Where the Bird Sings Best (12 page)

Up in the air, they imitated flying birds, erupting with crass squawks, and dropped onto the table chest-to-chest with their men. Trying not to call attention to herself, Jashe got up from the table and walked along the passageways to her cabin. Like an immense pelican, the Ukrainian, reeking of sugary sweat, fell on top of her. Staggering, he dragged her out on deck and laid her down under a lifeboat. She offered no resistance. She allowed him to raise her skirt and pull off her panties. She spread her thighs and took his fat member in both hands as if to show him the path. Then she delicately slid her fingers toward his testicles and crushed them with murderous intensity. The brute twisted and howled, but she kept squeezing until he fainted. Then she went to her pigsty of a cabin and slept peacefully.

The next morning she ordered a breakfast at the first-class kitchen and brought it to her husband, to whom she said told nothing, to spare him suffering. When he finished his tea with lemon, he gazed with anguish through the porthole, drew the curtains, and bolted the door. Then he undressed Jashe and took her to bed. After an hour, when the two of them had forgotten where they were, Marina Leopoldovna urgently knocked on the cabin door. Jashe had barely enough time to dress, snatch up the brush, kneel at the toilet, and pretend to be cleaning it.

Alejandro, without bothering to cover his nakedness, let her in. The diva stood in the center of the bedroom, stamping her little foot. Her steel toe smashing against the linoleum floor made a thunderous echo. Jashe exited with averted eyes and closed the door, biting her lip. She felt the click of the lock like a knife in her heart; the ballerina’s light steps were like bullets as she ran to throw herself into her giant’s arms. She had difficulty making her way along the passageway, which seemed soft and sticky, back to her own dark room. She wanted to vomit, to expel blood from her sex in a violent gush. Her face became violet red, the soles of her feet were burning. Stifling a roar, she made a half turn and with bared teeth returned to the cabin and peeked through the window.

The ballerina was leaning back on Alejandro’s broad chest with a despotic grin, tugging at his hair. She made him bite the nape of her neck, a task he performed with the face of a penitent. Jashe could no longer control her hatred for that lascivious, cruel woman, and a pain in her stomach kept her from seeing clearly. As if shrouded in fog, the Russian woman knelt before Jashe’s man and swallowed the sacred organ, making little-girl squeals. Then, with the gesture of a tragic actress, she tossed aside the Japanese silk robe that covered her nakedness, and like a white, skeletal worm slithered to the bed and offered her buttocks, imitating the barks of a bitch in heat.

The fog cleared, and hatred gave way to great outrage. She felt herself transformed into the Eighth Arcanum, Justice, with a scale in one hand and a sword in the other—no less implacable for being invisible. She decided that very day that Truth must control the world. Justice meant giving to everyone what they deserved, and Marina Leopoldovna deserved a scandal.

Jashe went to the rehearsal studio and hid behind the piano. Soon, Madame Teodora, an intense, efficient old woman, shook her tambourine, and in a few seconds, the entire corps de ballet assembled with military discipline in straight lines. With her eyes, Madame Teodora consulted Vladimir Monomaque, and he nodded his lustrous head affirmatively, satisfied with his inspection. The pianist played a mazurka. No one moved; they waited for Leopoldovna, standing before the first row, to take the first steps so they could then imitate her with admiration and envy.

The distinguished diva only managed a
plié
before she was interrupted by Jashe, who emerged from behind the piano, pounced on her like a furious cat, and tore her tutu. The ripped garment flew off, but the other dancers could not intervene, paralyzed as they were by shock. But when the white panties fell and the pitch black of her pubis showed the animal within that body, which moved so skillfully that it seemed immaterial, they all shouted in horror. The Director, popping the buttons of his shirt as he tore it off, ran to cover Marina’s unmasked body. Too late. The truth had come to light. The secret he’d kept for so many years, sharing it only with the first male dancer, had been exposed. Everyone saw that thin, flaccid, bright red penis hanging between the legs of the ballerina. Yes, the celebrated, sublime, lighter-than-air Marina Leopoldovna was a man.

Jashe took her husband by the hand and led him past the stunned Russians until they were opposite the despot, who was calming his sobbing transsexual, hugging him with surprising tenderness. My grandmother understood what no one else had been able to imagine. Speaking with a Jewish accent full of majesty, she said in Russian, “You can’t blot out the sun with a finger. That poor man is your son. Just look at what your ambition has made of him. You stole his manhood in order to make him into a trained monkey. What you deserve is the contempt of the whole world. I want you to know that this man is my husband and that you no longer have any right to rule his private life. Alejandro Prullansky is no longer your slave!”

