by Tom Michell
My flat in School House was on the second floor—or the third if you’re American, North or South. Either way, it was on the top floor, and I had to climb two flights of stairs to reach it. A door adjacent to the flat allowed access to an open-air roof terrace above the housemaster’s residence. It measured about thirty feet square and had a parapet eighteen inches high around the edge (approximately, as it turned out, the height of a Magellan penguin). The floor of the terrace was tiled and had a slight incline, for drainage. It was equipped with a table and chairs and a hose to clean it but otherwise it was quite bare. The only access to the terrace was via this door, and when it was shut, there was no alternative exit for a penguin or a person.
On the day following our return to the college I put Juan Salvador out on the terrace while I had a bath before breakfast. It was with considerable consternation that I noticed that the enamel on the bottom of the bath where the guano had been was no longer a smooth vitreous surface but rough and actually quite abrasive in patches. I was astonished by the damage—and careful never to slide up and down in the bath again, for fear of injury. I also resolved not to touch guano with my fingers or get it on my skin. If it could corrode bath enamel like that, I didn’t like to think what effect it might have on human tissue.
The time had come. I had to tell the college staff about Juan Salvador. It was quite apparent that he wasn’t about to drop dead; on the contrary, he appeared to be thriving on a diet of Quilmes fish market sprats and seemed to be utterly content living at my effort and expense. He didn’t appear to be looking for ways to escape or to be pining for the company of other penguins, which allayed my concerns for his welfare. His friendly, enthusiastic, and inquisitive behavior was really very endearing. He hadn’t made a sound since the episode with the customs officer, but I didn’t altogether trust him not to, so before he was discovered I had to seize the initiative. I didn’t want it to appear that I was hiding the penguin or that I had a guilty conscience about keeping him in the college.
Following breakfast I went to the sewing room in search of the one person who I thought would be my greatest potential ally.
“Maria, I need your assistance,” I said, after exchanging the usual pleasantries at the beginning of a new term.
“Por supuesto, señor. How can I help you?”
“Maria, I have found an injured penguin and I was wondering if you could—” I began.
“You have found a penguin? Here, in the college?”
“Could you spare a moment?”
Maria was the college housekeeper, in charge of all the cleaning and laundry. She had worked at St. George’s since she was thirteen years old and was by then a shade over seventy. The laundry was done by hand, by women of all ages who lived in the neighborhood and came in daily. Maria’s responsibilities had increased over the years until eventually she became the most senior, whereupon she was rewarded with the job of housekeeper and managed all the female cleaners and laundry staff. There were no pension arrangements for people such as Maria, so she had to keep on working until either she dropped dead or she became too feeble, at which point she’d have to rely on somebody’s charity. She would never be able to retire because her savings never accumulated any value.
It was in getting to know people like Maria that I became better educated as to the losers in an inflationary economy. The poor, the descamisados, were rewarded with money that rapidly devalued, leaving them nothing to show for it. The rich were the beneficiaries, because their assets maintained or increased in value, as a result of labor they paid for with worthless money. Inflation was clearly transferring enormous wealth from the poor masses to the rich few. It was Maria and the thousands of “shirtless ones” like her who effectively paid the real cost of the smart suburban houses in Buenos Aires.
My intriguing disclosure had aroused Maria’s curiosity. She immediately put down the task she had in hand and followed me as I set out toward my rooms.
Maria was only an inch or so over five feet tall, had an enormous bosom, and was as bow-legged as it was possible to be. She suffered terribly from arthritis and bunions; she might not have been able to catch a pig in a passage, but fortunately there was very little demand for that particular skill at St. George’s College.
As we walked at Maria’s pace I began to tell her about my adventures during the holidays. She had long been troubled by her knees, so she compensated by walking with a rolling gait (not unlike that of a penguin). Slowly she climbed the stairs, hauling herself up using the banisters, puffing with each step, and her smile of achievement as she reached the summit was as warming as sunshine. For her, the joy of the things she could do outweighed the woes of those she couldn’t. In all the time I knew her I don’t believe I ever heard her grumble about her own lot.
Nothing was ever too much trouble for “Santa Maria,” as she was nicknamed, for she had the kindest heart of anyone I have ever met. I adored her like a grandmother. She loved the boys and wanted to mother them—to their gratitude, amusement, and annoyance in more or less equal measure. And she wanted to mother the young teaching staff, too. Once, during a strike in the laundry, the boys had to do their own washing, but it was all I could do to prevent Maria doing mine herself. The laundry ladies won an increase in pay after two or three weeks, principally because some of the boys’ mothers were so horrified at the thought of their darling sixteen-year-olds washing their own underpants (or possibly not washing them) that they wrote in protest and everything returned to normal in a wonderfully pragmatic Argentine way.
When I opened the terrace door, Juan Salvador immediately looked at us. Just as I had anticipated, it took him two seconds, or possibly less, to melt Maria’s heart. She eased herself down the two steps, and he ran over to her and looked up into her face. She was so concerned when I told her about the oil and tar that, naturally, she wanted to mother Juan Salvador, too. Of course, Juan Salvador, as we were soon to discover, could take all the mothering that was on offer! She sat on the parapet and ran her gentle fingers over the contours of his shoulders.
