THE
MOTHER by
Ciro
Alegria From
Duelo de Caballeros; Cuentos y Relatos.
Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires:1965.
(trans. by Kent Slinker)
The jungle
hemmed
in a hut made of dark palm trunks, erected in a
clearing carved out of the jungle by force of hatchet, where the
red
stumps looked like wounds. The vastness of the jungle had been
mutilated just so the sun could shine over the hut and the men.
The men, at the moment not occupied with their chores,
played
dice on a rough table or slept in hammocks hung up in the hallway,
next
to firearms, and to hope itself. They were accustomed to going
outside
to the clearing and stretching their arms under the sun, with the
aire
of tired birds. They had come in search of rubber and riches. Sunk
in
the immense, inhospitable, and imprisoning vegetation, their
dreams
were as unassailable as the smoke from the bitter tobacco that
they
inhaled with slow deliberation. Every morning the jungle threw
them its
challenge. Even the old timers feared the labyrinth created by the
tight
embrace of its branches and the shadow of its dense boughs.
Near the hut ran a small river, channeled
between trees, lapping at trunks and twisted ancient roots. It
could
have been called Yavari or Ingaraparana, or Pora or Yaobe. It
could
have had any name extracted from the whispers of the flora, from
the
strange voices by which the vegetation, wildlife and savages make
themselves known. That river in turn fattens other rivers, forming
part
of the circulatory system of the jungle, blood-like branches that
water
ports only dreamed about in the jungle and whose names are made
greater
by the
mere desire to know them: Contamana, Nauta, Iquitos, Manaus, and
even
further still, where all of the watery pathways become one, where
the
great river, the Amazon, the most voluminous and wide of all
rivers,
sinks into the Atlantic, and even further still, where the witch's
needle points, sparkles brilliantly the name: "New York". Its
splendor
glimpsed in dreams burning with the elation of high stock
prices, - there the men were, in the jungle night,
extracting
rubber in a willful struggle against the odds, hoping to come out
a
winner.
One afternoon when storm clouds gathered over the trees,
shadows
quivered, and anxious birds took flight, Carpena and Jimenez
arrived
from a small outlet in the river, served by two rowmen. They
had
canoed since early morning, and all day long they had listened to
the
monotonous sound of the rows set into action by the two oarsmen,
dark-skinned natives of savage birth. Carpena was the novice, and
had
joined up with Jimenez to complete the last stage of his journey.
Jimenez, meanwhile, took pleasure in telling him tales of feats
and
adventures, with the tone of someone who boastfully tells
tall-tales.
Suddenly he changed the subject to anacondas. Careful, with just
one
swipe of their tail, they can capsize the entire canoe. And in the
water, there are crocodiles. "And over there, see?" "In that area
live
the Cashivo Indians. They resist any attempt at civilization and
they
kill outsiders, burn them and drink their ashes dissolved in mush"
Carpena tried to appear unimpressed. In the end Jimenez
recommended:
- "Above all, my friend, here you have to forget that you have
feelings. Noble you say? You're going to meet Don Flores, and that
one
has no heart left"
When the canoe, with the glad push of having
arrived, struck the sand on the bank, Carpena relaxed, more from
being
released from Jimenez's conversation than from the cramped journey
in
canoe. The rubber tappers from the campground greeted them with
loud
hollers and shoulder slaps. "So what's going on these days in
Iquitos?" "Did you bring bullets?" "Good, good" "And what about
canned
food?" "No?" "Hell, we're so tired of monkeys" "Beating the
Japanese is
going to take time" "There will be a sure demand for our rubber"
"Canned peaches!" "At least one can!" "Are you new?" - "You can
see it
in your face" "Come on, come on in, rest just a bit".
The night fell, and Carpena and Jimenez stayed in the twiney
hammocks,
answering whatever questions curiosity and nostalgia brought to
the
lips of their companions. Afterwards, they lit a lantern and
gathered
around a table made of rough planks. The meal was somber, it
consisted
of a fish called "paiche" with a plantain called "inguire", yucca
root
pasta called "farina", and to celebrate their arrival, a good
drought
of
sugar cane rum. White moths fluttered around the lantern.
