BOMBEROS VOLUNTARIOS, HOMBRES DE TRABAJO Y OTRAS YERBAS
firefighters, workers and other matters
As far as I know there are no non-volunteer fire brigades in Chile, but even so it’s a very good service because captaining a brigade is a sought-after honor for the most able men in the towns or districts where they operate. And don’t think it’s only a job in theory: in the south of the country at least, fires occur with astonishing frequency. I’m not sure what the major contributing factor is, whether it’s because most buildings are constructed with wood, or because the cultural level of the people is quite low and they do not have much education, or some other factor, or all of them put together. What’s certain is that in the three days we stayed at the fire station there were two big fires and one small one (though I’m not suggesting this was average, just stating the facts.)
I’ve forgotten to explain that after spending the night at the lieutenant’s house, we decided to move to the fire station, lured by the charms of the caretaker’s three daughters, exponents of the grace of Chilean women who, ugly or beautiful, have a certain spontaneity and freshness that captivates immediately. But I’m drifting from my point… They gave us a room where we set up our camp beds and fell into them with our habitual sleep of the dead, meaning we didn’t hear the sirens. The volunteers on duty had no idea we were there and rushed off with their fire engines while we slept on until mid-morning, when we learned what had happened. We extracted promises from them to include us in the party for the next fire. We had found a truck that in two days would take us and the bike to Santiago for a low price, on condition that we helped them with the load of furniture they were moving.
We made a very popular pair, with our abundant supply of conversation for the volunteers and the caretaker’s daughters, and the days in Los Ángeles flew by. In my eyes, constantly ordering and pencilling in the past, the symbolic representation of the town will always be the furious flames of a fire. It was the last day of our stay and after numerous toasts expressing the beautiful sentiments of our goodbyes, we had curled up in our blankets and gone to sleep. The much-awaited siren tore through the night, calling and waking the volunteers on duty, tearing also through Alberto’s bed from which he sprang far too quickly. Soon we had taken our positions with the necessary gravity in the fire engine “Chile-España,”* which left the station at a breakneck speed, the long whine of its alarm alarming nobody, heard too often to constitute much of a novelty.
As each surge of water fell on to its flaming skeleton, the wood-and-adobe house shook. The acrid smoke of the burnt wood stood firm against the stoical work of the firefighters who, between fits of laughter, protected neighboring houses with jets of water or by other means. The flames hadn’t reached a small part of the house and from there came the whimper of a cat who, terrorized by the fire, just meowed and meowed and refused to escape through the small space left. Alberto saw the danger, and measuring it with one quick look, leapt agilely over the 20 centimeters of flame, saving the little endangered life for its owners. Receiving effusive congratulations for his unrivalled heroism, his eyes shone with pleasure from beneath the huge helmet he had borrowed.
But everything comes to an end, and Los Ángeles gave us its final goodbye. Little Che and Big Che (Alberto and I) solemnly shook the last friendly hands as the truck began its journey to Santiago, carrying on its powerful back the corpse of La Poderosa II.
On a Sunday we arrived in Santiago and as our first measure we went directly to the Austin garage. We had a letter of introduction to the owner but were unhappily surprised to find that it was closed. In the end we got the caretaker to accept the bike, and went off to pay for part of the trip with the sweat of our brows.
Our job as removalists had different stages: the first, particularly interesting, consisted of consuming two kilos of grapes each in record time, assisted by the absence of the house owners; the second, their arrival and the heavy work which followed; the third, Alberto’s discovery that the truck driver’s colleague had an overactive ego, especially with regard to his body — the poor guy won all the bets we made with him by carrying more furniture than both us and the owner combined (the latter played the fool with barbaric ease).
We’d managed to track down our consul who finally turned up at what served as an office, stone-faced (fair enough considering it was a Sunday), and he let us sleep on the patio. After a caustic diatribe regarding our duties as citizens, etc., he topped off his generosity by offering us 200 pesos which we, taking righteous offense, refused. If he’d offered it three months later, it would’ve been a different story. What a save!
Santiago has more or less the same feel as Córdoba. Though its daily pace is much faster and its traffic considerably heavier, its buildings, the nature of its streets, its weather and even the faces of its people, reminded us of our own Mediterranean city. We couldn’t get to know the city well because we were there only a few days and were pressed for time with the many things we had to sort out before embarking once again.
The Peruvian consul refused to issue us visas without a letter from his Argentine counterpart, which the latter refused to give, saying the bike probably wouldn’t get us there and we’d end up asking the embassy for help (the little angel was ignorant of the fact that the bike was already finished), but he finally relented and they gave us the visas for Peru, at a fee of 400 Chilean pesos, a lot of cash for us. In those days the Suquía water polo team from Córdoba was visiting Santiago. Many of the guys were friends of ours, so we paid them a courtesy call while they were playing a match and got ourselves invited to one of those Chilean-style meals that go something like: “have some ham, try some cheese, drink a little more wine,” and that you stand up from — if you can — straining all the thorax muscles in your body. The following day we climbed up Santa Lucía, a rocky formation in the center of the city with its own particular history, and were peacefully performing the task of photographing the city when a convoy of Suquía members arrived, led by some good lookers from the host club. The poor guys were embarrassed enough — unsure of whether to introduce us to these “distinguished ladies of Chilean society,” as in the end they did, or play dumb and pretend not to know us (remember our unorthodox attire). But they managed the tight spot as skilfully as possible and were very friendly — as friendly as people could be from worlds as different as theirs and ours at that particular moment in our lives.
