Category Archives: Writings

The Great Flood, Mapuche style

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Many cultures have a myth of a great flood to purge the world of wickedness, rejuvenate the lands and give man a fresh start. Here is a retelling in English of a Mapuche variant, collected from a reservation in Neuquén.

According to the earth-people, some sixty thousand years ago there lived two enormous serpents. One of these was called Treng-Treng and the other Kai-Kai. Treng-Treng was truly huge, big as a mountain, but he was good and he loved people. Kai-Kai was equally big but he was not very fond of people at all.

One day, for no other reason than plain wickedness, Kai-Kai took it into his head to destroy everything and everybody. He began to shake his enormous body and as he did so he caused all the waters of the seas, rivers and lakes to grow, and the world started to flood.

But Treng-Treng loved the earth-people and quickly came to their help, engaging with Kai-Kai in fierce combat. As the water level grew higher and higher, Treng-Treng arched his back more and more, whistling loudly as he did so. Hearing his whistle, the people quickly ran towards him and climbed on to his back to escape the rising waters.

The two serpents battled for days on end, one lashing the waters with his tail, causing the water to grow higher and higher, while the other thrust his back further and further out of the water so the people could escape drowning.

Not all the earth-people survived. The more timid ones were petrified through shock, and their remains can be seen today in the human shaped rocks that still lie around the earth-people’s lands. Others were so angry that the water wouldn’t stop rising that their fury turned them into savage beasts, wild cats and boar. Yet others were too slow to climb out of the reach of the rising tide and were turned into fish and reptiles.

So high did Treng-Treng raise his back to save the earth-people from the water that he almost touched the sun. The few earth-people who were perched right on the crest of his back had their hair burned off and that’s why there are bald people today.

Finally Kai-Kai tired of writhing and fighting and slunk away. The waters began to go down and slowly Treng-Treng lowered his arched back. The few earth-people who had survived were able to return to their land.

They saw straight away that it was now a much better and cleaner place. The grass was green and fresh, the trees were in flower and the air was pure. In short, the earth had been rejuvenated. There were no more timid and fearful people; these had all been turned into rocks. There were no more quick tempered people; these had been turned into wild animals. Everything was better than before.

In time the surviving earth-people had children and grandchildren, and these in turn had more children, and soon the land was once again full of people. In fact all the earth-people today come from the few survivors who were saved by Treng-Treng. And there is a story that every so many thousand years, when the earth is old and tired, Kai-Kai will be back to cause trouble. But Treng-Treng will always be around to help (even though he is at present fast asleep and often mistaken for a mountain covered with trees and shrubs) and will once again save all the patient and stronghearted.

The city of Esteco

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Few today have heard of Esteco. The records tell us that the first colony of that name was built on the western banks of the Pasaje river, some eight leagues to the south of El Quebrachal, in the province of Salta. When the city of Talavera was founded in 1567 the people of the earlier settlement re-established themselves there, giving it the name of Esteco Nueva, or New Esteco. It is to this second city that our tale relates.

The city of Esteco soon became the pride of northern Argentina; rich and powerful, and set in the most beautiful surroundings imaginable. Succulent fruit sprang from its fertile soil, to be eaten off the finest gold and silver plate. But all was not well. Scornful of outsiders, its citizens competed with each other in their ostentatious behaviour and their dedication to the pleasures of life, while slaves and beggars – for this was a long time ago – were treated with contempt and a total disregard for even the most basic human rights and dignity.

Over the years, Esteco grew increasingly decadent. The bells in the church towers tolled each morning in vain, for who, after a night’s wanton debauchery, would get up early for mass? Far better to lie abed until the cool of the late afternoon and then stroll through the Esteco streets, bejewelled and bedecked with their latest finery, all a flutter of furs, lace and pearls. It would all too soon be time for another night’s revels to begin. The churches were as empty as the minds of the citizens, but while behind the church doors all was peace and tranquillity, the halls of the city resounded with shouts and cries of dissolute abandon.

Years passed, and the Eighteenth Century dawned. One sultry evening, an elderly and infirm missionary arrived in Esteco, drawn by the infamy of this vain and vacuous place. Weak from his long and arduous journey and with the dust of his travels still clinging to his clothes the frail old man shuffled from door to door in the habit of a mendicant friar. Unsurprisingly, every door slammed shut in his face, to the accompaniment of cruel and uncivil remarks.

But the old man was determined to continue, to see whether there might not be one charitable soul, one glimmer of hope in this den of iniquity. Slowly, with increasing hunger but indefatigable purpose, he continued in his rounds. And at last he was rewarded. Right on the eastern edge of the city a woman who lived alone with her infant son invited him in to her humble home, where she sacrificed her last remaining hen to provide food for the elderly traveller.

Fired by the woman’s compassion, and perhaps also fuelled by the sustenance she had provided, Father Bárzana – for it was he – harangued the people of the town from the market place, from the street corners, from the entrances and pulpits of the empty churches, entreating them to return to the ways of Christianity. But his words continued to fall on stony ground.

Preaching in the market place, the friar told the people of Esteco that their city would soon be destroyed by an earthquake and that this would be a punishment for their unholy life and their unwillingness to repent. His warning was greeted with derisory laughs and from that moment on his life became unbearable. Wherever he went, people would jeer and joke about the end of the world. There was even a spate of ‘earthquake’ parties, at which the revellers made fun of him and his faith.

Finally, the old man realised that there was nothing more he could do. He went to the house of the poor woman who had helped him and ordered her to leave her house before dawn on the following day, taking her son with her. Before the sun was high in the sky she would hear the most terrible sounds; the sky would turn red, the earth would crack open and the city of Esteco would be swallowed up for eternity. Provided she did not look back, she and her son would be safe. But if she succumbed to curiosity they would also be punished.

The woman heeded the friar’s warning, and before the sun arose she was well on her way with her son bundled up in her arms. After a few hours on the road, just as the old man had told her, she watched the sky turn crimson and heard behind her the thunder of buildings crashing to the ground, the furious roar of flames and the crack of the earth itself splitting wide open.

Such was the ferocity of the holocaust that she could soon feel the heat of the fire on her back and through the deafening blast could clearly make out the shrieks and screams of the dying citizens of Esteco as they tried in vain to escape their destiny. Distracted by terror and the very real fear that she and her son might yet fail to escape the fate of her fellow citizens she let her curiosity get the better of her and, momentarily forgetting the warning of Father Bárzana, turned to contemplate the devastation of what had once been the city of Esteco.

As she turned, infant son in her arms, she froze on the spot, instantly transformed to solid stone. And there she stands to this day, in the shape of a massive rock structure that requires little imagination to discern the forms of the mother and her babe in arms. Recognisable from afar by all travellers in the area, there are those who say that every year she takes one step further in the direction of Salta, the city to which she was fleeing when she so unwisely looked back.

As for the city of Esteco and its inhabitants, destroyed by earthquake in 1692, nothing remains but this tale.

 

La Maldonada

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Back in 1536 or thereabouts Don Pedro de Mendoza lay on his sick bed pondering the string of fortunes and misfortunes that had brought him on such an long and eventful journey, across that wide and inhospitable ocean, at the orders of his King and Emperor, Charles V.