Outside the rowers and the natives spoke in a thunderous language.
The
sound of the rubber-tapper's voices pushed its way through
faces
invaded by tangled whiskers.
-Carpena, don't ever shave buddy. Whiskers keep the
mosquitoes
from eating you up.
Carpena, on the other hand, tried to ask everything he could. At
times
his ignorance produced laughter, but he learned at least the
necessary
information about his companions, and the idea that one had to be
tough
in the jungle continued to strongly reaffirm itself in his mind.
When the lights were put out, and the group lay
down
to sleep there began a low howl of wind. A rubber-tapper told Don
Floro:
-This breeze is good, it will keep away the mosquitoes. Tomorrow
take
Carpena into the jungle - he'll have time later on to learn how to
cure
rubber.
Carpena had seen in Iquitos the balls of rubber
and
the process of curing them. Thankfully he was destined to do
something
else. He even considered himself lucky. He would enjoy
accompanying Don
Floro. According to what he had learned, Don Floro was a guide, a
man
who, in the middle of a maze of jungle overgrowth, always found
the way
out. He had read a story once about a rubber-tapper guide who lost
his sense of direction while he was with a group of other
rubber-tappers - amongst the uncertainty of the jungle without
pathways
and with a mind driven nearly mad, he lost his anxious companions.
But
Don
Floro seemed incapable of getting lost. He was a robust
sexagenarian
with eyes of a jaguar and a wise, weathered, and dirty
beard. His
white flesh had acquired a ochre-green tone, as if the jungle
itself
had pasted the color on him, and his gray whiskers seemed more
like a
handful of those spindly parasitic plants that hang from tree
trunks.
After the wind had calmed down a bit, Don Floro muttered slowly
with
his booming voice, "It sounds to me like toward the south
there's a troop of monkeys. They're howling like the wind. I'd say
there's a baby monkey with them - Do ya hear it? Tomorrow I'm
going
to catch the baby by shooting it's mother."
And how do you plan on finding it? Carpena asked with a respectful
naiveté.
Laughter and guffaws leapt from hammock to hammock. Don Floro
extinguished his thunderous laugh and said:
Son, I know their ways! Those monkey will continue their foraging
until dawn. And you can just as well cut my throat if they don't
settle
down in a
grove of palm trees that I saw that way. There's a lot of coconuts
there, you'll see, just wait.
-And can you really hear them? Carpena asked one last time.
-Of course I can hear them - Don Floro assured him -, when the
wind
calms down you can hear them. They howl like a bunch of
condemmed guys. . . my
guess is
they're about twenty
blocks from here . . .
Sleep took over the men, and the barracks became dense with
silence.
Carpena searched for something else to say in the darkness. The
only
thing that occasionally spoke was the wind with a voice laden
with the jungle's mysteries and depths.
The novice was thirty years old and had merely a handful of
memories.
His
jungle experience consisted in the very trip through the jungle
that
landed him there in the hut. He came from a land with few trees,
from
the cost of Peru, where every valley was flanked by a desert of
sand
and rock. He had been raised on motherly care, lectures by
Salagari,
and grandiose personal plans. Now this adventure was the real
thing,
and in confronting that reality he felt unarmed, and his grandiose
plans appeared to be lost in the night stars.
The night blinded his eyes. Carpena ended up feeling lonely and
the
desire for the security of his mother welled up inside his chest.
He
curled up in the hammock like it was his mother's womb, and a
feeling
of tenderness, both close by and distant, overcame him bringing
with it
a sensation of timidity mixed with a growing sadness. In the
distance,
a jaguar howled and a fire-fly traced out a fleeting thread of
light.
The young man was awakened to reality. He tried to get hold of
himself,
and to reaffirm his determination to be strong. He too - so he
thought
- would know how to fight. After it was all over he would have
money
and the security of those who triumph in life. But he had to
remain
strong. He would be stubborn like the rocks and the hard oak
stick. He
too would become hardened . . . he had to become a real-life
rubber
tapper, a man of the jungle . He too . . .
Finally he fell asleep.
