THE VISITOR

El Baratillo became an institution: a neck tie that cost ten pesos, Homer sold for eight pesos and the same with everything else.

One day something happened that changed his life. It started in a simple way like all the great things in the world. An Indian with high cheek bones, a long black skirt and his hair in a pony tail had come in the shop. Standing by the dirty white walls, he waited while Homer sold to the customers.

Miguel had gone to sort out a consignment of coca leaves and Maria had stayed at home, helping her mother tidy the house.

The Indian stood by a few boxes of merchandise that had arrived that morning, and Homer thought the man had gone to sleep in the corner. As he summoned enough courage to get closer, he saw his eyes flickering in the shadows.

“Can I help you?” Homer asked.

He didn’t want to accept the box the man offered him. It could be a bomb or something equally sinister.

“I want you to go,” Homer said.

The Indian remained by the counter, his hands fiddling with the box he had in his hands. Homer thought the policemen patrolling the market during the day would get rid of him. Keeping his cool, he moved towards the shop door, hoping to find someone in the street to save his life.

“I’ll call the police,” he said.

As the Indian opened the bag he had in his hands, Homer crouched behind some boxes of coca by the door, expecting the man to burst in flames in front of his eyes. A small head surrounded by black hair appeared out of the bag.

It looked like a midget’s head from another land, with its eyes shut and sewn mouth. Memories of the fair with all the people in the cages came back to Homer’s mind, while he studied the head with its yellow skin.

“Is it real?” he asked.

The Indian checked the bags of coca by his feet, while muttering to himself.

“Do you want them?” Homer asked.

“Mmm,” the man said.

Homer understood why the Indian had brought the head to his shop. The fame of his coca leaves must have spread amongst the inhabitants of the jungle. He watched the little man sniffing the contents of the bags with pleasure.

“You have to bring me more heads,” Homer said.

As the Indian chewed coca leaves, Homer thought he had discovered something never imagined. Balboa must have felt like that as he set eyes on the Pacific Ocean or Columbus when he shouted “Land” for the first time.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asked.

Busy sniffing the coca leaves, the Indian didn’t pay attention to him. They had to be his favourite thing.

Homer marvelled at the similarity between the man and the small head while boiling some water in the stove. Children should play with shrunken men instead of artificial toys, he thought.

“No heads,” Homer said pointing at the bags. “No more coca.”

Rummaging in a wardrobe, he found a map of the country his father had kept amidst the boxes. On opening it on the floor, the capital and big cities of the cordillera appeared next to the jungle. Homer pointed to a dot lost in the greenery.

“This is Florence,” he said. “Where do you live?”

Avoiding the rubbish strewn around him, the Indian looked at the map, while Homer talked of piranhas and giant snakes eating men alive.

“This is the Guaviare River,” he said.

“River,” the Indian said.

Then the man pointed at a place in the jungle, lost amidst the trees and other things.

“Is that your home?” Homer asked.

The Indian had to live at the end of the world, and as Homer pretended to ride on a horse, the man stopped his scrutiny of the map.

“Do you go there by horse?” Homer asked.

He galloped around the room, repeating the word horse all the time, and jumping around the boxes while the little man stared at him.

"I want to know where you live," Homer said.

Indifferent to the question, the Indian sniffed the coca leaves inside the box. Homer showed him a few pictures he had found in a book, where the women washed their clothes by a river and a puma hid behind the trees.

“I still don’t know where you come from,” he said.

“Jungle,” the Indian said.

Homer nodded. “Can you understand me?”

The Indian didn’t seem to care about anything around him. After shutting his box, he got ready to go back home, wherever that was but Homer wanted more heads.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “When are you coming back?”

The Indian didn’t care about him, while moving along the corridor in his way to his home in the jungle.

“Remember to bring me more heads,” Homer said.

The Indian looked at him in silence, before opening the door to the outside world. Homer watched the little man disappearing around the corner, as the head waited for him.

On admiring it in the privacy of his room, he felt the rough skin of the face and the black hair around it. He had to get the correct number of stamps from the post office to send the letter to his Uncle Hugh across the sea. A head reduced to its smallest expression might give him lots of money to conquer the world. Maria appeared at the door.

“Those boxes are uncomfortable,” she said.

“I like them.”

Homer only cared about his money, even though dust adorned the sides of the room, and spiders looked at them from a myriad of cobwebs.

“Something is on the floor,” Maria said.

The head had fallen amidst the litter and other things by the boxes. It had to be magic. She got ready to attack the thing looking at her from the papers, with a broom she found by the door.

“It’s a head,” Homer said.

“A human head?”

Homer nodded, while Maria studied the face amidst the hair.

“It’s horrible,” she said.

“I like it,” he said.

“You are weird.”

“I know.”

Maria cleaned the furniture in the room, whilst ignoring the thing on the table. It had to be a sign of the devil on this world. Then she washed the plates, piling in the sink.

“Would you come with me to the jungle?” he asked.

She dropped the saucepan she had been washing, the noise echoing through the kitchen in do minor. A man seldom asked a girl to the jungle unless he wanted to marry her.

“Is it to find your Indians?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I will have to ask father.”

Maria had to ask her parent's permission for everything in her life. As Homer thought of them making love amidst the trees, he shuddered with desire. This girl would kill him one day, when his heart wouldn’t be able to resist her charms anymore.

“The Indian lives by the Guaviare River,” he said.

“Did he tell you that?”

“He can’t talk.”

After opening the map on the table, Homer showed her the part of the jungle where the heads might be amidst the trees. The Indian had to trek a long way in search of his coca leaves.

As Homer looked into her dark eyes, he muttered sweet words in her ear, hoping for the impossible.

“The jungle is dangerous,” she said.

“I’ll protect you with my gun.”

Running his fingers over her breasts, he tried to imagine the shortest way to the Indian village, and the heart of the jungle.

“He wants coca leaves,” he said.

The end of the world happened when she smacked his face, leaving a red mark on his cheeks.





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