Where the Bird Sings Best (44 page)

He tried to join the two halves of the chocolate bar, but that did not work. He felt disillusioned. It would have been fantastic if they, too, had fit together. Then he would have been forced to believe in miracles. Finally he settled for having reunited the body of the chicken. He decided not to eat it but to give it a proper burial. He was on the side of the road, digging a hole, when the trucks belonging to the two parties passed in Indian file, a demented worm infecting the calm with its shouts of false enthusiasm:

“Hurrah for Don Luis!”

“Boo! Long live Don Arturo!”

“Boo!”

When peace was restored and the trail of dust the trucks had left had dissolved, Jaime opened the half liters and drank from both bottles at the same time. Then he put both half bars of chocolate in his mouth and, with his cheeks ballooned out, lit the twenty cigarettes in order to smoke them all at the same time. Then he vomited, shit, and wiped his backside with the two five-peso notes. He wanted to sleep and never wake up.

No matter what he did, no matter what he searched for, no matter what he found, he’d always end up without roots, living somewhere between heaven and Earth. Despite the fact that he firmly believed that having a nationality meant being sick, that reaching patriotism meant also reaching caricature, that imposing borders on the Earth was a blasphemy, that speaking a single language was a form of mental retardation, he desired desperately to acquire those limits. Jodorowsky. What a hideous last name he’d been given!
Jodo
,
joder
, to annoy to a great degree, to fuck, to rob, to walk with bad luck. From then on, he would use only his first name, just Jaime. At least in French and by adding an apostrophe Jaime turned into
J’aime
, I love. Do I love? Did I love? Shall I love? What does that mean? Of what concept with no basis in reality was being talked about? By naming something, all you create is one thing: a new word, as empty as the old ones, another illusion. He felt like calling the Rabbi. He refrained from doing so. He began to think:

“If I give him a lot of importance, that freak will end up invading my mind the way he did with my father. Why do I want to see him? So he can analyze this political masquerade for me? He won’t tell me anything I don’t already know. Both the landowning oligarchy and the Liberal Alliance fear the independent development of the proletariat because it could lead to a revolution. Alessandri, a clever demagogue, will take control of the masses, promising the moon and the stars all in order to subordinate them to the economic interests of the bourgeoisie. And the immature poor will sell their rights for a bowl of lentils. Appearances are always deceiving, and words take the place of realities.

“This crucifix, which is supplying me with a delightful life simply because I carry it, is another falsity. Why do they sculpt Him in such pain? A simple fakir can sleep on a bed of nails and pierce his flesh with needles without blinking an eye. Three or four wounds are going to make a God moan? Absurd. It hurts, sure, but it’s something anyone can stand. His situation is a joke; he’s been sentenced to death, him—he’s immortal. Up above, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the angels are laughing their heads off. After the farce of dying, barely three days later, he will arise again in full majesty.

“Nailing him to a cross cannot reduce His power much, not the one who can produce an earthquake with a shout, split the veil of the temple, and paralyze the sun, causing such an uproar that the dead leave their graves to see what’s going on. Why don’t they show a luminous, triumphant Christ in churches? It would be a bad example to the workers. If I, instead of lugging around these hundred pounds, were shooting light all over the place, I wouldn’t get the money, food, and sex I get but instead whippings and a sore backside for being a political agitator.”

He felt a desire to go to the city to see how the bribers watched over the herd so it would vote correctly. He staggered as he walked. That wine was pure alcohol. He saw an old man sitting on a paving stone.

“Good day, holy penitent. May God forgive you and help you. Want a piece of my sausage?”

“No, my good man. The Eternal One has already given me my daily bread and wine. But, tell me, aren’t you going to vote?”

“I wanted to, but the hen got sick, and I took care of her and missed the truck. They’d already left.”

“Which trucks?”

“Either group. It’s all the same to me. As long as they pay me.”

“Does that seem right to you?

“Not exactly right. If it were a ten-peso note and a whole chicken, then that would be perfect.”

“So why don’t you walk to the voting place?”

“For nothing? Never!”

“Look here my friend. I’ll buy your vote.”

“I believe you. You can’t be making fun of me, because the saints don’t lie. How much?”

“Come with me. When we get there, I’ll give you a whole chicken and the ten pesos you wanted. Deal?”

