The Sky Over Lima

by Juan Gómez Bárcena

  They know, having gleaned it from one of the few pieces of Professor Schneider’s advice they actually managed to read, that something extraordinary must take place in the middle pages of every novel. Just before that episode, the plot must seem to falter for a moment—the beginning of the second act—passing through a low spot or valley, a brief plateau of boredom, and then that something happens. Often a character who seemed indispensable to the story dies, or maybe one who seemed like he was going to die survives. The others learn to appreciate life more, or perhaps they don’t learn anything. And that’s that.

  But their novel will never emerge from that valley. It simply ends, before the peak has even been contemplated. It is brusquely interrupted, like a volume from which the last pages have been torn out: Juan Ramón has stopped answering their letters. A week passes, then two, a month—an entire month goes by and still they have no word from the Maestro. The day comes again when the ship should arrive from Europe, and nothing happens. What they do have is plenty of time to come up with explanations. The Maestro has grown bored; the Maestro has found a novel or a muse more to his liking; the Maestro has forgotten about the tiresome girl from Miraflores and their disjointed, humdrum novel. The Maestro isn’t a Maestro at all but an imbecile who needs to be taught good manners, the proper way to treat well-bred young ladies. And of course they have time to blame themselves—such mediocre writers—and others, too, obviously: Professor Cristóbal, and Don Augusto, why not, and Professor Nicanor—Mr. Scrooge—who has given them failing grades in his mercantile law course, and the watchman who doesn’t trust the Chinese, and the servant who has no doubt mixed up or misplaced the envelopes, and other characters so marginal that they haven’t even appeared in their novel.

  Then comes something akin to resignation. What else can they do but wait? And fib a bit when asked about it in the club—Of course we have; two more letters, three actually; you should read the latest poem he sent, dedicated to Georgina. Maybe they lie out of pride. Or maybe they are waiting for reality to accommodate itself to their words. But one night one of the lads at the club seems unusually interested in their responses.

  “So he just wrote you, then!” he says, feigning admiration. “And three letters, no less! What does the brilliant poet have to say for himself?”

  José and Carlos exchange an awkward glance.

  “Well, mostly the same as always . . .”

  “The same as always, is it?”

  “Yes . . . Nothing special. The important thing is that the novel continues. The novel continues.”

  The chap starts to laugh, and two or three other patrons laugh with him.

  “Well, since you didn’t get those letters via the Wright brothers’ flying bicycle, I highly doubt you actually had the chance to read them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He becomes stern.

  “Do you two live on the moon or something? You must be the only people in Lima who don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Not a single ship has entered or left the port at El Callao for weeks. Sandoval’s strike has begun.”

  ◊

  To find out, they would only have had to read one of Lima’s five newspapers or forty broadsheets—specifically, the front page of any of them. But neither Carlos nor José reads the newspaper. Nor do they attend their labor law class, in which the El Callao dockworkers have been the subject of lengthy and contentious discussion over the past several days. It’s been weeks since either of them has set foot in the halls of the university. Or Carlos could simply have bothered to listen to his own mother’s prayers, whose novenas and rosaries have, of late, made mention of the strikers. She asks the Lord for there to be peace in Peru and for everyone in the port to go back to being as happy as they used to be, and the Lord will end up listening to her sooner or later, because the Lord always answers the prayers of those who wish for nothing to change.

  His father is well informed on the topic and is delighted when Carlos asks him about it. At last his son is showing some interest in business. He tells him about the thirty-five ships anchored in the port. The fourteen thousand tons of rubber going nowhere. The influx of dollars lost every day because of this preposterous wait and the deuced forces of order, which used to do just what their name suggests—impose order by force—and now allow a bunch of jobless, godless layabouts to humiliate the entire country.

  “But what is it they’re asking for?” Carlos ventures.

  “What is it they’re asking for? Anarchy! You know what anarchy is?”

  Carlos says he does. Don Augusto keeps talking.

  “Of course, they claim they’re fighting for equality and justice and who knows what other noble ideas . . . but nobody actually cares about those things! The workers aren’t fighting for justice—they’re fighting to become bosses themselves. It’s the law of life! And the strikers have this novel idea that they’re going to get rich working just eight hours a day . . . what do you think of that? You think I got where I am working eight goddamn hours a day?”

  No, Carlos does not.

  That very morning, as he is reading the newspaper in an effort to get up to date, one of the housemaids comes in to gather up the dishes from breakfast. Without looking up from the papers, almost idly, Carlos says:

  “Even you must have heard about the El Callao strike.”

  The maid stops short, still holding the tray.

  “Is it because of my brother, sir?”

  “Your brother?”

  She bites her lip.

  “My brother Antonio, the one who works in the port. He’s on strike with all the others—it’s no secret.”

  “I understand.”

  “But I’m not like him, sir. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to cause any trouble.”

  “Of course not, of course not.”

  They stare at each other for a few moments. Perhaps the tray clatters in the maid’s trembling hands.

  “So tell me . . . do you know why they’re on strike in the docks?”

  The maid answers swiftly.

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand those things.”

  And then, calmer:

  “But I think it’s because of the length of the workday, sir. They want to work eight hours, can you believe it? Eight hours a day!”

