Free Pig's Foot by Carlos Acosta

such a vast building with its towers and its belfry. Five black carriages drawn by white horses drove past and stopped at the entrance to the church. They watched as impeccably elegant ladies and gentlemen alighted and made their way into this palatial building.
    The Negro coachmen, wearing frockcoats and derby hats, parked off to one side and waited for their masters. Ragged mendicants, all of them black, some missing parts of their bodies, begged for alms. Soldiers chased them off with kicks and insults. There were many of them. Men with no feet, no hands, children no older than Melecio, Benicio and Gertrudis. These people were forbidden from entering the church.
    Ignoring the entrance, the Mandinga family walked to the balustrade surrounding the basilica. From here, they could see the grounds of the cathedral which seemed to include the whole valley. In the distance, they could make out huts and shacks just like their own and next to them a vast gaudy tract of land ringed by lush jungle. This tract, José explained, was the municipal rubbish tip. In the midst of this pestilential riot of colour, scurrying frantically up and down, were tiny coffee-coloured specks. ‘It seems incredible,’ said José, ‘but Oscar was right. Thirty years of war and all for nothing. Everything is still the same.’
    They stood looking at the men scavenging through the garbage and Betina put an arm around José’s shoulders. He flinched and then sighed, then suddenly he began to laugh. The last time he had laughed like this was when he smashed the kitchen table at home, hurling it against the door. But Melecio did not care. Pointing to the largest, most elegant carriage, he said, ‘I know what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be like that man.’ They all turned to look in the direction he was pointing.
    ‘A coachman?’ said José. ‘Over my dead body.’
    ‘No, Papá, not a coachman. I want to be like the other man, the milky man getting out of the carriage.’
    Melecio was referring to the white man in a black suit descending the steps of the most opulent of the carriages. He was a thin man with an aristocratic face. People crowded round to welcome him and as he passed men and women greeted him with the same admiration they might a hero. José bent down so he could look his children in the eye.
    ‘Listen carefully to what I’m about to say. That man is not one of our kind. Our kind are over there foraging in the garbage dump. These elegant people, with their horses and whatnot, these are the people who started the wars, the ones who cut the arms and legs off those children, the ones who invented black coachmen and slaves . . . don’t you understand? He is our enemy and should be feared. If one of them should come up to you some day, the best thing you can do is run away, do you hear me? Run anywhere, run as far from them as possible, to somewhere where there are only people like us or plants or animals. Do you understand?’
    The three children nodded though none of them had understood a word José had said. One of the Negro coachmen from the imposing carriages came over to them. He was dressed in a red jacket with a long tail at the back, belted at the waist. He doffed his large black hat and the sun glittered on his bald pate, emphasising the broad scar across one cheek.
    ‘Excuse me, I couldn’t help hearing you laughing and I thought to myself “at least there are still people who can laugh”. You know, with all the terrible things you see these days, it’s rare to meet someone cheerful. Today is your lady’s birthday, is it not?’
    ‘No,’ José replied.
    ‘One of your children then, surely?’
    ‘No, I only laugh like that when I’m angry.’
    José turned away from the man and back to his children. Betina stood staring at the coachman. Not prepared to give up, the coachman exclaimed that he had seen so many strange things in his life he had almost begun to think he had seen it all. Life was wise, he said,