Azuria #7

Recibí con ilusión el número 7 de Azuria, la publicación anual de Geelong Writers, en la que aparece una modesta contribución mía, una narración muy cortita titulada 'Elma Donna', en inglés.

Lo que era motivo de gran alegría se convirtió en decepción cuando comprobé que alguien había introducido un cambio - en apariencia nimio - en el texto, pero que lo reducía a una inmensa chorrada sin sentido. La errata introducida por el editor reemplazó "Franco", ese genocida fascista que parece cabalgar de nuevo, triunfal en su 155, por campos ibéricos, con el nombre del personaje principal del cuento, "Frankie".

'Elma Donna' es una historia de ficción basada en experiencias reales, pero cualquier parecido con la realidad es una mera coincidencia. Ja.

Elma Donna

I had not seen him for at least seven years; nor spoken to him for probably a few more. Once I had moved to the other side of the world, keeping up with developments in my home town had been difficult. Despite the quick uptake of technologies everywhere by almost everyone, distance has a way of imposing a veil of secrecy on other people’s lives.

I had arrived in Valencia a few days before Christmas. I had plenty of time to catch up with friends and family. My brother had asked me if I wanted to come along and pay a visit to Franky Rabbit. It was mid-afternoon, and TV shows were incredibly boring or stupid, so I said yes.

‘Is he still selling drugs?’ I asked my brother.

‘Sip. Still in the business.’ He shrugged his shoulders as if to mean that things may change from time to time, but certain people won’t ever change. I did feel like having a little smoke of hash, so I decided to tag along.

Rabbit Frankie had been a kid from our neighbourhood. We had seen him on the streets day after day, although he had attended a different school than ours. Our parents had wanted us to do better than most and had therefore enrolled us in a semi-private school. I had transferred to the local public high school as soon as I turned 14. Franco had died three years before, and switching to the state high school had been a blessing in disguise.

My brother was driving in the mid-afternoon dusk. The December air soon felt chilly and damp. The Mediterranean is great in summer, but in winter, soon after sunset, its humidity soaks into your bones and chills you down

Rabbit Frankie was renting a flat in the north-west of the city. Rentals were not expensive in those days, and he was certainly making a killing. Besides his drug dealing, my brother told me on the way there, these days Frankie had achieved honourability by getting himself a job as a public servant.

‘You must be kidding’, I replied incredulous.

‘Not at all,’ my brother quipped. ‘And so the public enemy became the public servant.’

So bloody typically Spanish, I thought. Apparently, Frankie had used his jet set connections to his advantage, and some obscure government official had picked him for a non-existent position within an even obscurer division in the Regional Department of Health. The irony did not escape anyone. It was like putting the wolf in charge of the herd of sheep.

We parked the car.

***

The bell rang, pressed by my brother’s middle finger. After ten seconds or so the door opened and Frankie’s face appeared behind it. And suddenly I wished him hurt, suffering. I could have even wanted him gone for good. Let this prick suffer, for goodness’ sake. He deserves it more than anyone else I know!

Elma. Seeing him after all these years had brought her back. A beautiful girl with a great future ahead, all the boys in the neighbourhood were secretly in love with her, or at least admired her beauty. Gleaming straight black hair, gracefully shaped, an enchanting smile beneath warm, fiery black eyes. Why she had chosen him, we never knew. Elma went out with Frankie for years – and was loyal to him even when he got first in trouble with the law as a trifling neighbourhood dealer. He was then a minnow dreaming of hitting the big time.

Seeing his stupid face after so many years stirred some bad memories. How Elma had jumped off the rear balcony of her 7^th-floor home. How had such a young life full of possibility been brought to an abrupt end? We never knew what drove her to such profound despair.

Frankie did not seem to recognise me at first. Then my brother mentioned I had only been back a few days, and that I’d be partial to some weed.

‘Oh, you’ve been abroad now for a few years, yeah?’

I just nodded. My brother kept on: ‘Australia, man! My bro’ here went to Australia. He has kangaroos and koalas in his garden! Ain’t that awesome?’

‘Wow! Is that so? One day I’m gonna travel over there and have a swim at that pool where Crocodile Dundee took that American babe. Oh my, what a woman! Nice curves and even better legs, mind you. Yet my favourite is still Madonna, you know?’

‘Is she just?’ I quipped. ‘You know, I share something very special with Madonna! Something real special you will never share.’

Frankie raised his eyes and shook his head to one side to move that silly fringe of his out of his sightline. ‘And what might that be, show-off?’

‘We were both born on 16 August.’

Happy Birthday to you (and myself!). Fotografía de Jonas Bengtsson.

***

We didn’t stay long. My brother gave Frankie a couple of crisp €10 notes. We (or rather, I) had got what I wanted, so there was no point in humouring the despicable human being Frankie was. But there was no stopping him. That’s what coke does to some people: they talk rubbish nonstop.

He had been going on about AIDS and whatnot when he suddenly brought back the singer into the conversation. ‘You know what Madonna started singing at her last gig?’

‘Nope,’ my brother joined in.

Frankie switched to English. ‘Hey, you, don’t be silly, put a condom on your willy!’

I must have winced quite noticeably, because Frankie suddenly stared at me and asked if he hadn’t pronounced everything correctly.

‘Yes, mate,’ I tried to reassure him and said in English. ‘Queen’s English, jus’ purrfect!’

The idea sort of floated in the air, which stank of cigarette smoke.

‘Time to hit the road for us,’ my brother said. ‘Thanks, see you around, Frankie.’