The Director General fixed his gaze on Alejandro’s eyes, and for the first time, Alejandro stared back.

“Either that woman or me!”

With no hesitation, Alejandro shouted “Jashe!” Lifting her up in his powerful arms, he carried her out on deck to breathe the intoxicating ocean air.

Dropping his usual domineering tone, Vladimir Monomaque spoke with the Imperial Ballet. The future of the entire corps depended on the silence of each and every one of them. A scandal would finish them off forever. With sincere humility, he begged them to erase what they had just seen from their memory. Very soon, this very year, when they reached San Francisco, where surgery was very advanced, Marina would undergo an operation to remove the annoying detail and make her a woman like all others. The company applauded. Alejandro Prullansky would be expelled immediately, but only after receiving a very important sum of money to guarantee his silence. The company applauded again. Marina never stopped crying, seized by uncontrollable convulsions. His father slapped him and dressed him in a new tutu. Recovering his authoritarian voice, more severe now than ever, he ordered his son to go on with the rehearsal or he’d kick his ass to pieces. Marina blew her nose in the hands of her faithful dresser, Tito, and began to dance. Soon the mazurka was danced more enthusiastically than ever.

Jashe, followed by Alejandro, who was carrying the bags and had hidden a thick roll of American one hundred dollar bills in his underwear, descended to third class. None of the religious Jews bothered to greet that tiny renegade accompanied by such an enormous goy. Here, they were fleeing pogroms: what gave anyone the right to impose the presence of a Russian on them? It was like poking a thorn into their wounds. They didn’t move to make room for the newcomers, and went on rubbing their delicate hands with pieces of harsh rope to create callouses—all so people would think they were farmers.

My grandparents had to take refuge in the cursed corner, the den of sin, a back room among crates of apples where Icho Melnik and his six prostitutes had been relegated. “Man does not live by the Torah alone,” he said winking an eye and offering them a swig of vodka as the girls, making off-color remarks, set out the sacks they’d use as beds.

Jashe found a piece of soap and a pail of water. Instead of a sponge, she used a rolled-up cloth belt to wash the giant as if he were a little boy. “Don’t be sad,” she said. “Argentina is a grand country. There’s lots of work. We’ll invest the money they gave us and get rich. You will found your own ballet.”

Alejandro let go of his sadness and began to laugh. They slept in each other’s arms.

In the unheated storage space, the passengers were freezing. Slowly but surely, the whores got closer and closer to the couple to attach themselves to those bodies heated by love. Icho Melnik, a discreet drunk, opened a few crates and made himself a mattress out of apples. A group of old folks, rocking back and forth in their fatigue, querulously read the last prayer of the night. Before starting to snore like thunder, the pimp muttered, “It’s useless to ask God for something you can get for yourself.”

After
crossing the Atlantic and passing through the Straits of Magellan, the ship rode icy Pacific currents along such a jagged coast that the Rabbi, with an ominous look, exclaimed, “Oy vey! This must be the ass of the world, and God has really kicked it!” Finally, they dropped anchor at the port of Valparaíso.

Teresa had played the mute for four weeks, so now her mouth felt heavy, weighed down by a boulder of stifled insults. Every single day on the rocking ship flooded with smoke she’d been forced to hear the
shacharit
(morning prayer) and the
minchah
(afternoon prayer), accompanied by the vulture screeches of the seasick mystics as they vomited. No matter what, they always had their
gartels
around their waists, those black silk cords used to divide the body in two, the spiritual parts—the hands, the heart, and the brain, worthy of serving the Most High—and the profane parts: the stomach, the sex, and the legs. They could transform any place at all, no matter how vulgar, into a schul or synagogue just so they could drone their prayers to God, hour after hour, all twenty-four: “Oh Terrible One, we carry out our 613 commandments so you do not fulminate us; we are just because we are sodden with fear; you guide us with stabs, bullets, and bites; teach us with your fury and your curses.”

Teresa hated God more than ever. Just look where the Ancient Cruel One had led them! What was the meaning of that port, devoid of flat ground, with thousands of houses that didn’t seem man-made, but like abscesses spreading along the sides of the hills? The Russians may have been dangerous, but at least they didn’t eat human flesh. But the Indians here, who knows? Maybe not cannibals, but thieves, all of them! Anyway, what did that matter when not even the crumbs were left of the few dollars Moishe Rosenthal had given them?

