Guanaca
The checkout clerk puts the steaming empanadas into a white plastic bag and Peter slides five-hundred pesos across the counter. As he opens the door to leave, a gust of wind yanks the door knob from his hand. He drops onto a bench outside the store like a marionette whose strings have been cut and takes an empanada out of the bag. While he eats, he stares vacantly at the terracotta-colored roofs of corrugated metal that line Gobernador Carlos Bories.
Peter's an ethnologist. He recently received a grant to study the Fuegian Indians and has come to Punta Arenas because he's heard he'd find the last Selk'nam Indian here.
The wind, like a sheet of emery cloth, incessantly abrades his skin. His head pulsates to the rhythm of his heart and each breath of the mid-morning air sears his lungs like dry ice. He zips up his jacket to his chin.
He drifts down the street and stops midway on a bridge that spans the coal-stained Rio de las Minas. Leaning on the stone guard rail, he watches the river flow like livid molten metal. There's a boy in a jon boat who pushes a long pole against the shore and propels himself towards a bloated mound that bobs up and down in the middle of the river. As the boy approaches the object, he prods it deferentially with the pole and guides it towards the straits.
"Just another body," someone behind Peter says.
Peter turns around and faces a young woman, maybe twenty-five. She stands leaning to one side, hands buried in the side-pockets of a rust-colored cardigan of guanaco wool. Straight, black hair frames her face in a page-boy cut and creamy blue eyes glare as if daring him to contradict her.
"Probably deserved it," she says.
Peter pivots his back to the woman, and follows the meandering boy.
"The ones floating in the river usually deserve it," she adds.
"What makes you say that?" he asks, his back to her.
There's no answer.
He turns around, scans the street and figures it must be her turning right at the corner on the far side of the bridge.
He walks down the street for a couple of blocks, crosses diagonally at the Plaza de Muñoz Gomero and follows a tree-tunnel until it opens onto the Plaza de Armas. From an aerial view, the plaza is a circular clearing in the middle of a park from which a number of stone paths, like spokes in a wheel, extend outward and open onto the surrounding streets.
In the center of the plaza there's a concrete monument: a squat rectangular pillar set on a pedestal. It's crowned by a statue of Ferdinand Magellan standing at the bow of a ship, right foot mounted on a canon, and facing the straits named in his honor. At the base of the plinth, sits a larger-than-life bronze Fuegian Indian, right leg over left, dangling a foot that glows golden in the late afternoon sun. His muscular shoulders slump forward as if overpowered by his own strength.
Peter takes a seat on one of the wood-slatted benches directly across from the memorial and becomes lost in the conflicting poses of the statues.
A woman comes out from behind the monument and walks directly toward Peter. He recognizes the blue eyes and cocky smile. She's fixed on him and, as she approaches, the blue of her eyes wrapped in strands of a milky haze seems to deepen. She sits down beside him.
"My name's Marsha. Where are you from?" she asks.
"U.S." he says.
"Alone?"
"Yeah."
He doesn't tell her that, yesterday, just like that, Anne left. Bought a ticket and left.
She threw off the comforter, got out of bed and leered at him.
"I can't stand it here."
He'd used his study-grant to cover a pre-marriage honeymoon in Chile. But they'd been in Santiago no more than a few days when Anne started to brood. She's the kind of person who, if something bothers her, refuses to discuss it. She'll mull it over for an hour or even a day until, in her mind anyway, she's resolved it. Then she explodes.
"We've planned this trip for a year, Anne."
"You planned it. You wanted to listen to languages of dead people. Mapuches, Fuegians, whatever, What was I thinking?"
The silence condensed throwing up a levee between them. He sensed a finality in her voice. To mollify her mood, he got out of bed, extended his arms, palms up, and approached her. But she punched his chest making him stumble backwards and stared at him like a boxer waiting for the final count.
He clenched his fists, leaned into her until her breath coated his face. He shut his eyes and, even now, swears he heard the cracking sound of the flat of his hand against her cheek. But she continued talking.
