Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

It stopped one noon, just as we’d got used to the idea that there was no world but this; we peeked out to see the first light-blue patches of sky, shivering out of control in the icy wind, which soon revealed a pallid aluminium sun, the faded smile of God dosing out His mercy with a dropper. From the other tents and foxholes these dripping scarecrows also emerged, turning like sunflowers to face the light and warmth. Clumsily at first, coming out of our lethargy, we undid our leashes, got rid of our heavy jackets like recently flayed hides, tore off the layers of clothing till we were nearly stark naked, jumping and hitting each other so that the cold wouldn’t kill us, wringing out our clothes (one at each end, putting our whole bodyweight into it). Getting out of our sodden clothes wasn’t enough; we needed to open our bones lengthwise and dry out our marrow in the sun. Carlitos and one of the Cordobans managed to get hold of a drum of fuel and, ignoring the ban, we lit a pyre of peat and ran around it, drying or at least warming the clothing we’d put back on, dancing like dervishes, our ghostly faces lit up by the flames.

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday, First Lieutenant Hugo Carcasa HD,

Happy birthday to you!

Radiant as a bride, holding the majestic cake aloft in both hands, her face lit by the flickering flame of the ten candles, Hugo’s mother processed towards the altar where her son awaited her, rocking impatiently back and forth, his hands clenched on the arms of the chair. She laid it at his feet — correction: hips — and held it there for a few seconds for everyone to admire. She’d really pushed the boat out, it being the tenth anniversary and all: shored up by a steep slope of meringue and surrounded by a blue sea of hundreds and thousands, the green Islands shone resplendent. Numerous little plastic soldiers ran valiantly among the long candles that pointed at the ceiling like anti-aircraft batteries, and, like a nose-diving Harrier, Hugo launched himself at them and blew them out with one big puff. A salvo of applause greeted his feat, but before they could turn on the lights, the candles sputtered back to life. Everyone laughed: Hugo’s mother had bought trick ones and, the loving joke on her delighted son apart, we all understood the symbolic intention her gesture entailed. Eventually putting them out with our fingers, we allowed her to turn on the light and arrange them at one side of the tray.

‘Now,’ said Hugo, cracking the same joke he did every year as a signal to his mother, who held her eager trowel aloft, ‘it’s time to dig in to the Malvinas.’

Everyone laughed and applauded again, and the cake, which beneath the icing turned out to be a common or garden sponge cake (perhaps she’d been trying to imitate the taste of the peat too), was passed round. I stood there for a while, my eyes fixed on the ten dead candles piled at one side of the cake, with their charred tips and the remains of icing and hundreds and thousands at their bases, and only then did I remember that what Hugo celebrated year in year out was not his birthday, but the day when, landing on the wrong beach, his dinghy brushed against one of our own mines and the bow blew into the air along with both his legs, slicing them off at the knee. Now, his mouth full of cake, he was shouting, once again we shall leave our mark on the earth of Malvinas, trample the English underfoot and recover everything they took from us; as if, by merely the changing colour of the map, the earth could reverse its natural tendency to putrefaction and give him back the legs that it had kept intact as hostages in some secure facility: all that would be needed was his return in order to recover them and march them to victory. Perhaps in the razor-wired minefield of his brain he’d come to identify them with the Islands plain and simple, and every night dreamed of awakening one morning to headlines announcing Argentina’s recovery of the Malvinas as he threw back the sheets and blankets to find a pair of soft, rosy legs, like those of a newborn babe, instead of the intolerable folded precipice of his pyjamas.

Meanwhile, the wine had flowed and, one after another, everyone began to sing:

’Neath your blanket of mists

We shall not forget you,

The Malvinas, Argentina’s

…

I barely moved my lips, discreetly altering the second line to ‘ We shall all ’, and I too jumped up and down when we finished and started up with ‘ Fee-fi-fo-fum, whoever isn’t jumping is an Englishman. ’ The whole apartment shook to the rhythmic tramping of thirty pairs of army boots; the women jumped too, clacking their heels, and the children screamed with joy (save for three or four — the littlest — who sheltered under a table, crying), and even Hugo bounced up and down on his chair like a ball with arms. Brandishing a bottle of national Scotch that had materialised from somewhere, arms locked in a square, Verraco and my three friends leaped highest of all, making the line of glasses dance on the white tablecloth. It’s been a long time, I thought, and at that moment the doorbell rang. It was the downstairs neighbour, in dressing gown and slippers.

‘Now listen here, this is outrageous; one of our pictures came down, what do you mean jumping about like this and …’

He was so wound up that he said it all in one breath before he noticed the thirty-odd pairs of eyes trained on him like rifles. When he turned round, the one who’d opened the door to him, an air-arm lieutenant I didn’t recognise, had shut the door behind him. Hugo advanced ominously along the corridor that opened in the crowd, spinning the wheels of his chair like the drum of a revolver.

‘And where are you from?’

‘I, I …’ he stammered, ‘I’m your new downstairs neighbour.’

‘Ah, the new guy. You lot change as fast as chicks do. Didn’t the guy before tell you?’

‘I … it’s just that I arrived in the country not long ago with my family, and then the children, it’s late …’

‘Of course, you arrived not long ago and you’re already ordering us around. If you don’t like life here, why didn’t you stay in … Where the fuck are you lot from?’

‘From … real near, Valparaíso.’

Now all he needs to say is that his wife’s English, I thought, holding my head. In the silence you could hear the hiccups of one of the children, who was still crying.

‘Real near. And for you lot real near will soon be Mendoza, right? Then La Pampa. And Tandil. And you’ll decide this apartment’s yours too any moment, won’t you?’ And, as if spitting out a piece of chewing gum, he added: ‘Chilean. You’re sure you’re Chilean? You know what we do to Chileans, here?’

The neighbour scanned the wall of stony faces and moss-coloured uniforms. Bulging, his eyes ran across the collection of weapons on the wall and returned to Hugo’s.

‘So you decide. Let’s see, lads.’

As before, but this time without his feet leaving the floor, standing to attention as if for the National Anthem, they began to sing ‘ Whoever isn’t jumping’s a Chilean ,’ without taking their eyes off the neighbour, who turned this way and that for some hint what to do. He lifted one foot, his slipper hanging at an angle, shuffled a bit, then jumping out of his slippers, took his first hop. Two or three more and he was flying, knees to chest, his faded brown dressing gown flapping about him like the wings of a duck trying to take off from a pond. Unmoved, without the slightest twitch to suggest he was doing it right, the others went on:

‘ Whoever isn’t jumping’s a Chilean! Whoever isn’t jumping’s a Chilean! ’