Guano Read online

  Simón and Montse were drawn by the light that wound its way between the hulls of the ships in the port. It was romantic. The water’s edge always was, the charm of docks often was. They had each read Des Grieux twice, four times between them, which ends up giving one ideas. And one of these was to linger over the walk home. And they could find no better way than to head in the wrong direction.

  Simón opened the umbrella. Too large for a single person, it was made for two. The people from the reception knew high society only too well. They were polite, they saw their wives home, if not a damsel in distress.

  Montse huddled under the umbrella more than circumstances required. Its circumference should have allowed for more distance between them. And Montse normally didn’t mind the rain in her hair – it was frizzy anyway. But right now, I mean, honestly, kinks, coils, the horror, so no. Let me take shelter near you, under your arm.

  Simón began to smell the fragrance of spices near him, and the heat of the summer excited his thoughts. They were walking along the water’s edge. To be considerate, Simón walked closest to the water. Montse huddled up, and then huddled up some more – I’m a bit cold – curling up against Simón as if fearing a danger. He was afraid she would push him in.

  They looked everywhere and, when they could find no more wishes or lanterns to stare at, they stared mainly at their feet. But a passion for laces is hard to sustain, so Simón, feeling reckless, finally took the chance of gazing at Montse.

  Her eyes looked like the tranquil waters of the port the rain fell on: dark, satiny, with barely perceptible sparkles like mosquitoes skimming the surface of a lake and dropping into it, having spent themselves in their acrobatics. It was actually the water of Callao and the evening’s drizzle in her eyes. Montse was very much of this place. She blended into her surroundings, or vice versa, an admirable thing that made her whole, and simple, and sound, because she didn’t resist the world, like the rest of us, crazy people that we are.

  They had barely spoken since opening the umbrella. Is that okay, yes, thank you, the umbrella is too small, my hair, come closer. Once tucked into the silence, it was hard to break it. Words had seemed much less fraught with meaning in the din of the gala. Here, they filled the head and, perhaps, the heart.

  Finally they arrived in front of Diego Luna Sánchez Ortuño’s house. The walk home had seemed short, in spite of the lengths they had gone to to try to make it longer: small steps, stops on account of great exhaustion or the sore foot she feigned.

  My, Montse said, we talked a great deal.

  She hung back from the doorway, as if she didn’t want to go inside.

  Yes, Simón said, maybe a little too much.

  Do you think? she said.

  She waited expectantly, maintaining a secret, fragile balance, where nothing moved but where the slightest breath could have raised a storm. Her face strained forward. Her lips were jutting out from her face, her eyes became showers. She couldn’t hold on for long.

  In the face of the evidence, all Simón knew how to do was to run away. He preferred the comfort of doubt. He had drifted along this way for years, not knowing what he wanted, not taking what was offered to him. At least his dignity remained intact, along with the illusion of never having made a mistake.

  All he could think to say was, Will I see you again?

  Montse smiled, perhaps because he looked foolish or awkward at the very moment she had stopped being so, after so many failed attempts, when all she was asking for was a little shared courage.

  Well, she said, my father leaves tomorrow for Lambayeque. But I’m staying here.

  The fleet leaves tomorrow for San Francisco, Simón said. And I’m going with it.

  She stopped smiling. He looked at her, apologizing with his eyebrows. I’ve ruined everything, he said to himself; I sabotaged our desire. When will I learn how to connect?

  Then she pulled him inside. He barely had time to close the umbrella. She grabbed his wrist with a warm hand, even warmer than he had expected it to be, and softer, even softer than the white tablecloth she had smoothed so many times at dinner. He noticed that her nails had no lunulae.

  Now they were in the vestibule. Facing one another. The persistent drizzle and the detours had rendered Montse’s dress transparent around her ankles and her arms. Simón briefly regretted using the umbrella, while she looked for something on a small pedestal table.

  The maid was frozen in the hallway, confused, as was the butler in the stairway. A man had come in the house. It wasn’t the master, or his son. It was bound to happen someday, with Mademoiselle, who was too often buried in her books not to take leave of her senses.

