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Marcos's longest trip. He returned with a shipment of enormous boxes that
were piled in the far courtyard, between the chicken coop and the woodshed,
until the winter was over. At the first signs of spring he had them transferred
to the parade grounds, a huge park where people would gather to watch the
soldiers file by on Independence Day, with the goosestep they had learned
from the Prussians. When the crates were opened, they were found to contain
loose bits of wood, metal, and painted cloth. Marcos spent two weeks assembling
the contents according to an instruction manual written in English, which
he was able to decipher thanks to this invincible imagination and a small
dictionary. When the job was finished, it turned our to be a bird of prehistoric
dimensions, with the face of a furious eagle, wings that moved, and a propeller
on its back. It caused an uproar. The families of the oligarchy forgot all
about the barrel organ, and Marcos became the star attraction of the season.
People took Sunday outings to see the bird; souvenir vendors and strolling
photographers made a fortune. Nonetheless, the public's interest quickly
waned. But then Marcos announced that as soon as the weather cleared he
planned to take off in his bird and cross the mountain range. The news spread,
making this the most talked-about event of the year. The contraption lay
with its stomach on terra firma, heavy and sluggish and looking more like
a wounded duck than like one of those newfangled airplanes they were starting
to produce in the United States. There was nothing in its appearance to
suggest that it could move, much less take flight across the snowy peaks.
Journalists and the curious flocked to see it. Marcos smiled his immutable
smile before the avalanche of questions and posed for photographers without
offering the least technical or scientific explanation of how he hoped to
carry out his plan. People came from the provinces to see the sight. Forty
years later his great-nephew Nicolás, whom Marcos did not live to
see, unearthed the desire to fly that had always existed in the men of his
lineage. Nicolás was interested in doing it for commercial reasons,
in a gigantic hot-air sausage on which would be printed and advertisement
for carbonated drinks. But when Marcos announced his plane trip, no one
believed that his contraption could be put to any practical use. The appointed
day dawned full of clouds, but so many people had turned out that Marcos
did not want to disappoint them. He showed up punctually at the appointed
spot and did not once look up at the sky, which was growing darker and darker
with thick gray clouds. The astonished crowed filled all the nearby streets,
perching on rooftops and the balconies of the nearest houses and squeezing
into the park. No political gathering managed to attract so many people
until half a century later, when the first Marxist candidate attempted,
through strictly democratic channels, to become President. Clara would remember
this holiday as long as she lived. People dressed in their spring best,
thereby getting a step ahead of the official opening of the season, the
men in white linen suits and the ladies in the Italian straw hats that were
all rage that year. Groups of elementary-school children paraded with their
teachers, clutching flowers for the hero. Marcos accepted their bouquets
and joked that they might as well hold on to them and wait for him to crash,
so they could take them directly to his funeral. The bishop himself, accompanied
by two incense bearers, appeared to bless the bird without having been asked,
and the police band played happy, unpretentious music that pleased everyone.
The police, on horseback and carrying lances, had trouble keeping the crowds
far enough away from the center of the park, where Marcos waited dressed
in mechanic's overalls, with huge racer's goggles and an explorer's helmet.
He was also equipped with a compass, a telescope, and several strange maps
that he had traced himself based on various theories of Leonardo da Vinci
and on the polar knowledge of the Incas. Against all logic, on the second
try the bird lifted off without mishap and with a certain elegance, accompanied
by the creaking of its skeleton and the roar of its motor. It rose flapping
its wings and disappeared into the clouds, to a send-off of applause, whistlings,
handkerchiefs, drumrolls, and the sprinkling of holy water. All that remained
on earth were the comments of the amazed crowd below and a multitude of
experts, who attempted to provide a reasonable explanation of the miracle.
Clara continued to stare at the sky long after her uncle had become invisible.
She thought she saw him ten minutes later, but it was only a migrating sparrow.
After three days the initial euphoria that had accompanied the first airplane
flight in the country died down and no one gave the episode another thought,
except for Clara, who continued to peer at the horizon.
After a week with no word from the flying uncle, people
began to speculate that he had gone so high that he had disappeared into
outer space, and the ignorant suggested he would reach the moon. With
a mixture of sadness and relief, Severo decided that his brother-in-law
and his machine must have fallen into some hidden crevice of the cordillera,
where they would never be found. Nivea wept disconsolately and lit candles
to San Antonio, patron of lost objects. Severo opposed the idea of having
masses said, because he did not believe in them as a way of getting into
heaven, much less of returning to earth, and he maintained that masses
and religious vows, like the selling of indulgences, images, and scapulars,
were a dishonest business. Because of his attitude, Nivea and Nana had
the children say the rosary behind their father's back for nine days.
Meanwhile, groups of volunteer explorers and mountain climbers tirelessly
searched peaks and passes, combing every accessible stretch of land until
they finally returned in triumph to hand the family the mortal remains
of the deceased in a sealed black coffin. The intrepid traveler was laid
to rest in a grandiose funeral. His death made him a hero and his name
was on the front page of all the papers for several days. The same multitude
that had gathered to see him off the day he flew away in his bird paraded
past his coffin. The entire family wept as befit the occasion, except
for Clara, who continue to watch the sky with the patience of an astronomer.
One week after he had been buried, Uncle Marcos, a bright smile playing
behind his pirate's mustache, appeared in person in the doorway of Nivea
and Severo del Valle's house. Thanks to the surreptitious prayers of the
women and children, as he himself admitted, he was alive and well and
in full possession of his faculties, including his sense of humor. Despite
the noble lineage of his aerial maps, the flight had been a failure. He
had lost his airplane and had to return on foot, but he had not broken
any bones and his adventurous spirit was intact. This confirmed the family's
eternal devotion to San Antonio, but was not taken as a warning by future
generations, who also tried to fly, although by different means. Legally,
however, Marcos was a corpse. Severo del Valle was obliged to use all
his legal ingenuity to bring his brother-in-law back to life and the full
rights of citizenship. When the coffin was pried open in the presence
of the appropriate authorities, it was found to contain a bag of sand.
This discovery ruined the reputation, up till then untarnished, of the
volunteer explorers and mountain climbers, who from that day on were considered
little better than a pack of bandits.
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