Guano Read online

  English translation copyright © Rhonda Mullins, 2015

  Original French text © Louis Carmain, 2015

  First English edition. Originally published in French in 2013 as Guano by Les Éditions de l’Hexagone.

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013–2018: Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities. Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Carmain, Louis, 1983-

  [Guano. English]

  Guano / Louis Carmain ; Rhonda Mullins, translator.

  Translation of: Guano.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55245-315-5 (paperback)

  I. Mullins, Rhonda, 1966-, translator II. Title. III. Title: Guano. English.

  PS8605.A7558G8213 2015 C843’.6 C2015-905044-8

  Guano is available as an ebook: ISBN 978 1 77056 424 4

  Purchase of the print version of this book entitles you to a free digital copy. To claim your ebook of this title, please email [email protected] with proof of purchase or visit chbooks.com/digital. (Coach House Books reserves the right to terminate the free digital download offer at any time.)

  Pinzón, 1862–1863

  Salazar, 1864

  Pareja, 1864–1865

  Núñez, 1865–1866

  Because after all, if literature is not a collection of femmes fatales and creatures on the road to ruin, it’s not worth reading.

  – Julien Gracq

  Pinzón

  1862–1863

  1

  This is a story of love and war. Since both diversions often spring from the most trivial of things – borders strained, smiles exchanged – and, to everyone’s astonishment, turn into much more – death, tears, other surprises – there was nothing particularly remarkable at the beginning.

  A city in the background, a port in foreground – such is Cadix. In six years’ time, a revolution will become part of the landscape, but for the time being, there are just a few preparations and their fallout. Two Spanish navy ships, seagulls circling the masts, twice as many men as seagulls. Twice as many, and half of them are bare chested and carrying barrels, cannonballs, butterfly nets and grapeshot, jumbled together with a pile of lenses, magnifying glasses and a Systema Naturae. They are indiscriminately loading nails and insect pins with undoubtedly interchangeable uses. Nearby, scientists beg the handlers to make the necessary distinctions (a setting block is not a gangplank) and perhaps even to discern (nor is a microscope a telescope), to be gentler as they hold the fates of a botanist indisposed by the August heat and a herbarium in their hands.

  All the same, some must assume their rank: the admiral, the captains, a minister of Her Majesty. Indeed, they are wearing frogged uniforms with épaulettes so broad they tempt the pigeons, the men all cinched and strapped in, making either chests or paunches more prominent, depending on the regimen. They are sweating more than the seamen.

  Bare chest to the wind, navel free.

  Gentlemen, we can dream.

  The minister mops his brow with a navy blue handkerchief. What a sun, Admiral, the very idea of the sun. Would you agree that the moon is preferable, the mere memory of the sun? Its melancholy, its gentleness, its craters offering proof that it wears no makeup. The admiral has thick eyebrows that jut out like awnings, protecting his eyes from the drips. Do you wax them?

  We’ll come back to that. It was a bit of a non sequitur.

  The lieutenants, a thankless rank, offer a bit of help hauling cargo, assuming their station for a moment, the deck, then the dock, then the deck. Finally they break rank completely, roll up their sleeves and leave their cocked hats on the edge of the jetties. Let’s pick up the pace.

  The doñas and their ladies-in-waiting eye the torsos and uniforms. The barrels, not so much. A parasol hides their eyes, a hand hides their mouth. It’s hard to hear what they are whispering: an aesthetic appraisal, a verdict of ugliness, don’t go, sweet Roberto. The rising sun stretches the indistinct shadows of these dissimilar women as far as the docks, equality being found in the shadowy shapes and the longing, and extends the shadows’ black peaks – to which the rigging adds a lacy touch – as far as the water. The sailors step on the shadows as they work, provoking a frisson in their owners … a transposition, a secret desire. They excuse themselves, needlessly, afraid that the ladies’ only memory of them will be an indiscretion. After all, who knows when they will see these familiar silhouettes again? So many au revoirs become adieus.

