SHE WAS THE SORT OF GIRL BLESSED WITH GOOD LOOKS but cursed with a sharp mind. One did not go easily with the other, Edward felt. In time her beauty might fade and then only her mind remain, when it could be put to good use organising dinner parties. Right now the combination was distracting. Worse, she was a socialist.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Edward said. He wasn’t sure he heard right. They were seated for dinner at the Salazars, in their home off the Plaza Mayor. The Salazars were an old family, going back to the time of the Conquest, with roots in Spain. They had land holdings outside Lima, and the youngest brother, Felipe, was board member of the Banco de Lima, and tight with Moens. He was important to the Feebeses.
‘A mutualist,’ the girl said. ‘Have you not read Leroux? Our society, based on profit, is a monstrosity of inequality. Instead we should all work together, with the shared use of resources and—’
‘Do you mean, like a co-operative?’ Edward said. The girl’s eyes lit up.
‘You’ve read Robert Owen?’ she said.
Edward straightened the edges of the napkin on his lap.
‘A wealthy industrialist,’ Edward said. ‘I confess I do not understand his methods.’
‘You can’t argue his success,’ the girl said. ‘Owen proved that by running his cotton mill in New Lanark for, not despite of, his workers. Education, housing, pay! What is industry if not the sum of its workers?’
‘What do you advocate?’ Edward said, amused. ‘A revolution, like in France? Or like that German fellow, Marx, extols?’
‘Exactly!’
Her name was Sofia Salazar. She was very passionate. Also, rich. The Salazars were not in government so much as behind it. Edward had had a busy few weeks in Lima. He thought he was beginning to understand the lie of the land.
‘I know nothing of these matters,’ Edward said. ‘I am not a wealthy man myself. But I believe that if I work diligently and acquit myself well then I can progress, both economically and socially. That is only fair. Success or failure are down to me and me alone.’
‘Then you are just another individualist,’ Sofia said with distaste.
‘I suppose I am,’ Edward said.
‘And yet what is your labour, Mr Feebes?’ Sofia said. He was a little surprised she was allowed to speak so freely. In England she would be considered quite rude. But he had to remember he was no longer in England; and the girl’s brothers, all elder to her, were indulgent. She was rich, there was that too. The rules of social niceties need not apply to those born into social privilege. There was a hint of Indian blood in her. It annoyed him how much it attracted him to her.
‘I am a clerk,’ he said.
‘And what is that?’
‘I work with numbers,’ he said. ‘I see the flow of profit and loss, I chart its course, make sure it flows correctly. Take your nation, for instance—’
‘For instance,’ she said, and smiled a small smile.
‘The government of Peru depends on the mining and shipping of bird guano to Europe,’ Edward said.
‘You can say shit,’ Sofia said.
‘I beg your pardon!’
‘L’odeur de l’ordure dure où l’or dort,’ Sofia murmured.
‘The stench of shit lingers where gold sleeps!’ her brother, Felipe, overhearing from his end of the table, said and roared with laughter. The table shook, wine glasses shivering.
‘She’s a keeper, our Sofia,’ he said.
She wasn’t that, Edward thought. But she was a looker. Dark eyes, dark hair, a lovely complexion. But she had a mind of her own. Perhaps he should look upon it differently, he thought. Different rules applied in high society. And he, though a Feebes, was lowly yet. Perhaps he should not dismiss her so quickly.
‘The birds’… excrement,’ Edward said, ‘is of tremendous benefit as fertiliser in England. And Peruvian guano is the best in the world.’
‘The best!’ Felipe said.
‘My firm extends credit to the government,’ Edward said. ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, Miss Salazar, we fund your government.’
‘You are but the brokers!’ she said, outraged.
‘We pay in advance, at agreed upon rates,’ Edward said. ‘We are in effect lenders.’
And, he thought but didn’t say, he was beginning to suspect the Peruvian government was running behind on its debts.
‘And look what you’ve done with the money,’ he said, rallying to his point. ‘The new public buildings, the civic works. Lima truly is a jewel of the Americas.’
Grey, overcast and humid, with streets too narrow, he thought too but didn’t say.
‘You make nothing,’ Sofia said. ‘Not even the shit you profess to sell on our behalf out of kindness. It is Peruvian labour and Peruvian industry that enriches Europe, and what use is the money if it does not benefit the people?’
‘You may as well give it to the birds,’ Edward said, tired now of this exchange. ‘For they are the producers of your shit, not you.’
Felipe laughed so hard his wine spilled.
‘Liberate the birds!’ he said.
‘Oh, shut up, Felipe,’ Sofia said. But her lips twitched, almost in a smile. Edward counted it a point in his favour.
‘You speak as all Englishmen speak,’ Sofia said. ‘All the ones here in Lima, anyway.’
‘I came to work,’ he told her. ‘I am a worker. What do you do, Miss Salazar?’
‘Complain,’ her brother said. He finished his wine. ‘Shall we adjourn to the smoking room, gentlemen? I have some fine Por Larrañaga cigars only recently arrived from Cuba.’
