Between Extremes

by Brian Keenan

  If the Valley of the Moon had been something of a turning point for me, then I looked to that turning point in Neruda’s poetry, the majestic Heights of Macchu Picchu. It is a record of the poet’s ascent and conversion and also much more. I like to think that my tortuous climb along ridges up to the plateau had something in common with Neruda’s arduous ascent to the ancient Inca fortress.

  I had read the poem several times during our many stopovers from San Pedro and couldn’t really get to grips with it. Now, in the quiet of our small apartment perched high above the clamour and heat of the streets and with my mind able to reflect on my own desert ascent, I took it up again.

  I looked around our apartment. It really wasn’t much bigger than some of the cells we had been held in. So here we were back in tiny rooms, making epic journeys. I thought of the hugeness of that dreadful desert and how strange it was that now I was out of it, part of me wandered back there. Part 6 of Neruda’s poem roared out at me as if I was again on that desert plateau:

  And so I scaled the ladder of the earth

  amid the atrocious maze of lost jungles

  up to you, Macchu Picchu.

  High citadel of terraced stones,

  at long last the dwelling of him whom the earth

  did not conceal in its slumbering vestments.

  In you, as in two parallel lines,

  the cradle of lightning and man

  was rocked in a wind of thorns.

  Mother of stone, sea spray of the condors

  Towering reef of the human dawn . . .

  a thousand years of air, months, weeks of air,

  of blue wind, of iron cordillera,

  like gentle hurricanes of footsteps

  polishing the solitary precinct of stone.

  Few times in my life have I experienced that mysterious, overwhelming release that a place can impose on the imagination. However, Neruda was a man primed for such a response. He was at the height of his career as a diplomat, internationally acclaimed as a poet and loved by the Chilean masses. He was educated, wealthy and deeply in love with his wife and companion of many years. Earlier in the same poem he writes:

  How many times in the wintry streets of a city or in

  a bus or a boat at dusk, or in the deepest

  loneliness, a night of revelry beneath the sound

  of shadows and bells, in the very grotto of human

  pleasure

  I’ve tried to stop and seek the eternal

  unfathomable lode

  that I touched before on stone or in the lightning

  unleashed by a kiss

  I had been experiencing my own such frustration during our travels, desperately looking for something, yet not knowing what it was or how to find it. But, I confided to myself, ‘all things come to those who find the patience to let things happen’. My desert experience confirmed it.

  Towards the end of his magnificent poem Neruda declares, ‘give me the struggle, the iron, the volcanoes’. Many years later in his Memoirs he confirms the importance of Macchu Picchu. He writes, ‘on those heights, among those glorious, scattered ruins, I had found the principles of faith I needed to continue with my poetry’. In my own high place, amid the scattered ruins of the Valley of the Moon, I had felt very close to Neruda’s affirmation, if not his resolve. But little did I know that very soon, in another high place, I too would be given ‘the struggle, the iron, the volcanoes’.

  ‘Brian poppet, give me a little more poetry. To me just a little bit, dear, that’s right, hand just touching the grapes. Perfect. Good. Hahahaha!’

  How Tom’s photographs ever come out when there is so much laughter I do not know. One would think the camera shake would render everything a blur. I remembered feeling very relaxed being filmed by Tom, none of that awful self-consciousness at being targeted by a lens, but I had forgotten how much the relaxation comes from his endless banter; he teases his subjects incessantly. Brian seems to be loving it.

  We are at Neruda’s Santiago home, La Chascona, a wonderful house up a back street on the San Cristóbal hill behind the zoo. Neruda collected things from all over the world and installed them here and at his other houses. I am jealous of the place and keep thinking, this is my dream home. Various rooms – study, library, dining room and bar – are spread out over the hillside so that one wanders up flower- and vine-shaded paths to the next amazing chamber. Neruda died of cancer just after Pinochet’s coup had ousted the Communist government he had served. The troops destroyed much of this house, leaving it a shambles; a deliberate desecration of what might have become a temple to free speech and the freedom of the spirit. The house has been restored by the Neruda Foundation but there is a display of photographs showing what the military did and these two elements of La Chascona make it a powerful witness, not only to what went wrong in Chile, but also to the ultimate value and strength of cultural freedom.

  Oddly but appropriately two of the guides here are Irish: Orla from Belfast and Vanessa from Dublin. The poet’s sense of fun has survived the bad years and we are filled with a spirit of cheeky joviality as we wander around. We are told that Neruda, a man known for great generosity, also had a terrible habit of admiring things in other people’s houses and not letting the hosts rest until they agreed to give the object to him. Brian admires this healthy attitude to ‘honest pruck’.

  ‘I nicked an uva from Pablo Neruda,’ he quips, stuffing his face with a fistful of grapes liberated from the poet’s patio vine.

  I was delighted with Orla and Vanessa, and quietly convinced myself that Pablo had arranged it just for me.

