Читать книгу Ajijic - Patricio Fernández Cortina - Страница 11

Chapter VI

Bob

The next day, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Sugar and Niagara showed up at Bob’s house on 16th of September Street. The front of the house had an immense wall, almost twenty feet high, painted dark brown, in which there was a very simple wooden door. Above the doorframe was an eagle carved in stone and mounted on a pedestal. It was impossible to see the actual house from the street, and behind the high wall were lush trees, even taller than the wall itself.

The door had a metal knocker shaped like a bull’s head, and a bell chain protruded from one of the sides. Sugar went to the door and knocked with the knocker causing a loud bang. A minute passed and yet no one stirred. Sugar and Niagara looked at each other. The first one smoked from his pipe and struck the knocker even harder with his right hand. One. Two. Three. Nothing.

Then, aware of the existence of the chain, Niagara yanked it forcefully and the sound of the clapper ringing the bell was heard on the other side, in a melodious, uniform, and long tolling, like those produced by old heavy bells. After a moment, the door opened into the property. A man dressed in a white mantle and leather huaraches led the way. It was Juan Sibilino.

As they crossed the threshold of the door, Sugar and Niagara were stunned by the beauty and splendor of the property. A lush garden spread out in front of them, and high above, at a considerable distance, rose a promontory on which the house stood. The bell on one side of the door was supported by a yoke of precious wood, within a belfry ten feet high by six and a half feet wide. At the top of the belfry was a pinnacle topped with an iron cross that crowned a metal ball that represented the world. Two seas were engraved in relief on the world: the Pontus and the Hudson. Also in relief, a bit worn, two tracks joined by a dotted line were visible. Next to the first print, located in the middle of the world, the word Ajijic was written, and on the other print, at the top of the world, the word New York were inscribed. After noticing these details, Sugar and Niagara looked at each other perplexed.

Juan Sibilino asked the visitors to follow him. They passed under towering ash trees, jacarandas, and flamboyant trees that intertwined their branches in the open space of the sky, filtering the growing sunlight of the afternoon. In the magnificent garden, Sugar delighted in admiring the variety of trees typical of La Floresta. The high terracotta-colored walls that sheltered the property from the outside, were flanked on all four sides by cypresses. In the center of the garden was a magnificent laurel, whose roots were protected by a circular wall, so common in the plazas of La Floresta. It was majestic, with huge roots and a great height, and its green leaves gleamed in various hues as the sunlight reflected on them.

As they passed under the laurel, Sugar took Niagara’s arm and in a low voice, almost whispering, said:

“Have you ever seen such a beautiful house?”

“Only in palaces and novels do you get to experience these types of gardens,” Niagara replied excitedly.

As they walked towards the promontory on which the house stood, they saw a wonderful terrace on the left side. It was accessed through a great staircase with very wide red brick steps, as wide as the very front of the terrace. At the ends of each step were large Talavera vases. The terrace floor was made of Saltillo tiles and the mission style roof was of extraordinary beauty. The columns that supported the structure were made of wrought iron with a crossbar of solid wood. There were two large equipal tables and a spacious room with a chimney in the back. The path that led up to the house was covered with red bricks that ran along the side of the terrace and was flanked by a wrought iron railing.

In the upper part there was also a splendid garden, smaller than the one below, but more beautiful in its architecture. Located on a rectangular surface, it was decorated with a great variety of plants and hedges trimmed into cone shapes on a path that ran along the perimeter of the garden on all sides. In the center, there was a basin, also rectangular in shape, with a fountain made of two concave stone pylons from which water streamed out, filling the space with its music.

At the end of the garden there was a lookout point in the shape of a semicircle, from which you could enjoy a view of the lake and García Hill. At one end of the semicircle, on a pedestal, was a bronze reproduction of Rodin’s The Thinker, facing north, with his back to the lake, and at the other end, also on a pedestal, was a sculpture of Ulysses, the Odyssey-taker, carved from Carrara marble, overlooking the lake.