"Peter, look at me."
Her voice sounded like it was coming through a closed window.
"Are you coming or not?" she said.
The rustling of shirts, pants and underwear being slammed into a backpack grated on him.
Did he really call her a bitch?
"Oh, yeah. Here we go. Name calling."
Eyes closed again, he felt his fingers dig into her shoulders and shake them as if emptying a paper bag.
"What are you thinking about, Peter? Say something."
When he did finally look at her, black spots floated like crows across his vision.
"What's gotten into you?" he grumbled, letting his fingers dangle, then turned away.
That's when she pulled at his right shoulder and spun him around.
"Don't turn away from me. I tell you I don't like it here and what do you do? You turn away."
"Because you're being unreasonable."
"Don't you feel the ugliness here? The cold wind constantly slapping you. . . the empty streets . . . mountains of hell."
"What do you want to do?"
"Leave."
"I don't want to leave, Anne."
"Fine. Tomorrow I'm out of here, on a plane to Santiago. Tonight, I'll stay at the airport hostel. Don't bother calling."
"What about our marriage?"
"What about it? I leave, it goes with me."
Just like that, she left.
-----
"I'm alone too," Marsha says and stretches her legs out locking her knees and tightening the cardigan about them. "What brings you to the end of the world?"
"I'm studying different groups of indigenous people. Looking to archive first hand information."
Marsha points to the bronze Indian.
"Down here, that guy with the thick bangs is the only pure-bred left. The rest are mestizos like me."
"Do you live here?" he asks.
"Not anymore. Came down from Santiago to see my dad."
She straightens her back, cups her knees with her palms and stares at the monument. She doesn't tell Peter about her Fuegian father, about the night she laid on her mattress in the bedroom listening to the growling and the screeching in the kitchen.
Her mother yelling, "Don't touch me."
Him pounding the table, "You're my wife."
"That's drunken Indian bullshit. "
"Well, now aren't you the goddess."
"I'm leaving."
She remembers how she pulled the blanket over her head to muffle the words; how the room trembled when the front door slammed; the sound of muted footsteps approaching her bed; the scent of rose balm and the warm hand stroking her forehead. Then, like a gentle breeze, her mom's voice.
"Honey, I'm going away. Can't take you with me. Stay and do what he says."
She'd grabbed her mom's wrists.
"Don't."
"Shhhh."
Lips moist against her cheek, then silence, broken by the front door.
She was thirteen. Of course, she'd do what he said. After all, they were family.
Even now, she can't believe that the very next morning, she'd prepared breakfast.
I became someone else that morning. I'd taken charge. Can still hear the whisper of the sheet separating the kitchen from our bedroom, still see him leaning against the doorframe, scratching his distended belly of baby fat.
"Good morning, my little guanaca," he said as he sat down. "We'll be OK. Don't worry."
"I've got to go," I said and grabbed my backpack. It was a school day.
"Don't leave, guanaca. You're the woman of the house now," he said.
So, I didn't go. I cleaned the place, prepared dinner and sat at the table to wait. It was late when the door opened. Without turning, I knew it was him. The smell of urine. His hand heavy on my shoulder.
"I'm very hungry, guanaca," he said before he buried his head in his arms on the table and fell asleep. I cleaned the kitchen and went into our bedroom.
That night, in the dark wrapped in a blanket, I didn't feel like a guanaca, more like a butterfly. I can still feel his leather-like palm rubbing my shoulder and his breath burning my ears. The scent of urine made me dizzy.
"Little guanaca, I feel so cold. Aren't you cold?" he said and lifted his blanket as if it were the entranceway of a tent. "Come sleep where your mother slept."
We were family.
Three days later they found mom dead near the shoreline down by Lonsdale's shipwreck. A homeless man thought she was a mound of trash.
Every day, convinced he couldn't survive without me, I cared for him.. During the day I cleaned and cooked. In the afternoon, before he came home, I coated myself with rose balm. And in the evenings, I kept him warm.
