And of Clay

Are We
Created
by Isabel Allende
translated by M a r g a r e t S a y e r s P e d e n

T hey discovered the girl’s head protruding from the mudpit, eyes
wide open, calling soundlessly. She had a First Communion name,
Azucena. Lily. In that vast cemetery where the odor of death was already
attracting vultures from far away, and where the weeping of orphans and
wails of the injured filled the air, the little girl obstinately clinging to life
became the symbol of the tragedy. The television cameras transmitted so
often the unbearable image of the head budding like a black squash from
the clay that there was no one who did not recognize her and know her
name. And every time we saw her on the screen, right behind her was Rolf
Carlé, who had gone there on assignment, never suspecting that he would
find a fragment of his past, lost thirty years before.

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 First a subterranean sob rocked the more than twenty thousand human
cotton fields, curling them like waves beings and an indefinite number of
of foam. animals putrefying in a viscous soup.
Geologists had set up their Forests and rivers had also been swept
seismographs weeks before and away, and there was nothing to be seen
knew that the mountain had but an immense desert of mire.
awakened again. For some time they When the station called before
had predicted that the heat of the dawn, Rolf Carlé and I were together.
eruption could detach the eternal ice I crawled out of bed, dazed with sleep,
from the slopes of the volcano, but and went to prepare coffee while he
no one heeded their warnings; they hurriedly dressed. He stuffed his gear
sounded like the tales of frightened in the green canvas backpack he always
old women. The towns in the valley carried, and we said goodbye, as we
went about their daily life, deaf to the had so many times before. I had no
moaning of the earth, until that fateful presentiments. I sat in the kitchen,
Wednesday night in November when sipping my coffee and planning the
a prolonged roar announced the end long hours without him, sure that he
1
of the world, and walls of snow broke would be back the next day.
CLOSE READING  
What can you infer about loose, rolling in an avalanche of clay, He was one of the first to reach the
Rolf Carlé’s profession
stones, and water that descended on scene, because while other reporters
from the details in the
final two paragraphs on the villages and buried them beneath were fighting their way to the edges
this page? unfathomable meters of telluric vomit. of that morass in jeeps, bicycles, or on
As soon as the survivors emerged foot, each getting there however he
from the paralysis of that first awful could, Rolf Carlé had the advantage of
terror, they could see that houses, the television helicopter, which flew
plazas, white cotton plantations, dark him over the avalanche. We watched
coffee forests, cattle pastures—all on our screens the footage captured by
had disappeared. Much later, after his assistant’s camera, in which he was
soldiers and volunteers had arrived to up to his knees in muck, a microphone
rescue the living and try to assess the in his hand, in the midst of a bedlam
cataclysm (KAT-uh-klihz- magnitude of the cataclysm, it was of lost children, wounded survivors,
uhm) n.: an event causing
calculated that beneath the mud lay corpses, and devastation. The story
severe destruction

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 came to us in his calm voice. For to grasp until they shouted to her
years he had been a familiar figure in to catch it; then she pulled a hand
newscasts, reporting live at the scene of from the mire and tried to move, but
battles and catastrophes with awesome immediately sank a little deeper. Rolf
tenacity. Nothing could stop him, and threw down his knapsack and the tenacity (tuh-NA-sih-tee)
n.: firm determination
I was always amazed at his equanimity rest of his equipment and waded into
2
in the face of danger and suffering; it the quagmire, commenting for his
CLOSE READING  
seemed as if nothing could shake his assistant’s microphone that it was cold Context clues are nearby
fortitude or deter his curiosity. Fear and that one could begin to smell the words or phrases that
help you to infer the
seemed never to touch him, although stench of corpses. meaning of a word. Use
he had confessed to me that he was “What’s your name?” he asked context clues to infer the
meaning of equanimity
not a courageous man, far from it. I the girl, and she told him her flower in the sentence near the
believe that the lens of the camera had name. “Don’t move, Azucena,” Rolf top of the first column
on this page that begins,
a strange effect on him; it was as if it Carlé directed, and kept talking to her, “Nothing could stop
transported him to a different time without a thought for what he was him . . .” Then predict
how Rolf will react to this
from which he could watch events saying, just to distract her, while slowly catastrophe.
without actually participating in them. he worked his way forward in mud up
When I knew him better, I came to to his waist.
realize that this fictive distance seemed The air around him seemed as
to protect him from his own emotions. murky as the mud. It was impossible
Rolf Carlé was in on the story of to reach her from the approach he
Azucena from the beginning. He was attempting, so he retreated and
filmed the volunteers who discovered circled around where there seemed
her, and the first persons who tried to be firmer footing. When finally
to reach her; his camera zoomed he was close enough, he took the
in on the girl, her dark face, her rope and tied it beneath her arms, so
large desolate eyes, the plastered- they could pull her out. He smiled
down tangle of her hair. The mud at her with that smile that crinkles
was like quicksand around her, and his eyes and makes him look like a
anyone attempting to reach her was little boy; he told her that everything
in danger of sinking. They threw a was fine, that he was here with her
rope to her that she made no effort now, that soon they would have her

