Pacazo

by Roy Kesey

  - I can’t just go to Machala?

  - The consul there does not accept this sort of preparatory paperwork, and neither does the one in Macará. Your two best options are Loja and Guayaquil. Loja is slightly closer and more attractive.

  - Loja, then.

  - Good. I’ll make the arrangements.

  Eugenia and I have had this conversation or something similar many times, and the almond tree in my yard should be in full bloom but the rain has killed all the blossoms, so there will be no almonds, green and then yellow and falling, rattling down the roof like rats, and later no seedlings to transplant unsuccessfully, and I remember something from a letter my mother wrote to me perhaps eighteen months ago: she had decided to collect ambiguous farming utensils. I suspect that she will hang them on the walls of her kitchen, and when visitors come they will be made to guess at names and usages. I saw utensils of that nature the last time I was in Loja, or something like them. I will have to make a note to remember.

  31.

  THERE IS MOVEMENT IN THE BRANCHES of a small charán justoff the path. I tense, focus on not breathing. Here there is almost no light. The movement stops and recommences. Now it rushes and I see the head, for a tenth of a second I see it, the gray crest erect, then the great thick body falling, landing, scrambling forward into bracken and silence.

  I push down and in and the rain ceases. I thrash at vines and creepers and the only movement anywhere is my own. It is not easy to sneak through brush so thick given my size and umbrella. The pacazo is gone. But I saw it. That is surely some kind of sign.

  To the fork, the parking lot, the back of Administration. Here at last is the stage, the floodlights and their circling moth hordes, the hundreds of chairs in neat rows: the rector’s speech is almost over, his audience rapt. I slide up along the outer edge until I see Arantxa in silhouette. She is sitting with others of her rank and I step one row farther forward, clasp my hands at my back, fix my gaze on the rector and nod at each well-made phrase.

  He ends on a call for bolder action and clearer thought. The applause runs for almost a minute. I join in: a fine speech, or at least a fine ending. The ceremony is brought to a close and there is still more applause. The audience rises to go.

  Without looking at any faces I count the number of persons who slip by behind me. At fourteen I turn to go, feel what can only be Arantxa’s hand on my shoulder, and yes, have guessed correctly.

  - I didn’t think you would come, she says.

  - And yet.

  - Exactly, she says, and yet.

  She smiles, seems about to say something more. She smiles again, turns to the woman behind her and I am free. I head for the gate, pushing gently through groups of students as necessary and why why why do they walk so slowly here?

  The rector, a strong public speaker, and also correct as regards those who would return: our attendance lists grew and then stabilized. My students are all aware of one another’s names and commercial preferences. Madeinusa is a pleasant young woman and an entirely average student. She keeps a list of first names she considers odder than her own. Her favorite is Jhonfkenedi.

  Almost to the gate, and someone calls to me—Reynaldo, jogging to catch up. He asks if I have time for a quick trip to see what is left of the Old Bridge. I nearly tell him that I have already been, but there are half a dozen expressions on his face, none of them peaceful, none of them related to any bridge.

  I stop a taxi, and he says he would rather walk, and so we do: slow through the thickening dusk, the rain starting again, steady but untorrential. Reynaldo works his face into a smile, tells me that last week Boby’s was shuttered for a night due to a batch of bad beer. I laugh as he knew I would. I ask about his aunt’s health, and he says that she is recovering slowly. We both flinch as the streetlights come on.

  - There is something else, he says. Do you remember how angry she became?

  - When I asked about your visa.

  - Yes. It was because that morning I had asked her to sell the house to me.

  - I don’t understand.

  - Not for its true price. For ten soles, or a hundred, or a thousand—simply to have it in my name. I have heard that this is among the most effective ways to convince the Consul.

  - And she said no?

  - She said no. I think she believed that I was trying to trick her in some way. And then she understood that I would never trick her, and felt guilty for believing that I would, and was still afraid that I was.

