Three Plays: The Young Lady from Tacna, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, La Chunga

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  The superstuds

  EL MONO

  JOSE

  JOSEFINO

  LITUMA

  LA CHUNGA’S HOUSE

  Piura, 1945.

  La Chunga’s restaurant-bar is near the stadium, in a district of reed matting and wooden planks which grew up not long ago in the sandy area, between the main road to Sullana and the Grau Barracks. Unlike the flimsy dwellings of the neighbourhood, it is a proper building – with adobe walls and zinc roof – spacious and square. On the ground floor there are rustic tables, benches and seats where customers sit, and a wooden counter. Behind this, there is a kitchen, blackened and smoky. On a higher level, which is reached by a small staircase, there is a room, which no customer has ever visited. It is the proprietress’s bedroom. From there, La Chunga can observe all that goes on below through a window hidden behind a flower-patterned curtain.

  The customers of the little bar are local people, soldiers from the Grau Barracks on leave, football fans and boxing enthusiasts, stopping for a drink on their way to the stadium, or workers from the building site in that new area for the rich which is making Piura into an expanding city: it is called Buenos Aires.

  La Chunga has a cook who sleeps in front of the stove, and a boy who comes in during the day to serve at the tables. But she is always at the bar – usually standing. When there are not many customers, as tonight, when the only people in the place are those four layabouts who call themselves the superstuds (they have been playing dice and drinking beer for some time) La Chunga can be seen rocking slowly back and forth in a rocking chair made of reeds, which creaks monotonously, as she gazes into space. Is she lost in her memories or is her mind a blank – is she simply existing?

  She is a tall, ageless woman, with a hard expression, smooth taut skin, strong bones and emphatic gestures. She observes her customers with an unblinking gaze. She has a mop of black hair, tied back with a band, a cold mouth and thin lips – she does not speak much and she rarely smiles. She wears short-sleeved blouses and skirts so unseductive, so unprovocative, that they seem like the uniform of a school run by nuns. Sometimes she goes barefoot, sometimes she wears heel-less sandals. She is an efficient woman: and runs the place with an iron hand and knows how to command respect. Her physical appearance, her air of severity, her terseness, are intimidating; it’s not often that drunks try to take liberties with her. She does not listen to confidences nor does she accept compliments; she has never been known to have a boyfriend, a lover, or even friends. She seems resolved always to live alone, dedicated body and soul to her business. Except for that very brief episode with Meche – which was quite baffling for the customers – no one has ever known her altering her routine for anyone or anything. For as long as the local Piuranos can remember, she has only ever been seen behind the bar – where she stands motionless and unsmiling. Does she perhaps occasionally go to the Variedades or the Municipal to see a film? Does she take a walk through the Plaza de Armas in the afternoon when there’s a concert? Does she go to the Eguiguren Pier or the Old Bridge to bathe in the river at the beginning of each summer if it has rained in the Cordillera? Does she watch the military procession on Independence Day, among the crowd congregated at the foot of the Grau Monument?

  She is not an easy woman to engage in conversation; she replies in monosyllables or by nodding or shaking her head and if she is asked a facetious question she’ll reply with a coarse remark or a monstrous lie. ‘La Chunguita’, say the Piuranos, ‘does not stand any nonsense.’

  The superstuds, who are always playing dice, drinking toasts to each other and joking, know this very well. Their table is right underneath a kerosene lamp which hangs from a beam, around which insects flutter. They remember the time when the little bar belonged to a certain Doroteo, who was La Chunga’s first business associate and whom – according to local gossip – she pushed out by hitting him over the head with a bottle. But despite coming here twice or three times a week, not even the superstuds could call themselves friends of La Chunga. They are merely acquaintances, customers – nothing more. Who in Piura could boast they know her intimately? The fugitive Meche, perhaps? La Chunga has no friends. She is a shy and solitary soul, like one of those cacti in the desert of Piura.

  Truth is rarely pure and never simple.

  Oscar Wilde

  This translation of La Chunga was first performed as a rehearsed reading on 29 April 1989 at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill. The cast was as follows:

  LA CHUNGA Valerie Sarruf

  MECHE Geraldine Fitzgerald

  EL MONO Tom Mannion

  JOSE John Skitt

  JOSEFINO Tom Knight

  LITUMA Alan Barker

  Director David Graham-Young

  ACT ONE

  A game of dice

  EL MONO: (Holding the dice above his head) Come on, superstuds. Let’s sing the old song again, to bring me some luck.

