Question

please help me answer 3 Question about this story. the grans of paradice.. im stuck.. =(

Answer 1

THE GRAINS OF PARADISE

James Street

I do not like stories that suggest one thing and mean another and so, right off, I want you to know that the grains of paradise are the seeds of little hot peppers, very hot; and that this is a story about some fiery little peppers and some people in the village of Feliz, which is down in Mexico's state of Tabasco and nine hundred miles from nowhere.

The hotel was on a corner when I was there years ago, and across the way was a church which was surrounded by a gray wall, and the wall was shared by bougainvillaea, buzzards and unmeasured time. It was midafternoon when I got out of the bus at the hotel. The bus was painted purple and yellow, and bore the name of Rosaura, painted in red. I am sure it was the name of the driver's sweetheart. In Feliz, everything was personalized.

An Indian was sleeping by the doorway. And his ox team was sleeping, hitched to a two-wheeled cart, and two or three dogs. Everything was sleeping. Nothing stirred in the high-mountain solitude of Feliz. The hotel was cool inside, and shadowy, and the clerk opened his eyes when he heard my steps and greeted me sleepily in Spanish. I replied in Spanish, my very best, and that's pretty bad.

Quickly he was alert and spoke to me in English. His English was no better than my Spanish. He was smaller than I am, considerably smaller, and I am about average. His clothes were messy, but his little black mustache was trim.

I signed the register, and he studied my signature and then he spoke it aloud, "Mr. Cordell Hoyle, Lystra, North Carolina."

For a second he hesitated, and looked up at me and down at my name, and I had the feeling he was going to ask me a question or make some comment, some pleasantry about the weather or the trip or maybe about American visitors. But he didn't. He asked me if I'd had lunch, and when I told him I hadn't, he said that the kitchen was closed, but that he'd arrange for me to have a snack after I'd washed up. Then he hissed, "Psst, psst," and a barefooted Indian came out of the shadows. The clerk told him to take my bags to Room No. 3.

It was a bowl-and-pitcher room and was on the corner and had two windows. Out of one I could see the plaza of Feliz, empty at that hour and its trees drooping their somnolence. Out of the other I could see the church--the Church of the Tears of the Blessed Virgin--and beyond the church were the mountains, hovering high in desperate grandeur, heavy green for miles, then hazy blue into the sky.

It was these mountains that had brought me to Southern Mexico, down almost to where the country joins Guatemala. In those days I worked for the University of North Carolina's College of Agriculture and for months I had been in Tabasco and in the adjacent state of Chiapas, looking for a certain variety of corn to be used for experimental purposes. I had come to Feliz to rest a day or two before pulling out for home.

I washed the dust from my face and hands, and changed my shirt and went back to the lobby. The owner of the hotel was there. He was a paunchy man, glistening sweat, and his clothes were as disheveled as the clerk's, and his mustache was just as trim.

None of the Indians had mustaches, but the owner and the clerk were Ladinos and their mustaches were evidence of this classification, which is economic and not racial. A Ladino is a townsman, an owner of property, a Christian who follows Latin ways. He wears shoes, and never sandals, and always the mustache. He may be part Indian, a mestizo, but he is never all Indian.

The Indians profess Christianity, in a way, but really cling to their Mayan faith. Some own property in town, but not many. There is a caste barrier between the Ladinos and the Indians, and, again, this is economic and not racial.

The clerk introduced me to the owner, whose name I do not remember, and he said that my lunch would be ready in a few minutes, and walked away. I leaned against the desk and lit a cigarette, and then I remembered my manners and offered one to the clerk. He accepted it gravely and with thanks.

"I have been in the United States," he said.

"Is that so? Where?"

"I went to school in the United States. For a year."

"Yes? Where?"

He looked at the ash of his cigarette and tapped it off. "In Mississippi." He glanced at me quickly, almost defiantly, as though he expected me to challenge him or laugh, or something.

"The university?" I asked. "Or Mississippi State?"

