Little Pilar reached out his hand towards her. Gertrudis smiled and dug out some more sweets which the little boy wolfed down as though he had not eaten in days.

They continued their journey along the Calzada del Diez de Octubre, my grandparents drinking in every detail. They watched as the asphalt roads gradually petered out to become lanes which in turn became dirt tracks that stretched away into the distance. In this part of Havana, horse-drawn carts were more common than automobiles, but progress was such that the glamour of the city extended even to the remote suburbs. My grandmother Gertrudis pointed out a man herding a flock of goats as though it was impossible to believe such a thing could exist in this part of Cuba. All around there were still majestic houses and lavish cars, but for the most part the inhabitants seemed to be working cla.s.s.

'You see those African tulip trees in the distance near the big white house with the roses? Enriquito Diaz lives there; he was the first man in Havana to make a silent movie like the ones Charlie Chaplin makes. Some say he was the first filmmaker in Cuba even though most people didn't like the film. They said it was boring. I thought it was good. Maybe because the main character is called Manuel Garcia and I was excited because he had the same surname as me. Though there's no shortage of people called Garcia here in Cuba. What's your surname, if you don't mind me asking?'

'Mandinga,' said Benicio.

'And the senorita?'

'She's Mandinga too,' said Benicio.

'Are you sure there's no one named Garcia in your family? That's strange. I have to say, though, I'm obviously not quick on the uptake, because I would have thought you two were too young to be married.'

'You're right, we're not married,' said Grandfather.

'Then how come you share the same name?'

'Because we're brother and sister.'

'Really? Well, well. I must be going deaf because I was sure that when you introduced me to the young woman, you called her your senora.'

'It's true, I am his senora,' said Grandma Gertrudis, 'but that's a long story.'

'Ah . . . I understand,' said Augusto and then fell silent.

They carried on along the Calzada del Diez de Octubre until they came to the junction with the Calzada Dolores. Here, Augusto stopped the cart and pointed out the neighbourhoods: to the north Regla, to the east San Miguel del Padron and to the south a district known as Arroyo Naranjo. They had left El Cerro behind, he said; once you turned the corner and headed down the Calzada Dolores, you came to Barrio Lawton, which was where he lived.

My grandparents thanked Augusto and said goodbye to little Pilar, then quietly stepped down from the cart. They stood there waving, but still Augusto's cart did not move. The habanero lit up his pipe and stared out at the horizon like a man in no hurry to be somewhere. Ten minutes pa.s.sed. Fifteen. Twenty minutes later, Augusto was still in the same spot.

'Tell me, Senor Augusto, you wouldn't know where we might find work and perhaps a place to stay?' asked Gertrudis shyly.

The man turned and smiled at my grandmother. 'Of course I would. Why do you think I have been sitting here waiting for you to ask? I have a perfect solution. As long as you like laundry, of course. And boxing, obviously.'

My grandparents glanced at each other.

'Well, there is no problem as far as laundry is concerned,' said Grandpa Benicio, 'but I don't know about boxing . . .'

'We love it, we love boxing,' said Gertrudis, pinching my grandfather.

'Well, that settles it then. Welcome to my house,' said Augusto enthusiastically, and my grandparents clambered into the back of the cart once more.

Augusto turned the corner and headed down Calzada Dolores, pa.s.sed a small park filled with trees and drove through narrow streets and markets. From time to time, they pa.s.sed city blocks with just a single mansion perched on a hill and, a hundred metres further on, a serried row of tumbledown shacks where Negroes lived. Some of the blocks had ordinary houses, many of them ruined, while other blocks were rows and rows of shacks. What most struck my grandparents was the number of black people everywhere in colonial times, the whole area had been used to house slaves, later there had been cabildos or African guilds, eventually they became tobacco plantations some people walked around dressed in finery, but very few, most were in rags; they were bootblacks, newspaper sellers and street traders or hawkers as they were called back then. Others sold straw hats or bunches of flowers.

Augusto set down Pilar Garcia outside one of the grand mansions. The boy's parents looked my parents up and down. They asked Augusto whether he had taken leave of his senses. 'It's my life, Itamar,' said Augusto. 'You mind your own business.' Then he set off again through the streets and finally pulled up next to a short driveway that led to a small stone house which, to my grandparents, looked like a palace. Augusto lived all alone in this house which had two large bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a courtyard planted with fruit trees.

'We can stay out here in the courtyard under the avocado tree,' said my grandfather, 'or wherever we won't be any bother.'

'I won't hear of it, young man. I have considered you my friends since the moment I gave you a ride and don't go asking me why, because I don't understand it myself. Let's just say that I might not have grey hair, that's only because I've got no hair at all, but I have a lot of experience sizing people up, and you seem like decent folk. Besides, I've always got along better with country folk because they tend to be more honourable, and they have dignity. In this city, it's a long time since anyone has had any dignity. Every last one of them would trample over their own mother for money.'

'At least let us pay you for the journey,' said Grandma Gertrudis.