“You know, you and I, it’s true, we never clicked. What do you want, sometimes it’s like that between men,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
He paused, as though to gauge the impact of his words.
“But what I’ve never forgiven you, is to have fallen into your father’s trap. Just like Carmen. You know how I love and respect your mother, no? When your grandmother died,” he said, referring to a time that he never missed a chance to resurrect, “it was Emma and I who took care of her and saw to her education. Working hard, sometimes day and night. But the way your mother worshipped your father, she knew what I thought about that. And I didn’t mince words. And you, too, I’m sorry to say it, you fell into his trap. Not like your brother, who had the smart idea of getting away from that man, all the way to Brazil. Putamadre, but what did you see in him? Why waste your time looking into the death of a man who spent his whole life humiliating you?”
Alberto was seething, didn’t know what to say.
“The truth is that your father was a horrible man. A man with no morals. And you want to know what his problem was? For him, there was nothing in life that was sacred. Not your mother, not your brother, not you. Not his work, nothing. The only thing that counted was him. Him and only him.”
Pedro shook his head, as if to say that there were no words to describe Roberto’s behaviour.
“If you want to know what’s really a surprise, it’s that he didn’t end up like that ten, twenty years ago. That’s the miracle! Because your father was a hopeless egotist, a dangerous man. Wake up, for God’s sake!”
It was then that Alberto raised the shotgun, the barrel towards the sky, and before he had time to press the trigger, Pedro said in one breath:
“Okay, okay, I get it, you don’t want to know. That’s your right. But let me just tell you one thing. Okay? If you want me to leave after that, I’ll go.”
And so Alberto listened to him give chapter and verse on his father’s amorous liaison with his secretary when Carmen was pregnant with him, a liaison that continued after his birth, to the great distress of his mother, who fell into a lengthy depression.
“My father,” interrupted Alberto, “was a man of his time and of the country where he was born. That’s no excuse of course, but he was neither an angel or a devil. He was an extravagant man, impulsive, but a man like many others of his generation. You know, in a family, in the end, everything comes out into the open, and what I’ve heard about you, at the beginning of your marriage, doesn’t exactly look like the behaviour of a choirboy.”
Pedro stared back at him without blinking.
“What are you trying to do? To change the subject by slandering me?”
His uncle then began to describe the dynamics of Alberto’s family, as if he’d forgotten that Alberto himself was one of the characters in the story. Alberto was soon astonished by all the details he provided. He told himself that his mother, clearly, had confided in his aunt and uncle much more than he suspected. After a few relatively innocuous anecdotes concerning his father (his temper tantrums, his rashness, his outbursts), his uncle, his voice now full of foreboding, took him back to a glacial Montreal night, when all the windows were coated in frost, in the duplex whose very memory made Alberto shut his eyes. The husky, unremitting stream of words from his uncle, his distinctive accent, both songlike and staccato, typical of the disreputable neighbourhoods of Valparaiso, the city where he had grown up, transported him into that matrimonial bedroom where electric heat struggled against the onslaught of the cold. He clearly saw, bathed in an orange light, in this room with the thick beige carpeting, his mother bedridden like a mummy. As he remembered it, a vapour inhabited the room. His mother’s night table was teeming with pill bottles. This was her sanctuary. At that time, like a traitor, like a coward, Alberto was secretly planning his escape from the household. “Like a traitor, like a coward,” because his father had just (for the fourth or fifth time?) left his mother. Alberto had gone to the kitchen for a glass of water, with the unavowed intention of seeing how his mother was. Having entered her room, he put the glass down on the chest of drawers and sat in the armchair, very close to his mother who, although awake, did not turn her head towards him or express any emotion. Her eyes were like those of a blind person: they settled on no point in particular, and betrayed nothing. When she finally spoke, he pretended to be surprised by her words, which, as usual, spoke of the cruelty of men, meaning males, and the pleasure they took in destroying those dear to them. But why this pleasure? He didn’t reply, knowing that was his role. It comes, she said, from an unconscious desire to avenge the humiliations and suffering they themselves had endured, it comes from their being unable to see others as happy, it comes from their undying hatred of women. She fixed her opaque gaze on that of Alberto, as if to draw out the life concentrated in his eyes, as if to cling to the painful compassion, perhaps, that she saw there. Then Pedro arrived at his presumed destination, at the extravagant sum of money piled up by his father during his two decades in Montreal, a sum his mother had just learned of due to the stupid error of a bank employee (“Excuse me, Mrs. Ventura. Truly. We were sure you were aware of the existence of this account …”). That, to his considerable surprise (since he had never heard anything about a secret bank account), was what his uncle told him.