  And suddenly Spain is too beautiful to leave. That’s the way it is with adventure: when it becomes real, when the time comes to take to the seas, suddenly we are better suited to our slippers.

  It was Isabelle II who had dreamed up this particular adventure, albeit steered a little in the direction by her government. She has been on the throne for nineteen years and feels entitled to her whims. She is very much of her time: pale skin, black hair, more than pleasingly plump. Her exile in Paris lies six years ahead of her, when her chin will grow fourfold.

  At the time our story begins, people are still merely grumbling in the corridors about the virtues of her reign. She is growing fatter at the expense of Spain, whose weight on the world stage is dwindling. She has a penchant for intrigue and French cuisine. She has too many small dogs. And yet, under her reign, Spain is once again the fourth greatest naval power, and military spending is more than respectable.

  Isabelle is doing everything possible – in other words, she is doing something at least. But it all lacks fanfare and sizzle. People are searching for prestige lost and not finding it. Castilian dignitaries demand a red carpet wherever they go; it’s not too much to ask. Instead, in the courts of Europe, they are received as a courtesy between a businessman’s grievances and a Turkish emissary’s ultimatums. Questionable wines follow half-hearted bows, accompanied by a glaring lack of nubile heiresses. And then there are the newspapers in London, Rome and Moscow, where Spain is relegated to mere snippets – even in the Madrid papers.

  So Isabelle, suddenly thirsty for knowledge, had the idea of mounting a scientific expedition. Destination: the waters of South America, a continent that has been all the rage since Darwin. People now know it as a destination where rare birds chirp, the latest fish swim, tenthousand-year-old lizards do, well, not much of anything. And, while we’re there, we can collect some of the money that the newly independent colonies – not to name names – owe the crown. While we’re at it, we can discreetly throw our weight behind the legal and financial demands of Spanish citizens still living there. It is a question of honour. But, above all, it is a question of science, lest we forget, of two-headed tortoises, five-legged salamanders, chaffinches with teeth, and if a geologist were to find some leftover gold lying about, so much the better.

  The admiral with the awnings is Luis Hernandez Pinzón. He commands the fleet with no great distinction. He is a direct descendant of the brothers Pinzón, who accompanied Christopher Columbus on that other voyage (a lineage that makes him uncertain of the value of his admiralty), and his bloodline will show those people overseas that Spain is not messing about. It will show them that the expedition will revolutionize the world of science as surely as that other one revolutionized the world, full stop. He wears a dark uniform trimmed in red for the occasion, and long sideburns, not for the occasion. It simply looks more serious, more dignified, and his wife told him that they make his jaw seem stronger.

  The fleet is made up
of brand new steamships: the frigates Triunfo and Resolución, which will meet up with the Vencedora in Montevideo, and then with the schooner Virgen de Covadonga near the mouth of the Rio de la Plata.

  The builders of the Virgen de Covadonga would have been astonished to hear that she would be part of the armada. The admiralty had commissioned her to carry mail between Manila and Hong Kong, nothing fancy. But she was soon promoted because of the fine figure she cut and her smooth handling. After a few surgical procedures performed in the port of Buenos Aires – including a cannon graft – she is deemed fit to collect scientific data.

  Simón Cristiano Claro is aboard the Triunfo. He, too, is astonished to find himself there, to have been swept along to the point of an actual voyage without ever having had either the desire or a greatgreat-grandfather with a penchant for globetrotting. Long ago, he had thought that life would give him clues to his true destiny, but those clues remained subtle, impenetrable: a pleasant childhood, military school to dispel boredom, the rank of lieutenant in exchange for mediocre grades, phases that always ended without a signpost of revelation. So he finds himself where he is put down, with no cocked hat, being judged by the women, hauling a case of sherry. Simón puts it down, stops on the deck, looks at Spain, which is still waking up. The sun is rising toward noon.