  You’ll write me, Montse said. You know how to write. Letters.

  Yes, letters, Simón repeated.

  She took a gold pen from a writing case. This is for you, she said. Just for me. It seemed like a mixed message. For you, oh yes, for me, Simón said. For the letters I’m going to write you. It’s beautiful, are you sure that … One minute, just a moment, she whispered to the servants, my dear friends. The butler looked, descended a step, waited. The maid came closer, curious.

  Simón stared at Montse. She held his hand tight, leaving white impressions that faded as soon as the blood returned. There was a bit of jungle in her eyes. Simón didn’t know what to read in their darkness: anger or passion, a blend of desire and disappointment. Near-sightedness.

  The butler finally stepped forward to admonish Montse, to remind her that the master would not approve; they didn’t want a diplomatic incident.

  Simón turned on his heel and left.

  Montse stepped back out on the doorstep, waiting deep in her soul, under the ashes of renunciation for him to come back. But he didn’t look back. Around him, the night was expanding, spreading like an ink stain, with him as the source. When he opened the umbrella and rested it on his shoulder, it looked as though an octopus had grabbed him and swallowed him.

  The idea of letters was a little mad. But some women pine. And they accept the growing foolishness of certain men – the outbursts, the insistence, the billet-doux delivered daily – and they wind up longing for them.

  The next day, the father and son left for Lambayeque; you should have stayed for a Chartreuse last night, dear daughter. Pinzón told some good ones, excellent ones, to say nothing of the president of Chile.

  The fleet headed to San Francisco.

  No one came to the docks to say goodbye.

  Simón rolled the gold pen between his fingers. Something remained of Montse’s hand and transferred from the object to his skin, then to his head, which was dreaming. He didn’t write; instead he imagined caresses given, received, repeated – out of respect, he went no further than the small of the back.

  Montse was sitting at her table in front of the window, a book open in front of her. She wasn’t reading. She was watching the world outside her mind, the one she so often fled. And the sea became the sea again, offering up no more ships.

  5

  Diego Luna Sánchez Ortuño once again surveyed his imaginary holdings, the mountains and the condors. Respectively, they were more profitable, all the snow had melted, they had not – mad hope – invented a new way to fly. He and his son were arguing over crop management again. Then, revisiting the previous evening’s ball, they reconciled. They laughed at the mayor and the Spaniards; in spite of their notorious indifference, the Spaniards had been fairly civilized. One day they would all get along famously, who knows, maybe even sending ambassadors and exchanging official visits that – after a few zamacueca and fandango demonstrations reciprocally tolerated – would blossom into joint ventures.

  Also, since the morning, Montse had been smiling a bit rapturously. She was even humming classical airs, an arietta by Nasolini. Diego thought he recognized his late wife in the tone of the voice singing – nearly in tune, but then consistently hitting the wrong note at the end of the verse or at the beginning of the phrase, sending emotion into a skid, ruining the rest. He politel
y brought up the idea of singing lessons, just to polish things up of course, and then questioned her directly about the reason for the solo, because the maid was trying to look busy and the butler was offering up emergencies as a pretext.

  She thought her work was going rather well.

  Was that all?

  Well, yes, the evening had been fun. Pleasant encounters, charming people.

  Charming? Her brother was surprised.

  A playwright, an impresario? But he had to leave. The coach had been brought around. The horses were cold and stamping in the courtyard. We’ll talk about this when I get back, Diego had said. It was what a father should say, he thought, to make sure he looked like a busy man without shirking his duty to stay informed. But afterward, later. Once the dispute with the workers in Lambayeque was settled, then he would take up the matter of her new flame.

  Flames. At first Diego could see only the flames that rose above the manor, a great morphing cauliflower, its darkness eating away at the day. The mountains and condors were to be expected, as was the quarrel between father and son, but this smoke was disconcerting.

  Approaching the hacienda, they realized that what was burning was a shed for ploughshares and ploughs. No one was trying to put out the blaze. They picked up their pace to warn or blame the plantation men, as circumstances required.

