The Neruda Case

by Roberto Ampuero

  He had just whiled away an hour at Alí Babá, a soda fountain around the corner, on Alemania Avenue, across from the Mauri Theater. There, he’d read Omar Saavedra Santis’s column in El Popular and Enrique Lira Massi’s in Puro Chile while Hadad the Turk made him coffee and a gyro and cursed the food shortages, the queues, and the disorder on the streets, terrified that political friction would tear the country apart and throw him in the garbage can. When Cayetano looked at his watch again, it was past ten o’clock. Perhaps he hasn’t yet returned from the capital, he thought, glancing at the bay, half covered in mist.

  He had met the man he was about to see a few days earlier, during a party serving curanto a la olla, a seafood specialty from the southern island of Chiloé, in the home of the mayor of Valparaíso. His wife had dragged him to the party so that he could rub elbows with politicians and progressive intellectuals from the region. According to Ángela, he should know Congressmen Guastavino and Andrade, the singers Payo Grondona and Gato Alquinta, the painter Carlos Hermosilla, and bohemian poets from the port, such as Sarita Vial or Ennio Moltedo, people who were innovative, creative, and committed to the process. Well connected as she was, Ángela refused to give up on her efforts to help him find work in those turbulent times, hard as it was for a Caribbean such as himself, who’d been in Chile for only two years. But beneath those almost maternal efforts, Cayetano sensed something else: the desire to attend to an unresolved issue so as to move on to other matters, which perhaps had been postponed only because of the problem at hand. Ángela’s projects were concerned less with domestic and more with political life, and without a commitment or at least a public standing in the country he’d followed her to, he was a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit; and that’s exactly how he felt, out of place and out of the game, at that party where no one would have invited him if it hadn’t been for her and to which he, as he thought with growing crankiness, wouldn’t have tried to be invited. He didn’t feel like mingling with these VIPs, and was even more reticent to join the circle that had formed around the owner of the most illustrious name, the one most praised, the one surrounded by the most legends; Cayetano, vaguely disillusioned, preferred to withdraw to the library of that turn-of-the-century house, where the siding was renovated with sheets of yellow-painted iron, and which gleamed like a gold coin over the bay. The library—with its wooden floor, exposed-oak beams, and shelves full of elegant leather-bound books—offered the refuge of dimness and, as Cayetano had imagined, was deserted. He settled into a wing chair by the window that led out to the garden, where several guests smoked and talked with complete disregard for the cold, and as he inhaled the intense fragrance of the Pacific, he recalled another sea, and another Ángela.

  He remained this way until he lost track of time. Apparently, no one missed him. But then, when the Chilean gathering seemed to be occurring in a very distant time and place, or perhaps during a nebulous dream, he heard steps behind him that snapped him out of his modest trance. Someone had entered: fortunately, this person had not turned on another light. The interloper, like himself, preferred the shadows; perhaps he also longed for solitude. He stayed still and avoided making any sound. Perhaps the other person had lost his way or, not seeing anyone, would leave him be. But the steps kept approaching, slowly, as though the feet doubted the very floor they walked on, until they finally stopped close to him.

  “How’s it going, sir?”

  The new arrival’s tone was so ironic yet amiable, as if they already knew each other and shared an inside joke, and his greeting so unusual, so personal and affable, that at first Cayetano was too surprised to respond. Since the silence made the isolated phrase seem even more unreal, he searched for a response.

  “It’s very nice here,” he said. “If you’re tired of all the excitement.” Remembering the calm rhythm of the man’s steps, he thought that he must be older. “It’s perfect for gathering your strength.” Why had he said that, as though inviting him to stay, when he wanted the stranger to leave? At least he didn’t turn to look at him and kept his gaze on the horizon through the window. But the other man, whose presence he felt at his back, picked up the thread of conversation.

  “It reminds me of Burma, during my youth,” he said. Cayetano asked himself what this cold, southern country could have in common with that remote part of Asia that he imagined brimming with heat and rain forests. “The night of the soldier. A guy far out on the ocean and a wave—” He spoke as though lost in his own thoughts, but seemed to be describing himself. Where had he come from? The breeze flapped the curtains, and now Cayetano looked out at the waves. He guessed the other man was doing the same. “A man alone in front of the sea may as well be out at sea.”

