Obabakoak (25 page)

“Like royalty,” smiled César Calvo.

Laura went over to the old woman who had helped us with the domestic chores and presented her with a lock of her fair hair; she should keep it as a souvenir, for she had been very kind to us all. Then we rejoined the Ashaninka who were to accompany us down the Unine.

Before we set off into the jungle, we looked back toward Pullcapa Ayumpari’s
tantootzi.
He was standing at the entrance, watching us.

“Wait just a moment. I’d like to thank him,” said the wise man of Iquitos. Asking one of the oarsmen to accompany him, he went off to perform that final act of courtesy.

“What did he say?” we asked when he came back.

“He simply wished us a good journey,” sighed César Calvo. It seemed to me that it pained him deeply to leave that good father of the Ashaninka.

We looked back at the village one last time, waving to the men and women who had gathered outside the huts. Then we went down to the river.

The jungle, so silent during the rainy season, was once more full of life, and, as we were carried swiftly down the Unine, we listened to the songs of all the inhabitants of the Upper Amazon, the song of the
arambasa,
of the
papasí,
of the
carachupausa,
of the duck known as the
mariquiña,
of the shy
panguana
that dies after laying only five eggs, and of the blue parrot known as the
marakana.
And of the
huapapa,
and of the
wankawi,
and of the great
yungururu.

We were carried swiftly down the Unine to the sound of the songs of all these birds and of a hundred more and of another hundred still.

But we heard not only the songs of the birds, we also heard the fish in the river that, from time to time, approached our canoes and followed us with the same tenacity as I, at that moment, followed my memories; and my memories were of a
tantootzi
and a
shirimpiare
and the hands that had healed my ankle and a book by Rousseau and a medal from the army placed on a mound of pebbles.

And suddenly the scream of a
makisapa
rose above the other songs of the jungle, startling me.

“The medal, of course!” I cried, and the two Ashaninka in my canoe both laughed out loud.

At last I’d found the missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle of my memories. How could that medal possibly still be so golden. And the ribbons? How could they have preserved their color in a climate like that of the Amazon? Hadn’t it been over a year since Dr. Sheldon had disappeared into the jungle?

All the answers pointed in one direction.

The Ashaninka said good-bye to us as soon as we reached the Ucayali, leaving us their finest canoe and showing us how best to row in order to make our way downriver. Then they rowed back against the current, glad to be able to return to their village.

“They seem so happy!” exclaimed Laura.

“Well, we’re headed in quite a different direction,” smiled César Calvo, getting into the canoe.

“To La Atalaya!” I said in a tone of voice intended to be carefree. But the answer I had stumbled upon while we rowed down the Unine continued to rankle; my voice failed me and I merely succeeded in sounding lugubrious.

To avoid the risk of colliding with the many uprooted trees left behind by the previous months of flooding, we proceeded very slowly down the Ucayali. By the time we reached La Atalaya, it was nearly night.

A little later, I was sitting in the same place Laura had sat before we left for the Unine, the same place from which she had looked out at the jungle and, hearing the song of the
ayaymaman,
had wept. I could find no peace there either.

The wise man of Iquitos came out of the shack and sat down beside me.

“Yes, I’m thinking about him too,” he said.

“About Pullcapa Ayumpari you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Thomas Sheldon,” I said sadly.

César Calvo nodded.

“I first became suspicious the day he spared your life. A true Ashaninka could never have done that. That’s why I went to thank him this morning, because I wanted to see his face. The colored clay can hide a pale skin, but not the eyes. And, of course, his eyes were blue, the typical blue eyes of an Englishman.”

“But how did he come to be
shirimpiar
e
?”

“Well, he is a doctor. He probably arrived at the village, taught the previous
shirimpiare
a few things and then the latter no doubt adopted him as his son and named him his successor. I’m sure that’s what must have happened.”

“There’s just one thing I’m not sure about, César. I don’t know if I should tell Laura. And I’m sure you know why.”

