The Bridge in the Jungle (21 page)

It was not only the tropical climate that accounted for such rapid destruction; the process was also hastened by the water from the tropical river which had entered the body. The water of a river in the tropics contains billions of the most hungry, most voracious microbes, which attack a lifeless body a hundred times more savagely than those which infest water in the temperate zones. I for one could explain in no other way such a terrific and horrible decomposition in so short a time. I wondered what the body looked like under the sailor suit.

But the sailor suit was no longer visible. These primitive women had perceived the ugliness of that monkey dress. They had better taste than the jobber who had shipped a gross of these suits down here in the belief that they were the right clothes for little Indian boys who lived in the jungle where nobody knew what a ship looked like and where nobody understood why sailors had to wear this sort of suit and why they could not do their work just as efficiently in overalls. Of course, intelligent people know that it is the uniform that accounts for a good sailor's smooth and effective work. But while this may be known to the women in every port in the world it is not known to the people in a tropical jungle.

The women had covered the admiral's overalls with a sort of frock made of red, green, blue, and yellow paper. This frock which had been made by simple Indian women had given back to the little Indian boy his dignity. I was surprised to see at least a dozen identical frocks on the kid. Soon
I
found the reason for this unnecessary abundance.

Almost every woman had brought something with her to be used for dolling up the kid. There was no possibility of exchanging ideas over the phone before leaving their homes. Many had brought a dozen sheets of coloured paper. Others had made paper frocks as soon as they had received the news of the tragedy. Since every woman had offered her gift with all her sympathy and love, the mother accepted them all with thanks and, with the assistance of each giver, dressed the kid in the new frock even though he had more than one on already.

Fortunately, not all the women had brought frocks. Many offered little stars and crosses, some of them cut out of tin cans, others out of coloured paper. These stars and crosses were pasted on the uppermost frock as extra decorations. A few women who had nothing better to give had brought brightly coloured rags and ribbons, which were also pinned to the frock.

A woman I knew entered. She was the mother of the boy whom I would have raised from the dead but for the Spaniard pushing me aside and applying another method. I was still pondering over the question whether I would be as highly represented today in that village if the Spaniard had not interfered with my handling of the dead. Well, perhaps the people of that village would admire me just the same, because working on a corpse with all sorts of rescue methods for six consecutive hours will always be highly appreciated even if the result is failure.

That woman greeted me before anyone else, and she did so in a very friendly manner. She had brought a pretty crown made of gold paper, but it had not been made with such good taste as the one made by the pump-master woman last night. She naturally believed, however, that her crown was lots prettier than the one the kid already had on his head. She stepped up to the body, and without asking anybody's permission she took off the old crown and put on the crown she had made.

The pump-master woman saw her do this, but did not interfere. When she had made that crown, with her tears running down over it, I had noticed how much kindness, neighbourly love, and compassion for another mother in distress she had been weaving into it, and
I
also saw how happy she had felt when she had finished her job and examined it with the satisfaction of an artist whose work has surpassed his intentions. I shall never forget the look in her smiling eyes, still wet from tears, when she put that crown on the kid's head and almost worshipped him as if he had now become a little saint.

Now she glanced at her rival and for a moment
I
was not sure that a fight might not start. She made a gesture as if she meant to prevent the unceremonious exchange of crowns. But she stopped, and over her lips a kind smile fluttered. She put both her hands over her breasts and watched the somewhat rude exchange without anger. Being a mother, she perhaps realized that the other woman was also a mother and that only recently that mother had lost a beloved son and what she was doing at this moment was but showing her sympathy for the young mother. And so, the pump-master woman thought, why start a fight over the crowns? The first crown had served its purpose, so let the second crown have its turn.

The woman with the new crown had thrown the old one aside as if to say: Well, what sort of junk is that? The pumpmaster woman picked up her discarded crown, crumpled it in her hand so that nobody would pay any attention to it, left the hut, and threw it into the bonfire.

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Suddenly voices were heard outside the hut.

Right away a man entered carrying under one arm the little coffin which he himself had made as his last gift to the kid. With his free hand he took off his hat. The moment he put the coffin on the floor the Garcia woman broke out into a fit of hysterical shrieking. All the other women in the hut and outside in the yard joined her as if they were all mad.

The coffin-maker wiped the thick sweat off his forehead with the backs of his hands and then dried his neck with a large red handkerchief.

Three men came in and went straight to the table. The Garcia woman yelled: 'Don't take him away from me! Let him sleep here only a few hours more, please, don't take him away!' She wrung her hands and ran around the hut, pushing her head here and there against the posts which supported the roof, shrieking and yelling all the time. Finally two women cornered her and took her in their arms.

In the meantime, with a short businesslike 'Con su permiso!' and ignoring the shrieks and lamentations of the women, the men pushed the women out of their way and got to work.

Sleigh was one of the three who had just come in.

The coffin was only a very crude box made of rotten boards taken from different kinds of old cases. Not a bit of this coffin was planed. The outside was covered with blue and red paper to give it a more decent appearance. The inside had been filled with dry grass and corn leaves, on top of which pieces of limestone had been laid.

The coffin was set on a box. Without any ceremony the four men grabbed the little body and tried to lift it from the table.

While lifting it the head dropped with a jerk as if it would break off. I jumped forward and held the pillow under it for support. The beautiful paper dresses spread apart and the whole laboriously achieved make-up turned into something horrible. But at last we got the body into the coffin. The pumpmaster woman jumped up and with her quick, expert hands arranged the dresses to give back the body its former illusion of beauty.

The coffin was then put on the table. At once the Garcia threw herself over her baby to kiss him good-bye. She was just about to press her lips to his mouth when she realized that his lips were all gone. Then she smelled the odour rising from the poor little body. She gasped for fresh air and drew back, almost falling over the woman sitting there.

