Although the theme of time in Alejo Carpentier's novels and short stories has been the subject of a number of critical works,¹ little attention has so far been paid to the treatment of time in the short story "El derecho de asilo," which first appeared in 1967, in the French version of Guerra del tiempo. In this paper, I will examine the view of time presented in this story. It will be shown that a thematic connection exists between the treatment of time presented here and other structural elements of the story, in particular, the imprecise geographical location, and the fragmentation of the role of the narrator. The combined effect of these various mechanisms is to create in "El derecho de asilo" an essentially indeterminate, non-individualized world.

To summarize briefly the action of the story: after a military coup led by General Mabillán, the Secretary to the Presidency of a tropical Latin-American republic takes refuge in the embassy of the País Fronterizo, with which his own country has been engaged in a long-standing border dispute. During the two years he stays in the embassy, he gradually assumes the functions of Ambassador, making recommendations which further the economic development of the País Fronterizo and bring about a solution to the border question. He has an affair with the Ambassador's wife, and finally, by adopting the nationality of the País Fronterizo, he is at last free to leave the sanctuary of the embassy. He is then immediately appointed as the País Fronterizo's ambassador to his former country, to replace the man who had granted him asylum.

Whereas much of Carpentier's work is concerned with the passing of time, often in unusual and unexpected ways,² in "El derecho de asilo" the reader is introduced into an essentially timeless world. The temporal setting is deliberately ambiguous and much of the action takes place in a world in which time does not exist for the protagonist. The story opens on a Sunday in a summer month (which, at the end, we learn was June) of an unspecified year. At the beginning, the indication is that it is set in the early 1940's, for Sergeant Ratón is reading aloud from a newspaper Hitler's directive to the German troops to kill all Russians (10).³ However, this is contradicted later by the Ambassador's comment that cast-off American vehicles of World War II vintage took part in the parade he attended (52). The reader is thus left with conflicting indications as to the approximate year when the action takes place.

The coup takes place on Monday, and the Secretary is granted asylum in the embassy of the País Fronterizo whose constitution states that a foreigner may seek naturalization after two years of residence in the country (48). The Secretary becomes a citizen and presents his diplomatic credentials to General Mabillán a few days later on Tuesday, June 28, the only specific date given in the story. It is therefore to be assumed that two years and several days have passed since the coup occurred and the Secretary entered the embassy.

For the Secretary inside the embassy of the País Fronterizo, time is meaningless. The day-to-day sameness of his surroundings, and the repetition of the same actions result in his losing all sense of time. His only point of temporal reference is the sign above the hardware store opposite the embassy, announcing its foundation in 1912. The feeling that time has come to a standstill, which the unchanging surroundings and routine inside the embassy induce, is further compounded by those elements of the outside world which impinge upon the Secretary's life inside the embassy. Day after day the unchanging endless repetition of the liturgy and responses issues from the Church of the Milagrosa Virgen del Páramo next door. The objects displayed in the window of the hardware store (many of them unchanged in design over the centuries they have been in use) provide the Secretary with a panoramic view of the history of technology from protohistoric times up to the electric light bulb (30). However it is the electric train and the figure of Donald Duck in the window of the American department store that, more than anything else, come to stand as tangible representations of the unchanging and timeless nature of his situation in the Secretary's eyes. When the Donald Duck toy in the window is sold, it is immediately replaced by another, identical to it in every respect. This leads the Secretary to formulate a theory of epiphany: "A lo mejor Dios era revelado así, de tiempo en tiempo, por una potencia superior . . . custodia de su perennidad. En el minuto del cambio, cuando el trono del Señor quedaba vacío, era cuando occurrían las catástrofes de ferrocarril, las caídas de aviones, los naufragios de transatlánticos, se encendían las guerras, se desataban las epidemias" (31-32). The toy train further reinforces the feeling of Eternity-Timelessness: "día y noche proseguía su inacabable viaje sobre tres metros de rieles, sin dejar de encender una diminuta luz roja a cada vuelta" (30).

"El derecho de asilo" is written in an approximation of diary form, in seven sections. The titles of the five sections that record the events that occur during the two years that the Secretary spends in the embassy reflect the temporal dislocation produced in him by his unchanging surroundings. The story opens on Domingo; the coup occurs, and the Secretary is granted asylum on Lunes; before his naturalization and subsequent release from the embassy-prison in the final Hacia un martes section, the events of Otro lunes (Cualquier lunes), Un lunes que puede ser viernes, Viernes en lunes o jueves en martes próximo, and Cualquier día are recorded. This confusion as to what day it is reinforces the feeling that during the two years in the embassy, time comes to a standstill for the Secretary, so that he lives through the equivalent of two years of Mondays, days of boredom and repetition.⁴ Tuesday' symbolizes the day of release and a return to the outside world and the normal passage of time; this is indicated by General Mabillán's announcement after the Monday coup that "martes sería un día normal" (25). Meanwhile, for the two years in the embassy the Secretary lives in "un tiempo sin tiempo, donde era lo mismo que fuese viernes que lunes, jueves o martes" (48), in a timeless world "situado entre la eternidad de Dios y la eternidad del Pato Donald" (49).

