Antonio Skarmeta: A Distant Father

“This meeting of ours, Jacques …”

“… is a private matter.”

“You’re a smart boy. I’m asking you to keep this secret for your own sake, for me, for your mother.”

“For Emilio’s mother.”

Pierre raises his eyes skyward as if he’d like to ascertain precisely which cloud will discharge the first drop of the coming storm. With positively maternal ferocity, he deploys the hood of the carriage over its passenger. I hear the baby’s breathing, a sort of clipped snort, for the first time.

“So how’s your French these days?”

“Fine, Dad. At the moment I’m translating Zazie dans le métro .”

“Don’t know it.”

“Raymond Queneau.”

“Never heard of him. Well, look, now you know where to find me.”

“Right.”

“If you have the time, come and see Rio Bravo . Bring a girlfriend.”

“Au revoir , Dad. ”

“ Au revoir, mon fils .”

The first shades of evening are just falling when Cristián and I enter the whorehouse. Most of the girls are drinking tea or listening to a radio game show where the contestants can win money if they guess the exact price of certain products. One of the girls comes up to me and plants a kiss on each of my cheeks. She asks my name and occupation. “Jacques,” I say, and “teacher.” Embarrassed, I ask her what she does.

“I’m a whore,” she says with a smile.

We go up to her room. She has Indian features, like most of the girls in this part of the country. In Frutillar, they say, there’s a whorehouse with girls from German families. This girl has markedly aboriginal bangs, prominent cheekbones, and a carefree smile. She’s young and strong. Maybe in a few years she’ll be fat, but not now. A teakettle’s boiling on the portable cooker in her room, and beside it are two cups containing little bags of Lipton’s. The Chilote blanket on her bed is as tough as an animal skin.

“A cup of tea?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

While she stirs the bags in the boiling water, she looks at my shoes and then my tie.

“You could start taking off your things.”

She comes over to me, loosens my tie, and when my neck appears, kisses me on it, leaving a damp trace behind. Without bending over, I slip out of my shoes and push them under the bed. I always do that, because they’re Dad’s moccasins. He passed them on to me when I went off to the teachers’ college, and they’re a little too big.

“It’s cold,” I say.

“No it’s not, baby. It’s your nerves.”

“I’m nervous?”

“Drink that.”

I sip at the cup, just about certain that the liquid’s going to burn my tongue. The girl, on the other hand, takes a teaspoonful and blows on the tea before drinking it.

“So what do you teach, Professor?”

“A little of everything. But I prefer literature and history.”

“Not geography?”

“Geography too.”

“I’m crazy about geography,” she declares, blowing on her tea and sipping it noisily. “I know countries and capitals. I say their names and imagine what they’re like.”

“Bolivia?”

“That’s easy. La Paz.”

“Spain?”

“Piece of cake. Madrid.”

“Czechoslovakia.”

The girl chews a fingernail. She looks at the ceiling and the rug. Then she goes to the curtain, presses her forehead against the windowpane, and gazes out at the street for a while.

“I don’t know.”

With a professional movement, she throws off her robe, comes up to me naked, and touches me. Now she’s deadly serious. She pushes me onto the bed and takes off my clothes. Then she straddles me, bucks her hips three or four times, and I’m off.

“You still have to pay for the whole hour, you know that?”

“No problem.”

“Was it good?”

“Sure.”

She lifts the bedspread and drapes it over her head like a hood. Suddenly an immense smile spreads over her face.

“Ask me another question.”

“Hard or easy?”

“Easy.”

“France.”

“Paris.”

“Très bien,” I say, feeling some of my semen ooze out of her and spread over my stomach.

“Do you speak French?”

“Pretty well. My father’s from Paris.”

“Do you ever see him?”

“No, right now he’s in France.”

I take her by the shoulders, pull her close to my face, and kiss her on the mouth. I feel like I’m participating in a dialogue for the first time. Until this moment, I’ve done nothing but obey her orders.

“Say something in French.”

“Hard or easy?”

“Hard and long. You have to pay for the whole hour anyway.”

“All right. A few lines of poetry?”

“Let’s hear them.”

I remain quiet a moment to be sure I’ve got the verses complete in my memory before sending them out over my tongue. There’s a fish-shaped spot on the ceiling.

Ah! pauvre père! aurais-tu jamais deviné quel amour tu as mis en moi?

Et combien j’aime à travers toi toutes les choses de la terre?

Quel étonnement serait le tien si tu pouvais me voir maintenant

À genoux dans le lit boueux de la journée

Raclant le sol de mes deux mains

Comme les chercheurs de beauté!

The girl gets off me and walks over to the washstand. She uses a damp cloth to clean her belly and her thighs.

“I didn’t understand a thing,” she says. “I don’t understand anything when I go to the movies, either. The problem is I never manage to read the subtitles. They go by very fast.”

“It’s a poem dedicated to the poet’s father.”

“Did you write it?”

“No, but I translated it. You can find it in the Diario de Angol’ s weekend supplement.”

“What does it say?”

“ ‘Ah, my poor father, have you ever guessed how much love you planted in me and how I love, through you, all the things of the earth?’ It was written by René Guy Cadou.”

“Do you wish you wrote it?”

“I couldn’t write a poem like that. I’m a simple country schoolteacher.”

“It’s five thousand pesos for the hour.”

I pull on my trousers and place the damp banknotes the miller loaned me on the night table. She takes some water, wets the bangs on her forehead, and pats them smooth.

“I’m going back to Contulmo tonight. The train leaves in an hour.”

“If you’re in these parts again, I’ll be here for you. My name’s Rayén, but they call me Luna.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m moony, because I always look at the moon, because I have a moon-shaped face. I don’t know why. Everybody calls me Luna. What do they call you?”

“Prof.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Prof.”

“Do you give good grades?”

“I’ve never flunked anybody.”

“What grade would you give me in geography?”

She smiles and her teeth look as though they’re about to jump out of her wide mouth.

“Russia?” I ask her.

“Moscow,” she says, smiling even more broadly. “What grade?”

“An A.”

“Are you serious? You’d give me an A in geography?”

“Absolutely. The highest grade.”

“I can’t wait to tell the other girls.”

“All right.”

She gives me her hand, quite formally. I grasp it, shake it, and slowly leave the whorehouse.

Outside the door they’ve still got a hitching post so cowboys can tie up their horses. The miller’s standing there, yawning.

“So how was it?”

“Great.”

“Good-looking chick?”

“Yes, Cristián, she was hot.”

“What did you two talk about?”