by Tom Michell
A total lack of comprehension ran round the faces of our new friends.
“Frame Oirelan!” said Euan—surprisingly peevishly, I thought.
Now, given that I struggled to understand Euan, our new friends really didn’t have a clue what he was saying. And it seemed to me that he had started slurring his words slightly, too, which didn’t help. I tried to explain quickly that, in fact, Ulster was a different country from England and the Republic of Ireland. Feeling pleased that I had niftily defused an awkward situation, I was utterly perplexed by the next question.
“Then if you’re English, what about Las Malvinas?”
I was a callow youth in those days and didn’t have the slightest notion that the Falkland Islands, situated some 275 miles to the east of Argentina’s southern extremity, were the subject of disputed sovereignty and the cause of a long-running feud between the UK and Argentina. Even though the Falklands conflict between Britain and Argentina was not to occur for another decade, I was about to discover the significance of Las Malvinas to the Argentine political consciousness. I was totally mystified, but Euan knew all about the islands (naturally).
“Tuch! That’s complete rubbish, totally stupid!”
Suddenly the tone of the exchanges with our new friends changed. These lads, who had been all smiles and relaxed amusement during our clumsy conversation, suddenly turned very serious. Their body language became tense.
In broken English, but mainly in Spanish, which I translated as best I could, they trotted out accusations against the wicked English pirates who had stolen their islands, characterizing them rather as the Spanish had described Francis Drake when he captured gold they had plundered from someone else.
Euan, who had an unrivaled ability to recite arguments committed to his prodigious memory, vociferously started to demolish their opinions. He pointed out some painful home truths about the acquisition of South American lands by their Spanish forefathers. What had happened to the native populations in the process of acquiring their “rights” and “titles” was nothing short of genocide, pure and simple. The British never behaved like that, he said.
I was looking around in astonishment; the situation was quite beyond my experience. Voices were raised, and other customers were now regarding us in a less than friendly manner, in marked contrast to the warm welcome I had received in Argentina before that night. I noticed some burly blokes moving in the direction of our altercation, and was getting a very uncomfortable feeling that this evening was not turning out at all as I had anticipated.
Euan was getting louder by the minute, emphasizing the validity of each of his points by banging the table with his hand, while completely ignoring my urgent suggestions that we should go. Neither was he taking any notice of the men who were homing in on our table or of the hostile expressions on the faces around us. It was clear that the lads we had been talking to didn’t want to continue with the argument, which had become thoroughly unpleasant. Some were trying to restrain their friends, advising them just to ignore us.
“Okay. That’s sufficient! Enough! We don’t want to talk with you English anymore! Leave it. Enough. Enough!” said Carlos, turning his back on us. But of course, he had said it in Spanish: “Okay. ¡Ya suficiente! ¡Basta! No queremos hablar mas contigo. Déjalo. Basta. ¡Basta!”
Just like when one is falling off a bicycle, time went painfully slowly, but I was powerless to stop the inevitable crash.
“Wh’ar’ you callin’ a fockin’ bastar’, you fockin’ bastar’?” Euan screamed at Carlos as he leaped to his feet. In one fluid action Euan grabbed one of the beer bottles by the neck and smashed it against the table’s edge to produce the most evil, murderous weapon imaginable. Glistening shards of glass flashed in his practiced hand as he lunged to grab Carlos with the other.
Instantly one of the bouncers forcefully struck Euan’s arm with a wooden truncheon, causing him to drop the remnant of the bottle, which shattered on the floor. While two others seized him around his head and shoulders, a fourth had me by the scruff of the neck. All in the twinkling of an eye, chairs and tables were upset, glasses crashed to the floor, and, with the assistance of some of the customers, Euan was physically thrown out onto the street, all six foot three of him crumpling to the ground in a heap. I was simply ejected. I looked at Euan in horror. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Slowly and clumsily he was staggering to his feet. He had an absurd and annoying grin on his face—and then he started to sing! I was forced to the conclusion he was actually enjoying himself.
