by Jack Tollers
Chapter Thirteen
Hell of a hole
One hell of a hole, Peter thought once again. Because, Covunco was, in effect, just that. Lost in that enormous desert called Patagonia, Covunco was a tiny town completely engulfed by an incredible sea of nothingness that appeals to one man in a million and exasperates, irritates, repels and causes the normal rest to shrink. No wonder it was depopulated. Who would want to live in such depressing surroundings? The worst thing, Peter thought, was the weather. Continuous, permanent, unremitting wind—he had heard stories of people going berserk because of it and well believed them—and if not that, rain, or worse, sleet. The rest, as Darwin once put it, was a lot of very cold unpleasant air. The regiment’s barracks stood about a mile away from Covunco and looked bleaker, if possible, than the town itself. A punishing place, Peter thought as he stood against the window of his small room, looking out at the unfriendly yellowy, brownish, greyish landscape. Quite an eyesore in its own right. If only we had a couple of trees, he thought, but of course, not a chance of that in such windy weather. And then he receded back into his soul-searching exercises that had characterised those last weeks.
The inner landscape wasn’t much better either. To begin with, he was at war with himself. There was a small misunderstanding somewhere and he couldn’t quite iron it out. If Victoria was completely truthful—and he couldn’t conceive a shadow of doubt about it—then why break off their engagement? Was it possible that her feelings had cooled off a fraction or something? He quite understood that marriage was out of the question for the time being, but so what? They were young, they could wait. He was quite contrite at what he had done, but fuelled by an unexpected flash of sadness, frustration and impotence he had torn up Victoria’s letter the very day he had received it. He now thought that perhaps a careful scrutiny would have revealed the painful mystery behind Victoria’s decision. Perhaps someone else? No, once again, he impatiently disregarded any such thought. And yes, he was thinking in circles, these horrible suspicions constantly coming back, only to be repulsed again and again. ‘Hell of a hole, and hell of a life,’ he thought with renewed bouts of self-pity. His phone call had done nothing to clear the mess up, to say the least. The line was terrible, and Victoria seemed to be crying most of the time.
‘Please, darling, if you love me as you say, I don’t see why you have to break off our engagement.’
‘Well, Peter, I mean… please understand… I can’t very well keep you waiting without—’
But sure enough, they were soon at cross-purposes as usually happens when trying to smooth things out with a telephone call.
‘Maybe it’s you who hasn’t the patience—’
‘Yes? Well that’s silly, isn’t it? That’s a downright silly thing to say... You can marry whoever you choose to whenever you want. I can’t. Can’t you underst—’
‘Listen, my love. I want to marry you, and if I can’t I’ll just not marry, that’s all, so why don’t we keep on as before and just wait? Time will say...’
‘It will. But in the meantime...’
‘You must be joking, I mean—’
‘No, Peter, this is no joking matter. You’re free. You don’t have to wait anymore. Go and live your own life. I know this is painful, but that’s the way things stand and I can’t see any other—’
‘Please listen Victoria, please: there is another way. Let’s wait. I can’t even conceive losing you—’
‘Let time do its—’
‘No, no, no! Victoria, I love you desperately, please—’
And so on and so forth. And then he had to interrupt himself because he clearly heard Victoria crying over the line. So finally he had only told her over and over again that he loved her, which didn’t seem to do much good either. He sighed. He wouldn’t have leave until Christmas which seemed ages away, especially in that abominable place, especially when he presumably wouldn’t be receiving letters from Victoria, especially when he knew not what to expect when he next saw her.
The wind was somewhere shaking a shutter to and fro and the noise was getting on his nerves. That must be Captain Espinelli’s window he reflected. It would be typical of such a thoughtless, peevish, lazy man to have forgotten to fasten his shutter properly. He couldn’t refrain from thinking that this was no man for military office. If there were ever a war it would be downright dangerous to go with him, let alone be under his orders. He heard a knock at his door that interrupted his musings.
‘Report for Second Lieutenant Cayol!’ It was private Gómez.
‘Come in, soldier.’
A big chap from the northern part of the country came into the room. He was about nineteen years old, a stout, quite inarticulate young man, with teeth in visible disrepair. Peter had always had some difficulty in fully understanding some of his soldiers, what with their regional accents and marked tendency to drawl. He had gone quite a long way in his efforts to teach them to speak up clearly but with private Gómez it had been rough going and the results were none too successful.
‘The mules, sir. I’ve counted them and three of them are... out, sir.’
Peter more or less understood what the man was saying but his temper flared up at the bad news.
‘Will you please explain yourself clearly, damn it, soldier Gómez?’
He well knew that his reproof would get him nowhere and would only worsen the man’s attitude.
‘Three mules gone, sir.’
‘What’d’ya mean, gone?’
‘Lost, sir. Missing.’
‘Well, go out and find them, will you?’