“Deal! For whom do I vote?”

“Luis Emilio Recabarren. I want him to have at least one vote. He deserves that.”

And they went to Valdivia. Before they entered the city, they crossed paths with the trucks that now carried a flock of drunks. Each one had invested his five pesos in red wine. They no longer cheered the candidates, but they were certainly shouting:

“Long live my buddy Lucho!”

“Hurrah for my bay mare!”

“The Calle-Calle River shall triumph!”

He made sure the old man voted and didn’t betray him. He then bought him a liter of wine, a chocolate bar, a pack of cigarettes, and handed him the ten-peso note. The peasant, out of pure pleasure, began to dance a cueca that made him shake so much his false teeth fell out. Jaime, disgusted with himself, walked right down the main avenue, intent on crossing the city, all the time thinking:

“I too behave like a jerk. In truth, I walk around disguised as what I am. I’ve always lived like a martyr, carrying the weight of some unknown guilt. The only ugly thing is that I can’t be myself except by disguising myself. When I take off the mask, I lose my identity. Walking this way, through here, I run the risk of meeting up with a priest. He’ll treat me as a thief, a fraud, a profaner, and he’ll be right. They’ll throw me in jail. Maybe behind bars I’ll find my homeland. Name: 34735870. Nationality: prisoner. Country: jail. Sex: unsatisfied. Special markings: mutilated in the faith.”

He stopped outside the church. It was locked up. He took off a shoe and threw it against the door with such force that the noise of the impact made the bell vibrate. A priest came out, his face red with rage. He stared at him from the portico. Then he hitched up his cassock and picked up Jaime’s shoe. He poked his index finger through the holes in the sole. He slowly walked down the steps, staggering like a drunk, and threw himself into Jaime’s arms, transformed into a fountain of snot and tears. His weeping was so heartbreaking and his embrace so sincere that Jaime, either out of contagion or shame, also wept. The monk separated himself, went running into the church, and returned with a pot of water, towels, and soap. He began to wash Jaime’s feet, murmuring in a heavy German accent, “This is how I should imitate Christ. So many years sacrifice calls me and I continue clinging to my obligations, which give me excuses for not carrying the cross on my shoulder. You redeem us, holy penitent! If we do not imitate Jesus in His martyrdom, how will we know his infinite pity? Carrying this crucifix along the roads, you transform the whole nation into a temple. If now I cannot abandon my flock and go with you, at least give me the opportunity to follow your footsteps.”

And the German took off his brand-new boots and put them on Jaime’s feet. The fact is that my father had been suffering because of his worn-out soles and the new boots, solid and fine, made with the love of a blessed shoemaker, gave spirit to his brave walking, but instead of rejoicing because of this gift, Jaime grew sad. He remembered the rancor he held for his deceased father. He too had made a pair of boots, placing his tenderness in the work, and Alejandro, instead of keeping them as a souvenir, sold them to some flea-ridden fool for almost nothing.

Now those shoes, which he had considered lost, were restored to him in order for him to forgive his father, a man thirsty for holiness, serving his fellow man out of love for the divine work. Whether or not the Creator existed, what difference did it make, the help was the same! Now it was his turn to discover gratuitous love with no other future than the worms of the grave, with no rewards, no harps, no halos, no wings on his shoulders. Even if God were an invention, the greatest devotion to the world was owed Him, in this way, without reason, without moral obligations, without commandments carved in stone.

As Jaime left Valdivia behind, the priest had the bells rung. The faithful came to their windows to watch him pass. Soon a procession of about two hundred people was following him. They sang hymns and tossed flowers at him. When he reached the river and began to cross a bridge for carts with no guardrail, they waved handkerchiefs, giving him a fervent farewell. Since the cross practically immobilized his head, he twisted around as much as he could, holding in the “I’m a fucking cynic” that filled his mouth, and gave them the blessing they expected. He began to shout, “In the name of the Father, of the Son, and—” but he couldn’t finish, because the stumble he made against one of the arms of the cross threw him off the bridge. He only fell ten feet, and the water served as a mattress, but the thick wood smacked right into his clavicle, throwing it out. The crown of thorns scratched his forehead, and with his face bathed in blood he began to drown. His lungs filled with water. He lost consciousness.

