Kamchatka Read online

  That stretch of the lakeshore was always special to me. I still like to go there when I manage to escape the clutches of the world. I close my eyes and listen to the whistle of the breeze in the rushes; it’s the same whistle mamá gives when she’s right.

  67

  GRANDMA’S TIME MACHINE

  By mid-afternoon, it was so hot that we began to wonder if the sun had forgotten what season this was. We were ill equipped for such weather: the lightest clothing mamá had packed for me was the check flannel shirt I was already wearing. But grandma said she had some old clothes of papá’s that might fit me: a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts, something lighter than my lumberjack outfit. She and I went upstairs to papá’s old room, which had been locked to spare it from the destructive talents of the Midget. Papá’s room was an entire universe in miniature; a black hole would have damaged it irreparably.

  Despite having been shut up, the room smelled clean. It was obvious that grandma aired it regularly. Papá’s telescope was still on its tripod next to the window. The bed was made up with clean sheets and everything. There were pennants pinned to the wall above the headboard, reminders of local sports clubs and the sort of philanthropic associations you got back then, the Rotary club and the Lions club. On one side of the bed was a small bookcase with a load of children’s books all from la colección Robin Hood. Through one of the publishing miracles of the Argentina of a different era, papá and I had read exactly the same books. David Copperfield translated by a posh lady called Maróa Nélida Bourguet de ruiz, for example. Papá had a copy of the second edition from 1945 that he bought in 1950, to judge by the name and the date scrawled in his childish handwriting on the first page.

  On the desk I found an entire battalion of lead soldiers, ranged against an invisible enemy. On the shelf at head height there was a collection of model cars that, in size and detail, put my Matchbox cars to shame, a collection of model airplanes and a red sailboat whose sail rose to a couple of inches below the ceiling.

  ‘It’s exactly the same,’ I said as grandma poked around in the wardrobe.

  ‘Exactly, exactly.’

  ‘You could have thrown all this stuff out and had a room for the two of you,’ I said, thinking of grandma Matilde, who had boxed up all of mamá’s belongings and turned her old bedroom into a showcase for the souvenirs of her trips abroad: hats and mantillas and dolls (the most extravagant being a flamenco dancer the train of whose dress was a metre long).

  ‘What would I want with another room?’ said grandma, practical as ever. ‘Here, try this on.’

  She handed me a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of Bermuda shorts. They stank of mothballs, but they were clean and looked almost new. It was weird to think that papá had ever been this small.

  ‘Do you miss him a lot?’ I asked as I pulled off my shirt.

  ‘Your father? Of course I miss him. But I’m not crying my eyes out, if that’s what you mean. I couldn’t ask for any more than I had. And there’s nothing that I need that I don’t already have. Though I would like to see you all more often. You see, it fits perfectly. Try the shorts on.’

  ‘You could turn it into a playroom,’ I said, since I wasn’t against the idea of grandma packing all of papá’s things into boxes… and giving them to me.

  ‘It’s already a playroom. For me, it’s a time machine,’ said grandma as she opened the wardrobe door wide so that I could see myself in the mirror. ‘Every time I come in here to clean, I get caught up by something… anything, one of those photos, a copybook from school, a shirt… and it’s like I’m living that moment over again. I can almost hear your papá – his voice when he was a little boy, I mean – yelling down the stairs, always wanting something, a glass of milk, or clean clothes.’

  ‘He does the same to mamá, but mamá just ignores him.’

  ‘Good for her. At least some things have changed for the better.’

  Grandma stood behind me so that she could look at me in the mirror. She liked what she saw, apart from my hair, which she tried in vain to curl with her fingers.

  ‘Other things have changed for the worse. The quality of the stuff they make nowadays is terrible. They break the minute you buy them and you have to buy more! Do you think a shirt you bought now would last as long as this has? That’s the good thing about memories. They don’t wear out from overuse! they don’t take up space. And the most important thing,’ grandma said, giving me a kiss on the ear that left me half-deaf, ‘is that no one can steal them from you!’