Pedro said no more, but Alberto knew the rest. All it took was a telephone call from his father for his mother to join him in Santiago, just one call. How to talk about that, because you cannot reasonably go on calling it love. And then, one hot morning, without warning, some ten months later, he abandoned her for good, and went to live in the South.
Pedro was a few steps away, frowning. A light wind stirred his white Clark Gable toupee. He was downcast now, and Alberto could see it. But having heard enough he turned his back and went into the house. When, after a short time, he heard cawing, he glanced out the window: his uncle had disappeared. And so Alberto feasted his eyes, as his father had so often done, on the dramatic glow of the sunset, and when he raised them he saw (God in heaven, was he hallucinating?) Llaima emitting a delicate wisp of grey smoke in the form of a question mark.
8
That night, surrounded by chirping crickets, he walked up the path to the road. The flashlight’s cone of light made the least irregularity, the smallest bush, seem threatening. When he heard dead branches cracking, or a rustling of leaves, he clutched his rifle butt more tightly, and strangely, that made him feel better.
On the horizon, the starless sky was as dark as the surrounding landscape. Far off he spotted, partly obscured by branches, the lit windows of a house. He came down a hill, and as he skirted the house’s property, barking echoed in the night. When he stopped in front of the little aluminum gate, two large dogs, one black and one brown, entered into the cone of light, yapping, showing their fangs, and leaning their paws on the wire fencing.
A light went on on each side of the door. A woman’s silhouette appeared. She called the dogs, who instantly obeyed, disappearing into the darkness. Soon all that was heard was their spasmodic breathing. The woman, whom Alberto couldn’t see, asked who was there. When Alberto showed himself she approached him, smiling, her face cross-hatched with deep wrinkles, which she tolerated, one would say, stoically. Her hair, coarse as straw, colourless, fell onto her pale and ravaged cheeks. She opened the gate’s latch, and said to him: “How glad I am that you’ve come! Come in, it’s so cold.”
As he negotiated the winding flat-stoned path, Alberto made out, twenty or so metres away, a large shed. Was he dreaming, or did he really see, between the bushes, through the half-open door, cranes and agricultural machinery, stored every which way? Discreetly, before entering, he left the firearm between two ferns.
The woman offered him one of the two living room couches. For reasons unknown to Alberto, she excused herself in a low voice, dipping her head, and disappeared into a long hallway bathed in dim light. As Alberto sat himself in t
he middle of a leather couch, he heard in the distance canned laughter from a television set. The room, full of heavy furniture, was lit only by a single lamp with a large shade, in one corner.
Soon the laughter from the television stopped. In the hallway a light went out, and heavy steps made the floorboards creak. A curly haired colossus appeared in the living room’s doorway. He seemed to have emerged from a deep sleep. His face was puffy, he had bags under his small eyes. He approached, limping. Alberto stood to receive his embrace. Unlike his wife, Raúl made no comment on his impromptu visit, just sat down in front of him, massaging his bad leg with one hand. For a long time, during a silence broken only by the squealing of the radiator pipes, Raúl looked about him idly and conspiratorially, as if waiting for something to happen that could provide a distraction.
His wife reappeared, carrying a bottle and two glasses on a tray.
“Some cider?” Raúl asked.
Alberto nodded yes, although he was not really interested in drinking.
The woman leaned over to pour the liquid into the glasses. Raúl took one, got up while looking straight at Alberto, and took a large swallow. Alberto tasted the cider in his turn. The cold liquid relaxed him, did him good. Raúl’s wife sat off to the side, in the half-light of the adjoining dining room.
