He couldn’t finish the sentence because Baltasar was already out of the confessional, where he’d spent an hour occupying the priest’s place, and now instead he was embracing the priest, asking his forgiveness, asking him why he did what he did for him, feeling the power, like that of a stormy sea, with which Quintana reined in his own emotion, like the frozen seas where huge tempests seem gigantically immobile, allowing the wind and not the water to be the principal player in the storm.
But the priest embraced Baltasar, kissed his head, welcomed him, and Baltasar understood that Father Anselmo was taking charge of him, so that he, Baltasar, could take charge, finally, of what was awaiting him …
[7]
With the strength of a mule driver, the old warrior Father Anselmo Quintana turned the convulsed body of his younger brother, the captain from Buenos Aires, Baltasar Bustos. He made Baltasar look toward the entrance to the chapel.
In the same rectangle of light he himself had occupied an hour earlier, two silhouettes now stood out clearly, a contrast both in gender and in clothing. A woman and a child.
“Come here, come in…”
Unlike Baltasar, the two moved forward noiselessly. They were barefoot and said nothing to disturb the silence of the chapel. That silence had not swallowed up the martial thud of Baltasar’s heels. He was physically suspended between his two personalities, the fat, myopic young man and the slim, longhaired combatant; the Baltasar of Buenos Aires balconies and the Baltasar of the mountain campaigns in Upper Peru; the Baltasar of the salons of Lima and the Baltasar of the febrile brothels of Maracaibo.
Now, at thirty-five, Baltasar had achieved equilibrium between the half-blind but inquisitive gaze, the robust but agile body, and the lank mustache that gave firmness to his too small but full lips. His hair was indomitable; it seemed to have a life of its own, more than enough life for our romantic century, as we, Dorrego and I, Varela, decided to call it in Buenos Aires, when news of the poems of Byron and Shelley began to reach the New World … And his handsome Roman nose always gave Baltasar an air of nobility, resistance, stoicism. His gold glasses rested uncomfortably on the bridge of his nose.
The couple who approached were not at first glance recognizable, however, though the boy was the same one who’d played blindman’s buff the day before, a blond child about ten years old, whose fair complexion had to be surmised, because of the tangle of his filthy hair and the dirtiness of his cotton shirt and trousers.
And she was a woman of indefinite age, her hair combed back into a bun poorly held together with pins. Stray hair fell over her forehead creased with wrinkles. The furrows of age around her lips, at the corners of her mouth, and on her chin were not disguised by makeup. The woman, barefoot like the boy, crossed her arms as if wrapping herself in a nonexistent shawl, and her trembling body betrayed the treachery of the tropics in Orizaba, the results of perpetual dampness and rain. Her bad cold was becoming a persistent cough.
“Ofelia,” said the priest in his most tender voice, “I’ve already explained to the captain that you agree the boy should return with him to Argentina.”
Quintana looked now at Baltasar — who was a single immobile block, forever locked in the most secret and unshakable of melancholies — as Baltasar stared into the totality of his life; the woman, much too busy blowing her nose, did not even look at him. Quintana told him that the child had been born ten years before in Buenos Aires and then kidnapped under mysterious circumstances. But his mother had managed to get him back from the black wet nurses who had saved him from a fire and who later asked for ransom money. She sent him to Veracruz to be put in the care of the priest Quintana, in the hope that someone would come to get him and take charge of him.
“Yesterday I told you, brother. Your destiny is to take charge of those who need you. And your nation will need both you and this boy. He should go with you. We shall survive here. We are very ancient. You, the Argentines, are the children of the Americas, the younger brothers of this old continent. Take the boy with you and teach him the best there is in the world with your good friends. You will have peace and prosperity. We will not.”
“What about her?” Baltasar managed to blurt out.
“Ofelia Salamanca has been the most faithful agent of the revolution for independence in America,” said Quintana, staring fixedly at the woman, who seemed dazed and was not listening. “She has kept our struggle alive by creating a network of communication, something so difficult for us on this continent. If I have been in contact with San Martín and Bolívar, it has been thanks to her. Thanks to her, we found out in time what Spanish reinforcements were leaving Callao for Acapulco or going from Maracaibo to Veracruz. She is a heroine, Baltasar, a woman worthy of our greatest respect. She sacrificed her reputation in order to learn secrets, and stained her hands with the blood of traitors who passed themselves off as insurgents while actually serving the royalist cause. One day her story will be written. How ingenious she was so often! She used a network of songs that ran through the Americas faster than a lightning flash to send us news, taking advantage of a rumored love affair between herself and some creole officer from Buenos Aires.”
“Father, I am that officer. The songs mention my name. Don’t try to fool me.”
“Not another word, Baltasar. She ordered another hero of independence to be sent here, a man who, like her, pretended to be a royalist to acquire intelligence and to spread false rumors. She wants that hero, you, to take charge of her son. That is why she wrote to her friend Luz María in Maracaibo, asking you to come.”
Quintana threw his arm around Ofelia’s shoulders.
“Now she’s very sick and cannot take care of the child or work for us any longer. She agrees that her son should return to Argentina with you. I suppose that you…”
“Yes,” Baltasar said simply. “I agree as well.”
The captain from Buenos Aires came nearer just as Ofelia Salamanca left Father Quintana’s side. She lost her balance, and Baltasar helped her to her feet. It was the first time he’d ever touched her. She said, in a faint voice, “Thank you.”
They separated instantly. She never looked at him. He did not want to see the mortal sadness in those eyes he’d adored so intensely. He put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and said something like, “What you need is a good bath. You’ll see, you’re going to like the pampa. From now on, you’re going to be my little brother…”
Clutched in his fist, Baltasar held the red ribbon that one night in May Ofelia Salamanca had worn around her neck. The myopic young man had stolen it from the Marquis de Cabra the night of another death in Lima.
He would have liked to return it now to Ofelia, to hang it down on her bosom, but the woman’s dazed look held him back.
9. The Younger Brother
Balta’s friends Xavier Dorrego and I, Manuel Varela, were standing on the dock waiting for him. We were overflowing with news for him. Eleven years since we’d seen each other! We gave him a rapid summary of what was happening in Argentina. All eyes were on Bernardino Rivadavia, the young prime minister who was fighting for liberal principles, free education, open communication, colonization of the interior, auctioning off of publicly owned lands, creating a public library, publishing books, stimulating local talent … One phrase of his seemed to summarize everything: “We are anticipating the future…”