Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

by Piers Paul Read

  An hour later Javier Methol awoke. His stomach was in a turmoil. He rang for a nurse and asked for something to settle his digestion. The nurse brought a potion which he swallowed, but an hour later he awoke again to find that he was afflicted by the most terrible diarrhoea. He was paying the price for the mousse.

  3

  By the evening of December 23, the whole party of Uruguayans who had come to Chile upon hearing the news of the rescue had settled in Santiago – the survivors with their parents and relatives in the Sheraton San Cristóbal Hotel on the edge of the city, the parents and relatives of those who did not survive in the more old-fashioned Crillon Hotel in the centre.

  There, at the Crillon, the father of Gustavo Nicolich opened the two letters, given to him by Zerbino, that his son had written on the mountain: ‘One thing which will seem incredible to you – it seems unbelievable to me – is that today we started to cut up the dead in order to eat them. There is nothing else to do.’ And then, a little later, the words with which the boy had so nobly predicted his own fate: ‘If the day came and I could save someone with my body, I would gladly do it.’ This was the first intimation that any parent at the Crillon had had that it was the bodies of their sons which had kept the sixteen survivors alive, and Nicolich, already punch-drunk with grief at the death of his son, recoiled still further at the dread implications of the letter. Considering at that moment that the truth might never be known, he removed the sheet of the letter (which was addressed to Gustavo’s novia, Rosina Machitelli) and concealed it.

  Meanwhile, in the Sheraton San Cristóbal, the twelve survivors who had been let out of the hospital were basking in a plenitude of all that had for so long been denied them. Half of them were reunited with their parents. Pancho Delgado and Roberto Canessa were together once again with their loyal novias, Susana Sartori and Laura Surraco. In the Posta Central, Coche Inciarte was with Soledad González. The hotel itself was a total contrast to the Fairchild. It was a brand-new building, overlooking Santiago, with the smell and feel of the utmost luxury. There was a swimming pool, and of course a restaurant, and it was of this latter facility that the twelve boys most immediately availed themselves. When Moncho Sabella arrived at the Sheraton on the afternoon of the 23rd, he found Canessa already installed, eating a large plate of shrimps. Moncho immediately sat down with his brother, who had flown in from Montevideo, and ordered a bowl of shrimps for himself. Shortly after they had eaten them both boys were sick, but this did not spoil their appetite. They immediately ordered more food and started all over again with steaks, salads, cakes and ice cream.

  On the other hand, neither Sabella nor Canessa was overwhelmed by this luxury. When Dr Surraco remarked to Canessa that the hotel must seem extraordinarily comfortable after the hulk of the Fairchild, Canessa retorted that it made no difference to him whether he was in a Sheraton hotel eating shrimps and ice cream or a shepherd’s hut eating cheese.

  The parents and relatives of the twelve boys were so happy to have them back among the living that they raised no objection to this compulsive indulgence of pathological greed. They were already aware that their sons and novios were not likely to behave as if they had just returned from a summer holiday. The long weeks of suffering and starvation had left their mark on the boys’ behaviour; like spoiled children some would tolerate no restraint, and when not indulging the more overt emotions of joy and delight at this reunion they would lapse into sharpness and irritability – above all with their parents, whose concern for their well-being annoyed them. Had they not proved that they could look after themselves?

  These feelings were exacerbated by some parents’ reaction to the anthropophagous aspect of the Christmas Miracle. Unprepared for the news, they had been shocked and for the most part never alluded to if again. They also quite clearly dreaded that the news would break on the outside world, and though some of the survivors conceded to themselves that their parents’ reaction was only to be expected, they were all decidedly upset and injured that anyone should be appalled at what they had done. They read into those involuntary expressions of shock and disgust a preference for the alternative – which was that all of them should have died and none been eaten.

