A Saint Is Born in Chima: A Novel 9780292753624

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A Saint Is Born in Chimd

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The Texas Pan American Series

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A

Saint Is Born in Chimd by Manuel Zapata Olivella Translated by Thomas E. Kooreman Introduction by John S. Brushwood

4—*±

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University of Texas Press, Austin

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Copyright © 1991 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition, 1991 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, Texas 78713-7819 © The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. The Texas Pan American Series is published with the assistance of a revolving publication fund established by the Pan American Sulphur Company. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zapata Olivella, Manuel. [En Chima nace un santo. English] A saint is born in Chima / by Manuel Zapata Olivella ; translated by Thomas E. Kooreman ; introduction by John S. Brushwood. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Texas Pan American series) Translation of: En Chima nace un santo. ISBN 0-292-77633-0 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0-292-77644-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Title. II. Series. PQ8179.Z38E513 1991 863—dc20 90-38267 CIP

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Translator's Acknowledgment

iVo work of this nature can be brought to completion without the assistance of others. I wish to express my gratitude to those people and institutions who helped me in the translation of A Saint Is Born in Chimd. First of all, a place to work and the time to carry that out were provided by Butler University through the granting of a sabbatical leave for the fall semester of 1988. From the very beginning I was encouraged by the author, Manuel Zapata Olivella, who very graciously gave me permission to translate his novel. Thanks is due, also, to my former professor, John S. Brushwood, for writing the introduction and to the University of Texas Press. Finally, I wish to express very special thanks to my mother, Delphine Davenport Kooreman, whose careful reading and critical comments were instrumental in many refinements to the text. Thomas E. Kooreman Butler University

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Introduction

xveading Manuel Zapata Olivella's fictions, one is always aware of his emphasis on social justice and folklore. These two concerns come together rather neatly in his writing, because he grants them a considerable amplitude of meaning, thereby creating a richer field of connotation than would be likely if the terms were understood in a very specialized way. In the early 1970s, Zapata Olivella was a visiting professor at my university. Since I was working on a book about the Spanish-American novel in the twentieth century, I asked for his advice regarding the novel in Colombia. In a series of conversations, he provided a very useful outline of what I needed to read, including dispassionate, though certainly not coldly objective, opinions. His remarks about social justice shared these qualities. In one especially memorable session, he must have detected some misunderstanding on my part, and said (I paraphrase, of course, switching languages and spanning almost twenty years), "Look, you should not equate social justice with happiness; social justice is not happiness, it is justice." And so it is, in his novels, with all its connotations of freedom, welfare, and opportunity, but not as the source of happiness. He is interested in folklore because he desires to know the context in which he lives, in its most essential manifestation. In his narratives, the folkloric elements extend to include what is better described as "popular," rather than folkloric—popular, that is, in the sense that politicians mean it when they refer to "the people," and hence, the connection with social justice becomes apparent. Zapata Olivella was born in 1920, in the town of Lorica, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, to the south and west of Cartagena, in the di-

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rection of Colombia's frontier with Panama. This is tropical country, rice-growing country that functions as the setting of his first novel, Tierra mojada (Wet Land, 1947). However, before this story became a book, the author had begun to investigate the world away from Lorica. He went to Bogota and studied medicine, but his desire to identify himself in an even larger context initiated a series of journeys—sometimes on foot, and often by bus—that always took him back to Colombia. In 1943, he was in Mexico, and from there he proceeded to New York where he met Ciro Alegria, the Peruvian novelist, who became a consultant on Zapata's first novel. Alegria recalls that the young writer presented himself as a journalist who had also written a novel. In later years, Zapata became preeminently a novelist, but the journalist's instinct never disappeared completely. His novels always communicate a sense of immediate concern. He was writing at a time when Colombian fiction seemed to move in two directions at once: an introspective, psychological, possibly existentialist novel, as exemplified by Jaime Ibanez, on the one hand, and on the other, the intensely denunciatory, society-oriented, almost declamatory work of Jose Antonio Osorio Lizarazo. Zapata's novels are fully as society-oriented as Osorio Lizarazo's, but are considerably less declamatory. An outstanding characteristic of Zapata's work is the absent protagonist. It is very difficult to say that any one of his novels is about such-and-such a person. On the other hand, his characters are individuals; they do not lose their identities in a mass protagonist. Each one is recognizably a part of a context. This characteristic of his fiction makes one think of the author's quest for identity in terms of his knowledge of the world. In 1960, La calk 10 (Tenth Street) recalled and denounced the tragic assassination of the liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. It portrays vividly the subsequent popular uprising. The novel is especially notable for its movement from focus on an individual to focus on the mass of people, then back to the individual. Zapata's prose is lean; his human concern communicates a simple tenderness that corresponds to the popular feel of the novel. As is often the case in his work, Zapata organizes the story of La calk 10 in scenes that move readers rapidly from one place to another while developing the story line. The popular sense of La calk 10 becomes more folkloric in En Chimd nace un santo (A Saint Is Born in Chima, 1964), partly because the author puts aside the urban environment of Bogota, and for this novel returns to the Lorica region. Beyond this sociogeographical difference lies the very fundamental phenomenon of folk Catholicism. The story is

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based on the popular sanctification of Domingo Vidal, a crippled boy who is miraculously saved when his family's home is destroyed by fire. The locale is a village close to Lorica, and it is in this relatively isolated settlement that the local sacristan becomes the leader of a heretical cult. Zapata's narrative places this popular movement in opposition to ecclesiastical orthodoxy, which is based in the town of Lorica. The story is told in segments which, unlike some more experimental novels of the same period, maintain chronological order. The shifting between Chima and Lorica enhances the dynamic quality of the story and also emphasizes the conflict between heresy and orthodoxy. One effect of this development in contrast is to portray the two sides as equally fanatical. Here again we find the emphasis on social justice. The superstitions of the people of Chima appear folkloric, but they seem no less reasonable than the faith of the orthodox. As for the miracles, which are credited to the saintliness of Domingo Vidal, each and every one has a possible rational explanation, but such explanations are not what the popularly declared saint's adherents are looking for. A Saint Is Born in Chima is an interesting, unusual story that can be enjoyed with no reference to any other literary work. However, several of its characteristics can be related to other fictions in ways that enhance the pleasure and importance of Zapata's novel. It appeared in the mid-1960s when the "boom" in Latin American fiction was in its early phase, and the Latin American "new novel" (a combination of regionalistic material with a cosmopolitan viewpoint) was well established. Almost without critical recognition, the Colombian novel was entering its Golden Age. Gabriel Garcia Marquez had published La hojarasca (Leafstorm) in 1955, and his El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (No One Writes to the Colonel) appeared in 1961. Cien anos de soledad (One Hundred Years of

Solitude)firstcaptivated readers in 1967. During the period from 1960 to 1967, important novels by Colombians Manuel Mejia Vallejo, Eduardo Caballero Calderon, Humberto Navarro, Alvaro Cepeda Zamudio, Hector Rojas Herazo, and Fanny Buitrago, among others, established Colombian fiction solidly within the new wave. Other Latin American writers like Julio Cortazar, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Jose Donoso were becoming internationally known. Domingo Vidal, the "saint" of A Saint Is Born in Chimd, is an almost absent protagonist and, for that reason, brings to mind some Latin American novels in which a dictator, that widely recognized political phenomenon, functions as protagonist, but hardly ever appears on the scene. The motivating factor is not so much the physical presence of the dictator as it is his influence, or one might say, the myth of dictatorial

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power. Readers may recall Miguel Angel Asturias' El Senor Presidente, where the dictator appears only briefly, even though the awareness of his ruthless power terrorizes the populace. Or one remembers Garcia Marquez's El otono del patriarca (The Autumn of the Patriarch), where the

dictator lives, effectively, past the point of death. So it is with Domingo Vidal. Because he is severely handicapped physically, his actions cannot be a major factor in the narrative, and even after his death, the cult that has grown up around him sustains his importance as a motivating force and central concern of the narrative. One could hardly say that A Saint Is Born in Chimd tells the story of Domingo Vidal; rather, it is the story of a heresy. It is tempting to single out the sacristan, Jeremias, as protagonist. He is the promoter of the cult's activity and becomes known as the "prophet." However, the movement itself becomes much larger than he is, and in this respect, he resembles Vargas Llosa's prophet in La guerra delfindel mundo (The War of the End of the World), with the important and interesting difference that Zapata's story is confined to a small region, while the Brazilian situation, in Vargas Llosa's novel, acquires national importance. The "miracles" in A Saint Is Born in Chimd, on one level of understanding, seem related to a phenomenon that has stereotyped Latin American fiction, called "magic realism" or "marvelous reality," or simply "fantasy," depending on the characteristics of the case as well as on the speaker's definition of the terms. There is an important difference in Zapata's novel, in that the narrative makes all the "miracles" naturally explainable even though they may be considered most extraordinary, therefore, a reader's understanding may vary according to one's own preference. With respect to the supernatural, A Saint Is Born in Chimd probably resembles Alejo Carpentier's El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of This World) more closely than any of the other "magical" Latin American novels. Faith in an absent person is the key to this similarity in spirit; it works in combination with events that move readers to say "only in Latin America. . . . " Zapata Olivella by no means rejects the popular reality of Chima's miracles; he looks at them in the perspective of what he knows through study and experience, just as he has defined himself within his context. In those conversations mainly about the Colombian novel, years ago, he sometimes talked of negritude and said that the black experience in the United States was entirely different from the black experience in Colombia. His pondering this matter eventually took him to Africa (inveterate traveler that he is) and produced his most substantial literary work since A Saint Is Born in Chimd. Chango, el gran putas (Chango, the big

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mother . . . ), published in 1983, is a novel based on the Black Diaspora. The novelist takes his readers back to a primary condition of respected blackness, before it became necessary to speak of the black experience with some kind of modifier. One of Zapata's critics, Roberto Herrera Soto, has written, "The curse of Chango fell upon those who rebelled against the ideal order and was projected onto the mass of those who, as prisoners, left Africa against their will" (La Republica Dominical, No. 329, 1 March 1984, p. 2). Zapata's search for understanding his context has expanded far beyond Lorica and Chima, but an important branch of his extensive roots is firmly grounded in the Caribbean coast of Colombia. John S. Brushwood University of Kansas

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A Saint Is Born in Chimd

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Myths are a necessary product of the infantile mentality as well as the mentality of primitive peoples. They originate as an escape into the field of magic, as an apparently acceptable explanation, as a hope for salvation. —Castiglioni (El mundo magico, Prefacio. Fondo de Cultura Economica)

xhe burning candles intensify the whiteness of the lime, still damp on the tombs. The paper roses, black and purple, are stuck to the wooden crosses like enormous bottle flies. The gathering of country people overflows the small cemetery: a patch of high ground in the middle of the swampy plain. To the group of townspeople are added those who have been traveling on foot for several nights through the marshes and the mountains. Religiously, they are making their annual visit to their dead. Driving their knees into the mud, they make the sign of the cross and tell them all that has happened during the year as if the dead were listening. Indeed, they do hear them. On the inside of the niches their voices grumble in nasal tones. The terrified children, hanging tightly to their parents, watch the cracks in the tombs where they expect boney hands to appear in search of the corn cakes and coconut cookies brought for them. Today, Day of the Dead, the deceased clean their own bones, dress in their finest shroud, and with the same flirtatious ways of a country girl, adorn their hairless heads with flowers of the Saint Ignatius bean and heliotropes, gathered in the fields at midnight. Sitting on their haunches, with the hollowness of their crossed tibias and the emptiness of their eye sockets, the departed receive their mourners with halfhearted grins. "Papa Antonio, here's little Justinico; he was born just four days ago and they say that he is your very spit and image, he looks so much like you." "We didn't bring you a paper wreath because the flood drowned out the corn crop and left us in ruins. Forgive us."

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By the isolated tomb in the corner, surrounded by stakes and barbed wire, among the flicker of the candles, Eduviges talks with her lover: "You know that I always obeyed you when you were alive. But you left me so alone and Anselmo tells me that I can still have many children. Please don't think badly of me; you know that I will pray for you even though I have committed myself to another/' And that other one, Anselmo, buries his knees in the hard-packed earth, hoping for the dead man's generosity. The family groups talk, eat, and laugh in the company of their departed, converting the cemetery into a beehive of noisy agitation. Rafaela Vidal reminds us of the print of the "Lost Soul," querulous and deluded. Her gray hair casts an ashen tone upon the black gown of her widowhood. As always she is escorted by her two daughters: Balaude and Andrea, whose virginal wombs are forever preserved in the advancing finality of age. The mother reports to Baltasar Villadiego, the husband who died a quarter century back: "And as to our little Dominguito, he's now reached thirty-three without growing more than a yard. He seems to shrink a little more each day. The poor boy, as I have told you, can only move two fingers on his right hand. Every day he gets heavier because his bones and flesh are turning to stone. Your daughters, whom you see before you, have sworn by Saint Emidius not to marry in order to look after him. Pray there in heaven for God to take pity on him, because the doctors say that there is no cure and the witch doctors say that he's under a spell. Please, find out something." This year Padre Berrocal has come to sing the prayers for the dead. He wants to put an end to the unruliness of the sacristan Jeremias who substitutes for him by reciting bad Latin, which he doesn't understand. He is a good priest, loved by everyone; he freely gives his blessings and accepts without complaint the alms, which the people spontaneously present to him. The greater part of their gifts does not remain in the town. "They are turned over to God and God distributes them," he says. It is rumored that the Archbishop of Cartagena recriminates him for not demanding of his parishioners the payment of tithes, but these admonitions, if it is true that he receives them, do not diminish his charitable nature. Uponfinishinghis prayers by one tomb, the mourners pull on his cassock to guide him toward another. The traditional rainstorm of the Day of the Dead, as certain as death itself, is already straining the clouds above the crosses. The storm does not frighten the mourners as much as

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the night, which threatens to surprise them inside the cemetery with their dead and their votive candles. "Padre, pray three Ave Marias for my sister. These nights her soul is again wandering around the room where she died." "We'll help to relieve her of her suffering, my daughter/' Suddenly the lightning flash blots out the light of the candles and the crosses tremble at the impact of the thunder. For an instant the overwhelming silence of cemeteries caught in a full moon can be heard. In the distance a dog howls in cowardly tones. The unanimity of their voices is accentuated as the people cross themselves. "Soon, Padre, the water will be upon us!" whispers the sacristan. The first giant drops discolor the paper wreaths. The umbrella, which the acolyte holds in readiness, is opened and the mourners want to take shelter under its protection. A desperate shout irrupts: "Fire! Fire!" The flames and smoke swirl up and over the houses of palm thatch. The townspeople forget about their dead and return to life by the inverse road of superstition. "Our Lady of Succor!" "Saint Emidius, protect us!" Someone rings the church bells, while the machetes cut back the eaves of houses coming too close to the burning hut. Men and women on the roofs beat down the flying sparks with their brooms. "Domingo Vidal is burning to death!" Rafaela and her daughters, surrounding their hut, shout anxiously through the open windows, and only the roaring fire answers them. "My son! Save my paralyzed son!" "My little brother is burning to death, dear God!" The frightful death of the cripple is foretold in the acrid odor of burning skin. Four men are unable to hold down Balaude who is rolling in the mud and screaming for them to let her pull her brother from the flames. And in a corner, trembling with fear, Andrea is praying with the whine of a beaten dog. The mother's choking voice is a stream of shouting: "Saint Emidius, don't let my son be cooked alive! There inside he's screaming!" The priest throws aside his cap, gathers his cassock into a knot around his waist and jumps through the flaming timbers. "Get back, Padre, you're going to fry too!" His clothing catches fire and the smoldering palm leaves fall around his shoulders. In the middle of the dense smoke and fire he orients him-

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self by Domingo's screams. The smoke chokes him and his burning trousers scorch his skin. Outside, behind the wall of flames that surrounds him, everyone is shouting in desperation: "Save them, Almighty God!" The rain, until then light, suddenly becomes a heavy downpour. The fence is smoking and the burning roof caves in. A suffocating cloud darkens the whole town and before the amazement of all the people, covered with flames, the priest comes out of the debris with Domingo in his arms. They hurl calabashes of water on him-and they pull away the pieces of his smoldering cassock. To everyone's surprise, not even Domingo's clothing has been burned. "It's a miracle!" "It's a miracle!" Overcome with emotion, they all want to touch his hair and they tear apart his shirt, which the fire did not burn. The priest pushes and shoves them back, preventing them from using their fingernails to claw at Domingo's hard skin, still hot. "For the love of God, you've gone crazy! Leave him alone! You're going to kill him!" Jeremias manages to hold them back with kicks and blows long enough to take refuge in the church. Drained of all energy, after closing and locking the doors, Padre Berrocal exclaims: "Holy Virgin, they have gone completely mad!" He can't believe that those who only moments before were begging on their knees for his blessing, are the same people now wildly shouting. "We want to see Domingo sanctified!" "Let us see the miracle!" Incredulous, he observes with astonishment Domingo's clothes. He looks for burns but not even his hair has been singed. Standing behind him, not daring to touch him, Jeremias listens to the priest: "You'll have to take care of him here until those idiots come to their senses. The poor Vidals have been left without a home." The sacristan, cold and trembling, confirms this with a nod of his head. Water drips from his pant legs forming a puddle on the dirt floor of the church as if he had urinated. Outside in the atrium, infected by their superstitions, the people are beating on the door and shouting: "God has designated Dominguito with a bolt of lightning!"

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.Andrea plays with him. For the lack of children that her sterile womb has denied her, she powders Domingo and dresses him as if he were a rag doll. She hugs him and imagines that she carries him within her own bosom. A son born obsessively of her empty uterus. She was always like that, lost in her thoughts, her own tomb. At his side she sews his cotton undershorts and cuts his trousers to the exact size for his legs. A little wooden hand with curved fingers serves to scratch his back where the hardness of the bed irritates his skin. She doesn't allow the flies to light on his face; she gives him his drinks in little sips, and hand feeds him every bite of food. When she hears him strain, she rushes to help him with the bed pan. This function is the most absolute proof that there is life within this apparent shell of death. On the contrary, nothing holds back Balaude. She is expansiveness itself, disquietude personified. She bustles about the church with the agility of a hair-brained broom, constantly changing the placement of the objects. She wants to give movement to Domingo; she raises him up in bed and drags him along to make him walk. She carries him in her arms and at the window she shows him to the people who are fighting for a chance to see him. She has tried to take him to the swamp and throw him in to swim, but Jeremias has prevented her from doing it. She would like him to be his own man: to have machete fights with the town's tough guys. When she grows tired of talking to him and pulling at his hair, she leaves the church and wanders from shanty to shanty repeating all the things she forces her brother to do. The presence of so many images in the corners of the sacristy inspire in her the idea that Dominguito ought to paint a picture of the Virgin. She spreads out a sheet of paper beneath his wrinkled hand and places a pencil between the thumb and forefinger. "Draw her! Draw the Virgin!" Domingo smiles halfway frightened, he is always on the defensive against her wild ideas. "Move the pencil! Move it!" For an instant the cripple concentrates his weak mind on the tips of his fingers, which he doesn't manage to see. His effort is frustrated. "I can't! I can't do it!" But Balaude is amazed: "Look, Andrea, he's moving his fingers!" Her younger sister doesn't even set her needle aside. "Leave him alone, don't bother him!" The other shouts angrily at him: "Draw, little brother! Draw!" Domingo strains to the point of sweating. Hisfingersmove as if guided by another hand, and he scribbles aimlessly on the paper.

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"He's drawn the Virgin Mary!" Unable to resist any longer, Balaude grabs the paper from him and, holding it almost up to her nose, her hands trembling, she categorically declares: "It's the Virgin herself! Look! Look!" The onlookers crowd together in the window and without clearly examining the drawing in the half-light of the sacristy, from outside the church they loudly repeat: "The Virgin!" "The Virgin!" It's extraordinary that one immobilized by paralysis for thirty-three years should turn out to be an artist in the end. No one wanted to be deprived of the joy of looking upon the mother of Jesus in that confused drawing. "I can see Her!" "I can see Her!" The news surprises Jeremias in the street. The crowd drags him along hastily. For lack of a priest, he alone can give sacred testimony. He smiles with skepticism. He has listened to so much nonsense ever since Padre Berrocal saved Domingo from the fire! Behind him they are shrieking and shoving. Rafaela Vidal herself is pursuing him, she wants to see her son's marvelous work, which everybody else is already examining. Balaude, who has been trying fruitlessly to force the padlocked door, anxious to go out into the street with the picture, receives him shouting and grasping. "Jeremias, look at the saint with her angel's eyes and her crown of fire!" The sacristan carefully examines the drawing. But he concentrates even more on the shouting he hears coming from those who are trying desperately to break down the doors. His little eyes roll cunningly from one side to the other of the elongated slits of his eyelids. The clamor grows and reverberates through every corner of the church. Balaude is waiting impatiently, beating on him and demanding his approval. He feels a bit of fear because of her wildly flailingfists.He hesitates no longer and solemnly proclaims: "It's a miracle!" The cripple smiles when he hears this word that makes him important. For the miracle, indeed, has the power to rescue him from his loneliness, from the doleful atmosphere of pity that surrounds him. Peering from the belfry, the sacristan observes the crowd that hovers around the church. He trys to explain to himself the restlessness of these country folk who come from other towns and increase the numbers of

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those who have been laying siege to the sacristy for days. The mud stirred by their feet has become black and slushy, leaving deep tracks similar to those cut by the hooves of cattle. They place lighted candles on the window ledge and even stick others into the mud. Those who manage to look in make the sign of the cross and try to lengthen their prayers, but they are interrupted by others who shove and push from behind. "He doesn't blink!" "He has a crown of fire!" "His eyes are small like those of the baby Jesus!" The women raise up their little ones for a look at the "Saint," and the babes, wrapped in rags, drip urine on candles and faces alike. The spectacle is even grander from the belfry. Jeremias is able to observe the groups who enter town on the roads or disembark from canoes at the edge of the swamp. The crowd in front of the plaza reminds him of the Festival of Saint Emidius, when as a boy he would climb up there to announce with ringing the emergence of the saint. The children would watch him from below when he would ring the toneless bell with its hoarse voice in order to toll for the dead. He preferred the little bell; its tone was lively and full of noise. His ears are growing red like that time the priest brought him down from the belfry because the ringing of the bells struck up such a diabolical rhythm that the parishioners began to wiggle their hips. After scolding him, the priest made him kneel before the altar, ordering him: "Ask Saint Emidius to take Satan from your body." The phrase heard back then in his childhood is revived now in his imagination; he is not very sure that the things that occur to him really come from the Devil. He had always had a yen to be a preacher, and the half-Latin phrases learned from the priest while officiating at the mass flow easily from his lips. The magical atmosphere surrounding Domingo tempts him. What would happen if he were to open the doors to the church? His hands continue to sweat in spite of the way he rubs them together. Finally his natural inclination to officiate takes precedence over his religious reticence. When he descends from the belfry, down the stairway made of giant reeds, he is not the same sacristan who went up moments earlier. He isfilledwith a strange calling to preach and he doesn't know whether it's God's intervention or some diabolical deception. The murmur of the prayers echoes more forcefully in his brain. He asks Balaude and Andrea to help him carry Domingo to a place before the altar. He opens the folding cot beside the statue of Saint Emidius. He lights the censer and fills the church with dense clouds. He removes the old Bible

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from its place, and with his nose buried between its pages, he unbolts the doors. He believes that the voice of God speaks through his mouth and he solemnly proclaims: "Enter! Enter and worship Domingo!" The crowd stirs itself quickly and presses tumultuously toward the atrium. Mothers push and shove to protect their children. They all shout and squabble over who is to enter first. Jeremias, making up the ritual as he goes along, controls and organizes them as he pleases: "First the women with shawls. Then the men who take their hats off. No one may enter without a lighted candle." The church isn't big enough. Those who have entered don't want to leave. They approach Domingo with reverence and fear. They touch his cot, his sheets, and make the sign of the cross. Some try to touch his face, but Balaude prevents them with slaps and cuffs. On the floor at his feet, with disregard for the danger, they place lighted candles beneath the canvas canopy. They kneel, and stutter their prayers. The tumult in the doorway continues to grow. They break down the benches by climbing on to them, and in the sacristy they rumple the priest's sacred vestments. Jeremias knows that this sacrilegious ceremony would be forbidden by Padre Berrocal and he steps up to the pulpit. When they see him there with his big belly and broad shoulders, they all kneel and anxiously await his sermon. He coughs several times, eager to set a monastic and mendicant tone: "We must reconstruct Domingo's house, a place where he can increase his miracles. Volunteers are needed to cut the poles and the palm leaves. Let no one go out from here without leaving his offering in the alms box of the church. Once again we will raise the house that the Devil tried to destroy, and upon its foundation I shall sprinkle holy water so that the Evil One will never again hurl his sulfurous lightning bolts against it." The men raise their hands to volunteer, and the women step up to the alms box to deposit their rings and gold chains. Old Jose Dolores Negrete, brought there on a litter by his sons, allows his quaking voice to be heard: "I'll give a house so they can move it into his yard!" The poor people look at him enviously without being able to offer as much as he. But there are abundant machetes to dismantle the house and move it from one site to the other. They leave the church in a drove and congregate around the house donated by the wealthy man. The sun toasts their bare heads and backs. With the assistance of the entire town they loosen the supports and lower the palm thatch roof. This great shell seems to take on movements of its own. It waddles slowly down the narrow streets like an enormous antediluvian turtle of multiple legs that

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might have come straight out of the nearby swamp. The men are sweating under its weight, alleviating their fatigue with the resounding grunts of their straining in unison. Jeremias is distributing bottles of rum that he guarantees to have blessed in order to give strength to the workers. They move step by step and only stop to rest when their collective energy gives out. The women spur on their husbands by encouraging their sense of masculine pride, while the sacristan redistributes them according to their size to better coordinate his forces. "Pablo, put your shoulder here! Luciano and you three, take the rear end/' When it reaches the plaza, the monster seems to spread its legs and pant. Anselmo is sent ahead to inspect the site where they are to place the roof and he finds the women praying in the center of the charred logs. He makes sure that the supporting beams are solidly in place and that the framework for the walls is ready, as well as the cow dung, the lime, and the sand to plaster them. The sacristan takes advantage of the break to go to the house of Remigio, the woodcarver, from whom he has ordered something very important that will give greater solemnity to the ceremony. "Have you finished?" The craftsman answers patiently: 'I'm still working on it. It will be the finest cross I have ever made." Jeremias looks it over and touches it: "What kind of wood is it?" "Sacred olive, from the very same tree blessed by Noah." The sacristan rejoices. Olive wood drives away evil spirits. Happily he exclaims: "We'll nail it to the ridge pole of Domingo's new house to keep away sparks and lightning." Remigio listens to this with indifference. Engrossed in his work, he cuts large shavings from the gigantic cross with his gnarled hands. At the back of the shop, the image of Saint Isidore stands out. He did not carve it, but it is as miraculous as the ones he does himself. It was carved by Saint Isidore himself. The woodcarver brought it to Chima, assuring everyone that he had discovered it in the middle of the jungle when he was lost. It appeared to him in the fork of an olive tree. When he picked it up, he felt that it was guiding his steps directly toward the town, taking him away from the dense growth. Since then its miracles were many. If they placed it under the hottest sun with its head submerged in a tub of water, it would bring rain in the worst of summers, and if they hung it up by its feet, it would put an end to the torrential rains that brought the floods.