Don Pedro was thinking back over the events of his life. The surrender in Toledo, his departure in San Lúcar de Barrameda the following year, the attempts against his life, the trial and execution of John Osorio, so many things . . . And finally, the foundation of this new city, Santa María de los Buenos Aires, in February 1536, the 2nd was it ? Or the 3rd ? He cared little now, anyway. He cared little for anything these days, except the thought of his next meal.

The officers and soldiers in his company and the seven or eight women who had accompanied them from the motherland, were as desperate as he was. Their strength and courage were not wanting, but like their leader they were trapped in the daily necessity to eat . . . and equally unable to find anything of sustenance. All these herbs and sand were no good for hungry Spaniards, and the meagre rations that Ayolas was able to scrape together were every day more miserable and less satisfying. Although forbidden, they had even sacrificed their horses in order to survive, as they sat there, helplessly contemplating the immense river, which beat against the coast as a constant reminder of the impossibility of their return.

And such is the degradation of man that they were reduced to stealing from each other; snatching at the frogs and snakes or the rotting meat from the dead animals they found lying around. In their desperation even family ties meant little: father stole from son, brother from brother, husband from wife. Such morals as they had once possessed seemed to have been wiped out by the spectre of famine, and robbery and assault had become a way of life.

A soldier called Maldonado was hanged, no one now remembers why, and his wife, unable to face a life alone and in starvation, decided to leave the settlement and throw herself on the mercy of the Indians she had seen from time to time on the outskirts of their new town. Frightened and desperate, she thought that these strange people might have more pity on her than her fellow Europeans.

One evening she left the camp, and following the coast came to a place called Punta Goda, in the area known today as Monte Grande. As night came on she looked for somewhere to sleep and seeing a likely cave in the hillside she boldly made her way inside.

Now life was more dangerous in those days than it is today, and perhaps Maldonado’s widow was made of stronger stuff than many of us. However, she was surely not prepared for the surprise that awaited her. For, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw a pair of gleaming, phosphorescent eyes that seemed to move in the dark, cutting off her only exit.

Terrified, she crouched still, and heard a low growl as if of an animal in pain, followed by what could only be described as a purring sound. But no cat could have eyes that size, and she slowly realised that she must be enclosed in the cave with what the Spaniards called a lion, and what we today would call a puma.

Who knows how many hours they spent together in that cave, woman and feline, nor which was the more frightened of the two. Poor Maldonada squatted petrified until the first shafts of morning sum began to filter into the cave and she could see that it was indeed a puma, a female puma, very fat and very pregnant.

Maldonada began to edge her way to the entrance of the cave. But the movement evidently disturbed the cat who, now clearly visible on a ledge some two metres above, stood, stretched, snarled and prepared to pounce on the unfortunate woman. But at that very moment the ledge gave way beneath the animal, which fell gracelessly, and painfully to the floor of the cave, apparently unable to move. Its snarls of fury turned into whimpers of pain, then silence.

The woman could now see quite clearly that the puma was about to give birth, and was in a very poor state to do so. No longer afraid of the semi-conscious cat, she set to help and in a short while the mother was delivered of two fine cubs. The puma soon recovered consciousness but by some divine luck seemed to be aware of the part that Maldonada had played in the birth of her cubs and to accept her as one of her family, bringing her meat to eat as if she were one of the cubs she had helped into the world.

And so she stayed in the cave for several weeks until one day, when she had gone to drink at the river, she was suddenly surrounded by a group of Indians. She fought desperately to be allowed to stay with her new-found family, but in vain, and the Indians carried her off. Meanwhile, back in the Spanish camp, nothing more had been heard of Maldonada, although a story had been going round that one of the Indian Chiefs had taken her for his wife.

Time went by. Pedro de Mendoza survived the famine and eventually left for Spain, never getting there of course because as we all know he died on the high seas in June of 1537. The new Governor of Buenos Aires was now a certain Francisco Ruiz de Galán, a severe and inflexible man who everyone feared and many hated. Indeed the people came to blame Don Francisco for all the hostile animals and the ubiquitous Indians who made their life such a misery and made it almost impossible for them to leave the safety of their encampment.

One day one of the captains, on an exploratory mission with a group of soldiers in Indian land, came across a white woman and brought her back to the town. It was Maldonada, and surrounded once again by her own people, many of whom well remembered her flight, she was happy to tell her story, and happier still to be safely back amongst her own kind.

But the new Governor saw things in a very unfavourable light. To have chosen to leave the encampment for Indian lands was for him the gravest of crimes, punishable only by death. Nothing would make him change his mind, neither the pleadings of his nearest and dearest nor the rational arguments of his wisest advisors. He gave orders for the wretched woman to be taken a league or so outside the town and left tied to a tree, to be devoured by wild animals. The soldiers had no choice but to obey, and unwillingly carried her off to her fate.

And so once again the poor woman spent a night alone with wild beasts. That night so many wild animals gathered around her defenceless body that the growls and roaring kept the townspeople awake. Nobody slept a wink, and at dawn the townspeople, with a few soldiers for protection, hurried to the tree to see what had happened.

There was Maldonada, still tied to the tree, still alive. At her feet a lion stood watch accompanied by two cubs. The weary animal silently moved aside to let the men in to untie the woman’s thongs. It was the lion from the cave of course, the lion that the woman had helped in that difficult moment. Scratched and bleeding still, the lion had fought off all the other wild beasts in order to protect her benefactor and thus repay the favour.

The Magic Ball

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The story of Aylen, Nahuel and the Magic Ball

This was an attempt to recapture the style and language of books I read as a child.

Long, long ago, there was a wicked witch who lived in the eastern foothills of the snow-capped Andes. For much of the year she was harmless for she would sleep through most of the spring, summer and autumn, but each year, as soon the first snowfall began to dust the lower slopes she woke up, hungry and ready for her first meal of the winter.

And each year, as wintertime drew on, the people in the valley became more and more frightened, because winter after winter their children were vanishing without trace. One moment they were there in the village, or playing in the nearby fields, and then suddenly they were gone, never to be seen again. The villagers all suspected that it was the witch who was stealing their children, but they had no idea how she did this, or what she did with the children she spirited away.

The witch had a secret – a sparkly, brightly coloured, magic ball, very attractive to children but quite invisible to grown-ups, or those whom the witch did not want to see it. Such was the power of this ball, and so great the children’s desire to play with it, that they would throw all caution to the wind and follow it anywhere.

One day two small children, Aylen and Nahuel, were playing by a lake in the foothills, about half a league from their home. Aylen suddenly spotted the shiny ball in the long grass and ran towards it with a shriek of excitement. But just as she bent down to pick it up the ball rolled forward just beyond her grasp, rolling gently a little further in the direction of the hillside.

Again Aylen tried to pick it up, and again it seemed to blow out of her reach, like a leaf in the autumn wind. Nahuel, who I should have told you was her brother, tried too, but he had no better luck. The two of them spent a happy ten minutes or so chasing the ball, but each time they thought they had it in their hands it rolled a little further forward. And, although they didn’t realise it, each attempt was taking them just a little bit closer to the mountain slopes.

The two children stopped for a moment to decide what to do. It really was time to be setting off for home, but somehow the desire to hold the ball or to follow it seemed to take over their common sense.

The shiny ball had come to rest for a while by a stream, lying under a bush lush with tempting red berries. The children were not slow to eat some of the fruit and wash it down with cool, fresh water, before setting off once more in pursuit of the elusive ball.