She stood five feet away from her baby. She flung her arms up, waved them violently, then dropped them with a gesture of fatigue. Now her hands fumbled at her face, ran up and down her breasts, and finally glided down her belly, where she moved them around as if she were searching for something hidden there. Then her fingers climbed up her face like little snakes until they reached her hair. She pulled at her hair so savagely that two women fell into her arms to keep her from tearing her scalp off. Her eyes flickered about helplessly. She broke away from them, screamed, and dropped to the floor as if she had been struck by a club.

The women lifted her head, poured water between her tightly pressed lips, and tried to force open her clenched fists. First her lips and then her face got blue — but only for a minute. Slowly she came to. She opened her eyes, sat up on the floor, wiped her face, looked around, recognized her friends, and tried to smile at them.

That was her last good-bye to her beloved baby.

Her husband came in. Staggering towards her, he dragged out of one of his pockets, with great difficulty, a bottle of mescal and pushed it into her hands with a gesture of love and sympathetic understanding.

The Garcia, holding the bottle in her hands as if it were something very sacred, rose from the floor and disappeared into the little storeroom. I could watch her through the sticks which formed the wall and I saw her take a swig which would have knocked an old Norwegian sailor straight under the table. She took the bottle from her mouth, looked at it, and then took a shot that was not quite so big as the first one, but was still more than two fingers of a quart bottle. Having taken her consoling medicine, she came out and, good and honest wife that she was, returned the bottle to her lord and master. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand with a satisfied look in her hollow eyes.

Since the bottle was out of his hip pocket and since it had been so hard to get it out, old man Garcia thought the occasion very opportune and he too whipped a fine shot down his throat. Fiestas must be celebrated on the day they fall.

The coffin-maker dragged a hammer out of one pocket and out of another two thick rusty nails. He considered this gesture more suggestive than a speech about what he was now going to do.

The Garcia immediately understood the meaning of that gesture. She went up to the coffin, took off the cloth, and looked at what was still left of the face which had only yesterday been so full of life and joy. She stared in horror and covered the face hastily.

She stood there for a minute as if she were waiting for something. Then she walked with quick steps to the little shelf on which the picture of the Holy Virgin was standing, removed the little ukulele, and put it in the coffin beside the kid. Then she pondered again over something she wanted to remember. Once more she returned to the shelf, gathered together all of the kid's playthings — the battered tin automobile, the fishhook, the strings, the broken cork, and the few other silly items which her boy had treasured so highly — carried them to the coffin, and put them in too. And in a very low voice she said: 'He mustn't feel lonely, he mustn't.' And after standing there a few seconds more, she said: 'Adiós, Carlitos! Adiós, Carlosito mio!'

Nobody in the hut moved, nobody said a word, nobody mumbled, nobody even seemed to breathe while the mother was talking to her baby.

She bowed her head, turned around until her back was to the coffin, and walked towards the wall through which she could see the bonfire outside.

Quickly the coffin-maker put the lid on the box and with a few light blows of his hammer nailed it loosely so that it could be taken off again before the burial.

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From now on, everything happened in a hurry. Four youngsters, each about fourteen years of age, lifted the coffin, and the funeral train was on its way.

Men, women, children followed the pall-bearers. The women carried their babies on their backs wrapped in rebozos.

In no time the train had reached the spot on the bridge from which the kid was supposed to have tumbled over.

Here the pall-bearers instinctively halted.

All the men took off their hats. The Garcia wept bitterly, but she did not yell. Her tears stirred the hearts of all the mourners more than her yells had, honest though they had been. The pump-master woman kissed her. 'There, there, now,' she said, 'weep if it helps you. Here, blow your nose in this.' The pump-master woman pressed her handkerchief against the mother's swollen face.

The pall-bearers marched on again.

Sleigh had stopped on the bridge with the others for a minute. Then he turned around and went home as soon as he saw the procession move on. He did not say so, but I was sure he had to find a cow which had strayed.

The crowd left the bridge and passed the pump-station. On this rough, occasionally swampy trail through the bush, it would take almost the whole afternoon for the procession to reach the little cemetery.

Naturally, the mourners did not march in good order.

Garcia staggered between two friends who had difficulty keeping him on his feet, especially since they themselves were no longer very sure of their faculties.

The mother walked beside the pump-master woman, on whose right arm she was hanging. She still wore her sea-green gauze dress and apparently she did not know it. Aside from her week-day rags she had nothing else to wear on such a great occasion. The dress was streaked with blood and mud. It had many holes in it and was ripped wide open at various places.

The flowers had fallen off, but the safety pins by which they had been fastened were still there.

The pump-master woman, like practically all the other women, also wore the dress she had worn the night before, but her dress and those of the other women were less soiled and not torn.

After the people had left the bridge they all began to feel more comfortable. A new world opened before them and that sinister bridge would soon be forgotten.

After having walked in silence for a quarter of an hour, the crowd slowly began to get lively. A heavy burden seemed to have been removed from everyone's chest.

The musicians — one fiddler and one guitar-player, both Indians — lifted their instruments. They did not know that there were such things as funeral dirges, death marches, and nocturnos which allure ghosts to come out of their chimneys and attics and dance before a pleased audience. That hymns existed they knew because they had heard them in church. Yet they could not play them, and for some unexplainable reason they would not have played them even if they had known how. What in the world were the American jazz compositions for if not to be played any time and on any occasion, whether a wedding, or a baptism, a saint's day, a dance, or a funeral? Music was music anywhere and to have different tunes for different occasions was silly and befitted only people who knew no better — perhaps because they had degenerated and needed a rough-fisted bolshevism to put them out of their misery. Be this as it may, the little boy had to be buried with music, and any music would do, since he was already on his way to heaven.