Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman: Superhero from the comics that possesses the beauty of Venus, the wisdom of Minerva, the strength of Hercules and the speed of Mercury. Her weapons are her tiara, a deathly boomerang, the indestructible bracelets to make her invulnerable, and the lasso of truth with the strength of an aircraft carrier.

Technically she is the only indestructible character after Superman.

Sometimes I look at my wife, and that’s how I see her. I am certain that I’m going to get in trouble over this story.

Because I do not believe I possess the moral or grammatical stature to write it, and because Marita is going to be mad at me.

Ever since I started writing as a distraction that I always wanted to have, the stories and feelings I have not written parade around in my mind on their own volition. It’s a new and extraordinary phenomenon. It seems to replace my obsessive worries, and I would say it is a form of catharsis or something similar. However, it maintains the same compulsiveness that has always characterized my imagination. And it is that compulsiveness that forces me to write this.

I am sorry, my love.

Marita, my wife of almost thirty six years, is pleased to see me occupy my time like this, with some reservations. When I speak of her on funny terms, she likes it. When I describe my role of victim in our marriage like saying that I am an employee of the house, and that sometimes I even have to report to the dogs instead of to her, she does not like it but she lets it slide. But she hates it when I speak well of her. Honestly, she simply doesn’t tolerate it. And I like it so much when people speak well of me! However, that is one more of the many reasons that make me love her so much.

I don’t want to be corny, even though I am, so I’m not going to talk about how I fell in love with her or how few romantic things I was actually able to pull off with her. Sometimes my clumsiness and many times my lack of finesse were to blame. It’s enough to say that for me it was love at first sight. I saw her and I knew it was her, and with time we got married. 

Marriage isn’t easy for anyone. It sure wasn’t for us. One falls in love with an ideal, an image, gestures and attitudes that we think are wonderful. But the difference between the illusion and love is the same as learning to play soccer through the mail and learning to play with a team on a field. Everything seems wonderful, even the flaws seem charming. But the first kick to the shin makes us come back instantly and harshly to reality.- Me?!? Ma’am please!
-Yes, yes, you! Don’t play dumb with me. We all saw that you were going too fast.

We have lost count how many times we’ve kicked each other in shins, liver, head and other body parts. I don’t think there are many lasting couples in which the reciprocal desire of murdering your spouse wasn’t considered more than once. Like I heard someone say, there are people that haven’t done it for the sole reason that they have seen a CSI episode.

But I adore her. I have asked myself many times, and I have let her know, why I love her and I don’t know, but I love her. It is not praise, actually is quite the opposite and this thought crosses my mind in moments like when I am shopping on a Sunday at 4 in the afternoon, instead of being at home lying in bed and watching TV.

By the way, I do not like shopping and I will never like it.

I have always heard that opposites attract. But I have also always heard that the affinity between the two is important. Meaning some justify the success of a relationship when their interests, tastes and hobbies are completely opposite, while others uphold the exact opposite of this.

I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to know either. All I know is that after all this time, I look at her and I see her as beautiful as she was when I met her.

If there are two opposite people in this world, it is Marita and I. Adjusting to living together when we first got married was really difficult for us. We rented a small studio apartment about 165 square feet with a small kitchen and bathroom. We painted it, we cleaned it, and we arranged it and decorated it as better as we could.

We bought a bedroom set with a queen bed frame, but we had to use my full mattress because we didn’t have enough for a new one. Problems started with what side of the bed you want to sleep on, the bedside light bothers me, to turn off the TV, to even waking up to Marita asleep kicking me out of the bed. I ended up on the floor several times. She ended up with bruises from kicks and punches I gave her in my sleep.

I go to bed late, she goes to bed early and she need a full eight hours and I need six, I don’t eat breakfast, she does, I get to work late and she is late to weddings, details like those. Not by tenths but by hundreds. I love watching sports, she hates them, table games, I like them, she doesn’t, etc.

But if there are two people in tune with each other, it is Marita and I. We love to go out and travel without a plan and sometimes without destination, without planning anything. Listen to music together, socialize a little, go to the movies and the theater, sunsets and animals, talk about nothing and everything, help others, kiss each other on the lips and hug each other every morning after we wake up, or when we say goodbye or when we arrive. Even to this day.

Without noticing and at the same time we look for each other’s hands when we walk side by side or when she is driving. When we go out together, I never drive anymore; her worry and warnings every 10 seconds were too much for me. We like to look at each other in the eyes and we like to sit in silence, we love bitter olives, and hot corn puddings. There are a million things we both like, just like there is a million things just one of us likes.

During our first years, towards the end of each month I was working 18 hours a day and sometimes all day. She would stay alone and suffered. One day, in a moment that describes her perfectly, I came home late and I found her sitting at the table with pieces of parsley and cilantro on her head. I asked why she had put that on and she replied: “it’s just that it’s been so long since we went out that fungus is growing on my head”. No comments.

Another time, I was in deep sleep at 3 a.m. and she abruptly woke me up to tell me: “Guess what I just dreamed”. It is in moments like this that more than one crime has happened.

One day, walking down the neighborhood of San Isidro, we saw a car crash. We ran up to it quickly and we saw that both drivers were unhurt, and arguing about who was at fault. Since no one was injured, I turned into a spectator. I love watching people argue, debate and I quickly tend to take a side, keeping my opinions to myself, of course. Suddenly I hear a third voice that I recognized immediately:

-it was your fault! Don’t you realize that you were going too fast?

“We” were one older guy that hid instantly, Marita and I. the situation didn’t end well, for the accused nor for me. The police came, Marita told them her version, the guy kept arguing and I was trying to hold her back because she wanted to fight him.

During those times, Marita was 18 years old and about 95 lbs.

Yet a different time, backing out of the parking lot at a restaurant, I hit a parked car. Thinking about parking and checking out the damage, I looked at her and she say: “What are you waiting for? Go, go!” Obediently, I took off as fast as I could.

Little by little, as fantasy made way for reality, the intense illusion made way for a deeper love. We had huge problems. We even considered separating and divorcing. We had painful hurdles to overcome, especially her and each hurdle made me not love her more, but make her more a part of me or maybe make me more a part of her.

I think I need to explain a few things. I wrote a story about my mom, who passed away when I was 11 years old. Someday I will write a story about my father, an extraordinary man that passed suddenly right after I turned 19. For now, it is enough to say that I considered it too much, and that God simply had decided to make an experiment of me on how to fuck with someone’s life the most. In other words, I was the next assignment, that character in the Bible who God tests continuously and makes go through the hardest of times to test his faith. But my faith was dragging, instead of walking.

So I decided to live under the laws of the jungle. I was bitter, filled with hostility and hate. Walking through life like that, with terrible results by the way. I kept up with my bohemian habits, and doubtful attitudes to say the least, behaviors I had acquired a few years prior.

After meeting Marita and becoming crazy about her, I started to learn some things about her life, since she was very reserved. It took me a very long time to know her mom had passed away when she was 13 years old and her dad less than two years later. Yet she was so lively, always in a good mood, as sweet as sugar, and a fighter like none other.

Then I realized it. It was like a Dorian Wilde portrait inside out. It couldn’t be a coincidence. There was something else here. I was looking at myself in a magic mirror, seeing what I could’ve been and wasn’t. When I imagine everything she had to go through, it makes my skin crawl from guilt.

I am very respectful of people beliefs. If you believe in God or not, if you believe in Karma, reincarnation or fatality. My personal opinion is that everyone has the right to believe in whatever they want. I have decided to believe in God, but I have my own version, personal and particular.