The next day, in spite of his attempts, he still had the feeling
of
insecurity that accompanies someone newly arrived, and he left
with Don
Floro, the guide, to hunt monkeys. Carpena hiked on looking from
side
to side, as if some imminent danger was threatening his back. It
could
be a boa, a jaguar, a crocodile, a savage Indian! Don Floro
marched
ahead, intently scrutinizing with his fiery eyes what lay above
them.
Both carried rifles on their backs and walked with a long gait.
The
fallen leaves, blackish-red and dark, covered the floor and
rotted,
giving off an acrid smell. Moss and every kind of parasitic plant
covered the innumerable trees. This was an intestine-like
world
where the digestive process of the jungle laboriously broke down
the
very trees.
Carpena kept very close to the guide, as if his life depended on
that
very proximity. He would learn from him. Don Floro would teach him
the
secrets of the jungle. The guide, in turn, had already performed
that
same task many times before, and took pleasure in it. He spoke,
telling
about the pulse of the jungle while at the same time hacking away
the
branches which were always trying to close the path or impede the
way.
-Young man, I'm an old-timer here. I arrived snot-nosed just like
you,
when the first explorers searched for rubber trees. I wonder if
there
is still a patch of jungle that I haven't crossed. Well, that is
saying
a lot, but let me tell you, I do know the jungle. You know the
palm of
your hand, don't you? That's how I know the jungle. A
half-fortune-teller type in the city read my palm once and said
that
here lay my destiny. And this jungle here has a palm of its own
that
you have
to experience to know. Here too is destiny . . .
They ran upon a tree covered in slashes and cuts, a unfortunate
dweller
of the jungle made to suffer an unusual torment. The incisions and
carvings covered its beautiful trunk, and there still remained
traces
of the white blood it had spilled.
-Exploited rubber - explained Don Floro. He continued: -Now days,
in
order to find it you have to walk a long way. The guys have worked
the
machete hard. Once, all you had to do is swing the machete in the
air,
and out came rubber. Now you have to walk to where the leprechaun
has
his gold hidden, which is a long way, and you still don't find it.
A long machete in a leather sheath hung from Don Floro's belt.
-Oh well, everything is a long way. It will take some time to find
the
monkeys. Not a one is to be seen anywhere in the canopy. That's
the
reason I am talking so easily. Have you ever had monkey? Not yet?
Well
you will. At first, seeing them cooking, they look like children
on a
spit, and it takes away your appetite thinking about eating them.
But
necessity . .. it takes care of everything. You have to eat
monkey. You don't always get lucky enough to find a tapir or wild
turkey . . .
The path slowly faded away. Carpena had the feeling that the
jungle was
the lord of them all. A confusing and constant rumor floated over
their
heads, but nothing could be seen besides the trunks, branches and
leaves. The guide turned toward the novice holding his rifle with
both
hands. Carpena imitated him mechanically.
-Shhhhh- whispered the experienced guide, he continued in a lower
voice: - Quiet…, so the monkeys don't scare off. They place one on
guard, and if it sees us, it lets out an alarm and the entire
troop
escapes . . .
He crept on, carefully avoiding the leaves and stepping softly.
The
rifle, pointing upwards, seemed to be just as alert as the guide's
eyes. If Carpena made some sound with a careless move, Don Floro
would
turn toward him in a muted reproach. To make things worse, the
leaves,
branches and trunks became thicker. The jungle became large and
seemed
to grow in front of the very eyes of the recently arrived. They
didn't
succeed in seeing anything in the canopy. Could Don Floro make out
the
prey? Occasionally the cry of some bird that fled in the
foliage
could be heard. The men, lightly crouched down, in the hunt,
continued
on without pause toward their uncertain game. Progress like that
was
tiresome, and it was made more so by keeping so quiet. They left
barely
a trace in the fallen leaves, but soon after other leaves fell on
top
erasing any remaining hint of passage. Crossing a swampy area, a
heel
print appeared before the eyes of the novice, in the soft mud of a
puddle. Someone else had been there, as was attested by the
footprint
left behind, but despite that, nature, hostile and self-absorbed,
seemed to have always been unaware of that fact. The swampy area
became
larger, and they had to skirt around it. Dark and still waters
stagnated around the bases of peaceful, large trees. On the other
side of the swampy area, the bed of leaves began anew, together
with
the leaves, impeding branches and darkness below the trembling
boughs.
