I want reasons for what drew them together, for turns they took from the roads they’d known. As a teenager, I was lured by their story in the way any child would be. But in the years of hearing and rehearing it, I have seen that it holds more than logic: There is a prayer in its recitation, and a lesson at the end of the prayer.
WHEN MOTHER RETURNED to Lima with her three precious charges—Vicki, George, and her violin—she found Papi living with a monkey and an anteater. They were occupying the roof of the Avenida Mariátegui house, clambering down the stairs fromtime to time to scare the maid, Concepción, or to send one of my father’s drinking buddies howling out the door in a hallucinatory rant. The monkey was dun brown, tall as a seven-year-old, with beady black eyes and a bark like the squeak of a hinge. The anteater was an aging caudillo, surveying the rooftops of Lima with an attitude, flicking his tongue from his snout.
It had taken no more than a month for a manly mayhem to overtake Tía Carmen’s place. A gathering spot for Papi’s companions—his engineering students from the Colegio, police initiates from the academy, and solitary gringos from W. R. Grace—the house had become more drinking establishment than home, more fraternity than the sleepy colonial address my mother had left behind.
Papi’s uncle, Tío Salvador Mariátegui, a tall, gloriously whiskered, bemedaled naval comandante, had brought the monkey and anteater from one of his forays into the Amazon. It was said that he had conquered the tributaries of that great river as thoroughly as he had the hairs of his extravagant mustache, a magnificent handlebar that swooped out and back with rococo flourish. Less than a decade later, in 1958, Tío Salvador would pack up three hundred years of his ancestors’ armor, pin innumerable medals onto his admiral’s uniform, and set out to become emperor of Andorra, a tiny principality in the east Pyrenees. But for now, it was jungle animals he ruled. The unlikely twosome he’d brought onboard the ship had entertained the sailors on the long trip down the Ucayali; Tío Salvador’s plan was to truck them up to his mountain house in Chaclacayo, where he imagined they would make an even more entertaining sight in his garden, in the company of his huffy peacocks. When it was clear he wouldn’t have time to execute the whole plan, he decided to deposit the monkey and anteater at least part of the way there, in Lima, with my father. Promising to return for them, Tío Salvador disappeared up the Ucayali again.
The duo was irking the neighbors, drawing cold sweat from Concepción, but richly amusing Papi. Every time he stepped onto the rooftop and saw their absurd profiles, he’d throw back his head and roar. Day after day, as he tells it, he pulled on his forelock and listened to reports from Concepción: The grocer across the street is complaining, señor. He says that the one with the long nose hangs out over the roofwork and scares away clients. But that isn’t all, Don Jorge. The lady next door says she doesn’t dare look out her own window, because if she sets eyes on the monkey, her unborn will come out ugly as sin.
Muy bien, Concepción, my father responded. Tell the grocer he’s right, the anteater probably does scare his clients, but only those of the six-legged kind. His store is so full of cucarachas, the man should be paying me a fee. Tell the pregnant señora to take a good look at her husband. The monkey won’t make one bit of difference. Her baby’s already a freak.
Somewhere during all of this, Mother walked in. It was the first of a lifetime of reconciliations: I have seen so many by now. It starts with an arch departure, a certainty that their life together is too much to handle; then come the months with my parents in different places, gazing silently from windows; a letter; a call; a telegram; and finally, a joy-filled embrace. My father swept his baby boy into his arms. The
WHEN MOTHER RETURNED to Lima with her three precious charges—Vicki, George, and her violin—she found Papi living with a monkey and an anteater. They were occupying the roof of the Avenida Mariátegui house, clambering down the stairs fromtime to time to scare the maid, Concepción, or to send one of my father’s drinking buddies howling out the door in a hallucinatory rant. The monkey was dun brown, tall as a seven-year-old, with beady black eyes and a bark like the squeak of a hinge. The anteater was an aging caudillo, surveying the rooftops of Lima with an attitude, flicking his tongue from his snout.
It had taken no more than a month for a manly mayhem to overtake Tía Carmen’s place. A gathering spot for Papi’s companions—his engineering students from the Colegio, police initiates from the academy, and solitary gringos from W. R. Grace—the house had become more drinking establishment than home, more fraternity than the sleepy colonial address my mother had left behind.
Papi’s uncle, Tío Salvador Mariátegui, a tall, gloriously whiskered, bemedaled naval comandante, had brought the monkey and anteater from one of his forays into the Amazon. It was said that he had conquered the tributaries of that great river as thoroughly as he had the hairs of his extravagant mustache, a magnificent handlebar that swooped out and back with rococo flourish. Less than a decade later, in 1958, Tío Salvador would pack up three hundred years of his ancestors’ armor, pin innumerable medals onto his admiral’s uniform, and set out to become emperor of Andorra, a tiny principality in the east Pyrenees. But for now, it was jungle animals he ruled. The unlikely twosome he’d brought onboard the ship had entertained the sailors on the long trip down the Ucayali; Tío Salvador’s plan was to truck them up to his mountain house in Chaclacayo, where he imagined they would make an even more entertaining sight in his garden, in the company of his huffy peacocks. When it was clear he wouldn’t have time to execute the whole plan, he decided to deposit the monkey and anteater at least part of the way there, in Lima, with my father. Promising to return for them, Tío Salvador disappeared up the Ucayali again.
The duo was irking the neighbors, drawing cold sweat from Concepción, but richly amusing Papi. Every time he stepped onto the rooftop and saw their absurd profiles, he’d throw back his head and roar. Day after day, as he tells it, he pulled on his forelock and listened to reports from Concepción: The grocer across the street is complaining, señor. He says that the one with the long nose hangs out over the roofwork and scares away clients. But that isn’t all, Don Jorge. The lady next door says she doesn’t dare look out her own window, because if she sets eyes on the monkey, her unborn will come out ugly as sin.
Muy bien, Concepción, my father responded. Tell the grocer he’s right, the anteater probably does scare his clients, but only those of the six-legged kind. His store is so full of cucarachas, the man should be paying me a fee. Tell the pregnant señora to take a good look at her husband. The monkey won’t make one bit of difference. Her baby’s already a freak.
Somewhere during all of this, Mother walked in. It was the first of a lifetime of reconciliations: I have seen so many by now. It starts with an arch departure, a certainty that their life together is too much to handle; then come the months with my parents in different places, gazing silently from windows; a letter; a call; a telegram; and finally, a joy-filled embrace. My father swept his baby boy into his arms. The
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