Authors: Unknown
With his shaking hands Petiso indicated that half-way over on the bridge, the view was even more beautiful.
In the pure mountain air I had felt hungry when I got off the bus. Now I felt sick. Chico had packed us a specially delicious lunch to share with the grandmother. Petiso insisted on taking it from me, and tying the lunch bag to his belt, so that I had both hands free to cope with the rope bridge.
It wasn’t really rope. It was of some tropical creeper stem—I suppose of the kind Tarzan was supposed to use to swing from tree to tree. And these stems were not rough like rope, but hard and smooth and shiny. And slippery. The bridge had sides, with an ornamental plait as a balustrade. Over the years—I didn’t dare to think how many—the plaits had worn like an old basket chair, so the bridge and the sides were full of lace holes and unravellings. Though I had purposely come in flat walking shoes, like Petiso, I took them off and slipped them in the pockets of my trouser suit.
Then I took a deep breath, and crossing my bridge, solely because I had come to it, and there was no way out, I swallowed my fear and set foot on the flimsy structure.
I could see why Petiso had let me go first. It began to sway, like a canoe, the moment I put my weight on it, so that the second person coming on had a much more difficult launching. But born and bred to it, he managed it with ease. After a few steps I got my balance. The bridge rocked less awkwardly. A little way over, it felt as if we floated in a hot air balloon over scenery of matchless beauty. Everything was silent, apart from the slight nautical creaking of the bridge and the roar of the waterfalls. I couldn’t even hear goat-bells or the chimes of any clocks. Half way over we were right above the first curve of the falls. Glassy green water poured smooth over the lip, crashed and splintered into one white froth, then down over a ledge into another and another. The sun now was almost at its zenith. It lit the white falls and races, making tiny rainbows in the thundering spume.
The last few steps were easy. I’d got the hang of the precarious structure and finished it at a clumsy jog-trot, like someone making a final spurt to the winning post in a sack-race. Petiso followed, laughing delightedly at my speed and prowess. Together, on the other side, we sat down on a great boulder, I with my hands clasped round my knees surveying the scene, Petiso smiling at my unfeigned awe.
Thousands, maybe millions of years ago, this ravine had probably been tunnelled out by the sheer force of that turbulent water far below. The outcrops of rock, on either side, between which the rope bridge was slung, had perhaps remained as a natural bridge of rock till earthquakes and erosion had demolished it, filling that faraway river-bed with its dramatic rock steps and mammoth boulders. Even now there were deep dark slashes on the opposite cliff face, and the boulder on which we sat was cleaved with a fresh-looking crack, where ominously no sprouts of lichen had yet had time to grow.
But this was life here, I thought, as impatiently Petiso pulled me to my feet. Contrasts and quick change, Don Ramón had said. Green valleys and cruel mountains. Bright sun and sudden equatorial night. Tears and laughter.
For the moment, it was all sun and laughter. Petiso skipped ahead of me, removing from my path the bigger of the pieces of rock with which it was littered, bowing in a courtly manner that gently derided the Charaguayan gentleman’s formality. The unclouded sun had moved just past its zenith, when we heard the first sound of goat bells, and smelled wood smoke. Far away a cock crowed.
With the triumph of a twentieth-century Cortez, Petiso pointed out the cloven hoofprint of a cow, then the clawmark of a chicken, miming by waving the clock that in a small time we would be home. Then the path dipped and there in a hollow were the scrawny fowls themselves, picking and scratching amongst the mossy shale. Beyond was a cluster of habitations, most of them built into the side of the hill, all with the heavy green seaweed-like thatch, and tiny windows to keep out the sun.
Obviously the inhabitants kept their own calendar, and we were expected. A dozen or so of them were outside their houses to greet us, dressed in Sunday black with bright coloured ponchos and trilby hats. Charaguayan-like, we were welcomed by wholehearted mirth—that and loud clapping of hands and stamping of feet. Surprisingly, for few of the inhabitants appeared to be under seventy, the mountains rang to the laughter and the clapping.
