The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa Read Free Book Online Page A

nibbled at by piranhas, would sometimes turn up on a beach or dangling in shreds from the roots of a tree by the riverbank. Appearances don’t deceive. The ones who went like that, went. Did the seripigaris know that then? Who knows whether wisdom had yet appeared? Once birds and beasts have eaten its shell, the soul can’t find its way back, it seems. It stays lost in some world, it becomes a little kamagarini devil and goes down to join those below, or it becomes a little saankarite god and goes up to the worlds above. That’s why, before, they mistrusted rivers, lakes, and even side channels that weren’t very deep. That’s why they plied the rivers only when all the other ways were closed. Because they didn’t want to die, perhaps. Water is treacherous, it’s said. To go away by drowning is to die, no doubt.
    That, anyway, is what I have learned.
    The bottom of the river in the Gran Pongo is strewn with our corpses. There must be a very great number of them. There they were breathed forth and there they no doubt return to die. That’s where they must be, far below the surface, hearing the water moan as it crashes against the stones and dashes against the sharp rocks. That’s why there are no turtles above the Pongo, in the mountain reaches. They’re good swimmers, but even so, not one of them has ever been able to swim against the current in those waters. The ones that tried drowned. They, too, must be at the bottom now, hearing the shudders of the world above. That’s where we Machiguengas started and that’s where we’ll end, it seems. In the Gran Pongo.
    Others went fighting. There are many ways of fighting. Back then, the men who walk had paused to get back their strength. They were so tired they could hardly talk. They halted in a stretch of forest that seemed safe. They cleared it, built their houses, wove their roofs. It was a place high up and they thought the waters sent by Kientibakori to drown them wouldn’t reach there, or if they did, they would see them in time and could escape. After clearing and burning off the forest, they planted cassava and sowed maize and plantain. There was wild cotton to weave cushmas, and tobacco plants, whose smell kept vipers away. Macaws came and chattered on their shoulders. Jaguar cubs sucked at the women’s nipples. Women about to give birth went deep into the forest, bathed, and came back with infants who moved their hands and feet, whimpering, pleased by the gentle warmth of the sun. There were no Mashcos. Kashiri, the moon, caused no evils yet; he’d already been on earth, teaching people how to grow cassava. He had sown his bad seed, perhaps. People did not know. Everything seemed to be going well.
    Then one night a vampire bit Tasurinchi as he slept. It sank its two fangs into his face, and even though he hit it with his fists, it wouldn’t let him go. He had to tear it to pieces, smearing himself with its soft bones, sticky as shit. “It’s a warning,” said Tasurinchi. What did the warning say? Nobody understood it. Wisdom was lost or hadn’t yet come. They didn’t go away. They stayed there, frightened, waiting. Before the cassava and the maize grew, before the plantains bore fruit, the Mashcos came. They didn’t sense their coming, they didn’t hear the music of their monkey-skin drums. Suddenly arrows, darts, stones rained down on them. Suddenly great flames burned their houses down. Before they could defend themselves, the enemy had cut off many heads and carried off many women. And taken away all the baskets of salt they had gone to the Cerro to fill. Did the ones who went like that come back, or did they die? Who knows? They died perhaps. Their spirit went to give more fury and more strength to their despoilers, perhaps. Or are they still there, wandering helplessly about the forest?
    Who knows how many have not returned? Those who were killed by arrows or stones, or