Guano Read online

  Well, said Pinzón, we would like an apology and restitution.

  He was standing near the portrait; it made him look taller. He was smoking, which made him look taller still, as if his head were sticking out of a cloud. Like a giant.

  No apology is required, Vivanco replied. This is a domestic matter. Peru will deal with Peru.

  Pinzón was fumigating the mayor’s family and the canary.

  We’re talking about Spanish citizens, he said.

  They had been living here for over twenty years, Vivanco reminded him.

  Blood is blood, Pinzón said. Spain doesn’t forget her sons and daughters.

  She forgets other things, Vivanco said. Her defeats, for instance.

  But not what she is owed, Pinzon said. Money and interests were stolen from her.

  And he pulled a few dates from the drawers of History. Misunderstandings forty-two years old. He stressed that it was nothing personal; he smoked. Vivanco explained that Peru would not give in to blackmail any more than she would to asphyxia. It was nothing personal, he stressed further. Then there was a silence that the smoke seemed to be sketching in the air: nervous scrolls, uncertain arabesques that surrounded Pinzón and Vivanco, containing nothing recognizable, no answer or clue, no moustache or eyebrows, no dragon or cauldron that could have been the source of these thick clouds …

  I will report this to Madrid, Pinzón finally said.

  And I will report this to Lima, Vivanco said.

  Yes, Pinzón said, losing his temper, report this to Lima, go ahead. Or rather to Tarapoto; you will have a better chance of being heard. If the palm trees will pipe down, of course.

  And he pointed out that Juanita did not have to be briefed about all this.

  That was it.

  Vivanco was indignant, got up from the armchair, and then turned his back on Pinzón. He peered through the smoke and the jealousy, absorbed. He would have liked to see a carnival going on outside, to show the Spaniards that life here was doing very well without them. Death too. But the square was empty. Aside from two dogs and a wounded bird that they were tearing limb from limb: a wing was folding and unfolding like a fan as it was shaken, a foot left on the ground would soon become a good-luck charm. Head, beak, eye were of no particular use now – the quartering went on, blood staining feathers and muzzles. The dogs were wearing collars. They must belong to someone. They should be better trained.

  Stratus clouds, Vivanco finally said. You should take an umbrella when you go. A gift. It will be big enough for the both of you.

  Simón still wanted to make a copy of the talks to give to Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco.

  That won’t be necessary, Pinzón said.

  That’s fine, Vivanco acquiesced. We won’t forget any of this.

  Finally something they could agree on. It could have been the cornerstone for a compromise, but no. Instead they left, slamming the door behind them. In the lobby, they collected the captains, who were starting to worry about their fate and the tiles, and they headed back to the ships, taking neither French leave nor English leave but Spanish leave, which is a great deal noisier. Pinzón was angry that he hadn’t taken an umbrella, because the rain was cold, and that he had left Spain, because Peru was ridiculous.

  Salazar

  1864

  7

  They alerted Madrid again.

  Madrid took the news hard. Isabelle neglected her little dog, quintupled her meringue intake, blamed her deputy ministers between mouthfuls. They thought Pinzón, the poor beggar, in spite of his prestigious lineage, was failing to command respect. They concluded just as logically that, since Peru wasn’t yielding, they would have to ask for more. For example, the repayment of debts from the war of independence, a war they suddenly remembered.

  But poor Pinzón, Pinzón whose bloodline wasn’t sufficient to make himself heard. Columbus had managed to make the natives understand immediately that he was the best person to safeguard their interests. It just went to show that, sometimes, to communicate with those people, you have to stop talking. You have to do something else. And Pinzón seemed to be sorely lacking in something else. The poor beggar.

  So they sent Eusebio de Salazar y Mazarredo to explain all this to the Peruvians. It was an impressive name, further enhanced by the title of royal commissioner. He was not an ambassador, it should be noted, but a commissioner; and not a commissioner of nothing at all, but a royal one, therefore not of a country but of a colony.

  The war of independence was already fading from memory.

