Charles Darwin —who related us to monkeys—, Albert
Einstein —who shattered Newton's theory of gravitation—, Edgar Allan Poe —who
awakened terror in entire generations— and my grandfather, Guillermo Montesinos
—who composed exquisite symphonies with his cello and left impressive pictorial
captures of the Arequipa sky—, all married their cousins or had children with
them.
I am the still-living proof that from such unions the
product is not always defective or monstrous. Rather, I was president of my
country, of Peru, and I turned it into the most modern in Latin America, not
without first having redeemed it from the ruins in which it lay sunk.
And although my contemporaries did not know how to
thank me for this, who will let me die in prison because, at over ninety years
of age, little time remains for me; I hold onto the hope that you, Peruvian
reader of the future, will manage to appreciate my deeds. Therefore, I am going
to tell you my story.
***
I belong to a lineage, that of the Montesinos, which
moved with a certain mediocrity, since the dawn of the republic, within the
cultural and political spheres of Peru. Its legacy was discreet; without much
brilliance, barely a faint trace. I, however, refounded the social, political,
and economic bases of the country; practically, I reinvented it, after having
lifted it from the abyss with the metallic pulse of a crane. That is to say, my
legacy was total.
***
I will begin my story by telling that of my
grandfather Guillermo.
I should clarify that I did not know him directly. I
was born twenty years after his death, which occurred in the year 1925.
He died young, playing the cello; an instrument whose
echoes accompanied him from his mother's womb and from which he did not detach
himself even while falling from the wooden platform he had erected on the roof
of his house to give memorable nightly serenades to his beloved Arequipa.
From that platform, moreover, Guillermo, assisted by
the curious eye of his camera, captured the most handsome, insolent, and
mysterious cloud formations of the Arequipa sky.
***
Rudecindo was the name of the Indian whom Guillermo
commissioned to build the platform. In reality, he was a frequent laborer at
the house, though not hired full-time.
He was also a voyeur; a voyeur of women. He deserved
that no one give him work, but my grandfather, who was generous —a rare thing
among the Montesinos— would offer him one or another specific odd job. That
said, he would never have hired him permanently in his mansion.
The beauty of my grandmother drove Rudecindo crazy,
who, whenever he could, spied on her through some crack, imagining her in a
series of heated scenes in which he turned out to be the unflagging lover.
Despite the biological turmoil to which she was
subjected by Guillermo —she suffered twenty-four pregnancies from which
fourteen children survived— María Montesinos, my grandmother, maintained her
conventual beauty; an austere beauty that I managed to inherit.
***
My grandfather was a peaceful man. This was because he
was only interested in three things in the world: playing the cello in the
early morning, photographing the clouds that coiled around the peaks of El
Misti, and fathering children on my grandmother; in that order.
Despite his height, corpulence, and his large
Kaiser-style mustache (he was indeed named Guillermo in honor of the first of
those German emperors), his eyes revealed an overgrown, self-absorbed child.
It was because of his peaceful spirit that my
grandfather did not make any scandal when he caught Rudecindo spying on his
wife while she was undressing in the master bedroom. The shameless little savage
had been caught with his hands down his pants. Guillermo grabbed him by the
neck, dragged him to the backyard, and admonished him severely, though in a low
voice, to prevent the atrocious fault from becoming general knowledge in the
mansion. The reprimand included a good ear pulling and a couple of blows with
his cane.
After a few minutes, Guillermo forgot the incident,
such was his nature, so prone to not harboring any grudge or resentment. But it
was in Rudecindo's heart where the employer's rebuke took thick and twisted
root. He determined that he had to return the affront to wash his honor as an
Indian. It would be a revenge that would bash his aggressor, keep him away from
intellectual salons, from the photography he so loved, and from going around
beating innocent Indians for a good long time.
***
One afternoon, taking advantage of the absence of the
mansion's occupants, Rudecindo pulled out the nails from the planks that
supported my grandfather's platform.
That night, returning from an intellectual gathering,
and after a brief and forgettable argument with my grandmother, Guillermo took
off his coat, put on some slippers, poured himself a small glass of whisky, and
went up to the platform.
Hidden behind the bushes in the mansion's orchard,
Rudecindo spied on each of his master's movements. He waited impatiently for
the moment when the planks would give way and the musician would break a few
bones in his fall. He wanted to see him battered in a bed, unable to take care
of his own needs.
Guillermo unsheathed his instrument and caressed its
strings. With delicacy, he took it by its neck and, with his free hand, picked
up the bow. The first tuning notes escaped the clearing provided by the lamp
hanging high on the platform.
That night, he would begin rehearsing one of the
compositions he had just finished a few days earlier. He would offer it at the
next private recital he would give to his fellow tertulia members in his
magnificent mansion. At these musical evenings, he used to decorate the walls
of his manor with his most recent landscape captures.
Since, in these solipsistic concerts, Guillermo gave
himself without reserve or any shadow, both musically and photographically, he
practiced with the discipline of a craftsman, even though many of the guests,
who were his neighbors, complained about the early morning rehearsal melodies,
calling them noise.
Hypocrites, my grandfather would murmur in a silent dialogue
with himself. They gobble down and devour everything I put on the tables at
my recitals; but how they love to badmouth when I start rehearsing. They don't
even have the courage to voice their complaints to my face. Bunch of cowards.
They're just as pharisaical as the people from Lima.
Those thoughts dissolved as soon as the bow made the
cello strings vibrate. The deep night awakened with those virgin notes.
Guillermo, softly illuminated by the dancing folds of light from the lamp, did
not need to read the scores standing upright before him; he knew the
meanderings of his composition by heart. He closed his eyes, enraptured by the
sonic ecstasy.
Meanwhile, the platform remained intact, supporting my
grandfather's weight without issue, which was no small matter. Rudecindo,
hidden by the thick night and the shaggy bushes, bit his lips, cursing the
resistance of the few nails that still fastened the planks. With jealousy and
rage, he helplessly observed Guillermo's unpunished enjoyment as he lyrically
intruded upon his neighbors' sleep.
Then, he decided to intervene to see his hunger for
revenge satisfied. Slipping through the grass, agile and furtive like creatures
of the underworld, Rudecindo managed to get under the platform and, grabbing
the hammer he had hidden right there, began to remove more nails. He had
loosened seven, and was working on the eighth, when the planks exhaled a scream
similar to that made by the ghostly woman who shrieked at night searching for
her dead children. Before Rudecindo could react, the platform came crashing
down on him.
Some legendary witnesses, of the kind that invent
memories without having seen anything, claimed that my grandfather did not even
realize he was falling, so blinded was he with the notes he was milking from
his tireless cello.
Guillermo Montesinos broke his neck instantly.
Those same witnesses also assured that the powerful
melodies of the cello were responsible for having loosened the nails that were
found scattered among the rubble.
Rudecindo was never heard from again. No one asked
about him.