And so the afternoon wore on, with Aylen and Nahuel taking it in turns to chase the ball, albeit with no success, alongside the bubbling mountain stream as it ascended gently through the valley. What they didn’t really notice was that the ball kept stopping in places where there was fruit to eat and fresh water to drink –which they were unable to resist– and that it was taking them closer and closer to the steep mountainside.

They followed the ball alongside the brook into another valley where the sides of a canyon rose beside them as they made their way higher. It was darker here, and the landscape was much wilder, with stark rocks scattered among the sparse vegetation. Patches of snow were beginning to appear and flakes of snow were blowing up around them. Still the ball rolled on, more slowly now, until –as the air became colder and crisper– it finally rolled up against a black rock and stopped.

Aylen picked up the glittering ball and cradled it in the palm of her hands. As she gazed into the crystal depths of the magic ball, all flecked with gold and silver like the finest marble, the surface gradually clouded over and then, like a soap bubble, suddenly burst, leaving her hands holding … nothing. In fear and disappointment she began to cry, and her brother, finding that her hands were frozen, led her round to the northern side of the rock where she was sheltered from the bitter wind.

Aylen leant back against the side of the mountain and quickly dropped into a deep sleep. Nahuel sat beside her holding her hand and wondering what to do. “As soon as she wakes up”, he thought, “we must get back home”. But he too was beginning to feel drowsy, and after wresting for a while with increasingly heavy eyelids he too soon dropped off.

Some hours later Nahuel awoke and wandered down to the stream to wash his face and drink some refreshing water. Lying in the safety of the stone refuge her brother had found for her, Aylen was dreaming that she was safe in bed at home, her mother sitting beside her combing her hair. But her mother must have been angry with her, as she was tugging her hair roughly and hurting her so badly that she gave a whimper of pain and woke up.

She tried to get to her feet, but couldn’t move her head. Somehow her hair seemed to have become tied up in the rock and bushes where she was lying, or perhaps frozen to the rock. The wicked witch was weaving her magic, but would wait until dark for her dinner.

Nahuel heard his sister and ran towards her, but as he came close he came up against an invisible wall, soft yet firm, that would not let him go forward. He could see Aylen in front of him, small and frightened, but although he could hear her sad little voice he could not reach her.

“Nahuel, help me. I’m frightened!” cried Aylen through the invisible wall the wicked witch had made.

“I can’t”, said Nahuel. “There’s something stopping me. It’s like a fence you can’t see. I can see you but I can’t get through”.

“Can’t you climb over it?” asked Aylen.

“No”, replied Nahuel, “it seems to go up and up. What can we do”?

At that moment a large white owl flew slowly over their heads, and as it circled sang out to the children:

You can undo this wicked deed
Fire and heat are what you need.

“Did you hear that?” asked Aylen through her sobbing.

“Yes, Aylen”, replied her brother.

“What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know”, said Nahuel.

“Fire and heat. Why do we need fire and heat?” sniffled Aylen.

“I think it means that the terrible things in this valley are afraid of fire”.

“Then we have to get hold of some fire. But where?” asked Aylen.

“I’ll go and look. You stay here, and don’t move”, Nahuel said, showing no sign of movement.

Which was a fine thing to say, thought Aylen, who was completely unable to move even if she tried, but she didn’t say anything.

Just then a huge Condor swooped down and as it glided by they heard him call from on high:

Burning fire her death will stay.
Follow me, I know a way …

“I have to go”, cried Nahuel. “The condor must know something, and seems to want me to follow him. I’ll be back before nightfall”.

The Condor was circling above the children, as if waiting for Nahuel, to guide him.

“Yes, go and get fire”, said Aylen, in what she hoped was a brave voice. She certainly didn’t feel very brave.

She watched Nahuel set off down the hill, following the Condor, who glided from rock to rock, glancing behind to make sure the little boy was following him.

The big bird seemed to know where he was going, and Nahuel followed him along the stream, down the hill, until the stream reached a larger river. There he saw a little woodcutter’s cottage, with wisps of smoke puffing lazily from the chimney.

As Nahuel reached the door of the cottage the Condor soared into the sky and flew back over the mountains, until he was just a speck in the sky. It was as if his work was over. The door was ajar and Nahuel knocked timidly but there seemed to be nobody there. More boldly, he pushed the door open.

The cottage was empty, but clearly someone lived there. The fire was still going, but there was very little wood left so Nahuel did what he would do in his own home, that is he went out and gathered twigs and branches to build up the fire and fill the wood store. He filled his pockets and shoulder bag with kindling, and seeing that the water buckets were empty he also took those and filled them with clean water from the stream.

Back in the house he used his fire making skills and soon had a better fire burning. Exhausted by his efforts, he lay on the floor in front of the fire he had made and almost immediately fell asleep.

When he awoke he saw a man sitting on a three-legged stool, sipping from a mate and looking pensive. He offered some bread to Nahuel, and passed him the mate. Nahuel ate and drank greedily, while the woodcutter peered closely at him. As he ate and drank, Nahuel told the old man about his poor sister, breaking into tears, as he thought of poor Aylen all alone on the mountainside.

“It’s the work of the wicked old witch of the mountain”, muttered the woodcutter as Nahuel told his tale. “Tell me boy, how can we rescue your sister?”

Remembering what the Condor had said, Nahuel repeated “burning fire her death will stay”.

“Ah yes”, said the man, “the Condor is old and wise and always knows what to do”.

And at that moment the Condor, who had been back to the mountain to see how Aylen was, appeared at the doorway and called out:

The freezing cold now saps her will
But burning fire can save her still

It was clear what to do. The old man gave Nahuel a burning stick from the fire, and Nahuel ran out of the house, retracing his steps back up the mountainside to where his sister lay.

He came to a small lake. It didn’t seem very deep, and to save time he decided to wade through it. But as he ran the water splashed up on either side and after a few minutes the stick had become so wet that the water put out the flames. Feeling wretched, Nahuel turned round and ran back to the woodcutter’s cottage.

“Please give me a second stick”. I was foolish and the fire went out. This time I’ll run around the lake”.

The Condor, who was still there perched on a gatepost, called out:

Only fire can save her now
You have to get it there somehow

The woodcutter poked around in the fire and gave him a second stick, and this time Nahuel ran carefully around the edge of lake where he had lost the fire before, through bog and marsh and up the mountainside where his sister awaited him, only pausing to catch his breath.

But as he reached the place where the snow started he slipped on a patch of ice, and putting out his hands to steady his fall he thrust the burning stick into the deepening snow. Rising to his feet he saw he was now holding a charred, black useless stick. Crestfallen, he once again turned round and ran back to the woodcutter’s cottage.

The old man was waiting for him, and was pleased to give him a third chance. Just then the Condor flew back, and they listened to what he had to say:

The cold, cold night is drawing on
Without fire she’ll soon be gone

For the third time Nahuel set off, back up the mountainside, this time clutching the burning stick so tightly that his hand ached. Carefully he made his way through lake and marsh, hill and valley, until once again he reached the place where the snow started.

It was so slippery that he could hardly walk, and poor Nahuel was frightened that he would drop the burning branch in the snow again. But at that moment a pure white flamingo appeared by his side and ran beside him, wings spread wide. Nahuel put his free hand on one of her wings, and thus balanced, he was able to continue on his way.

Faster and faster the flamingo hurried, and Nahuel gripped her tighter and tighter. Suddenly he found his feet were no longer touching the ground. The flamingo was flying now, and the two of them were soaring up the last bit of mountain to where Aylen lay.