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 out. He signaled the others to pull, not seem desperate, as if an ancestral
but as soon as the cord tensed, the resignation allowed her to accept
girl screamed. They tried again, and her fate. The reporter, on the other
her shoulders and arms appeared, hand, was determined to snatch her
but they could move her no farther; from death. Someone brought him
she was trapped. Someone suggested a tire, which he placed beneath her
that her legs might be caught in the arms like a life buoy, and then laid a
collapsed walls of her house, but plank near the hole to hold his weight
she said it was not just rubble, that and allow him to stay closer to her.
she was also held by the bodies of As it was impossible to remove the
her brothers and sisters clinging to rubble blindly, he tried once or twice
her legs. to dive toward her feet, but emerged
3
“Don’t worry, we’ll get you out frustrated, covered with mud, and
CLOSE READING  
At the beginning of the of here,” Rolf promised. Despite the spitting gravel. He concluded that he
story, Rolf is described quality of the transmission, I could would have to have a pump to drain
as calm. How has his
manner changed, and hear his voice break, and I loved him the water, and radioed a request for
why has it changed? more than ever. Azucena looked at one, but received in return a message
him, but said nothing. that there was no available transport
During those first hours Rolf and it could not be sent until the next
Carlé exhausted all the resources morning.
of his ingenuity to rescue her. He “We can’t wait that long!”
struggled with poles and ropes, but Rolf Carlé shouted, but in the
every tug was an intolerable torture pandemonium no one stopped to
commiserate (kuh- for the imprisoned girl. It occurred commiserate. Many more hours would
MIHZ-uh-rayt) v.: express
to him to use one of the poles as a go by before he accepted that time
sympathy for someone or
something lever but got no result and had to had stagnated and reality had been
abandon the idea. He talked a couple irreparably distorted.
of soldiers into working with him for A military doctor came to examine
a while, but they had to leave because the girl, and observed that her heart
so many other victims were calling was functioning well and that if she
for help. The girl could not move, did not get too cold she could survive
she barely could breathe, but she did the night.

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 “Hang on, Azucena, we’ll have the when he exhausted his memory, he
pump tomorrow,” Rolf Carlé tried to called upon imagination, inventing
console her. things he thought might entertain
“Don’t leave me alone,” she begged. her. From time to time she dozed, but
4
“No, of course I won’t leave you.” he kept talking in the darkness, to CLOSE READING  
Someone brought him coffee, and assure her that he was still there and to Why does the author
describe the girl’s life
he helped the girl drink it, sip by sip. overcome the menace of uncertainty. as “small”? What words
The warm liquid revived her and she That was a long night. might describe Rolf
Carlé’s life?
began telling him about her small life, Many miles away, I watched Rolf
about her family and her school, about Carlé and the girl on a television
how things were in that little bit of screen. I could not bear the wait 1

world before the volcano had erupted. at home, so I went to National CRITICAL VIEWING
How does this photo
She was thirteen, and she had never Television, where I often spent entire illustrate how dire a
been outside her village. Rolf Carlé, nights with Rolf editing programs. situation this town is in?

buoyed by a premature optimism, There, I was near his world, and

was convinced that everything would
end well: the pump would arrive,
they would drain the water, move
the rubble, and Azucena would be
transported by helicopter to a hospital
where she would recover rapidly and
where he could visit her and bring her
gifts. He thought, She’s already too
old for dolls, and I don’t know what
would please her; maybe a dress. I
don’t know much about women, he
concluded, amused, reflecting that
although he had known many women
in his lifetime, none had taught him
these details. To pass the hours he
began to tell Azucena about his travels
and adventures as a newshound, and