"No." He was not quite sure of himself, even timid, and I wondered what the to--do was about and why the hesitation, and then he said, "At a place you never heard of, I'm sure. At Hattiesburg, Mississippi. There's a college there."

I laughed. "Hattiesburg! Well, now, whatta you know."

He drew back. "It is amusing?"

"No. Just wingspaneyed. Funny peculiar, not funny laughing. I married in Hattiesburg."

"You say." He was very serious.

"Yes, I say. My wife's from Hattiesburg. So you went to Mississippi Southern, huh?" Have you ever seen gratitude and good will ooze from a man? No, "flow" is a better word. Have you ever seen a man so pleased that he just sort of melts, and grins? That's what this fellow did. He flipped away his cigarette, a sassy, cocky little flip, and propped his elbow on the register. "You went to Mississippi Southern?"

"No. But I know about it."

"Where is it?"

"In Hattiesburg. Like you said." I wasn't peeved, but maybe a little bit short because I couldn't figure out what he was getting at.

"Where in Hattiesburg?"

"Now look, mister. I don't follow you. Mississippi Southern is a college in the little city of Hattiesburg, and Hattiesburg is in Southern Mississippi. You go down--yes, you go down West Pine Street, past the post office, and make a bend to the right. That'll be Hardy Street. Then out Hardy Street, past a cemetery, and on out to the college. What's it all about?"

His smile was so bright and so warm that I began grinning, and then I laughed again, and so did he.

"I tell you." He reached out his hand and we shook. "My name is Tio Felipe Ignacio de Fuestes. The people here call me Tio."

"Yes?" I knew I mustn't hurry him.

"This is not my village. I am of Mérida, in Yucatán."

"Mérida, huh,"

"I was a tourist guide. To the ruins and places. I met a professor from Mississippi Southern and he got me in and helped me. He was Professor Johnson. You know him maybe--Professor Johnson?"

I said I didn't, and looked in toward the dining room, where an Indian girl was putting my lunch on a table. She wore a brightly colored blouse and her hand-woven skirt was tight around her thighs. She was barefooted and as graceful as a cat, and as noiseless.

The clerk came out from behind the desk and stood between me and the girl, and touched my arm to get my attention. "The people in this village will not believe I went to school in the United States."

"The devil you say. What's so strange about going to school in the United States? Lots of Mexicans do."

He shrugged that mean-anything gesture of Latins, the hands out and the shoulders rising. "Not to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Mr. Hoyle. If I had told them New Orleans or Texas. Or Florida or California. But Hattiesburg, Mississippi…" He shrugged again.

I knew exactly what he meant--exactly. Hattiesburg, Mississippi, just doesn't sound like a place where a man would go to college from a long ways off. Boston, yes. Chicago, New York, Atlanta--a dozen places, a hundred. But not Mississippi Southern in Hattiesburg. So I knew he was telling the truth. There was no reason for him to kid me and, besides, a four-flusher never would have picked out Hattiesburg.

"The Ladinos think I have lied. To show off," he explained.

"Making like a big shot. I follow you now."

"The Indians don't care, or matter. But the Ladinos think I am a big mouth."

"And you want me to tell them that you really have been to school in the United States. O.K. I'll tell them."

"Only a few North Americans ever come to Feliz. From Los Angeles, New York - places like that. They have never heard of my college. Or of Hattiesburg. I ask them and they look at me and shake their heads, and the Ladinos laugh."

The Indian waitress had stepped back from my table and my lunch was ready, and so I told the fellow to send the scoffers to me and that I'd put them right, and I went into the dining room. A couple of greasy meat patties were on my plate, and some canned corn and shriveled tomatoes. In a land that dripped exotic fruits, a land of fine peppers and black beans, here I was getting lunchwagon hamburgers. Anyway, the coffee was good.

I was thinking of enchiladas and avocados, of thin tortillas spread with black-bean paste or mountain honey, and then the owner came in and pulled up a chair. He "Psst-psst'd" at the Indian girl and she brought him a cup of coffee. He sipped his brew noisily and wiped his mustache with his fingers.

