Читать книгу Butterfly Winter - W. Kinsella P. - Страница 16

The birth of Julio and Esteban Pimental was my first triumph. I lurked in the dry weeds behind the shack while the births were taking place. My eyes glistened and my skin shone like polished teakwood.

Hector Pimental, who considered it unmanly to be anywhere in the vicinity of womens’ work, still couldn’t keep himself away from the birth. What if my prognosis was right? What if Fernandella were to produce from his seed the two finest baseball players ever to come out of Courteguay? Hector fancied himself selling his services as a stud, fathering an army of sons, graceful, powerful baseball players all. He fantasized the pleasure he would receive while doing his duty for Courteguay.

‘The first one was born in the catcher’s crouch,’ Hector cried, as he came upon me where I hunched in the brittle undergrowth eating a mango. ‘His little hands are already scarred. He has suffered several broken knuckles. He has a stolid face and full head of black hair. I will name him Esteban.’

I stared at my reflection in the blue brook that had mysteriously appeared behind the tin shack that Hector and Fernandella called home. Handsome and lean as a coyote, I thought, rubbing my thin hands together and deciding that as a reward I would add a name, and henceforth be known as Alfredo Jorge Blanco.

An hour later Hector Pimental returned.

‘The second one, the one we will christen Julio, was born wearing baseball cleats,’ he announced with wicked pride. He stared at me, dressed in my ink-blue robe covered with mysterious symbols. ‘The fingers on his pitching hand are like talons, the first two fingers splayed, the nails sharpened to fierce points.’

‘Did I not prophesy so?’ I asked. I was now Geraldo Alfredo Jorge Blanco, having added yet another name as soon as I heard Hector crashing through the thicket toward me.

I continued to rub my hands together, maintaining a calm outward appearance as I tried to decide how to best exploit the situation. Hector Pimental’s only motivation was greed; he would need much guidance.

‘I am a wizard,’ I repeated several times under my breath, shaking my head as if to clear away confusion. I should not be surprised, I told myself. One has only to trail dreams obsessively in order to make them come true.

After the births, Carlotta, the midwife, swaddled Esteban and Julio in blankets made from freshly laundered sugar sacks. After she stretched Esteban out of his catcher’s crouch, and attempted to force Julio to lie like a normal baby and stop the continual pitching motions, she propped the babies, one on each side of Fernandella, their tiny maple faces each resting against a swollen breast. It was then that the midwife discovered that, along with the twins, Fernandella’s womb had expelled two miniature baseball gloves, one a catcher’s mitt, three cumquat-sized baseballs and a pen-sized bat. If Julio was the pitcher and Esteban the catcher, who held the bat was never known.