Unexpectedly, God had placed in front of me a person that had suffered more than me, but reacting in a completely opposite way and was saying: “This is the woman I have picked out for you. Let’s see if you get your shit together once and for all.” – Smack, smack! A couple of slaps.

I was no saint; actually, I was the complete opposite of one. With a passive-aggressive personality, I’d say yes to everything, and then do whatever I wanted after. For my father and my family, open discussion and direct confrontation was something they were very accustomed to but for me it was baffling. I instead liked to get away with stuff without people noticing, and since I was an artist at being sneaky, the situation gave me a little bit of pleasure.

On top of that, I was spoiled, lazy, absent, and very selfish. Quite the little piece of work. In my favor, I was very sensitive, of acceptable intelligence, and a good heart that probably came from reading so many novels about cavalry as a kid.

And well, here we are. My woman and I. However, the idea of this story is not to compare. What I want in some way, is for people to know how lucky I was.

Definitely, I have certain mental problems. I am a mixture of manic depressive and mild bipolar disorder. I put passion into everything I’m interested in, until I get bored one day and I don’t do it ever again. I have very dark days, and my siblings say I have my own personal dark cloud hanging above my head.

On top of that, I’m still lazy, disorganized, and inconsistent. Despite understanding perfectly well social norms and having a lot of tact in the way I treat others, my very own nature betrays me and I’m politically incorrect to the most unacceptable extreme. I cannot keep quiet; I always have to say something ironic, hurtful or offensive, even when I know I should not for my own wellbeing. It’s just in my nature.

I’m terribly shy. I live with a constant fear and sometimes even terror. As a teenager it was impossible for me to speak to a girl. I remember when I was 12 years old, I fell in love with a girl that would go swimming to a friend’s house that had a pool. My brother and I would go every day. We were a pretty big group and there was never a way to have time alone. I think I only spoke to her three or four times, but I liked the idea of her being my girlfriend. One day I decided to give her a little note that read: “Do you want to be my girlfriend?” I wrote it on a notebook and ripped the page out. I didn’t consider that my brother had been watching me.

Yes, Ed, the little punk. He made it his goal to decipher the marks left by my writing in the following page and he made sure he told everyone about it. Impossible to give the note after that and my dreams of my first love vanished.

The first time I had to speak in public, my legs and my voice shook in such a way that I had to walk the whole time and speak louder at the audience’s request, since no one could hear what I was saying.

And now, after 35 years of being together, I see that my life made sense because I married Marita.

I would like to say why.

I don’t know anyone that is as capable of cheering someone up as she is. Not just me, but the people around her. Here and in Lima, there is always someone at the house or on the phone telling her about their problems, and she just gives advice and always cheers people up. I was the client with benefits.

She is incapable of observing something incorrect and do nothing about it. When my sister was hospitalized in a local clinic, with the threat of miscarriage of her oldest daughter, and against my opinion, very soundly she moved heaven and earth to have her transferred to a different clinic. Three days later my precious niece and goddaughter Brenda was born.

When there is a problem in her family, even though she is the fifth kid, she is the one that gets all the phone calls and consoles everyone. I’ve never seen anyone console people like she does it.

Sometimes I just hear what she is telling them because it even makes me feel better.

Once she is alone, she cries inconsolably, because she suffers and I suffer with her, but immediately she regains composure and keeps moving forward. Even though people enjoy my writing, it is impossible for me to console someone. I end up saying stupid things and how sorry I am, how sad, everything passes and that’s it. Not my wife. She has, without a doubt, a magical gift that cures emotional wounds.

However she never thinks of herself. We can be running on empty, and if her sister or our youngest daughter has some sort of financial problem, she rather not eat and help them out. Of course, I, our daughters and her granddaughter are first. She takes care of us, she spoils us, and does everything for us. When I want to get her a gift, or take her out on a nice dinner, she tells me she prefers getting a gift for one of her daughters or buy something for her granddaughter.

She is fun, unpredictable and funny. To listen to her laugh is marvelous. The ones that know me, know that you need a lot of patience with me and that I’m a major opportunist. She has all the patience in the world, and even though she scalds me almost every day with reason, she gets over it almost immediately. I however can stay resentful for days, and in my family some resentment has lasted years.

Oh how she takes care of me! On a winter night, we were in bed, she was sleeping and I was watching TV. I’m thinking about getting a patent on how to sleep cuddling with one arm and holding the remote with the other. Like the compulsive guy that I am, I can watch about three different shows simultaneously. We were cuddling and she was sound asleep, and then Marita touches my arm, the side that guards the remote, grabs the blanket, and covers my arm up completely all the way to the top. I assumed she did it so I wouldn’t get sick.

She takes care of me even in her sleep good God! There are days that while she sleeps and I look at her without waking her up, I just think to myself “how could she have married me?!” and after “on top of that, she has stayed with me all these years!” soon following “she definitely isn’t dumb, quite the opposite, she is very smart! Then, almost like a syllogism, I arrive to my final conclusion: she loves me like I love her, without knowing why she loves me, but she loves me.

And we are happy in our world. The whole opposite or common interests thing just doesn’t work for us. My conclusion is that she completes me and I complete her. Separate, we aren’t two, we are zero. Together we are just one, but a very, very big one!

That is why, my every day hero, the electricity that powers my light, my woman is Marita.

Wonder woman!

Ah, The Women!

It is no secret that the female sex is my favorite...

I just see how writing this note will be a bit tricky, so I’ll try to be more straightforward; what I mean is that I like women more than men...

The last sentence (I've noticed it right now) remains unclear as to what I mean. Someone may think that implies a certain attraction, smaller but attraction after all to male human beings. No. Not so. And if it was, I honestly wouldn’t deny it. At this stage and in the world in which we live, it won’t cause any commotion and I at least wouldn’t mind.

Let's start over. In human race, I like females more because they are more human and more beings than males.

Maybe I'm suffering from Stockholm syndrome, since women have kidnapped me for the last forty years of my life. It is a theory with many arguments. I had only daughters, granddaughter, sisters, aunts and even maids living in my house since I can remember. I've had more bosses that were women than men and in the best sense of the word, more women than men have loved me.

In my father's family, where testosterone seems to have been spared with far more generosity than any other family I know, this opinion will cause a stir. I stress the word "seems" because I am not aware of what the right dose of this hormone is, but some of my relatives firmly believe it and others still toss around demonstrating it with irrefutable facts.

But I confess, as would that Argentinian master of comedy, Pepe Biondi, in his characterization of Narciso Bello (Beautiful Narcissus): I love them all! And not for the reasons that many men keep in mind at this time. Men are the lucky sex because women do that for us.

If we look at history, great leaders, thinkers, warriors and poets have been men. From Homer, Aristotle and Plato to Jesus Christ, Napoleon, Einstein and Gandhi. Lately, characters that are changing the world are also men like Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg. Melinda, Laureen and Priscilla are some unknown illustrious wives who have kept an honorable anonymity or at least a very low profile public image.

Women seem not to have featured at all. It reminds me a funny story I read about the singleness of Christopher Columbus and that thanks to it he could discover America. If he had been married, he would have to fight these powerful female arguments:

- Why you? Why they don’t send another one?

- Nothing will happen if the world stays flat.

- Only men will be traveling? - Do you think I’m stupid?

- Why can’t I go if you're the boss?

- That Queen Isabel will sell her jewelry for this trip... Do you believe me stupid or what? What do you have to do with the old lady?