"Tio…." He nodded toward the lobby. "Tio in there tells me you have been in Mississippi."

"That's right. In Hattiesburg. I know about the college where he went."

He was not impressed and took another sip of coffee. "There is a hotel in this place?"

"Two or three, last time I was there." I was having fun, sort of like playing a quiz game. "The largest one was the Forrest Hotel."

Now he was impressed, but tried not to show it. Even so, he was persistent, "Tio says there is a railroad in this place."

"Three, last time I was there." I didn't like the owner particularly, and thought it was about time to dress him down. I figured him for a flabby little tyrant who probably had given Tio a hard time. "Tell you something, mister." I pushed my empty cup away and lit a cigarette. "Your clerk says he has been to college in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He has. I've got a hundred pesos to ten pesos that he has."

I have never seen a Latin American who wouldn't cover a bet if he had the slightest outside chance of winning.

"A hundred to ten," I repeated, and loud enough for the Indian waitress to hear.

The owner drained his cup and got up. "I never bet with strangers. Have some more coffee, Mr. Hoyle, but you will excuse me, please."

He left me and walked out into the afternoon, and I knew to spread the news that Tio really had been to college, like he said, and that he was willing to bet that it was so, and that he had a gringo to back it up.

Tio waited until the boss was safely away, and came to my table and sat down, and the waitress brought him coffee without being told to do so. She smiled at him, a quick, sly little smile of triumph shared. "You have done me a gracious service, Mr. Hoyle." He offered me one of his own cigarettes and lit one for himself.

"That's more than you've done for me." I nodded toward the food that I hadn't touched. "Is this the sort of stuff you eat?"

Tio was surprised. "I thought you would approve. I told them about the hamburgers. In Hattiesburg‑hamburgers. Day and night, hamburgers."

"In Mexico I like Mexican food. Good hot Mexican food, red‑hot."

"Oh?" Tio was delighted and proud. "You say ?"

"Sure, I say. Have you got any tortillas back there? And bean paste? And some hot peppers?"

Tio clapped his hands like a proprietor, and the waitress came running, and he spoke to her so rapidly that I caught none of it, and she, too, was proud and hurried back to the kitchen. Tio leaned back in his chair and blew smoke toward the ceiling, like a man suddenly sure of himself, like a bantam wingspanerel" that had found his way around the barnyard. "It is the food of the land, my friend."

The tortillas were thin and the bean paste was spicy and without lumps. And there was a bottle of beer with a red rooster on the label. The peppers, however, weren't much. No authority. Long red peppers that had been dried so long that their kick was gone. I recognized them immediately as Ashanti, the dried fruit of Piper clusii." I picked up one and tasted it, and to me it was almost bland.

"Be careful," Tio cautioned me. "They are hot."

"Hot? Those things?" I tossed the pepper back into the dish and took a long swallow of beer. "They are for children. For nursing children."

"They do not burn?" Tio's cigarette was almost to his fingers and he seemed not to notice it. "There is no sweat? No fire in the belly?"

"Listen, my friend." I picked up another of the peppers and tore it open and tasted the seeds, and they were mild. That is, to me they were mild. "I'm a hot‑pepper man, Tio. And when I say hot‑pepper man, I mean hot-pepper man."

"But they do not eat hot peppers in the United States. Here and there, yes. But hot peppers there are weak peppers here."

"I'm from here and there." I spread a tortilla thick with bean paste and smacked my delight. "I used to live in Louisiana and they have hot peppers in Louisiana. Little red devils with fire in their skin and hell in their seeds."

Tio clapped his hands again and spoke to the Indian girl, and she quickly was back with a little bowl of furias. Nice and fat and sort of greenish yellow. They had been steeped in vinegar, though, and much of the sting was out. Still, they had some authority, unless you happen to be a hot‑pepper man like me. I took two of them in one bite, and the waitress actually gaped at me, and turned and ran back to the kitchen.

Tio was fascinated. "You do not sweat. Or grab for the beer. You do not even blow your breath out hard. This is a thing, my friend. Those are furias."

