The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán

by Louis de Bernières

  His Eminence proceeded to the kitchens and confronted Concepcion. ‘Spawn of Satan,’ he demanded. ‘Why did you give me this record? Did you wish to corrupt me further? Did you think that I am so easily damned?’

  She knew that his madness was becoming unmanageable, but she smiled brightly. ‘You have worn it out with playing it, and now you tell me that you do not like it?’

  His Eminence held the record out and with a melodramatic flourish he broke it over his knee. He spun the two halves across the room at her and turned on his heel to leave. In his chamber he was mobbed by howling cohorts of demons who clawed at his face and scornfully taunted him; he searched desperately for his Beethoven record so that he could banish them. In the kitchen Concepcion put her hand to her face and discovered that a jagged edge had sliced her cheek. She sat down at the table and felt herself go empty inside.

  32 Dionisio’s Continuing Adventures On The Way To Valledupar

  DIONISIO’S CAR CLATTERED and roared into Ipasueño, its exhaust having come off as usual on a hump in the road. He had to pass through here anyway in order to get to Valledupar, and he felt like calling in on Agustin and Velvet Luisa. He parked outside the police station, leaving the jaguars in the car with their heads poking out of their improvised sunroof; from this vantage point they swiped at unwary birds and low-flying butterflies, until their master came back out again having arranged to meet Agustin later in Madame Rosa’s whorehouse.

  He arrived there feeling sorry for himself and determined to confide in Velvet Luisa, one of the few women he knew who combined a warm intuitive understanding with a distinct lack of respect for his personal legend. She was sitting at one of the tables sucking an Inca Cola through a straw. He was admiring the elegant curve of her wrist as she held the bottle, when she looked up and smiled. She returned his affectionate hug and raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘let’s go upstairs.’

  Up in her room she slipped out of her dress and slid beneath the covers, holding out her arms to him. Out of habit, he undressed and got in beside her as though they had been married for years, having temporarily forgotten that he had only come in out of friendship. ‘Those scars on your neck are still terrible,’ she remarked, stroking them with her fingers and examining them at close range so that he could smell her distinctively musky aroma, ‘do they still hurt?’

  He ran his own fingers over the rope scar and the six-centimetre gash and replied, ‘They itch sometimes. Do you know, Luisa, I don’t know what Africa smells like, but I bet it smells like you.’

  She smiled ironically. ‘I don’t know what it smells like either, but I can smell depression around here. Have you come to see Doctor Luisa by any chance?’

  ‘Dios,’ he said, ‘am I so transparent?’

  ‘Like glass, or perhaps more like a spider’s web. So what’s up? Come on, embrace me.’

  He passed an arm around her shoulders and lay on his back, looking at the ceiling. He gathered his thoughts, reflecting that the cracks up there were like maps of rivers. ‘Today two young campesina girls, they were zambas, offered themselves to me, and I accepted.’

  ‘You find that depressing?’ She chirred her tongue against her teeth to indicate impatience.

  ‘Of course I do. I am not my own man anymore, I am a kind of public property. I have about thirty women already, and the only woman who knows me is you, and maybe Leticia Aragon. And the odd thing is that I used to have fantasies about this sort of thing, but now that I have it I do not appreciate it as I should. Why can’t I be like a bull or a horse?’

  ‘Because you are not a bull or a horse. What is the next question?’

  ‘I thought you would understand.’

  Velvet Luisa pulled a wry expression and replied, ‘Listen, I do understand you, because I knew you before you became a legend, and I remember you when you were just Dionisio who came in and got drunk and sometimes managed to get it up when you were not too far gone. But these women, they see the man who killed Pablo Ecobandodo, who survived assassination and even survived his own suicide. They see your two tame jaguars that seem to understand you by telepathy, and they see the way that you have a detached look in your face. They realise that you are not just Dionisio who used to come in here with Jerez and Juanito and get drunk. They see the man who became famous for his letters in La Prensa.’ She paused. ‘I am afraid that you have crossed over the line between man and god, and now you have to live by different rules. Everyone knows that a god is different from a man; look how many lovers Chango has.’