  68

  A TRIP TO ATLANTIS

  I don’t know whether grandma’s paean to how well things were made in the good old days was warranted, but the raft that grandpa had made for papá had survived for more than twenty years. Measuring a metre by a metre and a half, it could fit two adults comfortably or, more usually, three children. Every detail attested to a skilled, or at least a loving, hand: the lacquer to stop the boards from absorbing water, the metal rowlocks, the use of screws rather than nails. Grandpa had found it in one of the sheds, though he had no luck locating the mast that had once stood in the centre of the raft from which, according to papá, flew a skull and crossbones flag that grandma had made according to papá’s design.

  When grandpa showed up with the raft in the back of the truck, it was impossible to tell who was happier: grandpa, feeling a sense of pride in his craftsmanship, papá, suddenly overwhelmed by memories, or me, excited at the prospect of sailing. We stood for several seconds, barely uttering a sound. Then, as one, we decided that the time was right: the sun was shining, the lagoon was near and we had a raft. Who could have resisted such temptation?

  We left our shoes and socks on the bank of the lagoon – and grandpa, since his weight alone would have sunk the raft (it would probably have sunk the Kon-Tiki). I begged him at least to get into the water with us, but he wouldn’t hear of it; he said he would stay and watch us from the bank. Papá rolled up the legs of his trousers, told me to get onto the raft, and started to push.

  And we were off. We headed for the middle of the lagoon, papá using his hands as both oars and rudder. I lay on my belly, leaning over the side, shielding my eyes from the sun as I tried to see the bottom. Grandpa told me that the lagoon hadn’t always been here. Years ago, before he bought the farm, he said, it had been a marble quarry. In their eagerness, someone had dug a little too deep and struck an aquifer. Water gushed out like oil wells in the movies and didn’t stop until it had filled the whole quarry, leaving the quarrymen to look for work elsewhere. Papá swore there was still machinery on the bottom, huts that had been built for the workers, even trees. (On the other side of the lagoon, next to the Podetti’s farm, there were trees whose trunks were half-buried in the lagoon.) He claimed he had seen all this, snorkelling with a breathing tube made from rushes. I listened with a certain scepticism: the story sounded too good to be true. How many people have their very own Atlantis just a stone’s throw from their house?

  In time I discovered that neither papá nor grandpa had lied. There were two bulldozers covered in moss in the murky depths, a hut with no roof that you could swim through, and tree trunks with tiny fish swimming around the branches. But that first time, out on the raft, I could see nothing, nothing except plants with huge coiled leaves that twisted hypnotically, melting into the darkness of deeper waters.

  Papá rowed steadily, occasionally correcting our course. He was already soaking wet, but he didn’t seem to care.

  Grandpa waved to us from the bank.

  ‘He could at least have got into the water,’ I said.

  ‘Your abuelo can’t swim.’

  ‘What do you mean he can’t swim?’

  ‘You think that everyone has a swimming pool to play in? Your abuelo has been working since he was a little boy; his mamá didn’t have the money to pay for him to go to sports club.’

  ‘So what did he do when you went swimming? Wasn’t he afraid? I mean, if something happened while you were on the raft, how would he sa
ve you?’

  ‘He had a motor boat moored at the pier. But he claims he was never afraid. I was always a good swimmer. He trusted me. Your abuelo believes that the sooner you learn to fend for yourself the better. That’s one of the few things we agree on. It’s why I taught you how to cross the road and how to travel on your own when you were little.’

  ‘Even though I got lost that time?’

  ‘But after that, you never got lost again.’

  Papá was rowing with a purpose. He was looking for a post which, he claimed, marked the centre of the lagoon. It was an old lamp-post, submerged except for the last metre or so. He wanted to see if the things he had carved on it with his penknife were still there, but we couldn’t see any post anywhere.

