Where the Bird Sings Best (43 page)

“Forgive me.”

“Excuses are worth nothing. I spent a good part of my life suffering horrors to obtain what I gave you once. If you get it for nothing, what value will it have for you? Do you know how far I had to walk through the mountains to find that bark you ate? Try to catch just one leech. Find the cavern of the ancient gods. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough for you to reach it.”

“Calm down that puma of yours, please. Let me go. I’ll work for a few weeks and come right back to give you whatever I’ve saved.”

“If you know you have to give it, you’ll never earn any money. That’s how you
huincas
are. You hate to pay your debts.”

“Not me!”

“You’re lying. You’ve been lent a life, and you spend all your time complaining because someday you’ll have to give it up. If you don’t pay me right now, I’ll set the puma on you!”

The puma, as if to confirm the witchdoctor’s threat, came forward, growling, toward Jaime. Then it went up on its hind legs and rested its huge front paws on Jaime’s shoulders. With the beast’s huge maw in front of his face and its three hundred pounds resting on him, my father weakened and sank to his knees.

The Mapuche said, “
Tüngn
.” And the animal stepped back to leap onto the trail, sniffing the maqui bushes. Tralaf pulled a necklace of human teeth out of his jacket.

“I need one molar to make it complete. When I have it, I’ll be the owner of my soul. I’ll be able to enter and leave the
huenu
, the place of the spirits who know. Give me that tooth! You’ll be left with a hole in your gums and that will always remind you of the freedom you obtained.”

Jaime said nothing. He opened his mouth wide. The Indian chewed some herbs, spit them out in the form of a paste, coated the base of the molar with that green material, and then, tying it up with a little hair rope, pulled it out with one yank. Jaime, who had his eyes closed, suffered not one bit. When he finally raised his eyelids, neither the puma nor Tralaf was there.

Returning seemed easy; all he had to do was to follow the tracks he himself had made on the muddy path. Unfortunately, it began to rain. In a short while, the ground turned into a long puddle, erasing the path. When the rain stopped, a dense mist darkened the forest. Jaime began to walk without knowing where he was going. He walked for hours. A glacial cold hardened his wet clothes.

Worn-out, he finally found himself in an esplanade where a church stood. He ran to beg refuge. The three doors of the wide portico were locked, as were the windows. On both sides of the wooden building, the roof hung down, providing some protection. He stretched out there to rest on the dry ground. He slept deeply until the cold woke him. It was snowing. He could barely feel his feet. If he stayed there any longer, he would die frozen. With strength drawn from desperation, he kicked open the main panel of the central door and entered the nave.

Judging by the amount of dust that had accumulated, it was clear that no one had visited the place in a long time. Jaime undressed and used a small lace mantle that was spread over the altar to dry himself. Suddenly he felt he was being watched. From a corner, half-hidden by the semidarkness, a priest was watching him. My father, naked as he was, hiding his sex with his hands, walked toward the priest to apologize. He found himself facing a cast-iron Saint Francis, dressed in a wool cassock.

Laughing like a madman, he stripped the statue of its cassock and put it on. The wool heated him a bit, but the temperature went on dropping. He searched the church. In a small armoire, he found candles and matches. He broke up two chairs, piled the pieces on the altar, and made a fire. The heat lulled him. He sat down at the foot of the cross that was on the back wall and, accompanied by the serene gaze of the wooden Christ, went back to sleep.

A gust of wind came through the broken door and made the flames fly up. Jaime awoke in the middle of a fire. The avid flames were devouring the temple. Half of the roof collapsed. Amid sparks, flames, and tongues of smoke, almost blind, Jaime, who knows why, instead of escaping immediately, fought to pull off the wall the cross, which along with its Christ must have weighed more than a hundred pounds. Finally, carrying it on his back, he managed, with a few light burns, to make his way to the esplanade.

