At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘Certainly it is,’ agreed Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘This is a matter of the greatest possible regret to me too.’

  Von Igelfeld thanked them for their concern. ‘Perhaps they will change their minds,’ he said. ‘We might even be rescued.’

  ‘No chance of that,’ said Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘The Army is pretty useless and, anyway, they probably have no idea that the place has been taken by these . . . these desperadoes.’ He looked up as he uttered this last phrase. Pedro had appeared at the door and was looking in, relishing the discomfort of his prisoners.

  ‘You may move around if you wish,’ he said. ‘You may enjoy the open air. The sky. The sound of the birds singing. Enjoy them and reflect on them while you may.’ He laughed, and moved away.

  ‘What a cruel and unpleasant man,’ said von Igelfeld.

  ‘They are all like that,’ sighed Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘They have no heart.’

  Dolores Quinta Barranquilla seemed lost in thought. ‘Not everyone can be entirely bad,’ she said. ‘Even the entirely bad.’

  Von Igelfeld and Cinco Fermentaciones stared at her uncomprehendingly, but she seemed in no mood to explain her puzzling utterance. Rising to her feet, she announced that she would go for a walk, would do some sketching, and looked forward to seeing them both at dinner.

  Von Igelfeld was aware of a great deal of coming and going among the guerrillas during the course of the day, but paid them little attention. He went for a brief walk in the late morning, but found the constant tailing presence of a young guerrilla disconcerting and he returned to the villa after ten minutes or so. It seemed that although Pedro was prepared to allow them to wander about the villa, he was determined that they should not escape.

  After an afternoon of reading in his room, von Igelfeld dressed carefully for dinner. Whatever the uncertain future held, and however truncated that future might be, he was not prepared to allow his personal standards to slip. Dressed in the smart white suit which he had brought on the trip he crossed the courtyard and made his way into the salon where Cinco Fermentaciones and Dolores Quinta Barranquilla were already sipping glasses of wine. They were not the only ones present, however: Pedro, dressed now in a black jacket, a pair of smartly pressed red trousers, and a pair of highly polished knee-high boots was standing with them, glass of wine in hand, engaged in conversation.

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ he said, referring to a point which Dolores Quinta Barranquilla had made just before von Igelfeld’s entry into the room. ‘Do you mean to say that Adolfo Bioy Casares himself was here. In this very room?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘He spent many hours talking to my father. I was a young girl, of course, but I remember him well. He wrote us long letters from Buenos Aires. I used to write to him and ask him about his first novel, Iris y Margarita.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Pedro.

  ‘I remember telling Che about that,’ Dolores Quinta Barranquilla went on. ‘He was very intrigued.’

  Pedro gave a start. ‘Che?’

  ‘Guevara,’ Dolores Quinta Barranquilla said smoothly. ‘Che Guevara. He called on a number of occasions. Discreetly, of course. But my father and I always got on so well with him. I miss him terribly.’

  ‘He was in this house?’ said Pedro.

  ‘Of course,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘Such a nice man.’

  Pedro nodded. ‘He is sorely missed.’

  ‘But now we have you!’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘Perhaps one day you’ll be as well-known as dear Che. Who knows.’

  Pedro smiled modestly and took a sip of his wine. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’re too modest,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘You never know. I used to be unknown. Now I am a bit better known.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘And now Professor von Igelfeld has become a Corresponding Fellow of the Academy of Letters.’

  ‘Really?’ exclaimed Pedro. ‘Well, my congratulations on that.’ He looked at von Igelfeld, as if with new eyes. ‘You don’t think . . . ’ he began. ‘Might it be possible . . . ’

  Von Igelfeld did not require any more pressing. ‘I would be honoured to propose you as a Member of the Academy. I should be delighted, in fact.’

  ‘And I would support your nomination,’ chipped in Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘I am virtually a Member myself and could expect to become a full Member provided . . . provided I survive.’

  ‘But of course you’ll survive,’ laughed Pedro. ‘Whatever made you think to the contrary?’

