The Penguin Lessons

by Tom Michell

  We spoke briefly, and I dissembled as I struggled to get my thoughts and words back from grieving gravesides to birthday balloons, desperately endeavoring to sound pleased to hear from her. I didn’t want to admit what a fright her unexpected call had given me, but she didn’t appear to be listening to what I was saying.

  Suddenly she cut me short. “But how is that poor little penguin? I’ve been so worried about him. Is he getting enough to eat, do you think?” I did my best to assuage her doubts about my penguin husbandry. “Well, I just had to know that Juan Salvado is all right. Now, I must go for a walk with the dogs; your father will have a fit when he sees the phone bill. Make sure you look after my dear little penguin properly! I’ve told everybody about him!”

  —

  “Is everything all right?” asked Sarah after I had hung up and opened the door but volunteered nothing. “I’ve made you some tea. I thought it might have been bad news….” She studied my face, searching for clues, ready to give me a supportive hug if that was what I needed.

  “You’re very kind,” I said. “It’s nothing bad. Just Mother phoning to say happy birthday. I had completely forgotten! At least I think that’s why she phoned. She might have been phoning to make sure I was looking after Juan Salvado properly!” We looked at each other for several moments until our stony expressions melted and we laughed. If there were tears in my eyes, they were tears of laughter. All was right with the world. I staggered out of the office like a drunk; my muscles had turned to jelly.

  —

  It was the zenith of the rugby season, and the local Derby was the match against archrival St. Boniface. These were bitterly fought matches and no quarter was given, ever. This fixture was always the last of the season because the two were generally considered to be the best rugby schools in Buenos Aires.

  The day of the St. Boniface match was always a social occasion. The host school alternated each year, and each of the five school years put forward a team. The St. Boniface match Saturdays were special. Morning school ended earlier than usual, which allowed for a light lunch before the games, followed by a sumptuous and convivial asado—a colossal Argentine barbecue—for everyone involved afterward.

  Because the rivalry was so fierce, external referees always officiated and everything was done to try to ensure that the Corinthian spirit was upheld. The missed morning lessons also allowed the junior matches to start about forty-five minutes before the 1st team game so that the younger players could watch and support the climax of the senior competition.

  In the preceding weeks, all of St. George’s daily practice games had been focused on having a team at the peak of fitness. Skills and moves were rehearsed until every player knew precisely what was expected. Training with weights and sprints on the running track were combined with tactics on the field conducted with military precision, while strategy was rigorously explained in classrooms where there were blackboards to describe maneuvers from a bird’s-eye perspective. Nothing was left to chance. Nobody doubted the significance of the results to the college’s prestige. As the all-important St. Boniface fixture drew closer, the headmaster, who always made a point of attending some part of every sporting match throughout the year, even started attending practices, and the senior rugby coaching staff gave up their free time to help advise the juniors. Juan Salvado’s afternoon walks allowed him to see for himself the progress each team was making.

  Rugby was not played by all schools in Buenos Aires, so many of the boys knew their opposing contemporaries quite well. Accordingly, each team had a fair idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents, and of course, results of other interschool matches were a matter of record.

  At the under-14 level, St. Boniface had one particularly able player. He was known to be their match winner. He was fearless in tackles and was the fastest sprinter of his age in the province. It seemed a trifle unsporting that his name was Walker.

  Walker played in the fullback position, and his defense was so secure that the other fourteen team members could concentrate fully on attacking because of the confidence he inspired in them. But such was the boy’s ability to read the game that he was sometimes able to join in the attack at key moments and so provide an extra overlapping player. If Walker got the ball in his hands, a try was almost certainly scored. He had been playing the game since he had started mini-rugby at the age of six or seven, and he had captained his side on almost every occasion since the boys had started playing competitive games.

  Luis Fernández was captain of St. George’s under-14 team. He was a big lad and strong for his age and he took his responsibilities seriously, but his rugby was pedestrian by comparison with Walker’s.

