The Storyteller

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “So it’s true, you stole yourself a Yaminahua woman,” I remarked to Tasurinchi. He says he didn’t steal her. He traded a sachavaca, a sack of maize, and one of cassava, for her. “The Yaminahuas should be pleased. What I gave them is worth more than she is,” he assured me.

  “Isn’t that so?” he asked the Yaminahua woman in front of me, and she agreed. “Yes, it is,” she said. I understood that, too.

  Since the mischievous kamagarini stung the tip of his penis, Tasurinchi feels obliged to do certain things, suddenly, without his knowing how or why. “It’s an order I hear and I have to obey it,” he says. “I expect it comes from a little god or a little devil, from something that’s gotten deep down inside me through my penis, whatever it may be.” Stealing that woman was one of those orders, it seems.

  His penis is now the same as it was before. But a spirit has stayed on, there in his soul, which tells him to be different and do things that the others don’t understand. He showed me where he was urinating when the kamagarini stung him. Ay! Ay! it made him squeal, made him leap about, and he wasn’t able to go on urinating. He chased the wasp away with a smack of his hand, and he heard it laugh, perhaps. A while later his penis started getting bigger. Every night it swelled up, and every morning more still. Everybody laughed at him. He was so ashamed he had them weave him a bigger cushma. He hid his penis in its pouch. But it went on growing, growing, and he could no longer hide it. It got in his way when he moved. He dragged it along the way an animal drags its tail. Sometimes people stepped on it just to hear him yelp. Ay! Atatau! He had to roll it up and perch it on his shoulder, the way I do with my little parrot. That’s how they went along on their travels, heads together, keeping each other company. Tasurinchi talked to it to keep himself amused. The other listened to him, silent, attentive, just the way all of you listen to me, looking at him with its big eye. One-Eye—Little One-Eye!—just stared at him. It had grown a whole lot. The birds perched on it to sing, thinking it was a tree. When Tasurinchi urinated, a cataract of warm water, foamy as the rapids of the Gran Pongo, came out of its big mouth. Tasurinchi could have bathed in it, and his family too, maybe. He used it as a seat when he stopped to rest. And at night it was his pallet. When he went hunting, it was both sling and spear. He could shoot it to the very top of a tree to knock down the shimbillo monkeys, and using it as a club, he could kill a puma.

  To purify him, the seripigari wrapped his penis in fern fronds that had been heated over live coals. He made him sip their juice and sing, for a whole night, while he himself drank tobacco brew and ayahuasca. He danced, he disappeared through the roof and came back changed into a saankarite. After that, he was able to suck the evil from him and spit it out. It was thick and yellow and smelled like drunkard’s vomit. By morning his penis started shrinking, and a few moons later it was the little dwarf it had been before. But since then Tasurinchi hears those orders. “In some of my souls there’s a capricious mother,” he says. “That’s why I got myself the Yaminahua woman.”

  It seems she’s become used to her new husband. There she is, by the Mishahua, settled down nicely, as though she’d always been Tasurinchi’s wife. But the other women are furious, insulting her and finding any excuse to hit her. I saw them and heard them. “She’s not like us” is what they say. “She’s not people, whatever she may be. A monkey, perhaps, the fish perhaps that stuck in Kashiri’s gullet.” She went on slowly chewing at her cassava as though she didn’t hear them.

  Another time she was carrying a pitcher full of water, and without noticing she bumped into a child, knocking him over. Whereupon the women all set upon her. “You did it on purpose, you wanted to kill him” was what they said. It wasn’t true, but that was what they said to her. She picked up a stick and confronted them, without anger. “One day they’re going to kill her,” I said to Tasurinchi. “She knows how to look after herself,” he answered. “She hunts animals. Something I’ve never known women to do. And she’s the one who carries the heaviest load on her back when we bring cassavas in from the field. What I’m afraid of, and what’s more likely, is that she’ll kill the other women. The Yaminahuas are fighting people, just like the Mashcos. Their women too, maybe.”