  She tries to laugh, but it catches in her throat. She tries to control her heartbeat, afraid the clattering of the dishware might offend the young master.

  “Eight hours, is it?”

  “And the salaries too.”

  “How much are they asking for?”

  “Well . . . three soles a day, sir.”

  “You mean that’s what they earn now?”

  This time her laugh is genuine.

  “Oh, of course not! That’s what they’d like, sir. They get just under two at the moment.”

  “Two soles!” Carlos repeats, his eyes widening.

  “Two soles, yes. And a piece of bread costs less than half a sol. Of course some people are never happy with anything.”

  Carlos closes the newspaper. He ponders a moment.

  “How much do we pay you?”

  “Me, sir? Well . . . the usual. Room and board, and half a sol a day. What more could a person want?”

  Carlos doesn’t answer immediately.

  “Nothing, of course. You may go now.”

  But the maid doesn’t move.

  “I just . . . I just want to assure you that you don’t have to worry about me, sir. I know what’s fair.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I’m not like my brother. I’m happy with what I have and I don’t cause any trouble. I’m not a revolutionary.”

  “No, you’re not a revolutionary.”

  And then he thanks her.

  ◊

  The negotiations have begun, says the front page of El Comercio, the financial paper, and they go down to the port, hopeful at the news. What they do not know is that the conversations betw
een the chamber of commerce and the strikers have failed; they had already failed, in fact, when the newspaper ink was still drying on the page. And so when they arrive they find the docks teeming with workers trying to prevent the scabs from the Britain Steamship Company from working. Tomorrow El Comercio will say that there were no more than two hundred people; the statement issued by the strikers’ commission will claim fifteen thousand. To José and Carlos, these numbers are unimportant. In any event, there are enough people to fill the port and even to block Calle de Manco Cápac, so it takes them a long time to push their way through the crowd to the edge of the dock.

  In the distance they can make out the ships’ rigging, the steamships covered with patches of barnacles and rust. On one of them, who knows which, are the chapters that have not left; on another, the chapters that have not arrived. José and Carlos sit on the breakwater beside the esplanade and contemplate the ships, impotent. Last night, they heard that the Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores and the Britain Steamship Company had offered their regular crews two and a half soles to load the cargo, but the strikers’ union headed them off with a better offer, and now the city’s taverns are full of Russian and German and Turkish sailors who drink until they pass out at the workers’ expense. And so the decks are empty—there is no one aboard any of them save a handful of officers shouting at one another. Them and the rat that travels with the transatlantic mail, of course, which is startled to discover that, for the first time, the boat it calls the universe has stopped rocking and creaking to the rhythm of the waves. For the rat, at least, the strike has brought the whole world to a halt.

  José flings pebbles from the breakwater into the sea. Between each one, he pauses to grumble a moment. It’s vile, an embarrassment, that a few good-for-nothings can bring an entire city to its knees and then stick around shouting and jeering. Carlos has the sensation that he is listening to his father’s voice, grown suddenly youthful but just as harsh. José also talks about Juan Ramón: “Do you know what happens when an installment of a serial novel is delayed?” he asks. Carlos does not. “Well, I’ll tell you: For the first few days the readers are restless, more curious, eager to keep reading, but as time passes they end up forgetting about it and start reading something else. That’s what’s going to happen if the letters don’t get out soon,” he continues. “The Maestro will start a new novel and won’t be interested in the old one. That’s what’s going to happen, Carlota.”

  Carlos nods mechanically. For the first time he not only remembers Georgina but also contemplates, with curiosity and some surprise, the workers themselves. From the breakwater they seem 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. From time to time they shout a few slogans, and their roars, too, seem to braid together into a single voice. If José and Carlos had seen one of those lowly men from up in the garret, they would have taken him for a secondary character, but it occurs to Carlos now that as a group, they might somehow constitute a protagonist.

  José hurls another stone and, with it, another complaint.

  “That bastard Sandoval sank us. If his goal was to ruin our novel, he certainly succeeded.”

  Carlos shakes his head, still watching the swarm of men.

  “I don’t think Sandoval cares all that much about us, to be honest.”

  “He does, I’m telling you, he does. I know that imbecile . . . He was dying with envy over the Georgina business. He wouldn’t care so much about these fools otherwise.”

  Carlos hesitates a moment, seems about to speak, but then says nothing. José turns abruptly to look at him.

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, what?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Carlotita, I know you. At this point I know everything there is to know about your silences. What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing . . . just something I heard this morning.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Do you realize they earn only two soles?”

  “Who?”

  “The dockworkers.”

  “Okay.”

  Carlos waits a few moments. Then he adds:

  “Two soles a day, I mean. Not per hour.”

  “And do you think that’s a little or a lot?”

  “Are you joking? It takes more than a week’s wages to buy a book, for the love of God!”

  José shrugs.

  “I very much doubt any of them know how to read. So no books; that’s one less expense. Also, their income can’t be that low if they’re able to take this vacation right now. The bastards.”

  Carlos is silent, shuffling through a number of possible responses. Finally he says:

  “You’re right.”

