LITMIR.BIZ

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have a trade?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Well then, go to the gold-mine. They’ll give you a job.’

      ‘And what about you, José? What do you do?’

      ‘Me? Nothing. I don’t work – they pay you very little.’

      Well, well, well. They were poor, sure enough; yet they were quite well dressed. Still, I couldn’t very well ask him what he used for money – whether he stole instead of working. Wait and see, I said to myself.

      ‘Enrique, you’ll sleep here tonight.’ said Maria. ‘There’s a room where my father’s brother used to sleep. He’s gone, so you can have his place. We’ll look after the sick man while you go to work. Don’t thank us; we’re giving you nothing – the room’s empty in any case.’

      I didn’t know what to say. I let them take my little bundle. Maria got up and the other girls followed her. She had been lying: the room was in use, because they brought out women’s things and put them somewhere else. I pretended not to notice anything. No bed, but something better, something you see most of the time in the tropics – two fine wool hammocks. A big window with just shutters – no glass – opening on to a garden full of banana palms.

      As I swung there in the hammock I could hardly believe what had happened to me. How easy this first day of freedom had been! Too easy. I had a free room and four sweet girls to look after Picolino. Why was I letting myself be led by the hand like a child? I was at the world’s end, to be sure; but I think the real reason why I let myself be managed was because I had been a prisoner so long that obeying was the only thing I understood. Yet now I was free and I ought to make my own decisions; but still I was letting myself be led. Just like a bird when you open the door of its cage and it doesn’t know how to fly any more. It has to learn all over again.

      I went to sleep without thinking about the past, exactly as the humble man of El Dorado had advised me. Just one thought before I dropped off: these people’s hospitality was something staggering and wonderful.

      

      I had just breakfasted off two fried eggs, two fried bananas covered with margarine and black bread. Maria was in the bedroom, washing Picolino. A man appeared in the doorway: a machête in his belt.

      ‘Gentes de paz,’ said he. Men of peace, which is their way of saying I’m a friend.

      ‘What do you want?’ asked José, who had had breakfast with me.

      ‘The chief of police wants to see the men from Cayenne.’

      ‘You don’t want to call them that. Call them by their names.’

      ‘OK, José. What are their names?’

      ‘Enrique and Picolino.’

      ‘Señor Enrique, come with me. I am a policeman, sent by the chief.’

      ‘What do they want with him?’ asked Maria, coming out of the bedroom. ‘I’ll come too. Wait while I dress.’

      In a few minutes she was ready. As soon as we were in the street she took my arm. I looked at her, surprised, and she smiled at me. We soon reached the little administrative building. More police, all in plain clothes apart from two in uniform with machêtes hanging from their belts. In a room full of rifles, a black man with a gold-braided cap. He said to me, ‘You’re the Frenchman?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Where’s the other?’

      ‘He’s sick,’ said Maria.

      ‘I command the police. I’m here to be useful and to help you if you need it. My name’s Alfonso.’ And he held out his hand.

      ‘Thanks. Mine’s Enrique.’

      ‘Enrique, the chief administrator wants to see you. You can’t go in, Maria,’ he added, seeing she was about to follow me. I went into the next room.

      ‘Good morning, Frenchman. I am the chief administrator. Sit down. Since you’re in compulsory residence here in El Callao I sent for you so that I could get to know you: because I’m responsible for you.’ He asked me what I was going to do – where I wanted to work. We talked a while and then he said to me, ‘If there’s anything at all, come and see me. I’ll help you work out as good a life as we can manage.’

      Thank you very much.’

      ‘Oh, there’s one thing. I must warn you that you’re living with very good, honest girls; but their father, José – he’s a pirate. Be seeing you.’

      Maria was outside, at the station door, settled into that attitude of Indians when they are waiting, neither moving nor talking to anyone at all. She was not an Indian: yet in spite of everything, because of that little drop of Indian blood she had, the race came out. We took another way back to the house and walked through the whole village, her arm in mine.

      “What did the chief want with you?’ asked Maria, calling me tu for the first time.

      ‘Nothing. He told me I could count on him to help me find a job or in case I was in a hole.’

      ‘Enrique, you don’t need anyone now. Nor does your friend.’

      ‘Thanks, Maria.’

      We passed by a pedlar’s stall, full of women’s trinkets – necklaces, bracelets, earrings, brooches, etc.

      ‘Hey, look at this.’

      ‘Oh, how pretty!’

      I took her over to the stall and picked out the best necklace together with matching earrings, and three other smaller ones for her sisters. I gave thirty bolivars for these tinselly little things, paying with a hundred note. She put on the necklace and the earrings straight away. Her big black eyes sparkled with joy and she thanked me as though they were really valuable jewels.

      We went back to the house, and the three girls shrieked with delight over their presents. I went to my room, leaving them. I had to be alone to think. This family had offered me their hospitality with a splendid generosity; but should I accept it? I had a little Venezuelan money and some English pounds, not to mention the diamonds. Reckoning it all together, I could live four months and more without worrying and I could have Picolino looked after.

      All these girls were lovely, and like tropical flowers they were surely all warm, sexy, ready to give themselves only too easily, almost without thinking. I had seen Maria looking at me today almost as if she were in love. Could I resist so much temptation? It would be better for me to leave this too welcoming house, because I did not want my own weakness to bring trouble and suffering. On the other hand, I was thirty-seven and although I looked younger, that did not change my real age. Maria was not quite eighteen and her sisters were younger still. I ought to go, I thought. The best thing would be to leave Picolino in their care: paying for his board, of course.

      ‘Señor José, I’d like to talk to you alone. Shall we go and have a rum at the café in the square?’

      ‘All right. But don’t call me señor. You call me Jose and I’ll call you Enrique. Let’s go. Maria, we’re going out to the square for a minute.’

      ‘Enrique, change your shirt,’ said Maria. ‘The one you’ve got on is dirty.’

      I went and changed in the bedroom. Before we left, Maria said to me, ‘Don’t stay long, Enrique; and above all, don’t you drink too much!’ And before I had time to step back she kissed me on the cheek. Her father burst out laughing, and he said, ‘That Maria – she’s in love with you already.’

      As we walked towards the bar I began, ‘José, you and your family took me in the first day of my freedom, and I thank you more than I can say. I’m about your age; and I don’t want to make you a bad return for your hospitality. You’re a man, so you will understand that if I lived among your daughters it would be hard for me not to fall in love with one of them. But I’m twice as old as the eldest and I’m legally married

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