Latin America Diaries (20 page)

The year is coming to an end and a change in my economic prospects seems certain. Science-wise I continue as before, working on food digestion and preparing to work on blood electrophoresis with Urbach equipment. At the Children's hospital, they want me to do some experimental work, with a wage and everything. I'm still working at the Agencia Latina, but I haven't been paid anything yet. My studies are at a standstill: I read very little medicine, a little more literature, but hardly ever write. Public relations progress more or less along the same road; I haven't made any new worthwhile friendships, either intellectual or sexual. Christmas Eve I'll spend snug in my sleeping bag, keeping guard over a bunch of toys. I've quit photography and at times regret it, as I'm earning nothing and that always brought in a little. Now, however, I have time to spend on other things and in the New Year I'll be a bit more disciplined. On the educational front (sic), I feel like a little old grandfather now that El Patojo, reacting to some criticism I made about his life, has decided to return to Guatemala to help his mother.

On the political plane, it is worth noting the change in the fortune of Don Edelberto Torres and his son, one released and expelled, the other a fugitive.

Nothing new to write, except that another year is over. As usual, Hilda got angry because I didn't want to go with her to a party; I spent New Year's Eve on watch at the OAS building. Nothing new to relate. The Agencia Latina hasn't paid me, perhaps they won't pay for a while, because the dough comes, or rather doesn't, all the way from Buenos Aires.

Today I feel like the good old grandfather who deals out sensible advice; El Patojo went off to Guatemala with his “jerk” of a brother. This was the result of a conversation in which I said he was running away from something, and not fighting, as he was claiming in a letter to his mother that he read to me; the next day he decided to leave, and a little bit later his brother went off to join him.

Besides the cash he'd lent me earlier, I gave him 150 pesos more, which Piaza lent me. My situation is strange because I'm counting on the salary of the Agencia Latina and they keep stringing me along with very vague promises. In the scientific field, I have great hopes, but nothing has yet materialized. I started studying how to do electrophoresis with filter paper, and I hope to start working on it in a week or two. I'm writing home very little so I don't know much of what's happening there.

I now have my first month's pay and have already spent it, apart from what I haven't paid for but still owe. I'm not too worried because alongside Dr. Cortés, I have a patient who pays 20 pesos per consult, which happens every four days, meaning I'll have enough to eat until the next payment from the Agencia Latina. I'm on good terms with the agency, despite the fact that Dr. Pérez has taped up my mouth. I'm trying to persuade him (as a joke) to send me to see [President] José Figueres in Costa Rica. No news from El Patojo, or from home, just a Peruvian student who wrote asking for my opinion on the fall of Guatemala. The
scientific work has been held up because of my unstable situation; I have to leave the house and don't know where to go.

The housing problem is still unresolved, and in every sense I'm pretty much living on air. My homemade electrophoresis machine works slowly, while the other work is virtually at a standstill. Dr. Cortés and I are looking after a patient who I believe should improve rapidly; I charge her 20 pesos a consult. I hope the coming week will be eventful […].

My patient's condition worsened. I did some further tests and she is sensitive to various foods, so I have taken her off them. Despite everything I still have no money, and there's no way of making ends meet […]. The Agencia Latina doesn't pay on time, which really pisses me off. As for the big projects, no news. Tomorrow I'll finish the article on Guatemala they asked for, then dedicate the week to writing letters, as I'm very behind with correspondence.

Everything is up in the air—these are days of uncertainty. I was paid for January and have already spent it (we're now at the end of February). Now that the Pan-American Games
⁹¹
are approaching, I'll have to work like a slave and put hospital work to the side. My patient is stable, exactly where I left her. I think I have broken with Hilda for good after a melodramatic scene. I fancy a girl who's a chemist: she's not particularly intelligent and fairly ignorant, but she has an appealing freshness and fantastic eyes. I'll present a paper at the Allergy Congress in April on cutaneous tests with food digestion.

More than a month has passed since my last entry. Much has happened, or not that much, depending on your perspective. The Pan-American Games were a shitload of work, and just when it seemed there would be no compensation a promise came through that I would get some. Almost simultaneously the inexplicable
news came that the Agencia Latina was folding with the inevitable anguish about money. Now it seems they will pay me the two months they owe, plus three months' redundancy, and 2,000 pesos for the photos. This will be something like 5,000 pesos in all, which would come in handy and allow me to pay off some debts, travel around Mexico and then get the hell out of here.

The work was not pleasant, but I did make two good friends: Fernando Margolles and Severino Rossell, “El Guajiro.”
⁹²
I'm living in a new place and, as usual, I'm having trouble paying the rent. […]

Scientifically, I've promised to finish a paper for the Allergy Congress, which I think I can do. They have invited me to Nuevo Laredo, near the border with the gringos, but it would be for two years' work and I'm not up for it. My plans are simpler: Until March I'll do the allergy work and present the paper; in May, June and July I'll travel around Mexico from north to south and east to west; in July-August I'll go to Veracruz and wait for a ship to Cuba or Europe; if that's not possible, I'll be in Caracas by December. We'll see how it all works out.

A lot of water has passed under my bridge. […] I'm now an intern at the hospital. It happened like this: I went to León, Guanajuato, and presented my paper, “Cutaneous Investigations with Semi-Digested Food Antigens.”
⁹³
The paper was a minor success, and Salazar Mallén, head of Mexican allergy research, commented on it. It will now be published in the journal
Alergia
. Salazar Mallén promised me some financial help for research work and a position as an intern at the General Hospital, but that remains to be seen.

Nothing definite on the payment from the Agencia Latina. Other news worth noting is that I've got myself on the Mexican electoral role, thanks to the total lack of controls here. You just show up, give a name and address, and that's it. That's elections for you.

