The Sky Over Lima (16 page)

Don Augusto is fidgeting with a snuffed-out cigar. He's anxious too, but he doesn't chastise his son. It's true that getting mixed up with agitators and terrorists was a numbskull thing to do, only Carlos would be capable of it, but in the end, weren't we all young once? And at least the incident pushed Carlos into the fray for a bit of brawling—in short, made him act a bit manlier than usual, which, with regard to his son, is more reassuring than it is anything else. He's not worried about the stitches either; he's seen Indians still standing even with the white of their bones showing through their wounds. What's more, the mark of the injury gives his son rather a determined look, a virility Don Augusto would never have thought possible and that he hopes is here to stay. Nevertheless, he accedes to his wife's demands and orders his servants to fetch the doctor at once, even if they have to drag him out of bed.

And the doctor doesn't find anything. Or, rather, he finds a clean bandage covering a few stitches—extraordinarily neat work, especially for a proletarian hospital, he thinks admiringly—and a small laceration that threatens no consequence more dire than staining the dressing a little. All he needs is a little arnica and a change of bandage once a day, and the doctor starts to say just that, but something in Señora Rodríguez's eyes stops him. So he drags out the checkup a little longer and finally says that, come to think of it, better safe than sorry, so perhaps the boy should also rest a few days to recover from the shock and his injuries. He makes the suggestion without conviction; he's very sleepy and wants to go home. Carlos's mother desperately seizes on the idea. “The doctor said a week in bed!” she announces to her son after seeing the doctor to the door. Carlos says he feels perfectly fine, that he doesn't need any rest, but in the end he gives in. Just as he allowed himself to be carried on the stretcher. Just as, eight years earlier, he endured those doses of liver-strengthening castor oil.

He spends the week in bed, and that week is enough time for a good many things to happen. He finds out about all of it through the papers, which his sisters sneak in to him on the breakfast tray (“And make sure you don't read anything upsetting”).

The night of the riot, rocks shatter streetlights all over El Callao and Lima. The next day the people—but who or what is “the people,” really?—bury the martyr Florencio Aliaga in a grave paid for by the government. Someone writes a two-column editorial demanding that those responsible for the injured strikers be found, but even if anyone is responsible, nobody finds the culprit. Two days later the negotiations begin. At last the workers and the steamship companies reach an agreement establishing that everything will remain more or less the same, give or take a few
soles
. His mother's prayers have been heeded once more, and the river of reality returns to its customary course, to what has always been and must always be.

One day Martín Sandoval shows up at the house looking for Carlos and is ushered into his bedroom. He comes bearing his own version of events—they have accepted a twenty percent increase in wages, victory is ever nearer, etc.—and a stack of books for him to read during his convalescence. Carlos, who is not allowed to get up even during visits, accepts them wordlessly from his bed: Marx, Kropotkin, Bakunin. He doesn't know what to say. At last he says, “Thank you, they're very nice,” and as he speaks, he realizes how stupid he sounds. But Martín doesn't seem to care; he smiles broadly and says he must read them all. On his way out he winks and raises his left fist, and Carlos responds by raising his right. Martín laughs.

That same day, José also comes to visit. Don Augusto interrupts them a number of times during their conversation. He is thrilled to have a Gálvez, a descendant of the heroes of the Pacific, calling at his home. So he keeps reappearing under various implausible pretexts, giving exaggerated bows and plying his guest with wine and cigars that José simply must try and that José does not try. Carlos squirms in his bed. He mutters a few scathing words that his father does not hear. As he sees it, his father is behaving like a fawning footman eager to please his master with a few clever comments, and José receives the offerings with frosty graciousness. Don Augusto also brings in a newspaper describing events abroad and attempts a verbatim recitation of an article on the Russo-Japanese War he's just memorized; in his opinion, he says, despite the Yalu River victory, the Japanese will be utterly vanquished; they'll see when the Baltic fleet of Admiral Rozhestvensky—is he pronouncing that damned difficult name correctly?—rounds the Cape of Good Hope and surprises them from the south; Czar Nicholas isn't going to let a bunch of yellow men from the far ends of the earth tell him where he can and cannot dock his ships. Doesn't José agree? he asks when he runs out of ideas—which is to say, right where the article ended. Gálvez doesn't know anything about the war, but he pretends to reflect a moment. At last he smiles a genuine smile and says he does not agree, that in fact he and his father believe just the opposite: that the Russians are out of options and that Japan is going to trounce the czar and the aforementioned Rozinsky. Don Augusto blinks a moment, stammers, rolls and unrolls the newspaper a couple of times—
Why don't you just go away,
thinks Carlos,
and stop making us look ridiculous?
—and finally says that he hadn't seen it like that, but, come to think of it, the Gálvez analysis does make sense, that Japan is going to win and not Russia. Indeed, he has no doubt, and it is so obvious now that he has considered it carefully, he is embarrassed to have thought otherwise. He leaves.

