New Mariquita, Eloísa 13, Ladder 1993
DAWN WAS SLOWLY BREAKING over the small valley, and in the sky the moon still shone. In house number one, which occupies the entire block where the municipal office and the police station used to be, fifteen female couples slept placidly in the privacy of their compartments. Suddenly, in the one closest to the door, Virgelina Saavedra woke up, startled.
“Magnolia,” she called softly to her partner, her delicate voice resonating in the emptiness of the room. Their compartment was furnished with nothing but a large bed made of planks, topped with a handcrafted mattress stuffed with cotton and straw.
“What?” Magnolia replied sleepily.
“Did you hear something outside?”
“Nothing.”
Virgelina went to the window and peeped out. “I see shadows moving around the plaza,” she whispered.
“It must be dogs.”
“And I hear voices.”
“I only hear yours. Come back to bed.”
“Male voices.”
Frightened, Magnolia sat up hastily. Together, hand in hand, she and Virgelina listened to the low, indistinct sounds carried by the wind.
MEANWHILE, ACROSS FROM them in house number two, where the infirmary and the old barbershop used to be, thirty-one women and Santiago Marín slept soundly.
House number two is a long and enormous room with no partitions except the ones established by the scant furnishings. In the rear of the building, three rows of hammocks hang parallel to each other and a few feet apart. All hammocks are suspended from hooks inserted into solid upright poles. The poles also serve to steady the house frame, and the hooks double as hangers for baskets or bags containing the villagers’ only personal belongings: bracelets, necklaces, pieces of cloth used during Transition, clothing (if any), pictures and other surviving objects that remind the villagers of their departed loved ones.
The dwellers of house number two were the youngest women of the community, all single and rowdy, plus Santiago Marín and his mother Aracelly, the kitchen caretakers. The house’s dormitory had been arranged in the very back, so that the youngest women’s constant chattering would not be heard from the other two houses. Perhaps that’s why, on the morning of Eloísa 13, 1993, no one in house number two heard or saw the men return.
A WHILE LATER, in house number three across from the church, Cleo tilde Guarnizo woke up Ubaldina, who was sleeping on the hammock next to hers. Ubaldina grumbled something unintelligible and turned onto her side. “It’s your duty to the community. Get up right away!” Cleotilde scolded.
“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Ubaldina retorted. She yawned and scratched her head. Eight small, identically framed pictures hung on the wall before her. They were pictures of Ubaldina’s family: her seven stepsons and her husband, all taken away by Communist guerrillas. She approached the first picture and heaved a sigh. In it, her youngest stepson, Campo Elías Restrepo Jr., smiled as he cut a sad-looking cake. “My sweet baby, listen to me,” she whispered. “Don’t ever go to bed without saying the Indian prayers I taught you.” She slowly moved along the wall, murmuring motherly advice to each of the first seven photos: “Remember to brush your teeth.” “Eat your vegetables.” “Don’t bite your nails.” “Get enough sleep.” “Keep smiling.” “Look after your brothers.” When she stood in front of the last one, her husband’s, she said, “Rest in peace.”
“Hurry up!” Cleotilde shouted from the other end of the row. “You’re making me look bad.” Cleotilde was now old and too weak to peal the church bell. Her biological clock, however, was still intact, so her present job was to make sure that someone, anyone, rang the bell on time throughout the sun. Today, for the third consecutive morning, Cleotilde had chosen Ubaldina to be the one to chime the community’s time to rise and get ready for work.
For a brief moment Ubaldina considered objecting to old Cleotilde’s unfair treatment. Why couldn’t she pick someone else to ring the morning bell? “I’m coming,” she said calmly, and put on a poncho of sacking and grabbed a lamp. Walking between the two rows of hammocks filled with sleeping and snoring women, Ubaldina was suddenly overcome with longing for her own house, or at least her own bedroom. At the next meeting, she decided, she would express to the entire community her growing need for privacy. She could almost hear the women’s answer: “What’s the purpose of a cooperative house if its dwellers live in individual compartments? Privacy is only justified for couples.” If only things between her and Mariacé Ospina had worked out, they’d be sharing a private room in house number one. But after failing twice in her attempts to make love to Mariacé, Ubaldina had decided that she simply couldn’t love another woman. Not in the sense Eloísa and her “Ticuticú” loved each other.
She walked through the rest of the cavernous house and pulled the front door wide. Four figures stood across the street like ghosts, startling her. She lifted the lamp in the air with a trembling hand. “Who’s there?” she called.
“Good morning, señora,” the figure on the left replied in a throaty male voice. He took off what appeared to be a hat as a sign of respect. “Sorry to bother you this early, but—”
“If you’re guerrillas or paras, you’ve come to the wrong place,” she interrupted. “No men here.” She immediately regretted saying the last three words. A town of women surely sounded like an easy target for outlaws.
“We’re neither, señora. We’re good men.”
“How many is we? Where’s everyone else hiding?” She looked past them, blinking repeatedly.
“It’s just us,” the same voice declared. “Just the four of us.”
“Uh-huh,” she mumbled suspiciously, still looking around. “What do you all want?”
“We’re lost, señora. We’re heading to Mariquita. Do you know which way it is?”
The man’s reply frightened her, and her heart started pounding rapidly. “No,” she said instinctively, thinking that they must have been sent over by that wicked man, el padre Rafael. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Name’s Ángel Alberto Tamacá,” answered the same man, his face barely visible. The name sounded familiar to Ubaldina, but before she could place it, a different man spoke in a somewhat younger, more melodious voice.
“David Pérez,” he said, touching the tip of his hat with his hand.
“Jacinto Jiménez Jr. here,” the third man said. He simply raised his hand in the air, indicating where he was.
“And I’m Campo Elías Restrepo, your humble servant,” the last man said, bowing his hatted head.