  I loved the exuberance of the place. A sense of liberation and love of life penetrated every room. His home was like his poetry, full of hints of fantasy, allegory and hedonism. Neruda’s presence was everywhere writ large on the house. He had built it, seemingly haphazardly without any architect’s plans or permission from authority. In a sense, the house had the same structure as a poem on first reading – awkward and confused. Yet wandering through it was like wandering through his poems. Suddenly everything fell into place. A romantic avant-garde poet could not have lived anywhere else.

  As much as I was reeling from the delight in being here, another part of me was deeply humbled. It was as if I had entered into a sacred tabernacle. I wanted to touch everything and sit on his seat, but I was afraid. It was as if his house was full of holy relics that had the power to curse and to bless. Briefly I wished everyone would go away. I wanted to spend the night alone in the house and sit with the old man himself. But unfortunately there are some things in life which one can only wish for.

  La Chascona is built next door to a zoo. I could well understand why. Neruda’s love of the natural world permeates every line he writes. I could imagine him sitting here listening to the roar of animals and the song of birds. I could imagine the transport it gave him. But the idea of caged animals could not inspire me. I had known that condition for too long. So why would the poet find inspiration in such a state? Perhaps he found in it a metaphor for his own imprisoned nation. But it was more than that. Neruda used elaborate metaphors drawn from the world of nature to break the ‘sense’ of his poetry from the confines of language itself. The thought reminded me that I would not find the whole Neruda in this fantastic dwelling. Neruda was in the mind, the emotion of the people and in the extremes of the landscape itself. I left La Chascona refreshed and hungry for more. I might not have met him but I knew he was there.

  We head downtown, Tom and Brian anxious for food, me anxious for holdalls and botas, to protect the calves and ankles from becoming sore while riding. The holdalls are quickly bought but the botas prove more difficult. We find an information point at the entrance to a large shopping mall and Tom is directed to find out about them. He says quite a lot in Spanish but does not seem to be getting through so he begins a curious high-kicking dance, pointing at his lower leg and gamely reiterating, ‘Botas, botas!’

  Brian and I become almost hysterical though, sadly
, Tom’s moment of theatre does not help. We decide food might fuel a more productive search.

  Attempting to order our lunch in an upstairs balcony restaurant overlooking the market area, we begin to appreciate that Tom’s Spanish is rather more enthusiastic than useful. He talks with great animation to the waitress as Brian and I wait expectantly to hear what is on the bill of fare for the day. Tom rounds off the conversation with a flourish of his arms and a graceful ‘Gracias’ and the woman goes to tend to another customer.

  ‘So what’s best do you think?’ I ask him.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s all delicious!’

  ‘Yes,’ says Bri, ‘but are we talking fish, steak or what?’

  ‘Well, I did get a bit lost. My Spanish is a little rusty,’ he admits as we all start laughing.

  However, with the aid of the dictionary Tom soon works out what is what and orders our meal with his customary gusto.

  After lunch we manage to locate a shop selling botas but agree that they are too expensive. By way of compensation for this lost opportunity to acquire more gear I decide to buy a spare pair of sunglasses.

  ‘What do you think of these, Tom?’ I ask, donning a pair of mean-looking wraparound shades.

  ‘Were you thinking of effecting a complete change of image?’ he wonders with more than a hint of mockery, holding up a traditional tortoiseshell pair like those I already have.

  ‘You don’t think they’re me then?’

  ‘No!’

  I decide to stay tortoiseshell.

  That evening we meet up with some of Tom and Katie’s friends – Jorge and Eunie López. He is a film producer, she a landscape designer. They suggest going to an Italian or French restaurant, explaining that Chilean food tends to be pretty plain. We have found this to a degree but have hoped that Santiago might offer something better. Perhaps Chilean cuisine is as vague a concept as Chilean national identity. Jorge and Eunie remember a possible venue in the old Bellavista district and we all pile into their station wagon to drive across town.

  Tom and our hosts catch up on news of families and mutual friends, then we talk about our plans and what Bri and I have discovered so far in Chile. We talk of our confusion over attitudes to the ‘military period’.

  ‘How come there is such acceptance of what Pinochet did?’ we ask.

  ‘Well, you have to understand the Chaos that we had by ’73,’ says Jorge.

  ‘Chaos, that’s what you call it?’

  ‘Yes, it was “the Chaos”. The country was getting more and more out of control. People had come to think that whatever you wanted to do, the government should help. But there was no money, and the economy was in crisis.’

  ‘And the US, Kissinger and the big companies weren’t helping that,’ says Brian.

  ‘No, sure, they were doing their best to screw Allende. When Allende took over, he nationalized the copper industry and the communication networks, so some very big US companies lost a lot – and he wouldn’t pay them compensation. Kissinger was shit scared of a democratic Communist state – it was his worst nightmare, especially on the same continent.’

  Chile’s extreme left was doing all it could, advocating the use of force if necessary, to push towards a Marxist state, while the Communist Party itself backed off from going so far and shared the right’s desire for Allende to rein in the left. This he seemed unable or unwilling to do.

  As we drive along, Jorge slows the car and says, ‘That’s a military barracks. This is a rich neighbourhood. In the Chaos, the housewives would come and jeer at the soldiers and call them chicken. People were getting hungry and angry, especially the middle classes; they looked to the military to do something.’