Now at least she wouldn’t have to rub elbows with the Jewish wives (who didn’t know how to live without swapping things—a wool vest for three sets of underpants, half a loaf of onion bread for six rotten oranges) invading the kitchen to fry their latkes, boil up some kasha, or bake matzo, slapping their children, dribbling out a constant stream of proverbs—“Spare the rod and spoil the child,” “The answer is always in the question,” “God punishes those He loves”—and scaring off
sheidim
from every spoon, knife, fork, plate, and casserole. Teresa paid a waiter from the second class to bring them goy food in pots. Seeing these renegades devour impure food, the immigrants kept their distance: they preferred being even closer to one another so they could leave a six-foot ring around the apostates.

While the family slept, Alejandro allowed the Rabbi to put his mouth in the center of his heart, so he could recite prayers that would navigate through his blood and purify his entire body.

When the ship entered the docking area, the four children ran to the handrail, slipping through the chattering Yiddish crowd who recoiled from them in disgust. With great dignity, Teresa took Alejandro by the arm and caught up with her excited heirs to look contemptuously at the port. Clustered around the gangway, people were selling bananas, grapes, cherries, and many other fruit with strange names—
chirimoyas
,
nísperos
,
avocados
, and
caquis
. Others were waving bouquets of herbs and flowers. Their clothes were tattered and they had no shoes. But at the same time they had no feathers, no bows, and no arrows. A bit further off, groups of elegant people under multicolored parasols were awaiting first and second-class passengers. There were ships loading and unloading Italians, Englishmen, Germans, Swedes, Frenchmen. Painted-up women were pulling on the arms of the sailors, dragging them toward the bars. In their luxurious construction, the buildings on the narrow flat area beyond the dock, unlike the poor houses covering the hillsides, resembled the mansions of Paris.

The city—civilized, flourishing in a transparent, caressing breeze, deliciously perfumed, between the glitter of the rocky mountain range and the murmur of the sea—made Teresa smile, even if her strenuous effort not to show it made her face look like a sun-drenched apple. And as an orchestra, which included guitars and a harp played a kind of polka to a clapping, shouting, dancing, handkerchief-waving audience, Alejandro and the children hugged Teresa because they were carried away by an irrepressible joy.

The disembarking passengers were received with hugs and kisses. A well dressed group in the style of the goyim, received the immigrants, waving pennants emblazoned with six-pointed stars. To each newcomer they gave a package of food and clothing. They kissed the strangers as brothers, wept, sang hymns in Yiddish, and moved off into the port. Teresa’s smile inverted into a bitter frown. She shook off her husband and children as if they were dust and was no longer mute: “Don’t start in with this idiocy! Remember, we’re not Jews anymore! We’ve reached Hell, and not a single devil is waiting for us!”

Picking up a suitcase she walked haughtily down the gangplank to go through with the customs formalities. Her family followed her, trying to imitate her painful dignity. No one checked their baggage. Some dark men with black moustaches stamped their passports and, laughing among themselves, pointed towards the exit door.

It was 9:00 a.m. They were in the middle of the street in Valparaíso, the farthest corner of the world, unable to speak a word of Spanish, with no money and no friends. What should they do? Just as she had in Paris, Teresa sat down on the ground, closed her eyes, and said, “Fix things up the best you can. I’m not here.”

Fanny, Lola, Benjamín, and Jaime looked at their father. He responded: “Well, I think she’s asking me to summon the Rabbi again so he can save our skin.”

On this occasion, the Rabbi was unsure. This world was unknown to him. He doubted. “If a wise man is one who knows that he doesn’t know, then at this moment I’m a wise man. Let’s see. Everything revolves around money and death. Look in your pockets, Alejandro; one golden key opens a thousand doors. Perhaps you’ve got one last banknote.”

My grandfather carefully searched his deep pockets. In the fold at the bottom of his leather coat, he found a tiny coin. Half a kopek: worthless.

Alejandro shut his eyes and dropped down to the ground to sit next to Teresa. A jubilant shout from the Rabbi made him jump to his feet. “Mazel tov! Half a kopek, marvelous! Adonai is calling us. Remember Exodus, Chapter 30:

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

12 
When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.

13 
This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord.

14 
Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the Lord.

15 
The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls.

16 
And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls.

“Do you understand, Alejandro? A silver coin, half a shekel, half a kopek, the same symbol, rich and poor giving a half, the mortal half, while receiving the totality of eternal life. You thought you’d lost everything, but Adonai left in the darkest corner of your clothing what you really needed, the half shekel of the offering so you can enter the Sanctuary and establish the union that will liberate you from mortality. Courage! God is waiting for us! You, I, your family, we are seven, the golden candelabra, the menorah! Let us arrange ourselves and in proper order climb up to the top of that peak. Do you see the Temple? There we will deposit your obolus and receive from the Eternal One an impulse to the new life.”