‘Been out with soldiers Esparza and Trigo all afternoon and searched the hills. Haven’t seen them, sir.’
Suddenly Peter let go with a shrug. He was fed up with all the mule business but he knew that they were his responsibility and that if they hadn’t all been reined in before dark, he would be in hot water with Espinelli, of all people. He would have to organise the search personally.
‘Very well, soldier. All right... call up the whole platoon and get them ready for a thorough search in ten minutes. I’ll be conducting the operation myself.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘And stop saying “aye, aye” will you? This is not the bloody Navy.’
Soldier Gómez looked cryptically at Peter as if he had never heard that reprimand before and left the room with the more conventional ‘Yes, sir’ in a hurry. Peter looked out through the window and sighed. It was getting colder by the minute and he guessed that they had only a couple of hours before dark. He hoped to God that the mules would be easily found, though his experience had shown again and again that these animals had a way of wandering without any apparent purpose into the most outlandish corners. He was about to leave his room when soldier Gómez appeared again with a letter in his hands.
‘The daily post, sir.’
Peter looked impatiently at the back of the envelope and saw that it was from Thomas. He hesitated between reading the letter then and there or leaving it for bedtime, finally deciding to follow the latter course. He put on his greatcoat and resolutely went out to find his men. Outside a fine sleet welcomed him with typical patagonian irony.
That night after dinner he climbed into bed and read Thomas’s epistle slowly. It was Thomas’s first letter ever and Peter felt quite curious. He knew from long experience that despite his literary turn of mind, Thomas was a somewhat reluctant writer and this looked like a rather long piece. For a start there was a pretty hilarious account of Jimmy’s doings with a fire extinguisher at their wedding. One or two paragraphs actually made him grin. But then he went on to more metaphysical proposals and Peter read on with a wrinkled forehead.
I don’t know why, but all manner of love affairs seem to go wrong. Except, perhaps, mine with Veronica. And this, mind you, despite our getting married... Well, you know what Kierkegaard used to say, that while the girl of your dreams isn’t married, she’s called Beatrice or Juliet or any other romantic name that excites all manne
r of romantic inspirations. But when she marries she goes on to become Mrs. Johnson or something. And now, to be honest, Veronica talks and walks rather like a Mrs. Vega, if you follow me. It’s not that I’m not in love anymore or anything but I tell you, marriage is quite a terrible matter and I keep remembering the ditto that emphasises that it’s a corral where everyone on the outside wants to get in while those inside—. Hell, I tell you, this is no picnic. We’re all a bit nervous because time goes by and she still doesn’t get pregnant, but the doctor says nothing’s wrong... except our getting into a state because of our impatience. Hope he’s right.
But other love affairs seem to go sour also. Philip with the Church, Jimmy with the Army, yours with Victoria. I mean, what the hell, it sometimes looks as though love is, all in all, a rum thing, something to carefully eschew if you don’t want a broken heart. Like Discepolo’s tango, do you remember:
If only I had a heart once more / The heart I gave away...
From what I gather, I think Jimmy can’t get over his affair with the Army. Between you and me, I think he’s been seriously considering going back—even if another year at the Academy without you all would be pretty rough going—but the truth is... well, don’t say a word, but I think there’s quite a chance of his going back. I’ve persuaded him to work at the law courts with me—hope Judge Rivarola never finds out who this young man happens to be—and he seems to be doing quite well, working meticulously with amazing concentration and constancy. A bit listless at times, I admit, but all things considered, I think he’s better off despite his grumbling at this and that. He finds ‘civil’ life perfectly horrible and apparently can’t adjust to it. Of course, I can see that his critical views are sometimes quite justified, but I’m afraid that most of the time they proceed from some sort of silent resentment and not from an intelligence in search of truth... And his new hippie friends aren’t much help either. There’s no hiding the fact that when all is said and done, these people... All the same, as things stand, I think Jimmy has begun to see through this crowd.
Peter couldn’t quite refrain from thinking that Thomas’s contentions seemed much more amusing when he pronounced them with his high-pitched voice, and not so attractive when in black on white. He was, however, very much interested in what followed.
I haven’t seen much of Victoria lately but she did come home to dinner a couple of weeks ago and, well, I found her a bit sadder of course, since her Mother’s death.
I think, and so does Veronica, that she’s still in love with you, but refuses to say a word about what happened between you two and doesn’t ever mention you. So, well, sorry old mate if I discreetly prefer to keep away from that subject.
Peter lit a cigarette and sighed, watching the smoke curl slowly towards the ceiling. Life was perfect hell, he thought with frustration, what with Victoria so far away and not answering his letters, Jimmy in a bitter predicament, Thomas, even Thomas, with his pessimistic logic... The entire world seemed to be a debased place and he wondered how many weeks of this sort of life he was disposed to weather. But he was tired to death and at last fell asleep thinking thankfully that at least those frightful mules had been found.