On occasion the sun broke through clearings in the branches
allowing
one to see the crevices in the trunks and the tender but ancient
moss.
Against the smooth gray trunk of a tree an inscription could be
made
out:
In memory
of
Pedro J. Ramirez.
The deep letters, carved out in knife, denoted a steady hand.
Carpena
turned Don Floro around by touching his arm and showed him the
name.
For sure it was nobody's name from the camp. There was the
"Chinese"
Cortez, Segovia the Spaniard, Domingo the black man, and Jimenez
and
Diaz. There was no one with that name. The guide shrugged his
shoulders
as if to say: "Why worry about such silly things when we are in
the
process of hunting important monkeys?" But, trying to get an
explanation out of him, he received only the cut off sign, so he
continued the march silently. Pedro J. Ramirez had died.
Without a doubt, he like Carpena, had left his home to set out
with a
group of rubber tappers full of dreams. And now, there was nothing
of him left but a name carved on a tree trunk lost in the middle
of the
jungle. From the heart of the jungle a dead man spoke from the
grave of
an impassable thicket. Nothing more. Carpena resisted lamenting
the
fact. Here, he already understood, compassion was unnecessary. He
would
be tough like Don Floro. Just like the guide, he would learn how
to go
back and forth through the jungle, without getting lost or
lamenting
the unchangeable.
Don Floro continued on with both his eyes and the rifle vigilant.
Suddenly he came to a halt, placing one hand behind his ear. A
soft cry
could be heard in the distance. Where? The guide turned his head
in all
directions and then took off one way. Carpena followed, all eyes
and
ears, but without knowing just exactly how his rifle was supposed
to do
him any good. The foretold "grove of palm trees" made its presence
known by showing its light fronds against the gray jungle.
Don
Floro stopped once again, and brought his rifle up to his face.
The
troop of monkeys was showing off pirouetting about and throwing
coconuts. The closest one to them, without a doubt the lookout,
distinguished the hunters below and let out an piercing yell, but
it
was too late. Don Floro fired. Carpena fired also toward some
small
writhing creature that convulsed in the branches. The monkeys fled
in
large leaps and bounds through the canopy, screaming and sounding
out
alarms. In a few moments, their echo was lost in the peaceful
enormity
of the jungle.
But one had remained behind. It tried to upright itself by
wrapping its
tail around a branch, but later fell onto the bed of leaves with a
bland sound. The hunters went to it. It was a female monkey that
held a
small baby in its arms. The bullet had parted its chest. She
looked at
the men with hateful but panicked eyes, but then fixed them
lovingly on
her baby. She held onto her baby with all of her might. The
terrorized
baby clung to the lean breast of its mother and later brought its
mouth
to her breast. Shaken by the throws of death, her only concern was
that
the baby nurse, that the baby survive. Neither of the men dared
shoot
again, witnessing the great maternal defense of one's offspring.
The
mother wanted at all cost to defend her young. Her eyes shined
over the
baby monkey, full of tenderness, and holding the baby, she
stubbornly offered the baby her meager breasts. But the baby
monkey screamed upon seeing the men, more prone to flee in fear.
If
only she were able to flee. She looked one last time at the men
and
then at her baby. She persisted in trying to get the small monkey
to
suckle, now very weakly, since without doubt her strength was
leaving
her. Death arrived finally and she gave into it in the midst
of
agonizing convulsions. She became silent forever with her baby in
her
arms,
given over wholly to her offspring in a gesture of supreme
solicitude. In the vast silence that fell over the jungle, the
only
sound heard was the cries of the baby monkey, clutching to the
still
and bloody body of its mother. Clinging to it, the small monkey
seemed
to plead for its mother's protection.
Carpena could no longer contain himself, and leaning against the
trunk
of a tree he wept like a child. Don Floro tried to console him:
-Come on kid, it will be OK. You get used to it. And after all, it
wasn't your shot . . . From the darkness of the jungle and from
the wide brim of his straw hat that pressed a shadow against his
face,
the guide was glad in his heart. A stubborn tear had rolled down
his
cheek. Discretely off to one side he wiped it away with the
sleeve of
his shirt.