  Father and son descended from the coach. The doors to the manor were wide open, but still they couldn’t see inside: the sun and the shadows were both too intense. They climbed the steps and were surprised that they couldn’t make things out any better once they were on the threshold; there was only darkness, and mystery. The silence was broken by the distant crackle of flames.

  The entrance hall: here again it took some time to work out what was right before their eyes. It was like a woman who changes her hairstyle, a man who shaves his moustache – didn’t you notice? The father and son’s nerves were stretched taut from the suspense. Why the open door? Why the fire? There was something to these details, wasn’t there? The brain can be lazy, and, shaken from routine, it takes some effort to rouse emotion again. Nerve endings have to be dusted off.

  They risked about eight watchful steps. Their eyes were adjusting to the darkness: the lights were growing less pink and the darkness less thick. A darker mass lay to the right, like a big, moist, humped mushroom that had grown in the cool air.

  It was the body of the foreman on top of the body of a servant, their skulls crushed from different angles, their bodies forming the X on a treasure map, or the symbol of their death, the letter normally drawn on the eyelids to make things explicit, although not really necessary outside of the cartoon world. Crepes lay scattered around them, having fallen from a silver tray, which, lying between their heads, were the finishing touches on a sort of Ottoman or papal coat of arms.

  They’re dead, the son said, prodding them with a foot. We should pinch their nostrils. We should get out the smelling salts, ventured the father. The blood spreading on the marble formed a sort of upside-down tree, a liquid trunk that flowed into larger branches, then into diffuse foliage and roots that were still slowly growing. The soaked crepes looked like the coral moons of Symbolist painters. Let’s go upstairs instead, Diego suggested.

  They took great care with their boots.

  They looked around the second floor. The son had a revolver in his hand, something he had never used. They suspected a raid by bandits, deep down feared the pishtaco, but there were no more bodies lying around to stumble over or terrorize them. Nothing appeared, cried out for help or lay in the wardrobes or behind doors. The order made them worry even more. They found themselves hoping they would discover a massacre, a drama that would have had the virtue of being plausible, to support a theory or at least to reassure them that what they were seeing was real. They even opened a cedar chest in the master bedroom. It was filled with clean linens and blankets. Disappointment.

  They went back down to the entrance hall. The tree had grown.

  Now more intrigued than worried, Diego and his son wanted to go back to the coach and drive around the fields. Through the manor’s open door, in the sun, they saw the seasonal workers waiting for them by the coach.

  They had the coachman. They looked angry.

  Diego and his son decided resistance was futile. They would have to negotiate, give them a raise, build new bunks in the barracks, whatever. They stepped out onto the landing. The son was still holding the revolver, but he didn’t have the nerve to fire. The rebels were armed with three or four guns, in addition to spades and rakes, but they were nonetheless worried about Diego’s revolver. There were shouts, orders, threats made to the coachman, which weighed little in the balance. Diego threw the weapon into the flowerbed, amid the azaleas.

  The Inca was the leader of the rebels. He gripped a machete in his right hand. The wife Diego had been reunited with was behind him.

  It took some time to figure out what the problem was. The crowd dispersed, and the Inca said in a voice tinged with Quechuan inflections that the woman was his, and that his honour, his people, love, when you came right down to it – because it had reached that point – could not be violated. He stuttered with rage.

  Understanding that a raise would not do the trick, Diego started to apologize. Had he known, had he been told. Someone should have said something. It was the foreman, the Inca fumed, who had advised him to keep quiet, to avoid everyone getting fired, to avoid making the master angry. Oh no, someone should have said something, of course. We would have listened, of course.

  They grabbed the father and the son. They forced them to kneel surrounded by the workers. It was too late for talking, but not for spitting, which the Inca’s wife did a great deal of. In Diego’s face – have you seen this? – on Diego’s hands – never, even in Cuzco where she came from, had they seen such a bastard. She slapped him. Her hands smelled of potatoes.

