Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

Some lost their girlfriends before coming back and, if the letters reached them, they were unlucky enough to find out while they were over there, where they were least prepared to deal with it. Others found them still waiting, but it was they who didn’t return, their hearts and pricks buried thousands of kilometres away. Even the ones who married them on their return and are still with them today, and tell their children about their war exploits, sometimes dream in deepest night of a bed as broad as the sea and, stretching out one hand in their dreams across the strait to stroke that perfect outline, now lost for ever, they awaken to find only the softness of that warm flesh that destiny has tried to console them with. How could those simple girls from the neighbourhood or school, sometimes barely groped at a dance or beneath a burnt-out lamp post, compete with the Islands? As the letters arrived — or didn’t — from the mainland, or when we were defeated by the effort of reconstructing a face and body in that jealous and ruthless land, we gradually realised we were surrendering them in return for a greater love. But we didn’t realise just how far we’d come till that day at the end of May, when, after an unusually quiet night, we left our tents and foxholes to find the desolate terrain wrapped in an endless veil of white. The first snow had fallen, thick and spongy, from east to west the whole night, covering the craters and caves and rocks and open-air bogs, the skeletons of the disembowelled machines, and the streets and roofs of the distant town; covering too — as we found out much later — the still steaming and devastated Goose Green, a few hours earlier the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle of the war). Seeing what had become of our lives since, many years later a few of us would recall that day when the Islands had worn white for us and understood what they’d been trying to tell us: that it was more serious than we thought, more final and defining; that we were married to them.

Before I got off the bus, I removed my Ramones and Metallica badges, which with the long hair allowed me to pass for a rocker (people still can’t get used to this war veteran thing) and replaced them with the Malvinas badges I had in my jacket pocket. ‘God bless you, son!’ exclaimed Hugo’s mum when she opened the door, although you could see from her face that she hadn’t the foggiest who I was. Inside were more uniforms than a parade, and only the presence of wives and girlfriends and children chasing each other with toy guns between their parents’ legs lent a touch of colour to the olive green monochrome of the scene. Hugo lived with his mum, a devoted daughter, widow and mother of soldiers, in a dinky half-floor apartment at the junction of French and Uriburu whose décor had evidently been dictated by her son’s whims. There wasn’t a centimetre of wall that wasn’t covered by maps of the Islands, campaign photos, portraits of comrades-in-arms from 601 Commando Company, weapons of war or hunting or collector’s pieces, certificates and diplomas accrediting courses at home and in Panama, decorations received in Tucumán and the Malvinas, animal heads so ill-treated by moths and the sun (the most recent must have been ten years old) that they looked not hunted but nicked with a saw one night from the Natural Science Museum; 105-mm mortar and cannon shells on the floor, wrapped in rosaries and prints of the Virgin; model ships and planes hanging from the ceiling or on shelves, assembled and painted with the inexhaustible patience of the crippled. At the centre of this sanctuary and its offerings reigned First Lieutenant (HD) Hugo Carcasa on his wheeled throne, his heavy boar’s head turning weightily every so often on his gigantic torso like the turret of a tank.

‘Javier! Brother!’ he greeted me when I approached him and, after a few minutes of smiling politely at his questions about someone else’s life, I negotiated the six pairs of army boots that surrounded him and headed for a table where I could see a few bottles of white sticking out. Cornered, I stuck to my guns and waited for a familiar face, but only managed to catch a glimpse of Verraco captivating an audience of four with his video victories. He didn’t call me over, so I imagined he was spreading the word that he’d designed it himself.

By my third glass without ice I’d started to feel the heat and took off my jacket. Hugo’s mum offered to take it Huguito’s room, but I said don’t, I’ll take it myself. There were two single beds separated by a narrow corridor, and beneath the hills of great coats and capes, I could just make out the embroidery of the Islands, one on each bedspread. Sergio, who’d once stayed over to sleep, told us that Hugo had a box full of little plastic ships and that they’d stayed up reconstructing the war’s naval manœuvres, with Hugo barking the orders and jumping on his bed like a monkey, and Sergio crawling around on all fours executing them. As I was on my way out, something familiar poking out from under the bed around Puerto Howard caught my eye. I squatted down and pushed aside the fringe of the bedspread to check: a box of Christopher products.