  Their peace of mind was not assisted by the presence in the hotel of a mass of journalists and photographers asking incessant questions and taking pictures of them whenever they moved, ate, or kissed their parents. And more agonizing still were the equally persistent questions of the relatives of the boys who had not returned – the parents of Gustavo Nicolich and Rafael Echavarren; the brothers of Daniel Shaw, Alexis Hounie and Guido Magri – who came up from the Crillon Hotel to discover the exact circumstances of the death of their brothers and children. It was not something which, at that moment, the survivors wished to remember and discuss.

  Nor were they at all acclimatized to the civilization of the Sheraton San Cristóbal Hotel. They were extremely uncomfortable in the large, soft beds, for they were used to sleeping in contorted positions. That night Sabella awoke every half hour and, finding himself awake, rang room service for some food. It was a hard night for him – and a hard night for his brother, who was sleeping in the same room.

  The next day, December 24, the four who had remained in the Posta Central were released and joined the others in the Sheraton, but the sixteen were only reunited for a short time, for the Francois family and Daniel Fernández had decided to return at once to Montevideo. Though Daniel’s two uncles and aunts were there in Santiago, he wanted to see his parents and thought it unnecessary and extravagant for them to come to Santiago. He therefore caught a scheduled KLM flight to Montevideo. The father and brother of Daniel Shaw were on the same plane.

  A party of the other boys decided that they needed some more clothes and wanted to hire a taxi, but none of the Chileans would hear of it and insisted on taking them downtown in their own cars. There they walked in the streets, looking into the shop windows. They were identifiable to all as the survivors, for being used to deep snow they walked ponderously, like penguins. Whenever they were recognized they were greeted with such joy and kindness by the citizens of Santiago that they might have been their own sons who had been saved from the Andes.

  When they went into a clothes shop and presented their purchases, the owners would not take money but insisted that they accept the garments as gifts. It was the same when they came to a long queue which, because of a shortage, had formed outside a cigarette kiosk. An old man at the head of the queue insisted that they accept his packet of cigarettes.

  Again, when they returned to the hotel (Parrado walked back from the centre of Santiago) and a group of them sat down to lunch and ordered a bottle of white wine, the Chileans sitting at the next table took their own bottle and gave it to them. At the bar they would be plied with whisky and champagne – and in the lobby of the hotel a little boy presented them with a large box of chewing gum.

  They were admired and feted not just as heroes who had endured and triumphed over the awesome Andes which loom forbiddingly along the entire length of Chile but as the living embodiment of an apparent miracle. The cheese and the herbs upon which they said they had lived seemed as paltry a source of nourishment as the loaves and fishes in the Gospel. Their survival seemed incontrovertibly miraculous. One woman whose son was ill came to the hotel in the belief that if she could only embrace one of the survivors her son would be cured.

  That evening the Christmas party organized by César Charlone was held. It was a moment of intense emotion for them all. Only four days before there had seemed to be no hope that the parents would ever see their children again, or the children spend that Christmas with their parents. Now they were together. The burning faith of Madelon Rodríguez, Rosina Strauch, Mecha Canessa and Sarah Strauch; and the heroic searching of Carlos Páez Vilaró, Jorge Zerbino, Walter Harley and Juan Carlos Canessa – all now had their reward in the living hands and lips and bodies of their sons. As with Abraham and Isaac, God had excused them the sacrifice of their sons at t
he very moment when the Christian world prepared to celebrate the birth of His own.

  Later that night a Uruguayan Jesuit who taught theology at the Catholic University in Santiago came to the hotel at the invitation of Señora Charlone to talk to some of the survivors, in preparation for the mass that was to be held for them the next day. As it was, Father Rodríguez remained talking with Fito Strauch and Gustavo Zerbino until five in the morning. They told him that they had eaten the bodies of their friends to stay alive and, like Father Andrés in San Fernando, Father Rodríguez did not hesitate to endorse the decision they had made. Whatever doubts there might have been about the morality of what they had done were dissipated in his mind by the sober and religious spirit in which they had made their decision. The two boys told him what Algorta had said when they had cut meat from the first body, and while the Jesuit discounted any strict correlation between cannibalism and communion, he was moved as so many others had been by the pious spirit which was manifest in the dictum.

