The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories

by Geoffrey Household

  “We cannot pass,” answered José-Maria simply.

  “Let us sit down,” Gabar said. “There is nothing impossible.”

  The two sat down on the path with their backs against the rock and their heels overhanging two hundred feet of sheer cliff. Ten thousand feet below the Montaña spread out its tumble of hills mapped into orderliness by the occasional gleaming threads of water. In the far distance the green of the forest faded away into the blue of tropical haze. It was utterly silent except for the tinkle of bridles and bits and the occasional snatches of wind that sung and stabbed like giant insects.

  “A cigarette?” suggested Gabar.

  “Thank you, my son.”

  “And a pisco, perhaps?”

  “With pleasure. I have not eaten nor drunk since morning.”

  Gabar stood up to fetch a bottle from the mule’s pack. The full realization of their position came to him when he found that he could not get at the straps. The inner pack was jammed against the rock, and the mule refused to be forced any closer to the edge. The outer pack could be reached by pushing the mule’s head to the rock and standing alongside its neck. But it was by no means a healthy position. One’s life depended on the uncertain patience of the mule.

  “It seems we must go thirsty, padre,” said Gabar unconcernedly.

  He pulled his heavy poncho over his head and wrapped himself in its folds before sitting down again. He looked perfectly prepared to spend the night where he was, and thus in the master position for any bargaining there might be. Both knew that the only solution was for one of them to sacrifice his mule. But neither was yet ready to admit it. There was no hurry.

  “How is it you are alone, padre?” asked Gabar.

  “I hired my guide only as far as the Inambari, Don Manuel. He was a Montaña man and did not wish to climb to the altiplano.”

  “And the animals are yours?”

  “They belong to the Church, Don Manuel, and were lent to me in Cuzco. I have become very fond of them. This one”—he reached up and stroked the mule’s muzzle—“is almost a Christian.”

  “This one,” said Gabar, waving a hand at his mule, “has a soul like mine. He eats when there is food and fasts when there is none.”

  Don José-Maria also drew on his poncho and made no reply. For half an hour they sat side by side without a word. Finally the priest said reproachfully:—

  “You did not blow the horn, Don Manuel.”

  “I did not blow the horn,” Gabar agreed, stating it as a matter of fact, without a shade of guilt or regret in his voice. “Shall I roll you another cigarette?”

  “Thank you, Don Manuel. You are very courteous.”

  José-Maria preserved silence till he had smoked it. Then he murmured:—

  “It is a shame you are not a Christian.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—” José-Maria hesitated, feeling that he had been forced on to dangerous ground—“because you would give way to a priest.”

  “Equally I might cut his throat,” said Gabar, “and give him a little push and a little push to each of his animals. There are plenty of Christians who would do so.”

  “But you would not,” answered José-Maria calmly.

  “You are right. Instead of that I shall offer to buy your mule.”

  “It is not mine to sell. It belongs to the Church.”

  “Then give the money to the Church.”

  “I have no authority, Don Manuel. And I love this mule like a son. You must give way to me, for you did not blow the horn. Kill your own mule.”

  “I will not. I should lose half my goods with him. You saw for yourself that I could not get the pack off. Sell me your mule and name your price.”

  “No, my son. God will decide between us.”

  The pack animals pawed and fussed impatiently. The sun had passed westwards over the brow of the mountain and it was turning cold. Gabar got up and endeavored to force his mule back along the path, though he knew it was a hopeless task. The mule backed three yards willingly, two resentfully, put down a hind leg in space, reared, and refused to budge. Gabar sat down again, and rolled some more cigarettes.

  “Reverend padre,” he said, “when I was at school the priests taught me that Christians should sacrifice themselves.”

  Don José-Maria groaned.

  “So I have said to myself for two hours past. But I find that I am not a saint.”

  “I will pay well for your mule,” Gabar repeated. “To you or to the Church, as you wish.”

  “Well, perhaps I will let you buy him. But, Don Manuel, all I possess is in that trunk. All I have ever possessed. You must get it off first.”

  “I doubt if I can.”

  “Then—nothing!”

