Where the Bird Sings Best (22 page)

“We decided for the moment to forget our child was a hermaphrodite: we would figure out how to deal with the problem later. Perhaps Almo himself, our Master, would guide us. We began to travel north, fleeing the rains and exuberance of the south. We needed a dry climate. We were so full of spirit that we could only stand a desert landscape. We performed all along the coast, passing through Coquimbo, La Serena, Copiapó, Taltal, Antofagasta, and Tocopilla, until finally we reached Huantojaya, a silver-mining town near Iquique. There they let us use the great gymnasium of the Coeducational School No. 28. That was the school used by the children of workers from the region’s mines: The Discoverer, The Saint John, The Laura, The Saint Peter, The Disdained—names of prostitutes or saints, as if digging a mine shaft were for them a search for vice and sacred things at the same time. Seraphim, exploring the area, noted that the miners were not our usual audience. The dust, the sun, the hostility of the excavation, the blast of the exploding dynamite, the exhausting workdays had hardened them, giving their faces the consistency of stones.

“On Saturdays, they would go into the bordellos to play cards; lose the money they’d earned during the week; drink a minimum of two dozen beers, lining up the empty bottles to show how much they could drink; and fall asleep next to the urinals without saying a word. Making them laugh seemed impossible. Seraphim begged me to participate in his act this time. He had to offer them a strong program, low-down, one that would pull laughs out of them by main force, like pulling teeth.

“I was supposed to be the lazy guard of a bunch of bananas. I would ask a monkey to help me move the fruit from one place to another on the improvised stage. While he worked, I would have a nice siesta. The monkey would take advantage of the siesta to steal a banana and try to hide it without finding a place on the empty stage. He would try to hide it in his clothes but would realize he had no pockets. Finally, in a crisis of anxiety, he would drop his trousers and put it in his anus. (Seraphim had invented, using a rubber tube, a special holder hidden under his false tail that would allow him, with great realism, to imitate that penetration.) When he was finished with his chore, I would check him over to see if he was hiding a stolen banana. Satisfied with my employee’s honesty, I would shake hands and send him on his way paying him a tiny coin. The monkey, alone now, with a triumphal air, would try to eject the banana, but it would refuse to leave. After huge efforts, pushes, shrieks, he would manage to excrete it with tremendous pain. Jumping for joy, despite his broken anus, he would peel the banana and try to eat it. But with expressions of disgust, he would throw it far away because now it would have an unbearable stench of excrement.

“The night of the performance, the five hundred school chairs were occupied by a silent crowd of men, women, and children. Sitting there, serious, immobile, they looked like stones in the middle of a desert. When I entered carrying the bananas, transformed into the sleepy guard (thanks to some woolen whiskers and a uniform made of sacks dyed blue and metal buttons made from beer caps, the families applauded. Their hard, dried-out hands sounded like bone castanets. Nervous because it was my debut, I felt like a dove receiving shots from five hundred rifles.

“Seraphim made his entrance. He was applauded as I was, but no one laughed. He exaggerated his grimaces. Nothing. He chased his tail trying to bite it. Sepulchral silence. Then, with barefaced immodesty, he began to scratch his testicles. An attack of laughter. He scratched himself furiously. More laughter. The more he dug around in his balls, the more the audience giggled. But since he couldn’t go on doing that all night, we began, in a once-again taciturn environment, the program we’d rehearsed.

“Those granite spectators weighed tons. We made the first movements mechanically, burdened by failure. We weren’t even sure if they were really looking at us with their expressionless eyes. But when the monkey stole the banana and tried without success to hide it, the audience, interested, made a strange murmur. Then, when the animal introduced the fruit in his anus, some growled protests I couldn’t manage to understand. When the monkey painfully tried to excrete his theft, they began to stamp their feet and whistle. And when he tried to eat the smelly fruit, groups of furious miners leapt toward the stage with the clear intention of demolishing us with their fists. Seraphim and I didn’t understand. Most of those workers had no religious morality and spent most of their free time submerged in alcohol, coca leaves, gambling, and prostitutes. What could have offended them? They were just beginning to knock us around when a thick voice shouted: ‘Halt comrades! These good clowns weren’t trying to make fun of you! Sit down and listen because what I’m going to say is important!’ The miners knew and respected that voice because they released us and went back to their seats.

