The questions the old man asked were on all kinds of subjects. In what year did the Parce River dry up completely? Who defeated the Spanish general Annuire during the war of independence? When does the sun rise earlier, in May or September? Why is it dangerous to swim in the river on Good Friday? Sometimes there would be a series of questions on the same subject. For how long does a sow carry its young? How many young does a rabbit litter contain? Why does a rock snake sometimes not roll up at the approach of danger, but fold double instead? Sometimes the questions were about fruit. How many years does it take for a mango tree to bear its first fruit? When does the pith of a watermelon look yellow or even white, instead of red? Then he would move on to the Bible. How many children did Adam have? How many daughters did Adam have? How many sons did Noah have? How many livestock did Job have? Now and then he asked nonsense questions based on old wives’ tales and superstitions. What did the donkey say to the tortoise under the tamarind tree? What was the king of Spain changed into when he failed to attend mass on Easter Sunday? His questions about folk medicine were particularly interesting. An infusion of the leaves of which plant can be taken against dysentery when you have torn off the leaves with a downward movement, and against vomiting if you have pulled them off with an upward motion? The fisherman’s tobacco that grows on the rocks by the shore cures the clap, as we all know — after all, we’re all men together — but what other illness does it cure? What fruit, mashed with olive oil, must be given for piles? Name three emetic plants.
When I got back to the farm it was already dark. At dinner I told them about what I had seen in the village. Sandoval laughed heartily. Her Majesty smiled benignly, but my blessed uncle thought the game was ridiculous — the villagers should concern themselves with more useful matters. He found the biblical questions about the number of daughters, sheep and goats particularly inane. Sandoval told us that one of his cows was about to calve. That morning, when he had taken his cattle from their cowshed and driven them to the meadow, he had noticed that the cow with calf was moving sluggishly and looked listless. Later in the day he saw that the cow had moved away from the others and kept sniffing the fence. He decided to take her back with him and put her in the little shed he called the “maternity ward.” All day long, at regular intervals, he had gone to check on the cow, but she was still looking around in a daze. Calving could start any moment now. I said that I’d like to be present at the birth of a calf. Sandoval agreed immediately, but I expected my uncle to be against the idea. Although he did frown a little, he decided it would be a good idea for me to witness one of God’s miracles at close quarters.
There was another odd custom in Chimbarí, a very special way of settling disputes between neighbours. I did not see it myself, but was told about it in graphic detail by three youths whom I met on one of my walks near the little river at the edge of the village. All the women in the village, even the poorest, had two dresses that were worn on special occasions only: a green one that they put on to attend mass on Palm Sunday and kept on for the rest of the day, and a brilliant red one they wore when they argued with another woman. Whenever two women had a dispute, they would begin by giving each other a good tongue-lashing, exchanging the vilest insults for about half an hour. The woman who felt most offended would suddenly stop cursing and close all her doors and windows tight. This was a gross insult to the other party, as it meant the woman inside was no longer listening to what she was saying and could not be bothered to reply. In a rage, the woman left outside would put on her bright red dress, and usually a red headscarf too, and hurry to the riverbank. There she would reel of a litany of obscenities into the wind. She did this to attract the attention of the small boys who were usually playing by the river. Once she had their attention, she would let slip the name of her rival and tell them something awful about her. For example, that she played around with other men, that her mother had died of grief because her daughter had not looked after her, or that she had been caught in the market trying to slip a few bananas into her bag without paying. The boys would rush to the village to tell the woman in question what they had heard. Each boy knew it was his duty to do this — and there was reward attached to it too. When the defamed woman had listened to what the boys told her, she would start to complain loudly about the shame being heaped on her. She called on San Marco and his faithful lion to avenge her and gave each of the boys a cassava cake and sometimes a glass of syrup. The boys wolfed down their treats and hurried back to the river, anxious not to miss any of the fireworks to come. The second woman also put on her red dress and went to the river. When she arrived, she crossed the wooden bridge — this was nothing more than a plank with a railing, appropriately known as Me-First-Then-You — and took up her position on the far bank opposite her adversary. It was now her turn to do some insulting. She would claim that the whole village knew her opponent had lost her virginity long before her wedding day, that the priest had refused her communion on Easter Sunday two years previously, or that she had an illegitimate child who was being brought up by relatives in another village. These were mere preliminaries: the real slanging match now got under way. You can’t imagine the things those boys told me! One woman said that her rival had an uncle behind bars in the Castillo, to which the rival replied that the woman had an aunt locked up in a lunatic asylum. Another woman said that her opponent’s trip to Epifanía the previous year had not been to visit her son, but to have her rotting womb removed by a town doctor; in reply, the opponent accused her of having hard, unsightly lumps on her left breast. When it was her turn again, woman number one said that the woman on the opposite bank was frigid in bed, which is why her husband took the bus to Asunción every Saturday evening and did not come back until Sunday afternoon. To which number two retorted that, although she went around playing the grande dame, her husband was impotent, which is why her nerves were always on edge and she was so easily offended. Then they heard how the cousin of number two had been thrown out of the seminary in Crispo because of his filthy behaviour; a fine thing it would have been if that fellow had become a priest! Next, number one was informed that her niece was wandering around with VD at the age of thirteen. Meanwhile, half the population, most of them women and children, had turned out to watch the show. Everyone who came to the river had to take sides. Not surprisingly, relatives and friends of the women eagerly joined in the abuse. At dusk, groups of men came down to the river too, but they took no part in the dispute. They stayed in the background and passed the rum bottle from hand to hand. When darkness fell, the mudslinging began: balls of mud flew back and forth. The children made the projectiles at the water’s edge and took them to the women, who hurled them across the river. Now the boys joined in too. In the darkness most of the mud balls missed their target, but every so often there was a direct hit and a new voice would launch into a new string of obscenities. The boys who told me the story were particularly keen on this mud warfare. One of them said that his own mother had once been a protagonist. “Did I throw some mud that night! I was walking around with a stiff arm for three days!” When it got really late, the performance came to an end. All the women had become hoarse by now and could produce only an incomprehensible rattle. One camp would withdraw, followed a quarter of an hour later by their opponents. But sometimes when it got late, stones and slivers of glass were put in the mud balls, and if one of these nonstandard models hit the mark, the supporters of the injured person would rush across the bridge and there would be a general free-for-all. At this point the men would get involved and the party would end with a knife fight.