THE DEPARTURE

Jorge Aliaga Cacho and Andina Aliaga in Kirkcaldy

By Jorge Aliaga Cacho

Translated by Andina Aliaga

Dorada had asked me to wait a few days. Apart from her English studies, to which she applied herself diligently, she was attending regular appointments for some kind of skin treatment. I would wait for her, I told her, with great anticipation. After all, passing the time costs nothing. Days passed that then turned into weeks, and as I had promised, I waited patiently. Then I decided to track her down. I called her house, but they wouldn’t tell me where she was, or what she was doing. One day her sister, (surely the pain in my voice bothered her), told me that Dorada had gone to her aunties for a few days, to study at her country house, and rest, because Doradita had suffered a decline in health. This talk with her little sister pacified me for a short while. Before long, I was preparing to look for her again when the phone rang, I answered to the sound of Dorada apologizing. She told me that she had been poorly, but now she was feeling better. She was calling to invite me to accompany her on a work trip, into the depths of the jungle. I had traveled to other places with her, and, remembering these good times I accepted her proposition for a repeat experience, this time in the exotic Eden that is the Peruvian jungle.

On the day agreed for the trip, Dorada arrived at my house in a taxi. It was a Sunday night. Downstairs the car’s horn beeped. I went out to greet her, ready, with my hand luggage. The car waited with its engine running, clattering. She kissed me softly and told me her boss was coming too. We would all travel together as far as San Ramon. We boarded the taxi. She got in the back door. She sat next to her boss. She shut the car door, flexing out her little finger to reach the lock. Her nail polish looked wet. I sat next to the driver, I acknowledged him with a nod and shook her boss's hand. The driver started the car and farted simultaneously. There was silence. I kept my composure, but I hated him.

A few weeks had passed since I last saw Dorada. This had been a period of excuses. Every day she must work hard on her studies, she told me. I believed her because I had witnessed firsthand how swotty she was. This occurred one time while we were holidaying in the Atacama desert. She even read her English textbook while we were in bed together. Turning the pages with one hand, and slapping at the mosquitoes daring to bite her legs with the other. Those insects ended up squashed and in pools of blood. Dorada kicked off her slippers, much to my delight, as this meant that all the flying insects were now dead and soon she would take off her knickers too. This enthusiasm, however, was short-lived. As she then reached over to the bedside table, and in astonishment and despair I read the words: this manual is also available to study on audio cassette.

- This tape is on intransitive verbs- she informed me.

What was really concerning me, however, was that there were tapes scattered all over the night table, and she was eyeing them up eagerly. I wished for the time to fly so that we could get on with the carnal act. Preferably before daybreak. At the end of tape number three Dorada took off her headphones and looked into my eyes with a coy smile on her face, as if she were entertaining mischievous thoughts. Knowing that she behaved like a good little Catholic girl at home, I enjoyed this immensely. Reading her mind excited me. The mosquitoes were now only conspicuous in their absence, and she, before my eyes appeared not as one of Botticelli's’ nymphs, but rather one of Decamerons’ girls.

Dorada was still sitting in the back seat. She asked me to speak in English. We went over some grammatical points taught to me by my primary school English teacher. “The Teacher”, we used to call him, in the same language he taught. He gave us lessons with his cane acting as an assistant. His eyes shining maniacally, and his face dripping with sweat, he would swoosh his cane into the air, then stop suddenly. The pupils awaited their punishment with uncertainty, unable to determine who was going to fall victim to the next stroke. Unable to breathe momentarily. Via this method, we would successfully learn how to use auxiliary verbs, but after the holidays we would forget, as we did with the names of the sacraments, and the most stupid of us would even forget the ten commandments. When the latter happened our headmaster, Father Benavente told us to kneel at the classroom door.