“A middle-sized man with black hair and a moustache, penetrating eyes, a frowning brow, and an ungainly manner stepped onto the stage. He wore wide trousers, and the pockets of his jacket seemed stuffed with papers. He shook hands with us out of sincere respect, and, as if he had a thousand years ahead of him, took his place before the audience, looking at everyone there, one by one.

“When he finished that profound and mute contact, he said in a severe voice: ‘Good evening, comrades.’

“Most answered, ‘Good evening, Recabarren!’

“Out of his pockets, he pulled several small newspapers. ‘Here I have for you the first issue of the worker’s paper
Workers Awaken!
. It only costs twenty centavos, less than a beer. Practice reading, comrades, and stop sleeping. The Chilean worker has no defense against industrialists, neither unions nor social legislation. And even though you know you should fight against the bosses because they exploit you pitilessly, you fight as individuals instead of organizing into cooperatives. The only revolt you practice is theft. Which is why these clowns annoyed you so much. You saw yourselves reflected as if in a mirror. Don’t put on innocent faces. Let me refresh your memory: you mold the grains of silver until you give them the form and size of a cigar. Then you wrap them in a rag you cover with suet and you slip them in, just as this monkey did with his banana. Then you stroll by the mine guards, who have no idea a theft took place. No, don’t interrupt me, because I’m not finished yet: once you’re outside the mine you expel the cigar with a lot of pain, but sometimes it can’t come out and you have to go to doctors in Iquique, who demand most of the silver to carry out the operation. The money you get that way cheapens you, because to get it you sacrifice your manhood. It isn’t right to punish a clown because he reminds you that you’re screwed over. You should really be thanking him. Stolen money stinks of shit, comrades! We’ll have to conquer the well-being we deserve the honest way, by forming unions, creating a workers’ party, by not selling our votes, and by organizing ourselves to win elections! Circulate
Workers Awaken!
and form, starting right now, a cooperative. Together you’ll get what you could never get on your own. And applaud these two humble clowns because they are your brothers, children of the same hunger.’

“The miners did applaud. The man named Recabarren stepped down from the stage to hand out newspapers. Almo began to cry, needing to be fed. We had him covered up in a corner of the stage. While Seraphim passed the hat, I changed Almo’s diaper and gave him milk. The workers left, arguing with the leader. Seraphim came back happy, waving a ten-peso note.

“‘Recabarren gave it to me in the name of the miners to avoid my thanks. That man is extraordinary. He wants nothing for himself that isn’t also for the others, and he fights so justice will triumph in this unjust world. If I had to choose a father, it would be Recabarren. Let’s follow him wherever he goes.’

“Suddenly, out of the shadows emerged a thin, beardless, one-eyed Indian with long hair arranged in a braid. He was wearing a white cotton robe, a straw hat, and a poncho made of vicuña wool.

“‘Please excuse this interruption. Let me introduce myself: Rosauro, medicine man for many and witch doctor for some. I can cure all ills with herbs, even internal tumors. I can also set fractures, give massages, remove the evil eye. I can make lost lovers return. I know the legends.’ After introducing himself that way, the Indian stood there in silence, staring at us with strange intensity, retaining an emotion that made his one eye moist. The two of us, disconcerted, stared at him, immobile, not knowing how to react.

“Seraphim broke the silence with a short introduction: ‘Teresa, Seraphim. Glad to meet you, sir.’

“The shaman took off his hat, fell on his knees before Almo, and whispered with great effort: ‘Yeco, you have finally come,’ and then, curling up his body until he looked like a ball, he burst into convulsive sobs. Concerned, Seraphim brought him a glass of water. The Indian took a sip, went face down on the floor, took my feet, and covered them with kisses. ‘You are the mother of God!’

“Thoroughly confused, Seraphim brought him to his feet. “‘What did you say, my friend?’

