Pacazo

by Roy Kesey

  The next few hours are quiet and tense. I sit at the kitchen table, and Mariángel removes pots and pans from cabinets, sets them on the ground, puts them back in new places. I nod vigorously at each of her decisions, and pockets of residual adrenaline flame up each time I remember. Rum over ice helps a little.

  Finally she sleeps. It seems very late and I decide that I would like a fried egg sandwich but am unable to locate the skillet. I pour another rum, check all the likely places a second time. Then I begin with the unlikely ones.

  An hour and three glasses later I still have not found it. Instead, deep in the lowest cupboard I find two enameled ceramic steins—Günther’s wedding gift to Pilar and me. I take them up and rinse them, but they have been unused for months, require scrubbing, which at the moment is beyond my capacity.

  Another glass and my capacity grows, becomes adequate, is suddenly vast. I bring out the scrubber. One of the steins is whole and the other’s pewter lid has broken off. I scrub and rinse and dry. I apply glue to the broken lid, and to the shaft. As I set the pieces together, I see that one edge of the lid is bent. It is a problem and no solution occurs.

  There is nothing specifically castle-like about the steins’ design, and yet they project a certain defensive strength, part flanking tower and part portcullis. The first bears a scene of two men sitting at a round wooden table—one is a monk and the other is some sort of royalty—and an aproned waiter. All three men have thick mustaches. Along the bottom of the mug are the words Erst Mach’ Dein’ Sach: Dann Trink’ Und Lach.

  The other mug shows a man and a woman dancing. This man, too, has a thick mustache. The woman’s face is blurred. To one side is a musician playing an instrument that lays flat on his lap. They all wear short pants and high socks and the next time I see the cultists I will suggest this as their new look. The background is cobalt blue. It will now be much harder to straighten the lid. I suspect that at some point I knew what the instrument is called. With luck the glue will fail.

  So much of my time and attention has lately been devoted to ping pong. This is not a factor of my wishes or desires but has not been wholly unpleasant. Until this week I had not played ping pong in many years, had never played it competitively or well, but the dean himself called me with the request. I asked why I was needed, and his answer involved scheduling conflicts and shoulder injuries. I did not have to win any matches, he said—the department was hoping only that I might help them log a few participation points. I told him that my reply would be forthcoming in a matter of hours.

  Four minutes later Arantxa came to my office to tell me that I could comply or be fired. I stared at her and waited, as though contemplating rebellion. Arantxa was not deceived. She knows that I know that she understands ping pong as a means by which one might be brought back into a given sort of life, and also that she wants very, very badly to beat Business in the medal race. In the end I broke and smiled, and she pretended not to be delighted.

  The first two rounds were yesterday morning. I won both matches by default: my Language and Literature opponent allegedly chose instead to sit quietly with his girlfriend on a bench near the cafeteria, and my Art opponent arrived eleven minutes late. My spot in the semifinals ensured, I defaulted my afternoon match against a Law opponent whose serves, it is said, cannot be seen. This morning I played a Business student and scored no points whatsoever. Tonight then is the bronze medal match, and my opponent studies History, and Casualidad has brought Mariángel to watch. The crowd is sparse, as most other students and faculty so inclined are watching basketball across campus or volleyball at the coliseum, and this suits me precisely.

  My opponent is thin and quick. He has brought his own paddle, its handle inscribed with what I suspect are his initials. He twice neglects to account for the strength of my wrist, however, and I lose the first game by only nine.

  I spend the break looking thoughtfully at the faces of my paddle, as if winning were only a matter of adjustment. We begin again, and though it has occurred to me to use my bulk to disguise my serve, the second game is less fraught than the first. I am three points from medal-less elimination when my opponent jumps to slam a lob and breaks his ankle as he lands.

  When he has stopped screaming and been tended to, I come to the sidelines, and Mariángel applauds. This is not in reference to my victory but to the pattern of sweat on the armpits of my shirt. Applauding is now among her favorite activities, and the things that occasion it are often unexpected but not inappropriate: a surprisingly short telephone pole, a particularly fine cow, an inordinately translucent plastic bag.

