Rupert Thomson - Air and Fire

He was still wondering how to begin the story without mentioning vice of any kind when he noticed a small crowd gathering on the quay. He recognised Monsieur de Romblay, the Director of the mining company. He could also see a group of Indians, dressed in white shirts and clean breeches. They were clutching a variety of pipes and drums and whistles. It looked as if Monsieur de Romblay had come down to the waterfront, along with certain other select members of the French community, to meet the boat that had docked that morning. It was a welcoming party, and there would be music.

‘Tell us about your foot, mister.’

Wilson turned to the girls. ‘What?’

‘Tell us what happened to your foot.’

His eyes drifted back towards the quayside. Two figures had just appeared on deck. A man and a woman, her arm linked through his. The band struck up a tune that Wilson did not recognise, and the two figures began to move down the gangway. The man wore a Panama hat and a black frock-coat. The woman wore a yellow dress that belled out into the air below her waist, and her parasol balanced at a jaunty angle on her shoulder. He wondered who they could be. Were they someone’s relations? Could they be royalty? He leaned back in his chair. One thing, at least, was clear: they were French.

‘Come on, mister. Tell us what happened.’

His foot ached inside the plaster cast. His shoulder ached too. He did not feel well. But he could not take his eyes off the scene that was unfolding on the quay. The man and woman had climbed into an open carriage, with Monsieur de Romblay in attendance. A whip arched and snapped. The carriage sprang forwards. Wilson suddenly saw that it would have to pass within a few feet of the table where he was sitting.

As the carriage approached, he straightened in his chair and, taking hold of his hat by the crown, lifted it into the air. The woman’s head turned at that moment and she saw him. Her eyes were green, the shape of leaves. They seemed to be resting on her face; if the wind came, they might blow away and then she would be blind. She smiled, as if to reassure him, and vanished behind the wall of the Señora’s restaurant. He did not see the carriage again until, pale-pink dust blossoming around its wheels, it took the bend that led up the hill to the Mesa del Norte.

The world bent at the edges and a fringe of sweat broke out on his forehead. Slowly he returned the hat to his head, slowly he lowered himself down into his chair. He sat without moving for some time, his hands clasped in his lap, his thoughts becalmed. The sight of that woman had run into him like something molten, had run into every part of him, and would set.

When he looked up again, the Vum Buá girls had gone. He could hardly blame them; he had not provided much in the way of entertainment. Only one of them remained, squatting in the dirt, oblivious to everything. She was carefully crushing ants with the tip of one finger. He lifted his cup and blew across the rim.

Mama Vum Buá put a basket of tortillas on the table, then she stood beside him, shielding her eyes, and peered out towards the boat.

‘Any sign of that church yet?’

But Wilson had seen something far more unusual, far more sacred, than a church, and could not answer.

Towards dusk on the first day Suzanne left the Hôtel de Paris and walked south, along the Calle Francesa. She was wearing a white dress, a simple dress, fastened at the throat with an ivory cameo that had belonged to her mother. The sun had already fallen behind the wall of mountains to the west, and a fan of mauve and crimson rays had opened in the upper sky. She felt as if she were giving off light as she walked; she could have been a piece of the moon. Her new town, her new street. This new earth beneath her shoes.

Of course every place had its share of spells. Even the city she had left behind held many secrets underneath its skin. Only last year, while digging foundations for the Opéra, they had uncovered some ancient oyster beds, thousands upon thousands of shells, and several labourers had died of mysterious and disfiguring diseases. But there was nothing to compare with a new land, about which little was known, in which all the secrets lay waiting. The sailor’s words came back to her. You are entering a land where legends are born. Her hopes rose; a smile reached her lips. Perhaps there was even a child in this town, a child who expected her.

She was passing houses where the other French people lived. The lit rooms seemed to crouch down, then leap up again as the kerosene lamps flickered. Screens had been fastened to the windows, and moths whirled against the fine wire-mesh. She walked within a few feet of a veranda that had been shielded by columns of jasmine and bougainvillaea. She could hear voices murmuring behind the leaves.

After the stealth of sailing up into the gulf, after all the tensions and conspiracies, she had not been prepared for the effect the town would have on her. By the time she stepped out on to the deck that morning, a crowd had gathered on the quay below, hundreds of faces gazing upwards — native women selling copper jewellery, soldiers in grey uniforms, boys with shaved heads and voices like ravens. Not since Santiago had she seen people in such numbers. There was even a band of musicians, Indians dressed in white shirts and moleskin breeches. Their faces were serious, though it was not, she thought, the seriousness of concentration. It was more as if their minds were somewhere else. And their version of ‘La Marseillaise’ reflected this: it was shrill, chaotic, disembodied.

At the foot of the gangway Suzanne and Théo were greeted by Monsieur de Romblay. With his globelike cheeks and his tight, swollen belly, Monsieur de Romblay looked as if he had been pumped full of air. He wore a blue frock-coat with a velvet collar, and smelled strongly of lemon cologne.

‘The national anthem,’ he declared, ‘played on some of the traditional instruments of the region.’

‘Really?’ Théo said in a voice that made it perfectly clear to Suzanne that he had not, until that moment, recognised the music. ‘Most remarkable.’

‘I thought that, on this occasion,’ Monsieur de Romblay said, ‘the short version would suffice since, as you may have gathered,’ and he aimed a wry smile at the ground, ‘the Indians are not exactly renowned for their musicality.’

Suzanne had been studying the Director’s face, the sly shifting of his eyes beneath their lids, the way his smile tucked into his plump cheeks. He seemed familiar, and she did not know why; certainly she had never met him before.

‘Unfortunately my wife could not be here to greet you,’ Monsieur de Romblay was telling her. ‘She is at present arranging your accommodation.’

He turned to Théo. There was a small problem, he said. The house that they had been assigned was not yet ready. Instead, they were to occupy a suite of rooms in the Hôtel de Paris — at the company’s expense, of course.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘we thought you weren’t coming.’

Théo could not conceal his surprise. ‘But I wrote from Paris, Monsieur. I wrote to you.’

‘You said February. It’s now April.’

‘We were delayed. The Panamanian railway was out of action. And then there were the storms — ’

Monsieur de Romblay smiled into the air. ‘That may be. But I fear that you have arrived at the wrong time.’

‘I don’t understand, Monsieur.’

‘It’s almost summer. Nobody builds in the summer.’

‘We could always carry out the work during the hours when it’s cooler,’ Théo suggested.

A chuckle began deep inside Monsieur de Romblay. ‘They don’t exist, Monsieur.’

‘Don’t exist?’