The Storyteller

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  At last Tasurinchi arrived. “I’m here,” I said to him. “Are you there?” “Here I am,” he answered, pleased to see me, and my parrot repeated: “I am, I am.” Then his wife rose to her feet and unrolled two mats for us to sit on. She brought a pot of freshly roasted cassava that she emptied out onto plantain leaves, and a little jar of masato. She, too, seemed pleased to see me. We went on talking till the next moon, without stopping.

  His wife was heavy with child and this time it would be born at the right time and wouldn’t be lost. A little god had told the seripigari so, in a trance. And he had told him that this time, if the child died before it was born, like the other times, it would be the woman’s fault and not a kamagarini’s. In that trance the seripigari found out many things. The other times the children were born dead because she’d swallowed a brew to make them die inside her and push them out before it was time. “Is that so?” I asked his wife. And she answered: “I don’t remember. Perhaps so. Who knows?” “Yes, it’s true,” Tasurinchi assured me. “I’ve warned her that if the child is born dead this time, I’ll kill her.” “If it’s born dead he’ll thrust a poisoned dart in me and leave my body down by the riverside so the capybaras will eat me,” his wife confirmed. She laughed. She wasn’t afraid but, rather, seemed to be making mock of us.

  I asked Tasurinchi why he so badly wanted his wife to bear a child. It wasn’t the child he cared about; he was worried about her. “Isn’t it strange that all her children are born dead?” he said. He asked her again in front of me: “You pushed them out dead because you drank a brew?” She repeated what she had said to me: “I don’t remember.” “Sometimes I think she’s not a woman but a she-devil, a sopai,” Tasurinchi confessed to me. It’s not just because of this business about children that he thinks she’s got a different sort of soul. It’s also all those bracelets, necklaces, headdresses, and ornaments she wears. And it’s true. I’ve never seen anyone with so many things on their body or on their cushma. Who knows how she can walk with all that weighing her down? “Look at what she’s got on now,” Tasurinchi said. He made the woman come close and pointed: seed bangles, rows of necklaces of partridge bones, capybara teeth, monkey femurs, majaz fangs, caterpillar skins, and many other things I can’t remember. “She says the necklaces protect her from the bad sorcerer, the machikanari,” Tasurinchi told me. “But sometimes, looking at her, it seems more likely she’s a machikanari herself, concocting a spell against someone.” She laughed and said she didn’t think she was a witch or a she-devil, but only a woman, just like the others.

  Tasurinchi wouldn’t mind being by himself if he killed his wife. “Rather that than go on living with someone who can steal every last piece of my soul,” he explained. But I thought that wouldn’t happen, since according to what the seripigari found out in the trance, the child would be born walking this time. “Maybe that’s how it will be,” I heard his wife say, laughing uproariously without raising her eyes from the strands of cotton. They are well, both of them. Walking. Tasurinchi gave me this little net woven of wild cotton fibers. “To catch fish with,” he said. He also gave me some cassava and maize. “Aren’t you afraid to journey alone?” he asked me. “We Machiguengas always go through the forest in company, because of what we might meet on the way.” “I have company, too,” I said. “Can’t you see my little parrot?” “Parrot, parrot,” the little parrot repeated.

  I told all this to Tasurinchi, the one who used to live by the Mitaya and now lives in the forest up the Yavero. Lost in thought, reflecting, he commented: “I don’t understand it. Is he afraid his wife is a sopai because she pushes out dead children? The women here must be she-devils too, then, because they give birth not only to dead babies but to toads and lizards as well sometimes. Who has taught that a woman is a bad witch because she wears many necklaces? It is a teaching unknown to me. The machikanari is an evil sorcerer because he serves the breather-out of demons, Kientibakori, and because the kamagarinis, who are his little devils, help him prepare spells, just as the seripigari, who is a good sorcerer, is helped by the little gods that Tasurinchi breathed out to cure evils, to undo spells, and to discover the truth. But both the machikanaris and the seripigaris wear necklaces, as far as I know.”

  At that, the women burst out laughing. It couldn’t be true that they push out dead babies, for there was an ant-heap of little ones, there in that hut by the Yavero. “There are many mouths,” Tasurinchi complained. Before, by the Mitaya, fish always fell into the nets, even though the land wasn’t good for growing cassava. But where he’s settled now, far up one of the streams that empty into the Yavero, there are no fish. It’s a dark place, full of toads and armadillos. Damp earth that rots plants.

  I’ve always known that armadillo meat must not be eaten because the armadillo has an impure mother and brings harm; spots come out all over the body of anybody who eats it. But there they ate it. The women skinned an armadillo and then roasted its meat, cut up in small chunks. Tasurinchi put a piece in my mouth with his fingers. I was so scared I had a hard time swallowing it down. It doesn’t seem to have done me any harm. If it had, I might not be here walking, perhaps.

