Jorge Sotirios - Lonesome George: A South American Odyssey

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Copyright Jorge Sotirios 2012

First published 2012

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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Jorge Luis Borges

Being detained wasnt as appealing as Id first imagined. Id always thought of jails as cold, forbidding places, but inside the lockup, heat rippled through the air and evoked sweat from every pore of my body. At least I could press my palms against the wall and think I was being cooled by a block of ice. Id read that nature generates everything from the equator: wind, tropical rain, light and heat. Only the doldrums are concealed at its core.

Maybe it was humidity and fatigue mixed together? I stared at the iron bars and visualised an abundance of nets. A mosquito net, naturally; the fishing net the boto evades but the piranha doesnt; or at the back of goal where a penalty shot creates a bulge to secure victory. I could even add the crisscross lacing that keeps the globe in museums from falling apart.

Was it just an hour ago that I was on the other side? How did destiny take me to the Galapagos Islands, of all places? When I slung a hammock between two trees, I believed I could reflect on my decision. Time and a tired body would iron out the creases, allowing an answer to emerge. But that had changed quickly, with the arrival of la policia.

Gasolina was blaring loudly from the guards transistor radio, while silence filled the intervals when the singer paused to refuel her lungs with air. I could have escaped; that was my first thought. The door was ajar, and the guards spent their time shuffling cards, as well as suppressing yawns that signalled their yearning for a midday siesta. But in all truthfulness, where could I go? On this island, surrounded by the ocean, whose incoming waves hemmed me in even further, there was no exit. No, far better to rehearse a speech of denial, of righteous anger, of naivet bordering on stupidity, ending in a crescendo of remorse!

I crouched in a corner and unfolded my map with a similar lethargy to that of an accordionist when striking a melancholic tune. The coast of the Americas began to sweat in my sweaty hands. The equator that cut the world in two was a crease cutting the Galapagos in half, and literally ran across the concrete floor. It struck me that it divided me too, with one of my feet in each hemisphere. I stood up and felt precariously suspended, as if upon a tightrope. It didnt help that my ankle had swelled up againa legacy of my sojourn in Buenos Aires.

It was true what Zor had said. This is where you need to go. Hed pointed to the island of Santa Cruz by rapping on the glass with an infected fingernail. Two roads met and merged into one, appearing as a Y. At these crossroads, I was spotted by the policia, who asked to see ID, whereupon I tried to bribe them with greenbacks, failing to see that there was no subtext, and was promptly frogmarched to this cell.

The guards insisted they search my mochila. What was I hiding? Unable to convince them of my innocence, I took a calculated guess. I mustered my best Spanish, thumped the desk hard, jolting a jar of pens upright, and demanded to see the Senior Officer immediatemente. For this I was confined, whilst they dialled El Supremo. The voice at the end of the line barked back, stinging the guards ears. This did not augur wellthe guards were now as nervous as I was.

Midday is strange. Aluminium shutters clang down, dogs roam in circles and the froth of beer expands slowly, like a drunk rising from sleep. In this cocooned hour even mosquitoes rest their wings to take a nap.

I should never have listened to Zor. Ive heard of gringos languishing in hellholes that Ecuador Tourism promotes as daytrips with lunch provided. When the writer Albert Camus visited a South American jail, one thing stuck out. OPTIMISM was multiplied down corridors to their vanishing point.

The art of the bluff is a skill in these parts, so I rehearsed my best lines. Yes mia Comandante, the dinero is mine. No, I was not aware the dollars were fake!

Si, I know Jorge Washington. Perdon? Barba? No, I didnt notice his beard!

A commotion jolted me from my daydreams. The guards ditched their cards, switched off the radio and tucked in their shirts. I unglued mine from the wall and watched a lamp, hastily arranged, flood the jail with extra light. The time for interrogation arrived the moment El Supremo did.

El Supremo carved a silhouette in the doorway. The outline of his portly figure scrolled across the ceiling, as if Hitchcock was making a drowsy cameo. Indeed he looked grumpy, as Alfred always did. Im sure the bags under his eyes still swayed like the hammock hed just given up. He approached his underlings, leaned over and listened carefully, then nodded his thick head.

The guards barged over, grabbed my mochila by the throat and dragged it along the corridor before dumping the contents in front of him. I felt violated. This had been my home for the past year, and now these uniformed thugs had begun to ransack every room!