In front of the welcome committee, a barbecue, no less efficient than the one on the Residence lawn, or the expensive one at the Hacienda del Ortega, had been built of chiselled rock and iron grids. Sweet potatoes were being roasted. An old lady, her hair done up in a fantastic complexity of little plaits, came forward, hands outstretched. Petiso rushed towards her, pulling me with him. Volubly and at length, in his village dialect, he seemed to be explaining, not only my family history, but giving her a language lesson as well.
Inglesa
came up, and welcome. Petiso became at times vehement, waving an instructive forefinger. Then with much nodding, on both sides, the lady turned to me.
‘Welcome,
senorita inglesa
,’ she said gravely.
I smiled back, but the sunshine and the laughter momentarily dimmed. The word
inglesa
brought James Fitzgerald, his desire to get rid of Eve’s inefficient replacement, only too vividly back to me.
But laughter is never far away in Charaguay. I unpacked the cold meats, the roast chickens, the fish delicacies, the puddings, that Chico had packed for me, and we all squatted round the fire. We used large polished flat stones for platters, loaded with the meats and the roast potatoes, and artichokes, which grow in abundance. With it we drank ice-cold mountain stream water. I avoided the stone pitchers, full of local firewater, which Morag had warned me is more potent than her own Islay malts. The radio and the clock were unpacked and admired. The ticking of the clock and the sounds of some pop group on the radio were drowned in the laughter and the talk. If I didn’t forget about James Fitzgerald, at least I put him to the back of my mind.
He was in love with someone else—he had told me so. He had behaved as I would have expected him to behave, honourably and truthfully. Now he believed it was best for everyone if I returned home. And that was what I myself wanted, wasn’t it?
I didn’t want to stay. I wanted to escape this Land at the top of the Beanstalk. I wanted to return to my safe little office in London, where I might, if I were lucky, meet some nice young man, and live happily ever after.
But I wouldn’t. Because there was only one person for me. I ate a lump of hot potato, and momentarily choked on it. Kindly Petiso’s great-grandmother enquired about the
senorita inglesa.
Petiso shook his head, made his big eyes bigger still, and launched into another interminable account. The old lady regarded me with profound interest and compassion.
If only, I thought, after smiling my reassurances and murmuring in Spanish to Petiso a remark on the deliciousness of the potatoes, if only I could still dislike James Fitzgerald. I was much happier when I had disliked him so wholeheartedly at the beginning. When I could fret and fume at his strictures for my friendship with Don Ramón, for my not knowing the correct key combination, for wearing the wrong dress, for offending against the wretched
hora inglesa
, I was on firm ground. But I was not proof against his kindness and his consideration to me. Then the earth shook, and my defences tumbled. It is the hardest thing in the world to be treated gently, compassionately and tenderly by a man who loves a different girl.
Suddenly everyone got to their feet. My pushing of James Fitzgerald to the back of my mind was interrupted. The youngest woman amongst our hosts and hostesses collected the stone platers. Mugs were recharged and raised, and they all turned to me. There was a deep- throated shout of '
senorita inglesa',
followed by Indian murmurs of good wishes. The toast was downed, then the mugs were recharged. I learned afterwards that it is held to be unlucky to toast a person singly. The toast must be double. Like our ‘other wing’, I suppose. There was consultation between Petiso and his great-grandmother. Another Spanish word spread round like a password, and carefully everyone practised it. Finally up went the mugs.
'El Jefe.'
My Master.
Even here it seemed impossible to keep James Fitzgerald in his place.
The new red enamel clock was showing three when feasting and toasting were finally done, and there then began a traditional entertainment. Nothing like the dance at the Hacienda del Ortega, where I had been so passionately kissed—by whom? Not even singing or music. Instead, the shaly ground was swept with a twig broom. A wooden stool was brought out for me to sit on, and another for Petiso’s great-grandmother, placed directly opposite. She sat down on it with great solemnity, and then everyone else gathered round.
For a time nothing happened. She folded her arms across her chest and closed her eyes. No one, not even Petiso, spoke. Then out of the pocket of her skirt, the old lady extracted a polished pronged stick, not unlike a water diviner’s hazel twig, and leaning forward, she began to draw in the sand.
