Mario Vargas Llosa - The Storyteller

The ones who had been men seemed happy, perhaps. “We’re lucky people,” they said. “Look at us, touch us. Don’t you want to be like us? Learn, then. Do like us, then.” Tasurinchi allowed himself to be persuaded. “All right,” he said, “I’ll go have a look.” And crossing the river Mitaya, he went with them to the Viracochas’ camp. And discovered, there and then, that he’d fallen into a trap. He was surrounded by devils. What made you realize that, Tasurinchi? Because the Viracocha who was explaining to him what it was he wanted him to do — and it wasn’t easy to understand — suddenly, just like that, showed the filth of his soul. How so, Tasurinchi? What happened? The Viracocha had been asking him: “Are you any good with a machete?” when all of a sudden he broke off, just like that, with his face all puckered up. He opened his mouth wide, and achoo! achoo! achoo! Three times running, it seems. His eyes got all teary, red as a candle flame. Tasurinchi had never been that scared in his whole life. I’m seeing a kamagarini, he thought. That’s what its face looks like; that’s the noise it makes. I’m going to die, this very day. As he was thinking, It’s a devil, a devil, he felt little drops all over him, as though he’d just come out of the water. The cold made his bones creak, and he saw himself from inside, as in a trance. He had to make the greatest effort of his life, he said, to force himself to move. His legs wouldn’t obey him, he was shaking so hard. At last he was able to move. The Viracocha was talking again, not realizing he’d given himself away. A stream of green snot ran out his nostrils. He went on talking as though nothing had happened — the way I’m talking right now. He was surprised, no doubt, to see Tasurinchi running away, leaving him standing there with his words in his mouth. Those who had been men and were standing close by tried to stop Tasurinchi. “Don’t be scared, nothing’s going to happen to you,” they said, trying to deceive him. “He’s sneezing, that’s all. It doesn’t kill them. They’ve got their own medicine.” Tasurinchi got into his canoe, pretending: “Yes, all right. I’ve got to go home, but I’ll be back, wait for me.” His teeth were still chattering, it seems. They’re devils, he thought. I’m going to die today, perhaps.

As soon as he reached the other side of the river, he gathered the women and children together: “Evil has come. We are surrounded by kamagarinis,” he told them. “We must go far away. Let us go. It may not be too late. We may still be able to walk.” That’s what they did, and now they are living in this gorge, deep in the forest, a long way from the Yavero. According to him the Viracochas won’t come that far. Nor the Mashcos either; even they couldn’t get used to a place like this. “Only we men who walk can live in places like this,” he said with pride. He was pleased to see me. “I was afraid you’d never come this far to visit me,” he said. The women, picking about in each other’s hair, kept saying: “We’re lucky we escaped. What would have become of our souls otherwise?” They, too, seemed pleased to see me. We ate and drank and talked for many moons. They didn’t want me to leave. “How can you go?” said Tasurinchi. “You’re not through talking yet. Keep on talking. You’ve a lot to tell me still.” If he’d had his way, I’d be there in the Yavero forest still, talking.

He’s not finished building his house yet. But he’s already cleared the land, cut the poles and the palm fronds, and gathered bundles of straw for the roof. He had to fetch all this from farther down because where he is there aren’t any palm trees or straw. A young man who wants to marry one of his daughters is living nearby and helping Tasurinchi find a plot of ground higher up where he can plant cassava. It’s full of scorpions and they’re getting rid of them by blowing smoke down the holes of their hiding places. There are also many bats at night. They’ve already bitten one of the children who left the fireside in his sleep. He says that up there the bats go out to look for food even when it’s raining, something that’s never been seen anywhere else. The Yavero is country where the animals have different habits. “I’m still getting to know them,” Tasurinchi told me. “Life gets difficult when a person goes to live somewhere else,” I said. “So it does,” he said. “Luckily we know how to walk. Luckily we’ve been walking for such a long time. Luckily we’re always moving from one place to another. What would have become of us if we were the sort of people who never move! We’d have disappeared who knows where. That’s what happened to many in the days of the tree-bleeding. There are no words to express how fortunate we are.”

“Next time you visit Tasurinchi, remind him that it’s the man who goes achoo! who’s a devil and not the woman who gives birth to dead children or wears many bright-colored necklaces,” Tasurinchi mocked, making the women laugh. And he told me this story that I’m going to tell you. It happened many moons ago, when the first White Fathers started turning up on this side of the Gran Pongo. They were already settled on the other side, farther up. They had houses in Koribeni and Chirumbia, but they hadn’t come this way, downstream. The first one to cross the Gran Pongo went to the river Timpía, knowing that there were men who walk there. He’d learned how to speak. He spoke, it seems. You could understand what he meant. He asked lots of questions. He stayed on there. They helped him to burn off the land, put his house up, clear a field. He came and went. He brought food, fishhooks, machetes. The men who walk got on well with him. They seemed happy. The sun was in its place, peaceful. But on returning from one of his journeys the White Father had changed his soul, even though his face was the same. He’d become a kamagahni and brought evil. But nobody noticed, and because of that, nobody started walking. They’d lost wisdom, perhaps. That, anyway, is what I have learned.

The White Father was lying on his straw mat and they could see him making faces. Achoo! Achoo! When they came to ask him “What’s the matter? Why are you puckering your face up like that? What’s that noise?” he answered, “It’s nothing, it’ll soon be over.” Evil had entered everyone’s soul. Children, women, old men. And also, so they say, macaws, cashew birds, little mountain pigs, partridges, all the animals they had. They, too: Achoo! Achoo! At first they laughed, thinking it was some sort of playful trance. They beat their chests and pushed each other in fun. And screwing up their faces: Achoo! Snot ran out their noses, spittle out their mouths. They spat and laughed. But they could no longer start walking. The time had passed. Their souls, broken in pieces, had begun leaving their bodies through the tops of their heads. All they could do was resign themselves to what was going to happen.

They felt as though a fire had been lighted inside their bodies. They were burning up, they were aflame. They bathed in the river, but instead of putting out the fire, the water made it worse. Then they felt a terrible chill, as though they’d been in a downpour all night. Though the sun was there, looking with its yellow eye, they shivered, frightened, dizzy, as in a trance or a drunken stupor, not seeing what they saw, not recognizing what they knew. Raging, sensing that the evil was deep within them, like a chigger under the nail. They had not heeded the warning, they had not started walking at the first achoo! from the White Father. Even the lice died, it seems. The ants, the beetles, the spiders that went near there died, they say. Nobody, ever, has gone back to live in that place by the river Timpía. Though no one really knows where it is now, because the forest grew over it again. It’s best not to go anywhere near it, to go around it, avoiding it altogether. You can recognize it by a white mist that stinks and a piercing whistle. Do the souls of those who go like that come back? Who knows? Maybe they come back, or maybe they keep floating on the Kamabiría, the watery way of the dead.