Nahuel was hanging on to the flamingo for dear life, and could see the burning stick, fanned into flames by the wind as they few, burning the poor flamingo’s neck and breast badly. But the noble bird did not complain and very soon they arrived at the rock where Aylen was lying. As Nahuel approached with the burning stick in his hand he found that the invisible wall was no match for the fire, and with only a little difficulty he was by his sister’s side.

He threw the burning stick into some dry moss at the foot of the rock. The moss crackled and hissed, and suddenly burst into a small flame. In his pocket and shoulder bag he still had some twigs and small sticks that he had gathered for the woodcutter, and with some fanning and blowing he soon had a blazing fire.

Suddenly there was a great crack, a horrible scream and the rock split into a thousand pieces, breaking the witch’s spell and freeing Aylen. The little girl hugged the flamingo, trying to soothe its burns, but for all her efforts she could not completely heal the poor bird and to this day its descendants carry in their crimson feathers the marks of this one bird’s bravery.

The wicked witch was never heard of again. Some say she crossed over the Andes and went to play her tricks in another land. As for Aylen and Nahuel, they lived long in that quiet valley in the foothills among the birds they loved, and the shiny coloured ball soon became a distant memory.

 

Chairs

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coffin-and-chairs

We got back from the funeral at about three o’clock and Mother went straight to the kitchen. I went up to change. On the way down I glanced into Emmie’s room. The two chairs were as we had left them, facing each other, a coffin’s length apart. I set them back against the wall and went down to tea.

[Liverpool, July 2013]

Wax works

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It was over coffee that Marie decided the time had come to kill her husband. Like the milk spiralling in her macchiato, the idea had been swirling around in her head for some time but the after dinner conversation had finally stirred her to act. It had also suggested the means to bring Derek’s life to a timely end, as pleasingly as the excellent coffee rounded off a fine meal.

Things had been bad between them for a long time, and it was perhaps odd that it was on this, the most enjoyable evening she had spent in Derek’s company for as long as she could remember, that she was finally goaded into action. Still, she reflected, all things have their time and purpose. Or as Derek, who could only speak in clichés, would constantly say, ‘there is a time and place for everything’.

Well, now there was to be a time and a place for Derek. The time asap, the place tba, she mentally diarised as they thanked their hosts and agreed that yes, they must do this again soon, and yes, it was a warm night for this time of the year, wasn’t it, and no, they hadn’t been at all offended by the host’s obnoxious neighbour who, under the influence of fine wine and dining, had become a little too intimate. The usual platitudes, but it had been a good evening and the drunken advances had not been altogether unwelcome. That would be something she would want to follow up in more sober circumstances.

And the method? Her wine-befuddled mind went back to the coffee table discussion. One of the dinner guests had been talking about her experiences in Haiti, where she had lived for some years as a field anthropologist. She had been telling them about some woman who had been found wandering the streets of Port-au-Prince, confused and unresponding, some thirty years after her death. It seemed that this condition could be induced by injecting toxic substances into the bloodstream.

Well that wouldn’t be much use to me, she had thought at the time. Derek’s bad enough as it is, with his phoney bonhomie and his trite observations, but at least he can dress and feed himself. The thought of wiping away a zombie Dereks’s spittle and getting him in and out of bed or a chair to wipe his arse quickly ruled that one out. But the anthropologist was still speaking to one of the guests, who had now asked about voodoo dolls. No, said the academic, who was holding court  with undisguised condescension, in New Orleans, perhaps, but sticking pins in images was more of a European practice. One of many misconceptions of Haitian voudou. Next question please.

Academics, Marie sniffed. With their superiority, their pedantic hedging, their inability to sit either side of the fence without reams of actuarial data and supporting evidence. God save us from academics. But the image of the voodoo doll, or as she had been reliably corrected, the European poppet, stuck in her mind as Derek drove them home and before going to bed she consulted her electronic oracle,Wikipedia. This Pandora’s box of all things wonderful unreliably informed her that a poppet was

‘a doll made to represent a person, for casting spells on that person … may be fashioned from such materials as a carved root, grain or corn shafts, a fruit, paper, wax, a potato, clay, branches, or cloth stuffed with herbs  … intention is that whatever actions are performed upon the effigy will be transferred to the subject’.

Outside Marie could hear Derek taking up residence in the bathroom. She printed out the Wikipedia entry, locked it in the top drawer of her escritoire and went to bed. Her own bed. She and Derek hadn’t shared a bed for ten years, hadn’t made love for five, unless you counted that fumbled attempt in Heysham the night the Douglas ferry was delayed, when they had spent the evening in that ghastly local pub warming themselves with the cheap supermarket brandy the bartender had poured from an expensive Courvoisier bottle. Last time she’d had a glass of brandy of any kind, and last time she’d touched Derek in any way. And now to sleep, hopefully to dream of tonight’s drunken dinner guest, who she was now far more likely to touch than Derek. In her dreams, at least, for tonight. Tomorrow she’d see about more physical contact.

* * *

Eight fifty-five the following morning found Marie bright and sober outside the local library. In the cold light of day the idea of causing her husband’s death by sticking pins in an effigy seemed laughable, but she had nothing else planned and at least it would get her out of the house and away from Derek who as she left was braying on the phone in an attempt to get enough cronies around for a bridge morning. God save us from Bridge players, she sniffed. And in my house. Cigarette and pipe ash everywhere. Yellow piss stains around the rim and base of the loo. She’d have to have another word with Mrs Roberts about the way she cleaned lately. Not letting the standards slip in her house.

Marie spent a couple of hours in the library, making notes about the history of poppet dolls in Europe and England. Mumbo jumbo, she thought to herself, this is never going to work, and after a while she abandoned the idea and thought she would look into untraceable poisons instead. She found herself formulating a theory that most criminals were only ever caught because they were stupid, and what would be more stupid than to be seen with books on toxic substances when you would be the prime suspect in your husbands death.  This would have to be done anonymously, and would need careful research elsewhere, somewhere that people won’t know her. There would be time for it, but die he would, if not today.

No problem with poppets though, and she swept her mumbo jumbo papers into her bag and drove off to Waitrose to pick up a few bits and pieces and to see if any decent wines had come in since her wasted visit last week. She would have to have words with the manager again if there was no improvement. She returned home at lunchtime with bag of assorted oddments and a half case ofTorrontes, drinkable she hoped, safe in the knowledge that Derek et al would by now be in the Turk’s Head until at least early afternoon and then clocking up eighteen holes at the club, and possibly half as many pints at the nineteenth hole. She was unlikely to see or speak to him today, thank goodness.

Remembering that Mrs Roberts hadn’t been in yet this week, she collected an empty jam jar and a ladle from the kitchen drawer and went upstairs to Derek’s bathroom. One of the privileges of separate bathrooms was that she no longer had to suffer the sight of his naked, walrus blubber body or the sound and smell of his ablutions and noxious secretions, but this physical presence was very much what now attracted her. In his waste bin she found some orange sticks liberally covered in earwax – yes, that would do for a starter. Greying hairs were easily collected from the waste hole in the shower, mulched into a soft mucous mass along with what might well, knowing her husband’s habits, have been semen – and better for her purpose if it was.