Jokes aside, this train of thought has been haunting my life for a long time. I think it is due to being very fortunate to meet many extraordinary women in my life.

In addition, these women are in a completely sublimated sense, more men than many; and I will go further: they have, figuratively speaking, larger testicles than many men. Again, in the sense the cliché is used. When we speak of someone who demonstrates tremendous value, or a character of indomitable struggle against adversity, they say: "He does have balls" or "Wow, such balls". And this is how I call them in the privacy of a great friendship, "Women with balls."

When I see a great lady take her daughter to the altar on her wedding day because she played both father and mother roles, against all the objections and criticisms breaking an immemorial tradition
- It should have been some man, maybe an uncle…- But if I saw the dad over there!
- How is it possible?
I am proud to be his friend. And that in any language is called "having balls".

Or when a woman, keyring size and less than 98 pounds, brings ahead 3 sons doing school transportation and depriving herself of everything while giving them all they need, what do you feel? Pride and humbleness, at least. Pride, because I am honored to be his friend and humbleness because I do not get to her heels. Honestly, and with my heart in hand, I would have been incapable. I certainly would have failed. This woman has at least a couple occupying that place where many men keep a shy, scrawny appendix.

I know a woman who is 88 years old. This lady has the right to do what she feels like in life. Excellent mother, extraordinary woman, great and very beautiful wife, until today she never complains. So what is she doing? How does she spend her hard-earned leisure? Thinking of her 90 year old man. She is always looking for him, and cares about every silly trifle or anything that could disturb the tranquility of her husband. She fought all his life for her family, her husband and even for me.

Another lady who I love and respect very much, has brought up children, brothers, nephews, neighbors and even scoundrels like me. As all these women, she wakes up before all, always pushing, encouraging and inspiring all those around her. Very quick temper, she never had no qualms about using a slipper to appease a horde of savages who lived in her house. I painfully know it firsthand. Her age? Only 92 years old and still there, giving and giving.

But I think I’m moving ahead too fast. I should explain what my current thinking is and why I have concluded with these preferences.

We human males are designed to be aggressive. It is an atavistic trait of our specie. We fight and compete to be the strongest, the most skilled, the smartest and the bravest, in short, the better. If we see other animal species, males have the same genetic conditioning. I guess that's part of what was necessary to preserve the specie. Elk, lions, buffalo and gorillas to name a few. The strongest becomes the leader and is responsible to protect everyone else. That is, to protect the herd as his main objective.

In contrast, women are made differently in a way I find very difficult to explain. Because with humbleness and bewilderment, though I try, I have tried and will keep trying, it is very clear to me that I will never understand them.

Under the same frame of mind, they need to be the most productive, the most prolific and stronger, because it is they and not the males that actually perpetuate the specie.

Take a hypothetical case where we have a pride of lions that for some strange reason, has been decimated and there are 10 lions and a lioness. More likely males will fight each other to death and the surviving will end so injured that it will be impossible for him to impregnate the lioness. The pride will certainly disappear.

Consider the reverse case. A lion and ten lionesses. I do not want to make social comparisons so far. These are simply mechanisms inherent to this specie. The lion will fertilize most of the lionesses and soon the pride will be back to its normal ecological balance. Best not to mention the cruelty of other species such as bees or the famous "Black Widow".

Men can rule the world, destroy each other, or construct buildings and impressive bridges, invent wonders, write as the gods, be incredible sources of spiritual inspiration but the reality, simple and naked is that the future lies with them women and not in our side.

What I mean is that at sixty we are still children playing in the gardens of life, with larger, sophisticated and more dangerous toys. Women don’t. They will always keep their feet on the ground and will focus on small and insignificant things that will ensure life can continue. In other words, so we men can continue with our treacherous and irresponsible game, while ignoring such trifles that are so important for them.

My sister in law Gladys, which we raised as a daughter and pulled so many gray hairs from me as the other two, has three grown children. Her husband, who lives in the stratosphere endlessly rebuilding old cars and writing a novel longer that the veil of Penelope, comes down from time to time to change his underpants and socks and to issue new rules for all the family.

She gave me the exact phrase defining precisely the dimension of the relationship between millions of couples of our specie:

- Gordito, (nickname denoting I’m fat, like “chubby”), oh, you know, I say yes to everything that Tom wants, except to what really matters.

And this naive simplicity and brilliantly unappealable phrase defines the reality. Neither Schopenhauer could write a sentence so pure and powerful.
That's how it is. And that’s it.

To conclude my theory, a proof that we are built this way to preserve the specie is polygamy. This does not come from the mind of some inspired or crazy prophet, (which is often the same); it is the result of men playing little wars and killing each other since the days of Cain and Abel. As far as I remember, no biblical woman killed another woman (or man) with the jawbone of a donkey, and the few that ended with someone like Judith, it was a male, Holofernes in this case. The Bible is full of widows who finished marrying the brother or uncle to preserve the specie.

Not a single ethnic group initially wasn’t polygamous, always in the same direction, a man and several women.

I'm sure some naive men think that the lives of these polygamous men were idyllic. Sorry to disappoint them, but that only happens in fairy tales. The vast majority must have often regretted having to endure these trances. Believe me.

However, we are in the XXI century, and with some exceptions, we live in a society where living conditions have varied widely. Women have usurped with extraordinary success places reserved exclusively for men. They are presidents, doctors, lawyers, soldiers, entrepreneurs, poets, painters and any profession you can think of has women. Most do better than men do, because they need to establish that they can compete and above all win. The men not. Many settle into a comfort level that ensures them a quiet life that enables them to see as much TV as possible with the most enjoyable sports and beer less fattening.

But most important is that my female friends are far more interesting than my male friends. And it cost me a lot to realize it. Although my life has been very intense and I give the impression to be an individual disrespectful of conventional social norms, somewhat shameless and with a very long tongue, the truth is that I am a very shy and introverted person. Certain features of my personality are like "acquired tastes" needed to survive in this world.

As a result, I have enjoyed immensely the conversations with women, and while I see that we men get older and begin to limit our conversation topics, women on the other hand seem to expand their range of topics and what we lose in sensitivity and ability to wonder, is won by them. It's interesting. And it doesn’t seem fair. But long ago I realized that daily life and justice travel separate ways.

A few days ago, we went out to eat with a group of friends we see frequently. As usual, the women sat on one side of the table and men on the other:

- It was fucking hot today, right?
- I saw the weather report, a cold front is coming.
- What we need is rain. My yard is almost dead.


...


- Did you see the Cowboys game?
- Tony Romo should be fired at once.
- Ever since Jerry Jones owns the team is no longer the same. He's a jerk!


...

- And Trump? Did you watch his last statement?
- The worst would be if Bush wins. Too much of the same.
- Still way to go, boys...


...

In less than an hour, the food and the talks are over. There are five mature men, unable to hold a conversation in the middle of an awkward silence while we look doubtfully and helplessly at women who seem to have a great time, talking animatedly, with much laughter and shouts of joy.

I couldn’t help remembering my childhood, when my mother took me to the house of my aunts, and I watched them with a feeling of abandonment while they were immerse in long and entertaining conversations, while I waited for the moment when we would go to the library to choose my books.

You could feel among men an air of envy and discomfort. At one point, I got up from the chair and sat between them, tired, drained of searching commonplaces and getting monosyllabic answers. I had a great time!