  Eusebio de Salazar y Mazarredo arrived in Peru in March 1864 aboard a ship sent to reinforce Pinzón’s fleet. The crossing was made in record time – oh, the madness of modernity – and the news of escalating tensions made the rounds of the world’s papers: Paris, London, Moscow, Madrid.

  Salazar boarded the Resolución.

  He was very much of his time: the beard, the pomade, the uniform dripping with decorations and festoons forming spirals on his shoulders. He looked like a theatre. He looked as though his chest and armpits were going to open up on to a performance.

  As the ranking officer on deck, who had come that day to get the ship’s news at the request of the captain of the Triunfo, Simón introduced himself and explained Pinzón’s absence. He was fuming in his cabin, planning, fuming some more, finally throwing a sextant out the porthole, then tracing an umpteenth red circle on his yellow chart. Very well, Salazar said, let’s go join him; let’s see what’s going on.

  The play was starting.

  Salazar emerged from the chart room the next day. His cheeks were red, and the whites of his eyes were yellow. He had coloured hard, even broken a few navigation tools. He asked Simón to accompany him; the admiral had spoken highly of his calligraphy, and a meeting was planned with Peruvian officials. They wanted to settle the crisis, but it seemed likely it would be aggravated instead, and hopes were turning to dust. Pinzón stayed with his charts to scribble on them some more.

  They were received in the mayor’s office in Callao by Juan Ribeyro.

  He was the minister of foreign affairs.

  They asked for Pezet. Pezet was off somewhere chasing his dreams They demanded to see Vivanco. Vivanco had had enough of the Spaniards: he was in Lima seeing to his dogs, recent acquisitions he was trying to train.

  The meeting was unproductive. Simón was there in body but not in spirit. He jotted down a few snatches of a conversation that never really got off the ground. Greetings, absence, silence. Carpets of silence that unfurled longer and longer. Simón barely noticed them. He was thinking of himself – well, of what was alive inside him, a long way from the carpets, his head too full of sounds and the occasional image. Yes, that one.

  They commented on the chubby portrait. Nice roundness, nice rendering. Then the commissioner officially introduced himself. Ribeyro replied that he would have liked to receive an ambassador within these walls. That Peru was getting a bit offended by this selective memory.

  What was that supposed to mean?

  That they remembered independence when it came to debts, but not when it came to protocol. That they were giving themselves phony titles, if you really must know.

  Ah, retorted Salazar, look who’s talking. A minister of foreign affairs, when everyone here is a son of Spain. The only thing that seemed foreign was the attitude of Mr. Pezet, who preferred the theatre to diplomacy.

  They drank some Tokay to lighten the mood. It became so light that they talked only about the portrait, a little about the tempestuous palm trees in Tarapoto, from time to time about the president of Chile, deemed eccentric. Everything had already been said, but no one dared admit it. So a second Tokay, small talk, clearing of throats, waiting for half past the hour to make it seem as though the meeting had had a point. At half past, it was hard to cut things short without admitting to themselves that they had failed, so they drank more to summon the courage to make the failure official and leave.

  After the fourth drink, their heads started sp
inning, and they felt that control of the future had slipped from their grasp. They understood that war could no longer be avoided. What they understood less was why. Once the insults were exchanged, the grievances itemized, the subject changed, what was left other than reconciliation? But war is a slippery slope, they thought; once declared, there was no going back without the great effort of climbing back up the hill. So let’s let things run their course, not so much because our differences are insurmountable but because, we might as well admit it, we are all lazy in our own ways – imagine explaining it to the newspapers. And wasn’t it almost heartening to pick up a long-dormant conflict right where we left off? It was like an old couple giving in, a couple who no longer work to stay together, who are essentially bored by peace, and who for lack of anything better to do fan the flames.

  But this time to the bitter end, they promised, until someone surrenders. Deluding themselves about the well-being and the sense of levity that would follow, fantasizing about the post-apocalyptic peace that castle ruins offered a taste of.