  - Have you considered actually purchasing some other house?

  - I could afford a small one, if I took a large loan from the bank. But I do not want a small house or a large loan. Especially not right before leaving to study. And besides—

  He stops, looks down, away, back down, and this ends his sentence for him: And besides, he means, at some point she will die and leave this house to me anyway.

  - Perhaps she will change her mind, I say.

  - Yes, he says. Perhaps.

  The air densens with the smell of wet loam and there are clouds of insects spiraling under streetlights all along this block—water beetle, cockroach, cricket. Beneath each cloud is an unstable surface of staccato movement: hundreds of fist-sized toads. They climb up and down one another to get at that which has flown too low or fallen.

  We skirt the cones of light, come to the waterfront. Along it, and we are not the only ones to have had this idea, but the crowd thins to either side of the bridgehead. The river has risen still further or so it seems, the skeleton of metal and cement slightly harder to make out. We stand and watch, stand and listen to the rabid rush of water. Reynaldo shakes his head, starts to speak and stops, starts again:

  - Have you talked to Karina recently?

  - Well. I—

  - Are you planning to call her?

  - Why? Are you?

  He stops and stands and stares at me, says, True or false: it is all right for misery to end and happiness to begin.

  I stand and stare back.

  - True or false?

  - There is no reason for—

  - Superb. And what you must now do is convert the potential energy of your reservoir of knowledge into the kinetic energy of the spinning turbines of action, much as the rector suggested just before you arrived.

  I waver between hugging Reynaldo and punching him in the face. Before I have decided, he asks which bridge I bet on to fall first, and how much. He howls at my answers—the Fourth, a hundred soles. He says that I am the biggest cojudo he has ever met, and that he will see me in an hour at Günther’s. He pats me on the back and walks away still laughing.

  I had forgotten about the birthday party. A taxi, and on my stoop Fermín is petting the hairless dog. As I approach they both run away. I would like more time to consider this but things must be organized first, and Socorro is unable to stay late.

  I call Karina, invite her to join me at Günther’s party, and she says that she is very sorry but she is busy all weekend. I ask if we might meet at some point next week, and she says that she is busy then too. I say that I am very sorry for not calling again sooner. There is a silence. I repeat the apology. I say that I would like to dance again, to dance longer, and also to walk with her, just to walk. Another silence, and Karina says that perhaps she will have time Monday evening.

  I shower and eat, gather what is necessary, stuff Mariángel into her carrier. We stop at a corner store for a gift of whiskey. Günther’s house is a five-minute walk from the far side of the Panamericana.

  Up to his door, and assaulted by music as it opens—some subspecies of techno, and there is a very small chance I would like it if I understood it. Through crowds to the living room. Günther is thrilled to see us and the whiskey. I thank him for the invitation, nod at Mariángel, and he points up the stairs. I find a bare guest bedroom, pull the door closed behind us, sing César Miró against the synthetic bass thrusting up between the floorboards, and finally Mariángel falls asleep.

  Back downstairs, and here complic
ations look likely. Günther has invited young friends, who have brought along still younger friends, some of them students, even mine. This is not a problem when everyone agrees to drink reasonably, which is not the case this evening.

  I have shouted conversations with Arantxa and Reynaldo and Eugenia and Armando and others, some of them too long, some not long enough. The youngest of the guests gather to dance in the front yard, where there are toads and unseemly contests. Furniture is broken in several rooms, and as the breakage intensifies, Günther asks me to do him the birthday favor of escorting the loudest of the breakers to the street.

  In general they are indignant, but I am persuasive. When the work is done, we who remain have a great amount of beer to ourselves, and the youngest guests are dancing in the kitchen for reasons that are unclear to the rest of us. I check to make sure that Mariángel is still asleep, and coming back down I meet Armando going up. I tell him that as far as I know the only bathroom is off the living room. He agrees that it is, and stares at me for a moment. He turns and staggers down the stairs.