  “I will see,” said Gabar.

  He edged past José-Maria and seized the mule by the bridle. He had to brace one leg firmly against the rock in order to send mule and trunk over the precipice, and the movement was enough to show José-Maria his intention. The priest with astonishing swiftness snatched his other leg from under him, leaving him hanging to the mule’s neck for support.

  “Do not fear! I have you fast, Don Manuel,” he said quickly. “But you must not throw my trunk over!”

  “Let me go!” yelled Gabar. “I swear I will not!”

  “It is well,” said the priest, allowing him to recover his balance. “And now stand aside and let me unrope the trunk!”

  “You can’t, priest of the devil!” exclaimed Gabar. “It’s suicide.”

  “At least I will try,” José-Maria answered. “I am in my own country now, Don Manuel. I shall do what I like!”

  He stood on the foot of ground between the mule’s neck and empty air, holding the bridle with his right hand and casting off the lashings with his left. The trunk slipped downwards and outwards, supported only by the prominence of José-Maria’s stomach. Gabar caught his bridle hand and hung on.

  “Everything is lost,” said José-Maria mildly, resigning himself to the inevitable. “If I move, it will fall. Bueno! Then we will be content to save what is not mine. Hold me fast, Don Manuel!”

  Gabar, amazed at his obstinacy, tautened his grip on the priest’s right hand. With his left, José-Maria felt for the catch, opened the trunk, and extracted a flat cardboard box marked with the name of a Buenos Aires department store. As soon as he stepped back, the trunk slid off the mule’s back, hit the edge of the path with one corner, and vanished into space. José-Maria sadly leaned over the cliff to watch the funeral of all his transportable possessions. Long before the trunk reached the distant tree-line there was left no part of it large enough to follow with the eyes.

  “After all, you are a saint, padre,” said Gabar consolingly.

  “I do not want flattery, my son—especially from you who would not know a saint if he stood before you in the very robes of heaven. We will now speak of the price of my mule. How much is it worth in Cuzco?”

  Gabar opened the animal’s mouth and felt its forelegs.

  “It’s a very poor mule,” he said. “For ten libras one could buy two such in Cuzco. But I will give you eight.”

  “It will cost you sixteen,” said José-Maria.

  Gabar from sheer habit had offered rather more than half the real value of the mule. José-Maria knew this, and Gabar, aware that he knew, suddenly felt ashamed of himself.

  “I will pay you sixteen,” he said apologetically. “Will you have it in goods or gold?”

  “Neither. You will pay it to the Archdeacon of Cuzco when you next go there.”

  “How do you know I will pay?”

  “You are honest.”

  “Many thanks! Then it’s a deal?”

  “Not yet. I have sold you the mule at a fair price, but now I want the price of my trunk. It held things I have treasured since childhood, Don Manuel.” />
  “You will say, padre.”

  “To-morrow is the fiesta of our Child, the Niño of Huanca. You will attend the Mass, and you will help to carry the image. He is a very ancient Niño and he will be more beautiful to-morrow than he has ever been. This”—Don José-Maria held up the cardboard box as if it were the Host—“is for him.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “Nothing more.”

  Gabar considered the condition. He did not like it. He was enraged by the superstitions of the average pueblo, and nauseated at the thought of his own pious assistance at the midsummer festival of Christmas Day.

  “I offer you another sixteen libras,” he said.

  “I am not interested, Don Manuel.”

  “I won’t accept,” exclaimed Gabar furiously.

  “Then we will stay here.”

  “But I don’t believe in your miserable Niño! I should be out of place. It would be an indecency!”

  Don José-Maria said nothing.

  “It’s a joke!” shouted Gabar. “Think of me carrying an image!”

  José-Maria still said nothing. He drew his poncho round him, carefully keeping between Gabar and the mule.

  “Very well!” said Gabar, beaten. “Then I accept! I go to Mass and I carry the image. But that is all.”

  “That is all I ask of you, my son.”