I was deeply shocked and completely out of my depth. In truth, I was sick with fright. I was a country boy from the gentle downs of rural Sussex. During the whole of my life I had never had more than a couple of boyish arguments that had ended in a punch-up, and both had been resolved according to Queensberry rules. I started making my way back toward the station as quickly as I could walk, sobering up rapidly as I gulped in the cooling evening air. By then Euan was standing unsteadily in the middle of the street shouting, “Fockin’ bastards!” and gesturing with V signs (vulgar British gestures which are completely meaningless in Argentina) to the front of the bar, where the bouncers stood in a row, arms akimbo, forming a human turnstile. I kept moving in as straight a line as I could manage.
He caught up with me before long.
“Hey! Where y’goin’?”
“I’m going back to college!” I answered without looking at him. I didn’t want to be with him at all and was debating what I could say to the headmaster if I returned alone. Absurdly, I felt some kind of responsibility for his safety; otherwise I would have lost him in the crowd.
“Why? Don’t y’ wan’ to go on?”
“Go on? Go on?” I said in amazement. “No, I do not! This is not my idea of a good night out!”
“He called me a bastard!” he said indignantly. “I couldna’ ha’ that, n’ could I? Hic.”
“He did not call you a bastard,” I said angrily. “He said basta, which is Spanish for ‘enough.’ You wildly overreacted.” I was on the point of finishing my sentence with “you stupid bastard” but thought better of it. I didn’t know if there were any more beer bottles lying around.
Sitting in an almost empty railway carriage on the train, Euan dabbed at his face and hands, which had been quite badly scraped when he was thrown out into the road. He rolled up his sleeve to show me the ugly bruise that was developing where he had been hit with the bouncer’s truncheon.
“Fockin’ bastards!” he muttered. Then, a bit later, he added “Ar’ou goin’ to stop for a small beer on the way back, then?”
“No!” I said. “Certainly not. I have never, in all my life, been thrown out of anywhere before!”
He looked at me askance, as if to suggest that he had never met anybody who didn’t get thrown out of places with regularity.
“Where did you learn to do that with bottles?” I asked, trying to reconcile the two sides of Euan, the erudite intellectual and the drunken psycho.
“Comes with mother’s milk where I’m from,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I had to believe it, but I was appalled by the thought of the injuries such a weapon could inflict.
He looked out of the window at the passing lights and started singing again. I did my best to appear not to be with him.
After a short silence he said: “You stick wi’ me, an’ we’ll ha’ a good time, ma friend!”
I could feel my mouth was agape, but the words wouldn’t form. What could he mean?
“You’ve just had some free beers tonight, thanks t’ me!” he explained. “You owe me now, pal!”
It was true, we hadn’t settled for the beers. How many? Two each, or was it three? Worse than that, it appeared I now owed this loose cannon some kind of debt of honor.
I was thunderstruck by the appalling logic. Words failed me completely. I decided it was probably better not to say anything further for fear of making it worse. It was the first time that I felt he had maneuvered me
into checkmate.
Checkmate or not, I determined I would never go anywhere with him ever again. However, I had learned a very valuable lesson. From that time forward I understood both the preoccupation with the Falkland Islands and Argentina’s fervent patriotic nationalism.
—
Now, as I lay in bed waiting for sleep before my early start, a strategy had started to form in my mind as far as Juan Salvador’s escape from Uruguay was concerned. It still needed some fine-tuning, but it was beginning to seem possible that I did owe a debt to Euan McCree after all….
My alarm clock rang at five the following morning. Even though I had gone to bed confident I had made the right decision to take Juan Salvador with me to Argentina, I had some apprehensions about what the day might bring. Outside it was still dark, but I got up quickly to see if he had survived the night and grinned broadly when, on entering the bathroom, I saw him apparently well and pleased to see me. Flapping his wings and running up and down in the bath, he bobbed his head and looked at me, left eye, right eye.
Ah, good morning! Sleep well? Have a little lie-in, did we? Better late than never, I suppose. Time to get going now. What are we doing today, then? Off on some new adventure? he intimated.
