Because It Is My Blood (Birthright #2)(34)

“They are pretty, aren’t they?” Theo agreed. “In less than a month, they’ll be ready to cut from the trees so that they can begin the fermentation process.”

“What are the farmers doing today, then?” The farmers had the same machetes that I had seen yesterday and at their feet, wicker baskets.

“They’re cutting off any pods that show signs of having been infected with fungus. That is the irony of cacao—it craves water, but can also be destroyed by it. The fungus is called Monilia, and even just a little bit of it can spoil an entire crop if it is not checked.” He expertly scanned the nearest tree, and pointed out a green-yellow cacao pod that was black at the tip with radiating specks of white. “Do you see? That is what the beginning of pod rot looks like.” He took his machete out of his belt and handed it to me. “You slice it off. It’ll be harder than you think, Anya. Cacao farming is not woman’s work. These trees are strong.” Theo made a muscle with his arm.

I informed him that I was no weakling. I took the weapon from Theo. It was heavy in my hands. I lifted it up to swing at the plant, then stopped myself. “Wait. How do I cut it? I don’t want to mess it up.”

“At an angle,” Theo told me.

I lifted the machete and sliced off the infected pod. My cut looked jagged. The plant really was tough. Doing this all day would probably be pretty exhausting.

“Good,” Theo said. He took the machete from me then recut the incision I had just made.

“I thought you said I was good.”

“Well, you will get better,” Theo said with a grin. “I am encouraging you.”

“Maybe I need my own machete?”

Theo laughed at me. “It’s true. The selection of a machete is a deeply personal matter.”

“Why don’t you have machines to do this?” I asked him.

“Ay, dios mío! Cacao resists machines. She likes human hands and caresses. And she needs human eyes to spot the Monilia. She hates pesticides. Attempts to genetically modify her beans have all been complete failures. She needs to struggle or the cacao produced will not be the richest. She needs to face certain death over and over again. Mi papá used to say that growing cacao in the 2080s was identical to growing it in the 1980s or the 1080s—that is to say, she has always been impossible to grow, and she is still impossible to grow. That is why it became illegal in your part of the world, you know. I am fairly sure that it was the cacao that sent my father to an early grave.” Theo crossed himself and then he laughed. “But I love it anyway. Everything worth loving in this world is difficult.” Theo kissed one of the pods with a big smack of his lips.

I walked away from Theo, down one of the orchard rows, scanning each tree for signs of fungus. The light was low, so it was not the easiest work. “There!” I exclaimed when I finally found one. “Give me your machete.”

Theo handed it over. I imitated the swift swinging motion I had seen him use, and the cut I made was, I thought, respectably clean.

“Better,” Theo said, but he still recut it.

We continued walking through the orchard. I’d scan for signs of Monilia, then I’d point it out so that Theo could cut it off. Theo was very serious about the cacao, and he talked much less than on the drive to Granja Mañana the previous day. He was a different person on the farm, and I found him much easier to be with than the boy in the truck. As we headed toward the rain forest side of the plantation, it grew increasingly dark and damp. It was strange that these trees, these odd flowering trees, had been the source of so many problems in my life, and yet I had never even seen a picture of one before.

Three hours later, we had only covered a very small part of the orchard, but Theo said we needed to go back for dinner.

“Theo,” I began, “I didn’t understand something you said before.”

“Yes?”

“You said that the reason cacao became illegal was because it was difficult to grow?”

“Yes. This is true.”

“Where I’m from, we’re taught something different,” I told him. “We’re taught that the main reason cacao became illegal was because it was unhealthy.”

Theo stopped and stared at me. “Anya, where do you hear such lies? Cacao is not unhealthy! The opposite! It is good for the heart, the eyes, the blood pressure, and just about everything else.”

His face was turning red, and I feared that I had offended him so I backtracked. “I mean, obviously, it’s more complicated than that. We’re also taught that the big American food companies were under pressure to stop making such unhealthy food products, and so as a concession they all agreed to stop making chocolate. The reason being that chocolate was rich and calorie-filled and had addictive properties and so … Well, the public basically turned on chocolate. They thought it was dangerous. Daddy always said it was a wave of poisonings that set it off…” Yes, Daddy had said that. I hadn’t even thought of that during the Gable Arsley fiasco. “And that this led to strict regulation of cacao as a drug, and then its eventual banning.”

“Anya, even tiny little babies know that the chocolate poisonings were set up by the rich men who owned the food companies. The reason they stopped making chocolate was because cacao is hard to grow and hard to ship and the supply was becoming more and more expensive. It was easy for the food companies to get out of the cacao business because it was good for the bottom line. It was about dinero. It is always about dinero. It is as simple as that.”