A Funeral in Lima

by Vincent Guy

Several readers have told me they enjoyed the innocence in the lines from my journal of boyhood in smalltown Cheltenham. So here is another extract as preface to an event in Lima:

Friday, January 6th 1956

I went to town dressed as a girl, because I didn't want to wear my school uniform. Valerie lent me her scarf to wear on my head, and said I looked like a girl. That's how the idea came. We met Rosina (my sister) and Ian (her boyfriend) in the Promenade, and he did not recognize me at first. We had an early lunch, then saw Valerie off home on the coach. Then we went to Boots to buy my pen, and we met Auntie Con. I looked at books there, and in Smiths, and Banks. When I came home, Mrs. Pride was here, and I went over to her house to get some silver paper for Scouts. I asked her if Tony wanted his roller skates, and she gave me them. Then I went to Scouts. I have now passed all my Tenderfoot except for whipping. I tie as third best Scout, with quite a lot of others. I was in bed at 10:15.

Saturday, January 7th

 I sold my bike for 50 shillings, and then I took the extra chair for the party back to Auntie Con and showed her my new book “Man against Nature”. In the afternoon, I went to the party at Lister's (dance school). Marlene was there and seemed a bit nicer than when I last went. I won a prize for a game where you had to act a bit. Got Marlene in the barn dance. Mrs Lister told her (or us) several times to stop talking. Near the end Marlene said she would never dance with me again but she did. They played “Rock around the Clock”. I might get the record.

Sunday, January 8th

We got up late and after breakfast I played on my roller skates. After dinner, I went to Crusaders. I came home with Robin Hall, and we discussed how to approach attractive girls. Then I read some of my French books with Mum.

Monday, January 9th

Rosina had breakfast in bed, and I took it up to her. Then I played on my roller skates and ventured outside for the first time. In the afternoon we just missed the bus, so had to walk to the pictures. We saw “The Wizard of Oz,” and Leslie Caron in “The Glass Slipper”. I like Leslie Caron. She's not as film starry as most of them, and she is more human. I like the way impossible things, like dancing, only happened in dreams. It is rather strange that you should have two such good films together. After the film, we went to The Tiffin, all four, and I had spaghetti. We again just saw the bus go and had to walk home.

My girlfriend in Lima, María, amazingly beautiful like so many girls there, was from Surquillo, one of the poorest districts. One day she invited me to join her at the funeral of a young friend. I sent a letter about it back to a school chum in Cheltenham:

30 April 1962

Death and another Life

Yesterday I went to my funeral. I don’t know what he died of, only that it was sudden; the first I heard was the proposal that we should go to Vicente’s funeral. (Yes, my name is Vicente; for nine months the important aspects of my life have been conducted in Spanish, and I respond more readily to that name than to Vincent, Vince or Vinny). He was a simple bloke, my namesake, a young taxi-driver, rather shy when he first met me, well-paid, white-skinned gringo, but we went to the beach together a few times on Sundays and fiestas and there was a casual good feeling between myself and Vicente.

The funeral procession moves slowly through his native Surquillo, a colourful barrio on the outskirts of the capital, blue of the painted church, red of revolutionary daubings on the walls, green of the crops irrigated from the Rimac River; all colours dulled by the permanent film of dust: it never rains. The coffin is carried by four bearers, a pair at each end with their arms around each other, the sharp corners of the box resting on their shoulders. Each time we turn a corner on our way through the streets, the group will stop for two new couples to take their place; sometimes the front pair is too short and someone of better stature must quickly take their place to right the undignified list of their burden. These necessary manoeuvres are directed by the father, whose face shows the greatest grief in the company, his heavy cheeks drawn down with mourning – Vicente had begun to get fat too.

María walks a pace in front of me, head bowed, the curve of her hips moving at each step in the sober black line of her dress.

Through the magnificent gateway we enter the cemetery; a rubbish dump scattered with rusty cans, cartons and disordered heaps of earth; haphazard crosses mark the last resting places of Surquillo’s dead. Bordering the west side is in effect a cupboard made of crude brick, four drawers high and twenty long. Some of the cubbyholes are cemented in with a name scratched on them, the most recent have flowers attached. A few words are said over the coffin as it is eased into its cubicle, and a Cholo (native Peruvian) labourer starts to seal it up. The atmosphere is subdued but not tense; there are even a few light-hearted comments from the young men less affected by Vicente’s demise: “He’s bound to go to heaven because he died in Holy Week“. The sound of the name-scraping trowel stops; from the middle of the group goes up a horrid wail, some of the men step forward to help Vicente’s mother who writhes hysterically on the rubble.

The crowd files away leaving María and myself before the grave moving forward into the shadow of the long cupboard. She crosses herself and stands in perfect repose praying silently for Vicente’s soul.

Her skin, the hue of fertile soil, contrasts with the cemetery’s impoverished ground. Those dark limbs, when set off by oranges and blues, could not be more exciting; now, dressed in black, become the model of decorum. Had I been the other Vicente, I might eventually have married this girl who stands praying at my grave for a moment. Indeed, I’ve entered into her simpler world. But it is not possible: I am Vincent and Vicente is dead.

“Down the corridor into the rose garden

The door that I could not open.”

I have been learning to live their way. I relish ají, the hot sauce that goes with every dish. I can quiver my shoulders in the Guaracha [Peruvian folk dance] and wave a handkerchief with a certain grace in the more complex Marinera; I cross myself in church without feeling hypocritical, though I haven’t quite mastered the technique; I have even curbed my libido to a short good night kiss as my only contact with this most desirable of bodies. Actions can be learnt, emotions controlled but the marks left on my mind by a sophisticated European education cannot be removed. Her people’s unselfconscious, unquestioning acceptance of life stands at the opposite pole to the informed considered judgements which I can aim at. How could one accept the infallibility of the priest after thinking for years in terms of Marx and Freud? How could one support the oppressive political figure of General Odría having once studied the rise of Hitler? Or listen respectfully to Papá holding forth on the world situation, when you are analysing his discourse with the elements of truth, misinformation and prejudice in the common man’s mind? Travel and the liberal arts do not prepare one for reducing one’s boundaries to the corner of the street (and someone else’s street at that). No, Vicente, rest in peace in your brick cupboard. I cannot think your thoughts, nor live your life.

“That was a way of putting it.“

But now comes the real business of writing this letter after what I judge to be a competent piece of description, a psychological analysis which has no bearing on you, the recipient. My letters always seem to be addressed more to myself than to others. I suppose after a certain point one doesn’t change much. Apart from an increased consumption of booze and fags and an inordinate knowledge of the ways of the world for a teenager, I am much the same person. I have struck roots in this country, albeit I must pull them up again shortly; become involved with its people in their ways, albeit superficially. And I have found sympathy and friendship amongst people who are not on the lunatic fringe of society, the only element that could accommodate me in England. Nevertheless, that hectic feeling we enjoyed, how I miss it: the stimulus, the instability, the doubts and the ecstasy of living in mad England. Out here I have a strange, suspended relationship to the flow of time. The past takes on the rosy hues of nostalgia; the present is half delights and half restrictions, but I hate to contemplate its inevitable end. The future will be something of a return to the past (England), as yet full of rosy hopes to be fulfilled or dashed. The present (Peru) is problems – work is dull and saps my energies; the ex-pat English are crushing bores, and one can’t make love, yet there is an ample supply of things to provide me with memories of “happy Peruvian days“. Mixed blessings all round. Time heals not only love’s wounds, but the damage done by mundane necessity.

Yours in memory of

Vicente

 RIP.