  Cayetano needed to set a limit here. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Aren’t you a foreigner?” The man’s use of the casual tú surprised him but didn’t bother him; he wanted to be alone, and yet that voice managed to make him comfortable with its presence. “When you’re far from your country, you have no home and lose your sense of direction. Back then, I also liked corners like this one.”

  “And you still like them.” He sensed that now he was the one to surprise his interlocutor; the man laughed and moved even closer.

  “You’re right, I still like them.” The atmosphere relaxed; nevertheless, as though to preserve some distance between them, they avoided looking at each other and kept gazing at the Pacific. “Now I have various refuges, friends everywhere, and nevertheless I still sometimes need corners like this one. You’re Cuban, right?”

  He thought the accent must have given him away. He offered a more precise description.

  “I’m from Havana.”

  “Then you’re Ángela Undurraga’s husband.” Cayetano suddenly felt naked; the stranger rushed to reassure him, as a friend might. “Don’t be surprised, she’s very well known here. Everybody knows she married a Cuban from Florida.”

  Who exactly was “everybody”? For the first time, he felt tempted to turn and look at the man. But he restrained himself: after the enthusiastic voyage in which he’d followed his wife’s hips to the southern ends of the earth, and after two years of false steps, he had learned not to rush.

  “The outskirts of Havana,” he said cautiously.

  The other man laughed.

  “You have a beautiful wife. Intelligent, innovative. You should feel proud.”

  That wasn’t the way he felt. And this was surely apparent. He took shelter in the distance, in the faraway waves that distracted their gazes, and faked it.

  “Yes, people envy me. Very much. They must ask themselves what she couldn’t find here that made her go for a man in the north.”

  This time the Chilean didn’t laugh.

  “Love troubles are the same in every climate,” he declared brusquely, suddenly somber. An old sadness, dragged through more years than Cayetano could count, seemed quickly to enter the cultivated, amiable voice that had laughed and joked calmly just a moment before. Though he barely paused, when the man spoke again his voice sounded as if it carried a great weight. “Forgive my frankness, young man, but I know how much it hurts to wear these masks. From the moment I first saw you sitting there in front of the window, far from the garden, where you should be mingling on your wife’s arm, I knew what was going on. I’ve seen too many people grow apart not to recognize the emptiness that results.”

  Cayetano himself was now that empty space. His silence was eloquent. His strange interlocutor seemed to have a great deal to say.

  “At my age, one would think that I’ve already seen it all, that deceit wouldn’t hurt anymore, that betrayal would come as no surprise …but no, on the contrary, all it takes is one push, some unexpected stumble on the path you take each day, and the equilibrium you thought you could count on falls apart. In addition, you lose your reflexes, and have less time.” The voice grew low and impassioned at the mention of this threat; then it rose again. “What burns keeps on burning you, and you don’t have anyth
ing that can quell it, or even help you to ignore it”—he hesitated—“nor strength with which to explore it.” He searched for a different ending. “When you’re young, despair comes easily, and you immediately think that if someone stands you up, that person will never come again. But this world keeps turning and turning …”

  Despite the vagueness of this last allusion, Cayetano understood that the man was talking about himself. Nevertheless, he felt that the words he spoke somehow related to him, to Cayetano, as well. His intuition told him something.

  “Are you a writer?” he asked.

  “You’ve got the makings of a detective, young man,” the stranger said, half joking. “When you get tired of your profession, you could always hang a sign on the door of some small, cluttered office and wait for someone to hire you for an investigation.”

  Cayetano couldn’t have said whether the man behind him was making fun of him or revealing his destiny. Regardless, he went along with it.

  “I’ll remember that, Mr. …”

  “Reyes. Ricardo Reyes.” The man seemed to be smiling. “Cayetano, right? What sort of work do you do?”

  “These days, whatever comes my way. I’m waiting for work, but after two years I’m starting to think that Ángela doesn’t have such great contacts.”