Much of what takes place in the timeless world of the embassy is narrated in the present and imperfect tenses, whereas for events that occur outside the embassy, the preterite tense is used. Thus, for example, the preterite is used as the narrative tense in the first section, Domingo, the day before the coup occurs, and again in the final section, which recounts the Secretary's eventual release from the embassy. In the Lunes sections, on the other hand, which focus upon the Secretary's life inside the embassy, the present and imperfect tenses are used extensively.

The use of the present tense in these Lunes sections is significant in several respects. First, in general terms, the present tense imparts a greater sense of immediacy with regard to the events narrated than does a past tense, and necessarily also implies a lack of perspective towards them. Thus, for example, in the Secretary's attempt to avoid arrest during the coup, the use of the present rather than a past tense serves to heighten the tension: "Ratón te ha visto. Viene hacia tí . . . y te pone una mano demasiado pesada en el hombro. ' Ya vengo', dices. . . . Ratón queda atónito pero el Secretario siente que sus ojos le siguen atentamente cuando se dirige hacia el estanquillo abierto en el ángulo de un bar. . . . 'E1 bar no tiene salida a la calle' te dices. . . . Ratón no te quita los ojos de encima" (22).

More specifically, the extensive use of the present tense is significant in "El derecho de asilo" because of the basic semantic features associated with it. The present tense represents lack of tense, temporal neutrality, neither past nor future. Since for the Secretary the embassy of the País Fronterizo is a temporal vacuum, where past and future do not exist, the present is the appropriate tense to narrate the events of this atemporal world. In such a world where time is meaningless, apparently contradictory temporal terms may be juxtaposed; thus, the Secretary refers to the "antigúedad sin época" of the objects displayed in the hardware store (30), and to the "arcaísmo de los enseres modernos" there (31). The apparently unmotivated switching between the present and imperfect as narrative tenses in the Lunes sections further increases the sense that the embassy is a world in which time does not exist, for in a world where time has no meaning, present and past tenses may be interchanged indiscriminately.

The use of the present tense to narrate the Secretary's actions during his two years in the embassy is in keeping with one of its principal functions, that of representing habitual, repetitive or continuous actions, which begin in the past, are still going on at the present, and are continuing into some unknown time in the future.⁵ Thus, for example, the Secretary uses the present tense to describe his situation, and the notion of repeated actions and habitual states is conveyed by the tense: "Me aburro. Me aburro. Me aburro. Y estoy rodeado con cosas que traen elementos nuevos a mi aburramiento. [the church] me arroja a todas horas del día los latines de los oficios. . . . Miro hacia la Ferratería-Quincalla . . . y quedo absorto ante la antigüedad sin época de las cosas que ahí se venden. . . . '¿Hoy es viernes?' pregunto a la Señora Embajadora" (29-32). As mentioned above, the imperfect is used with the present as a narrative tense in the Lunes sections, and, like the present, it too expresses the basic notions of habit, continuity and repetition. The principal narrative tenses used in these sections thus have the function of underlining the unchanging, repetitive routine of the Secretary's life in the embassy.

This world in which time does not exist is brought to an end when the Secretary adopts the nationality of the País Fronterizo, and consequently is at last free to leave the sanctuary of the embassy. His imminent release is prefigured at the end of the Cualquier día section, when Donald Duck, the embodiment of the timeless and unchanging nature of the Secretary's situation, is struck by a bullet during a student demonstration against the government. Since the incident occurs on a national holiday, there is no one in the store to replace the toppled figure on its pedestal, and the spell of timelessness is effectively broken. In the next and final section, the world of Mondays comes to an end, and the story finishes on Tuesday, June 28, the day when the Secretary embarks upon a new life as a citizen of the País Fronterizo, and a new career as ambassador to his former country. Time becomes meaningful for him again. In a symbolic gesture, after presenting his diplomatic credentials, he returns to the embassy and sets the calendar to the correct date. He says: "Limpié el calendario de hojas muertas, poniéndolo en el martes 28 de junio. Empezaban tiempos mejores. . . . Al día siguiente me costó trabajo pensar que se vivía en miércoles, y que miércoles tenía sus obligaciones. Pero desde el jueves volvieron los días, con sus nombres, a encajarse dentro del tiempo dado al hombre" (70-71). He is now able to function with a vitality and a sense of purpose hitherto impossible, evident in the fact that now when he hears the church services from next door, he takes action against the noise by drowning it out with Louis Armstrong on the radio (71).

