A Distant Father (2 page)

He wants to know, he declares, if I’ve been to the whorehouse in Angol and how much it costs to spend a night there with one of the girls.

I brush crushed peanuts off my blue trousers and say that such a conversation between a pupil and a teacher is improper. He says that if I don’t want to tell him about life, he’ll ask advice from the priest in the confessional.

He adds that his birthday party next Friday will offer more than just cake and candles; there’s also going to be romantic North American music that people can dance and make out to. His sisters asked him to invite me. Teresa’s seventeen and Elena’s nineteen.
I’m twenty-one. Everybody around here is very respectable, and I have no doubt that Teresa and Elena come from a good family, but every time they go to Santiago, they buy dresses with plunging necklines and tight jeans that cling to their hips and squeeze the air out of my lungs.

Tonight I went to bed without eating and was rude to my mother. I’m irritated because I’ve never been to the whorehouse in Angol, just to the hospital there. It angers me that I had nothing to tell Gutiérrez. I too would like to know the girls’ prices.

I’m listening to the radio, a special broadcast with Lucho Gatica y Los Peregrinos. A bolero called “Amor, amor, qué malo eres”—“Love, love, you’re so wicked”—is all the rage, and the band plays it three times. Fans calling in to Radio Sureña have voted it the tune of the week. I like the part that goes, “Proud towers that once stood so tall collapse in humiliation.” Those words speak to my heart. Someday, the little Gutiérrez sisters who make sarcastic faces at me will collapse in the mud, and I’ll watch them from on high.

Even though it’s night already and I still have to prepare my Monday classes—in history, I’m supposed to cover a very big topic, namely the Spanish Civil War and the murder of Federico García Lorca—I get up from the rough sheets that Mama washes until they’re immaculate and that the climate dampens and chills until they make me shiver.

I head for the mill.

Cristián pretends not to be surprised to see me and asks if I’ve got any cigarettes. I offer him one and in return he uncorks a bottle of red wine. He fills two milk glasses that measure a quarter of a liter each and instructs me to drink mine down in one gulp. When the glasses are empty, I feel like a rocket exploring the darkness of space.

According to the miller, we’re heroes, he and I. The simple fact that we haven’t left the village is epic.

“I give the children bread, you give them education,” he tells me, spitting a few tobacco grains onto his
apron. “The world’s not made for small villages. But our presence makes them big. One of these days, some high government official will give us a decoration. There’ll be a pavilion in the square with your name on it. Your father was a cosmopolitan man, a Parisian—he must have really loved you if he was willing to bury himself in this place for five years. We spent many hours playing cards together.”

“Have you ever been to the whorehouse in Angol, Cristián?” I fire the question at him impetuously, drunkenly, stupidly.

He fills his glass with wine. I cover mine like a coffin so he won’t pour me any more.

With a gesture that’s supposed to be majestic, I get to my feet and look up at the starry sky. My mind’s spinning faster and higher than the cosmos.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday, Jacques. You’re not teaching any classes, I’m not baking any bread. The train to Angol leaves at noon. But the action doesn’t start until after dark.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say from under a hail of meteorites. “If we go during the day, I’ll have time to buy a birthday present for Gutiérrez.”

“The sisters’ little brother?”

“He’s having a birthday party next Friday. His sisters look at me and laugh when we’re in the square.”

“The younger one has the hots for you.”

“For me? How can that be, Cristián?”

“They both have a thing for Frenchmen.”

“But I’m a Chilean, and a poor one at that.”

“But you’re young. You have a profession, you haven’t settled for milking cows. Someday the education ministry will send you to Angol. Or even to Santiago.”

“It worries me to hear you say that.”

“Why?”

“If we go with whores today and then I get a teaching position in some other school and someone declares he’s seen me in the whorehouse, what happens to my academic career?”

“The principal of the high school visits the girls, too.”

“Don’t give me that!”

“Whatever you do, there’ll always be someone trying to impose limits on you. Don’t go looking for them on your own. What are you going to give Gutiérrez?”