He awoke late at night with his shoulder bandaged, stretched out on a grave in a cemetery. A gentleman with calloused hands offered him hot coffee in a clay cup.

“I’m the cemetery guard, the gravedigger as well, and in my free hours a bone setter. I fix up twists, breaks, dislocations and give massages for stiff necks. Luckily for you, you got only a dislocation. I fixed it up perfectly. Eleodoro Astudillo, at your service.”

“Many thanks, Don Eleodoro. How much do I owe you?”

“Saints don’t pay. Pray for me, that will be enough.”

“I certainly will. Could you tell me where and with whom you learned your trade?”

“I learned it here, and my teacher’s name is Don Pepe. Don Pepe, come over here!”

A gray cat came running through the graves and rubbed itself, purring, against the gravedigger’s legs.

“He taught me everything. Consider this: if you touch your joints carefully, without allowing yourself to be distracted by any thought, you’ll understand how the animal has been set up by God. A small pressure here, another there, and after a few more, he comes apart. See?”

The gentleman, not causing Don Pepe any pain, disjointed his legs and neck. The feline was left stretched out on the gravel path like a rug, purring even more loudly.

“In the same way, digging graves is nothing for me now. Before, yes, it was hard, and that was even when I was young. But little by little, I set pride aside and let the Earth be my teacher. She showed me her hard spots, her soft spots, her empty places. If you take a good look at where and how you sink in the shovel, the ground opens and in you go like a knife through butter.” In a few seconds, he reassembled the cat’s neck and legs, and off the animal dashed, chasing a nocturnal butterfly. “Do you understand the language of things? Look carefully at that small refuge.”

Jaime realized that Don Eleodoro was enjoying himself immensely talking to him. Perhaps it was the first night in many years he had company like this, drinking coffee under the moonlight. In any case, he turned to look in the direction the knotty finger was pointing. At the end of a branch, a nest glowed.

“What does it say to you?”

“It looks pretty, like a magic fruit.”

“It may be true but that is what you create; pretty or ugly comes from you, not from the nest. The truth is that the little house is built at the end of a fragile branch. The bird calculated by instinct the weight of the branches that crisscross and the weight of the little birds that nest there in order to construct his work at the limit of the bearable. One gram extra and the branch breaks or it bends, causing the chicks to fall. If it constructs its nest on a thick, safe branch, the cats will come to eat everything. As it is, no feline will dare come close. So I understand that sometimes it isn’t good to seek security, because it leads to death. Sometimes it’s better to live in uncertainty. But you know these things because you’re a saint. What work it has cost you to purify you soul. I saw it on your body. You’ve been beaten, had ribs broken. You’ve had to fight against many wills. You feel your parents didn’t love you as they should. All that weighs more than the Christ on His cross. If you like, I’ll lighten you. Memory is like a corset. Your memories stick to your chest, your back, all over your skin, and they form an invisible shell that separates you from the world.”

The gravedigger stripped him and began to scrape him with a bone knife, inch by inch, with intense dedication, as if he had to pull off a label glued to each part. He began with the soles of Jaime’s feet, using the scraper with such skill that he felt no tickles. Then he went up, along his legs, sex, and anus to his chest and back, not forgetting the arms, neck, and finally Jaime’s entire head. When he finished, dawn was beginning. Since Don Eleodoro had undone the bandage so no part of his body would not be scraped, Jaime had a pain in his shoulder that seemed light because of the joy the rest of his body was giving him.

He felt that he’d taken off many, many years of suffering. His body breathed like a huge lung. Each pore, transformed into a tiny mouth, sang a hymn to freedom. All his fears had been removed: fear of dying, getting sick, being abandoned, being invaded, failing, losing, suffering, being bored, having no meaning, being unnoticed, growing old. For the first time, he enjoyed his matter, and the flesh was no longer an executioner allied with Time taking away his life in little bites with its seconds, but a paradisiacal garden where his spirit danced like a formless angel.

“My friend, holy penitent, in this region there are many witchdoctors who call themselves wizards. They’re going to offer you plants that grant visions and take you to other levels of reality. In my opinion, seeing things as they are, united, not separated, that’s a miracle. Are you sleepy?”