  ‘Something you said,’ muttered Cinco Fermentaciones. ‘I thought that . . . ’

  ‘Oh that,’ said Pedro nonchalantly. ‘I’m always threatening to shoot people. Pay no attention to that.’

  ‘You mean you never carry out your threats?’ asked von Igelfeld.

  Pedro looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘It depends on whether it’s historically necessary to shoot somebody. In your case, it is no longer historically necessary to shoot you.’

  ‘I am pleased to hear that,’ said von Igelfeld.

  ‘Good,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘Well, that’s settled then. Let’s go through for dinner. After you, Pedrissimo!’

  Pedro laughed. ‘That is a good name. My men would respect me more if I were called Pedrissimo. That is an excellent suggestion on your part.’

  ‘I am always pleased to help Moviemento Veintidós,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla.

  ‘Moviemento Veintitrés,’ corrected Pedro, almost pedantically, thought von Igelfeld; or certainly with a greater degree of pedantry than one would expect of a guerrilla leader.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla, taking her place at the head of the table. ‘Now, Professor von Igelfeld, you sit there, and Gabriel, you sit over there. And this seat here, on my right, is reserved for you, dear Pedrissimo.’

  Dolores Quinta Barranquilla had instructed the kitchen to make a special effort, and they had risen to the challenge. The depths of the cellar had been plumbed for the few remaining great wines (laid down some twenty years earlier by Don Quinta Barranquilla, who might not have imagined the company which would eventually consume them). These were served directly from the bottle, as decanting would have caused such vintages to fade. They were particularly appreciated by Pedro, who became more and more agreeable as the evening wore on. It might be impossible for him to travel to Bogotá in the near future to receive his Academy Membership, owing to the fact that the Government had put a price on his head (‘Such provincial dolts,’ Dolores Quinta Barranquilla had observed); however, he would be able to do so he hoped in the future, under a more equitable constitution.

  They ended the evening with toasts. Pedro toasted von Igelfeld, and expressed the hope that the rest of his stay in Colombia would be a pleasant one; Dolores Quinta Barranquilla proposed a toast to Pedro, and hoped that he would shortly be received into the Academy; and Cinco Fermentaciones proposed a toast to the imminent success of Moviemento Veintidós, rapidly correcting this to Veintitrés on a glance from Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. Finally, von Igelfeld gave a brief recital of Auf ein altes Bild by Mörike, which Pedro asked him to write down and translate into Spanish when he had the time to do so.

  Replete after the excellent meal, they all retired to bed and slept soundly until the next morning, when, to von Igelfeld’s alarm, they were awakened by the sound of gunfire. Von Igelfeld tumbled out of bed, donned his dressing-gown, and peered out of the window. A group of thirty or forty of Pedro’s men were marshalled in the courtyard, breaking open a crate of weapons and handing them round. Dolores Quinta Barranquilla was there too, helping to pass guns to the guerrillas. Von Igelfeld gasped. They had got on extremely well with Pedro the previous evening, and both sides had obviously reassessed their view of one another, but he had not imagined that it would lead to their all effectively joining Pedro in his struggle. And yet there was Dolores Quinta Barranquilla, rolling up her sleev
es and organising the guerrillas, and was that not Cinco Fermentaciones himself perched on the roof, rifle at the ready?

  Von Igelfeld dressed and waited in his room. A few minutes later, there was a knock on his door and he opened it to find Dolores Quinta Barranquilla standing there, a rifle in her right hand and another in her left.

  ‘Here’s yours,’ she said, handing him the rifle. ‘The ammunition is over there.’

  Von Igelfeld could not conceal his astonishment. ‘I don’t want this,’ he said, thrusting the rifle back at her.

  Dolores Quinta Barranquilla looked over her shoulder. ‘You have to take it,’ she whispered. ‘If you don’t, he’ll shoot you. And if he doesn’t shoot you, then the Army will shoot you if they take this place from the guerrillas. The local Army commander has a terrible reputation for not taking prisoners. So you effectively have no choice.’ She pushed the rifle back into von Igelfeld’s hands and gestured for him to follow her.

