67
But Simonopio’s Image Invades Your Mind,
Francisco, and it’s not the one with the gentle eyes and generous smile that you like remembering so much: the image of the young man surrounded by bees and sun, who took you to school, happy, pulling on Thunderbolt’s reins for too short a time. The mental portrait you see now is not the one you took with you when you went and the one that has accompanied you all these years since you left. No, the image you see today behind your eyelids, the image of him in your mind’s eye, is one that you’ve never seen before. The face you see on him today, so many years later, is one of absolute suffering, unfiltered, with no pretenses or condescension.
And you suddenly feel the greatest pain of your life invading you, a pain that must be let out or you will die. You comprehend that the pain belongs to someone else, but it is your responsibility. You know that it comes from the past, though it has reached you only these many years later. Now you know that the pain is called Simonopio. You think about it for a moment with the little good sense that you have left, because you feel your windpipe seal, and the thin trickle of air that reaches your lungs barely oxygenates your blood and is only just enough to make a lucid decision. With no energy in your old body to vent the pain from your body with a great scream to rival the one that Simonopio let out on that Saturday, your birthday, your only option is to continue telling the story.
You turn to the taxi driver, who you now know is called Nico, even though at no point during the journey have you asked him his name, nor has he offered it.
“That’s better. Shall we carry on?”
Yes, Francisco. Get into the cab. Reach your destination. Carry on, Francisco. The memories and the pains, all of them—yours, other people’s—from start to finish, they require you. Today they will not let up: you must go to them. It hurts and it will hurt more, but you’re on the right path.
68
Following the Bee Trail
Simonopio had to go cross-country. Using the map of the hills he had made in his mind during his endless walking in pursuit of the bees—the map he also traced on the land, through the vegetation, with the weight of his body—he chose the fastest route and ran at full speed.
He could not feel his heart beating. He could not control his breathing or see beyond the next hill. He knew it was beating, that he breathed, and that the world existed beyond his field of vision, but only because he was still alive, moving, and with a destination in mind. If it was cold, he no longer felt it. He didn’t care anymore. If he trod barefoot on stones, branches, or thorns, driven by compulsion, he could only take a firm, quick step and follow it with another, and another, and another, and as many as were necessary to take him to where everything was calling to him, to where he had known he would be called all his life.
With each step he sent out his own urgent and repetitive signal: It’s today, come today. Deafened by anguish, he did not know whether he was receiving a reply.
Indifferent to the scratches, he stopped for nothing. He did not reduce his speed even to carefully make his way through the thorny plants, which had grown back since his last visit. He did not stop, as he normally would, to admire the view that suddenly opened up of the tallest hills from an angle that could be appreciated walking on only that route. When an unsuspecting rabbit crossed his path, he did not stop to let it pass freely. For the first time in his life, he ran thoughtlessly, indifferent to whether he caused alarm or damage in the hills, and not even an encounter with the bear that roamed that area would have stopped or diverted him.
He had a long way to go and very little time: the day of the clash between the lion and the coyote had arrived, and he was going to meet his adversary.
He did not know whether he would arrive in time.
69
. . . Dies by the Sword—or the Bullet
He could not help it: seeing Espiricueta in the distance, standing on the hill, darkened Francisco’s good mood.
True: it was what they had agreed—though he had thought it canceled—and working with the campesino had been his original intention when he had brought Francisco Junior with him that day. But now that they had spent all this time alone, he did not want to share the day with anyone else. They had begun a task together, and he wanted them to finish it together. He knew that, had they had help from the beginning, had Espiricueta arrived on time, the same task would have taken a few minutes, while he—a clumsy digger—and a small boy who returned more earth to the hole than he managed to extract would have taken around two hours.
Now that he had the first tree at the edge of its hole, he decided he would ask Espiricueta to come back the next day, when they would start to plant the new orchard in earnest. For today, Francisco and his son would plant these trees alone, and Francisco Junior would always remember that, as a boy, he had started an orchard with his father.
He and Francisco Junior still had work to do that day, but it did not matter. He had enjoyed himself with his son, being inefficient and sweating together in spite of the cold, and the boy seemed to have enjoyed himself too. That night they would arrive home hungry and with blisters on their hands, but satisfied at a job well done and at their achievements that day, which were far more important than the five trees they would plant.
After that long day of work, they would drop down dead, he predicted.
He waved his hand, expecting the gesture to be returned. Instead, he saw Espiricueta raise his hand—not to return his greeting, but to accommodate his Mauser and take aim using the sight, nice and slowly, without rushing, no doubt holding his breath, like any expert marksman would do when he wants to hit a target.
It took Francisco Morales Senior only an instant to realize that Anselmo Espiricueta was not aiming at anyone behind him, and to understand with horror that the campesino would fire the weapon Francisco had given him using the bullets he had also provided, insisting the man practice to improve his marksmanship. And in that instant, he concluded that the target was him, and with him, his son.
Just an instant.
He turned, with the intention of protecting Francisco Junior with his body, and the shot rang out, echoing between the hills of the land that still belonged to him.
70
. . . Lives by the Sword—or the Bullet
Anselmo Espiricueta went to meet the boss as they had agreed. He arrived early with his son, almost at dawn, which was the usual time to start work. But the boss had not arrived and—after several hours sitting there, cold and hungry, resting against the trunk of a tree at the top of a hill—Espiricueta, at his son’s insistence, had been about to give up and go home, resenting the boss’s lack of consideration.
A peon’s time, he concluded, is not worth the same as the boss’s, who, breaking his word, had not showed up at the agreed-upon time. Then he felt disappointed: he had waited anxiously for this day—not for the excitement of changing the crop or out of curiosity, like everyone else who went to the party at the river that day, but because it was the day when he would begin the life that he had been planning for so many years.
Espiricueta had interpreted their meeting that day as a threat, but it would be the last time that anyone dared threaten him: he, in turn, had responded with a serious promise that he intended to fulfill. And it had nothing to do with orange trees.