Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [94]
The powdered milk arrived in sacks sent by the Americans. To start with, seeing so many sacks, a few beggars turned up, but they didn’t come back. They didn’t like the taste at all. Or the colour, maybe it was the colour. Which makes me think, sometimes, if you’re poor, it’s almost better to be completely poor, because then you have the freedom to have nothing at all. And to reject what you don’t like. The pale yellow taste included. Nobody forced them back. ‘Even if you don’t like it, you still have to drink it.’ That’s what our teacher said initially though, to tell the truth, she didn’t sound very convinced. They should have sent something else. Coca-Cola, for example. Because people couldn’t understand why the milk was powdered. They were happy to receive things, they opened their arms. But it’s one thing to be polite, quite another to drink powdered milk when you’re surrounded by cows. As the first planes flew over, we’d shout, ‘Sweets, sweets!’ Older people were suspicious of the planes, but we trusted them. We had a lot of faith in aviation. They then told us the potato plague arrived by air, not like a Biblical plague, in an unhealthy cloud, but in light aircraft, brought on purpose. So, according to this, when we were asking for sweets with our arms stretched heavenwards, what in fact came down were beetles. Beetles are pretty, even those of the potato plague, which are golden, with black stripes. They look like tiny toys made of tinfoil. They’re strong enough when they’re chewing. But then they die in that modern way, in heaps, from insecticide. Polka reckons plagues are a business. He says he won’t give a penny to the people who invented DDT. He won’t have anything to do with them. Mama inherited a plot of land, the Field of the Twelve Sisters, as it’s called. When Polka wants to wind her up, he has a go at the name. ‘Twelve Sisters? Is that because it’s long enough for a dozen cabbages?’ She doesn’t like him joking like that. She’s really very fond of her inheritance. The twelve cabbages. Which grow by hand, as it were. Cabbage by cabbage. Each fully grown cabbage is a step upwards. Cabbages. Amazing. Such determination. A piece of land, the only one, that is so remote, so rock hard, beetles don’t make it that far. Or planes for that matter.
Chimpanzee Language
19 August 1957
On the cliff, next to the lighthouse, Antonio Vidal thrust his cane like a quick harpoon. Swish! There, pinned to the ground, still breathing, wagging its tail and beating its navigational wings, was the sheet of newspaper.
The two of them looked in amazement. Grandpa Mayarí still nervous about having caught a living being.
‘What’s it say?’
Gabriel read aloud, ‘Before furnishing your home, visit the Mist.’
‘“Visit the Mist?”’
And he stared down at the rocks, at the sea grottoes belching forth mist.
‘It’s a furniture shop.’
‘Go on. What next?’
Gabriel read slowly, ‘Northwestern Tie Industries. Manufacturer of fine ties and unique underwear with no stitching behind, more comfortable than anything you’ve worn before (American model).’
‘“American model”?’ asked Mayarí in surprise. And after a pause, as if speech had just returned from a reconnaissance mission, he added another unanswerable question, ‘“No stitching behind”?’
‘It’s just an advert, grandpa.’
‘You never trip up when you’re reading. Did you realise?’
He moved the tip of his cane. ‘What’s it say there?’
Gabriel read carefully, ‘Lumumba says he’ll ask “the devil” for help if necessary to get rid of the Belgians.’
The two of them, mesmerised. As if a porthole had opened up in the ground.
‘The first thing you have to know when dealing with the devil,’ said Mayarí, ‘is that it’s best not to call him by his name. If you’re speaking Spanish, you can address him as Sir or Caballero, he rather likes that. He also doesn’t mind Prince. Prince of Darkness, Prince of the Air and so on. And then there’s Your Excellency, Your Eminence, Your Lordship.