“Nothing,” I said.
“That your word? ‘Nothing’? No, no, no? You see this eye? You see this”—he searched for the word—“cloud?”
I looked into the eye he was pointing at, the eye that was the exact replica of what I had been peering at desperately since my fourteenth birthday—and the only surprise was its irrefutable existence, no cloud that I could discern.
“Moon was born of an eye. An eye—cortado, sacado del sol.”
“Gouged out of the sun,” I said.
“Yes. Night tells us this. The sun is a woman and Kaweshkar are her children. Me. I go blind. Soon. Like my mother, my grandmother. Soon. First one eye, then this eye. Sickness.”
He looked down morosely at the empty glasses, played with them for a few seconds, clink, clink, clink, signaled for more. And then he began talking in Spanish, more to himself than to me. With some words in English and some in what must have been Kaweshkar. He had left Puerto Edén, hoped he would leave the blur, la nube, in his eye behind. But it was inside, adentro, like a moon in his eye. Did I understand what it was to have something inside that wouldn’t go away? Like a broken stone that was at the bottom of the sea, that you can hear hissing forever like a serpent. And then murmured something about the sky being sick and collapsing, the sea going blind. Pena, he said. Pena. He had been born near the Golfo de Penas.
He stopped, fixed on me those eyes that were going blind as if to ensure that I was still there.
“You know what that mean? Pena, penas?”
“Pain,” I said.
“Sadness,” he said. “Sad, like when somebody die.”
“Grief,” I said.
“Grief, yes.”
“Gulf of grief, that’s where you were born.”
“Soledad. Solo, solito y solo. Alone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Why you care?”
How to even begin to answer that?
He was the first Kaweshkar I had met. The first indigenous native, in fact, of any ethnic group, tribe, race whatsoever. I had spent eleven years with one of his ancestors inside me, my incessant companion. A good part of my life brooding and researching and learning about the indigenous existence, but it had all been book knowledge, secondhand experience built out of intermediaries, all those pages and documents and travelogues and photos, all those reports and measurements from observers. To be face-to-face—yes, face-to-face—with a real human being, with real biceps and intestines and flesh, real blood and bone, real eyes that could see me, was unbearable, seared me through and through. And moreover this man, of all possible people, this Jemmy Edén Walakial who bore such an uncanny resemblance to my visitor. And for me not to know what to do, what to say, what to demand. Here was the pain I had been seeking, here was the anger, here was what I had been looking for—and I was paralyzed.
Disappointed.
Because I realized that up till then I had harbored the hope that I would find some sort of salvation on this trip, that it would end as fairy tales do, with a magic wand that would solve all the problems, bring peace and harmony.
Impossible. Impossible in this bar with this man, selling everything and anything he could get his hands on, selling his heritage as if it were a trinket. Impossible because there was no way to make amends for what he had been brought to, this last of the Kaweshkars, no way of reversing the course of extinction. The only thing one could do, as with all those who were destined to die on this earth never to return or wake again, was to keep them company, sense their sorrow. Perhaps for their sake as they faded, certainly for one’s own. Struggle together against the soledad, the grief, solo, solito y solo.
Again I felt the urge to touch him, cross the slender space that separated us and take his hand, for the first time in my life touch the skin, the káwes of this lost and desolate man who was of Henri’s lineage, touch the skin I knew so well and did not know at all. And I was about to do so, throw all prudence to the winds, show some faint flame of compassion that would not help him at all and that he did not need, but try I must, anyway, try and the hell with anyone who misunderstood. I was about to do so, break down the infinite distance between us, when I was interrupted by a different hand clamping down on my shoulder.
It belonged to—who else—Jasper Wiggins.
He stood, as before, at the angular corner of the table, peering down, not even glancing this time at his idiot lady friend at the bar. Swayed for a couple of seconds, as if unsteady on his feet, and then laid his other beefy hand on Jemmy’s neck.
There was a flash of light.
One I knew all too well, that I had suffered far too many times, but not like this, not far from home, not—
It came from the bar. From the Nordstrom lady.