“A bit. We haven’t slept all night.”

“Make an effort. Come with me. Out in the fields stands a solitary apple tree. If we know how to see it, it will speak to us about this plane, which is as marvelous as one of those hallucinations.”

He led Jaime out of the cemetery. At the entrance, was the cross, standing upright in a niche in the high wall. Christ looked so well there it seemed as though He’d been carved for that site, like the figurehead on a ship manned by all the dead. They followed a path bordered by lavender bushes that purified the air with their sweet perfume. In the middle of a field of dark, almost black earth grew a leafy tree covered with yellow apples transformed into gold by the rays of the rising sun.

“What do you see?”

“A tree with lots of ripe, shiny apples.”

“Is that all?”

“I can’t say it’s beautiful or ugly, because that would come from me.”

“Don’t look with your eyes but with your spirit.”

“My spirit tells me those fruits are very sweet, and my stomach believes it.”

“Since you feel half-blind, you don’t face the bull and you start playing. It would be better to dance. Here everything is dancing, from the stars to the smallest speck of dust. Realize this: the tree stuck into the planet spins with it around the sun. Each apple, according to its position, receives the sun’s rays in a different way. Some, those that hang on the side where the sun rises, will be bathed by a young light that will go from weakness to strength; others, those who face the sunset, will receive an aged light that will go from strength to weakness. Those that grow at the top of the tree will be fed by a mature vertical light, short but always intense. Each apple is different, because during their growth each receives the sun in a different way. Each has a different taste; some are friends of the morning, others of the afternoon, and a few of midday. But there is one apple, the highest and most central, in intense communication with the zenith, that is the queen.”

The gravedigger stretched out his arm and cut off an apple. Then, with astonishing agility, he climbed to the top of the tree to cut another.

“Take a bite of one from below. Now eat a piece from this one, the queen, and compare.”

The first fruit, fresh, with hard, sugary flesh, seemed delicious to Jaime. He bit the other, and a concentrated, vibrant, unbreakable force overwhelmed him. The tense and juicy flesh, like sweet crystal, crunched melodiously. When it dissolved into juice, beneficent acid, it instantly penetrated Jaime’s tongue and went into the river of his blood, which heated up, giving him a euphoric fever. When he finished eating that apple, he felt that his life had been prolonged.

“I think we are the same as the trees; in each situation, we grow a thousand gestures. We have to prefer the kingly gesture, the one closest to the vital principle. And we should make that one, not the others. But never disdaining them. They are the power behind every realization. Well, I’ll let you sleep. Get into this grave. I’ve put a blanket in it. You’ll have to get used to this deep bed because I have no other to offer you.”

Jaime dropped into the grave and, lulled by the sweet and sour smell of the earth, fell asleep. He dreamed he was in the arms of a dark-skinned woman. Between their two naked bodies, he noted there was a huge quantity of white jelly.

“What’s this?” he asked the woman.

“Don’t worry, it’s my depilatory cream.”

“You like to lose your body hair, but I, a man, feel it to be a catastrophe.” He felt anguished for a moment, then he said to her, “Rub my back with it. My shoulder blades are covered with hairs. When they fall out, two wings will be able to grow there.”

My father awoke full of energy and came out of the grave like a newborn. The gravedigger was waiting to offer him two fried eggs, bread, and a cup of coffee.

“You won’t be able to carry your cross for two weeks, friend. What will you do? You can’t stay here; a multitude will come to see you to request miracles. In their fervor they will trample the graves and the plants. Maybe one of those believers will lend you a room. Meanwhile, I’ll take care of your Christ. When you’re better, you can get back on the road of penitence.”

“Don Eleodoro, I have other plans. I’ll take the train to visit my brother in Santiago.”

“Wearing that cassock and with no cross, you’ll look odd. I’ll undress a dead man. He’s fresh. I buried him yesterday. A traveling salesman with no relatives or friends.”

After half an hour he came back with a suit of a brilliant, exaggerated green, plus a shirt and shoes.

“I hope you don’t mind the color. The more you use the suit, the less noticeable it will be.”

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Thanks. The shoes I won’t take. I’d rather keep these boots. I thank you as well for all you’ve taught me.”