The events of "El derecho de asilo" are related by three narrators: a first person, yo, the Secretary; a narrator who addresses the Secretary with the familiar second person pronoun tú, and a narrator who refers to the Secretary in the third person. The opening Domingo section is narrated by the third person narrator. In the Lunes sections first, second and third person narrators interchange, and in the final section, Hacia un martes, the second person is dropped. Since the three narrators function differently in terms of the angle from which they view events, the rapid switching among them which is particularly marked in the Lunes sections, results in a continual shifting of the viewpoint from which events are observed, as for example in the following consecutive lines, where all three narrators interchange: "un día, el Asilado manifestó el deseo de adoptar la nacionalidad del País Fronterizo [third person]. —Estás loco', me dijo el Embajador [first person]. 'En vuestra extraordinaria constitución se lee (tomaste el tomo, lo hojeaste, estiraste el índice sobre el artículo interesante) que todo extranjero con dos años de residencia puede solicitar su nacionalizacion'" (48) [second person]. This switching among the narrators contributes significantly to the indetermination of "El derecho de asilo," for there is no single fixed viewpoint from which events are observed.

It was stated above that immediacy and lack of perspective with regard to the events narrated are characteristic of the present as the narrative tense. These are also features associated with the first person narrator, for since the yo is necessarily limited to his own perception and interpretation of events, a personal, when not actually biased view of events is presented.

In general terms, an important characteristic of narration in the second person (i.e. where the narrative is addressed directly to some 'you') is that it serves to establish a bond of intimacy and complicity with the reader.⁶ This is especially true in Spanish where the intimate tú pronoun forms are used, as they are here, as opposed to the more formal and remote usted. The reader is identified with the tú of the narrative, the protagonist in "El derecho de asilo." The two are fused into a single entity, tú, and in this way the reader is drawn into the narrative. Narration in the second person is significant in another way in "El derecho de asilo," if we regard the 'second person' narrator as the Secretary referring to himself using the second person pronoun in the same way that he also uses the first person yo. The 'second person' narrator is found only in the Lunes sections and significantly the switch from first to second person narration tends to occur at moments of emotional crisis for the Secretary. It is as if the yo cannot face up to these events, and by assuming the more distant role of the second person narrator, the Secretary is able to remove himself one degree from the crisis at hand; he steps back from the situation to view it more objectively. On the day of the coup, for example, he watches the arrest of the government ministers as they enter the presidential palace (narrated in the first person), then, at the moment of crisis, the narration switches to the second person: "Ratón te ha visto. Viene hacia ti" (22). Later, the Secretary relates in the first person how a student demonstration is broken up by the police: "Me asomo a la ventana; allá yacen varios de los míos, tirados en el suelo, perdiendo su sangre, arrastrándose bajos las balas que se encajan en las columnas y pilastras" (60). Here once again, at this moment of extreme anguish for him, the narration switches to the second person: "Vas hacia la Embajadora y te echas a sollozar en su regazo."

The third person narrator stands even further back from events, thus giving a more objective account of them than either the first or second person narrators. In "El derecho de asilo," events that take place outside the embassy are generally narrated in the third person. The simulated antiaircraft defense of the capital, for example, is narrated by a third person who supplies details which the Secretary, inside the embassy, cannot be aware of. When events inside the embassy are related in the third person however, it is not clear whether the narrator is a figure standing outside the narrative, or instead is the Secretary referring to himself in the third person, as he possibly also does in the second person. For example: "el Asilado, hastiado de su inactividad . . . se había echado encima todo el trabajo de la Embajada. Así, mientras el Señor Embajador leía sus siempre renovados tomos de Simenon . . . el Asilado redactaba notas diplomáticas, cartas confidenciales, comunicaciones a la Cancillería" (48). The possibility therefore exists that there are two third person narrators, an omniscient outsider, and the Secretary referring to himself in the third person.

In addition to not providing a fixed viewpoint from which events are observed, the fragmentation of the role of the narrator contributes to the overall indetermination of "El derecho de asilo" in another way. The result of using the first, second and third person pronouns to refer to the protagonist is that he is presented not as a single, unique individual, either a yo, tú or él, but instead as a composite figure, an Everyman, yo, tú and él. The minimal amount of personal information supplied about the Secretary reinforces this conclusion. There is no physical description of him and little is known about his life prior to the coup. One of the very few personal details revealed is that he admires the work of Klee (14). Most striking of all, his name (Ricardo) is only given at the very end; up to this point he has been referred to by the three personal pronouns, and by common nouns that indicate his status or occupation, but do not individualize him: el Secretario, el Asilado, el ex-Asilado, el nuevo Embajador.⁷

