Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop (11 page)

‘It is remarkable that you managed to spend your entire budget for the year in a matter of months,' the district officer continued, ‘although I am afraid my rather pernickety bosses in the department have voiced some concerns. Apparently, from the accounts you submitted they feel it is not possible to
track
, as they say, exactly what this money has been spent on. They've asked me to have a word in your ear about the matter. Personally I'm sure you've done a grand job, and I'm looking forward immensely to making a visit to see for myself. I've heard it's a charming, quaint town, is that right?'

The district officer paused and took a swig of Coca-Cola. He continued.

‘Look, I understand the problem you're facing. Things have moved on at rather a pace, haven't they? We have a change of government and everything turns on its head. It's enough to make you quite dizzy.' He raised his hand to his brow. The mayor nodded in mute agreement.

‘The problem is,' the district officer continued, ‘our friends on the People's Popular Participation Vigilance Committee have put in a complaint, and we have to be seen to take them seriously, if you know what I mean. Damn annoying really.'

The mayor yawned. ‘What is this Popular Participation thingy anyway?' he asked.

‘Oh, dear me,' clucked the district officer, clapping his hands with excitement. ‘I see the problem. Someone hasn't been doing their homework, have they? Naughty,' and he tapped the mayor lightly on the hand. The mayor, who by now had decided he hated this little man, moved awkwardly in his seat.

‘You see, Señor Ramirez,' the district officer continued, ‘we all have our cross to bear. I, for my sins, have targets and I have to make sure that you reach them.'

‘What do you mean, “targets”?' the mayor said, spitting again as he spoke. The district officer pointed limply at a whiteboard on the wall above his head. It was covered in criss-crossing lines.

‘These,' he said. ‘If we achieve them, then, my good friend, you will put Valle de la Virgen on the provincial map, so to speak, and we will all be happy.' The mayor stared blankly at the board.

‘Look. I am sure we can sort this little problem out. All you have to do is make sure this clinic of yours is doing this.' The district officer waved an arm in the direction of the chaos on the board. ‘You know, get those people of yours to see that doctor. Sick children, pregnant women, anyone you can find, the more the better.'

‘How the hell am I supposed to do that? As far as I know, nobody in or around Valle de la Virgen has ever been to a doctor, and nobody has ever said they need one. I only built the blasted clinic because I thought you wanted me to!' The mayor was now shouting.

‘Oh dear, we do seem to have a misunderstanding,' the district officer said. ‘I will soon be having a visit from the provincial authorities and I need to show them what progress we are making. I am counting on you. So you had better get the people on your side, and quick. Popular participation, you see, that's what we are
all about now, isn't it?' And with that, the district officer abruptly terminated the meeting.

As he was about to leave the room, the district officer put his hand on the mayor's arm and whispered into his ear: ‘Personally, I don't give a monkey's toss about Popular Participation Vigilance Committees, but we all have demands on us, don't we? You get me the targets I want or I'll make you pay back every penny you have spent from your own pocket, and with interest. Do I make myself clear?'

With that, the meeting was over.

The humming had grown louder.

‘What the bloody hell is that noise?' the mayor bellowed again at Ramon, who took a step backwards and fell over the defunct ceiling fan lying on the floor behind him.

‘It sounds as if it's coming from the plaza.'

Ramon, prostrate on the floor, was unable to prevent his patron from striding over to the window to discover the cause of the morning's disturbance. After a brief silence, the mayor nudged the quivering Ramon with his foot.

‘What's going on?'

‘We have a visitor,' Ramon replied. Ramon was then picked up by his shirt collar and dragged into the plaza to introduce the mayor to the stranger.

Nena and a few of her classmates had taken to sitting with the Gringito at the end of morning lessons to join him for a humming session, and were competing with each other to see who could hold
a headstand for the longest without moving, while continuing to hum. The Gringito had explained to Nena that standing on his head was an integral part of his ‘journey' and would enable him eventually to gain everlasting peace and inner tranquillity. Nena, doubting that everlasting peace and tranquillity could ever be achieved while living in her mother's house, thought it could be worth a go, and had also managed to sell the idea to a few of her more easily influenced friends.

When the mayor entered the plaza he was confronted by a circle of upside-down children, in the centre of whom was a bedraggled, upside-down foreigner. The mayor stood in silence. Finally, turning to Ramon, he yelled; ‘What the bloody hell is this? You've let a madman into the town in my absence.'

‘It's nothing to do with me. He's staying with Doña Nicanora,' Ramon replied, quickly passing the blame.

‘Wretched woman,' exploded the mayor. ‘I should have known she would have something to do with this.' Ramon moved a step away to try to avoid the inevitable spray of spit.

‘I think he's a
hipi
,' Ramon said.

‘A
hipi?
'

‘Yes, a
hipi
.'

‘Where does he come from?'

‘I don't know. Apparently he was found in Puerta de la Coruña. There are a lot of them there.'

‘How did he get here?'

‘Ernesto brought him.'

