By Night in Chile

Urrutia
    Lacroix. The very same, I said. Beside me, Mr. Raef was smiling and nodding without a word. Urrutia is a Basque name, isn’t it? It is indeed, I said.
    Lacroix, of course, is French. Mr. Raef and I nodded in time. Do you know where the name Etah comes from? I have no idea, I said. Take a guess, he said.
    Albania? You’re cold, he said. I have no idea, I said. Finland, he said. It’s half Finnish, half Lithuanian. Quite, quite, said Mr. Raef. In times long gone there was a good deal of commerce between the Finns and the Lithuanians, for them the Baltic Sea was like a bridge, or a river, a stream crossed by
    innumerable black bridges, imagine that. I am, I said. And Mr. Etah smiled.
    You’re imagining it, are you? Yes, I’m imagining it. Black bridges, oh yes, murmured Mr. Raef beside me. And streams of little Finns and Lithuanians going back and forth across them endlessly, said Mr. Etah. Day and night. By the light of the moon or the feeble light of torches. Plunged in darkness, guided by memory. Not feeling the cold that cuts to the bone up there near the Arctic Circle, feeling nothing, just alive and moving. Not even feeling alive: just moving, inured to the routine of crossing the Baltic in one direction or the other. A normal part of life. A normal part of life? I nodded once again. Mr.
    Raef took out a box of cigarettes. Mr. Etah explained that he had given up smoking for good about ten years before. I refused the cigarette that Mr. Raef offered me. I asked about the job they were proposing and what it would entail.
    It’s not so much a job as a fellowship, said Mr. Etah. We’re mainly an
    import-export firm, but we’re branching out into other areas, said Mr. Raef. To be precise, at the moment we’re working for the Archiepiscopal College. They have a problem, and we’re looking for the ideal person to solve their problem, said Mr. Etah. They need someone to undertake a study, and it’s our job to find the person who fits the bill. We meet a need, we look for solutions. And do I fit the bill, I asked? No one is better suited to the task than you, Father, said Mr. Etah. Perhaps you might explain just what this task consists of, I said. Mr. Raef looked at me in surprise. Before he could protest, I told him I would like to hear the proposal again, but this time from Mr. Etah. Mr. Etah needed no further prompting. The Archiepiscopal College wanted someone to write a report on the preservation of churches. Naturally no one in Chile knew
    anything about the subject. In Europe, on the other hand, a good deal of
    research had been undertaken, and in some quarters there was talk of definitive solutions putting a stop to the deterioration of God’s houses on earth. My task would be to go and see, to visit the churches at the forefront of the battle against dilapidation, to evaluate the various methods, to write a report and come home. How long would it take? I could spend up to a year traveling around various European countries. If my work was not completed within a year, an extension of six months could be granted. I would receive my full salary each month, plus an allowance to cover travel and living expenses in Europe. I could stay in hotels or in the parish hospices scattered the length and breadth of the old continent. Need I say it was as if the job had been designed especially for me. I accepted. During the following days I had frequent meetings with Mr. Etah and Mr. Raef, who were taking care of all the paperwork for my trip to Europe. I wouldn’t say I warmed to them, however. They were efficient, that was clear from the start, but they were also sadly lacking in tact. And they knew nothing about literature, except for a couple of Neruda’s early poems, which they could recite from memory and often did. Still, they knew how to solve what to me seemed insuperable administrative problems and did whatever was required to smooth the way to my new destiny. As the day of my departure approached, I became more and more nervous. I spent a good while saying goodbye to my friends, who couldn’t believe my luck. I made an arrangement with the newspaper whereby I would go on sending reviews and installments of my column back from Europe. One morning I said goodbye to my elderly mother and took the train to Valparaíso, where I embarked on the
Donizetti
, a ship that plied between Valparaíso and Genoa under the Italian flag. The voyage was slow and refreshing and enlivened by friendships that have