WILL H. CORRAL
Notes
1. Six Memos for the Next Millennium is a translation from the Italian manuscript of five of six lectures planned by Calvino before his death in September, 1985. Calvino did not finish the sixth lecture, which, according to his wife, would have been on Consistency.
2. Monterroso has published the first volume of his autobiography, Los buscadores de oro [The Gold Searchers (1993)], now distributed in the United States in the original Spanish by Vintage. This installment covers the years of his childhood up to 1936. The only previous book of Monterroso’s published in English is a translation of his 1969 fable collection The Black Sheep and Other Fables (trans. Walter I. Bradbury, 1971). A selection of academic and general criticism on his narrative and nonfiction prose, plus primary and secondary bibliographies that include interviews, is being published under the title Augusto Monterroso ante la crítica, ed. Will H. Corral (Mexico City: UNAM/Era, 1995). Please refer to this collection for complete entries for the items mentioned in this introduction.
COMPLETE WORKS (AND OTHER STORIES)
MISTER TAYLOR
“Somewhat less strange, though surely more exemplary,” the other man said, “is the story of Mr. Percy Taylor, a headhunter in the Amazon jungle.
In 1937 he is known to have left Boston, Massachusetts, where he so refined his spirit that he did not have a penny to his name. In 1944 he appears for the first time in South America, in the Amazon region, living with the Indians of a tribe whose name there is no need to recall.
Because of the shadows under his eyes and his famished appearance, he soon became known as ‘The Gringo Beggar,’ and even the schoolchildren pointed at him and threw stones when he passed by, his beard gleaming in the golden tropical sun. But this caused no distress to Mr. Taylor’s humble nature, for he had read in the first volume of William C. Knight’s Complete Works that poverty is no disgrace if one does not envy the rich.
In a few weeks the natives grew accustomed to him and his outlandish clothing. Furthermore, since he had blue eyes and a vaguely foreign accent, the President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs were fearful of provoking an international incident and treated him with singular respect.
He was so wretchedly poor that one day he went into the jungle to search for edible plants. He had walked several yards, not daring to turn his head, when by sheerest accident he happened to see a pair of Indian eyes observing him carefully from the underbrush. A long shudder traveled down Mr. Taylor’s sensitive spine. But the intrepid Mr. Taylor defied all danger and continued on his way, whistling as if he had seen nothing.
With a leap (why call it feline?) the native landed in front of him and cried:
‘Buy head? Money money.’
Although his English could not have been worse, Mr. Taylor, feeling somewhat ill, realized that the Indian was offering to sell him the oddly shrunken human head he carried in his hand.
Mr. Taylor, of course, was in no position to buy it, but since he appeared not to understand what had been said, the Indian was horribly embarrassed at not speaking good English and, begging his pardon, gave it to him as a gift.
Mr. Taylor felt great joy as he returned to his hut. That night, lying on his back on the precarious palm mat that was his bed, and interrupted only by the buzz of passionate flies that circled round him as they made obscene love, Mr. Taylor spent a long while contemplating his curious acquisition with delight. He derived the greatest aesthetic pleasure from counting the hairs of the beard and mustache, one by one, and looking straight into the rather ironic eyes that seemed to smile at him in gratitude for his attention.
A man of enormous culture, Mr. Taylor was accustomed to contemplation, but this time he soon wearied of his philosophical reflections and decided to present the head to his uncle, Mr. Rolston, who lived in New York and who, from his earliest childhood, had shown a lively interest in the cultural manifestations of the Spanish-American peoples.
A few days later, Mr. Taylor’s uncle asked him (even before inquiring after the important state of his health) to please favor him with five more. Mr. Taylor willingly satisfied Mr. Rolston’s desire — no one knows how — by return mail, saying he was ‘very happy to fulfill the request.’ An extremely grateful Mr. Rolston asked for another ten. Mr. Taylor was ‘delighted to be of service.’ But the following month, when he was asked to send twenty more, Mr. Taylor, simple and bearded but with a refined artistic sensibility, suspected that his mother’s brother was selling them at a profit.
And, to tell the truth, he was. With complete honesty Mr. Rolston informed him of the fact in an inspired letter whose strictly businesslike terms made the strings of Mr. Taylor’s sensitive spirit vibrate as never before.
They immediately formed a corporation, Mr. Taylor agreeing to obtain and ship large quantities of shrunken heads that Mr. Rolston would sell in his country at the highest possible price.
At first there were some bothersome difficulties with certain local residents. But Mr. Taylor, who in Boston had received the highest grades for his essay on Joseph Henry Silliman, proved to be a skilled politician and obtained from the authorities not only the necessary export license but an exclusive ninety-nine-year concession as well. It was not difficult to convince the Chief Executive Warrior and the Legislative Medicine Men that this patriotic move would enrich the community, and that soon all the thirsty aborigines (whenever they paused to refresh themselves while collecting heads) could have an ice-cold soft drink whose magic formula he himself would supply.
When the members of the Cabinet, after a brief but brilliant exercise of intellect, became aware of these advantages, their love of country welled up and in three days they issued a decree ordering the people to speed up their production of shrunken heads.
Some months later, in Mr. Taylor’s country, the heads had gained the popularity we all remember. At first they were the privilege of the wealthiest families, but democracy is democracy, and no one will deny that in a matter of weeks even schoolteachers could buy them.
A home without its shrunken head was deemed a home that had failed. Soon the collectors appeared, bringing with them certain contradictions: owning seventeen heads was considered bad taste, but having eleven was distinguished. Heads became so popular that the really elegant people began to lose interest and would acquire one only if it possessed some peculiarity that saved it from the commonplace. A very rare head with Prussian whiskers, which in life had belonged to a highly decorated general, was presented to the Danfeller Institute, which in turn made an immediate grant of three and a half million dollars to further the development of this exciting cultural manifestation of the peoples of Latin America.