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Before nightfall, the house is finished. On the cross they hang a large wreath of paper flowers, made by Blasina with the help of the women of the town. But the sacristan's ceremonies do not end there. That night he has Domingo transported from the church to his new home. The women, wearing shawls, stretch out into parallel lines down each side of the narrow streets. They cup their hands over the flames of their candles to keep the wind from blowing them out. They echo the prayers of Jeremias, gesticulating head of the procession. He is wearing starched clothing, and he hunches his shoulders so much they almost manage to brush his ears. His feet, compressed by new sandals with three straps, intentionally slow the pace so that the crowds will spend the night in the streets. The porters carry Domingo in a hammock litter that they form with their arms. Buried by flowers, his face can scarcely be seen in the light from the candles. Following behind, Rafaela Vidal with her white hair and her black dress bows her head and prays intensely without comprehending how or when her son, in the hands of Jeremias, was converted into something else. To the rear, Andrea follows with bare feet, fragile like the shadows surrounding her. Her self-absorption contrasts with the strident praying of Balaude who, marching in front of the sacristan, disputes his preeminence. The simpleton Camilo, dressed as an acolyte, laughs and mocks everyone as he swings the censer. The plaza and the streets become congested with improvised stands on boxes and tables placed in the doorways of the houses. Smoke curls from the nostrils of the old women with their lighted cigars held inside their mouths. They are making coffee filtered through dark socks, and its aroma is competing with that of the thick cloud of incense and tobacco. Blasina, carrying a box, travels down the procession in the opposite direction selling candles blessed by Jeremias. And in last place, the hubbub of the children and dogs, the only happy note in the religious atmosphere the sacristan has sown throughout the town. xhe constant visitations of pilgrims makes Domingo forget his sickness. The bustling lives of the other people—which had always left him on the sidelines of horse races, bull roundups, cock fights, and even the everyday fishing in the swamp—overwhelm him like a torrent through the doors and windows. As a child he scarcely managed to drag himself along, and when he tried to pull up to the vertical position, his bones began to bend and ache. His muscles refused to help him crawl; he found himself confined to his crib, removed from the birds' flapping wings, from his friends' stick horses, and from the flight 10

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of the pandongas cradled by the breeze. His mother, alarmed, confirms that her son's head is not growing; his chin becomes more and more pointed, making him resemble a bird. You must speak to him loudly to make him smile and look at you out of the corner of his eye. The doctors are beginning to say strange things that Rafaela never understands: "Microcephalia," "ankylosing juvenile arthritis/' "Still's disease." She ends up by going to the witch doctors when Padre Berrocal advises resignation. The doctors' diagnosis proves to be irrefutably true. Years pass and there are neither drugs nor potions capable of raising Domingo from his wooden bed. And although he becomes an adult, his skin remains smooth and without whiskers. His voice has an infantile singsong and seems to come more from his abdomen than from his shrunken lips. "Little sister, call Remigio for me." Balaude who has waited for many days to hear him utter one syllable rushes to the head of the bed, shakes him, and asks him: "Why do you want him? Tell me!" He does not hear her or he has regressed into his mute state. For his sister that request has unusual transcendence, and she stirs up the whole neighborhood: "Domingo has called for the woodcarver!" She goes running through gates and pigpens and returns with Remigio trailing behind. He leans down in front of Domingo and waits attentively for his words. Balaude asks for silence from those who are whispering and she listens anxiously to his muted voice: "I want you to make me a wooden pillow." Everyone is surprised. Some of them manage to figure out the intent of his request. The biblical pages about the lives of the saints, which Jeremias reads to him daily, inspire in him yearnings for sacrifices that he had not felt before in his forgotten corner. The artisan takes pity on him and softens the harshness of the ceiba wood by cutting a hollow in the pillow where he can rest his many thoughts: invocations, prayers, and supplications for the patron saint of Chima. There is no other possibility for health when the ever-mistaken doctors diagnose ankylosing rheumatism and the herb doctors swear that he is bewitched. In order to combat the spell, Domingo takes delight in his penitences. But his feeling of beatitude reaches beyond the limits of his own stiff and parchment-like skin. Through the hidden arteries of contagion, the people also feel the budding of sainthood. They don't feel so abandoned from the grace of God. The petitions of the saintly one are now the same ones heard from all who beg and pray for a gift from Heaven. Many invoke relief, if only a little, from the suffering that grows old along with them. Eduviges listens attentively to what is rumored about Domingo's as11

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tonishing ability to draw saints. The herb doctors are not finding the "antidote" to nullify the curse with which her dead lover blights her womb. And Anselmo, without children from other women, also doubts his own virility. The loose tongues and gossip plague them with laughter and cutting remarks. On numerous occasions they embark in their canoe to visit the doctors in Lorica whose medicines fail to procure the desired pregnancy. They go on a pilgrimage to worship the miraculous Virgin of the Caracol, at Palo de Agua, but she does not hear their requests. Uselessly Eduviges asks Remigio to reveal the prayer of Monte Carmelo to her, for it's common knowledge that it only has an effect on childbirth when a man tells it to a woman. She doesn't leave her house at day and she waits for night to bring water from the swamp and to visit women in labor who will tell her about the art of bearing children. Anselmo also hides his face beneath his broad-brimmed hat, since the sun denounces his complexion, turned anaemic by the potions. He's afraid of his own woman's body. His robust horse breaker's frame, capable of resisting the tugs of roped bulls, hasn't sufficient virility to simply sire a child. He comes from a prolific family. His Galician grandfathers multiplied themselves in Indian and Mulatto women, leaving the unmistakable mark of their bronze skin and cleft chins. They were always like that, corpulent and with reddish hair. But all of this vigorous inheritance lies repressed and impotent within him. He is silent in his hammock, his back towards her. The naked, sweaty body of his woman entices him in vain. Ever since they visited Jacinto's tomb, he cannot get rid of the obsessive idea of its odor, as if the dead man were inhabiting him. He gives away the bed, the machete, the cook stove, and everything else the dead man bought without managing to remove his presence. They move to the opposite end of town, by the edge of the swamp. He listens to his friends who advise him to go to bed with other women, and the experience does partially relieve him, but even though he does find his virility, he is unable to take it home to his own hammock. Eduviges biting her lips confesses to him: "Tonight, when the stone curlew sings at midnight, I'm going to see Blasina the witch." He watches her throw her scarf on her head in the hope that the bird will split the silence of the night twelve times with its song. The humidity of the swamp, smelling of freshly sown seed,filtersits vapors through the cracks in the cane and mud walls. The ears of corn and the bunches of rice hanging from the cross beam of the roof are challenges to fertility. Very near, in the puddle in the patio, the toads are singing and voluptuously embracing the abdomens of the females. "If you rub a toad,

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you'll beget more 6ffspring than a prize bull." He stubbornly tries not to believe it although his mind silently repeats the herb doctor's advice. Outside, he clearly distinguishes the hoarse croaking of a large, male toad that makes the water bubble whenever he intones his notes. Finally the curlew arouses the swamp. Eduviges crosses herself and quietly slips out the door. Anselmo is surprised at being able to follow her mentally through the darkness, t even to hearing her knock three times at the witch's hut. He's fooling himself: the toad has croaked his male's groan three times. He takes out his flashlight and illuminates the flooded patio. Surprised by the rays of light, the tadpoles jump into the puddle. Surrounded with foam, the prolific female vibrates her throat and brightens her eyes. At each squeeze from the male that covers her, she strains, totally absorbed in the act. Anselmo makes up his mind and grabs the male toad by the neck while the latter continues to croak and persists in embracing his female. "Blasina!" "Yes, my child, come in!" Eduviges pushes the boltless door. On the fire there is a clay pot covered with bijao leaves. The brew gives off a strong odor of mint. The burning logs illuminate Blasina who is poking at the fire with the end of her cigar. All around her are a number of well-chewed cigar butts. "I've been waiting for you. The potion is ready." At the edge of the old woman's filthy skirt, a cat is nursing several little ones. Ten eyes are staring suspiciously like so many red-hot coals on the fire. Eduviges looks around insistently for the owl and the bats, which they say inhabit the witch's house, but she only discovers the old woman's wrinkled goiter, which rises and falls each time she puffs on her cigar. She fears all the things she could do to her. The old lady, full of wrinkles and with her small blue-green eyes, reminds her of an alligator. Her white skin has become moldy looking with the years. At the tips of her fingers her blackish nails move erratically like flies swarming about her. Rather than letting her words flow freely she seems to suck them in: "Did you bring the dress as I directed you to do?" "Yes, a woman who has recently given birth gave it to me. She wore it for three days without taking it off." "All right. Take this drink and undress." She has her lie down on a straw mat and presses on her lower abdomen to the point of making her cry out. Gently she rubs her with alligator fat and allows sperm from a melted candle to drip over her. Eduviges twists uncomfortably.

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"Tomorrow, at twelve o'clock sharp, lie face down on earth heated by the sun and have no sexual contact with your husband until the new moon, a good time for planting." She engraves all the instructions in her memory and later puts them into effect but without feeling the stir of a child in her womb. Anselmo loses hope and grows thin. He has rubbed toads against his groin, bathed his penis in the blood of a billy goat in heat, and twice has surprised female manatees on the bank of the swamp without the appearance of any fecundating virility. That is when Eduviges approaches Domingo pleading: "Draw me a saint that will give me lots of children!" The neighbors, who never stop visiting him, pray in a low voice. The paralyzed man strives to move his pencil. From a corner, where he has lighted several candles, Anselmo bravely faces the stares of everyone. The sacristan, wise to the effects of contagion, advises Eduviges: "Pray on your knees and grasp the folds of the sheet that covers Domingo's body." The point of the pencil scribbles out an image. The eyes of those who are praying turn and want to follow his strokes by leaps. "Another miraculous saint!" Jeremias is the first one to snatch it from him; the rest try to see it at the same time and fight over the paper. "It is the most beautiful saint that he has drawn!" By pushing and shoving, Eduviges manages to seize the wrinkled image. Defended by Anselmo, they get out to the street pommeled and harassed by those who follow them. They shut themselves up in their house and as they are alone, Jeremias advises them in a low voice: "Tonight when you go to bed with your husband, apply the image to your belly." Fifteen days later she misses her period. Her uterus grows and throbs with the general uproar that ponders a miracle. When he stepped on the bottom land of the Sinu River, he felt like his toes, crisscrossed by his sandals, were sinking and being definitively held fast in the mud. In Chima he found other foreigners, who they called "Turks," although they were Lebanese and Syrians. He was unable to become familiar with them and preferred that the natives accept him. Very much attached to the madonnas and to his memories of infantile pilgrimages to St. Peter's Basilica, the Italian Anicharico soon became immersed in the superstitions of the town. He 14

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would search out witch doctors to cure his mule of the worms or to protect his cotton crop from boll weevils. He was scarcely surprised when the first welts appeared on the backs and arms of his twin daughters. "The elf 'Juan Lara' becomes confused in the dark and sometimes bites the cheek of one and the arm of the other." No one doubts the existence nor the pranks of the elf. His likable antics appear equally among widows, old maids, and young girls. He even tries some tricks with married women. The Italian welcomes good-humoredly hisflirtationswith his daughters: "I'll have a son-in-law who will give me more riches than my crops/' The girls reach puberty and their full breasts make them seem like women who have been waiting some time for the assault of fertility. One afternoon, on the road that leads to his farm, his mule suddenly rears and Anicharico hears someone shouting to him from among the wild hedge mustard: "Be careful! Juan Lara will impregnate your twins!" He tightens his legs against the beast and manages not to be thrown off. He crosses himself and spurs the animal. Arriving at the house, he finds his two daughters with their faces made up with powder and rouge. He asks them anxiously: "Have you seen Juan Lara?" "Yes, papa, he appears to us everywhere." In the sanctimonious atmosphere that Domingo's miracles have created, the elf's harassment of the Italian's daughters is prospering. They even say that his body is the same as the paralytic's, and many are saying that they have seen him leaving Domingo's house at midnight with sparks of fire. People come to the twins' house and pester them with questions: "Tell us. What is the elf like?" One of them smiles and responds without hesitation: "He's a little boy who is more or less eight years old, but his face is that of a handsome young man." Those who listen exclaim: "Just like Dominguito?" The younger twin rejects that idea firmly: "No, it's not Dominguito! He has blond hair like mine, and at night in the darkness, it shines like live coals." Anicharico's daughters have inherited none of the features of their mestiza mother. They look more like the madonnas and angels their father talks about in his recollections of Rome and the Pope. But indeed they did inherit their mother's superstitions about charms and amulets, which have protected them from the Devil and the evil eye since they were small. Their belief in ghosts and spirits who infest the roadways and shadowy corners is not surprising. 15

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"He jumps like a frog/' says the more naive of the two girls. "Sometimes he's dressed and sometimes he's naked." Anguished by the witch's warning from the hedge mustard along the road, the rawboned Anicharico ushers his daughters into the presence of Dominguito. The twins lower their heads and avoid the gaze of anxious onlookers trying to see the marks left by the elf. Jeremias does not accept their stories alone and orders the Italian: "Tell your daughters to show me the welts." Among the group huddled around them the women's eyes grow large and the men's breathing becomes heavy. The father raises the shirt of one girl and the simpleton Camilo exclaims, containing his laughter: "It's a hickey!" The other girl resists efforts to have her show her back, and Jeremias makes all the men leave. There are marks on her shoulder left by the bites of passionate teeth. On his knees, Anicharico begs Dominguito: "Keep the elf Juan Lara away from my house, for he doesn't let my daughters sleep and he throws dirt in our food if a place is not set for him at the table. I have run out of patience with his pranks. Free me from him, I beg of you on my knees." The daughters are staring at the floor. Balaude struggles in the doorway with those who are trying to reenter the room. Imbued with authority, Jeremias gives orders to the girls: "Kneel down, kiss Domingo's hands three times, and pray seven Ave Marias. Juan Lara, elf or mortal, will leave you in peace." Through the street window, a young man watches, more concerned than the others, the fate of the twins. The girls look at him with an expression of reproach as they quietly recite their Ave Maria. They will undoubtedly bar the door that night because they fear Domingo, whose clairvoyance is capable of discovering what their father's vigilant eyes have not yet uncovered. As they leave they defiantly confront the stares which they fearfully avoided earlier. Side by side, they walk before Anicharico, satisfied with having fulfilled his paternal duties by protecting them from a sinful pregnancy by the elf. The people touch them and admire in them their sudden look of satisfaction at feeling themselves free of sin. Through contact with Dominguito, those possessed by the Devil are purified. J_Jven the clouded mind of the idiot Camilo reacts before the marvels carried out in his presence. Ever since his whiskers began to sprout, he avoided the company of others, refusing to re16

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spond if asked a question. The townspeople hire him to cut wood and to carry water from the swamp. Jeremias uses him as an altar boy to sweep the church and light the candles. Sometimes he slips away from this monastic atmosphere, which he likes because of the solitude, in order to hide among the thickets along the pastures where he lasciviously pursues the female donkeys. He removes his clothes and, hiding among the aquatic plants of the swamps, spies upon the women who are bathing. One afternoon, as the people are saying the rosary by Domingo's side, the simpleton makes his way among the women with the censer. Jeremias leads the prayer with his high-sounding tone of voice, which recalls the distorted tones of the church's main bell. When they see Camilo come in, the women cross themselves and their prayer is suspended. After filling the room with smoke, the idiot kneels and tries to paw at Domingo's body with his trembling hands. The sacristan admonishes him with his gaze, and as he does not desist, Balaude attempts to drive him away with her fists. He lowers his head submissively with each blow like a donkey clubbed soundly for his inaction, but he insists on touching the invalid. Such stubbornness from one who was always withdrawn and introverted attracted the attention of the congregation. He grunts, rolls his eyes, and smiles. "Get him out of here!" Balaude screams wildly. "Let's see what he wants," the sacristan shouts, noting that his empty gaze is filling with astonishment. The idiot touches Dominguito's forehead and looks at those who surround him as if suddenly recognizing all of them for the first time. "Where am I?" he asks in wonderment, while with sudden embarrassment he covers his genitals, which were clearly seen before through the tears in his worn clothing. He falls to his knees and sobs. "He's regained his sanity!" He kisses Domingo's hands, abandons his censer, and hurriedly takes the road leading to his parents' house, which he had left years before. Wonders are performed daily. The excitement is contagious and everyone wants to be the object of a miracle. Even routine, daily events take on an unexpected aura of mystery. The old people, accustomed to the shadows of a favorite corner, come out of their houses asking for Dominguito, anxious to recover the joy of living that has escaped their lives. The old women, who gave up praying to Santa Lucia del Carito for the restoration of their sight, make their grandchildren accompany them to beg Domingo for a few rays of clarity in 17

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their eyes. Maria del Carmen, with failing vision, visits the cripple every afternoon. She taps at the doorways with her cane as she finds her way by herself. As soon as she reaches Domingo's house, she discards her cane and falls on her knees before him, asserting that she can see everything. The sacristan observes with satisfaction and stimulates their fanaticism constantly. As priest of the new cult, he sees that the alms given to Dominguito go by way of the church. He feigns disinterest by surrendering them to Saint Emidius but he keeps an eye on the corral where they keep the pigs and chickens. He carefully guards the money and the "miracles" of gold in the collection boxes, assuring all that he will religiously turn them over to Padre Berrocal when he makes his next visit to the town. They do not doubt his word, for no one has shown more zeal than he in glorifying Domingo Vidal. JDlasina's house catches fire twice. At night, when her neighbors go to bed, they place their machetes at the foot of their beds and leave their buckets filled with water. They sleep with one eye open, and even the fluttering of the bats when they brush the ridge poles of the houses awakens them. Before the bells ring, the wind is spreading the strong smelling fumes of the burning palm thatch. "My house is on fire again!" cries the old woman in the middle of the street, clutching her cats, unable to believe that, for the third time, flames are expelling her from her own house at midnight. Accustomed to the fire, which persists in destroying her house, the town lets it burn without throwing even a gourdful of water on it. "Put it out! My house and my trunk are burning! I swear that I have made no pacts with the Devil/' The fire is consuming the windows and doors where she has fastened the images of Saint Emidius, blessed by Padre Berrocal. The neighbors play deaf, rejoicing at seeing her house turned to ashes all the way down to its foundation. "This is what you get for being a witch!" Remigio shouts to her. The glow of the flames accentuates her tears. "Dominguito, protect me! Free me from the clutches of Satan!" She crosses herself, then defiantly penetrates the inferno and rescues her trunk. The joy she feels changes her expression and her tears take on a sweet taste that makes her smile. The crowd surrounds her and, awestruck, hears her exclaim: "Dominguito! I'll make you a crown of flowers!" 18

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Unworried that the fire has left her in the middle of the street without a roof over her head or a place to sleep, on top of her trunk she cuts out the tissue paper petals and weaves them into a crown more beautiful than any seen before in the town. With all this, Andrea feels ecstatic at the thought of crowning her brother. She powders and combs him as if he were a woman. Then, smiling, she adjusts the crown to his head. He gazes fixedly at himself in the mirror, which they place before him, and no one really knows whether he is enjoying or protesting those nonsensical whims of his old maid sister. His mother and Balaude straighten the pleats in his shirt and place a bunch of lighted candles nearby so that he can see his crown of paper flowers even better. "None of the saints in heaven could protect you better from fire/' Jeremias said to Blasina, whose jubilant grin revealed her only remaining tooth. Those who stand around her feel envy and pay no attention to the sacristan's blasphemy. xiduviges' belly is swelling so much that it's causing people to speculate on twins. She struts down the street, raising dust with her noisy sandals. Her wide hips already stretch and shorten her skirts. She does not fear the looks nor the comments that embarrassed her so much before. She stops at every door to comment on her miraculous pregnancy. At the edge of the swamp where the women are washing clothes, she reveals with pride: "Domingo has given me a male child who's kicking my belly with the force of a donkey." Jose Dolores Negrete sends for her by Jesusita, the town water carrier. As she stands before Eduviges, the girl twists uneasily and avoids her gaze. Finally she says to her: "Old man Negrete wants to talk with you." The blush on Jesusita's brown cheeks surprises Eduviges. "What does he want from me? I wonder if it's just an excuse to get to pinch my butt?" The water girl, blossoming into the fullness of her puberty, feels as if her young breasts would like to burst the confines of her brassiere. With her toes she stirs about in the mud along the bank and responds fastidiously: "Don't be such a talker! He wants to see you in order to convince himself that Domingo has really performed the miracle of your pregnancy." The water jar balanced on Jesusita's head causes her entire body to quiver and Eduviges says to her slyly: "Be careful around that old man!" The water jar momentarily loses its balance and is about to fall. The water girl goes on her way with the transparency of her wet dress show19

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ing the outline of her dark brown hips. Eduviges follows her with her gaze until she sees her enter the rich man's patio, "If the old boy were ten years younger he'd knock her up/' she thinks. A smile punctuates her conclusion. It annoys her to think that anyone in town might doubt that she is pregnant. Tugged along by her pride, that very same day she presents herself to the landowner. "Here I am, Don Jose Dolores. Jesusita said that you wanted to see me with this belly." The old man stares at her abdomen, unable to believe what he sees. "And there are two of them!" he exclaims loudly. "And they had told me that your womb was barren." "That was the honest truth! Nothing did me any good, neither herbs nor doctors. But Domingo performed a miracle for me." The old man is unable to move by himself, and he asks Eduviges to see whether anyone is listening to them from the adjoining rooms. "We are alone," she informs him, while keeping herself at a distance. She is aware of his effrontery and puts herself on guard against his pinches. The rich, old man insists on signaling her to come closer. She obeys him, placing her enlarged abdomen between them as her best defense. "Tell me what you want. . . ." "I want you to lend me your miraculous Virgin." "Why do you want it? You have already sired half-a-hundred children!" "That's my business. Just let me have it for one night." The pregnant woman looks at him roguishly. "All right, I'll lend it to you, although I don't know whether it will endanger my baby." Two nights later Jesusita's parents are discussing the proposition made to them by Jose Dolores Negrete. "He wants us to sell her to him," says her mother, her voice still choked by her race home from the rich man's house. "It would be a very good deal if she gave him a son," her father explains. "Just think, the old fool is one of the wealthiest landowners in this region and he has never married. If our daughter could just give him one more heir!" "He asked Eduviges to lend him the Virgin Dominguito drew for her and thus hopes to have another child at his age." The poor man insinuates with enthusiasm: "So that's the way things are!" Jesusita spends the night in the landowner's bedroom. Two months 20

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later the dome of her belly begins to rise, and Jose Dolores Negrete scandalizes the whole town with the final offspring he attributes to himself. He has four of his older sons carry him bodily to Dominguito's to testify and give thanks. "I am bringing you this bag of money for having given me the strength to impregnate that little gal." xhe bubbling of the water makes the bullrushes wave. He watches closely, resting his harpoon on his shoulder. He senses the presence of the alligator while attentive to the bocachicofishthat are entering the swamp. The prow of his canoe describes a wide circle and slips cautiously through the undergrowth. He discovers that he has made a mistake, the persistent bubbling is different from the noises produced by an alligator. Farther on he is able to distinguish that an impetuous torrent is penetrating the waters of the swamp. If it is not diverted, the river will totally inundate the already flooded fields and towns along the shores of the swamp. He gathers in his net and hurries to get back to the town. The canoe, propelled by the current itself, slips briskly along with each thrust of his pole. It is unusual for Abel to move so quickly. His habit of drifting quietly while lying in wait for fish, makes him slow and deliberate. Now his muscles come alive and the prow of his canoe is a horn goring the water. From afar he sounds the alarm with his shouts: 'The river has opened up a new channel!" "Where?" "Where?" He gestures toward the distant horizon with the end of his pole. "Down Black Water Creek!" Shouts and running animate the patios. People are carrying stones and sandbags to their canoes. The sudden eruption of the waters does not come without forewarning. Ever since winter began with its violent downpours they had a presentiment of the river's assault. Two nights earlier there were lightning flashes in the direction of the headwaters, and the current brought uprooted trees, carcasses of animals, and schools of bocachicofish,which were arriving to spawn in the swamps. Nevertheless, as always, they had thought that the river would forget about them. Jose Dolores Negrete even predicted, jokingly: "These are just the whims and fussiness of the Sinu River. With the lumber they are taking off the mountains at its headwaters, the rains will diminish and it won't even be able to fill the creek." 21

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They believed him. And that gullibility alleviated their fear of seeing their rice paddies in the bogs and their corn fields on the higher ground destroyed. "It's a big opening. If we don't close it off tonight, tomorrow it will inundate the whole place up to the cross on the belfry." Abel talks and directs the canoes, overflowing with men. Remigio and Anselmo, with their machetes at their sides, take the lead. Their canoe is small, but they have overloaded it because it is the widest and deepest one. They make an effort to paddle courageously in order to maintain their advantage over the nearest group. Jose Dolores Negrete's sons, interested in saving their father's extensive ricefields,wildly thrust their poles and paddles into the whirlpool left behind by the lead canoes. The light weight of their craft favors them in this race against time, but even more helpful are their eight arms, which row tirelessly. The roar of the water, heard at a distance, terrifies them all. Aquatic plants, driven off course from the main channel of the river, obstruct the movement of the canoes. The Negrete boys get there first and exclaim in surprised tones: "Holy Mother of God, it's over eight fathoms!" They rip off their clothes and plunge into the water. Their bodies, black, white, and copper, show that their father was without prejudice when it came to the color of his women. The later arrivals push into the thick growth along the banks and cut branches the right size for stakes. Braving the current they dive deeply and drive them into the mud on the bottom. Their collective strength manages to anchor them, and woven mats of reeds and bullrushes support the underwater palisade. They dive with much puffing and blowing, like feverish beasts, in order to build up the dam with stones and sandbags, and after lashing at them all day, the impetuous current begins to change course. "We've got it under control!" Their exhaustion causes them to feel the cramps in their limbs. One by one they get into their boats and then they discover their bleeding lacerations. "I've got leeches stuck all over me," Anselmo exclaims, pulling off the animals, each clinging to a small injury. "Let them suck out the blood your dead rival has poisoned for you." Their loud laughter impedes any response and his silence is a tacit acceptance of their advice. He allows the leeches to suck gluttonously until they fall off bloated with their feast, and when he squashes them with his foot in the bottom of the canoe, the sight of his own blood nauseates him. 22