  It has become very hot inside, but in the yard there is a breeze. I gather the dead toads and arrange them lengthwise along the side wall, have just finished when Armando comes to join me. He has brought three beers, and gives two of them to me.

  - A crazy birthday party! he says. Like something out of Foucault!

  This makes no sense whatsoever. I drink from my left beer, and then from my right. Armando is smiling far too broadly, and now I understand.

  - I was under the impression that our kind was unwelcome here. How did you get hired?

  - By not telling anyone, he says.

  We laugh and laugh and laugh. Armando stumbles, rights himself, wipes at the beer on his shirtfront. He comes still closer, puts his arm most of the way around my shoulders and whispers to me. It is a very loud whisper. The content is unintelligible. The tone would be appropriate if we carried concealed weapons.

  - Is that so? I say.

  - Exactly, he says.

  He raises his finger to his lips. I wholeheartedly agree, and now Günther and Arantxa come to join us. Günther thanks me in English for my assistance with the miscreants. An excellent word, and I tell him so, and along the sidewalk come the German cultists. Their robes are mud-stained, their sandals rotting off their feet, and the tallest, the most beautiful, he is screaming at the others. The others do not respond. They look too exhausted to speak.

  Günther shouts at them in German, a single long and angry sentence, then sputters and falls silent. None of them look up. A moment later they have rounded the far corner. He laughs, looks at us, nods and switches to Spanish.

  - I told them they caused all ten of the plagues, and tried to start the list but couldn’t remember.

  - Toads instead of frogs, says Armando. That should still count.

  - Yes! says Günther. And mosquitoes and lameojos instead of flies and gnats!

  - Many livestock diseases though I do not know their names, says Arantxa. Thunder, and rain for hail. Darkness whenever it is cloudy. No locusts as such, but the grasshoppers will take their place.

  - There have been no boils, I say, but many bruises. What does that leave?

  We all count on our fingers.

  - Only two more to come! says Arantxa. Water into blood, and the death of all the firstborn children!

  Slowly our laughter fails us. We nod and look at the ground. I set down my beers, congratulate Günther on another year well-completed. I push my way up to Mariángel, bear her down and obliquely toward the door.

  My final class ends, and none of my students need to discuss anything with me, and this is a sort of gift. The slow walk back to my office. There are days of little or no rain but the heat is still with us, and the humidity, and most of the insects.

  I return my realia to the realia box, go to my office, find Reynaldo sitting in my chair. I set my books on my desk. Instead of standing up he leans back, squints at me, nods.

  - It is time for you to teach me English, he says.

  - All right.

  - This time I mean it, he says.

  - I believe you.

  - No, he says. I really mean it. I must be fluent by the time my visa comes through.

  He says this more quickly than necessary or normal, and is sweating heavily. What I see on his face is not quite hope. I tell him to remove himself from my chair, and he says that he has decided to pay me in beer. I say that I do not need beer and he says that that is not the point. I say that I do not want beer and he says that that is also not the point. I ask how often he wants to meet, and he says daily, here at the university when feasible, at his house after dinner when not. I ask when he wants to start. He says tomorrow, stands, nods, thanks me for the use of my chair and goes.

  Requests like this are common here: few professors wish to be students alongside those whom they teach. In the past I have always refused. Now I must now find a way to prevent Reynaldo from forming any sort of precedent.

  I gather my things, am reaching for the light switch when my phone rings. There is no reason for me to answer at this hour but I do in case it is Karina. In fact it is Armando. He asks if he said anything strange at Günther’s party. I say that he absolutely did not. He thanks me, says that he was afraid he had had too much to drink and become ridiculous. I say that he was anything but. He thanks me again, and I say that he is welcome. He laughs as if that were a joke, and is silent for another, longer moment. I tell him not to worry and we say our goodbyes.

  As I hang up the phone rings again and answering is a simple and unfortunate reflex. This time the caller is Arantxa. She asks me to come to her office. She does not imply that the visit is optional.