One arm stretched over the back of the couch, the glass of cider balanced on his thigh, Raúl talked about the weather, which he described as a farmer’s number one enemy. This cursed, erratic weather that can ruin a whole year’s harvest in one night. Then he addressed, sarcastically, the subject of the recent arrival of oats in the region, a grain that was making the fortune of some of his neighbours. He had no illusions, things would unfold as usual: the big players would get rich quick, while the others would get taken to the cleaners.
After about fifteen minutes, in the course of which he listened less to what Raúl was saying than he watched him moving in slow motion, he thought: So this was your best friend, papa? But what did you have in common?
When Raúl went silent, just to keep the conversation going Alberto told him about his father’s burial, and then he said right out that he thought the authorities were hiding from him the truth about his death.
Raúl emptied his glass, which made a dull sound when he put it down on the low table. His wife, without his having to give her a sign, came to refill it.
“If I understand you right,” Raúl went on, “you’re playing detective, is that it?”
Raúl stared at the ceiling for a long time as if calculating how far it was over his head, then puffed out his cheeks to stifle a belch.
“We’re going to talk straight to each other, you and me. Okay?”
He half opened his mouth, his eyes on Alberto.
“Now, right now, I’m almost in the street.”
He savoured a moment of meaningful silence, and explained, as Pablo had done, half furious and half demoralized, that he had gone in with his father so as to supply more wood to the Araucania Madera Company. He had gone deeply into debt in order to acquire all the necessary equipment, and today, with Roberto’s death, the banks were after him, threatening to seize everything he owned, because he couldn’t make his monthly payments.
“And I suppose that you, obviously, you can’t do anything, right?”
Raúl’s wife coughed.
“Raúl, please, the boy has just lost his father.”
Raúl’s eyes, which were oscillating from barely controlled anger to deep depression, did not leave Alberto.
“You see where I’m at?”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you. But your being sorry doesn’t help me.”
Once again, he left his mouth half open.
“And you know what? Right now, I don’t give a damn about your father, or his memory, because I have to keep on, I can’t treat myself to eternal rest. And believe me, normally I have a heart, I’m loyal, but when your father began to get all cozy with the Indians, when he tried to …”
“Raúl, Raúl,” said his wife. “Please … Where will this get us?”
One look from her, and he turned away.
“You understand, he didn’t want to pay me what he owed me. He’d forgotten that without equipment he was nothing, without my contribution, Araucania Madera would have cut him off. I had no choice. At a certain point, I had to dot the i’s, and of course he didn’t appreciate that.”
When he spoke, he only moved his free hand. It was as if the rest of his body was inanimate.
“He left me in the lurch to go in with the Mapus. He did that to me, who’d known him forever …”
He went mute, as though to be sure that Alberto understood the extent of his anger and his pain.
“And you know what? Your father made a fatal mistake. He trusted people you can’t trust. They did him in, and for real …”
He opened his mouth to laugh, but no sound came out. And so he started to describe a Saturday at the end of summer, a humid Saturday, bearable only in the shade or at nightfall. He described with lessening animosity, bending down from time to time to grab his glass of cider, the unfolding of a fiesta of the “Mapu,” as he called them, as if those two syllables expressed everything he had to say about “those people.” It was a fiesta to mark the chief’s sixtieth birthday.
“It took place at night, and the men, seated around a picnic table, were drinking like fish, as usual. The women were talking among themselves, and the oldest took care of the food. The children were playing football, there in the middle of the backyard at the chief’s house. There was music, doubtless one of those bachatas that the Mapu like so much. And Roberto was there, holding the hand of Amalia, the chief’s daughter, with whom he was living, and whom he found irresistible. You knew about that, right? Well, Roberto was there, talking with the chief, who according to him, as he told me one day, was ‘pragmatic, loyal, and brilliant—’ The night went on, the music got louder, and couples started to dance. Roberto dragged Amalia onto the dance floor. And there they were, turning around with the other couples. They danced and danced, and as he had drunk, he got dizzy. But it wasn’t unpleasant, he felt like he was on a merry-go-round, like the one we got onto when the circus came to Cunco.”
