I don’t know for sure how the sickness ended. What basically happened was that we waited for whoever was in charge of our destiny to decide what to do with us. The islanders knew there was nothing they could do by themselves to get out of the hole, so who can blame them for not doing anything? In fact, because that evil had a name, the cholera, and because it was a name we hadn’t heard before, it was treated as something new. I know that to try and combat the cholera we didn’t just drink water made from boiling guava tree leaves, and I know the adults thought the mass death was being caused by something that came from the sea. So people talked to the ministrants and they took the Maté Jachín and went round the island with it three times in a canoe. I never knew what the Maté Jachín was but, at the same time, I knew that it was the centre of our strength, the most pure, sacred and powerful thing on the island. The ministrants, and only the ministrants, knew what it was. All I knew was that the Maté Jachín was wrapped in a cloth and seemed to be the shape of a cross. And I also know that anything that had to do with the ministrants’ science and beliefs was shrouded in mystery and fear. Which is why their songs had such an effect on me. If the song about the cross and the crown of thorns brought tears to our eyes, the ministrants’ songs reminded us that they, the ministrants, were our sole protection from the evil powers that hovered over our island. I understood, from what I’d been told, that only the ministrants’ orations could save us from the worst dangers our island faced. Therefore, whenever I saw the ministrants praying, I thought the island must be in grave danger, that we were confronting the threat and magic of a very evil and powerful enemy. So I really didn’t like it when we had to appeal to the ministrants and I wished we never had to. Was I afraid of the ministrants because I lacked faith? Or did I lack faith because my fear of danger was greater than my belief in the ministrants’ ability to combat the danger? Whichever it was, I was afraid of the ministrants; their activities and their songs frightened me terribly.
That axe hanging over us left the whole village exhausted. And while the evil was with us, no one could go to the southern plantations to plant and harvest. Practically none of the women went any further than their nearest plantations, between the big village and the Pico. And the men didn’t stray far from the big village when fishing. No one gathered or sowed anything of significance. People in the big village simply waited for the heavy hammer of unrelenting death to strike its next random blow. So for all that time we either didn’t eat or hardly ate, and when we did eat the food tasted bitter, because of all the crying, the bitter taste of tears. As children, we lived in constant fear, all the time expecting to be shut up at home so that the air of the dead couldn’t touch us, and when we had succulent chunks of yam and boiled banana placed before us, which were the daily food staples of our island, we stared at them as if we’d never seen them before, as if we didn’t know what to do with them. With so many of our adults crying, we lost the will to eat. With so many of our adults not only crying but disappearing, for back then we didn’t go to the cemetery and so we didn’t know where they’d gone, where they’d been taken. And also because there was so little fish, for although the yam and banana were succulent, we preferred to eat fish. We always did. But we put those chunks of yam and banana in our mouths and they tasted bitter, especially if in the corner of the house or the kitchen our adults were crying for that day’s death, or deaths.
The weight of that axe left us exhausted because we lived with fear in our bodies, and because we didn’t know when the evil would end; the adults were exhausted not from work but from the tension of constantly expecting bad news, bad news that unfailingly came. Nobody ate, either because there was nothing to eat or because everything tasted bitter from the tears that ran down everyone’s faces in furrows from their eyes. It was a terrible time, truly the worst time in the history of the island. If witnessing the hounding of that woman was the singular thing that made the biggest impression on me, the cholera was what caused me the most tears. Because it took so many of our people … If it had taken one hundred people it would have made a huge dent in the island’s population. But it took a lot more than that. A lot more than one hundred girls and boys, men and women, were taken from their homes, put in a floating wooden box, buried in the graveyard and given a little cross. In total there were †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, †, † corresponding to the people who died of that violent disease. Some crosses were accompanied by handwriting done by those who knew how to write. Excluding the doctor, there was Mené Jachiga, Mamentu Lavana, Pudu Kenente, Maguntín Jambab’u, Toiñ Yaya, Pudu Toñía, Madalam’u Tómene, Pudu Gadjin’a, Masamentu Áveve, Jodán Tómbôbô, Majosán Ánjala Pet’u, Fidel Tompet’u, Madosel Menfoi, Chit’e Zete Doix, Nando Guesa Ngaiñ, Mápudu Chipa Longo, Saan’e