Pig's Foot by Carlos Acosta Page A

in complexion and in size, and both had a thin mop of hair; but in character, they were utterly different. Melecio liked to sleep. He was a quiet child who never woke his parents in the middle of the night; nor was he a guzzler like Benicio – because unlike his half-brother, my grandfather was born with the appetite of a lion, suckling Betina’s breasts until they were wizened dugs.
    A goat had to be bought because Betina could not provide milk enough for both children. Juanita the santera advised them to take care, warning them that mixing milk could make a newborn ill. Neither boy fell ill; both grew up hale and hearty.
    ‘They’re not boys at all,’ said Juanita six months after Melecio was born, ‘they’re a pair of mules,’ adding that José and Betina had no need to worry about their health. Juanita, in her role as sorceress, had recently consulted her cauldron and for now the future seemed clear and cloudless. Smiling from ear to ear, she told José and Betina that Melecio had a brilliant future ahead of him but that they should keep a close watch on Benicio because, she said, he was different. ‘Of course he’s different, Juanita. We are Mandingas and Benicio is a Kortico,’ said José. The santera explained that she had good reason to say what she had said and once again advised them to keep a close eye on the son of Oscar and Malena.
    José and Betina’s first strategy was to ask their neighbours to say nothing to my grandpa Benicio about his real parents until he was old enough to understand and not become confused. Until that time, Benicio was treated like another member of the Mandinga family, although his surname was Kortico.
    Benicio slept in the bed next to Geru while Melecio had his own room. Grandpa used to say that at night he and his sister curled up in the old bed made of tree branches and told each other their deepest secrets. Geru wanted to be a santera like Juanita, but said that no one was allowed to know. My grandfather had no dreams, no aspirations. He was mischievous, as children are, but he was affectionate with his brother, his sister and his parents and in his first seven years did nothing that marked him out as different from other children in the village as Juanita had foretold. Melecio on the other hand had been born with an insatiable curiosity, eager to learn everything – something curious and strange in a child his age. He spent hours poring over Betina’s old magazines or peering at the cans of tomatoes that came from the store, trying to read the words without knowing how. There was nothing unusual in a boy wanting to know how to build a cart, to fish and work the land; skills proper to a man. But Melecio also wanted to learn to cook, to sew and clean the house as his mother did, while Benicio and Geru preferred playing games with their little friends. By the tender age of seven, Melecio had learned to slaughter a pig and wring a chicken’s neck.
    One day Geru and Benicio headed off to the Chinese store on an errand for Betina, who was going to El Cobre to lay flowers at the church for Oscar and Malena. José was out working in the field.
    When they got to the store, Geru and Benicio joined the queue. They asked for two pounds of rice, two pounds of black beans, three pounds of chickpeas and jars of cumin, oregano and salt. Li, the Chinese shopkeeper, poured the beans and pulses into the sacks they had brought and parcelled everything else up with paper. Benicio paid the three reales and brother and sister set off home. On their way to the store they had met a fat woman with huge breasts wearing a smock smeared with coal dust and a brightly coloured headscarf. The woman looked about fifty, though from the expression in her wounded eyes she could have been much older. She stood staring at Benicio and her face slowly seemed to age. ‘You are a sad child, Benicio,’ Ester told my grandfather with a thin-lipped smile. Then she quickly hurried away along a narrow winding