Juan Ávila Laurel - By Night the Mountain Burns

The canoeman steered them clear of any hazards and then he sat down. A canoeman doesn’t sit down until he’s sure he’s clear of any waves that might knock the canoe back. He made himself comfortable, for going from the south village to the big village meant going from one end of the island to the other, but in a canoe, and travelling through waters that demanded attention and respect. In fact, the sea route between the two villages included a stretch of water that was so turbulent there was a folk song about it. The song said that only a man could cross those waters and, as only men had canoes on our island anyway, what the song meant was that only a real man could cross those waters. Anyone else should turn back and avoid the worst. But what was strange about those waters was that they were quite close to the shore, and you don’t usually get turbulent waters so close to the shore. It was difficult to tell, but the water was very deep there and if you stood on the cliffs to fish you needed many yards of nylon. And no ordinary nylon either, it had to be thick nylon, because deep-water fish were big. That cape had a fearsome name, though I only know it in our island’s language. Above the cliff there was a mountain and on that mountain there was an area where it was said the deads lived. All the deads on the island apparently went there, though I never understood why as I thought dead people were buried in the cemetery. But anyway, everyone knew the deads lived on that mountain, which was a little in from the coast, and so no woman should ever plant there. I never knew how they found out that mountain was where the deads went, nor for how long the deads had been going there, but anyway, the deads living there had nothing to do with the sea being so ferocious. The water was a long way from the mountain, way down below, and, besides, the sea had its own reasons for being ferocious, different reasons; the deads living on the mountain was a different matter.

The canoeman sat down and mentally planned the journey to the big village. That way he could work out how long it would take and what rhythm he ought to paddle at. There was a woman with a sick child in his canoe, so there was a certain urgency, but the sea would dictate things. The young man knew that anything could happen when travelling from the south village to the big village. Getting there sooner or later wouldn’t depend solely on how he handled his paddle; there would be other factors too, circumstances beyond his control and impossible to foresee. Nevertheless, he faced up to the challenge and determined to get there as quickly as circumstances would allow. Like most canoemen, he’d made the sign of the cross before getting in the canoe, and now they were out of the bay and clear of the waves that might have knocked them back, he repeated the gesture. But, like all canoemen, he knew the journey only really began now. The young man started to paddle. He paddled, and paddled, and paddled, and he shook his head. Crossing the turbulent waters that only a real man could cross was proving very difficult. He paddled with all his might, but he barely made any progress. Despite its fearsome name and ferocious waters, crossing those waters was really only a matter of paddling hard and leaving the south village coastline behind. The man went on paddling, for he had no other option. He could not turn back. The big village was the objective of his every stroke: he couldn’t not get there, for that was where the medicine was, or so they liked to think, for the big village was big, hence its name. He paddled with all his might; he paddled, and paddled, and paddled, and finally he showed that he was a man: he rounded the infamous cape with the turbulent waters. The place was well known for its waters, and also because of the crosswinds that whipped around the headland. So it might be that you managed to pass the infamous cape but then the crosswinds wouldn’t let you go a stroke further. They might even threaten to capsize your canoe — such a calamity was suffered by many a canoeman, but gracias a Dios , before learning to paddle on our island, you’re taught to swim. However in this case there was a woman with a baby at the breast, a sick child who had never been in a canoe before, so the canoe simply couldn’t capsize. And with great effort and determination, the canoeman paddled them clear of the worst of the crosswinds. Yet they were still not advancing as quickly as they should have been. Something was wrong. It wasn’t normal that no matter how hard he paddled, the canoe stayed in the same spot: it was as if someone was pulling the canoe back, preventing its progress. The man couldn’t understand the canoe’s sluggishness. It was as if the canoe were new, as if the wood were full of sap, yet to be treated. But it wasn’t new, so what was the problem? He didn’t stop paddling, for you couldn’t stop paddling at any moment when journeying from the south village to the big village. He went on paddling, but he was getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress: as a native of the south village, as someone who’d made the journey several times before, he knew what progress he should be making, given the load he was carrying. It was as if he were carrying a different load, a load that was a good deal heavier than a woman with a small child. Someone’s preventing us from advancing, he said to himself, but he went on paddling. He refused to accept defeat, and the situation wasn’t so bad that they didn’t advance at all, and eventually they rounded another headland and left the turbulent, ferocious waters behind. Even so, he knew they were still not advancing enough. It felt as if he was carrying more than the load he could see in his canoe. Was there a problem with the canoe? he wondered. For the canoe wasn’t his but rather the maestro’s, who had lent it to him to take the woman, the maestro’s goddaughter, to the big village in search of medicine for her sick child. So it might have been that the canoe had an extra thick base, that for some reason the maestro preferred a canoe with very little wood removed from the bottom, and that was why it weighed so much. But if that were the case, the maestro would surely have told him about it, or the canoeman would have realised when he had the canoe at the water’s edge. That couldn’t be it. So what was it?

The man went on paddling, and he advanced enough for the headland of a village that was halfway between the south village and the big village to come into view. It was a small village with calm shores. That halfway village’s canoemen were spared the worst vagaries of the sea. They could paddle out of their bay with their eyes closed. The man paddled, confident he’d soon be leaving the calm waters of the halfway village behind. But he went on feeling like he wasn’t advancing properly. Either he had a huge invisible load in the canoe or someone was pulling him back, preventing his progress. This had never happened to him before. One woman with a baby could not weigh so much, he thought. He went on paddling and, just to say something to distract himself from his travails, he asked the mother whether she shouldn’t suckle the child. The child wasn’t asking to be suckled, but it was a long time since she’d suckled it and, if it was sick, that couldn’t be a good thing. And the mother said she hadn’t suckled it because the child was asleep and she didn’t want to wake it. That was the end of the matter, although a little later, the woman took out her breast and put the child to suckle. The man didn’t look and, as the child was wrapped in cloth, he couldn’t see whether it suckled or not, though he presumed it did. That she hadn’t suckled the child hadn’t been bothering him: he’d only said it to distract himself from what was puzzling him so. Which was why they were not advancing properly. Something was obstructing them, though he couldn’t think what. And it was beginning to anger him.