The Whispering Land

I gazed at the half-finished picture. It was beautifully done, with a fineness of line and colouring that was amazing. I say amazing because the drawing and painting of birds is one of the most difficult of subjects in the whole natural history field. Here was work that was almost up to the standards of some of the best modern bird painters I had seen. You could see that it was the work of an untrained person, but it was done with meticulous accuracy and love, and the bird glowed on the page. I had the dead specimen in my hand to compare the painting with, and I could see that this painting was far better than a lot I had seen published in bird books.

He pulled out a great folder and showed me his other work. He had some forty paintings of birds, generally in pairs if there was any sexual difference in the plumage, and they were all as good as the first one I had seen.

"But these are terribly good," I said, "You must do something with them."

"Do you think so?" he inquired doubtfully, peering at the paintings. "I have sent some to the man in charge of the Museum at Cordoba, and he liked them. He said we should have a small book printed when I have enough of them, but this I think is doubtful, for you know how costly a production would be."

"Well, I know the people in charge of the Museum at Buenos Aires," I said. "I will speak to them about you. I don't guarantee anything, but they might be able to help."

"That would be wonderful," he said, his eyes shining. "Tell me," I said, "do you like your work here in the saw-mill?"

"Like it?" he repeated incredulously, "like it? Senior, it is soul-destroying. But it provides me with enough to live on, and by careful saving I have enough left over to buy paints. Also I am saving to buy a small cine-camera, for however skilful you are as a painter there are certain things that birds do which can only be captured on film. But these cine-cameras are very expensive, and I am afraid it will be a long time before I can afford it."

He talked on for an hour or so, quickly, enthusiastically, telling me what he had accomplished and what he hoped to do. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a man – a peasant, if you prefer the term – who worked in a saw-mill and lived in a house which, though spotless, no so-called "worker" in England would be seen dead in. To have discovered Coco in the outskirts of Buenos Aires would not have been, perhaps, so incredible, but to find him here in this remote, unlikely spot, was like suddenly coming across a unicorn in the middle of Piccadilly.* And, although he explained to me the difficulties of saving enough money to buy paints, and enough to buy his dream cine-camera, there was never once the slightest suggestion that financial aid might be forthcoming from me. He was simply, with the naiveté of a child, discussing his problems with someone he felt would understand and appreciate what he was doing. To him I must have represented a millionaire, yet I knew that if I offered him money I would cease to be his friend, and become as the other inhabitants of the village, a person who did not understand. The most I could do was to promise to speak to the Museum in Buenos Aires (for good bird-painters are not two a penny*) and to give him my card, and tell him that if there was anything that he wanted from England which he could not obtain in Argentina, to let me know and I would send it to him. When, eventually, Luna reappeared and we simply had to leave, Coco said goodbye wistfully, rather like a child who had been allowed to play with a new toy, and then had it taken away. As we drove off he was standing in the centre of the dusty, rutted street, watching the car and turning my card over and over in his hands, as if it were some sort of talisman.