The Painter

Ernesto Cachihuango read the news in La Revista Publica three days after he had learned of it himself. Carlos Sandoval, Bolivia's greatest artist and a national hero, was gravely ill. Ernesto smiled as he picked up the review and saw Sandoval's aged face on the front page, flipped to the story two pages further in. For twenty years, he had been Sandoval's assistant; for the last ten the hand that moved his brush. Age did not abstain for art, and as his hands and eyes weathered, the elder artist had found it too difficult to capture his visions himself. Some of the best murals that bore Sandoval's name, works that drew international attention and acclaim had been put together by Ernesto.

Not that he was bitter. At least, not very. To work with such a man, such a legend, was a privilege that few could attest to. Sandoval was eighty-seven this year. His hands were now as gnarled with arthritis as those from some of his greatest works. He had lived a long time, seen many things, many revolutions of the people, and the tyranny of many a power not of Bolivia. All of this he had recorded through manipulations of paint and clay, each piece chronicling the anguish of an age.

Ernesto's own hands were strong, nimble, vital. His paintings featuring bold lines, hard landscapes, defiant figures, had received some recognition. This was, of course, how Sandoval had found him. Working with the legend Sandoval, Ernesto began to feel his own work was limited. While Sandoval's works portrayed an artistic voice that rumbled like thunder, Ernesto's own was but a whispered wind winding through the narrow streets of old La Paz.

Ernesto read the article while eating a light breakfast prepared for him by his wife; a soft-boiled egg, some bread, coffee. His own team, or rather the team of Sandoval, would be at the Palacio de Gobierno to continue the last work of the nation's aged treasure. They could wait a while longer. On this day, Ernesto knew he had to see his mentor. Carlos Sandoval was listed as resting in seclusion, but Ernesto knew him to be at his home not far outside the city. With saludos for his wife and daughter, he left his home for the teeming streets of La Paz.

The drive was long, winding up and out of the deep bowl of urbanity where the heart of the city lay, and up through the poverty of El Alto. The famous peak El Diente del Diablo, the Devil's Tooth, stood over the bowl a dark angel. Once, Sandoval had painted a mouth of Devil's Teeth, the teeth of capitalism, reaching down to consume La Paz. The man had such vision, such expression. Ernesto passed the military complex with its watchful guards mounted high on towers and then was beyond the city on country roads, where green plains and open skies stretched themselves out before him. In the distance, purple mountains touched with snow sat in a murky haze, silent. Ernesto passed an old bus, a small shanty town where bare-footed campesinos bartered over foodstuffs. He turned onto a side road and headed to the edge of the Valle de la Luna.

The Valley of the Moon was a startling landscape, barren and alien. The valley bed far below was dry and bleached of all colour by the sun. Narrow spires of hardened earth reached up jagged like a city of termite mounds. Harsh sunlight cast deep shadows between the sharp peaks, obscuring the floor from which they thrust up towards the sky. It was a monument of nature; while Ernesto himself felt intimidated by the brutal landscape, it was an ideal setting for a man such as Sandoval.

At the door to the mansion he was greeted by the butler. Ernesto was escorted through the living room, up the grand staircase and down the hall to the bedroom. Sandoval had hung some of his own, preferred works in that hall. Ernesto admired the subtly of the pieces hanging there. It was a collection called Pies y piernas, Feet and Legs, that Sandoval had produced in his younger years; one that had never gained the attention his work on hands had. It was still an impressive compilation; one that would no doubt gain much fame once the artist himself was dead. They also served as a symbol of beliefs of the man from once upon a time. As an artist, he was servant to the people, lower than they. For this reason, the pieces in the collection always looked up to their subject.