  ‘They must have taken it out. Or maybe it just rotted away. We always used to row out there, me and a couple of friends – Señor Podetti’s son and Alberto, one of Salvatierra’s cousins. One time, Podetti stood on the lamp-post and started posing like a statue. He posed like Rodin’s Thinker, then like a rather camp David, and then he said: “For my next impression, I’m going to be an angel on a fountain.” And he pulled down his trunks and started pissing on us. The little bastard! He was laughing like a hyena, until Alberto and me started rowing and left him standing on the lamp-post. He had to swim halfway across the lagoon to catch us up!’

  Papá rowed tirelessly. Tired of trying to see the bottom of the lagoon, I turned onto my back, belly to the sun, and let myself be carried along as papá went on telling stories, memories pouring out of him as though he couldn’t turn them off. At some point I stopped listening. Floating is so delicious; like flying, I imagine. I think I might have fallen asleep for a minute or two.

  ‘I’m roasting here,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Splash some water on yourself.’

  ‘Can’t I just dive in?’

  ‘The water’s really cold. It’s hard to swim in cold water, your arms and your legs feel heavy and you get tired quickly.’

  ‘OK, well let’s play a game then.’

  ‘Me and Podetti used to play a balancing game. We’d stand on either side of the raft, really still, then, on the count of three, we’d rock the raft with our feet, trying to pitch the other person into the water.’

  ‘Come on, let’s play that!’

  ‘You’re going to end up in the water!’

  ‘You’re the one who’s going to end up in the water!’

  ‘Dream on!’

  ‘You’re just scared of me.’

  ‘Hah! You’ve just signed your own death warrant. Consider yourself soaked!’

  Just standing up was a feat in itself. The raft bobbed and wheeled like a wild thing. We were laughing so much that neither of us could manage to stand.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, laughing.

  ‘I’m Captain Nemo, who are you?’

  ‘I’m Houdini.’

  ‘Nemo versus Houdini, one… No pushing… Nemo versus Houdini, two…’

  ‘No tickling.’

  ‘Nemo versus Houdini… And three!’

  It was like ice-skating for the first time, it was incredibly difficult to keep my balance. It was hard enough to stay upright and harder still to try and compensate for the other person rocking the raft.

  I was destined to wind up in the lagoon – only a miracle could save me. Or a trick.

  Papá was still commentating on our battle (‘Nemo dribbles, he dodges, he passes…’) when I gave him a gentle shove. He was so surprised that he fell backwards like a stone. If I hadn’t thrown myself down on the raft, with the sudden disappearance of the counterweight, I would have been pitched over too.

  ‘Incredible, ladies and gentlemen!’ I howled. ‘Houdini takes him down, Houdini is unbeaten! Nemo has been sunk! It’s all over! Put your hands together for the champion!’

  I would have gone on crowing like a peacock, but it wasn’t much fun until papá came to the surface. And papá still hadn’t surfaced.

  There weren’t even any bubbles. I crawled over to his side of the raft, but a black cloud blocked the sun at that moment and all I could see was black water.

  I remembered what papá had said. About how cold the water was, how heavy your arms and legs feel, how difficult it is to swim. What if the cold water had sent him into a state of shock? What if he’d sunk to the bottom, with the bulldozers and the huts and the trees?

  I wanted to scream but nothing came out. I suddenly felt cold; my teeth were clacking like castanets, all the heat had drained from my body. That bloody cloud: black cloud, black water. All I could do was prowl from one side of the raft to the other, like a panther in an invisible cage, hoping papá would reappear, that the black cloud would go away, the water would clear and papá would come back from Atlantis.

