The Bridge in the Jungle (3 page)

We had reached the opposite bank. On one post of the portico of the pump-master's hut there also was a lantern hung up. The light it gave was less bright than the one we had just seen at the fiddler's. This lantern was smoking and the glass was not cleaned. But the square in front of the pump-master's hut was well swept.

Six Indian girls who were constantly giggling about nothing in particular tried to sit on a rough bench which wasn't long enough for three. They were already made up for the dance. Their beautiful thick black hair was carefully combed and brushed. They wore it hanging down their backs, reaching almost to their hips. On their heads, fastened to their hair, they had crowns made of fiery-red wild flowers. Their brightly coloured muslin dresses were clean and neatly ironed. A heavy odour of cheap, strongly perfumed soap surrounded them. When they saw us coming, they stuck their heads together, hid their faces behind their shawls, and chatted and giggled even more than before, as if every one of them knew a good story about Sleigh or me.

The pump-master was leaning against the post from which the lantern was hanging.

'Now, what's the matter?' Sleigh asked. 'Do we get a dance or do we? If not, say so, and I'll turn in.'

The pump-master scratched his head, coughed and spat several times before he said: 'I wish I knew myself. First thing, to tell you the naked truth, the orchestra hasn't come yet. Frankly speaking, I don't think they'll come at all. It's too dark now. They are afraid to ride through the jungle after dark. I don't blame 'em. Por Jesu Cristo, I'm afraid myself to ride through that goddamned jungle at night, and I know every trail and every vereda for twenty miles around. These two guys promised by all the saints that they would be here by five in the afternoon. I'm sure they've been caged by another party right at the depot and have been promised better pay. So these lazy sticks said to themselves: "Why should we ride through that nasty jungle for hours and under that blazing sun if we can stay right here at the depot and get more money?" You would do the same, mister, or would you?'

'Since you ask me, Don Agustin, I don't care and I can't even play
Dixie
on a comb, still less a mouth-organ. Christ, I'm tired and I'd like to turn in.' Sleigh yawned as wide as his mouth would permit.

'Have a cigarette.' The pump-master offered Sleigh the little tobacco bag. Sleigh pulled out a corn leaf, shaped it, pressed it between his thumb and forefinger, poured the black tobacco on it, wetted it, and began to roll it.

'You wouldn't like our cigarettes,' the pump-master said to me while helping himself. 'Take one of these here, they'll suit your taste better. You gringos prefer to be fooled about real tobacco.' He pulled out of his other shirt pocket one of our most advertised brands imported from back home. 'I never smoke that sissy stuff,' he said, 'I only carry them for the oil people who come this way to make them feel at home and sell them a few bottles of beer.'

'What's going on at Garcia's over there?' Sleigh asked. 'Is he throwing a competition party or doing a dance all his own?'

'Perhaps he is. How should I know? The fact is, his big boy, his oldest son, I mean, has come home for the week-end. He came all the way down from Texas, where he works in the oil fields somewhere between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, as he tells me, and he is making good money too. He looks like a prince, the boy does. So maybe the old man is celebrating that event. He is always on the spring for an occasion to show what he can do on the fiddle.'

After this talk, seeing that the party seemed far off, we returned to Sleigh's place. He was, as he told me on our way back to the other bank, concerned about a certain cow that hadn't come home yet.

Garcia was still sitting in the portico of his jacalito, whimpering on his violin and putting all his soul into it.

This time I saw the big boy from Texas sitting beside his father. He was about twenty, for an Indian rather tall, clean and carefully combed. From the creases that were still in it I could see that the shirt he wore was brand-new. In a way his attitude was that of a rich uncle paying a visit to poor relatives. His face showed clearly how happy he felt to be the spoiled member of his family. On his left knee he held an enamelled cup full of black coffee, as I learned a minute later when part of it was spilled over the ground. On his right knee he rested his elbow and in his right hand he held an enchilada — that is, a tortilla filled with cheese, onions, chicken, and chilli. From long experience he had learned how to eat without moving his arms and hands more than absolutely necessary. Had it not been for his laughter and his happy face, one might have thought that an automaton and not a human being was having supper. He was preparing himself for a ten-hour dance, so he tried his best to avoid any waste of man-power. He would not worry whether the music arrived or not. As long as there was a fiddle around and a few good-looking girls, there was sure to be a party also.

