Beyond the Pampas

by Imogen Herrad

  It could have been very ugly. The Indians had no firearms. The Welsh did. Had the woman panicked, had a few men with guns been there – who knows.

  But it didn’t happen like that.

  The woman waited until the small group had arrived and got off their horses. They couldn’t have communicated by words, because none of them spoke the other’s language. So she did something else to show them that the Welsh had come in peace: she took the most precious thing she had, the baby that she was carrying in her arms, and put it into the arms of one of the Indian women.

  Peace, said the gesture. Trust. Friends.

  And the Indians understood.

  The Welsh had named their first settlement Rawson in honour of Dr Guillermo Rawson, the Argentine minister of the interior who had done much to help the colony in its fledgling years. They called the second one Gaiman after the name given to the place by the Tehuelche: gaiman’k in their language means whetstone, because here by the banks of the river were found the best stones for sharpening knives.

  In the decades before the arrival of the Welsh, groups of Indians had traded with the Argentine outpost Carmen de Patagones, exchanging feathers, skins and meat for sugar, tea and flour and most of all, cheap alcohol, the curse Europeans brought to the Americas. They relied on the trade but were under no illusion about the inhabitants of the trading post.

  ‘Be not afraid of us, my friend,’ wrote cacique Antonio in his first letter to the Welsh; ‘I and my people are contented to see you colonize on the Chupat, for we shall have a nearer place to go in order to trade, without the necessity of going to Patagones, where they steal our horses and where the “pulperos” [tavern keepers] rob and cheat us....’25

  To the Welsh, of course, Antonio’s plains full of food was the inhospitable dusty desert. But the Indians taught them to see the land in a new way.

  After the first abundant harvest of 1867, the Welsh happily traded bread with the Indians, for whom this was rapidly becoming a great and much sought-after delicacy. Bara – bread – was reputedly the first Welsh word spoken by a native Patagonian. In time, several Tehuelche learnt to speak fluent Welsh; and some of the Welsh learnt the Aoniken language.

  And when a year later the harvest failed catastrophically, and the Argentine government refused to send more food, it was the Patagonians who came to the rescue. They took young Welsh men with them and taught them how to hunt guanaco and rhea and hare using the bolas, a kind of lasso with three round, heavy stones wrapped in leather at the end. Bolas were used both as weapons of war and for hunting. A hunter would whirl the lasso over his head then throw it out. The strong leather strap weighed down by stones wrapped itself round the neck or feet of his prey, immobilising it immediately.

  For one entire year, 1869-1870, during which the little settlement was cut off from all contact with the outside world except for the Patagonians26, all they had to live on was the meat they hunted, and plants and roots they grubbed up. Without the help of the Indians, the Welsh colony would have never survived.

  18

  I’M SITTING IN Ar Lan yr Afon one warm evening in early summer; in the living room with its Welsh dresser which Natalia’s great-grandmother had bought from the Compañía Mercantíl, the Chubut Trading Co., which had it shipped across the Atlantic; its Welsh Bible verses in cross-stitch, its framed tea-towel of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, its china Welsh lady on a side table, complete with stovepipe hat and daffodils. It’s been a hot day, and I am sunburnt and dusty and glad to be resting inside the cool walls of the old house, before I go out later with Clara Roberts and her husband Amando for a meal in Trelew. (Amando’s last name isn’t Roberts; he’s of Spanish extraction and called Martínez. Clara’s full name is Clara Roberts de Martínez. When a woman marries in Argentina, she adds her husband’s name to her own by means of a de. In Y Wladfa, I’ve met women called Hughes de Williams or Freeman de Jones, and even Jones de Jones.)

  Sounds from outside drift through the narrow gaps of the shutters: shrill bird calls, glugs from the river, the yapping of small dogs, the revving of motors from the main road, the rustle of the wind in the poplars that line the river.

  Most of those sounds should clash with the violently Welsh interior of Ar Lan yr Afon. But I’ve been here for so long now that they don’t. It feels quite natural to me to speak a mix of Welsh and Spanish; to kiss people’s cheeks for a greeting and ask, ‘A syt ’dych chi heddiw?’ (And how are you today?). Everybody kisses absolutely everybody hello in Argentina. It’s lovely.

