2666 (38 page)

Odd, thought Amalfitano, with the book in his hands. Odd,
extremely odd. For example, the single asterisk.
Litrang:
stone tablets
on which the Araucanians engraved their writings. But why footnote
litrang
and
not
admapu
or
epeutufe?
Did the Cacique of Puerto Saavedra assume
that everyone would know what they meant? And then the sentence about whether
or not O'Higgins was a bastard:
Bernardo is not the illegitimate son
described by historians, some with
pity,
others unable to hide their
satisfaction.
There you had the day-to-day history of
Chile
, the private history, the
history behind closed doors. Pitying the father of the country because he was a
bastard. Or being unable to conceal a certain satisfaction when discussing the
subject. So telling, thought Amalfitano, and he thought about the first time
he'd read Kilapan's book, laughing out loud, and the way he was reading it now,
with something like laughter but also something like sorrow. Ambrosio O'Higgins
as an Irishman was definitely a good joke. Ambrosio O'Higgins marrying an
Araucanian woman, but under the aegis of
admapu
and even going so far as
to cap it off with the traditional
gapitun
or abduction ceremony, struck
him as a macabre joke that could point only to abuse, rape, a further mockery
staged by fat Ambrosio to fuck the Indian woman in peace. I can't think of
anything without the word
rape
popping up to stare with its helpless
little mammal eyes, thought Amalfitano. Then he fell asleep in his chair, with
the book in his hands. Maybe he dreamed something. Something short. Maybe he
dreamed about his childhood. Maybe not.

Then he woke up and made himself and his daughter something
to eat. Back in his office he felt extremely tired, unable to prepare a class
or read anything serious, so he returned resignedly to Kilapan's book.
Seventeen proofs. Proof number 1 was titled
He was born in the Araucanian
state.
It went like this: "The Yekmonchi,
¹
called
Chile
,
²
was geographically and politically identical to the Greek state, and, like it,
forming a delta, between the respective latitudes of the 35th and 42nd
parallels." Ignoring the construction of the sentence (where it read
forming
it should have
read formed,
and there were at least two commas too
many), the most interesting thing about the first paragraph was what might be
called its military slant. It began with a straight jab to the chin or a full
artillery assault on the center of the enemy line. Note 1 clarified that
Yekmonchi
meant State. Note 2 stated that
Chile
was a Greek
word whose translation was "distant tribe." Then came the geographic
description of the Yekmonchi of Chile: "It stretched from the Maullis to
the Chiligiie rivers, including the west of
Argentina
. The reigning Mother
City, or that is Chile, properly speaking, was located between the Butaleufu
and Tolten rivers; like the Greek state, it was surrounded by allied and
interrelated peoples, those who were subject to the Küga Chiliches (that is to
say the Chilean (or Chiliches: people of Chile) tribe (Küga). Che: people, as
Kilapan meticulously took care to recall), who taught them the sciences, the
arts, sports, and especially the science of war." Farther along Kilapan
confessed: "In 1947," although Amalfitano suspected that this was an
erratum and that the year was actually 1974, "I opened the tomb of
Kurillanka, which was under the main Kuralwe, covered by a flat stone. All that
remained was a katankura, a metawe, duck, an obsidian ornament, like an
arrowhead to pay the 'toll' that the soul of Kurillanka had to pay to
Zenpilkawe, the Greek Charon, to take him across the sea to his place of
origin: a remote island in the sea. These pieces were distributed among the
Araucanian museums of
Temuco
, the future Museo
Abate Molina of Villa Alegre, and the Museo Araucano of
Santiago
, which will soon be open to the
public." The mention of Villa Alegre prompted Kilapan to add the oddest
note. It read: "In Villa Alegre, formerly Warakulen, lie the remains of
Abate Juan Ignacio Molina, brought from
Italy
to his native city. He was a
professor at the
University
of
Bologna
, where his
statue presides over the entrance to the Pantheon of the Distinguished Sons of
Italy, between the statues of Copernicus and Galileo. According to Molina,
there is an unquestionable kinship between Greeks and Araucanians." This
Molina was a Jesuit and a naturalist, and he lived from 1740 to 1829.