At each corner of the garden path there was an olive tree, and at the edge of the house a beautiful sweetgum. On one side of this tree, on the ground, was a plaque on the angled surface of a stone on which were engraved three groups of verses taken from a collection of poems by Carmen Villoro, titled Liquidambar. The first one read like this:

I come from ignorance

I come from indifference

I look at the hundred faces, hundreds of them

spread out before me

like a swell.

The second implored with melancholy:

And I have no memory

no keys to my house.

The third one consecrated the encounter with the end of existence:

The garden dream disappears.

We say goodbye to your body forever

but the murmur remains.

The protective shade of foliage.

Sugar and Niagara walked along the garden path, listening to the rubbing of the pebbles beneath the soles of their shoes, that evoked the sounds of walks among the parks of European cities, such as Paris, and they enjoyed the spectacle of the water that shot up in streams from the fountain.

“Did you know that in Nahuatl Ajijic means ‘place where water springs’ or, also, ‘place where water spills?’” asked Niagara. “Here we are, dear friend, this is Ajijic for us, with all its magic and beauty.”

Then they went to the semicircle and enjoyed the view of the lake. Sugar took long strides and long drags of his pipe, observing the sculptures.

“Hey, Niagara. Look at this: The Thinker has his back turned to the lake, see? And this other one, who it says here is Ulysses, the Odyssey-taker, is looking in the opposite direction, that is, he is looking towards the lake. Do you think that means anything?”

Niagara shrugged and didn’t answer, but his thoughts stayed with the vexing question. The two of them continued walking along the pebble path, admiring the garden, the plants, the olive trees, and sweetgum.

Juan Sibilino, who had let the two visitors enjoy the garden, approached them and, noticing the sense of wonder that filled them, told them in a very low voice, with a certain sense of complicity:

“The gentleman calls this garden, Bac’s Garden.”

Bob’s house began near the garden, with a terrace flanked by two high-standing arches, supported by stone columns, and facing the lagoon. From there the view was splendid: in the foreground one’s gaze passed through Bac’s Garden, then above the treetops of the garden below, finally expanding outwards to the horizon to contemplate the wide lake and García Hill. In the stillness of the place, only the sounds of nature interrupted the silence. On one of the walls of the terrace was written, in wrought iron letters, a Haiku by Tablada:

The garden is full of dry leaves.

Never have I seen so many on trees

green, in spring.

To one side of the terrace was the pool, covered with blue tiles, kept from view by a wall from which hung bougainvillea, and through a space cleared of foliage rose a very tall column on which sat a wind vane in the shape of angel, which spun with the stirring of the wind. On the tiled wall there was another haiku, this one by Basho, and it read:

An old pond:

a frog leaps, splurge!

Sound and water.

Juan Sibilino asked the guests to wait in the terrace, where there were some comfortable Miguelito chairs on which they sat, and each one drank a glass of watermelon water enjoying the landscape and the stillness.

“In a moment he will come,” Juan Sibilino told them.

From inside the house the violin music of Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel” could be heard. After a few minutes, Bob stepped out onto the terrace through a large glass door. He greeted Sugar and Niagara and sat on one of the Miguelito chairs, opposite them, separated by just a low table that was placed on a handcrafted mat the color of cochineal scarlet.

“Thank you both for coming.”

Bob was dressed in a blue linen shirt, beige pants, and loafers. It was easy to see that he had just showered, as evidenced by his freshly pressed shirt, his still damp brown hair, and the fresh fragrance of lotion that wafted around him. He carried in his hands a book of stories about St. Patrick’s Battalion, but when he realized that Niagara had noticed that detail, he set the book on the table and addressed them both, without any greater pause than the moment he allowed for them to finish sighing at the beauty of the place, saying:

“I would like to discuss with you why I invited you here. I’ll get to the point. Mexican blood and American blood run through my veins. Let’s say that I belong to two worlds, to two countries, although I am Mexican. That’s why I was so keen to attend a meeting of the Lakesiders, and I finally made up my mind and went to yesterday’s gathering. In Ajijic those two worlds coexist, you and us, and since the Lakesiders association is an organization that provides support to foreigners who help each other in solidarity, I wanted to make my presence at the meeting to get to know you and be able to tell you my story. I wanted to know if I could consider myself one of you, my father being an American.”