“Today we’re going back to Argentina on the hydrofoil,” I said, “so best behavior from you, my friend, and everything will be all right. Just leave all the talking to me, okay?”
I gathered my possessions, popped Juan Salvador into the string bag, and, after a final check of the flat, locked the door for the last time. As I set out for the bus station in the cold and dark, I fervently hoped the Bellamys would never find out that I had cleaned a penguin in their bathroom. I had done my utmost to remove all evidence from the previous extraordinary day, and nothing but a lingering smell of seabird remained, of that I was certain.
I walked to the end of the road and hesitated. There wasn’t another soul around, and the only sound was the gentle lapping of the sea, which looked cold and inky black. The light of a new day was just beginning to brighten the eastern sky. At my feet there were two widely diverging paths, and I had to make a choice. After this there could be no turning back. One was straight and smooth, sensible and trouble free. All I had to do was drop the penguin back onto the beach, where he would quickly die of cold as the water evaporated from his saturated feathers, and march swiftly off to the bus stop. I could rationalize this action by arguing that the penguin would have died regardless and that I had done my best, hadn’t I? What more could be expected? But, starting from exactly the same place, there was the other route. It was deeply rutted and mired, overgrown with thorns and barbs, and so obscured that I couldn’t even see round the first bend, but it gave Juan Salvador a chance of life.
Call that a choice? What kind of choice is that?
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
With resolution in one hand and a disguised string bag in the other, I walked up to the bus stop in the dawn twilight. There weren’t many people traveling to Montevideo at that time of the morning, and most had a sleepy and unkempt look; I didn’t feel out of place with my belongings wrapped in paper and string. When the colectivo arrived, not more than ten minutes behind schedule, it was about half full and I took the seat next to a good-looking girl of about my own age, who had smiled at me encouragingly as I embarked.
During my time in South America, bitter experience had taught me that on a half-full bus it is better to occupy a seat next to a companion of one’s own choosing, rather than take the last of the unoccupied double seats, allowing Fate to determine one’s neighbor. I’d made this mistake once in Bolivia when the next person to board the bus had been a very large (and I don’t mean tall) local lady wearing a bowler hat and a very colorful shawl. She had three small children and a menagerie comprising numerous hens and a piglet, which were contained, for part of the journey at any rate, in various boxes. Needless to say, out of all the available seats, she took the one next to me. Not only did she occupy much more of my seat than she had any right to, in addition to her own, but I found I was constantly restraining or repelling wriggling, non-housetrained infants and livestock, in or out of boxes, as she constantly rearranged her responsibilities throughout the remaining five-hour journey.
On this occasion I had all my possessions comfortably stowed in my rucksack, apart from Juan Salvador in the string bag. I had inverted a large brown paper sack over the string bag and passed the handles through two slits I had cut in its base, so the contents could not be seen. I really didn’t want to discuss with anyone why I was carrying a penguin in a string bag. I certainly didn’t want the benefit of advice from the legions of doubtless well-intentioned individuals who, given the slightest chance, would line up in long queues to say, I really wouldn’t do that if I were you. The die was cast. It was a fait accompli, set in stone. I was going to take that penguin back to Argentina with me, come hell or high water. I simply couldn’t leave him behind now to fend for himself, not when he had already demonstrated such reluctance on the beach. Besides, I really didn’t think Juan Salvador was long for this world. I was concerned that if the oil didn’t get him, he might starve to death. I knew for certain he hadn’t eaten for at least twelve hours, and before we met he might not have eaten for days. But if he wasn’t going to pull through, it certainly wasn’t going to be through lack of effort on my part. That was the end of the matter, and I wasn’t going to discuss it, justify it, debate it, or take advice about it, by, with, or from anyone.