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"Tonight old Jose Dolores will have to give us enough booze for a good drunk for all of us/' The rich man's sons anticipate their father's gratitude and shout: "For sure there'll be plenty of rum for everybody!" They know that the river is treacherous and two of the Negrete boys stay with Anselmo to watch the closed channel. When night falls the mosquitoes, hungrier than the leeches, suck the blood from their halfnaked backs. The rum does not totally warm their bodies, numbed by the cold of the swamp. Those who return notice from afar many lights along the boat landing. They think that the town is already celebrating their triumph over the river. They hurry to arrive, but soon the shouts from shore destroy their enthusiasm: "Hurry! The current has come in from behind us!" The river had not flooded the towns along the shore from the high side for many years. "The water is coming down the side of the mountain!" The growing waters are surrounding the cemetery, the highest spot in Chima, and they are rapidly covering the last visible stretches of street. The people hastily construct platforms and frames inside their houses. Tables, chairs, and other wooden objects are already afloat. "Saint Emidius, protect us!" The entry way to the church has disappeared. The people are scrambling on top of the roofs and rafters of their houses. The Vidals calmly remain in their house. They are convinced that the water will not dare to inundate Domingo's sacred home. This is a general conviction among all the people. Canoes filled with women and children come there. They make light with candles, torches, and burning lamps. They pray the Ave Maria and Balaude's powerful voice rises above them all: "Holy Virgin, we'll all die here with Dominguito!" The water level is rising above the window sill. On the inside tables and chairs are swimming around. The invalid's wooden bed is floating like an unsinkable boat. Rafaela sobs as she clutches the edge of it. "Oh my wonderful son! This will be the end of us all!" Embracing her brother's wooden pillow, Andrea is neither crying nor praying, she is waiting patiently for the river to convert their house into a common grave for all of them. "Dominguito, don't let us go under!" The sacristan, canoe paddle in hand, opens a path among those who are praying like a bunch of idiots. Forgetting his mild manner, he strips off his clothes and shouts at them angrily: "Stop praying and let's get those who are drowning out of there!" 23

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The group of fanatical worshipers is awestruck by his lack of faith. His undershorts, which come down just below his knees, certainly do take away his pious air. The door of the Vidals' house is fast becoming a narrow slit through which the current is rushing. Jeremias and Remigio dive and enter the house. "We're going to die here with Domingo/' Balaude not only resists being saved herself but makes an effort to impede their attempts to get Domingo out too. "Saint Emidius, don't let these demons take my brother!" "But can't you see that I'm Jeremias?" Remigio has not yet managed to get Andrea under control, he takes her under the surface and shoves her toward the door opening. When they see her appear, coughing and blowing water through her nose, the people at prayer wake up and rush to save her. Some of the men decide to enter the house and help take out Balaude, who is biting and kicking violently: "You devils! Dominguito, help me!" With the mother and her daughters out of danger, everyone becomes concerned for those who remain trapped inside. The water swirls, they stretch out their hands anxiously and suddenly Domingo's head, still reclining on his bed, emerges from the water, his hair wet, his eyes shining, and his smile accentuated. Jeremias appears right behind him shouting: "Domingo is saved from the waters like Moses!" "Praise the Lord!" They all forget about their inundated houses and fields. Domingo's providential rescue is a collective miracle. The overflowing swamp settles its waters and the current subsides. They take Domingo in a canoe up and down the flooded streets and his powerful presence calms the swollen waters. x adre Berrocal is frightened when he hears the agitated voices that reach him from Chima, from Momil, from Purisima, El Carito, Mata de Cana, La Bonga, Cotorra, Palo de Agua, Cocota. The whole parish is shaken by Domingo's miracles. People are saying things to him like: "Our Saint took the sting out of winter." The priest, patient, without suspecting the seriousness of the situation, corrects them: "Don't blaspheme. Domingo is not a saint." They look at him with surprise. Obviously, the priest does not understand. He is forgetful. As if it had not been he who rescued him from the flames. They excuse his ignorance because he has not witnessed the other miracles. They talk to him about Anicharico's twin daughters;

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about Eduviges' baby; about the rejuvenation of Jose Dolores Negrete; about Camilo's awakening; about Blasina's purification and release from the Devil and about so many other wonders that attest to his saintliness. "Don't be foolhardy, my children. Don't confuse divinity with idolatry. They have told me that Jeremias has been preaching to you day and night. "Yes, Padre. These miracles have taken place before his very eyes and he has had to kneel with reverence just the same as the rest of us." Eduviges shows him her drawing. It is the product of the hands of the Saint himself. "This is a piece of rubbish. Who says that an image of Jesus' mother is here in this drawing?" "Are you blind? Why even the little children distinguish the unmistakable features of the Virgin in that blessed picture." "Dear Padre, without it I would not have this child in my belly." The priest stares at the drawing, he turns it toward the light. Finally he tears it up with annoyance and throws the pieces away. "Oh, Padre!" They make the sign of the cross and kneel down, overcome with fear. For them the priest is committing apostasy. Eduviges tries to gather up the fragments of paper to reconstruct her picture, but she does not manage to get them all back. The people start to bicker over them and hide them. "The Devil has taken control of you!" He is beginning to realize the gravity of their absurd beliefs. He raises hisfists,lashes them with his accusing gaze, and angrily orders them out of his sight, which is the same as closing the door of the church in their faces. Confused, the people gather in the plaza where groups of pilgrims from other towns continue to arrive and to demand a mass to consecrate Domingo Vidal's sanctity. Astonishment and confusion are growing by the minute. They do not rebel, their religious training will not allow them to be incited against their minister. They are both incapable of reflecting on their own fanaticism and unable to analyze or comprehend the priest's condemnation of their conduct. They continue there, looking at each other in astonishment, unable to believe that the doors of the Church of Santa Cruz de Lorica have been closed to them. That's where their baptismal certificates are kept, their own, their grandparents', and their children's; there they have all been married with God's blessing and there lie the remains of their departed loved ones. Some of them return crestfallen to their towns in the same canoes that came down river and through the swamps packed 25

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with believers in search of the priest. Some others decide to discuss it with him again and they ask old Jose Dolores to be their spokesman. The people help him walk up to the door and wait for the outcome of his mediations. "It's unbelievable that you, Don Jose Dolores, always such a devout Catholic, would allow yourself to be dragged down by these satanic deceptions." The old man listens reverently. His white hair glistens in the light from the candles placed around a large crucifix. His sons, their hats in their hands, listen respectfully at a distance. The old man replies weakly because the words no longer flow from his lips with their old energy: "I am not saying that he is a saint. Only you can know that, but there is not the least doubt, Padre, that marvelous things have been happening in Chima ever since you saved Domingo from the flames of that burning house/' "That's all foolishness, Don Jose Dolores. The very same things that always happen, seen through the eye of an idolater. Don't come to me with tales of wonders and miracles performed at the will of that poor cripple, whom I have seen neglected and forgotten in his bed since he was a child." "If these things are not the acts of a saint, they are probably, as you say, machinations of the Devil. So, whether they are devine or diabolical, you should go there to determine the truth on the spot. That way people cannot say afterwards that you were afraid to face the Devil." "All right, I will go to Chima and I will destroy the temple that has been raised to heresy. Tell that bunch of fools that I am not returning to enthrone Domingo on their altar, as they hope, but to clip the hoofs of the Devil who is trying to take them all to hell." The old man gestures to his sons to help him kneel down before the priest. "Give me your blessing, Padre, just in case it's like you say it is." "Don't doubt it for a minute. This business of buying the favors of young girls at your age is the work of the Devil." xadre Berrocal was born in Santa Cruz de Lorica. In his infancy he learns the superstitions of his people. He fears, as do all the little children, that witches drain the blood of newborn babes by sucking on their umbilical cords; he trembles at night when he hears the goblins shuffling around in their shoes and slippers; he knows the stories about the evil spirits that attack people lost in the forest; he 26

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knows about the headless horse which gallops up and down the streets at midnight; with a group of children he watches, in the moonlight, for the appearance of the black hen with golden chicks who clucks in the plaza in front of the church. Someone assures him that he caught one of those chicks and that as soon as day began to break it disappeared from between his hands. His studies at the Theological Seminary of Cartagena are a courageous struggle to get rid of these superstitions, which poison his religious faith. His unrelenting struggle against the Devil distinguishes him among the seminary students. He stays up late because of his prayers and his studies. He sleeps little; he disciplines himself secretly; he rereads the Scriptures and commends his soul to God so that he might be freed from his inherited beliefs. His excessive study makes him grow thin and pale. His superiors become concerned for his health and advise moderation. He prefers staying in his monk's cell with his prayer book to going out with the group for their Sunday afternoon stroll along the seashore. He does not get up at midnight to look over the balcony and watch the sinful carnival dances during the November festivals, as all the other novices do. If he is blamed for perpetrating pranks committed by others, his superiors are unable to obtain any defense from him that might condemn the responsible parties, for he prefers to commend their punishment to God as a penitence and one more example of his great love. No one equals him at preaching in his home territory against the tricks of the Devil. As an assistant priest, he travels from town to town. He crosses the dusty beaches; he goes under in the overflowing backwater of the swamps; he rides jumpy, unreliable mules on rainy nights, and he prefers to carry on his own back the luggage that other priests customarily deposit over the bare shoulders of some sacristan. Later, as parish priest of the diocese, he undertakes the construction of the Church of Santa Cruz de Lorica. When he puts the final touches on its tall steeple, boldly challenging the Devil's evil designs, he isfilledwith pride and humility. He occupies a monk's tiny cell where he continues his old life as a hermit, with the sole companionship of his religious books and a large supply of missals, scapulars, prints, and medals, all implements meant to overcome the stray devils that terrify his parishioners. He is not unaware of the fact that Satan is shuffling his cards beneath the good, Catholic sentiment of his little flock. It would have been much easier to face a simple charlatan's false interpretations of God's holy word than to confront this poor cripple whom he himself has protected. Others are speaking for him, others are exalting him and trying to canonize him. Domingo has not generated a single miraculous act; his will has never 27

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been revealed; they know very well that he is paralyzed there in his bed, incapable of uttering a word that might pretend to confirm his sanctity. I h e river retrieves its swollen waters. The algae growing in the swamps form large floes of plant debris, which float downstream looking for their final resting place in the sea; the picingo birds and cormorants are migrating to other continents. The houses emerge from the flood waters with their poles covered with caked mud, and their owners again touch the floors of their dwellings, the streets of their town and the roads of their neighborhood, all submerged until then. The sun drys out the bogs and the accumulated slime rises in gigantic dust clouds, stirred by the wind. High in the sky the buzzards trace their circular patterns as they invoke the return of the waters. Then the people remember the wooden images of the saints. The miraculous image of Saint Isidore, whom Remigio venerates in his home and who has predicted the arrival of winter many times. Jeremias, with one ear open to superstition, and the other to Catholicism, proposes: "Let's parade Domingo this year/' So, as the priest calls for public prayers in times of great droughts, they too promote a similar service with Domingo as the focal point. They know that he has God's favor and they believe that his intervention will bring divine help. They wait until the sun rises to its highest point and the streets reverberate with its blinding glare, they carry him out on their shoulders and light candles, which are paled by the sunlight's intensity. They bow their heads, without hats, and walk over their own shadows. The streets, the plaza, and the patios overflow with people. In front of the church, the sacristan kneels down and opens his arms in the form of a cross. Domingo pants, swallows his saliva, and sweats. "Let's stand him on his head like Saint Isidore," they all shout. His mother tries to oppose this, but her son, avid for penitence, mutters: "Let God's will be done!" They place his head against the burning ground. In the same manner they place the wooden images of Saint Isidore. But Dominguito is not made of wood, nor of stone. Beneath his dry flesh, in the hardened arteries of his body, blood flows to his head, puffs out his eyeballs, and throbs in his ears. From that position the sky is an immense swamp that is going to empty its waters upon the parched land. The people are floating in the air. Their heads, their litanies, their supplicant hands gesture topsy-turvily before his pupils. He is no longer present. He is whirling

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through the fever of his vertigo. He loses all contact with the people around him. A buzzing choir of angels pounds his eardrums. Celestial music. He articulates three words, the anxiously awaited ones: "The Holy Virgin!" All of them scrutinize the heavens. The sun blinds and bewilders. They repeat deliriously: "He's seen the Virgin!" Jeremias rushes to bring the barbarian rite to an end. They raise up Domingo and touch his boney feet. "Take our Saint into the church!" The astute sacristan dares not go so far and he diverts the wild crowd: "Let's take him home. The Virgin will hear his petition!" The twilight is brightened sporadically by flashes of lightning. The people are quiet. They watch the sky intently from their hallways, their kitchens, and their patios. The night, generously dusted with stars, contradicts their hopes. They turn to their hammocks; they open their cots; their beds creak; and when everyone is sleeping soundly, the rain begins to penetrate the palm-thatch roofs. Are they dreaming? The cold, fragrant, abundant water refreshes the atmosphere, nurtures the ground. Abel runs in the rain shouting wildly: "It's raining! Dominguito the miracle worker!" How pleasant to be beneath this providential downpour. Lights are on in the Vidal house. His mother opens the doors, and the people enter noisily. His sisters have dressed him in white like the beloved angels of heaven. Andrea, entranced, places two candles near his thick, black hair. Those who enter cross themselves, then kneel down. Jeremias joyfully drones out a requiem. "The first catch of fish will be for you, Saint Domingo!" Abel promises. He has had more than enough time to mend his net during the long summer. Domingo does not respond. He also is praying his thanks. Tears fill his eyes. Remigio, who loses himself in the mountains for months on end looking for trees and carving them, who knows how to emphasize his silence by closing his lips tightly, cannot now keep his tongue still: "Let's make a procession through the rain with our Saint!" Domingo's presence added to the smell of the water infiltrating every pore transports him to a state of rapture: "Let's start the procession!" Rafaela places her maternal love before the exegencies of superstition: "No, not that! You're going to kill him!" Her allusion to death causes astonishment. The people are unable to

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conceive of the idea that Domingo, sanctified in their minds, could perish. They indignantly reject her supplication: "She's out of her head! She's crazy!" She has stopped being his mother. Dominguito belongs to the people, he is at the mercy of their will. Abel takes him by the shoulders, keeping the others from the preeminence of that honored position. Andrea and his mother protest: "At this time of the morning under the first rain, which produces fevers, he'll catch his death of cold." His older sister intercedes in favor of the idolaters and helps raise him up. The rain intensifies, it increases the torrents that are rushing down the streets. The swelling waters of the river are already roaring in its main channel. Water and earth come together in a mass of mud; the mud-colored current passes among the houses, dragging away birds' nests, pots, pans, and roasting grills. Beaten by the wind and the torrential rain, they splash through the muck with their high-sounding prayers. Domingo, rigid within the eternal bonds of his own paralyzed joints, sways precariously above their heads. The bells are ringing. Jeremias, like all the rest, is living in a fever that enervates and compels him to a mystical madness. As the procession passes in front of her house, Eduviges is overcome with unexpected shocks of pain. The baby is kicking her abdomen violently, making a determined movement toward freedom. Its cries form a sharp note in contrast to the mass prayer of the marchers. "We'll call him Domingo," exclaims the alleviated mother. Anselmo kisses his son and runs to add his shoulder as one more support for the petrified youth. Domingo's clothes are wringing wet. Now his Indian features stand out clearly. His arched nose and thinly beveled lips are turning blue with the cold. His unruly hair, combed so frequently by Andrea and Balaude, sticks together in dripping clumps. His contracted mouth shows his teeth and tongue, turned yellowish by his foul-smelling breath. His skin persists in its dry appearance in spite of the rain; in reality he has no muscles, his parchment-like skin simply sinks into the depressions of his bones. Following him, while receiving assistance and prodding, Rafaela sees herself as undergoing the suffering of Mary behind her crucified son. Balaude's hysterical cries are the exhalation of a sex drive that has not died. Andrea follows, absorbed and introspective, lost in her silent prayers. After two hours of exhaustive trudging, deepening and retracing many times their own steps along the same streets, when they perceive the gray light of approaching dawn, the people, hoarse from the chants 30

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of their perpetual litany, return to the Vidal house. Balaude dries him and rubs him down with mentholated alcohol. Fever is shaking his body, which has never before even shivered with the high temperatures of malaria. His mother boils balsam herbs while Andrea, her hands resting on her brother's forehead, invokes the sure resources of prayer: "God Almighty, have mercy on him one more time!"

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II

C/ur Saint is dying!" He's like a burning log. It is rumored that he shines in the dark with the fire of his intense fever. Neither poultices, potions, rubdowns, nor prayers manage to alleviate the problem. His chest wheezes with his congested bronchial tubes. They turn him face down and slap his back uselessly. Calabash syrup, alligator butter, and other concoctions do him no good. The medicine men refuse to treat him because Saint Emidius protects him and their diabolical arts would have no effect. The Saint's miracles have reduced the income of these witchdoctors. The sick people trust more in the candles they light at his feet than in their magical potions. The local witches and sorcerers secretly long for his burial. They spread their own theories: "Domingo has been dead for a long time. God has turned him into stone." An obvious confirmation of this state is his immobility and his silence since the fever began. Many want to see his excrement as proof that he is alive. It's not enough for them that he swallows his food, blinks, snores, and coughs. They feel sure that everything about him is indicative of apparent life and impending death. The most fervent advocate of his existence is Jeremias. He fears that the priest may negate his sanctity when he is buried, then his sales of holy water for purifying the candles they light to him would disappear. He is not so much of an unbeliever as his sacrilegious business venture might indicate and, convinced of its importance, he invites the whole town to pray for the sick man. He disrespectfully removes the statue of Saint Emidius from the altar in order to place it at the side of the dying man. There are more than enough volunteers for this impious task. They enter the Vidal house with the statue. The women weep and kneel be32

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fore the coming together of these two saints, one pleading with his reddened eyes, the other compassionate with his glass pupils. The presence of Saint Emidius causes the invalid's chest to convulse and he spits up blood. It's a miracle! The saint is alive, he's not stone, he's still with them and he can hear their prayers. His chills return and Domingo's eyes roll back in his head. His mother's sobs grow louder in unison with the moans of the mourning women who fill the house, the yard, and the surrounding streets. "Our Saint is dying!" "Let's all take our images to him," shouts Jose Dolores and he sends his sons for Saint Lucia, the wooden statue that has given sight to his eyes for one hundred five years. She has a reputation for miracles. Her features bear the roughness of the hands of the basin carver who one day decided to fashion saints. Blind people recover their sight when they touch her garments of purple organdy. She clears the eyes of children and sharpens the sight of hunters. Jose Dolores feels certain that she will remove the blood clots from Domingo's eyes. The statue of Saint Isidore, the one discovered by Remigio in the olive tree in the middle of the forest, is also present. x adre Berrocal decides to go to Chima in person. He refuses to believe the sacrilegious conduct of the sacristan, but a bit distrustful, he has himself escorted by Aristobulo, a policeman with a twist in his neck, requested from the mayor in order to enforce respect among the irreverent. He also takes with him Cicano, the oldest sacristan in the parish, to whose loyalty he wishes to entrust the care of the little church of Saint Emidius of Chima. They want to leave the city without calling attention to themselves; they don't want word of their trip to precede them and warn the idolaters. But it's Sunday, market day, and they must cross the plaza. The inhabitants of the banks of the Sinu are there with their canoes all along the dock area of the port. The priest and his companions walk among piles of kettles and pots of clay, displaying the reddish-garnet hue of the kiln; straw mats, hammocks, and brightly colored shoulder bags are in abundance. As the priest passes, the country people remove their hats and some women kneel while asking for his blessing. Fathers urge their children to kiss his hand and to ask him for pictures of the saints. For the first time in his career Padre Berrocal acts unsociable and rushes ahead to embark and get underway. The waters of the swamps, peacefully motionless within the confines 33

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of their natural pools, free themselves of the upturned slime of the floods and take on the color of the great deposits of algae. The sun warms the surface. The priest, overcome by the heat, takes off his straw hat to splash his head with handfuls of water. Aristobulo watches him. He doesn't quite understand how his uniform will serve to keep the irreverent parishioners under control. Cicano does not take his eyes off the boatman and synchronizes his paddle with the movements of the pole, keeping the boat from yawing and describing a sinuous path that would make the crossing of the swamp interminable. No one is waiting for them. The town is a static photograph petrified by the sun. Not a leaf on the trees is moving, and there is not even a dog to be seen in the solitary plaza. The only thing heard is the murmur of the prayers coming from behind the houses. The priest does not stop for an instant at the church, he crosses the length of the plaza and enters the alley that leads to the Vidal house. Behind him the policeman makes an effort to straighten up his twisted neck. The idolatrous gathering is reaching its high point of intensity: the smoke spread by Jeremias with the censer, the chant of the litanies, the sobbing of the mourners, and the thing that most angers the priest— Saint Emidius in the street, accompanied by the saints of crudely carved wood. He bursts among those who are praying with bowed heads and, in his fury, rebukes them severely: "Pagans! Desecrators! Get these satanic images out of here!" A few frightened women run out through the patio, but the majority of the people remain there as if paralyzed. Jeremias attempts to speak to the priest with the meek voice of a punished altar boy: "Your Reverence, Saint Domingo is dying and we are praying for his soul/' "Saint Domingo! How dare you blaspheme in my presence!" the priest responds. "Aristobulo, arrest this heretic!" The officer obeys and grabs him by the shirt. Jeremias does not resist; he kneels down and with his arms open implores: "Oh, merciful Saint Emidius! Take the blindfold from Padre Berrocal's eyes for he is blind and cannot see the sanctity of Domingo Vidal." The fanatical crowd joins his supplications: "Saint Emidius, help him to see!" The policeman bodily drags away the sacristan, who beats his chest and wildly rolls his eyes. "Bury me in hell if I am a sinner! I have faith in Saint Domingo! I believe in God the Father who has sanctified him." Jeremias' words confuse the onlookers. Some fall to their knees and fervidly repeat them; others accompany him, sharing his sin. The women

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encircle the invalid, they embrace him, they cross themselves, they implore God. In the midst of this hubbub the priest listens intently to the cripple's heart, he feels his pulse and observes his gaze, which does not see, his pupils transfixed at the rear of their sockets. "He's dead, and who knows for how long!" The shouting resounds and echoes. "He's gone to heaven! Saint Domingo has gone to heaven!" The people throw themselves upon the corpse, they kiss his hands and sob. The priest is incapable of controlling the uproar. "You've all gone mad! Get back, you impious fools! Listen to reason! May God take pity on the lot of you!" Balaude falls into a convulsive trance, tearing her clothes; Eduviges senses a halt in the flow of milk from her breasts and she raises her child in the air with heart-rending cries; Rafaela pulls out her hair and her voice is one long howl amid this battle of wails and complaints. "Our Saint has died!" Only one person holds herself apart from the noise: Andrea who is praying at the feet of the dead man. x/omingo Vidal, dead, begins to live jubilantly. Alive, he had horrible human weaknesses. Now, his body exudes aromas; he inspires faith; he exemplifies resignation, humility, sweet submission to suffering and to God. Saintliness alone empowered him to live patiently for thirty-three years. The people cannot understand how it is possible to deny him burial within the church. They beg God to enlighten the priest. They congregate in the plaza in spite of being condemned as idolaters. Jeremias incites them from his prison. The gossips keep him up on all the happenings. His instructions, encouraging sufficient boldness to establish a tomb at the foot of the altar, are communicated softly: "Let's keep his body exposed to the sun and rain in a white coffin." What a marvel: the Saint's body is resisting putrefaction and decay. It's presence alone will work the miracle of enlightening the priest's extinguished conscience. The second night he surprises them there in the middle of their litanies. The wooden saints are also part of the vigil; the rain has washed away the coloring from their carved faces and faded their organdy costumes. At midnight the priest opens the doors and this act is interpreted as a victory. The murmur of the prayers grows in intensity. But, suddenly, the doors are closed, the bells ring and the priest gets ready to preach: "My impious brothers and sisters! May God save you 35

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from falling into mortal sin. In your ignorance you are confusing the divine separation, which exists between the soul, immortal light from God's essence, and the body, which shelters it during its brief journey through life. You foolishly imagine that soul and body are the same thing, and even worse: that a man, because he has a shrunken body like those wooden dolls you also call saints, can really be blessed with the gifts of sainthood. With your adoration of these false idols, you are falling into mortal sin. Reflect conscientiously on your heresy; it is inexcusable in those who, like yourselves, have received the baptismal waters/' They make the sign of the cross and respond superstitiously, "Amen." The priest, with his holy vestments, followed by the new sacristan, tries to get the funeral procession underway toward the cemetery, but their knees push furiously against the ground and their gazes converge as they turn toward the closed doors of the church. Anicharico gets up, he hesitates, his Roman ancester advises submission. A thousand eyes are watching him, hundreds of lips are ready to shout at him: apostate, Judas, traitor. He senses their unspoken words and terrified he runs toward the church, opening his arms in a cross against the doors. Padre Berrocal threatens him angrily: "Do you want to make yourself worthy of excommunication, you stubborn heretic!" They all cross themselves. They know that they are believers, Catholic and Roman. They do not intend to rebel against their priest. They beg for understanding for Domingo who has given proof of being an obedient servant. They no longer discuss his sanctity, they only desire that that body, which refuses to rot, that in life gave proof of so much devotion, be interred under the protection of Saint Emidius and the rest of the saints of the Church. The priest decides to finish with the embarrassing situation. He orders the sacristan and the police officer, the only ones who still obey, to help him conduct the body to the cemetery. Balaude clutches the coffin and, when she is violently pulled away by the police officer, she retains a piece of wood between her contracted fingers. Her sister walks on her knees behind the casket; she drags her clothes through the mud, she falls and rights herself again. His mother takes refuge in a fainting spell and remains where she falls without anyone's attempting to help her, as rigid as her son, her jaws locked and her mouth foaming. 1 he two pallbearers would have preferred burying Domingo on a night with a full moon, even though the dead might appear to them with the menace of their claw-like fingers. In the lead, 36

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the priest is lighting the way with a lantern, avoiding the puddles formed by the overflow from the swamp. The white coffin weighs little. Aristobulo and Cicano transport it easily on their shoulders; they have the impression of carrying a child. Domingo's uncovered face, washed and powdered, smiles contentedly. The grimace that twisted his lips and exposed his yellow teeth has disappeared. It's a mysterious thing, death seems to have freed him from his paralysis. The pallbearers have heard that his joints, relaxed now, allow movement in his limbs, but they dare not verify it. They are carrying him high above their heads, uncovered, fearful that he may sit up at any time. If he is really dead, why isn't the corpse rotting? They are terrified by their own thoughts and manage to control themselves only because of the proximity of the priest with his crucifix and his prayers. Superstition and religion are two contradictory worlds that complement each other. The men are alert to the sounds behind the trees; they shiver when the corpse bumps within the casket; they tremble with every cry of the screech owls. With every step they cross themselves and try to move closer to the priest, seeking protection in his shadow, in his prayers, in the shield of his holy crucifix. In the distance, the cemetery floats in the darkness. They can make it out because of the white tombs brightened by the glow from the fireflies. At that time of night ghosts leave their niches to retrace the steps of their lives. The sacristan and the policeman have known this since childhood. Nor are they unaware of the fact that the priest is the negation of all of these superstitions, but his presence does not free them from their past. While at the foot of those tombs their infantile fears become enormous. They are burying at midnight, under a heavily clouded sky, a dead man whom they suspect is still alive. The priest chides them into action: "What are you doing there to keep you from shoveling?" The damp earth makes a slapping noise with each stroke of the shovel or the pick and its echoes reverberate through all the tombs. They lament having not brought a bottle of rum. The priest, on his knees, prays before the casket. He is absorbed in his prayers, imploring on behalf of the dead man the divine grace that the idolaters may have obstructed. Cicano must shake him to get his attention; the grave is waiting and is filling up with water. The earth seems to reject that particular corpse. Aristobulo gives the excuse of not wishing to throw dirt in his face. In reality he is trembling because of the dead man's fixed gaze, which seems to beg for burial in the church. The priest must scold him again. "Hurry up, bury him!" 37

