Here is a detail of a caricature of Virginia’s writer, Valle-Inclán. She found it on our trip to South America in 1998 in the library in Santiago, Chile. Riots broke out that day because Chile had just won its first game in the Mundial–the World Cup for soccer– in twenty or so years. (It had been banned from the World Cup for years because of a scandal way back—someone who had lost a game had been shot—something like that).
She always regretted not having been able to get a good photo copy of it. It might not even have been possible to get a color photocopy in those days. So ever since she has been trying to figure out how to get a copy. Many requests through the mail to the library, through librarians, through librarians in Spain and Chile, etc. To no avail.
This winter we walk in Wal-Mart nearly every day. One day, early evening, the ski bus from Waterville Valley pulls up and many young people come into the store, they look like skiiers. But we hear them speaking Spanish and some Portuguese and we recognize that they are Latin Americans and as we walk, we eavesdrop and try to guess if they are from Argentina or Peru or Chile. Finally we ask some of them and strike up a conversation. One young man, Daniel, is from Chile. We’re proud to tell him how much we loved our visit to Chile—to Santiago, to Valparaiso, to Viña del Mar, to all of the houses of the great poet, Pablo Neruda. Daniel and his friends had been in New Hampshire to have some adventure skiing during their summer vacation, to make some money working on the ski slopes here. They were heading back in a few weeks.
Virginia has been working on her second book on Valle all winter. It concerns his trip through South America in 1910. The question of getting that caricature comes up repeatedly.
One snowy & cold evening we are strolling for our daily exercise in Wal-Mart and I say, Hey, why don’t we ask Daniel if he would be willing to look up your caricature for you when he goes back? We are able to find him in the store right then and we put the question to him. As soon as I go home I put it all in an email and email him at his gmail address.
He is due to leave in a few days, so there is no reply. We know he is going first to Los Angeles to visit an aunt and have some vacation there.
Thursday evening we get our first email. Daniel is back in Chile and going to his classes in Valparaiso in the morning. Which library should he try first?
We don’t know but suggest he try the city library.
Tonight–after we got home from our post-prandial walk at Wal-mart, we got two emails from Daniel and six photos with this message.
Hello Bob & Virginia,
I found both of the copies you told me to search (October 6th and October 13th, 1910) but none had the caricature you were looking for. I did find it, though, on the copy printed on October the 20th, 1910. I took many pictures of it but I’m not sure if the quality of the pictures will meet your requirements.I’m sending some of the best pictures I could take.If you’re not pleased with the quality of the pictures, please tell me so and I’ll see what I can do (but sadly, the Library does not open on weekends and you kind of need it in a short while).I’m attaching the pictures,Hope you two had a good day today
Greetings
Daniel Venegas Bocic
P.S.: I did have a good time in Los Angeles and I have had classes on wednesday and thursday (classes started the 3rd of March so I must catch up!)
P.S.2: I’ll send another e-mail with more pictures bye bye
I printed up the images in color and took them downstairs.
Virginia was ecstatic. We shouted. We clapped. We high-fived.
Now she has the cover for her book. And it is sure to win the Convocatoria—the competition
sponsored by the Institute for Valle-Inclán studies at the University of Santiago Compostela.
I’m looking for someone with the Math skills I need to calculate this project. We go to our local Super Wal-Mart nearly every day in the winter. It is our largest enclosed space and the best place for Virginia to walk. She likes to use a cart, placing her left hand on the bar in order to give it some stimulation. Once launched she usually walks in the largest orbit, racking up steps on her trusty pedometer. Between the house and a Wal-Mart visit she can rest at night having done between 4000 and 8000 steps a day on average. While she is walking the perimeter, I wander around the store.
