Where can Tasurinchi be now? I don’t know. Can he have stayed on in that region where we parted? Who knows? Someday I’ll know. He is well, most likely. Content. Walking, perhaps.
That, anyway, is what I have learned.
When I left Tasurinchi, I turned around and started walking toward the Timpanía. I hadn’t been to visit the Machiguengas there for some time. But before I got there, various unexpected things happened and I had to take off in another direction. That’s why I’m here with you, perhaps.
As I was trying to jump over a bed of nettles, I got a thorn in my foot. Here, in this foot. I sucked and spat the thorn out. Some evil must have remained inside my foot because, very soon, it started hurting. It hurt a lot. I stopped walking and sat down. Why had this happened to me? I searched in my pouch. That’s where I keep the herbs the seripigari gave me against snakebite, against sickness, against strange things. And in the strap of my knapsack was the iserepito that wards off bad spells. I still carry that little stone about with me. Why didn’t the herbs or the iserepito protect me from the little devil in the nettles? My foot was so swollen it looked as if it were somebody else’s. Was I changing into a monster? I made a fire and put my foot close to the flames so the evil would come out from inside with the sweat. It hurt terribly; I roared, trying to frighten away the pain. I must have fallen asleep from all that sweating and roaring. And in my sleep I kept hearing parrots chattering and laughing.
I had to stay in that place for many moons while the swelling in my foot went down. I tried to walk, but ay, ay, it hurt dreadfully. I wasn’t short of food, happily; I had cassava and maize and some bananas in my knapsack. And what’s more, luck was with me, it seems. Right there, without having to get up, by crawling just a little way, I managed to break off a small green branch and pin it down with a knotted cord that I hid in the dirt. Very soon a partridge got caught in the trap. That gave me food for several days. But they were days of torment, not because of the thorn, but because of the parrots. Why were there so many of them? Why were they watching me so closely? There were any number of flocks; they settled on all the branches and bushes around. More and more kept arriving. They had all begun looking at me. Was something happening? Why were they squawking so much? Did all that chattering have anything to do with me? Were they talking about me? Now and then they would come out with one of those odd parrot laughs that sound so human. Were they making mock of me? Saying: You’ll never leave here, storyteller. I threw stones at them to scare them off. Useless. They flapped about for a moment and settled on their perches again. There they were, myriads of them, above my head. What is it they want? What’s going to happen?
The second day, all of a sudden, they left. The parrots flew off in terror. All at the same time, squawking, shedding feathers, flying into each other, as though an enemy were approaching. They’d smelled danger, it seems. Because just then, right over my head, leaping from branch to branch, there came a talking monkey, a yaniri. Yes, the very same, the big red howling monkey, the yaniri. Enormous, noisy, surrounded by his band of females. Leaping and swinging all around him, happy at being with him. Happy to be his females, perhaps. “Yaniri, yaniri,” I shouted. “Help me! Weren’t you a seripigari once? Come down and cure this foot of mine; I want to continue my journey.” But the talking monkey paid no attention to me. Can it be true that it was once, before, a seripigari who walked? That’s why it must not be hunted or eaten, perhaps. When you cook a talking monkey, the air is filled with the smell of tobacco, they say. The tobacco that the seripigari he once was used to inhale and drink in his trances.
The yaniri and his band of females had barely disappeared when the parrots came back. In even greater numbers. I began observing them. They were of every sort. Large, small, tiny; with long curved beaks or stubby ones; there were parakeets and toucans and macaws, but mostly cockatoos. All chattering loudly at the same time, without a letup, a thundering of parrots in my ears. I felt uneasy, looking at them. Slowly I looked at each and every one of them. What were they doing there? Something was going to happen, that was certain, in spite of my herbs against strange things. “What do you want, what are you saying?” I started screaming at them. “What are you talking about, what are you laughing at?” I was frightened, but also curious. I’d never seen so many all together. It couldn’t be by chance. It couldn’t be for no reason at all. So what was the explanation? Who had sent them to me?
Remembering Tasurinchi, the friend of fireflies, I tried to understand their chattering. Since they were all around me, talking so insistently, could they have come on my account? Were they trying, perhaps, to tell me something? I shut my eyes, listening closely, concentrating on their chatter. Trying to feel that I was a parrot. It wasn’t easy. But the effort made me forget the pain in my foot. I imitated their cries, their gurgles; I imitated their cooing. All the sounds they made. Then, between one pause and another, little by little, I began to hear single words, little lights in the darkness. “Calm down, Tasurinchi.” “Don’t be scared, storyteller.” “Nobody’s going to hurt you.” Understanding what they were saying, perhaps. Don’t laugh; I wasn’t dreaming. I could understand what they were saying more and more clearly. I felt at peace. My body stopped trembling. The cold went away. So they hadn’t been sent here by Kientibakori. Or by a machikanari’s spell. Could they have come out of curiosity, rather? To keep me company?
“That’s exactly the reason, Tasurinchi,” a voice murmured, standing out clearly from the others. Now there was no doubt. It spoke and I understood it. “We’re here to keep you company and keep your spirits up while you get well. We’ll stay here till you can walk again. Why were you frightened of us? Your teeth were chattering, storyteller. Have you ever seen a parrot eat a Machiguenga? We, on the other hand, have seen lots of Machiguengas eat parrots. Go ahead and laugh, Tasurinchi: it’s better that way. We’ve been following you for a long time. Wherever you go, we’re there. Haven’t you ever noticed before?”
I never had. In a trembling voice I asked: “Are you making fun of me?” “I’m telling the truth,” the parrot insisted, beating the leaves with its wings. “You’ve had to get a thorn stuck in you to discover your companions, storyteller.”
We had a long conversation, it seems. We talked together all the time I was there waiting for the pain to go away. While I held my foot to the fire to make it sweat, we talked. With that parrot; with others, too. They kept interrupting each other as we chatted. At times I couldn’t understand what they said. “Be quiet, be quiet. Speak a little more slowly, and one at a time.” They didn’t obey me. They were like all of you. Exactly like you. Why are you laughing so hard? You sound like parrots, you know. They never waited for one to finish speaking before they all started talking at once. They were pleased that we were able to understand each other at last. They nudged each other, flapping their wings. I felt relieved. Content. What’s happening is very strange, I thought.