Then we heard a cough. Someone wanted to warn us of their presence.

“César’s right. Thomas cured the old
shirimpiare,
who then gave up his post to him. He tells me so in this letter I’ve just found among my clothes.”

Laura was standing behind us, holding a piece of paper in her hand.

“I thought you were asleep!” I exclaimed.

“I heard everything,” said Laura, looking me in the eyes.

For a moment the three of us were silent.

“What should we call you from now on?” I asked at last.

“By my maiden name. Laura Sligo.”

Then she spoke much more directly than I had dared to.

“Thomas tells me you’re in love with me. Is that true? Don’t forget we have César Calvo here as our witness.”

A month later the two of us were in Dublin.

FINIS CORONAT OPUS
, said Mr. Smith, switching off his little tape recorder. Then, before my friend and I had time to say a word, he had thanked us for listening to the story and was hurrying off toward the village square.

“Where are you off to?” we called after him. But he continued on, walking ever faster. Striding along in his white suit, he looked like a master of ceremonies urgently needed back at the festivities.

“Who do you think he is?” I said.

“I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure, he’s a writer,” said my friend.

He too was a little disconcerted by what had happened.

From our vantage point, the world seemed a peaceful, silent place. A south wind was blowing—the wind of madmen and of all those unsatisfied beings ceaselessly searching for something, the wind of the poor in spirit, of those who sleep alone, of humble daydreamers—and it awoke in us the illusion that everyone and everything were in their right place, exactly where they should be: the stars high up in the sky; the mountains and the forests sleeping placidly around us; the animals all sleeping too and hidden away somewhere—some among the grasses, others in pools in the rivers, the moles and mice in burrows beneath the earth.

We would like to have stayed there because—at least compared with the dank Amazon that Laura Sligo and her friends had wandered—it reminded us of the ineffable gardens described in old novels. But we had to get up and continue our journey. We couldn’t arrive at the reading the following morning jaded from lack of sleep. One more beer and we’d call it a night.

We walked the path from the cemetery to the square in silence, convinced that, if we spoke, we would disturb the beneficent spirits at that moment stirring within us, who would then escape through our open mouths to their home, the upper spheres. We had plenty of time, the summer was only just beginning. The time would come for us to comment on the story Mr. Smith had just told us.

Once back in the whirlpool of the fiesta, our eyes scoured every corner of the square. But there was no white suit to be seen, no hat stood out above the crowd.

“Our honest old man appears and disappears as if by magic,” said my friend.

“Let’s drink our last beer to his health,” I replied.

“Good idea. I’ll go and get us a couple of bottles.”

He managed this more easily than the first time and we went and sat down on the church steps. According to the church clock it was two in the morning.

“You see, everyone plays their own game,” I said to my friend, after taking my first sip of beer and pointing to the two groups that had formed at the fiesta. Because by then not everyone at the fiesta was dedicating themselves solely to drinking and holding loud conversations in the bars. A fair number of couples had broken away and wandered off into the dark to dance and kiss.

“Those who are inside want to get out and those who are outside want to get in,” my friend remarked.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, just a bit of nonsense,” he said by way of excuse. “It’s something my grandfather was always saying. He said that married people tend to envy single people and vice versa. In other words, those who are inside would give anything to get out and those who are outside would give anything to get in.”

“And what made you think of that now?” I asked.

“From what I see in the square. It just occurred to me that many of those who are dancing would rather be in the bar, while many of those in the bar would rather be dancing. Such is life!” he said with a theatrical sigh.

“My father had a similar saying. He said that in heaven there’s a huge cake reserved solely for married people who’ve never once regretted getting married. The cake’s never been touched.”

We both laughed at the scepticism of our elders. Their view of love was very different from that of the Mr. Smith to whose health we were drinking.