  José-Maria turned on his heel, inserted his bulk between the mule’s neck and the rock, and heaved forwards. The beast reared up and then set forth on its last and swiftest journey to the Inambari. The priest unconcernedly walked through the space it had occupied and patted the shivering donkey. He persuaded it, not without difficulty, to turn round, and the little procession marched downwards towards the widening of the path. Gabar, his mule, and the donkey were shaken and ill at ease. Don José-Maria and the llama, since they had lived their lives in closer touch with the law of gravity, were less disturbed by its pitiless violence. At the niche where hung the lower horn there was room to turn. They re-formed the caravan and retraced their steps.

  José-Maria had a triumphal entry into Huanca del Niño. As soon as his people saw him toiling up the last slope, the town, perched on its isolated promontory, awoke like a colony of seagulls. Strident voices of women called to their children. The church bell clanged with the irregular speed of a fire alarm. Men shouted their welcome. The feet of excited animals clattered on hard stone. The inhabitants crowded round their priest, kissing his hand and asking innumerable questions. Gabar’s unexpected return was accepted without comment. Except for a swift and kindly greeting here and there, he was ignored. Stabling his two animals at the inn, he climbed to the top of the wall and sat down to watch the hubbub in the plaza at his feet.

  The wall was an integral part of the town rather than a fortification. The outer face, crowning and continuing the escarpment, was well preserved. The irregular polygons of the cyclopean masonry fitted one another as precisely as the cells of a honeycomb. Since he contemptuously dismissed all legends, Pisco Gabar did not believe the Indian tradition that the builders had known how to liquefy stones and pour them together, but he had no alternative explanation to offer. On the inner side the masonry merged into the existing town, forming the foundations for houses and lanes. The plaza itself was a stone terrace within the prehistoric building. One side of the square was occupied by the sixteenth-century church. The colonial architects had evidently added nothing but a tower, a roof, and some upper courses of masonry to a temple already in existence. The church lamps were lit as he watched, and the dusky plaza began to wink with candles and torches. José-Maria was being escorted to his church. It was clear that the priest was the temporal and spiritual ruler of his people with an absolutism that his Indian ancestors, however powerful, might have envied.

  The spontaneous show of affection for and pride in the priest filled Pisco with disgust. If only these Peruvian Indians could see what had been accomplished by their cousins in Mexico! If only they would unite against priests and landlords, and organize a state which should preserve the best of the ancient culture and reject the alien influence of the Church! Pisco Gabar identified himself with the Indians and mestizos, since they were the true proletariat; and his reverence for their great civilizations, first felt on the way up from the Inambari, had increased during his stay at Huanca.

  He saw José-Maria cross the plaza between ranks of frankly worshiping men. Pisco swore aloud. One could have understood it had they been women; but that these men, faced day and night with the barren realities of their cruel plateau, should believe in infantile superstitions—santísima virgen! In what was this folly any better than the old religions? José-Maria might have been a feather-crowned priest of the sun, going to the same temple from the same house with the same adoring crowds believing in the same fairy tales! Pisco Gabar got up angrily from his perch, aware that somewhere in his line of thought there was a contradiction. It made him uneasy, for his wonted thoughts on religion were simple enough to be crystal clear.

  He returned to the inn. It was completely deserted. His room was exactly as he had left it that morning, except that the hens had returned to their favorite nesting place. He boiled three new-laid eggs on his spirit lamp, ate them, and lay down on the unmade bed. He was awakened about three hours later by José-Maria and a party of his parishioners.

  “Where were you, Don Manuel? We looked for you. My friends want to thank you for all you did for me. I told them how you saved me in the boat and how you would not let me be left behind at Mollendo. Get up and join us! You must eat and drink before midnight. To-morrow, remember, you have to fast till after Mass!”

  Gabar was touched by the welcome extended to him by Don José-Maria and his boon companions. It had seemed to him that he had been cordially received before, but there was now an extra warmth in their hospitality which made him feel as if he himself were a son of the pueblo. He had expected a lessening of his popularity owing to the inconvenience he had caused their beloved priest on the road. But this episode had run widely and humorously from mouth to mouth until Gabar appeared in it as a comic hero rather than the villain.