Dark yellow in the lavatory bowl showed that Derek had not flushed away his last piss – no surprise there – and she ladled a generous helping into the jar, covering the putrid grey and orange-streaked agglutination. Using his damp flannel as a cloth she managed to mop up a few nail clippings from the floor and added them to the growing specimen collection, a blend unlikely to be offered for sale by Wilkins and Sons, manufacturers of its previous contents. Some scrapings of dandruff from his brush and comb and she was done.

Satisfied with her work Marie went up to her study and unlocked the top drawer of the escritoire. Something stirred her consciousness. Something wasn’t quite right. The paper she had printed out the night before was there but was face up, with the text visible. Surely she had left it face down?  Odd, that. But she had been drinking the night before, maybe she was mistaken. She placed the Tiptree jar and the notes from the library inside, locked up again and went down for a glass of torrontes to accompany the pâté and baguette she had bought at Waitrose. She would start work this afternoon.

* * *

An hour or so later, standing by the Rayburn with her third glass of torrontes she took some new white candles from the plastic Waitrose bag and, reaching up to the shelf above her, took down an orangebain marie, a present from Derek’s ghastly sister Maureen, married to the equally ghastly Donald, some kind of mortician would you believe. God help us. She placed three of the candles in the top part of the double boiler, poured some water into the lower part and brought the water to a simmer.

She then added the contents of the jar – Little Scarlet Strawberry, she noticed with a wry smile, her mind winging rapidly and irrelevantly from Miss Scarlett the Cluedo killer, through Vivienne Leigh bedecked in curtains, that woman boiling the bunny in Fatal Attraction (why her?) to the man she might have married, now an earl and entitled to eight strawberry leaves of his own – and put on the lid, setting the timer to 40 mins. That should be enough, she thought. As an afterthought she turned on the extractor, opened the back door and settled down with Doris Lessing, bottle, wine glass and wooden spoon at arm’s length and the Le Creuset bain marie within reach for the occasional desultory stir.

Her appraisal of Anna Wulf’s black notebook broken by the shrill ring of the clockwork tomato, she moved the Le Creuzet off the Rayburn to cool and rolled out some cling film onto her largest cedar chopping board.  By the time she had washed up her few lunch dishes and put them away the wax mixture would be cool enough to handle and not yet too hard to knead. She checked the remainder of the tools she would need and set to work.

Following instructions she had found in the library she put on her rubber supermarket gloves, sold in Le Creuset cerise she reflected approvingly, and scooping a couple of glovefuls of the glutinous mess onto her clingfilmed board she began to shape her poppet doll. The beer paunch was a good starting point, and as she kneaded Derek’s Neanderthal forehead and bulbous nose were easy enough to fashion. Had she ever found him attractive, she wondered. She must have done once, attractive enough to conjoin, to engender two children, both long gone now. But that  was long ago and far away; another time and another land.

Some of her schoolgirl dexterity began to return unexpectedly as she continued to work and she found herself singing an old favourite from the French class: ‘je suis une poupee de cire ..’. Enough she thought, in an attempt to restore dignity and determination. Another glass of torrontes, and the arms and legs were in place, roughly shaped but quite clearly – to her at least – a little Derek in embryo, a roughly formed but relatively complete assemblage of candle wax and bathroom bits. It was time to start on the finer detail.

Using an old dental pick she had found in her daughter’s room, presumably something from Art College – useless girl, waste of a good education, and she marries that ghastly musician, God save us from aspiring musicians – she began to form fingers, toes, facial features. She didn’t bother about genitals, leaving him without. She hadn’t seen them for years, and frankly had little further use for them. ‘What you don’t have, you can’t use’ she thought as she smoothed the loins into a flat, featureless surface.

She poured the last glass of torrontes carefully, shaking the bottle to make sure the last drop went into the hungry glass. It was drinkable, she decided. Nothing special, nothing great, but at least acceptable. She wouldn’t need to take the manager to task again this week. The wax had hardened by now, and as she exerted pressure on the pick to accentuate the curve of the right ankle, her left elbow jammed hard against a pile of cookery books, her arm slipped and the pick drove right through Little Derek’s ankle and into her finger.

There wasn’t too much blood and the pain soon subsided but she thought that was enough and put a plaster on her finger and Little Derek, now fully grown albeit with a broken ankle, away in the drawer together with all the evidence of his creation. By the time Big Derek came home there would be no signs of the voudou murder plot – which was never going to work anyway, but was a satisfying way to spend a Saturday morning. Next week she would start on the real plot, plan it properly. No more childish games, she would treat this as a real project. Derek was going to die, by poison and she was going to arrange it. But first she had to work out the details.

* * *

Picking up the phone Marie dialled the number of last night’s dinner guest, the over amorous drunk she would need to arrange to meet in order to accept his apology in person. She competently fixed the assignation for eight that evening in Gino’s and looked forward to preparing for her tryst. Killing Derek would have to take second seat for a while. As she put down the phone she felt a slight headache and a throbbing in her left arm. She inspected her left hand, sporting a blood-stained sticky plaster, and peeled it off to examine the wound, The hand was a little swollen with some discolouration around the cut, but nothing much to worry about she decided.

By around five, soaking in a long bubble bath, Marie really felt quite unwell. Her whole left arm was by now numb, and swollen from the elbow down. Her breathing was short, and her vision was beginning to blur. Abstracted and confused, she decided that a cup of tea might help but as she struggled to get out of the bath she slipped and fell to the floor, banging her head against the side of the bath. Dizzy but still conscious, she tried vainly to get to her knees but fell back to the floor. Collapsed on the bathmat she began to move in and out of consciousness, but never moved anywhere else and there she was found the following morning by concerned neighbours, organised by the drunken dinner guest, himself concerned by her non-appearance at Gino’s Trattoria. Because of the curious nature of her death a post mortem was held and the police doctor determined the cause of death as blood poisoning, with toxic substances of unknown origin.

Big Derek had not come home that night, nor the following morning. In fact Derek never came home again. Neither had he been playing bridge or golf the previous day. Where he had been that day, and what he had been doing will probably never be known fully, but what happened that night is a question of fact. His Alfa Romeo was involved in an accident in which he died instantly, and which was also the subject of a coroner’s inquiry.

In fact, Derek’s death has gone down in local police circles as something of a curiosity. CCTV evidence confirms that he had driven that morning from his house and his car was recorded at various locations around the town. He had been seen shopping in a hardware store and also spotted leaving an adult bookshop that specialised in matters of the occult. On the bypass in the late afternoon he had abruptly and inexplicably driven straight across the central reservation and into an oncoming articulated vehicle owned by IKEA, whose Polish driver was shaken but fortunately unharmed. The incident is recorded in black and white, literally so in the CCTV footage.

That much is understood. What is not clear, and probably never will be, is how he can have managed to break his right ankle while driving down an urban motorway. Forensic reports show clearly it can not have been as a result of the crash, yet neither is it clear how he could previously have been driving a car with a broken foot. For a time speculation was rife, but in the end the case was a nine days’ wonder, known now only to older members of the local police, and then rarely mentioned.

The duty pathologist, in accordance with the duty rosta, turned out to be the brother-in-law of the deceased. Disposing of Derek’s effects after the inquest he was rummaging inside the corpse’s jacket pockets when he came across something rather odd. It was not at all clear what it was, but it seemed to be a misshapen ball shaped object formed of some indeterminate greasy, waxy substance. Momentarily curious, the mortician rolled it around in his fingers a moment, sniffed it inquisitively and then threw it unceremoniously into the waste disposal unit. Later that night he felt quite unwell, but said nothing, putting it down to the police canteen cooking.