  I said that, for that very reason, he ought to be worried. And go off somewhere else right away. The Yaminahuas must be furious at what he’d done to them. What if they came to take revenge? Tasurinchi burst out laughing. The whole matter had been settled, it seems. The husband of the Yaminahua woman, along with two others, had come to see him. They’d drunk masato together and talked. And eventually come to an agreement. What they were after wasn’t the woman but a shotgun, on top of the sachavaca, the maize, and the cassava he gave them. The White Fathers had told them he had a shotgun. “Look around for it,” he offered. “If you can find it, take it.” Finally they left. Satisfied, it seems. Tasurinchi isn’t going to give the Yaminahua woman back to her kinfolk. Because she’s already learning to speak. “The others will get used to her when she has a child,” Tasurinchi says. The children are already used to her. They treat her as though she were people, a woman who walks. “Mother,” they call her.

  That, anyway, is what I have learned.

  Who knows whether this woman will make Tasurinchi, the one from the Mishahua, happy? She may just as well bring him unhappiness. Coming down to this world to marry a Machiguenga brought misfortune to Kashiri, the moon. So they say, anyway. But maybe we ought not to lament what befell him. Kashiri’s mischance brings us food and allows us to warm ourselves. Isn’t the moon the father of the sun by a Machiguenga woman?

  That was before.

  A strong, serene youth, Kashiri was bored in the sky above, Inkite, where there were no stars yet. Instead of cassava and plantain, men ate earth. It was their only food. Kashiri came down the river Meshiareni, paddling with his arms, without a pole. His canoe skirted the rocks and the whirlpools. Down it came, floating. The world was still dark and the wind blew fiercely. The rain came down in buckets. Kashiri jumped ashore on the Oskiaje, where this earth meets the worlds of the sky, where monsters live and all the rivers go to die. He looked around him. He didn’t know where he was, but he was content. He started walking. Not long thereafter, he spied the Machiguenga girl who was to bring him happiness and unhappiness, sitting weaving a mat and softly singing a song to keep away the vipers. Her cheeks and forehead were painted; two red lines went up from her mouth to her temples. So, then, she was unmarried: she would learn to cook food and make masato.

  To please her, Kashiri, the moon, taught her what cassava and plantain were. He showed her how they were planted, harvested, and eaten. Since then there has been food and masato in the world. That is when after began, it seems. Then Kashiri presented himself at her father’s hut. His arms were laden with the animals he had hunted and fished for him. Finally he offered to clear a field for him in the highest part of the forest and to work for him, sowing cassava and pulling out weeds till it grew. Tasurinchi agreed to let him take his daughter. They had to wait for the girl’s first blood. It was a long time coming, and meanwhile the moon cleared and burned and weeded the forest patch and sowed plantain, maize, and cassava for his future family. Everything was going very well.

  The girl, then, started to bleed. She stayed locked up, not speaking a word to her kinfolk. The old woman who watched over her never left her, by day or by night. The girl ceaselessly spun cotton thread, never resting. Not once did she go near the fire or eat chili peppers, so as not to bring misfortune upon herself or her kinfolk. Not once did she look at the man who was to be her husband, nor did she speak to him. She went on in that way until she stopped bleeding, Then she cut her hair and the old woman helped her to bathe herself, wetting her body with warm water poured from a pitcher. At last the girl could go live with Kashiri. At last she could be his wife.

  Everything followed its course. The world was peaceful. Flocks of parrots flew overhead, noisy and content. But there was another girl in the hamlet, who may not have been a wom
an but an itoni, that wicked little devil. It disguises itself as a pigeon now, but then it dressed as a woman. She waxed furious, it seems, seeing all the presents Kashiri brought his new family. She would have liked to have him as her husband; she would have liked, in a word, to give birth to the sun. Because the moon’s wife had given birth to the healthy child whose fire would give light and heat to our world when he grew up. So everyone would know how angry she was, she painted her face red with annatto dye. She went and posted herself at a bend in the path where Kashiri had to pass on his way back from the cassava patch. Squatting down, she emptied her body. She pushed hard, swelling herself up. Then she dug her hands into the filth and waited, storing up fury. When she saw him coming, she threw herself at him from among the trees. And before the moon could escape, she’d rubbed his face with the shit she’d just shat.