  Suddenly I felt a jet of freezing water hit me. Papá had popped his head above the surface and was filling his mouth with water and spitting it at me – a colourless, odourless variation of Podetti’s angel. He thought it was funny, thought he was simply paying me back for playing a dirty trick on him, but the moment he saw me, his smile vanished. I don’t know what he saw on my face, what made him turn pale. I suppose he guessed what was coming: I lashed out, punching him brutally, angrily, and he parried the blows with one arm as he tried to put his other arm around me so he could hug me, so he could say I’m sorry, I’m sorry, querido, I didn’t realize, I swear, I didn’t realize. I went on thumping him and he went on apologizing, until finally I was too tired to hit him anymore, but still he went on, saying the words over and over, until he was too hoarse to speak.

  The official version was that he fell off the raft through his own stupidity.

  We never told anyone what really happened.

  69

  IN WHICH I PLAY THE SPY AND HEAR SOMETHING I SHOULDN’T

  Dinner went off without a hitch. It was as though papá had toned down his usual persona, leaving only a subdued version of itself – pewter rather than silver. Even grandpa was surprised when papá did not react to his comments with the usual sarcastic barbs. Apart from the Midget, who kept getting up from the table to toss pieces of bread into the fire, everyone noticed the change in papá. By the time the fruit came, the tension had become so hypnotic that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from papá’s hands, as he peeled an apple, as he added soda to his wine, as he rolled crumbs into little pellets, trying to work out if his little fingers still flexed properly, if he was still papá or if he had been replaced by a Doppelgänger who could duplicate his form but never his spirit.

  Grandma got up and began to clear the table. Mamá got up too, and as she scraped all the leftovers onto one plate she gave me the prearranged signal. The first part of my mission was to round up the Midget and herd him into the kitchen. It proved more complicated than expected, because the Midget, having worked out that he could make little dolls using a couple of toothpicks and papá’s pellets of bread, was now in the middle of re-enacting a historic court case.

  ‘Let me finish!’ he protested as I tugged at him. ‘I’m making Joan of Arc!’

  ‘You can burn her later. We have to bring in the pie!’

  The idea was that we would lead the procession carrying grandma’s pie, singing ‘Happy Birthday’. When we got to the kitchen, mamá and grandma were lighting candles as fast as they could.

  ‘There’s always a shortage of teachers. It doesn’t have to be a permanent thing, but it might be a temporary solution. The important thing is that you suggest it to him. If I talk to him, he won’t pay any attention, and if his father tries to talk to him, all hell will break loose. You know how it is. They’re as bad as each other,’ said grandma, lighting matches as fast as she could.

  ‘Can I light one?’

  ‘Can I light one?’ echoed the Midget.

  ‘No!’ mama said, and went on talking to grandma as though we weren’t there. ‘It’s the only way they know how to relate to each other. They have to be tough. Do you know what it’s like, living with three boys?’
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  I tried to dip my finger into the meringue on top of the pie, but mamá rapped me on the head with the box of matches.

  ‘Go and stand by the door to the living room, and when I give the signal, turn off the lights.’

  ‘We have to put the fire out too, otherwise it won’t be dark,’ said the Midget, who was prepared to do anything to save Joan of Arc.

  ‘Don’t you go playing with that fire,’ said grandma, ‘don’t you know that little boys who play with fire wet the bed?’

  The Midget was speechless. Was grandma clairvoyant?

  I did as mamá told me and stood next to the living room door as a lookout. Papá and grandpa were talking in low voices.

  ‘Of course I know it’s difficult,’ papá was saying; there was a hopelessness in his voice I’d never heard before. ‘How could I not know? People are disappearing every day. But we want to stay together for as long as we can. The four of us. Is that so difficult to understand?’

  A soft whistle from the kitchen brought me up short. Mamá gave the signal; grandma was right behind her, her face lit up, almost like wax. The cake looked less like a pie and more like a pyre.

  I turned off the light and we started singing.

  Mamá wanted a photo of the four boys together, but she couldn’t take a picture while papá still had his zombie face on. Determined to change his mood, mamá even made the secret sign – the one we usually made to her – clenching her fist to let him know that this time he was the one behaving like the Rock.

  ‘Abuelo’s teaching me how to drive the tractor,’ I said, trying to help out.