I do not seek existential nor deep talks, but simple and interesting dialogues, words flowing, navigable topics in conversation. It is a pleasure that I think I always had at my disposal and never fully appreciated.

Near the end of the meal, one of my friends told me:

- I think we're going to remove your card from the men's club ...

Well, an interesting topic! Amused and eager to argue, I replied:

- No please! What would I do without the card?
- It's your fault, go back and talk to the women!
- Yes, I know it’s my fault but what I’m asking is what I'm losing with the card.

A slight confusion crossed his face. However, he reacted quickly:

- What do you mean “What”? Everything, man, everything!
- That’s what I am asking. What is everything? Give me some examples, please. The matter really worries me. I don’t want to lose any privileges or the perks of a male, you understand.
- Well, for starters, you will no longer be the boss at your home.
- Me? ¿In my house? If I understand correctly, I'd be just like you. It’s evident that you are not the boss in yours. And we all know that. The only difference is that I don’t mind admitting it and you're embarrassed with it.

I went too far. My friend had a too serious face so I stopped piercing the wound.

Then amicably we started to list the benefits of the club, and I almost convinced him to adopt the matriarchy:

- Pay the bills? If she wants to do it, be happy, you won’t have to worry anymore. You'll sleep better and at the end, the money that's left over you can spend it as you wish. The problem is that almost never is anything left...

- So she wants to drive when you two go out? Wonderful! You’ll forget about the "iiiiiiihhhhhh", or her shoes about to make a hole in the floor of the car, the endless "careful!" "stop!", "Oh my God!" and others when she is not driving. You can listen to music, enjoy the scenery, use your iPhone, etc.

We shared almost an hour of interesting and fun conversation and at the end of it, he said:

- I'll return your men card club. I have included a note that says, "Private consultancies are given"


In short, I love women!

¡Ah, Las Mujeres!

Para nadie es un secreto que mi sexo favorito es el femenino…

Acabo de percatarme que escribir esta nota va a ser un poco complicado, así que trataré de ser más claro y directo; lo que quiero decir es que las mujeres me gustan más que los hombres…

La última frase (lo he notado ahora mismo) sigue sin aclarar lo que quiero decir. Alguien puede pensar que implica cierta atracción, menor, pero atracción al fin y al cabo a los seres humanos de sexo masculino. No. No es así. Y si lo fuera, honestamente no lo negaría. A estas alturas y en el mundo en que vivimos, no causaría ningún revuelo y a mí al menos no me importaría.

Empecemos de nuevo. De los seres humanos, los de sexo femenino me gustan más porque me parecen más humanos y más seres que los de sexo masculino.

Quizás estoy sufriendo el síndrome de Estocolmo, al haber estado secuestrado por mujeres los últimos cuarenta años de mi vida. Es una teoría con muchos argumentos a favor. He tenido solo hijas, nieta, cuñadas, tías y hasta mucamas viviendo en mi casa desde que tengo memoria. He tenido más jefes mujeres que hombres y creo que en el buen sentido de la palabra, me han querido más mujeres que hombres.

En mi familia paterna, donde la testosterona parece haber sido repartida con mucha más generosidad que en cualquier otra que yo conozca, esta opinión causará cierto revuelo. Insisto en la palabra “parece”, pues a mí no me consta, ya que ignoro cuál es la dosis correcta de dicha hormona, pero algunos de mis parientes lo creen firmemente y otros aún circulan por ahí demostrándolo con hechos irrefutables.

Pero lo confieso, como diría aquel maestro de la comicidad, Pepe Biondi, en su caracterización de Narciso Bello: ¡Las amo a todas! Y no por las razones que muchos varones deben tener en mente en este momento. Los hombres somos el sexo afortunado porque las mujeres lo hacen así para nosotros.

Si miramos a la Historia, los grandes líderes, pensadores, guerreros y poetas han sido hombres. Desde Homero, Aristóteles y Platón hasta Jesucristo, Napoleón, Einstein y Gandhi. Últimamente, personajes que están cambiando el mundo son también varones como Gates, Jobs y Zuckerberg. Melinda, Laureen y Priscilla son unas ilustres desconocidas, esposas de los anteriores que han guardado un honroso anonimato o por lo menos una imagen pública de perfil muy bajo.

Las mujeres parecerían no haber destacado en absoluto. Y me viene a la memoria una graciosa historia que leí sobre la soltería de Cristóbal Colón y que gracias a ella pudo descubrir América. Si hubiera estado casado, hubiera tenido que luchar contra estos poderosos argumentos femeninos, entre otros:

-¿Y por qué no mandan a otro?
-No va a pasar nada si el mundo sigue plano.
-¿Y sólo van a viajar hombres? – ¿Me crees tonta?
-¿Y por qué no puedo ir yo si tú eres el jefe?
-Qué la Reina Isabel va a vender sus joyas para que viajes… ¿Me crees tonta o qué? ¿Qué tienes que ver con esa vieja?

Bromas aparte, esta cadena de pensamientos ha venido rondando mi vida ya hace un buen tiempo. Creo que se debe a la suerte de haber conocido a muchas mujeres extraordinarias en mi vida.

Y estas mujeres son en un sentido absolutamente sublimado de la palabra, más hombres que muchos y voy más lejos aún; tienen unos testículos virtuales más grandes que muchos hombres. Una vez más, en el sentido figurado en que se usa el cliché. Cuando hablamos de alguien que demuestra un valor tremendo, o un carácter de lucha indomable contra la adversidad, se suele decir: “El sí que tiene huevos” o “¡Que tales huevos!”. Y es así como las llamo en la intimidad de una gran amistad: “Mujeres con huevos”.

Cuando veo a una gran señora llevar a su hija al altar el día de su boda, porque hizo el papel de padre y madre, contra todos los reparos y criticas de romper con una tradición inmemorial – Debió haber sido algún tío por lo menos – Pero si yo he visto al papá por allá – ¿Cómo es posible? – yo me siento orgulloso de ser su amigo. Y eso en cualquier lenguaje se llama “tener huevos”

O cuando una gran mujer, de tamaño llaverito y menos de 45 kilos de peso, saca adelante a 3 hijos varones haciendo movilidad escolar y privándose de todo por ellos, ¿qué se puede sentir? Orgullo y humildad, por lo menos. Orgullo, porque me honro en ser su amigo y humildad porque no le llego ni a los talones. Honestamente, y con el corazón en la mano, yo hubiera sido incapaz. Habría fracasado sin duda. Esta mujer tiene por lo menos un par ocupando ese lugar en que muchos hombres alojan un tímido y esmirriado apéndice.

Conozco una dama que tiene 88 años de edad. Esta señora tiene el derecho de hacer lo que la da la gana en la vida. Madre excelente, mujer extraordinaria, estupenda esposa y muy guapa hasta hoy, no se queja jamás. ¿Y que hace? ¿A que dedica su bien ganado tiempo de ocio? A pensar en su viejo de 90. Lo engríe, se preocupa por cualquier nimiedad o tontería que pudiera alterar la tranquilidad de su esposo. Luchó toda su vida por su familia, su marido y hasta por mí.

Otra señora a la que quiero muchísimo, ha criado hijos, hermanos, sobrinos, vecinos y hasta sinvergüenzas como yo. Como todas estas mujeres, se levanta antes que todos, siempre empujando, animando y alentando a todos los que la rodean. De genio muy vivo, no tuvo nunca reparo en usar una chancleta para sosegar a una horda de salvajes que vivíamos en su casa. Me consta en carne propia. ¿Su edad? Solo 92 añitos y ahí sigue, dándole y dándole.

