The Penguin Lessons

by Tom Michell

  He finally turned to me with a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression, and I smiled because in spite of it all, the hell and the high water, I had brought him home to Argentina.

  “Río Gallegos indeed!”

  I rubbed Juan Salvador’s chest, and his prominent breastbone seemed razor sharp. I wondered when he’d last eaten. The markets would still be open if I didn’t dawdle, so I took a few thousand pesos in notes from my hiding place and set out for Quilmes. I grabbed my bicycle and pumped up the tires (which had to be done before every journey), and in no time at all I was on my way.

  —

  For the past six months, since my arrival, I had been forced to learn very quickly how to survive an economy in dramatic inflation. Upon landing at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, I had been met by my new employer, the headmaster of St. George’s, and taken to the college in one of the city’s ubiquitous Ford Falcons. On the way I was plied with information about the history, geography, and economy of Argentina, and among other things, I learned I would be given an advance on my salary. After we had eaten, the bursar showed me to his office and I was given one and a half million pesos in crisp new notes. I was told to go into town that afternoon and buy all the essentials that I could possibly need.

  Quilmes had been a comfortable suburb of Buenos Aires when the college was built, but fashions change and the northern districts had become more desirable. Now it had the distinct feel of an urban hinterland. The roads were made of thick concrete that had cracked into great slabs resembling ice floes. Electricity cables were knitted between poles in an apparent free-for-all, while manhole covers jutted high above the pavement at odd angles. Like all Argentine towns, Quilmes was built in city blocks a hundred meters square, with the edges of the corner buildings beveled at forty-five degrees, often with a door, to avoid sharp angles on street corners.

  Some buildings were obviously shops, but others were more ambiguous. They appeared to be shut up securely with rolling metal curtains that protected the doors and windows and were an integral part of their construction. It made them extremely secure but not very attractive. Every block had a repair workshop or breakers’ yard for something or other, with stacks of domestic appliances, motorbikes, and other assorted bits of metal and rubber or bric-a-brac that cascaded onto the pavement from the dark interior. Grimy, overall-wearing workers were always busy smoking and chatting.

  How would I go about spending a 100,000-peso note? What was it worth? I had brought all the immediate everyday essentials in my hand luggage, and everything else was coming by sea. I wasn’t aware of anything that I needed and was at a loss to know how to spend the money.

  It came as quite a surprise to realize I knew nothing practical. Not only did I not know the price of anything, I had no way of estimating the price of anything. How much do you expect to pay for a beer if you have fifteen notes, totaling 1.5 million pesos, in your pocket? Although I knew the exchange rate, it didn’t really help. Manufactured items were much more expensive than at home, while labor was cheap. Teachers could easily afford to employ a maid, a cook, and a gardener in their homes, but buying a car was usually out of the question.

  And so I spent my first afternoon exploring the suburb of Quilmes. I had lunch. That was easy—there was a menu and price list outside the restaurant, and after that I had a pocketful of small change. I bought some beer, fruit, coffee, and milk and went back to the college for tea.

  Later that evening, I saw the bursar again.

  “Spend all your money?” he asked.

  I hadn’t, I admitted, because I didn’t know what I wanted. He became really quite fierce. I had committed a cardinal sin, it appeared.

  He told me it didn’t matter what I wanted: I had to buy whatever I could get hold of and then publish a list of what I had and barter with it back at the school. He said I might only get half the value on the second day because inflation was running at about 100 percent a month.

  Why hadn’t he explained properly in the first place? I wondered. Not for the first time did it occur to me that communications are not a strong suit of bursars.

  The following day I went out first thing and spent. Relatively few of the shops were open. Those that were had prices that were changing continuously. In general, shops were closed unless the owner needed some cash or knew he could replace his stock.

  In the mini markets, assistants went round changing the prices, not by 3 or 5 percent a day, but simply doubling the marked prices every couple of weeks. If a particular price was too high, it would be self-adjusting, as inflation would catch up over the next few days. Assistants even changed the prices of items placed in shopping baskets, sometimes right at the till, when the cashier would look at the marked price and say, “It costs twice that today!” One could take it, leave it, or try to haggle, which was sometimes successful.

  I bought jeans that wouldn’t fit and shirts I’d never wear. I bought coffee sets and toothpaste. I bought absurd quantities of cheap cutlery with varnished bamboo handles in hideous green plastic zip-up folders. (Arguably any quantity of cutlery with varnished bamboo handles in hideous green plastic zip-up folders would be absurd, and I bought a dozen place settings!) I bought hardware and rolls of cloth and film for cameras I didn’t have. I bought enough mosquito spirals to last a lifetime.

  I did manage to spend almost all the money, however, and had no trouble bartering my goods later on—even the ghastly cutlery, which was acquired by the bursar!

  Before long I discovered that, as a foreigner, I could buy U.S.-dollar travelers’ checks, which meant I didn’t have to go on these absurd shopping expeditions every month.

  Another consequence of inflation was that, by law, wages and salaries had to be paid to employees in the middle of the month. This was an attempt to protect workers. Why, the argument went, in times of high inflation should the employer have the advantage of payment in arrears?