But then one night he didn't come home. I slept alone. I remember that I missed the warmth.
He came back a week later . . . with a woman.
"We've got a guest," he says.
I prepared the food, went to the bedroom and waited. But, when he came in he made me go to the other bed. Didn’t call me guanaca, just told me to get where I belong.
It was all a lie wasn't it? I wasn't his guanaca. All night I lay curled up listening to their soft whispering, moans and whines.
In the morning, that woman made breakfast, made me go to school. At school, everywhere I looked I saw snide grins. So, I decided I wasn't going back to school, wasn't going home, either. I called my aunt, told her I wanted to live with her. An agent from Child Welfare came and took me to Santiago.
-----
Marsha doesn't tell Peter that, at twenty-three, she came back home to straighten things out with her father. Instead she says, "Like I said, the only ones that could help you are dead. And the mestizos . . . well, they play games. They like the paint and masks . . . to entertain the Whites. But they don't understand that it's about men and women, love, mistrust and hate. I guess, you know that we, the women, were the first to wear the masks, to paint ourselves. We frightened the men and they adored us. Then they caught on, saw through the masks, became angry and killed us. After that, they put on the masks and took their daughters as wives. Today, the rituals are meaningless stories."
"I heard there's a guy called 'The Minister,' that he still speaks the language," Peter says.
"Never heard of him but I've been away. . .Where are you staying?"
"A B&B just a few blocks from here on the Avenida España. And you?"
"In a hostel around the corner."
She thinks he must be about twenty-five, nice looking. She'd tell him later that in Santiago she studied hard and graduated from the Catholic University with honors.
Peter doesn't tell her that he's never seen eyes that color. Probably sound cheap. Instead he stammers something about blue, not brown, eyes.
"Oh, yeah, a gift from my mom. Skies trapped in clouds."
Peter doesn't tell her he's got tickets for a tour to Torres del Paine and Lake Grey that sets off early tomorrow morning.
"Do you come to the plaza often?" he asks.
"Pretty much."
"Will you be here tomorrow afternoon?"
"Probably."
A young couple is standing by the Indian. The girl laughs as the boy rubs the Indian's foot.
"They say if you rub his foot, you'll return," she says.
Marsha remembers rubbing that foot, ten years ago. But wishes she hadn't.
-----
Peter, in bed with the comforter tucked beneath his chin, imagines the explosions of glaciers calving and his room dyed in a menthol blue. He thinks he should have invited Marsha.
It's still dark when the tour bus picks him up. There are three of them but the other couple rest their heads against each other and speak quietly.
After five or six hours, three white-capped crags rise before them piercing the cloudless sky. The guide explains that "torres" is a Spanish word for towers and "paine" is an Indian word for blue. They pull into a parking lot outside of a ranger station. From there they follow a dirt path through a wooded area to a small cove in Lake Grey. Scattered across the lake are mountainous shards of floating ice, like islands of blue lava.
"See it while you still can," the guide says.
-----
It's sunset when the bus gets back to the city. Peter imagines that he's missed Marsha but goes to the plaza anyway. The monument is clearly visible beneath the frosted light of the moon. He sits across from it and listens to a man in faded blue overalls who stands gripping a push-broom at the entrance to one of the pathways. He's speaking to an officer in an olive drab uniform.
"Have you guys found out who he is?"
"Who?"
"The guy in the river."
"We're not sure. We think he was an Indian. But once one of these Indians die, no one mentions his name again. As if he never existed."
"What happened?"
"Whatever it was warranted a knife in the gut. "
Peter thinks that they could very well be speaking about a piece of garbage, a stain to be removed.
Gulls are ambling about in front of him like old men in a bocce game who've lost their pallina. Arching their wings, they caw, rise and hover in the air, then pounce on a few strands of seaweed. Marsha, on a bench across the plaza, is pulling strands of dried seaweed from her pocket and throwing them onto the pavement. Peter goes over to her.