When she heard the last man’s name, an electric shock traveled briskly through Ubaldina’s body. She strained her eyes to better see him, but in the faint light of the lamp, all she could make out was his small silhouette. This can’t be true, she thought. It must be a mean coincidence, a mistake. She started walking slowly across the street, holding the lamp aloft, hoping to recognize nothing about the four figures shrouded by the dawn mist. As she got closer the men took on definite human forms. A dust-caked arm appeared here, a leg there, then torsos and half-lighted faces of men that bore a certain resemblance to men Ubaldina had once known. She moved a little to the right, toward the last man, wanting to see him clearly. He was older than the rest, stooped and white-bearded, his lower lip jutting out and his eyes hooded under overhanging bushy brows. And though he wore his hat low over his forehead, a scar shaped like a tilde was visible above his left eyebrow. An old scar, Ubaldina knew, left by a stone thrown at him in a street fight when he was younger. She’d heard the story many times from the same man who now stood before her, aged and half broken, her husband.
She dropped the lamp with a crash, her entire body shaking as though with cold, and began walking backward, awkwardly, stumbling over invisible objects, her lumbering footsteps loud in the dawn quiet. When she reached the house, she held on to the doorway and said in a low, supplicating voice, “Please, go away.”
Confused by her demeanor, the four men made no reply.
“Go away. Please,” she said again.
But they were motionless.
“Go away,” she said over and over, raising her voice each time. Her plea turned into a blaring cry that woke up the entire community right on schedule.
MOST VILLAGERS OF New Mariquita would agree that of all thirteen rungs of the ladder, Eloísa is the most delightful. The rains have already passed, but the dry season hasn’t quite begun. Temperatures are mild and pleasant. The tree leaves are irresistibly green. In the mornings, the air is cool with dew, and the fragrances of grass and wildflowers waft through the village. During the rung of Eloísa most of New Mariquita’s cooking is done outside. At sunup, after the first set of rings of the church bell, three large log fires are kindled in the middle of the plaza. Three cooks—one from every house—and their helpers bring out corn dough, eggs, chopped onions and tomatoes. Pots and pans are crowded together above the fire. Coffee is brewed, arepas molded and grilled, omelets prepared. Two sets of five chimes summon the villagers for breakfast. All ninety-three villagers squat around the pots. Breakfast is served in handcrafted earthenware of great quality. Some eat with their hands or holding their plates to their lips; others use utensils carved out of wood. Some say grace to their gods; others talk about the dream they had the night before. Some listen; others laugh. The church bell rings again, and the villagers start heading for their specific workplaces.
ON ELOÍSA 13, 1993, the three cooking fires weren’t kindled until the sun was high in the sky and the great excitement caused by the return of the four men had diminished.
Immediately after hearing Ubaldina’s frantic cries, the villagers had rushed out of their houses. Tamacá, Pérez, Jiménez and Restrepo heard their strident shouts first, then watched the women appear from every corner of the plaza, naked, brandishing heavy clubs and fishing spears. The men drew closer to one another, each facing a different side, a different group of wild creatures, and finally stood dumbfounded in the middle of the large circle that the savage-looking women had created around them. Tamacá and Pérez thought themselves among a tribe of angry native Indians. Jiménez imagined he was hallucinating as a result of his extreme exhaustion and weakness. Restrepo was too shocked to think.
The villagers started walking around the intruders, quietly and cautiously, scrutinizing their faces as though the men belonged to a different race they had never seen before. Suddenly, Cecilia Guaraya, who had just caught sight of Ángel Tamacá, dropped her spear and brought her hands to her face dramatically.
“Ángel!” she cried out loud, taking a few steps toward him. She had recognized him at first glance despite the deep hollow where Ángel’s right eye used to be, and which now made that side of his face look like a skull. He’d gone bald, except for a few threads of hair that curled awkwardly on the sides of his head. He wore mean clothes, ragged and filthy and dampened with a mix of perspiration and night dew. “Ángel Alberto!” she shouted again, just to make certain that every woman present heard her good news: that after all these ladders Mariquita’s former teacher, her son, had come back from the war. “I’m your mother, don’t you recognize me?”
He shook his head and moved back a little. Who was this crazy woman claiming to be his mother? Who were these other naked Indians clustering around him? Why did they look at him in surprise? Where was he?
“I’m your mother, Ángel,” she repeated. “Cecilia Guaraya.”
Ángel examined the woman’s face carefully; then suddenly he threw his arms around her and began weeping. “I’m sorry, Mamá,” he sobbed, tears falling copiously from his one eye. “I’m so sorry.” Cecilia didn’t weep, didn’t say anything. She simply held him tight and rocked him as he cried. Her poor son had spent half his life fighting for a hopeless cause, and all he had to show for it was the empty socket of his right eye.
The villagers now approached the men with increasing interest.
“Jacinto Jiménez, is that you?” Marcela said after taking a closer look at Mariquita’s former magistrate’s son. “I’m Marcela. Marcela López.” She beat upon her chest repeatedly with her palm, then kissed him on the lips, as if her kisses were all the dumbfounded man could remember her by. When Jiménez finally understood that he was in his native village and the girl kissing him was indeed his fiancé, his first instinct was to cover her naked body with his own shirt. He didn’t want the other three men to see his girl’s breasts and shapely curves. She accepted the shirt cheerfully but refused to button it up. This upset Jiménez and caused the couple to have their first argument.
Marcela was disgruntled to discover that her fiancé had only changed physically: he was taller, his face was more gaunt, and his body looked stronger in the sleeveless T-shirt he wore. His hair had thinned and begun to recede, and his skin showed the consequences of having been overexposed to the perverse tropical sun. But Jacinto’s nature was the same as always: hot-tempered, jealous and possessive.