‘Felipe! Brother!’ came a shout, this time getting my name right, as I left the bedroom. It was Sergio, Ignacio and Tomás with a new pair of army boots for Hugo’s collection. I was truly happy to see them; they were the company I’d come for after all. After sending Tamerlán the complete list by e-mail and sorting out my fees over the phone, I’d spent the rest of the day in a state of profound malaise, incapable of resting or relaxing or looking forward to the still inconceivable engorgement of my bank account. Not even the infallible Web had brought me the usual solace; I’d had to log off when I caught myself typing with my eyes full of tears and a painful knot in my throat. The joint I’d smoked had made me worse and, after a half-hearted lunch, I curled up on the bed to sleep, unsuccessfully. Spending so much time in contact with the outside world must have thrown you off balance, I told myself to avoid further distress; it’ll take a few days to readapt, it’s always the same. Company’s addictive, you know that; pretend you’re in detox and let go a little bit at a time. You’ll be back to normal in a week.

Sunk in thought at the bottom of my glass, I jumped when I saw it fill with red; Ignacio was slapping me effusively on the back (he gets bolder when he’s had a few) and we drank to the tenth anniversary. I’m a bit hard on them, I thought to myself as I watched them passing the bottle round and grabbing handfuls of Wotsits and saluting every retired officer without so much as a glance. I laugh privately at their crazy plans and the faithfulness of their obsessions; yet they’d been the ones who’d come to get me and dig me out of the hole I’d been dumped in on my return, kept me company and looked after me till I was well enough to look after myself. If it hadn’t been for them, instead of this one, I’d now be at one of those birthday parties in the Borda where the birthday boy doesn’t have the coordination to blow straight and the male nurse has to puff the candles out.