The men rose. Edward followed suit. He nodded to Sofia.
‘Miss Salazar,’ he said.
‘Perhaps we can continue this discussion another time,’ she said, surprising him.
‘I would like that,’ he said.
Her lips twisted again, in what was now definitely a smile.
‘Then until later, Mr Feebes,’ she said.
*
‘They’re running out of guano,’ Moens said flatly. His bald head shone with sweat. His breath smelled of brandy and it was only eleven o’clock in the morning. The man was a disgrace, Edward thought. ‘That’s the long and short of it.’
‘How can you run out of guano?’ Edward said.
Moens patted his forehead with a crumpled handkerchief.
‘The birds are upset,’ he said.
‘The birds are upset?’
‘Or whatever you want to call it,’ Moens said. ‘The… balance of nature, or what have you. They are simply not producing at the required rate.’
‘And you know this how?’ Edward said.
‘A lady naturalist who did a survey,’ Moens said. ‘Mary something. Mary Stephenson. Comes from a trading family.’
‘A lady scientist?’ Edward said.
‘She seemed well read,’ Moens said. ‘In any case, she counted the nests, up and down the country. All the birds that fly to take a dump over the islands, begging your pardon. Each nest produces around a dollar fifty worth of guano, she figured. You need thousands and thousands of birds to turn a profit, and we do. Or we did. I guess the mining operation unsettles them.’
‘But that’s absurd!’ Edward said.
Moens shrugged. ‘Is it any more absurd than growing rich off of their by-product?’ he said.
‘Well, can nothing be done?’ Edward said. ‘A sort of… a redress of the balance of nature, and so on?’
‘I am not a scientist, Mr Feebes, begging your pardon,’ Moens said. He smirked a little when he called Edward that. A needling man, gone to waste but still poisonous. When Edward was a lowly clerk, Moens ruled the counting house. ‘A Feebes is not a Feebes until his name is on the ledger,’ he used to say. He resented not being granted seniority. He remained a clerk. Edward suspected his uncle sent Moens to Lima just to get him away. He had been a good clerk, but now the numbers weren’t adding up and Edward wasn’t convinced by the story of the balance of nature. Birds crapped. It’s what they did. They had done so, moreover, for thousands of years over the Chincha islands of Peru. The source of Peru’s wealth, the source of his own family’s fortunes. The Inca had mined guano on the islands, but the Inca were gone, and Britain needed fertiliser and was willing to pay handsomely for it. Top dollar, as the Yankees said. Something in the soil of Britain was no longer viable. Perhaps the factories and the crowding and the subsequent overproduction of food. Perhaps, as Moens had put it, the balance of nature had been put out of joint.
It didn’t matter. The guano worked like magic. It made crops grow. And so the merchants took this small-time operation in Peru and turned it into a global trade. The stuff empires were made of. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of that. Profits had to remain at the acceptable level.
‘How long?’ Edward said.
Moens mopped his brow. He sipped his brandy. He said, ‘Five, six more years, maybe. I think.’
‘You think?’
‘Do not shoot the messenger,’ Moens said. Something unpleasant came into his eyes; it was never far from the surface. ‘Go there yourself,’ he said. ‘Take a look. Mr Feebes.’
‘To the islands?’ Edward was startled. ‘What in God’s name for?’
Moens barked a laugh. ‘Don’t like to get your hands dirty? Can’t say I blame you. It’s a foul place. Still, if you want to see how the chicken is made you have to go to the slaughterhouse, don’t you.’
‘I am going for a coffee,’ Edward said. The office windows were closed and the air too hot and too still, and Moens’ breath, and his shiny visage, turned Edward’s stomach.
‘Nothing for me, thanks,’ Moens said, and laughed.
Edward turned his back on him.
*
Nearly a month in Lima now. He still wasn’t sure what to make of the place. The sea was grey, the sky likewise. The air was humid. No slaves were sold in the slave market anymore, not since Castilla had assumed power again earlier in the year. The people came in all shades but the upper class were white. The houses were new but the roads were unpaved. A lot of money flowing through here, but how much of it stuck he still wasn’t sure. Felipe Salazar complained the foreign merchants robbed Peru, kept all the money to themselves. Well, the Salazars were ones to talk. The government lived on borrowed money, much of it the Feebeses’. They shovelled guano onto the ships that sailed to Europe. They built palaces and parks. Edward had tried chewing coca but he didn’t like it much. Some sort of stimulant. No money in it. The locals were surly. There was a river, the Rimac. It smelled. Edward stuck close to the old part of town, the one Francisco Pizarro himself designed. Now there was a man. A conqueror. Defeater of the Inca, founder of this City of Kings. He had laid down the foundation stone for the great cathedral, had designed the Plaza Mayor, had built the Viceroyalty Plaza – the Casa de Pizarro!
So much gold, Edward thought. And all that Inca gold flowed out of the Lima port to Spain for centuries. By the time the British ventured out to the Americas what were they left with? Bird shit, that was what. And they turned that into gold. He needed a coffee. He poured some laudanum mixture into his handkerchief and breathed. That helped. He didn’t know the truth of it yet but he would. It was all in the numbers. It would be there. Moens wasn’t helpful but then, Moens wouldn’t be.