The building was a total loss. By daybreak, it had become a large rectangle of ash and blackened beams. As the sun rose, amid a deafening chorus of birds, the heat came. Jaime found himself clean shaven, dressed as a Franciscan monk, and without a penny. If he didn’t want to return to the circus, the only possibility he had to get some money was the crucifix. Then the thought came to him:

“In every town there is a church. I’ll carry the cross for a few miles, no more than ten for sure, and I’ll give it to the first priest I see, explaining to him that I saved it from a fire caused by lightning; that in committing the heroic deed I lost my clothes from being attacked by the immodest flames and ended up naked; that I had to cover myself with Saint Francis’s cassock, which miraculously escaped the fire. Yes, Your Eminence, all the money I had in the world was turned to ash, but what does my misery matter if this most holy Christ was saved? Of course, a bit of help from Holy Mother Church, if willingly given, would not be scorned. And if to those abundant coins or banknotes, whichever pleases your respectable will, could be added trousers and a woven vest, and perhaps also a T-shirt to be worn below it, because wool scratches, and a pair of shoes—socks are unnecessary because I never use them—my thanks would be sincere and my faith solidified.”

Hope gave him courage, and he carried the weight of the grand crucifix, assuming with a smile the posture of Jesus marching toward Calvary.

“It is,” he thought, “after all, a comfortable position. Resting the base on the ground helps a good deal. If you keep your spine straight, there’s no need to get melodramatic.”

After an hour and a half, he entered a village. Disillusioned, he noticed it had no church. He calculated, judging by how few houses there were, that no more than four hundred people could have lived there. He swallowed hard and advanced, sweating, step by step along the town’s only street. The few inhabitants who were at their windows watched him pass with their mouths hanging open. A few children came running out to follow him. An old lady approached and, after giving him two potatoes stuffed with meat, dried the sweat on his brow.

“Ma’am, where does this road go?”

“It goes up toward Valdivia, holy penitent.”

Holy penitent
? Now they were confusing him. Better to keep moving in order to find a church as soon as possible. He passed through four more towns. In each, he was given food and wine. As he passed, the men would remove their hats and the women would weep. When night fell, a peasant let him sleep in his stable, preparing a good bed of hay for him near the cows. After kneeling before the cross and praying, with a pail of fresh milk next to him, he gave Jaime a wrinkled banknote he’d been keeping in the lining of his hat: “For when you reach the Sanctuary. Light some candles in my name, Juan Godoy.”

He heard himself say, sweetly, “That is what I shall do, brother,” before he fell asleep snoring. He left early in the morning, after evacuating the diarrhea caused by so many empanadas, fruits, glasses of wine, and gallons of milk. After four hours of easy walking downhill, he reached the Llollelhue River, which wound its way around a small city, La Unión. In the distance, the steeple of a church stood out, calling the faithful to mass with its bells. As he crossed the bridge, a lady approached dressed in black, carrying a basket filled with cheeses and bottles of chicha.

Jaime did not need to be asked twice. And while the lady struggled and puffed under the weight of the Christ, he swallowed half a liter of the chicha and devoured a cheese.

“I have to make this effort. Because of my bestial temperament, I killed my husband. I made him screw me every night until dawn. When his heart exploded, he spit a spurt of blood into my mouth along with his last words: ‘Horny bitch!’ I was right in the middle of an orgasm, and he cut it off. I’ve remained ever since with that lack of satisfaction. I can’t stand it.”

“How long ago was it that your husband died?”

“I buried him yesterday.”

Jaime understood. The woman wasn’t ugly, and under her mourning costume, the bulge of her buttocks was promising. Without saying anything more, they walked into a wheat field, allowed themselves to be covered by the sheaves, and fornicated until the sun began to set.

“Take this money, holy penitent. When you reach the Sanctuary, light a few candles before the Holy Virgin in my name, Guacolda Verdugo.”

That was the second time he was told the same thing. He asked, curious but astute and addressing her in familiar terms,

“Are you sure you know what I am and where I’m going, Guacolda?”

“Do you take me for an idiot, Pedrito?”

He had told her his name was Pedro Araucano, just in case this slut became pregnant and tried to find him.

