From the day he had run off with a circus at the age of thirteen, Hipólito Ranquileo had followed that life and had never been interested in any other. His wife and his children bade him goodbye as the good weather began and the patched tents flowered. He went from town to town, traversing the land, showing off his artistry in the bone-crushing circuits of the carnivals of the poor. He had performed many different jobs beneath the big top. First, he was a trapeze artist and juggler, but over the years lost his equilibrium and dexterity. Then, during a brief incursion, he cracked the whip over a few miserable wild animals that stirred his pity and ruined his nerves. Finally he resigned himself to playing the clown. His life, just like that of any farmer, was ruled by the state of the rains and the light of the sun. Fortune did not smile on second-rate circuses in the cold, damp months, and he hibernated by his hearth, but with the awakening of spring he waved goodbye to his loved ones and set off without a qualm, leaving his wife in charge of the children and the work in the fields. She directed those activities better than he, since several generations of experience flowed in her veins. The only time that he had gone to town with the money from the harvest to buy clothing and provisions for the year, he got drunk and was robbed of it all. For months there was no sugar on the Ranquileo table, and no one had new shoes; this was the source of his confidence in relegating the business affairs to his wife. She also preferred it that way. From the beginning of her married life, the responsibility for the family and farm chores had fallen on her shoulders. It was normal to see her bent over the trough or following the plow in the furrow, surrounded by a swarm of children of various ages clinging to her skirts. When Pradelio grew up, she had thought he might help her with the hard work, but at fifteen her son was the tallest and most strapping youth ever seen in those parts, and it had seemed natural to everyone that after serving his time in the military he would join the police.
When the first rains began to fall, Digna Ranquileo moved her chair to the little gallery and settled herself there to keep an eye on the bend of the road. Her hands never rested, occupied with weaving a basket of wicker or altering the children’s clothes, but her watchful eyes wandered from time to time to glance down the lane. Soon, any day now, the tiny figure of Hipólito would appear carrying his cardboard suitcase. There he was, the same as in her longing, finally materializing, nearer and nearer, with steps that had grown slower with the years, but always tender and joking. Digna’s heart gave a leap, as it had the first time she saw him in the ticket window of a traveling circus many years ago, wearing a threadbare green-and-gold uniform and with a zealot’s expression in his dark eyes, hustling the crowd to step right this way, don’t miss the show. In those days he had a pleasant face, before it had been plastered over with the mask of a clown. His wife was never able to welcome him naturally. An adolescent passion squeezed her chest and she wanted to run to him and throw her arms around his neck to hide her tears, but months of separation had aggravated her shyness and she greeted him with restraint, eyes lowered, blushing. Her man was there, he had returned, everything would be different for a time, because he took great pains to make up for his absence. In the following months, she would invoke the charitable spirits in her Bible to prolong the rain and immobilize the calendar in a winter without end.
In contrast, the return of their father was a minor event for the children. One day when they came home from school or from work in the fields, they would find him sitting in a wicker chair beside the door, his maté in hand, blending into the drab autumn landscape as if he had never been away from those fields, from that house, from those vines with their clusters of grapes drying on the pruned vines, from the dogs stretched out on the patio. The children would note their mother’s worried and impatient eyes, her briskness as she waited on her husband, her apprehension as she watched over those meetings to fend off any impertinence. Honor your father, the Old Testament said; the father is the pillar of the family. And that was why they were forbidden to call him Bosco the Clown, or to talk about his work; don’t ask questions, wait till he feels like telling you. When they were little—when Hipólito was shot from a cannon from one end of the tent to the other, landing in a net amid the reverberation of gunpowder and flashing an uneasy smile—and once they had survived their fright, the children could feel proud of him, because there he soared like a hawk. Later, though, Digna did not allow them to go to the circus to see their father declining in pitiful pirouettes. She preferred them to hold that airy image in their memories and not to be embarrassed by the grotesque trappings of an old clown, beaten and humbled, exaggeratedly breaking wind, piping in a falsetto voice, guffawing without any reason. Whenever a circus passed through Los Riscos trailing a moth-eaten bear and summoning residents over loudspeakers to witness the grandiose international spectacle acclaimed by audiences everywhere, she refused to take the children because of the clowns—all alike, and all like Hipólito. Nevertheless, in the privacy of their home, he put on his costume and painted his face, not to caper about in an undignified manner or tell vulgar jokes, but to delight them with his stories of the weird and the shocking: the bearded woman; the gorilla man, so strong he could pull a truck by a wire held in his teeth; the fire-eater who could swallow a blazing torch but not snuff a candle with his fingers; the albino lady dwarf who rode on the hindquarters of a galloping she-goat; the trapeze artist who fell headlong from the highest tent pole and splattered the respectable public with his brains.
“A man’s brain looks just like calves’ brains,” Hipólito explained as he ended the tragic anecdote.
Sitting in a circle around their father, his children never tired of hearing the same tales over and over again. Before the wondering eyes of his family, who listened to his words suspended in time, Hipólito Ranquileo recovered all the dignity lost in the tawdry shows in which he was the target of ridicule.