The big day arrived at last and two tears ploughed symbolically down Alberto’s cheeks. With one last goodbye to La Poderosa, left behind in the garage, we began our journey to Valparaíso. We set off along a magnificent mountain road, the most beautiful civilization could offer compared to the real natural wonders (undamaged by human hands, that is), in a truck bearing the heavy weight of us freeloaders.
*Almost all Chilean fire brigades have a sister city or country, in this case, Spain.
LA SONRISA DE LA GIOCONDA
la gioconda’s smile
We had come to a new phase in our adventure. We were used to calling idle attention to ourselves with our strange dress and the prosaic figure of La Poderosa II, whose asthmatic wheezing aroused pity in our hosts. To a certain extent we had been knights of the road; we belonged to that long-standing “wandering aristocracy” and had calling cards with our impeccable and impressive titles. No longer. Now we were just two hitchhikers with backpacks, and with all the grime of the road stuck to our overalls, shadows of our former aristocratic selves.
The truck driver had left us at the upper edge of the city, at its entrance, and with weary steps we dragged our packs down the streets, followed by the amused or indifferent glances of onlookers. In the distance the harbor radiated with the tempting glimmer of its boats, while the sea, black and inviting, cried out to us — its gray smell dilating our nostrils. We bought bread — which seemed so expensive at the time though it became cheaper as we ventured further north — and kept walking downhill. Alberto wore his exhaustion obviously, and although I tr
ied not to show it I was just as tired. So when we found a truck stop we assaulted the attendant with our tragic faces, relating in florid detail the hardships we had suffered on the long hard road from Santiago. He let us sleep on some wooden planks, in the company of some parasites whose name ends in hominis, but at least we had a roof over our heads.
We set about sleeping with determination. News of our arrival, however, reached the ears of a fellow-countryman installed in a cheap restaurant next to the trailer park, and he wanted to meet us. To meet in Chile signifies a certain hospitality and neither of us was in a position to turn down this manna from heaven. Our compatriot proved to be profoundly imbued with the spirit of the sisterland and consequently was fantastically drunk. It was a long time since I’d eaten fish, and the wine was so delicious, and our host so attentive… Anyway, we ate well and he invited us to his house the following day.
La Gioconda threw open its doors early and we brewed our mate, chatting with the owner who was very interested in our journey. After that, we went to explore the city. Valparaíso is very picturesque, built to the edge of the beach and overlooking a large bay. As it grew it clambered up the hills that sweep down to their deaths in the sea. The madhouse museum beauty of its strange corrugated-iron architecture, arranged on a series of tiers linked by winding flights of stairs and funiculars, is heightened by the contrast of diversely colored houses blending with the leaden blue of the bay. As if patiently dissecting, we pry into dirty stairways and dark recesses, talking to the swarms of beggars; we plumb the city’s depths, the miasmas draw us in. Our distended nostrils inhale the poverty with sadistic intensity.
We visited the ships down at the docks to see if any were going to Easter Island but the news was disheartening: it would be six months before any boat was going there. We collected some vague details about flights that left once a month.
Easter Island! The imagination stops in its ascending flight to turn somersaults at the very thought: “Over there, having a white ‘boyfriend’ is an honor”; “Work? Ha! the women do everything — you just eat, sleep and keep them content.” This marvellous place where the weather is perfect, the women are perfect, the food perfect, the work perfect (in its beatific nonexistence). What does it matter if we stay there a year; who cares about studying, work, family, etc. In a shop window a giant crayfish winks at us, and from his bed of lettuce his whole body tells us, “I’m from Easter Island, where the weather is perfect, the women are perfect…”
In the doorway of La Gioconda we were waiting patiently for our compatriot to show up, who gave no sign of appearing, when the owner invited us in out of the sun and treated us to one of his magnificent lunches of fried fish and watery soup. We never heard from the Argentine again throughout our stay in Valparaíso, but we became great friends with the owner of the bar. He was a strange sort of guy, indolent and enormously generous to all the riff raff who turned up, though he made normal customers pay colossal prices for the paltry cuisine he sold in his place. We didn’t pay a cent the whole time we were there and he lavished hospitality on us. “Today it’s your turn, tomorrow it’ll be mine” was his favorite saying; not very original but very effective.