By now the villagers had already identified the other two men: David Pérez, old Justina Pérez’s grandson, and Campo Elías Restrepo, Ubaldina’s husband and one of former Mariquita’s wealthiest men. Rosalba quickly took charge: “Welcome to New Mariquita. I’m Rosalba viuda de Patiño. Do you remember me? My husband was Police Sergeant Napoleón Patiño.” A few other women reintroduced themselves, but most chose to remain quiet. The men merely nodded, struggling to match the burly nude figures standing before them to the pictures of the women they had in their minds.
After reacquainting themselves with the men, the villagers began to feel more at ease among the visitors, and after a while they sat on the ground to hear some of the moving accounts of the men’s experiences, ask them questions and answer theirs. Jiménez was sad to learn that his mother and two sisters had left Mariquita soon after the men disappeared. Pérez was happy to find out that his grandmother Justina, the Pérez widow, though awfully aged, crippled with arthritis and mentally unsound, was still alive. David Pérez was now twenty-nine and had turned out to be handsome: tall and big-eyed with an olive complexion. His long face and wavy, slicked-back hair gave him a refined, almost elegant appearance that set him apart from the other three men.
AT MIDDAY, A hearty meal of boiled root vegetables, rice and cured meat was served. Jacinto Jiménez Jr. sat next to his stubborn fiancée, still not speaking to her, and David Pérez by his insane grandmother, who had to be fed on account of her stiffened fingers. Ángel Tamacá sat beside his mother, his knees pressed together against his small chest, his sad left eye fixed on the ground. He felt quite uneasy with his mother’s nudity, which looked magnified in the heat—swollen, droopy and sticky. Cecilia, who had barely spoken earlier, now became particularly chatty, and with every sentence she uttered, Ángel’s mouth dropped further: “…And so el padre Rafael developed an absurd schedule to make love to every young woman…. He poisoned all four boys in the name of God…. The two of them came up with the concept of female time, and…” Ángel sat there quietly and expressionless, thinking, What happened to the Mariquita I knew? “…When Francisca and I realized we were in love with each other, we decided to…” What happened to my mother?
Sitting between Rosalba and Nurse Ramírez, Campo Elías Restrepo found himself engulfed in the acrid odors emanating from the two women’s bodies. He knew he didn’t exactly smell like fresh flowers himself, but he’d traveled a huge distance on foot and in the brutal sun, climbing steep ridges and walking through thick undergrowth. These women had just started their day and already smelled like horses.
Restrepo was angry. His wife had shut herself in the house since his arrival and categorically refused every appeal to come out and meet with him. He was the bearer of sad tidings for her: her youngest stepson, Campo Elías Restrepo Jr., had drowned some years before, after the raft in which he and his friend were escaping from the guerrillas had gotten caught up in a whirlpool and overturned. Ubaldina hadn’t been present earlier when he shared the bad news with the villagers. Restrepo imagined that by now Ubaldina had heard the story from someone else and held him accountable for the tragedy. Perhaps he should slink inside the house and confront her. Or maybe he should just wait, let her grieve some and then demand that she resume her duties as his wife.
INSIDE HOUSE NUMBER three, Ubaldina lay in her hammock. Indeed she had already heard the upsetting news about her stepson, and now stared at the boy’s picture on the wall, quietly weeping. Why her sweet boy and not her husband?
Ubaldina’s marriage had been a sham. She had been the Restrepos’ maid when Campo Elías’s wife died. He’d deceived her into marrying him only to secure a nanny, a maid and a cook. Ubaldina realized this early in their marriage, but instead of sobbing her heart out, she devoted herself to his seven boys, all of whom grew up to love her as if she were their natural mother. Campo Elías, for his part, devoted himself to the twelve girls of La Casa de Emilia, where he spent most nights. In fact, it had been there, in the brothel, that the guerrillas had found him that fateful sun when they took the men away.
And now, after all these ladders, not only did she have to deal with the death of her stepson, but also with her husband’s return.
THE FOUR MEN spent their first night in New Mariquita’s former church. Rosalba and her partner Eloísa gave them hammocks, blankets, rags, buckets of water and a lamp. They instructed the men to take a hot piece of firewood from the fire still going in the plaza, and place it under their hammocks before going to sleep to keep them warm throughout the night. As soon as the two women left, the men freely discussed their first impressions of New Mariquita.
“By God, it’s true that I didn’t expect a whole bunch of women to keep the village going, but I also didn’t expect them to wreck Mariquita and turn back the clock,” Restrepo said contemptuously. “They’re living like savages. We’ve a lot of work to do if we want to make this town livable.”
“I’m not crazy about all the changes,” David Pérez said casually. “But I don’t think it’s that bad either. Sure, they’re living a simple life, but—”
“Simple life?” Jiménez interrupted. “They run around fucking naked! And did you see them holding hands and slobbering all over each other? Damn lesbians! I agree with Restrepo: we have a great deal to teach these women.”
“You’re fools to think we can teach them anything,” Ángel Tamacá said. “They’re doing just fine without us. Who are we to come back after sixteen years and demand that they change their way of living anyway?”
“Who are we?” Jiménez snapped. “We’re the only male survivors of this damned village. That’s who we are! Mariquita belongs to us, and we’ve got to take charge again.”
“We have nowhere else to go, Jiménez,” Pérez said. “We’re considered criminals everywhere in this country. Maybe we should just try to adapt ourselves to living here.”
“I already did a lot of adapting in the fucking guerrillas,” Jiménez retorted angrily. “No woman’s going to tell me what to do. I’d rather accept the government’s amnesty. At least that way I can clean my record and live in a place where women respect and obey men.”
“Go ahead and accept the amnesty,” Tamacá said, an affected smile on his face. “Move to Bogotá and let them cram you into a dirty shelter. Let them clean your record and then throw you out on the street to get killed or die of starvation. Do you really think anyone in the city’s going to rent a room out to you? Or employ you? Or even befriend you? The moment they find out that just a few months ago you were blowing up bridges and oil pipelines, killing Indians and farmers who supported the paras, they’ll think you’re little better than dog shit.”
