76 ALBACORA 



from doing business with Chile, turned their scientific 

 skill to synthesizing an ersatz nitrate. They were too 

 successful. What the Germans produced was as effective 

 as Chilean nitrates and could be manufactured at a 

 lower cost. When the war ended, and the rest of the 

 world obtained the formula, there was what I suppose 

 is global progress. But Iquique cannot take a global 

 viewpoint. To the little village, ersatz nitrates did not 

 mean progress, but only the guarantee of slow and 

 painful death. Once, when Lou and I went to church in 

 Cavancha, a little fishing village near Iquique, we fell 

 in love with the charming stone grotto of the church. 

 But at the same time we were appalled by the church's 

 roof. It was not so much roof as an open Venetian blind. 

 There simply was no money for repairs. Iquique wears 

 its stark poverty with gentility, like an old lady who is 

 clad in tattered silk, for the village has known better 

 times. 



These solitary days spent in a dying city did some- 

 thing to me. I began to realize how fortunate I was. So 

 many women spend so many solitary days while they 

 and their husbands each go separate ways, following 

 separate hobbies, work and interests. Lou and I were 

 always very lucky. Our abiding interests always coin- 

 cided. From the first, we both dearly loved the sea. 



"Why?" I remembered someone asking once, during 

 a party at Twenty One or some other pleasant place 

 that Lou and I frequented. "Genie, can you tell me why 