  Diego closed his eyes, on account of the spitting, and then opened them again to look. Aside from the chin, she definitely looked like his late wife; and so it was as if it were his late wife now showering him in contempt. It seemed to him the appropriate punishment for having abandoned her in Segura, for having left their life, their house, everything they had dreamed of together.

  To make amends, in his thoughts he often brought flowers to her grave. But does a thought count? It was too easy, too effortless, it took no energy and, while a thought can weigh on you, everyone thinks it’s light. She probably would have wanted him to suffer a grief that is metabolized in sweat not in tears, and to try to restore their home. And that her children would come to see her, most of all. Murmuring a little prayer in front of the grave – Mama, I hope you are really where you are, look at my doll Camilla – things that soothe the conscience. But no, Diego had left death to be death, and nothing more.

  His heart became her coffin.

  The son, kneeling behind his father, didn’t cry, didn’t speak. He was thinking about what fools men could be when it came to women, and when it came to men for that matter, getting even more irritated since his position, kneeling on the pebbles, was uncomfortable. He thought of his sister, basically solitary, virtually cloistered, who had perhaps understood. You shouldn’t play; you should bow out of the dance. Real life is peace and deep thoughts. He wanted to see her again so that she could tell him about books. He had never talked about psychology with her. From now on, he would take an interest.

  Diego’s skin was starting to go pruney from the spit. The other women joined the Inca’s wife in showering him in contempt. The Inca decided that that was enough fun and games and that vengeance would now be his. There was no speech, no torture, really. The act was swift, performed by a man accustomed to cattle and fowl. He yanked Diego’s pants down and took hold of his penis. He cut it off with his machete. Diego crumpled in the dust, falling slowly to one side, like a horseman hit by a bullet and sliding from his saddle. He moaned a little.

  The Inca held the penis up for the stunned crowd; there was
a smattering of polite cries, lacking real enthusiasm. What they had really wanted was a raise. The woman Diego and the Inca were fighting over earned a few more ululations and that was all. Silence settled on the scene. The father lost consciousness. The son was dumbstruck, looking at the organ that was at the origin of his life. The Inca was still holding it high, his arm outstretched. Blood trickled down his wrist, red ivy painting his skin, dripping down toward his elbow. He noticed the son’s fascination and approached him. He forced him to open his mouth. He inserted the penis and made him chew.

  Finish him off, the Inca finally said.

  He pointed to Diego, who was barely conscious.

  The crowd protested: was that strictly necessary? It was, now that hatred was running so high; otherwise it would get back to Callao, and there would be a scandal and retaliation. Diego protested in a weak voice.

  There would be a scandal and retaliation anyway.

  You still have balls, the Inca joked. Then he hit him, joking less.

  In spite of everything, Diego kept talking while a man with a gun approached him. He wanted to change strategies and buy his life. He felt that he had been punished enough, thank you very much. His wife could forgive him. He patted the inside pocket of his frock coat, looked for the gold pen he normally carried with him, a beautiful object he could barter with. But it wasn’t there. He thought of his home in Callao, the writing case, the little compartment in red velvet reserved for his pen. He went through the rooms, stopped to rest in his daughter’s bedroom. She was sitting by the window that looked over the bay. He thought of Montse, who liked to use that pen, because the ink flowed so nicely, and then of his wife, and his daughter again. She had nibbled on it with her baby teeth, leaving marks in the gold. He thought of all this, for a brief moment. It was his last thought. The dust was soaking up his blood. The son screamed. The penis fell out of his mouth. He still had the taste of his father’s blood and semen on his tongue. He must be killed too, the Inca demanded, not even remotely joking now. But suddenly there were shots. Workers fell. The police had arrived. The cook had alerted them after dropping his silver platter. The crowd was decimated, men and women hit indiscriminately. It didn’t take long for someone to finger the gang leader, the Inca. And it didn’t take much longer to execute him as he stood alone near the shed that was burning out. They left his body to sear on the ground, between the blackened planks. The vultures came. His wife was raped behind the house by a policeman. A small assembly of the forces of order stood around. She was very pretty.