Tomás Gonzáles - In the Beginning Was the Sea

He was looking for work, he said, and had heard J. was looking for an estate manager. His broad accent was that of an Antioquía farmhand. When J. asked where he had come from, he offered a rambling explanation, mentioning a coffee plantation “not far from here, up in the mountains”, and something about a lawsuit which, apparently, had cost him his land. When pressed, the old man simply repeated the same vague story and J. realized he did not want to talk about it. J. asked whether he knew anything about timber production and the old man said he had managed teams of loggers in Antioquía and Córdoba. He had no references and was probably in no position to get any. He was a man of few words; he would half-answer a question, stopping in mid-sentence when he felt he had been sufficiently understood, or when he feared he had said too much. He claimed to be married with five children and gave his name as Octavio Sossa.

“Let me think about it, Octavio,” said J. “Come by and see me tomorrow and I’ll give you an answer.”

“OK, Don J.”

That afternoon he did some investigation, but no one seemed to know anything about the old man. It was as though he had popped up out of the ground like a crab, with a wife and five children. J. asked Elena’s opinion and she said that she had not liked him at all. But since this was her opinion about everyone, J. paid it little heed. And so, the following morning, when Octavio called, he still had not made up his mind. In fact, J. had not taken to the man either; there was something underhand and insolent about the man’s eyes that gave him the creeps. But since he really did need an estate manager, he found himself telling Octavio that he could work a week’s trial to see how they got along.

And the man accepted.

He was an excellent worker. Surefooted and intelligent, he seemed to know everything there was to know about the finca . He immediately took charge of the loggers, knowledgeably appraising their work and offering valuable suggestions. The men, seeing that he knew how to deal with them and that he understood the business, respected him. Later, they would come to fear him.

Octavio talked little and worked hard. When the week was up, J. said he was satisfied and told the man he could go and fetch his family. Elena said again that she did not like the old man, but J. did not listen. The man went off and returned three days later with his wife and five children. The eldest could not have been older than ten.

The difference in the house was immediately apparent — and did nothing to allay Elena’s fears. The wife was listless and lazy — much more so than Mercedes had been — and the children were noisy and boisterous. Since the woman had never lived by the sea, she did not know how to cook the local food and so every day they ate frijoles . And unless Elena took over the cooking — as she sometimes did — even the beans were inedible, undercooked, oversalted and sometimes full of grit. The woman managed to burn the arepas and carbonize the fried plantains.

“She’s the stupidest woman I’ve met in all my life,” said Elena.

But worse than the food were the children. The older ones crept into the shop and stole sweets and tins of condensed milk, the little ones wailed constantly and shat on the veranda. All of them stank to high heaven, and their mother did not seem to give a damn. Octavio treated them with the same indifference he might a pack of dogs; when they got in his way, he brutally beat them and they would wail for hours on end. Between the slovenliness of Octavio’s wife and the continual rains, the atmosphere in the house became stifling. But since the rest of the finca was now functioning properly, J. turned a blind eye and was careful not to complain about the food or the children, especially in front of Elena.

He simply made sure he spent as little time as possible in the house.

A MONTH AFTER starting work, and without consulting anyone, Octavio took down the fence that surrounded the little cove. One day, J. came home to find the rusted rolls of barbed wire stowed under the veranda. He anticipated a terrible row with Elena, but she did not say a word. J. was astonished. He did not know that she had not been swimming for several days and therefore did not know what had happened with the fence.

When J. informed the old man that he did not appreciate the fence being taken down without permission, Octavio made no attempt to apologize but simply said that there were better uses for the barbed wire. J. reminded him that he was to do nothing on the finca without authorization: Octavio was free to manage the loggers as he saw fit, as long as he could guarantee quality timber and did not fell trees unnecessarily, but in all other matters, “including that shitty fucking fence”, he was to consult J.

“All right,” the man said through gritted teeth. “You’re the boss.”

From the moment Octavio first arrived until the day that she finally left the finca , Elena’s attitude to the old man was aloof and curiously respectful. She did her best not to criticize Octavio’s wife and not to have any dealings with him. But more than once she suggested that J. try to find out where Octavio had come from; she had tried to wheedle information from his wife, who had clearly been well trained and offered only vague and unimportant details.

Though by now the rains should have been easing off, still the sky was overcast and the thunderstorms were heavy and prolonged. Elena wanted to leave, but it saddened her to think of abandoning J. here in the dark winter. Besides, now that he was drinking less, he had become more affectionate and the cold civility that had existed between them since the shotgun incident had begun to thaw. J. had even asked her to accompany him on his treks into the forest, invitations she rarely accepted since she disliked tramping through the overgrown jungle and hated the way the workmen stared at her. Also, and for no apparent reason, J. had stopped seeing his lovers — or at least he no longer visited Juan’s wife, the only mistress Elena knew about for certain. What Elena did not realize was that J. was aware of her desire to leave, of her intention to leave, and he did not want her last days at the finca to be corroded by jealousy.

In his heart, J. was unsure whether he truly wanted Elena to leave. He was afraid of being alone, afraid of discovering he loved her more than he realized, more than he was prepared to admit even to himself. But by now they had hurt each other too much, they had flayed each other body and soul and might do so again at any moment. And regardless of what they might say when they parted, both of them knew that they would never live together again.

The morning of Elena’s departure was bathed in a dazzling glow that made everything seem radiant, as though the light was emanating from within. Although this was merely a respite between downpours, J. was grateful for the fact that it did not rain that day. A few cottony clouds drifted over the sea, hugging the coastline. To the north, where they were beginning to mass on the horizon, bolts of lightning flickered — inaudibly, at such a distance — in the louring grey sky. Sitting on the beach, Elena and J. stared to the south waiting for Julito’s launch to appear at any moment. They had already said all there was to say and now tried hard not to think, simply gazing at the sea. They followed a flight of gannets far out at sea, so small that at times they were invisible. In the cove, the little islands glittered like precious stones: lush, luminous, flawless.

“I think the boat is coming.”

On the horizon, the tiny spark of the boat’s hull glittered. Anxiously, they watched as it grew brighter, trying to work out whether or not it was Julito. When J. saw the hazy reflection of the yellow hull in the water, he knew that it was.