  For the time being, all was calm. They said nothing. They needed inspiration before the shouting and the blame. They were just waiting for someone to stand up and get things rolling. Or a noise that would snap them out of their bitter reverie, in which they were already preparing new accusations.

  Simón didn’t know it right then, but History had begun its march in front of his eyes, a bit idiotic and mad, germinating with things that drunk men do or don’t do. But how was he to know? History had been too silent, like a woman who suddenly ups and leaves, taking the future with her. Shouldn’t the warning have been louder? Clearer, to be sure, than long evenings spent inside their heads, without smiling at one another? The men would blame each other the rest of their lives. They didn’t see the clues. Perhaps they had been thinking about themselves a little too much, shut away in their slight uncertainty. They would have to forgive themselves. Because History has been fooling men since the dawn of time. It is built on trivial things that come and go, and that no one notices, like the tide.

  The men in turn began their march. Their agitation was dulled by the alcohol. Their reflexes too. Hands sought support on the armchair, then on the doorframe. Then on the shoulder of a passing civil servant. Ribeyro and Salazar crossed the lobby this way, seeing each other to the door of city hall. Behind them, Simón tried to follow their complicated advance, moving slowly toward a pedestal table, the exit, a rhododendron, the exit.

  Within the larger frame of History, Simón was living his own little story.

  He wanted to see Montse again.

  He wrote her notes. Their tenderness was veiled in amusing tidbits scattered through the sentences, like small defensive walls that would protect him from a response that was too passionate, prevent him from exposing himself to what he metaphorically called ‘a desert wind’ – what he meant was clearly the barren feeling of a refusal. So an anecdote protected the ‘see you again,’ a witticism minimized the significance of the ‘evening under the umbrella.’

  He rewrote most of the notes.

  Then he tried to have them delivered to her. Sometimes by a sailor, which didn’t work at all. A florist wandering the docks, pfft. A small boy whose confiscated hoop served as a means of barter: nada.

  Montse had not responded.

  The weeks of forced confinement in port grew longer; Simón’s worry increased proportionately. What could she possibly have against him? Why the silence? Had he invented what happened that night, the feelings it had given rise to? He thought about asking for shore leave to go to her house. Would it be unseemly?

  His questions could be summed up in a simple line that he had scribbled at the bottom of a report one night when he couldn’t sleep:

  Did I fall in love with a dream?

  One Sunday, at the end of the afternoon, there were developments. It was the evening before the fateful meeting where Simón had recorded nothing. Salazar had just come aboard the ship. He was talking to Pinzón. Tomorrow they would meet Ribeyro with no great hope of reconciliation. So let’s seethe, my dear Pinzón, let’s scheme.

  Simón walked along the docks, on the verge of giving up, when he saw a woman dressed in black approaching. It was the Ortuño maid. She was walking in little hops, talking in little chirps. She greeted the florist, an acquaintance, and the young boy, a nephew, whose reclaimed hoop had fallen in the water.

  She stopped in front of Simón, slipped him an envelope hidden in the palm of her hand. It was from Mademoiselle. Then she hopped back to the town, disappeared, chirping all the way. You should have steered your hoop better. You have to be careful with what you have in life. Otherwise you end up with nothing to entertain you as you head into old age. Nothing but thoughts and memories. Which are dangerous.

  Simón looked at the sealed letter for a moment – burgundy wax, initials formed with dizzying spirals – and then carefully opened it. His heart was beating too loudly for him to read. He forced himself to stay calm, remembered his alphabet. He finally recognized an A, and then the letters that followed.

  Montse explained that her brother was not well. She had to take care of him. They had left a month before for Lambayeque to see, to collect themselves, perhaps to understand. The shed had been rebuilt.

  Simón couldn’t understand what she meant. His mind was dulled by desire.

  Finally, Montse added that they had returned the night before.

  Could we see each other for a moment? Come to my house in an hour. We’ll go for a walk.

  M

  P.S. I would have preferred letters. I waited for your letters. I received only notes.

