His fortune was gone, but his property was not, which was why, now more than ever, he felt not only the obligation but also the need to defend what he had left. Why he could no longer allow himself the magnanimity he had shown Espiricueta. Why he went to him to inform the man that, if he did not agree to plant orange trees on his allocated plot, he would have to leave.
The news did not go down well with the campesino.
“I been working my land nineteen years, but I wanna plant tobacco.”
Francisco was surprised to hear so many words strung together coming from Espiricueta’s mouth. And the business with the tobacco was news to him.
“Tobacco was planted here before the sugarcane, but it didn’t work. And you’ve been failing to fulfill our agreement for more than nineteen years. This is as far as it goes: you do what you’re told, or you leave. It won’t cost you anything. I’ll bring you the trees. You plant them and tend to them. Oranges sell, and it’s the best way to stop them taking our land, Anselmo.”
Silence.
“I’ll see you here on Saturday. I’ll help you get started.”
54
It’s the Best Way to Stop Them Taking My Land
“Yes, I’ll see you here Saturday.”
Instead of irrigating his maize, though it needed water, Anselmo Espiricueta went to practice with his Mauser.
55
Not All Saturdays Are the Same
I remember those five days of waiting.
When I climbed onto the pickup truck, I did so imagining that I was running off with the circus and would learn, like Ronda, the True Wonder, the trick of singing underwater. It’s not that I wanted to earn a living by singing under the surface; rather, I imagined that, if one was able to sing in such an unusual and adverse environment, first one would have to be able to breathe like a fish in water. And just think of all the big adventures that such a skill would bring me.
How many Saturdays had I lived through until then? It was April 1930, so I calculate that, up to that point, there must’ve been 363 Saturdays in my life so far. Not that I paid much attention before I started school, but from then on, every Saturday seemed glorious to me because I didn’t have to go.
At almost seven years of age, I had experienced seven Holy Saturdays, which were the most eagerly awaited because the color and activity returned to Linares life after what seemed like never-ending monotony, traditionally beginning on the first day of Lent. Then there were certain Saturdays when the Villaseca Fair came to town, when the best quarter-mile horse races were held. Those seemed special to me. There were also the Saturdays in the summers that we spent with my cousins on one of the ranches, trying to remain submerged for as long as possible in the pools that formed on the river banks—hence my intense desire to learn Ronda’s aquatic skill.
That Saturday in particular was, for me, the Saturday of all Saturdays: my seventh birthday coincided with the underwater spectacle, and the whole town was gathering at the event that, at times, I persuaded myself was being held in my honor. I imagined Ronda, from his place underwater and with the show in full swing, saying clearly through the bubbles, May the guest of honor come forward! And there I’d be in the front row.
Yes, the wait was long.
During those torturous schooldays leading up to the Saturday that was so eagerly awaited, so widely publicized, and so very much mine, no one—neither pupils nor teachers—spoke of anything else. Impossible, the adults said. Impossible. The innocents said, But he said so! He said it through the megaphone and we all heard it! As if saying it through a megaphone was a sort of guarantee. But one and all would attend the aquatic recital: the line had been cast, and we were all fish ready to bite.
Two days before, in the square, on the streets, everyone stopped to discuss the matter, asking one another, Are you going? Just like that—no need to specify what event or what day they were referring to. They all knew, and then they would say, See you there? What time are you going?
Well, it starts at five.
But we could go earlier. Take some food.
We could spend the day in the country.
Let’s take tortas and lemonade.
Let’s meet at twelve, then.
To get a good spot.
Getting a good spot would be crucial.
That Saturday, even the storekeeper Abraham closed up shop at four in the afternoon. All the field workers had asked for special permission from their bosses to work a half day. The barracks, which some years ago had appropriated the town’s largest hospital building, left just two soldiers—two that were being disciplined—so that the rest could join the party. And no parent, even the most skeptical, had been able to deny their children the Saturday outing.
Except mine.
Every day of those five I had to wait, I embarked on a new campaign to persuade my mama and papa to go, without success. I believe they must’ve been the only ones to categorically refuse to pay the twenty centavos each to someone they declared was a con artist exploiting the gullible people of Linares. Not even my own attempts at extortion—all my friends were going, it was my birthday—forced them to yield.
I wasn’t too worried, because I had Simonopio’s promise: he would take me, and if my mama and papa wanted to miss out, that was their business.
As ever, whether fast or slow, time always passes, and grain of sand by grain of sand, every date arrives. And so the Saturday that all of Linares had been waiting for also arrived.
56
Sharing Sweat and Shade
She had brought up her children with discipline, following the rule that one should not say yes to everything, but by the Saturday in question, Beatriz Cortés de Morales had tired of saying No, no, no and Please, leave me in peace, because her petitioner, in spite of—or because—his seven years of age, was indefatigable and relentlessly stubborn.
There were moments in the last five days—which had seemed like weeks to her—in which she had been about to give up and say, Go on then, go see that Ronda, that wonder, that good-for-nothing. But the family already had plans for Saturday, and they did not include wasting time and money on a refugee from some nearby village who, in the ten years he had spent living as a parasite in Linares, had done nothing but extract money from people of good faith using trickery.
The event on Saturday was just another ruse.
Beatriz did not know what people would find when they went to see the aquatic singer’s show. To some extent, she understood why—needing some kind of distraction after the years of hardship they had lived through and the years still to come—even the most suspicious townspeople would give in to their curiosity.
The interest in Ronda was just a pretext for many people.
With the excuse that Ronda had given them, why not enjoy what promised to be a warm, lazy spring day by the riverside, sitting in the shade of the trees, surrounded by family, games, good food, and friendship? Beatriz suspected that some were looking forward with glee to what the evening would end in: some good jeering—which Beatriz knew would be well deserved—at the performance of the supposed underwater singing. For them, twenty centavos each was money well spent, because they would enjoy the day, spend time with their neighbors and friends in the open air, and then enjoy the mass mockery—which they might even instigate themselves—of someone who undoubtedly deserved it.