Juan Ávila Laurel - By Night the Mountain Burns

Well anyway, those men were sometimes called the ‘Me-says’ and sometimes called the name of that spiky plant, the plant that provided us with the billiard balls we were playing with when the significant and distressing thing happened. We were near the square, though not actually in the square itself, because billiards is better played on sand and the square is paved. So that afternoon we were happily playing when we saw a great many people come running down from the upper part of the big village, running and shouting. They ran through the square and went off in the direction of the beach. We thought something had happened down on the beach or at the vidjil , which was also in that direction. Had the sea dumped fish on the shore? Was it the squid beaching? We got up and followed the uproar and, as we ran through a clearing, we noticed that some people were carrying sticks and seemed angry. We thought it might have been a dog sacrifice. On our island, whenever a dog was to be sacrificed for some reason, a dog or a bitch, it was tied to a tree and all the kids threw stones at it until it died. They were dogs said no longer to serve their purpose, whatever their purpose was, for in truth dogs didn’t really do anything. They were sometimes used for hunting wild cats, which we used for their skins. We made drums out of their skins, drums we played in times of need to remind ourselves that we were from our island and that we had our ways and our customs to protect. The cats were skinned and the meat was thrown away, until some people on the island started to eat cat meat. Well, not just any people but specifically a group of young men who gathered together and formed a sort of club to cook cat meat. They formed the club there and then and drew up rules, the main one being that you had to cry before eating the food that was prepared. You couldn’t eat unless you cried. As for the dogs, I don’t recall anybody ever eating dog meat, but we did use their skins, which were bigger than cat skins and made more than one drum. It wouldn’t be right for me to have mentioned the thing about the cat meat without adding that the people who ate cats acquired the habit elsewhere, somewhere they’d met people with bad customs.

We realised the crowd hadn’t gathered to sacrifice a dog, for the people running with sticks were adults, who didn’t usually participate in dog sacrifices. And sticks were hardly ever used to kill dogs, those said no longer to serve their purpose. So we didn’t know what was happening, but we ran along, following the crowd. And the whole throng stopped outside the vidjil and waited for a while, until the object of everyone’s anger came running out and then the crowd gave chase, waving their sticks in the air. We still weren’t really sure what was going on, but we ran after the angry mob. We ran after them and we ran like them, and maybe we even shouted with them and we saw clearly how they raised their sticks and struck a person, the person they’d chased all over the big village. What was this? We were only children and we got left behind and didn’t see everything, but we saw that a person was being beaten furiously. So furiously that the person fell to the ground, then managed to get up and start running again, despite blows continuing to rain down from everyone’s sticks. Well not everyone’s: like me, not everyone giving chase was carrying a stick or beating the person; some of us were there out of curiosity, to witness something we’d never seen before. But what was it? The person being struck, who we later saw was a woman, found strength from who knows where and ran ahead of everyone, right through the whole village, and made for the Misión . The path to the Misión was steep, and it’s amazing that she had the energy to reach the church door, given the beating she’d received. By the time she reached the Misión , she was practically naked, for the sticks had torn her clothes off, or maybe the people chasing her had pulled them off before we started following them. She was panting heavily when she reached the church door and went inside. The people chasing her showed their respect for the Misión , for they were católicos , and they waited outside with their sticks, panting also, making the most of a chance to rest. And we rested too, those of us who were witnessing the barbarity. After a while, the crowd stirred. The woman came out of the church and the crowd went back to beating her relentlessly. She didn’t come out as naked as she’d gone in: she was now wrapped in a sheet that someone in the church must have given her. A sheet or an altar cloth, it wasn’t exactly clear, but a white cloth of some sort in any case. She came out of the church wrapped in that white cloth, ready to meet her destiny, a destiny to be dictated by those who’d pursued her with such rage. I ought to say that those of us witnessing the events were no longer merely spectating, for by now we were all crying, we, the women and children who were there to witness something we’d never seen before, which was proving to be an unspeakably horrible thing.

With the strength she’d recovered while inside the church, the woman ran, but she soon fell, and what we witnessed next was not only sticks raining down on her but also that a man thrust a stick into her naked femininity. He thrust a stick inside that woman and then pulled it out again, as if thrusting it in had somehow not been enough. Isn’t that an act of such wickedness it stands out even amid something so inconceivably awful? Thrusting a stick inside the nakedness of a woman you were beating to death. All the children nearby saw it clearly, and I was nearby, tears streaming down my face, although I never stopped following them, never stopped myself from witnessing the inhumanity. The women who had made it up the hill to the Misión held their heads in their hands. After that ultimate act of wickedness, the woman managed to run on for a few more yards and then fell, never to get up again. She’d no strength left. It was only then, when she couldn’t get up, that we fully realised what was happening: they were going to kill her. And when we realised this, and saw the sticks coming down on her again, we knew we’d entered a new phase of our young lives. And we couldn’t bear that woman’s agony. We didn’t want to witness it. We, the women and children, did not want to witness the end, now that we understood what was happening. Maybe we’d run after the mob wanting to see a beating, driven on by morbid curiosity, without thinking how it would end. And now events had overtaken us. But the woman’s pursuers had no such qualms and they carried their plan through to the end. The end?

Can anyone understand what happened between her coming out of the church and having a stick thrust into her nakedness? That mob acted as one and so that infernal act was carried out by all of them, women included, and maybe they’d even sworn to do it beforehand, come what may. They weren’t satisfied with just beating her, they had to go further. They seemed intent on reminding the woman of her motherhood. But why, if they were going to kill her — were, in fact, killing her? What did they mean by reminding her she’d had children, if that is what they meant to do?

I’ll tell you what happened in the church: the woman thought she was going to die, so she went to see the Padre , so that he would hear her confession. She knew there was no way of escaping her pursuers. She was received by the Padre , who, offended by her nudity, gave her a sheet to cover herself with. It was almost certainly the same sheet they used to cover the altar. So the woman covered herself and was then received by the Padre in the confessional. She confessed, was given her penance and absolved. Then she took Communion and the priest told her to go in peace. I’d like to think that’s what happened, for we saw the woman come out and her persecution continue. But I often ask myself whether that priest did enough. Could he really not have done more? Could he not have come out and admonished the crowd, threatened them with damnation if they carried on with what they’d set out to do? I know the Padre ’s word has always been accepted on our island, and the faithful on the island have always feared damnation. Or he could have told the woman to stay in the church until her pursuers had gone. I firmly believe he should have gone out to speak to them, to reason with them, pacify them, and that, if he did not do so, it was because he was governed by the same evil spirit that governed the mob. For he let her go back outside, and what did he do with himself then, after he’d heard her confession and given her Communion? Did he do some meditating? Some praying perhaps? Some crying for the sins of the faithful? What would have happened if he’d told the mob that if they wanted to carry on beating that woman they’d have to kill him first, and then taken her in his arms? I doubt very much — but very, very much indeed — whether those wicked people would have dared touch the Padre . And if they didn’t touch him, it would have shown they weren’t actually evil.