First

Antonio Skármeta

Translated by Ceclia Boisier

First Comes the Sea

"First comes the sea,” my cousin said. "And then the sun, and then the night. If that’s what you wanted to know, you’re dismissed. Hand me the hammer.”

I reached under the fender and found it. I handed it to him quickly. He grabbed it and started to hammer a pipe with brief, violent blows; it might have been the exhaust pipe; I know nothing about automobiles.

"It has to be straightened out,” he said, hammering away.

"That’s not what I wanted to know,” I said.

"What did you want to know?”

"Well . . . about the sea and the sun and then the wind.”

"No, not the wind. After the sun, the night.”

"All right,” I said. "It was not that.”

"Let’s see,” my cousin said.

"You were studying Literature.”

"O.K. Go on.”

"You were Angélica’s guy.”

"What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”

"You aren’t going to hear me if you keep beating on that damn pipe!”

Without stopping, he turned around for a second and glanced at me. Then he looked back at the pipe, turned it over, and started to hammer on the other side.

"You’re not very polite,” I said.

"If you think the sea doesn’t come first, all right.”

"I don’t know,” I said.

"Talked to my father, didn’t you?”

"Yes.”

"I can see why he’s worried all right, but not you!”

"I want to know,” I said.

He stopped hammering, looked at the sky and blinked. He looked over the car, walking around it, took me by the shoulder, and without a word we went over to sit on the grass."You’re the best of the family,” he said to me.

"Oh, come on!”

"I mean it. You’re going to be somebody.”

"Your father’s also somebody,” I said. "You are too.”

"Not yet. Papa’s somebody in a certain way. He’s got money.”

"Besides, he worries about you.”

"I don’t like that,” he said.

"He wants you to finish your studies. And I think he’s right,”

I said. "I think he’s damn right, if you want to know.”

He jumped up. He went in the kitchen through the back door, then after a while he kicked the door open and came out with drinks in his hands. He sat down beside me and handed me one.

"What were you saying?”

"I think he’s damn right,” I said.

"No. Before that.”

"You were Angélica’s guy,” I answered.

"I agree.”

"I like her, I really do. I like her being your girl.”

"We’ll pick her up when I finish with the car,” he said.

"She coming with us?”

"I promised her,” he said.

Then he added: "College is not right. A guy like me’s got nothing to do in college.”

He leaned back against the apple tree.

"What do you want?” I said to him. "You’ve got money, good grades, you had Angélica. What do you want?”

He stretched his arms out, pursed his lips and then shrugged his shoulders.

"To understand,” he said.

"Understand what?”

"Everything. I’m a fool.”

"You’re the smartest one in the family,” I said. "You’re no fool. Why should you quit school ? Nobody has grades as good as yours. What’s the matter with you?”

He downed his drink and rolled the bottle across the grass tillit stopped against my shoe.

"Let’s finish the car,” he said. "Otherwise there won’t be any sun left at the beach.”

But he stayed there against the tree, with no apparent intention of going on with the work. I got up and put some tools in the box.

"Things happen to you sometimes,” he said.

"Like what?”

"I don’t know. Things.”

"Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. "Let’s finish the job.”

He walked toward the car, opened the door, and started the engine. Then he leaned against the wheel, looked in the distance, and ran his hand over the windshield.

"I like to feel free,” he said. "To feel my hands at work, touch my naked body, to talk. I like my woman to be free. I like to lie down with my woman freely and talk. You understand?”

"You should be a writer,” I said.

"I will be.”

Then he leaned back and breathed deeply.

"The best one,” he said. "There are things that happen to you. You think I sound dramatic?”

"Yes.”

"Does it bother you?”

"No,” I said. "I like it. I know you well.”

"You’re the best of the family,” he said again. "Even though you haven’t been to college.”

"I don’t go with college.”

He stretched out his hand, wrinkled his face, and touched his finger to his chest.

"Me either,” he said.

"Yes you do.”

"You’re always right,” he said. "Things happen, you know.”

"Right. What shall I tell your old man?”

"Nothing,” he said. "Bring the bathing suits and let’s go.”

"Let’s finish the car,” I said."It’s ready. I put the pipe back on and off we go.”

I turned to leave but when I opened the front door he stopped me with a whistle.

"The car, for instance,” he said. "Did you know that it hasn’t been running for three months?”

He looked at me, then raised his eyebrows and lifted up his head as if he were consulting me.

"O.K.?”

"O.K.,” I said. "And want to know something else?”

"What?”

"If you start writing you’re gonna be the best. Want to know why?’*

"Go on.”

" ’Cause you don’t make a braggy fuss about anything.”

"All right,” he said. "That’s not enough. At college we study writers who brag.”

"It’s different. You want to understand,” I said.