“It’s the all-knowing cemetery that’s the teacher, not me. I’ve got death so close to me that I see life everywhere. When you think you’re suffering, look at yourself in a mirror and remember where your suit comes from. That will give you spirit. Good-bye, friend. It was good to speak with a living man.”

In the train station, Jaime bought a newspaper; the two principal candidates both claimed victory. He looked for the details of the voting; in Valdivia, Luis Barros Borgoño received 2,500 votes, Arturo Alessandri Palma, also 2,500, and Recabarren 1. Jaime boarded the train proud to be the cause of that single vote.

The third-class car was packed with poor people traveling with packages, baskets, dogs, and chickens. The arrival of the gringo wearing the parrot-green suit produced a hum of laughter, but all it took was a defiant clearing of the throat by my father to shut them up. His black beard and short hair gave him a ferocious air. Fearful, they offered him a seat next to an old lady, and soon the rumble of the steel wheels put him to sleep:

Looking out the window of a building under construction, he observed the recreation area of a school where a teacher was showing his students how to manipulate invisible objects. He realized that the teacher’s technique was imperfect and that he masked his lack of precision with a confusing rapidity of gestures. Then the students raised their eyes to him, asking for help. From above—impassive, slow, and precise, with impeccable technique—he manipulated an invisible object in order to show them how to proceed properly in such cases.

The teacher abandoned his class and entered the building, climbing the precarious ladders that led to the seventh floor. Pursing his red lips, he pointed his index finger to his inside jacket pocket and asked him for a four-word motto he might embroider there.

He answered, “Permanent impermanence, nothing individual.”

Despite the teacher’s expression of admiration, he said to himself, “In any case, I have to teach you the technique for the perfect manipulation of invisible objects.”

A screech of brakes made him wake up. The train had stopped at a small station surrounded by vineyards. Through the door at one end of the car entered three drunken soldiers, each one with a full bottle under his left arm and an almost empty bottle in the right hand. Their swallows were as long as their guffaws. Through the door at the other end entered a short, hunchbacked man, carrying a white bag. When the train started moving, he sank his hands into the sack and pulled them out full of eggs. In a high voice, he began to shout, “Get your hardboiled eggs! For every rooster’s trick you buy, I’ll give you a packet of salt!”

The hairless face of the hunchback had something womanish to it, and his voice trembled like the clucking of hens. The soldiers, elbowing each other, pushed their way to him, snatched the white sack and began to eat the eggs so gluttonously that they swallowed them without removing the shell. In a few moments, they devoured three dozen, the man’s entire stock. They went back, emptying their second bottle, to the bench they used as bed and urinal. The hunchback followed them, demanding payment. The soldiers grabbed him by one leg and held him upside down shaking him: “Empty the gut you’ve got on your back. It must be full of eggs!”

Carried away with their game, they began to beat his head against the floor, clearly intending to smash it.

“Stop immediately!” shouted Jaime, without even having considered matters. His roar of indignation was involuntary, as were the gestures that followed: with a feline leap, he flew over the passengers’ heads, landed in the center aisle, leapt again, and found himself facing to the savages. Then, using his good arm, he punched them in the mouths. Teeth flew all over. Then he smacked their chest and sides, knocking them down between the seats. Finally he kicked them in their heads, leaving them unconscious and bloody. When he snapped out of his furor, he found himself carrying the hunchback, who was both sobbing and laughing triumphantly, thanking Jaime a thousand times.

“Listen, sir, you have nothing to thank me for. The fact is I don’t like bullying, that’s all. I didn’t attack them to defend you but to defend an idea.”

“Whatever you say, but the truth is you saved my life. You punched all three with only one fist. You can see from a mile away you’re a boxer, and a good one. It’s a shame God didn’t give me your body, that way I could work in peace. If you’ll forgive my curiosity, could you tell me where you’re going?”

“I’m going to Santiago, but I have to get off in Rancagua. I didn’t have enough money to go farther.”

“What a coincidence! I live in Rancagua, and if your pockets are empty, I can offer you a job, even though I appear poor.”

Going up a steep hill, they took advantage of the train’s slowness and jumped off to avoid reprisals from the army. Luckily they were only two day’s walk from the city, and the hunchback, whose name was Jesús de la Cruz, made the walk shorter by singing beautiful tunes in his tenor voice.