  Now Reyes said nothing. He started to cough. Cayetano froze for a moment, embarrassed that he’d complained about his wife. Something in him reawakened a modicum of manners.

  “Would you like me to close the windows?”

  “Don’t worry. The windows have nothing to do with this,” Reyes replied. He cleared his throat, suppressing his cough. “So you’re looking for work,” he went on. At that moment a woman’s high-heeled steps burst into the room.

  “People are out there asking for you, and here you’re hiding like an oyster.” She was an energetic woman with light brown hair. “Let’s go, because your eel soup is ready, and the mayor wants to say some words in your honor. Come on, come on.”

  The interruption made Cayetano finally turn around. In doing so, he realized that the man was not at his back but standing almost next to him. And, to his astonishment, he recognized him. During the party he hadn’t dared to approach him, inhibited not only by the tight circle of admirers surrounding him but also by the authority he attributed to that thick-figured man, with his slow movements, and whose languid, saurian gaze had roved from the sea to him and then back to the sea during that conversation in which he, Cayetano, had not even deigned to look his way. And now the great poet and distinguished ambassador to France for Salvador Allende was moving away from him, tugged by that woman. He had never been alone with a Nobel laureate before. Emotion suddenly shook his body, and blood rushed to his head.

  “What the boss says goes, and she’s the boss,” the poet said, and winked. There he went, with his poncho in the Chiloé Island style, the flat cap he always wore, and those cheeks speckled with large moles. “In any case, if you have any free time these days, come see me in my home, La Sebastiana. I have some old postcards from your city, young man. All you have to do is call me.”

  Cayetano wouldn’t have dared make the call. But it was the poet who reached out first, who called his house and asked him to come for a visit. And that was why he found himself here, on Collado Way, and now someone was finally opening that door with its creaking, rusty hinges and its slats of knotted wood.

  3

  It was the poet.

  “Forgive me, I was reading and fell asleep. In addition, Sergio, my chauffeur, is off at the grocery store trying to scrounge something up, and it takes a lot for me to get down the stairs. You’ll see that everything here is a bit complicated. Come, follow me, please.”

  They crossed the minuscule garden of the edifice beside the Mauri Theater. Through the bushes, Cayetano glimpsed the city and the squad of soldiers berthed on the breakwater, and, beyond that, the Andes. The poet began to climb a staircase, heavily, and Cayetano followed. On the second floor, they went down a hall and continued to ascend, this time on a curved and narrow staircase. Through a porthole, Cayetano could see luminous roofs and shaded passages, as if the house glided over Valparaíso.

  The poet arrived on the third floor, out of breath. He wore the same cap as before and, on his shoulders, a poncho made of fine brown wool. What could he want? What did he need to talk about that would make him invite Cayetano to his home—Cayetano, of all people, a sullen foreigner who had left him on his feet standing and behind him during the only conversation they had ever had, without the slightest consideration for his age, without even a flicker of the admiration or at least the respect that everyone else professed for him? The poet guided him to a living room with intensely blue walls and an enormous window that looked out over the entire city. He gestured for Cayetano to sit on a floral-print armchair that faced one made of black leather. The room was bright and ample, with a green carousel horse at the center, and next to it stood the dining room, bordered by the same great window. At the other end was a bar with bottles and glasses, a bell, and a bronze sign that read: Don Pablo est ici. Cayetano couldn’t help comparing, once again, the hospitality he was receiving with his own social clumsiness, barely corrected during their brief contact over the phone the previous day.

  “Thank you for coming,” the poet said as he sat down on the leather armchair. Now he seemed to levitate over the belfries of the city. “I’m not going to beat around the bush, Cayetano. You must be asking yourself why I invited you here, and the answer is very simple—because I think you can help me. More than that, I believe you are the only person in the world who can help me.”

  Though he had decided to be friendlier during this visit, Cayetano kept his guard up.

  “Please, Don Pablo, don’t scare me with so much responsibility,” he said. “How could someone like me help you?”