  Kashiri knew at once that those stains could never be washed away. Marked by such shame, what was he going to do in this world? Sadly, he went back to Inkite, the sky above. There he has remained. Because of the stains, his light was dimmed. Yet his son is resplendent. Doesn’t the sun shine? Doesn’t he warm us? We help him by walking. Rise, we say to him each night as he sinks. His mother was a Machiguenga, after all.

  That, anyway, is what I have learned.

  But the seripigari of Segakiato tells the story differently.

  Kashiri came down to the earth and spied the girl in the river, bathing and singing. He approached and threw a handful of dirt at her that hit her in the belly. She was angry and started throwing stones at him. It had started raining all of a sudden. Kientibakori must have been in the forest, dancing, having drunk his fill of masato. “Stupid woman,” said the moon to the girl. “I threw mud at you so you’d have a son.” All the little devils were happily farting at each other under the trees. And that’s what happened. The girl got pregnant. But when her time came to give birth, she died. And her son died, too. The Machiguengas were furious. They seized their arrows and their knives. They went to Kashiri and surrounded him, saying: “You must eat that corpse.” They threatened him with their bows. They thrust their stones under his nose. The moon resisted, trembling. But they said: “Eat her up. You must eat up the dead woman.”

  At last, weeping bitter tears, he slit open his wife’s belly. There was the baby, twinkling. He pulled it out and it came to life, it seems. It moved and whimpered in thanks. It was alive. Kashiri, on his knees, began swallowing his wife’s body, starting with the feet. “That’s all right, you can go now,” the Machiguengas said when he’d reached her stomach. Then the moon, hoisting the remains onto his shoulder, went on his way, back to the sky above. There he is still, looking at us. Listening to me. The stains that show on him are the pieces he didn’t eat.

  Furious at what they’d done to Kashiri, his father, the sun stayed put, burning us. He dried up the rivers, parched the fields and the woods. Made the animals die of thirst. “He’s never going to move again,” said the Machiguengas, tearing their hair. They were frightened. “We’re doomed to die,” they sang sadly. So then the seripigari went up to Inkite. He spoke to the sun. He persuaded him, it seems. He would move again. “We’ll walk together,” they say he said. That’s the way life was from then on, the way it is now. That’s where before ended and after began. That’s why we go on walking.

  “Is that why Kashiri’s light is so weak?” I asked the seripigari of the Segakiato. “Yes,” he answered. “The moon is only half a man. Others say that a bone got stuck in his throat while he was eating a fish. And that, ever since, his light has been dim.”

  That, anyway, is what I have learned.

  As I was coming here, even though I knew the way, I got lost. It must have been Kientibakori’s fault, or his little devils’, or a very powerful machikanari’s. Without any warning, it suddenly started raining; the sky hadn’t darkened or the air turned briny. I was fording a river and the rain was coming down so hard I couldn’t climb up the bank. After two or three steps I slipped back, the earth gave way beneath my feet, and I found myself at the bottom of the channel. My little parrot was frightened, flapped his wings, and flew away squawking. The bank became a gully. Mud and water, stones, branches, bushes, trees split in two by the storm, bodies of birds and insects. All rolling down on top of me. The sky turned black; bolts of lightning flashed and crashed. The peals of thunder sounded like all the animals of the forest roaring at once. When the lord of thunder rages like that, something grave is happening. I went on trying to climb up the gully. Would I succeed? If I don’t clamber up a really tall tree, I’ll be carried away, I thought. Any moment now, all this is going to be a boiling caldron of water pouring down from heaven. I had no strength left to struggle; my arms and legs were badly injured from my many hard falls. I was swallowing water through my nose and my mouth. Even my eyes and my anus seemed to be taking in water. This is going to be the end of you, Tasurinchi. Your soul will take off to goodness knows where. And I touched the top of my head to feel it leaving.

