The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [37]
Angel and Patricio kept to the background, letting Manuel do the talking. In part because he was the eldest, in part because he knew English well, and during their time in California he was the one who had managed the negotiations in the fields outside Anaheim. But this time Manuel immediately turned away. There was something about the man that he did not like. Instead, Angel stepped forward.
The following day, when the village celebrated Saint Gertrudis, the three brothers sat in front of the church and discussed the matter. Manuel rejected it outright—no good could come from that man’s promises.
“But it is not a job,” Angel said. “All you have to do is fly to Spain with a package.”
“What do you think is in that package?” Manuel asked.
“You heard him. It is business papers that cannot be sent by mail,” Angel replied.
Manuel looked sadly at him.
“I would not have believed you were so stupid,” he said and shook his head. “He is lying to us, don’t you understand?”
Patricio had not entered the discussion until this point, but Manuel could see in his eyes that even he was tempted by the offer.
“With that money we can buy our own coffee mill, and we can clear more land for plants,” he said.
“Perhaps buy a car,” Angel picked up the thread and kept fantasizing. “Then we can transport goods to and from the village and make more money.”
That time, on the bench in front of the church, Manuel did not take the matter so seriously. He was only worried about his brothers’ naïveté, the fact that they allowed themselves to be pulled in and dream about future riches.
The young Ernesto, their closest neighbor, was preparing for the fireworks. The Alavez brothers watched him pick up the bull-shaped disguise, swing it onto his back, and set off running around the plaza in front of the church. The first bang was deafening and was followed by spurts of fire and whining missiles that enveloped everything in a sharp smell of gunpowder.
Angel jumped up and took the disguise from Ernesto. Manuel laughed at his brother’s wobbling stomach as he attacked the flocks of small boys who ran away.
Manuel started thinking about their father. He had loved the fiesta, sometimes getting a bit too drunk but always in a good mood. He had not been a particularly good campesino. It was his dreams that mostly got in the way. He paused in his work and you could not do that as a small-time Mexican farmer. Nonetheless he had a good reputation in the village. He was considerate and he was the one who had the initiative for the coffee cooperative, and in this way he did his share to help propel the village out of the worst of its poverty.
Now Manuel was standing next to a new river, one that was much gentler than the one he was used to. He had, after studying the map, understood that it was the same river as the one he had camped next to before. But this time he found himself upstream from the city and he was happy about that. He would not have enjoyed bathing in the same water he had dumped Armas into.
He had gone to the tourist information center to get a map. Or was it fate that had led him there? When he stepped out onto the sidewalk, Armas was there, as if transported by a higher authority. He was tucking a yellow envelope under his suit jacket and spotted Manuel as he looked both ways before crossing the street.
Armas recognized him immediately. Manuel walked up to “the quiet one” as Angel had called him. The lie came to him in a moment’s inspiration.
“I have come in Angel’s place,” Manuel said, and not even then had he imagined what was about to happen.
He smiled tentatively, as if he was speaking to a gringo who was maybe going to give him a day’s or a week’s worth of work.
Armas looked around. It made Manuel momentarily unsure that he understood English and he repeated the sentence in Spanish.
“Where?” Armas asked.
“My tent,” Manuel said, and he saw Patricio’s face before him.
He wasn’t even sure if the water next to his tent could really be called a river. It was mostly reeds. He was amazed that so few people