“The bottom line is that we’re here,” Campo Elías Restrepo interposed. “Now what are we going to do?”
Restrepo’s question was followed by a long, contemplative silence that lasted into the following morning.
MEANWHILE, IN THE back of house number two, the villagers had reunited to give Ubaldina moral support and to share their first impressions about the men’s return.
“I absolutely refuse to meet with that man,” Ubaldina argued. “He was an abusive husband and father. He doesn’t deserve me or any of his sons.” She began sobbing.
“But you haven’t talked to him, Ubaldina,” the Morales widow said in a small, deferential voice. “Maybe he’s a different man now that he’s lost one of his sons.” Doña Victoria was talking from her own experience. Her daughter Julia’s unexpected departure had changed her. She missed Julia a great deal and still wept every night as if she had just learned the news, but Julia’s absence, she often said, had made her a better mother to her other three daughters.
“Well, I’m a different woman now, too,” Ubaldina retorted defiantly.
“The main issue is how long the men plan to stay here,” the old Señorita Guarnizo reasoned.
“No,” said Ubaldina. “The main issue is how long we will allow them to stay here.”
“You may want your husband gone, Ubaldina, but I want my son near me,” Cecilia objected. Then, addressing Marcela López, she said, “Don’t you want your fiancé to stay?”
“Wait, please!” Rosalba called before Marcela had the chance to answer. “There’s no reason to debate this just yet. We can’t assume that the men are here to stay. First, we need to show them what we are now. We have our own system and regulations. They may not want to stay.”
Cecilia suggested giving the men a full rung to explore the community. Nurse Ramírez said ten suns. Ubaldina called for five suns only. But it was the usually quiet Santiago Marín, the Other Widow, who brought the meeting to an end by convincing the entire group that three suns—one per household—were enough for the men to get to know the community and vice versa. Should there be a mutual interest, he said, both parts could negotiate a longer stay.
THE COMMUNITY OF New Mariquita has no chief or council. Major decisions are reached by consensus, in a participatory, inclusive decision-making process that allows all ninety-three residents to have a voice. The smaller, sun-to-sun decisions are made by the caretaker of each particular area. For instance, every house has a meal caretaker and a helper. They cook all three meals and make sure their housemates get all the food they need. Supplies of food for each kitchen are equally distributed by the store caretaker, who also threshes or husks grain, dries any surplus of meat and fish, and stores all sorts of food in large jars made of clay. In a like manner farm products are collected and brought to the store by the farm caretaker. She oversees the communal farm, the planting and harvesting of crops, and, with input from the community, decides what produce and animals need to be raised. Every caretaker position, every task and small chore, is rotated among the villagers on a rungly basis. Wool and cotton are allotted to old women, who are charged with the task of spinning and weaving.
Everyone acts on her own, but if a woman (or Santiago Marín) has a problem, she is encouraged to bring the issue to the community consensus process.
The four men, still on the guerrillas’ schedule, got up some time before sunrise. They used the rags and the water in the buckets to wash their faces and clean their bodies, and after dressing in the same malodorous clothes they’d been wearing since they’d escaped their encampment, sat outside on the church steps and silently watched the village gradually take on distinct forms and colors as the sun began to shine on everything.
The plaza was still a bit shadowy when the door of the house directly across from where the men sat opened, and a figure appeared. She had a long, shapeless white piece of cloth drawn completely about her, which in the distance made her look like an apparition, and like an apparition she advanced slowly through the plaza toward the church. As she neared the men, she quickly tilted her head down and hurried her pace, entering the church by the back entrance. The four men looked at each other and shrugged, unable to explain her strange behavior. The woman rang the church bell and soon afterward reappeared. This time Restrepo rose and followed her, thinking it was his wife. She moved fast, but Restrepo was faster and presently caught up with her. Gripping her so she couldn’t get away, he tugged hard at the cloth, stripping it forcibly from her body. But it was not his wife who stood naked before him, it was the Morales widow, and she was shouting hysterically for help.
Women from all three houses hastened to assist the disgraced widow. They wrapped her up quickly in the same white cloth she’d been wearing and just as quickly took her into house number one, the closest to the incident.
A little while later the church bell started ringing insistently, calling for an emergency meeting. The doors of all three houses opened wide, making way for three armies of naked women who strode purposefully and in absolute quiet toward the men. The unexpected and intimidating sight made the men rise at once and draw together. They stood perfectly straight and quiet, as if they’d been ordered to fall in, and watched in suspense as the women came closer and closer and finally stopped, barely a few yards in front of them.
“Please, let me explain what happened earlier,” Restrepo rushed to say. He seemed nervous as he scanned the crowd, looking for Ubaldina. She couldn’t have changed much.
“There’s no need to explain anything, Señor Restrepo,” Rosalba replied confidently. She was standing in the front row. “We know exactly what happened and the reasons that drove you to it. That said, we won’t tolerate any outsider forcibly stripping one of our own, regardless of his reasons. You see, the village in which you used to live no longer exists. You’re now in New Mariquita, an independent all-female community with…special social, cultural and economic characteristics, and close bonds with nature.” This definition she had conceived not so long ago, while trying to explain to herself what, exactly, their village had turned into. But this was the first time she had said it aloud. She thought that it sounded grand and exceptional. She couldn’t have picked a better opportunity to introduce it. “The fact is, we won’t even consider admitting any one of you into our community unless we’re certain that he fits in here and is willing to conform to our ways, our ideals and our rules.” She shifted her eyes from man to man as she spoke, making an effort to regard them as evenly as possible. She was a fair woman. “Why don’t we start with you, Señor Jiménez? Tell us what brought you here, and what you want from us.”
