Apparatus: Cipriano's Fence

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 877, 25 May 1956, Page 20

Apparatus: Cipriano's Fence

HERE was a time when caballeros \ really were gentlemen on horseback riding the parched trails of Baja California with their wives several yards behind on burros, if they were lucky. Now about the only place you see the word is in the night spots in Tijuana; caballeros this way, damas this way. The change has perhaps been brought about by the development of motor roads: no man is a caballero in a car, simply hombre. In this time past (not too fat off-even in 1940 roads in Baja California weére something fierce) a large area of land in the La Rosa Tegion was owned by the Federico family. The first two Federicos, father and son, Were said to have been caballeros, but’the ones who came after belieyed that vino was better than water, and that much vino was better still. The family Federico disintegrated and the property Federico diminished. By the time I came te know them there were two small, separate ranches owned by two brothers, Ignacio and Cipriano. Ignacio had married, late in life, a remarkable English woman a few years older than he was. She didn’t drink, which left more for Ignacio, but put him in a position of inferiority, he felt, A couple of times a menth he’d get muy muy berracho and order her round before the kitchen girl and the rouse-

about, which briefly improved his position of inferiority. Cipriano had married at a more conventional age and had a large family. He and his four boys drank much more than the ranch produced, which left an awkward gap in the balance of payments, A great mistake in estate management had contributed to this unfortunate state of affairs. As the Federico property diminished, Cipriano realised, tao late, that the only grapes left were on Ignacio’s ranch, It is much cheaper to make your own vino than to buy it, and Cipriano, whose bodega was full of empty casks, relics of more prosperous days, spent his time alternately hatching schemes to chisel Ignacio out of his vineyard, and trying to buy a barrel of vino cheap from the same source. He had more chance of achieving the latter aim (the former never seemed to go further than an occasional visit to a lawyer's office) if he could catch Ignacio when he was broke and when his English wife was in San Diego calling on her bank manager. She had a very small income which she handled in an unfathomably complicated manner, At intervals her bank manager would write to tell her she was oyerdrawn, and that, of course, meant that Ignacio was broke, too. She ‘would hurry off to San Diego to un-

tangle her affairs, leaving the way clear fer Cipriano, It was not that she disapproved of Ignacio selling wine to his brother. She would have been happy to see him give the whole lot away, and Ignacio knew it. This set up a terrible conflict in his emotions. He did not want to sell wine to Cipriano bhecause he would rather keep it to drink himself, and he did not want to sell wine to Cipriano because that would be doing what his wife wished, but if he was broke, and the rouseahout howling for his wages, there was strong pressure on him to sell a barrel of wine. Cipriano, usually broke as well, would come .over to discuss the purchase of

a barrel. Over a friendly glass or two, he would put out preliminary feelers. Over further, more friendly glasses, he would demonstrate ‘his willingness to pay by putting down a small, a very small deposit. Later in the day a couple of his sons would arriye, tell Ignacio what a wonderful deal he’d made by getting their father drunk, and remove Cipriano and a full barrel, leaving Ignacio in a highly exalted state assuring the rouseabout that he would seon receive his wages and that deals like that could only be made when his wife was out of the way. But Cipriano could contrive this apparatus only rarely. His other device, when he had sold his car and failed to persuade his sons to go out to work, was to knock on EI Profesor’s door and sell him a slice of property, El Profesor, nothing loth, would draw up a deed of sale, and next day Cipriano and El Profesor’s smiling Majordomo would be out with a measuring tape, while Cipriano’s sons uprooted the fence and dug new post holes further back. The fence was moved three times while I was at La Rosa, and Cipriano’s ranch was becoming more like a cramped back garden... "He talks about his fence and his apparatus," Lucie "yn remarked, watching ‘her husband Felipe and Cipriano measuring the extent of the third sale, "But the apparatus is really El Profesor’s, and it won't he . before even the fence is his, too." ....

G. leF.

Y.