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The policeman shows himself to be the braver and drops down into the hole. There within, his words take on a sinister resonance. He becomes silent. He gestures for them to lower the coffin; when he touches it he is seized by a terrible chill and sweats profusely as if they had poured water on him. Cicano is contaminated with the chills and, without enough strength to raise his shovel, prefers to push the mud into the opening with his feet. One of his sandals falls into the grave and he does not find the courage to rescue it. All the dead are responding in a chorus of anguished cries to the blows that tamp down the earth. By the time they leave the cemetery they have grown thin and weak. They arrived there as men and they are leaving as zombies. They will become much more ill when in the town plaza they get a good look at the conflagration of candles begging God to punish the irreverent gravediggers. Disconcerted, the Chimaleros are milling around irresolutely. They need someone who will give direction to their feelings of desperation, now that they have become orphans of their Saint. Anicharico thinks of the sacristan: "Let's consult Jeremias." The most excited individuals, Abel and Anselmo, rush to the house where they are holding him prisoner. "Break down the doors/' orders Jeremias; he intuitively realizes that the kingdom of God is opening up for him. He consciously distorts the facts and presents them in his own way: "I give thanks to our Saint! He is restoring my liberty through your hands!" He steps out of the house, falls to his knees, and requests that his credulous rescuers do the same. In a low voice he comes out with some of his odd words that not even Anicharico can understand. It's an archaic Latin, distorted by the sanctimonious, would-be priest, but sufficiently effective to create confusion and to sprinkle upon himself the odor of incense. He gets up and his first intelligible phrase is an order: "We must put to rights what has been done to our saint." The people applaud his words and try to raise him onto their shoulders. He resists their attempts. It is still much too early for being carried on a litter like Domingo Vidal. "Let me simply step upon the earth where the Miracle Maker was born and where they have buried him!" His humility dazzles the people. Jeremias is a sincere believer, humble and submissive. He is already moving along the dark, narrow streets surrounded by the crowd. The priest is sleeping and so are the gravediggers. It is the moment to gesticulate, to take up the cause of the discontented, to follow the course of fanaticism. They march toward the cemetery with lanterns and candles. As he hears the excited voices echoing his 38

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prayers, he meditates on this fortunate opportunity that is concentrating in him the powers of Domingo. Now that he is dead, if the priest disavows the sanctity proclaimed by so many miracles, no one will dispute his having been selected by the saint himself to unleash the battle for his canonization: "I will mobilize all the people in the Sinu region. I will preach in the houses, along the roads, in the swamps, and, if necessary, even in the pulpit. I will furnish the Pope with all the evidence of the sanctity of Domingo Vidal. I will prove to the council of cardinals and bishops that here, in Chima, a saint has been born!" He surprises himself with the abundance of inspired words which flow from his lips. Those who listen feel the contagion and they congratulate one another on having found their messiah. *3ince early morning the bells are calling out uselessly. The doors of the church remain open. The plaza is empty, the rain has not erased the prints of the feet that trampled it for two days and two nights. Candle stubs and drippings can be plainly seen in the doorway with their wicks still smoking. Some dogs, early risers, cross in silence. A donkey switches his tail, left idle by his master. Aristobulo announces to the priest that Jeremias is not in the jail. The broken doors denounce the violence used to free him. The police officer continues his investigation and observes that the tracks lead toward the cemetery. He quickly retraces the path that in the night he found sown with every imaginable terror and from afar sees the gathering of peasants on their knees around the grave of Domingo Vidal. He draws back in retreat. Those peasants, incapable of raising their fists against their priest, would violently raise them against him. Suddenly, he is overcome by the loneliness of the trail, of the town, of the swamp. He feels the presence of eyes, observing from behind closed doors and cracked windows. A sense of self-accusation begins to grow in his brain. i n the sacristy Cicano receives the same order for the third time: "Ring them again!" The bells drown out the mooing of the cows who are suffering from the pressure of the liquid in their unmilked udders; their echo penetrates every twist and turn of the swamps where the rice fields lie untended; the flocks of herons flap their wings with surprise above the schools of bocachico fish, which no one is pursuing with the usual casting nets. Firebrands gone dead are growing cold beneath the ashes; the clay water 39

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jars, forgotten in their corners, are thirsty. Chima is desolate, tomb of the voluntary death of its inhabitants. In the meantime Padre Berrocal is praying before the image of Saint Emidius; he begs him to dissuade the Chimaleros from their idolatry and return them to the true faith. Aristobulo and Cicano accompany him, assisting in his petitions and prayers. Like him, they have not touched a bite of food. The townspeople avoid them in order not to put themselves in the position of denying it to them. For his part the priest does not wish to surrender in the face of their stupidity, and he gives his orders: "All right, prepare the canoe. We have done our duty, I don't think that they will disinter the dead man. They will come back contrite and ready to beg forgiveness/' "And Jeremias?" Cicano asks timidly. The sacristan on the loose is more dangerous than Domingo Vidal unburied. If while owing respect to his superior he created his mystical aberrations with the statue of Saint Emidius, what would he not be capable of promoting as a fugitive and in open apostasy. His half-Latin phrases are weapons enough to deceive the gullible mentality of the people. Padre Berrocal knows all about the perverse influences of those overpious hypocrites who disguise the most absurd frauds in religious garb. And Jeremias, now encouraged by his demonstrated defense of the sanctity of Domingo, is fully capable of inciting the practice of sacrilegious rites. The sacristan starts to belabor the question: "Satan represents less danger than Jeremias on the loose and out of control. It would be better to take Domingo's body to Lorica so that he won't exploit it." The deformed Aristobulo scratches his head under the priest's insistent gaze. The latter excuses himself in advance from having the heretic arrested. He would need an army in order to confront all the people of the district who are defending him and hiding him. This is how the priest sees the situation and, as he turns his back on the church at Chima, scarcely watched after by the weak efforts of Cicano, he has a presentiment that instead of having laid idolatry to riest, he has broadened its horizons. jL/utifully, Cicano opens the doors of the church every morning; sweeps the dirt floor; dusts the cobwebs from the mud and wattle walls; cleans the altar; and scares away the bats that take shelter in the palm thatch of the roof. The statue of Saint Emidius, the 40

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one worshiped by Domingo, remains solitary. No one comes in to light a candle to him, something that was never lacking. The sacristan possibly felt uncomfortable in the presence of this neglect, but not Saint Emidius. The townspeople call upon him daily and they light many candles to him to glorify him in the house where the Saint lived. Rafaela and her daughters have arranged a small altar in his room. There is Domingo's bed, the wooden pillow; the tiny, wooden hand they used to use to scratch his back; the small trunk containing his neatly pressed clothes, and some of the images that he drew. These are the relics. Candles inundate the floor, the corners, the altar, and the windows. You can find them in the living room, in the hallway, and even in the street. One can barely walk among them. As they light the wicks, the people protect them with their hands so the flame will grow bright. They follow by expressing their wishes: "For you, Saint Emidius, who felt such great pity for him." Maria del Carmen, the woman with poor sight, prefers placing her candles in the doorway of the church. Cicano chides her: "Why don't you come inside and put them by his altar?" She does not answer. She has nothing against the church. She would never have lit a candle in the Vidal's home if Saint Domingo were buried beneath the altar. "You will condemn yourself to the fires of hell if you don't come in. This is God's only house." Maria del Carmen starts to leave and shouts: "The Holy Father and Saint Emidius know of my devotion." The sacristan knows that his presence in the town is repulsive. No one even speaks to him. When they cross his path they lower their heads, cross themselves, or slip quickly away. He grows tired of praying, of talking by himself with the image of Saint Emidius. If he enters a store to buy cheese or tamales, he must insist on his order. They take his money grudgingly, and with even greater misgivings, hand his purchase over to him. They would let him die of hunger if it were not a sin. They understand that he is not really so guilty. Nevertheless, if he and Aristobulo had refused to bury the Saint, surely Padre Berrocal would have come to his senses. His devotion has brought him to a difficult crossroads. Cicano was always a dedicated and responsible assistant. He learned to help with the mass from the time he was small. The Catholic service holds no secrets for him. In a state of extreme poverty—he is the son of peasants without any land of their own—they commend him to the care of a parish priest so that he might be brought up and trained for the life of an acolyte. That was fifty years ago, and since then he has known no other 41

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job than the work of assistant to the priest. The priests in charge of the parish of Santa Cruz de Lorica changed and he continued on in the same place cleaning the same images, sweeping out the same cells, looking after the holy oil and the Viaticum. Sometimes he had to accompany the junior priests in their periodical excursions into the rural areas. He trudged over the roads with a suitcase on his shoulder or he would be driving the uncooperative donkeys, while the priest distributed his blessings. He assisted at the baptisms and weddings of those who were living in concubinage. Always purified by such good works, he felt sure of winning his place in the life of eternal glory. He had been in Chima with Padre Berrocal long before Jeremias took over the care of the Church of Saint Emidius. Back then they used to affectionately call him Cicano instead of Francisco, and people would come to him so that the priest would intercede for their departed loved ones on the busy afternoon of All Soul's Day. And now, here he is crossing himself in bewilderment, not understanding when or how he has gotten himself into this suspicious position among the saints. He avoids examining the possible causes in order not to be obligated to judge the acts of Padre Berrocal, who in thirty years always showed him great trust and deference. He is tormented by finding himself excluded like some reprobate when he thought himself to be among the chosen ones. To take refuge in the church is a sin in the eyes of the rest of the people; to obey the priest, apostasy; to give a decent burial to a Christian is now sacrilege. If he has not sinned, why must he live among people who repudiate his faith? xxer loneliness and melancholy are interminable. With her brother dead, Andrea has stopped projecting herself to the outside. Cleaning his nails, combing his hair, and dressing him were a form of identifying with something outside of herself, of entering into a certain intimate communication. Now, the roads have been reversed, they bring his absence towards the inside. The candles that inundate the house do not fill that loneliness, nor do the prayers, nor do the pilgrims. Two days after the burial she persists in twisting between her fingers the withered flowers she took from his casket. In her state of withdrawal, others dress her in mourning clothes. She is beginning to be an obstacle that people fall over, that they push aside into a corner. Just like her brother, she does not defecate and she must have her jaws forcibly opened in order for her to swallow any food. When on her knees, one can scarcely discern any light in her vacant stare. She appears to be re42

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gressing to a fetal state, becoming mummified like one more wooden statue. Rafaela appears to be equally taciturn, obstinately remembering only the road to the cemetery. Her neighbors wait for her departure in order to accompany her each day in her journey. They want to curry favor with her suffering and they follow her, repeating their prayers. "It's his mother!" they exclaim. They make their children kneel as she passes and urge them to kiss her black dress. She is unaware of this company. She walks alone, in the same old loneliness she came to know as a widow. "Here she comes!" announce those who watch for her at the cemetery gate. They crowd forward to see her, they make way for her and clear the area where she prays, always in the same spot. There is a bountiful supply of candles, wreaths, and little crosses of matarraton wood that every visitor places on the grave. There are so many that they completely cover the wooden cross placed there personally by Padre Berrocal. She has always been so active and such an energetic homemaker that Balaude cannot hold back her enthusiasm with pious resignation. Jeremias takes note of her mental imbalance and agitates her: "We will preach for the sanctity of Domingo throughout all the villages." She jumps at the idea. She wants to leave immediately with only the clothes on her back, without combing her hair or saying good-bye to her family. Jeremias has to calm her down: "We'll begin the pilgrimage when our saint has been buried for one month." It's an excuse to take time to prepare for her the black outfit of a penitent, sandals and a cord wrapped many times around her waist. On her chest, in the form of a great scapulary, he hangs one of the pictures drawn by her brother. He prepares himself, also, for the pilgrimage. He lets his beard and hair grow. Impatient, he examines himself every day in the mirror to confirm their growth. A great forked pole from a guaiacum tree, which he asserts was used to support the Saint during his exposition in front of the church, will serve him as a staff. He abandons his sandals and decides to travel barefoot, like the apostles. His attire is impressive. A large, loose gown, just like Balaude's but white, completes his prophet's vestments. And he has not forgotten the most important thing of all in this affair: Remigio is carving him a replica of the Saint's pillow, it forms a small chest where he carries printed copies of the prayer he has composed in order to request his grace. This prayer, patiently thought out, is the fruit of the mentality of a sacristan artful at excessive prayerfulness. He assures everyone that the 43

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Saint revealed it to him in his prison when he was arrested by order of the priest. At that time he recited it seven times with intense faith and when he finished praying his rescuers were already there, sent by Domingo. In order to secure its effect it must be blessed by him, thus it is only half-ready in order that it not be duplicated free of charge. He writes it in fancy script and with black ink: Saint Domingo: I adore you with all my heart because of the sacred blessing you have lavished upon me in answer to my fervent requests from the time I first came to know you. I beg on bended knee that you remove me and free me from all sin. Because of the suffering you endured from your birth until the end of your earthly days, watch over this humble servant in all times and places. I venerate the torment that you carried throughout your life in your lowly cot of hard, unfinished wood, devoid of any comfort. I adore the hard, rough piece of wood that served as your only comforting pillow, because upon it you endured so many tortures with the patience of Saint Job and because you give us an example of holiness and abnegation. Therefore, I implore with contrition that you intercede with the Divine Creator and that you protect me from all dangers. I pray that I may never be lacking your much yearned-for blessing. Amen.

3 h e has stopped sleeping. Under the influence of the excitement, Balaude talks incessantly and wanders through the town asking whether her brother has appeared to any of the people. She hears his cries calling to her and imploring her to spread the word of his glory. One day, morning fails to find her in the town. Alone, wearing her white gown, the picture of the Virgin on her chest, she embarks in a canoe. Abel, whose canoe has disappeared, comments: "She told me last night that she would go to Lorica to convince Padre Berrocal to bury the Saint in the church/' They did not believe him. He repeated it from house to house. "We have to prevent her from reaching Lorica!" Jeremias fears for his own invention. If the priest locks her up, he will lose his most precious instrument in the excursions he is preparing. He mobilizes the fanatics. They find one of her sandals by the shore and there remains no doubt that she has entered the swamp. Before embarking himself, Jeremias sends out all the available canoes, manned by good rowers and with precise orders. He entrusts to Abel the most important mission, which he personally is unable to carry out without exposing himself to prison: "Go straight to Lorica and don't let her disembark for any reason." He passes out rum, blesses the canoe, and soon eager poles are stirring the depths of the waters. 44

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"Remigio, look for her on the upper side of the swamp, as likely as not she has gone to Mata de Cana or to Carito." The woodcarver, well versed in the intricacies of the swamps, thinks deeply before answering: "The swamp is reversing its currents and I don't think that with a simple paddle she can counteract the force of the floes of plant debris that are coming out of it." Jeremias becomes impatient because he is disobeying him: "Commend yourself to Saint Domingo and do as I tell you. It's possible that you will find her aground in the floes." The surest route is the one to the river, where the swamp waters empty. Drowned animals and everything else floating freely on the water reaches that point. Jeremias turns the prow of his canoe towards the Sinu, hoping to overtake her before the river itself carries her to Lorica. In his favor he has the many long curves that make navigation interminable. Abel, taking a shortcut by way of Black Water Creek, will cut her off in case she's gotten ahead of them. There is another possibility they fear without daring to say it: an overturned canoe. Many good swimmers have perished in the swampy waters when trapped by the alligators. With their gaze intent upon the waters ahead, they look for any clue on the surface of the swamp: the underside of a canoe, her torn garments, or a paddle drifting in the current. "Balaude!" "Balaude!" Their shouts raiseflocksof wild ducks above their heads and they can be seen scattering themselves in different directions. On the greatfloesof plant debris the chelecas walk with deliberate steps and take flight with much scandalous squawking only when the prows of the boats break into the floating plants. As soon as the danger is past, they return to the same places, where they make the nests for their chicks by securing them among the wide misotis leaves. "Balaude!" She hears them and remains quiet. She advances, sweaty, propelling herself with the paddle, lost in the immensity of the great swamp. In her childhood she paddled around all the corners of the nearby bogs. The old washtub and a pole made from a reed were enough to get around in the waters that inundated the town. One time she and Andrea took Dominguito on board and they were on the verge of capsizing. Although as a youth she never went rowing again, she knows how to steer her canoe skillfully. In her mind all the routes are becoming confused: she is navigating without a course, without control or direction. Her pursuers uselessly cut through the swamps in many directions. 45

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Discouragement hampers the effectiveness of the whole crew. In the villages along the river bank, no one has given them any information about the fugitive. The sun's fading light fills the swamps with shadows. They notice the flight of the birds, reflected in the water, as they return to their nests. The canoes follow the same course that leads to the tall trees along the shore, in whose shade the towns seek refuge. Chima, which has lived through a day of surprises and waiting, reserves some sad news for those who are returning: "Grief has killed Andrea." She dies on her knees, her eyelids tightly closed. The people think that she is praying as is her custom in that corner. They pass by her without surprise at her cadaver-like rigidity. Blasina goes up to her to offer her a plate of fish. Since she withdrew into her melancholy, Blasina has made a habit of forcing her to take some food, but afterward she forces herself to regurgitate it in order to prolong her fast. "Andrea, my child, let's eat," she says to her, but when she touches her she collapses, crushing out the candles in her corner. People run to help her with a great commotion. Rafaela, lost in her prayers, reflects no change of attitude. "She's dead!" "Our Saint in Glory has called her to his side!" The news filters through the yards, the street corners and the alleys. "Andrea has died!" Cicano leaves the church and goes to the accursed house, which he has not entered since the day he came there with Padre Berrocal. Andrea's death attracts the whole town and even him, who at the risk of falling into sin, mixes with the crowd of onlookers, separated internally by the chasms of his Catholic faith. When he sees the squalid and emaciated corpse he innocently remarks: "Hunger killed her!" Indignant, the women stare at him, as if he had blurted out a curse. From him they could hope for nothing but irreverences. They push and shove him out of the room, made unholy by his presence alone. On the way back to the church, jostled by those rushing to see the dead woman, he realizes that his separation from the townspeople is much more hostile than he had imagined: they hate him like the very Devil himself. Wet and out of breath, Jeremias arrives at the Vidal's house. He discovers Andrea laid out and ready for burial; they are holding the wake in the same sacred room where the Saint came for her soul in order to take her to heaven. Blasina has had scarcely enough

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time to make her a small wreath but she continues cutting out petals of purple paper and covering the wire pistils with green crepe paper. Wide awake, she will make wreaths all night so that on the following day Andrea will travel to the cemetery with the pomp called for by her devout consecration to her brother. The wake brings together the entire population and many are those who arrive from nearby villages in spite of the bogs along the roads. Some of them do not know the former sacristan. With his long beard and his hair down to his shoulders, he makes a profound impression upon them. His white gown and solemn voice move them to curiosity. "Who is that prophet?" The Chimaleros inform them with great respect: "It's Jeremias, the defender of our Saint." They are pleased to know him; much has been said about him ever since his confrontation with Padre Berrocal. They manage to draw near to him; they breathe in the mystical air of his words and the odor of incense with which he perfumes his clothes. Jeremias has not forgotten about Balaude for a moment: "Remigio, get the men together and go back to the swamp to search for her." The overabundance of volunteers threatens to overturn the canoe. A lamp brightly burning on the prow opens their pathway through the deep shadows of the night. Four paddles stir the sleeping waters, likewise the pole at the prow breaks open the thick weave of aquatic plants. The light diverts the moths and crickets from their usual orbits, blinding them with its persistent fire. The mosquitoes hover around them with the monotonous buzzing of their catechisms, and the peasants' tough skin is scarcely inconvenienced by their sting. "Balaude!" Paddles and poles grow quiet so that their attentive ears can measure the distances reached by their call. The open spaces of the swamps swallow up their shouts and they don't even hear their own echoes. The very well known slap of an alligator's tail breaks the water and their eyes converge down there where the water is bubbling. Two lighted cigar ends are floating in the water beneath the aquatic plants without setting them on fire. "It's an old 'gator in a bad mood!" Remigio puffs out his chest and grasps his paddle as if it were a harpoon. "Some day I'll take the starch out of your sails!" His words burst forth with visible anger, as if between woodcarver and reptile there were an

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ancient rivalry to settle. The other men remain silent and hope that it doesn't cross their paths again. "It is the Devil himself!" They all repeat Saint Domingo's prayer so that he will protect them. It's the same old alligator seen around all the landings along the swamps. He has a long list of crimes that are not forgotten: In Monil he swallowed one of Venancio Doria's cows. In Arache he went right into the town and took the hogs of half-blind Arnulfo right out of their pens. In their very own Chima he dragged one of Jose Dolores Negrete's daughters into the swamp, even though some spread the rumor that her mother drowned her when she discovered that she was pregnant by her own brother. "Balaudeee!" In the distance a light sweeps over the water. It is not the custom to be out in a boat at night, and they paddle towards it. "Here she comes!" They recognize the voice of Abel. A little later they also clearly make out the other voice, whining in a childish way: "Let me go to the priest!" The search party headed for Lorica found Balaude and they are bringing her back in bonds. She is struggling and kicking. From the beginning she repeats the same phrase. For a time she remains silent and when they think that she is asleep, she screams till she makes herself hoarse: "Let me go to the priest!" The canoes come together. The dense fog prevents their seeing each other until the gunwales touch. The smokey light from their lamps turns them all into yellowish spectres. Both groups are anxious to tell about what has happened: "We found her lost in the swamp, near Lorica." It is Abel, the one in charge of this group, who does the talking. "Andrea is dead," Remigio answers. "If you had seen how she died: she was just kneeling there as stiff as a board." The demented woman is listening attentively. Her silence surprises everyone and then she bursts out in long wailing sobs. "Loosen my ropes, I want to cry for my poor, little sister." The men are doubtful. They look at each other irresolutely. She begs them: "I swear that I won't jump into the water." Their doubts grow with that affirmation. "Abel, for the devotion you have had for my brother, I beg you to set me free. I swear by his name that I will do nothing foolish." "She's regained her sanity." "It's another miracle from Saint Domingo!" Abel unties the knot that firmly holds her wrists against her back. Her 48

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struggles and the coarse ropes have injured her skin. She convulses with grief: "Saint Domingo, sweet brother of mine, Andrea has died, have mercy upon her!" The canoes make their way among the bunches of floating algae. The paddles all cry out with a single voice, the hoarse voice of the swamp torn open by the nocturnal oarsmen. The toads and crickets puncture the darkness with the same persistence as the fireflies. The men are silent, it is a funereal, superstitious silence, which they dare not break. The first lights of the town can be seen. One, two, hundreds of them. There's another procession. Jeremias, the master of those abandoned souls, shepherds them to his liking. 1 ired of the religious fervor, with the first rains the Chimaleros remember their crops, their animals, their own children. All along the river they are constructing levees to control the floods. In the swamps they are planting rice. The horses die of cold and cramps or lose their hooves in the dampness. Fevers thrive in the swamps and in the late afternoon, the mosquitoes penetrate the awnings, suck the blood and poison it. The river undermines the foundations of the houses; the swamps fill up more and more with water and the flooded roads lay siege to the towns. The combined attack of the rains, the river, and the swamps precipitates the foreboded tragedy: a flood. Crops, roots, and ripened grain are carried off toward the sea. The wetness does not undermine the peasant's interior resistance. The tragedy loses its ferocious face and becomes a sleeping beast. Resignation is another method of resistance, of struggling, of confronting the floods. The people know that they are not abandoned. Saint Domingo is watching over all of them. At this time they cannot make pilgrimages to honor him, but silently, perched on their beds or in their lofts, they do not forget their prayers. Their sexuality is awakened and foments promiscuity: canoes quiver and shake; hammock ties creak and wash tubs become cradles for the newborn. The waters form their own methods of cartography. The streets, the river bed, the yards assert their lines above the entombed land. The provisions of corn, rice, and bananas are consumed or spoil. Beriberi and the moisture bring on their painful cramps. xhe floods are propitious for preaching. Jeremias and Balaude, embarked in their canoe, allow themselves to be carried by the current in order to reach the houses still above water level. 49

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Anxious to listen to them and to hear the story of the miraculous life of Domingo Vidal of Chima, the peasants gather in their canoes. Those who find no room in the house, tie their craft around the outside and resign themselves to listening since they cannot see the prophet who is speaking: "The Pope will consecrate the humble peasant who shows signs of sanctity. His soul awaits the prayers of believers and followers that will praise his glory. His soul will not be eternally at peace in the presence of our Lord until his body rests in holy sepulcher at the foot of the altar of Saint Emidius of Chima. Here is the prayer that will protect you against floods, that will free you from mortal enemies or from demons. Pray it seven times every night when you go to bed. And don't forget your gifts and offerings to cover the expenses of canonization in Rome/' Balaude gives out the papers with the imprinted prayers and receives their coins, dropping them into the bank, in the shape of the hard pillow where the saint rested his head. "I have blessed them myself, at the express order of our Miracle Maker!" They believe him and make reverent gestures. Night finds them not wishing to abandon these houses. In the mornings the people follow them in their canoes in order to hear their preaching in the neighboring towns. It is always the same story of miracles, of prayers, and the invitation to visit his tomb at the second anniversary of his death in order to exhume his remains. Sick people are brought before Jeremias to receive the miraculous prayers from his hands. He places them on feverish brows, on aching stomachs, on inflamed bladders. The blind swear that they see and the dying commend themselves to his grace. His arrival is announced ahead of time and is applauded in every port and landing. xhe policeman Aristobulo was born of a difficult delivery. Since then his twisted neck probably causes him to see life on the bias. People give him the nickname of Crooked Neck. There are people born this way, deformed, and who end up on some of the most out-of-the-way paths of life without its really being their choice to follow them. In Lorica, without knowing all the facts of what happened in the burial of the Saint of Chima, people justify the priest and indict the policeman. "You should not have taken him to the cemetery," his wife reproaches him. She is an Indian woman born in San Sebastian, the living memory of her ancestral superstitions. Aristobulo met her at the market when 50

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she came to sell the broad-brimmed, straw hats she and her parents used to weave in their hut in the mountains. He proposed that she remain there to live with him and the girl accepted, more restrained by the policeman's uniform than by love. The Indians filed a complaint, and the officer, accused of rape, had to appear before the mayor. The priest, who had baptised the Indian girl, insisted on marriage and Crooked Neck found himself forced by the Church into marriage with an Indian woman. "If I were you, I would not chase down the prophet/' Aristobulo straightens up his neck to look squarely at his wife. Ever since they assigned him the task of making the arrest he has felt his head to be even more twisted. "Orders are orders. As a police officer I must obey." His Indian wife, always submissive, makes bold to contradict him: "One thing is orders to arrest a thief and quite another those that get you mixed up with a man endowed with the power of Saint Domingo." Her observation makes him uneasy and he answers angrily, wanting to hear his own voice. He needs courage: "Who the hell told you that that sacristan is endowed with power? He's nothing but a con artist hiding behind the people who believe all his crap." She knows what she is saying and she declares with firmness: "My dear, that man is not a charlatan. I myself have heard him and he only requests that Saint Domingo be taken to the altar." xxe goes out to the patio in a bad humor. His wife's arguments are those of the whole town. He considers turning in his policeman's uniform, forgetting about that "prophet" who has the whole Sinii stirred up, and staying home at the side of his little Indian. He thinks also about the difficulties of finding a new job or taking up farming because the land cultivated formerly has been changed into cattle pastures. He thinks one way and acts another. He buttons up his tunic and adjusts his leggings. Before mounting his gray horse, he examines its hoof, deteriorated by the dampness of the past winter. Not much of a companion for traveling over the wide, uneven beaches scarred by the receding waters of the swamps. The horse is young and he takes pleasure in wandering over the plain, but the tickling sensation in his hoof makes him shirky and unsure. He mounts up and kicks the animal with his spurs. "You damned-old, gray nag, what the devil has gotten into you!" People talk so much about Jeremias' supernatural powers that he sus51