Pero creo que me adelanto. Es preciso explicar cuál es mi corriente de pensamiento y porque he llegado a la conclusión de mis inusuales preferencias.

Nosotros los hombres estamos diseñados para ser agresivos. Es una característica atávica de nuestra especie. Luchamos y competimos para ser el más fuerte, el más hábil, el más inteligente y el más valiente, en resumen, el mejor. Nacemos así. Si vemos otras especies animales, vemos que los machos tienen ese mismo condicionamiento genético. Y me imagino que es parte de lo que era necesario para preservar a la especie. Los alces, los leones, los búfalos y gorilas solo por mencionar algunos. Y el más fuerte se convierte en el líder y es el responsable de proteger a todos los demás. Es decir, de proteger a la especie en lo que le toca.

En cambio, las mujeres están hechas de otra manera que me resulta muy difícil explicar. Porque lo manifiesto con humildad y perplejidad, aunque trato, he tratado y seguiré tratando, me es claro que jamás lograré entenderlas.

Pero bajo el mismo marco de pensamiento, necesitan ser las más fértiles, las más prolíficas y las más fuertes, pues son ellas y no los machos las que realmente perpetúan la especie.

Pongamos un hipotético caso en que tengamos una manada de leones que por alguna extraña razón, haya sido diezmada y haya 10 leones y una leona. Lo más probable es que los machos luchen entre si hasta morir y el sobreviviente quedara tan maltrecho que le será imposible fecundar a la leona. La manada sin duda desaparecerá.
Veamos el caso inverso. Un león y diez leonas. No quiero hacer comparaciones sociales ni mucho menos. Son simplemente mecanismos inherentes a esta especie. El león fecundará a muchas de las leonas y en poco tiempo la manada habrá recuperado su equilibrio ecológico normal. Mejor ni hablar de la crueldad de otras especies como las abejas o la famosa “Viuda Negra”.

Los hombres podremos gobernar el mundo, destrozarnos, masacrarnos o construir edificios y puentes impresionantes, inventar maravillas, escribir como los dioses, ser increíbles fuentes de inspiración espiritual pero la realidad, simple y desnuda es que el futuro está en manos de ellas y no en las nuestras.

Lo que quiero decir es que a los sesenta años seguimos siendo niños jugando en los jardines de la vida, con juguetes más grandes, sofisticados y peligrosos. Las mujeres no. Ellas serán siempre prácticas, con pies en la tierra y enfocadas en las cosas pequeñas e insignificantes que son las que garantizan que la vida pueda continuar. En otras palabras, para que podamos seguir con nuestros juegos peligrosos e irresponsables, mientras ignoramos esas nimiedades que revisten tanta importancia para ellas.

Mi cuñada Gladys, a la que criamos como una hija y que me sacó tantas canas como las otras, tiene tres hijos ya grandes. Su marido, que vive alojado en la estratósfera, reconstruyendo interminables autos antiguos y escribiendo una novela más larga que el manto de Penélope, baja de vez en cuando para cambiarse los calzoncillos y las medias y aprovecha para dictar todas las reglas nuevas para la familia.

Ella me dio la frase exacta que define la dimensión precisa de millones de relaciones de parejas de nuestra especie:

-Ay Gordito, ya tú sabes, pues. Yo le digo que sí a todo lo que Tom quiere, menos a lo que de verdad importa.

Y esta candorosa e inapelable sencillez define genialmente la realidad. Ni Schopenhauer hubiera podido escribir una frase tan pura y poderosa. Así es como es. Y punto.

Para terminar con mi teoría, una prueba fehaciente que estamos construidos de esta manera para preservar la especie es la poligamia. Esta no viene de la mente de algún profeta inspirado (o loco, que muchas veces es lo mismo); es el resultado de los hombres jugando a las guerritas y matándose unos a otros desde la época de Caín y Abel. Por lo que recuerdo, ninguna mujer bíblica mató a otra con una quijada de burro, y las pocas que acabaron con alguien como Judith, fue a un varón, Holofernes en este caso. La biblia está llena de viudas que terminaron desposando al hermano o al tío para preservar la especie.
No hay una sola etnia que en sus inicios no haya sido poligámica, siempre en el mismo sentido, un hombre y varias mujeres.

Estoy seguro que algún iluso pensará que la vida de estos hombres polígamos fue idílica. Lamento “des-ilusarlos”: eso solo ocurre en los cuentos. La inmensa mayoría se debe haber lamentado muchas veces de tener que soportar estos trances. Créanme.

Sin embargo, estamos en el siglo XXI y con algunas excepciones, vivimos en una sociedad donde las condiciones de vida han variado mucho. Las mujeres han usurpado con un éxito extraordinario, lugares reservados exclusivamente para hombres. Son presidentas, doctoras, abogadas, militares, empresarias, poetas, pintoras y cualquier profesión que uno se pueda imaginar cuenta con mujeres. La mayoría lo hace mejor, pues precisa demostrar que puede competir y sobre todo, ganar. El hombre no. Muchos se acomodan en un nivel de confort que les asegure una vida tranquila y que les permita ver la mayor cantidad de deportes posible con la cerveza más agradable y que menos engorde.

Pero lo más importante es que mis amigas mujeres son mucho más interesantes que mis amigos hombres. Y me ha costado mucho darme cuenta. A pesar que mi vida ha sido muy intensa y diera la impresión que soy y he sido un individuo poco respetuoso de las normas sociales convencionales y más bien algo desvergonzado y con una lengua muy larga, lo cierto es que soy una persona muy tímida e introvertida. Ciertas características de mi personalidad vienen a ser como “sabores adquiridos”, necesarias para sobrevivir en este mundo.

Gracias a ello, he podido disfrutar inmensamente de las conversaciones con mujeres, y mientras veo que nosotros los hombres envejecemos y empezamos a limitar nuestros temas de conversación, las mujeres por el contrario parecen ampliar su espectro de temas y lo que nosotros perdemos en sensibilidad y capacidad de maravillarnos, es ganado por ellas. Es curioso. Y no me parece justo. Pero hace ya mucho tiempo que me di cuenta que la vida diaria y la justicia recorren caminos separados.

Hace unos días, salimos a comer con un grupo de amigos que frecuentamos. Como era habitual, las mujeres se sentaron a un lado de la mesa y los hombres al otro.

-¿Qué calor de mierda hoy día, no?
-Felizmente ya llega un frente frio, Lo vi en el reporte del tiempo.
-Lo que necesitamos es que llueva. Mi jardín ya está casi seco,
…
-¿Viste el partido de los Cowboys?
-A Tony Romo deberían botarlo de una vez.
-Desde que Jerry Jones es el dueño, el equipo ya no es lo mismo. ¡Es un imbécil!
…
-¿Y Trump? ¿Viste sus últimas declaraciones?
-Lo peor sería que gane Bush. Ya mucho de lo mismo.
-Falta mucho todavía, muchachos…
…

En menos de una hora, la comida y la sobremesa han terminado. Éramos cinco varones maduros, incapaces de sostener una conversación, en medio de un silencio embarazoso, mientras de reojo miramos a las mujeres que parecen pasarlo en grande, conversando animadamente, con muchas risas y exclamaciones de alegría.

Se podía sentir entre los hombres un aire de envidia y desamparo. No pude evitar recordar mi infancia, cuando mi madre me llevaba a la casa de mis tías, y yo miraba con un sentimiento de abandono las largas y entretenidas conversaciones, esperando el momento en que iríamos a la biblioteca para escoger mis libros.

