Read Online The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman by Louis De Bernières - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Louis De Bernières
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just before the time when Dionisio Vivo killed Pablo Ecobandodo, and it was not a pleasant place to be, what with the addicts stopping the cars under the bridge and killing the occupants for money, and the motorcycle assassins roaring through the streets cutting policemen in half with bursts of explosive bullets. They came away with two mule-loads of spanners, hammers and wrenches, prodigious bolts, and heavy-duty hacksaws complete with spare blades. They had also been to see the manager of the State Mining Corporation’s Iron Ore Extraction Plant, and ordered a titanic reel of rope, to be delivered to the tiny pueblo of Santa Maria Virgen. It was the first time he had ever been bribed by a cheque from the disappeared wife of a multimillionaire. He waited for the cheque to clear, and contemplated not bothering to deliver the rope. But then he remembered that Mexican-looking young man who had been with her, and how he had promised to come and castrate him personally ifhe reneged on the deal, and he went out with orders to the driver of the largest transporter.
As it turned out, the transporter could not get as far as the pueblito, because it could not turn the corners. The enterprising driver reversed for three kilometres until he could find a place to turn around, to the fury of a tractor driver who had the misfortune of being behind him, and who therefore also had to reverse. The transporter then reversed as far as it could in the direction of Santa Maria Virgen, and dropped the gigantic reel on the road, in a place that was as level as one might expect to find in that country of avalanche and chasm. Mercifully the reel did not take it in mind to go gleefully on its own way to some place of greater gravitational rest, and the driver proceeded on foot to the village.
In the village, in those days in the grip of basuco, he found only the incoherent victims of addiction leaning listless and bleary-eyed in their doorways. He got no sense from anyone at all, and suffered the eerie impression that he was talking to skeletons long dead, which just happened to be stretched with skin and the appearance of life. Mystified, and remembering his mother’s adage that ‘it was not given to us to understand’, he was on the point of leaving when Profesor Luis came down the path of the mountain and hailed him. The two men walked back down the road, and Profesor Luis was horrified by the dimensions of the reel. It was taller than three Misaels and wider than two Pedros. He left it where it was and went back to Cochadebajo de los Gatos.
What followed was the greatest feat of co-operation and determination in the history of the entire department. Almost the whole population trekked out to Santa Maria Virgen, their mochilas bulging with provisions, their eyes steely, their muscles flexing with anticipation. With them went a vast herd containing every mule, every horse, every cow, steer and bull, and, as though impervious to the solemnity of the expedition, a frolicking horde of the pet jaguars of the city. They carpeted the slopes with velvet black, darting after viscachas and birds, perching on the backs of bulls, patting at rocks and starting small avalanches, ambushing each other and rolling away in flurries of dust.
It was a journey as heroic as the original emigration; by day the sierra reverberated to cries of ‘burro, burro’, and ‘vaca, vaca, vamos’;the people encouraged the animals in that soft falsetto beloved of drovers, and the animals lowed in the mildest of protest, resigned to their fate as the willing victims of incomprehension. Their hoofs slipped upon the rocks, and only the mules maintained a sure footing. By night the people bivouaced on the punas, and the hobbled animals ate ichu grass and emptied their minds of memory in order to meet the next day even more like themselves than they had been the day before.
It was on this expedition that Felicidad realised that she was in love with Don Emmanuel, because under
As it turned out, the transporter could not get as far as the pueblito, because it could not turn the corners. The enterprising driver reversed for three kilometres until he could find a place to turn around, to the fury of a tractor driver who had the misfortune of being behind him, and who therefore also had to reverse. The transporter then reversed as far as it could in the direction of Santa Maria Virgen, and dropped the gigantic reel on the road, in a place that was as level as one might expect to find in that country of avalanche and chasm. Mercifully the reel did not take it in mind to go gleefully on its own way to some place of greater gravitational rest, and the driver proceeded on foot to the village.
In the village, in those days in the grip of basuco, he found only the incoherent victims of addiction leaning listless and bleary-eyed in their doorways. He got no sense from anyone at all, and suffered the eerie impression that he was talking to skeletons long dead, which just happened to be stretched with skin and the appearance of life. Mystified, and remembering his mother’s adage that ‘it was not given to us to understand’, he was on the point of leaving when Profesor Luis came down the path of the mountain and hailed him. The two men walked back down the road, and Profesor Luis was horrified by the dimensions of the reel. It was taller than three Misaels and wider than two Pedros. He left it where it was and went back to Cochadebajo de los Gatos.
What followed was the greatest feat of co-operation and determination in the history of the entire department. Almost the whole population trekked out to Santa Maria Virgen, their mochilas bulging with provisions, their eyes steely, their muscles flexing with anticipation. With them went a vast herd containing every mule, every horse, every cow, steer and bull, and, as though impervious to the solemnity of the expedition, a frolicking horde of the pet jaguars of the city. They carpeted the slopes with velvet black, darting after viscachas and birds, perching on the backs of bulls, patting at rocks and starting small avalanches, ambushing each other and rolling away in flurries of dust.
It was a journey as heroic as the original emigration; by day the sierra reverberated to cries of ‘burro, burro’, and ‘vaca, vaca, vamos’;the people encouraged the animals in that soft falsetto beloved of drovers, and the animals lowed in the mildest of protest, resigned to their fate as the willing victims of incomprehension. Their hoofs slipped upon the rocks, and only the mules maintained a sure footing. By night the people bivouaced on the punas, and the hobbled animals ate ichu grass and emptied their minds of memory in order to meet the next day even more like themselves than they had been the day before.
It was on this expedition that Felicidad realised that she was in love with Don Emmanuel, because under
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