At the very moment when we were just in front of Garcia's, the loud and over-excited voice of a child could be heard: 'Ay, alloh, Manuelito, what's the trouble with you? Still not ready?' And as if he had been shot from a catapult a little boy sprang from behind the hut into the portico. With the agility of a young leopard he jumped straight upon the neck of his big brother, so that coffee and enchilada, or what was still left of them, tumbled over onto the sand.

Once the little boy was firmly settled on his brother's neck, he began savagely mussing the hair that had been so carefully oiled and combed for the dance. When the hair looked like that of an enraged madman, the little boy's fists started hammering the neck, the head, and the shoulders of his brother so furiously that the poor victim of that terrific onslaught finally had to stand up. With heavy, good-natured laughter he tried to shake off the little cat riding on his neck. Carlosito, the little brother, now no longer able to hold on, glided down his brother's back. Hardly had he reached the ground when he took a boxer's position before his brother and challenged him to a fight. Manuelito accepted, saying that he would teach the little one how a real prize-fighter boxes.

Carlosito, however, was not fully himself. Accustomed to stand, walk, and run barefooted since he was born, he now felt unsure on his feet. He had the feeling that his feet were clamped to the ground when he tried to lift them and that they were wrapped in iron so tightly that they could get no air. All the flexibility and lightness of his feet, which heretofore had made him feel like a young antelope, he had suddenly lost without knowing why. So when he tried to fight, his little body swayed and wriggled.

Manuel had brought along with him, as a present for his kid brother, a pair of genuine American shoes. The soles of these shoes were polished and they were smooth as glass. Carlosito, of course, had to put on his new shoes to show the giver how much he liked them. Never before in his life had he worn shoes on his feet. So it was only natural that he should feel the way he did about the heaviness and insecurity of his little feet.

Garcia scratched his fiddle untiringly, not in the least bothered or molested by the noise.

'The kid is pitch crazy about his big brother,' Sleigh said to me while we were walking to his place. 'It's funny how things are in this world. These two boys are only half-brothers. The big one and another about fifteen years old are the ones Garcia had by his first wife. The second, the one who is fifteen, is not quite right in his mind. At least that's what everybody here, me included, thinks. He has the craziest ideas and he does the most stupid things. The little one Garcia had by his second wife, the one he is living with now. She is very young, more than twenty years younger than he. Yet they seem to be very happy, never have a row. Manuel, the big boy, has come here for no other reason than to see his kid brother, who is as mad about him as the big one is about the kid. He has spent practically all his savings just to make this trip to bring the kid a pair of new shoes and a little ukulele. The trip alone takes more time than he can spend here. The second one — I mean the one who's half-witted — is absolutely indifferent about his two brothers and about his father and his stepmother too. Often I get the idea that he is jealous of the kid, I don't know why, and that he's waiting for a chance to do the kid some harm. He has already played many nasty tricks on him — burning his feet when the kid was asleep, or pulling out a tuft of his hair, or throwing snakes at him, or putting ticks all over him. That's one of the reasons why we all think him screwy.'

We had arrived at Sleigh's hut. In one corner of the large room, the only room the hut possessed, the girl had arranged her bedding on the earthen floor. It consisted of a petate, a sort of bast mat. An old blanket full of holes — her cover — lay on the mat. Over this simple bed a mosquito bar was hung.

Hardly had we entered when Sleigh again left to see if the missing cow had come home.

The girl, not minding my presence at all, squatted on the floor, pulled down her dress almost to her hips, and let her baby drink. As soon as the baby was satisfied, she pulled her dress up again and, holding her baby in one arm, crawled beneath the mosquito bar. From the movement of the netting I judged that she was undressing. Then I heard her stretch out her limbs while she uttered a long sigh, by which she obviously meant: 'Well, folks, I think I deserve my rest, so leave me alone.' The fact was that the work she had done during the day had been so easy that a child could have accomplished it. To her it meant nothing whether the world outside her mosquito bar was heading for a gay night with music and dancing or for a tragedy. She had her baby, her eats, and a dry place to sleep in. That was all she wanted on earth.

