A Distant Father

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I’m the village schoolmaster. I live near the mill. Sometimes the wind covers my face with flour.

I’ve got long legs, and nights of insomnia have stamped dark rings under my eyes.

My life is made up of rustic elements, rural things: the dying wail of the local train, winter apples, the moisture on lemons touched by early morning frost, the patient spider in a shadowy corner of my room, the breeze that moves my curtains.

During the day, my mother washes enormous sheets, and in the evening we drink lemon balm tea and listen to radio plays until the signal gets lost among the dozens of Argentine stations that crowd the dial at night.

My village, Contulmo, is smaller than the neighboring town of Traiguén. Before going to the capital to get my teaching degree, I finished high school in Angol, a town much larger than Traiguén. While I was there, I was diagnosed with acute anemia, which the doctors treated by prescribing Scott’s Emulsion and injecting bracing shots of cod liver oil into my arms.

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