El Desconocido by Bernardino de Armas and Ronald Mackay
Satisfied, Inéz looked up from the pile of stories she’d received for the 21st Malela Ramos Short Story Contest. She felt pride that her village boasted so many aspiring writers, young and old.
After closing, I’ll take the folder to the panel of judges.
She treasured the peacefulness on this upper floor in the village library. On a sunbeam, a cooling breeze streamed in. Outside, in the dappled shade she heard her village go about its afternoon business. Customers -- she knew them all -- sat at the Café el Quiosco in the plaza. Musicians from the municipal band were already unpacking their instruments to practice. In a few days, they’d celebrate the Day of the Book.
A determined figure caught Inéz’s eye. Nino was descending the steps that led to the front door of the library. He disappeared from her view. Now she heard the distinctive tap of his stick on the wooden staircase.
“Buenos días, Conchita.” Though a widower now, Nino was always well-turned-out, a hint of a smile on his lips.
“Buenos días,” Don Bernardino. “Returning a book?”
“I have a story for the contest.”
“Good. You’re just in time. Submissions close this afternoon.”
“Will you type it as I tell it to you, Inéz?”
“With pleasure. Is it about yourself?”
Nino hesitated. “About a man who must remain anonymous.”
“Every character needs a name.”
Again, Nino hesitated.
“Let’s call him ‘Nino’,” Inéz said, “even if it’s not you.”
Nino nodded.
Though his world had changed, his voice transported her back to an earlier, harsher time.
****
“Bernardino!” His mother reserved this name for serious matters. “Diego is leaving. For Caracas.”
Diego had been his father’s fishing partner since they’d returned together from the Civil War in ‘39. Fishing meant facing great Atlantic swells that reached the north coast of Tenerife all the way from the Americas. Daily, they risked their lives rowing their wooden cobbles to and from the fishing grounds. Two men to a cobble was the custom.
“He relied on Diego. Your papá was never strong. The war made him weaker.”
Nino had learned of the whispered hardships of the Civil War though he’d been only days old when they’d taken his father.
“You’re twelve, Bernardino, a man now.” His mother said it as a matter of fact.
“Yes, mamá, I will take Diego’s place.” It was his duty.
At dawn next day, Nino accompanied his father and the score of other fishermen from the village to the Puertito del Buen Jesús, the cove where they launched their row-boats daily into the perilous Atlantic. Nino felt proud to be with the men. He belonged to the hombres del mar, now, those who fished for a living. He smelled the salt in the wind and felt the comradeship of belonging.
When they’d helped one another launch, each boat headed to favored grounds accompanied by seagulls’ cries. Two men to a cobble, each with an oar. An oar so long, they had to stand erect to ply it. By this means, they reached the fishing grounds. It was how fishermen had made a modest living and lived contently for generations.
****
“Now we will return.” His father’s words surprised Nino. They’d found a shoal of bonito. A dozen would satisfy their efforts. But Nino saw the fatigue in his father’s eyes. Without a word, he began pulling in the lines.
He stood for’ard, his father aft. Small and slight for his age, Nino pushed hard with his long oar to match the power of his father’s stroke. But now, the current was drawing them towards the perilous Rocas del Fraile, his father’s failing strength insufficient to hold the course.
“Sit, papa. Give me your oar.” They could hear the sound of waves crashing.
“You’ve never used both.”
“It’s time I learned.”
***
From that day, Nino handled both oars. His father prepared the nets, lines, hooks, and bait. The arrangement worked well. Like all the fishermen, they took only what guaranteed them a living. This was how Tenerife’s ‘hombres del mar’, the ‘men of the sea’, had respected the ocean since time immemorial, guaranteeing their present and, for those to come, a future.
***
His father died before Nino’s 17thth birthday. Accustomed now, Nino continued single-handed. He loved the changing color of the ocean, the leisurely plunge down into the trough and the exhilaration of the gradual rise to the crest. He loved its generosity towards those who showed it the respect.
***
Some years passed.
One wild day, when waves thundered, forbidding fishing, Nino sat with his companions in the plaza. Gusts whipped the branches above their heads.
“For certain there’s one boat out there.” Franciso spat.
All understood. Unannounced, the 18-meter steel trawler had appeared in the port of Santa Cruz. Foreign owned, driven by a mighty diesel engine, it dragged a net vaster than a cathedral. Bit by bit, it began trawling the south coast.
Rumors abounded.
“The crew hang shark fins to dry on the trawler’s lines. They sever the fins then return the powerless shark to die.”
“The weighted net drags everything off the ocean floor. Its catch is so great they need an engine to winch the net aboard.”
“They keep the most valuable fish; dump the rest.”
“They process on board then shoot their net to drag again. Only when the hold is full, does the trawler depart, soon to return.”
Though most Buenavista fishermen had never seen the plunderer, news travelled around the small island.
“The trawler’s working its way along the south coast. Soon it will attack the northern waters we hombres del Mar have fished with prudence for centuries.”
“Now it has exhausted the south! It’s coming to us!”
“It’s reached La Punta and soon will head north!”
***
“It will destroy our fishing grounds!” Manuel Fórtes spat.
“Us and our families!” Domingo Expósito snarled.
Silence.
“We will stop it!” The certainty in Nino’s voice surprised even himself.
“How?”
“I have an idea. Listen!”
Together, the hombres del mar of Buenavista planned. Each village had a telephone. They would alert fishermen along the entire coast.
***
Cobbles from Los Gigantes to Garachico began to congregate north of La Punta de Teno. The hombres del mar planned to block the trawler’s way when it appeared.
