Where the Bird Sings Best (23 page)

“The four months passed quickly, but a notable change took place in Seraphim. He finally felt himself recognized by society. His child was not a monster but a God. All the injustices he’d suffered in life he now attributed to a dictatorship disguised as a democracy that he was going to help destroy. His abominable poverty and isolation were reaching their final days. Now a free workers’ paradise awaited him. All this thanks to the marvelous Almo. Seraphim stopped dressing like a clown. He bought himself two gray suits, shirts, ties, a felt hat, and a razor. He shaved off the hair on his face and used adhesive tape to pull his ears closer to his skull. Though I didn’t like the change, I understood him. Now he could walk unnoticed through the streets. He was, a delight to his soul, just one more person. After taking advantage of our vacation, eating delicious seafood, basking in the sun at the beach, and loving each other better than ever, we packed up our wagon to go to San Lorenzo, calculating our arrival for the assigned date.

“In those lonely highlands, night came on suddenly. It seemed to rise up out of the ocean and flow to the mountains like a black wave. We could see each other’s faces but not our feet. The dense fog, given off by the extremely dry land, fought to reach the sky, but it was so dense it could not rise. It was a cloud with roots. The mist became so thick that it ate up the road and horses.

“‘Let’s stop. It’s too dangerous to keep moving, and we might fall into a gully. Think of the child,’ I said to Seraphim.

“‘The fact is,’ he answered, ‘that with Almo here nothing can happen. God is protecting us. It’s now we have to show our confidence in him.’ And cracking his whip, he made Whitey and Blacky gallop. At first I was terrified. Then, as the wagon seemed to shake without moving forward—the compact mist and the moonless blackness proved impenetrable to our lantern, keeping us from seeing how the landscape slipped behind us—I gave myself over calmly to the rocking, as if I were in a huge cradle. I think Seraphim fell asleep as well.

“We woke at the edge of a precipice of white stone, an immense excavation resembling a stadium where they mined saltpeter. A group of miners carrying torches surrounded us. Rosauro was with them. ‘Yeco is making miracles. Even though you can see practically nothing, you arrived exactly on time to the place where we were waiting for you. Follow us.’ They guided us to the encampment. ‘Come down from the wagon, please. Our comrades will take care of the horses. Pass through here.’

“We entered a bar called Coquimbo Girls. Waiting for us there, all packed in, were about a hundred miners, waited on by three charming young ladies, daughters of the old couple who owned the place. It seemed incredible that the husband and wife, whose faces were so wrinkled they looked a hundred years old, could have such young daughters. But seeing them move made us realize that their wrinkles came from the salt that had creased their skin, not from age.

“Rosauro was highly excited. He took Almo out of our hands, undressed him, spread his legs, and showed his double sex. The workers fell to their knees whispering: ‘It’s true. He is the Yeco. Blessed be God.’

“Rosauro turned to us: ‘You can rely on these comrades. They come from all the different mines in the region. They’ve heard Recabarren’s speeches and want to fight for workers’ rights. But they haven’t been able to unite. Now, above them, in the Yeco, all our ideals converge. Now, thanks to the presence of this child, they can act like one single man. Tomorrow we are going to declare a strike in San Lorenzo. Then we’re going to extend it to the other centers. Here are the Ruiz brothers, who represent the workers. Yesterday they delivered a request for a wage increase to the mine administrator, Mr. Turner, an Englishman who refused to respond without speaking to management in Iquique. The brothers went on, aloud this time, to explain to Mr. Turner that the miners are paid four pesos for a criminally long workday. The price of a loaf of bread is a peso—that is, one quarter of a day’s pay. At that rate, it is impossible to live. Today, bright and early, the gringo told us that the company refused the increase. Which was what we wanted! Our goal is not to earn a few pesos more but to initiate the Total Revolution that will bring down the exploiters and take control of the Chilean government. Now we have a motive for beginning the process. With Yeco, the sacred flame, present we shall make the grand conflagration explode. There will be thousands of us abandoning our jobs. We shall march down to Iquique like a sea of ants. The authorities will simply have to hear us out. That’s how we’ll win the first battle. We shall go back to the mines, but we will also demand the right to form unions. Which will not be allowed. Then we’ll cause a general strike throughout the nation. The soldiers, who are also of the people, will disobey their chiefs and help us bring down the president and his court of thieves. Tomorrow we shall begin the revolt, and we shall not stop until the final victory!’

