A Distant Father Read Free Page B

his peacoat.
    “Here are two free passes to the movie theater. Youcan use them for today’s matinee,
Rio Bravo
, or for the one with Anthony Quinn next Saturday.”
    I take the tickets and put them in my jacket. “That’s nice, Dad.”
    “Will you bring a girlfriend?”
    “Of course, Pierre.”
    “I’ll be on the lookout for you.”
    He bites his wrist, but I still manage to hear his groan.
    “Mama?”
    “She’s doing well.”
    “
Well
well?”
    “Tolerably well. Like me, Dad. More or less well. We’re both more or less tolerably well.”
    “Do you like teaching?”
    “Literature and history, yes. The other subjects bore me.”
    I’d forgotten his habit of rubbing his hands together and then horribly cracking his knuckles.
    “This meeting of ours, Jacques …”
    “… is a private matter.”
    “You’re a smart boy. I’m asking you to keep this secret for your own sake, for me, for your mother.”
    “For Emilio’s mother.”
    Pierre raises his eyes skyward as if he’d like to ascertain precisely which cloud will discharge the first dropof the coming storm. With positively maternal ferocity, he deploys the hood of the carriage over its passenger. I hear the baby’s breathing, a sort of clipped snort, for the first time.
    “So how’s your French these days?”
    “Fine, Dad. At the moment I’m translating
Zazie dans le métro
.”
    “Don’t know it.”
    “Raymond Queneau.”
    “Never heard of him. Well, look, now you know where to find me.”
    “Right.”
    “If you have the time, come and see
Rio Bravo
. Bring a girlfriend.”
    “Au revoir
, Dad.
”
    “
Au revoir, mon fils
.”

TWELVE
    The first shades of evening are just falling when Cristián and I enter the whorehouse. Most of the girls are drinking tea or listening to a radio game show where the contestants can win money if they guess the exact price of certain products. One of the girls comes up to me and plants a kiss on each of my cheeks. She asks my name and occupation. “Jacques,” I say, and “teacher.” Embarrassed, I ask her what she does.
    “I’m a whore,” she says with a smile.
    We go up to her room. She has Indian features, like most of the girls in this part of the country. In Frutillar, they say, there’s a whorehouse with girls from German families. This girl has markedly aboriginal bangs, prominent cheekbones, and a carefree smile. She’s young and strong. Maybe in a few years she’ll be fat, but not now. A teakettle’s boiling on the portable cooker in her room, and beside it are two cups containing little bags of Lipton’s. The Chilote blanket on her bed is as tough as an animal skin.
    “A cup of tea?”
    “Sure. Thanks.”
    While she stirs the bags in the boiling water, she looks at my shoes and then my tie.
    “You could start taking off your things.”
    She comes over to me, loosens my tie, and when my neck appears, kisses me on it, leaving a damp trace behind. Without bending over, I slip out of my shoes and push them under the bed. I always do that, because they’re Dad’s moccasins. He passed them on to me when I went off to the teachers’ college, and they’re a little too big.
    “It’s cold,” I say.
    “No it’s not, baby. It’s your nerves.”
    “I’m nervous?”
    “Drink that.”
    I sip at the cup, just about certain that the liquid’s going to burn my tongue. The girl, on the other hand, takes a teaspoonful and blows on the tea before drinking it.
    “So what do you teach, Professor?”
    “A little of everything. But I prefer literature and history.”
    “Not geography?”
    “Geography too.”
    “I’m crazy about geography,” she declares, blowingon her tea and sipping it noisily. “I know countries and capitals. I say their names and imagine what they’re like.”
    “Bolivia?”
    “That’s easy. La Paz.”
    “Spain?”
    “Piece of cake. Madrid.”
    “Czechoslovakia.”
    The girl chews a fingernail. She looks at the ceiling and the rug. Then she goes to the