Tarzan's Tonsillitis: A Novel - Hardcover

Alfredo Bryce Echenique was born in 1939 in Lima, Peru. He is the author of thirteen previous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel A World for Julius. He divides his time between France and Peru.

The Prehistory of Love

Damn . . . Having to admit after so many, so damn many years that when everything is said and done we were better by letter. Sure, life beat up our relationship the way the guards smack convicts around after a prison riot, but something extremely valuable and beautiful always existed between us, and that's the truth. And if you can compare reality to a port where packet boats from another century drop anchor alongside brand-new cruise ships of the dinner-jacket-and-long-dress set, Fernanda MarÃ?a and I were always first-class passengers each time one of us made a stopover in the reality of the other. I think that united us right from the beginning. And also not being able to do a bad thing to anyone, I guess.

So what was missing? Love? Hell, no. We had that, in all shapes and sizes. From the platonic, underage love of a pair of extremely timid people to the sensual, jolly, and crazy chaos of those who sometimes had only a few short weeks to make up for, as the song says, the whole life I'd spend with you, to the love of a brother and sister born to love and help each other eternally, to the love of a pair of implacable accomplices in more than one criminal affair, and even the love of a young couple in love with love itself and the moon itself, and finally the love of a pair of old-timers still capable of frisking about on some remote island under the sun, again, as the song goes, it doesn't matter to me in what form, or where or how, but at your side. . . . In sum, yes, we had love of all shapes and sizes, but always good love, yes, absolutely, for sure.

It's also true that our loyalty was always honest and absolute, although here we've got to recognize (why not?) that we often acted like two players on the same court playing different games with the same ball. And who could deny, at this stage in our lives, that the thing we were always missing was ETA, that is, what air, land, and sea navigators call "Estimated Time of Arrival." Because our great specialty, Fernanda MarÃ?a's and mine, over the course of some thirty years, was never knowing how to be in the right place, much less at the right time.

So the real pain in the ass, the absolute pain in the ass, is having to recognize that we were better by mail. Which means, in that case, of course, that the best of me has in large part disappeared forever. Okay, I'll explain: on top of everything else, a good decade or more of the best of me disappeared forever. And it's that I died, completely and for all eternity, that day when some fuckers mugged you in Oakland, California, Fernanda MÃ?a, Fernanda Mine, as I like to call you, and along with the other crown jewels, they took off with about fifteen years of the least bad element there was in me, as you told me yourself, MÃ?a, in this letter you sent me from Oakland, God knows when because you forgot to date the letter, because in that moment you didn't know what day it was, but to judge from the context, or (better) our context, it must have been in the early eighties:

Dear Juan Manuel,

The circuit has been completely broken. For various reasons. First, your letters were stolen. Stolen because I keep the entire collection in a huge bag, and some horrible gorillas attacked me on the street, grabbing the bag, my grandmother's beautiful diamond ring, some gold necklaces I was wearing, and a watch. Can you imagine such a thing? I was so mad I ran after them, and luckily, while they were running, one of them dropped my wallet with all my identification papers. At least I didn't lose everything. But they took quite a few things. I called the police, but they haven't been able to find anything. That happened months ago. The only thing they told me was that I was crazy, nuts, to run after them, and that it was lucky I didn't catch them. That's true, I wouldn't have been able to do much against three huge goons like that. But you know that when you're mad you don't think about those things. All I wanted was to take a swing at them.

Okay, so at least nothing happened to me personally, but I did lose a lot. Some people come out worse, meaning that besides being robbed they get beaten up or something. But in this case, I was the one who wanted to do the beating. That took care of the month of August. So, among the things lost were your letters. I was so bereft that I became mute, at least in epistolary terms.

Now, to begin again, I want to know if that volume of D. H. Lawrence's poetry ever got to you in Lima, the one I sent to you with a gringo couple. Judging by your silence, it would seem that the book is just one more lost item. A real shame, because it was a beautiful book, and somewhere in it, quite unexpectedly, it talks about us, as if Mr. Lawrence had known us since we were kids. Just imagine, he compares us to elephants, my dear Juan Manuel. And imagine, too, that he's really right, because he describes us exactly. All we need are trunks. How could he have known? And with such wisdom, although that word is best reserved for Don David Herbert.