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 5
I could at least get a feeling of what until I was dizzy—a frenzied and futile
CLOSE READING  
How are the narrator’s he lived through during those activity. At times I would be overcome
reactions to the disaster
three decisive days. I called all the with compassion and burst out crying;
similar to Rolf’s? How
do her emotions important people in the city, senators, at other times, I was so drained I
reinforce Rolf’s? commanders of the armed forces, the felt as if I were staring through a
North American ambassador, and telescope at the light of a star dead for
the president of National Petroleum, a million years.
begging them for a pump to remove
the silt, but obtained only vague
promises. I began to ask for urgent The
help on radio and television, to see child’s every
if there wasn’t someone who could
help us. Between calls I would run
suffering
to the newsroom to monitor the
hurt me
satellite transmissions that periodically
brought new details of the catastrophe. I watched that hell on the first
While reporters selected scenes with morning broadcast, cadavers of people
most impact for the news report, I and animals awash in the current of
searched for footage that featured new rivers formed overnight from
Azucena’s mudpit. The screen reduced the melted snow. Above the mud rose
the disaster to a single plane and the tops of trees and the bell towers
accentuated the tremendous distance of a church where several people
that separated me from Rolf Carlé; had taken refuge and were patiently
nonetheless, I was there with him. awaiting rescue teams. Hundreds of
The child’s every suffering hurt me soldiers and volunteers from the Civil
as it did him; I felt his frustration, Defense were clawing through rubble
his impotence. Faced with the searching for survivors, while long
impossibility of communicating with rows of ragged specters awaited their
him, the fantastic idea came to me turn for a cup of hot broth. Radio
that if I tried, I could reach him by networks announced that their phones
force of mind and in that way give were jammed with calls from families
him encouragement. I concentrated offering shelter to orphaned children.

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 Drinking water was in scarce supply, responsibility of embodying the horror
along with gasoline and food. Doctors, of what had happened in that place.
resigned to amputating arms and legs With the first light Rolf tried again to
without anesthesia, pled that at least dislodge the obstacles that held the girl
they be sent serum and painkillers in her tomb, but he had only his hands
and antibiotics; most of the roads, to work with; he did not dare use a tool
however, were impassable, and worse for fear of injuring her. He fed Azucena
were the bureaucratic obstacles that a cup of the cornmeal mush and bureaucratic (byuhr-uh-
KRAT-ihk) adj.: having to do
stood in the way. To top it all, the clay bananas the Army was distributing,
with administrative rules
contaminated by decomposing bodies but she immediately vomited it up. A
threatened the living with an outbreak doctor stated that she had a fever, but
of epidemics. added that there was little he could
Azucena was shivering inside the do: Antibiotics were being reserved for
tire that held her above the surface. cases of gangrene. By evening a gentle,
Immobility and tension had greatly persistent drizzle began to fall.
weakened her, but she was conscious “The sky is weeping,” Azucena
and could still be heard when a murmured, and she, too, began to cry.
6
microphone was held out to her. Her “Don’t be afraid,” Rolf begged. “You CLOSE READING  
tone was humble, as if apologizing for have to keep your strength up and be Azucena’s tone is
described as “humble,
all the fuss. Rolf Carlé had a growth calm. Everything will be fine. I’m with as if apologizing for all
of beard, and dark circles beneath his you, and I’ll get you out somehow.” the fuss.” What does this
tone tell you about her
eyes; he looked near exhaustion. Even Reporters returned to photograph personality?
from that enormous distance I could Azucena and ask her the same
sense the quality of his weariness, so questions, which she no longer tried
different from the fatigue of other to answer. In the meanwhile, more
adventures. He had completely television and movie teams arrived
forgotten the camera; he could not with spools of cable, tapes, film,
look at the girl through a lens any videos, precision lenses, recorders,
longer. The pictures we were receiving sound consoles, lights, reflecting
were not his assistant’s but those of screens, auxiliary motors,
other reporters who had appropriated
Azucena, bestowing on her the pathetic

