Juan Vasquez - The Secret History of Costaguana

We are in the month of March in 1877, and in the city of Marseille, Korzeniowski’s anus is suffering. No, let us be frank or, at least, more scientifically precise: he has an abscess. It is, in all probability, the most well-documented anal abscess in the history of anal abscesses, for it appears, at least, in two of the young sailor’s letters, two of those from a friend, one of his uncle’s, and in the first officer’s report. Before such proliferation, I have often asked myself the inevitable question: Are there allusions to the anal abscess in the literary oeuvre of Joseph Conrad? Dear readers, I confess: if they are there, I have not found them. Of course, I don’t share the opinion of a certain critic (George Gallaher, Illustrated London News , November 1921, page 199), according to whom that abscess is the “true heart of darkness,” nor do I believe that in real life it was Korzeniowski who, in an attack of private discomfort, cried out, “The horror! The horror!” Be that as it may, no abscess, anal or any other kind, has had such intense consequences from a metaphysical point of view as that which oppresses Korzeniowski that spring. For due to its pain he is obliged to remain on land while his ship, the Saint-Antoine , sails again to the Caribbean.

During these days of enforced terra firma, a disconsolate and mortally bored Korzeniowski devotes himself to theoretical studies of technical materials to qualify as a ship’s mate. But this training is theoretical in more than one sense, for what happens in practice is quite different: Korzeniowski spends his time walking around the vieux port and frequenting people with questionable reputations. Summer begins and Korzeniowski tries to complement his education: in his very poor room at 18 rue Sainte, between two applications of Madame Fagot’s ointment, he receives English lessons from one Henry Grand, who lives at number 22 of the same street; in the Café Bodoul, between two drinks or two cigars, he receives lessons in politics from the Nostalgic Realists. The anal abscess does not prevent him from noticing that the followers of Monsieur Déléstang are right: King Alfonso XII, who is the same age as our Polish sailor, is no more than a puppet of Republican atheists, and the only legitimate owner of the crown of Spain is Don Carlos, the poor, pursued Catholic who had to hide on the other side of the French border. This, of course, is only one way of seeing things; the other is that Korzeniowski doesn’t give a fig about the Carlists, the monarchy, the Republic, and Spain in general; but the anal abscess that has left him on land has also deprived him of the salary he had anticipated. .

Korzeniowski suddenly finds himself short of funds. How will he buy his good brandy, the good Havana cigars he’s grown accustomed to on recent voyages? European politics then provides an opportunity he cannot waste: smuggling rifles for the Colombian Conservatives had gone so well, had worked so easily, that now Korzeniowski accepts the invitation of a certain Captain Duteuil. He puts a thousand francs on the table to get weapons to the Carlists; after a few days, the investment produces a return of four hundred. “Viva Don Carlos!” shouts Korzeniowski through the streets of Marseille, producing a sort of involuntary echo from a certain bellicose Conservative and Colombian general. Death to the Republic! Death to Alfonso XII! Korzeniowski, enthusiastic about his talent for business, invests for a second time in the Carlist crusade. But the contraband for political-ends market is capricious and variable, and this time the young investor loses it all. While another dose of ointment is applied, this time prepared by a friend of Madame Fagot’s, Korzeniowski thinks: It is all the fault of the abscess. Viva Madame Fagot’s friend! Death to anal abscesses!

It is then that he meets Paula de Somogyi, Hungarian actress, lover of the aspirant Don Carlos, activist for his restitution to the throne and belle dame sans merci . Paula is beautiful and closer in age to the contrabandist than to the pretender; and what happens in romantic novels happens to Korzeniowski, when the disoriented young man and Don Carlos’s brazen lover become involved. They have clandestine and frequent encounters in portside hotels. To keep from being recognized, Paula covers her head with a hood, in the best Milady de Winter style; Korzeniowski enters and leaves through the window, and becomes an habitué of the rooftops of Marseille. . But the paradise of clandestine love cannot endure (it’s one of the laws of romanticism). Enter John Young Mason Key Blunt, an American adventurer who had lived in Panama during the gold rush and made himself rich, in those days before the railway, taking prospectors from one side of the Isthmus to the other. Blunt — who would have imagined? — had taken a liking to the Hungarian. He pursues her, he hounds her in scenes worthy of a cabaret (she with her back against a wall, he wrapping his arms around her while speaking fish-scented obscenities too close to her face). But Paula is a virtuous woman, and her religion only allows her to have one lover; so she tells Korzeniowski all about it, holding the back of her hand against her forehead and leaning back her head. The young man knows that his honor and that of the woman he has fallen in love with leave him no alternative. He challenges Blunt to a duel to the death. In the tranquillity of the Marseille siesta, shots are suddenly heard. Korzeniowski lifts a hand to his chest: “I’m dying,” he says. And then, as is obvious, he does not die.

