The maestro finished off his speech with a great guffaw but the doctor was unable to join in, too astonished by the pearly splendour of the laughter, its immoderate booming. And yet he heard the maestro say, with the last gasps of mirth:
“Gamble or engagement, historians used Junín to build another pillar of glory for Bolívar to stand on, another crowning moment made from what was only a brief skirmish in which two thousand Peruvians deserted the royalist ranks, a fight that wasn’t even suggested by Bolívar but by the Frenchman Canterac, who led the royalist forces; Bolívar wasn’t even there for the clash, he ran away.”
With a tug the maestro pulled the dust sheet from the sculpture — a realistic figure, in reddish bronze — and waited in silence; it was General Manuel Piar’s execution by firing squad: no blindfold, looking at the sky, barefoot, his shirt torn, legs slightly bent, it looked like he had just been hit and was starting to fall without ever reaching the ground.
“We must put the shooting of Piar up on the float,” Doctor Proceso said. “Poor Piar, a great strategist: he waited for death calmly and said it was not being a traitor but a patriot that led him to the firing squad. His end was terribly ironic: they were not shooting him because he interfered with Bolívar’s plans, but because he was black and wanted to establish pardocracy.”
“Piar had been born in Curaçao, of a white Venezuelan father and a mixed-race mother from the island,” the sculptor responded. “He was a combination of races, like Bolívar: Bolívar’s paternal great-great-grandfather had a relationship with a black woman in his household called Josefa, who gave birth to María Josefa: her daughter Petronella married Bolívar’s grandfather, and this doesn’t matter to us, not to you, not to me,” he suddenly shouted, “we don’t give a damn, but go and say that to Bolívar, were he alive: one more execution.”
“Who doesn’t have black blood mixed with indigenous and white in these beleaguered countries?” the doctor asked.
The maestro was exhilarated by this.
“We’re not black, white, indigenous or yellow,” he said, “but we’ve all got black, white, indigenous, yellow and who knows what blood running in our veins. Best we don’t find out.” And again, an explosive laugh that barely let him speak contorted his face. “In fact, Bolívar didn’t care about blacks: the abolition of slavery was just a signature on a document for him, he didn’t do anything concrete for the blacks; the first time he mentioned the need for abolition was because of the request from President Pétion, a black Haitian, who made him formally promise the emancipation of the slaves in return for money and munitions. Pétion effectively supported him when Bolívar fled to Haiti in order not to face up to the responsibility that was his due as leader. Bolívar would only go back once the wind was blowing in the patriots’ favour; he was a wily parasite, taking every opportunity afforded him by the other generals’ victories.”
Another guffaw burst out and rang all around.
“He didn’t just hold a grudge against Piar,” he managed to resume, close to choking, “but against Mariño and Páez too. He could not run any risks with his presidency for life, his monarchy of the Andes. And what about Admiral Padilla’s execution by firing squad?” he asked, laughter bubbling up inside him. “Another black man, another of Bolívar’s innocent victims, I don’t know how I’ll represent it, but I’ll definitely do it, Doctor, don’t you worry.”
And he had just finished saying that when a mighty crash was heard at the studio door. The din froze his laughter. The door had jumped off its hinges. Three men in carnival masks — a frog and two goblins — burst in and rushed at the burly maestro. They pushed his back up against the wall. In the throes of shock Doctor Proceso surprised himself: he became indignant they were paying him no attention, as if he posed no danger to anyone. He hurled himself towards the masked men who were grappling with the maestro, seized the frog by the shoulders, shook him, and had already made him turn around when a blow to the head left him unconscious.
He came to, stretched out on a sofa, Maestro Cangrejito looming over him.
“What happened?” he managed to ask.
“They took ‘The Battle of Bomboná’ and ‘Time of the Rifles,’” Maestro Cangrejito said.
They were two of the best reliefs of the War of Independence in Pasto.
“It’s not the first time my work’s been stolen. Last time they took some carvings, I didn’t know how or when, and I discovered by chance they were selling them in Cali. I bought them myself: I asked where I might find the artist of such good carvings and they told me he’d already died, that I had died; and another time I found a lost statue in the parish church of a priest I know: he told me quite shamelessly that he’d fallen in love with it like with a statue of the Virgin; it was of a black woman in the act of taking her dress off over her head: the good priest had her well hidden away among the plaster angels in the sacristy. But I must admit, Doctor, this is the first time they’ve robbed me like this: with violence, as if they hated me as well as stealing from me — did they hurt you? There were five of them, it wasn’t easy to stop them, they wanted to set fire to the studio, they’d brought a can of petrol with them; I don’t know what would have happened if the other tenants of the house hadn’t come to my aid — good people, firm friends: the two Chepes, Jaime, Franco, Nene, Marco, Pacho and Muñeco — the party’s over, Doctor, look how they left the place.”
The studio was turned upside down, sculptures scattered about, broken in half. At least the one of General Piar was still in one piece, the doctor noticed. The large table, where the tools were, seemed to have been destroyed.
“That’s where I threw one of those goblins,” Cangrejito said, “I must have broken at least six of his ribs.”
Doctor Proceso began to worry. It was possible the attack was something more than a simple robbery: Cangrejito Arbeláez had heard about the float from maestros Tulio Abril and Martín Umbría; no-one else in the whole of Pasto could know about it, so what had happened? Common robbery? A veiled threat? Was the governor, were the authorities, involved? Impossible, he told himself, it would be too soon.
“Let’s imagine it was a coincidence,” the doctor said as he left, “but send whatever you make to my house, and at my expense, as you go along. I want to see it all, check it before putting it up on the float. What are we going to do now, for example, about the stolen reliefs?”
“Out with the old and in with the new,” the sculptor said. “I’ll make them again, and even better.”
“I congratulate you,” the doctor said. “It’s not often you find such enthusiasm among artists. Generally speaking, they kill themselves, one is led to believe.”
They both smiled, looking at each other steadfastly: was that a challenge?
“I’m not the suicidal type, but who knows, one of these days,” the maestro responded. “Who hasn’t thought about it, at some time or other?”
“Several times, in my case, and without being an artist,” the doctor said. I hope I can go on chatting with this man in the future, he thought, he laughs and his face says the opposite. Then he said goodbye: “Send every piece to my house, you’ll be better protected.”