  ‘What are you saying, Luisa?’

  ‘I am saying that you have duties beyond the duties of a man. These women choose you, it is not you who chooses them, and you have to live up to it. It’s just the same with other things. You stood up to El Jerarca’s evil, and that condemns you to stand up against all other evil in the future, because, as far as everyone else is concerned, you are the Deliverer. We need you to be like this, and you have no right to disappoint us. Ride a jaguar and you can’t get off.’

  He raised his eyebrows at the vehemence and conviction of her speech. ‘And do you think I have changed so much?’

  She toyed with his ear, and tugged it gently. ‘You still don’t clean your ears out often enough. It looks like an open-cast mine in there.’

  ‘Thank God for you,’ he said. ‘With you I am no god.’

  ‘Listen to my troubles now,’ she said. ‘You are not the only one.’

  Guiltily he turned towards her and drew her against him. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘My sister has gone off to Spain. Do you remember we had an agreement that I would work for three years to get her through university, and then she would do the same for me? It was what made being a whore bearable, knowing that it would end and there would be a better life afterwards. Anyway, she has gone, and I have been humiliated for nothing. The stars are burning at midday for me.’

  He was shocked at Luisa’s plight, and felt in the pit of his own stomach the emptiness of betrayal and disbelief. He saw that her eyes were watering and her lip quivering, and he held her even tighter, feeling the long curves of her naked body mapping themselves against his. She pulled away and sat up in the bed, wrapping her slender black arms about her knees. ‘Do you know why women like you?’ she asked, and he shook his head. ‘It’s because they know that you love them too much to hurt them, that is why.’ Velvet Luisa pointed up at the crucifix on the wall and asked, ‘Do you believe in all that?’

  ‘I would like to,’ he replied, ‘but it is too difficult.’

  She nodded in agreement and said, ‘If the person hanging on it were a woman, then I would believe it.’

  ‘Come to Cochadebajo de los Gatos. I could give up the other women. But not Leticia perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t want to. It is better to share you than to be owned.’

  ‘Will you come anyway? You could breed animals on the plateau or something.’

  She shook her head. ‘I want to be educated. I will be a whore for another three years if I have to.’

  ‘This job will kill you, as it kills everyone who does it in the end, and anyway, I am educated and now I know that it is not everything it is assumed to be.’

  ‘I would like to be educated before I come to such a recognition,’ she replied firmly.

  ‘Do you have a pen and paper?’

  ‘Over there,’ she said, pointing vaguely towards the table.

  He got up and sat naked at the rickety piece of furniture, writing. He handed her the leaf of paper and she read:

  Respected Señor/Señora,

  This person comes with my highest personal recommendation. She is intelligent, highly motivated, and very industrious. Over the years she has frequently worked in my employ, and I can certify that, given the opportunity, she will become a credit to any organisation that gives her an opportunity to prove herself.

  Dionisio Vivo.

  ‘You know I used to work at Ipasueño College,’ he said. ‘It is not university, but the place is n
ot too bad. I am sure that the principal will accept my recommendation.’

  ‘I like the bit about having been frequently in your employ,’ she said, smiling, and then her brow furrowed. ‘But it seems that a woman cannot avoid needing the help of a man. One is always turned by fate into some kind of a whore.’

  ‘Do not be too proud, Luisa, everyone needs help from someone from time to time. Whether you succeed or not when you get there is up to you, so don’t ask me to write any essays, OK? Are you going to carry on with . . .’ He hesitated.

  ‘Whoring?’ she supplied. ‘Not if I can find something better that pays just as much.’

  ‘Look at that reference,’ he said, ‘it could be to anyone for anything, so use it to find a good job. They might take you on for something at the alcaldia.’

  She laughed. ‘The advantage of you becoming a god is that no one will refuse me for fear of divine vengeance.’

  ‘I wish I had thought of it before,’ he said. ‘I suppose I was too wrapped up in myself.’

  ‘Let’s go downstairs and wait for Agustin, and then we can all get drunk to celebrate, just like old times.’

  ‘Does Juanito still come here?’

  ‘No, he married Rosalita. She finally got him, and now she keeps him under strict control. She has turned into a true cacafuego.’