Whereas many of Carpentier's works are rigorously precise in their temporal and spatial settings (for example, El reino de este mundo, set amid the eighteenth century Dominican slave revolt, and El sigio de las luces, set against the background of the French Revolution), this is not the case with "El derecho de asilo." The temporal indetermination has already been discussed. The geographical setting is equally vague, for while many toponymical details are supplied, the rivers and towns named do not correspond with any actual location.⁸

In the same way that the protagonist is not individualized, but instead is to be regarded as a composite Everyman figure, so the Secretary's country and the País Fronterizo are presented as typical of the Latin-American situation, both historical and contemporary. Their history is one of Spanish colonization, liberation and caudillismo (41-42). The twentieth century has witnessed the rapid growth of U.S. economic investment and influence in Latin-American affairs. This is evident in "El derecho de asilo" in the references to American department stores and banks (24), military matériel (52), American-style tortures practised by the police (58), and the acquisition by the U.S. of mineral rights in the territory over which the Secretary's country and the País Fronterizo have been engaged in their longstanding border dispute (65). Internally, corruption is rampant among the ruling classes. Successive military coups bring new leaders into power, but government corruption continues unabated, typified by General Mabillán with his preference for foreign prostitutes (32), and his public works projects designed so that he collects the profits and commissions (25-26). All anti-government dissent is brutally repressed (57-60) and press censorship is enforced (40). No matter who controls the government it is the poor who suffer: "Lo malo son los cadáveres que nunca fueron de gentes del Country Club o de los barrios ricos. . . . Los arsenales latinoamericanos nunca tuvieron sino clientela de pobres," comments the Secretary (26). The non-individualization of the two countries is reinforced by the fact that the Secretary's country is never named, and the País Fronterizo is given a generic name, thus paralleling the use of common nouns to designate the protagonist.

An examination of the temporal and geographical setting of "El derecho de asilo" and the role of the narrator, shows that the work is strikingly indeterminate. The location is a typical Latin-American republic. It is not possible to determine when the action occurs, and all that can be determined with any certainty is that the Secretary leaves the embassy on Tuesday, June 28, presumably two years after taking refuge there. While inside the embassy, the Secretary loses all sense of the passing of time, as reflected in the section headings. The use of several narrators (three of whom represent different aspects of the same individual, the Secretary), has the effect of presenting the protagonist as a non-individualized, Everyman figure. This is reinforced by withholding his name until the end, and referring to him by common nouns. But the Secretary is not only a man without a name; while inside the embassy he is also a man without a country. For the two years that he spends in political asylum, he effectively has no identity and no nationality. Like all political prisoners, he is a non-person, cut off from the outside world. Only when the Secretary completes the required period of residency in the Pais Fronterizo and becomes a citizen does the world become normal for him again. It is at this point that things become more specific: the Secretary's name is revealed; time becomes meaningful again, he sets the calendar to the correct date and, significantly, the day of his release from the embassy is the only exact date given. He has a name and a nationality, and the story ends with the now ex-Secretary's optimistic words: "empezaron los trabajos y los días" (71).

Notes

¹ For example, Ramón García-Castro, "Perspectivas temporales en la obra de Alejo Carpentier," Diss. Univ. of Pennsylvania 1972; Klaus Múller-Bergh, "El problema del tiempo," Alejo Carpentier: Estudio biográfico-crítico (New York: Las Américas, 1972), pp. 101-26; Eduardo G. Gonzalez, "Los pasos perdidos: el azar y la aventura," Revista Iberoamericana, 38 (1972), 585-614.

² Time flows backwards in "Viaje a la semilla," time is circular in "El camino de Santiago," etc.

³ Alejo Carpentier, "El derecho de asilo" (Barcelona: Editorial Lumen, 1972). All references are to this edition.

⁴ This view of Monday closely parallels that of the narrator-protagonist of Los pasos perdidos who, having made the decision not to return to civilization, says: "Los lunes dejarán de ser para mí lunes de ceniza, ni habrá por qué recordar que el lunes es lunes," 6th ed. (México, D.F.: Compañía General de Ediciones, 1968), p. 206.

⁵ Linda R. Waugh, "An Analysis of the French Tense System," Orbis, 24, no. 2 (1975), 445-51.

⁶ See for example Richard M. Reeve, "Carlos Fuentes y el desarrollo del narrador en segunda persona," Homenaje a Carlos Fuentes, ed. Helmy F. Giacoman (New York: Las Americas, 1971), pp. 75-87.

⁷ This use of common nouns to designate a character is also found in "Los fugitivos": Cimarrón and Perro, and in Los pasos perdidos, el Adelantado, el Buscador de Diamantes, el Kappelmeister, etc.

⁸ This is also the case with Los pasos perdidos. There are many thematic and stylistic similarities between the two works.