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 7
cartons of supplies, electricians, another and could guess the rest; I
CLOSE READING  
Describe the equipment sound technicians, and cameramen: was present when she taught Rolf
reporters bring to the Azucena’s face was beamed to to pray, and when he distracted her
scene. Contrast this
equipment with the millions of screens around the world. with the stories I had told him in a
pump that Rolf requests. And all the while Rolf Carlé kept thousand and one nights beneath the
pleading for a pump. The improved white mosquito netting of our bed.
technical facilities bore results, and When darkness came on the second
National Television began receiving day, Rolf tried to sing Azucena to
sharper pictures and clearer sound; sleep with old Austrian folk songs he
the distance seemed suddenly had learned from his mother, but she
compressed, and I had the horrible was far beyond sleep. They spent most
sensation that Azucena and Rolf of the night talking, each in a stupor
were by my side, separated from me of exhaustion and hunger, and shaking
by impenetrable glass. I was able to with cold. That night, imperceptibly,
follow events hour by hour; I knew the unyielding floodgates that had
everything my love did to wrest the contained Rolf Carlé’s past for so
girl from her prison and help her many years began to open, and the
endure her suffering; I overheard torrent of all that had lain hidden in
fragments of what they said to one the deepest and most secret layers of

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 memory poured out, leveling before above ground; he saw before his
it the obstacles that had blocked his eyes the boots and legs of his father,
consciousness for so long. He could who had removed his belt and was
not tell it all to Azucena; she perhaps whipping it in the air with the never-
did not know there was a world forgotten hiss of a viper coiled to
beyond the sea or time previous to her strike. Sorrow flooded through him,
own; she was not capable of imagining intact and precise, as if it had lain
Europe in the years of the war. So he always in his mind, waiting. He was
could not tell her of defeat, nor of the once again in the armoire where his
afternoon the Russians had led them father locked him to punish him for
to the concentration camp to bury imagined misbehavior, there where
prisoners dead from starvation. Why for eternal hours he had crouched
should he describe to her how the with his eyes closed, not to see the
8
naked bodies piled like a mountain darkness, with his hands over his ears,
CLOSE READING  
of firewood resembled fragile china? to shut out the beating of his heart, An allusion suggests
or refers to something
How could he tell this dying child trembling, huddled like a cornered
without naming it
about ovens and gallows? . . . There animal. Wandering in the mist of explicitly. List the
allusions to water in
was much he did not tell, but in those his memories he found his sister
the paragraph on the
hours he relived for the first time all Katharina, a sweet, retarded child previous page that
the things his mind had tried to erase. who spent her life hiding, with the begins, “When darkness
came . . . “ Why might the
Azucena had surrendered her fear to hope that her father would forget the author have included
him and so, without wishing it, had disgrace of her having been born. these allusions?

obliged Rolf to confront his own. With Katharina, Rolf crawled

There, beside that hellhole of mud, it beneath the dining room table,
was impossible for Rolf to flee from and with her hid there under the
himself any longer, and the visceral long white tablecloth, two children
terror he had lived as a boy suddenly forever embraced, alert to footsteps
invaded him. He reverted to the years and voices. Katharina’s scent melded
when he was the age of Azucena, with his own sweat, with aromas of
and younger, and, like her, found cooking, garlic, soup, freshly baked
putrescent (pyoo-TREHS-
himself trapped in a pit without bread, and the unexpected odor of
uhnt) adj.: rotten;
escape, buried in life, his head barely putrescent clay. His sister’s hand in bad-smelling