“Dressed as a Franciscan monk and with a cross on your shoulder, you must be a tremendous sinner. Maybe you killed your own father and have vowed to carry that heavy cross on foot to the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Tirana in the grand north. That kind of penance is very popular in our region. Several before you have tried to carry it out, but the heat of the desert killed them. Look here, Pedrito, I have another banknote! If you like, you can give me a farewell.”

And the widow kept him prisoner between her powerful thighs for an hour and a half. Jaime did not enter the city. He decided to skirt it. He realized that walking around clean-shaven, dressed in a cassock, and carrying a crucified Christ was good business. He would slowly make his way through the villages being fed by simple, superstitious people, passing himself off as a repentant sinner. Then he’d get to Santiago, plump and with a bankroll.

That night and all the following nights, it was easy for him to find someplace to sleep. All he had to do was knock at a door and beg for a bed with a martyr’s face. They would give him a bed, dinner, and, if it was a woman by herself, even naked company. Jaime was surprised to discover that holiness was a powerful attraction for female believers. Before leaving, he was in the habit of saying, “If you wish, I’ll light some candles for you when I get to the Sanctuary.” They would always slip a carefully folded banknote into his hand.

When he passed by a large estate near Valdivia, he saw a long line of trucks carrying peasants. All of them, even if they lacked Sunday clothes, were well combed and had a clean handkerchief tied around their necks. Before they helped them onto the trucks, some well-dressed strongmen gave them a cardboard box adorned with the face of the presidential candidate Don Luis Barros Borgoño. Jaime bent over as if totally weighed down, put on his tragic face, and advanced as if an invisible centurion were whipping him. The driver, the strongmen, and the peasants all crossed themselves. An elegant fat man ran behind him and, helping him lift off the cross, gave him a cardboard box:

“Pray for us, holy penitent, but right now, because God will hear you better than anyone else. Today is Election Day, and our candidate has to win!”

Jaime went down on his knees, put his hands together, and, since he knew no prayers, muttered the multiplication tables. He tried to cross himself: he touched his belly, then his head, then his right side, and finally his heart. It didn’t occur to him to kiss his fingers.

When he saw they were staring at him in an odd way, he said, “Whatever I say or do does not come from me. God has made me insane in order to separate me from men of sin and make me His slave. Don’t try to understand. The snail is also a rose.”

They were dumbfounded. Jaime went his way toward Valdivia. In the box he found half a chicken, half a liter of wine, half a bar of chocolate, half a pack of cigarettes, and a five-peso note. How little a vote was worth! It saddened him to think about those ignorant people trucked like sheep, selling their freedom for a miserable sum. He passed by the entrance to another large farm. Again he saw a line of trucks carrying peasants. Bribery much like the first case: these too were handing out boxes. The only difference was that the candidate’s picture had changed: now it was Don Arturo Alessandri Palma.

My father pretended to stumble, fell on his knees, and with crocodile tears began to mutter multiples of five, the ones he knew best. He waited for everyone to make the sign of the cross, carefully noting the movements so he wouldn’t make another mistake. He too made it, and then, trying to improve the business, shouted, “Long live Christ the King!”

They all responded at the top of their lungs: “Long live Christ the King!”

Then he added: “Long live the Lion of Tarapacá, our future president, Alessandri!”

The reaction was less enthusiastic but more professional. Despite his efforts, they gave him a box and nothing more, asking him to implore their triumph. Then they helped him to put the Christ back on his shoulders. He walked a couple of miles and sat down to rest under a willow tree next to the river. Majestic white clouds were passing through the sky, the wild flowers were offering their nectar to the greedy insects, the birds were singing to celebrate the first heat of spring, and the murmur of the river contaminated the world with its peace.

Jaime opened the box of the intransigent bourgeoisie and also that of the candidate of the Liberal Alliance. Both Barros Borgoño and Alessandri offered the same menu and the same miserable amount of money. It was clear that the food came from the same wholesale caterer. Jaime, in a terrible mood, put together the two halves of the chicken. They fit together perfectly! Astounding coincidence! He’d been given the two halves of the same chicken. In his hands he was holding the long-sought national union.