Jacinto Jiménez Jr. took half a step forward. He was the tallest and most muscular of the four. He looked at his comrades first and then at the villagers and finally decided to address the head of a dandelion that the morning wind had carried from someone’s garden, and that now lay half broken not so far from Rosalba’s bare feet.
“I don’t want nothing from you,” he began. “I’m here to start a new life for myself, and I don’t need nobody’s permission to do so. I’ll begin rebuilding my father’s former house as soon as possible. Then I’m going to marry Marcela, and we’re going to move into my house on my property.” He took half a step back, joining his comrades.
Rosalba considered the man’s abrupt statement for a moment, then said, “Mr. Jiménez, is it true that you disapprove of Marcela’s nudity?”
“I sure do,” he retorted angrily. “Whatever you all do is your business. You all can stand on your tits as far as I’m concerned, but no wife of mine is going to be seen naked by anyone but me.” He crossed his arms defiantly. The villagers looked at Rosalba, waiting for her reply, but at that precise moment Marcela, hands on hips, stepped forward. She took off the shirt Jiménez had given her the sun before.
“You haven’t changed a bit, Jacinto,” she said scornfully. “You’re still as arrogant and pretentious as ever. Too bad I’m not the same. I’ve come a long way since you were taken away. You just can’t imagine the things I went through so that today I can stand like this, face to face with you, and feel no shame, guilt or fear.” Her face turned bright red as she added, “I’d rather be an old maid for the rest of my life than be your wife for a moment.” She tossed the shirt at his feet as though it were their engagement ring and went back into the crowd, followed by Jiménez’s furious stare.
With a smug smile, Rosalba called the next man.
David Pérez, in a more obliging tone than Jiménez, said that it was his wish to get back his grandparents’ little piece of land. “I want to rebuild our house for me and my grandmother. You all have taken good care of her, and I thank you for that, but now I’m back and ready to take on my responsibility.” He confessed to feeling uncomfortable with some of the changes that had taken place in Mariquita, and added, “I don’t know whether or not I’ll be able to adapt to all of your ‘special characteristics,’ but I’m willing to give it a try. Just bear in mind that we got here yesterday. It’s going to take some time.” Oh, and that, by the way, he wanted to start a family. Would anyone be interested in marrying a brave and affectionate man?
No one was interested at the moment. David’s answer, nonetheless, was received warmly.
Campo Elías Restrepo stepped forward before Rosalba called his name.
“What have you got to say for yourself, Señor Restrepo?” Rosalba said.
“As you all know,” he began, “I once owned a few properties in town and many acres of land. Well, I’m back, and I think it’s only fair that they be returned to me by whoever’s working or using them. I promise I won’t charge you back rent.” He laughed alone at his own joke, then continued, “Like Comrades Jiménez and Pérez, I also want to rebuild my house and…you know, take my wife with me. Because she’s still my wife, isn’t she? Or are you ladies going to tell me that Ubaldina also became a…you know…” The crowd stared at him with contempt.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself, Mr. Restrepo?” Rosalba suggested in a derisive tone, pointing at a small Indian woman who had been standing in the first row all this time with her back straight and her hands locked right underneath her navel.
Restrepo glanced at the woman and furrowed his brow. He looked at Rosalba in confusion, then back at the woman who was supposed to be his wife. She stood on a couple of shapely legs and, like a statue, seemed to be cast in bronze. Two graying braids framed her round little face. She had slanting brown eyes under heavy eyelids, a wide Indian nose and full lips. Her breasts, Restrepo thought, looked shy, yet firm and graceful for her age.
“Ubaldina?” he asked incredulously.
She nodded.
“You look…different,” he faltered. “Good. You look good.”
“Do you know this is the first time you’ve ever really looked at me, Campo Elías?” Ubaldina said. “Oh, I forgot, Don Campo Elías. Please forgive me for being so disrespectful.” She laughed derisively.
He stood there quietly, remembering. He’d married Ubaldina because he wanted his seven boys to have a mother, and they’d always thought of Ubaldina as family. Their master-servant relationship, however, had changed little with their wedding. Not once had Restrepo looked at Ubaldina through different eyes than those of an employer. The few times he’d made love to her, he’d been too drunk or too tired to go to the brothel. He hadn’t missed her all these years. The rare occasions he’d thought of Ubaldina, he’d pictured a homely woman in an apron silently cooking or cleaning, always looking down. But the wife he’d mistreated had gotten rid of her apron long ago. As he looked at her today, he saw a ripe, mellowing, attractive woman who’d felt deceived, cheated on and abused by him, and who was rightly rejecting him. Nothing he said or did now would change what he’d done in the past.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Ubaldina asked, cutting short the man’s reminiscences.
Restrepo couldn’t think of any words that could convey the way he was beginning to feel. He shook his head.
“It’s better that way,” she declared.
He stepped back and hung his head.
After a short, sensible silence, Ángel Tamacá was called to state his intentions to the villagers. As the broken man stepped forward, Rosalba couldn’t help wondering what he—the one person who’d volunteered to join the guerrillas—could possibly want from their community. He had no house to rebuild or land to claim. Perhaps his former teaching job? But what could he possibly teach them? The virtues of socialism? They were already living them.
“All I ask of you is to give me a second chance,” Ángel said humbly to the crowd without looking at anyone in particular.
“A second chance?” Rosalba asked. “To do what?”
“To be human,” he replied.
The villagers nodded affably: Ángel’s petition seemed genuine. He deserved a second chance. Amparo Marín was especially touched by Ángel’s appeal, by his manly voice, his politeness, and the sad expression of his face. How could a man convey his feelings in such a sensitive way with so few words to say and only one eye to glint?
BEFORE BREAKING UP the meeting, Rosalba informed the four men about what would happen next. “We’ve had visitors in the past; mostly passing travelers and displaced families heading for the city. No one, however, has attempted to stay. This is all new to us, and naturally your acceptance in our community will have to go through consensus discussion. Only when we reach consensus will we be able to give you an answer.”
