That visit took place when rioting broke out in the city. It all started with a strike at the two government factories. The workers demanded a rise, put down their tools and took to the streets. There was turmoil all day long, but by the evening everyone was drunk and then the real pandemonium began. Fires were started in the streets. The police, now supported by the National Guard, carried out baton charges and arrested a hundred or so workers. Because the police station did not have enough cells, the prisoners were taken to the officers’ club just outside town, where they spent the night under guard in the tennis courts. In the morning, the workers were released and marched back to town.
When I went to school that morning, I found the big barred gate locked. I strolled round for a while with some other boys before setting off back home. As we got to the market a long procession of workers was just passing. A few young men at the front were singing, but the market women who lined the street in small groups greeted them with jeers and shouts.
“There go the heroes! Did you get your rise?”
“Are you going to be paid for yesterday and today?”
“What’s your family supposed to eat today? Shit?”
Some of the women started to clap rhythmically and shout “Left-right, left-right, left-right,” as if soldiers were marching past. At the sight of one worker who was hobbling past on one leg with the aid of a crutch, someone started shouting “Left-left,” which was quickly taken up by the others.
That evening the alcalde’s house was stoned, one of the factories was burnt to the ground and a policeman was stabbed to death. The strike had turned into a riot.
My uncle considered it advisable to leave town until things had calmed down, so the following morning the three of us left for Chimbarí, where a good friend of his had a small farm. This was the first time I had ever been on a train and I thought it was wonderful, although I didn’t like the noise it made or the soot from the locomotive that found its way into the carriages. I was wide-eyed with wonder. While my uncle sat bolt upright in his seat holding an open book far too close to his nose, and his wife sat like a bored queen on her throne cooling herself with an ivory fan, I gazed in fascination at the landscape passing by. At the start it was not particularly interesting, as the train was travelling through an arid region, but suddenly, without any noticeable transition, everything became green. I saw hundreds of tree-covered hills dotted with bright red cottages. How could families live in such remote, inaccessible places, I wondered. What did they do all day? What happens if someone is taken seriously ill? I saw huge mountains, some half-covered in dark green but with bare, grey summits, through which flowed a vast river, apparently scarcely moving. I saw green fields stretching to the horizon, grazed by enormous herds of cattle. Sometimes it seemed as if the train was cutting straight through the middle of a herd.
Chimbarí turned out to be no more than a small village with a few hundred inhabitants. But I was impressed by several large and elegant though run-down buildings and by a magnificent church, a lofty structure with two square towers that reminded me of a medieval castle. Its thick walls had cracks in them caused by earthquakes. My uncle told me that Chimbarí had once been a prosperous little town, the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, and that the church dated from the Spanish period. As we looked at it in the glow of dusk, the church seemed to be surrounded by a halo of dying light. My uncle called it “a temple of God that has withstood revolutions, earthquakes and the confessed sins of many generations.” The following morning we drove in an open carriage drawn by two horses to Sandoval’s farm, which was just outside the village.
Like most of his countrymen, Sandoval was short of stature, and he constantly wriggled his shoulders as though his shirt were uncomfortable. He had a big head and a broad, puffy face; his forehead and the loose, flabby skin on his cheeks shone as if they were coated with oil. Perhaps his head looked big only because he was so squat and had almost no chin. He was a very friendly man and I took to him immediately. His farm wasn’t that small. The spacious house was surrounded on three sides by a veranda, so that it was always cool inside. He had about twenty cows and more than two hundred goats. Everywhere there was a fresh and distinctive smell that was very different from the city.
I went for long walks in the surrounding countryside and spotted many plants, trees and birds I had never seen before. I often went into Chimbarí, where I got the impression that no one worked, because everywhere in the village there were groups of men sitting in front of houses, under trees or in the bar. Once I went into the church with a boy from the village to see the carved wooden Madonna on a side altar, the Madonna of the Sad Face, whose eyes sometimes filled with tears that rolled down her cheeks and dropped onto an oak plank that had been attached to the base of the altar. The inside of the church was quite bare, the Madonna was not beautiful and I couldn’t see any tears. The statue was in the habit of weeping during Lent, the boy told me, and at that time visitors often came from the towns to look at the Holy Virgin, to buy a candle and to light it on the little altar while praying for her intercession. Only a few of them had been fortunate enough to see the Madonna weeping, he added, but the stains of the fallen tears were clearly visible at the foot of the statue.
One afternoon I went into the bar for a glass of coconut milk. The place was packed and every so often the crowd of customers would howl or start applauding. Five men were playing a game that was being enthusiastically followed by everyone present, accompanied by a lively commentary. After watching intently for at least a quarter of an hour I still had no idea what was going on. It took a whole hour and an explanation by two strapping youths for me finally to understand, but even then I found it a silly game because none of the players wins or loses.
The game was called simply “date stones.” Four men played, plus a questioner. The questioner was always the same person, a tiny, shrivelled old man who puffed constantly on a pipe that emitted clouds of evil-smelling smoke. He had a high-pitched voice like that of a toddler. I thought that was odd: a centenarian with the voice of an infant. He asked questions that had to be answered by the players in turn. At the start of the game the old dodderer had twenty-one dried date stones clutched in his right hand. If his question was answered correctly, he would lean forward and drop a date stone into the respondent’s breast pocket. If someone did not know the answer or answered incorrectly, the same question was put to the other three players. If they did not know the answer, no one got a stone. In that case the old boy would turn to the audience, and if none of the spectators could answer either, he would beam with satisfaction and give the solution in vivid detail. If the spectators did know the answer, he would look sheepish and go quickly on to a new brainteaser. The old man went on asking questions until all the players had answered five correctly. Then he stood up rather defiantly, stretched out his arm and unclenched his fist to show everyone that there was nothing in his hand. Where was the twenty-first stone? That was what the game was all about and now the betting began. What had the old rascal done during the questioning? On an occasion when a player had answered correctly, he had slipped not one but two date stones into the man’s pocket. He was therefore the only one who knew which player had six stones in his pocket at the end of the game. All the bystanders then bet amongst themselves for drinks, cigarettes or money. Each punter chose two of the four players in the game. When all the bets had been laid, the old man gave the signal and the four players emptied their pockets. An earsplitting roar went up from the crowd and the man with the six stones was bought drinks by the winners.