At long last, he leaves.

And only then can José perch on the edge of the bed and tell Carlos why he has come. The novel, of course. Now that the strike is finally over, a wide array of possibilities will open before them, and they cannot pass them up. So they must answer the letters, which have just arrived—did he not say that already? Six of them, no less, six envelopes that languished a month in the hold of one of the ships. It takes Carlos a few moments to realize that José has already read the letters, that for the first time he has not waited for him—that he hasn't even brought them with him. He hasn't brought them, and Carlos has to say that it's fine, that it doesn't matter, that he forgives him for that too.

“Since you were sick . . .”

“It's fine.”

“I'll bring them to you.” José pats the sheets and, below them, Carlos's knees. “I forgot them, but don't worry, I'll bring them. You'll see!”

But that's not even the best part. Even better is the fantastic idea he had the other day and couldn't wait to tell him about. He was thinking about the novel and suddenly remembered Schneider's seven hundred writing tips, specifically one of the few that hadn't been expunged from his memory by the fire. The one that talked about the middle pages of every novel and how something extraordinary had to take place in them.

“I remember,” says Carlos, propping the pillow up behind him so he can sit up.

“Well, it occurred to me that that's exactly what's needed to pique the Maestro's interest: a little action. The novel has been rather dull so far, don't you agree?”

“Dull?”

“I mean, nothing much has happened. Of course that's not necessarily a bad thing. Schneider said that at the beginning of the second act the story always drags a bit—gets a little slow, let's say. The same thing has happened with us: weeks with those letters rotting in the port. But now . . .”

“Now what?”

“Now the action begins! The strike, to be precise. We had it right there in front of our noses, and we didn't see it. Don't you realize? You yourself said it the other day: you were saying that Georgina would sympathize with the workers. Maybe she'd even go down to scope out the port, don't you think? And that's when the action takes off. Police repression! Stampede! Georgina in peril! She could even get injured—why not?”

“And what the hell does that get us?”

“What do you mean, what does that get us? For starters, a rip-roaring chapter. And then, imagine the Maestro's reaction . . . his transatlantic friend at death's door! That would awaken anyone's emotions, you must admit. Poets' muses are always on the verge of croaking. That's probably why they're muses. And maybe that's what Juan Ramón needs to make up his mind . . .”

Carlos asks for a cigarette. His mother has forbidden him to smoke during his convalescence, but to hell with that. He needs a cigarette. And he also needs a moment to reflect—the time that it takes José to stand up, fetch his coat, take a cigarette out of his case, light it.

“It's just a suggestion, of course,” José continues before Carlos has exhaled the smoke from his first drag. “I know Georgina is your thing. But I thought it might make a splendid chapter. Georgina would also talk about the workers and how worried she is about their situation. It fits her personality, don't you think? The concern for people in need. You could put in those things you were telling me in the port. All that stuff about twenty
soles
a day . . .”

“Two
soles
.”

“Whatever. What do you think? Don't tell me there's not any material there.”

Carlos feels his blood beating against the stitches of his wound and tastes the acrid smoke in his mouth.

“Yes . . . I guess it's not a bad idea,” he murmurs.

Gálvez scratches his ear.

“It was actually Ventura's idea, you know? He and I . . . well, let's say he's going to give us a hand with the novel. As long as you have no objections, of course.”

“Ventura?”