  JOSE, LITUMA, JOSEFINO and EL MONO (Sing in chorus with great gusto)

  We are the superstuds.

  We don’t want to work.

  All we want is a little bit of skirt.

  Drinking, gambling all night long,

  In Chunga’s bar where we belong.

  Wine, women and song —

  Wine, women and song.

  In Chunga’s bar where we belong.

  In Chunga’s bar where it’s cheap and nice,

  And now we’re going to throw the dice!

  (EL MONO blows on his fist and kisses it, then throws the dice on to the table. The little black and white cubes hurtle across the top of the table, bouncing up and down, colliding, ricocheting off the half-empty glasses and finally come to rest, their journey cut short by a bottle of Cristal beer.)

  EL MONO: Ahaha! Two threes! That’ll do me nicely. Right, I’m doubling the bank.

  (No one reacts or adds a single cent to the pool of banknotes and coins that EL MONO has beside his glass.) Well come on, you spineless lot of buggers. Is no one going to take me on?

  (He picks up the dice, cradles them in his hands, blows on them and shakes them above his head.)

  Now here goes for another six – a five and a one, a four and a two, a three and a three – or this little stud’s going to chop off his pecker.

  JOSEFINO: (Offering him a knife) For all the use it is – here, borrow my knife. Go on, cut it off!

  JOSE: Just toss the dice, will you, Mono. It’s about the one thing you’re good at – tossing.

  EL MONO: (Pulling faces) And they’re off … Whoosh. A three and a six. (Crosses himself.) Holy Whore. Now for the six.

  LITUMA: (Turning towards the bar) Don’t you think Mono’s become very vulgar lately, Chunga?

  (LA CHUNGA remains unperturbed. She does not even deign to glance at the superstuds’ table.)

  JOSE: Why don’t you answer poor Lituma, Chunguita? He’s asking you a question, isn’t he?

  EL MONO: She’s probably dead. That thing rocking backwards and forwards over there is most likely her corpse. Hey, Chunga, are you dead?

  LA CHUNGA: You’d like that, wouldn’t you? So you could scarper without paying me for the beers.

  EL MONO: Ahaha. I’ve brought you back to life again, Chunga, Chunguita. (Blows on the dice, kisses them, and throws them.) Holy Whore. Now for the six.

  (All four of them watch, their eyes glued to the little black and white cubes as they go on their bumpy journey among glasses, bottles, cigarettes and matchboxes. This time they roll off the table on to the wet earthen floor.)

  One and three is four, superstuds. I just needed another two. The bank is still up – if anyone’s got the balls to bet.

  LITUMA: Hey, what happened that time with Meche, Chunga? Go on. Make the most of it while it’s just us today. Tell us.

  JOSE: Yes, go on, tell us, Chunguita.

  LA CHUNGA: (Detached as always, in a drowsy voice) Go and ask your bloody mother. She’ll tell you.

  (EL MONO throws the dice.)

  EL MONO: And it’s a six! Right
, you bastards, I’m pissing on you all from a very great height. Now open your mouths and start swallowing, hahaha! (Turns towards the bar.) It must be your sweet temper, bringing me luck, Chunguita. (Lifts up the kitty and kisses the banknotes and coins in an extravagant manner.) Another couple of beers, nice and cold mind – because this time, they’re on me! Hahaha!

  (LA CHUNGA gets up. The chair carries on rocking, creaking at regular intervals, as she, the owner of the bar, goes to fetch a couple of bottles of beer from a bucket full of ice, which she keeps beneath the bar. Listlessly, she carries them to the superstuds’ table and places them in front of EL MONO. The table is bristling with bottles. LA CHUNGA returns to the rocking chair.)

  JOSE: (Provocatively, in a shrill voice) Are you never going to tell us what you did that night with Meche, Chunga?

  JOSEFINO: Do you want to be raped? Well, shut up about Mechita, d’you hear, or I’ll have the pants off one of you in next to no time. Just mention her name and I start to get a hard-on.

  EL MONO: (Winking, he talks in a falsetto voice) You too, Chunguita?

  LA CHUNGA: That’ll do, you bastard. I’m here to serve beer, not to be made a fool of – not by anyone. Why should I listen to your smut? Just watch it, Mono.