“A pair of boxing gloves. I saw him shadow-boxing on the basketball court.”

“He’s fifteen years old and he’s already getting a mustache.”

“He takes after his father. Have you heard anything from my dad?”

“Not a thing, kid.”

“You said that funny. Is he dead?”

“He’s not dead.”

“Well, you say you haven’t heard from him, so how do you know he’s not dead?”

Cristián pours himself another glass of wine, emptying the bottle.

I lie down on the floor.

“What’s wrong with you, buddy?”

“I’m drunk.”

“That’s all right. But there’s no need to get all dramatic. What’s bothering you?”

“Gutiérrez’s sister.”

“The younger one or the older one?”

“The younger one, Cristián. Those tits she’s got, they make me want to squeeze them until they pop like grapes. Her teeth gleam in the night. I imagine myself biting her lips, and then she touches me …”

“How?”

I don’t want to answer. I’m standing in the universe, vertical and alone. I’m a dog beaten by moonlight. Why did my father leave us?

“The younger Gutiérrez girl’s a good choice. The older one …”

“What about her, Cristián? What about the older one?”

“She’s very mature. She could cause you problems.”

“What sort of problems?”

“I’m gonna get another bottle.”

“Answer my question first.”

“Strange things go on in that girl’s life. Do you remember when she went away on vacation in January and didn’t come back until August?”

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing. I just find it strange, that’s all.”

“I left the village, too. I went to college in Santiago.”

“Right, you were gone two years. She was gone nine months.”

“And during that time the younger one used to go walking around the square with a fireman, hanging on his arm.”

“And then, all at once, both sisters took to wearing less clothing. It was as if they weren’t from here anymore. Didn’t you ever notice?”

“That girl drives me crazy. If I go to the party on Friday and dance with her, I’ll probably tell her I love her.”

Cristián takes two cigarettes from my pack and puts one in my mouth. We light them from the same match.

“Our trip to Angol will help you avoid doing that.”

“Anyway, I don’t have much money. I can barely afford cigarettes.”

“I’ll pay for the girls. You can reimburse me later.”

“All right, Cristián. I’ll buy the train tickets.”

I gaze up at the moon. I feel like rolling on the ground.

The following day, we’re in the train station. The station clock is stopped at ten minutes after three. According to my watch, it’s almost noon.

Cristián appears, carrying a small, coffee-colored case, like the kind people who sell aspirin use. He’s wearing a beige jacket, and he’s so closely shaven no one would ever take him for the miller. His red-veined eyes reveal the only evidence of last night’s heavy drinking.

I’ve put on one of Dad’s jackets. It used to be a bit too big for me, but the years seem to have shrunk it. The little silk label sewn into the lining reads
GATH Y CHAVES, SANTIAGO
.

Precisely because my destination is the whorehouse in Angol, I want to look as though I’m going to the city for “work-related reasons.”

And so I’ve brought along a book by Raymond Queneau that the editor of the newspaper wants to publish in installments. Prose is easier than poetry, but I do
get all caught up in the fates of the characters. Maybe that’s because so little happens here. We’re secondary figures, not protagonists.

As the train comes rolling in, whistling and huffing smoke, Augusto Gutiérrez appears on the platform. A toothbrush and a tube of Kolynos toothpaste are sticking out of the lapel pocket of his school jacket.

“Are you going to Angol?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply, blushing hot and red all of a sudden.

“What for?”

“The movie theater’s showing a film about Paris. I want to see it because I’m translating this book.”

I show him
Zazie dans le métro
.

“What’s the name of the movie?”

“Quai des Brumes,”
I say, inventive but disciplined.

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not.”

“Will you be back for my party?”

“Of course. I plan to buy your present this very afternoon.”

The train stops in the station. The stationmaster looks up at the Roman numerals of the clock, whose hands always point to ten after three, and passes a cheese sandwich to the engineer. As usual, nobody gets either on or off.

But the painful images come back: I’m returning
home, I get off the train, Dad gets on the train, the train leaves.