5

It was dreary in the hut. The little lamp — a tin container filled with kerosene, with a strip of wool stuck in it for a wick — smoked and gave only a spark of light, which made this gloomy, primitive room seem ghostly — a place that gave you no hint that there was civilization somewhere in the world. Any minute I expected to see phantoms of dead Indians and strange animals appear. Everywhere in the hut there were little shadows dancing about, as the smoking flame fluttered in the soft breeze that came in through the walls. I thought I saw big spiders, tarantulas, and huge black scorpions crawling along the wooden rafters on which the palm roof rested.

Frequently the flame got so low that through the walls I could see the flicker of lights in the near-by jacales. The knowledge that there were other huts inhabited by people close by did not make me feel easier in the least. I did not know these people. They all were Indians and if, superstitious as they were, they thought I might bring them or their children harm, they would sneak in and kill me, then throw me into the river; and before Sleigh returned, every trace of what had happened would have been washed away.

Beetles, moths, mosquitoes, and night butterflies bigger than my hands entered the open door. Flying around the little lamp, they deepened the ghostliness of the room rather than brought life into it.

Now and then a gurgling or a gulping sound would come from the river, whose bank was less than twenty yards away. Not only the air around me, but also the ground seemed to be filled with a never tiring sobbing, whistling, whining, hissing, fizzing, whimpering. A burro brayed plaintively in the prairie. A few others answered him, as if they wished to encourage him against the dangers of night. Then a cow mooed. A mule came running close to the open door, chased by a real or perhaps an imagined enemy. On looking into the hut and seeing a human being sitting quietly inside, it recovered from its fear or dream or whatever it was, sniffed at the earth, then calmly walked back to the pasture.

Now and then I heard fragments of speech and hushed voices. A shrill laugh cut the night, reached me, and vanished at the same moment. From another direction came a woman's yell. For a second her yell hung in mid-air, then fell to the ground and was swallowed by the whining jungle. It left behind it a deeper night, a more intense gloom. A few trembling notes from a fiddle floated on the breeze. They came as if they were dancing through the night, but before they actually came closer to me they were adrift again.

And there, suddenly, like a shadow, Sleigh stands in the entrance to the hut. All I can see of this shadow is the face. His sudden, silent appearance makes me gasp. I am glad in a way that he cannot see my face at this moment.

'Hell, I wonder if that lazy piece of a girl has left me a gulp of coffee.' His words give me back my breath. 'The devil, I am thirsty.'

The girl, that lazy piece, knows no English, but coffee she has understood and from the questioning tone in his voice she knew what Sleigh wanted.

So from under the mosquito bar she says: 'There is some left on the fire on the hearth.' Of course, she answers in Spanish.

While Sleigh was away she had slept profoundly, as I gathered from her deep, quiet breathing. Nevertheless, with the excellent hearing of an Indian, she had been aware of Sleigh's coming, while I, fully awake and facing the entrance, had heard nothing.

'De veras?' Sleigh says. 'That's almost as good as a diamond found on the prairie.' In a tired manner he goes to the back of the hut where the enamelled pot full of coffee had been left on the smouldering ashes of the hearth.

'How about you, Gales? Have 'nother cup of coffee?'

'No. Thanks just the same.'

The girl snores already. As quickly as she had come out of her dreams, so quickly had she returned to them.

Sleigh sat before me. After a time during which he seemed to doze he said: 'Damn the whole outfit. I can't find that devil of a cow. Not for a thousand dollars could I bring her home. She has got her calf here in the corral, that damn devil has. Every evening she comes home all right without any trouble. Also at mid-day when it gets too hot and the cattle are plagued by horseflies, she comes in with all the others to lie down under the trees. I'm plumb sure we've got a lion around. Maybe even a couple of lions. Perez, one of the neighbours, he has a fine goat, a milker, she hasn't come home for days. He too is sure we've got lions. The fact is that goat will never come home again. It's gone for good. The cow has always been very punctual, almost like a clock. Something is queer about the whole damn machinery, that's what I tell you. Well, we'll see tomorrow. Now, in such pitch-dark night, I can do nothing about it, not a thing.'