The only other teacher allowed to make us sit on our knees was “The Teacher”. Only The Teacher could do it. Speechlessly threatening us. His eyes were dark and sadistic. He stared at us and swished his thick cane. The black tone of his eyes would change in intensity, swirling, almost popping out of his head. Sometimes when we failed to pay our school fees he would make us do hail Marys’ in the hallway, but the fervent prayers would come to an end when we saw the priests’ secretary walk by in her miniskirt. She had buckteeth, so we called her Bugs Bunny. With porcelain skin and a friendly smile, Gloria would walk the corridors while we kneeled in penance. The boys with hands clasped in prayer, would turn their heads and closely observe her retreating buttocks as they made their way into the courtyard that was once blessed with the presence of the Archbishop himself. But on that occasion, Bugs Bunny had been out of school. She was not parading the hallways with her pert little behind. The Prelate had listened attentively to Father Beautifulmind. The school report had pleased him. Benavente, nicknamed 'Beautiful Mind', would at times interrupt his speech to whip at the legs of the third years kneeling before the Pope’s representative. Most of the strokes hit the air, and few ever connected with the pupils, however, the one boy who without fail always seemed to get hit was Quintanilla. The Prelate was unperturbed by all this. In truth, Father Beavente was a good man. A man of God. The Teacher knew this, I knew this, and so did Bugs Bunny, the third years, and the Archbishop himself.

- I’ll cane you! - threatened Benavente, flourishing his varnished stick.

- To which the students of the third, fourth, and fifth years yelled keenly:

- Cane us!!!

In the rearview mirror, I noticed her sweat. She dabbed at her nose discreetly with a handkerchief that she kept concealed up her jacket sleeve.

She told me in summer she wouldn’t leave the house during the day. Preferring to wait for the evening cool. She hated the sun, but for some unknown contradictory reason, she wished to emigrate to Australia.

She changed the subject to say that she had been denied a visa for the United States, France, and Spain. It embarrassed her that France had refused her twice.

- How humiliating! - she complained.

The taxi stopped at 28 July Avenue. The coach was waiting with its engine running. We were to go to La Oroya, before proceeding downhill into the lush greenery of the jungle. Through our window, we could see rubbish everywhere.

Some children wearing filthy rags poked about in the mounds of rubbish and debris. A kid with a long trail of snot running from his nose into his mouth gathered plastic bottles, another, a little older found some stale bread and put it in a bag. La Victoria is the neighborhood that houses the most popular football team in all of Peru: Alianza Lima. Rats leaped around the children’s feet like firecrackers at New Year, children who will surely on Sundays watch their football team of champions, and in years to come will don a military uniform and be sent to fight the enemies of Peru.

My seat number didn’t allow me to sit next to Dorada. She took her seat in the middle of the bus. We would have to plot something and fast, otherwise, I would spend the duration of the journey next to an uptight-looking man I didn’t know. I asked, almost pleading, for him to swap seats with Dorada. It was not necessary to ask him twice, this knight in shining armor picked up his blue suitcase and gracefully parked himself into Doradas’ seat. His suitcase was not heavy, it was made of faded blue cloth and had a blurred inscription in white: ¡I can love you, I can hate you, but I can never leave you, ALIANZA LIMA!

- You are very kind Sir! Very thoughtful indeed! - I told him before he moved seats.

Dorada brushed past me, her elegant figure almost landing on my face. She had brought crimson lipstick and a bag full of papers from her office. In her other hand, she held a bottle of water and a little blue cushion for her neck. She put the bag into the overhead compartment and slumped into her seat. She looked at me. I looked at her. She rested her head on my chest, leaning in. Soon my lips would search for hers. My hands sought her hands. I perked up. I kissed her gently. Our gazes merged. I looked at her beseechingly. Goose pimples. Pecks on the cheek. My arms curled around her waist. My chest puffed out against hers. Demanding glances. Her lips waited expectantly. Her black hair shone. My hands twitched. I kissed her forehead and very quietly asked her to lower her trousers. She blushed, but let out a nervous laugh that turned into a cackle.

