Juan Gómez Bárcena - The Sky Over Lima

“A real snoozer of a meeting you’ve dragged me to, Carlota,” José mutters to him in an aside. “We sound like a Christian charity club. Lucky for us, at least the view is nice,” he adds, nodding toward Elizabeth.

“Don’t point.”

“Well, what do you say? Protagonist or secondary character?”

“Lower your voice.”

“I say she’s a secondary character. Do you like her? I think she was flirting with you. We’re not going to fight over a secondary character, are we?”

“Would you just shut up?”

After a while, Señor Almada breaks in to offer Carlos the floor. This man, he says, witnessed firsthand the events at the El Callao docks. And so they clamor for him to stand up and tell them all about it.

Carlos gets slowly to his feet. He lifts the napkin he has folded over his knees and uses it to wipe the sweat from his hands. He doesn’t know what to say. Now that everyone’s listening to him, now that his disquisition on the dockworkers’ poverty is awaited with curiosity and sympathy, he no longer has any interest in giving it. He studies Elizabeth’s reaction out of the corner of his eye; he feels the searing weight of her gaze right on his lacerated cheek. For the first time he realizes that she never looks at his eyes or mouth. It is that stitched-up flesh that she is always observing, seeming to study it with interest and desire and even a bit of pride, just as a girl might examine the medals her beloved earned in battle.

At last he begins to speak. He sketches the scene of the crowd packed into the port, the train brought to a halt with hurled rocks, the mounted soldiers charging. The account should electrify his listeners, but for some reason it does not; the words emerge as flat and lifeless as a canvas. He has lost the ardor of his first speech. Now it is not Sandoval or Marx or Kropotkin himself who seems to speak through him; now only Carlos speaks through Carlos’s mouth. If anyone bothered to transcribe his words, they would find them to be as full of hesitations, adverbs, and ellipses as Georgina’s letters. But nobody bothers to transcribe them, of course. At most they listen to him distractedly, uninterested in his dull discourse. Even Elizabeth’s gaze seems to have cooled a little. Only Madeleine, who has not understood a word, maintains the same imperturbable smile.

And then it happens. Someone asks Carlos what he was doing in El Callao on the very day and at the very hour of the largest strike of the century so far, and for a moment he doesn’t know how to respond. He seeks out José’s gaze, as if asking for help. And suddenly José is standing with a smile and begging permission to speak. Those present must forgive him, he says in a confident tone, but the truth is that it was all his fault; his dear friend Carlos has been covering for him for far too long, but the time has come to confess the truth. It was entirely because of him that they were at the port that day, as he has so often chided himself since — how could he not feel regret after what happened? But he has always felt such profound concern for the disadvantaged, those who go hungry, those who are deprived of the bread that God would knead for all of His creatures. And on that fateful day, he wanted — so selfishly! — to go find out whether the shipping-company magnates had come to an agreement with the protesters. He is sometimes possessed by these sorts of whims — sponsoring a student who has not been offered a scholarship or giving a fifty- sol cloak to a blind man so he doesn’t feel the chill. His friend Carlos attempted to talk him out of it, of course, because Carlos is sensible and prudent and always tries to make him see reason. He might warn him, for example, that the poor student spends his tuition money on women and wine, or remind him that fifty soles aren’t to be squandered on a destitute blind man who is probably faking anyway and has perfectly functional eyes behind his dark glasses. Though José does not share Carlos’s ideas, he knows that they come from his friend’s prudence and good judgment, virtues that he admires so much. Well, then: Carlos gave him the same sort of advice that day, to no avail, and he should have listened to him, because as it turned out, no agreement had been reached, and instead they encountered guns and swords. And it was his poor friend Carlos who’d borne the brunt of it, sensible, prudent Carlos who’d lain wounded on the ground, and José had wept during the charge and refused to leave his side — another foolish bit of stubbornness, really, they could have killed him, though they didn’t — the soldiers rushing past with their swords held high and him weeping over his injured friend, the injured people, the whole world injured by injustice and poverty and oppression.

José keeps talking a few minutes longer. He describes the way his hand clutched Carlos’s as the doctor sewed up the wound; the fearlessness with which he blocked the sergeant who attempted to detain his friend — Under no circumstances, sir, if you wish to arrest this man, you will have to arrest me first. But Carlos has stopped listening. He is conscious only of the evolving expressions on the guests’ faces: the smiles, the looks of surprise, of admiration, of suspense. The way even the nun’s waxen cheeks seem to flush with an insurgent glow. But especially the face of Elizabeth, who is no longer looking at him, who now is conscious only of José’s gestures, José’s eyes, José’s mouth opening and closing, saying what she so longs to hear. Seeing the intensity of her gaze, Carlos attempts to smile. He smiles until the mask of his mouth begins to ache.

◊

When José and Carlos take their leave, the two sisters accompany them out to the street. It seems they’ve become accustomed to taking a walk every afternoon right before dinner. And it also turns out the four of them are going in the same direction, what a remarkable coincidence, so José immediately offers the young ladies their coach. He and Carlos can return home on foot, so they won’t be in the sisters’ way. And the young ladies accept the chivalrous offer, of course, but they would not dream of depriving the young men of their conveyance. “There’s more than enough room!” Elizabeth notes earnestly, her eyes fixed on José. Might not the four of them travel together? The lady’s voice stresses the word together , but certainly not the four . José lightly bows his head and responds that, in that case, they will share the coach with pleasure. Also, it’s such a lovely afternoon… Mightn’t the ladies want to join them on their outing? Although, he hastens to add, including Carlos with his gaze, perhaps the two of them should not request such an abuse of time and trust; surely the young ladies have already had the opportunity to visit Lima and get to know its every detail, and so there is nothing they could offer to amuse them.

“None of that, now! We’ve hardly left the house since we arrived!” Elizabeth lies, perhaps forgetting that not five minutes ago she declared them enthusiastic takers of long walks.

“Pardon me?” adds the younger sister in English, with utmost sincerity.

And so it is arranged: a journey to Miraflores and the beach at Chorrillos and the Barranco cliffs, and then back to Lima at dinnertime.

Carlos barely participates in the operation. He climbs into the carriage and sits next to Madeleine, careful that their knees don’t touch. He doesn’t speak; he stares at the knob of his cane, smiles politely when obligated, and occasionally gives a brief instruction to the coachman through the little window.

José, though, points out at the landscape and offers commentary ranging from the humorous to the picturesque. When the inspiration strikes, he even tries out a few philosophical musings that have little to do with what he is seeing and very much to do with the particular texts he has studied for the occasion. As she listens, Elizabeth laughs or expresses surprise or feigns deep reflection, as appropriate. From time to time she translates the observations for her sister, who seems rather less entertained or astonished or meditative. In any event, the conversation has ceased to revolve around the workers and their hardships. Nor do the two of them remember Carlos, who presses against the cushions in the carriage and fiddles with his watch chain. Only the homely daughter occasionally turns to look at him and smile.