“‘The truth! I was going to stay here tonight in a corner of the stage, so I wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel room—I’m following Recabarren—when I saw Madam Teresa change the baby’s diapers. I was able to realize that he was the hermaphrodite announced by the Tradition. Here in the Great North we believe in a prophecy that comes from the colonial era: before the year 2000, there will appear in the desert an olive green child with yellow eyes and double sex. He will be God incarnate once again, a new Christ who will come to overcome those who oppress the people: the Yeco, crow of salt and fresh water. Black feathers that in flight become light. As a river bird, he is Energy; as an ocean bird, he is Equilibrium. The salt water Yeco wants to dissolve in the fresh water Yeco who awakens and begins to fly. As he flaps his wings, he creates things, but when he stops, he destroys everything. And again he goes to sleep so the other will awaken him. And on and on. When he tires of annihilating, he dissolves in himself. There aren’t two different crows. There is only one, the ocean crow. The lake crow comes and fuses with him. One bird is male, the other female. After all, Yeco has both sexes. It is a legend, but very real. This divine child will unite the miners and with them initiate the Proletarian Revolution. There will be no more poverty; we shall be partners, not employees; a garden will arise from the arid desert! You, Don Seraphim, do not have to follow Recabarren. He’s a magnificent agitator, but he does not possess the magnetism of a god. On his own, he will not be able to unite men consumed by work and vice. Recabarren will make them take one step forward, but later they will take two back. To rid them of alcohol, prostitutes, gambling, and theft we will need something more than a human being. Yeco will do it! The mass of workers will organize around him, and he will achieve victory.’

“‘But, sir,’ Seraphim answered him, so moved that his forehead, nose, and cheeks—the little skin there was on his face—was white, ‘we don’t know you, and though we would like, with all our hearts, to believe you and accept that Almo has come to fulfill a prophecy, we can’t stop thinking that for strange reasons you are mocking us, poor comedians that we are.’

“I nodded, holding the baby against my chest. Nevertheless, despite those natural misgivings, I was overcome by a great feeling of well being, since I’d always believed in Almo’s superior Destiny. The Indian’s words were the confirmation of my dreams.

“‘Friends, in this evil society there is no truth other than money. Let’s let it speak,’ he said. He took off his hat and extracted from it a thick wad of banknotes.

“Seraphim whistled in shock. ‘I’ve never seen so much money in one place before!’

“‘It really isn’t much, sir, but enough for what we want. Let me explain: here in the north, in the mining region, is where a few of us shamans live. We are the guardians of the Tradition. Without us, the heritage of our race would be lost. Foreigners have invaded our land with their capital. Now potassium nitrate, copper, iron, silver, and gold all belong to the English and North Americans, who are linked to the government, which belongs to the rich. We shamans have saved up most of the money we’ve earned awaiting the arrival of the Yeco so we can offer it to him in his war against the oligarchy. But time doesn’t pass in vain. So much misery and social injustice made us lose patience and decide to set aside our beautiful legend to act in this ugly reality. I was sent here with the savings to give it to Recabarren and help him that way to create the Socialist Workers Party. Luckily, God wanted me to take refuge on the stage and see your baby naked. This money is for you. Accept it. It will allow you to rent a comfortable room in Iquique, eat well, and dress decently for four months. The time we’ll need to travel around the region announcing the good news and prepare a triumphal reception for you. The only thing I’ll ask of you is that when you’re in the port you bring the child to a certain photographer, a friend of mine, so he can take a picture showing the child’s two sexes. We’ll make copies and distribute them to all our offices. The workers will finally understand that the miracle exists, that God has come down here to Earth and is among us.’

“That roll of bills, coming from a humble man, convinced us. A new life was beginning. A life with an immense ideal. And we did go, as he suggested, to Iquique. He went with us. On the way there, he never spoke a word, and when he stopped, he’d hunker down for hours and hours never taking his eyes off Almo. In a small hotel at the port, they let us board Blacky and Whitey and rented us a room with a kitchen, bath, and windows overlooking the sea.

“Rosauro brought us to his friend, who specialized in identity card photographs, and got a picture of Yeco with his little legs spread, showing his penis and his vagina. He made a date with us: ‘On December 25, I’ll be waiting for you in the canton of Alto San Antonio, one of the most prosperous in the nitrate region. Look for the San Lorenzo mine. Be punctual. That date is important. Yeco must bring us the light that will begin the flight of darkness.’ He made his farewells sharing a bottle of pisco and headed for the desert.