"For growing boys," I said.

The Indian girl had come back to the doorway of the dining room, and three or four other Indians were with her, and they were watching me. Tio waved his hand and she ran and fetched a bottle of beer for him.

"Bring two more," he said. "And one for Manuel in the kitchen, and one for Ricardo in the garden. For Pablo and Pedro." The boss was gone and he really was big‑wheeling. "One over to Father Francisco. To little Father Diego and big Father Diego. A Rooster beer for all."

The hotel was as gay as a cantina. The Indians beamed and the chef gave the waitress a pat when she passed by him. Tio went to the desk and took two cigars from the owner's private box, and we lit up.

Then he said, "So you like Mexican food. And hot peppers. You will come with me. I take you to the place of Hilario Villareal."

I was warm inside from the beer and peppers, and felt chipper for the first time in weeks, and he told one of the Indians to look after things and we went forth. The village was waking up and some of our hotel Indians were shooting off firecrackers over by the church gate.

"To arouse the saints from their siesta,"" Tio explained. "They think the saints should be up and about their jobs."

We crossed over to the plaza and walked around it twice. He was puffing his cigar and talking up a storm and making sure that everybody in the plaza saw us together. He led the way into a cantina and ordered two more beers. A radio was limping a scratchy melody, and Tio spoke up so all could hear, "In Feliz, not so much as a movie. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi‑in Hattiesburg, where I went to college, talking pictures every night. And the baseball."

"You tell 'em, brother," I said. "In Hattiesburg, the football also. And hamburgers."

"You tell'em, brother," he said.

We made another round of the plaza, in case somebody had missed us, and Tio was silent for a spell, a mighty short one. Then he glanced up at me and away, and said, "In Hattiesburg, my friends called me Chili. I didn't mind. In Mexico, chili is a pepper. In Hattiesburg, it is meat and beans and pepper powder. But they called me Chili. You know how it is up there. Always the nickname."

"Chili, huh? O.K., Chili. My friends call me Pete." I started laughing, "Goes back to when I was so high. Just a kid. Little boy." I don't know why I told him, just wanted to tell him. "Used to run around playing like I was a biddy, a little chicken. Going 'Peep, peep.' My sister got to calling me Peep, and it got to be Pete. You know how it is."

He took off his hat and leaned against a tree and laughed. "O.K., Pete. Now we go to the place of Hilario Villareal. Me and you."

We walked on, and again he was silent, this time for several minutes. The beer was wearing off and I noticed that he was frowning.

At last he said, "About me going to college in the United States. I told you the Indians do not care, and do not matter. Well, Hilario Villareal is an Indian. He matters."

I knew that something was eating him and that he would tell me at his own time. Sure enough, we had walked almost another block and he picked up his story. "Hilario Villareal is the best pepper man in Feliz. He eats furias for breakfast. With beer."

"They'll wake you up all right," I said. "And put fire in your blood."

Tio's cigar was soggy and frayed and he threw it away. The exhilaration had gone out of him. "Hilario Villareal grows his own peppers and has a secret. He wet‑rots leaves for his plants and grows them on a south slope that is sheltered on three sides. And in the dry season he waters them from a bucket. I tell you to have respect for his peppers. His soil is very sour and his peppers are very hot."

It meant only that the Indian understood prevailing winds, that he used acid soil, humus and controlled moisture. I was looking forward to a session at his table, to a bait of tacos and tortas compuestas, maybe with some real Capsicums, fresh from the bush and oozing their pungent piperine.

"Hilario Villareal is very proud. He does not like Ladinos. Particularly, he does not like me. He thinks I am a big mouth."

"About Hattiesburg, huh?"

"Yes. He thinks I am a man of guile."

"What do you care?"

"Hilario Villareal has a daughter. Her name is Nena."

