When it came to preaching at Mass, the priest had no equal, but en route it was Mama who wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise. I don’t know what she said to him. The dusty roads were in appalling condition, the jeep bounced around endlessly, squeaking and squealing, and as they had sat me in the back I couldn’t hear a word. But it gave me a good feeling to see her so animated, unlike the rest of the week. She had awoken from her lethargy. She had flowered. She was gesticulating, moving her hands, her whole body, with grace and assurance. He’d turn to look at her and nod his head in agreement or shake it in disagreement, and then immediately return his attention to the winding road, with its potholes, ridges, and dangerous rocks that could have holed the gas tank, which in fact they had done on one occasion. That time we were stuck without gas, because it had all poured out of the damaged tank, but we were lucky because on that little-traveled road we came across another vehicle, a wagon loaded with sugarcane — like ours, it was good for little else than filling the jungle with its roaring and bucking — but at least it rescued us. Mama and the priest sat behind, climbing up on top of the load, and they put me inside with the driver. I could never forget that trip, even though I slept all the way home, because Mama arrived home covered in scratches from the cane and it was a week before she quit complaining of her numerous pains. Every time she let out a whine, Grandma would turn on her with “But why didn’t you put the kid up top? Nothing would have happened to her. Kids are made of rubber.” And every time she said it, I’d be overcome with shame for my thoughtlessness and for having hurt Mama in such an ugly way.
After the third Mass, I invariably fell fast asleep as we drove home, rocked by so much bumping and tired out by so much sun and dust and, if it was the rainy season, by the endless slithering in the mud. My nap coincided with the rest period of the adults. Half asleep, I would realize the car had stopped. I’d hear them get out. Then I’d snuggle up to get more comfortable in the backseat which I shared with the priest’s suitcase, and get on with my long, worry-free nap. But on the Sunday I’m talking about, the underside of the jeep hit something, as it emerged into a clearing, and I got a nasty knock on the head and woke up completely. I opened my eyes and saw them getting out, Father Lima first. With a courtesy I hadn’t seen in him before, he came around to open Mama’s door, took her by the hand, and without his letting go of it the pair of them set off toward the river. Instead of nestling back down again, I craned forward as far as I could to see what happened next, where they were going off to. On the dashboard of the jeep lay the priest’s spectacles. His face looked naked as he laughed loudly for some unknown reason. He led Mama by the hand to the trunk of the next tree, rolled up his soutane, and climbed up into the branches as fast as a cat. From up there he threw something down to Mama and came down as agilely as he’d gone up. Then he took off his black soutane, revealing his naked chest and black tailored pants, which I’d never imagined as being under the battered soutane he wore in all weathers, even the most intense heat. With his dreary robe gone, without spectacles and shirt, this tropical James Dean gave pursuit to Mama, dressed in her white skirt of light, airy cotton. He tried to snatch away from her the bulky object he’d thrown down from the tree, but she wouldn’t let him have it and, laughing, struggled to escape. They were playing like two children until he won, getting the object away from her, and then she chased him, trying to get it back. She grabbed him by the waist, then he held her with one of his arms and put one end of the object they were playing with into her hand. It was a woven hammock. They moved apart, stretching it out. He tied his end to the branch he’d just climbed and then came over to Mama to help her tie her end to a nearby tree, a handsome laurel whose roots were fed by the powerful river.
There he sat down on a fallen log, undid his shoelaces, took off his socks and pants, and passed them to Mama. He wasn’t wearing underpants, which astonished me. Mama took off her dress and settled it with his clothes in the crook of a branch in the first tree. She wasn’t wearing panties, either. She removed her bra, gave a little scream, and in her bare feet joined him in the hammock. Together now and naked, they began to kiss and caress each other. I huddled down in my seat. I’d seen all I wanted to see. What were the pair of them doing without their clothes on? What did they think they were up to? It had to be a sin, what they were doing. I could hear them as if they were talking right into my ear. The heavy breathing, the exclamations, the groans, Mama saying “Now” and “Don’t be stingy, give it to me” and then “More, more, give me more” and the priest “Here it is then,” for hours or what seemed like hours. I felt desperate. What they were doing was shattering something inside me, ripping me apart, plundering me. Maybe it wasn’t a sin, but for me it was evil, the ultimate evil, the very incarnation of evil. I detested them.
Suddenly I got an inspiration: it would be less painful if I could see them, instead of just listening to their insufferable moaning. I straightened up in the seat. It was true; their groans sounded less loud now that I could see them, but the horrid truth was that what I saw left me totally deaf. There was an intense buzzing in my ears, as if my head was going to explode. Mama was facedown, hanging from the hammock, which instead of being extended in leisurely fashion between two points, as before, now had both ends with her upper body draped over the top of the hammock, which, instead of being stretched comfortably wide, was now wrapped tight as a rope to support her bending frame, as she stood on the ground and braced herself. He was behind her, clutching at her bum, battering his body against hers, with an expression of pain on his face as he turned it toward me, his eyes shut, his mouth open, totally wrapped up in himself. The rest of their bodies presented themselves to me in profile. She turned her face toward him, making her posture even more grotesque, in a gesture of pain that hurt me in my own stomach. She opened her mouth and then he spit on her, leaving on her a considerable amount of saliva. What were they doing? Once again I sank back into the car seat. I thought about getting out and starting to run, but I was paralyzed by horror, horror at the whole thing. I imagined myself getting out of the car. Getting out through the jeep’s window so as not to disturb them by banging the door. I’d walk toward the river, my two feet in mud, more mud at every step, and I’d sink into it till I couldn’t take another step forward because I couldn’t pull my feet out of the mud. At every moment I was sinking deeper, quickly. I could hear them again.
“No, no, not that way.”
“Here it is, take it, you like it.”
“No, no.”
“Either that way or nothing at all.”
“Don’t be like that. Give it to me. More.”
“Here it is then.”
And I didn’t dare call out, “Save me! Help me! The swamp is swallowing me!” Then the mud covered my mouth, first my mouth, then my nose, filling them with its filth. Then my eyes. All of me. The swamp was swallowing me at the same time as sleep was overcoming me.
They woke me up when we arrived at the next place for Mass. I thought I must have dreamt the whole thing, when I saw him so smiling and cordial, so orderly and handsome; and her, so much in control of herself, so correct and so full of self-assurance. So many “take its” and “mores” couldn’t have come out of their two mouths. In a few minutes I’d persuaded myself that I’d imagined it all, and I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.