 

SAPA 25 Anniversary Ball

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Another text salvaged from old zip disks. SAPA was and I hope still is a highland pipe band (the South American Piping Association). I had a couple of friends in the band and for a couple of years spent some time with them. This was published in the ‘Argentine-British Community Bulletin’ in 1992.

Photo of SAPA courtesy of http://musicaceltaargentina.galeon.com

Photo of SAPA courtesy of http://musicaceltaargentina.galeon.com

 They say that with Scots emigrés the porridge lasts until the third generation. Four generations of members are gathered here tonight at the Family Gathering Ball to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the South American Piping Association and I doubt if many of them have eaten porridge for breakfast this morning, but then again this is essentially a family event and no one seems too concerned about missing (or for that matter getting) their oats.
 
The night has a special international flavour. Incongruously, it has been decided to hold the Ball on a Mississippi River Queen moored on the Costanera Norte. A beautiful place to hold a reception by the way, with its three tier structure and the chance to put out into the river if the weather holds. Perhaps it’s a bit blustery for these ersatz Scots, or perhaps the pilot hasn’t arrived, anyway we stay firmly tethered to the Costanera.
 
I arrive together with prominent local businessman Jimmie Wray, who, kilt over arm, immediately disappears into the Gents to reappear properly bekilted and besporraned. One can perhaps forgive him for not leaving the southern suburbs in Highland Evening Dress – trying to flag down a friendly motorist on Pavón wearing a kilt might not do his image much good, not to speak of his personal safety. We are met on arrival by Kenneth McKellar, a long way from home and not sounding a day older. Most people present are wearing something ‘Scots’, from full Highland Dress to discreet ties and rabbit’s foot brooches. I feel glad I looked out a tartan tie before leaving home. I’m not sure if the clan tartans are any more legitimate than my tie in many cases and I’m sure no true Scot would tolerate so much ice in the freely flowing whisky but everyone seems to be having fun and I’m sure no one would object to that.
 

With the swirling and skirling of pipes and drums, the girls with their jabots and berets, the boys with dirks and garter tabs in and around their thick woolen hose, plaids and kilts representing a multitude of clans, the night is a riot of colour and pageantry contrasting oddly with the Mississippi paddle boat on which we are gathered.The evening starts with a Grand March in which Drum Major Lawrence Towers leads some ten pipers and six drummers of various shapes and sizes around the middle deck. Behind them strut several proud little four and five year olds, the ‘sapitos’, determined not to be left out and bearing flags representing Argentina, Scotland, SAPA and the Gordon and MacLean clans, groups into which SAPA members are divided for administrative and competitive purposes.All in all, some two hundred people follow Lawrence round and round as if he were the Pied Piper of Hamelin, in ever widening rows until the physical limitations of the Mississippi Queen put a stop to their peregrinations. The waiters seem a little bemused by all this; in all fairness the confused ritual of a Grand March and the sight of a Highland Band all togged up is perhaps a little awe inspiring the first time you see it.

The Grand March is followed by an Eightsome Reel, in which the problem of the supporting columns is ingeniously solved by forming circles around them. I fear for the speaker stacks as a myriad of kilts and plaids swirl to the sound of Jimmy Shand and his Band; Maclean and Gordon, Black Watch and Fraser, Royal Stuart and Mackenzie, all the hues of the Highlands. A man in a kilt next to me asks why I’m not wearing one. I tell him “I’m English, not Scots”. “I’m Argentine”, he replied, “who cares”. And he’s right, tonight one can be both, or neither; for the time being nationality is playing second fiddle to emotion .Eightsome over, a few disco numbers allow the light reflected from a mirrored sphere to pick out the various swords, pins and brooches on the dancers’ plaids as the relaxed discipline of Scottish country dancing gives way to frenzy of a more international kind. Coloured lights pulse with the music as we work up an appetite. Then down to the lower deck for something to eat, supper with SAPA, as it were.

After the first course Lawrence Towers, every inch a Drum Major when kitted out with baton and sash but surprisingly mild mannered as an emcee, takes the floor to thank the founder members who are present, Alistair Lean, Norberto Bryant, Oscar MacHenry de la Plaza and Luis Eastman, and presents them with an Anniversary Badge. Alistair Lean was the first Pipe Major and he speaks of his debut some 25 years earlier, finding it it fitting that there should be six dancers making their debut that night. This, and the presence of the ‘sapitos’ who are also just getting started in SAPA, provide a chain of continuity which he feels appropriate. The event is perhaps a little hermetic to the outsider but clearly this is a nostalgic occasion, in a sense a family reunion, a gathering of the clans.

Second course over, and up we troop to the middle deck for more entertainment; the top deck, despite the attractions of its artificial turf, canopies, bars and and bunting proves a bit wintry for these Argentines, more accustomed to the temperate Pampa than the rigours of the Scottish Highlands. It’s now 1.00 a.m. Some of us linger at tables, renewing acquaintances, some move it to Ruben Blades, bringing a touch of Central America to increase the international feel, when suddenly the PA informs us that it is time for the Gay Gordons , and Panama gives way to the Borders for a while.

But not for long, and we’re soon back to some anodyne Argentine rap. Good sound system this boat has though, even if the dj looks the wrong side of forty to maintain his street cred. Peter Edwards and I move out onto a quarter deck for a breath of air and to escape the jump being pumped. Peter is an ex-treasurer of SAPA and he tells me he has come all the way from Venezuela where he is now working; he arranged leave so as to be able to attend the anniversary ball. I am impressed. SAPA clearly arouses great loyalty to its members and one wonders whether more might not have attended if there had been more room on the boat and the cost of entrance ticket had been a little less steep. Clearly a policy decision was taken here to splash out on the anniversary.

We go back down for ice cream and coffee. Waiting for Alejandra to reappear I idly read the list of band and dancing group members. The names are revealing; a predictable scattering of Scots names, notably the Mackenzie clan which is seemingly able to put on its own show single-handedly, but the rest is as cosmopolitan as the Buenos Aires telephone directory. Which is of course what you would expect; SAPA is far from a jingoistic enclave, rather it is a group of people united in some cases by a common ancestry and in all by a feeling for Scots music and culture.

SAPA is not just a Pipe Band and Dancing School, it is a family. Nonagenarians Reginald Hortis and his wife are present; so are children, grand children and great-grandchildren of theirs. I look around at all the little children, the ‘sapitos’, got up up in Highland dress and having the time of their lives. SAPA runs a school for these little ones and teaches them how to dance and to play the pipes and drums, not only providing future members but infusing them with a feel for the culture. But more important, it includes them – you feel that this is an occasion for all the family. SAPA seems to be something you have in your blood and on tonight’s showing likely to survive into the next generation at least.

My reflections are interrupted by a new arrival on the dance floor. For reasons not altogether clear a bald headed man with a red bow tie, a walking stick and a pronounced limp has grabbed a microphone and started to belt out the Spanish favorite ‘Granada’. He comes to an end and tells us he is Bolivian. Now it is all clear. Of course, if you get a bunch of Argentines disguised as Scots on a Mississippi River Boat in Buenos Aires, well it is only reasonable that a Bolivian will start singing Spanish songs. I refill my glass.

