Guano (15 page)

Spain didn't have to ask for Chile's hand in marriage, but a modicum of restraint, diplomacy oblige. At the very least, Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, Washington's ambassador to Chile, insisted, let's not destroy an entire city.

All I see is a village, Núñez replied.

Realizing that Spain would not back down, Kilpatrick asked the captain of the American fleet opportunely anchored in the port to threaten the Spaniard. His name was John Rodgers.

Listen, Mr. Núñez, it's nothing personal. It's just that we're trading and …

Enough, interrupted Núñez, who was no more familiar with him than with Boston. I will be forced to sink the American ships. And even if we have only one ship left afloat, I will bombard Valparaíso.

He added that he and the queen preferred honour and no ships to ships and no honour. It was his sound bite for the history books.

A little bird told Simón that the wings of destiny would soon help him sweep aside the prison walls – or at least the newspapers did.

The destruction of Valparaíso began on January 31, 1866. Ecuador had declared war on Spain the night before. Simón read about it in a dispatch. The article, between patriotic outcry and a call for an alliance among South American republics, didn't explain the reasons for the decision very clearly. But Simón knew that Admiral Núñez would waste no time in responding.

Night fell on the squares, streets and houses. Then shells fell on them. The Chilean merchant fleet, anchored in the port, was destroyed. Whistler, on board an American ship, had just painted it the evening before, thinking that Ecuador joining the war wouldn't change anything, reflecting that, all the same, the merchant fleet was exposed in the extreme, and he added a lantern here, a mast there – a little masterpiece in ochre and blue that depicted the frightened shadows of the ships quivering in the water.

Ramón was complaining. Running was no longer his forte, even less so zigzagging under exploding projectiles. He announced that a section of the west wall had fallen, that there would be rocks to climb and the half-buried limbs of two or three guards to look away from. The boat waited near the worm-eaten wooden dock in the port. Worm-eaten wood, you say, not worm-eaten iron or stone. And don't forget the letter; keep it close to your heart.

Thank you, Ramón, I won't forget.

Good. Just tell your artillerymen comrades to spare my house.

And he unlocked the cell.

Here's a pistol, just in case.

They walked, playing the part of guard and prisoner. They crossed the long yard. Cannons and guns powdered the night. Once they arrived at the opening in the west wall, they discreetly shook hands.

That's where their friendship ended.

Simón ran toward the port. Even more than the shells, he had to avoid people seeking refuge outside the city. Women were crying. Husbands were calming them by slapping them across the face. A few dead were lying primly on the ground. Their faces couldn't be seen, nor could their blood. They were positioned neither too close together nor too far apart, sustaining the distress: a body appeared just as the last one was forgotten. They all looked alike.

In fact, it could have been the same extra who, once Simón passed, got up and ran, taking a shortcut and lying down further along his path. A question of budget.

Simón finally reached an alley that sloped down toward the ships. Behind him, the bombardments hung butterflies of flames in the far-off hills. They were growing in number, calling out to one
other, the first acting as a beacon to the rest, which quickly settled around it.

At the end of the alley were two smiling eyes. A child was playing with a dead dog. The guts formed the roads and the teeth made the mountains. Simón didn't dare shoo the child away for fear of alerting the Chilean troops. He rushed into a dangerous back alley that he thought would lead to the port's square. He looked back once. The child had discovered the body of a man. The eyes formed the ponds.

Simón finally reached the docks. Ahead of him the scene had changed to one of amputated masts and eviscerated hulls. The Chilean merchant fleet seemed clenched in pain, and the moon, which was full, seemed delighted. From the distant sea rose puffs of smoke as if from pipes, floating up in compact white balloons, which dissipated slowly, finally dying on the spindles of stars. Spain was shelling to its heart's content.

There is poetry to this war, Simón thought. It will last. As long as art can be created from it, it will last. And he took another look at the painting come to life. The fleet was a little too far off, a bit diffuse in the smoke. He would have changed the composition, if only to save him squinting, and rowing. My arms are already sore. Art should at least be accessible.

The decrepit dock was guarded by two sailors whose wrinkles made them twins. They had been handed weapons and given orders to let no one sail. They were afraid of spies escaping – I mean, sure why not – or panicked citizens giving themselves up to the enemy. Keep an eye peeled, gentlemen. Indeed one of them had only one left.

Simón approached with the stealth of a storybook assassin: hugging the walls, disappearing in the shadows. Once he arrived near an empty stall that smelled like fish, he loaded his pistol.

He wondered how he would reach the boat. He wondered how he would get around the men and other similar things. How was it possible for a stall to stink this much?

He wouldn't be able to hide out there for very long.