- Cheeky! She scolded, resuming her coquettish manner.

She was sitting in the window seat. I bent over to hug her. We reclined our seats. Some passengers closed their eyes. Others opened them. I burrowed my head into her breasts. Her little top was threatening to spill its contents. I was happy. I had tucked myself nicely into her ‘Andes’ and she had covered us with a blanket. I woke up with my face rolling around between her boobs. In the darkness under the blanket, my hand encountered a persistent blocking hand. The passengers looked on through the corners of their eyes. The bus passed through cold little villages, sometimes trundling downhill, sometimes ascending. Dorada laughed and kissed. I kissed and laughed. My temperature raised and I was certain that tonight, surely, Dorada would be mine.

The window was steamed up. Looking over at my muse I wrote the name Daphne with my finger. I rubbed it out so I could look out at the little thatched houses. Afterward, I wrote Dorada, but then I rubbed that out too.

As we passed through these thatched houses, I recalled my childhood neighborhood, the mansions, the grand colonial Spanish houses, and the slums in the alleys. I drew closer to the window. The condensation had started to drip like tears. I marked out a circle with my index finger and inside it drew the silhouette of a woman: an ass, two boobies. I rubbed it out. We arrived at Tarma, and Dorada was sleeping. We went swiftly by the facades of buildings. The bus seemed as though it were static, it was the houses, garages, and hotels that appeared to be moving.

The clay walls displayed electoral slogans: Ollanta, APRA, Unidad Nacional. General Odria was born in Tarma, a former Peruvian dictator. I remembered the stories about the APRA and Communists who were tortured by his henchmen. I also remembered the Home Secretary; whose name was synonymous with the murderer. In Moquegua Street, in the conference room of an old Spanish colonial house, former Secretary General of the Communist Party, Venancio, used to make addresses. Today it is a sad little whore house.

- Zañartu! - Venancio would shout.

- Zañartu! - he would repeat.

And every time he bellowed this name, his Arequipeñan accent would deepen. The audience sat in little red chairs in rows, shaking, shivers down their spines. The comrades in the front row would quietly sit before a smiling mural of Mariátegui, then, upon the arrival of the revolutionary, in crescendo, would start to clap, to greet the arriving comrade Venancio, who smiling, would start to join them, clapping in time with the audience.

Venancio, the veteran print worker, wore his glasses far down his nose, only using the lenses to read his speech. Leaving his eyes free to discern his audience. Isidoro Gamarra would do something similar when he gave speeches at the same place, but Gamarra would enter quickly, shuffling along the ground. This president of the CGTP would always arrive smiling, though I never discovered if he was for real. His face, I believe, was born smiling. I noticed this once at a conference. He was absolutely fuming, letting off sparks, he ranted and attacked, yet he smiled.

Venancios’ way was to arrive with notes in hand. Carefully following each letter of his speech to the end. He started each page carefully, and when it came to a climatic point he would wave his index finger in time with each accusatory syllable. At times, his voice would break. He condemned his imprisonment. He had been left half deaf, and almost half dead. He spoke out about the beatings they had inflicted upon him, on the rocks where the sea lions rest, outside the island prison of Callao. They submerged his head in pools of water. They hit him all over his body. They tied his legs together and dipped him into a well, when he was about to drown the torturers ushered him back to the surface, in order to kick, slap and spit on him. They left him hanging like a chicken in a market, then dunked him under all over again.

- Death to imperialism!

- Death! - responded the audience.

Immersed in my political memories, I came across her breasts. Sweetly, I gave her a little kiss on the lips. Now on the bosom. How lovely she was! I bathed in her fragrance. I could feel the presence of our neighboring passengers. The bus, rattling, plodded along the roads in the direction of the jungle. Climbing ever upwards like a puma scaling the rugged mountains. In the meantime, I found comfort in that crevice, that for a while, allowed me to lose all concept of time.

(Extract from the novel ''The Secret of Heartbreak'').