Some winter nights, when the children were asleep, Digna pulled out the cardboard suitcase hidden beneath the bed, and by candlelight mended her husband’s professional costume; she reinforced the gigantic red buttons, darned rips and tears here and sewed on strategic patches there; with beeswax she shined the enormous yellow shoes, and in secret knit the striped stockings of his clown’s garb. In these actions she displayed the same absorbed tenderness as in their brief amorous comings together. The silence of the night magnified every sound, the rain drummed on the roof tiles, and the breathing of the children in the neighboring beds was so clear that the mother could divine their dreams. Wife and husband embraced beneath the blankets, subduing sighs, enveloped in the warmth of their discreet and loving conspiracy. Unlike other country people, they had married for love, and in love engendered their children. That is why even in the hardest of times, in drought, earthquake, flood, or when the kettle was empty, they never lamented the arrival of another child. Children are like flowers and bread, they said, a blessing from God.
Hipólito Ranquileo took advantage of his days at home to put up fences, gather firewood, repair tools, and patch the roof when the rain slackened. With the savings from his circus tours, the sale of honey and pigs, and their strict economies, the family survived. In the good years they never lacked for food, but even in the best of times money was scarce. Nothing was thrown away or wasted. The youngest wore clothing handed down from the oldest, and continued to wear it until the fatigued threads would tolerate no further mending and the patches themselves sloughed off like dried scabs. Sweaters were raveled to the last thread, the wool washed and reknit. The father fashioned espadrilles for the family, and the mother’s knitting needles and sewing machine rarely lay idle. They did not feel poor, like other farmers, because they owned the land they had inherited from a grandfather; they had animals and farm tools. Once, in the past, they had received the credits awarded to all farmers, and for a while believed in prosperity, but then things returned to the old rhythm. They lived on the periphery of the mirage of progress that affected the rest of the country.
“Look, Hipólito. Don’t keep watching Evangelina,” Digna whispered to her husband.
“Maybe she won’t have her attack today,” he said.
“It always comes. There’s nothing we can do.”
The family finished eating breakfast and went their various ways, each carrying a chair. From Monday to Friday the children walked to school, a half hour’s rapid walk. When it was cold, the mother gave each child a stone heated in the fire to put in a pocket to keep their hands warm. She also gave them a piece of bread and two sugar lumps. Earlier, when milk was still being served at school, they used the sugar to sweeten it, but for several years now they had sucked the lumps like caramels during recess. That half-hour walk had turned out to be a blessing, because by the time they got home, their sister’s crisis was over and the pilgrims had left. But today was Saturday, therefore they would be present, and that night Jacinto would wet his bed in the anguish of his nightmares. Evangelina had not gone to school since the first signs of her disturbance appeared. Her mother remembered the precise moment their misfortune began. It was the day of the convention of frogs, although she was sure that that episode was not related to her daughter’s sickness.
They had been discovered very early one morning, two fat and majestic frogs observing the landscape near the railroad crossing. Soon many more arrived, coming from every direction, little pond frogs, larger well frogs, white ones from irrigation ditches, gray ones from the river. Someone sounded the alarm and everyone came to see them. Meanwhile the amphibians had formed compact rows and begun an orderly march. Along the road others joined in, and soon there was a green multitude advancing toward the highway. The word spread, and the curious came on foot, on horseback, and in buses, commenting on this never-before-seen marvel. The enormous living mosaic occupied the asphalt of the principal road to Los Riscos, halting any vehicles traveling at that hour. One imprudent truck attempted to drive forward, but skidded on squashed corpses and overturned amid the enthusiasm of the children, who avidly appropriated the merchandise scattered in the underbrush. The police flew over the area in a helicopter, ascertaining that two hundred and seventy meters of road were covered with frogs so closely packed that they resembled a glistening carpet of moss. The news was broadcast by radio, and in a short time newspapermen arrived from the capital, accompanied by a Chinese expert from the United Nations who reported that he had witnessed a similar phenomenon during his childhood in Peking. This stranger descended from a dark automobile with official license plates, bowed to the right and to the left, and the crowd applauded, very naturally confusing him with the director of the Choral Society. After observing that gelatinous mass for a few moments, the Oriental concluded that there was no cause for alarm, this was merely a convention of frogs. That was what the press called it, and as it occurred during a time of poverty and shortages, they joked about it, saying that instead of manna, God was raining down frogs from the sky so that the chosen people could cook them with garlic and coriander.
When Evangelina had her attack, the participants in the convention had dispersed and the television crews were removing their equipment from the trees. It was twelve o’clock noon; the air sparkled, washed by the rain. Evangelina was alone inside the house, and on the patio Digna and her grandson Jacinto were slopping the pigs with the kitchen garbage. After going to take a look at the spectacle, they had realized that there was nothing to be seen but a revolting mass of slimy creatures, and had returned to their chores. A sharp cry and the sound of breaking crockery alerted them that something was happening inside the house. They found Evangelina on her back on the floor, weight on her heels and neck, arched backward like a bow, frothing at the mouth and surrounded by broken cups and plates.