His head hurt. He needed coffee. He passed a tailor’s and a Dutch merchant’s shop and a street stall selling tamales. Some sort of Inca food. The meals in his boarding house were strictly European. He went to the café, which was French. Dr Steinmeier, the German, was sat at his usual table. Edward came in and sat down.
‘Heinrich,’ he said.
‘Edward. It is good to see you.’
He signalled to the waiter, who came over promptly. Edward ordered a coffee and a small pastry. He unfurled the napkin. Lima put him out of sorts and he couldn’t say why. Something about the muggy air and the murky quality of light. Something about the way the earth seemed to tremble, as though the city’s foundations were unsound. Earthquake country. And he didn’t like the river.
‘How goes your business?’ he said.
‘We are making good progress,’ Dr Steinmeier said. He was a very large man with a degree from Leipzig and terrible Spanish. ‘The new villa in Miraflores is half-complete and the workers are satisfactory.’
‘You have been here a while,’ Edward said.
‘Three years. And always building. I can’t complain.’
‘You like it here, Heinrich?’
The German considered. ‘It is a fine place,’ he said. ‘It could be finer. My wages are good. In two more years Miraflores will become a district of Lima and perhaps I will purchase a house there myself.’
‘You do not miss Germany?’
Dr Steinmeier laughed, then touched his breast. ‘Germany is here,’ he said. ‘Always here.’
‘I must confess myself still in the dark in regards to the greater picture,’ Edward said, ‘concerning Peru.’
‘Ah, my friend,’ Dr Steinmeier said. ‘Who of us can be said to understand her? She is a political creation, as all modern states are, an amorphous new thing imposed upon an old order. It is, ultimately, just another land for us to make a profit out of. Isn’t that why you are here?’
Edward thought of Sofia Salazar’s words. The Salazars were of Spanish blood but they were no longer Spanish – they were Peruvian. And their blood was mixed, this much was clear – everyone in this country for more than two generations had that infusion of native in them. To her, Edward and the others were foreign parasites. He grew hot at the thought, though whether from anger at Sofia or some other, deeper emotion she elicited in him, he would not yet be drawn to say.
‘Are you concerned of the morality involved?’ Dr Steinmeier said, amused. ‘Your firm benefits this country, Edward. You provide the funds to the government to look after the people. Without you, where would Peru be?’ He bit into a pastry, then laughed suddenly, crumbs spraying.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘But you say, without Peru there is no House of Feebes? Yet I say, without the House of Feebes, there is no Peru!’
Edward sipped his coffee. It was good coffee. He said, ‘I have been going over the ledgers. Without going into specific figures, I can nevertheless say you are not entirely wrong. The amounts that Feebes & Co. lend as advance against guano profits are considerable. Indeed, I had not realised quite how much before I came here.’
‘You were based in Spain, correct?’ Dr Steinmeier said.
‘Cádiz, yes. Cloth and so on.’ He felt suddenly defensive. ‘It was the original line of business for us Feebeses.’
‘But you are what, a cousin?’
‘A second cousin,’ Edward admitted.
‘Not in the line of inheritance, as such, then,’ Dr Steinmeier said.
‘What is your point, Heinrich?’ Edward said.
‘That you have been given an opportunity, Edward,’ Dr Steinmeier said. ‘You are clearly trusted. Valued. You are family.’
‘Yes,’ Edward said.
‘Instead of worrying what pretty Miss Salazar thinks of you,’ Dr Steinmeier said, and he smiled at Edward’s sudden blush, ‘you should think of how you can use this opportunity to your advantage. You are not – romantic notions aside – going to settle in Peru, make a bunch of babies and retire as Vice President of the República. You are going home. Back to Europe and civilisation. And you could go back a clerk, or you could go back a man of prospects.’
‘I appreciate all that,’ Edward said.
‘I thought you did,’ Dr Steinmeier said. ‘But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.’
They played a few hands of cards and the conversation turned to other topics. Edward remembered to ask Dr Steinmeier about Mary Stephenson, the lady naturalist Moens had mentioned, and Dr Steinmeier promised to ask around after her. It was only when Edward got up to leave that Dr Steinmeier grasped him by the wrist, so Edward had to bend down, close to the German’s face, to hear his parting words.
‘Be careful, Edward,’ he said.
Edward was startled but tried not to show it.
‘Careful?’ he said quietly.
‘Where there’s money there’s turbulence,’ Dr Steinmeier said. ‘Just a word to the wise, my friend.’
Steinmeier let go and Edward left the café, but he was shaken.
What did Steinmeier mean? Moens? The Salazars? Something else? He reached for his pocket handkerchief and put it to his face, but when he inhaled there was no swelling of relief. He took out the medicinal bottle and realised it was empty. His hands shook. He had brought extra supplies with him from England, but he realised now they had run dry. Well, it was no matter, he thought, steadying himself. There would be a drug store somewhere nearby.