“An answer to what?” Jiménez shouted. “We haven’t asked any questions or made any requests. Have we? We’re here to stay, and we don’t give a damn about your consensus. You keep forgetting that Mariquita is our village too.”
“Señor Jiménez,” Rosalba said calmly. “Look around and tell me whether this is the same village you’re claiming to belong to.”
He looked nowhere but into her eyes, his lips trembling with rage. “We own property here. We’re not going anywhere.” He glanced at the other three men for support.
“We’re peaceful people here, Señor Jiménez, but don’t be mistaken: we’ll do whatever it takes to defend our community and our principles from rude intruders like you.” Rosalba’s voice now had a menacing edge to it.
He laughed derisively. “I’d like to see that. A bunch of delicate women fighting four merciless warriors like us. You know how many people we’ve slain? Hundreds! Thousands! A handful of you won’t make any difference to our criminal records.”
“Speak for yourself, Jiménez,” Ángel Tamacá abruptly said. “I’m done with fighting. And I thought you were too.” He moved aside, separating himself from the other three. David Pérez looked at Restrepo first, then at Jiménez, and finally shrugged his shoulders and joined Tamacá.
“You two are fucking unbelievable!” Jacinto said to Tamacá and Pérez. “After all the shit we went through to escape from the guerrillas, now you’re letting a bunch of women court-martial you like you’re criminals.” He shook his head repeatedly, then, addressing Restrepo, demanded, “Are you turning against me too?”
Restrepo put his hand on Jiménez’s shoulders. “I’ve got to take my chances here, son,” he said under his breath. “I’m too old to start anywhere else.”
“Don’t let them fool you,” Jiménez whispered back. “You know how women are. They’re just taking revenge on us for being gone all this time, like we had a choice.”
But Restrepo had made up his mind. He lowered his head and joined the other two. Jacinto stood there, all alone, staring at his comrades. His eyes filled with tears, and his expression softened. But when everyone thought he was about to give in and join the other three, he shouted at them, “You all can go to hell, you worthless traitors! Stay here, rot in this fucking hole with these barbarian lesbians. This will be your prison!” Tears began streaming down his face, but he kept shouting, his voice now choked with emotion. “Me? I’m going to clean my record. And I’ll become a respectable citizen. And I’ll be far better off than all of you, traitors!” Saying this, he started down the road, backward so that he could see their faces become blurry and smaller and finally disappear, sobbing and shouting, “Traitors!” again and again, his frantic calls blending with the shrieks of a flock of crows that at that moment flew past the village.
BEYOND THE THREE large communal houses of New Mariquita there are vestiges of the old town: roofless houses, or rather roofless adobe rectangles, because everything that once made them houses—doors, windowpanes and frames, and even the flooring—was removed and put to use in the new dwellings. The insides of these empty rectangles were originally infested with aggressive weeds that grew in grotesque forms of extravagant proportions, like aberrations of nature. But once the industrious women finished the construction of the three main houses, they turned their eyes toward the remains of the old village. Together they decided to knock down all the inside walls of every former house, then transform each carcass into an enclosed farming lot. The resulting lots were plowed and soon turned into productive gardens.
If on a given sun you have the fortune to sight New Mariquita from the top of a hill, you will feel like you’re standing on top of an immense blanket patched together out of many remnants of fabrics in different shades of green.
THE SUN WAS already high in the sky when the customary log fires were kindled in the middle of the plaza. Breakfast was cooked and served, and as soon as the villagers finished eating, they were summoned to the church.
The three men stayed in the plaza, waiting for their fate to be decided. In Tamacá’s ears, the word traitors kept resonating, and that made him remember that it had been Jiménez’s idea to escape from the guerrillas. Jiménez had discussed his plan with Tamacá first, then with Pérez, and finally with Restrepo. All four swore to stay together and be loyal to their plan, and for over a year they talked about it secretly and separately, going over each step of the escape, considering the grave consequences they would face if their plan was discovered. Jiménez made arrangements with a local peasant, and one day, before sunrise, all four met at the man’s shack and changed into noncombatant clothes and ate whatever it was the peasant’s wife cooked and took some food for the road and then started moving along the rocky shore of the large river that eventually led them to their final destination.
Perhaps Pérez and Restrepo, Ángel thought, were also feeling bad for having let Jiménez down. Maybe if they saw together the amazing things the villagers had done for the community (all of which his mother had described to him in detail), then all three would remain secure in their decision. “Let’s take a walk around the village,” he suggested.
Walking around New Mariquita, Ángel felt like a little boy in an amusement park. He pointed at every blooming garden on either side of the street with growing excitement. “Look, yucca!” he shouted. “Look over there, squash!” He went on and on, as if his only eye had suddenly gained the power of seeing things the other men couldn’t see with theirs. Restrepo was most impressed by the community’s aqueduct: a skillful artificial channel built where La Casa de Emilia used to be, which currently provided running water for all three cooperative houses, the communal bathroom, and the small laundry area. It was so ingenious that even the gray water was used for latrines built on stilts above the running water. The sheltered communal bathroom startled Pérez: ten individual showers and latrines built on a platform where the market used to be. The entire structure was made of fine wood treated with resin. They visited the infirmary, the granary, and the community’s animal farm, then walked through plots of maize, rice and coffee on the hillsides that rose behind the village.
When they finished their tour, they went back to the plaza and lay in the shade of a mango tree. They were tired, and the sun made them somnolent, but their anxiety kept them from falling asleep.