  Simón immediately raised his defences, just in case.

  I knew I would see you again.

  Simón rang the bell. The maid answered. He spotted Montse behind her, at the end of the corridor. She didn’t know what she wanted, hesitating between the peace of her books and the whirlwind of life.

  The maid formally announced Lieutenant Claro. This may have given Mademoiselle a little push.

  It was little indeed. Montse approached slowly. It was all she could do to smile. She tried to muster a convincing welcome to offer this man who was so nice, after all, who deserved it. He had come all this way.

  Simón understood. Like the maid, Montse was dressed in black. She was wearing a mantilla like a spider web on her hair, which, tied back, no longer sheltered her face. Her fragility showed clearly on it: eggshell chin, cheeks red from the day that was fading. Other delicateness he recognized: the dewy eyes, the wafer-like nose – the naked bird.

  The woman from the gala was barely recognizable. It was like identifying one’s mother in old photographs from the details. It was her eye, her nostril, her freckle.

  It’s you.

  They wandered the streets.

  Montse said that indeed her father had been killed. She was in mourning. The house had never been so full of the sounds of clocks ticking and feet stepping. They were treading lightly around each other, afraid of disturbing each other’s grief.

  Simón repeated his condolences and support. It became a sort of prayer.

  At times, no longer able to stand hearing himself, he stopped talking, looked Montse in the eye, held her gaze for a few seconds. He repeated the same sadness in the silence, but it seemed easier to hear. Then Montse smiled more genuinely. A half smile, that is.

  And, without knowing what from his past made him empathize, she knew that he understood. It soothed her a little that her pain – yes, her disappointment and her fatigue, too – were shared. Sorrow brings people closer than joy, and in being shared, one can lead to the other.

  They even managed to laugh once or twice. Oh, about nothing, a silly detail glimpsed when detouring down an alley or the shape of a cloud. Really, it looked like a piece of fruit, a shell, a witch. Or John Rodgers, when you look at it the other way around.

  Once the distraction had passed, Montse continued describing the state of her soul and the house. She feared for h
er brother, who was behaving oddly at night and in the things he said. It was if he were travelling inside himself, turning away from his mind to drift until he was lost. Then he would yell, Where am I, where are you, bring me back. He wandered farther and farther, and his yelling grew fainter, a mere breath sometimes, mad muttering.

  He was disguised too, always disguised. Oh, not in costumes, but his face, his eyes, his words, all three of them furtive.

  He wanted to be someone else, someone who is gone and cannot be disturbed.

  Montse thought he could be suffering from a psychological trauma. She consulted her books but couldn’t diagnose anything specific. She would have to study it. Maybe she could write about it. Discover something new.

  Chance brought them to the edge of the town. Now they were walking along the coast, following a narrow mule path. Montse no longer spoke of her pain. She was silent or, without expecting a response, she would comment on nature, a tree, the wind, the emptiness. Her words got lost in it all; they were too small.

  Simón walked behind her. He matched her slow step, hardly complaining at all. He could see the waves swell and break; he could watch the gulls dropping sea urchins onto the rocks; he could run his eyes up and down Montse’s neck, which, laid bare by the sudden gusts of wind that foiled the forbidding nature of the muslin, turned out to be delicate, smooth, pure. A small stretch of snow extinguished by the coal black of the dress. To run his eyes up and down again and imagine his hand on that forbidden skin, squeezing, pressing a little, feeling her flesh. His palm touching the bumps of the vertebrae, his fingertips absorbing the pulse of the jugular.

  You didn’t write me long letters, Montse finally said. Nice ones.

  The wind had died down enough to let her talk.

  I knew I would see you again, Simón answered.

  Finally they climbed the hills. Grey clouds dusted the sky, which was so low that it brushed their heads.

  Simón tried to talk about the war that was looming, about the shadow that the Spanish masts cast over the town. A fist of hatred was slowly squeezing the day-to-day lives of the citizens of Callao, the salons, the carambolas, Sundays.