We tried to contact the doctors from Petrohué, but being back at work with no time to spare, they never agreed to meet us formally. At least we knew more or less where they were. In the afternoon we went our separate ways: while Alberto followed up the doctors, I went to see an old woman with asthma, a customer at La Gioconda. The poor thing was in a pitiful state, breathing the acrid smell of concentrated sweat and dirty feet that filled her room, mixed with the dust from a couple of armchairs, the only luxury items in her house. On top of her asthma, she had a heart condition. It is at times like this, when a doctor is conscious of his complete powerlessness, that he longs for change: a change to prevent the injustice of a system in which only a month ago this poor woman was still earning her living as a waitress, wheezing and panting but facing life with dignity. In circumstances like this, individuals in poor families who can’t pay their way become surrounded by an atmosphere of barely disguised acrimony; they stop being father, mother, sister or brother and become a purely negative factor in the struggle for life and, consequently, a source of bitterness for the healthy members of the community who resent their illness as if it were a personal insult to those who have to support them. It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over. In those dying eyes there is a submissive appeal for forgiveness and also, often, a desperate plea for consolation which is lost to the void, just as their body will soon be lost in the magnitude of the mystery surrounding us. How long this present order, based on an absurd idea of caste, will last is not within my means to answer, but it’s time that those who govern spent less time publicizing their own virtues and more money, much more money, funding socially useful works.
There isn’t much I can do for the sick woman. I simply advise her to improve her diet and prescribe a diuretic and some asthma pills. I have a few Dramamine tablets left and I give them to her. When I leave, I am followed by the fawning words of the old woman and the family’s indifferent gaze.
Alberto had tracked down the doctors. At nine the following morning we had to be at the hospital. Meanwhile, in La Gioconda’s filthy room which serves as kitchen, restaurant, laundry, dining room and piss-house for cats and dogs, a miscellaneous collection of people were meeting: the owner, with his basic life philosophy; Doña Carolina, a deaf and helpful old dear who left our mate kettle as good as new; a drunk, feeble-minded Mapuche* man who looked like a criminal; two more or less normal customers; and the queen of the gathering Doña Rosita, who was quite crazy. The conversation focused on a macabre event Rosita had witnessed; it appeared she alone had seen a man with a large knife stabbing her poor neighbor.
“Was your neighbor screaming, Doña Rosita?”
“Of course she was screaming, who wouldn’t! He was skinning her alive! That’s not all. Afterwards, he took her down to the sea and dragged her to the water’s edge so the sea would take her away. Oh, to hear that woman scream, señor, scared the living daylight out of me, you should have seen it!”
“Why didn’t you tell the police, Rosita?”
“Oh, what for? Don’t you remember when your cousin was beat up? Well, I went to report it and they told me I was crazy, that if I didn’t stop inventing things they’d lock me up, imagine that. No, I wouldn’t tell that lot anything!”
The conversation turned to the “messenger from God,” a local man who uses the powers God has given him to cure deafness, dumbness, paralysis, etc., passing the collection plate around afterwards. The business seems no worse than any other, and though the pamphlets are extraordinary, so is people’s gullibility. But that’s how it is, and they continued to make fun of the things Doña Rosita saw with all the conviction in the world.
The reception from the doctors wasn’t over-friendly, but we gained our objective: they gave us an introduction to Molinas Luco, mayor of Valparaíso. We took our leave with all the required formality and went to the town hall. Our dazed and exhausted expressions didn’t impact favorably on the man at the desk, but he’d received orders to let us in.
The secretary showed us a copy of a letter written in response to ours, explaining that our project was impossible since the only ship to Easter Island had left and that there wouldn’t be another ship leaving within the year. We were ushered into the sumptuous office of Dr. Molinas Luco, who received us amicably. He gave the impression, however, of acting out a scene in a play, taking a lot of care to pronounce each word perfectly. He became enthusiastic only when talking about Easter Island, which he had wrested from the English by proving it belonged to Chile. He recommended we keep up with events and said he would take us the following year. “I may not be in this office, but I am still president of the Friends of Easter Island Society,” he said, a tacit
confession of González Videla’s impending electoral defeat. As we left, the man at the desk told us to take our dog with us, and to our amazement showed us a puppy that had done its business on the lobby carpet and was gnawing at a chair leg. The dog had probably followed us, attracted by our hobo appearance, and the doorman imagined it was just another accessory of our eccentric attire. Anyway, the poor animal, robbed of the bond linking him to us, got a good kick up the ass and was thrown out howling. Still, it was always consoling to know that some living thing’s well-being depended on our protection.
By this time we were determined that traveling by sea we could avoid the desert in northern Chile, and we fronted up to the shipping companies requesting free passage to any of the northern ports. The captain at one of them promised to take us if we could arrange permission from the maritime authorities to work for our passage. The reply, of course, was negative and we found ourselves back at square one. In that split second, Alberto made a heroic decision, which went something like this: we would sneak on to the boat and hide away in the hold. For our best chance we would have to wait until nightfall, try to persuade the sailor on duty and see what would happen. We collected our things, evidently far too many for this particular plan. With great regret we farewelled all our friends and afterwards crossed through the main gates of the port; burning our bridges, we set off on our maritime adventure.