Thanks to the alcohol, Raúl’s words, it seemed, were reviving him, rousing him. Seeing Alberto almost as a friend, doubtless aware that his story was interesting him, he picked up the pace even more. And Alberto, despite the constant jibes at the Mapuches and his father, had no trouble imagining Roberto losing control as he swung his hips, as the pine branches turned into spears, and the faces of those not dancing became more and more ghostly. His father was experiencing, and those were apparently his own words, the first signs of fatigue, in particular severe pain in his shoulders and forearms, as if he had just exerted a huge effort.
“And you know what he did, our dear Roberto? Just as they lowered the music for the gift-giving, he gave a sign to one of his workers, for him to roll into the yard a brand new tractor for his good friend, the chief. That met with hearty applause, of course. Because when you give them something, you’re their friend. But try to make them understand that they also have to share things from time to time, and you’re up against a blank wall. The chief went up to him to embrace him, and whispered in his ear: ‘Thank you, but what I really need, is inside you.’ That’s what he said. I’m not making anything up, it’s Roberto who told us all that, right?” he said, turning to his wife, who nodded her head.
Now darkness had taken over the yard. The men could no longer hold themselves erect, some were seated, casting about stupidly, others were whimpering and muttering. His eyes heavy, assailed by a headache that was growing worse by the minute, Roberto tripped twice, but he attributed that to the cider. Amalia proposed, in a persuasive voice that was unfamiliar to him, that he lie down on a bed. No dear, she should leave him alone, he just wanted to enjoy himself.
When he fell again, he began to laugh, he laughed uncontrollably, as if there could be nothing more hilarious. And putamadre, he saw that he had sprained his ankle. Very well, he would do what she wanted, but on condition that she help him. One arm around Amalia’s shoulders, he passed through the kitchen, where there were some old women sitting around the table on which were piled pots, dirty plates, and mismatched glasses, then into a bedroom where he let himself drop onto the bed.
“And so,” Raúl went on, “Roberto said to the chief’s daughter, taking her by the hands, that he never thought he would end his days so happy. He told her that he was ready to do anything for her, agree to anything, make any sacrifice. For the hundredth time, he asked her to give him a child, and as usual she shook her head no. Then he felt like he was being swallowed up by a black hole. He closed his eyes, saw first in his imagination, then in a dream, storms, he glided over dense forests of tall pines and passed through torrents of hail like those that had so impressed him during his years in Quebec. And then he came to earth near a baby carriage, where he made out the angelic face of the child he would never have.”
In a calm voice, as if to eschew any superfluous dramatic effect, Raúl said that his father did not open his eyes immediately, certain as he was that his lashes were glued down, and this bizarre idea made him want all of a sudden to get up. The problem was that he couldn’t. He saw the sky, a grey sky with puffy clouds lanced by a lost swallow. He saw, and recognized at once, the tops of poplars. A drop of blood came to his mouth, again he tried to stand upright, and this time he lifted his head. Putamadre, what was he doing on the ground?
Mesmerized, spellbound, as if the scene were being played out before his eyes, Alberto clearly saw his father lying on the ground, not able to get up. Awkwardly he turned himself around, and it was then that he saw Diego, limp, hanging from a clothesline, like a sheep that had just been bled. His blood ran cold. He remembered that the day after the fiesta, his men had to finish transporting a hundred or so logs from the land at the south end of his property. He peered into the distance, but there was not a single man in sight. Not a single cow. Not a single piece of equipment. (“Those brutes had taken everything, obviously …”). He rolled himself as far as the lawn, collapsed face down on a pile of humid earth, swallowed some of it despite himself, spat for a long time. He had never felt so much pain in his chest. After a few attempts, he was able to unbutton his shirt, and when he saw the scar that, like a snake, zigzagged down his side, he let out a bloodcurdling cry, and began to shake like someone possessed. But what on earth … He sank back, prone, and stared up at the angry sky that, swirling lower and lower, threatened to swoop down on him. Like an idiot, a thread of saliva escaping from between his teeth, he moaned and muttered, not knowing himself what he was saying.
Eucalyptus Page 9