In her hands, a camera.
“Say cheese,” she said, focusing again.
Another flash. Another picture. Of us. Of me. Of me.
What should I do? Cam, Cam, what should I do?
But my Cam was sleeping in a hotel bed, full of my semen and love, Cam wasn’t here to ward off the camera, the photograph of my face that I had been avoiding like the plague.
Calm down, Fitz, that’s what my wife would have whispered in my ear. Don’t call attention to yourself, just ignore it. Who cares what two drunken American tourists capture with their stupid camera at midnight, what does it matter?
It mattered to Jemmy Edén.
“Fifty dollars,” he said to Wiggins. “First photo, fifty dollars. Real Patagonian Indian. Second photo, discount. Thirty. Eighty, you owe then. You want five photos, more discount. One hundred for five. You take three more, only extra twenty.”
“Sure, buddy,” said Wiggins, taking out a hundred-dollar bill. “Let’s snap a few more. Nice souvenir.”
I sprang up. “No,” I shouted. “No more photos. I’ll buy them back from you. A hundred each photo. And two hundred for him.” I fished into my pocket and put all the money I had on the table. I didn’t know how much was there but certainly not four hundred dollars, not even close.
Jemmy examined Wiggins with interest, suddenly sober, all business.
“You pay more?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Wiggins said, and flashed a thick wad of bills. “Now it’s you turn, Mr. Friendly Face.”
“Back at the hotel,” I said. “I have enough money.”
“Put up or shut up, Friendly Face.”
I fled into the night.
Trying to convince myself that when that Nordstrom bitch developed her photos, they would be flummoxed by the result, thinking the bar Stoppito’s was bewitched. Next to the real, authentic, exotic Indian there would be another one in the place of the American who had obnoxiously dissed them, two Kaweshkar side by side. They’d show the photos in question to their friends back in Little Rock or Nebraska or Topeka and make jokes about voodoo magic and the strange guy who wanted to buy back his photos, as if we were trying to steal his soul, can you believe it?
Sneaking into our hotel room as if I had committed adultery, betrayed Cam’s trust, I tiptoed to the bed. She had not moved from where she had lain an hour ago, the same position, tummy down and innocent and breathing gently into the pillow. I should have woken her and blurted out everything, but I didn’t want to spoil our expedition, listen to her berating me as a fool for going out, I couldn’t stand her exasperated look, her sighs, once again poor old helpless Fitz, untrustworthy. The day after tomorrow, in less than thirty-six hours, we would be at sea again, heading for Puerto Edén and she would be none the wiser.
The next day—Saturday, October 10—I stayed in the hotel room all day, overcompensating for last night’s misadventure, while Cam sallied forth, keen to tour the city, the cemetery, a museum with a replica of the Nao Victoria, Magellan’s ship, another museum run by the Salesian brothers—“that way I can show you the sights when we come back here from Puerto Edén.” That’s how sure she was that the ceremony awaiting us would liberate me from my phantom, “but we don’t want to risk someon
e photographing you, Fitz, confusing you with a penguin! Not when we’re about to cross the finish line.”
She returned full of enthusiasm and little anecdotes several hours later—“Good you didn’t come, there were quite a few tourists snapping shots of everything they set their eyes on. And you would have been indignant, Fitz. There’s a mansion open, where the Brauns used to live, the richest family in these parts—all about how they brought progress to Patagonia with all those sheep, but not a word about the natives who had to be cleared off the land first, not a word, Fitz.”
Cam nattered away and then stopped, wondering if I wasn’t feeling claustrophobic, stuck, “obediently, so patiently,” she said, in this room after all those weeks of basilica skies and the open witchery of the ocean, her words, she was getting ever more poetical, ever less scientific as the journey advanced. “How about if we creep down to the hotel bar? No one there just now when I passed it—and anyway, who snaps photos inside a silly bar when outside they have the most spectacular vistas in the universe?”