  From the kickoff there was tension in the air, but it soon settled down to a simple hard slog, with both teams trying to win possession of the ball. Each side was battling for control and fighting hard to execute a plan for scoring; meanwhile, the opposing team was doing its level best to spoil those endeavors.

  The game ebbed and flowed, and there wasn’t much in it. The spectators felt that the superior side was St. Boniface. St. George’s made the first bad mistake, just before halftime. From a scrappy piece of play the ball emerged to St. George’s advantage, and it was seized by one of our forwards, who attempted to clear it with a long flat pass to the backs. However, it was too close to our goal line, and our players were not well positioned. Walker read the situation immaculately. From ten yards out he sprinted like the wind and intercepted the ball in midflight between passer and recipient. At full speed he ran past the dismayed St. George’s players, who were either standing still or running in the wrong direction, powerless to stop him. In only a couple of seconds Walker had touched the ball down and scored the first try of the game, close to the touchline, and put St. Boniface four points (in those days) ahead. Luckily, their kicker was unable to send the ball over the bar from such a difficult angle, and thus failed to add another two points.

  When the referee’s whistle blew at halftime, the score stood at 4–0 in favor of St. Boniface, and players from both sides retired to their respective ends of the field to discuss the game with their coaches. In the days before advertisers started telling people that it was imperative to drink expensively imported water every few minutes from plastic bottles, players at all levels had been able to survive for the full seventy or eighty minutes of a rugby game with nothing more than a quarter of an orange to recharge their systems in the interval. The bearer of this refreshment was accompanied by the off-games boys, who, of course, had brought Juan Salvado in support of their peers. After words of wisdom and encouragement had been delivered by the coaches, team players moved to deposit their orange rinds in a bucket, and as they did so, they stooped to stroke the head of the penguin mascot for good luck. Juan Salvado tried to avoid these liberties by running off in a different direction from the one he was facing, a feat made possible by his panoramic vision. As the players took to the field again he preened himself, as usual pausing every few seconds to look around and vigorously flap his wings, examine his feathers, shake his head, and occasionally walk between the boys’ legs.

  When play resumed in the warm afternoon sunshine, Juan Salvado was taken by his custodians to the safest place on the field: the opponents’ end, beyond the goal posts. All St. Boniface had to do to win was prevent St. George’s from scoring. On the other hand, St. George’s needed to score twice to claim victory. Nobody was rating the chances of the home side very highly.

  Walker commanded his troops with the cool reassurance that came only from exceptional skills and experience. His teammates willingly accepted his orders. From his position at the back of the field he had the vantage point of a general. Fernández was a far less experienced player. The contrast was stark. The calm, relaxed Walker was in complete control of both his game and his emotions, while Fernández, though doing his absolute best to secure a win, was red in the face and exhausted, sweat drenching his hair and running down his face. He had been trying to be everywhe
re at once, yelling encouragement and instructions to his team while fighting for all he was worth to win possession of the ball. Minutes ticked by and the play remained stubbornly in St. George’s half, a sure sign that St. Boniface was the better team. Everyone felt certain that if St. Boniface scored a second try, it would undoubtedly seal the match for them.

  As the game entered its closing minutes and the spectators, believing this game was lost, were beginning to drift away to watch the senior match, which was well under way, everything changed. Play had moved to the center of the field, and St. George’s forwards suddenly got control of the ball. The scrum half picked it up and made a good linking pass to the backs, who started to run with it. Our opponents marked them well and tackled man for man.

  Walker stood calmly near his goal line watching the game unfold. He wasn’t concerned. He had a defender in place for every St. George’s attacker. Meanwhile, Fernández was struggling to his feet and sprinting to assist. He screamed for the ball, which was passed to him. Suddenly in those closing seconds it had all come down to this encounter, a simple duel between the two captains.