‘Hasta la vista, baby,’ was Frankie’s rejoinder.

‘Great story about Elma Donna, Frankie,’ I said while heading towards the door. ‘I’m sure you will never forget Elma Donna, will you?’

I turned around as I reached the door and fixed him with my eyes. Whether he had got the message or not, I did not care. Elma’s name had been pronounced loud and clear enough to prick his conscience. If he ever had one.

El séptimo número de Azuria incluye piezas en prosa de Geoffrey Gaskill, Ross Jackson y Francesca Juraté Sasnaitis, y poesía Michael Fitzgerald-Clarke, Robert Drummond, James Gifford, Rory Hudson, A.A. Jonynas, Bernard Montini, Christina Murphy, Sarah-Rose Mutch, Elena Lilian Popescu, David Rabokidze, Francesca Juraté Sasnaitis, Edith Speers, Lidija Simkute, Justine Stella y Ted Witham, con tres reseñas a cargo de Ted Reilly.

Reseña: The King is Always Above the People, de Daniel Alarcón

Daniel Alarcón, The KIng Is Always Above the People (Nueva York: Riverhead Books, 2017). 240 páginas.

“El lugar en el que naces es, simplemente, el primer lugar del que huyes.” La emigración como tema fundamental de la vida contemporánea es el trasfondo de esta brillante colección de relatos del estadounidense y peruano Alarcón, de quien ya leí hace unos años At Night We Walk in Circles, novela que no dudo nunca en recomendar a quienes me preguntan por aquí en Canberra sobre Perú y su especial coyuntura política.

En este volumen Alarcón se adentra en la cuestión de la transformación que padecemos al emigrar. Cada vez que regresamos a ese lugar que es el primero del que uno huye, y que algunos dan en llamar patria (no es, desde luego, mi caso), nos redescubrimos y nos redefinimos.

De los diez relatos que componen The King is Always Above the People, dos destacan por su longitud, que los acerca a la categoría de nouvelle. Son ‘The Provincials’ y ‘The Auroras’. En el primero, el joven Nelson, que está a punto de reunirse con su hermano en los Estados Unidos, viaja con su padre Manuel al pequeño pueblo de donde es originario. Su cometido es ser el albacea del testamento de un familiar que ha fallecido recientemente. Su visita es recibida con alegría y (aparentemente) sana envidia de los lugareños que todavía recuerdan a Manuel como un excelente estudiante que demostró ser muy valeroso al irse a la capital. Por la noche se reúnen con algunos conocidos en un restaurante, y Nelson se hace pasar por su hermano (quien ya lleva varios años emigrado) y a medida que el alcohol les va soltando la lengua a todos, Manuel es objeto de duras críticas. Alarcón incluye el guion de un curioso sainete tal como lo imagina Nelson, cuya verdadera vocación es el teatro y el cine. Que en el lugar de donde nos hemos marchado a veces se nos reciba con muy poca simpatía puede ser algo amargo, por la razón que sea, es una de las más palpables realidades del emigrante. Una vez te marchas, ya no perteneces ni a un sitio ni a otro. Tierra de nadie.

‘The Auroras’ es una divertida (aunque tenga un desenlace amargo) recreación contemporánea del mito de Ulises y Circe. Narrada en tercera persona, cuenta cómo un profesor de literatura huye de la capital a una ciudad portuaria tras el fracaso de su matrimonio. Allí conoce a Clarisa, mujer de un marinero que está de viaje. Clarisa lo invita a quedarse con ella. Con el paso de los días el profesor queda más y más enmarañado en la especie de telaraña que la joven Clarisa le ha tendido, atendiendo a sus amigas mientras ella está fuera de casa. Clarisa le lanza un reto tras otro, y el joven profesor cae en una trampa tras otra, hasta esclavizarse.

De los demás cuentos, me llamó la atención el primero, ‘The Thousands’. Narrado en primera persona del plural, cuenta un episodio bastante habitual en Perú: la toma de tierras para llevar a cabo asentamientos en lugares donde no existía antes población alguna. Recuerdo que uno de nuestros guías en Ica señalaba hace un par de años en el horizonte un pequeño barrio alejado de la ciudad y explicaba que eran “ilegales”.

En ‘República and Grau’, cruce de calles que pudiera perfectamente existir en el centro de Lima, un chico de 10 años es enviado a trabajar como lazarillo de un viejo ciego que mendiga en uno de los semáforos del centro de la ciudad. Cuando el chico no trae a casa el dinero que su padre esperaba conseguir, se emplea con violencia. El ciego, por su parte, es casi un calco de su homónimo en el Lazarillo de Tormes. Como en el anónimo del siglo XVI, el desenlace es violento e inesperado, pero deja muy buen sabor de boca.

También cabe destacar ‘The Ballad of Rocky Rontal’, cuyo aliciente es que está narrada en segunda persona. Es la historia de un niño abocado desde su niñez a la violencia de las bandas, el crimen y la cárcel. ¿Puede rehabilitarse alguien que ha mamado la violencia desde muy pequeño?

Imagen procedente de asiasociety.org

Alarcón escribe con buen criterio, la suya es una prosa nítida y agradable, y se adivina un sutil matiz irónico en sus descripciones. El título del libro procede de un grabado del artista iraní Ardeshir Mohassess (1938 –2008). En otras partes del mundo, en un gesto un poco más generoso y sin duda civilizado, se limitan a poner el retrato del rey boca abajo.