  ‘I’ll find a position where you won’t be in danger,’ she said. ‘You can go to my study window. It’s very small and it gives a good view of the driveway. If the Army comes up the driveway, you’ll have plenty of time to pick them off without being too exposed yourself. It’s the best place to defend the villa without too much personal risk.’

  Mutely, von Igelfeld followed her to his allotted position and crouched down beside her window.

  ‘You see,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘That gives you a clear field of fire. Have you ever fired a rifle before?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘The very idea.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Dolores Quinta Barranquilla. ‘Well, you just look down those sights there and try to line them up against an Army target. Then you pull that thing there – that’s a trigger. That’s the way it works.’

  Von Igelfeld nodded miserably. The pleasure at last night’s reprieve was now completely destroyed. He couldn’t possibly fire at the Army if they came down the driveway, but then what should he do? There was always the possibility of surrender, once the Army approached the house. Perhaps he could tie a piece of white cloth to the end of his rifle and stick that out of the window, but then that would hardly be effective if Pedro’s men continued to fire from their positions. It was all very vexing.

  Dolores Quinta Barranquilla left him in her study and went off to busy herself with passing ammunition to the guerrillas in their various positions about the house. Von Igelfeld drew a chair up to the window and sat down. He looked out down the driveway, along the line of trees that formed an avenue approaching the villa, to the countryside beyond. It all looked so peaceful, and yet even as he contemplated the scene there would be soldiers scuttling about in the undergrowth, edging their way into firing positions, ready to storm the villa. The sound of firing which he had heard earlier on had now died away, and there was a strange, almost preternatural quiet, as if Nature herself were holding her breath.

  Von Igelfeld thought about his life and what he had done with it. He had done his best, he reflected, even if there was much that he still wished to accomplish. If the day turned out in the way in which he thought it might, then at least he had left something behind him. He had left Portuguese Irregular Verbs, all twelve hundred pages of it, and that was an achievement. It was certainly more than Unterholzer had done . . . but, no, he checked himself. That was not an appropriate line of thought to pursue. He should not leave this world with uncharitable thoughts in his mind; rather, he should spend his last few hours – or even minutes – thinking thoughts which were worthy of the author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs. These were . . . Now that he tried to identify them, no worthy thoughts came.

  A shot rang out, and von Igelfeld grabbed his rifle, which had been resting against Dolores Quinta Barranquilla’s desk. He looked out of the window. There was a small cloud of smoke over the orchard, and then, quite loud enough to rattle the glass in the study windows, there came the sound of an explosion. A man shouted – something unintelligible – and then the quiet returned.

  Very slowly, von Igelfeld edged up the sash window and began to stick the end of the rifle outside. He paused. This brave gesture had produced no result. He was still there, alive, and nothing outside seemed to stir. This is war, he thought; this is the confusion of the battlefield. It is all so peaceful.

  He looked down the avenue of trees. Was that a movement? He strained his eyes to see, trying to decide whether a shape underneath an orange tree was a person, a sack, or a mound of earth. He pointed the gun at it and looked down the sights. There was a V and a small protuberance of metal at the end of the barrel. Dolores Quinta Barranquilla had told him how to fire the weapon, but now that he was faced with the need to do so, he could not remember exactly what it was that he was meant to do. His finger reached for the trigger, fumbled slightly with the guard that surrounded it, and then found its position.

  Von Igelfeld pulled the trigger. There was a loud report, which made him reel backwards, away from the window, and from the outside there came a shout. He closed his eyes, and then opened them again, his heart thudding within his chest. He had apparently fired the rifle and something had happened outside. Had he shot somebody? The thought appalled him. He had not the slightest desire to harm anybody, even the Colombian Army. It was a terrible thing to do; to come to a country to receive the Corresponding Fellowship of its Academy of Letters and then to open fire on the Army. Mind you, he reflected, he had not asked to come to the Villa of Reduced Circumstances; he had not asked to be kidnapped by guerrillas; and he had certainly not asked to be placed at this window with this rifle in his hands.