The Bolivian (I never got his name) is very good. He takes the Mississippi Queen on a tour of the world, and we stop off in Israel, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Chile, etc, for him to give us songs and jokes from each of these places. He has the audience in stitches. As I said he is very good. Nothing to do with Scotland, but very good.

After our world tour the riverboat redocks and the coffee arrives. I chat with one of the dancers who has been with the dancing troupe for longer than she cares to admit, and she explains to me some of the arcane niceties of Band folklore. That highland dancing was really for boys, not girls. That unlike other bands in BA the SAPA girl dancers don’t use sporrans, which are apparently only used by men. (I noticed later that they don’t wear thick woolen stockings either, but that may be a question of economy). That pipers play with straight fingers, not bent ones. That there is Highland dancing, accompanied by pipe bands, and country or formation dancing accompanied by dance bands, and not to confuse the two. We discuss haggis and neats and more lore and wisdom of the Hills and Valleys, until she has to leave me to prepare for the show.

Feeling concerned about her digestive processes I follow her upstairs where the band is tuning up on the quayside, if that is the word to describe the sounds produced by a pipe band getting ready to perform. The music of the bagpipes is certainly an acquired taste, and there is a difference between a solitary piper dimly perceived on the top of a battlement through the double glazing of one’s drawing room and ten of them in the close confines of the middle deck of a Mississippi River Boat. I personally like the sound although you won’t have to go far to find a different opinion.

A man comes up to me and suggests I might like to look around the boat. I surmise correctly that this is the manager and that he has got wind of my press connections. I decline graciously, on the grounds that the show is about to begin, but assure him sincerely that I am very impressed with the quality of the food, the courtesy of his staff, the facilities provided on the boat, etc, etc. A good test of the flexibility of caterers is their ability to handle unexpected demands efficiently. My unannounced request for vegetarian food produced immediate and exceptionally tasty results. I tell him this too, but I keep quiet about the undrinkable bottle of red wine left at our table which we surreptitiously switched with the table next door.

I am informed that SAPA are off to the Cordoba Beer Festival next weekend. Apparently they do a lot of cultural festivals like the Feria de las Naciones , and have appeared in many folk lore or cultural events in theatres and on television. Being a family group they are equally at home playing less formal events, and do many shows, large and small, at kermesses, receptions weddings and private parties. Come to think of it, it’s a nice idea to have a Scots band to liven up your party, and certainly different.

The Band marches in for the Show, Lawrence Towers at the fore, magnificent in full regalia. One of the side drums is played by a boy who can’t be more than ten years old. He keeps good time in any case, and the Band performs its show, consisting on this occasion of a piping and drumming display and three dances, carefully chosen to give all the girls a chance to dance and to provide a variety of different dancing styles.

SAPA is a school, and what better to start the dancing than a number written by one of the members, Ann’s Delight , arranged for SAPA dancing instructor Ann Walker by Lawrence’s elder brother, Andrew. As I said, it’s a family band. One of those foot-tapping tunes so typical of Scottish music, and I find myself somewhat irreverently singing to myself “Auntie Mary had a canary . . .” Memory is a strange thing.

Ann’s Delight is followed by Seann Triubhas , which as I am sure all readers know is Gaelic for ‘old trousers’. An intricate dance often seen in competitions, it is performed by five of the troupe, and followed by Broadswords , a sword dance performed on this occasion by sixteen girls whose feet are not supposed to touch the swords while they dance. They don’t, as far as I can see, which is a miracle in itself given the cramped space available. If I understod my informant correctly this is one of the few dances actually intended to be danced by lassies rather than laddies.

Highland dancing is a joy to watch, with its prancing walk, stylised bows from the waist, scissor leaps and intricate footwork. They say that men love a girl in uniform; whether that is true need not detain us here but there is no doubt that it adds to the overall appeal. The Pipers too sport a colourful uniform, originally designed one feels to make them look more intimidating. The combination of the two, Pipe Band and dancers, is unique, and a joy to watch.

To the sound of Scotland the Brave the band and dancers march round and round ending up in a strange configuration which finally reveals itself as a representation of the letters S. A. P. A. The girls produce flashlights from the recesses of their uniforms to duplicate the same motif on the ceiling. A moving moment, and the show is over.

The band marches out, paper hats, streamers, whistles, masks, etc are handed out, and the dancing starts again. For me it’s time to go home. Fortunately I get offered a lift by the video operator who was filming the event. We leave together at 3.30 am to the strains of Sergio Mendes’ Brazil ; somehow totally in keeping with the international flavour of this Scots night in Argentina. As for porridge for breakfast tomorrow, I somehow don’t think anyone will be up in time.

Impractical English

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Note: I found this today while clearing out old zip files and it amused me. It’s odd reading stuff you yourself wrote nearly forty years ago. This comes from way back in the 80s, when I was the owner/director of a language school in Buenos Aires. It was originally published in the Buenos Aires Herald.

Some sample pages from El Inglés Práctico

Some sample pages from El Inglés Práctico

At the end of every year I have the unenviable task of cleaning and clearing out the Victoria School book room. This means having to decide what to bin and what stays in, effectively a trade off between the squirreling instinct and the pragmatics of shelf space.

One book which seems to survive the chop every year is a rather tattered volume called El Inglés Práctico. No, not my long awaited autobiography (which could certainly never go out under that title, on account of how I am by all accounts un inglés bastante impráctico), no, this is a course book for learners of English from way back when. Look as I would, I could nowhere find a date of publication but judging by the wardrobe of the characters in the line drawings I would place it somewhere in the late twenties or early thirties.

I should perhaps make it clear that this is a wholly Argentine book, and the characters and situations are predominantly set in Argentina. The first vocabulary items presented in volume one are ‘the father’, ‘the mother’ and ‘the honest family’. In fact, honesty would seem to be the theme of this first unit. Consider some of the sentences in the first lectura y conversación:

The father is kind, the mother is good and the son is gentle. The family is good and honest. Is it good and honest ? Yes, it is. Robert is the child. He is very honest. The grandfather and the grandmother are very old and (yes, you’ve guessed it) they are honest.

I’m not making this up. Honest.

Another thing I liked was the pedagogical device of giving in each unit a short list of frases usuales en clase, basically a list of teacher-talk items useful for classroom management. In the list of these ‘useful phrases’ accompanying the very first unit, along with the expected ‘stand up’, ‘sit down’ and ‘exchange places’, appear enjoinders to ‘pronounce well’, and, presumably lest this not produce the desired results, to ‘pronounce better’. Would that things were so simple.

The second lesson introduces some rather more useful vocabulary, setting honesty aside for a while in order to concentrate on the wardrobe. A brief extract should give you the flavour:

Is this bodice flannel or woolen ? It is neither flannel nor woolen, but cotton. Have you not a pretty fan ? And has he not new braces ? No, I have a simple one and he has old ones.

Most teachers I know would be probably be happy if their students came up with these structures after two years, if at all, let alone two lessons, considering the inverted negative questions, anaphoric references, pronominalisation, etc., involved.

Leafing through to the end of the book I cannot resist sharing with you the visit to the peluquero de caballeros (all captions, instructions, etc., in the book are in Spanish, a trend, incidentally, which is returning now in much new ELT material). Consider the advice the customer (looking rather like Ramon in the illustrations of the famous Buenos Aires Herald publication Ramon Writes) is given:

Your hair is very dry and dull; you should put some brilliantine on it every day. I have some which is very good and makes the hair glossy without greasing it.

