“She can talk to me how she likes, jefe, I don’t care,” he said, “but my wife is a timid soul and all this criticism just upsets her.”
J. had little time for Gilberto’s wife, and in fact often shared Elena’s view that she was lazy and useless. But he was afraid of losing Gilberto, a diligent and enthusiastic worker who took charge of every problem on the finca as though it were his own.
One day, Elena came back from her swim to find lunch was not waiting on the table.
“I’ve had a temperature, seño,” said Mercedes, who was holding a cold compress to her forehead and genuinely looked ill.
“Temperature or no temperature, people in this house still need to eat,” snapped Elena. She felt so angry that the words got muddled in her head.
“But seño…”
“But nothing! I won’t have people in this house going hungry every time you decide to play the invalid. Now get cooking, hermana, that’s what we pay you for!”
J. arrived home to find Elena stony-faced and Mercedes wailing in the kitchen, the damp cloth still pressed to her forehead.
He flew into a rage. “Can you for God’s sake stop behaving like a lady of the manor?” he roared, without waiting for Elena to explain.
Elena was taken aback. This was the first time since they had met that she had ever seen him truly angry. And when J. went on shouting, she got angry too; she hurled herself at him and slapped his face. He grabbed her wrists and with a powerful jerk sent her sprawling out into the corridor. Elena made no attempt to get up, and simply lay there weeping bitterly.
J. stormed out of the house.
17
THE RECONCILIATION was no easy matter. When J. returned that night, Elena’s face was frozen in a mask of cold contempt. Silently, they undressed and went to bed, each careful to avoid any physical contact with the other. When J.’s elbow accidently grazed her, Elena flinched as though he had burned her with a cigarette; she retreated to the edge of the bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
J. stayed awake for a while and tried to read. “Don’t let them get your hopes up,” the poet says, “Today is all there is/Let pious people suffer/Life’s all earth has to offer/There’s no life after this”—but he could not concentrate. It was a long night. He closed the book, snuffed out the candle, and darkness, gentle and implacable, seeped into the room. The rising roar of the sea stole in, the sounds — and the silence — of the nearby forest; he could hear the barking of far-off dogs.
J. went out onto the veranda in his shorts. There was no moon, but the sky was clear and cloudless. He settled himself comfortably in the wicker rocking chair Doña Rosa had sold him. He set his cigarettes and matches on the floor, lit a cigarette and stared out at the water. The spray from the waves gave off a faint glow. Far out to sea, he could dimly make out the horizon. For a moment, J. thought he could see the lights of a ship, but when he tried to focus, they disappeared.
He felt a rough tongue lick at his knee and his heart leapt into his throat. He let out a hoarse scream, swore at the dog and kicked it in the belly. The animal howled, ran off and sat cowering at the far end of the veranda and stared at him. When the surge of fear subsided, J. felt a pang of remorse, and he called the dog over and stroked its head. It was a medium-sized animal with sandy fur called Kaiser.
“Kaiser, you little fucker, you gave me a fright,” he whispered. “Bad Kaiser, you mangy fucking mutt.”
The animal, being a stray and not used to being petted, started to whimper quietly. When it tried to lick his feet, J. pushed it away gently.
“Down, boy!” he said, and the animal lay next to the chair.
After too many cigarettes and too much brooding about his life, J. could feel sleep, like the dawn, was drawing near. When he went back to bed, he found Elena sprawled in the same position. “She can even be angry in her sleep,” he thought. Elena spent the following morning at the sewing machine, working in silence. At midday, she put on her swimsuit and went down to the sea; she returned at two o’clock and started on a stock inventory in the shop.
So far, sales had been barely satisfactory. A month after opening, it was obvious that they could not count on the shop as their principal source of income. The locals were poor and bought too much on credit. Besides, with other shops in the region competition was fierce and somehow they managed to keep J.’s neighbours as customers.
The money J. and Elena had set aside to live on was draining away and they urgently needed to find a reliable source of income. J. had done some rough calculations to see how much the timber business might bring in, but he wanted to explore every possibility before deciding to cut down trees, an idea he found deeply repugnant.
Only a hundred of the two hundred hectares that made up the finca were pastureland; the remainder was dense virgin rainforest full of kapoks, oaks and cashew trees. If they were to decide to go into the lumber business, it would be all or nothing, and they would have to quickly process as much timber as possible. J. had already given some thought to where he might build accommodation for the lumbermen, calculating that they would need ten labourers at most. Julito had promised to provide cheap, secure transport as far as Turbo and also offered to put him in touch with a timber merchant who could supply the men he needed, when he needed them. He explained to J. the sort of contract he should draw up: labourers were paid a fixed price per timber float and fixed expenses were deducted from their monthly salary.
Four hundred thousand pesos in capital would be needed to begin work and J. realized that, barring some miracle, he would have to go back to Medellín in two months and persuade Fernando to extend his loan. Even if the banker did agree, every last peso would have to be ploughed into the business in order to be able to meet the repayments while he and Elena would have to live frugally.
July 13, 1976: Four days Elena’s been sulking. Nothing I do makes any difference. I’ve no idea what the fuck she sews with that machine, but I hear it whirring all day long. I’ve tried apologizing but she doesn’t even answer. Probably best to leave her to herself, let her calm down in her own time.
We need to do another trip to Turbo, there’s no rice, no oil and we’re almost out of cigarettes. Let her go, maybe that will clear her head.
Two weeks now since it last rained, we’ve had to carry drums of water from the creek to irrigate the seedbeds, the cistern has packed up again. The hardest part — especially for Elena — is not having running water in the house. Don Eduardo was supposed to take a look at the pump, but he hasn’t come round yet. I hope the old man can do something to fix it because otherwise we’ll have to call out a plumber. The workings look simple enough, the pipes and the plumbing are a pain in the arse to fix. Maybe the Almighty through the intercession of Don Eduardo can manage it.
Yesterday, I went into the forest. The more I look at the trees, the more I hate the idea of having them cut down but, with things as they are, we might have no choice. I’ll be forced to practise the Ancient Arts of Axmanship, as the local poets call it. Make way for civilization, you puny fucking kapoks!
Elena set off for Turbo with a list of stock needed in the shop. It was still impossible to know what she was thinking. During the trip, she did not make a single mistake; she came back with everything they needed — including several items not on the list that she realized were running short — and was careful not to be gypped by the traders. But she returned as icily silent as she had left.