Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (10 page)

‘For God's sake, Ramon. I don't want to hear another story about your wretched aunt and her warts and nose sores.'

‘Well, señor, I'm not sure to which particular humming noise, of the many that are going on around us at the moment, you are referring.' Ramon suspected he did know what the source of the mayor's disturbance was but he was reluctant to be the first one to raise his awareness of the presence of the Gringito in the plaza, having experienced before the retribution from his boss that followed the breaking of unpleasant news. Besides, the mayor had left explicit instructions that Ramon should inform him of any important happenings in the town during his absence. He now recalled that trying to get a message to the mayor to inform him of the arrival of the Gringito had been item number two on his list; and that trying to get the communications network to fix the phone lines so that he could
send
the message to the mayor had been item number three.

‘How was your meeting with the district officer?' Ramon enquired, trying to change the subject. At which point the mayor exploded into a volley of abuse, completely drenching his assistant.

‘Has that bloody doctor arrived yet?' he asked, finally pausing for breath.

‘Oh, yes, señor,' replied Ramon. ‘He turned up just after you left. I wrote and informed him that you would want to visit him on your return.'

‘Well, why the bloody hell didn't you tell me he was here?'

And that, recalled Ramon, had been number four on the list.

The mayor had spent the morning reflecting on how the meeting with the district officer could have gone so badly. He had been certain that the hiring of a doctor, and one from the city at that, would be a major political coup, enough to secure him preferential status in the eyes of the authorities. He had anticipated that his foresight in providing the town with its first ever doctor would ensure that any future requests to the authorities to support his plans would be met. It could bring his election on to the district council and even the departmental development committee. The mayor was determined that nobody, let alone a ‘ragbag peasant group with no education', was going to stand in his way. As far as he was concerned, Valle de la Virgen had languished for far too long in its historic past. He was determined to put it finally on the tourist map.

The mayor had recently found himself in charge of a substantial amount of money, which by a stroke of good fortune and an enthusiastic piece of central government legislation had been deposited in the town council's bank account. The arrival of the money had been followed by some long and complicated official documents that set out the exact responsibility of the mayor's office in disposing of and accounting for the funds, and the respective responsibilities of the municipal and district councils, the canton, the department, the provincial secretariat, the prefecture, the Central Reforms Review Commission and the People's Popular Participation Vigilance Committee in overseeing their use. Having tried in vain
to understand these various official missives, he had eventually consigned them to the rubbish bin, with the conviction that, as the departmental authorities had only in recent years discovered the exact location of Valle de la Virgen and they had never as yet actually managed to visit, they were unlikely to concern themselves with the affairs of the small and insignificant town.

The mayor had gleaned from the covering letter the district officer had sent to accompany the mounds of documentation that the authorities were most concerned to improve the health of the area. Apparently a large and costly survey had been carried out across the entire nation, using a very complicated set of questions and measures, and it had come to the conclusion that things were generally in pretty poor shape and that the country was not up to facing the challenges of the new millennium. It seemed that the province in which Valle de la Virgen languished boasted the worst statistics of all, having the least number of functioning health and education facilities, legitimate doctors and sensible teachers; the highest number of alcoholics; and the greatest proliferation of disease, pestilence, ignorance and indolence in the whole country. However, the note concluded, as several foreign governments appeared to be clamouring to spend money in the most impenetrable areas of the country, which the authorities presumed meant Valle de la Virgen, the mayor might be eligible for additional resources should he be able to make a convincing case for them.

‘I am going to build a clinic,' the mayor announced triumphantly to Ramon one morning.

‘Oh, good, señor. That's a wonderful idea,' Ramon replied. ‘Who for?'

‘The townsfolk, Ramon. Who do you think? If I am going to move this town into the twenty-first century, then we need
to improve the health of the people here. At least that is what the authorities say.'

‘Oh, very good, señor, very good,' Ramon agreed. ‘Is someone sick?'

‘I don't bloody care whether anyone is sick or not,' the mayor replied. ‘If the authorities want us to build a clinic and hire a doctor, we will build a bloody clinic and we will hire a bloody doctor.'

‘Excellent. I know,' Ramon said, entering into the spirit of the endeavour, ‘we could have the clinic right here in the plaza. We have plenty of spare rooms in the town hall that the doctor could use.'

‘Ramon,' the mayor said slowly and loudly, glaring at him. ‘Let me make this very clear. I have no intention of being confronted by hordes of snot-nosed children and their scrofulous parents every time I step out of my office for a breath of fresh air. I want this clinic as far away from me as possible.'