The customer (hereinafter to be referred to as Ramon and that’s without an accent, please, Mr. Typesetter*), agrees to the transaction at the confusing price of six dollars a bottle, at which the hairdresser somewhat alarmingly comments:

I shall give you a little friction, shall I not ?

Fortunately for sensitive readers, Ramon, after considerable thought (and no doubt working it out that if a bottle of brilliantine sets him back six bucks then a friction job is likely to leave him in the poor house) rejoins “No, it is not necessary’. After all, to sell El Inglés Práctico in schools they would have wanted to keep the ‘G’ rating.

Our students certainly come a long way by the end of the book. I quote from the final unit of what I must ask you to remember is a first year book:

Thus, from the hands of this prodigal son of the Independence, surged this sublime blue and white ensign, which today flies proudly and arrogantly from the masts of ships, public buildings and Argentine forts.

Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of El Inglés Práctico – Segundo Libro, but I should be very interested to see it. The ‘Argentine forts’ seem to have disappeared too.

I am at present teaching a group in the Victoria School who are hoping to sit for the University of Cambridge Proficiency Examination at the end of this year, at a level corresponding to some eight or nine years of language study. With respect to my students, many of them would be pushed to come up with something quite so elegant as the above eulogy to Belgrano. Those teachers of long ago certainly must have known something we don’t know today.

______________

* there were typesetters in those days – how times have changed.

A pox on Encotel

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Going through some old, very old files on some Zip disks I found –remember Zip disks?– I found this rather curious piece I had written back in the 80s. A word of explanation is perhaps necessary.

Encotel was the name of the Postal Service in Argentina in pre-privatisation days, and expats like me living in Buenos Aires who had the good fortune to receive packages from abroad had to go down to their International Office on Antartida Argentina and Comodoro Py (this is the junction of two streets in the old dock area). Here you had to queue for ever to pick up your parcel (if they hadn’t lost it), and, what’s worse pay the customs dues.

37443

The problem with this was that you had to pay the importation / customs fee not just before collecting the parcel, that would have been OK, but before knowing who it was from or what it was. My own particular problem was that being the owner of a language school publishers would frequently send me samples –books, audio and video cassettes (remember cassettes)– which were not always welcome. My mum and sisters would send presents for the children too, and I had no way of knowing which were which without paying first. And there were no refunds. Incidentally, despite Argentina being a signatory to the free importation of educational materials, in Encotel you still had to pay – but that’s a whinge for another occasion

bird-kite-2

And they decided how much. Quite how they calculated custom dues was always a mystery to me. I once received a paper and bamboo Siamese fighting kite something like the one above but rather more artsy fartsy. The customs declaration said in English ‘1 Siamese Fighting Kite’  and the guy on the counter asked me to translate. I told him what it was (and explanation was necessary because the translation didn’t really do it for him) and with no hesitation he quoted me a price as if he was used to people importing these items on a daily basis. And the price he quoted –with no consultation of any sort– was at least twice the cost of the kite in England plus the postage.

I was always pissed off about this, and one day, having a column to fill in the Buenos Aires Herald, I sounded off publicly. Nothing changed, but it generated a little humorous correspondence. Not quite sure why I chose to do this in cod Elizabethan, but guess it seemed like fun at the time. The original text is below – I have resisted the urge to tinker, although should like to.

A pox on Encotel

Manolo: Good even, Jorge: Wherefore goest thou?
Why art thou breathless, wherefore starest thou so?
For do I fear so as I love thee well
The stars have shone unwontedly on thee.

Jorge: Tis true, and vexed I am of late, for now
Hard from that place I come where many hours
Are customed men to wait in hope for news
From foreign climes by th’authorities withheld
And yet must waste for naught yet pay it dear.

Manolo:
What meanst thou? Sirrah, prithee, speak me plain
Nay, riddle me not, yet say thy meaning clear.

Jorge: Of Encotel I speak, yet, bear not hard
That I should so inflamed inform on this
Which wrongs the state: Oh, what would come on it?

Manolo: Yet speak you now.  I bid thee that you stand
Not on your love for state yet that I know
You bear for me. I pray thee tell it clear,
What cause hath brought thy countenance so low.

Jorge: I have a mind to tell thee all, I swear;
I’faith I shall:  a pox on Encotel.
Fashion it thus: this day upon the morn
A paper through my casement all sealed up
Did tell me presently to make repair
To Antartida and Comodoro Py
Where messages from foreign parts had come
And urged me if I would of this more know
Present myself twixt eight and four o’clock

Manolo: Why, sirrah, then a packet hast received?
And paid it well, in taxes and in time?

Jorge: Yet let me speak.  Would wert it thus, yet hark,
It was not so.  Methinks thou knowst the place?

Manolo: Indeed, an’t please you, many a time and oft
Cause have I had for frequenting that place.

Jorge: Tis well.  Then list, for I shall now unfold
Th’events which me befell ere night had dropt.
With motive plain came I to Encotel,
The yellow paper firmly grasped in hand,
Where to a table at the entrance plied,
A surly fellow was which tended me,
Sleek-headed, dank and bittered as the vetch.
My papers scarcely glanced at, me he sent
T’another table, documents to present.

Manolo: And, so it is, good friend, thou knowst full well
The custom of this land is fashioned thus.

Jorge: So let it be, for ’tis no cause for pain,
Yet seems it strange to me what next befell.

Manolo: I pray thee, sir, to cut thy story short.

Jorge: That shall I. To a gentleman I hied
Whose office ’tis the fees to calculate
On packets here received from foreign lands.
What price, I asked: he answered twenty-six
With forty cents. For what, cried I?  Yet hold,
This packet, prithee, sirrah, please inform
The contents what they be, ere I do pay.

Manolo: Methinks thou hast a point: unknowing ne’er
Should man his coin dispense without just cause
and knowledge full

Jorge: I’faith a jot he cared
but I could pay or thence from whence I came.

Manolo: And, paidst thou, Jorge ?

Jorge: Ay, in truth I did
As curiosity doth master man.
And nay, why not, indeed?  For unbeknownst
To me a packet despatched might have been
And favourably had chance to be received.
Yet too methought should one consider on
How men desirous to promote their wares
Send unsolicitedly their marketries,
Thus giving me some worthy cause to wish
Their deeds undone wert I to bear their costs.
My argument presented thus rebuffed
So urged I was to pay or hie me home.
But pray thee, truthfully, I vainly cried,
‘Tis meet that I should pay when yet I know
Not what tis that I pay?  Ye Gods, ’tis strange,
‘Tis passing strange, perhaps I want it not.
Again they bid me quiet, again I railed
Till blue-robed clods were standing thick on me.
I hung my head, I cried in shame, I paid.
I ask thee, Manolito, canst be fair?

Manolo: The packet, what was’t, that caused thee all this trial?

Jorge: Ha, why, in truth, tell thee yet I can not,
For seeing only of what ilk it dealt,
And ang’ring as the flint that beareth fire
Left I it there: ‘Twas trash I needed not.
Of all the strange things that have reached my ears
It seems to me most wondrous Encotel
The hard-gained drachmas of a peasant poor
Should thus wring from his ignorance, for who
In presence of a packet from afar
Can yet resist, or, unresisting, live
With redress all denied tho cause there wert.
‘Tis strange, I swear, ’tis strange, yet ’tis, yet ’tis.