“We were able to sleep for four hours before daybreak. At sunrise, the whistle blew to wake up the workers. Instead of the usual three short blasts, there was a howl that went on for five interminable minutes. It was the official announcement of the strike. The group of leaders we’d met in Coquimbo Girls waving Chilean flags and signs, marched toward the Santa Lucía mine, which, five miles away, was working. Seraphim and I, holding Almo up like a standard, led the parade.

“The presence of the child-god convinced all the workers to take part in the strike. Like a growing flood, we rolled across the pampa, for three days, from mine to mine. The workers followed us, bringing along with them their wives and children. That multitude, which grew larger hour by hour, had to spend the cold nights out on the pampa, next to campfires. Since the fire was insufficient to warm them, the couples began to have sex among their sleeping children. That forest of febrile lovers made the ground tremble, giving life to the saline rigidity of the place. Seraphim, too, had me lie down on the vibrating wasteland. As he possessed me, I saw the desert become a garden: the thousands of ovaries of the women there, like my own, were the flowers of that region, which would never be sterile again. The enormous number of naked bodies made beautiful by the nocturnal dew that turned their bodies into mirrors that reflected the flames of the campfires, flesh burning without being consumed, increased the excitement of every couple. For hours, the gigantic waves of the orgasm traversed that stormy human sea.

“On the fourth day of the strike, the rumor spread that the chief administrator of the province would come up to Alto San Antonio to speak with the workers. It was false information that Rosauro, working with the other leaders, had put about. Tomás Eastman, the administrator, was in Santiago, replaced by a secretary with no authority who would never dare engage in dialogue with the strikers.

“The unity of the workers, thanks to the Yeco, was beginning to consolidate itself, but it was still green. What was needed to make it mature was a great anger. For the moment, the strike looked like a pagan festival. Seeing the great numbers, everyone was certain the crisis would be resolved in a few hours. The industry could not allow a stoppage of this magnitude. They would go en masse to Alto de San Antonio. The place would boil over with the animation of the workers. Improvised orators would speak from the music kiosk. Raising the miserable salary would most certainly happen.

“Everything happened exactly as Rosauro predicted. The horde of miners invaded the town in a festive mood. The Coquimbo girls, who knew how to sing and play the guitar, organized a collective dance. Revolutionary commissions requisitioned the four local bars, so the wine was free. The dancing and the drunkenness lasted until dawn. Then the Indian came running out of the telegraph office waving a phony message that one of the Ruiz brothers had supposedly sent him.

“‘The administrator will not condescend to come here! He only has contempt for us! He thinks the strike is unimportant! Comrades, we cannot allow ourselves to be humiliated! If this son of a gringo won’t come to us, we’ll go to him!’

“A shout of rage rose from myriad throats, and the multitude, like a single man, began the march to Iquique. The way was long, hot, an oven during the day and frozen at night. Pointy rocks cut feet, and thick clouds of flies took possession of the space overhead, barely letting the sunlight through. Anger caused the strikers to leave without bothering to carry food. To get to the port, they would have to fast for two days. No one cared. From living so long among the rocks, they’d become as hard as rocks. Their dried-out bodies were used to withstanding hunger. Forty-eight hours without food were nothing. And it would be easy to slake their thirst at night by licking the stones moistened by the mist.

“Rosauro called an emergency meeting of the leaders.