  (EL MONO starts to tremble; his teeth start to chatter, he shows the whites of his eyes, he moves his shoulders and hands, as if in the throes of some hysterical convulsion.)

  EL MONO: Oh, I’m scared. I’m scared.

  (Helpless with laughter, the superstuds slap him to bring him to his senses.)

  LITUMA: Take it easy, Chunga. We may make you mad at times, but we love you really. You know that.

  JOSEFINO: Whose bloody stupid idea was it to talk about Meche? It was you, wasn’t it, Lituma? Shit, you’ve made me all nostalgic. (Raises his glass, solemnly.) Let’s drink to the tastiest little wench that ever set foot this side of the Andes. To you, Mechita, in heaven, in Lima, in hell, or wherever the fuck you are.

  Meche

  As JOSEFINO proposes the toast and the superstuds drink, MECHE enters. She moves slowly and rhythmically which suggests someone entering the real world from the world of the memory. She is young and neat and has a firm, full figure – very feminine. She wears a light, close-fitting dress, and shoes with stiletto heels. She cuts quite a dash, as she walks. LA CHUNGA’s eyes widen and light up, as she watches her approach, but the superstuds remain unaware of her presence. By comparison, LA CHUNGA’s attention is focused on her so intensely that it is almost as if the present were losing all concrete reality for her, as if it were becoming blurred, fading away, to the point of extinction. Even the voices of the superstuds become thinner and fainter.

  EL MONO: I’ll never forget the look on your face that time Meche came in here, Chunguita. Quite stunned, you were.

  LITUMA: You’re the only one who knows where she is, Chunga. Come on, do us a favour. What’s it to you? Put us out of our misery.

  JOSE: No. Why don’t you tell us what happened that night between the pair of you, Chunguita? Shit, I can’t bloody sleep at night for thinking about it.

  EL MONO: I’ll tell you what happened.

  (Sings, pulling his usual funny faces:)

  Chunga with Meche

  Meche with Chunga

  Cheche with Menga

  Menga with Cheche

  Chu Chu Chu

  And long live Fumanchu!

  LA CHUNGA: (In a faint and distant voice; mesmerized by MECHE, who is now beside her) Hurry up and empty those glasses now, I’m closing.

  (Imperceptibly, JOSEFINO gets up, and, moving out of the present into the past, out of reality into the world of the imagination, he goes and positions himself next to MECHE, taking hold of her arm in a proprietorial fashion.)

  JOSEFINO: Good evening, Chunguita. May I introduce Meche? MECHE: (Stretching out her hand to LA CHUNGA) Pleased to meet you, señora.

  (The superstuds, still engrossed in their game of dice, acknowledge JOSEFINO and MECHE with a wave of the hand.)

  (LA CHUNGA holds MECHE’s hand and devours her with her eyes; it is clear from her voice she has been moved by the experience.)

  LA CHUNGA: So you’re the famous Meche. Welcome. I didn’t think he was ever going to bring you. I’ve been so much wanting to meet you.

  MECHE: So have I, señora. Josefino talks a lot about you. (With a gesture towards the table) They all do, the whole time. About you and this place. I was dying to come. (Indicating JOSEFINO) But he wouldn’t bring me.

  (LA CHUNGA resigns herself to releasing MECHE’s hand; she attempts to regain her composure and appear natural.)

  LA CHUNGA: I can’t think why. I haven’t eaten anyone yet to my knowledge. (To JOSEFINO) Why wouldn’t you bring her?

  JOSEFINO: (Joking obscenely) I was afraid you might take her away from me, Chunguita. (Putting his arm round MECHE’ s waist and flaunting her conceitedly) She’s worth her weight in gold, wouldn’t you say?

  LA CHUNGA: (Admiring her and nodding) Yes. This time I must congratulate you, Don Juan. Even though you are from the Gallinacera. She’s worth more than all those other women of yours put together.

  MECHE: (Rather embarrassed) Thank you, señora.

  LA CHUNGA: Don’t be so formal. Just call me Chunga.

  LITUMA: (Calling from the table) We’re starting another game, Josefino. Are you coming?

  JOSE: You may as well, Josefino. It’s Mono’s turn with the dice. You can guarantee it’ll be a walkover with this poor cretin.