Alejandro squinted, trying to see what the Rabbi was talking about, at the top of that peak, itself covered with clusters of houses. He could make out a gray, rectangular house of some size with a chimney that was pouring out white smoke. “The fire of sacrifices.” As usual, my grandfather completely believed whatever the Rabbi said. He knelt and, spreading his arms, made his way to Teresa, who stubbornly kept her eyes shut.

A chorus of crystalline voices accompanied their short, uncomfortable walk. A pack of dark, ragged children, among whom there were two or three blonds and skeletal dogs, surrounded them, begging for money at the top of their lungs: “A penny! A nickel! A loaf of bread!”

Suddenly a rotten peach exploded on Benjamín’s bald head. Everyone laughed and went on tossing garbage.

“Teresa, you know by now that the Rabbi always saves us. If you wish, just go on pretending he doesn’t exist, but do what I’m asking you to do with your eyes closed. Line up in the order he tells us and we will go to the top of that peak. There, God will give us the help we need.”

Teresa, tense, implacable, breathing only slightly, intent on being a statue of salt, neither moved nor answered. Alejandro knew that his wife’s will was inflexible, as did the twins. But when the black pulp of an old banana smashed against her stubborn face, my grandmother opened her ferocious eyes, roared, leapt like a wild beast, smacked the head of one of the dogs with her suitcase, caught the biggest boy, pulled down his pants, and turning him over her knee, slapped his buttocks until they were red. She let him loose when she thought the punishment was enough, so he could catch up to his pals who were fleeing at top speed.

With that terrible face that could stop an army, Teresa stared at her husband, sank Fanny and Lola between her breasts and said, trying to give her words the hardness of stone, “A-le-jan-dro-Jo-do-row-sky, it’s your fault we are where we are. That insanity about the Rabbi has led us to misery. Here, the advice of your ghost means nothing. And I don’t want us to go on living as parasites on the Jewish community. The past is done and gone! New world, new life! This is the last time I’ll ever accept help from that freak. I’ll line myself up as you ask, and we’ll march up to the top of the peak. Let’s see if up there the Most High Villain gives us the help we need in exchange for half a kopek. But I swear on my life that if nothing happens, I’ll leave Jaime and Benjamín with you, take the girls with me, and we’ll go to a bar in the port and be whores forever!”

Alejandro swallowed hard, tried to kiss Teresa’s hand, though she pulled it back in fury, and arranged the family in a line. Next to Teresa, Fanny, and next to Fanny, Lola on the far left. Next to him, Benjamín, and next to Benjamín, Jaime on the far right. The Rabbi stood in the center. “Now we have formed the golden candelabra. Our souls are the seven flames. Now, holding hands, we shall climb up to deposit the half kopek in the Temple.”

“First ask your Rabbi if he’s going to be the one who carries the bags.”

Fanny and Jaime laughed. The Rabbi immediately whispered to Alejandro, “The wise Hillel said: ‘If you wish to possess everything, you must not posses something that is nothing.’ Leave what you have behind!”

“Teresa, sweetheart, as a wise man said, in order to possess everything you must possess nothing. We have to abandon our baggage.”

“Is that what your Rabbi advises you to do? Let people rob the little you have left? Let them throw salt in your eyes, pepper in your nose, and stones in your heart! Let them pull your guts out of your belly, wrap them around your neck, and then hang you with them from a tree! I hope you turn into a bird and he turns into a cat so he can eat you alive, choke, and you both die together!”

“Enough, Teresa! You promised to obey him one last time!”

“It’s pretty certain we’re going to prostitute ourselves. You will ruin your life and the lives of your daughters. You will die of shame.”

“I believe in him. Let’s go!”

The street snaked upward among small, one- or two-story houses with window boxes filled with geraniums or ferns. Compared with the other hills, where mansions, gardens, and churches were clearly visible, this one had to be the most modest in Valparaíso. The Chileans were not aggressive. From their rooms, they watched the family march up the middle of the street holding hands as if they were part of a parade that had lost its body with only the head remaining. They smiled, held out glasses of water or wine or slices of melon. Teresa, huffing and puffing, forced the twins to accept nothing despite the fact that, under this sun that was stronger than anything she had felt before, she too was parched, her lips cracking.

The gray, rectangular building, with a tin chimney spouting white smoke, turned out not to be a temple but a military barracks, with two soldiers standing guard at its metal doors. Barely hiding his despair, Alejandro looked more carefully and realized that the chimney did not belong to the barracks but was attached to a run-down wooden house with a clay oven and a tavern with chairs. A bald old man showing his last three teeth was offering his merchandise, pointing to two baskets covered with empty flour sacks.