The Grains of Paradise

 

His smile was so bright and so warm that I began grinning, and then I laughed again, and so did he.

“I tell you.” He reached out his hand and we shook. “My name is Tio Felipe Ignacio de Fuestes. The people here call me Tio.”

“Yes?” I knew I mustn’t hurry him.

“This is not my village. I am of Mérida, in Yucatan.”

“Mérida, huh?”

“I was a tourist guide. To the ruins and places. I met a professor from Mississippi Southern and he got me in and helped me. He was Professor Johnson. You know him, maybe — Professor Johnson?”

I said I didn’t, and looked in toward the dining room, where an Indian girl was putting my lunch on a table. She wore a brightly colored blouse and her hand-woven skirt was tight around her thighs. She was barefooted and as graceful as a cat, and as noiseless.

The clerk came out from behind the desk and stood between me and the girl, and touched my arm to get my attention. “The people in this village will not believe I went to school in the United States.”

“The devil, you say. What’s so strange about going to school in the United States? Lots of Mexicans do.”

He shrugged that mean-anything gesture of Latinos, the hands out and the shoulders rising. “Not to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Mr. Hoyle. If I had told them New Orleans or Texas. Or Florida or California. But Hattiesburg, Mississippi…” He shrugged again.

I knew exactly what he meant — exactly. Hattiesburg, Mississippi just doesn’t sound like a place where a man would go to college from a long ways off. Boston, yes. Chicago, New York, Atlanta — a dozen places, a hundred. But not Mississippi Southern in Hattiesburg. So I knew he was telling the truth. There was no reason for him to kid me and, beside; a four-flusher never would have picked out Hattiesburg.

“The Ladinos think that I have lied. To show off.” He explained.

“Making like a big shot. I follow you now.”

“The Indians don’t care, or matter. But the Ladinos think I am a big mouth.”

“And you want me to tell them that you really have been to school in the United States. OK, I’ll tell them.”

“Only a few North Americans ever come to Feliz. From Los Angeles, New York — places like that. They have never heard of my college. Or of Hattiesburg. I ask them and they look at me and shake their heads, and the Ladinos laugh.”

The Indian waitress had stepped back from my table and my lunch was ready, and so I told the fellow to send the scoffers to me and that I’d put them right and I went into the dining room. A couple of greasy meat patties were on my plate, and some canned corn and shriveled tomatoes. In a land that dripped exotic fruits, a land of fine peppers and black beans, here I was getting lunch wagon hamburgers. Anyway, the coffee was good.

I was thinking of enchiladas and avocados, of thin tortillas spread with black-bean paste or mountain honey, and then the owner came in and pulled up a chair. He “Psst-pssted” at the Indian girl and she brought him a cup of coffee. He sipped his brew noisily and wiped his moustache with his fingers.

“Tio…” He nodded toward the lobby. “Tio in there tells me you have been in Mississippi.”

“That’s right. In Hattiesburg, I know about the college where he went.”

He was not impressed and took another sip of coffee. “There is a hotel in this place?”

“Two or three, last time I was there.” I was having fun, sort of like playing a quiz game. “The largest one was the Forrest Hotel.”

Now he was impressed, but tried not to show it. Even so, he was persistent, “Tio says there is a railroad in this place.”

“Three, last time I was there.” I didn’t like the owner particularly, and thought it was about time to dress him down. I figured him for a flabby little tyrant who probably given Tio a hard time. “Tell you something, mister.” I pushed my empty cup away and lit a cigarette. “Your clerk says he has been to college in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has. I’ve got a hundred pesos to ten that he has.”

I have never seen a Latin American who wouldn’t cover a bet if he had the slightest outside chance of winning.

“A hundred to ten,” I repeated, and loud enough for the Indian waitress to hear.

The owner drained his cup and got up. “I never bet with strangers. Have some more coffee. Mr. Hoyle, but you will excuse me, please…”

He left me and walked out into the afternoon, and I knew to spread the news that Tio really had been to college, like he said, and that he was willing to bet that it was so, and that he had a gringo to back it up.

Tio waited until the boss was safely away, and came to my table and sat down, and the waitress brought him coffee without being told to do so. She smiled at him, a quick, sly little smile of triumph shared. “You have done me a gracious service, Mr. Hoyle.” He offered me one of his own cigarettes and lit one for himself.

“That’s more than you’ve done for me.” I nodded toward the food that I hadn’t touched. “Is this sort of stuff you eat?”

Tio was surprised. “I thought you would approve. I told them about the hamburgers. In Hattiesburg – hamburgers. Day and night, hamburgers.”

“In Mexico I like Mexican food. Good hot Mexican food, red-hot.”

“Oh?” Tio was delighted and proud. “You say?”

“Sure I say. Have you got any tortillas back there? And bean paste? And some hot peppers?”

Tio clapped his hands like a proprietor, and the waitress came running, and he spoke to her so rapidly that I caught none of it, and she, too, was proud and hurried back to the kitchen. Tio leaned back in his chair and blew smoke toward the ceiling, like a man suddenly sure of himself, like a bantam cockerel that had found his way around the barnyard. “It is the food of the land, my friend.”

The tortillas were thin and the bean paste was spicy and without lumps, and there was a bottle of beer with a red rooster on the label. The peppers, however, weren’t much. No authority. Long red peppers that had been dried so long that their kick was gone. I recognized them immediately asAshanti, the dried fruit of Piper clusii. I picked up one and tasted it, and to me it was almost bland.

“Be careful,” Tio cautioned me. “They are hot.”

“Hot? Those things?” I tossed the pepper back into the dish and took a long swallow of beer. “They are for children. For nursing children.”