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pects that the sacristan may have prayed over the horse in order to throw off the hunt for him. Even his feeling of dislike for that mission is blamed on incantations that keep his mind in turmoil. Reality is something else. It's not the first time that they have entrusted to him the difficult task of arresting someone in the summer. The dried-up swamps allow for so many paths; the river, with little water, can be forded at any point, and clumps of dried-up reeds and swamp grass become inaccessible hiding places. Besides, Jeremias counts on the peasants to conceal his man and cover up for him. "Yesterday he was preaching in Cocota," a man working hard at driving a herd of donkeys informs him, he hurries to get away for beneath his arm he is carrying packages of candles to light in Chima. The foggy morning hides the road. Aristobulo wants more complete information, but the man is lost in the dust cloud from his own animals. Spurred again, the horse picks up his trot. Very soon he slows down. "You damned gray nag, I'll get there late." It's impossible to run although the plain and the morning invite one to gallop. The sun is advancing more rapidly, shortening Crooked Neck's shadow. In the distance a pair of riders is drawing near, and before the men greet each other the horses do the same with whinnies and snorts. The policeman inquires: "Have you seen Jeremias, the man they call the prophet?" The men don't even slow their horses. "Yes, yesterday he was in Palo de Agua!" Unable to turn his limping gray towards them, Aristobulo shouts to them anxiously: "Wasn't he in Cocota?" Although they are already far away, he manages to hear them shout: "He sleeps in one place and gets up in another!" He makes an effort to get more details and shouts his questions, a custom of the river people who must converse with the river in between. "Is he alone or with Balaude?" They don't answer him and he must continue on at a boring trot until the three-way junction where the roads come together and open their possibilities to him. He doubts as to which one he should direct his horse and,finally,he rejects the road to Palo de Agua in favor of taking the one to Cocota, his previous destination. The drowsy town sleeps the sleep of the dog days. Interested in seeking the shade of some mango trees in front of the police station, the gray horse, limping, diligently crosses the plaza. Aristobulo dismounts and enters the reception room. The creaking of a hammock indicates to him that someone is living in the large, ramshackle house. 52

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A man challenges him: "What do you want?" Aristobulo stretches his neck and makes out the presence of a woman who is sweeping the floor rhythmically as the hammock swings. He shouts from outside: "Inspector, sir, I have orders to arrest the prophet." Disgruntled by the unexpected interruption of his idyll a fat, solemn-faced man, who had never had any problem in his jurisdiction, steps out. "Yes, he was here yesterday haranguing all day long, perched on a table in front of the church." Aristobulo looks him in the eye: "Why didn't you arrest him? Orders have been issued to all the substations." His scolding tone makes little impression. "I have nothing to do with such business of priests." On the table there is a sheet of paper with printing on it. "Isn't that a prayer?" The inspector glances at it carelessly. "I bought it because it's been blessed by the prophet and protects against evil spells." All his strength seems to abandon Crooked Neck. He sits down on a bench and resignedly asks: "Give me a little water before you go back to your hammock." x he black bull, its horns bloodied, has taken over the entire plaza. The amateur bullfighters are clinging to the corral, their red capes pressed against their chests. "That animal is bewitched!" Isaias, the younger of the Morelos brothers, does not take his eyes from its horns. The one on the left, a sharp barb of steel, ripped out the intestines of his brother Pedro, the best bullfighter in all of the Sinu region and Sabanas de Bolivar. "You've got him at a standstill. Cut off his balls!" In the person of Isaias the onlookers all bring together the grudge they have against this bull. Only a few moments earlier he helped carry his dying brother from the ring. That blood that stains his chest, blood in advance of his own goring, incites him to vengeance. "I'm going to castrate him right now!" The bull is right there in the same spot where he disemboweled the most recent horse and where the blood of man and animal mingled. His long body undulates with the ease of a crocodile. They call him the "Gator." More than the sharply pointed fork of his horns, the men fear 53

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his brusk recoils. He does not pass to one side, long before charging he is already measuring his steps to left and right. "That sly, old bull, black as Satan, knows all the tricks. Leave him alone, let his own rage kill him!" Isaias Morelos is not listening to advice. This beast has mortally wounded his brother and it is for him alone to humiliate it this very afternoon. Let it not be said that the Morelos brothers are fit only for fighting indifferent calves. The band is playing a stirring fandango that invites the presence of death. The crowd continues to shout: "Leave him alone!" They are face to face. The animal stares at him suspiciously, bellows, and raises clouds of dust with its forefeet. Undecided, it doesn't know whether to charge the cape, the man, or the man's shadow. Three bodies that move in unison, three enemies who recklessly challenge him in the center of the empty plaza. "Hahh! Hahh! You devilish animal! Hahh!" The voice makes it think of that other one it nailed flat to the ground; the one who bathed its horns and nose in blood. It sniffs at his scent, stares at the red stain on his chest, and it is right there that it wants to drive home its horns. It charges with its eyes open, it bends its back, snorts angrily, but the man escapes to the right; the horns scarcely tear his shadow and his cape teases, off to the left. "Bravo!" "Bravo!" The music is the bull's only ally: it's calling for blood. The corral threatens to fall apart with the jumping and the clamor of the spectators. Covered with sweat, without taking his eyes from it, the dark-skinned man stands there swathed in his red cape as if all of his blood had been poured out over his own body. He notices that there are many men at the foot of the corral ready to rush upon the fallen bull and castrate it. The sun has all of its candles burning for the castrated bull or for the dead bullfighter. It makes no difference. "Hahh! You ugly, old bull! Hahh!" The insulting movement of that cape that dances in front of its horns infuriates it. Never have they trod on its territory nor come so close, and it charges with a fury. Shadow, cape, and man are fluttering in the air like butterflies; its horns plunge into emptiness without bathing its neck in blood. And then, it turns around so suddenly that it meets the full length of Isaias' body, it catapults him into the sun and waits for him with the barbs of its horns raised. The sharp needle of one horn rips

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open the intricate threads of his nerves, the blood and the eyelets of his testicles are exposed to the open air. He lies there in the plaza, bleeding to death without so much as a single cry. The bull snorts, licks the gore with its coarse tongue. To get it out of the way they bring in the oxen to calm its fury and, docile as a calf, it returns with the other animals to the pen where all night long it enjoyed the thought of its crime. Isaias Morelos, wrapped in his red cape, is carried on the men's shoulders down the road of certain death. "Saint Domingo Vidal, I beg you for my life and for the life of my brother!" implores Pedro Morelos. Injured far from his home in Santa Cruz de Lorica, he seeks the protection of the Miracle Maker of Chima for himself and his brother. The people from his home town who are present know that there in Sincelejo, among the peasants attending the fiesta, Jeremias is preaching. They find him and drag him to the house where the injured men lie. Jeremias places his prayers upon the surgeon's dressings and implores the saint intensely with his eyes rolled back to show only the whites: "For the sake of the suffering you have endured, for the love you have for your Sinii, Saint Domingo, on bended knee I beg you to intercede on behalf of the lives of these neighbors." By his side, Balaude removes her picture of the Virgin from her neck and places it also upon their wounds. The people draw near, milling around them, and listen to the prophet who tells of the miracles worked in Chima. His female helper gestures and confirms them insistently with nods of her head like some kind of puppet. "The fever has broken in both of them!" It's incredible that their intestines and testicles, violently mixed with cow dung and dragged through the mud, could allow the bullfighters to remain alive. irlore pilgrims anxious to prostrate themselves before the tomb of the Saint are arriving. They come down from the rough, remote mountain regions. They come on donkeys, on horses, and on foot; even in sedan chairs. The canoes, overloaded with penitents, run aground in the shallow creeks and tributaries. At the crossroads, stands that sell egg turnover pies, tamales, pork rinds, chicha, and cheap rum are popping up. Prayers, printed and signed by the prophet, are offered for sale everywhere: roadside taverns, public plazas, and even in churches. The police no longer jail religious fanatics, opting to simply run them

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out of town to avoid public disturbances. The people believe them and contribute their gifts and offerings for the anticipated canonization in Rome; for the construction of a mausoleum; for the erection of a chapel to honor the Saint; and for many other pious works, which the prophet tirelessly enumerates. Outwardly, the gifts are under the care of the Saint's mother. But she has been contaminated with the lack of concern that her son always had for donations, and it's another person who collects them from the small altar, empties them from the alms box, and carries them away. There are, moreover, so many that Jeremias feigns indifference toward the coins thrown onto Domingo's empty bed or onto the grave where they remain without the presence of sacrilegious hands that might attempt to rob them. There is constant running to and fro with regard to the arrival of penitents who bring their miracles; people surround the new arrivals and question them as to where, when, and how things happened. "We commended ourselves to the miraculous Domingo of Chima," says the captain of an eight-man canoe that was going down at sea. Whipped by the storm, the craft had lost its mast and was drifting out of control. "And then the miracle happened. Suddenly the angry sea became calm and a gentle northeast wind started moving us toward the shore." Everyone listens in silence to the gray-haired black man, a bold coastal sailor, whom his companions among the group call the skipper. In his broad, dark hands he is holding a small gold canoe, a beautiful example of the goldsmith's art, which the shipwrecked men have paid for. A very rich man from Cerete places six gold sol coins from Peru before the Saint's little altar; he had requested that his insane daughter, who had strayed from home, be returned to him. They searched for her untiringly in all the villages along the shore, in the swamps and forests, but the search party, spread throughout the region, could not find her. "I fell to my knees, prayed the prayer seven times and begged the Saint for his grace." That very same night, completely lucid, the girl came home. "And where was she all that time?" They ask him with astonishment. The girl smiles and does not hesitate in her answer, which she has repeated endlessly: "I only know that when I opened my eyes I was in the garden of my own house with my clothes torn and dirty." 56

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I h e people crowd in around the Morelos brothers. Their fame as bullfighters is known, but now people are pushing to get close to them for other reasons. The older one is leading a black calf, offspring of that bull who ripped open his body one afternoon. The younger is telling his story: "I myself put back in place my own testicles that were hanging loose from my intestines." In his arms he is carrying his latest son, conceived several months after the goring. Those who are listening stare in disbelief at the darkskinned infant who has his father's features. "The prophet himself was present when he performed the miracle of saving our lives and our virility." They leave the calf in the Vidal's corral, where they are accumulating turkeys, hens, pigs, cattle, and other animals, which soon will be sold to glorify the town's saint. An old woman, carried by her daughters, has traveled in a chair across the dusty ravines that steepen the banks of the river all the way back to Monteria. She made that promise to the Miracle Maker of Chima if he would save her life when gangrene set in in both of her legs. "The doctors did not want to operate on me because they had given my case up as hopeless. Then I resorted to the prayer bought by my daughters from the prophet. They amputated my legs and I survived." She asks to whom she should entrust the two tiny gold legs that the best jeweler in Monteria made for her. They all respond in chorus: "The prophet will send them to Rome." There is light in the house. The gray wiggles his ears and whinnies. Aristobulo leads him by the reins and is surprised that he still has breath for so much noise. "You old rascal, you're not as bad off as I thought." Although he knows that he's being scolded, the animal raises its head. It revives itself again with the smell of home. It imagines the fresh, cool water, the Indian woman's hands treating his infected hoof, and the grains of corn offered to him from her own hands. His master does not share the joy of their homecoming. He is not worried so much about his fatigue as about the priest, the mayor, and his frustrated attempts at making the arrest. Upon seeing him arrive alone, his wife's thoughts are others also. "I knew that you would notfindhim." The anger festering during so many miles of travel beneath relentless 57

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suns that have scorched him to the point of cracking his dry tongue bursts out accusingly: "You're in league with the Devil." The Indian woman smiles. "You're the one under the Devil's spell, my dear, if you could just see your face in the mirror." He goes over to the large box, which serves as a dresser. The tiny mirror, covered with dust, does not reflect the light. He raises his hand to brush it off and his wife restrains his arm. "Watch out, you'll see the Devil." Popular belief has it that the Devil will appear to those who look at themselves in a mirror at night. His wife's words are still buzzing in his ears. "You're the one under the Devil's spell." Satan could be following him. Jeremias knows many secrets he can unleash against his enemies. The light from the lamp at his back casts his shadow. He feels frightened at seeing those ears as long as his horse's. "Look at yourself and you'll see!" He turns his face toward his wife. His hands are trembling. He straightens his head and looks into the mirror. Red eyes, pointed ears, and bushy hair. His wife laughs: "Yes, my love, you are the Devil himself. Those roads and your lack of food have left you like a skeleton." He is discovering satanic characteristics in his own features. The Indian woman touches him on the back and he jumps with fright. "Look at me, I'm jumping for no reason." "Go to bed, you're worn out." He falls into his hammock like a log on the river. "Here's your dinner." "I'm not hungry." "Shall I fix you a little valerian tea?" "Yes, a big gourdful." The woman lights the open fire that is right there inside the house. She talks to him: "It's foolish to pursue the prophet. He has the help of Saint Domingo. If you find him on the road he'll turn himself into a tree; in the water he'll become a fish and if you lock him up, he'll escape in the form of a butterfly." He listens to her. The hammock and the beams of the house sway in unison. "The problem is that I can't say that to the priest." Outside the horse neighs. It is surprised that they haven't given him any water. When the Indian woman hears him she exclaims: "Poor gray-boy, how much he must have walked needlessly over all those old roads." 58

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Ill

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fe

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(JUT Saint has been buried for two years. Tomorrow, Holy Saturday, we will remove his remains from the cemetery and lay them in holy sepulcher within the loving arms of the church. Let s pray his prayer so that he will protect us from his enemies." Now that she is back home, Balaude declaims with greater inspiration than when she undertook her pilgrimage. Her energy is inexhaustible, overflowing. Her bloody feet, her emaciated body, the sleepless nights, the sun and the rain have not totally removed her mania. She returns to the room that was her brother's and it is as if she had left there only a w minutes earlier. She passes by her mother without greeting her and lights some candles entrusted to her care along the way. Rafaela, looking prematurely old, watches her but, likewise, says nothing to her. The two women are separated by their interior forces: the mother sinks into a melancholy meditation, and the daughter grows expansive in her wild preaching. Holy Week exalts the religious atmosphere. On Friday no one eats meat, and the immense suffering of the Crucified Christ tears them all apart as if they were to be witnesses to a new Golgotha. The women dressed in mourning wear black shawls and walk barefoot. The children are dressed in white robes just like the prophet's, and without forgetting hang around their necks little olive wood crosses blessed by him. Jeremias stops appearing in public. He does not fear being captured. n his sermons throughout the towns he constantly challenged the authorities. He would even provoke them, sure that his followers would rise up to set him free. He has other reasons for his concealment. He is clothing himself in mystery. His absence awakens curiosity in those who

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come to get to know the tomb of the Saint and to meet his prophet. Around town people are inventing legends about him, which rival the prodigious miracles of Domingo Vidal. "Last night he was in Rome conversing with the Pope." The residents of Chima themselves, witnesses of his life and of his early attempts at dedication to religious devotion, are the most imaginative. Jose Dolores Negrete, who could be his great-great-grandfather, when he turns 107 years old, tells his grandchildren strange and fabulous tales: "They will name him bishop of the parish. Why, they are even thinking about beatifying him!" In proportion to the growth of this fanaticism, the former sacristan coordinates the organization of the cult with his followers. The chosen ones blindly obey his orders. Remigio, the woodcarver, does not manage to keep up with the many images ordered by Domingo to be blessed by the prophet. Abel, who always demonstrated his fidelity, assumes the responsibility for transferring the miracle offerings and gifts, which are said to be on the way to Rome. The Italian Anicharico and his twin daughters look after the lodgings of some wealthy people. They have received benefits from the Saint and are ready to make valuable gifts towards his canonization. Blasina's floral workshop is enlarged: young girls and old women go there to make wreaths for the exhumation. With no time to think about the Devil, the old woman no longer lights candles in the corners of the room and the fires stop definitively. And Camilo, the simpleton who used to spy on the women when they would bathe in the swamp, now resides at the cemetery and cares for Domingo's grave site so people will not desecrate it or steal the miracle offerings. On Friday evening Jeremias instructs all of them: "Tomorrow will be Holy Saturday for our Saint. Everyone in town must be present for the procession to the cemetery. We will exhume him in order to reinter him at the foot of the altar, under the care of Saint Emidius." He does not know exactly what they are planning, but he intuits some of it. Cicano, damned by the community, prepares to tell the Padre about their conspiracy. For lack of people with whom to send messages, he makes the journey himself. He waits for the night, closes the doors of the church and as a precaution bars them. He feels that the wooden bars are not enough and kneels before the statue of Saint Emidius, requesting his protection: "Unto your powerful care I commend your church. Defend it against your enemies. Confound them with the fire of your wrath if they try to profane her!" He reinforces the padlocks on the sacristy and before leaving town, mixing unobtrusively among the noise and disorder of the people, he 60

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observes the movements of God's enemies. He pulls the wide brim of his hat down over his face, hides his neck between his shoulders and prowls around the house of the Vidals. He feels uneasy at not seeing Jeremias anywhere. His disappearance annoys him. He slips into the patio, listens to some conversations, spys on Balaude and speaks softly to some of the strangers: "Where did you leave your miracle offering?" The peasant shows that he is a new arrival by his muddy sandals. "They told me to take it to the cemetery/' Cicano insists on playing ignorant: "To whom did you give it?" His question surprises the stranger. "Who else but the prophet?" He is nearing the objective of his interrogation: "And where is he?" The peasant's eyes can open no wider. "How should I know, at this very minute he's probably talking with the Pope!" The sacristan turns pale, grumbling to himself in anger. He slips away from the house, convinced that Jeremias is hiding out of fear of being arrested, and that same night he starts for Santa Cruz de Lorica, in the opposite direction to the pilgrims who are arriving at Chima. A fervent partisan of the catechism, Padre Berrocal believes more in the power of his sermons than in the power of violence. Besides, he thinks that all this superstitious fanaticism will run its course and disappear as it has on so many other occasions, overcome by the thoughtful consideration of the peasants themselves. And even in the face of the unusual fervor that is contaminating the towns, his refusal to intervene with the police is categorical: "Thank you, Mr. Mayor, you show that you are a good Catholic, but I don't believe the case calls for sending a detachment of police to Chima to impose religious authority over my wayward parishioners." The mayor, less convinced about the effect of the sermons, believes the moment has arrived to incarcerate Jeremias and his acolytes who are already exceeding the transgression of spreading idolatry. "We have sufficient evidence to prove that, on the pretext of the canonization of the cripple, he is defrauding these gullible peasants." The priest has meditated more than enough on the whole question: "Yes, sir, the very serious part is that educated and wealthy individuals in our community are falling ingenuously into his trap." "All the more reason for you to authorize me to put an end to this fraud." 61

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The mayor, Don Cipriano Botero, is not a native of the Sinu region. His militant Catholicism comes to him from his Antiochian stock, where people give greater evidence of religious fervor. On both sides of the family, paternal and maternal, he has cousins who are priests, and one of his sisters has never known a world apart from the cloisters. A missionary of unblemished devotion, she runs a boarding school for Indian girls in the Putumayo. Besides, Don Cipriano is impelled by an atavistic sense of enterprise. In search of gold deposits he ventured all over the Antiochian slopes. He always reconciled his repeated failures with new illusions. In this way he came to explore the headwaters of the Sinu, famous for their gold since the days of the Conquest. Finally, sick with yellow fever but not broken in spirit, he discovered in Santa Cruz de Lorica an unexpected treasure, the ripe grains of rice that he would buy at low prices during the harvest and then, after being kept in storage, they would fill his pockets with money in times of famine. With his greed justified and disguised by his ostentatious religious devotion, he moves to lend to the priest the military assistance placed under his authority as mayor. "I will jail that no good prophet and I'll have his shameless sacristans whipped in the middle of the main plaza so they can serve as an example to our innocent citizens." The one who was born and has preached in the swamps of the Sinu has other plans. His paternal feelings make him indulgent with those peasants whose confessions he hears each day; attenuating their suffering, applauding their joys and strengthening their spirits. He has baptised many of them with the Christian names they freely chose; he has married others in order to underpin the foundations of the Catholic family; he teaches all of them wholesome standards for daily living, inculcating them with devout practices. He hopes to win over the wayward ones with his pious and understanding methods. "Lend me Aristobulo again, Don Cipriano, all I want is for him to arrest our impious sacristan." The mayor feels disturbed by this passive attitude. "Crooked Neck has shown that he doesn't have the guts for a confrontation with the prophet." "He's already arrested him once and he can do it again." "We'll do it your way, Padre, but I am warning you that it's time to put an end to that whole con game. Why, they have even told me that the swindler is preaching for the creation of a new church, in which he will be the Pope."

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I know from a reliable source that he's in Chima." Crooked Neck, turning his cap over and over in his hands, is listening to the priest. "Get rid of your policeman's uniform. That way no one will suspect that you are going after him." Aristobulo is thinking to himself: "Nevertheless, the Saint will warn him/' but he remains submissively silent. The priest insists on giving him advice: "Leave at night. You'll be able to get there before his accomplices have time to warn him." The presence of the priest inhibits him. If he could only speak with the same assertiveness as his little Indian wife. He would tell him the truth, the truth that everybody knows: Jeremias is helped by the Saint. In the plaza, away from the priest's penetrating gaze, his rebellious side awakens. He'll turn in his uniform. It's a damn shame to make your living tracking down witches! He stomps and stumbles along, his head more bent than ever against his left shoulder. When he finds himself in front of his house, he realizes that his thoughts of quitting have been negated by his own steps, for he is far from the police station. He hesitates in the doorway without deciding to go in. He stares into the distance, down the long roadway leading to the mayor's office. He will confront Don Cipriano and say to him: "Here's your badge and uniform. From today onward I'm just plain old Aristobulo, even though the kids in the street will holler at me and say 'hey Crooked Neck!' when I pass in civilian clothes." His wife's voice brings him to his senses. "What did the priest tell you?" Weak, unable to rebel, he takes refuge in the hammock and covers up. Rocking back and forth, after a long silence, lost in difficult contradictions, he says aloud to himself: "Tomorrow I'll go to Chima. If I don't catch him, I'll resign." The Indian woman, who always speaks carefully, pronounces each syllable in anguished tones: "Tomorrow, Easter Saturday, they'll be celebrating the second anniversary of his death. Look at what luck you have, since you buried him you'll probably have to dig him up again." C/n Easter Saturday the multitude flows towards the cemetery and it seems like the barbed wire reaches out to bring in the peasants. Once on the inside they crowd around Domingo's

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grave with the bonfire of their numerous candles. Many other candles are fixed in place on the melted drippings of their wax. The people bring picks and shovels, ready to free him from his ignoble sepulcher. "Here they come/' shout the children perched on the few stone monuments present. Jeremias is leading the procession with a special casket, fashioned by the woodcarver. His white robes and his long beard, covering his chest, lend him an air of solemnity. He is walking barefoot. With great theatricality he puts forth one foot, then the other, then checks his stride. He appears to be lost in thought, staring into space, indifferent to those who are kissing the folds of his robe. Every now and then he looks to one side or the other to determine whether the crowd of followers is growing larger. Balaude, looking emaciated, is swimming in her great black robe. She makes gestures, strikes blows with her staff, smiles and weeps. Her brain is incapable of controlling her anarchical movements. Her eyes shine wildly in their sunken sockets. She is praying and repeating her brother's name uncontrollably. No one takes note of her insanity, they believe that she is possessed of the Saint. They kiss her sash as if her madness were a miraculous phenomenon. Her mother, at her side, still whispers the same prayer she began at home. Again and again she repeats it, and her growling monotone only grows louder when she mentions the name of her son. She is not fazed by anything, not even by the blows of Balaude's hands against her back when she opens her arms in the form of a cross. When they fall to their knees before Domingo's grave, the mother loses herself in her prayer and Balaude pushes and struggles against the crowd. "Get back! Let them open the grave!" Balaude intones a liturgical hymn with annoying repetition: "Oh! He's about to appear! Oh! He's about to appear!" And the crowd repeats its monotonous response: "Oh! He's about to appear! Oh! He's about to appear!" The litany stretches out through the unending river of the procession. Jeremias places the casket upon the ground and after a silent prayer, extinguishes the candles one by one. This is the awaited signal for beginning the exhumation of the mortal remains of their Saint. Those to the rear want to see and begin to push and shove. The inner circle of the chosen few; Remigio, Abel, Anicharico, Blasina, Anselmo, and others form a barrier against the fanatics to keep them from burying with their bodies precisely that which they wish to dig up. Balaude swings her staff violently.