  As we walk to the basketball courts, I observe Casualidad from many angles. She seems to be doing well. I say this, and she thanks me. The house is less tidy than before and less clean, and this is not an unfair exchange.

  We come to the parking lot, and Mariángel decides suddenly that she would like a zapote leaf. I remind her that she did not much care for the last one I brought her. She takes hold of my thumb and bites it. It takes her fifteen minutes to choose one that is precisely as bright and glossy and beautiful as most of the others, and thus we miss the first half of Reynaldo’s game.

  He too is playing for Engineering, has no interest in medals as such but cares a great deal about winning. He is in fact a good player but does not look like one, not even while playing: he has grown still heavier and lacks grace but rebounds well, bounces Law students left and right out of the key, and twice completely off the court. We cheer each of his achievements, especially the improbable running jump-hook that he hits from just inside the free-throw line with nine seconds left to win.

  He celebrates with his teammates for a time, then comes over, drips sweat in Mariángel’s face as he kisses her forehead, punches me on the shoulder and asks if the Lakers are having tryouts anytime soon. I say that they called last night, were wondering why he wasn’t there already, were worried that he might have lost his way. He smiles, thanks us for coming, and rejoins the celebration he has caused.

  My tie is uncooperative. I retie it four times on my walk to work, and still I can feel the knot bulging asymmetrically, and still the long end is too short. A fifth attempt, at last success, and there is a small crowd gathered near the Language Center entrance. I cannot think of any reason why this would be.

  As always I do not need to push my way through, instead simply walk, and watch as the crowd parts before me. Halfway in I find Arantxa, Eugenia and the guest lecturer. The guest lecturer is gesticulating unsteadily. Arantxa leads me to one side. The problem is the turkey, she says.

  I nod as if that were a reasonable problem, and then realize: today, a week from Thanksgiving, and thus this afternoon our feast unless these gesticulations interfere. Arantxa says that the guest lecturer had assumed that turkeys could be bought dead and plucked and frozen in the supermarket. This is not the case in Piura except at Christmas, as she learned last night. They can however be bought alive and feathered and warm at the outdoor market, as she learned this morning.

  Eugenia and the guest lecturer join us, and the crowd has grown: the morning-shift professors listen in as they sort their realia and flashcards, as they count their handouts and chalk. According to the guest lecturer’s calculations, the cooking of the turkey must begin immediately. Eugenia has been to the cafeteria, but no qualified butchers will be present before noon. Arantxa looks at me now, and her thoughts are as if written on a whiteboard: any American with forearms as large as mine must by definition have experience pursuant to the death of poultry.

  That assumption is not quite incorrect. I ask to see the turkey, am led around the corner and halfway down the side of the building. The crowd follows. The turkey is immense. Its wings and feet are tied with plastic twine. I ask the guest lecturer why she didn’t have it killed and dressed there at the market. She blinks, blinks again, and I nod.

  I look at the people nearest me. Surely most of them could kill the turkey better than I can. I stare at the bird and wait. Arantxa clears her thro
at. I nod, wait more. She rubs her temples and crosses her arms and finally asks me outright. It pleases me to be repaying my debt in this way.

  First I ask Eugenia to locate and bring Don Teófilo, and those around me nod. Don Teófilo is the senior-most gardener here at the university, and knows the answers to many questions. To judge by his face and posture and gait he is the oldest man I have ever met. It takes a suitably long time for him to arrive.

  The crowd has doubled in size, mainly students coming to ask if their professors called in sick. Arantxa shouts for quiet, announces that all language classes will start fifteen minutes late, and that all conversation in our vicinity must take place in the language appropriate to the class being missed. This is so unfeasible that it works perfectly: the students laugh, and become the Crowd of Babel.

