By Night in Chile Page 5

  laborers, mounted on a hardy hack or nag inured to the inclement weather, as tough and stubborn as its master, who, when the situation called for it, would not hesitate to dismount and get his hands dirty. At first, news of his idea spread like nimble wildfire lit by a mocking god to amuse the public, but then it went the way of all things, subsiding into oblivion. A day came when nobody mentioned his name any more. And then a day when people began to forget his face. His shoemaking business probably fared better than he did over the years.

  Occasionally someone, an old acquaintance, would see him in the streets of Vienna, but the shoemaker no longer greeted anyone or replied to greetings, and no one was surprised when he crossed to the other side of the street. A

  difficult, confusing period had begun, a terrible period indeed, in which difficulty, confusion and cruelty were as one. Writers went on invoking their muses. The Emperor died. A war broke out and the Empire collapsed. Composers went on composing and the public kept going to concerts. Nobody remembered the shoemaker any more, except, at odd and fleeting moments, the lucky few who still had a pair of his splendid, long-wearing shoes. For the shoemaking business too had been affected by the worldwide crisis and it changed hands and disappeared.

  The following years were even more confused and difficult. People were

  assassinated and persecuted. Then another war broke out, the most terrible war of all. And one day Soviet tanks rolled into the valley and, looking through binoculars from the turret of his armored vehicle, the colonel in charge of the tank regiment saw Heroes’ Hill. And the caterpillar tracks creaked as the tanks approached the hill, which gleamed like dark metal in the last rays of the sun fanning out across the valley. And the Russian colonel got down from his tank and said, What the hell is that? And the Russians in the other tanks got out too and stretched their legs and lit cigarettes and stared at the fence of black wrought iron surrounding the hill and the massive gate and the letters cast in bronze, mounted on a rock at the entrance to inform the visitor that this was Heldenberg. And a farm laborer, who as a child had worked there, said when asked that it was a cemetery, the cemetery where all the heroes of the world would be buried. And then, after having broken open three big, rusty padlocks, the colonel and his men went in through the gate, and walked along the paths of Heroes’ Hill. And they saw neither statues nor tombs but only desolation and neglect, until at the very top of the hill they discovered a crypt that looked like a safe, with a sealed door, which they proceeded to open. Inside the crypt, sitting on a grand stone seat, they found the shoemaker’s body, his eye sockets empty as if he were never to contemplate anything but the valley spread out below Heroes’ Hill, and his jaw hanging open, as if he were still laughing after having glimpsed immortality, said Farewell. And then he said: Do you understand?

  Do you understand? And once again I saw my father as the shadow of a weasel or a stoat scurrying from corner to corner in the house, and that house with its dim corners was like my vocation. And then Farewell repeated: Do you understand? Do you understand? while we ordered coffee and the people in the street rushed by, spurred on by an incomprehensible longing to get home, casting their shadows one after another, more and more quickly, on the walls of the restaurant where, undaunted by the agitation or perhaps I should say undaunted by the

  electromagnetic device that had been set off in the streets of Santiago and in the collective consciousness of the city’s inhabitants, Farewell and I stayed put and kept still, only our hands moving, lifting the coffee cups to our lips, while our eyes looked on, as if what they were seeing had nothing to do with us, as if we hadn’t noticed what was going on, in that typically Chilean way, watching the shadow play, figures appearing and disappearing like black flashes on the partition wall, a spectacle that seemed to have a hypnotic effect on Farewell while making me feel dizzy and causing an ache in my eyes that spread to my temples and then to the parietal bones and finally to the whole of my skull, an ache I soothed with prayers and aspirin, although, on that occasion, as I remember it now, struggling to prop myself up on one elbow, as if the moment of my heavenly flight were imminent, the pain persisted only in my eyes, and so could easily have been overcome, since shutting them would have disposed of the problem, and I could and should have done just that, but I did not, for there was something in Farewell’s expression, something in his stillness, hardly disturbed by a slight eye movement, which, as I went on looking at him, seemed with growing force to imply an infinite terror, or rather a terror shooting towards the infinite, as terror does by its very nature, rising and rising endlessly, thence our affliction, thence our grief, thence certain

