Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

‘The Serpent was born in Palestine in the year 909 before Christ, and its cradle was the Temple of Solomon, although some scholars quite rightly trace its origins back to the Serpent that tempted Woman with the First Sin and brought about our Fall. There, with that patience typical of the Landless Race, it grew fatter and stronger until it was ready to strike out. Far from being the result of persecution, as they would have us believe, the Diaspora was the signal for Hebrew armies to embark on their conquest of the world. The Serpent accomplished its first stage in Greece in the year 429 before Christ, where, with the help of traitors like Pericles, it managed to impose democracy in order to undermine the foundations of the cradle of our civilisation. The second stage …’

He was interrupted by some voices at the back. Two veterans in naval uniform were arguing, elbowing each other and hissing emphatically as if trying to put themselves in the Serpent’s shoes and guess what its next steps would be.

‘I said A-7. Hit and destroyed! I win!’

‘ E -7! It wasn’t A -7, it was E -7! And it’s a miss! E -7!’

Ignacio had mentioned to me that a lot of Navy types had been showing up of late. Despite never having set foot on the Islands, they’d pushed for honorary ex-combatant status and were now entitled, after a split vote, to bask in our dubious glory and reap its paltry rewards.

‘Perhaps the two of you can give us a better idea of this second stage than I can,’ Citatorio shrilled at them, like a secondary-school teacher emphasising — as if it needed emphasis — the fact that he was being ironic.

‘Err … dunno. Villa Kreplaj?’ said the self-proclaimed winner, triggering general mirth.

‘No, sir,’ Citatorio hastened to add. ‘The Rome of Augustus.’

‘Augustus who?’ asked a Correntino from R12 whom I knew by sight.

‘The only one in Rome, sir. How many others do you know?’ He cleared his throat and soldiered on: ‘After murdering Our Lord Jesus Christ, who was the first to see the danger and rise up against it, it crawled across the Mediterranean to Spain, where, in the year 1522, it swallowed the empire of Charles V whole.’

‘What did they get up to in the meantime? I mean, it’s a thousand five hundred years between the two,’ asked the Correntino, who’d been writing everything down in his notebook.

‘I don’t know. You tell me. They sold cloth. I’ve told you they’re patient. Anyway, after that the Serpent marched on in leaps and bounds. Paris in 1796, London in 1814, Berlin in 1871, Russia in 1905 and, of course, in 1917. Wherever a great empire teeters on the brink, you’ll see the bald helmet of the Circumcised Serpent peeping out of the rubble. Kiev, Odessa and Constantinople were the last stages before reaching its goal, Jerusalem, and completing its journey, joining its head with its tail to forge the Mystic Ring that will keep Europe under its yoke for ever: the Ouroboros, the Eternal Serpent without beginning or end. And they nearly succeeded!’

This was the cue for the bit about Hitler and how he’d severed with the sword the knot no one could undo, unselfishly laying down his own life and those of millions of Germans to save the world. But, like the Hydra, when you cut off one head, the Serpent sprouts two, and so, pre-emptively, it had forked off to America. I seized the opportunity when he turned round to change maps, and went and sat next to Ignacio.

‘Don’t you get tired of listening to the same old shite all the time?’ I whispered in his ear.

‘There’s a roll call, you know. Besides, Sergio and Tomás have got something up their sleeves for today,’ he said, giggling behind his closed fingers. ‘Can’t say anything. So what are you doing here?’

‘I came to look for you. I need to see the model. I’m making the video game.’

‘No! For Verraco?’

I nodded. I was about to explain, when Ignacio nudged me.

‘Shhh. He’s watching us.’

Professor Citatorio glared at us for a few seconds over the top of his glasses and ploughed on.

‘The report that the first Jew arrived in America on the ships of Christopher Columbus is not without foundation. And it was this Jew that incited the previously docile sailors to mutiny. Soon they were swarming all over the place, instilling hatred of the Spaniard and our Church in the natives. Haven’t you ever wondered why Spain, which had the vastest empire and the greatest reserves of gold and silver ever discovered, had ended up poor and backward four hundred years later? By the proximity of the Hebrew will ye know the location of the gold!’ He always worked himself into a lather when he got to this bit, the colour rising in his cheeks, and would even start waving his goblin hands in the air. ‘They were responsible for the failure of our city’s first foundation, speculating with the provisions until everyone died of hunger! The first two English Invasions of Buenos Aires were financed by the moneyed Jews of London with the complicity of our local tribe. Why do you think Viceroy Sobremonte seized his chance and fled to Córdoba with the Viceregal jewels? His real name was Sobremonski — a false convert if ever there was one! And what became of the treasure?’

I especially liked this bit about Sobremonte. I’d never heard it before. The old codger sometimes managed to pull an ace from his sleeve and surprise you for a few seconds. Satisfied with the effect he’d created, he launched into the more theoretical part of his tirade.

‘Examined from any other perspective, history appears to us as a series of apparently sporadic and spontaneous events; but viewed in this light it acquires another dimension, one that reveals the intelligence hiding behind the apparent events and leaders. There are those who doubt the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Andinia Plan. We must answer them in the words of our own Hugo Wast: “The Protocols may be fakes … but they have been amazingly fulfilled.”’

In an attempt at theatricality he tore aside the map of the Americas to reveal one of Patagonia and the Malvinas Islands below it, but, getting carried away, he went sprawling on the floor enveloped in both. The whole class hee-hawed helplessly as he struggled there, wrapped in the arms of history.

‘Zionist Saboteurs,’ he muttered as he picked himself up and put the new map back in its place. We all knew it by heart: a swarm of Stars of David marking the location of the enemy-occupied towns in Patagonia and the Islands, a quiver of missiles tracing their arcs north from them and selected Chilean cities, straight for what remained of the Argentinian Republic.

‘Thirty years later, repulsed on the mainland by the heroic resistance of our forebears, the English got a foothold on our beloved Austral Isles. The expedition was financed by Jewish bankers, the same ones that would later launch hordes of immigrants against us, ready to drown the very roots of our nationality in their blood. Jewish Gauchos! The ultimate bad joke! But in 1920 many people were laughing on the other side of their faces. In the clear light of day, under the sun of our immense southern skies, the enemy, with the aid of the traitor Chile and perfidious Albion, attempted to seize our Patagonia and found the New Jerusalem there. But they weren’t reckoning on our army of Patriots! We drove them out in 1806, and in 1920 … and again in ’82!’ he shouted, pulling out his trump card. ‘Ten years ago we achieved the full liberation of our national territory for the first time in our history! Never have they been so far from fulfilling their objectives as they were then.’

Some people got to their feet. They’d only come to savour this moment.