En una ocasión, me levanté de la silla y me senté entre ellas, harto, cansado de buscar lugares comunes y respuestas monosilábicas. Lo pasé en grande.
No busco conversaciones existenciales ni profundas, sino diálogos simples e interesantes, palabras fluidas, temas navegables en la conversación. Es un placer que creo siempre tuve a mi disposición y no supe apreciar en su totalidad.

Casi al final de esa comida, uno de mis amigos me dijo:

-Creo que te vamos a quitar el carnet del club de hombres…

¡Vaya, un tema interesante! Divertido y ansioso de polemizar, le contesté:

-¡No, por favor! ¿Qué me haría sin el carnet?
-Es tu culpa, por irte a conversar con las mujeres.
-Sí, eso lo sé, Pero lo que te pregunto es qué estoy perdiendo con el carnet.

Un leve desconcierto cruzó su frente. Pero reacciono rápidamente

-¿Cómo que qué? ¡Todo, pues!
-A eso voy. ¿Qué es todo? Dame algunos ejemplos, por favor. El asunto me preocupa de verdad. No quiero perder ningún privilegio ni prebenda propia del sexo masculino, como comprenderás.
-Bueno, para empezar, ya no serás el que manda en tu casa.
-¿Yo? ¿Mandar en mi casa? Si entiendo bien, estaría igual que tú. Porque es evidente que tú tampoco mandas en la tuya. Y eso lo sabemos todos. La única diferencia es que a mí no me importa admitirlo y a ti te da vergüenza.

Fui muy lejos. Mi amigo tenía un semblante demasiado serio para seguir horadando en la herida.

Pero empezamos amigablemente a enumerar los beneficios del club, y casi lo convencí de adoptar el matriarcado:

-¿Pagar todas las cuentas? Si ella quiere hacerlo, alégrate, ya no te vas a preocupar. Dormirás mejor y al final, la plata que sobra la puedes gastar si así lo deseas. El problema es que casi nunca queda…
-¿Que quiere manejar el auto cuando sale contigo? ¡Maravilloso! Te olvidarás de los “iiiiiiihhhhhh”, de sus zapatos a punto de perforar el piso del auto, de los interminables “¡cuidado!” “¡para!”, “¡Ay Dios mío!” y demás cuando ella no maneja. Podrás escuchar música, disfrutar el paisaje, usar tu iPhone, etc.

Y logramos compartir casi una hora de conversación interesante y divertida, al final de la cual, me dijo:

-Te regresamos tu carnet del club de hombres. He incluido una nota que dice “Se dan asesorías particulares”

En resumen, ¡adoro a las mujeres!

Jenny Number One

It is much easier to write about pleasant and humorous memories. Unfortunately life has a little of everything. There are happy moments, funny moments, agitated moments, calm moments, grisly moments, and sad and tragic moments. 

But I think one is lucky in life if it’s entertaining. I don’t say happy, nor tragic, simply entertaining. I think that in hell, instead of having those engulfing flames that are always pictured, it must be the total climax of boredom, something like the quintessence of absolute tediousness. 

I ask myself if I actually had that in my life. The results tell me yes, I don’t know if it’s because of circumstances or because of my own initiative, probably a little of both. Hardly have I been bored and I prefer to think that with the years I have found harmony, and with harmony, peace. 

Beatiful Bride

I also think that what one receives during their first years is fundamental for what will happen in the future. The way each one remembers, feel, and reacts as an adult is formed during childhood. In my case, the lens I view life with are stained with what happened during my first years. 

I was the first-born son to my parents (at least according to the municipal records in Arequipa, a Peruvian southern city), and my first three years were what you would call abundant. Many toys, big house, a very comfortable life. 

Only two incidents that were told to me, because I have no memory of them, are worthy of mention. I had meningitis and I fell down the stairs from the second story, splitting my forehead open. From that all is left is my excessive clumsiness, some problems with my coordination and a scar between my brows that I later made even more noticeable. 

When I was three years old we had to move to Lima to Grandma’s house (Mamamita), my mom’s mom, because the family businesses managed by my father went bankrupt, for reason that aren’t relevant. First one business, then another, and just like that. There weren’t many but they allowed us to live very well. 

At 28 years old my father had to start not from zero but from even lower, because he took on the pending debts. At that point, he found a job in the Department of Transportation to build highways in the mountain range of La Libertad, north of Lima. I remember being able to make it all the way to Huamachuco, a small town at the highlands of the Andes on the highway he built.

My mom, my brother Ed and I had to share a bedroom in Mamamita’s home, an old house in downtown Lima. I still remember the floorboards full of splinters, because back then there was no treatment for wooden floorboards yet. Since my brother and I always walked around the house without shoes, they would have to take the splinters out with a needle, and it wasn’t pleasant in any way. 

In this house there was no yard, but a pen. We would receive, from my aunts up North, a turkey or two every once in a while. The window in our room faced the pen and I can vouch for the stupidity of these animals that in vain would try to peck at the turkey they saw reflected on the window as early as six in the morning. 

Fernando and Jenny

Those were difficult years. My mom had to start working and we spent our days under Mamamita’s supervision. A strong woman and authoritative that managed the household and employees with a wand. Not like the one that witches have or fairy godmothers. This one was thick, about a foot and a half long or so, and it was used to discipline the maids. Those were different times, obviously. She never hit us, but the memories of a sweet and loving grandmother that many of my younger cousins have, didn’t come until a few years later.
We were there for five years. Each year it was more difficult to control us and we were truly little pieces of work, Ed and I. Since I can remember, we would hit each other daily. I don’t remember a single reason to initiate these fights, but it was like a scripted scene that was always the same: Ed, younger than me by a year and a half, a constant pain in the ass, would start annoying me with something, I’d lose my patience and hit him, he would cry and hit me while I laughed, until he finally would throw a punch that hurt me, and we would start all over again. We could do this for hours. 

Once they bought us roman swords, made out of hard plastic and we only got to play with them for one day. That night, my mom threw them in the trash when she saw the bodies of her two sons that looked like they had been painted with red stripes. We beat the crap out each other. This is such a good memory!

My father would come once a month or every two months, since traveling to Trujillo from Huamachuco took about two days back then, and one extra day to get to Lima. He stayed for a couple of days with us, then he returned to the mountains. The poor thing would do what he could in those times. took us to the movie matinees in the Tacna Theater where we would watch cartoon movies like “Woody Woodpecker” and “Lucky Rabbit”, and he tried to spend as much time as he could with us. 

He also had to make time for my mom, and there was so little of it. 

I just know he adored us, like he adored all of his children. We are four siblings total, two from his second marriage. By all means we are siblings, not half-siblings or any other stupid politically correct term. For us, you either are or aren’t, nothing in between. 

In the meantime I turned into an avid and obsessive comic book reader. The only thing I wanted was more comic books, and I would make one of our maids read them to me over and over again. Every time my aunts came to visit, I asked for change to buy more comics. My aunt Maruja specially, always gave me enough for a couple of them. My mom, of course, would bring me one almost every day. 

Even in the newspapers, I liked looking at the advertisements. One day I looked at an ad in the newspaper for a detergent called “Maravilla” and just like that, totally surprised I realized I could read everything it said! I was about 4 years old and I had never been to school since in those days we didn’t have preschool, or daycares. 

Without fully understanding what was happening, I could grasp that this would change my life. No more maids, no more having to beg, ask, plead and even threaten them so they would read me a comic. My first step towards freedom had been taken.