So that was it: A Ladino, an Indian girl and her father, who didn't like Ladinos. There was nothing for me to say, and besides, I was hungry. And then we were at Villareal's place. Like the hotel, it was on a corner and several Indians were loafing around the door, and we made our way inside, and there was Hilario Villareal, Indian‑faced and grave and with all the dignity of the Mayan, the unchanged. And there was Nena. She and her father saw us come in, and her father glanced her way and she walked out, across the patio to the family's quarters. I didn't get a good look at her, but what I got was good.

Tio stepped to the counter and bought a little black cigar that was strong enough to do push‑ups. I went over and sat at a table, and Tio said to the proprietor, "He is my friend. He has been to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where I went to school, as you know."

Hilario did not even give him the courtesy of a reply. He was a heavy man, very heavy for an Indian, and although standing, he folded his hands across his stomach and looked disdainfully away from Tio. Several Indians drifted in and stood around, looking at me and at Tio, but mostly at me.

Then Hilario came over to my table, and I said, "My friend Tio tells me you have the best food in Feliz. And peppers."

"You like Mexican food?"

"Only if it is good."

He walked toward the kitchen, and I looked over at Tio and grinned, and then I looked around the place: the old calendars, a poster about a bullfight in Mexico City, and the clock that advertised an American soft drink.

Hilario was back much sooner than I expected, and I had an idea he wanted me to be through and both of us out of there. He had tacos and tortillas and honey. Also a little bowl of long peppers. They were Pipers officinarum. Tasty, but with about as much kick as ginger ale. The tacos were marvelous, however, and the tortillas were as thin as paper and the best I had ever eaten. I reached over and picked up one of the peppers and spoke slowly to Tio, so that they all could make out my words, "In Hattiesburg--in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where you went to college, we eat these for dessert, eh, Chili?"

"Only children," he said, and tilted his cigar.

"Sometimes old women who are sick, but always children."

"With sugar and cream." I tossed the pepper back into the bowl.

Hilario came to my table again and ate one of the peppers, smacking his lips in approval. Then he spoke to me, but did not look at me, "You like peppers?"

"Only if they are good."

It was Tio's cue, and he took it. He walked slowly, proudly, to my side and felt in his pocket and pulled out seventeen pesos. It wasn't much--only about $3.40‑but I knew that it was all he had, and he put it on the table and said, "My friend, Pete, is the best pepper man in Feliz."

Hilario glanced scornfully at the money, and with all the contempt of a dueling master who has been challenged by an insolent cove. For a second, I thought he was going to ignore Tio's challenge. That could have led to trouble, and so I took out my wallet and counted out a hundred pesos and slipped them under Tio's wager.

"For a cushion," I said. "The confidence of my friend is worthy of a cushion."

The spectators, all Indians, looked from one to the other, and then hard at Hilario, and he turned his back to me and walked behind his counter and picked up a cigar box and counted the money that was in it. Apparently it wasn't enough, because he left us and, without haste, crossed his patio to the family quarters. Soon he was back, and with Nena.

She never looked up lest she meet the gaze of Tio, but went behind the counter and waited. Hilario put a hundred and seventeen pesos on the table and said, "My daughter will serve us."

I nodded and he sat down and Tio moved closer behind me. The Indians moved over behind Hilario. I pushed the tacos aside, but kept the tortillas in front of me.

"You must have bread with peppers?" Hilario asked.

"Never yet have I seen peppers so hot that I must reach for the bread."

"You sweat?" Hilario was laying down the rules.

"In the sun, yes. But never from peppers. With me, the peppers warm my blood, not my skin."

"You blow hard the breath?"

"No."

"Then you sip?"

"No. I nibble."

"I sip."

"That is fair."

I moved the tortillas closer to me, and Nena brought him a bottle of beer, and the rules were set. He could sip and I could nibble. But he must wait a full minute between pepper and beer, and I must wait a full minute between pepper and bread.

Nena brought out some spiced meat and two bowls of ground pepper. One of plain black pepper which is the dried fruit of Piper nigrum, picked green. This is the pepper of antiquity, of Malabar and Travancore This is the pepper that sent men venturing in the days of Solomon and Sheba. Rome paid ransom to Alaric, in Piper nigrum. It is romantic, but tame. The other bowl contained white pepper, which is Piper nigrum prepared from the ripe fruits.