  I don’t know how long I kept on, climbing up, rolling down, climbing up again. The channel had become a wide river after swallowing its banks. At last I was so tired out I let myself sink beneath the water. “I’m going to rest,” I said. “Enough of this useless struggle.” But do the ones who go like that rest? Isn’t drowning the worst way to go? In a moment I’d be floating on the Kamabiría, the river of the dead, headed for the abyss with no sunlight and no fish: the lowest world, the dark land of Kientibakori. Meanwhile, without my noticing, my hands had grabbed hold of a tree trunk that the storm had cast into the river, perhaps. I don’t know how I managed to climb onto it. Nor whether I fell asleep at once. The sun had set. It was dark and cold. The raindrops falling on my back felt like stones.

  In my sleep I discovered the trap. What I’d taken for a tree trunk was an alligator. What sort of bark could those hard, prickly scales be? It’s a caiman’s back, Tasurinchi. Had the alligator noticed that I was on its back? If so, it would have been flicking its tail. Or it would have dived under to make me let go, and then bitten me underwater, the way caimans always do. Could it be dead, perhaps? If it were, it would be floating feet up. What are you going to do, Tasurinchi? Slip into the water very slowly and swim to the shore? I’d never have gotten there in that storm. You couldn’t even see the trees. And, anyway, there might not be any land left in the world. Try to kill the alligator? I had no weapon. Back at the channel, while I was struggling up the bank, I’d lost my pouch, my knife, and my arrows. I’d best stay still, sitting tight on the alligator. Best wait till something or someone decided.

  We were floating along, borne by the swift current. I was shivering with cold and my teeth were chattering. Thinking: Where can the little parrot be? The alligator didn’t paddle with its feet or its tail, but just went where the river took it. Little by little it was getting light. Muddy water, dead animals, jumbled islets of roofs, huts, branches, and canoes. Here and there, men half eaten by piranhas and other river creatures. There were great clouds of mosquitoes, and water spiders crawling over my body. I felt them biting me. I was very hungry and perhaps I could have grabbed one of the dead fish the water was bearing along, but what if I attracted the alligator’s notice? All I could do was drink. I didn’t have to move to quench my thirst. I just opened my mouth and the rain filled it with fresh cold water.

  At that point a little bird landed on my shoulder. From its red-and-yellow crest, its feathers, its gold breast, and its sharp-pointed beak, I took it to be a kirigueti. But it could have been a kamagarini or even a saankarite. For whoever heard of birds talking? “You’re in a bad fix,” it chirped. “If you let go, the alligator’s going to spot you. Its squinty eyes see a long way. It’ll knock you out with one slap of its tail, grab you by the belly with its great toothy mouth, and eat you up. It’ll eat you up bones and hair and all. Because it’s as hungry as you are. But can you go on clinging to that caiman for the rest of your life?”

  “What’s the use of telling me what I k
now all too well?” I said. “Why don’t you give me some advice, instead? What to do to get out of the water.”

  “Fly,” it cheeped, fluttering its yellow crest. “There’s no other way, Tasurinchi. Like your little parrot did when you were on the steep bank, or this way, like me.” It gave a little hop, flew about in little circles, and disappeared from sight.

  Can flying be that easy? Seripigaris and machikanaris fly, when they’re in a trance. But they have wisdom: brews, little gods, or little devils help them. But what do I have? The things I’m told and the things I tell, that’s all. And as far as I know, that never yet made anyone fly. I was cursing the kamagarini disguised as a kirigueti, when I felt something scratching the soles of my feet.

  A stork had landed on the alligator’s tail. I could see its long pink legs and its curved beak. It scratched my feet, looking for worms, or perhaps thinking they were edible. It was hungry, too. Frightened though I was, it made me laugh. I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing. Just the way all of you are laughing now. Doubling over, whooping with laughter. Just like you, Tasurinchi. And the alligator woke up, of course. It realized at once that things were happening on its back that it couldn’t see or understand. It opened its mouth and roared, it flicked its tail furiously, and without knowing what I was doing, there I was, all of a sudden, clinging to the stork. The way a baby monkey clings to the she-monkey, the way a newborn suckling babe clings to its mother. Frightened by the flicking tail, the stork tried to fly away. But since it couldn’t, because I was clinging to it, it started squawking. Its squawks frightened the alligator even more, and me, too. We all squawked. There we were, the three of us, seeing who could squawk the loudest.