  interpretations of Dante, stemming from that terror, slender and defenceless as a worm, and yet able to climb and climb and expand like one of Einstein’s equations, and Farewell’s expression, as I was saying, seemed somehow to imply this, although, had anyone passed our table and looked at him, they would only have seen a respectable-looking gentleman in a rather pensive mood. And then Farewell opened his mouth, and I thought he was going to ask me once again if I had understood, but he said: Pablo’s going to win the Nobel Prize. And he said it as if he were sobbing in the middle of an ashen field. And he said: America is going to change. And he said: Chile is going to change. And then his jawbone hung out of joint, but still he said: I won’t live to see it. And I said: Farewell, you’ll see it, you’ll see it all. And then I knew that my words did not refer to heaven or eternal life, for I was pronouncing my first prophecy: if what Farewell had predicted was to happen, he would witness it. And Farewell said: The story of that Austrian has saddened me, Urrutia. And I: You have many years left to live, Farewell. And he: What’s the use, what use are books, they’re shadows, nothing but shadows. And I: Like the shadows you have been watching? And Farewell: Quite. And I: There’s a very interesting book by Plato on precisely that subject. And Farewell: Don’t be an idiot. And I: What are those shadows telling you, Farewell, what is it? And Farewell: They are telling me about the multiplicity of readings. And I: Multiple, perhaps, but thoroughly mediocre and miserable. And Farewell: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  And I: The blind, Farewell, the stumbling of the blind, their futile flailing around, their bumping and tripping, their staggering and falling, their general debilitation. And Farewell: I don’t know what you’re talking about, what’s happened to you, I’ve never seen you like this. And I: I’m glad to hear you say that. And Farewell: I don’t know what I’m saying any more, I want to talk, but all that comes out is drivel. And I: Can you make out anything clearly in that shadow play? Can you see particular scenes, or the whirlpool of history, or a crazy ellipse? And Farewell: I can see a rural scene. And I: Something like a group of farmers praying, going away, coming back, praying and going away again?

  And Farewell: I see whores stopping for a fraction of a second to contemplate something important, then heading off again like meteorites. And I: Can you see anything there about Chile? Can you see the future of our land? And Farewell: That meal didn’t agree with me. And I: Can you see our Palatine Anthology in that shadow play? Can you read any names? Or recognize any profiles? And

  Farewell: I see Neruda’s profile and my own, but, no, I’m mistaken, it’s just a tree, I see a tree, the multiple, monstrous silhouette of its dead leaves, like a sea drying up, it looks like a sketch of two profiles, but actually it’s a tomb out in the open, cloven by an angel’s sword or a giant’s club. And I: What else? And Farewell: Whores coming and going, a river of tears. And I: Be more precise. And Farewell: That meal didn’t agree with me. And I: How odd, it doesn’t look like anything to me, just shadows, electric shadows, as if time had speeded up. And Farewell: There is no comfort in books. And I: And I can see the future clearly, and I can see you there, living to a ripe old age, loved and respected by all. And Farewell: Like Doctor Johnson? And I: Precisely, to a T, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. And Farewell: Like the Doctor Johns
on of this godforsaken strip of earth. And I: God is everywhere, even in the most outlandish places. And Farewell: If I weren’t so drunk and didn’t have such a gut-ache I’d ask you to hear my confession right now. And I: It would be an honor. And Farewell: Or I’d drag you into the bathroom and screw you good and proper. And I: That’s not you talking, it’s the wine, it’s the shadows upsetting you. And Farewell: No need to blush, we’re all sodomites here in Chile. And I: Not just our pitiable compatriots but all men are sodomites, each of us harbors a sodomite in the architrave of his soul, and it is our duty to prevail over that unwelcome guest, to vanquish him, to bring him to his knees. And Farewell: Now you’re talking like a cocksucker. And I: Never, I have never done that. And Farewell: I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Not even at the seminary? And I: I studied and prayed, prayed and studied. And Farewell: I promise I won’t tell anyone, I promise, I promise. And I: I read St. Augustine, I read St. Thomas, I studied the lives of all the popes. And Farewell: Do you still remember those holy lives? And I: Indelibly etched. And Farewell: Who was Pius II? And I: Pius II, also known as Enea Silvio Piccolomini, born in the vicinity of Siena, Supreme Pontiff from 1458 to 1464, attended the Council of Basel, secretary to Cardinal Capranica, spent time in the service of the Antipope Felix V, then in the service of the Emperor Frederic III, who crowned him poet laureate, he wrote verse you see, lectured at the University of Vienna on the classical poets, published a novel in 1444, Euryalus and Lucretia, in the manner of Boccaccio, just a year after publishing the said work, in 1445, he was ordained a priest and his life took a new turn, he did penance, admitted the error of his ways, became Bishop of Siena in 1449 and cardinal in 1456, obsessed with the idea of launching a new crusade, in 1458 he published the bull Vocavit nos Pius, in which he summoned the unenthusiastic sovereigns to the city of Mantua, in vain, later an agreement was reached and it was decided that a three-year crusade would be undertaken, but no one paid much attention to the Pope’s grand words, until he let it be known that he was personally taking over command of the operation, Venice then forged an alliance with Hungary,