I declined. I knew all too well who might snap a photo in a silly bar. What if the infernal Wiggins and his mate were staying at the Cabo de Hornos, what if they spilled the beans about last night, what if Cam discovered, through them, oh Lord, my dishonesty? No, better to stay here, lapping up her praise of my discretion.
It was a relief, then, when Sunday arrived and we were able to check out of the hotel without trouble. Not a nosy tourist in sight at four in the morning. Only a canopy of stars above. Not even haze in the sky to mist over the brightness with which they shone. Another favorable sign. I reminded Cam that, according to the Kaweshkar legends, the souls of the dead were up there, behind those celestial bodies, soon to be joined, if we were successful, by Henri. Or perhaps Henri was already there, up in that intense firmament, guiding us to his home.
Our real guides were, of course, waiting for us on The Southern Cross, Frano and his wife Elba—delighted to come along for the ride.
It was smooth sailing out along the Straits—into the Paso Ancho and past Bahía Agua Fresca and then Dawson Island.
“Dawson,” Vudarovic said, meditatively. “The missions were there, administering the last fatal blows. Dawson.”
Elba whispered something in his ear and he shook his head and she insisted and he turned to us. “My wife wants you to know that I almost ended up there myself. The military turned the island into a concentration camp for political prisoners back in 1973, after the coup. I had been agitating for the rights of natives, so they thought I was, well, dangerous, but Elba’s father was a colonel and he intervened and here I am. It would have been strange—to be shut up where all those Patagonians I had been studying and writing about had been enclosed and—Oh, look.”
He pointed at the mountains, where the sun was tingeing the virgin snow on the highest peaks with faint but ever-deepening color—contrasting with the foliage, rocks, and glaciers still wrapped in the steepest shade. Then the pink summits of the mountains changed to gold and yellow, and then to dazzling white, as the light crept down into the valleys, illuminating all the dark places, and bringing out the tints of olive-greens, grays, and purples, in the most wonderful combinations. How many mornings like these had Henri contemplated from his canoe, the pinnacles he called his rising from huge domed tops, and his those vast fields of unbroken snow and had he seen, as we did as we advanced into the Paso Inglés the glaciers running down to the edge of the sea? And all of a sudden we were blessed, as he must have been, by an iceberg crashing into the water a mere hundred feet away and then floating past us. And each bank and promontory richly clothed with vegetation of every shade of green; and the narrow channel itself, blue as the sky above, dotted with small islands, each a mass of verdant splendor, and reflecting on its glassy surface every object with such distinctness that it was difficult to say where reality ended and the image began.
And it was at that moment, when we thought there could be nothing on this planet more magical, then it was that a whale rose in all its majesty and stayed above the vast, turbulent horizon for what seemed an eternal minute and then gave a cry out of heaven itself and disappeared into the deep. By now we were beyond enchantment. Here was yet another magnificent sign that all would be well, that nature was sanctifying our enterprise, that not everything had been corrupted since the days more than a century ago when Henri had witnessed a similar kind of miracle.
And then, like a mocking echo, we heard the whir and thunder of a machine—Jim pointed a finger to the north. A giant helicopter was speeding toward us, then hovered over our craft.
“He wants us to stop,” Captain Wolfe yelled above the din. “Stop and be searched.”
“Stop then,” Frano said. “These Chilean navy people can be ferocious.”
“Not Chileans,” Captain Wolfe said grimly. “Americans.”
And idled his engines.
A ladder descended from the helicopter and a Navy SEAL climbed down it. As soon as he hit the surface of the ship, London Wolfe sprang at him, with startling agility for a man of his age. The Navy SEAL, however, had no trouble in subduing our champion, though the old man, now face down on the deck, his arm pinned behind his back and an enemy knee immobilizing him, kept cursing with every insult in his extensive vocabulary. Only quieting when his left arm was twisted to a breaking point, supplemented by the words, “Please don’t force me to hurt you, Captain Wolfe.”
And then the Navy SEAL waved his free hand and two more men came slithering down the ladder, fully armed. And behind them I saw, to my consternation—it couldn’t be, but yes, there they were, in the full horrible light of day, Wiggins and Nordstrom, clambering their way down the ropes, landing next to me and Cam.
