...of waves

Before he set off for the Arturo Prat Antarctica base on the last leg of his polar voyage, a gala dinner was held in his honour at a restaurant in Punta Arenas. According to the reports, Wieder drank to excess and slapped a naval officer for having failed to treat a lady with due respect. Concerning this lady the reports vary, but they all coincide on one point: she had not been invited by the organisers and none of the other guests knew her; the only plausible explanations for her presence was that she was a gatecrasher or that she had come with Wieder. He referred to her as “my lady” or “my young lady”. She was about twenty-five years old, tall, with dark hair and a shapely figure. At one point in the evening, perhaps during dessert, she shouted at Wieder, You’re going to kill yourself tomorrow, Carlos! An appalling lapse of taste, as everyone agreed. That was when the incident with the sailor occurred. Afterwards there were speeches, and the next day, after three or four hours’ sleep, Weider flew to the South Pole. It was, to say the least, an eventful flight, and on more than one occasion the unidentified woman’s prediction almost came true (none of the guests ever saw her again, incidentally). When he returned to Punta Arenas, Wieder described that the most dangerous thing had been the silence. To the genuine or simulated astonishment of the journalists, he explained that by “silence” he meant the waves of Cape Horn trying to lick the belly of the plane, waves like vast Melvillean whales or severed hands groping at the fuselage throughout the journey, but silently, dumbly, as if in those latitudes sound could only be made by humans. Silence is like leprosy, declared Wieder; silence is like communism; silence is like a blank screen that must be filled. If you fill it, nothing bad can happen to you. If you are pure, nothing bad can happen to you. If you are not afraid, nothing bad can happen to you. According to Bibiano, he was describing an angel. A proudly human angel? I hazarded, quoting Blas de Otero. No, dickhead, replied Bibiano, the angel of our misfortune.

[Distant Star, Bolano, R.]