I ran straight to my mom to tell her I knew how to read, and I showed her by reading a whole article in the newspaper. Against all expectations, my mom got mad and went straight to the maid to ask her for an explanation, thinking she had taught me how to read. Finally, and in a formal meeting, the whole family had to accept the fact that I had learned to read on my own. 

It wasn’t until many years later that I found out the reason to her reaction; the doctor that treated me for meningitis told my mother that it was likely that I would have lasting effects and it was preferable I wasn’t pushed intellectually, and even recommended that I be held back from going to school for a year. In other words: “ma’am, don’t worry too much if your son turns out a little stupid.”

I was sent to kindergarten at the right age and two months later they transferred me to the next grade. My mom didn’t find out until half way through the year, when she went to the parent-teacher conference at the end of the first semester. It was too late. It turned out that not only were they not holding me back a year according to the doctor’s instructions, but I was placed a grade ahead!

I don’t think I had superior intelligence, but what I had was an obsessive, intense and impatient personality and a curiosity bordering with madness that have followed me my whole life. Now, I’m not stupid, not at all. 

Two little pieces of work...

Anyway, when my mom accepted that my reading was a passion, she started to buy me books very carefully selected. She bought me “Heart: A School-boy’s Journal: Edmondo de Amicis”, beautiful book, others of adventures, not very long so I wouldn’t get too tired. 

My mom was also an avid reader and I remember her reading “Ben-Hur”, by Lewis Wallace, a little novel of about 600 pages in Victorian style. That was actually the first book I read (in secret, of course). I read it over and over again, and my imagination would transport me to the Galleys, the Roman Coliseum, Jerusalem and Africa; always with excitement, fear, happiness, and above all, passion. I hated Mesala with my whole being. I would cry, laugh, suffer, it was a flood of emotions and images that filled my life. Of course at this point my mom realized that there were parts of the book I knew by heart, and had no choice but to take me to watch the movie. 

We went to the Metro, a very stylish and elegant theater downtown Lima and they cleaned me and dressed me up, they even had me wear a suit. I watched the movie practically without moving and almost not breathing. It was overpowering and impressive. A new obsession had been born in me: the movies. I must have watched as many as a few thousand movies. I have no idea how many books, but in both cases, I lost a lot of time for not knowing how to choose. I was a machine that processed text and images, wild and natural. 

It was around that time that my mom started to instill other things in me; she would buy classical music albums, and I would sit to read in the living room with my record player (yes, mine at 6 years old) and I would play Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin specially. When I only wanted to listen to music I would play zarzuela (Spanish opera), another big passion my parents had. I listened to “Luisa Fernanda” until the grooves in the vinyl wore out and we had to buy another copy.

Undoubtedly I attended the zarzuela season that was presented by the Company of Don Faustino Garcia. I went with my mother for several years. The reaction of this alone would fill several more pages without a doubt. 

We also had some great aunts, my grandfather’s sisters, which lived on top of the famous Cordano, a very old and traditional restaurant downtown Lima, at the front corner of the Government Palace. It was the house of our great grandfather whom had already passed away and in that house lived all of the single aunts. Actually I think they all stayed single. My Aunt Pepa, the oldest, was very loving but was also very ugly, the poor thing. Our great grandfather, faithful to tradition, decided that if the oldest one didn’t go out neither could the second, and so on, condemning all five of my aunts to a single life. 

By the way, it was him who donated the paintings of the celebrated Pancho Fierro artist to the National Library of Lima, after a lot of strenuous work to top the watercolor paintings, and a “baptism” he did with Don Ricardo Palma, a famous Peruvian writer. I say “baptism” because Pancho Fierro was illiterate and the titles seen in the paintings were written by them. They had to figure out the date and more importantly the scenery and who was being portrayed in them. 

My mom would take me to visit them once a month and she would pay us to kiss Aunt Pepa, because she had a mustache and a very deep voice. But this subject is for a different story.
For me it was a special day. My mom with one of my aunts (Emilia, I think) would take me to my great grandfather’s library. It was a room with very little light, even artificial light was scarce, and I estimate it had about 3,000 books. All four walls, almost from the ceiling to floor were filled with books, and additionally it had full bookshelves in the middle of the room. 

They sat down and talked while I would get to pick whatever books I wanted. Of course I barely understood the titles or knew the authors, but they had all the books of the Molina Editorial, and the full Robin Hood collection, that were books for a younger demographic. And this is how I had the good fortune of being introduced to Jules Verne, Emilio Salgari, Louisa May Alcott, and Alexandre Dumas amongst others. 

I could take 4 or 5 at a time depending on the price, because my aunt wasn’t dumb. She charged for each book. They haggled on the price back and forth with me putting my best “poor me” face and leaving happy, with a new dose of drug for the month. 

What I really admired about my mom was her capability of making me see things in a way that weren’t imposed. But once something was defined in my interests, she wouldn’t stop stimulating it in various ways. 

We got to share some books and talk about them, and sometimes when she would come home and I was listening to “Luisa Fernanda”, my favorite zarzuela, she would sit and enjoy it with me. Today I still remember those moments very clearly, and I realize now that the situation was very unusual, even for those times. Back then I don’t think I ever met anyone my age that even knew what zarzuelas were, let alone “Luisa Fernanda”. 

When I turned eight, we moved to San Antonio, an upper class neighborhood and things were going much better for my father. We would get to see him more often; he worked in Chimbote, closer to Lima in a private construction company. My mom stopped working and we got to fully enjoy her for a few months. 

Shortly after, she was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer or lymphoma, fatal in those times. Of course we had no idea, we just knew she had surgery to have her lymph nodes removed.
After that everything became a little blurry. My mom would stay in bed for days with a lot of pain and we only got to spend time with her after dinner to watch “Mamá” a soap opera she really liked, and I remember it to this day. Even though I was young, I loved looking at Cuchita Salazar who played Fernando Larrañaga’s girlfriend in the soap opera, whom he was ferociously in love with until she was in an accident that disfigured her face. The love ran out. 

In the summer of ’63 I turned 11 years old and I was in my last middle school year. Our father organized a trip from Lima to Tumbes that lasted almost a month. We had an extraordinary time. My mom’s illness didn’t seem to fog the horizon and everything was going great. 

We had to come back a few days early because all of a sudden she wasn’t doing well. She had to spend some time in the Neoplastic Hospital and she came back home, but she was always on bed rest. 

I was attending school at La Inmaculada, an excellent school ran by Jesuits, and it had an interesting method to make their schoolboys study. Every two months instead of our monthly exam, they would have “Contest-Exams”. The peculiar thing was that for a whole week, all we did was take exams that were worth twice the points, and before each exam we had several hours to study. 

I was a good student, always of the top ones in my class, kind of. Nevertheless I didn’t study a whole lot. The truth is that thanks to this obsessive side of me, I was always paying attention in class and I would even read newspapers that were thrown in the trash. I would read my text books from cover to cover, not just once but several times, just for fun. I think my very first conscious effort at studying was when I was applying for college and honestly it took a lot of effort. 

When I did my first “Contest-Exam”, to sit in front of the textbook going over the material for two or three hours was sensational. I couldn’t understand when I would see some of my classmates anxiously fidgeting in their desks, desperate for not being able to move or give shit to someone to pass the time. For me this was not a problem. 