  “Would you all believe,” roared José-Maria, “that this man, this friend, is a heathen?”

  “Let us take him to see the Niño!” exclaimed one of the men. “Then he must believe. Our Niño is so pretty—so divine a child!”

  “It is good,” said José-Maria. “Let us drink a last copa and we will all go to see the Niño.”

  Gabar’s protests were overruled. They treated him as a curiosity, as a fellow whose education had been oddly neglected, and they were all sure that the fault could be quickly remedied. He joined good-humoredly in the procession to the church.

  As far as the door it was a carousal which then instantly changed into a pilgrimage. The men entered silently and reverently and knelt before the famous Niño.

  The head of the image was a splendid piece of portrait pottery, brought up from the coast by the Incas or their conquerors. It was the head of a gentle child, the sensitive lips caught at the beginning of a laugh. Two emeralds had been set deep in the painted eyes, giving a curious effect of unworldly life and changing expression with the moving lights. The fine hawk nose and high cheekbones were hardly formed, but promised the later beauty of a true Child of the Sun. It was robust and living portraiture—the face of a child compelling obedience because so happy and so sure that its innocent desires would be granted.

  The body was hidden under a stiffly embroidered surplice of linen. Round its neck and pinned to its smock were the offerings of the faithful: a pearl necklace, some silver spurs, earrings of all sorts, and many little crudely moulded shapes of pure gold. In this it was no different from the average image in any poor Peruvian church. But the head was an astonishing and accidental conception of an Indian Christ.

  “Isn’t he pretty?” asked José-Maria proudly.

  “He is very origi
nal,” Gabar admitted.

  This remark was taken as high praise, for had not Don Manuel traveled all over the world and seen many much more splendid images? The men nodded their heads wisely, implying that they had known all along that their Niño would compel this heathen’s admiration.

  “Since we are here,” said José-Maria, “I will show you what I have brought him for to-morrow’s fiesta.”

  He disappeared into the sacristy and came back with the cardboard box which he had saved from his falling trunk.

  “When I was in Buenos Aires,” he explained, “I saw so many rich. There must be more rich people there than in all the rest of the world. And so well dressed! I would never have believed it! So I thought I would buy a new garment for our Niño. I went to a shop—such a shop, as big as a town and with all the goods in it brought from Europe, they say! There was a shopman—most courteous, altogether a caballero—who asked me what I wanted. I told him there was a child in my pueblo whom I loved, and I wished to buy for him a very rich, very simple dress. I asked him to give me what the Buenos Aires children would wear on a Sunday, the wealthiest, noblest children! This”—he reverently opened the box—“is what he sold me.”

  It was a white sailor suit: blouse, trousers, blue collar, black scarf, and a jaunty little cap with H.M.S. Triumph embroidered in gold across the ribbon.

  Don José-Maria’s parishioners gasped with delight. It was so white, so little, so beautiful. And was that really what rich children wore? Vaya! Vaya! How proud they would be of the Niño! Gabar hastily sat down behind a pillar, exploding with laughter. Incredible José-Maria! Amazing superstition! He looked at the image and his laughter changed to indignation. It was such an exquisite head. It ought to be in the Lima Museum. And they were going to put a carnival hat on it and double their prayers! The men, chattering excitedly, began to disperse. Gabar composed his face, slipped away unnoticed, and made his way back to the inn.

  The following morning the lanes of Huanca del Niño were packed. Many of the inhabitants of Chiquibamba had come in for the day, and there were some solemn semi-Christian Indians from the Montaña. Pisco Gabar attended Mass in accordance with his promise and, when it was over, took his place in the procession with the three other bearers who were to carry the Niño. The image was mounted on a solid stage carried by four poles projecting from the corners. The beauty of the face was actually set off by the cap across the terra-cotta forehead. The Niño looked like a small boy laughing in joy at his new suit. The crowd was charmed by this realism. The image had not and had never had any legs,—a fact that had escaped notice under the surplice,—but José-Maria had got over the difficulty by stuffing the white sailor trousers with straw. Nobody but Gabar seemed to see anything odd in that. If God had no legs it was obviously their duty to supply them.