Author's note:
Santiago
is the first instalment in a new collection of shorter pieces. Each narrative - limited to 5,000 words or less - recounts a different real-life event. As much as possible, nothing has been embellished: things unfold very much as I experienced them.
Some people's names have been changed, however, for all of the obvious reasons.
*****
It was the late nineties. I was twenty-two, and had just arrived back in Santiago after six very long months in southern Chile.
Hired by a Canadian forestry company, I'd been managing a large timber survey about as far south in Patagonia as you could get. Further, in fact. When the highway stopped, we'd taken a boat for another eight hours to the isolated logging camp. What followed was backbreaking work, rain, wind, and a tangled temperate jungle.
Half a year later, now finally free of the damp and the mould and the leeches, I'd arrived back in civilization. I was flush with cash and in good shape after hacking my way through more than five miles a day of dense forest.
I literally hadn't laid eyes on a woman the entire time I'd been there. I was achingly, maddeningly horny.
Walking out of the Santiago hotel after grabbing a shower and changing into something other than work clothes, I flagged the first taxi that I saw.
"English?" I said to the driver as I climbed into the back of the car. He waggled his hand. A qualified
'maybe'.
Shit.
How do I tell him that I want to find a place to get laid?
Today
?
I searched my meagre Spanish vocabulary for something that might work.
"Tener sexo,"
I said. I think this crudely translated, more or less, as '
I really need to get fucked.'
He looked carefully at me in the taxi's rear view mirror, and concluded pretty quickly that I wasn't an undercover cop. He smiled, and nodded.
Thirty minutes later, we were far out in one of Santiago's older neighbourhoods. Sharp sunlight on pale blank walls. Faceless two- and three-storey buildings hard up against concrete sidewalks. Not a tree in sight.
He pulled up in front of a small, nondescript door, yanked on the taxi's handbrake, and looked at me in the mirror again.
"Un momento,"
he said.
He got out of the cab, knocked on the door, and was quickly admitted inside. It closed with a rattle behind him. A minute later, it opened again, and he waved his hand at me.
"Ven."
Come.
I got out of the cab and joined him at the front door.
He wordlessly handed me over to a short, thickset bouncer type, who seemed to reside in the little hallway between the front door and a shockingly steep staircase. The bouncer looked me over carefully, waggled his head noncommittally, and then indicated that I should go up.
I turned to pay the taxi driver, and was surprised to find he'd already left. The bouncer urged me toward the stairs again. He hadn't said a word so far.
I started up the staircase, noticing for the first time that the walls were covered with old, red, velvet-flocked wallpaper. The sconce lights were dim, but I could make out what looked like an ancient Persian runner on the stairs.
Finally reaching the landing at the top, I was met by a shrewd-looking older woman. She held up her hand towards me in a 'stop' motion. I obeyed, not sure what to do next.
She looked me over, seeming almost surprised at how young I was. She started rambling at me in rapid Spanish, and it was my turn to hold up my hand.
"Solo un poco español,"
I said, clearly demonstrating the fact that I could hardly speak any Spanish.
She laughed, and called back over her shoulder to someone.
Taking me by the hand, she led me away from the landing into a large sitting room - also dim, and also lined with red velvet wallpaper. Leather armchairs and wooden side tables lined the walls. An assortment of beefy older men sat in the chairs, most smoking cigars and drinking pisco. The centre of the room had been left wide open, almost like a fashion catwalk.
Looking at the men closely, I guessed that many of them were either military or police in civilian clothing. You could tell by their bearing, and their hard air of entitlement. They clearly resented me from the minute I walked in. I could feel my balls retracting a bit.
To a man, they swivelled their heads and studied me. I was lean, tanned and fit, with a (now) trimmed beard. My ragged hair, though, still hung down around my shoulders after six months in the bush. I definitely did not fit in: I was someone these guys would feel far more comfortable throwing in jail than sharing a drink with.
The old women clapped her hands again to get my attention and mimed knocking back a drink. Not a fan of pisco, I jumped at the first thing that came to mind. "Champagne?" I asked desperately.
"Champagne?"
the woman echoed back, surprised.
"Si,"
I replied, trying to appear more certain than I actually felt.
What the fuck was I getting myself into?
She clapped her hands together again, this time with glee, and rushed out of the room.
Thirty seconds later, before the old boys could take advantage of her absence and start pummelling me, the woman swept back into the room. She was followed by an aged, tiny man carrying two thin glasses, and a champagne bottle in an ice bucket. He plunked them noisily down on the table beside me, eyed me carefully, and winked. He walked out of the room, cackling softly to himself.
I could hear a commotion in the hall outside the sitting room. Every few seconds, a different woman would peer briefly around the doorframe, scan the room, and then come to rest on me. This was usually followed either by a giggle, or a gasp, as their heads withdrew. There now seemed to be quite the whispered debate going on in the hallway.
With one sharp word from the old women, the murmuring stopped. She walked into the room, followed by her neatly organized chorus line.
There were twelve to fifteen women in all, looking like they'd come from every continent in the world. Scandinavian blondes, a redhead, women of Asian and African descent - someone for every taste under the sun.
Gathered in the centre of the room, they smiled at the men with practiced innocence, and thinly veiled boredom. They'd done this many times before.
