Free The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa Page B

times to destroy us. We know he breathed out all the badness there is, from the Mashcos to the evil. Sharp rocks, dark clouds, rain, mud, the rainbow—he breathed them out. And lice, fleas, chiggers, poisonous snakes and vipers, mice and toads. He breathed out flies, gnats, mosquitoes, bats and vampires, ants and turkey buzzards. He breathed out the plants that burn the skin and those that can’t be eaten; and the red earth that’s good for making pots but not for growing cassava. This I learned by the river Shivankoreni, from the mouth of the seripigari. The one who knows the most about the things and the beings breathed out by Kientibakori, perhaps.
    The time he was closest to destroying us was that time. It was no longer the time of abundance, nor was it that of the tree-bleeding. After the first and before the second, it seems. A kamagarini disguised as a man appeared and said to the men who walk: “The one who really needs help is not the sun. But rather Kashiri, the moon, who is the father of the sun.” He gave them his reasons, which set them to thinking. Wasn’t the sun so strong it made people’s eyes water if they dared look at it directly without blinking? So what help did it need? The old story about its falling and then rising again was a trick. Kashiri, on the other hand, with his faint, gentle light was always fighting against the darkness, under difficult conditions. If the moon weren’t there at night, watching in the sky, the darkness would be total, a thick blackness: men would fall down the precipice, would step on vipers, wouldn’t be able to find their canoes or go out to plant cassava or hunt. They’d be prisoners in just one place, and the Mashcos could surround them, shoot them down with arrows, cut off their heads, and steal their souls. If the sun fell altogether, it would be night, perhaps. But as long as there was the moon it would never be entirely night, just half darkness, and life would go on, perhaps. So shouldn’t men help Kashiri instead? Wasn’t this to their advantage? If they did, the light of the moon would be brighter and night would be less dark, a half light, good to walk by.
    The one who said those things appeared to be a man but he was a kamagarini. One of the ones that Kientibakori breathed out to go about this world sowing misfortune. The ones before did not recognize him. Even though he arrived in the midst of a great storm, the way little devils always arrive in the villages. The ones before didn’t understand that, perhaps. If someone appears as the lord of thunder is roaring and rain is falling in torrents, it’s not a man, it’s a kamagarini. We know now. They hadn’t learned that yet. They allowed themselves to be persuaded. And, changing their habits, they started doing by night what they had done by day before and by day what they had done by night. Thinking that Kashiri, the moon, would be brighter that way.
    Once the eye of the sun appeared in the sky, they took refuge beneath their roofs, saying to each other: “It’s time to rest.” “It’s time to light the fires.” “It’s time to sit and listen to the one who talks.” That’s what they did: they rested while the sun shone, or they gathered around to listen to the storyteller till darkness began to fall. Then, shaking off their drowsiness, they said: “The time has come to live.” They traveled by night, they hunted by night, they built their dwellings by night, they cleared the forest and cleaned the weeds and the underbrush from the cassava fields by night. They got used to this new way of life. To the point that they could no longer bear being out of doors in the daylight. The heat of the sun burned their skin and the fire of its eye blinded them. Rubbing themselves, they said: “We cannot see. How terrible this light is. We hate it.” On the other hand, their eyes had grown used to the dark and