  Into my musings sounds a knock on the door. Natalia answers it; there are greetings and exclamations in Spanish and then she reappears, with a well-nourished, pink-faced, pinstriped gentleman in tow.

  ‘Can you believe it?’ she says to me, beaming. ‘You will never guess who this is.’

  She’s right.

  ‘He is a cousin of...’

  Well?

  ‘Che Guevara.’

  ‘No!’

  Yes. Unbelievable. There he is, pointing to the dimple in his clean-shaven chin and assuring us that el Che had one just like it, only you couldn’t see his, obviously, because of the beard.

  ‘But he did have one, just like this, like mine, look!’

  For further proof, he tells us his family history, and el Che’s, of course. It sounds as though the two grew up together.

  ‘So what was he like, as a boy?’ I ask, fascinated despite myself. The man is so terribly unlike a revolutionary. But it is quite true that Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara came from an upper-middle-class, conservative family.

  ‘Ah, no,’ says the visitor, not a bit abashed; ‘you misunderstand me. I never met him. I met his father once, Ernesto Guevara padre. When I was a child. But we were closely related. Our grandmothers were the sisters Lynch.’

  ‘That’s an Irish name,’ interrupts Natalia. ‘Celtic! El Che had Celtic blood!’

  They beam at each other.

  Their grandfathers, continues the visitor (I never catch his name), the Guevaras, were also brothers. ‘So you see,’ he concludes triumphantly, ‘two of our sets of grandparents were siblings. Really, el Che and me, we’re practically brothers.’

  ‘How fascinating!’ exclaims Natalia. ‘What a wonderful story it will make for your book. – Imogen is writing a book about Patagonia,’ she explains to the visitor. ‘She will want to hear all about you!’

  To which there really isn’t anything I can say, except to nod and express polite interest. And immediately wish I hadn’t, because now el primo del Che, Che’s cousin, launches into a story about his business activities, followed by a detailed account of the religious organisation he supports, the main function of which appears to be to combat the rising tide of secularism in Argentina. (I imagine el Che revolving in his grave.) The Virgin Mary comes into it somewhere, too, but his Spanish is rapid and I am tired, and find my attention drifting away. I wonder whether his skin really is that shade of pink or whether he suffers from sunburn. Virtually every Patagonian I have seen is tanned and weatherbeaten. I also wonder what on earth has brought him here. (I never find out.)

  El primo del Che continues with a long story with a very boring punchline; drawn out by the fact that he pauses meaningfully after every sentence and glances round. Sentence. Pause. Sentence. Pause, meaningful glance. Finally, the punchline.

  We laugh politely, which mercifully covers up the hungry growling of my stomach. Finally, a knock on the door. Amando and Clara have arrived to save me.

  We drive into Trelew. The sky is black and vast and thick with stars. It’s late.

  ‘Are you sure the restaurant will be open?’ I ask, and they both laugh.

  ‘Of course it will.’

  I’m used by now to going out for a meal at ten or eleven o’clock at night, but almost midnight seems to be pushing it. We have to find a space to park, and walk some way back to the restaurant; and by the time we get there it’s after midnight.

  And the place is packed. Whole
families sit crammed around tables laden with pizzas the size of wagon wheels. There are babes in arms and toddlers and school-aged children among the adults, and everybody is talking nineteen to the dozen and merrily eating at the same time.

  We talk about politics; about the economic crash that Argentina has suffered, about the big demonstrations staged by the unemployed in Buenos Aires every week, and even down here in Rawson, the provincial capital.

  ‘I bet it’s not like that in Europe,’ says Amando.

  Well, no, I say. But we do have demonstrations. With noise and people shouting demands and everything. And there are problems with long-term unemployment too, in the old industrial areas of northern England and south Wales and former East Germany. And even worse since the financial crisis. Empty houses, dead factories, shrinking cities, hopelessness.