In Guanajuato I saw the famous short farces based on Cervantes, performed by local amateur players, against the backdrop of a church. Most of the actors lacked class, but the scenery was so real that it didn't matter.

After many adventures I am now established at the General Hospital and working fairly hard, although without much structure. The food is not great: if I eat it I get asthma, if I don't I go hungry. Salazar Mallén pays me 150 pesos […]. The Agencia Latina says it will pay up, meaning around 5,000 pesos—we'll see if it's true. Together with Hilda, I spend my time getting to know the area around Mexico City. We've been to see some magnificent Rivera frescoes at an agricultural school, and also visited Puebla.

Both good and bad things have been happening. I still don't know what the future will bring. The Agencia Latina paid, but not all of it, leaving me only 2,000 pesos to pay some bills and buy some presents. I was invited to the Youth Festival but would have had to pay my own way; and as I was still counting on the money I announced far and wide that I was planning to go to Spain on July 8. Now it's all come to nothing and I'm going ahead with my plan to travel around Mexico after September 1. As a sporting event, I should mention the ascent of Popocatépetl's lower slopes by an ad hoc group of valiant
Andinistas
(including myself). It's wonderful and I'd like to make a habit of it. Pascual Lozano, the Venezuelan, fell behind a little before the end, even though we helped him along for the final stage. Another event has been the revolution in Argentina, which fills me with unease because my brother is in the marine corps.

A comic event was my invitation to take Hilda and a Peruvian friend to a football match. The game began smoothly with flares and ended with buckets of shit, and all three of us took hits […].

One political event was a meeting with Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary, an intelligent, young fellow who is very sure of himself and extraordinarily audacious; I think we hit it off well.
⁹⁴

A sporting event was our failed attempt to climb “Popo.” We stopped a few meters from the top because Margolles's feet were frozen and he was afraid to continue.

A tourist event was Margolles's departure for the United States.

A scientific event was the appearance of my first medical paper as sole author, in the journal
Alergia
: “Cutaneous Investigations with Semi-Digested Food Antigens”; passable.

In physiology, I have become a cat surgeon.

Months have now passed. I'm happily married to Hilda; we've moved house and everything points toward some pleasant months contemplating the future.
⁹⁵

Politically, Perón's fall—almost inglorious—is important to note, and the seizure of power by a military clique with ties to the clergy and the centrist parties. I'm a little more focused on my studies: reading only on allergies and studying a bit of English and algebra. I'm researching only three matters, with another one maybe in the future: histamines in the blood, histamines in tubercular lung tissue and progesterone in relation to histamines. I am thinking of doing some serum electrophoresis. On another topic, I've bought a camera to replace the one that was stolen, and I'm learning to touch-type. I still don't know whether I'll get work at the United Nations; the idea repels me but the money is attractive.

Not a lot to add except that finally I made it to the top of “Popo.”
It was an easy climb, almost without a hitch, and we reached the lower slope by 6:30 a.m. (we didn't climb any higher). But I couldn't get any decent photos because of the thick fog. I want to get to the Yucatán soon to explore the whole Mayan region. No political news, except for my family's incendiary letters that get stuck into me for supporting Perón against the liberators.
⁹⁶

I went to a meeting to discuss Perón's fall where the reporter was a Sr. Orfila; I later learned that much of his fury against Perón was due to squabbles Perón had had with the Fondo de Cultura Económica (of which Orfila was director).
⁹⁷
Things were going well until late in the meeting, when he laid into the compañeros and I jumped up to give the gentleman a piece of my mind. But I was quite angry and couldn't get my words out; in the end I proposed that any congratulatory note should wait until the government had achieved something concrete, like democracy for the trade unions and within the economy. Orfila asserted that they couldn't pay attention to “secondary matters such as exchange controls.” The socialists are headed for the shit heap.

I have done that trip around the south-east of Mexico I was always going on about, managing to cover the Mayan region, at least superficially. We went to Veracruz by train, a thoroughly uninteresting trip. Veracruz is a small and fairly lifeless port, with all the characteristics of a little town of Spanish descent. The beaches are small, dirty and flat; the sea is lukewarm.

We came across an Argentine ship,
El Granadero
, and I managed to get a few kilos of
mate
out of them. Boca del Río is a small fishing town some 10 kilometers south of Veracruz, where I went to watch a day's fishing on
La Tonina
, Rosendo Rosado's boat. The lives and
problems facing the fishing community are very interesting.

After five days in Veracruz, we went south by bus. We spent the first night at Lake Catemaco, but it was raining so we couldn't visit the lake itself. Then we proceeded on and spent a night at Coatzacoalcos, a fairly important seaport on a river of the same name.

I arrived with asthma. The next day we crossed the river. On the far side is Allende, and from there we took a train to Palenque, arriving at the station by night and taking a jeep to the hotel.

The ruins of Palenque are magnificent. The center of the city is on a hillside, from which it spreads out over four to six kilometers into the middle of the forest. It is still unexplored, although the extent of the site that is surrounded by thick vegetation is clear.

They have been almost totally neglected by the authorities. It took them almost four years to clean up the main tomb, one of the archaeological jewels of all the Americas. With the proper equipment and personnel they could have done it in three months. The main buildings are the Palace, with its collection of galleries and patios, their stone engravings and stucco arrises, of high artistic quality, and the Temple of the Inscriptions, also known as the Tomb, so called because its main feature is a burial place, the only one of its kind in Latin America. It is entered from the top of the pyramid, descending through a long tunnel with a trapezoidal roof, leading into a wide chamber where there is a monolithic tombstone 3.8 meters long, 2.2 meters wide and some 27 centimeters thick, adorned with hieroglyphs representing the sun, the moon and the planet Venus. Beneath the tombstone is a catafalque, a single piece cut from a stone block, which contained the body of someone important.