Hugo’s mum came in to general applause with a large, steaming bowl containing the main dish, a meat-chicken-and-fish concoction of her own: ‘Three Forces Pie’. It was cut by a helpful sergeant who took a sabre from the wall (laughter from the congregation), and the women helped to serve it. The first plate was for her adored son, and was accompanied by a kiss on the forehead. Approaching with my empty plate, I joined Tomás, Sergio and Ignacio, who were waiting with cheerful resignation at the end of the mess queue. My growing irritation, induced by the wine and one of my headaches looming over the horizon, now spilled over towards them too; however hard I tried, I couldn’t forgive them for always talking about the war as some longer, more exciting version of a school-leavers’ trip, for getting to stay in the town while we were marched off to the mountain, for being the ones who were with me now. You weren’t the ones, I mentally reproached them, whose bodies clung to mine in the wordless fear of the belly of the plane; we didn’t jump out together in the last light, running and shouting and taking advantage of the roar of the rotor blades to ask each other at the tops of our voices ‘Is this Malvinas? Are we in Malvinas?’ because no one had told us, and only when we crossed the town and saw all the traffic signs on the other side of the road did those who still insisted we were in Ushuaia finally fall silent. It was dark when we began to skirt the bay, without dinner, our summer uniforms soaked by the outrageous icy wind, newly torn from the creature comforts of civilian life and suddenly laden with twenty-three kilos of gear; no sooner were the last lights behind us than we began to dump everything and the embankment became so clogged with tents, boxes of ammunition, drums of drinking water and provisions that you could only walk down the middle of the road: we’d just arrived and we already looked like an army in retreat. The NCOs tripped and stumbled in the dark, shouting Who dropped this drum whose is this ammunition if I catch him I’ll shoot him here and now you bastards we’re at war, and us killing ourselves with muffled laugher and Carlitos saying Brother are we off to a bad start. The three of us had done our obligatory service together — and the day before Carlitos on the phone We’re fucked Rubén and I have already been called up see you in the regiment. No one knew the lieutenant: he was from the Chaco, his name was Chanino and he had less idea of what was going on than we did. Intimidated because we were from Buenos Aires, quicker, cleverer and whiter than he was, he gave orders like someone apologising, and was so courteous that we got quite fond of him and sometimes even pretended to obey him so he wouldn’t feel bad, like when the sarge ordered him to make us dig ourselves in facing east on a crag of solid rock, ‘With picks if need be.’ What picks, you prick? There aren’t any! hissed Carlitos, Chanino shushing him in a panic. Luckily we were pretty well hidden from the sergeant by the rocks, so as soon as he disappeared, we moved a few metres down and pitched our tents at the edge of a cliff face that seemed to face east, or north: without compass or maps or a single glimpse of the sun, opinions varied. Rubén turned to Chanino, who ‘should know about these things, being a country boy’; the corporal looked pensively at the sky for some time (Carlitos: ‘Armadillos fly north in the winter; the most reliable compass you can find.’), licked a finger to test the direction of the wind (it was blowing so hard he could have tested it by throwing bowling balls in the air) and suggested south, so we decided to dig where the ground looked softest and hope for the best. The only thing that mattered was to defend ourselves against that wind, and we drove in the posts and weighted down the flapping tarpaulins with piles of stones to stop them smacking the shit out of us. At the foot of the wall, so that we could dive out of the tents if we needed to, we began to dig ourselves in properly, using the articulated shovels we’d been provided with. Mine came out champion, lasting almost half an hour before all I was left holding was the handle; my mates had resigned themselves a while back to digging with just the blades or their helmets, sometimes just their boots. We eventually managed to make a shallow hollow about sixty centimetres deep in which, squatting and crouching, we could just keep our heads below ground. There was barely enough room for the four of us in there, shuffling our bums like broody hens: it looked more like a rhea’s nest than a foxhole, but to us it felt impregnable. We spent most of our time in the tent though: we pulled two sheets of plywood off a shed in Moody Brook, and put our sleeping bags and waterproof ponchos on top: the water ran underneath and we managed to keep ourselves as near to dry as possible. Anyway, we all slept in a heap to keep warm, our civvies beneath our uniforms, with two lots of summer gear over them, three pairs of socks … The two hot meals a day brought up from the mess at the foot of the hill would have helped us bear the chill if they hadn’t been so watery and cold by the time they reached our area. Only when the meals went down to one a day — and that a thin broth from the top of the pot (the contents of the bottom went to the officers) — did we organise ourselves and pay a visit to Moody Brook or the town on the nick. It had taken us eight hours to climb the mountain, but with the help of the wind we could get down in thirty minutes; it blew so hard you only had to open your jacket like Dracula and jump off the crags and down you floated, the way you do down stairs in a dream. The first time, a few pesos to the guard (cash was still worth something in those days) bought us admission to Ali Baba’s cave: boxes of food from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, avenues, side streets, alleyways, roundabouts of food, which we explored with eyes popping and broad grins on our faces; that day we ate rice and corned beef with tomato purée and peas and bread ; we cleaned the pot (an empty yam jelly tin) and then ate the slices of jelly and smoked two packets of Chesterfield between the four of us. It must have been five in the afternoon before we finished: the wind had begun to quieten down and, lighting one cigarette with another to save our lighter, we threw ourselves on the levellest rocks or the grass swept into cow-licks by the ferocious wind and watched the lights coming on one by one down there in the town, all signs of military occupation dissolving in the distance. In every house a thin plume of smoke rose from the chimney — a miracle: a day without wind — against the ultramarine of the sky and the first stars, and we all fell silent, the homesickness so strong we didn’t dare look at each other, each of us privately knitting memories of the life they’d left behind, or dreaming of being down there in the town: a mug of cocoa in their tummy, an armchair and a lamp, a pipe, a dog, a crackling hearth and their slippered feet, warm and dry, almost touching it. Right then I never imagined that, of all the group, I’d be the one for whom the dream would come true. They came for me the following morning: they needed someone to listen to the BBC and translate the news and eventually — should they manage to intercept anything — the communications of the English squadron now taking position around the Islands. They were the best two weeks of the campaign: snuggled between the radio and hearth of a requisitioned house, a steaming mug of tea and English biscuits, I spent nearly the whole time watching the raindrops slide down the window, the wind rattle the panes, the watery sunlight that sometimes bathed my legs. Every couple of hours I’d grab the typewriter and hammer out a summary of the information and take it next door, where the communications people were based. I had hot baths, I shaved with shaving foam, I got a winter uniform, I washed my underwear, and I ate desperately, systematically, devoting several hours a day to it. That was where I met Ignacio, Sergio and Tomás, who were on guard duty outside and would sneak in once in a while to thaw out, have a hot cup of tea and a chat. My luck held till the day the English landed at San Carlos, when, for sticking to the facts and translating the information correctly, I got a mouthful for a full fifteen minutes from some crazed lieutenant about being a traitor and a turncoat, and was sent back to the mountain with severe warnings of what might happen if I divulged the false rumours that the enemy were spreading as part of their psychological warfare. With several hours’ walk ahead of me and no one to set the pace, I started back happier than I’d imagined, anticipating a joyful reunion with my mates and convinced by my full belly and well-rested body that life on the mountain wasn’t so bad after all, taking it for granted that I’d find everything more or less as I’d left it. As I walked, I began to see how things had changed.