Shortly after the episode at Los Zancudos, Amalfitano saw
Dean Guerra's son again. This time he was dressed like a cowboy, although he
had shaved and he smelled of Calvin Klein cologne. Even so, all he lacked to
look like a real cowboy was the hat. There was something mysterious about the
way he accosted Amalfitano. It was late in the day, and as Amalfitano walked
along a ridiculously long corridor at the university, deserted and dark at that
hour, Marco Antonio Guerra burst out from a corner like someone playing a bad
joke or about to attack him. Amalfitano jumped, then struck out automatically
with his fist. It's me, Marco Antonio, said the dean's son, after he was hit
again. Then they recognized each other and relaxed and set off together toward
the rectangle of light at the end of the hallway, which reminded Marco Antonio
of the stories of people who'd been in comas or declared clinically dead and
who claimed to have seen
a
dark
tunnel with a white or dazzling brightness at the end, and sometimes these
people even testified to the presence of loved ones who had passed away, who
took their hands or soothed them or urged them to turn back because the hour or
microfraction of a second in which the change took effect hadn't yet arrived.
What do you think, Professor? Do people on the verge of death make this shit
up, or is it real? Is it all just a dream, or is it within the realm of
possibility? I don't know, said Amalfitano curtly, since he still hadn't gotten
over his fright, and he wasn't in the mood for a repeat of their last meeting.
Well, said Marco Antonio Guerra, if you want to know what I think, I don't
believe it. People see what they want to see and what people want to see never
has anything to do with the truth. People are cowards to the last breath. I'm
telling you between you and me: the human being, broadly speaking, is the
closest thing there is to a rat.

Despite what he had hoped (to get rid of Marco Antonio
Guerra as soon as they emerged from the hallway with its aura of life after
death), Amalfitano had to follow him without complaint because the dean's son
was the bearer of an invitation to dinner that very evening at the house of the
rector of the University of Santa Teresa, the august Dr. Pablo Negrete. So he
climbed in Marco Antonio's car, and Marco Antonio drove him home, then chose,
in an unwonted display of shyness, to wait for him outside, watching the car,
as if there were thieves in Colonia Lindavista, while Amalfitano cleaned up and
changed clothes, and his daughter, who of course was invited too, did the same,
or not, since his daughter could go dressed as she liked, but he, Amalfitano,
had better show up at Dr. Negrete's house in a jacket and tie at the very least.
The dinner, as it happened, was nothing to worry about. Dr. Negrete simply
wanted to meet him and had assumed, or been advised, that a first meeting in
his office at the administration building would be much chillier than a first
meeting in the comfort of his own home, a grand old two-story house surrounded
by a lush garden with plants from all over Mexico and plenty of shady nooks
where guests could gather in
petit comité.
Dr. Negrete was a man of
silence and reserve who was happier listening to others than leading the
conversation himself. He asked about
Barcelona
,
recollected that in his youth he had attended a conference in
Prague
,
mentioned a former professor at the
University
of
Santa Teresa
, an Argentinian who
now taught at one of the branches of the
University
of
California
,
and the rest of the time he was quiet. His wife, who carried herself with a
distinction that the rector lacked, though to judge by her features she had
never been a beauty, was much nicer to Amalfitano and especially to Rosa, who
reminded her of her youngest daughter, whose name was Clara, like her mother's,
and who had been living in
Phoenix
for years. At some point during the dinner Amalfitano thought he noticed a
rather murky exchange of glances between the rector and his wife. In her eyes
he glimpsed something that might have been hatred. At the same time, a sudden
fear flitted as swiftly as a butterfly across the rector's face. But Amalfitano
noticed it and for a moment (the second flutter of wings) the rector's fear nearly
brushed his own skin. When he recovered and looked at the other dinner guests
he realized that no one had noticed the slight shadow, like a hastily dug pit
that gives off an alarming stench.

But
he was wrong. Young Marco Antonio Guerra had noticed. And he had also noticed
that Amalfitano had noticed. Life is worthless, he said into Amalfitano's ear
when they went out into the garden.
Rosa
sat
with the rector's wife and Professor Perez. The rector sat in the gazebo's only
rocking chair. Dean Guerra and two philosophy professors took seats near the
rector's wife. A third professor, a bachelor, remained standing, next to
Amalfitano and Marco Antonio Guerra. A servant, an almost elderly woman, came
in after a while carrying an enormous tray of glasses that she set on a marble
table. Amalfitano considered helping her, but then he thought it might be seen
as disrespectful if he did. When the old woman reappeared, carrying more than
seven bottles in precarious equilibrium, Amalfitano couldn't stop himself and went
to help her. When she saw him, the old woman's eyes widened and the tray began
to slip from her hands. Amalfitano heard a shriek, the ridiculous little shriek
of one of the professors' wives, and at that same moment, as the tray was
falling, he glimpsed the shadow of young Guerra setting everything right again.
Don't worry, Chachita, he heard the rector's wife say.