But our state of mind predisposed us more to melancholy than to joking and we soon dropped the funny remarks. It was fine that there was a fiesta going on, but we didn’t want its atmosphere to infect us, not that night. My friend and I formed a third group at the fiesta. And we fell silent again, letting ourselves slip back into our earlier mood, thinking and now and then listening to the slow, gentle tunes the band was playing. And when the clock chimed half past two, we finished our beers and walked back to the car.

“What time does tomorrow’s session start?” my friend asked.

“My uncle didn’t say but I imagine it’ll be around ten.”

“As early as that?”

“Well, at ten we’ll have breakfast. We’ll start the stories around eleven.”

“How many are you going to read?”

“About four. And you?”

“I’m not sure yet. Only one I think. I’m there to listen rather than to read. And your uncle? Will he read something?”

“He didn’t tell me that either. But I’m sure he will. I imagine he’ll read some short essay. ‘On why the nineteenth century was the second and last Golden Age,’ or something like that.”

“We’re in for a good time then.”

“I hope so. Besides, you know how well we always eat on these occasions!”

“Like princes!” exclaimed my friend emphatically.

We were back at the car. The noise and music from the fiesta were far from us again and my friend and I—at peace at last, breathing easily and enjoying the quiet—smoked a farewell cigarette. Our final reflection was dedicated, of course, to Mr. Smith.

“It’s a shame he didn’t come with us. He wouldn’t have made a bad companion at tomorrow’s session,” my friend said.

“It’s my fault. I did think of inviting him, but then I lost my nerve,” I replied.

“There have been a lot of unknowns tonight, haven’t there? Ismael’s lizards, Mr. Smith’s stories…”

“I should say! I haven’t had such a strange night for ages!”

“Nor have I. But it’s been really good. It’s nights like this that make life bearable.”

“Anyway, let’s go,” I said, starting the engine.

There were one hundred and twenty-seven bends in the road between that village and Obaba: eighty uphill, rising gently to the top of a long slope, and from there, over the other side of the mountain, another forty-seven downhill. It took a little over half an hour to drive, through forests all the way, leaving the sea behind us.

Despite all the bends our journey along the road of moths that night turned out to be a safe, quiet drive through the trees; the lights of the few cars coming in the opposite direction were visible long before they reached us.

“How do you know there are one hundred and twenty-seven bends?” my friend asked me when we’d already driven around twenty of them.

“I told you earlier that I spent my whole childhood cycling around here. The number of times I’ve ridden up here, pedaling furiously and shouting: forty! forty-one! forty-two! I know these bends by heart,” I went on, “See that one up ahead? Well if you count the bends coming from Obaba it’s number one hundred. But if you count from the village we’ve just left, it’s number twenty-seven.”

“It must be a very special place for you,” my friend said, smiling.

“Not just because it’s the hundredth one, but because of the fountain there used to be up here. Well, that still is up here. You saw the ditch that crossed it,” I replied… speaking in the past tense, of course, because no sooner had he asked the question than bend number one hundred was behind us.

My friend remained silent and I let myself be carried along by memories.

“This road meant a lot to us. As did the bicycle, of course. For the children in Obaba, from about the age of seven onward, learning to ride a bike was the number one priority. The arithmetic and grammar they taught at school didn’t matter, neither did the Bible history they talked about in the church sacristy; the only thing that mattered was attending the cycling classes held by the older boys in the square in Obaba and securing a place among the elect group who could go anywhere on two wheels. And if you couldn’t do that by the time you were nine or ten, then you became marginalized, a second-class kid…”

I cut short the thread of my memories at that point and indicated something to our left. We had just entered the straight stretch of road that, counting from Obaba, followed bend number eighty-eight. It formed a natural belvedere from which, by day, you could see first the broad valley and, beyond that, the beaches and the sea.

“The view’s pretty good at night too,” said my friend.

“See those lights in the distance?” I asked.

“What are they? Houses or ships?”

“Ships.”

We slowed down and drove that stretch of road staring out at the lights, slightly astonished at how near the coast seemed to be, simply because the air was so dear.