Laura Restrepo - Isle of Passion

The camp followers were also the news service for the troops. The men were confined, isolated, and got no news from outside. They knew only their officers’ shouts, they saw nothing but their own misery, they wished nothing more than to do their time in order to leave the post. Whatever happened in the rest of the world did not penetrate the barrack walls. The camp followers, on the other hand, came and went, had a chat with the storekeeper who knew all the gossip in town, with the railroad man who brought news from distant places, with the general’s mistress, who pricked up her ears to hear the plans of the high command. Through their women the troops found out if their battalion would take part in an attack or travel to another town. Thanks to the women they did not forget that there was still a world outside.

Given the opportunity, the women also participated in the fighting. At the death of her man, a woman inherited his horse, wore his cartridge belt, and shouldered his rifle.

Tirsa Rendón, Lieutenant Cardona’s woman, was one of them. A camp follower.

They met one day, when military life united them on the paths of Yucatán, or on the roads of Cananea. Perhaps they celebrated an urgent wedding of love and convenience, such as the one told — with the same words but different characters — by General Urquizo in his book Tropa vieja . He knew all about such things from his years with the troops.

Young Tirsa and handsome Cardona had never met before. Perhaps they sat together on the train one day when the troops were being transfered. Fate squeezed one against the other in a car packed with soldiers, camp followers, and animals. The air was thick with sweat, dirty feet, rawhide, rifle oil, foods stored in pockets, farts, and burps.

The jolts of the train brought them closer until she was almost on his lap. They both liked their skin contacts. They found pleasure in each other’s smell and body warmth. Perhaps he noticed her eyes, her very white whites and very dark irises, and perhaps she saw his smile.

After their flirting briefly and brusquely, came the ceremony, what General Urquizo called a “wedding in pure military style.”

“What’s your name, girl?”

“Tirsa Rendón, and yours?”

“Secundino Cardona.”

“Are we hooked up?”

“Okay with me.”

“Let’s shake on it.”

“Here.”

“THEY ARE KILLING each other! They are killing each other!”

The women came running and cackling as noisily as barnyard fowl.

“They are killing each other!”

“Who? Who are killing each other?” Arnaud, who was trying to give his house a new roof, jumped down from the primitive scaffolding. “Will one of you stop shouting and tell me who’s killing whom?”

But the women were already running to the north, and he had to run after them. Alicia followed him.

When they approached the Schultzes’ home, they could hear the howls, the insults, the blows. Then they saw Schultz and his wife, Daría Pinzón, both in the buff, hitting each other hard and fighting like two rabid dogs. The man, growling and foaming at the mouth, held the woman by the hair and was spanking her with his enormous hand. She screeched and scratched at him, and bit his skin off. He seemed not to notice and kept on spanking her buttocks red. She gained some ground and with all the might of both her hands, grabbed the German by his testicles, determined not to let go until Judgment Day. He howled like a fox in heat, and after several useless attempts to free himself from Daría, he finally pushed her away so hard, he sent her rolling like a ball of flesh and hair among the coral reefs.

Standing in a circle around them, the women watched the scene, encouraging one or the other party.

“Cut his balls off, Daría! Cut his balls off, because he’s a bastard!”

“Hit the bitch, gringo, teach her not to cheat on you!”

Arnaud, who had picked up a heavy stick, took advantage of a momentary pause, went up to Schultz and hit him hard on the head. Schultz keeled over, melting like a wax mountain. Ramón, who had dropped to his knees, was trying to get up when Daría Pinzón lunged on top of him, crushing him against the ground with the weight of her mare’s legs.

“Don’t you meddle in this, Captain,” she screamed. “This fight is between my man and me.”

Arnaud managed to turn her over, and, climbing onto her back after a scuffle, twisted her arm backward and immobilized her by pressing his knees against her shoulders.

“I have to meddle,” he gasped. “This is a matter of public order.”

“This gringo is crazy, Captain. He tried to kill me.”

“Shut up, you’re no saint. Go get dressed! Aren’t you ashamed? Bring me a rope to tie Schultz up, now that he’s out.”

The women dispersed. Daría returned, half covered with a blanket, bringing the rope. Arnaud tied Schultz, who was still unconscious, pulling hard and winding the rope around many times until he had him well wrapped, like a tamale. He dragged him to the entrance of the house and tied him to a post. The man opened his eyes, looked around, and tried to get up, but the ropes did not let him.

Alicia, who saw everything from a distance, brought Arnaud a gourd with water. He drank from it first, and then offered it to Schultz, who took a sip, and another, and spit the third one in Arnaud’s face.

“Beast,” he told him, and slapped him so hard his face turned.

“More water,” Schultz begged.

“What?”

“More water.”

“You better learn, damn it, to say please.”

“Please.”

“All right, but I’m warning you, if you spit at me again, I’ll bust your mouth and your teeth will fly.”

“I won’t.”

Arnaud put the gourd to his lips, and Schultz took several sips.

“Captain, the gringo is all yours,” Daría said. “Do what you can with him. Get another woman to take care of him. I’m getting out of here.”

“Oh really. Out of here? Can you tell me how? Walking on water, like Jesus Christ?”

“That’s my business,” the woman responded, and she left, walking fast as if she knew where she was going.

“Stop wiggling your ass, Daría Pinzón, with your lewd ways you’re driving the men wild,” Arnaud shouted.

“You see?” Alicia piped in. “Didn’t I tell you? That loose woman is showing you her ass. .. Now you admit it? How many times have I said so and you denied it! Tell me, Ramón, how many times did I tell you?”

“Whatever was said before the hurricane does not count. Now everything has to be reorganized,” Arnaud answered, trying to cut the old familiar argument as best he could.

This was not the first incident involving Schultz. It was becoming an everyday occurrence, and Arnaud thought Daría was right: that German fellow had lost his mind. To begin with, after the storm he had developed an animosity against whatever was left of the train and the tracks. Displaying the same dedication with which he had installed and repaired them a thousand times, now he was pulling the tracks off and hurling them like javelins into the sea. When he got tired of destroying things, he lunged indiscriminately at men, women, animals, and the castaways. They especially received the brunt of his violent hostility.

Alicia had her own interpretation.

“This poor man is a work machine,” she said. “He was removed from his post, and he doesn’t know what to do with all that energy pent up inside him.”

Daría Pinzón, in turn, blamed the lack of food.

“White people are used to eating a lot,” she explained, “and hunger makes them crazy. Schultz hates the castaways for only one reason: because of them we have less to eat.”