  Even better, holiday pay had to be distributed on the last working day before a holiday. That meant we were paid for the whole of the summer break at the beginning of December—summer being December to February in Argentina. Now, to receive three months’ pay in advance is pretty good, but when I collected my pay from the office that December, I found I had four months’ money. When I queried this, I was told it included my aguinaldo. “Ah! Of course!” I said, not wishing to appear more stupid than necessary, and went to ask the other expat staff what an aguinaldo was. They told me that it was a Christmas bonus.

  Eva Perón, known as Evita—Juan Perón’s second wife, who wielded immense political influence during his first administration in the 1940s—had been instrumental in introducing many financial reforms such as these, which were intended to benefit the workers. No wonder she had been worshipped by her descamisados, or “shirtless ones,” as she referred to the laborers in electrifying speeches and broadcasts that galvanized the support of the “downtrodden” poor for the Perónist cause. Unfortunately, the financial catastrophe of that administration ultimately did far more harm to those same workers than they understood at the time.

  During my stay in Argentina I was fascinated by inflation. Some people got used to living with it and had found ways of using it to their advantage while the Perónist government kept interest rates low. House owners would proudly explain to me that they had bought their homes on a mortgage and that now, after only a few years, their repayments were down to the equivalent of the cost of a couple of pints of beer and would be half that next month. I knew that, by contrast, there must have been people losing out somewhere, because inflation was supposedly an economic illness, but it would be some time before I understood more clearly how it worked.

  —

  Once at the market I was relieved to see that the fishmonger had no shortage of sprats, and I queued impatiently, Juan Salvador’s rumbling tummy on my conscience. The old woman in front of me, dressed from head to toe in black and with the countenance and temper of a bulldog with a toothache, was struggling with the pric
e of the catch of the day, and while I was sympathetic to her cause, I had penguins on my mind.

  Because inflation had been raging, the decision had recently been taken to “revalue” the Argentine peso. Uruguay had done something similar, and a “new” Uruguayan peso was now valued at 1,000 old pesos. Since everything cost multiples of thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, division by a thousand was simple—one just left off the thousand. Thus a beer costing 10,000 old pesos cost 10 new pesos after the change. Everyone understood, and the transition was easy.

  Anxious not to be seen to be imitating its tiny northern neighbor, however, Argentina instead chose chaos by rejecting common sense. One new peso was worth just 100 old pesos. This elderly woman standing between me and Juan Salvador’s sprats was the latest casualty of what was swiftly becoming general pandemonium. Dividing prices by 100 caused problems for many people. The beer that had cost 10,000 old Argentine pesos now cost 100 new pesos, which was not so simple to calculate in one’s head, especially after one has had a few of them after an evening out. Worse, someone had the bright idea to overprint existing bank notes with new denominations, and it was done in such a way that neither the new number nor the old was legible.

  The fishmonger was doing his valiant best to reassure the woman that the new prices were correct and that she wasn’t being swindled out of her life savings. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that he was getting confused himself and arguing with other queuing customers about how best to convince the old lady. It was going to take all night, obviously, and I wanted desperately to get back and feed Juan Salvador. Oh, hell! I was on the point of screaming with frustration, but retained sufficient self-control to restrict myself to muttering discreetly, or so I thought, under my breath, and in English: “Oh! For God’s sake, dear, get your arse in gear.”

  Instantly this elderly lady stopped speaking and rounded on me, eyes ablaze, and rapped me repeatedly on the chest with her black purse as her shawl slipped off. She continued to hit me even as I attempted to pick it up for her. Then, in the most superior and refined of tones, she said: “Young man! How dare you speak to me like that!”

  Oh, the embarrassment! It was as though my grandmother had overheard me use a rude word when I was ten, and I hadn’t intended to be unkind to her.

  Of course it wasn’t until later that I worked out what I should have said, which was “Madam, please excuse my unpardonable solecism.” And then, with a debonair flourish, I should have insisted on paying for her fish myself to make up for the distress I had caused. However, in my embarrassment such savoir-faire completely eluded me on that occasion, but I have it saved and ready for the next time she is dithering in front of me in a queue!

  —

  On my return, Juan Salvador welcomed me back by running up and down in the bath. He was a very inquisitive bird and stretched up tall to see what I was carrying.

  What’s in the shopping bag, then? Let’s see!

  I placed the bag of sprats in the handbasin and, sitting on the side of the bath, I took one fish by the tail and waved it in front of him. He took no notice, so I bumped his beak with it and tried to dangle it across his nostrils.

  “Come on!” I said. “Don’t you want some of these delicious fish, fresh from the Quilmes market? These sprats are the best money can buy! Show some gratitude, bird!”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head rapidly with a shiver of disgust as he pressed his beak down into his chest in a gesture of revulsion.

  No! Take it away, nasty limp thing. I only eat fish! he was saying as clearly as if he had spoken in words. There was no mistaking the fact that he was not interested in these sprats. So what to do next? If he didn’t eat quite soon, the end would not be long in coming. Could I force-feed him?