  Walker smiled. He knew he was the better player. All the other players had stopped moving to watch the drama. Fernández yelled for support, and Walker’s smile widened as he saw a new opportunity opening for him. Fernández would either have to make a very long pass or face a tackle by Walker. If he chose to pass the ball, Walker would have a good chance of intercepting it, as he had done earlier in the game, and scoring a second try. If Fernández didn’t pass at all, Walker would simply tackle him, the ball would fall to the ground and go out of play, and St. Boniface would triumph.

  Fernández prepared for the long pass and, glancing to gauge the position of the vice captain, who was belatedly running in support, he swung his arms wide to the left to make an enormous pass to the right. With all his might he ripped his arms across his body in an attempt to power the ball to his teammate. Walker ran to intercept it, his timing catlike in its perfection, but he realized too late that Fernández hadn’t actually released the ball. He had dummied a pass, and Walker had fallen for a simple trick!

  The momentum of the feigned pass changed Fernández’s path and after a few paces he hammered the ball to the ground, scoring a try right under the posts for St. George’s. Four points all! The referee blew the whistle.

  “Yes!” shouted Fernández. “Yes! Just like Juan Salvado! I looked one way and ran the other!” The rest of his words were lost in cheering and applause. Juan Salvado was flapping his wings in wild applause, too, and beaming at everyone as he accepted their acclaim for his contribution to the dramatic improvement in our fortunes. Occasionally he stopped and shook his head vigorously in a self-deprecating sort of way, just as an orchestra’s conductor attempts to deflect some of the plaudits back onto the musicians.

  A hush descended as the St. George’s kicker prepared for the most important conversion of his life. Directly in front of the posts, all he had to do was get the ball over the crossbar to be awarded two more points and win the game. He placed the ball, took three paces back, lowered his head, lined up the ball with the posts, paused, breathed deeply, accelerated, and struck it. The ball flew straight and true. The referee blew his final whistle to end the game, and another great cheer went up from the home-side supporters. Victory by six points to four!

  The captains shook hands with each other, sportsmanlike to the very end, then with the referee and finally with the coaches of the opposing teams, and Juan Salvado returned to his terrace to take a well-earned rest. But as everyone left the field, Walker was heard to remark to his father that he thought the St. Boniface’s coaches could learn some lessons from the penguin.

  I planned to leave for Peninsula Valdés to investigate the possibility and practicality of releasing Juan Salvado in the penguin colonies there during the week-long half-term break. Maria, assisted by the prefects, had tended Juan Salvado enthusiastically when I had been out of the college overnight from time to time, so I thought I’d ask her first if she would look after him while I was away. Her smile when I did confirmed that I hadn’t asked too much. There were various poultry sheds at her house, she said, and some would be vacant, so it was arranged that we’d accompany her home after work on the day before I was due to depart on my reconnaissance trip.

  Maria lived a short walk from the college. After her husband died she’d gone to live with her brother in the house where she’d been born, helping with domestic chores, just as she had when she was a child. As well as preparing food in the kitchen, she’d feed the hens and pigs, wash and mend clothes, mind the little children when their mothers were out at work, and pump water from the well—all the things required by a large extended family.

  Juan Salvado and I met Maria as she emerged from her sewing room at the appointed time, and we set off for her house with a supply of fish I had brought with me. We were in no hurry; indeed, Maria never hurried. At Maria’s pace Juan Salvado had no difficulty in keeping up, and my companions walked at ease, their identical rolling gait reminding me of a pair of metronomes.

  I learned from Maria that in her father’s day hundred-meter squares of land on the river side of town, where the soil was poor and stony, had been given to families who were prepared to work the soil and make their living from its upkeep. Long ago Maria’s father had been a grateful recipient, and he had built a house of wood, initially with only one room. Working as a journeyman, getting a day’s labor when he could, and working at home when he couldn’t find paid employment, he had raised his family. I think Maria told me there had been eleven of them living there at one stage. The older boys eventually left to make their own way in the world with nothing more than the clothes they stood up in, and the girls had married boys from similar families and gone to start the cycle again.