  There was more shouting outside, and this was greeted by shouts from the villa itself. After a moment, there was silence, and then another shout. And then, to von Igelfeld’s astonishment, a man emerged from behind a tree, a mere two hundred yards from the villa, and put his hands up. He turned round and shouted something, and suddenly a whole crowd appeared from the orchard and the surrounding trees, all of them shouting, lighting cigarettes and, in some cases, throwing weapons to the ground. The man who had come out first continued to shout at them and was now approaching the villa. As he did so, Pedro came out of the front door and walked briskly across to meet him. The two shook hands, and then Pedro slapped the other man on the back and they began to walk back towards the front of the house. As he neared the door, Pedro turned in the direction of von Igelfeld’s window and gave him a cheerful wave, accompanied by an encouraging gesture of some sort.

  ‘Comrades!’ shouted Pedro to the large group of guerrillas who had gathered in the courtyard, drinking red wine from paper cups. ‘We have secured a great victory. The Provincial Army Headquarters this morning surrendered the entire province to our control. You saw it happen. You saw the Colonel here get up and surrender. Wise man! Now he is with us, fighting alongside us, and brings all his armoured cars and helicopters with him.’

  These words were greeted with a loud cheering, and several paper cups were tossed into the air in celebration. Pedro, standing on a chair, smiled at his men.

  ‘And there is one man who brought this about,’ he declaimed. ‘There is one man who – myself excepted, of course – deserves more credit than anybody else for this great victory. This is the man who fired the shot that tipped the balance and brought the Army to its senses. That man, comrades in arms, is standing right over there in the shadows. That man is Professor el Coronel von Igelfeld!’

  For a moment von Igelfeld was too stunned to do or say anything. But he did not need to, as the guerrillas had turned round and were looking at him as he stood on the small verandah outside Dolores Quinta Barranquilla’s study.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘I’m not sure . . . I was sitting there and I suppose that . . . ’

  His words were heard by nobody, as the guerrillas, now joined by another fifty or sixty men in the uniform of the Colombian Army, began to roar their approval.

  ‘Viva!’ they shouted. ‘Viva el Coronel von Igelfeld! Viva!’r />
  Von Igelfeld blushed. This was most extraordinary behaviour on their part, but then they were Colombians, after all, and South Americans had a tendency to be excitable. As the cries of Viva! echoed about the courtyard, he raised a hand hesitantly and waved at the men. This brought further cheers and cries.

  ‘Viva Pedrissimo!’ shouted von Igelfeld at last. ‘Viva el Moviemento! Viva el pueblo Colombiano!’

  These were very appropriate sentiments, and the words were well-chosen. The guerrillas, who had now consumed more wine, were encouraged to shout out further complimentary remarks, and von Igelfeld waved again, more confidently this time. Then he returned to the study, the cries of Viva! ringing in his ears. He had noticed a very interesting book on Dolores Quinta Barranquilla’s shelves, and he intended to read it while Pedro and his new-found friends got on with the business of the revolution. Really, it was all very tedious and he had had quite enough of military action. It had been very satisfactory being applauded by the guerrillas in that way, but the satisfaction was a hollow one, he thought, and was certainly much less rewarding than being elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Academy.

  Von Igelfeld sat in the study until lunch time, reading the book he had discovered. There was a great deal of bustle about the villa, and several armoured cars and trucks arrived outside during the course of the morning. He thought of complaining to Pedro about the noise, as it was very difficult to read while all this was going on, but he eventually decided that he was a guest at this particular revolution and it would be rude to complain about the noise which his hosts were making. He would not have hesitated to do so in comparable circumstances in Germany, but in Colombia one had to make allowances.

  Shortly before lunch was served, a helicopter arrived. Von Igelfeld watched it with annoyance from his window. Was it an Italian helicopter, he wondered, made in Count Augusta’s helicopter factory near Bologna? He would ask at lunch, not that he expected to find anybody who knew anything about it, but he could ask. Several men in uniform stepped out of the helicopter and there were further cries of Viva! and even more bustle. Von Igelfeld returned to his book.