Its human cargo delivered, the amphibious helicopter moved away and then perched nearby on its pontoons, as those whirring dreadful asps rocked the waves that had been so calm. When the engine was hushed, the ensuing silence felt even more foreboding than the previous racket.
So Wiggins’s voice carried loud and clear. There was not a hint of the Midwest in it. On the contrary, it sounded very much like someone born and bred and educated in New England. And it was soft and polite with just an intimation of irony and amusement.
“Mr. Foster, Mrs. Foster, if you’d be so good as to accompany us.”
“Why? What have we done?” Cam asked, indignantly.
“Agent Nordstrom and I have not been authorized to disclose the purpose of our mission. Only to deliver you safely to the destination chosen by our superiors.”
Frano Vudarovic exploded.
“You are in violation of Chilean sovereignty, sir. We are a free and democratic country and I will see to it that this outrage is reported and punished, be assured of that.”
Wiggins wearily extracted a piece of paper from inside his jacket. “There’s really no need to show you this, Professor, but seeing as there’s nothing you can do to stop us, what’s the harm? Authorization from the head of your Armed Forces, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, your very own former president—and cosigned by Minister Correa and Minister Rojas. Given the National Security Pact subscribed to between Chile and the United States, blah, blah, blah, the American Navy is allowed to apprehend two fugitives from justice, blah, blah.”
Vudarovic did not deign to look at the document.
“But you can’t detain me, a Chilean citizen. I’ll denounce this travesty at the nearest port.”
“Hey, Nordstrom,” Wiggins said, with a toss of his head, “didn’t the Chileans warn us that this guy was a troublemaker?”
“Indeed they did,” she answered. She seemed to be enjoying herself. Around her neck hung the satanic camera that had forced me to flee Sotito’s bar. I eyed it nervously, absurdly more afraid that she would reveal my escapade to Cam than of being arrested.
“And didn’t they say that the professor here had learned a lesson back in ’73 and that he’d been given a second chance then and wouldn’t want to misbehave again? So, no publicity, Profess
or. Or there will be consequences. And now, if you’d stop playing the hero, we’d like Mr. and Mrs. Foster to gather their belongings and come with us.”
“Where are you taking them?” Wolfe asked, still pressed to the deck, speaking from the side of his furious mouth.
“All you need to know,” Wiggins said, “is that the Fosters won’t be returning to the States in your ship, Captain. How you deal with that situation is not our concern.”
He signaled to the Navy SEAL to release his prisoner.
Captain Wolfe refused the hand of assistance offered and stood up on his own. He brushed himself off, his eyes slanting downward, not wanting to meet mine—it was as if he had been stripped of his identity, his masks and pretensions. For all his bluster, he had not kept his promise to protect us, defend his ship.
“Captain,” Cam said. He didn’t react. “Captain.”
He turned to her, his face congested with shame.
“Captain,” Cam said, and there was a bizarre alacrity in her tone, almost as if she was taking pleasure in this episode. Did nothing ever dampen her spirits? Couldn’t she see how truly fucked we were? “I want you, dear Captain Wolfe, to proceed with Professor Vudarovic and his wife to Puerto Edén. The elders are awaiting him and the donation he will be delivering on our behalf. Once you’ve completed your mission there, please return our Chilean guests to Punta Arenas and continue on to New Bedford. If we can join you at some point during your voyage home, we will do so, but I don’t believe that is likely.”
Was she just trying to put a good spin on this utter disaster? Or was her joy authentic, surging from some mysterious reason only she could divine, some implausible silver lining?
“I let you down,” Wolfe said. “It’s my fault. The Falklands, the damn Falklands! Idiot, idiot, idiot! I should’ve known. Never trust the fucking Brits.”
Wiggins nodded sagely. “You shouldn’t and we don’t. But they did alert us, you can say that for them. So Nordstrom and me, we had to leave Hamburg and fly down here—missing Oktoberfest, how about that! But if you’ll excuse us, we have some photos to retrieve.”
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