It took some time to work out a suitable location for the project. At first the mayor decided that the only viable land on which to build the clinic, so that it was near enough to town, was on the edge of the estate owned by Doña Teresa. He resolved to make his aged aunt a long-overdue visit, not having ventured into the darkened and rotting estate that housed the cantankerous and morbidly revengeful old lady for some years. Despite his very best efforts, he failed spectacularly in persuading the old lady of the virtue of turning some of her land over to improve the health of the people, and his political career. He even magnanimously offered to have the building named the Doña Teresa Memorial Clinic, with an inscription suggesting that its benefactor had spent a life of selfless devotion to the needs of the common people. The visit ended in a stream of abuse, which the old lady sustained for a full ten minutes
without hesitation or repetition, before she threw him out of the house saying that she would rather become a penniless whore than hand any of her precious land over to the thieving and stinking rabble who had mercilessly killed her husband. After years of isolation, cared for by a handful of faithful staff, Doña Teresa had created a revisionist history of the events that fifty years ago had led up to the death of her husband, Don Pedro. In her mind, it had been a bloody and ruthless affair in which he had been ritually humiliated and then mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of a brutal and baying mob. She had long forgotten that he had died from a sudden heart attack brought on by the combination of years of overindulgence and an excessively large meal he had consumed just before hearing the news that the Great Dictator had been overthrown in a relatively bloodless coup.

The mayor finally settled upon a small and apparently useless pocket of water-logged land that nestled between the road and the edge of the swamp, half an hour's walk from the plaza. As the town was now apparently of interest to a number of foreign governments, he decided he would impress his future benefactors by declaring the clinic the gift of one of them. Placing a pin in the map of the world that hung on his office wall, he made a direct hit on Tokyo. He considered Japan to be an excellent choice, due to its exotic-sounding name and the fact that nobody in Valle de la Virgen would ever have heard of it, and inscribed the clinic a gift of the people of this nation.

Finding a doctor who was prepared to spend a year in solitude had not been as difficult as he had anticipated. Through the pulling of some not insignificant strings, which involved a high-up diplomat whom the mayor had encountered some years back in a compromising position in Consuela's guest house in Rosas Pampas, he had
managed to secure the hire of a young doctor from the city. The acquaintance had a friend, an eminent surgeon, whose son had been annoying his father for some time with an unsuitable liaison. The acquaintance was sure the father would be delighted at the prospect of his son, who was due to leave medical school shortly, spending a year or two in a remote patch of swampland.

Proud of his achievements, and having cleared the bank account of every last peso, the mayor was ready to make his case for a second instalment of money. He dutifully filed a report to the district officer explaining that the town now had a brand-new clinic and that a doctor was due to arrive in the next few months. He also suggested in his report that, as he had important plans for the town, the authorities might wish to consider constructing a proper road into Valle de la Virgen as well as sending additional funds for the clearing of a landing strip and the purchase of a light aircraft to enable the mayor to go about his official business with greater ease.

A few weeks later, the mayor received an unpleasant and threatening note ordering him to come to the district headquarters in Rosas Pampas. The note implied that, as he had failed to submit legible and appropriate accounts for the previous year, a personal interview with the district officer was required to prevent the matter being referred to a higher authority.

The meeting with the district officer had not gone well. It had taken the mayor five days to reach Rosas Pampas, with several unnecessary detours, so that when he finally arrived he was in a less than convivial mood and had the early symptoms of swamp fever. Having consoled himself for an evening in Consuela's Kitchen, he had
turned up at the meeting with the district officer in a dishevelled and slightly inebriated state.

He was kept waiting for a good hour in the insufferable humidity before his interview took place. He was eventually led by a bright young woman into a large room that contained nothing but a desk, behind which perched a diminutive figure in a smart, lightweight suit. The district officer greeted the mayor in an accent and tone that suggested he was not from the province and had little intention of staying there for very long.

‘Señor, um, Ramirez, it is a pleasure to finally meet someone from your remote neck of the woods,' he simpered. ‘How was your journey? A bit challenging, I detect.'

The mayor felt the eyes of the district officer running over him, taking in every detail. He was clearly a fastidious little man. His highly polished desk was devoid of anything that would give a clue as to his occupation, apart from a small pile of papers stacked in front of him. His hands, which rested neatly on the papers, were delicate and white with impeccably manicured nails. The mayor took a stained and rotting piece of cloth from his pocket and wiped his face.

‘I suppose a big strong man like you is used to
fighting
his way through the forest,' said the little man. He emphasised the word ‘fighting', making a limp swinging gesture with his right hand as if to imitate the use of a machete. The mayor attempted to speak, but only managed to produce a retching sound. The district officer proceeded, in a friendly and playful manner.

‘My dear Señor Ramirez, the provincial authorities are most impressed by the speed with which you appear to have responded to their requests and spent all their money. Most impressed. None of the other municipalities seem to have achieved half as much in
the time. Many of them are still struggling to decide where to begin. They clearly do not have your vision. I am sure that you'll be able to teach them a thing or two, hey? Oh, yes, I am sure a man like you could teach us all a thing or two.'

Despite the compliment, the mayor didn't like the district officer's tone. Had he not still been in a semi-inebriated state he would have sworn that the little man had just winked at him. He was beginning to feel most uncomfortable and had a sudden urge to throw up.