“You don't remember him? You must know him. Ventura Tagle-Bracho . . . the fellow with the pipe.”

Ventura—of course. Carlos remembers having seen him at the club a few times, with his pipe and his somewhat rough manners. He especially remembers the way Tagle-Bracho always looked down at him from the disdainful heights of his last name, whose hyphenated sonority could intimidate even the Gálvezes. He doesn't like Ventura. But fortunately he remembers his mirror mimicry exercises in time and almost effortlessly pulls off what looks like perfect assent. Only his hand betrays him: an involuntary movement, brusque and contemptuous, that drops cigarette ash on the bed.

“I knew you'd agree! That chap has marvelous ideas, you'll see.”

“I didn't know he enjoyed literature,” Carlos says slowly, careful not to erase the expression from his face.

“He's not exactly an expert on the topic, that's for sure. Indeed, I don't think he's all that interested. But you should hear the ideas he has . . . Incredible ideas, Carlota! You're going to love them!”

José laughs, even pats him on the knee again. Carlos thinks of the mirror and, with a bit of effort, laughs too. His laugh is discreet, expectant, as if it were full of hollow spaces, as if it were prepared to cease at any moment so José can finally describe the sort of ideas he's referring to. But he doesn't.

◊

Madrid, February 17, 1905

My dear friend:

How dreadful your letter, and how I trembled as I read it! The paper still clutched in my hand, I saw you in my mind's eye as if in a dream, dragged along in that awful tumult you rendered so eloquently. The lack of bread creates savage beasts. And equally savage and heedless was your decision to so expose yourself to danger! Tell me, would imperiling yourself make these letters arrive more quickly or make that terrible strike finish more rapidly? For a moment, before our very eyes, you became a full-blown anarchist. A modern-day Bakunin, with a lump and a bruise as your trophy. A fine bother you've given us! For once—though it will not serve as precedent—I must acknowledge that your father is not entirely wrong. Do not give me that look; I agree with him. You are a little girl who must be looked after and chided. Yes, chided! Does that provoke your indignation? But a falling-out and a friendship lost are inevitable when a person insists on risking her life for such a trifling thing as a handful of my letters. Instead, let's make up and you tell me whether you are still in any pain from that injury you suffered, the thought of which causes me keen anguish! Are you sure you haven't minimized the seriousness of the incident to protect the nerves of your friend, who is so concerned about your health and life?

Now that my heart has stopped racing, I reread your letter, which despite its horror is also quite beautiful. I pause several times, entranced, on these captivating lines: “From the breakwater they seemed to form a single body, as if they were a monstrous living thing spilling down the docks and wharves, its skin scaly with hats and faces.” Or this one, no less beautiful: “Above the agitated faces, the bodies of the first horsemen came into view. There aloft, they might have been at the bow of a ship that cut through the swell of workers, who shouted and scattered in all directions.” Ah! Do you realize that you, too, are a poet? Even if you do not write slim volumes of verse, there are many other ways to make poetry; one is a poet in the way one looks at things, and you—and I say this with all sincerity—truly have that quality. These letters are poetry! And I, who hope to continue to receive them for a long time to come, must beg of you to promise that you will never embark upon such madness again. Do so for your father, who loves you so much, or even—if you will forgive my boldness—do so for this humble servant who, here on the other side of the Atlantic, anxiously awaits swift news of your recovery and new examples of your poetry . . .

◊

After that, the novel continues on its course as if it had never stopped. Except that's not true; the novel continues, but something has changed. For starters, the settings have changed. The chapters are no longer dictated up in the garret; for some time now, they have descended instead to the mundane reality of billiards halls, opium dens, and cabarets. The novel frequents those haunts along with its numerous authors—at this point they've added six or seven new pens to the project. First the aforementioned Ventura, and then his gaggle of friends, who provoke brawls wherever they go and have a curious habit of taking the opposite position for anything Carlos says, no matter the topic. One of them, a fellow named Márquez, is less interested in Georgina than he is in the countless billiards games over which they hammer out her biography. And, of course, there is José, who has grown tired of sitting on the sidelines and for the first time is attempting to act as master of ceremonies, to decide what Georgina can and cannot think.