"You hungry?" he asks,
"Been waiting all day," she says.
They go to dinner at Sun 'n Moon, a quiet, out-of-the-way restaurant. They sit at a window that looks onto the street. At the far end of the room an older woman on a barstool plays a guitar. She's singing an ode to life.
"Gracias à la vida que me ha dado tanto . . ."
" Marsha, is that you?" the waitress says when she comes to their table. "I didn't know you were in town. Visiting your dad? "
"Maria? Wow, nice to see you. Yeah, I came down to talk to him but it didn't go well. So, I left and haven't seen him since."
Maria looks at Peter and back to Marsha.
"Well, looks like you're doing well. I'm glad. What'll you guys have?"
Peter orders the erizos, and Marsha a bowl of Chupe de Locos.
"Can't get sea urchins in the States. They ship them all to Japan," he tells her.
Marsha touches Peter's foot with hers. She doesn't tell him that she's not had a relationship since she left Punta Arenas. She'd like to tell him.
Peter has a second glass of wine. He's forgotten Anne. As if she never existed.
"How long are you staying?" he asks Marsha.
"Fly back to Santiago the end of the week."
"I have two tickets for a tour of Tierra del Fuego. It'd be great if you came along."
"Wow. I can be your guide," she says, "Even been initiated. Being the daughter of a shaman has its perks."
"The Hain rite of passage?" Peter asks.
"Yeah. I've got a mask and everything. A guanaca mask."
"The bus will be at my place at four-thirty tomorrow morning."
"Well, I guess I'll be staying with you tonight."
The next morning they board a mini-van. There are two young women who are students from Santiago and a middle-aged man wearing a clerical collar. While in line to board the ferry, a man outside pounds on the door of the van. He's wearing a dirty black and white windbreaker. A salt and pepper ponytail reaches the middle of his back and patches of coarse hair sprout from his chin and upper lip. The driver appears to know him and let's him on board. He sits behind the driver and stares into the rearview mirror.
"I wonder who the stowaway is," Marsha whispers to Peter.
It's a two hour trip to Porvenir, so everyone except the stowaway gets out and goes to the top deck. Marsha and Peter find a place at the rail and watch a pair of playful dolphins escort the ferry to the slip.
"You don't see as many as you used to," Marsha tells Peter.
When they return to the van Marsha meets the eyes of the stowaway. They're grey eyes. She looks away.
In Porvenir, they visit the Municipal Museum and Tourist Center. Everyone wanders off in all directions. Marsha and Peter go into the courtyard where there are masked statues and black and white photographs of Selk'nam Indians. Marsha stands in front of a large photograph of a young Indian couple with their child. She asks the clergyman who has followed them into the courtyard to take a picture with her cell phone: one of her and Peter standing in front of the photograph. Just before the clergyman photographs them, Marsha takes Peter's hand.
"Who was the second ticket for?" she asks.
"I've forgotten," he says.
Marsha goes to the restroom. As she leaves, Peter sees the two students in the far corner of the courtyard near the exit. The stowaway stands between them and the exit. The women are shaking their heads and backing away from him. The clergyman goes over and stands between the women and the stowaway. He points in the direction of the van. The man pushes him. Peter runs and grabs the stowaway's arm.
"What's going on? You'd better do what he says."
The man pulls away and heads for the van.
Peter finds Marsha at the counter in the gift shop. He doesn't tell her about the stowaway. She's got two small leather cosmetic jars.
"Oh, have I got a surprise for you," she tells him.
Everyone returns to the bus. The stowaway does not look up as they board. He doesn't say a word for the rest of the trip. After visiting a park of King Penguins and before heading for Punta Delgada, they visit a sheep farm. But there are no sheep. Only a single story sheet metal building in the middle of a yellow-brown plain surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. It has a red corrugated metal roof and white walls.
Marsha explains that her parents met while working at a sheep farm like this one. How they had been attacked by Whites and forced to move to Punta Arenas.
