the priests enclosed behind chain-link fencing and before long, though there were not enough for a single team, let alone two, they laid out a diamond and enjoyed a rousing game of scrub.
It is said that years later, Dr Noir repeatedly mouthed the words, ‘There is no need for God in a warm climate,’ as he personally shot priest after priest where they were trapped inside their chain-link prisons.
As one must have in any odd or experimental project, Sandor Boatly had luck on his side. Just as the people in some societies have no resistance to alcohol, or religion, the people of Courteguay were seemingly born with no resistance to baseball, and it seems they were born with an innate knowledge of the game that only had to be scratched to bloom fully. Many of the young men were blessed with uncanny ability, the pitchers, with no training, able to throw 90 mph fastballs, the hitters, equally untrained, able to club five-hundred foot home runs, the infielders capable of performing contortions like gymnasts, able to retrieve sharply hit baseballs from the short outfield grass and throw accurately to first base, always a hairsbreadth ahead of the fleet runner.
But how much of this is true? The Wizard is at best a charlatan. Could he, as many claim, actually be Sandor Boatly? It seems unlikely, but just as I feel I have a handle on him, he does something that makes me want to believe everything he tells me. For instance, no matter how many times I change it back, when I next open my manuscript my description of the Wizard in the second sentence has been changed to charming charlatan.
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.
The Wizard, after washing his most colorful costume in the clear stream that had appeared beside the home of Hector and Fernandella Pimental, set off for the capital of San Barnabas. He did not have bus fare so walked part way, then with the help of an acquaintance who was already on a bus, he was pulled through a window, suffering only minor sprains and a large rip at the rear of his caftan. He presented himself at the Presidential palace as an emissary of the miraculous, stupendous, fabulous, baseball-playing babies who had been born near San Cristobel. The Wizard lied outrageously, claiming that he had personally delivered the babies, and that he had a medical degree from Port-au-Prince Hospital in Haiti. The Wizard had heard that in Haiti, anyone with a sharp knife and more than one ounce of disinfectant could call himself a doctor, so he didn’t exactly consider his story a lie.
The Wizard’s message did eventually reach the Old Dictator, passing first through the head of the Secret Police, one Dr Lucius Noir. The Old Dictator, who like the Wizard had a nose for a profitable situation, decided after leaving the Wizard waiting at the gate for 24 hours to give him an audience.
The Old Dictator donned his whitest uniform, one with flamingo-colored birds as epaulets, and stationed himself behind a huge marble-topped table, a bowl of peeled and sliced mango and a bowl of passion fruit the only decorations.
‘I am humbled by your generosity,’ said the Wizard, shaking yellow dust from his caftan. ‘I have been a party to one of the more remarkable occurrences in a land of remarkable occurrences: babies that played catch in their mother’s womb. Babies that even now, at the tender age of two weeks play catch in their crib.’
The Wizard stopped and eyed the mouth-watering food.
The Old Dictator nodded for him to help himself.
The Wizard, rather than spoon out a dish for himself, pulled a full crystal bowl to the edge of the table and began to eat with the service spoon.
‘Why exactly are you here? What do you hope to accomplish, other than a free breakfast?’ the Old Dictator asked.
‘Not a thing,’ said the Wizard between mouthfuls. ‘I have seen something miraculous, and as someone who has always supported you over General Bravura, I decided that you should be appraised of the situation. You are so much more astute than your enemy, I know you, in your infinite wisdom, will know what should be done to make the most of the situation.’
‘You are a today of the first ilk,’ the Old Dictator said with a smile.
‘Thank you.’
‘What