How did your stay in Lima end up, and what was it like going back to France? What are you up to? I'm way behind on news. I'll tell you about me, though there hasn't been much change since I last wrote you, except for what happened to your adored, adorable letters and the last (I think) pieces of jewelry left in the catastrophic history of my family.

I'm still in California. I'm working now, and the kids are already speaking English, but I'm still having a really hard time adapting, and I feel so damn alone. I hadn't seen the pale face of solitude for so long that I'd almost forgotten what it looks like, but solitude always waits for you right around the next corner.

Even so, I don't have much time to think about all that. I'm running around all day. In the morning, I run to drop the kids off at school, then I run to the office, run at work, run to have lunch, pick up the kids in the afternoon, get them home, give them a bath, make dinner, clean up, well, clean up a little, put the kids to bed. And then I'm so tired that I run to bed to read and sleep. It isn't exactly the most exciting program, and as you probably imagine, I don't know how long this business of my Great Independence is going to last. It seems more like a Great Fuckup, but in a way I also feel calmer, and sometimes I have fun seeing new things and then, for a minute, I feel as terrifically well as Tarzan at the instant when he dives into the water.

But right now I'm seriously wondering if it wouldn't be better just to go back home to San Salvador, war or no war. Or even go back with Enrique in Chile, Pinochet or no Pinochet. Why am I the one who's always running away from everywhere? In Chile, the one on the left--though just barely--was Enrique, and in El Salvador the only right-wing rich guy--and he really was right-wing--was an uncle of mine, disagreeable and pretty much invisible as far as the family was concerned.

Enrique's still in Chile, you already know he had to go back when his mother got sick, she's still sick, and being treated. He had a show of his photographs a little while ago, and he says he's looking for a job at the university, but nothing's turned up yet. It looks as if he wants to get us back. Poor guy. He must feel lonely too, but at least there in his own country he's got his family and lots of friends and shows and respect. All of that counts, and I'm happy he's back in his own country, where things always have more meaning.

Please write to me. I'd really like to get a letter from you and see you if you come here again soon. You said that in February you're going to Texas. Is that trip still going to happen? Because you and your songs always end up in the weirdest places.

You should know, brother and love of mine, that I was in good shape and optimistic and then suddenly everything changed a little while back, about ten days ago, my spirits deflated and I can't seem to get out of what looks like a depression, and here I thought I was immune to those problems. I'd like to run and find a safe place instead of running and running always to be no place.

I'm living in Oakland now, where I was mugged, but I'm looking for a better place and hope to find it. It would be better if you wrote to me at the office, because if nothing else I'm sticking with this job. I only hope I can shake these blue devils soon.

Don't get lost on me now, please. A hug and lots of memories.

Fernanda Yours

That bit about Fernanda Yours comes from when she was a little girl and people would call her Fernanda MÃ?a--or Fernanda Mine--instead of Fernanda MarÃ?a. And since I knew nothing about that, she became, in translation, Fernanda Mine, the only time we really belonged to each other, in Paris, when she instantly turned into "Fernanda Yours" instead of "Yours, Fernanda," at the end of every letter, and as she gradually went back to the open arms of Enrique and left mine, without the slightest Estimated Time of Arrival, of course, and without anyone's going away from anyone, really, although finally the three of us ended up absolutely alone and each one at a different cardinal point on the compass, of course. The mail and a few demented trips did the rest, and we're all still connected that way, spoiling one another, treating one another more and more like shipwrecked kings. It pisses me off, of course, that three Oakland thugs took off with those letters in which, no doubt, I was always much better than in real life, and I'm sure that they took them only so they could tear them to pieces and toss them into the first garbage can they passed. And the only thing saved from all that correspondence and love and friendship, from all the goodness and tenderness and the understanding I always tried to use when dealing with a woman as adorable as Fernanda MarÃ?a, Fernanda MaÃ?a, or Fernanda MÃ?a, or simply MÃ?a, the only thing that's survived is a kind of anthology of little paragraphs and isolated sentences that she'd...