  I describe the particulars of the situation to Don Teófilo, and ask if suitable implements are available. He promises me that they are and goes to get them. We wait. We wait longer. Finally he comes bearing a machete and a large block of wood.

  I attempt to repurpose my tie as a headband but it droops into my eyes, so instead I hand it to Eugenia, and the students press in so close that there is no room to swing. I take up the unreasonably calm turkey, who has perhaps been quieted with pisco. I walk twenty paces from the wall, and the crowd loosens, eases itself around me until I am its very eye. Don Teófilo sets the block of wood on the ground at my feet. I lay the turkey beside it and this is all very close to being finished.

  Then the guest lecturer wraps her hands around my elbow. My willingness is inspirational, she says. At first it seemed impossible, she says, but now it doesn’t. I begin to suspect that I understand her meaning, hope that I am incorrect and sadly am not: she holds out her hands, requests the machete.

  The crowd, still bigger, rippling—assistant gardeners, students from distant buildings, professors from every department. I suggest to the guest lecturer that this is not the moment to begin learning butchery. She looks at me, squeezes my elbow tighter. She reminds me quietly of all her work in preparation for the feast this evening. Then she tells a long anecdote about cousins of hers who live on farms, how as children they used to insult her, and in what terms.

  Arantxa elbows me, says something too softly for me to hear. I look up. It is the rector. He is smiling. He nearly always smiles. He says he heard that great and important events were unfolding, and hoped to witness them firsthand. Arantxa explains the dinner and its ramifications. The guest lecturer tells her anecdote again, and details her plan. She adds that I have volunteered to hold the turkey still.

  The rector could not be more pleased. He congratulates his friend on her newfound heartiness, and thanks me for my assistance. I say that he is welcome, and hand her the machete. I tell her that she will have to chop with great force so as to kill the turkey cleanly, but also with great precision so as not to hit my fingers. She nods. The circle of professors and students and gardeners and now minor administrators, now housekeepers, now couriers draws tighter around the wooden block.

  I ask the guest lecturer to practice first, and she does, striking the block with great force and precision a sufficient number of times in a row. She smiles at me, and wipes away some sweat. I stretch the turkey’s neck across the block.

  She draws back the machete, the circle leans in, the machete falls with sufficient precision but little force and the turkey seems to explode in place. Blood spurts into my face from the partly severed neck and I hold as tightly as I can and beg her to swing again. One wing comes free and she swings, her eyes closed and the machete landing square between my fists, the turkey’s head limp in my left hand and its body wrenching out of my right, both wings free and beating and blood spraying from the neck as the turkey ricochets from rector to student to gardener, blood jetting into our eyes and hair and open mouths, the guest lecturer still swinging, again and again into the wooden block.

  It is Don Teófilo who catches the turkey mid-air, pulls it to the ground, holds it until it goes still. Tonight’s feast will be subdued, perhaps even vegetarian. The yams, however, will be delicious. The yams here are always delicious. There is an International Potato Center in Lima, and I have heard that it has each of Peru’s four thousand indigenous tuber species displayed. One day I shall go and learn them all, and Eugenia drapes my tie around my neck. I nod to her. I hand the turkey’s head to the rector. I clap him bloodily on the shoulder, and thank him for his continual support.

  19.

  AND ALREADY IT IS TIME FOR SAN TEODORO AGAIN: the first anniversary of Pilar’s death. It will be a few hours only of flowers and quietness and Mariángel will stay with Casualidad so the preparations are far simpler. Then as I open the door to leave, the telephone rings.

  This new telephone, I often appreciate its cordlessness, and it has many types of ring from which to choose, though I have not yet found one I enjoy. Casualidad answers, comes running for me with the receiver. The line pops and crackles. It is Pilar’s father, calling from Chiclayo. I cover the mouthpiece, ask Casualidad if she is sure he wants to speak with me. She says that he said my name specifically.