  I took his head in my hand and pushed a finger and thumb into the corners of his beak so that it opened. As soon as I could, I placed the fish into his mouth, held him still to taste it, and then let go. A violent shake of the penguin’s head sent the sprat flying across the bathroom, missing me by inches. It hit the wall behind my head and slithered down to the floor. He wiped his beak against his chest but otherwise didn’t move. He certainly didn’t appear to be frightened of me or what I had just done. With unruffled dignity he carefully set about preening himself.

  Not to be thwarted, I tried once more. Holding his head still, I pushed a fish deeper into his mouth. Following another violent shake, a second fish joined the first. He looked at me closely.

  Didn’t they have any fish in the market, then?

  “They are fish, Juan Salvador.”

  No. Fish wriggle and live in water and swim, but I can swim faster! Don’t you even know that?

  I hadn’t gone through all the acute embarrassment, inconveniences, and drama of the past day to be defeated now, so I tried a third time. Holding his head erect and beak open, I pushed a third fish into his mouth, but this time I pushed it really far down the back of his throat. In fact, I shoved it deep down into his gullet with my finger. Then I let his head go and watched. His little eyes, usually protruding, were now closed and he had stopped breathing. Had I stuffed the fish down his windpipe in error? Would he choke to death on a sprat? Could one perform the Heimlich maneuver on a penguin? Was it possible to retrieve a fish that had gone so far? I massaged his gullet to encourage him to swallow. His eyes had become curiously concave under their lids, as though a vacuum had developed inside his head. I felt alarmed. He stood perfectly still, eyes shut tight. Seconds passed. Then he began to wobble, and I was on the point of trying to pull the fish out when he swallowed. I saw the bolus move down his throat, and then his eyes opened and returned to normal.

  I breathed deeply and wiped away the cold sweat that had formed on my brow. Throughout all this, he hadn’t struggled, tried to get away, or objected in any way that I could identify. He stood still now, watching me, left eye first, then the right; comprehension slowly dawned in them. He was no longer wiping his beak against his chest with his eyes downcast; they sparkled and looked directly at me, left eye, right eye. He looked up at the basin, then back to me, and indicated as clearly as if he had the gift of speech: Ah! Sprats! In the blue and white plastic bag! So why were you waving them under my nose? Do you think things smell under water? Really! Are there any more? By Jove, I’m hungry! Come on—chop chop! I haven’t eaten for days, or have you forgotten?

  Taking another fish by the tail, I held it above his head, and before you could say “Juan Salvador,” he had snatched it from my fingers and swallowed it whole. I yanked my fingers clear in response to his lunge and the heavy clack of his closing beak. There was no second chance for anything that came within range of those jaws.

  Once started, Juan Salvador wanted to make up for lost time. He swallowed fish after fish as fast as I could pick them up. It seemed he had to close his eyes in order to swallow. I tried offering a fish by the tail first to see what he would do, but this was no challenge. In a single movement he took it, flipped it, caught it headfirst, and down it went, following the others. In the space of the next ten minutes the entire kilo of fish disappeared down his throat and his tummy bulged noticeably. He even ate the two fish from the floor. Between sprats, I wiped my fingers against his plumage to clean them and to promote, I hoped, the restoration of waterproof feathers.

  —

  I shut the bathroom door that night and went to bed feeling more hopeful than at any stage since I had found him on the beach the previous day. In the morning, I was pleased to note that he appeared to be well and was standing away from the guano that was conveniently deposited at the plug end of the bath.

  You need to do something about cleaning your bath, you know! his imperious look suggested.

  After breakfast I pumped up the tires, hopped on the bike, and returned to the market. I was pleased to find that the fishmonger still had plenty of sprats, although he was astonished that I wanted another kilo quite so soon.

  “It’s for the penguin,” I said.


  “Oh, of course! Silly of me not to guess. So you’ll be back tomorrow for some more, then?” he said with a wide grin, which died rapidly as I replied: “Certainly! I expect to be buying sprats every day from now on.”

  Juan Salvador only managed a couple of dozen for breakfast, but had a few more every time I came and went, so by the end of the day he had polished off a second kilo of fish, and any doubts I had about the state of his insides were allayed. I had a very efficient guano maker installed in my bath.

  Preparing for the return of the students gave me plenty to do at the college, while eating in the bachelors’ dining room four times a day lent structure to daily life. It was at dinner on my first evening back that I asked the few colleagues who had returned from their holidays about the habits of penguins, on the pretext of having seen some on my travels. I hoped the real reason for my curiosity wasn’t apparent. At that stage I wasn’t prepared to reveal that I had taken a lodger into my flat.

  Despite some enthusiastic responses, I learned nothing useful that I hadn’t already discovered with Juan Salvador’s help. The library revealed no new information, either, when I searched the shelves for books on local fauna. It did appear, however, that a diet of fish alone was sufficient for a penguin, which was most reassuring.

  The boys were accommodated in three large three-story buildings located in the southern corner of the college campus, about seventy to each. The thirteen- to sixteen-year-olds had dormitories and common rooms, while the seniors had rooms that were a combination of study and bedroom. Each house was run by its housemaster with two assistants. Because I was single, I occupied one of the staff flats that formed an integral part of the building; the housemaster’s house was built onto one end.