I suggested that she might like to give him breakfast, and within moments Maria was attending to Juan Salvador’s morning repast. After each fish he shook his head, flapped his wings energetically, and vigorously wagged his tail in appreciation. This master fisherman had hooked a new convert, and she became besotted by him. Thereafter Maria would frequently take tasty morsels out to him, and together they would put the world to rights.
My little round of disclosures continued when I went to find the headmaster to report the temporary stay of a penguin on my terrace. I reassured him that on my next free day, or as soon as he had recovered sufficiently, I would be taking him to the zoo in Buenos Aires, and I said the same to Richard, the housemaster. As a result, Juan Salvador and I received a nearly continuous dribble of visitors throughout the day.
At dinner in the mess that evening, I recounted the story of my skirmish with a penguin in Punta del Este and explained why the bird was now living on my terrace. My colleagues listened to the narrative of his rescue and cleaning with glee, but when I revealed his name, George interrupted, “No, no, you must call him Juan Salvado—‘John Saved.’ ” The others agreed unanimously that it was a more appropriate name than Juan Salvador (John Savior), and so it was that his name became Juan Salvado among his intimate friends, although he remained Juan Salvador on formal occasions.
Naturally the teachers wanted to see him, too, and so after dinner my companions accompanied me to the terrace and were introduced. My peers sat on chairs and the parapet, and as the port passed to the next person on the left, the bag of sprats passed to the next on the right. Juan Salvado captivated the assembly by running to each person in turn as they held up a fish for his delectation. As his tummy filled, his eating slowed, but he was evidently enjoying having company.
That was the first of so many times that I observed how completely at ease Juan Salvado was in the fellowship of humans. He wasn’t intimidated by their height o
r inhibited in any discernible way. He would greet visitors to his terrace with warmth and, as far as I could tell, a genuine desire for friendship. No, that doesn’t do it justice at all—he was ecstatic when people came to call. A guest would feel as though he had just arrived at the house of an old and valued friend after a long and arduous journey. Juan Salvado had all the charm of a precocious young child but, unlike that of precocious young children, the charm of Juan Salvado wasn’t ephemeral; in fact, it never waned. Possibly his behavior was more like that of the perfect host at a grand society banquet, His Excellency Don Juan Salvador de Pingüino. Witty, urbane, and dressed immaculately in white tie and tails, with a confidence born of a noble ancestry, superior learning, and wider experience, His Excellency circulated among his guests. As he approached, other conversations were broken off to attend to him. Then he would make each one of his visitors in turn feel that it was the pleasure of their company alone he was seeking, if only he were not compelled by the unyielding laws of etiquette to move on and talk with his other invitees. And so it was that, although literally the humans fed him with fish, figuratively Juan Salvado had them all eating out of his hand.
On that first night the penguin had been standing by me looking around the assembly and appeared to be wondering if, possibly, there was room enough for just one more sprat, when I noticed his eyes flicker and his head nod. Shortly after, I saw he was fast asleep, although still standing up, gently leaning against me, replete and apparently totally at peace with the world.
—
The following day was the last before the return of the students, so while time still allowed and he was no longer living as a fugitive, I decided to see how my new compadre would cope with a walk on the fields and some exercise more motivating than the confines of the roof terrace allowed.
The grounds of the college were quite extensive. There were many large open playing fields, which were lined with great eucalyptus trees. There were also quiet places of denser vegetation, more like the shady corner of a domestic garden. I carried Juan Salvado out onto the grass, where we walked slowly under the eucalyptus trees. Wherever I went Juan Salvado followed, staying within a few feet of me at all times, just as he had on the beach in Uruguay. With growing confidence I walked faster, and the penguin ran at full speed to keep up. For penguins, running involves holding their wings out and rotating their bodies to maximize the distance of each pace; few people can resist laughing at the sight. I walked unhurriedly most of the time, carefully observing his behavior. Although Juan Salvado examined the grass, leaves, and twigs on the ground, he never strayed far from me. We met several college employees on our tour, and I explained the presence of my new companion. While no one made any overt criticism, I thought I detected some mild implication that I had behaved eccentrically in some way, but I expect I was just being oversensitive. Juan Salvado was living proof that my intervention on the beach in Uruguay had been the best course of action available to me.
Our first walk around the grounds must have been a mile or more, and I was watching carefully for signs of fatigue or other indications that begged Carry me!, but none came. At the time I was surprised, but on reflection it occurred to me that penguins have the stamina to migrate thousands of miles each year and propel themselves far greater distances than humans do, so a gentle walk around a rugby pitch probably wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
In those days Calle Guido—Guido Street, the paved road from Quilmes—ended at the gates of the college. At this point it turned into a rough dirt track, which continued for another mile and a half down to the river. The land on both sides of the track belonged to the college; to the north the flat open ground was marked out with rugby pitches and was surrounded by beautiful jacaranda trees.
