Carmen Boullosa: They're Cows, We're Pigs

We unloaded what we had taken, even the bells of the church in Maracaibo and the images and paintings, and the five hundred head of cattle. We divided the prizes amongst us, according to the agreement in the Contract. After having tallied everything up, we found 270,000 pieces of eight in cash. Once this was parceled out, everyone received pieces of silk, linen, and other things to the value of more than 100 pieces of eight. The wounded, many of them mutilated, received their portion first: for the loss of a right arm, six hundred pesos or six slaves, for a left arm five hundred pesos or five slaves, for a right leg five hundred pesos or five slaves, for a left leg four hundred pesos or four slaves, for an eye one hundred pesos or one slave, for a finger the same as for an eye … Then all the silver was weighed, figuring ten pieces of eight to the pound. The jewels were appraised at varying amounts because none of us had the slightest knowledge in the matter.

We passed on to the distribution of what fell to those who had died in battle or in some other way. Their portions were given to their friends to keep, so they could hand them over to their heirs eventually.

Once the distribution was concluded, we set sail for Tortuga, arriving there one month after having put in at Île-à-Vache, to the great joy of the others because many of them no longer had any money. When we landed on Tortuga, the merchants were already waiting for us.

And the prostitutes. The tavern keepers. The gamblers. And every other species of fauna capable of fleecing us in exchange for the grand fiesta.

The night that had begun during my earlier stay on Jamaica had not ended, it simply moved to Tortuga.

Nothing to complain of in that: our night is fiesta time. Our men arrived on the heels of two ships loaded with wine and liquor, the booty from other pirate raids, peddled in Jamaica and transported to Tortuga. On those first days the alcohol was worth as much as sunlight or cattle feed on the islands; ten days later it was ten times as expensive, and in ten days more its price multiplied a hundred times, raising its value from that of pasturage to gold, although the moment it passed down our throats it seemed just the opposite: those first days, something like a golden sun resided in our bodies, radiating light, like a candlewick, an artificial, twinkling light by which to cruise through the fiesta; and as the days passed it turned into a hard, gray stone deep inside, almost black, ensconced in our viscera, our blood, our muscles, darkening us more and more, as if it were getting us used to the surrounding night.

During the course of those days, we were very much accustomed to go in for table games and to bet on them, and to pay high prices to rent the cards and gambling tables.

The musicians who had gone with us on our raids fell silent here, while others rendered jolly songs, and you heard them wherever you were. I think they never stopped playing the whole night through, because I never stopped hearing them. Here and there, too, was heard the strange music of the African slaves.

The women of The House journeyed from Port Royal to be with us. They had improvised a little theatrical display for a welcome. As the curtains opened, they appeared in fixed tableaus, done to perfection in all their details. Among the freebooters I heard it said that some recognized the tableaus as reproductions of famous paintings and considered them quite exact, above all The Death of Dido , by Vouet, being the one that was most admired; it was said that such skill had gone into producing this one because Madame (as a child, now that I think back to her) had been the painter Vouet’s lover. I can say with certainty that one of the tableaus was exactly like one we had stolen, and it caused great laughter in us that what had made the Spanish breasts so fervent while it had hung on the walls of the church in Maracaibo now had its Virgin represented by our prostitute, its Joseph by the whores’ footman, the Child in the manger by a very serious hen who appeared to be setting on eggs, its Sainte-Anne by a girl we had screwed one night … After that, in beautiful pavilions improvised among the rocks and trees of Tortuga, after the manner of the Arabs, they gave themselves to us to satisfy our carnal appetites.

Here and there some were eating in sumptuous style, consuming dishes that seemed touched by fairies and sorcerers who had put their hearts into their flesh, which our whores never managed to do.

The banker takes up the cards, three packs together, and shuffles them. He has Braconneur, to his left, cut the deck, and then calls out, Ten pieces of eight . Le Tunisien, to his right, answers with one real , and gradually, one by one, the ten reales Van Wijn has asked for is reached. He turns up a card, his own, a three of clubs, and without pausing, turns over the next one, alongside his card and to the left: the “points,” an ace of diamonds. Immediately he turns another, and everyone begins to shout: it is not a pair with either the banker’s card or the other, that of the points. He turns another. The points start shrieking: Ace of diamonds! Ace of diamonds! They squeal and wave their arms around. The place seems like a pen full of restless animals. Like pigs when pirates come in to get supplies for their voyages, whether or not their owners want them to, and if not at first, they will after being beaten. Pens so full of pigs, so crowded with pigs they cannot even move. They squeal again! A double blow! Three of clubs! Van Wijn wins. The banker.

He shuffles again. Braconneur cuts. Thirty pieces of eight is the call. Le Tunisien responds with three reales , and nine others follow. He turns a card: seven of clubs. Agitation in the pen: a bad-luck card. For the points, the banker turns over a nine of diamonds. The first card after those two is an ace of diamonds. The banker loses.

He leaves the game, but before going he pays his fee to Benazet, a Frenchman, who owns the cards and rents them out and gets richer every moment with his gaming business, at the expense of the freebooters. No one regulates the games on Tortuga, and, there being no taxes, he passes on a fixed amount to the governor and piles up the rest. He does not drink. He has no wife, and women are of no importance to him, at least not if he has to pay to have them or maintain them. He does not care about eating. He does not pay the musicians who play in the gaming house. When he is the banker he always wins. The only luxury in his place is an inscription mounted on one wall adorned with flowers and vases bearing the legend, Gambling provides us with the various pleasures of surprise . An army of slaves cultivates the fields around his gaming house with plantings of tobacco; they dry it and then, down on their knees, they roll it, and he sells it at the price of gold because it is said to be very good tobacco. The fields belong to no one on Tortuga, he simply uses them without even paying for the use.

Benazet calls me aside, to threaten me over something I do not understand. I have not been playing today, nor drinking. In the morning I showed two youths how to make bandages. But I have been watching this good fellow Benazet because everyone who deals with him loses. He makes threats against me, again and again. I do not understand what he is talking about. His voice gets louder and louder. The “points,” the banker, all the domino players look up, removing their attention from their games to watch what is happening. He blusters even more, unaware that everyone is watching. I do not comprehend the course of his harangue because my understanding is focused on what it is they are staring at, on observing the faces of the Brothers and the burgeoning anger of Benazet, a wrath such as I never imagined in his wily person. He threatens me again, letting fall a word that is like a blow to the face: Pineau . My vision clouds over. Blood pounds in my ears. My legs want to move but they refuse to obey even themselves.