As they approach Punta Delgada, it's late afternoon. Gusts of wind rock the vehicles that wait in line for the ferry. It's scheduled to leave every forty-five minutes, the last one leaving at one in the morning. The guide tells them the ferry has suspended operation until the wind dies down. He suggests that everyone go into the tourist center and have some coffee. They have blankets there and, if necessary, they can spend the night.
Peter and Marsha find a corner in the reception hall. Marsha pulls out the leather cosmetic jars and opens them. One is filled with red cream, the other with white.
She dips her forefinger into a jar and runs a white streak down either side of her face. She then runs a streak across Peter's forehead, cleans her finger, dips it into the red paint and rubs a disk on each of his cheeks.
"Welcome," she says.
Peter tells Marsha he doesn't want to be cooped up with a bunch of people on the floor snoring, children crying. He'd rather stay in the bus. He gets blankets for them and as they are about to leave the stowaway blocks Marsha.
"Cold, missy? I can keep you warm," he tells her.
Peter stops, turns and shoves the man away.
"Fuck off, prick."
They push past the man and get into the van. Peter locks the door behind them and they walk between the two rows of seats to the back where a long bench-like seat spans the width of the van. Peter puts the blanket around Marsha and tells her to lay down. Then he goes to the seats two rows up, takes out the head rest from one of the seats, shoves it against the side of the bus, lifts the armrest of the aisle seats and stretches his legs across the aisle resting his feet on the other side.
The bus sways side to side. It never stops rocking. It rumbles and creaks like a tumbler in a clothes dryer. Marsha knows Peter's not comfortable.
"Peter, come here."
She lifts her blanket.
He goes to her. They combine blankets, lean against each other and sleep.
-----
Midnight. A light flashes and wakes Peter. A disk of light has gotten trapped inside. It's ricocheting off the windows. There's a beating on the door. It's the stowaway.
"The driver sent me down to tell you to come back to the center," he yells through the window.
Peter opens the door to get an explanation. The man pulls a gun and pushes him back into the vehicle.
"You got money, punk?" he yells.
Then the man sees Marsha. He pushes Peter in front of him, forces him to the back and makes him lie face down on the floor.
"OK missy, show me what you got underneath that blanket."
"Fuck yourself," Marsha says.
Before Peter can react, he hears a deep cough and growl, like an animal would make. A body falls on his back and liquid splashes on his face.
"Peter we've got to go, come on."
They can hear the siren for the one o'clock ferry. It's the five minute notice of departure. The wind has died down. There's a haze about the moon. They run.
The stowaway stumbles out of the vehicle.
"You can't get away. Not going to happen," he yells.
The ferry has just pulled up anchor and the gates close. It starts across the straights.
They can see the stowaway in the moonlight. He's waving a gun in the air. At the dock's edge, he becomes unsteady, teeters back and forth then disappears.
"He deserved it," says Marsha.
Peter grabs for Marsha's hand. He feels the handle of a knife and closes his hand over her fist. He doesn't say anything.
Marsha tells Peter she'll have to leave. Take the first plane to Santiago.
She gives him the key to the hostel room in Punta Arenas and her Santiago address.
"Get the mask from the room and call me. Then catch the next flight to Santiago. I'll meet you at the airport."
In their Valparaiso apartment, a blowup of the photograph that the clergyman took hangs on the wall above a red conical mask.
Peter never tells Marsha that she saved him and she doesn't tell him that it was he who saved her.
Author’s Biography
Mark Russo, born January 18, 1950 in Queens, New York City, New York. As an undergraduate at the University of Cincinnati he focused on Greek, Latin, German, and French languages as well as World Literature. After running the family business for 20 years, he graduated from the University of Maine School of Law and practiced Immigration Law for 18 years. He has published stories with Flash Fiction Magazine, New Reader Magazine, 34th Parallel Magazine, Literally Stories, Potato Soup Journal, Spillwords Press, Knot Magazine, MacQueen's Quinterly,South Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo), Grey Sparrow Journal and Squawk Back among others.