"That’s not enough either.”

"O.K., you are dramatic, dammit!”

"O.K.,” he said. "You’re the best of the family. Go gei the bathing suits.”

I went in and ran upstairs; in my cousin’s room I found the bathing suits, two towels, and a pack of cigarettes and put them in the bag. I was about to run down when I met my uncle coming out of his room.

"How’s it going?” he said. "What’s he doing now?”

"He fixed the car,” I said. "We’re going to the beach.”

"So he fixed the car, how ’bout that! He’s a smart kid. And about school, what does he say?”

"Nothing.”

"Nothing?”

"Don’t worry,” I said. "We’re in a hurry.”

"I have to worry. He’s my son.”

"He’ll go on studying. If you want to know, he can’t live without studying.”"How do you know?”

"Sometimes these things happen,” I said. And ran downstairs.

We got in and started off, at full speed. The car ran smoothly, easily. It had never sounded so good before, but my cousin didn’t boast about it. After a while, about noon, we stopped in front of Angélica’s house and my cousin went for her. I got out too, went into the coffee shop on the corner, and phoned the office that I wouldn’t be at work that afternoon because I was sick. Then I asked for a Coke, started a record in the Wurlitzer, and lit a cigarette.

When I got back to the car I noticed my cousin’s face had changed. His lips were pursed and he was frowning. Sitting beside him, Angélica greeted me with a slight smile as I sat down on her right, put my elbow on the window, and kept silent. After a while we turned onto the highway to the coast, and later we passed the airport, and then went through the town of Melipilla. My cousin was driving at full speed and hadn’t said a word. Angélica and I looked at the landscape and smoked.

When we got to Cartagena beach, he slowed down along the coast road, looking at the people, and the hills, and the sea. Then he gained speed again and didn’t stop until we got to Las Cruces beach.

"This will do,” he said. "You like it?”

Sure.

"How about you?” he asked Angélica.

"I like it very much.”

We undressed in the car, put our suits on, and walking slowly went over to stretch out on the sand near the water. My cousin lay on his stomach, stretched his arms and scooped up fistfuls of sand, which he pressed tight and let fall slowly. Angélica lay on her back and I remained sitting, smoking and watching her brown, slim body, and her black hair shining against the sand. She was just as I had met her a year before, when my cousin took me along and introduced her to me and told me she was it, that she was scatterbrained, but she was it anyway. Now she had changed; my cousin had been creating her, filling her life with his strength and wisdom.

"What’s the matter?” I said.

"He got that way,” she said. "All of a sudden.”

"What?”

"I don’t know. What does he want? I’ve been all right,” she said. "What does he want?”

"To understand.”

She got up, took a cigarette and I lit it for her.

"I’ll never really know him. He’s different,” she said.

"Yeah. He’s different.”

"What do you think?” she said.

"Everything’ll be fine.”

Later on my cousin got up, took Angélica by the arm and they walked toward the sea. Just before they reached he water, they stopped and talked for a few minutes. Then they went on, beyond their depth, and kept swimming for a while. I lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly, looking at the sky with the sun in my eyes. The day was clear, no wind, some birds singing above. Angélica ran up to me, dried her face and her body, sat down on the towel, fixed her hair, and smiled.

"Everything’s fine,” she said.

"Good,” I said. "What’s he doing now?”

"He’s floating. He likes to lie on his back and float.”

"He’s going to be a writer,” I said.

We kept talking for an hour or more and my cousin went on floating, and sometimes swimming, and sometimes diving from a rock. Then I went into the water, swam up to him, and we had a race, which I won. We sat on a rock and my cousin, breathless, nodded toward Angélica on the beach.

"Shhhhhhhhhh,” he said.

"O.K.,” I said.

"O.K.”

*

Night was coming when we started back. They sat in back andI drove to Santiago with the windows open and the warm November wind blowing hard against my face. We took Angélica home, and when we got to our house we went into the kitchen, put some cheese between pieces of bread, and bit into them. Then we went up to the room. My cousin sat at his desk, took out two books and some sheets of paper.

"The sea was O.K.,” he said.

"Right.”

"For me, it’s the most important thing.”

Then he handed me one of the books.

"Latin,” he said.

Then he passed me the other one.

"Classic Spanish. Cervantes.”

"Lope de Vega,” I said.

"The Arcipreste de Hita.”

"La vida es sueño,” I said. I took off my shoe and threw it at him.

"Magnificent books,” he said.

Then he turned in the seat, leaned his elbows on the table, put his head in his hands, and began to study. I opened Don Quixote at chapter thirty-three, lay on the bed, and didn’t stop reading till three in the morning. Then I put the book on the floor, covered my face with the pillow, and fell asleep. As far as I know my cousin went on studying.