  “Let me say that I know some things about you, but I know more about your wife. She’s sympathetic to the Unidad Popular government, as I imagine you are as well. In these times, one cannot trust just anyone …”

  Cayetano examined the poet’s swollen hands, large nose, and haggard face. He had a robust complexion, but his shirt collar was too wide on him, as if he had suddenly grown thinner in the past few months. Then he remembered his sudden melancholy and his gloomy allusion to time running short. Only now, among his own things, in the clear light of day that shone in his home, he seemed decisive, enthusiastic. Although Cayetano didn’t know where the conversation was headed.

  “I’m Cuban, though by way of Florida,” he said, trying to temper the poet’s verve with a dose of humor. “I still don’t understand …”

  “It’s precisely because you’re Cuban that you can help me,” Don Pablo cut in.

  Cayetano adjusted his glasses and stroked his mustache nervously.

  “Because I’m Cuban?”

  “Let’s take this one step at a time,” the poet said, changing his tone. “I see that you haven’t stopped looking around this room. First things first. This house is called La Sebastiana in honor of Sebastián Collado, the Spaniard I bought it from in 1959. For the terrace roof, he designed a great aviary and a landing strip for spaceships.”

  Now Cayetano feared his leg was being pulled.

  “Are you being serious, Don Pablo?”

  “Completely,” he said, closing his large eyelids circumspectly. “One day, a cosmic Odysseus will make his landing here. Among my four houses, none of them floats like this one. The one in Santiago is hidden in the San Cristóbal mountainside, the one on Isla Negra is a beautiful barcarole ready to set sail, and Manquel, which was a brick and stone stable, and which I bought with the money from the Nobel, lives lost among the woods of Normandy. But La Sebastiana threads the air, earth, and sea together like a bracelet, Cayetano. That’s why it’s my favorite house. But it’s not as a contractor but as a poet that I’ve called you.”

  Cayetano was amazed. What did he have to do with poetry? How could he possibly help a famous poet? A seagull
soared outside the picture window.

  “But it’s nothing to get nervous about,” Don Pablo added. “One is always less imposing in person than in the newspapers or on television. And also, the years—soon I’ll be seventy—have begun to take their toll, though they still don’t deprive me of the desire to write, and to love.”

  Cayetano wanted to cut to the chase.

  “How can I help you, Don Pablo?”

  The poet was silent, hands folded over his belly, bathed in the metallic, late-morning light that hardened the façades of houses and the contours of hills.

  “I need to find someone,” he said after contemplating for a few moments, gaze lowered. “And someone discreet needs to do the searching. It’s a personal matter. I’ll take care of all your expenses, and I’ll pay you, obviously, whatever you ask,” he specified, watching Cayetano with unease.

  “You want me to find someone for you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You want to hire me”—and here he remembered what the poet had said to him when they first met—“as a private detective?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I’m not a detective, Don Pablo. At least, not yet,” he added with a faint smile. “Worse, I have no idea how a detective behaves.”

  The poet’s hands picked up some books covered in red plastic from a nearby table.

  “Have you ever read any Georges Simenon?” A foxlike look tautened his cheeks and creased his forehead. “He’s a terrific Belgian writer of crime novels.”

  “No, never, Don Pablo.” He felt embarrassed of his paltry literary knowledge, and apologized, as though that ignorance could offend his host. “I’m sorry. I’ve only read a few novels by Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler, and, of course, some Sherlock Holmes …”

  “In that case, it’s time for you to read the Belgian,” the poet continued forcefully. “Because if poetry transports us to the heavens, crime novels plunge you into life the way it really is; they dirty your hands and blacken your face the way coal stains engine stokers on trains in the south, where I was born. I’ll lend you these volumes so you can learn something from Inspector Maigret. I don’t recommend that you read Poe, who invented the crime story and was a great poet. Neither do I recommend Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes’s literary father. You know why? Because their detectives are too eccentric and cerebral. They couldn’t solve even the simplest case here, in our chaotic Latin America. In Valparaíso, the pickpockets would steal their wallets on the trolley, the kids from the hills would bombard them with stones, and the dogs would chase them down alleys with their fangs bared.”