Sugar was startled and settled into his chair. Niagara made a gesture for Bob to continue, so he did:

“My father abandoned my mother, here in Ajijic, before I was born. A year later, my mother died of sadness, at least that’s what my grandmother told me. I lived with her in her house on Emiliano Zapata Street, near Columbus Street. Time has passed in a flash, and at the same time with excruciating slowness. My grandmother died a few years after I moved into this house, about twenty years ago. Since then, I haven’t had anyone with me, other than Juan Sibilino. When I was a child, he worked in the fields with my grandmother’s relatives, and it was he who taught me the language of nature. My mother had no siblings, so there isn’t a drop of that family’s blood left in this town, other than mine. I grew up as an only child in my grandmother’s house, without a father or mother.

Juan Sibilino lives downstairs and, to alleviate his boredom, he works at the La Renga, during his spare time in the morning. No one knows the secrets of this town and its nature better than he does. He says that the storm that hits the town once a year commemorates the arrival of the first foreigners to Ajijic, imagine that, and that the swallows that take flight as the sky opens up evoke the spirit of a Russian dancer who a long time ago passed through town. The things he says amuse me. Since coming to live here in this house I’ve gradually distanced myself from the people that had been part of my life. I’ve never been married nor had an interest to do so. I used to drink a lot, as I said yesterday. My childhood friends left Ajijic to live their lives away from here, in other cities, so I was left alone and I decided to give my time over to books, frequenting La Renga and enjoying the hours I spent reading in La Colmena.”

Bob paused for a moment to drink some watermelon water. Niagara took advantage of the pause, and said:

“The house is very nice, Bob. The air is different here.”

“Yes, I agree,” added Sugar.

Setting the glass on the table, Bob looked at his guests and said:

“I want to go meet my father.”

Sugar and Niagara looked at each other. Bob looked at them too before continuing:

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I have no one else to talk to about these things, so, I’m asking for your understanding. When I turned eighteen, my father, whom I have never met, donated a considerable sum of money to me. Juan Sibilino found this property, which was in complete disrepair. The American couple that lived here were elderly and sometime after both passed away, I acquired it. Then I went to Guadalajara and hired a great architect who belonged to the Guadalajara school of architecture, which had been spearheaded by Luis Barragán. I didn’t understand the value of architecture back then, but the architect talked to me about the importance of solving the material problem of building a house, without forgetting about its role in fulfilling my spiritual needs. He told me that a house was a sanctuary, a monastery for the soul, a place that should be capable of moving us with the simplicity of its beauty, its light, its serenity, and that’s why the spaces and the garden were so important. It was he who told me about Ferdinand Bac, who had known Barragán very well, and he showed me the drawings of Les Colombières and Jardins Enchantés.

However, even though I built this magnificent house in which I have had very happy moments in my life, I have always been overwhelmed by the past. Money and material possessions have not been able to fill the void in my soul. So after so many years I have finally decided to go to the origin myself.”

“What do you mean?” Niagara asked.

Bob stood up, and extending both hands towards his guests, asked them to accompany him.

“Let’s go to the library,” he told them.

They entered the house through the large window. The interior was very simple, almost convent-like, an atmosphere created by a double-height ceiling that fostered a pleasant sense of space and seclusion. On the ground floor was nothing more than a round wooden dining table with four leather chairs, an open kitchen, and a living room with a built-in cabinet in the wall, where there were small sculptures, art books, and two photographs in a silver frame: one featured the boardwalk in Chapala and the other New York’s Central Park.

They climbed a staircase with steps made of Cantera stone and Talavera mosaic tiles, into a loft where the library was located. From there you had a privileged view of the terrace, Bac’s Garden, and the lagoon. The sun was beginning to set, and the swallows descended from the top of Tepalo Hill, over the roofs of the houses of Ajijic towards the lagoon, where they returned to perch on the grand laurel in Bob’s garden, which was already beginning to fill up with of all sorts of birds.

Sugar stood in front of the glass that covered the library from floor to ceiling and hummed a tune as he admired the fountain in Bac’s Garden. Niagara stood in front of the bookcase and began inspecting the books, moving close and then away from the spines as he read each title. Then they both sat in the chairs that were on the side of the glass, so that they were facing the desk. Bob sat in his chair behind the desk, at the foot of the bookcase and facing them.