Sámene, Xancus’u Menenov, Menembo Jalafund’u, Ximá Dancut and his three sons; Manel’a Vepanu, Saana Tábôbô, Mafidel Ménkichi, Mené Ze Palm’a, Pilinguitu Menfoi, Masantu Jadôl’o, Magutín Bichil, Menembofi Dadot, Santo Dadot, Mafidel Dadot, Másamentu Fadoliga, Mal’e Púluv, Menesamentu Guesagaiñ, Fidel Dadalán, Zetoiñ Padjil, Mafide’l Padjil, Yahií Padjil, Ndeza Liguilía, Rosal Tombal’b, Nando Lem’u Bass’u, Tusantu Dosal’u, Mámentu Jonofund’u, Majosán Zanja Gôôd’ô, Chigol Zampet’u, Mal’é Bojô Longô, Gutín Pendê Mozso, Chiit’e Masamentu, Joodán Pendê, Magutín Pendé, Ximé Jambuk’u, Doszal Sámpete, Fiip’a Tonchiip’a, Gutín Tonfiip’a, Madozee Menfoi, Majolé Ntelacul, Menembô Fídiligu’i, Gutín Lamabas’u, Jodán Menpix’i, Yahií Jázuga, Pudul Legaváan, Madalam’u Maapendê, Toiñ Babadjí’an, Mené Jandjía, Mápudu’l Jandjía, Madalam’u Awacul’u, Quilit’u Menedoix, Menembofi Japiz’a, Fidel Sana Jodán, Tayayô Meendjing’u, Nguzal’u Tómene, Mámentu Chipafend’e, Szebel’u Teszalicu, Ndêêsa Jonoxinc’u, Jodán Chiipagaiñ, Menembofi Límapeet’u. All were lowered into the ground to the Padre’s Latin. All were of adult age. Boys and girls died too, some without even having names, for on our island children don’t tend to have names until they get a little older. Little children have short names their families use in the home, but the real naming process happens later, out on the street; that’s where you acquire your real name, the name you’ll be known by for the rest of your life. The unnamed dead slain by the furious axe of the cholera were taken to the square in front of the church and splashed with holy water in the form of the cross, then carried to the cemetery and buried. By the end, there could be no wasting time with funerals, for the deaths came too thick and fast. Children even ended up being buried without a cross. A small mound of earth was left atop the grave to remind everyone that here lay a child too young to know its own innocence, a tiny being snatched away from its parents by the vagaries of nature.
Did we count the doctor as separate? Did he not have a name? Why have I not listed him? All I can say is that back then it was normal for a doctor not to have a canoe because, working all day in the hospital, he wouldn’t have had time to go fishing. Furthermore, he’d have had to learn how to be a doctor elsewhere, somewhere where people didn’t understand the sea. So as an islander, he’d have needed initiation into such matters before he could have his own canoe. But the thing was, a doctor didn’t have to go out fishing in order to eat fish. Nor did he have to go to the vidjil. Every afternoon, those who knew he was a busy man would send a bundle of fish to his house and he would thank them with a smile. Everybody greeted the doctor because he was the only person who knew the cures for our sicknesses. He was therefore allowed to live like an incomer — in exchange for his charity, and also for his name. Such was his life when that devastating wave of death came to our island and he went to where he worked, to his hospital, the big village’s hospital. And when he learned what the disease might be, he opened all the drawers, all the boxes, all the cupboards and glass cabinets in the hospital, but he found nothing, nothing he knew or thought might combat that terrible evil. He went on searching, for the island’s need was desperate, and the only thing he did find he administered generously. Know what it was? The sick screamed out in pain from those awful cramps, writhed in agony on the ground and groaned aahs that rolled out to sea, out to the furthermost parts of the deep blue ocean; they sweated and they felt they were dying. So the doctor gave them something to take away the pain, and they closed their eyes and went to sleep, and they slept, and slept, and slept; and so they remained, asleep forever. What happened was that he gave them pills that put them to sleep, yes, but that didn’t stop the torrents from pouring out of them and taking their lives away. So those people moved into the other world without waking from their sleep, a sleep they’d entered into after taking the only thing the doctor could find in all the cupboards and glass cabinets of the hospital, the big village’s hospital. This only became known afterwards, when everyone could finally talk about what the island had lived through. And people wondered why those pills had been brought to the island in the first place, and in such great quantities that so many people could be put to sleep, in this case without knowing they’d never wake up again because life was pouring out of them and they were left with no water in their insides. You slept, you slept and you slept, in order to forget that before you’d gone to sleep you’d been screaming in pain and even found your cold sweats painful, really very painful. You went on sleeping, but you wet your trousers, your shirt, the mattress, the rest of your clothes, until you no longer had the strength to get up and tell the doctor that you still had pains, or to ask for the chamber pot. If you slept, the person who sat with you let you rest, or they cried in the corner for those who’d gone to the other world that day, or since the previous afternoon.