Hilario dipped a bit of meat into the black pepper and another into the white pepper and ate them. I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair as though I had been given offense.

"No?" Hilario was surprised, and tried not to show it.

"No. Does the hospitality of Feliz offer pap to a stranger?" I took fifty more pesos out of my wallet. "This is for the white pepper and the black pepper. I will not tease my tongue."

Hilario stared at me and some of the hauteur went out of him, and I felt a possibility of understanding between us, of friendship a far way off, but moving toward us. Slowly he reached into his pocket and took out more money and matched my ante.

Then he turned to Nena and said, "The cayennes. Only the cayennes. We have here a man of mettle."

The girl ran across the patio and more Indians came into the place and ranged themselves alongside the counter and behind Hilario. Then Ladinos came in and stood by Tio and behind me. I don't know how the word got around so fast, but there they were: the mustached Ladinos and the Indians, each backing his own kind, for I had become associated with the Ladinos. The hotel owner was there, and he whispered to Tio and stepped to the table and counted out a hundred pesos and put them in front of me, and stepped back.

Hilario reached into his pocket again, but one of the Indians touched his arm. Then all the Indians gave money to the one and he matched the hotel owner's bet.

Nena came back in and she had a tray of peppers, each kind in little piles. Only cayennes, the burning Capsicums. There are about thirty species of this delicacy, and she had six. There were green infernos and green terrors, yellow jackets and yellow furies, red torrids and red frenzies.

Hilario selected one of the red frenzies and held it up for all to see. It was wrinkled near the stem; then fat and tapering to a point. He put the whole pepper in his mouth and chewed slowly. The Indian nodded solemnly, and as he chewed we both watched the clock, and when a minute had passed he reached for his beer and took a sip.

I pulled the tray close to me and fingered through the frenzies until I found two that suited me, both wrinkling their ripeness and then swelling fat into juice and skin and seeds. I held them up for Tio to approve and put both of them into my mouth. My lips stung and the lining of my mouth was hot with quick and then wingspanling stings. I watched the clock through my minute of grace and took my nibble of tortilla.

The Ladinos crowded around Tio and patted him on the back; not me at all, but my sponsor. Then the hotel owner went among them and they gave him money and he receipted it and laid it on the table. The Indians matched it, digging deep this time because they did not have so much money as the Ladinos.

There was a quizzical look in Hilario's eyes. Maybe it was doubt. But, then, maybe it was admiration because I had taken two red frenzies, and without sweat, without the hard blowing of the breath.

We both took torrids, and this time I took only one. My lips had hardened to the sting, but my mouth was ridging inside. I puckered fast to draw saliva. Then the tingle was in my throat and deep down, but not yet to the belly. The tortilla helped some.

The bets were anted again and the hotel owner called out that he was offering odds on me. "Seven to five," he called out. "On Mr. Hoyle. He is the friend of Tio, and Tio is my employee, and as all of you know"‑he waved.

Such little nuggets launched armadas in the old days, sails from Spain and Portugal. Men died for those peppers as for gold and glory. They are the hottest things that grow and their seeds are praised as the for the sip grains of paradise.

Hilario studied me for my reaction, and then he said, "You have seen such before?"

"No. Only the seeds."

"They are the grains of paradise. I raise them."

"They are hot."

"You say. And I tell you, for I will be fair with you, I never before have eaten a whole one. At one time. Only the nibble."

"This will end it," I said.

"This will end it. I will wait two minutes for the sip."

"And I will wait two minutes for the bread."

We rested a spell, relaxing in an armistice, and I glanced over my shoulder to catch Tio's eye and to reassure him, but he was looking at Nena. Hilario loosened his collar and pulled his shirt wide open and reached out and picked up one of the peppers. I took the other. We put them in our mouths at the same time and began chewing. The heat jolted me. The roof of my mouth corroded and the tissues inside my cheeks contracted like burning cellophane. But I knew I was going to make it--I just knew it.