  Skanderbeg attacked the Turks, Stephen the Great was proclaimed Atleta Cristi, and thousands of men flocked to Rome from all over Europe, only the kings remained indifferent and unresponsive, so the Pope made a pilgrimage first to Assisi and then to Ancona, where the Venetian fleet was late to meet him, and when the Venetian warships finally arrived, the Pope was dying, and he said “Until this day I was wanting for a fleet, now the fleet must want for me,”

  and then he died and the crusade died with him. And Farewell said: So he screwed up, like a typical writer. And I: He protected Pinturicchio. And Farewell: And who the hell was he? And I: A painter. And Farewell: I guessed that much, but who was he? And I: The one who painted the frescoes in the cathedral at Siena. And Farewell: Have you been to Italy? And I: Yes. And Farewell:

  Everything falls apart, time devours everything, beginning with Chileans. And I: Yes. And Farewell: Do you know the stories of other popes? And I: All of them.

  And Farewell: What about Hadrian II? And I: Pope from 867 to 872, there’s an interesting story about him, when King Lothair II came to Italy, the Pope asked him if he had gone back to sleeping with Waldrada, who had been excommunicated by the previous pope Nicholas I, and then with trembling step Lothair approached the altar at Monte Cassino, which is where the meeting took place, and the Pope waited for him in front of the altar and the Pope was not trembling. And

  Farewell: He must have been a bit scared all the same. And I: Yes. And Farewell: And the story of Pope Lando? And I: Little is known about him, except that he was Pope from 913 to 914, and that he gave the bishopric of Ravenna to one of Theodora’s protégés, who succeeded him on the papal throne. And Farewell: Funny name for a pope, Lando. And I: Yes. And Farewell: Look, the shadow play has finished. And I: Yes, you’re right, so it has. And Farewell: How odd, I wonder what could have happened? And I: We’ll probably never know. And Farewell: The shadows are gone, the rushing is gone, that feeling of being caught in a

  photographic negative is gone, was it just a dream? And I: We’ll probably never know. And Farewell paid for the meal, and I accompanied him to his door, but did not want to go in, because everything was foundering, as the poet says, and then I was walking alone through the streets of Santiago, thinking of Alexander III and Urban IV and Boniface VIII, while a fresh breeze caressed my face, trying to wake me up properly, but still I cannot have been properly awake, for deep in my brain I could hear the voices of the popes, like the distant screeching of a flock of birds, a clear sign that part of my mind was still dreaming or

  obstinately refusing to emerge from the labyrinth of dreams, that parade ground where the wizened youth is hiding, along with the dead poets who were living then, and who now, against the certainty of imminent oblivion, are erecting a miserable crypt in my cranial vault, building it with their names, their

  silhouettes cut from black cardboard and the debris of their works, and although the wizened youth is not among them, since in those days he was just a kid from the south, the rainy borderlands, the banks of our nation’s mightiest river, the fearsome Bío-Bío, all the same I sometimes confuse him with the swarm of Chilean poets whose works implacable time was demolishing even then, as I walked away from Farewell’s house through the Santiago night, and continues to demolish now, as I prop myself up on one elbow, and will go on demolishing when I am gone, that is, when I shall exist no longer or only as a reputation, and my reputation resembling a sunset, as the reputations of others resemble a whale, a bare hill, a boat, a trail of smoke or a labyrinthine city, my reputation like a sunset will contemplate through half-closed eyelids time’s little twitch and the devastation it wreaks, time that sweeps over the parade ground like a

  conjectural breeze, drowning writers in its whirlpools like figures in a

  painting by Delville, the writers whose books I reviewed, the writers whose work I criticized, the moribund of Chile and America whose voices called out my name, Father Ibacache, Father Ibacache, think of us as you walk away from Farewell’s house with a dancer’s sprightly gait, think of us as your steps lead you into the inexorable Santiago night, Father Ibacache, Father Ibacache, think of our ambitions and our hopes, think of our mute, inglorious lot as men and citizens, compatriots and writers, as you penetrate the phantasmagoric folds of time, time that we perceive in three dimensions only, although in fact it has four or maybe five, like the castellated shadow of Sordello, which Sordello? a shadow not even the sun can obliterate. Nonsense. I know. Twaddle. Piffle. Balderdash. Rot.

