Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

“Now, as you two have come here through that wood, you can well imagine that our biggest problem is transport, for it is not an accommodating route. For some time now we have been attempting to build a new road through the woods between here and the train station at Limonar; a road we hope to get under way with the help of monies and slaves from other plantations, as such a road would benefit us all.” Then, to Mr. Stanley, he said, “Since we are planning to visit with a plantation owner tomorrow morning to discuss the matter, perhaps these lads would like to join us.”

“Why not?” said Mr. Stanley.

SINCE OUR DAYS HAD BEEN largely uneventful, we welcomed the diversion, but oddly, as Clemens and I retired to our rooms that night, I was overcome by a strange misgiving about it. Where such impressions or manifestations of dread come from, I do not know, but as I attempted, somewhat restlessly, to fathom the source of my intuition, I became convinced that Mr. Stanley should not make that journey. Such was my alarm that I could not sleep, and in an agitated state I went to Clemens’s room, knocking fiercely on his door. Fortunately the strong smell of tobacco smoke met my nostrils, for he, too, had remained awake and had been restless, but for other reasons, I suppose. “What is it, Henry?” he asked, and in that moment I poured my apprehensions out.

While sympathetic to my fears, he remained cautious: “Come, now,” he told me. “As you know, I once had a dream about my brother that came true. But that was a mere coincidence: a coincidence that I have never been happy about, but a coincidence all the same. No doubt you are just feeling anxious about your father.”

Shortly I went back to my room, but I was again unable to sleep. Quietly I made my way out from one hall into another, my path lit by a candle, and, coming to my father’s chamber door, I knocked. And when I heard no response, I knocked again.

My father, Mr. Stanley, a grave expression upon his face, opened the door.

“What on earth can you want at this late hour?”

“Father, do not make that journey tomorrow.”

“What?”

“You will be in danger. Do not question me — I know it to be true.”

He sighed. “It is a late hour; you have been dreaming; and perhaps you are somewhat out of sorts.” Then: “If it is the business with the adoption, rest assured, my boy, that I will attend to it.” And he closed the door.

That night, when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of many wishful things. I saw that I lived in a magnificent house surrounded by a garden, and I had a wife to love me, and three children. I saw Mr. Stanley coming to visit us, and with his enormous frame settled down upon a chair, jostling an infant on his lap; but then that soon turned to air, and I awoke early that morning, hearing the plantation bells summoning the day.

AFTER BREAKFAST, CLEMENS, MR. DAVIS, Mr. Stanley, and I saddled up and rode out to the edge of the fields, about a mile from the house. For part of the way, as I remember, Clemens — or Sam, as he preferred to be called — had engaged my father in a discussion that veered somewhere between literature and religion, for they came, in that Cuban clime, to talk about the Bible.

To Clemens’s inquiry “What, in your opinion, is the Bible?” my father, with his effortless genius, summarized his feelings about it in a single phrase: “The Bible is a book of allegories made to instruct man in the higher principles that should guide life.”

“And would you consider it a true history of those times?” Clemens asked.

“Yes — a history in the sense of reflecting general ancient events. But mainly they are attractive myths, to console men and guide them.”

“And the word of God?”

My father exhaled a deep breath.

“The awareness of God, the speculations about Him, surely fired up the imaginations of the holy thinking men who accumulated such stories, all of them glorious in the Decalogue. But after so many years of study, I have come to consider it more as a literary creation than anything else.”

“You know, Mr. Stanley,” Clemens said, “you would get lynched in some parts of the South for saying that.”

“And for that reason,” my father said, “I was never a very good minister.”

“Well,” said Clemens, “I was raised hearing such tales, but retold by the colored folks, in a human way. Sweet and tender do I remember their accounts.”

“Yes,” allowed Mr. Stanley. “As much as I look down on slaves — or, to put it differently, my friend, as much as I find them simpleminded — I envy their clear and uncomplicated connection to such tales. They see them as not something that happened a few thousand years ago but as the kind of thing that could have happened yesterday, to a close relation.”

“And Jesus? What make you of him?” Clemens asked.

“A very holy man, I figure. A man who spoke — and speaks to this day — to the hearts of slaves. Much of his world was composed of them back then, but what his promised salvation from their hard lives — his paradise — might well be, I cannot say.”

As we moved along that narrow trail, in a remote part of that plantation, under an arcade of high trees, whose bending foliage ensconced us in shade for much of our passage, and just as I, riding beside my father, had been looking in all directions cautiously, we heard horses. Then some hushed voices. Suddenly six mounted men astride palominos emerged from the surrounding brush, a great clopping of hooves and several gunshots accompanying them. The first I saw on his mount was a large black man with a machete by his side; the next a Cuban, I supposed, most stern and severe of expression. Three others were also Negroes, their faces covered with scars, one as fierce-looking as the next. Then a second Cuban followed from behind: He had a blood-red kerchief around his neck, and two fingers were missing from his left hand. They had converged upon us, smiling at our sudden consternation.

As they began to surround us, Mr. Davis muttered: “Turn now — whatever you do, turn back toward the house.”

But no sooner did we try to turn our mounts around than one of these men reeled his horse out behind us to block the road. Now, as Mr. Stanley wore a gold watch off a chain in plain sight on his vest, and as it glowed as a precious object, the horseman with three fingers came forward and, coveting this watch, slyly asked for the time of day. Suspecting his unfriendly intent, Mr. Stanley, being a foreigner, pretended that he did not understand the language. “ No comprendo ,” Mr. Stanley told him. But the fellow continued to circle around, and when we attempted to move on, that same Cuban leaned forward and took hold of Mr. Stanley’s bridle. And then he pulled from a holster below his saddle a machete, the variety that was most often used to chop sugarcane, and, jabbing it menacingly into Mr. Stanley’s coat, forcefully demanded his watch. At this point, Mr. Davis, who spoke Spanish well, explained that we were local landowners and that they were, in fact, trespassing upon the outer fringes of our plantation. But this made no impression on the Cuban brigand, for at this point, he became blunt and said: “ Muy bien. Dame todo lo que tienen !” (“Hand over everything.”)

With this, Mr. Davis pulled out his ivory-handled pistol and pointed its muzzle back at him. Frightened, with good reason, the man with three fingers moved off; and when Mr. Davis turned to the large Negro who had taken hold of Mr. Stanley’s horse, he, too, backed away. Then Mr. Davis said, “Come on!” And we began to gallop back toward the plantation, Clemens and I in the lead. But as it was not easy for so many horses to advance along so narrow a path, Mr. Davis, himself a superb horseman, was jostled after some seventy yards by Mr. Stanley’s horse and thrown onto the road. Having advanced forward, I looked back and saw that Mr. Stanley had stopped to help him. But by then the Cubans had produced their own pistols and were charging toward us — I can remember that Clemens tried to halt his mount, but had gone some distance before he could turn around. In the meantime, my father, having helped Mr. Davis onto his horse, was about to ride off himself when some shots were fired. I responded with my own pistol, aimed at the Cuban with three fingers, but my horse, frightened by the noise, bucked, and I hit nothing. Eventually the brigands dispersed, though not before firing more shots after us. It was then, I am afraid to say, that Mr. Stanley, galloping toward us on that road, received a bullet in the side of his neck.