The terrified mother resorted to the first remedy that came to her mind: she emptied a bucket of cold water over the girl, but far from calming her, the alarming signs grew worse. The froth turned into a rosy slobber when the girl bit her tongue; her eyes rolled backward in her head, lost in infinity; she shook in shuddering convulsions, and the room was impregnated with anguish and the smell of excrement. The tension was so high that the thick adobe walls seemed to vibrate as if a secret trembling were coursing through their entrails. Digna Ranquileo hugged Jacinto close, covering his eyes to spare him that dreadful sight.
The attack lasted several minutes and left Evangelina drained, the mother and the brother terrorized, and the house turned upside down. When Hipólito and the other children returned from watching the convention of frogs, it was all over; the girl was resting in her chair and the mother was picking up the broken pottery.
“She was stung by a black widow spider” was the father’s diagnosis when they told him about it.
“I’ve gone over her from head to foot. It wasn’t a bite.”
“Then she must have had a fit.”
But Digna knew the symptoms of epilepsy, and she knew that it did not wreak havoc with the furniture. That very afternoon she made the decision to take Evangelina to don Simón, the healer.
“Better take her to a doctor,” Hipólito counseled.
“You know what I think of hospitals and doctors,” his wife replied, sure that if there was a cure for the girl, don Simón would know it.
This Saturday it would be five weeks since the first attack, and up till now nothing had helped her. There stood Evangelina helping her mother wash the earthenware dishes while the morning sped by and the dreaded hour approached.
“Get out the mugs for the flour water, daughter,” Digna directed.
Evangelina began to sing as she lined up aluminum and enameled-tin receptacles on the table. Into each she measured a couple of tablespoons of toasted flour and a little honey. Later they would add fresh water to offer to the visitors who arrived at the hour of the trance in hopes of being benefited by some minor miracle.
“After tomorrow I’m not going to give them a thing,” grumbled Digna. “They’re going to ruin us.”
“Don’t talk like that, woman,” Hipólito replied. “After all, people are coming out of affection. A little flour isn’t going to make us any poorer,” and she bowed her head because he was the man and was always right.
Digna was on the verge of tears; she realized her nerves had taken all they could, and she went in search of a few linden flowers to brew herself some calming tea. These last weeks had been a calvary. This strong and long-suffering woman, who without a single complaint had borne such great sorrow and survived poverty, hard work, and the travails of childbirth, felt that in the face of the bewitchment that was consuming her home she had come to the end of her tether. She was sure that she had tried everything that might cure her daughter; she had even taken her to the hospital, breaking her oath never to set foot there again. But it had all been in vain.
* * *
As he rang the doorbell, Francisco hoped that it would not be Beatriz Alcántara who answered. He felt diminished in her presence.
“Mother, this is my compañero Francisco Leal,” Irene had said when she first introduced him several months earlier.
“Colleague, you say?” her mother replied, unable to tolerate the revolutionary implications of the word compañero.
Following that meeting, each knew what to expect from the other; they tried, nevertheless, to be amiable, more from habitual good manners than from any desire to please the other. Beatriz quickly found out that Francisco came from a family of impoverished Spanish émigrés who belonged to a caste of salaried intellectuals that lived in middle-class neighborhoods. She suspected that his job as a photographer, his backpack and motorcycle were not indications of bohemianism. The young man seemed to have very definite ideas, and they did not coincide with her own. Her daughter Irene ran around with rather strange people but, since it would be futile, she did not protest; she did, however, oppose Irene’s friendship with Francisco in every way she could. She did not like to see their happy camaraderie, the strong bonds of thei
r shared assignments, or, even less, like to imagine the consequences for her daughter’s engagement to the Captain. She considered Francisco dangerous, because even she felt attracted by the photographer’s dark eyes, slender hands, and serene voice.
For his part, Francisco recognized at first glance Beatriz’s class prejudices and ideology. He limited himself to treating her courteously and distantly, lamenting that she was the mother of his best friend.
Once again, seeing the house, he was captivated by the thick wall surrounding the grounds, constructed from round stones from the river and bordered by lilliputian vegetation born of the wet winter. A discreet metal plaque displayed the words RETIREMENT HOME and, beneath them, a name befitting Irene’s sense of humor: THE WILL OF GOD MANOR. He always marveled at the contrast between the well-tended garden, where soon dahlias, wisteria, roses, and gladiolas would be blooming in a tumult of perfume and color, and the infirmity of the first-floor occupants of this mansion that had been converted into a residence for the elderly. On the second floor all was harmony and good taste. Here were the Oriental rugs, the exquisite furniture, the works of art Eusebio Beltrán had acquired prior to his disappearance. The house was similar to others in the area but, of necessity, Beatriz had made modifications, keeping the façade intact wherever possible so that from the street the house would look as lordly as its neighbors. In that regard she was extremely circumspect. She did not want to appear to be making her living off old people but, instead, to be playing the role of benefactress: Poor dears, what would become of them if we didn’t look after them?