Oh, dear Conrad, what an impetuous lad you were. . (You don’t mind if I address you informally, do you, dear Conrad? We know each other so well, after all, and we’re so close. . ) Later you would leave written evidence of these activities, of your own voyage as a Mediterranean gunrunner on the Tremolino , of the encounter with the coast guard — someone had denounced the smugglers — and of the death of César, the informant, at the hands of his own uncle, none other than Dominic Cervoni, the Ulysses of Corsica. But written evidence is undoubtedly a condescending and generous phrase, dear Conrad, because the truth is this: despite the passing of the years, which turn everything true, I do not manage to believe a single word of what you say. I don’t believe you were a witness to the moment Cervoni murdered his own nephew; I don’t believe the nephew sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean with the weight of the ten thousand francs he’d stolen. Let’s admit, dear Conrad, that you have been deft in the art of rewriting your own life; your little white lies — and another few running closer to beige — have passed into your official biography unquestioned. How often did you speak of your duel, dear Conrad? How many times did you tell that romantic and also sterilized story to your wife and sons? Jessie believed it till the end of her days, and so did Borys and John Conrad, convinced that their father was a musketeer for modern times: noble like Athos, kind like Porthos, and religious like Aramis. But the truth is different and, most of all, much more prosaic. It’s true, Readers of the Jury, that on Conrad’s chest was the scar of a bullet wound; but the similarities between Conradian reality and real reality end there. As in so many other cases, real reality has been left buried under the verbiage of the novelist’s profuse imagination. Readers of the Jury: I am here, again, to give the contradictory version, to dispel the verbiage, to bring discord into the tranquil house of received truths.

The young Korzeniowski. I can see him now, and I’d like my readers to see him, too. Photos of the time show a baby-faced lad, smooth hair, long, straight brows, almond-colored eyes: a young man who regards his aristocratic origins at once with pride and affected disdain; he was five-foot-eight but at this time appears shorter due simply to timidity. Look at him, readers: Korzeniowski is first and foremost a boy who has lost his bearings. . and that’s not all. He has lost his faith in people; he’s lost all his money, wagering it on the habit-forming horse of contraband. Captain Duteuil had betrayed him: he’d taken his money and fled to Buenos Aires. Do you see him, readers? Korzeniowski, disoriented, wanders round the port of Marseille with an anal abscess and not a single coin in his pockets. . The world, thinks Korzeniowski, has suddenly turned into a difficult place, and all through the fault of money. He had quarreled with Monsieur Déléstang; he would never again step on a ship of his fleet. All paths seem closed to him. Korzeniowski thinks — it is to be thought that he thinks — of his uncle Tadeusz, the man whose money has kept him afloat since he left Poland. Uncle Tadeusz writes regularly; for Korzeniowski his letters should be a source of joy (contact with the homeland and so on), but in truth they torment him. Each letter is a judgment; after each reading, Korzeniowski is found guilty and condemned. “In two years you have by your transgressions used up your maintenance for the whole third year,” his uncle writes. “If the allowance that I have allotted you does not suffice, earn some money — and you will have it. If, however, you cannot earn it, then content yourself with what you get from the labor of others — until you are able to supplant it with your own earnings, and gratify yourself.” Uncle Tadeusz makes him feel useless, childish, irresponsible. Uncle Tadeusz has suddenly come to represent all that is detestable about Poland, every constraint, every restriction that had forced Korzeniowski to escape. “Hoping that it is the first and last time you cause me so much trouble, you have my embrace and my blessing.” First time, thinks Korzeniowski, last time. First. Last.