  At the outset the junta received the support of the powerful oligarchy that had always dominated Chilean life, as well as a sizeable part of the middle class. Moderate political forces, including many Christian Democrat Party supporters, believed that the military takeover was just a necessary stage en route to restoring the status quo as it had been before 1970. Very soon, though, it became clear that the military, Pinochet in particular, had political objectives of their own: the destruction of any leftist thought and activity. Rather than being the liberators from the nightmare of the Chaos, they became what Jacobo Timerman calls in his book Chile: Death in the South ‘an army of occupation’.

  By now we have arrived at the restaurant and set about ordering food and drinks. Here in the capital, with two lifelong residents, it seems we are in the one and only place where we can be sure of gaining a true flavour of Chile. As predicted, the meal is quite plain but very good and there is a band, two musicians and two dancers, performing traditional stuff from the various regions of the country. For a brief and embarrassing moment, we join in the Cueca, a courtship dance where the woman acts out being a flustered hen bird. I am relieved when we can return to the table. I had wanted to taste the real Chile but had not expected that this would include being escorted to and from the table by indigenous equivalents of Butlins Redcoats.

  At one point I notice a policeman in his khaki, military-style uniform standing by the bar, being photographed, all smiles, with some revellers. It is funny how an outsider can be so preoccupied about the history of the place he is visiting that he finds its present unexpected. My thoughts about the killing and disappearance of thousands of people and how it seems so easily to have been forgotten or forgiven, mean that I am surprised by the scene I witness at the bar.

  As we leave the restaurant Jorge tells us that the newspapers and television are still full of debate on the question of bringing to justice those who had abused human rights. ‘But there is still a long way to go,’ he says.

  ‘I saw in the English-language newspaper, News Review, that President Frei has signed a Press Freedom declaration,’ I say. ‘Will that make a difference?’

  ‘Maybe, yes. It still has to get through Congress. It is always the same thing: “Why go over the past and stir up trouble? Just get on with running the country and the economy.”’

  When we get back to Jorge’s car a street person, an old man, ‘helps’ us out of the parking space to earn a few coins. A tall scarecrow figure with sharp, aquiline features, dressed in tatters, he wears a pristine military hat festooned with braid; the dictator manqué of the backstreets.

  The next day Jorge takes us to Valparaíso, stopping off at Isla Negra so we can see one of Neruda’s other homes. It is very similar in feel to La Chascona, except that it is by the sea. Somehow, despite one or two lovely rooms, I feel less sympathetic to Neruda here than I did at the Santiago house. Here the curious collections and nautical themes, ships’ figureheads and ships in bottles, seem to suggest that the need to possess came to obscure any genuine joy in these artefacts. My ambivalence may have something to do with our guide, a rather strange American woman who seems to know little beyond parrot-fashion guidebook stuff and has an obvious desire for a tip. I find her unreal and the mercenary attitude sits ill with the great Communist poet’s generous reputation.

  Jorge seems a little unhappy and I remember him saying last night that he came here and stood with the crowds outside for Neruda’s funeral.

  ‘Does thinking of those days upset you?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, but that is not what worries me now. Many times I have asked the Neruda Foundation to let me film the place for one of my documentary series on Chile. Always they say no unless we pay a lot of money. Foreign TV producers have more money so they pay. It means that Chilean people cannot see the museums on their own television. I think the Foundation is badly run.’

  The views of the sea are magnificent and it is amusing that Neruda had a little boat on a terrace beside the house where he took cocktails on board but, being terrified of the ocean, never set sail on it. I suppose it is fine in its way, yet the image of him sitting there half-cut in his captain’s hat, holding court with his circle of friends, suggests a drunken potentate who acts on his whims, careless of others. Perhaps he was acting from a sense of pure fun, or
was happy to mock himself.

  Brian was over the moon when he read, among the poet’s other confessions, that he was a ‘fabulous snorer’.

  If La Chascona had hints of fantasy, allegory and hedonism about it, then Isla Negra epitomized these qualities absolutely. The house was positioned on a hill overlooking the sea. Gazing out from the main room towards the end of the garden, where Neruda had erected a ship’s mast, it was easy to imagine one was standing at the helm steering this house out to sea.

  His collections were everywhere and of every description. Ships in bottles, butterflies, rocks, shells, spiders and God knows what else. The whole house seems to have been devoted to these curiosities. But the surrealism of his verse really emerges when one enters a room wholly given over to a giant papier-mâché horse and several barbers’ poles and other shop signs which Neruda had remembered from his childhood and later made a point of acquiring for himself. The house had the sense of a playroom about it. Even the reverse side of one of the toilet doors had several photos of coy semi-clad ladies on display, ‘to entertain his male guests’, the guide explained.

  The living room had the same surreal air about it. Everywhere the walls were mounted with antique ships’ figureheads. They looked like they were floating around the room. I loved the abandon of this house and felt that someone who had written so openly about his emotional responses and laid bare his psyche was entitled to create such a living space. Each room looked like a three-dimensional mural, and I could well understand why Neruda loved the work of Diego Rivera, the Mexican painter and muralist.