INSIDE THE CHURCH, sitting in a big circle, the villagers were struggling to reach consensus on the first consideration. “We can’t discuss any man individually,” Cleotilde, the moderator, said, “until we all agree to having male members in our community.” In the past, all the community’s decisions had been voted on, which made the process quick but always left a group of people unsatisfied. Cleotilde had recently introduced the idea of consensus. “Our objective shouldn’t be to count votes, but to come to a unanimous decision that all of us can live with, through civil discussion,” she’d said in the philosophical tone she had adopted with age. Cleotilde’s recommendation was ironically put to the vote, but a large majority quickly approved it.
At the moment, a large majority was in favor of having male members, but two women still opposed the idea: Ubaldina and Orquidea Morales.
“This might be our last opportunity to have descendants and keep our community alive,” Rosalba said to the dissenters. She reminded Ubaldina that long ago she had rejected Rosalba’s idea of having Don Míster Esmís impregnate a few women on account of his being white. “These men are your own color, Ubaldina. Think about it. It doesn’t have to be Campo Elías.”
Cecilia pleaded with Orquidea Morales to agree. “Please, Orquidea, don’t deny me the chance to be with my son,” she sobbed. Francisca, Cecilia’s partner, adopted a more aggressive strategy with the stubborn woman. “Just bear in mind that you might need our approval if your sister Julia ever wants to be admitted back.”
Ubaldina eventually agreed. Orquidea, on the other hand, said she would never ever agree to any man living in their community, and demanded that the villagers quit trying to convince her to agree and that the meeting be stopped or the subject changed. Orquidea was one of the community’s oldest spinsters and arguably the most unattractive.
But when it seemed as if a decision against men living in Mariquita was imminent, the Other Widow, once again, came up with a solution that after some further consideration pleased the entire group: “Why don’t we help the men establish a new community nearby, where those who want to live with them can do so? We can make the offer conditional on their accepting our terms.” The idea was met with a profound, ambiguous silence that could have been either pure astonishment or dry skepticism.
“And what would be our terms?” Ubaldina wanted to know.
“We’d have to define them,” said the Other Widow.
“Who would want to live with them, anyway?” Orquidea Morales said.
“Well, let’s find out,” the Other Widow replied. “Would anyone here consider living and working in an integrated female-male community with the same characteristics as ours?”
Soon every woman in the room found herself fantasizing about their sister community. Amparo Marín imagined herself living there, happily married to Ángel Tamacá, pregnant with his child. Pilar Villegas went a little further: she fancied herself and David Pérez surrounded by seven children of their own. The thought put a smile on her face. Cecilia pictured herself and Francisca, each with a basket of flowers, walking hand in hand over to the adjoining community to visit her son Ángel and his wife. Rosalba envisioned herself as a store caretaker, trading her granary’s surplus of barley with her peer from “the other New Mariquita.” Virgelina Saavedra tried, as a harmless exercise, to visualize herself living there and sharing her bed with a naked man instead of Magnolia, but the only image that came to her mind was of el padre Rafael mounted on top of her. She quickly put that thought out of her mind and, feeling guilty, grabbed Magnolia’s hand and brought it to her lips, making a smacking sound. Even Orquidea Morales gave free rein to her imagination. She fancied herself living in the new community, blocking a consensus decision that would allow men to go naked.
“I would,” Amparo Marín abruptly announced in her low-pitched voice.
“I would too,” Pilar Villegas said, her index finger high in the air.
“Me too,” Cuba Sánchez called from the other side of the room.
Santiago’s idea reached consensus on the first round, and so did every other proposal related to it, all of which were enthusiastically discussed in the afternoon. Before the end of the sun, the three men were invited into the church to hear the villagers’ decision.
ÁNGEL TAMACÁ SMILED, obviously pleased, David Pérez shrugged his shoulders resignedly, and Campo Elías Restrepo frowned distrustfully at Santiago as the latter delivered the consensus declaration. The conditions, Santiago said, were specified in a contract that each man must sign by the end of their meeting.
“What are the conditions?” Restrepo asked.
“Well,” Rosalba hastened to answer. “Equality between individuals and between the sexes is number one.”
“What else?”
“The new community must follow the same administrative system we have. No individual can own anything, the livelihood of every—”
“But what about my properties? I should at least have some sort of compensation. I worked hard all my life, and now that I’m old—”
“Your livelihood will be guaranteed until the day you die, Señor Restrepo. That will be your compensation.”
“Hmmm…”
Santiago explained the project in detail, answered whatever questions the men had, and gave them a tentative schedule (which they didn’t fully understand, for it was in female time). Restrepo’s brow relaxed a little, and Pérez even wore a smile. Men and villagers agreed to sort out their differences and go to work on the new village as soon as possible.
The next morning, the three men paired up with a partner and went on different scouting expeditions to seek a location for the new community: Ángel Tamacá offered Amparo Marín his arm, and together they went north. Pilar Villegas took David Pérez by the hand and headed west. Campo Elías Restrepo asked Sandra Villegas—after Ubaldina said no three times—and they walked east. Finding the most appropriate site—a cooler grassland area close to the river, with scattered trees, grading into woodland—took twelve expeditions. Once discovered, the site was approved within a sun, and the next morning the villagers, together with the men, walked over with machetes and knives and cut weeds and cleared gardens, but didn’t hack down a single tree.
Two suns later, a building team of twelve strong women and three men began the construction of the new village: the community of Newer Mariquita.
THE COMMUNITY OF Newer Mariquita is a work of art that took a ladder and a half to build. It’s comprised of two cooperative houses; a community dining room where two meals are available every sun; a small plaza with small araucaria trees and four benches carved out of large trunks; a self-sufficient aqueduct; a large communal bathroom; a granary; a communal farm; and a small animal farm with six chickens, two turkeys, eight rabbits, and a young, rebellious rooster that crows indiscriminately throughout the day.