A projectile crashed headlong into the port square. The Spanish ballistic strategy consisted of sweeping the city, starting with the peaks and ending with the toes. In fact, they decided to tickle them (a second shell hit a pile of rowboats) and keep tickling until it turned to pain (a flowerbed took a third hit), until no one was laughing anymore.

Simón had to do something.

He got up and pointed his gun at the sailors. Still reeling from the bombardment, they didn't take the overture very well. And yet it was fairly conventional, and they should have understood it instinctively. Weapons dropped for lives spared. Those words in a different order.

Thinking instead that it was a landing, the sailors raised their weapons. The words
swine
and
Spaniard
were heard and then they started firing. They missed Simón, putting holes in the stall. They did their best to camouflage themselves behind large fishing nets to reload. One of their heads stuck out above a cable and another's ass from behind a barrel.

Simón thought about life and death, his and theirs. He wanted to see Montse again, and time was of the essence. Troops had been alerted. A shell had just landed in the alley where the child was. The child.

Since the child was probably buried under the rubble, nothing mattered anymore. Certainly not the lives of the two old men shooting at him. The child's death excused the rest, veiling any crime behind a darker injustice that would obliterate the rest of it, Valparaíso, Peru, everything, his hopes, everything again, his love – well, almost everything.

Simón rushed the old men who were still reloading their weapons, tearing the cartridges from each others' hands, explaining to each other how to do it. Simón positioned himself behind the first one, killing him with a bullet to the head. The second one looked at him with his one black eye. Fear had hung a wet star in it.

He should have begged for mercy; instead, he took his knife out of his old boot. Instinct kills as many as it saves. Simón stuck his pistol in the hollow of the dark pupil. There was very little kickback. The eyes became symmetrical, two craters, one smoking, the other already extinguished. The body dropped onto the nets.

Simón quickly found the boat Ramón had prepared; cookies wrapped in a newspaper was the confirmation. He rowed at a steady pace. Once past the remains of the Chilean fleet and a few bodies impeding his progress, he let the surf rock him and nibbled on a cookie. He rested. His head was killing him.

He asked himself whether he had killed for a woman.

Basically, he believed, people always kill for a love somewhere.

To see people again.

Simón's explanations kept being interrupted by explosions; between cannonballs, he managed to make it understood that he was a lieutenant. He was hoisted aboard the
Villa de Madrid
, then left to his own devices. They would bring him to the captain soon, after the operation. The captain was occupied with his spyglass and adjusting aim, you see.

Simón roamed the deck a little. His aching muscles limited his journey to as far as the nearest crate; he sat down. The lack of sleep was making him hallucinate an opera set: ropes, smoke, sails and stars. The cannons were the tenors, the whistling projectiles the sopranos. Sailors were walking around fearlessly, taking over from one another on cards and cannons. They knew that they were the only ones singing. Valparaíso, defenceless, stage right, was silent.

The Spanish solo continued. It was knocking the city senseless, and it was slumping like a tired spectator. Simón leaned his elbows on the ship's railing, curious. He saw that Valparaíso on fire was no more than rippling gash, like bright lips in the night.

A pale stroke of light under a large black door.

That sort of thing.

Something to keep the artists busy.

The pointlessness of it! Núñez was fuming. A small, insignificant village like Valparaíso. Once the merchant fleet was condemned to the depths, there was nothing more strategic about this attack. They were sending a message, of course, they had been repeating it for hours; the Chileans had probably understood it by now or had had their eardrums split.

Núñez scratched his sideburns. He had to think.

He gave the order to cease fire.

He shut himself in his cabin.

Pinzón had hit the economy in vain – the economy was the arm – and he had hit the population – the population was the legs. The thing was to hit the heart.

Yet it was a naval battle, and ships were what would carry the day. The navy would be the sinews; victory would be found on the sea. They had to beat the enemy in naval combat. Once vanquished, it would retreat to a few strongholds and look out at an ocean now out of reach. The ships of the Spanish armada would dot the water like ominous little islands in motion. Like a barrier reef on which their boats would sink. So there could be no world without Spain. And then he would restore the honour Pareja had lost.

As a matter of fact, Núñez thought, an allied fleet was approaching. Spies and natives had told him. Its ships were anchored in the Chiloé Archipelago, alongside Abtao Island. Five ships, one of them an old friend: the
Virgen de Covadonga
, captured by the enemy. An attack, victory, Peruvians swimming with the fishes. A statue, one can only hope.

Núñez went out on deck. He breathed, in long inhales, held his breath, waiting till he had to exhale. That felt better. Morning was breaking. He didn't want to think anymore. He scratched his sideburns. In the air, he could hear Valparaíso crackling and warming the entire bay. The clouds looked like marshmallows.