But Hilario was in contorted misery. His mouth was pinched and he was blowing hard, and then the sweat popped out of his forehead and the tears rolled out of his eyes. He was breathing deeply, like a man who had run a long race. I had him.

I heard the Ladinos muttering their boasts, their vaunts of triumph. I saw the Indians and the stricken looks on their faces. They had been beaten again. The mighty had crushed the humble. The meek must remain the downtrodden.

Then I did a crazy thing. I still don't know why, and don't ask me why. I had a minute to go and the heat inside me was wearing off. But I reached over and grabbed a tortilla. The Ladinos yelled out their astonishment and spluttered their wrath. The Indians looked from one to the other, and they could not believe they had won. Hilario was staring at me, probing deep for an explanation. Then he snatched his bottle of beer and drained it and swished the beer around in his mouth and spat and spat.

The Ladinos turned on Tio, and berated him, and he seemed not to mind at all, only looking down at me and across the room at Nena and at the Indians. Then the Ladinos stomped out and left much of their money behind and much of their pride.

"It was too hot," I said to Tio.

"But it was almost over and he was blowing hard the breath."

"I was burning up inside, Chili. Maybe it didn't show, but I was burning up."

He said no more; only shrugged.

Hilario pushed back his chair. "There will be drinks. Beer for all and brandy for those who want it." He walked behind his counter and stood by Nena. "I will drink first, and to my daughter and to my daughter's man, Tio Felipe Ignacio de Fuestes. Only a good man is worthy of the friendship of such a man as Mr. Hoyle."

The Indians nodded their acceptance of the pronouncement and their approval of Tio. He walked from behind me and over to the counter and near Nena, and she raised her eyes from the floor and looked up at him and then down again. He helped Hilario, open the beer. Some of the Indians took brandy and we all drank, and then Hilario said, "And now to Mr. Hoyle, who is not a stranger among us. If there is a favor we can do, we do it."

It came to me then. I don't care what has been written or what has been told before, it came to me for the first time, right then. Acid soil. Controlled moisture. A sheltered south slope and the grains of paradise. I had been offered a favor and I asked it: a few of the peppers to remember this day. Hilario was glad to give them to me. He put the Amomum melegueta in a paper bag and I hung around only long enough for another round of drinks, and then I hurried to the hotel and packed. A bus left at twilight and I was on it, heading home.

The first year I planted them in a hothouse and nursed them through. The green nuggets and their seeds of gold. Then I had enough seed for a patch, and then enough seed for several acres. That's the way it started, and now I know of no place where you cannot buy my peppers or spices from the Hoyle Spice Company. I even ship peppers back to Tabasco, even to Feliz, for there is money in coals to Newcastle if you do it right. I have never been back to Feliz or to Hattiesburg. I have never heard from Tio or from any of them.

Sometimes it bothers me that I let the Ladinos down. We were talking about it just the other day, sitting around my swimming pool. I told this story, and we got to talking about whether I'd done right or wrong. My wife said I'd done right because I'd got Tio and Nena together. Some of the others said I'd been downright noble because I'd sided with the Indians, who had been pushed around so much. A few said that my successful business was proof that I was right, that I was sharp, that I was clever.

However, three of my friends--the three I like best--said I'd done a lowdown thing, that I had patronized the humble and had thrown down those who had trusted me. The least I could do, they said, was to go back to Feliz and give them a clinic or a movie house, or something. Someday I might do it. I know such gifts are not deductible, but all the same, I might do it. I just might.


1 Three conflicts in "The Grains of Paradise" stand out quite clearly. What are these three conflicts and which is the most important?

2 Define the following words from the story "The Grains of Paradise."
- Mestizo
- gringo
- hauteur

3 What might have happened if Pete had decided to win the pepper-eating contest? Beginning at the moment of climax, rewrite the story of "The Grains of Paradise." In your dénouement be sure to show how such a decision would affect not only Pete but also Tio, Nena, and Hilario. How would their lives be different?