The twin houses face one another and from the outside look like rectangular temples with tall ceilings. The compartmented one is called Casa del Sol, the uncompartmented one is called Casa de la Luna. Each is over 130 feet long by 30 feet wide. The framework is made of lacquered wooden poles and bamboo lashed together with wire and string. The walls are covered with tree bark, and the steep-pitched roofs are made of palm thatch. On the inside, each roof is a suspended garden: purple orchids, yellow daisies, white lilies and violets hang from the top in clay pots. Each building has two doors. The one in front leads out to the plaza, and the one in back gives access to the trails extending to the river, the woodland and the sister community of New Mariquita, which is barely over a mile away.
ON THE MORNING of Mariacé 7 of the ladder 1992, Ángel Tamacá sent word that his partner, Amparo Marín, had gone into labor. Eloísa set the bell ringing, and a cry of joy was heard around the community and over the small valley. The villagers stopped what they were doing and crowded into the plaza, singing and dancing and congratulating one another.
Rosalba and Cecilia rushed to the store and filled two baskets with the largest oranges, the best-looking papayas, the reddest mangoes and the best slices of cured meat. They took their baskets and, together with all the villagers, set out for Newer Mariquita.
AMPARO MARÍN AND Ángel Tamacá lived in Casa del Sol. Until that morning, Amparo had been the community’s meal caretaker for two consecutive rungs. Ángel was the community’s animal farm caretaker. They shared the house with two other couples—Pilar Villegas and David Pérez, who only recently had agreed to move in together after a ten-rung courtship, and Magnolia Morales and Virgelina Saavedra, who, wanting a change, had moved from New Mariquita two rungs before, after Virgelina’s grandmother died.
Across from them, in Casa de la Luna, lived six people: Campo Elías Restrepo, the maintenance caretaker, who saw his wife Ubaldina once a rung, and who had yet to hear anything nice from her but was hopeful he might one day win her over; Cuba and Violeta Sánchez, who had helped build the new village and now were in charge of its cleaning; and Sandra Villegas and Marcela López, who were best friends, and who together with Pilar, David, Magnolia and Virgelina took care of the communal farm, the vegetable garden and the orchard. The sixth resident was David’s grandmother, the Pérez widow. She spent her days sitting outside in a rocking chair, saying her prayers mechanically. She had long forgotten what she prayed for and to whom.
WALKING DOWN THE footpath, through a small stretch of woods, the women began considering names for the new baby. They would suggest them to Amparo and Ángel.
“If it’s a girl, she should be named after her two grandmothers: Cecilia Aracelly,” said the aged, almost senile señorita, Cleotilde.
“No,” Cecilia replied. “If it’s a girl, her name ought to be Mariquita. After all she’d be New and Newer Mariquita’s first baby ever.”
“I agree,” said Aracelly.
Rosalba was silent. Until now she hadn’t even considered the possibility that the baby might be a girl. Ever since she’d learned that Amparo Marín was pregnant, Rosalba had decided it would be a boy. It had to be a boy for their community to have a chance to survive. She couldn’t understand how the villagers could be so irrational. The new baby would be named after his grandfathers or his father or his uncle or cousin or any other man. It didn’t matter as long as it was a male name, because the baby would be a boy. At a bend in the road, just before the descent that led to the new village, Rosalba finally said, “What if it’s a boy?”
“Ángel!” Cecilia replied at once. “His name should be Ángel like his father and his grandfather.”
“How about Gordon?” Rosalba said. “Like Míster Esmís.”
“Gordon Tamacá?” Francisca said aloud. “It sounds awfully funny.” The women laughed hysterically and soon began shouting their suggestions, which were the names of their departed sons, husbands, fathers and other men whose lives they wanted to immortalize.
“How about Pablo?” said the Other Widow. This was the first time Santiago had mentioned, in public, his lover’s name since his death. The women stopped and grew quiet, as if Pablo’s memory had called for a moment of silence. Rosalba, however, was so absorbed in thinking of male names that she didn’t even hear Pablo’s name being pronounced. She kept walking with the basket hanging from her arm and didn’t stop until she reached the part of the trail where the village of Newer Mariquita came into view. There she stood, feeling increasingly anxious in the face of the looming news of the baby’s gender, gazing fondly at the beautiful landscape of high mountains and seemingly endless reaches of trees and vegetation, inaccessible mountainsides and valleys, large pastures covered with tall grass and wild flowers, plowed fields, gardens, and a tiny village that lay slumbering in the heat. Then she saw Ángel in the distance. He was jumping up and down with excitement, waving his hands in the air. The baby had been born. Rosalba pressed the basket firmly against her body with both hands and held her breath for a short while until she heard Ángel’s cries, “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!” he shouted, his words echoing all over the valley.
At that very moment, all the high mountains disappeared before Rosalba’s eyes. The vast stretches of trees and wild vegetation, the untouched mountainsides and valleys, all vanished, as if by magic. Only an open, clear horizon stood between Newer Mariquita and the rest of the world. Rosalba gazed intently at the fantastic sight, experiencing its extraordinary simplicity and expansiveness. She was aware that it was just a vision, that the actual transformation wasn’t in the distant view but in herself and how she now saw the world. The universe had given her new eyes, and she had used them to discover new philosophies of life, work and independence, new landscapes of harmony and order, wherever she looked. She now understood that Newer Mariquita would be not only an extension of land over the small valley but also an extension of the community’s philosophies, their female concept of time and their strong senses of justice and freedom, and that it would signal the beginning of a communalistic system of government that would eventually extend itself across the mountainous geography of the country, throughout its flat-topped hills, its plains and jungles and deserts and peninsulas, until the end of time.
Rosalba was wiping the tears from her eyes when the group caught up with her. They, too, had heard Ángel’s shouts and now were running to meet him, giving cheers for the new boy and his parents, for the two Mariquitas, for life. Rosalba took Eloísa’s hand in hers, and together they followed slowly the group down the slope toward Newer Mariquita, feeling fulfilled.
Their race had been granted a second opportunity on earth.