Then he heard young Guerra, after he had set the bottles on the
table, ask Dona Clara whether she kept any Los Suicidas mezcal in her liquor cabinet.
And he heard Dean Guerra saying: pay no attention to my son and his foolish
notions. And he heard
Rosa
say: Los Suicidas
mezcal, what a pretty name. And he heard a professor's wife say: it certainly
is unusual. And he heard Professor Perez: what a fright, I thought she was
going to drop them. And he heard a philosophy professor talking about
norteno
music, to change the subject. And he heard Dean Guerra say that the
difference between
norteno
groups and groups from anywhere else in the
country was that
norteno
groups were always made up of an accordion and
a guitar, with the accompaniment of a
bajo sexto,
the twelve-string
guitar, and some kind of
brinco.
And he heard the same philosophy
professor asking what a
brinco
was. And he heard the dean answer that a
brinco
could be drums, for example, like a rock group's drum kit, or kettledrums,
and in
norteno
music a proper
brinco
might be the
redova,
a hollow wooden block, or more commonly a pair of
sticks. And he heard Rector Negrete saying: that's right. And then he accepted
a glass of whiskey and sought the face of the person who had put it in his hand
and found the face of young Guerra, pale in the moonlight.

Proof
number 2, by far the most interesting to Amalfitano, was called
He was born
to an Araucanian -woman
and it began like this: "Upon the arrival of
the Spaniards, the Araucanians established two channels for communication from
Santiago: telepathy and Adkintuwe.
⁵⁵
Lautaro,
⁵⁶
because
of his notable telepathic skills, was taken north with his mother when he was
still a child to enter the service of the Spaniards. It was in this way that
Lautaro contributed to the defeat of the Spaniards. Since telepaths could be
eliminated and communications cut, Adkintuwe was created. Only after 1700 did
the Spaniards become aware of this method of sending messages by the movement
of branches. They were puzzled by the fact that the Araucanians knew everything
that happened in the city of
Concepcion
.
Although they managed to discover Adkintuwe, they were never able to decipher
it. They never suspected that the Araucanians were telepathic, believing
instead that they had 'traffic with the devil,' who informed them of events in
Santiago
. There were
three lines of Adkintuwe from the capital: one along the buttresses of the
Andes
, another along the coast, and a third along the
central valley. Primitive man was ignorant of language; he communicated by
brainwaves, as animals and plants do. When he resorted to sounds and gestures
and hand signals to communicate, he began to lose the gift of telepathy, and
this loss was accelerated when he went to live in cities, distancing himself
from nature. Although the Araucanians had two kinds of writing— the rope
knotting known as Prom,
⁵⁷
and the triangle writing known as
Adentunemul
⁵⁸
—they never gave up telecommunication; on the contrary,
some Kügas whose families were scattered all over America, the Pacific Islands,
and the deepest south specialized in it so that no enemy would ever take them
by surprise. By means of telepathy they kept in permanent contact with the
Chilean migrants who first settled in the north of
India
,
where they were called Aryans, then headed to the fields of ancient Germania
and later descended to the Peloponnese, traveling from there to
Chile
along the traditional route to
India
and across the
Pacific
Ocean
." Immediately following this and apropos of nothing,
Kilapan wrote: "Killenkusi was a Machi
⁵⁹
priestess. Her
daughter Kinturay had to choose between succeeding her or becoming a spy; she
chose the latter and her love for the Irishman; this opportunity afforded her
the hope of having a child who, like Lautaro and mixed-race Alejo, would be
raised among the Spaniards, and like them might one day lead the hosts of those
who wished to push the conquistadors back beyond the Maule River, because
Admapu law prohibited the Araucanians from fighting outside of Yekmonchi. Her
hope was realized and in the spring
⁶⁰
of the year 1777, in the place
called Palpal, an Araucanian woman endured the pain of childbirth in a standing
position because tradition decreed that a strong child could not be born of a
weak mother. The son arrived and became the Liberator of Chile."