“You also have a good library,” Bob said to Niagara. “I was able to get a glimpse of it last night.”

“Look, Bob,” said Niagara, “my library is good, but this one is beautiful, and the books you have are magnificent.”

“All libraries are good, as long as the books are worth it,” Bob said, looking at the two books sitting on the desk in front of him.

Sugar noticed that Bob was looking at those books and, approaching them, he picked them up, saying:

“The Iliad and the Odyssey, by Homer. Great epic poems. And this other one, Poet in New York, by Federico García Lorca, I’m not acquainted with it, but I’ll make sure to get a copy of it. A Spanish poet writing in my city must be interesting.”

“I read Poet in New York some time ago,” Niagara said. “Did you two know that the great poet Federico García Lorca wrote the poems in that book in New York City from 1929 to 1930? These are very beautiful poems, some, others are more disturbing.”

Bob listened attentively to Niagara, and noticing his command of Spanish, said to him:

“You’re very knowledgeable about books and your Spanish is very fluent, it seems you don’t have any problem with Spanish pronunciation.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Bob, there are still a lot of words I need to learn, and my pronunciation is never as good as I want it to be. We foreigners speak as if our tongue was tied.”

The three of them laughed. Sugar said that he also spoke Spanish well because he had lived in Ajijic for many years, and he said that the Mexican music and songs that he was so passionate about had helped him practice the language.

“I learned to speak English when I was a kid, Bob said. No doubt on my father’s request, my grandmother received a visit from a retired professor from Princeton who lived here in Ajijic, and who had with him a letter with which he introduced himself as my English teacher. Something absolutely rare and unusual for a kid from Ajijic. That’s why everyone on the street saw me as a weirdo. The teacher was a very refined man with vast knowledge. I would go to my grandmother’s house in the afternoons, during the first hour he would teach me grammar and I would do exercises in a blue-covered notebook. Then we would go out for a walk in town and along the lake’s shoreline, for what for him was the most important part of teaching: dialogue. We would walk and talk in English. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish during those verbal exercises so I could learn the language. ‘Think and talk in English,’ he would say to me. Then we would pronounce the English names of the plants, flowers, and every other thing that we saw along the way. Throughout the time he was my teacher, he would give me books to read in English and we discussed them in English, as well. Later he taught me a comparative reading exercise, which consisted of reading a text in both English and Spanish, and then discussing and unraveling in which the language it read and sounded best. That helped me understand and translate words more easily from one language to the other. My teacher had a particular obsession with pronunciation, and he forced me to speak ‘Princeton English,’ as he put it, stressing the differences, for example, between the pronunciation of English in England and that of some regions of the United States. That’s the reason my English, to his credit, is not too shabby.

I used to enjoy our walks through the cobblestone streets, dreaming that one day I might also walk through Princeton. I remember the professor telling me that the university buildings were made of stone and that he was fascinated by the sight of autumn leaves carpeting the roads. ‘It was like a poem,’ he would say. During his time as a professor, he taught in the Department of English, in classrooms within buildings surrounded by trees and gardens, where I understand that the papers of Julio Cortázar and other great Latin American writers are now kept. That university preserves letters and words: the treasure of literature.”

Niagara was moved by that last comment, and then asked:

“Did you ever go to a school, Bob?”

“I was educated by a governess who taught me in the mornings at my grandmother’s house. Another of the oddities of my childhood. While my friends went to the school in town, I was bound to the house with the governess, at the mysterious and occult direction from my father. So, I never went to school, nor did I have a childhood like other children. My dealings with them were limited to street games, but the time I had to do that was short because completing my chores and homework took several hours each evening. My childhood was, to put it a certain way, discreet, unheard of, and rare for our town, something that always made me uncomfortable.”

Niagara, wanting to change the conversation, asked Bob, looking up at the top of the bookcase:

“Have you already read all those books?”

Bob replied:

“Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.”

“Thoreau!” Niagara said. “The great Henry David Thoreau.”