  “Why did you go so far, Tasurinchi?” I asked him. “I had trouble finding you. What’s more, the Mashcos live in this region, quite close to here.” “You went around to my place on the Mitaya and didn’t meet up with Viracochas?” he said in surprise. “They’re everywhere down there. Especially on the riverbank opposite where I used to live.”

  Strangers started using the river, going up and coming down, coming down and going up, many moons ago. There were Punarunas, come down from the sierra, and many Viracochas. They weren’t just passing through. They stayed. They’ve built cabins and cut down trees. They hunt animals with guns that thunder in the forest. Some men who walk also came with them. The ones who live high up, on the other side of the Gran Pongo, the ones who have already given up being men and have more or less taken up Viracocha ways of dressing and talking. They’d come down to help them, there along the Mitaya. They came to visit Tasurinchi. Trying to persuade him to go to work with them, clearing the forest and carrying stones for a road they were opening up along the river. “The Viracochas won’t hurt you,” they encouraged him, saying: “Bring the women along too, to prepare your food for you. Look at us—have they done us any harm, would you say? It’s no longer like the tree-bleeding. In those days, yes, the Viracochas were devils. They wanted to bleed us like they bled the trees. They wanted to steal our souls. It’s different now. With these, you work as long as you like. They give you food, they give you a knife, they give you a machete, they give you a harpoon to fish with. If you stay on, you can have a gun.”

  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.

  I am well, walking. Now I am well. The evil was in me a while ago and I thought the time had come for me to put up my shelter of branches on the riverbank. I had set out to visit Tasurinchi, the blind one who lives by the river Cashiriari. Suddenly everything started streaming out of me as I walked. I didn’t realize it till I saw my dirtied legs. What evil is this? What has entered my body? I went on walking, but I still had a long way to go to reach the Cashiriari. When I sat down to rest, the shivers came over me. I wondered what I could do, and casting my eyes all round, I finally saw a datura tree and tore off all the leaves I could reach. I made a brew and sprinkled it on my body. I warmed the water in the pot again. I heated the stone the seripigari had given me till it was red-hot and put it in. I breathed the steam from it till sleep came over me. I was like that for many moons, who knows how many, lying on my straw mat without the strength to walk, without even strength enough to sit up. Ants crawled over my body and I didn’t brush them off. When one came close to my mouth I swallowed it, and that was my only food. Between dreams I heard the little parrot calling me: “Tasurinchi! Tasurinchi!” Half asleep, half awake, and always cold, so cold. I felt great sadness perhaps.

  Then some men appeared. I saw their faces above me, leaning over to look at me. One pushed me with his foot and I couldn’t speak to him. They weren’t men who walk. They weren’t Mashcos either, happily. Ashaninkas, I think they were, because I could understand some of what they said. They stood there looking at me, asking me questions I didn’t have the strength to answer, even though I heard them, far away. They seemed to be having an argument as to whether I was a kamagarini or not. And also about what it was best to do if you met up with a little devil in the forest. They argued and argued. One said it would bring evil on them to have seen someone like me on their path and the prudent thing to
do was to kill me. They couldn’t agree. They talked it over and thought for a long time. Luckily for me, they finally decided to treat me well. They left me some cassavas, and seeing I hadn’t strength enough to pick them up, one of them put a bit in my mouth. It wasn’t poison; it was cassava. They put the rest in a plantain leaf and placed it in this hand. Maybe I dreamed it all. I don’t know. But later, when I felt better and my strength came back, there were the cassavas. I ate them, and the little parrot ate, too. Now I could continue my journey. I walked slowly, stopping every so often to rest.

  When I arrived at the place by the river Cashiriari where Tasurinchi, the blind one, lives, I told him what had happened to me. He breathed smoke on me and prepared a tobacco brew. “What happened to you was that your soul divided itself into many souls,” he explained to me. “The evil entered your body because some machikanari sent it or because, quite by accident, you crossed its path. The body is merely the soul’s cushma. Its wrapping, like a worm’s. Once the evil had gotten inside, your soul tried to defend itself. It ceased to be one and became many so as to confuse the evil, which stole the ones it could. One, two, several. It can’t have taken many or you’d have gone altogether. It was a good thing to bathe in tohé water and breathe its steam, but you should have done something more cunning. Rubbed the top of your head with annatto dye till it was red all over. Then the evil couldn’t have gotten out of your body with its load of souls. That’s where it gets out, that’s its door. The annatto blocks its path. Feeling itself a prisoner inside, it loses its strength and dies. It’s the same with bodies as with houses. Don’t devils who enter houses steal souls by escaping through the crown of the roof? Why do we weave the slats in the top of the roof so carefully? So the devil can’t escape, taking the souls of those who are asleep along with him. It’s the same with the body. You felt weak because of the souls you’d lost. But they’ve already come back to you and that’s why you’re here. They must have escaped from Kientibakori, taking advantage of his kamagarinis’ carelessness, and come back looking for you—aren’t you their home?—and found you there in the same place, gasping, dying. They entered your body and you were born again. Now, inside of you, all the souls are back together again. Now they’re just one soul again.”