  The Christmas mass was held at the Catholic University at twelve the next day, and the sermon delivered by Father Rodríguez, though it made no mention of anthropophagy, was an unequivocal affirmation of what the young men had done to stay alive. Though not all the boys or their parents were acquainted with Karl Jaspers, or the concept of a limited situation, they all believed in the authority of the Catholic Church and were profoundly reassured by what was said.

  It was the calm before the storm. The continuing celebration of Christmas after the mass was over marked the last untroubled hours they were to spend in Santiago. Journalists from all over the world continued to hover around like the condors in the Andes, and it was quite clear to the Uruguayans that they had not yet caught the scent of their real prey. It was not that the boys or their parents conspired – beyond their lame lies about the herbs and cheese – to conceal what they had done; it was just that they hoped the news could be kept until they were back in Montevideo.

  The story broke in a Peruvian newspaper and was immediately picked up by the Argentinian, Chilean and Brazilian papers. As soon as the journalists in Santiago sniffed the story, they fell once again upon the survivors and asked if it was true. Confused, the boys continued to deny it, but those who had betrayed their secret had furnished the proof, and on December 26 the Santiago newspaper El Mercurio published on its front page a photograph of a half-eaten human leg lying in the snow against the side of the Fairchild. The boys conferred as to what they should do and decided that, rather than talk about what had happened to any particular newspaper, they would hold a news conference when they returned to Montevideo. Since they had been in touch with the president of the Old Christians, Daniel Juan, they agreed that the conference should be held at their old school, the Stella Maris College.

  These were frail defences against the tornado that raged around them. The news – which had been given to the papers by the Andinists – merely whetted the appetites of the world’s press, and the boys in the hotel were bombarded with questions which they would not answer. Indeed, they became increasingly disgusted with the journalists, who showed no reticence or tact in what they asked. There were even persistent suggestions by an Argentine journalist that the avalanche had not occurred but had been invented to conceal the fact that the stronger boys had killed the weaker ones to provide themselves with food.

  The survivors were still exceedingly vulnerable, and these assaults upset them. Moreover, they saw that a Chilean magazine which usually specialized in pornography had taken two pages to print photographs of the limbs and bones which had lain around the Fairchild. Another Chilean newspaper printed the story under the headline: ‘May God Forgive Them’. When some of the parents saw this, they wept.

  The atmosphere in the Sheraton San Cristóbal was poisoned by this clamour. The survivors were impatient to return to Montevideo and reluctantly agreed to fly rather than go by bus and train. Charlone (who had never been forgiven by some of the parents for what they considered to be his poor treatment of Madelon Rodríguez and Estela Pérez) arranged for a Boeing 727 of LAN Chile to take them on December 28. Before that, however, Algorta left with his parents to stay with friends outside Santiago. Parrado too left the Sheraton San Cristóbal with Juan and Graciela and his father – first to the Sheraton Carrera in the centre of Santiago, then to a house in Viña del Mar which had been lent to them by friends. He was tired of being photographed every moment of the day and disgusted at the journalists’ callous questions. Even the incessant celebrations were somehow depressing, for though he was alive, the two women whom they had all loved most in the world remained as frozen corpses in the Andes.

  Fifteen

  1

  The story of the survival of the young Uruguayans, after ten weeks in the Andes, had been sensational enough to interest the newspapers and radio and television stations of the whole world, but when the news broke that their survival had depended on eating the dead these same media went wild. The story was broadcast and printed in almost every nation in the world, with one notable exception – Uruguay itself.

  There had been reports, of course, of the discovery and rescue of the survivors, but when rumours of cannibalism reached the news desks of the papers in Montevideo they were treated first with scepticism and then with reticence. There was at that time no censorship of the press (beyond a ban on any mention of the Tupamaros); the decision by the Uruguayan journalists to wait until their fellow countrymen had returned to Montevideo and given their account of what had happened can only be explained as the product of a spontaneous patriotic reserve.