  But he can’t get it out of his head. The two soles, just a couple of coins, grow in his mind until they fill it completely. Before him he sees the strikers, their shouts becoming louder, the animal bucking and stomping, trying with its immense body to overrun the railroad track connecting the port with the customs office. A group of soldiers, absurdly tiny, braced to stop it. Carlos feels something like admiration, not for their poverty but for the energy with which they are fighting to escape it.

  He wonders what Georgina would think of them. Indeed, he wonders it aloud.

  “I wonder what Georgina would think.”

  “About what?”

  “About all this. The strike at the docks.”

  “I daresay she’d be furious at being unable to communicate with Juan Ramón.”

  “Yes, but I mean their ideas. What would she think of the workers, their demands, the two soles . . . ?”

  José makes a gesture that might mean anything. But actually it means something quite specific: What do I care?

  “I think she’d sympathize with them,” Carlos adds when it’s clear that José is not going to answer.

  “Maybe,” he replies at last. “You know, that wouldn’t be a bad idea for a chapter. Georgina among the workers . . . Consoling them with her presence . . .” He raises his arm and points into the crowd. Slowly he lets his arm fall. “But what use would that chapter be when we can’t even send it to Juan Ramón?”

  Carlos is still looking at the spot where José was pointing. Among the dockworkers he can make out a few women. They are carrying leather pouches with crusts of bread for their husbands and sons, and earthenware jugs to quench the protesters’ thirst. A few chant slogans, raising their voices and their fragile fists to the sky. There is also one young woman with a parasol, elegantly dressed all in white. She looks like a piece of artwork amid the workers’ drab overalls. He is struck by her presence. It only accentuates the destitution around her, making it more incomprehensible, more painful, more genuine. She looks like a figure from a Sorolla painting who, wandering from one canvas to another, has ended up, whether by mistake or out of curiosity, in a humble scene from Courbet. Carlos thinks to himself: She could be Georgina. And for a moment it seems that she is about to turn her head—Georgina’s head—but at the last second she walks back into the crowd, and she and her parasol disappear.

  José slaps himself on the shins, stands up.

  “So now what? Shall we go? It’s obvious nothing much is going to happen here today.”

  Carlos stands up too. But he doesn’t head back to the carriage—he moves in the opposite direction, toward where he saw the girl disappear.

  “Hey, where are you going? That’s the wrong way.”

  “I just want to take a look.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Let’s get out of here. Can’t you see these idiots are ready to riot?”

  But he follows Carlos. He’s not used to obeying and it takes him a while to make up his mind, but in the end he sighs and goes after him.

  Carlos doesn’t really know what he hopes to find. It’s practically superstitious, his fantasy that the white parasol is hiding a face that can only belong to Georgina. Of course he can’t share such a notion with José. He can only do what he�
�s doing: fight his way through the crowd, elbowing and prodding the dark flesh of that animal, which seems to be rejecting them. Even though the strikers turn to look warily at the young men’s gold cufflinks and impeccable suits. Even though the slogans that a few minutes ago spoke of equality and justice in rather abstract terms are increasingly filled with invective, with mentions of spilled blood and dead bosses. Even though, seen up close, some women are distributing not crusts of bread or cups of wine but paving stones and iron bars and walking sticks and metal hooks and fireplace pokers. José’s voice is distorted by fear for the first time:

  “Carlos, let’s get out of here, damn it,” he says, grabbing his friend’s arm.

  Just then they hear a metallic banging rapidly approaching. A whistle. The crowd seems to respond to the noise, and José and Carlos are pulled along with it.

  “Scabs! Scabs!”

  It’s a convoy carrying goods to the wharf, and the crowd manages to stop it by hurling stones. It all happens so quickly that there’s no time to react. A few men clamber up on the locomotive and haul the engineer out of his cab. Carlos sees them drag him to the ground like a rag doll, but he doesn’t feel anything; it’s as if the images parading before him were happening in the pages of a book or being projected on a white sheet with a cinematograph. He is unaccustomed to violence, to the notion that ghastly things might suddenly take place before his eyes. Violence is something that’s always happened somewhere else, deep in the jungle, far from the clearing where he played with Román.

  “Shit,” he hears José say above the tumult.

  Suddenly a few shots are fired into the air. Or maybe not into the air. In the distance, perhaps, the girl. Is that her parasol, or a soldier’s white uniform? The noise of helmets falling upon the paving stones. More gunshots.

  “The cavalry! The cavalry!”

  Above the agitated faces, the bodies of the first horsemen come into view. There aloft, they might be at the bow of a ship that cuts through the swell of workers, who shout and scatter in all directions. He sees their sabers flash in the air. A man stabbed by a bayonet. Two dockworkers who bring down one of the horses by throwing rocks at its muzzle. José’s hand gripping his arm, bruising him, trying to drag him somewhere or perhaps trying desperately not to be dragged himself. Then he sees a horseman pass by him on his left, and at that moment he feels a sudden burning, as if a bolt of lightning had struck him in the face. The sensation is a sharp pang, one that isn’t preceded by any sound, that seems to have no origin or explanation. A cold bite that sears his temple and tumbles him to the ground.