copies of the same book. I don’t know who explained
this rule to me, maybe it was the product of my own speculations and fantasies. That
would have been typical: I was always inventing stories and schemes to make sense of
things I didn’t understand, and I understood almost nothing. Anyway, where else
could the explanation have come from? My parents weren’t very communicative, I
couldn’t read, there was no television, and the kids in my gang of neighborhood
friends were as ignorant as I was.
Seen from a distance, there’s something dreamlike about this scene with the boxes of
books, and the way we’re dressed up as if for a photo. But I’m sure that it happened
as I’ve described it. It’s a scene that has kept coming back to me over the years,
and in the end I’ve worked out a reasonable explanation. Plans must have been afoot
at the time to set up the Pringles Public Library, and someone must have organized a
book drive, with the support of the hotel’s proprietors: “a dinner for a book,” or
something along those lines. That’s plausible, at least. And it’s true that the
library was founded around that time, as I was able to confirm on my most recent
visit to Pringles a few months ago. Sarita Subercaseaux, moreover, was the first
Head Librarian. During my childhood and adolescence, I was one of the library’s most
assiduous patrons, probably the most assiduous of all, borrowing books at a rate of
one or two a day. And it was always Sarita who filled out my card. This turned out
to be crucial when I began high school, since she was the headmistress. She spread
the word that in spite of my tender years I was the most voracious reader in
Pringles, which established my reputation as a prodigy and simplified my life
enormously: I graduated with excellent grades, without having studied at all.
During my most recent visit to Pringles, hoping to confirm my memories, I asked my
mother if Sarita Subercaseaux was still alive. She burst out laughing.
“She died years and years ago!” Mom said. “She died before you were born. She was
already old when I was a girl . . .”
“That’s impossible!” I exclaimed. “I remember her very clearly. In the library, at
school . . .”
“Yes, she worked at the library and the high school, but before I was married. You
must be getting mixed up, remembering things I told you.”
That was all I could get out of her. I was unsettled by her certainty, especially
because her memory, unlike mine, is infallible. Whenever we disagree about something
that happened in the past, she invariably turns out to be right. But how could she
be right about this? Perhaps I was remembering Sarita Subercaseaux’s daughter, a
daughter who as well as being the spitting image of her mother had followed in her
footsteps. But that was impossible. Sarita had gone to her grave unmarried and she
was the archetype of the unmarried woman, the town’s classic old maid: always
meticulously groomed; cool and remote, the very image of sterility. I was quite sure
of that.
Getting back to the hotel. The movement between the tables in the restaurant and the
little altar where the boxes were piling up was not entirely fluid. Everyone there
knew everyone else—that’s how it was in Pringles—so when people got up
from their tables to take their boxes to the far end of the room, they stopped at
other tables on the way to greet and chat with their acquaintances. The
acquaintances were careful not to talk too much, politely supposing that the people
who had stopped were carrying boxes of considerable weight (even if the contents
were, in fact, woefully meager). The carriers, in turn, responded more politely
still by chatting on, making it clear that the pleasure of the conversation amply
compensated for the effort of bearing the weight. These little transactions,
informed as they were by a sincere curiosity about the lives of others, which was
common to all the inhabitants of Pringles, turned out to be
this rule to me, maybe it was the product of my own speculations and fantasies. That
would have been typical: I was always inventing stories and schemes to make sense of
things I didn’t understand, and I understood almost nothing. Anyway, where else
could the explanation have come from? My parents weren’t very communicative, I
couldn’t read, there was no television, and the kids in my gang of neighborhood
friends were as ignorant as I was.
Seen from a distance, there’s something dreamlike about this scene with the boxes of
books, and the way we’re dressed up as if for a photo. But I’m sure that it happened
as I’ve described it. It’s a scene that has kept coming back to me over the years,
and in the end I’ve worked out a reasonable explanation. Plans must have been afoot
at the time to set up the Pringles Public Library, and someone must have organized a
book drive, with the support of the hotel’s proprietors: “a dinner for a book,” or
something along those lines. That’s plausible, at least. And it’s true that the
library was founded around that time, as I was able to confirm on my most recent
visit to Pringles a few months ago. Sarita Subercaseaux, moreover, was the first
Head Librarian. During my childhood and adolescence, I was one of the library’s most
assiduous patrons, probably the most assiduous of all, borrowing books at a rate of
one or two a day. And it was always Sarita who filled out my card. This turned out
to be crucial when I began high school, since she was the headmistress. She spread
the word that in spite of my tender years I was the most voracious reader in
Pringles, which established my reputation as a prodigy and simplified my life
enormously: I graduated with excellent grades, without having studied at all.
During my most recent visit to Pringles, hoping to confirm my memories, I asked my
mother if Sarita Subercaseaux was still alive. She burst out laughing.
“She died years and years ago!” Mom said. “She died before you were born. She was
already old when I was a girl . . .”
“That’s impossible!” I exclaimed. “I remember her very clearly. In the library, at
school . . .”
“Yes, she worked at the library and the high school, but before I was married. You
must be getting mixed up, remembering things I told you.”
That was all I could get out of her. I was unsettled by her certainty, especially
because her memory, unlike mine, is infallible. Whenever we disagree about something
that happened in the past, she invariably turns out to be right. But how could she
be right about this? Perhaps I was remembering Sarita Subercaseaux’s daughter, a
daughter who as well as being the spitting image of her mother had followed in her
footsteps. But that was impossible. Sarita had gone to her grave unmarried and she
was the archetype of the unmarried woman, the town’s classic old maid: always
meticulously groomed; cool and remote, the very image of sterility. I was quite sure
of that.
Getting back to the hotel. The movement between the tables in the restaurant and the
little altar where the boxes were piling up was not entirely fluid. Everyone there
knew everyone else—that’s how it was in Pringles—so when people got up
from their tables to take their boxes to the far end of the room, they stopped at
other tables on the way to greet and chat with their acquaintances. The
acquaintances were careful not to talk too much, politely supposing that the people
who had stopped were carrying boxes of considerable weight (even if the contents
were, in fact, woefully meager). The carriers, in turn, responded more politely
still by chatting on, making it clear that the pleasure of the conversation amply
compensated for the effort of bearing the weight. These little transactions,
informed as they were by a sincere curiosity about the lives of others, which was
common to all the inhabitants of Pringles, turned out to be
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