I thought, by the way she kept darting quick assessing looks at my face, that this was a portrait. But as she drew, faster and more furiously, I saw there were a number of figures on her shaly canvas, and I wondered if this was a primitive Indian group photograph to commemorate this important event. But her dark hypnotic eyes never strayed to the others, and as her canvas expanded to a kind of Bayeux tapestry, the rest of the inhabitants congregated behind her, staring at me and then at what she drew with ever-increasing round-eyed interest.
Finally when my curiosity had almost got the better of me, and I could sit still no longer, she whispered to Petiso and he beckoned me to come over and stand beside her.
Stiffly, she got to her feet, wiped the sweat from her brow and pointed to her drawings. Politely everyone stood back to let me get a closer view. I suppose I caught my breath sharply, because I was aware of them staring at me as if I might be distressed. For there, clearly outlined on the shaly ground, was something like a stylised newspaper story cartoon of a man and a girl. I know all this is done by some sort of mind reading and telepathy, and I know that for centuries the manner of communication between Indians has baffled the experts. That the girl should be recognisably like me was understandable—primitive people are often good artists and I was there for her to sketch. But that the man should be exactly like James Fitzgerald, of all people, first astonished and then in some way saddened me.
‘
Bueno
?’ Petiso prompted me, astonished by my expression.
‘Uncanny,' I breathed in English, glancing from the vivid pictures to the old lady’s face. She, who had never, I suppose, seen an aircraft except as a gleaming piece of metal high in the sky, had indicated my aerial arrival by a pair of condor wings above my head. Anger was a raised hand. James Fitzgerald had his frequently raised. So on occasions had I mine. And just between the two of us in most of the pictures was another face left blank, growing larger when we were angry, diminishing on the rare occasion we were not.
Her knowledge was indeed uncanny, her artistic skill superb. And only in one instance was she wrong. Perhaps my thoughts and wishful thinking had misled her, for she had included in her drawings, that incident at the Hacienda del Ortega when I had been so devastatingly kissed. But now the man in the cat costume was James Fitzgerald himself.
How different everything would be, I thought, if that were true.
‘La verdad,'
Petiso said. The truth. He pointed at the clock. The truth till now, he meant.
The ceremony was not yet over. By means which I couldn’t guess at, perhaps by a mixture of Petiso’s gossip and her uncanny skill in telepathy, the old lady had drawn what was supposed to be a faithful recording of the situation to date.
Their toast had been to me, the stranger, and my
jefe
(master). The village custom was as good hosts to tell me what the future held in store for us.
That being agreed, the next step could now begin.
A small mugful of grain was brought out of the green thatched cottage, and carefully scattered round to frame the drawings. Then everyone withdrew to the shadow of the cottages, squatted down comfortably as if awaiting the next performers on the scene.
No one spoke. All heads were turned up to the empty blue sky. Companionably, men and women alike smoked some fragrant herb. It was to be an unhurried business, I could see. Just before I came out to Charaguay I read in a newspaper that another valley had been discovered in the Andes, where most of the inhabitants were living still at the ripe old age of a hundred and fifty. Now watching these youngsters of a mere seventy or eighty, I could understand why. They scratched out a meagre living, but they were hospitable. They made the mode of life, they relaxed, they had fun. Nor could I, who have in my time counted magpies and read my horoscope and judged the day accordingly, scorn their similar attempts to guess the future. But there was only one return bus and that would be at the so-called rest centre at five past six, and though it might be late, I daren’t be, and it was almost four when the next performers appeared, as dark specks wheeling high in the sky against the sun.
The first to land was a large black bird, clearly an unlucky omen because everyone groaned. It was an untidy eater, darting here and there, messing up the sand pictures. Petiso got to his feet and tried to shoo it away, but he was gently restrained by his elders. Finally, with most of the grain eaten, it flew off, and down came a couple of
chingolos
to clear up the remaining grains. They were clapped as they departed. There were smiles and nods as the old people stood up to survey the pictures as if they were telling themselves it might be a bit rough to begin with, but it was all going to come right in the end.