  This is not to say that there were not journalists eager to discover whether the rumours were true, but since most of the survivors were still in Santiago it was not an easy thing to do. Daniel Fernández, however, was already in Montevideo. He had been met at the airport by his parents, who had driven him to their flat and refused to allow any visitors. By the next day, however, the whole block was besieged by friends and journalists eager to see him. It was Christmas Day and the Fernándezes could not keep their door closed for ever, so they opened it to admit one friend – but once open it could not be shut again. A horde of journalists and acquaintances poured into the apartment, and Daniel agreed to be interviewed.

  He sat facing the group of journalists, and one of them suddenly handed him a piece of paper and asked him to read it. Daniel unfolded it and saw a Telex message with the news that he and the other fifteen survivors had eaten human flesh.

  ‘I have nothing to say about that,’ he said.

  ‘Can you confirm or deny it?’ asked the journalist.

  ‘I have nothing to say until my friends are back in Uruguay,’ said Daniel.

  While this exchange was taking place, Juan Manuel Fernández read the Telex. ‘The man who wrote this is a son of a bitch and the man who brought it here is even more of a son of a bitch,’ he said, most forcefully. He was about to show the journalist unceremoniously to the door, but a friend of Daniel’s restrained him and the journalist departed of his own accord.

  After he had left, Fernández took his son aside and said, ‘Look now, you must say that this isn’t true.’

  ‘It is true,’ said Daniel.

  The father looked abruptly at the son with an expression of mild distaste on his face; but later, when he realized that it was something his son had done from necessity, he got used to the idea and was surprised that it had not occurred to him before.

  2

  The Boeing 727 of LAN Chile which had been chartered by Charlone to fly the survivors and their families back to Montevideo was given the elite crew used when President Allende himself went abroad. It stood ready on the tarmac of Pudahuel airport on the afternoon of December 28 while its sixty-eight passengers were given an emotional and ceremonious farewell by the Chileans, who had on the whole treated them so well.

  They boarded the plane at four o’clock but were forced to wait an hour before takeoff. The first reason for delay was Vizintín, who had been kept in Sant
iago by an interview; then there were the weather reports from the cordillera. These were still unfavourable, but rather than alarm the survivors the crew told them that they had run out of fruit juice and had to replenish their supplies.

  Vizintín arrived, but still the plane stayed on the tarmac. The survivors were nervous and tense as they strapped themselves into their seats. Most of them had wanted to return overland and had only consented to go by plane because the journey through the Andes and across Argentina by train was considered dangerous in their present state of health.

  At last the weather reports were favourable and the plane took off. A short time later the pilot, Commander Larson, announced that they were over Curicó, but no one accepted his invitation to come to his cabin and look down on the town whose name had meant so much to them. As a group they were nervous not just because they were up in an aeroplane again but because they were uncertain of what lay ahead in Uruguay. They talked compulsively among themselves and to the two Chilean journalists who were travelling with them.

  One of these – Pablo Honorato from El Mercurio – sat next to Pancho Delgado, who, when the plane began to land at Carrasco airport, became even more nervous than he had been and grabbed Honorato. But then there arose shouts of ¡Viva Uruguay! and then ¡Viva Chile! to keep up the courage of the survivors. As the plane circled over Montevideo, and they saw once again the muddy waters of the River Plate and the roofs and streets of their beloved city, they began to sing their national anthem:

  Orientals, our country or the grave,

  Liberty, or death with glory …

  As the last word burst from their lips, the plane touched down on Uruguayan soil.

  The plane taxied across the tarmac and came to a stop outside the same airport building that they had left so optimistically almost eleven weeks before. The differences between that departure and this return were many; while only one or two members of their families had come to see them off, the whole city of Montevideo seemed now to be there to greet them, including the wife of the President of Uruguay. The balconies of the airport building were lined with shouting, waving people, and there were lines of police to keep this crowd from surging onto the tarmac.