  I greet him quietly. He asks how I am, and his voice comes to me low, rich, warm in spite of the crackling, as if this call were something else, something new and larger. He says that he and his wife are well, that their sons are also well. He asks if Mariángel has begun to talk, and I say that she does not yet speak clearly as such but that her walking and applauding have greatly improved.

  He laughs, asks if she truly likes her birthday dolls. In fact they are still hidden on her highest shelf but I tell him that there are few things she enjoys more than taking off their felt hats and putting them back on. He says he was unaware that the hats were removable. The phone changes shape and texture, will not rest steady in my hand as I finally understand: there is nothing to match forgiveness for unlikelihood. I go to thank him for calling on such a day, for everything such a call signifies, but he interrupts.

  - Do you remember what I told you at the wedding?

  His voice has thinned and tightened and a chiclón has appeared in the back yard.

  - You told me many things.

  A chiclón is a bird the size and color of a crow, but it is not a crow.

  - I told you to take care of Pilar.

  They have thick black beaks that appear too large for their bodies.

  - Yes.

  On the ground they move like very small dinosaurs.

  - And do you remember what I told you at the funeral?

  Whatever this call began as, it is now something else, and I am unsure whether he intended this change from the beginning, whether it matters, and the eyes are massive and only black, pure pupil, or so it seems from this distance.

  - You told me many things there as well.

  When they copulate, the male stands on the female’s wing joints, flapping to maintain his balance.

  - Why did you let her go alone to the market at night? What sort of husband does that? What sort of man?

  The chiclón leans back on its tail.

  - I do not know the answer to any of those questions.

  It spreads its wings low.

  - Perhaps you do not know, but I do. Pilar loved you very much, but at times she was unhappy and then she would tell us the truth: how careless you were, how lazy, how selfish with your time. So careless and lazy and selfish that you would let her go alone to the market at night.

  This is something I have seen them do on the open grass of the university. I have been told that they do so to warm their bodies in the sun, and I do not answer.

  - God punishes us every day with grief, he says.

  At the moment the sky is a melding of gray clouds and black.

  - Why would God punish you?

  It must be something else.

  - For letting Pilar marry someone who would not protect her. Do you know why we did not go to her grave on the Day of the Dead?

  They are sometimes called guardacaballos, fol
low horses and cattle through fields, eat the insects raised by the heavy hooves.

  - No.

  At the university they follow lawnmowers instead.

  - Because we knew you would be there, he says. And are you going to the cemetery today?

  The noise of the chiclón is not a song of any kind.

  - Yes.

  The chiclón gathers itself, hops to the base of the almond tree.

  - This year, but not any subsequent year, and not on her birthday, not ever. You have all the other days, yes? So those two days, let her be ours again.

  I tell him that it will be as he says, and the chiclón stares in through the window, stares and flies away.

  There are far fewer men and women selling flowers and candles and food and cardboard images than there were before, but even so there are several of each. I purchase a spray of sunflowers, a packet of candles, walk in through the gates and past the empty chapel. Today there are no young men with ladders, and not many mourners. A few of them, the oldest, are sitting on lightweight portable chairs of the type I will most likely never remember to buy.

  I clean the dust from Pilar’s niche with my shirttail, and fan the sunflowers across the ground. Her father’s words were and are true but nothing new, nothing I have not already held to myself like coals. I sit down, lean back, close my eyes, work to rid my mind of his voices.

  And now I can bring the good pictures, one by one, easy at first. Pilar dancing marinera at the coliseum, her dress garnet and gold, a sheen of sweat on her forehead as she lifts her vast handkerchief and smiles. Pilar swimming in Yacila, teaching a young girl to hold her breath, coming slow out of the water. Pilar walking to where I sit on the terrace of our hotel in Máncora; she is carrying two coconuts, two plastic straws, hands one of each to me, is astounded that I do not find the milk delicious. Pilar at the deer pen, Pilar standing in strings of huayruro beads. Pilar at an ice cream cart in the Plaza de Armas, her hair bright in the sun.