Arturo Fontaine - La Vida Doble

“So you like movies about spies and detectives, then?”

“No. About naturally beautiful women.”

We laughed.

“Why don’t you like spy movies?”

“If they had a smell, no one would go see them.” And, as if that were nothing: “Tomorrow, Saturday, at four o’clock, come meet me at number 86 Calle Libertad. It’s an aikido academy. Go in and ask for Luis José Calvo. OK? We’re going to take some pictures of you.”

“I never knew you were a samurai,” I laughed. “How long have you done aikido?”

“About eleven years.”

“And? Are you any good?”

“That’s the problem: no.”

“Black belt?”

“No; I haven’t been able to pass. But Cristóbal will be a sixth dan before he’s out of school. I promise you that.”

And there I was. AKIKAI–CHILE AIKIDO CULTURAL CENTER. The sign was small. The house, big, old, and run-down. I rang the bell, the door opened, and I went in through a dark hallway. At the end, a refrigerator with drinks, and beyond that, a spacious light well. I was greeted by a fat woman with round arms and her hair pulled back in a bun, who must have been over seventy years old. She was behind a big table, and she put down her knitting to come and talk to me. I explained I was looking for Luis José Calvo. She told me to go through the gallery, turn left, and go up the stairs. Señor Calvo was watching a competition that his son was in, she explained.

“He’s one of the finalists,” she told me with a smile. A moment later I was sitting next to Señor Calvo, who was in a big white shirt and wide black pants, watching two children fight.

Macha pointed out his son. Cristóbal was slight and dark. He could-n’t have been over seven years old. He and his opponent were flying through the air, falling and rolling on the wooden floor, and then they were back up, uncomplaining, to attack again. They looked like birds or fighting cocks. I caught a glimpse of a hand on Macha’s son’s chin. His head went backward and I thought I saw the other boy grab Cristóbal’s raised arm; a quick spinning motion and then Cristóbal was on the ground, immobilized, with his arm stretched out.

“Ryokatatori ikkyo,” Macha exclaimed. “Impeccable execution.”

“Your son lost. .”

“Well, what can you do. He came in second. He fought well. His sensei is excellent.”

After the recognition ceremony I saw a tide of children and teenagers go by in robes and wide white pants on the way to the changing rooms. Cristóbal ran to find his father, who lifted him up in a hug. He greeted me with forced indifference. He told Macha his mother was coming to pick him up. Macha congratulated him and gave him a good-bye hug before disappearing into the locker rooms. He came back five minutes later with wet hair, black jeans and shirt, bag over his shoulder and leather jacket in hand. “Let’s go,” he told me, and started walking quickly.

Cristóbal came running over and took his hand. Macha said good-bye to him again, but the boy wanted to walk him to the motorcycle. We went past the woman at the entrance and filed down the dark hallway, the two of them in front of me. The door to the street opened. Macha stopped. Against the outside light was the silhouette of a woman, who barely greeted Macha and hugged Cristóbal. Her Chanel perfume invaded my nostrils. Macha introduced me as “a colleague” and she reached out her fat hand to me almost with disgust.

She looked older than Macha. She had brown hair and green eyes. Cristóbal had inherited those big, light eyes. Other than that, starting with his eyelashes, he was purely his father. She must have once had good breasts, but wrinkles and sunspots had formed on them, and the eye could intuit their gelatinous consistency. Close to her belt there was a roll of flesh. The two-piece suit she was wearing didn’t help her at all, of course. The pant legs, thick and very white, ended in a pair of low heels with severe lines. The two of them stayed there, silhouetted in the doorway. Cristóbal and I went back through the hallway. She was saying something to Macha about her mother’s birthday, that it was already past two. . The tone was of barely contained rage. I turned around and looked at them. Macha said something I couldn’t make out. Her nostrils flared. She raised her chin and pointed an accusatory finger. Cristóbal gave me his hand and we went farther back along the hallway. Her shrill voice was getting louder. Macha answered her softly.

We sat down on a rat-colored sofa, between the refrigerator and the fat woman with the bun who watched over the entrance. I asked Cristóbal if he had plans for his vacation. He told me in a firm voice that he wanted to go with his father on the motorcycle to Yelcho.

“Something bad happened the last time we went camping. But it wasn’t in Yelcho.”

He says it after a pause and with that gravity children are capable of.

“What was it?”

“My dad and I went to the mountains. My dad took me there. We went with two mule drivers. We drank mate. Everyone from the same straw and you couldn’t move it. I thought that was gross. One of the herders had a scab on his lip. That was really gross. The guy was dirty and he smelled bad. But my dad told me I had to grin and bear it, so I did. We went on horseback for lots of days. We went up the Cuesta de las Lágrimas and there was a huge, huge cliff. If the horse slips and you fall over the cliff, there’s nothing left of you. That’s what they told us. The little horse path was like this, this narrow.”

“Dangerous, huh?”

“But that wasn’t the bad thing. The bad part was when we came to a lake and there were some ducks.”

“And? Were the ducks pretty?”

“The ducks were really pretty, they had green feathers in their wings. And they were all quiet in the water. They weren’t afraid of us at all. I thought we should hunt them. I asked my dad for the rifle. I asked if we could try shooting for real. My dad didn’t want to. Then the herder with the gross scab on his lip, said: ‘Go on and let him, boss. Come on over here, I’ll show you how.’ And he went to grab the rifle from my dad. But when he tried to take it, my dad held on to it. ‘Hey, OK, I’ll teach him,’ he said. He showed me how to aim. I’d already gone shooting at the firing range with my dad. Revolver and pistol. Never a rifle. It was really heavy. The trigger was hard to pull and the rifle moved and the duck I was aiming at was getting away. Then all of a sudden you heard the shot and the butt of the rifle hit me in the shoulder. The ducks flew away and disappeared in the sky. I looked at the lake and there was only one left. It was lifting up one wing, but not the other. It went on floating, like that, tilted over.

“‘Dad! The duck. .’

“My dad looked at me really serious.

“‘We have to kill it, son.’

“I shouted ‘No!’ It was awful.

“‘That duck is suffering. It’s going to die anyway, Cristóbal. It won’t be able to find food like that. Do you want to make it suffer? We have to kill it.’

“Then I threw myself on the ground and started to cry. The duck, tilted over, went on swimming in a circle. It didn’t make noise. It kept swimming so calmly. . He fired a shot. The duck fell over. My dad lowered the rifle. I jumped on him, kicking and punching him. I went crazy. I wanted to kill him. I was screaming and crying. Later that night when I was falling asleep, my dad came over to my sleeping bag. He told me again that it would have been worse to leave the poor duck in pain.

“‘How do you know? Maybe it would have gotten better,’ I told him, and I didn’t talk to him again until we got back to Santiago.”

Cristóbal looks at me, and I see all that he is right there in his eyes.