  The order is given to cast off. They sail off in silence. The onlookers soon disperse. The illusion persists of a mere pleasure cruise and an imminent return. But they know better; they will play a great deal of whist, and there may be some danger. Because, really, they are showing the world that Spain still has ships, ships fitted with cannons.

  The year is 1862.

  So far no one is dead, no one is in love.

  2

  Diego Luna Sánchez Ortuño was a widower and too young to be one. He oversaw his land, dividing his time between his villa in Callao and his plantations in Lambayeque. The short trips involved in this effort kept him from getting bored. In the coach, he would imagine himself the owner of plains he caught glimpses of, he would put his affairs in order and calculate projected revenue. Then he would take a break to look at the mountain. He would knit his brow when he saw a condor, smile when he saw that there was already snow in the peaks. He liked winter, but couldn’t say why. The cold clarified his thoughts. The white reminded him of his wife. The enamel of her teeth, the cotton of her underthings.

  After a time, he began to tire of his journeys. He was already managing the fields he imagined he owned. Some of them were declining in profitability. He sold. Even rest had become tedious. He had seen the snow too many times, its comings and goings; and the condors could hardly be called acrobats. Their turns were too slow to make onlookers dizzy. They were desperately short on dives.

  So he asked his son to join him.

  In the coach, he held forth on the nature of the seeds sown: corn, rye, sorghum. He complained about the inefficiency of the labourers hired in the spring, natives and former slaves who arrived under the asiento. Discipline would have to be tightened.

  The son learned fast, even making a few too many suggestions. He was just thirty years old, although almost bald, and his eagerness to take the torch was apparent. They inevitably wound up butting heads: the son criticized, the father scolded. You and the seasonal workers. You get too friendly with them. You whisper in their ear and even pat them on the shoulder. You have to keep your distance. Otherwise you’ll end up doubling their salaries out of friendship. You’ll end up cutting their hours out of pure compassion. You’ll end up going broke.

  The lesson over, Diego withdrew into a deep silence. Out of habit he searched the sky for condors but found them only in his head. Insurmountably dark ideas circled, making him regret having left Spain, and then having never returned, and then everything else in equal measure: having lived in general and having eaten only a hardboiled egg for breakfast, with no salt.

  He reflected on his past, his index finger on his temple.

  Hot days in Murcia, meeting his wife in front of the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary. She was leaving confession, feeling greatly relieved. Because this time she had thought herself beyond redemption. She had read a love story and spent a long time staring at a man’s moustache. Hell had opened up beneath her feet, and it was so nice, burning, with scarlet lips, vermillion tongues, other unmentionable colours. The priest had been magnanimous. She could go in peace, on the condition that she return more often, because God loved her very much.

  She fluttered down the steps to the square, feeling a weight lifted, redeemed for her weekly lapse in virtue, virginal once more. In her expiatory enthusiasm, she almost tripped. Diego caught her. Dishevelled, in the arms of a man, here we go again. She was thinking that she would have to go back up the stairs, get in line again, explain to the diamond-patterned profile in the half-light that grip was not the chief quality of women’s shoes. Diego was thinking that his search was finally over, aside from, naturally, the search for more suitable accommodations to replace his bachelor’s apartment. He could say goodbye to the unseemly places he would no longer have to haunt, friends he would no longer have to spend time with – new bosoms and new games, goodbye. She smelled like spice. He was thinking that the past no longer mattered, as long as she never found out about it, except for the matter of the inheritance from the grandfather, and a lineage that should not be kept quiet either.

  He raised his eyes so that she wouldn’t see them clouded with tears. At this time of day, the sun turned the cathedral bell tower pink, as if sculpted from coral. They were both moved at the same time, not something that happens every day. And in the months that followed, they were moved to the point that they decided to wed. At the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary, under the coral bell tower, before the priest, who was also moved.