The bus journey to Montevideo took less than a couple of hours. It was delightful to travel through small villages and countryside as both the sun and the temperature rose, and before long I found myself chatting easily with the pretty girl sitting next to me, just to pass the time. Her name was Gabriela, and she was going to see her aunt in Montevideo. As we talked about nothing in particular, neither Gabriela nor any of the other passengers was aware of Juan Salvador, standing between my legs in his string bag, out of sight, hidden under the brown paper.
Shortly before arriving at the terminal in Montevideo, a slightly fishy whiff began to permeate the bus. Passengers looked around them, sniffing the air, to see who had unwrapped fish from their shopping. Next, realizing the smell was rather worse than that, they started checking their shoes to see if they had trodden in something nasty and making sure nothing unpleasant had mysteriously fallen into their holdalls. One passenger alone was not engaged in any of these activities—but my cheeks were getting redder. The perplexing miasma held no mystery for me. I was the only person on the bus who knew that the foul odor was caused by penguin guano on the floor, but of course, I decided against enlightening my fellow passengers.
Sitting next to me, Gabriela naturally thought that I personally was to blame for the dreadful smell, and all that implied! She looked at me with a mixture of contempt and disgust, but I couldn’t possibly explain. What could I say—Don’t blame me, it’s the penguin? It was just too late, as the bus was pulling into its parking bay. Besides, I didn’t dare trust her with my secret, no matter how pretty she was.
Mercifully, we came to a stop. Without looking to see what had happened or how much guano was slopping around on the floor, I grabbed my possessions and fled, abandoning all thoughts of Gabriela and what might have been.
I disappeared down a side street and followed a sign to a plaza. I came to a pleasant city square with grass, trees, and seating, the very picture of a recreational space in a grand, if a little down-at-the-heels, colonial city. On one side, facing the plaza, was a splendid baroque cathedral, but the best feature of all, for my purpose, was the open air.
Coffee and breakfast were being served on the terraces outside bars and restaurants, and I sat down and ordered the same. I examined the paper-covered string bag; apart from one small mark, there was no other sign of guano. Maneuvering the bag to obscure the contents from inquisitive eyes, I lifted
the cover slightly and saw, with relief, that Juan Salvador was apparently perfectly happy. He showed no sign of distress and wasn’t trying to get away, but stood perfectly still, looking at me.
Are we nearly there yet? he asked without a hint of an apology for his recent faux pas.
“What am I doing with a penguin?” I demanded. “Have you any idea just how excruciatingly embarrassing that was for me, Juan Salvador?” He continued to look at me, clearly quite unmoved by my ordeal.
I took a deep breath. I had to accept there was nothing to be done about it now. After all, the die was cast; it was a fait accompli, set in stone, wasn’t it? My thoughts came back to mock me. Well, come hell or high water, I’d just have to get on and cope. And besides, I thought, it couldn’t possibly get any worse, could it?
“We’re going on the hydrofoil next. That will be fun! But please, no more surprises, all right?” I pleaded with him.
There was an hour or so before I had to be at the port, so I covered Juan Salvador again and settled down to enjoy my breakfast while I watched the world go by. My steaming hot coffee arrived, and soon I felt its warmth reviving my spirits.
In South America, the majority of school-age boys were accustomed to supplementing their household’s income by working at odd jobs, at least when they weren’t playing football. As a result, the cities were teeming with countless shoeshine boys. This arrangement had the benefit of clean shoes for all, pocket money for the youngsters, and an occupation for otherwise idle hands.
One of these boys spotted me, ran over, and sat on his homemade wooden box, with its carefully designed handle that doubled as a footrest for clients. By tradition there was rarely any verbal communication in these transactions. The customer accepted the contract by placing his foot on the box. If he considered that his shoes weren’t in need of attention, he ignored the boy, who silently moved away without offense being taken by either party. I put my foot on the box and he began his work. Vigorously he cleaned off the dust. Then, with a parsimony born of want, he applied the smallest possible smidgeon of polish to his brush and set to polishing and buffing, elbow grease making up for the lack of polish. When satisfied that he had earned his money on the first shoe, the boy would tap the client’s foot twice with the back of the brush, which was his signal that he was ready for the other foot.