‘Ernesto?' the mayor replied. ‘I thought we had seen the last of him.'

‘Well, he's back, and he brought a
hipi
with him,' said Ramon. ‘And I don't think he's as poor as he looks. Nicanora has certainly
had a smile on her face ever since the Gringito arrived. Apparently he likes the peace and quiet here.'

‘Peace and quiet? I have never heard such a racket,' the mayor said.

Nicanora suddenly appeared, crossing the square on her way home from the market. Seeing Nena, she shouted at her to get down unless she wanted what was left of her brains to run out of her ears. Clipping Nena lightly on the head, Nicanora took her daughter by the hand, telling her that if she could find no better use for her time than standing on her head she could help her with her chores. In her haste to avoid another scathing encounter with Don Bosco, Nicanora hurried across the plaza directly into the path of the mayor and Ramon.

‘Doña Nicanora,' the mayor barked at her.

‘Don Ramirez,' replied a startled Nicanora. ‘It's good to see you have returned safely. When did you arrive? How is your wife?' she gabbled. ‘It's a long time since I have seen her. I heard she had her old troubles back again. Such a shame. I hope she's well.'

The mayor's wife, Doña Gloria, was a large and gregarious woman with an appetite for a good fiesta, young men and humiliating her husband. People still talked about the time when, during the last fiesta of the Virgin, Gloria had become so outrageously drunk that she had decided to do penance by divesting herself of an item of clothing at each of the fourteen Stations of the Cross. She had arrived in the plaza several hours later absolved of her sins and stark naked, to the horror of her husband, who was in the middle of his ‘homage to the Virgin' speech. The mayor and several large men had had to chase Gloria around the plaza with a blanket before Gloria's humility was restored to her and she was led away to face her shame in the morning. Doña Gloria
had also given generously of herself during Ernesto's farewell party. Rumour had it that, after a night filled with beer and
aguardiente
, she had provided Ernesto with her own personal farewell present behind the church. Gloria's bouts of exuberance were generally followed by a rapid decline, during which time she was known to take to her bed in a fit of depression that could last for months.

‘She's fine,' the mayor responded abruptly, not wishing to pursue the subject. ‘Who is he, and where did he come from?'

‘He's a tourist,' Nicanora replied.

‘A
tourist
,' the mayor gasped. ‘Is he really?'

The mayor, Ramon, Nicanora and Nena all stood in silence staring at the Gringito.

‘I don't think so,' Nena replied finally. ‘He doesn't have a camera.'

‘Well,' said the mayor, ‘we had better get him one then.' And he marched briskly back into the town hall, Ramon running along behind him.

‘I don't understand why you want to open a café,' Ramon said. ‘Run it by me again.' The mayor had been trying to explain the idea for the past hour, since discovering the Gringito in the plaza, and was losing his patience.

‘If I go through it with you one more time, will you then promise to do as I ask?'

Ramon nodded in agreement.

‘Promise?'

‘Promise,' Ramon said.

The mayor had arrived back in Valle de la Virgen a man with a
mission. He was determined to show the authorities that he had his finger on the pulse, and now, as if it was a gift from the Virgin herself, they finally had their first tourist.

‘What is it that you find so difficult to understand?' he asked.

‘Well,' Ramon said, sitting down, his brow furrowed with concentration. ‘You want to turn Don Bosco's shop into a café?'

‘Exactly,' the mayor replied.

‘Who for?'

‘The tourists, Ramon. The bloody tourists.'

‘What tourists? Do you mean that Gringito?'

‘Yes, yes. I want to turn Don Bosco's shop into a café for the Gringito.'

‘Is he hungry? I think Doña Nicanora is feeding him.'

‘I don't care whether he is hungry or not. The point is, if we open a café others like him will come and stay here and start buying things.'

‘What things?'

‘I don't know – anything that we care to sell them. That's how it works, Ramon. That is why Rosas Pampas is rich and has telephone lines that work, and we don't,' the mayor replied picking up the defunct receiver and slamming it down again.

‘But …' The mayor glared at Ramon, who continued undaunted. ‘But how will they get here?'

‘Ramon, if that hopeless
hipi
out there got here, others like him will. I will pay that good-for-nothing Ernesto to go in his truck and bring them here if I have to.'

‘But will Don Bosco want to turn his shop into a café?'

‘That, Ramon,' the mayor said, ‘is for you to find out.'

It had been two years since the mayor's last visit to Rosas Pampas. He had always taken a perverse pleasure in visiting there, simply for the reassuring knowledge that there was at least one place on earth that was as apparently pointless as where he had just come from. As far as he was concerned, Rosas Pampas was a town built on opportunism and nothing more substantial than that. It was the last frontier between swamp and river, without even the glory of an historical past to boast about. It had grown out of wood, and existed solely for the purpose of the
peki-pekis
, the motorised canoes, that buzzed up and down the river like oversized mosquitoes, transporting their cargo to Puerta de la Coruña and onwards to Manola.