  He laughed. ‘Poor Juanito, who would imagine Rosalita shitting fire?’

  They went downstairs and found an empty table amid the smoke and the clinking of glasses. The brothel fell silent for a few moments as people recognised him and whispered to each other. Some of the whores came over and flirted with him a little, their dreams briefly flaring into arcs of flame, but went away again when it became clear that he was with Velvet Luisa tonight, and then Agustin came in and boisterously threatened to arrest everybody for the crime of being happy unless they each bought him a drink.

  ‘You are getting like Ramón,’ observed Dionisio, whereupon Agustin crossed himself at the memory and said, ‘Ramón taught me that a happy policeman is the best prophylactic against crime. A happy policeman is a human condom barricading the womb of society against the infected and obscene ejaculate of disorder and dishonesty.’

  ‘You really are getting like him. Are you sure that his spirit has not taken you over?’

  ‘No, I am not sure, but I do know that one becomes just like the people one respects the most.’ Agustin placed his cap on the table and undid the top buttons of his uniform. ‘Now let us do some very serious revelling,’ he said, and called to Madame Rosa to bring a bottle of pisco and an arepa, ‘so that I have something substantial to vomit up later.’

  At half-past midnight Dionisio reeled out of Madame Rosa’s feeling as though he had been purified by his complete lapse of dignity, and with the strangest feeling beneath his feet. He sang at the top of his lungs until he staggered into the cemetery and barked his shin on a tombstone. ‘Shit,’ he said as he fell over, and he slept stupidly for a few minutes until the cold awoke him. Still singing, he found Ramon’s grave and left upon it a cigar and a good lustration of rum. He found Anica’s grave and lurched through the same little ceremony, singing softly to her a ridiculous improvised song composed of sentimental endearments. Then he wove his way out of the cemetery and became irretrievably lost somewhere up amongst the rocks and quechara trees of the hillside.

  ‘You are the biggest lost thing I have ever found, capigorrón,’ announced Leticia Aragon, shaking him awake from his stupor. He sat up in her hammock, rubbing his eyes and reflecting that he urgently needed litres of water in order to ward off a hangover. ‘How did I get here?’ he demanded. ‘Where is my car? Where are the cats?’

  Leticia shook her head. ‘You know that what is lost always turns up in my hammock. The car and the cats must be where you left them.’

  Cursing himself he climbed out of the hammock and instantly felt the rush of pain to his head. ‘You stink,’ said Leticia. ‘Do not expect me to sympathise. And do you realise that your boots are full of squashed cigar butts and your feet are filthy?’

  He inspected his feet and looked puzzled. ‘Now I remember. I put my boots on the table and Agustin was using them as an ashtray. O, Dios, please do not tell Fulgencia that you saw me like this.’

  ‘Punishing sin is God’s business,’ said Leticia. ‘Why should I tell anyone?’

  He looked up at her as she stood with her hands on her hips in the attitude of a critical wife. He saw that she had not yet brushed her black gossamer hair and that today her eyes were completely green. ‘Emeralds,’ he remarked, according to his habit of informing her of the changes of hue undergone by her remarkable eyes. ‘Where is Anica Primera?’

  ‘I put her outside so that she would not witness her father drunk. The False Priest is tweaking her toes out there by the axle-pole, and trying to teach her some Latin. He says her clothes wear out so quickly because when she was born her umbilicus was cut with scissors instead of a stone.’

  He looked at her, smiled wanly, and then he groaned and massaged his temples, saying, ‘Shit, now I have to walk all the way back to Ipasueño.’

  Leticia softened a little. ‘Well, just for once I have made you some breakfast.’

  ‘When the Gods weep, their tears become jaguars,’ said Dionisio. ‘I think that I am about to weep tears of broken pisco and cañazo bottles.’

  ‘Go to Aurelio and get an antidote. And if it kills you, do not come crying to me.’

  ‘A wad of coca leaves is best,’ he said, ‘and a day’s diet of water, God help me.’