  She asks me to close the door behind me and I do. Instead of sitting as always at her desk, she takes one of the two chairs placed together near the window, and beckons me to the other. This is perhaps some sort of management technique. I sit down, and she asks me how I am.

  I say that I am fine.

  - No, she says. I want to know how you truly are.

  - Yes. I understand, yes. And I am fine. I am wholly truly fine.

  She leans forward, says that if there is anything I want to talk about, she is more than willing. I thank her. I nod. We stare at one another for a time and then hear screams.

  We run, and are the first two of many to arrive. The person screaming is a student stranded in a shallow sea of toads come to feed beneath a lamp post in the parking lot. It does not take long for Arantxa and me to clear a path. The student thanks us less than one might imagine, and Arantxa goes to the bathroom to wash her hands.

  Quickly to the gate, and how is it that the student failed to notice the toads until amidst them? A taxi home, its radio on, rumors of growing problems with Ecuador, and the present sharpens its knife on the whetstone of the past. These problems are fascinating and cease to interest me the moment I walk in through my door: Mariángel reaches for me, laughs, pulls me from one room to the next, hops over each dike for no reason except the pleasure of movement.

  Dinner, and food is occasionally thrown but good-naturedly. Afterwards it is still not yet time so we go to the patio. Mariángel stands beneath the edge of the awning, reaches out to catch drops on her palms, laughs and laughs and turns to make sure I have seen. And I have. Each time I have.

  Finally it is no longer too early to prepare: extra diapers, cologne, our finest waterproof windbreakers, bottles of milk and juice. We make our way to Karina’s house. She is happy and not surprised that I have brought Mariángel though I had not told her I would. She introduces us to her brother, who is in his third year at a technical institute on the far side of the river, and to her non-identical twin sisters, still in junior high.

  All of them seem normal. The brother ignores us as he does his programming homework, and the sisters rearrange Mariángel’s barrettes. No father is present or mentioned, and the mother is in Lima working on unexplainable projects.

  - She has trouble with
distances, says Karina.

  - I think all people do.

  - I mean that she sees things too late—furniture, walls, stairs—and is always falling.

  - Walls?

  - Yes. The doctor says it is her vision or inner ear.

  The aunt is no less worried than before, comes and goes with Inca Kola. I do not ask why she is so worried as I already have an idea. I do however ask Karina whether she and her aunt are related, as that is not necessarily the case in Peru, where all of one’s parents’ friends are also called aunt or uncle, and can be treated as such, asked for small favors and loans.

  Karina says that her aunt is her mother’s sister, and all of us nod. I answer Karina’s questions about my mother and father, her life and his death, about my lack of brothers or sisters. I assure them that my mother loved Peru on her one visit, that we are even now in discussions as regards her next trip down, and this is partly true: her last two letters contained references to touristic sites she missed when she came for the wedding and hopes to live long enough to see.

  Next there are questions from Karina’s aunt about Daly City and Fallash and Berkeley and Irvine, and I answer them as well. Finally there are questions about Cristóbal de Mena and Francisco de Xérez and Juan Ruíz de Arce and Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán. These are perhaps less questions as such than a vaguely expressed interest and I do what I can not to bore. We stay until Mariángel falls asleep, and a while longer, longer than I mean to, not nearly long enough.

  Reynaldo’s aunt and I are friends again though neither of us has made any reference to the past or future. She comes to my side, removes the empty bowl from in front of me. I tell her how delicious the mazamorra morada was, and she smiles, nods, asks me for specifics.

  - How flawlessly creamy the purple corn gelatin! How subtle the hints of cinnamon and quince!

  - Yes, she says, it did turn out well tonight.

  Reynaldo laughs, stands from the table, leads to the living room where our third English session will occur. Because we are starting late, he says, he will not oblige me to admire his motorcycle before we start, will not refuse to speak in English until I have nodded approvingly at its motor.