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"Get back! Make way!" She would like to have enough strength to open a circle ten meters wide all around him. The interest of the other people grows stronger. Her staff injures an old man on his forehead, but his blood does not deter the onslaught. Pushing and shoving in helterskelter fashion, they grab the crosses of matarraton wood, kiss them, and keep them. The picks and shovels are removing the black soil. Their blows change tone and they feel the nearness of the coffin. A splinter of wood surfaces among the loose earth. "Look out, there it is!" advises Jeremias. All around them people are murmuring: "They're bringing it up!" All fall to their knees and superstitiously cross themselves. The heavy blows of the tools cease. Their hands excavate feverishly around the sides of the porous wooden box that exudes water. It is surprising that the open grave does not corrupt the air with foul odors. An abundant spring of crystal-clear water bubbles up at the bottom of the opening. "It's holy water!" exclaims Anselmo from the depths of the excavation. "Holy water! Holy water!" the phrase rebounds without considering its real significance. The men remove the cover and when they expect to see a decaying skeleton, they discover his body intact, incorrupt, as it was on the day of his death. "It's a miracle!" "It's a miracle!" They feel inexplainable, hidden thrills. Their heads form a tighter circle, wanting to submerge themselves in the open grave. The parchment-like skin of the cadaver reveals the purple hairlines of his dry veins with their coagulated blood. His closed eyelids cover the empty sockets. His rigid hands are folded over his chest as if they were holding an invisible pencil. "The Saint is drawing a picture!" They think they see a likeness of the Virgin, drawn on the folds of his shroud. "The Saint is arising!" The corpse moves, it shudders at the contact of the hands that are touching it. They raise it up so that he can see his people. Blessed are those who are there to witness this wonder. The breeze stirs his hair and gives it movement. His mother, in an attitude of supplication, stretches her arms out towards him: "Come to me, my dear son!" she embraces him. She kisses

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his hands as if he were returning to her from a long journey. Her Domingo is reborn. Balaude is pushing back and tearing at the faces and shirts of those who wish to touch the dead man's cold hands. "My little brother the Saint! My little brother the Saint!" Jeremias must gather in his robes and tie them at the waist. The casket in which he was planning to place the remains lies in pieces, trampled by the feet of the multitude. He vigorously restrains the crazed worshipers, who are about to pull the corpse apart, and raises it up high to avoid their tearing its clothing into shreds. The Saint weighs a lot more than the day of his death. He has become petrified. The gravitational pull seems to equal the weight of a granite dolmen. Eight, ten, twelve arms are unable to sustain him for long. They sing hymns, pray, the procession stretches to full length and their litanies are heard in the town although the cortege is scarcely making its exit from the cemetery. "To the church!" "To the altar!" For the first time, Jeremias is really possessed with fanaticism. Always before, he acted with self-interest, making fun of the credulity of the others, but in the presence of this perfectly preserved corpse, he is driven by unknown forces. "They are bringing the Saint!" "There he comes!" An instinctive impulse guides them toward the church, where they gather before its doors. Cicano seems not to hear or he has locked himself in. "Open up, you godless, old man!" "Here comes our Saint in person!" "You'll be consumed in the flames of hell!" The crowd circles the church in search of an entrance. They start to break in through the sacristy. "You have to make way for Saint Domingo!" Jeremias does not realize what force his words have. He has scarcely uttered them when the pickaxes that disinterred the Saint clear a path to the altar. Splinters fly from the large double doors. One side of the pair gives way and the impious mob pushes in, spreading out in search of the sacristan. "Cicano! Heretic!" "Come out wherever you are so you can see this miracle with your own eyes!" They don't find him. They search the altar, turn over his bed, and turn the sacristy upside down. 66

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"He's hiding in the belfry!" They go up the staircase and when they don't find him, they bang the clappers with an uncontrolled fury. Others strike the bells with pieces of iron. They ring in jubilation, announcing the ascension of Saint Domingo to the altar. The bats fly in terror over the plaza and, blinded, crash against roofs and walls. In the plaza people are struggling to enter the church where women and children are being asphyxiated. The Saint is placed on a platform before the altar. Jeremias arranges the candelabra and lights the candles. From the pulpit, his beard in disarray, he preaches irreverently: "My brothers and sisters, Saint Domingo has entered victoriously into his church by the grace of God." xAessed in civilian clothes, his badge hidden away, Aristobulo mixes with the crowd that invades the church. He looks at his fugitive, high up in the pulpit, strong, calm, defiant. At the feet of this prophet, feeling small and insignificant, he dares not even raise his head high enough to look at him. He struggles for a closer look at that dead body they say is the crippled Domingo Vidal's. In all of this he suspects the presence of a fabulous lie from Jeremias. He manages to get close to the remains, he straightens his neck, opens his eyes wide and feels astonished. That face which has not shrunk a bit over the protruding edges of the bones; those contracted hands and that glistening hair, as if they had just applied palm oil, are the same he knew in the paralyzed man. His legs give way under him and he falls to his knees. He crosses himself and recites the sincerest of all his prayers. Without realizing it, he is clutching tightly to his policeman's badge. His sense of duty does not succeed in overcoming the influence of the litanies. He is a prisoner, whether of the closely pressing crowd or of a supernatural power, he does not know. He shoves with his elbows, steps on toes, moves forward. He manages to leave by the door of the sacristy. Everywhere people are on their knees at prayer. Behind, surrounded by the mob, Jeremias in the pulpit continues his harangues tirelessly. Aristobulo hears only a hum of voices. In the plaza the throng of people is dancing joyfully. Their saint has arrived at God's house. Crooked Neck, anxious to get back to Santa Cruz de Lorica, is no longer Aristobulo the police officer. The gnawing effect of doubt is undermining his Catholic faith. He becomes tongue-tied just thinking about what the priest will say of the things his eyes have just seen.

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xxis dark color could have come to Padre Berrocal from the nearby shores of San Bernardo where runaway slaves in boats and canoes multiplied in the days of the colony. Or, more recently, from the penetration of Negro blood in Santa Cruz de Lorica by way of the mouth of the Sinu, coming from the mulattos of Cartagena. Never did he worry about investigating his origin. His mother, a woman of mixed blood, brought together the Indian and the Negro in his dark skin. But he remembers his grandfather more, Lieutenant Berrocal, an old Spanish artilleryman quartered in Cartagena. He has engraved in his memory the firm lines of his face. Sometimes he doubts having ever known him as a child and thinks that these memories are confused with the photograph he keeps in his room. He retains even less information about his father. A cannonball carried off his head, he can't remember in which battle of the civil wars. His mother always told him that he had inherited his robust physique: his long arms and those slightly curved legs that have carried him through so many years of preaching. The swamps, the fevers, and the heat have undermined that heritage. Malaria, too, exacts its toll. The half-cooked meat with which he nourished himself in his travels and his self-imposed fasts have taken away nutrition from his arteries, now hardening with sclerosis. The doctor makes him change glasses repeatedly. He forbids that he spend sleepless nights with his breviary. He even intrudes in the kitchen and deprives him of salt and condiments. The Padre concedes in all these areas except abandoning the reading of his sacred books and regular attendance at worship. He sleeps four hours and it is he who awakens the sacristan, opens the church door, and officiates at mass before breakfast with only the drops of wine counted out by the acolyte for him to consecrate. Easter Sunday was always a time of tribulation and stress. The end to a week of processions, preparation of altars, sprucing up of saints, and interminable baptisms, weddings, masses for the departed, and not a few funerals. That morning as he climbed to the belfry, the spiral of the staircase took him by surprise, even to the point of making his ears buzz. In the sacristy, as he recorded the baptismal certificates, his vision became dim and he thought he could see black moths mixing their flight with the red ink of his handwriting. His benumbed hand resisted a temptation to drop the pen. Nevertheless, he paid little attention to these incidents, limiting himself to cleaning the lenses of his glasses and digging at his ears to relieve them of the wax accumulated there.

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xxe is getting ready to say Mass, when Aristobulo, panting, appears in the sacristy. He has been running all the way. Cicano offers him a chair and water. "What's wrong, my son?" the priest asks. It's enough to see his pale face and his efforts to straighten up his neck to guess the degree of his fright. He tries to fan himself with his hat, which is taking the place of his uniform cap in accordance with the advice of the priest. Without his heavy tunic he can breathe more freely and soon gets his words under control: "Padre, some terrible things have just happened in Chima!" The priest wants to calm his excitement and asks him: "Don't tell me that Jeremias got away from you again!" "It's something worse! You can't imagine what it is, Padre!" The sacristan, now dressed for the Mass, questions him: "Did they get into the church with Domingo's remains?" Crooked Neck's eyes look toward heaven, he crosses himself and declares in confirmation: "That's exactly it! They broke down the doors of the church!" "I'll excommunicate the lot of them!" The blood rushes to the priest's face and reddens his dark cheeks. He stutters unable to put his words in order; he feels unable to breathe; he unbuttons the collar of his cassock; and reaches for a fan to refresh himself. The sacristan and Aristobulo stare at each other in silence. The priest gestures with his hand for Aristobulo to go on. "That was not the important thing. . . . Domingo is still complete and unchanged!" "Explain yourself!" urges the priest, with his tongue feeling numb. "They found him like as if he had been sleeping for the two years he was buried. The people are saying that he's alive. They've placed him on the altar and they are worshiping him." "That's heresy!" "And the prophet is up there constantly sermonizing." "What prophet are you talking about?" Aristobulo has caught the priest's stutter: "Je-Je-re-mias!" "And why didn't you arrest him?" "May God have mercy!" "Are you afraid of him?" "One would have been forced to arrest the whole town. For them he's more than a prophet. They say that they're going to make him a bishop." The priest covers his face with his hands. It makes him feel better to

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close his eyes, losing himself in the darkness that frees him from the strange dance of the objects and people surrounding him. He hears the first notes of the hymn to the Holy Trinity and exclaims: "Tell the choir not to sing before Mass begins/' The sacristan pricks up his ears. Aristobulo shrugs his shoulders in a sign of perplexity. "Nobody is singing, Padre." This answer brings him back to reality. He adjusts his buttons, then manages to hold himself erect and, with a certain hesitation in his steps, makes his way to the altar. Cicano crosses himself and follows him. There, alone in the sacristy, in front of the enormous crucifix, Aristobulo experiences an overwhelming desire to fall to his knees. He bows his head and prays: "Dear Crucified Christ, forgive me of my sins. Bring me understanding. You know whether that poor cripple is a saint or not. Before his remains I have knelt the same as all the others." The priest, at the altar, makes an effort to master the weakness in his muscles. He is giving the benediction when the heads of the congregation at prayer make him feel dizzy. He looks for some support without finding it and suddenly collapses. The parishioners all stir uneasily and the nearest ones rush to his aid. They take him to his room and the sacristan goes to look for the doctor. xzelped by others, in the church of Chima, Remigio manages to impose order on the tumult, establishing one door as the entrance and the other as the exit. His efforts at organizing a line in the plaza are frustrated by the impetuosity of the people who constantly fight over the places close to the church entrance. They allow two or three to enter at a time; on the inside the visitors form a column around the body, placed on a platform before the altar. One group of helpers keeps the disorderly elements from reaching him and being able to damage him. Those who do reach the altar push and shove to make others wait while they contemplate him for a longer time. "Keep moving!" "Keep moving!" Hours of endless waiting pass. The lucky ones who have managed to kneel at the feet of the Saint try to prolong their prayers. Mothers make their little ones touch his sacred hands and then guide their little fingers through the motions of the sign of the cross over their faces. Most of the visitors insist on uninhibitedly kissing him. Some content themselves with bending near to him and exclaiming in surprised tones: 70

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"He's breathing!" "He smells like roses!" Although they perceive the stench and see his repulsive, mummified face, they go on fooling themselves and, as they come out, repeat mechanically what they really have not seen. "He moves the hand he has clenched over his chest!" "He's snoring!" Those who have spent ten or more hours of unfruitful waiting become restless. Many homes are converted into inns for the newly arrived families. They sleep in the halls of the houses, and the courtyard of the church becomes an open-air hospital where victims of malaria, running sores, and mental disorders lie as they await their turns. The door to the sacristy is opened in order to give the sick people a chance to receive grace. The Saint's presence is achieving true miracles. Many victims of paralysis move their stiffened arms and legs. The blind affirm the recovery of their sight although they have to be dragged along by their relatives so they avoid bumping against the columns of the church. "I saw him! In the very moment I stood before him the light from heaven came to me just to be able to see him in that precise instant." A blind man testifies loudly: "I can see! I swear that I can see! The light is brilliant!" The people dare not contradict him although he is asserting that he sees the light in the middle of the night. He has the candles of faith burning and his interior world is radiating splendors for his eyes. The fever of the malaria victims is renewed after the difficult struggles sustained in gaining entrance. The open sores, in the tumult, lose their pus and begin to bleed: the nasalized voices of the victims are heard clearly; they stop the bleeding and their suffering is lessened. The pilgrimage does not end in the church with the contemplation of the Saint's body. They want to participate in the Miracle Maker's life and they walk to the sites where his marvels took place. "Here is where the spark fell that caught his bed on fire without burning him or even his clothes." A wooden cross facing the plaza marks another holy place: "Here he waited fruitlessly for two days for Padre Berrocal to open the doors of the church to him." At the site of his former grave, under Camilo's care, people come to fill their gourds with crystaline water from the spring, which they say has been flowing there since his disinterment. Near the swamp there are many candles burning at the foot of a matarraton tree where his followers stood him upside down in order to bring rain during the severest 71

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drought ever suffered by the people of the Sinu. And, of course, in the Vidal women's house they venerate his personal relics, cared for by his mother. The prophet, in spite of being infected with the religious fervor that engulfs Chima, thinks about things and anticipates them like a simple mortal. It's all right that the people have torn down the doors of the church and enthroned the body of Saint Domingo on the altar. But it is equally advantageous for him to withdraw from public curiosity and wait in hiding for the priest's initial reaction to these events. His own disciples advise him to stay in hiding. In the plaza, the impatient crowd spreads disquieting rumors: "Aristobulo is on his way, in command of a detachment of armed police." Inside the church others justify their sacrilege: "Padre Berrocal is coming to beg the Saint's pardon." The canoes returning to the other towns carry their own versions of things: "The priest is preaching in Chima in front of the immaculate body!" One thing is certain: Jeremias has sent Abel to Santa Cruz de Lorica to spy on the priest's movements. Surprisingly, Balaude steps up to the pulpit and declaims: "You evil, godless people, get out of the church! I know very well who you are; you are coming at the command of Padre Berrocal to steal the body of my brother. I swear to you that if you don't leave, I'll condemn you all to the fires of hell!" The spiritual introspection that her presence inspires is turning into confusion. Balaude shakes her staff and points down at them with her index finger. Still they all remain quiet, looking around themselves without knowing against whom she is directing her accusation. "I'm talking to every one of you, you sons of the Devil. Don't just sit there with your mouths wide open, because I'll come down there and I'll not leave one of you without a broken head." At the foot of the pulpit, people can see the foam that covers her mouth and the furious trembling of her body. "She's gone mad!" She threatens to go down into the crowd. "Let all the enemies of our Saint get out of here." Those on their knees stand up and those nearest the door decide to

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leave the church. The bells begin to ring, making the panic more general. In the plaza people are distorting events: "The Miracle Maker has arisen!" "The church is on fire!" Balaude is kicking, spitting, striking out, and cursing: "Out, out of here, you tools of Satan! Out of here! Don't profane his body!" Anselmo's strong arms immobilize her, causing her to emit cries of anguish. "Get me away from this demon who's trying to pull me down to hell!" Others lend a hand and they drag her to the sacristy. From the altar, Anicharico tries to calm the agitated souls: "It's nothing! Just stay calm! They want to steal our Saint!" "Who does?" "Who wants him?" The Italian repeats the same story given by Jeremias: "Our enemies! But we won't allow him to be taken from the church!" "No!" "We'll be right here!" Anselmo goes up to the belfry and surprises Camilo happily ringing the bells. "Who told you to ring them?" He trys to hide his face and he laughs nervously. "Have you gone crazy again?" Anselmo shakes him and, repentant, the simpleton responds: "Balaude told me to!" Anselmo takes him downstairs roughly, without his understanding why everybody's after him so unfairly when he simply wanted to serve the Miracle Maker. The prophet, informed by Blasina, comes out of his hiding place to calm the people with his presence. From the courtyard of the church he addresses them: "My brothers and sisters, prepare yourselves to resist the most difficult tests to which Saint Domingo's enemies will subject us. Balaude, the Saint's sister, has been struck down by the witchcraft of those who do not wish to see our miraculous Domingo Vidal canonized. Tomorrow they'll probably want to burn me at the stake like they did to Saint Joan of Arc. But the enemies of our Saint will die in the face of his divine fury: Don't allow yourselves, therefore, to be frightened by false rumors. This is God's house, and while Domingo's body lies within it, we, his fervent disciples, will not allow him to be taken from here and much less to be taken, as they want, away from Chima."

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Those present pledge their support and raise their fists. Smiling, the prophet enters the sacristy and facing Balaude, whom four men cannot subdue, coldly orders: "Tie her up!" Xle is reading by the light of a candle, which covers the crucifix with smoke. Half dressed, Padre Berrocal shows the fatigue accumulated during recent days of intensive preaching. His back, typical of mulattoes, is lighter in color than the rest of his body. The vertebrae insinuate their corrugated apophyses that give stability to the skeleton. His seventy years have not weakened him completely. Lying on his bed, forgetting his medicine and the program of rest that the doctor ordered, he is reading the Bible with intense devotion. The ancient clock unwinds its rusty mechanism to strike two somber notes that reverberate between the walls until smothered by the shadows. Through the half-open window the insects enter with their wings dampened by the night mists. "Gird yourselves with the armor of God, so that you can stand firmly against the snares of the Devil."

Inspired by his Bible reading, the priest stands up. All of a sudden the strength and impetuousness of the days when he was twenty revive within him. The apostates will know of his decision to fight. He will not allow the souls of his parishioners, commended to the care of Saint Emidius, to be struck down with impunity. He dresses quickly and takes up his Bible. He wants to rescue the minutes lost in whatever, because of weakness or overconfidence, caused him to let his enemies get ahead of him. He gets his bearings in the darkness and kneels at the altar of his venerated Holy Crucifix. Submerged in devout communication with it, he feels his spirit moderate and become calm. "Cicano!" The sacristan thinks that he is delirious. Ever since sleeping in the illfated church at Chima he has had nightmares. He dreams of demons who poke at him and pull him naked from his bed. He protects himself with scapularies at his feet and pictures of the saints under his pillow. "Cicano! Cicano!" He listens but doesn't have the courage to answer. The candle which illuminates the image of the Virgin has gone out and the priest's voice resounds in the narrow room without recognition. In his fear he wants to call out to Padre Berrocal to come to his aid against the evil spirits. Suddenly the door is thrown open and he commends himself to God

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while hiding his head under his pillow. They touch him and he trembles. They shake him and he can no longer contain a scream. "The Devil! The Devil!" "Cicano, it's me, the Padre/' "Oh, Padre!" Joyfully he kisses his hands, makes the sign of the cross, and falls at his feet. "I thought that it was Satan himself." Scarcely in control of himself again, he notices the unusual look in the priest's eyes. "Why have you gotten up, Padre? Are you feeling bad?" "No, my son, I am fine. Get your things together and let's go." "Is someone dying, Padre?" "It's imperative that we go immediately to Chima." "Right now?" "Yes, I already told you, immediately/' "But the doctor said . . ." "Leave the ills of the body to the doctor and let us go out to defend the soul." The sacristan obeys him without trying to justify this unexpected excursion after the fainting spell he had at the altar. "Are you going to ask the mayor for police protection?" The priest still thinks it inappropriate to make use of the civil authorities: "It's not necessary. The Cross is enough protection for me." Cicano wants to express his contrary opinion but he fears that he may reveal little religious faith. He recalls scenes of moments spent in the town and looks beyond the gaze of the priest. "Shall I go for Aristobulo?" "We'll pick him up on the way out of town. Hurry up, let's get going right away!" It's time for the call to morning prayers and the priest laments not having an assistant pastor to whom he could entrust the service. In the empty streets only an occasional butcher passes on his way to the market. They meet two devout women on their way to church. The priest wants to pass them by but he turns and catches up with them: "Dona Marianita, there's no mass today, I have to go out of town." The women are surprised to find him in the street and want to start a conversation, but the priest avoids it and follows Cicano toward Aristobulo's house. "Yes, Padre, he's here," the half-naked Indian woman is moving

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around on the other side of the mud and wattle wall. Her husband is seated on the edge of the hammock. He has heard his wife's reply and suspects the complications involved. The Indian woman whispers in his ear: "He's come for you. Tell him that you're going to resign. You'll just get embroiled in a mess!" "And I surely deserve just that for not having requested my discharge this very day." The priest grows impatient and calls out: "Put on your uniform and come with me. Hurry up!" Crooked Neck starts to move around carefully in the darkness. His wife in the hammock ignores him completely. In other circumstances she would have lighted a lamp and started a fire in order to see him off with a cup of hot coffee. She turns over uncomfortably and listens to the movements of her husband getting himself dressed in the hated police uniform. "Listen, honey, don't get yourself too involved in this thing. You know that the Saint is protecting Jeremias." She is speaking so softly that she fears he has not heard her. When she hears him unbolt the door, she jumps from the hammock and runs to embrace him. "I'll be praying for you so that the Miracle Maker will protect you and keep you among his chosen ones." Cicano, listening intently, concludes that the police officer is in sympathy with the prophet and thinks to himself that he knows why Crooked Neck has not captured him. Xhey've moved Chima." The rain is hiding the town. Aristobulo is sure of having walked more than the customary time for reaching there. His uneasiness is distorting time and space for him. Although proclaiming loudly that they should already be in the streets of Chima, internally he is wishing never to arrive. He hopes to get himself lost along the swamp-lined road. Cicano, feeling suspicious, takes the lead and guides the way with the expertise of a professional scout: "It's not very far. The rain makes it seem farther away. Cover yourself well, Padre, you don't want to catch a bad case of malaria!" He obeys his faithful sacristan and pulls his hat even farther down over his head. Cicano's precaution of bringing a waterproof poncho for him keeps him from growing numb from the humid conditions. The

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horses splash through the mud and chew discontentedly at the bit. The light of dawn shows them the way and, oppressed by the weight of their riders, they enter the muddy streets of the town. They go straight to the church and, to the surprise of the priest, every light in the place is burning. "Desecrators! May God have mercy on your souls, you poor fools!" xhey thought that they would surprise them but the people are expecting them. Eyes the travelers did not see identified them along the way and by using short cuts outdistanced them to spread the news of their arrival. Abel has faithfully carried out Jeremias' charge and reports to him: "Crooked Neck and Cicano are with him." Nervously, he strokes his beard with his hands. "Are you sure that the police are not coming by way of the swamp?" Abel gives him a concrete testimony: "The mayor offered troops to the priest, but he refused to use them." The news exhilarates the prophet. "All right, let's allow him to confront the people on his own. Watch closely what happens and keep me informed about everything." People are praying the Ave Maria in response to Blasina's soft voice. There are kneeling women drawn close together around the Saint. Their placement is not coincidental. The rest of the church is filled with men who block the way to the altar. At the doors, trying to hide their nervousness, the most devout followers are stationed, ready to prevent anyone from carrying out the Miracle Worker. "Here comes Padre Berrocal with a policeman. Let's pray for Saint Emidius to enlighten him and leave our Saint Domingo at the altar." They recognize Abel's voice, which has directed their worship on other occasions. Blasina is making a great effort to be heard even by those farthest away. The chorus responds powerfully, invigorated with the fervor of a cause they consider just and holy. The priest steps in, ahead of his companions, through the main door and, finding it obstructed, prudently steps back: "Let's go in the back way." They are leading their horses by the reins and, although the sacristy is full of the sick and suffering, they get in without problems. Aristobulo holds his nose in repulsion to the nauseating smell of open, running sores. Cicano incredulously looks around at the changes so abusively

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imposed on this room reserved for religious functions. The victims of disease brought there with no intention of entering God's house disrespectfully, kneel down in supplication as soon as they see the priest. "Padre, intercede with the Saint for me!" "Give me your blessing!" He listens, watches angrily, and remains silent. On the road he thought deeply about what attitude to assume when facing the desecrators, trying to distinguish between innocent victims and true apostates. He clenches his fists and keeps himself from rushing upon them with a fury equal to that of Jesus Christ when he drove the Pharisees from the temple. His unexpected entry by way of the sacristy takes the followers assigned to guard the doors by surprise. The priest steps up to the pulpit with his Bible in his hand, and his presence there is quite enough to silence the prayer. From that height he silently contemplates these unfaithful worshipers. There beneath his gaze, submissive, the people feel as if they had been struck down by the avenging fires of God. He strikes such fear into them that they dare not look him directly in the face and they watch from the corners of their eyes. Their feelings of guilt force them to cross themselves and bow their heads. His cutting words immediately resound with a righteous fury: "Who has brought you together here, you unfortunate idolaters? How is it possible that you have profaned God's house by tearing down the doors and enthroning on the sacred altar of Saint Emidius the remains of that poor cripple who was called Domingo Vidal? You have caused yourselves to be guilty of idolatry and you deserve, to the letter of the law, the worst kind of excommunication. Where is your religious faith? What did you learn from your catechism that could have allowed you to be led into sin by the most abhorred heretic this land has ever produced? Where is the one who calls himself God's chosen prophet hiding? Where is the one who does not dare to face a simple priest who challenges him with only the Holy Bible in his hand? He is not present here because he is Satan himself and Satan flees from the cross and from the Holy Scriptures. This man does not worry me, this diabolical spirit irremissibly condemned to the fires of hell; what worries me are your sinful souls. I am here to defend you, to give you one last chance for salvation, to rescue you from the very doors of hell to which you have been so deftly conducted. Poor sinners, all of you, return to your homes; commend yourselves to the mercy of the Virgin and Saint Emidius, your patron, while I lift up my prayers at the foot of this altar so that God may take pity on you." Confused, contrite, disarmed, the people move away from the cadaver of Saint Domingo. They throw away their candles, blessed by the

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prophet, now condemned by the priest, and they leave by the doors which the prophet's faithful acolytes dare not even close. They rush out to the plaza. A storm pelts them with its swirling mixture of cold wind and rain. The sun, which timidly tried to shine, loses itself among flashes of lightning and the sky grows dark. The bewildered crowd, whipped along by panic, scatters down the narrow streets. "It's the Last Judgment!" "It's the wrath of God!" They close and bar their doors hastily. Then, turning to their forgotten saints, all fall to their knees and beg for pardon. "Dear Mother of God, protect us with your mantle of love!" "Saint Emidius, please help and support me!" The sick people abandon the sacristy without waiting for the priest to scourge them. In the streets the torrential rain washes their wounds. Those who are crippled or paralyzed drag themselves along and some of them, until now untouched by the Saint's miracles, run without ever realizing that they are truly healed. Others leave in the arms and on the backs of their relatives and those unable to walk convulse in anguish and sob at their abandonment. "You poor impious sinners, I should throw you out into the street for you are not worthy of God's grace. But, I will give you shelter. Stay here until the rain is over." The Vidals' house is empty. They have hastily put out all the candles and, in the middle of the room, before the altar raised to her son, a squalid, wrinkled Rafaela prays for grace for her little Domingo. Never has she felt so far from him yet so close to him. In the next room the heart-rending cries of a manicled Balaude can be heard: "You damned old priest! Give me back my poor little brother!" His mother's prayers mix with the sobs of his demented sister. People still rushing along the street shut their ears so they won't hear and their eyes so they won't see. Inside the deserted church, Aristobulo wanders about among abandoned hats and shoes. He looks out the doors without seeing a single soul in the plaza, inundated by the rain. The flash of the lightning bolts makes him turn his head away towards his shoulder, but not even from this position does he dare turn his gaze toward the altar where the corpse still lies in the center of a circle of extinguished candles. Remorse is tormenting him as it did Judas. The other idolaters, unable to confront the priest, have fled, but he, a sinner, must struggle 79

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with his guilt and the admonitions. With his feelings of repentance, he would like to approach the priest who has been praying at the altar of Saint Emidius for an hour as if Domingo's body were no longer stretched out behind him, a sight that still fills the policeman with terror. The sacristan observes Aristobulo with waggish presumption. A look of irrepressible joy is glowing on his rejuvenated face. He moves about among the candelabra, more filled with pleasure than the bats returning to their nests among the rafters. He stacks the palm leaves, sweeps up the shreds of torn prayer sheets, makes a neat pile of the mud tracked in by the pilgrims, and puts in order the pews that were turned in all directions by the crowd. He lights the censer and spreads its aroma throughout the church, still infected by the stench of the dead body. From his uncomfortable position Aristobulo envies him. He would like to be surrounded by the grace that protects the sacristan and lightens his steps. There was never a moment in which Cicano felt the least indication of doubt or the slightest attraction of sin. The night when they worked together to bury Domingo, the brotherhood of innocence united them. But since then they were separated from each other. While Cicano looked after the church without taking a step outside of the holy atmosphere that protected him, Aristobulo, abandoned and alone, had to pursue the heretic and search for him out there where his influence was corrupting and subjugating all in his path. He heard the praises of the Saint from the people who had been the objects of his miracles. He visited the sites where he had worked his marvels. It was clear to him how the prophet, assisted by Domingo, would disappear from a town when only moments before he had been preaching in the presence of many. And then the constant insistence of his wife who longed to win him to the cause of the Miracle Maker. Yes, he understands quite well why the sacristan shows scorn before the remains of Domingo. Why he extinguishes the tapers in the candelabra, removes the shroud from the body and throws it on the trash next to the bloody, foul-smelling candles of the lepers. He watches him tilt the platform and dump the body on the floor. The harsh thud of the skull against the concrete runs a shiver up his spine. A couple of teeth roll across the floor and the bushy hair becomes tangled at the nape of its fossilized neck. Cicano shoves the body into a corner with his foot and brushes off his hands as if he had just touched the worst kind of filth. Abel is the only one who does not abandon Jeremias. He recites for him, almost textually, each phrase of the priest's sermon. He tells of the peasants' terror as they fled from the church without raising a single finger in defense of the Saint. He refrains from talking about the lightning 80