  Figments of the imagination that throng unbidden as one goes into the night of one’s destiny. My destiny. My Sordello. The start of a brilliant career. But it wasn’t always easy. Even prayer is boring in the long run. I wrote articles. I wrote poems. I discovered poets. I praised them. They would have sunk without a trace if not for me. I was probably the most liberal member of Opus Dei in the whole Republic. The wizened youth is watching from a yellow street corner and yelling at me. I can hear some of his words. He is saying I belong to Opus Dei.

  I have never hidden that, I say. But of course he’s not even listening to me. I can see his jaws and his lips moving and I know he’s shouting, but I cannot hear his words. He can see me whispering, propped up on one elbow, while my bed negotiates the meanders of my fever, but he cannot hear my words either. I would like to tell him this is getting us nowhere. I would like to tell him that even the poets of the Chilean Communist Party were dying for a kind word from me, a word of praise for their poetry. And I did praise their poetry. Let’s be

  civilized, I whisper. But he cannot hear me. From time to time I catch a few of his words. Insults, of course. Queer, is he saying? Opus Dei? Opus Dei queer, did he say? Then my bed swings around and I can hear him no longer. How pleasant to hear nothing. How pleasant not to have to prop myself up on an elbow, on these poor old weary bones, to str
etch out in the bed and rest and look at the gray sky and let the bed drift in the care of the saints, half closing my eyes, to remember nothing and only to hear my blood pulsing. But then my lips begin to work again and I go on speaking. I never pretended I wasn’t a member of Opus Dei, young man, I say to the wizened youth, although I can no longer see him, although I no longer know if he is behind me or off to the side or lost in the mangrove swamps that line the river. I never made a secret of it. Everyone knew.

  Everyone in Chile knew. You must be the only person who didn’t, or you’re pretending to be more of a dimwit than you are. Silence. The wizened youth does not reply. In the distance I can hear what sounds like a gang of primates chattering away, all at once, in a state of high excitement, and then I take one hand out from under the blankets and put it in the water and laboriously steer the bed around, using my hand as an oar, moving my four fingers together like a punkah, and when the bed has turned around, all I can see is the jungle and the river and its tributaries and the sky, no longer gray but luminous blue, and two very small, very distant clouds scudding like children swept along by the wind.

  The chattering of the monkeys has died away. What a relief. What silence. What peace. A peace that summons the memory of other blue skies, other diminutive clouds scudding eastwards before the wind, and how they filled my spirit with boredom. Yellow streets and blue skies. As one approached the center of the city, the streets gradually lost that awful yellow color and turned into neat, gray, steely streets, although I knew that the slightest scratch would reveal yellow under the gray. And that filled my soul not only with lassitude but also with boredom, or maybe the lassitude began to turn into boredom, heaven knows, in any case there came a time of yellow streets and luminous blue skies and deep boredom, during which my poetic activity ceased, or rather my poetic activity underwent a dangerous mutation, since I did not actually stop putting pen to paper, but the poems were full of insults and blasphemy and worse, and I had the good sense to destroy them as soon as the sun came up the next day, without showing them to anyone, although at the time many would have considered it an honor to see them, poems whose deep meaning, or at least the meaning I thought I glimpsed in their depths, left me in a state of perplexity and anguish that lasted all day long. And this state of perplexity and anguish was accompanied by a state of boredom and exhaustion. Monumental boredom and exhaustion. The perplexity and the anguish were small by comparison, and lived encrusted in some cranny of the general state of boredom and exhaustion. Like a wound within a wound. And then I stopped giving classes. I stopped saying mass. I stopped reading the newspaper each morning and discussing the news with my brothers in Christ. My book reviews became muddled (although I did not stop writing them).