  Vendors come into the restaurant; they go from table to table to sell flowers and good-luck charms. Most of them are men, but just as our pizzas arrive, a small boy of no more than eight or nine appears by our table. He is selling tomorrow’s edition of the local paper. I look around for an accompanying adult, but there isn’t one. Amando is digging through his pockets for money, buys a copy and gives the boy a little extra. Both he and Clara are shaking their heads.

  ‘But that,’ says Amando. ‘Children having to sell papers on the street to earn a few coins. You don’t see that in Europe, do you?’

  19

  RAINY DAYS ARE RARE in Gaiman. I have seen it windy and sunny, or hot and sunny, and sometimes, not often, windy and grey and chilly. On the whole, it tends to be dry and windy. But this morning starts with a thunderstorm that shakes the roof. Which isn’t all that difficult, because the roof – like most roofs in Patagonia – is made of corrugated zinc sheets.

  Claps of thunder explode like dynamite. The zinc roof rattles. A flash of lightning, more thunder. The storm must be directly overhead. The lights go out with a loud ping. The radio falls silent. A grey, subdued light filters in through the window. Rain is pelting down, pounding on the roof with primordial force. There is nothing gentle about it. Everything beyond the window is hidden by a curtain of solid water. I could be alone in the world, just me and the storm. The air is heavy with humidity.

  Then, as abruptly as it started, the thunderstorm ends. The lights come back on, the radio chatters away again, and the twenty-first century reasserts itself.

  The temperature has plummeted abruptly. Heavy grey clouds move slowly across the sky. This is a face of Gaiman I haven’t seen yet. I wrap up and go out into the sharp, cool air.

  During my first visit, I was nervous of venturing outside the village. I found the sheer size of the land unnerving. I was afraid about not knowing the rules, worried I might step outside some boundary, trespass unwittingly. Everything was new and unknown. I had common ground with the Gaiman Welsh, but nothing to connect me to the other people of the place. I was nervous of them, and embarrassed about being nervous. I had heard stories of tourists being robbed in Buenos Aires and in Patagonia; and while my brain told me that people get robbed every day in every country, I had contrived to think of Patagonia as a sort of Wild South. I was very self-consciously aware of being a stranger. I didn’t yet speak much Spanish. I would have been able to ask for the way had I got lost, but probably not have understood the answer.

  Now, I feel almost at home in Y Wladfa. I have spent time exploring the streets of Gaiman and learning more about the history of the place. I have met people and made friends. I am no longer a stranger here. I have learnt Spanish. I’ve seen parts of the valley from the fastness of Lisa’s car, and now I want to venture out further by myself, leave houses and roads and people behind and walk in the land under the big Patagonian sky.

  When I was here before, it was autumn, the land a hundred shades of brown and gold. Now it’s spring, and unbelieveably green. The wind is strong and cool and sharp, it rustles the leaves of the poplars. Gravel crunches under my feet. Teros utter their sharp warning cries. ‘Tero-tero-tero!’ For a while, the sound of revving motors follows me from the town. Argentinian drivers seem to believe that noise is a measure of the vigour and power of their cars, or perhaps themselves

  The dirt roads run straight as a rule, seemingly all the way to the horizon. It’s difficult to gauge distances. On a stretch of road ahead of me, I see a lorry that appears to be stationary; unloading something perhaps. But after a good while I see that it trails a cloud of dust: it is actually moving. Impossible to make out how far away it really is; it could be half a mile or three.

  The white hills that frame the valley to the north and south, parallel to the course of the River Chubut, look as dry and dusty as ever; despite the recent downpour. The water seems to have disappeared already, evaporated or absorbed by the dry soil.

  From certain points all I can see are hills and fields: no road, no houses, no telephone poles. That’s what it must have looked like back in the days of the early Welsh settlers. Green pastures lie on both sides of the road, fields full of lean sheep and cattle. The air is cool and thin and smells faintly of damp earth. I feel small and far away out here, lost in the vastness of the land. And yet I am rarely further away than a few hundred yards from a human habitation. Chacras, small farms, lie along the road like pearls on a string.