“Yes, a writer who spent much of his lifetime in observation, contemplation, and reflection,” Bob said. “He contemplated, Walden, the lake where he lived for years, just as we are able to gaze upon our beautiful Lake Chapala. He took notes on what he was interested in writing and spent considerable time navigating the good books to take all those experiences and shape his own work. It is in books where you can touch the characters and the tired hands of the writer who has put his life into them. I’ll never forget the beautiful way Thoreau describes squirrels and their comings and goings in the countryside.”

At that moment, Juan Sibilino appeared at the top of the staircase holding a tray with assorted cheeses, grapes, a loaf of terrine, Sobrassada sausage, Jabugo ham, white asparagus, olives, pickles, a loaf of sliced bread, peach marmalade, brioche bread, and foie gras. He placed the tray on the widest part of the desk, went downstairs, and returned with a smaller tray containing a bottle of Port, a bottle of whiskey, two bottles of mineral water, two small wine glasses, and three glasses, plus a silver bucket of ice with nautical rope handles and small tongs. Next to the large tray he had previously left three plates and three embroidered linen napkins. Addressing Bob, he said:

“If the gentlemen want anything more, feel free to call me, sir.”

Bob thanked Juan Sibilino and invited his friends to eat. Niagara was surprised that the butler was so formal with Bob, but he refrained from commenting on it. Sugar took a slice of bread, spread some of the terrine on it with his knife, and then did the same with the marmalade. He took a bite, poured himself some Port, and exclaimed:

“Oh, my God!”

The three ate. When their hunger and their appetite had been satisfied, Sugar put down his napkin on the desk, and after wiping his mouth profusely, he took his pipe, lit it, took two puffs and, looking at Bob, said:

“Go ahead, Bob. Tell us why you asked us here this afternoon.”

Bob looked at him, carefully mulling over the words he would use to reply.

“I’ve never talked about this with anyone. It’s funny, but for some reason I feel like I can trust you. There are certain times in life when a friendship blooms all at once, like some inevitable explosion, at least that’s what I remember reading somewhere. And to me, that’s what has happened here. Somehow a person can feel at ease with someone even though he doesn’t really know that person, and I have to say that you both have made me feel that way.”

“Don’t think twice about it, you can trust us,” Sugar said.

Bob thanked him with a smile and bringing his hands together at the level of his heart, he said:

“I know I can trust you and, in any case, there isn’t much time. I have already made the decision. There had to come a time when I talked to someone about my plans, to someone who could understand me, who had knowledge of how things work in America, and who could help me in case something happened to me.”

“What do you mean?” Niagara asked.

“You see, my story is somewhat dark. At the beginning of the nineteen seventies, my father came to Ajijic with a group of businessmen who were interested in acquiring land in the area between Jocotepec and San Luis Soyatlán to farm berries. It was a line of business that had not been established here. Apparently, my father was part of the senior management team of an agricultural company in the United States, and although he was very young at the time, his talent for business was noteworthy, and he was making great strides within the company.

I know little about my father’s stay in Ajijic during those years. My grandmother, who seems to have made a vow of silence, would only tell me that he had come to work on those projects, that he had been looking for land and that he had stayed at the Montecarlo Hotel with the rest of the American executives. The truth is that there wasn’t much for him to do around here, besides work. I visited the hotel several years ago to try to get information about my father’s stay, but they told me that all the documents from those years had already been destroyed. There was nothing, no trace of him, not even a photograph.”

Bob drank some water and fell silent. Sugar looked back and forth between Bob and the tamper he was using to fill the pipe with tobacco. The sound of the friction created by the flint in the lighter compartment interrupted the silence with a spark that produced a soft flame. Again and again, the metal and the fire and the tobacco burned in the chamber. The smell of smoke created a surreal atmosphere.

Then Bob continued:

“My grandmother recounted that my mother had told her that she met my father an afternoon when he was walking down Morelos Street with other Americans, after they had eaten in one of the restaurants, and that when he saw my mother who was walking by, he approached her and greeted her.”

Bob interrupted himself to go to the bathroom. He excused himself and left the library. Sugar and Niagara were both intrigued but did not say a word. Niagara stood up and continued looking at the books. Sugar did not move from his seat; he smoked his pipe placidly and sipped his glass of Port. They waited.