***
And that’s what they did. Tinerfeño fishermen, two to a cobble, stood offshore all the way from la Punta de Teno to Los Silos. Alone, Nino stood, an oar in each hand, holding a position off Las Rocas del Freile.
But they hadn’t anticipated the Civil Guard. The fishermen watched as the patrol launch of the formidable Guardia Civil appeared and hove to. Armed carabineros lined its rail.
“Back to your villages!” The corporal’s order rang over a loudspeaker.
Not a cobble moved.
“Your actions are illegal. One hour! He who remains will be prosecuted.”
A few began rowing towards the shore at El Rincón.
“Your cobbles will be confiscated.”
A few more made for El Rincón.
The carabineros aboard the launch fired a volley over the heads of those who remained.
“The next one will not be in the air!”
One after another, fishermen began rowing to shore.
A single cobble stood firm. A lone fisherman. In each hand, a great oar.
Nino’s heart pounded as the launch approached. He thought of his father. How he’d attended school for only two years but still possessed wisdom enough to protect the sea. He thought of the ocean’s beauty and the fish that provided work and food for so many Tinerfeños.
“Apuntan!” Carabineros raised their rifles.
Nino stood erect, moving the oars to hold his position.
“Rubén! It’s me, Nino!” he called to the corporal. The corporal’s eyes wavered. “You and I attended school together. We played football. Our fathers were friends. My father shared his catch with your family after your father died.”
“I have my orders, Bernardino!” called Ruben through the loudspeaker.
“I will not watch the trawler destroy our livelihood.”
“Your act is a breach of law.”
“Let’s talk about the law.”
“I follow orders. I cannot negotiate.”
‘Then I’ll talk to your officer.”
“The captain stayed in Alcala. I’m in charge.”
“Bring your captain here.”
“If I go, you will leave. I’ll be a laughing stock. I’ll lose my stripes.”
“Leave a carabinero in my cobble.”
Nino drew alongside the launch. A carabinero boarded.
“See he does not move!” Rubén sped off.
Scarcely daring to breathe, those on land watched and waited. An hour. Eyes on the carabinero with rifle raised. On Nino, an oar in each hand.
***
The launch returned. Nino saw the captain’s gold pips. To impress his superior officer, the carabinero took aim with fierce determination.
“You’re breaking the law!” The captain’s voice clear to all over the loudspeaker.
“What law?” Nino shouted.
With baited breath, those ashore listened.
“Gathering illegally.”
“Gathering? I am alone!”
The captain looked disconcerted. “Then I will arrest you as a socialist.”
“I’m a conservative. To protect is to conserve.”
“Environmentalism means socialism. Socialism means revolution. Revolution seeks violent change.”
“We seek no violence, no change. Only to protect what we love.”
“You have no right to be here.”
“We all belong here. You. Me. Your carabineros. We all to our beloved Tenerife. We act from our common sense of belonging.”
Heads nodded.
“You breach your civic responsibility!”
“We love what we belong to, mi capitán. And what we love, we seek to protect. You speak of civic responsibility. Our responsibility is to conserve not to destroy.”
A cheer went up.
“We, hombres del mar, seek only to conserve our legacy – these waters and all that’s in them.”
Another cheer.
“That intruder – does it love this coast, feel a belonging as we do?”
Nino could see confusion grow in the captain’s eyes.
“That intruder is here to plunder and leave.”
The captain frowned.
“You and I, mi capitán, we belong to villages we love, to customs that bind us, to families, neighbors.”
Now the captain was silent.
“Our home is here, the sea our living. You and your carabineros, all of us who arrived in our cobbles this morning – we all want to protect our património. It is our duty to pass on to our children what we inherited from our fathers and our fathers from theirs.
The captain moved uncomfortably.
“After this intruder, more will come.”
For long, the captain stood silent. Then, “Lower your rifle!”
A cheer went up.
“This fisherman makes sense. But…” The crowd waited, “… the answer is not for simple people to obstruct a great trawler.”
The crowd waited.
“However, this man -- one of you, one of us -- has made the matter clear.”
Carabineros and fishermen waited.
“I will take a question back to my comandante. The question that you have made clear is: ‘Why permit a predator who neither loves nor belongs as we do, to destroy our wellbeing?’ I give you my word that my comandante will speak to the Presidente del Cabildo de Tenerife.”
***
The crowd watched as Nino plied his oars and rowed the uniformed carabinero, rifle lowered, back to the launch.
“Go home,” the captain repeated. “I have listened. In my report, I will not name names. I will call this man, “El Desconocido”, an unknown fisherman who speaks wisely. I give you my word, the Presidente del Cabildo will find an immediate solution.”
Content, the crowd dispersed to their villages.
****
The next day, the intruder was gone.
****
Nino had ended his story. Inéz waited. Then, “Thank you, Don Bernardino. What title will you give to your story?”
Nino squeezed his eyes shut. Tears brimmed when he opened them. “Dona Inéz, let’s call my story El Desconocido.”
***
On the 25th of April, 2024, before proud villagers in the municipal hall alongside the library, Bernardino de Armas, Nino to his friends, told his story and accepted his prize for recording a most memorable event from the rich history of Buenavista del Norte.
Dos hombres del mar rowing their cobble
the way Nino and his father did 
El Puertito del Buen Jesús, also called
La Playa de los Barqueros 
Fishermen's wives waited to take their
husbands' catch to market |
The coast close to Buenavista del Norte,
Tenerife (1961) 
Public library, Buenavista del Norte, Tenerife
Bernardino de Armas receiving his award
in Buenavista del Norte 25.04.2024 |