“‘We have to spread the word that no one is to go down there carrying a weapon. There’s a lot of dynamite in the region, and it’s possible that some fanatic will try to use it. Let me remind you that this first phase of the Revolution should seem inoffensive. We’ll show the bosses—peacefully—that without us the industry won’t function. Seeing us united like this, they will certainly raise our salary. Then we’ll go back to the mines and, little by little, arm ourselves for the final phase. Also, to avoid catastrophes, we have to give our march an intelligent head. As we go through the streets of Iquique, the Yeco will go first, along with his holy parents, then we leaders. After us, a group of comrades whom you will choose because they are fully aware of the political problem thanks to the teachings of the anarchists or Recabarren. No more than two thousand. And finally will come the enormous mass of workers whose only guide is misery, a mass we will have to learn to control.’

“The order of march was adopted unanimously. The shaman had the talent to be a general.

“On the fifth day of the strike, a Sunday, we appeared in the hills above the port, surrounding it like a horde of ants. We made our way down the slopes without a single shout, darkening the brownish earth. The people of Iquique filled the streets with great expectation. When we entered the town and organized ourselves according to plan, into a slow and mute parade, not even our footsteps echoed on the asphalt—almost all of us were barefoot because our shoes had been destroyed by the sharp rocks. The people of Iquique ran to offer us baskets filled with food, energetically commenting on the heroism signified by our long and self-sacrificing march from the highlands for the sake of justice.

“The authorities, on the other hand, treated us with a disdainful coldness, as if we were a small group of crazy pilgrims. But among those stiff bureaucrats trembled Guzmán García, Tomás Eastman’s secretary, denouncing this unheard-of arrogance. The Ruiz brothers approached him, demanding an immediate decision. His clothing soaked through with sweat, the secretary muttered: ‘I can say nothing. But the chief administrator has left Santiago and will arrive here tomorrow. He bears precise instructions on how to deal with the problem.’

“The forty thousand strikers assumed the battle had been won. They began to hug one another, and joy exploded. The strike leaders ran from one group to another but could do nothing to stop bottles of wine from being uncorked and the food baskets from being emptied. Many workers, convinced that triumph was imminent, tried to return to the pampa. For a few minutes, chaos ensued. It ended with the arrival of an army of cavalry and infantry following a noisy military band. By the time they surrounded us and the music stopped, the people’s joy had frozen.

“Guzmán García, shouting nervously despite the fact that with such a deathly silence you could hear the buzz of the desert flies, proposed to house the strike leaders in the Santa María school and the rest of the workers in the Sporting Club hippodrome. The town would lend us camp stoves, supply us with wine, fish, and beans. We applauded, and in the greatest order, marched, guarded on both sides by the soldiers, in a column that filled the street. We first went to the school, whose students, it seemed, were on vacation. The two thousand worker-leaders filled the classrooms and immediately stretched out on the benches for a siesta to rest after the march. Once the other workers got to the hippodrome and found themselves out of the watchful eye of their severe comrades, they scattered over the extensive property and recommenced the party, welcoming with pleasure the arrival of a multicolored flock of prostitutes on their day off. The Coquimbo sisters agreed to sing, and the snapping heels of the cueca dancers made the track tremble, as if herds of demented horses were running around it.

“Two hours later, in the school building, Rosauro woke everyone up and, helped by the Ruiz brothers, organized work groups to search for formulas to resolve the conflict. In addition to the salary raise, they would ask for greater security on the job—there were many accidents, and many miners, a few children among them, had been blown to bits by dynamite—and better hygienic conditions: the saltpeter powder affected the workers’ lungs, and they received no medical assistance. Their miserable living quarters were infested with fleas and lice.

“But while the head was lucubrating, the body was giving itself over to drunkenness. So that the workers wouldn’t forget what the goal of the struggle was during the heat of the party, Rosauro suggested that Seraphim, Almo, and I visit the Sporting Club. But we were to do so covertly: to keep the reprisals of the bosses from falling on the child, his messianic nature had been kept secret. When the multitude marched down the hills in exemplary obedience, it repressed any shout that might have revealed the marvelous secret. The Yeco united them with a silence more powerful than ten thousand inflammatory speeches. Even though the streets were filled with police, they didn’t stop us. For a second, their faces would turn toward us with interest and immediately turn away indifferently, as if they’d only seen three skeletal street dogs walk by.