“I’m afraid they might close down this line,” the stationmaster tells us. “Railroad’s streamlining, and this stretch isn’t profitable. I hate to think about being out of a job at my age.”

“What time’s the train leave?”

“In a couple of minutes. My wife’s fixing a thermos of coffee for the engineer. We make a little extra income with things like that. Incidentally, I’ve also got fresh homemade Chilean éclairs, a hundred pesos each. You interested?”

“When we come back.”

Augusto Gutiérrez pulls at my sleeve and makes me lean toward him; my forehead bangs against the hard frames of his spectacles.

“Please take me with you to Angol.”

“We can’t do that, kid.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a secret.”

“You’re going to the whorehouse.”

“No we’re not. I’m going to buy you a present. I don’t want you to see it before Friday.”

“As long as it’s not a globe. You already gave me a globe last year.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“What can I say? All those countries, right there in front of me, and I’m stuck in this pit.”

He gestures toward the cow that’s crossing the tracks.

“How am I any different from her?”

“You’re different because you know what you want and you have self-awareness. The cow’s always just a cow. She’s not even aware she’s a cow. She’s all cow, all the time. But you, on the other hand—your awareness makes you free.”

Gutiérrez takes off his glasses and reveals his eyes, the soft, sad, watery eyes of the myopic. He says, “I’m going to be fifteen years old, Prof. I don’t want to feel humiliated next Friday because I’m not a real man yet.”

“You’re a child, Gutiérrez. We’ll talk about it when you turn sixteen.”

“I’m going to be dead by the time I’m sixteen. You’ll recognize my grave because a mound will rise up over it. The same mound that forms under my sheets every night.”

The miller grabs the boy by one ear and pulls him several meters in the direction of the street. “Go on home, you annoying little brat!”

While he’s trying to get out of Cristián’s grip, the boy shouts to me, “Professor, sir, take me with you to the whores!”

I climb into the car so I won’t have to see him anymore. But he breaks away from the miller and comes to my window. “I’ll fix you up with my sister,” he says, panting. “She’s crazy about you.”

“The younger one or the older one?”

“The younger one. She wrote you a letter.”

“How do you know?”

“She keeps it in her dresser. With her bras and panties.”

“What does the letter say?”

“You have a distinguished air.”

“What else?”

“You’re a cultured man.”

“Me?”

“She looks at my globe and says she’d like to be lying on the beach at Acapulco with you.”

“Acapulco? How did she come up with that?”

“She listens to that song on the radio, ‘Remember Acalpulco, María Bonita.’ She’s out of her mind for sappy boleros.”

“What else does the letter say?”

“Other things.”

“Tell me.”

“If you take me to the whorehouse.”

I give him a tap on the forehead. “I can’t, Gutiérrez. I’m your teacher, not your pimp.”

The train starts to move. Before climbing aboard, the miller aims a blow at the kid, but he dodges it with catlike agility.

A pair of boxing gloves is a good idea, I think with a sigh.

Just as the train leaves Contulmo, I see my pupil on the platform cup his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. “Do one for me, Jacques!” he shouts.

He means I should climb on top of one of the girls and dedicate the ensuing bonk to him.

In the little fishing harbor near Angol, we lunch on fried hake and Chilean salad. I remove the onions from my tomatoes, picky eater that I am.

Cristián drinks half a liter of white wine and then accepts the fisherman’s offer of a siesta on his boat. The miller covers himself with sacks and a net and asks me to wake him up before it gets dark.

When the girls are open for business.

We have to show up early, because demand is very high on weekends.

I go into town and start looking in shop windows. I see articles of clothing made by local artisans, things like scarves, caps, heavy woolen socks. A chess set whose pieces are Japanese samurai, advancing sword in hand. A professional-quality soccer ball autographed by Leonel Sánchez. A Mexican parrot made of thin silver sheets. A Bavarian clock with two dancing boys in leather pants. A photograph of Marlon Brando in
The Wild One
, sitting on a motorcycle with an unlit
cigar between his lips. A deck of cards whose backs are all reproductions of
Playboy
centerfolds.

And I also see some splendid red leather boxing gloves.