  “What are your earliest memories, Maria?” I asked. I had discovered that older people loved talking about the world they remembered, and a cornucopia of wonders invariably opened up.

  “Oh, simple things. Collecting eggs from the hens in the morning to make breakfast. How cool and dark it was inside the house, and how hot and bright the sun was outside. I remember how pretty my mother was and how strong my father was, and the squeak of the gate and the water pump. I remember being taken to see the first trains at Quilmes station. I had never imagined anything could be so big and powerful and noisy. I was frightened almost to death! I remember seeing the first cars in Quilmes, too. You had to be enormously rich to own a car in those days.”

  “I wish I could afford a car,” I said with no little chagrin, thinking of my own, sitting on blocks and parked under dust sheets in England. “It would make everything so much easier going to Valdés! Have you ever wanted a car, Maria?”

  She was astonished that such a thought had occurred to me.

  “Gracious heavens, no! No, not for a moment! What should I do with a car?” She laughed. “I only want things that make me happy. So many people are captivated by things that can never make them happy!”

  “What makes you happy, then, Maria?”

  “Oh, my children and my family make me happy, and my friends. Growing things make me happy. Flowers on the tomatoes and the swelling fruit. The hens, the pigs, and the goats make me happy. My work makes me happy, too.” She paused, then said, “Growing older with the people I love makes me happy.”

  I considered this profound statement for a moment, then asked, “Do penguins make you happy, Maria?” and looked at Juan Salvado, walking along with us, drinking in the conversation.

  She laughed out loud. “Oh, yes, penguins make me very happy,” she said, and Juan Salvado looked up suddenly to see what we were laughing at. “Of course penguins make me happy! Who wouldn’t be happy walking along this dusty track with a penguin in the late afternoon?” Juan Salvado beamed at us.

  After that we walked in silence for a while, and I watched Juan Salvado as we ambled along. He looked around him all the time—at the path, at the plants, at the fences,
and at us.

  The walk to Maria’s house took about half an hour at our casual pace, and when we arrived, I was delighted to see a mixture of small buildings, enclosures, trees and bushes, patches of cultivated ground, and other spots left fallow. It seemed to be the very place to provide shelter and interest for Juan Salvado.

  But at that moment, from out of the sun, a huge, wolf-sized, rabid dog leaped over a wall and came racing toward us. Its ears were laid flat on its head and its red, frothing tongue showed between bared white teeth, contrasting with the evil in its eyes. It kicked up clouds of dust as it accelerated over the few yards that separated us. For a second I hesitated, unsure whether to defend Juan Salvado by lifting him out of the dog’s reach or by attacking the dog directly. But even as I wavered it became clear that its intended victim wasn’t Juan Salvado but Maria herself. Before I had any time to react it hit her in the solar plexus and drove all the wind out of her body, sending her staggering backward and forcing her to grasp at the dog’s head in order to keep her balance. I was astounded that she wasn’t knocked clean off her feet. The dog had its head buried deep into Maria’s middle in a frenzied attack, and its flailing tail seemed to keep driving it forward, like a propeller.

  “Oooooofff!” exhaled Maria upon the impact.

  Too stunned by the speed of the attack, I stood in stupefied horror until I realized Maria was actually fondling the dog’s ears. “Oh, you silly dog, Reno, yes, I’m home. Now get off.”

  Juan Salvado, meanwhile, was quite unperturbed by the dramatic appearance of the hound, which was clearly a South American relation of that belonging to Baskerville, and continued sniffing some wayside buttercups that had caught his attention.

  “Reno!” A man’s voice came from the other side of the wall, and the dog retreated as quickly as it had appeared, back the way it had come.

  “Maria!” I said, still feeling my muscles shaking. “I thought that dog was going to attack you!”