  Then came the flood of 1834. Without warning, the Segura jumped out of its bed and set off to find Diego in his sleep. It entered the house, climbed the stairs and lay down at his side. His wife was gone.

  She liked to go down into the garden at night and fall asleep in the cool air, so the river may have carried her off like a kidnapped lover. Or perhaps she had drowned, like an illness that stops the heart without inducing a cough or laboured breathing, laying itself down on Ophelia without her stirring, aside from a shudder, a flutter. Or maybe she had run off before the water got there. The water was already up to Diego’s waist. Half-asleep, he saved his daughter and his young son, both babies.

  The sun rose on the flooded town, making it glisten. Bodies floated here and there, not many, just enough to bring grief to every neighbourhood. The coral bell tower, which was nice and dry, looked down over streets turned to rivers. Diego searched for his wife in vain, begged the priest: none of the parishioners knew, none of them wanted to know. When the pain is too great, most men take refuge at their mother’s, disappear into the fields or board steamers. With no home or possessions, Diego left for Peru. He held his daughter with his right hand, his son under his left arm. He would have gone anywhere.

  The son’s voice chased the condors away.

  Father, we’re here. Be careful, it’s muddy. The coachman slipped.

  They took care with their boots. Once inside the hacienda, they took care with the marble floor. Diego and his son listened to the foreman’s report – the son attentively, the father much less so. His wife was still on his mind: the flood, her disappearance. Diego was winning his battles against melancholy less often.

  They went to visit the crops. The foreman explained that the workers were complaining of low wages. The son nodded, looked at his father who was lost in Spain, again. The dun horses had a hard time making their way through the marl and the ruts. Finally they arrived at the tract of land the seasonal workers were weeding. The son and the foreman dismounted and went to talk to a short, heavyset man, a descendant of the Incas, who represented the workers.

  And then Diego saw her, the young woman, kneeling and pulling weeds. She was sweating; her black hair clung to her neck. The sun made the w
et locks on her neck shine, like thick, dark veins filled with blood. She was an exact replica of his wife, an impossible copy, as though, when she disappeared, an unseen force had kept her imprint and carried it on the wind to this place across the ocean, an identical snowflake found in another part of the world. An exact reproduction with a jaw too weak to be an Inca’s, the nose a little flat, down to the curves. Although the miracle hadn’t gotten her chin quite right.

  Bring her to my rooms, he said.

  The heavyset man gripped his sickle; the foreman pushed him away. The son was surprised to hear his father, ordinarily so taciturn, speak in front of the men. The son came back toward him, had him repeat it, took offence at having heard right. Never before had anyone behaved this way, at least since Pizarro. Relations between management and labour were strained enough. They couldn’t allow lucre, much less lust, to disturb the peace at the hacienda. Not lust, said the father. A sense. Perhaps a feeling.

  And the son knew that his father loved a ghost.

  The deed done, and in spite of her reticence, Diego made the woman promise to stay after the harvest. She was from Cuzco. Her hands smelled like potatoes. He would visit her often, perhaps marry her. She could loll about in a big canopy bed, a feather bed. She would have dresses and eat goose. But right now, he told her, I have to be off. We are invited to a reception in Callao, and my daughter is there alone. You know, I love her so much, although she says not enough, and I’m trying to pamper her. She’s been sighing a little too much lately. Particularly since her brother has been coming with me on these trips. It’s as though her mind is labouring over pyramids and labyrinths, and she wears herself out.

  He added solemnly, Pity those lonely souls who reign over people who are imaginary.

  He had read that in a newspaper quoting something like Don Quixote. He hadn’t read Don Quixote, but his daughter had.

  Diego Luna Sánchez Ortuño and his son left for Callao. The son looked out the window of the coach, not speaking, counting condors. At the bottom of the staircase, Diego had ordered the foreman to treat her better, to sneak her into the manor from time to time so she could sleep there, on the sly. He had called her by his late wife’s name.