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and thunder, for Jeremias surely must have heard them in his hiding place. He affirms: "The people are saying that it was God, showing his displeasure from heaven." The prophet, wrapped in his white robe, listens with his back turned. He strokes his long beard and drums on the offering box, filled with votive gifts of pure gold, which he holds beneath his arm. Abel's words are crudely describing his own defeat to him. One single sermon from the priest was enough to undermine and bring down the temple raised by two years of untiring preaching. He never thought that Domingo Vidal's sainthood could suddenly vanish like a great cloud of dust. He is so accustomed to the rituals of the cult that he cannot conceive of living without worshipers, images, and miracles. He is frightened by the loneliness in which his most faithful followers have left him. If Aristobulo were to ask for him, hundreds of fingers would indicate his trail and hundreds more would help arrest him. They would put him on trial, they would take away the money and the votive gifts, and then happily lock him up in jail. Not for a single moment does he think about the fires of hell. Sin counts for nothing with him and, therefore, he does not flee through the emergency exit of repentance. "What shall we do?" asks Abel. The answer takes a long time in coming. Jeremias is searching for a way out that he does not find. He thinks, nevertheless, that his only salvation is and must be Domingo. To cling obstinately to his saintliness, even while knowing that he was simply a fossilized cripple in life, is to survive defeat. He must convince himself that he is defending a valid cause. He foresees that Domingo will never pass through the portals of the church as a saint, but he is capable of raising hundreds of temples in the superstitious imagination of the peasants. And the first one, the strongest and the most unshakable, has to be his own spirit. Yes, Domingo Vidal is still a serviceable corpse. Whatever sepulcher Padre Berrocal may determine for the body, he will disinter it with his constant preaching. He turns around and comes face to face with the confused eyes that are observing him. "Abel, you have always seen in me a disinterested defender of Domingo's sanctity. The others have abandoned us, but that's of no importance. If, besides me, there is someone who still believes firmly in him, there is not the least doubt as to his sainthood. So, we must not be afraid nor run away. Not a hint of repentance. We must not turn our backs on his enemies; let us face them, convinced of being stronger because we are sure of the truth: Domingo Vidal is a saint even though Padre Berrocal denies it." 81

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Infected by these words, Abel affirms: "I will follow you. I'm ready to die for Saint Domingo." Jeremias smiles delightedly. In that instant he has convinced the first one, soon all of them will be brought back to the fold. "Let's demonstrate our faith. Let's go to the plaza and preach." Abel, who has spied on the movements of Crooked Neck for a long time, permits himself this reminder: "And Aristobulo?" The prophet's answer is concise: "I expect him to do his duty. Prison is a good place to win the souls of unbelievers." xadre Berrocal, on his knees before the image of Saint Emidius, absorbed in his prayers, begs pardon for the wrongdoings of his parishioners who were seduced by the Devil. At his side, Cicano shows more fervor than the priest himself. At the opposite end of the altar, as far away as possible from the dead body, relegated to a corner, Aristobulo turns his crooked neck like a turtle exploring an unfamiliar place. He is taking stock of his own personal feelings and sniffing at the forbidden ground of idolatry. Two hours of meditation and prayers revive the priest. It is time to confront the reality of cleaning up the residue of this great religious fraud. First, he takes steps to determine the true state of mummification of the corpse. He looks closely at the structure of the limbs; at the sunken, dried-up abdomen; at the leather-like skin, which stretches tightly, like a delicate cuticle, over the skull, outlining the contours of its depressions; the empty nostrils of the nose; the prominence of the cheekbones; and the jaws. In vain he tries to find the natural causes of this phenomenon, which turned the peasant psyche upside down. Without more fuss than has already been caused, he decides to bury Domingo for the second time. The sacristan, predicting a renewal of idolatry, warns him: "It would be better to bury him in Santa Cruz de Lorica." The reply, weighed excessively in the priest's mind, bursts forth: "We would show fear before our enemies. So that idolatry may never again prosper upon this corpse, we must divest it here and now of its false sanctity." The police officer is a shadow fading silently into the corners. The priest reproaches him: "Come over here, I don't know why you keep backing away. Is it possible that you have been contaminated by this heresy?"

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The sacristan believes that the moment has arrived to reveal his suspicions: "Aristobulo has not arrested Jeremias because his Indian woman is a convinced believer in the sainthood of Domingo." The priest remembers the mayor's misgivings concerning the policeman's ineptitude in trying to capture the apostate. "Is it possible that you could be one of his followers?" The implications of the sacristan's suggestion anger the police officer. His wife, like all the other people, believed in the miracles attributed to Domingo; influenced by that belief, which all shared, he also considered the corpse's lack of putrifaction to be supernatural, but the idea of his having covered up for Jeremias is absolutely false. "I swear by God and the Holy Virgin Mary, here before the altar, that I have constantly and faithfully tried to carry out the orders received from the mayor and from you, Reverend Padre." He kneels down in front of him and after kissing his hands crosses himself. The priest scolds the sacristan with a harsh stare and the latter bows his head. His silence frees Aristobulo of any suspicion. "Rise up, my son, you will be able to palpably prove your sincerity by helping with the quartering of the corpse." Cicano smiles, he has seen this man flee from the corpse and now he incites him: "Let's get to work! The sooner we get this garbage out of here, the better!" The priest, who always felt a certain affection for poor Domingo, cuts him short and admonishes him: "The remains of any Christian merit our respect." "Excuse me, Padre, but it stinks so bad!" Aristobulo, motionless, fearfully contemplates the dried-up corpse lying in the corner with its pained grimace. Two of the incisors have fallen out because of the sacristan's rough handling, and their absence makes it even more horrifying. Other people have not seen that ugliness nor smelled the bad odors of which Cicano speaks so lightly. The priest puts more pressure on Aristobulo: "Let's remove it right away!" With uncontainable enthusiasm, Cicano gets ready to bury the body once again. He wraps it in a sheet and ties the folds around the feet and head with a coarse piece of rope. His actions reveal him as a former sexton, thoroughly practical in all details. At the moment of picking up the bundle, he slyly says to his companion: "You carry the hatchet!" With the rigid feet of the dead man resting on his shoulder, Aristobulo trembles with fright as he staggers along.

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flipping between fences of cane and mud, Abel rushes to Jeremias' place of refuge to tell him the news that is frightening all those who are hiding in their houses while watching the funeral procession through the cracks in their doors. "Aristobulo and Cicano, followed by the priest, are taking the corpse to the cemetery to quarter it." The news obviously gladdens the prophet. "This burial is exactly what we need!" he exclaims enthusiastically while rubbing his hands with satisfaction. He picks up the staff that served him during his pilgrimages and steps ahead of Abel. His presence in the town surprises and excites everyone. "The prophet is back!" "He's going to preach in the plaza!" The children try to get up close to him as usual, but their mothers hold them back. Some of the adults follow him from a distance. Others draw near to him, since the priest is busy in the cemetery and they can listen to him with impunity. In the plaza the prophet recklessly chooses the doorway of the church for his sermon. The sunlight makes his beard stand out and his white robe gives him an imposing look. The most daring among the onlookers stop at a distance of several meters from him, barely sufficient to hear his words. Anicharico is there without his twin daughters, whom he could not even drag along with him. Blasina is more daring in order to challenge any criticism that people might throw in her face afterwards. Jose Dolores Negrete has himself carried to the nearest hallway. At his age one can only live by miracles, and he is attracted to anything that even smacks of the supernatural. Actually, Jeremias did not think that his bold appearance in the town, with the priest's being there, would bring together that handful of frightened curiosity seekers: '"'Chimaleros, don't allow the blessed body of Saint Domingo Vidal to be quartered like the carcass of a steer. . . . Let's not stand here doing nothing, let us beg Padre Berrocal on our knees to abstain from such a sacrilegious profanation." The sparks of fanaticism burst into flame again. Now the people are surrounding him. "Who has given one single bit of evidence that Domingo Vidal is not a saint? No one. How many of us have been witnesses of his miracles? All of us. Don't doubt for one minute that you will go straight to heaven more surely by defending him than by turning your backs on him." "Let's go to the cemetery! I won't let the priest rob us of my brother's body!" Balaude shouts as she rushes into the plaza. She shakes her staff, which Abel, with criminal disregard, has allowed her to take up after 84

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untying her. He is following the prophet's instructions and does not weigh the threats to the priest's life posed by this mad woman armed with a club. When they see her arrive with no shoes, torn clothes and a glazed stare in her eyes, the Chimaleros retreat in fright, afraid that she may repeat the wild blows she aimed at the crowd in the church. Behind her, pulled along by Abel, is Rafaela, more incommunicative than ever since they have separated her from her son's body. The prophet incites them: "Let his mother and sister come forward! We will follow them! We only beg of the priest that he not cleave the body of Saint Domingo that even death could not divide." "Let's go right now!" "Let no one stay home!" Apparently, it is the people who are asking for action and demanding mercy. In the lead, Balaude is held back by Abel to give the procession enough time to grow and stretch out along the road. A blind, gregarious impulse, which he does not discern, moves them along. The courage of the prophet, face to face with the priest, awakens their curiosity; the thought that the corpse of Domingo Vidal, although he really may not be a saint, is going to be cut to pieces, and that Balaude, in her madness, may attack the priest, frightens all of them. Many are the strings Jeremias knows how to move in order to regroup his disbanded army, not to mention the imponderable seduction of the miraculous powers that the fossilized body encarnates. "Domingo, changed to stone by the hand of God, will resist the blows of the hatchet!" ./he priest is looking down with curiosity into the grave where he had buried Domingo at night. He wants to find out about the spring from which holy water flows. The rain has turned the grave into a well and it is impossible for him to verify whether the crystalline water really is flowing at the bottom. "We will place him in this stone tomb over here," says the priest, as he looks for a grave less prone to fomenting trickery. Cicano starts to prepare the mixture of cement and offers the hatchet to Aristobulo. "You give him the first whack!" The policeman instinctively rejects it and the hatchet lies there in front of him without his being able to stretch out his hand to pick it up. The sacristan smiles and, from the corner of his eye, watches the priest who is praying at the foot of the dead body. He insists: "Get a good firm 85

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hold on it! Are you, perhaps, afraid of committing some sort of sacrilege?" Now the priest looks straight at Aristobulo as if he would like to penetrate the deepest recesses of his being. Aristobulo's extremely dry mouth makes his tongue stick and with great difficulty he tries to make a denial: "Why should I give a shit about your damn sacrilege! I just don't feel like cutting him apart!" His irreverence makes Cicano lose his serenity. The priest excuses the four-letter words but not Aristobulo's suspicious attitude and speaks very firmly: "Pick up the hatchet and cut. First the legs, then the arms. Then remove the head from the trunk." He indicates the necessary strokes with coldness as if he had been practicing the art of quartering bodies since way back. He is devoid of any sentimentalism toward that corpse. Aristobulo, covered with sweat, extends his hand and weakly grasps the hatchet. He tries to swallow his saliva, but his extremely dry throat denies him even that relief. He turns his back to the dead man's face as if he did not want to see his grimace of pain when the blade severed the joints. The limbs have been reduced to the femurs covered by a very fine tissue of skin. Beneath this delicate covering he imagines that he can see the nerves become taut in order to better resist the force of his blow. Crooked Neck takes a deep breath. Once again he looks the priest in the face and Padre Berrocal confirms the first stroke with a nod of his head. He raises his arm, closes his eyes, and discharges the blow. The hatchet ricochets and he almost injures his own foot. The sacristan chides him: "I've been telling you to grasp the handle firmly!" Aristobulo brushes the sweat from his brow and implores him: "Please, you'd better do it." This anguished request is received by the sacristan like a challenge. In order to demonstrate his resolve in front of the priest, he snatches the hatchet and swings furiously, as if he were chopping down an old rotten tree. He cuts and separates with a single blow. He concentrates all of his energies on the knees, then the arms, then the hips. Splinters of bone fly through the air and strike his face. He moves on to the shoulders and then, when only the head remains connected to the trunk, he seems to be overcome by fatigue. "Okay, you finish the job, cut off his head!" The priest indicates that he is satisfied. Cicano has demonstrated that he is free of any absurd idolatries. He would be capable of dismembering all the icons of the world with equal fervor. He is a man beyond be86

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witchment. Aristobulo, on the other hand, finds himself in a poor state of mind for continuing the mutilation. He feels that his own arms and legs are amputated. The sacristan has to hold his hand to make him grasp the handle of the tool. "Hurry up, finish off the head and let's get him buried!" Aristobulo has become a split personality. The one there who receives the hatchet and doesn't manage to break through the spinal column, the hard, compact vertebrae of the neck, is not in the cemetery. His mind is wandering far away from there. He can see himself on his knees in front of his Indian wife's hammock, sobbing, trying to explain he doesn't know what macabre tale. He begs his dear wife to try everything she has learned from her Indian parents in order to free him from this horrible nightmare. But his little Indian is not alone, the mummies of all the dead generations of Chimds are surrounding her, congregated in his house to hear him tell about the terrifying act of quartering, he doesn't know which, a child or an old man shrunken by magical arts. Each time he looks he sees clearer, closer, and more alive, the laughter of those mummified jaws that mock his incredible story. He raises his eyes and sees the cemetery surrounded by thousands of heads, turning and moving tumultuously. Then he takes note of their bodies; he thought that they were simply decapitated heads but suddenly he realizes that they are people, with arms, legs, and heads on their shoulders. They enter silently, they surround them, they fall to their knees and contemplate with astonishment the fragments of the dismembered corpse. "What are you doing here? Who invited you to this funeral? Get out of my sight! And let no one utter a single word if he does not wish to be condemned to the fires of hell! Get out, you contemptible idolaters!" They do not obey the priest's commands. The arms cut into pieces, the head not yet fully separated from the trunk and the heap of femurs and tibias paralyze them and make their hair stand on end. Even Balaude, forgetting her persecutory fury, attempts to unite the scattered splinters of bone and reconstruct Domingo's body, bone by bone. His mother collapses into the arms of Jeremias. A prayer spreads out among the one thousand mouths, and it is the only reply to the priest's outrageous scolding. Jeremias places Rafaela on the ground and on his knees, among eyeteeth and fingers, vertebrae and clumps of hair, prays to heaven with his eyes full of tears: "Saint Domingo, forgive them! Your soul, complete and sanctified, has not received a single blow from this evil hatchet!" Padre Berrocal shakes with anger and orders Aristobulo: "Arrest that man! Don't let him get away!" 87

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His habit of obedience is stronger than his delirium. He awakens in a dazed state and throws himself violently on top of Jeremias. He brings his wrists together and clamps on the handcuffs. He smiles with satisfaction, looks for approval in the priest's face and exhales a victorious breath. His joy and his brash actions contrast with the peaceful bliss of Jeremias who jubilantly surrenders himself to this outrage. Aristobulo slaps his face, shoves him to one side, kicks him, and his body rolls around spectacularly. The prophet dramatizes Jesus' fall beneath his cross. And he even raises himself up to a kneeling position and again lifts his hands in supplication to heaven: "Forgive them! Forgive them, my dear God!" Cicano is afraid of that multitude that has inopportunely invaded the cemetery and he rushes to grab bunches of bones and shove them into the burial vault. The trunk with its dangling head does not fit, so the priest himself, before the hair-raising astonishment of all, severs the head with a decisive blow. xxer friends comfort the grief-stricken and depressed Rafaela. The sight of her little Domingo, violently dismembered, is a crushing blow. Now, indeed, she has the certainty that he is dead, having been assassinated before her very eyes. Those pious voices, affirming that her son's soul survives and is glorified, influence her very little. Sainthood is something foreign in the face of those splinters of bone that Cicano is throwing into the vault, bouncing them off the wall with repressed joy. She is obsessed by the thought of having seen that pile of debris to which the body, lovingly bathed and perfumed by her so many times, was reduced. Although she is getting up from there, she will never live again. Those hatchet blows have assassinated her, too.

xeople are rushing from one group to another to find out all they can about what's happening in different places. On Easter Monday all the characters of the Passion are still alive in their minds. "They're going to crucify the prophet!" In the policeman who roughly apprehends the prisoner they see the figure of the hated Roman. It's not enough for him to handcuff him, he ties him up with a rope and bloodies his face with a beating. The only things lacking are the crude wooden cross and the insults of the Phar-

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isees. All feel sorry for this victim. He is the martyr, chosen to suffer the punishment that the authorities are unable to impose upon everyone. The prophet is being sacrificed in order to save the believers. Cicano whips him with a calabash switch and insults him: "You damned heretic, you'll pay for this! Why don't you call on your saint to free you from your torment?" Jeremias knows how to exaggerate his suffering: his supplicant gaze, his extended hands. "Water! Water!" The Samaritans rush to him with full calabashes. He intentionally spills some with his handcuffs so that his bloody face is moistened again and again. Blasina cleans his face with a cloth and shows it to the observers. It is strange not to see the image of the Veronica on it. "Don't hit him!" shouts Abel like a reborn Simon of Cirene. Crooked Neck snorts with anger, raises his fist, but the fisherman shakes him and holds him back. "Lock me up if you like, but I'll break your neck if you hit him again!" "And I'll come for you, too! I already have a warrant for your arrest!" he responded angrily. "You won't have to go looking for me, you damned, old Crooked Neck, for I'll not separate myself from the prophet." Abel is ruining Jeremias' intentions. Since he is prepared to dramatize it all, he wants the punishment to be excessive. It is the exact moment to permit the enemy to carry his cruelty to extremes in order to exasperate the temper of the people. "Abel," he begs him, "let the fury of these unbelievers fall upon me." They don't understand the prophet's resignation. If he wished to he could break his bonds and bury the police officer in the mud by simply invoking the Saint.

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IV

Xhe lightning bolts that tear open the night sky threaten to set Chima afire. The smell of rain permeates the air without the fall of any water. Perspiration increases and netting is lifted in spite of the mosquitoes' bloodletting. Sleepless people carry their steerhide chairs out to the patios where they laboriously try to cool themselves with palm-leaf fans. "How suffocating it is!" "It'll rain soon!" Their real worry is something else: at that hour, in the loneliness of the cemetery, without a single candle burning, lies the dismembered body of their saint. They would like to march there in a procession, kneel before his tomb and cry disconsolately, but they are held back by the light framed in the window of the sacristy, where Padre Berrocal, they don't know why, has decided to remain. In the afternoon Cicano rang the Angelus bell, and when Jose Dolores and a very small group came for the rosary, they found the doors of the church unexplainably closed. The sacristan said to them: "No, there will be no prayers!" So, they were prohibited on all sides: enemies of the Saint and proscribed by the priest. Many are those who slip through the darkness to the house where they are holding Jeremias prisoner. They take him food and bandages to cover his wounds. They are surprised at Abel's response: "He's fasting because of the dismemberment!" The fisherman demonstrates his fidelity by huddling in a corner of the doorway to the prison, exposed to the wind and the rain. He refuses to take the straw mat brought by Jesusita, for he wants to undergo the 90

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same fate as the prophet. It hurts him that Aristobulo, afraid of being alone, has refused to lock him up with Jeremias and prefers having him nearby. The policeman is loudly making silly remarks because of the cheap rum. He tosses and turns in his hammock as if he were being goaded and in desperation he starts to sob: "I feel like my neck is more twisted than ever. Old buddy, why don't you rub me down with some alligator fat?" Abel answers him with indifference: "You've always been just as twisted as you could be." The policeman falls from the hammock and comes crawling toward him to show him his neck: "Tell me the truth, don't I have a terrible gash from the hatchet at the nape of my neck?" He foolishly pats himself there, where he thinks he has the wound. "I'm bathed in blood!" Abel shoves him aside in disgust: "You're drunk!" Choked by his sobs, the police officer confesses to him: "We chopped him to pieces and there wasn't a single drop of blood!" At one o'clock in the morning the bells ring out. People jump from their beds and run into the streets without finding the flames of a fire. Only in the distance are the flickers of some lightning flashes barely discernible. "Cicano has gone crazy!" The window in the sacristy continues to be illuminated. People are arriving in the plaza half dressed. They carry ladders, machetes and brooms, and look in vain for the fire. The policeman, awake because of the noise, swaying from side to side, manages to keep himself on his feet: "What's going on here?" He presumes to have the authority his drunkenness denies him. No one pays attention to him and they leave him without support so that he can continue his precarious dance. The door to the sacristy is cracked open and Cicano appears with anguished cries: "Help, the priest is dying, hurry!" In his bed, squint-eyed, Padre Berrocal lies paralyzed. He is drooling from his twisted mouth and his right hand, the very one that separated the Saint's head, is motionless, constricted upon his chest. He is anguished by his attempts to speak; he moves his face on one side only, and his throat bubbles up death rattles. "Holy Virgin! God almighty! Have mercy on our dear priest!" Cicano expresses through his cries and gestures all that the priest can no longer manage to say. "It's the Saint's punishment!" 91

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What a horrible torture to be himself stretched out in the same position in which Domingo suffered for thirty-three years. "He has condemned him to his own illness." The priest babbles, emitting some incomplete words that come out meaningless. "What shall we do?" Cicano asks the policeman. The latter is surprised that someone might ask his advice. He looks around himself, he would like to delegate his authority to someone else. The sacristan suddenly has a bright idea. He places a pencil in the priest's twisted hand and beneath it, as they used to do for Domingo, he puts a piece of paper. Everyone anxiously surrounds the bed to see what he scribbles: "It's a cross!" He wants to indicate a name: Santa Cruz de Lorica. He feels the nearness of death and wants to be transported to the place where his doctor is located, but the superstitious people have another interpretation: "He wants us to take him to the cemetery!" The sacristan looks at the drawing intensely, confused by that cross. He observes the expectant eyes of the priest who has heard the fallacious interpretation. The unnatural movements of his head seem to simultaneously affirm and deny. Cicano, overcome by the contaminating force of such powerful circumstances, falls to his knees before the priest: "Saint Domingo! We sinners, who helped divide your body, beg you to forgive us and hear our prayers: put aside your avenging thunderbolt." Unbelievably, the only one still remaining on his feet in the middle of the prostrate worshipers is Aristobulo, who doesn't manage to get down on his knees. He tries to look at the floor but his stiff neck impedes him. Suddenly he collapses noisely and, completely out of his senses, turns convulsively on the floor. The psychosis is bewitching. The sacristy is a room of individuals who, possessed by the Devil, dance to the rhythms of Saint Vitus. The priest tries to get up and rolls to the floor. Cicano vainly attempts to help him sit up; he collapses in his arms as if his bones had been crushed. Then there appears among them the magical presence that soothes all: "It's the prophet!" They turn their confused minds towards him. Cicano drags himself up to him and kisses his robe: "Forgive us! Forgive us!" The prophet places his hands on the sacristan's head, rolls his eyes upward and pleads: "Saint Domingo, you have revealed to us enough of your miraculous powers. Now send down the sweetness of your kind ways upon these repentant unbelievers."

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He bends down over the priest and with great strength lifts him onto the bed. He is well informed as to all that has happened: "Let us take him to the tomb of Saint Domingo!" Those who did not dare to touch the priest, now lift him from his bed. Stretched out, immobilized, the priest cannot resist. "To the cemetery!" "He has requested it himself!" Burning candles flow from the streets, tributaries of that river of light stretched out along the sinuous road to the cemetery. They intone the same, old prayer used in their pleas for rain. They place the priest before the tomb with Cicano's plaster still fresh upon it. The crosses project their shadows over the priest's body, which now cannot even breathe. His eyes, totally white, are sinking back beneath the arch of his eyelids; his contracted mouth describes a twisted grimace like a mute exclamation. A serpentine of lightning illuminates their faces and stirs the depths of the graves with its roll of thunder. The prophet exclaims in heart-rending tones: "He has died in grace! Saint Domingo has forgiven him!" xn the early morning, surrounded on all sides by fog, Marianita and her friend, both inveterately devout women, make their way toward the church. The lighted cross on the tower gives them the courage to walk through the darkness where so many terrors are hiding. When Lorica's tiny electrical generator breaks down they swear that they see a vision of a campano tree with burning candles that even hurricane-force winds do not put out. Or Satan himself in the form of a black child with long shining fangs of gold. They affirm that he has called to them: "Put your finger in my mouth and see if I have teeth." Although they have made him flee with their onslaught of prayers and crosses, they fearfully cross themselves with each step and when they arrive at the plaza, wrapped in shadows, they confidently take refuge in the sacred entryway. And right there, where they believe themselves to be safe, they run into the Devil who is trying to break down the doors of the church with a club. "Open up or I won't leave a saint with his head in place!" They press themselves against the wall and pray wildly. They are sure that they are not dreaming; they manage to see perfectly his black robe, his trident with which he pounds the doors, and they hear his satanic thunder in the vaulted nave of the church.