  The breeze freshens as I walk back towards Gaiman, the clouds draw together and there is a quick flurry of raindrops just before I have reached the canal with its sheltering poplars. But the rain soon stops, and a piece of blue sky shows with bright white clouds sailing through it as though in a distant vision. A ray of sunlight breaks through and paints everything golden. A rainbow hangs in the pewter grey sky over Gaiman, over the poplars that bend in gusts of wind and the brick and stone houses ducking close to the ground.

  It is my first Patagonian rainbow, and I am still full of delight as I wander back into town. A young woman is standing in a doorway, looking out over the valley.

  ‘Did you see the rainbow?’ I say before I can stop myself. Instead of the strange look I expect, I get an answering smile.

  ‘No, where?’

  It is still visible, just beyond the trees on the other side of the river. She comes out into the road to look, clasps her hands in delight in a way I’ve only ever seen on the stage and exclaims: ‘¡Es bellísimo! It’s glorious! I wouldn’t have seen this without you. Thank you so much!’

  We chat for a while before I wander on.

  I would have forgotten about this, but a week or so later, I bump into her again in the supermarket, and she says hello. I can’t place her at first, until she says, ‘Don’t you remember the other day? Vos sos la chica del arco iris, ¿no? You’re the one with the rainbow, aren’t you?’

  After we’re through the checkout, we stand in the street outside the supermarket and chat, and then we walk as far as her house and stand outside that and chat more.

  An hour has passed when she looks at her watch and exclaims that she is late.

  ‘But tomorrow,’ she says, ‘do you want to come round in the afternoon for a cup of coffee?’

  I have never known a place like Gaiman. Not once have I struck up a friendship with a perfect stranger anywhere else in the world. Here, I seem to do it all the time.

  20

  THE NEXT DAY IS WARM AND BREEZY with lots of sunshine. We sit, not in Lorena’s spacious living room with its windows shuttered against the sun, but on the front doorstep that looks out over a dusty gravel street. Every now and again a neighbour stops to chat. Dogs trot past, intent on their own errands, not looking left or right. Whenever a car passes, it leaves a huge plume of dust hanging in the air. Time passes slowly.

  That, says Lorena, was one of the reasons she has come here to live. She’s from Buenos Aires originally, but the city was getting too noisy, too dangerous, too much. Lorena wanted to leave the rat race; she wanted peace and quiet and a better life in the country. She’s a yoga instructor; working from her studio in Trelew, the biggest city of the province of Chubut. It’s
a half-hour commute from Gaiman, less time than she spent getting from one part of Buenos Aires to another.

  ‘And look where I live now,’ she says, stretching out her arms to encompass the hills, the quiet road, the flowering trees, the dogs, the birds. One can almost guess her profession from her posture; she holds herself effortlessly upright, her movements are fluid and graceful. I might find so much perfection intimidating, were it not for the way she has of breaking out into loud shouts of laughter, or excited exclamations. Her dog, a large white mastiff, lies at her feet radiating heat and contentment.

  We talk and talk, about the meaning of life, about friendship and dreams, dogs and books, Wales and Buenos Aires and Patagonia. I tell her about my writing, about the ideas for stories and books that are suddenly crowding my head, when for years and years I’d found it impossibly difficult to think up a plot. She listens with attention and real interest, and she’s very good at understanding my Spanish, which is perfectly adequate for everyday use, but stumbles on teetering legs when I attempt philosophical questions. I get tangled up in subjunctive and word order, too many sub-clauses and the meaning of my life. Lorena nods, repeats my last intelligible phrase and probes for meaning. What’s more, she does it without making me feel at all self-conscious.

  We have more coffee, I light a cigarette and watch the blue smoke drift away on the breeze. Through Lorena, I get to see Gaiman in a different light, through the eyes of someone who is both insider and outsider: a non-Welsh perspective.

  ‘I do love living here,’ says Lorena, ‘the quality of life is so much better. When I have children, they’ll be able to grow up safely, play outside without me having to worry about them. The air is clean, people are friendly, Patricia has lots of space... all of that.’