La Inmaculada also had another tradition: the reading of grades. The dean of the school, Monsignor Bambaren at the time, would sit on the stage of the school’s auditorium in front of a huge table covered with green flannel, with the results of the exams for the whole grade consisting of three sections; “A”, “B” and “C”. Never knew why I always was in section “C” but I am sure there was a reason.

He would call on each student, one at a time. He read out loud all the grades and then make a comment, rarely was it a positive one and most of them were so negative that it was borderline humiliation. I remember one comment specially, that I thought was cruel and insulting to the extreme:

- Perez, do you know what happens when you put a rotten apple in a barrel of freshly picked apples?
- No, father.
- Well I’m going to tell you, all of them rot. And you are that rotten apple. Starting this instant you are expelled from this school. Go to your classroom and pick up all of your things.
Obviously Perez was completely broken-down. To be classified as a rotten apple at eleven or twelve years old is a little premature. From what I learned later, Perez was able to come back to school despite Bambaren’s opposition and he is now a very decent person by today’s standards. The name has been changed to protect the innocents. Not Bambaren’s just in case. I mean the innocents only.
After more than two hours of agony, he finally made it the letter “S”, and then “Salmeron”. I’ve never really trusted myself so I expected the worst. In a fog I hear –Salmeron, do you know where are you placed in your class? –No, father – You are placed first for the whole grade, not only your class and not just that; you are twenty one points ahead from the second best. This is the first time there has been such a big difference between first and second place in this school ever. Congratulations!
Then he proceeded by reading all my grades and honestly they were pretty good. I sincerely was not expecting something like that and it took a long while for it to really sink in.
On the way to the flag pole, where we had to gather to get on the school buses that took us home, I was thinking how happy my mom was going to be with the news. She was particularly competitive in my regards. The whole way home I was thinking of how I would tell her and imagining her reaction!
The bus dropped me off and I ran home as quickly as I could; when I got there I found out that they had taken her to the emergency room of the Institute of Neoplastic Diseases that same morning. She would never come back home again and I never got to share my achievements with her.
And then the visits to the Institute started. There was a strict order not to let anyone under 14 years of age in due to the risk of carrying a virus or some sort of childhood illness that could decimate the patients if they caught it.
When we would arrive at the hospital they would sit us, my brother and I, in a bench at the entrance in front of the concierge. We had the practice of taking advantage of the most minor distraction to take off running and up the stairs, to my mom’s room.
My brother always took off first. Ed was special. He could never be calm. He had without a doubt a superior intelligence and much more balanced than mine. He reacted always quicker than anyone else, including uncles, aunts, father, mother and Mamamita. But especially much faster than his brother.
Always with the perfect phrase to discombobulate adults and trick kids.
We were completely different; fighting all the time, however I believe this tragedy united us so much that more than fifty years later we love each other down to the marrow.
We liked to go visit when uncle Pepe was there. Pepe was the Menendez’s dad, which in those times were only five. They would later become a few more.
Uncle Pepe was short, bald, wore glasses and he had a mustache. Intense and passionate, he loved to engage in debates, with or without sense, and he was more de la Rosa Toro (our mother’s maiden name) than any other person I ever met. When he was in the hospital, he would come down and engage the concierge in an argument, and man would he debate! 

He would overwhelm the poor guy that was only trying to do his job, while with one hand behind his back he would signal for us to sneak off to the stairs, and that’s what we would do. It never failed.
Our mom was in very bad condition. She managed to stay alive for 5 months in the hospital, but in those times chemo and radiation were devastating. The last impression we had of her was terrible, but for us she was our mom, and we saw her as beautiful as ever and I’m not exaggerating. Her huge green eyes and the love they reflected was enough.

My poor dad was going through a very hard time. Only many years later have I been able to understand his anguish and his fears, and regret the ruthless criticism I made when I was younger. While having to accept my mother’s death, something he was aware of for several years, there was the issue of his ten and eleven year old sons. One with the reputation of a genius and the other with the reputation of incorrigible kid whom he barely knew, due to the fact that he had to work outside of Lima almost our whole lives. Of course when you are eleven years old, you think that all adults have everything figured out in their life and they have no weaknesses. Let alone fear and anguish.
When they admitted my mom into the hospital for the last time, we went to live with a family that was very good friends with my dad. Wonderful people, that welcomed us like their sons with all the benefits and responsibilities. They were Aunt Concho and Uncle Ricardo, and Puchi, Ricardo and Eddie. To compare us to Ricardo and Eddie, a little bit younger than us, it was like trying to find similarities between heaven and hell.
Their room was impeccable. They even had a wall where their toys would hang from, intact! We didn’t have one single toy that had survived more than a week and the soccer ball we played with belonged to our cousin Rafo.

Jenny Number Two

When we were younger, Ed and I would take all of our toys out of their wooden trunk, lay them on the floor, put the trunk on top of the toys and we would get inside and jump until there wasn’t anything left to crush. We would always have a toy here and there that our mom would buy us or one Aunt Matilde would bring us each Sunday. None of them made it past a week.
My books and comics were destroyed, and worn out. Their comics were matted! Ten copies per volume! The best.


They had lived in the same house their whole lives, and we had moved about five times in the most diverse environments, including long seasons in Chimbote, and in the mountain range of La Libertad.
Downtown Lima was extremely familiar to us, and I would take the bus from San Martin’s plaza to the Reducto Park, at age nine, when I would get out of La Inmaculada late, at 7 o’clock at night. They wouldn’t leave Miraflores, one of the best areas of Lima.
It was without a doubt a big cultural shock from both sides. While at Uncle Ricardo’s house dinner was eaten with a cloth napkin on your lap and seven different types of silverware on the table, we came from eating with one fork and one spoon for your soup that was placed on top of a plastic placemat. For the first course, main meal and dessert, we would wipe our fork clean with a napkin and it was good to go. 

However we developed a friendship that still persists. I ask myself now if I would have the balls to do what Aunt Concho and Uncle Ricardo did for us. For both, my brother and I have an immense amount of respect and love. It’s a debt of gratitude we will never be able to pay.
One day my father put me in the car and while he drove, clearly explained to me the severity of the situation. Until this moment I was not fully conscious that my mother was going to die. Even after this conversation, I nursed the secret hope that she would recuperate.
I remember it was a Thursday, because Thursdays were the days I wore white socks, and I loved it; it looked really good with my school uniform. At seven in the morning Aunt Concho went up into our room and announced that our dad was downstairs. Running and ready for school we went downstairs to greet him. 

He was wearing a suit and dark glasses, Aunt Maruja was with him, also wearing dark glasses. When I walked up to say hi to him, he grabbed my shoulder, got down and whispered: “Your mom has gone to heaven”. Before he even spoke, I knew what he was going to say and I felt a demolishing hit. I couldn’t think, speak or even less cry. However, it seems like even children have social norms we must comply with. 

Jenny Number Three

I could hear Ed, who was with Aunt Maruja, crying desperately and I understood I had to cry. But the tears wouldn’t come out or any noise from my throat. I was sitting on my dad’s lap and I only got the presence of mind of putting my eyes on his shoulder. Terrified, I felt like a bad person, I couldn’t cry. 

I cried for the first time and uncontrollably, three months later, on the first Christmas without her.

Years later, Uncle Max’s daughter was born, my cousin Jennifer, and she is Jenny Number Two.

Jenny Number three is my youngest daughter. 

Curiously, they have the same sweet gaze, sad and huge eyes both; they are also artists and dreamers down to their core like my mom. 

And then they say that your name doesn’t influence your destiny…