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 his, her frightened breathing, her silk to dry his tears, but to tell him to pick
hair against his cheek, the candid gaze up a shovel: the war was over and now
of her eyes. Katharina . . . Katharina they must bury the dead.
9 materialized before him, floating on “Don’t cry. I don’t hurt anymore.
CLOSE READING   the air like a flag, clothed in the white I’m fine,” Azucena said when dawn
Describe Rolf’s sister, tablecloth, now a winding sheet, and came.
Katharina, and how he
feels about her. How at last he could weep for her death
might Rolf’s experience and for the guilt of having abandoned
with his sister impact
his attempts to help her. He understood then that all his “I don’t hurt
Azucena? exploits as a reporter, the feats that anymore.”
had won him such recognition and
fame, were merely an attempt to “I’m not crying for you,” Rolf Carlé
keep his most ancient fears at bay, a smiled. “I’m crying for myself. I hurt
stratagem for taking refuge behind a all over.”
lens to test whether reality was more The third day in the valley of the
tolerable from that perspective. He cataclysm began with a pale light
took excessive risks as an exercise of filtering through storm clouds. The
courage, training by day to conquer President of the Republic visited
the monsters that tormented him by the area in his tailored safari jacket
night. But he had come face to face to confirm that this was the worst
with the moment of truth; he could catastrophe of the century; the country
not continue to escape his past. He was in mourning; sister nations had
was Azucena; he was buried in the offered aid; he had ordered a state
clayey mud; his terror was not the of siege; the Armed Forces would
distant emotion of an almost forgotten be merciless, anyone caught stealing
childhood, it was a claw sunk in his or committing other offenses would
throat. In the flush of his tears he be shot on sight. He added that it
saw his mother, dressed in black and was impossible to remove all the
clutching her imitation-crocodile corpses or count the thousands
pocketbook to her bosom, just as he who had disappeared; He went to
had last seen her on the dock when the Army field tents to offer relief
she had come to put him on the boat in the form of vague promises to
to South America. She had not come crowds of the rescued, then to the

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 improvised hospital to offer a word watching the girl die. I was with them,
of encouragement to doctors and three days and two nights, spying on
nurses worn down from so many them from the other side of life. I was
hours of tribulations. Then he asked there when she told him that in all her
to be taken to see Azucena, the little thirteen years no [one] had ever loved
girl the whole world had seen. He her and that it was a pity to leave this
waved to her with a limp statesman’s world without knowing love. Rolf
hand, and microphones recorded his assured her that he loved her more
emotional voice and paternal tone than he could ever love anyone, more
as he told her that her courage had than he loved his mother, more than
served as an example to the nation. his sister, . . . more than he loved me,
Rolf Carlé interrupted to ask for his life companion, who would have
a pump, and the President assured given anything to be trapped in that
10
him that he personally would attend well in her place, who would have
CLOSE READING
to the matter. I caught a glimpse exchanged her life for Azucena’s, and I What does the President
of Rolf for a few seconds kneeling watched as he leaned down to kiss her do when he meets
Azucena? How does
beside the mudpit. On the evening poor forehead, consumed by a sweet,
his behavior contrast
news broadcast, he was still in the sad emotion he could not name. I with Rolf’s?
same position; and I, glued to the felt how in that instant both were
screen like a fortuneteller to her saved from despair, how they were
crystal ball, could tell that something freed from the clay, how they rose
fundamental had changed in him. I above the vultures and helicopters,
knew somehow that during the night how together they flew above the vast
his defenses had crumbled and he swamp of corruption and laments.
had given in to grief; finally he was How, finally, they were able to accept
vulnerable. . . . Rolf had wanted to death. Rolf Carlé prayed in silence
console her, but it was Azucena who that she would die quickly, because
had given him consolation. such pain cannot be borne.
I recognized the precise moment By then I had obtained a pump and
at which Rolf gave up the fight was in touch with a general who had
and surrendered to the torture of agreed to ship it the next morning

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 11
on a military cargo plane. But on the
CLOSE READING  
The author states that night of that third day, beneath the
Rolf and Azucena
unblinking focus of quartz lamps
have risen above the
“vultures.” Who or what and the lens of a hundred cameras,
might the “vultures” be?
Azucena gave up, her eyes locked with
those of the friend who had sustained
her to the end. Rolf Carlé removed
the life buoy, closed her eyelids, held
her to his chest for a few moments,
and then let her go. She sank slowly,
a flower in the mud.
You are back with me, but you are
not the same man. I often accompany
you to the station and we watch the
videos of Azucena again; you study
them intently, looking for something
you could have done to save her,
something you did not think of in
time. Or maybe you study them to
see yourself as if in a mirror . . . Your
cameras lie forgotten in a closet; you
do not write or sing; you sit long
hours before the window, staring at
the mountains. Beside you, I wait
for you to complete the voyage into
yourself, for the old wounds to heal. I
know that when you return from your
nightmares, we shall again walk hand
in hand, as before. 8

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 2

CRITICAL VIEWING
What does this photo
show about the
aftermath of a volcano
eruption?

D iscuss At the end of the story, Rolf is “not the same man” he was
before the disaster. How can tragic experiences change people’s
behavior or perspective on life? Discuss your answers with a partner.

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