It was another day before Sandoval’s cow gave birth. It was one-thirty in the morning when the little farmer came to wake me. “It’s about to happen, but you don’t have to come — you can stay in bed if you like.” I quickly pulled on some trousers and followed him to the maternity ward. He had two oil lamps with him; one he hung on the wall, the other he placed on the ground next to the cow, which lay against the wall, clearly in labour. It would soon be calving, Sandoval said. Time passed, but the contractions still had no effect and the panting cow was becoming exhausted, so that Sandoval concluded that something was wrong. From that moment on he talked nonstop, explaining to me in the minutest detail what he was doing and why. He knelt down by the animal’s hindquarters and, plunging two strong arms into the fleshy mass of its genitalia, pulled the lips apart. He could not see anything. He inserted a clenched fist into the orifice and slid his arm along the warm, slimy tunnel, deeper and deeper, until he could feel the head of the unborn calf. Slowly but powerfully he pushed against the wall of the tunnel with the back of his hand. At first he felt resistance, but then the wall of flesh gave way and his hand slid back over the calf’s head. At that moment Sandoval grunted that he had a terrible pain in his back; his own stupid fault, he said, he shouldn’t have started in a kneeling position, but should have lain full length on the floor before putting his arm in. But there was nothing to be done about it now, and with a great effort he shoved his arm even deeper into the cow. When his hand had found the folded front leg, which was protruding into the wall of the tunnel, he knew he had reached the right spot. Taking great care, so as not to break the fragile bones, he straightened the leg. As soon as the leg was in the correct position he felt the head of the calf slide forward a little way past his arm. He withdrew his arm until his hand was resting behind the head and waited. Then he felt the tunnel begin to contract again and as soon as the movement started, he carefully pulled the calf forward. After two more contractions Sandoval withdrew his arm completely from the cow. Nature would take its own course. It was not long before the animal’s head appeared at the now gaping orifice and was thrust out. A little later the body of the calf slid onto the shed floor.
Relieved of her burden, the cow turned her head and licked Sandoval’s bloody hand. The creature realised its mistake — perhaps it wasn’t a mistake at all, but a token of gratitude? — and began licking the newborn calf clean. The calf dragged itself forward and the mother ran her tongue along its entire body. She then gave it a few prods, which made it slide even further forward; another shove and the calf was up on its feet. It was trembling all over. It slumped down, received another prod, got to its feet once more, but then collapsed again. Finally the calf stood up under its own power, wobbled, took a few uncertain steps backwards and fell against its mother’s belly, its snout searching eagerly for the udder.
Sandoval watched with a smile and wiped his arm clean. Then he knelt down again and lifted a hind leg of the suckling creature with one hand and its tail with the other. Among the still-wet hairs he saw not two but only one orifice. He turned to me and said, happy and proud, “It’s a bull! I’m damned if it isn’t a bull!” I couldn’t understand his enthusiasm. A new cow was more profitable, surely? Then he told me that twenty years earlier his wife had died giving birth to their only child. It was a daughter, who was now married and living in Crispo. And he confessed that he had always wanted a son. “Tonight my son was born!” he shouted, and burst out laughing.
Returning home on the train was less interesting and took longer than the outward journey. All was quiet once more in our town. A new alcalde had been appointed, a few troublemakers were in prison and the workers from the burnt-out factory were out of a job. Apart from that, everything was back to normal. Even the schools were open again. At home too, everything continued as before. Whenever I wanted a glass of water and opened the door of the fridge to get it, I saw a silver mug inside containing my uncle’s spare dentures.
About six months earlier my uncle had come home one evening with his upper lip strangely caved in. He told us that for the first time in his life he had been to see a dentist, who was now in the process of extracting all the teeth from his upper jaw. He was to be fitted with a complete set of top dentures. I could hardly stop myself laughing at the strange hissing noise he made when he spoke. Sensibly, he had ordered two identical sets. “These things can break at any moment and then you’re stuck. I can’t keep interrupting my work to go to the dentist for new dentures. So I’m having two sets made at the same time.” When he got his dentures, he put the spare set at the back of the fridge to protect them from dust and germs. This fridge was a wooden contraption lined with sheets of aluminium. Every day two large blocks of ice were placed on a grille and the space beneath was filled with bottles of water, meat and other food that needed to be kept cool. Although the false teeth were not visible when you opened the door, you could see the mug. I often slammed the fridge shut without drinking a thing.
Two months after our stay on Sandoval’s farm my uncle’s wife died. He came home earlier than usual, and I realised at once that something was wrong, because he did not take off his hat until he got to the middle of the room and then wiped his neck and brow with a handkerchief and placed the hat on a chair. His unvarying nightly routine was to take his hat off as he came through the front door, hang it on the top peg of the coat rack just inside, and only then wipe his neck and brow. My uncle quickly realised he had departed from his usual routine, so he went back to the chair, picked up the hat and hung it on the peg. Then he wiped his forehead and neck a second time.
He sat down on the big sofa and motioned me to sit next to him. He put his arm round my shoulders and asked if I had heard about the train crash that afternoon near Crispo. No, I knew nothing about it. Then he said softly, “A terrible disaster. Twenty-nine people were killed. Your aunt was one of the victims.” At first I didn’t understand what he meant. Had a sister of my father or mother come to the mainland and been killed in the train crash? He saw my confusion and said even more softly, “My wife, my dear wife has departed this life.”
When I heard this, I cried and expected him to do the same. But he hugged me and said in an almost accusing tone, “It is God’s will. We must be strong at a time like this. He knows what He’s doing, even when we can’t fathom His mystery.” At that moment I conceived a great dislike of the man who was hugging me. How could anyone talk so coolly when his own wife had died a terrible death a few hours before?
After the death of his wife, while I was waiting for a ship back to my island, I had to sleep in my uncle’s room, although I could not see why this was necessary. My narrow bed was placed in a corner of the huge room. It was a cheerless place with spotless linoleum on the floor, containing my uncle’s enormous bed with a tall chair at its foot, a washbasin with strange curled legs and a solid mahogany wardrobe with a brass keyhole plate. On the white walls hung two paintings, one a portrait of some nineteenth-century preacher who had been killed and probably eaten by an Indian tribe — he served as a model to my uncle — and the other a depiction of the Last Supper, or as my uncle called it, “Our Lord’s Holy Supper.” Many homes have a Last Supper hanging in the dining room, but here it was in the bedroom, right at the foot of my bed, so that I was forced to gaze at it every evening. On the print I could identify only Jesus and Judas — Iscariot, as my uncle called him — but he could name all thirteen figures from right to left. I’ve never understood how my uncle could be so sure who was who. I preferred the preacher in the other picture, with his flabby face, shifty stare and silly hat.