There are many species of jacaranda growing throughout Central and South America, and all those I have seen are lovely. Some are small and grow no bigger than bushes, while others become large trees. Those that had been planted around the rugby pitches were perhaps forty feet high. They had been carefully tended to form a large spreading habit that gave a maximum amount of dappled shade, quite as wide as the height of the tree, where both spectators and players could shelter from the sun. In springtime the jacarandas wore massed tresses of breathtakingly vivid bluebell-colored, trumpet-shaped flowers, which engulfed the entire canopy of the tree—their vibrant, striking blue even eclipsed the sky on a perfect, cloudless day. In their season, the flowers quite overwhelmed the pale green filigree foliage, which contrasted so strikingly with the very dark, hard, and deeply fissured tree bark. The delicate leaves remained attractive throughout the summer, long after the flowers had faded. Toward autumn the fruit developed, forming small golden yellow grape-like bunches that positively glowed in the light of the setting sun and clung on long after the leaves had fallen. To my mind jacarandas are amongst the most beautiful of trees, and the penguin’s progress beneath them made an unforgettable picture.
The fifty or so acres of land to the south of the dirt track contained all the college buildings, as well as many more games fields. Today the relentless march of suburbia has surrounded the school. However, in those days one could walk between the high chain-link fences that surrounded the two pieces of land making up the college campus and follow the track that ran through the neglected scrub, past a few scattered dwellings, and all the way down to the river Plate—a good half hour’s hike, but very much longer if accompanied by a penguin!
The dwellings between the college and the river couldn’t quite be described as smallholdings, but they were more sophisticated than those of a shantytown and had been constructed from building blocks and timber the inhabitants had salvaged from around the district. Their dwellings were not attached to the usual utilities, so they had to live and bring up their families without electricity, running water, or drainage. They would grow a few crops on little patches of land, keep hens and pigs, and eke out a living by doing such jobs as could be found in town. The college employed some of these locals as cooks, cleaners, laundry women, and maintenance workers.
I often enjoyed an evening walk down to the river, and after I acquired an interest in penguins, I enquired of the people who lived there whether they had ever seen birds like Juan Salvado on that part of the river. “Never” was the answer. The sprats, and therefore the penguins that feed on them, would keep well out to sea to avoid the vast freshwater discharge from the river. Thus the penguins must swim some two hundred miles in the open sea between departing the Argentine coast and arriving in Uruguay. The more I discovered about penguins the more remarkable and engaging I found them to be.
The Río de la Plata is enormous, as wide as the English Channel. The temperature is 30 degrees Celsius; the water is warm, muddy, and brackish; the vegetation is subtropical; and the sun is going backward through the sky (in the Southern Hemisphere the sun travels counterclockwise from east to west). Now you have an idea of what it was like to stand at the end of that dirt track on the bank of the river Plate.
Although this was not a salubrious area, the boys of the college were perfectly free to take a stroll down to the river or walk into town alone. Looking back from a time where civil liberties have been restricted in ways unimaginable then, it seems like a golden age of personal freedom, even though the political situation was close to anarchy. Some of the students in the college came from the richest and most influential families on the continent, yet they could mix relatively freely with the residents of this area—the bajo, as it was known—who were amongst the poorest. The vulnerability of the boys was discussed at staff meetings, but apart from the armed guards on the gates and simple tennis court fencing around the perimeter, happily no additional security measures were necessary.
—
When we arrived back at School House after Juan Salvado’s introductory tour of the college, I walked up the two steps to the front door. The penguin, however, bumped into the first step as though he hadn’t seen the obstacle. He bounced back and sat down. I picked him
up and carried him inside. He was always perfectly happy to be carried and never struggled to get away. Once through the front door I put him down again.
My flat was at the top of a grand flight of solid wooden stairs. I began my climb, paused, and turned to see what he would do next. Again he bounced off the bottom step, but this time he studied the obstacle, first with one eye, then with the other, until suddenly he appeared to understand. Without further ado, he walked back to the step and hopped up and forward, landing on his belly on the first tread. In doing so, he bumped his head on the next riser. Undeterred, he stood up and hopped onto the next step. This time he landed diagonally across the step on his tummy and so measured his full length without banging his head. Immediately he repeated the process, landing on the other diagonal, and thus he followed me, zigzagging up the next few steps. I ascended a bit further and he followed.
Hugely impressed by Juan Salvado’s astuteness, I naturally wanted to see how he would manage descending, so I ran back down the stairs. Without hesitation he launched onto his belly and tobogganed, bump bump bump, down the flight of stairs at great speed, landing on the polished marble floor at the bottom in that prone position. He came to a sliding stop and stood up. While he was never destined to be the fastest ascender of stairs, Juan Salvado could come down a single flight faster than anybody, effortlessly negotiating the two right angle turns in the construction of the staircase. Later I was to discover that, unbeknownst to me, the boys had arranged races against the bird, and he won every time! When I heard about these contests, my blood ran cold and I banned them peremptorily, appalled by the possibility that some boy might accidentally land on the penguin as he attempted to jump down half a dozen steps in a single leap, not only crushing the bird to death but breaking his own neck as the eviscerated carcass slid from under his feet and he tumbled to the foot of the stairs. I shuddered with fear at the very thought of it. But as I prepared for the beginning of that term I had no presage of the levels to which boyish skylarking with the seabird might escalate.