  33 General Hernando Montes Sosa Confides In His Son

  DIONISIO AND HIS two jaguars arrived in Valledupar two days late, which would have surprised no one in that land of transportational mishaps and miscarriages. No vehicle of any kind ever departed on time, and if any had arrived at the designated hour, it would have irritated profoundly those passengers who would have had to have waited for hours for the arrival of those whom they were supposed to meet. The railways were so undermined by subsidence and so adorned with the spoil of avalanches that each train carried picks and shovels in the foremost carriage. Aeroplanes would take off with no clear idea as to whether it would be possible to land at their destination, and at airports the Regiment of Engineers would have to peel limpet mines from fuselages, defuse cassette-players and old-fashioned cameras, remove nails from tyres, and generally do their utmost to foil the attempts of guerrillas to liberate the passengers from life in the name of the people. This they did with the protection of talismans and frenzied crossings of themselves, it being the case that no one is more reliant upon metaphysical aid than bomb-disposal experts.

  Ships travelling the mighty internal waterways of the Magdalena and the Paraná would ground themselves for days upon sandbanks caused by riparian deforestation, leaving the passengers with nothing to do except take pot-shots at manatees and caymans, fish for comelon with bits of string, and conduct short but intense affairs beneath the canvas of the lifeboats and in the gaps between the bulkheads. Sometimes all the alcohol would run out, and a collective hangover would settle upon those who believed in permanent inebriation as a protection against travel sickness, the stifling heat, and the relentless prickings of the mosquitoes.

  It was true that some of the main roads along commercial routes had been macadamised and tarred, but the tarring always melted and caused discomfiting mirages which could force a driver to career off the road in the attempt to avoid Cartagena castle or an improbable mustering of storks. In places where the tar was unwisely thick one could find oneself sloughing to a halt, axle-deep in a glutinous soup, and in places where the land had slipped it was possible to find oneself briefly airborne.

  But the road to Valledupar from Ipasueño was the good old-fashioned kind that was levelled annually by bulldozer, and for the rest of the year was free to deform itself into a whimsy of potholes and ridges. In one place a bridge had flattened itself under the weight of an enormous lorry, and now the cars and trucks drove intrepidl
y across the roof of that lorry, which had conveniently settled to exactly the right height in the gully below. A system of planks and wooden beams now rested securely upon the Stricken vehicle, incorporating it into the structure in a masterpiece of economical improvisation.

  So when Dionisio arrived in Valledupar two days late, no questions were asked; he had had to walk back to Ipasueño, find his car and his cats, and then weave his way down to the torrid plains before driving in a perpetual series of swerves to the town where his parents now lived. The journey had been filled with memories of Anica; here they had slung their hammock and made love beneath the stars, accompanied by the shrieks of monkeys and the metallic filings of crickets; here they had watched the little mechanical Negro of Puesto Grande sally from his niche and strike four o’clock upon the bronze bell outside the alcaldia; and here they had fed a cigar to a mammiferous goat and watched her contemplatively enjoying it.

  The house was redolent of Anica as well. The spare room still smelled of her straw-like aroma, and at night it was possible to go in there when there was no moon and sense her waiting for him beneath the mosquito net, her eyes glowing with the anticipation and apprehension of love. Dionisio had therefore grown to understand that there was always some sadness in going home.

  But Mama Julia and the General never seemed to change; they had not seemed to have grown older since he first remembered them. She still collected superstitions, tended wounded animals, and grew prodigious quantities of fruit. She still wore her hair in Carmen Miranda style, disapproved of her son’s appearance and his attitudes, and she still had a secret passion for Cesar Romero which manifested itself in her perfect memory for the events of each of his films. The General still combined rectitude with an appreciation of extenuating circumstance, and had such a sense of history that to him anything new was merely a recapitulation of half a dozen ancient precedents. At the moment he was home from the capital, and was in the process of reading The History Of The War Fought Between Athens And Sparta, By Thucydides The Athenian in order to determine whether or not it could cast any light upon the struggle between the Armed Forces which he now commanded and the guerrillas, complete with their unholy alliance with the coca cartels and the paramilitary. He was greatly appreciating the funeral speech of Pericles, and did not come out to embrace his son until he had digested it.