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Marianita, with more presence of mind, upon realizing that her Ave Marias are not frightening away the Evil One, overcomes her fear and advises her friend: "Let's get the mayor!" Terrified, they run down the street and in desperation knock at Don Cipriano's door. With little concern for the fact that the latter has stepped outside in his undershorts, they excitedly inform him. "The Devil, taking advantage of Padre Berrocal's absence, is trying to get into the church by breaking down the doors." The mayor smiles to himself; it's not the first time he has heard these ghost stories. "I promise you that I will send a squad of police to defend the church, but now calm down and go home and let me confront the Devil." They have awakened the neighbors with their shouts and the people are trying to see outside with their lanterns. "Mr. Mayor! Mr. Mayor! A dead man is prowling around the church!" Now it's three butchers who have seen the apparition. They have left their slabs of meat in the middle of the plaza and with ashen faces come running down the street. "You're all drunk!" Don Cipriano shouts in anger, "I'll throw the lot of you in jail for disturbing the peace." The oldest of the group, a man well respected in the community, falls to his knees and replies: "I swear by the Virgin Mary and on my dead mother's grave that I have seen him and heard him with these eyes and ears that are destined to become clay." The surrounding neighbors are mobilizing and arming themselves with rocks, sticks, and scapulars. The early morning light is still casting shadows over the streets. "Let's go Mr. Mayor, we've got to defend the church!" Obliged more by his authority than by belief in their wild story, Don Cipriano adjusts his pants, loads his pistol and places himself at the head of the improvised battalion. He doesn't even think about waking up his police officers. He will fight a thousand devils by himself if that be the case. "Let me in so I can tear off that priest's head!" When they hear this sacrilegious cry they all slow down. The blows against the door are proof that it's no mere hallucination. The mayor gets ready to fire at the form butfirsthe finds out whether he is assaulting the Devil or a Christian. He shines the beam of his flashlight over the form and discovers Balaude with her staff, dressed in tatters, her eyes shining in the beam of light. "There he is!" 94

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"Look at him!" They are frightened of looking at the Devil in full length. They forget about their rocks and clutching their scapulars, they tremulously recite their prayers. "Why it's just an old crazy woman!" exclaims Don Cipriano. Encouraged by the presence of his pistol, he is able to overcome the panic, which takes control of the others. "Come on! Help me! It's time to tear off the priest's head!" The mayor moves forward, shining his light on her, and behind him the butchers shield themselves, trusting in his pistol. As they get closer, they get rid of their fear because they do not detect the horns and tail they expected to see. "He doesn't smell like sulphur!" They rush at her, grab her staff, and subdue her roughly. "You damned unbelievers, I'll rip off all of your heads! Jeremias, come to my aid, here are Domingo's enemies!" "Does anyone recognize her?" "It's Balaude, the Saint's sister." "Saint my ass!" blurts Don Cipriano. "You fools are crazier than this poor woman." Four sweaty men who have gotten ahead of the crowd arrive at the plaza. They are carrying the priest's body: "Mr. Mayor, there they come with Padre Berrocal's body. He died last night in Chima." The news shocks and scandalizes everyone. Marianita bursts into tears. "I knew something awful would happen to him!" The mayor grabs one of the peasants by the shirt collar and shakes him furiously: "Did he die or did you murder him?" Night fans the fires of superstition. Many regret having volunteered to carry the priest's body over the swampy trails. They combat their fear with repeated drinks of cheap rum. They are all scared of their own shadows, and when the owl hoots from the depths of the leafy trees, they draw closely together in a brotherhood of superstition. The dead man swings back and forth in a hammock hanging from a long pole, and those who aren't carrying it light the way with torches and lanterns. Many of them know how to pray but it has occurred to no one to elevate his voice in prayer. Even Cicano, who helped him officiate at mass so many times, does not remember a single responsory. They are more worried about their own fate before the civil authorities than about the dead man's soul. Aristobulo lags behind. He has been drinking, but he is more de95

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pressed by his mental and emotional confusion: the priest's strange death has left the policeman and the sacristan a shadowy legacy of remorseful contradictions. xhe judge in charge of the investigation demands that the sacristan remember the tribulations he lived through while isolated and rejected by everyone in Chima. He only remembers the anxiety of feeling persecuted like a Judas for living in the church that was forbidden to the Saint. He's afraid to look at the arm he used to dismember the corpse and he is still unaware of the meaning of that cross drawn by the dying priest. The judge insists that he relive what he wants to forget: everything he heard in Chima; who threatened him and in what places he saw Jeremias. He doesn't know anything. He wants to prostrate himself before the tomb of Saint Domingo, right where the police will not allow him to go. He has aged. His white hair is losing its shine; the wrinkles in his face are shriveling and their furrows are deeper. He avoids looking at people straight on and hurries away with his eyes turned toward the ground. The police officers, one on each side of him, must drag him along and leave him with a crestfallen look standing before the judge. "Here he is. He didn't want to come." The judge looks at him threateningly, eager to strengthen the case against Jeremias and his followers with this testimony. Before they interrogate him, Cicano crosses his arms over his face in a sign of stubborn negation. "Tell me whether this is for the record: Was Padre Berrocal dragged to the cemetery as he was dying?" He remains silent. He twists his hands and spits. The mayor threatens him to no avail: "Your silence makes you guilty of complicity in the crime." He only hears the interior voice of his self-accusation. The mayor calls to the guards: "Take him to the church and watch him, don't let him get away and join his buddies." They have to take him forcefully as far as the sacristy. As they go along the streets, people insult him and make accusations. They reproach him with resentment for what had been forgotten: "He was one of the three who helped dismember and bury the Saint." The empty church brings him face-to-face with his remorse. In that place it was his custom to move tranquilly day or night without being bothered by any fear, free of sin, devout and consecrated to the faith. 96

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Now he is tormented by the memory of Padre Berrocal's last moments. He reflects deeply, desirous of finding himself worthy of accompanying the priest in glory. And when his guilt torments him, he feels harassed by the obsession of having profaned Domingo's body. The weakness he experienced that night grows and becomes more accusing. "Cicano! Cicano!" At the same time, every day at dawn he hears Padre Berrocal's urgent call. "Get up and let's go dig up the Saint." He covers his ears, but the cavernous voice from beyond the grave continues to reverberate in his brain. He goes to a different room in the church; he sprinkles holy water in the corners and commends himself to Saint Emidius. He is afraid to cross through the room where they held the wake for Padre Berrocal. He is frightened by the mice running among the dead man's old shoes and rickety kneeling stool. "Cicano! Cicano!" His confused mind sinks into hallucinations. It startles him to hear the call to morning prayers at midnight. He thinks that Padre Berrocal is moving the bell clappers. He gets out of bed and, still fearing that he will run into the priest's ghost, goes up to the belfry. The bells are sleeping. He places his ear against them, and he feels the deep vibration that lingers after they have been rung persistently. "Cicano! Cicano!" The voice comes from down below and echoes through the great emptiness of the church. "Just a moment, good Padre, I'm coming." Now the pious Marianita is the one astonished by the ringing of the bells. She has not heard them since they buried Padre Berrocal and she prepares herself hurriedly to do her religious duty. She walks along uneasily. She has a presentiment of finding the Devil beating on the church doors again. In the sanctuary there are no lights but the bells insist on their funereal toll. She goes in through the sacristy and protected by the crucifix she calls out timidly: "Cicano! Cicano!" Her voice, after finding its way through empty corners, returns to her in a distant echo. She moves forward with unsure steps, she makes the sign of the cross and looks from one side to the other at the silent wooden saints. Suddenly she collides with a hanging corpse. She drops her prayer book and flees in terror. In the plaza she scarcely manages to explain what she has seen to those who surround her: "The Saint has hanged Cicano from the ropes in the belfry."

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xhe circumstances in which the deaths take place and the dementia of the desecrators, deftly exploited by Jeremias, confirm the sanctity of Domingo Vidal. His terrible vengeance upon those who dismembered his body, reveals a new, unsuspected quality in one who was God's gentle lamb: his wrath against unbelievers. In life he was adored for his overflowing mercy. Knowing that he was compassionate, one could choose between obeying him or rejecting him. Now, one must believe in him or risk a challenge to his anger. Not even the clergy escape his punishment. It is preferable to openly face the civil and religious authorities, before defying his vengeance. And the prophet, persecuted for his intransigent defense of the Saint, personifies his supernatural powers. He is feared, obeyed and worshiped. If there were anyone earlier who might openly show his rejection of him, at the present time he would be scared to even think about it. The heretic does not abuse his exaltation. He still remains in the background. His latest achievement is the exhumation of Domingo's remains in order to venerate them in a grotesque mausoleum erected at a point facing the doors to the church. Either fear or prudence counsels him not to violate God's house again, as his own followers wish him to do. Actually the fact that the law has not initiated any action against the sacrilegious group scares him. His strategy is not one of absolute abstention. He preaches, fans the fires of fanaticism, misrepresents facts, and, above all, moves forward the process of canonization for Saint Domingo Vidal. With increased ardor he calls for gifts and offerings to provide for supposed and very costly audiences with the Pope at the Vatican. He blesses and sells prayers; he confers plenary indulgences and supervises the rituals of worship. Protected by the silence of the people, he celebrates open-air masses, sings Te Deums, and enthrones altars with miraculous images carved by Remigio. If he does not call for a schism it is because he wants to take refuge within the doctrines of Catholicism that he ignores. xhe last small stretches of land are submerging under the impetuous attack of winter. On the surface of the swamps, rooftops and treetops appear to be floating. All the roads leading to Chima have been flooded and it is commonly affirmed that the Saint is defending his people from persecution. On the masonry steps at the port of Santa Cruz de Lorica, people are crowding around the eight police officers who, for the third time, are leaving to capture Jeremias. They have orders to arrest him and to de98

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molish the crypt that preserves the remains of Domingo Vidal, erected irreverently and defiantly in the very doorway of the church. In the minds of the officers and of those who surround them, the recent happenings are being superstitiously pondered. They are armed to the teeth: ammunition, rifles, and bayonets—all they lack is courage. In spite of the scapulars and medals that hang upon their chests, they feel unarmed. The enemy is an undefined mixture of superstition and Catholicism. "Yesterday we almost capsized in the middle of the swamp when we were caught by a northeast wind coming from Chima," grumbles one of the policemen. The corporal, called in to instill them with courage, confesses fearfully: "The first time the prophet unleashed those winds against us, we saved ourselves because I invoked the name of Saint Emidius." An old woman who is giving them prayers, just in case they find themselves in difficulty, is inciting them to rebellion: "If our big strong mayor is as macho as he claims, why isn't he going with you?" All ask that question in their own minds, and surely the mayor himself is doing the same. The latter alleges that his presence in Lorica is necessary for the investigation. The people's thoughts are otherwise. The oarsmen compel the canoe to move forward. The police officers are mute, as if they wished not to break the silence of their superstition. The rifles across their backs watch the flocks of ducks pass overhead without disturbing their flight. They strain to discover in the waters, the wind and the trees the evil spirits conjured up by Jeremias. The stern oarsman, who is most probably capable of orienting himself by the odor of the water alone, moves his paddle reluctantly and increases their confusion: "Do you know which side Chima is on?" Threatened with being discharged if he does not carry out his assigned mission, the corporal stares at the man with the paddle not knowing what to say His silence stimulates in the police officers the hope of seeing the expedition frustrated once again. "I think that this floe of plant debris that is blocking our channel is not a simple coincidence," insinuates the man with the pole. They are beginning to misinterpret simple accidents of geography. They could easily find their way, if they wished to do so, by the flight of the birds that always congregate in the same shaded resting places. Whether because of an avalanche of water lilies or some calculated maneuver by the oarsman, the prow of the craft becomes lodged in a great deposit of algae. 99

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"We're stuck!" the oarsman announces with a resigned tone. The corporal bites hard on his cigar and asks: "I wonder whether these are acts of God or the prophet?" They all feel glad. Their superior is fabricating a new excuse to give the mayor, as the sun reaches its zenith in order to scorch them the better. "And how are we going to get out of this mess?" "It will be better to allow ourselves to be pulled along by the current, plants and all," the oarsman advises while crossing his arms. "We'll be caught by nightfall," growls the corporal. "And what else can we do? It's better to wait here in the canoe than in the bellies of the hungry alligators that abound in these waters. The first one who dives in to push the canoe off will never come out, ever again." Jeremias disappears from their worries again and so as not to feel the anxiety of waiting, they shoot at the cormorants, which are devoured by the alligators as soon as their bodies hit the water. That night, his face shaded by the visor of his kepi, the corporal makes excuses to his superior: "We went aground in the swamp and if it weren't for the lighted church tower that guided us in the middle of the darkness, we'd still be there." The mayor answers him in a rage: "Tomorrow I will accompany you personally, to see whether there are also witches and ghosts who try to prevent our arrival at Chima." I h e prophet has faith in his miracles and wants to win all the battles with them. He comes out of his hiding place and his presence alone tumultuously congregates the peasants around him. His long hair hangs over his eyes. He has learned to express himself with his gaze. He moves his pupils from side to side. If they remain fixed, those who surround him fall silent. His white robe, greasy with the dirt from his wanderings, is now an inherent part of him. No one remembers having seen him in his former sacristan's clothing. His fingers have grown used to combing his beard with their long nails. He extends his arms and everyone kneels down to listen: "The police are armed. We'll let them face the Saint's anger. Lock yourselves up and don't come out. Those who live on the plaza must leave their houses, we don't want Domingo's avenging thunderbolts to blind you when they fall upon the unbelievers." Others are the orders he imparts to his closest followers. Abel is to 100

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watch the swamp. Remigio and Anselmo, armed with shotguns, will accompany him in defending Domingo's sepulcher from the church. xhe canoe, manned by police, moves forward with a steady course. Mayor Botero, an old pathfinder himself from when he used to search for Indian treasure, is paying more attention to the compass on his gold watch chain than to the doubtful indications of the oarsman. "Look here, this way we can take a shortcut if we go in through the mouth of Black Water Creek." "No indeed, sir, let's go across the swamp in this direction, even though we may have to face all of their evil spirits at once." He has his gaze fixed on a point that he is unable to see, but one which the magnetic needle insistently signals. It is not surprising to hear the notes of Abel's conch shell that sink into the depths of the swamp and agitate the chelecas. The police officers hear it and look at each other in fear. Also, the silence surrounding the town disturbs them. The usual columns of smoke rising from the houses and rooftops are not there; throughout the entire trip they have not crossed paths with a single fisherman's canoe, nor have they heard the high-sounding dialogue of the grist mills cleaning the grains of rice. They can smell trouble in that solitary atmosphere that makes the waters even more peaceful. Their rifles on their slings cut invisible grooves into their shoulders. When they get to Chima the canoe enters easily because of the water that covers the streets. They disembark and, feeling distrustful, post a sentry to watch the canoe. The mayor and his detachment direct their steps toward the plaza, guiding themselves by the little church tower. They imagine the peasants observing them while hiding behind their doors and windows. They anxiously cross the muddy streets. In front of the church they find the tumulus of the sepulcher crowned by a cross. Smoking candles illuminate it and they are the only indication that the town is not an ancient Indian village abandoned to the passage of centuries. "They'd better hide themselves, because if I found them on this spot worshiping these bones, I'd make them all dance around it stark naked." The policemen listen in silence although they would like to shut their superior's mouth. What happened to Aristobulo for following orders could happen to them. If they dare not cross themselves in his presence, 101

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on the inside they are begging forgiveness for having heard that blasphemy without protest. "Get me a half dozen of these yokels out here to tear down this tomb and to take the dead man's remains back to the cemetery." They readjust the position of their rifles and spread out cautiously around the plaza. They knock at doors and make respectful inquiries: "Anybody home?" The same question crisscrosses from one end of the place to the other. The mayor steps forward with resolve and, setting the example, tries to kick in the doors of Jose Dolores Negrete's house. He meets unexpected resistance and, annoyed, turns to his subalterns: "What are you doing standing there and not helping me?" With a powerful shove in unison, they break them down. Don Cipriano rushes in with brashness and shouts imperiously: "Whoever's alive in this place get the hell out here!" He draws his pistol and, making threatening gestures with it, he goes through the interior rooms; he searches the patio and finally comes out in the neighboring corrals. "It seems like there's not a soul in the town." The policemen confirm his opinion: "They've all left so they won't have to dig up the dead man." The mayor angrily mutters: "This is the work of that damned heretic. If I got my hands on him, I'd string him up on that cross he's raised over there!" The policemen show more fear than obedience. "Rig the thing with a charge of dynamite! That way we'll blow up tomb, bones, and all!" The corporal looks at his comrades and guesses that they would not permit that kind of sacrilege. He responds: "I'm very sorry, Mr. Mayor, but we are not arsonists." Don Cipriano becomes furious and rebukes them: "Orders are orders. Blow up the sepulcher or I'll have all of you court-martialed for insubordination." They are so close to the church that the three men lying in wait inside can hear everything they say. Jeremias rests the barrel of his shotgun on the window sill. He pulls back the hammer with a resounding click as if he were crushing the vertebra of a shad with his molars. Remigio, on the upper level of the bell tower, closes one eye and looks through the sight of his carbine with the other one. He is well supplied with cartridges and he's sure of his aim. On the other side of the church, stretched out on the floor, Anselmo watches at ground level through the crack under the 102

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door. He cannot see the heads of the policemen and the mayor, but their bellies are a perfect target at only a distance of four meters. "Light the dynamite!" The corporal turns so pale that his face has the languid look of candles burning in full sunlight. The mayor puts his hand on his pistol. The policemen look all around themselves. A barrage of rifle fire would have frightened them less than their sensation of being watched by the silence of the plaza. The corporal strikes the match but his shaking fingers do not manage to bring the flame into contact with the powder-blackened fuse. Suddenly Jeremias' shot rings out. The terrified policemen run, the more cowardly ones not even managing to flee but taking cover behind the sepulcher. The detonation seemed to them like a thunderbolt descended from heaven. They fearfully await more explosions. The corporal with his shoulder disabled is complaining more than he is bleeding: "The thunderbolt shook me from head to toe!" "Thunderbolt my ass!" Don Cipriano reproaches him. "It was a shot fired from the church tower." He fires his pistol and brings down the cross on the belfry. He does not want to believe his own marksmanship. His Catholic conscience hurts him because of the sacrilege of having broken the cross, but the thought of seeing himself abandoned by his troops scares him even more. He attempts to retreat with dignity but his legs give way on him. The wounded man has to help him get his escape under way. They arrive at the canoe, limping, and have scarcely boarded when poles and paddles thrust it into motion. Recovering from his scare, the mayor tries to justify his own fear: "You cowards!" You left me there all alone!" There is only one reply: "Look, sir, how the sun is clouded and dim at midday." The corporal on the bottom of the canoe shows them a prayer and affirms with conviction: "If I wasn't carrying it in my shirt pocket, I wouldn't be telling the story." Soaked and dejected, the mayor refuses to look at it: "I'll come back and attack by land and by water with a bigger detachment, and we'll see whether there's a scarecrow among them who resists a good dose of lead." iVlarianita and her devout companions are convinced of Padre Berrocal's repentance prior to his death. They feel that they are responsible for the imprisonment of Balaude, on whom they no 103

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longer see the Devil's ears. They join the group that makes its way to the jail to solicit freedom for the Saint's sister. They repeat the news which the roads and streets digest and deform. "Saint Domingo will inundate Lorica!" "They're bringing Jeremias on their shoulders to have him ordained as bishop." The mayor intimidates them: "Break up this foolishness and go home or I'll give you some of the lead I'm saving for the Chimaleros." They do not retreat. Their demands become more strident: "If you don't free the Saint's sister, we'll do it ourselves." Four armed officers are enough to disperse them. Now they cry out as they pass along the streets: "We invoke your protection, Saint Emidius." The town is running out of candles because people are burning them secretly in the corners of their houses. They have lost faith in their own saints. Many prefer to remain outside the church for fear that it may collapse. The peasants reach Lorica, sell their produce at any price and leave immediately. "If they don't let Balaude go, the Saint will unleash earthquakes and landslides against Lorica." The absence of a priest to lecture them confuses and intimidates them. "The Archbishop of Cartagena refuses to assign a new priest to this parish." Even the mayor feels that his own faith is undermined. He is unsure as to whether he is confronting the heretic or the cripple whom the latter is trying to sanctify. He prays, reads his Bible and tries to convince himself that he has God as his ally. "I am defending the religion of Christ!" In front of his police, he shows off his scapular and crucifix more than the pistol concealed in his belt. The new officers, brought from other places, not contaminated by Jeremias' teachings, are beginning to feel uneasy because of the stories people tell them about old Crooked Neck. Instead of rifles they would like to grasp olive wood crosses. They would quit if they did not know that they could be courtmartialed as deserters. Undertaking the attack on the sepulcher of the Saint is condemning oneself to the flames of hell. The mayor's mind does not overlook the fact that time is his worst enemy. To put off the capture of Jeremias is to lose soldiers. "We're going to march on Chima!" The uniformed men are divided into two columns. One will advance by the mountainous road, through mud and mire, and the other will 104

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again cross the feared waters of the bewitched swamp. All along the streets, in the plaza, in the market place and along the edge of the boat landing, people watch them as if they were condemned men. A chill, never experienced beneath a sun registering forty degrees, darkens the looks of police and peasants. Never before have they seen defeat parading toward the sepulcher. "Saint Domingo, have mercy on them." Hands reach out as they pass to give them prayers. They find no shields stronger nor arms surer to protect themselves. They read and memorize them on the run. x he police are coming to burn down Chima!" "They're going to burn Jeremias alive!" The news awakens fears accumulated through repeated misfortunes. They bar their doors and lock up their pigs, chickens, and cows. At the entrance to the town they construct barricades of cut poles and branches. The canoes are dragged out of the swamp so that no one can get away. The women arm themselves with pestles and sticks in their hands. Even the children make bows from reeds. Remigio stops carving crosses to make stocks for shotguns. Everyone gets used to the whining lament of the machetes being sharpened on the grinding stones and on the stone steps of the houses. "We'll give our lives for the Saint." Soon they gather up all the lead weights from the fishing nets. They even cast silver and gold bullets from the votive offerings of the penitents. The blessed prayers are as valuable as ammunition. Abel has the prophet's orders carried out immediately: "Twenty men will defend the Lorica road. Another twenty will take positions on every road entering the town. Anselmo will be in command of the canoes sent against the police canoes." Jeremias does not realize that the townspeople's decision to fight has contaminated him and is dragging him into their violence. Their fanaticism is taking on new strength and new directions. To defend the Saint is to fight for themselves. No longer does anyone put in doubt the sainthood of Domingo Vidal. They are fighting for the faith that he has engendered. The heretic himself, who was able to foment and guide the cult, is moved blindly by strange forces. His crimes as a self-interested preacher have been left behind. The action of the moment is transforming him into a soldier. He's dreaming of bonfires, dismemberment, resurrection 105

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at the side of the Saint. His life and the sizeable accumulation of offerings are of little concern to him. The terrible sufferings of Golgotha are of least importance in his decision to become a martyr. Aright emerges from the swamps, black, pregnant with mosquitoes and anxiety. Abel's conch lets the sun escape without giving the alarm. On the mountain the policemen's boots are not seen. In the plaza men are praying with their guns on their shoulders. Jeremias has given instructions that not a single candle be lighted, not even at the tomb of the Saint. Chima, huddled in the darkness, is barely discernible by the crowing of its roosters and the braying of its donkeys. No one is sleeping under his mosquito net. They are watching the roads, as before they watched the anxious river ready to overflow its banks. "They'll attack tonight!" They take cover in the patios, in the church and behind the barricades in the streets. Jeremias is everywhere. "He is walking upon the waters of the swamp waiting for the police." "He is defending the main entrance into the town with a sword of fire given to him by Domingo." Actually Mayor Botero's strategy worries Jeremias. He knows that the mayor left Lorica at the head of his battalion and nevertheless he is not showing up anywhere. Abel assures him: "There were more than fifty police armed with rifles." He makes a round of the plaza and checks that all of them are at their posts. They will die defending the sepulcher of Domingo. The prophet falls to his knees before it and prays. To his rear some are murmuring in a low voice: "He's conferring with the saint." iVlayor Botero has discovered one unguarded approach: the cemetery. The guns, machetes, and clubs are all aimed toward Lorica. The Chimaleros have forgotten about their dead. The soldiers advance cautiously among the crosses, protected by the shadows. Camilo, the simpleton, who looks after the grave where Padre Berrocal first buried the Saint, is surprised to see that the dead people are leaving their graves. He watches and makes the sign of the cross. He wants to light a candle, but he is afraid of violating the ban imposed by Jeremias. 106

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His eyes wide with awe do not manage to see the skeletons' fleshless skulls. Nevertheless, he hears them splashing through the water and talking to one another. He is frightened and hurries away. He reaches the plaza and raises a commotion: "The dead people are leaving the cemetery with rifles on their shoulders." Jeremias shakes him and interrogates him: "Were you dreaming or awake?" "I swear by Saint Domingo that I saw them creeping this way." The prophet grabs his double-barreled shotgun. "They're attacking us from the rear!" Shots echo through the streets. "They're already in the town!" The women rush to take refuge inside the church and the men take cover without knowing which way to fire their guns or swing their machetes. The gunfire increases. The mayor is more afraid of the darkness than of the muzzle flashes. "Set a house on fire so it will light the way for us!" he orders as he tries to dodge the showers of buckshot. A palm-leaf torch falls on Sabina's roof. "The Devil has put fire to the witch's house again!" By the light of the burning ridge pole, the police only see the cats that are crossing crazily from one side to the other of the corrals. The howling of the dogs makes the police think that their bullets are wounding them only. The stratagem of the fire, instead of exposing the enemy, has converted the police into targets for the latter's bullets. In the distance the cries of the women join the complaint of the barking. A bullet has broken Remigio's spinal column. He implores: "Saint Domingo, I don't feel my legs. Let me run so I can kill your enemies!" Eduviges leaves the church in search of Anselmo. "He took a bullet in the groin!" She embraces her little son and fears that the bullet that has wounded her man was fired by her dead husband, recently escaped from the cemetery. Anicharico's daughters are looking for their father. They are whining: "They've set our house on fire!" They are running around half dressed, as if the elf Juan Lara were after them. In the plaza, Jeremias and his followers are trying to defend the tomb of Domingo. They are firing from positions behind the stone crypt. The mayor wants to halt his advance against the heavy fire that is harassing them. Four police officers have been hit by buckshot and their uniforms 107

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are becoming wet with multiple blood stains up and down their backs. They are dragging themselves along in the mud without knowing which way to flee. "They made mincemeat out of one policeman in the plaza/' The disoriented roosters announce the arrival of dawn, confused by the glow of the conflagration. The mayor fears that morning will reveal their unprotected position. He cannot even reach his dispersed officers to give them instructions. He feels a presentiment of defeat. "Saint Domingo, protect us!" shouts one of the frightened policemen. His superior puts his hand over his mouth, anxious to prevent that idea from contaminating the rest. He himself is thinking that some evil spirit must have advised him to make this insane assault on an entire town in arms. He orders: "Let's rush the crypt and blow it up!" He wants to justify his failure at capturing Jeremias. He directs his steps toward the middle of the plaza. His subalterns follow him, convinced that there is no possibility for retreat. On all four sides gun muzzles are flashing in the dark. Soon they realize that the resistance effort is being imprudently directed from behind the tomb. Jeremias fires and reloads as if he had served all his life in an artillery battalion. His white robe distinguishes him at each muzzle flash and the rifles want to pick him off. Abel and Anicharico, ready to sacrifice themselves, accompany him. From behind the church, between explosions, you can hear the dull murmur of prayers. "I'm hit!" A bullet has found its mark in the prophet's eye and all the blackness of night seems to be pouring toward the inside. From head to toe a paralysis is deadening his limbs. His mouth is terribly twisted. Abel remembers the grimace on the face of the dying Padre Berrocal. Half of his face is covered with blood and the other half, suddenly pale from the hemorrhage, seems to live through its distended pop-eye. His benumbed hand is no longer grasping the shotgun. Anicharico stammers superstitiously: "He's been struck down by Saint Domingo's death!" Although the intensity of the bullets against the tomb increases, the Italian and the fisherman take the risk of crossing the four meters that separate them from the church door and drag the body to that point. They pound desperately but no one opens for them. Abel shouts anxiously: "They've killed Jeremias." The mayor rejoices at the news. The police don't know whether to celebrate or lament his death. They are afraid that the people, in a fanatical rage, may exterminate them all. Anicharico manages to dislodge the 108

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crossbars and the main door comes open. At the sight of the prophet who seems to be staring at them with his single pop-eye, the women burst into an uproar of tears and prayers. They shake him, pull at his beard, and try to give movement to his limbs. "Saint Domingo has carried him home to eternal glory!'' They pull him up to the steps of Saint Emidius' altar. They light candles and leave him there in the care of the one who was always his protector. The extinguished candles are lighted also, one by one. The mayor strides forward and enters the church with his pistol smoking. The policemen hesitate in the doorway and watch the procession that is taking shape around the altar. In the plaza and along the streets footsteps and laments are heard. The peasants are gathering from everywhere, still with their machetes unsheathed, sweating and dumbfounded. The mayor senses that a suppressed tempest is coming to life. "Let's get out of here right now!" His subalterns do not wait for the order to be repeated and their superior forgets about the sepulcher and the dynamite. They understand that the people need only a pretext to fight and with those machetes and shotguns they would be capable of carrying out greater prodigies than all the miracles attributed to Domingo Vidal.

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