  EL MONO: Me a cretin? Holy Whore, I’ll be buggered if I don’t fleece the lot of you before the night’s out. You’ll have to leave me Mechita, as a pledge, against all that money you’re going to lose, Josefino.

  JOSEFINO: (To LA CHUNGA) How much do you think I could get for this little doll, Chunguita?

  LA CHUNGA: As much as you want. It’s true. She is worth her weight in gold. (To MECHE) What are you drinking? It’s on the house. Would you like a beer? A vermouth?

  JOSEFINO: I don’t believe it … Did you hear that, studs? Chunga’s paying.

  LA CHUNGA: Not for you, I’m not. You’re a regular. I’m inviting Meche, since it’s her first time here. So that she’ll come back.

  (There is a great uproar from the superstuds’ table.)

  EL MONO: (Shouting) Hahaha. Am I hearing right?

  JOSE: Ask her for a whisky, and share it out, Mechita.

  JOSEFINO: (Moving towards the table to take his place again among the superstuds) Right. I’ll try my hand again.

  MECHE: Weren’t you going to take me to the pictures?

  JOSEFINO: Later. First I’m going to make myself a few bucks by fleecing these three morons. The night’s still young, pussycat.

  MECHE: (To LA CHUNGA, indicating JOSEFINO) We’re not going to get to the pictures tonight, I can see that. There’s one on at the Variedades with Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán and it’s in colour. With bullfighting and music. It’s a pity Josefino likes gambling so much.

  LA CHUNGA: (Handing her the vermouth, which she has been preparing) That one’s into all the vices. He’s the most unscrupulous bastard out. Whatever did you see in him? What do women see in such a burn? Tell me, Meche. What is it about him?

  MECHE: (Partly embarrassed, partly feigning embarrassment) Well, he’s got … he’s a real charmer. He knows how to say nice things to a girl. And besides, he’s good-looking, don’t you think? And also … Well, when he kisses me and touches me, I start to tremble all over. I see little stars.

  LA CHUNGA: (With a mocking smile) Does he really make you see little stars?

  MECHE: (Laughing) Well, it’s just a manner of speaking really. If you know what I mean.

  LA CHUNGA: No. I don’t know what you mean. I can’t understand how a pretty girl like you can fall in love with a poor sod like that. (Very seriously) You know what’ll happen to you, if you stay with him, don’t you?

  MECHE: I never think about the future, Chunga. You’ve got to take love as it comes. It’s living for the
moment that counts. You’ve got to get as much as you can out of it while it lasts. (Becoming alarmed suddenly) What will happen to me if I stay with him?

  LA CHUNGA: He’ll make you see little stars for a little while longer. And then, he’ll put you into the Casa Verde – so that you can keep him, in style, by whoring.

  MECHE: (Scandalized) What are you saying? You’re joking, aren’t you? Do you think I could do such a thing? You obviously don’t know me. Do you really think I’m capable of …

  LA CHUNGA: Of course I do. Like all those other silly girls who saw little stars, whenever that pimp so much as looked at them. (Stretches out her hand and strokes MECHE’s cheek.) Don’t look so frightened. I like you better when you smile.

  The Gallinacera versus the Mangachería

  At the superstuds’ table, the game starts to heat up. The atmosphere is becoming electric.

  EL MONO: (Highly excited) Three and four, seven, hahaha. So I was a cretin, was I, José? Down, on your knees and start praying, you pathetic creep. Have you ever seen anything like that in all your born days? Seven games on the trot without a single miss. The money’s still all there, for the real men. Anyone take me on?

  JOSEFINO: (Taking out a few banknotes) I will. You think you frighten me? Let’s see, how much is there? Two hundred, three hundred. Here’s three hundred. Come on, throw the dice, you peasant.

  JOSE: That’s a lot of money, Josefino. (Lowering his voice) You haven’t by any chance been putting Mechita out to work already, have you?

  JOSEFINO: Shut it, if she hears you she’ll start getting all suspicious. Well, what are you waiting for, Mono? (EL MONO passes the dice across his eyes, then across his lips, cradles them in his hands, as if casting a spell on them.)

  EL MONO: Just making you squirm a bit, slum boy. And now here we go for real …

  (They all watch the dice ecstatically.)

  Eleven. There you are. This time I’ve really rammed it right down your throats. Eight on the trot. Let’s drink to that, for Christ’s sake. More beers, Chunga. We’ve got a minor miracle here to celebrate.