Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

  The simple truth is that with that order, the Army’s put us in a real mess, Chichi, because the only modern, comfortable houses in Iquitos are on the army base, or the navy or air force base. The houses in this city are very old, very ugly, very uncomfortable. We’ve taken one on Sergeant Lores Street, one of the ones they built at the turn of the century, during the rubber boom, the most picturesque ones with their tiles from Portugal on the front and their wooden balconies. It’s large and from one window you can see the river, but it certainly doesn’t compare at all to the poorest house on the base. What makes me really mad is that we can’t even swim in the Army pool or in the Navy or the Air Force’s either, and there’s only one pool in Iquitos, the municipal pool, a horrible place where everybody and their brother goes. I went once and there must’ve been a thousand people, how disgusting, lots of men just waiting around like vultures for the women to get into the water so they could pretend to be jamming in together and you can just imagine what. Never again, Chichi; the shower’s better. How furious I am when I think that the wife of any little lieutenant can be at the pool on the army base this very minute, sunbathing, listening to her radio and taking a dip, and here I am glued to the fan so I won’t roast: I swear I’d cut off General Scavino’s you-know-what (ha ha). Because besides, it turns out I can’t even do my household shopping at the PX, where everything’s half as expensive. Instead I have to shop in the town stores, just like everybody else. And that’s not all—we have to live just as if Panta was a civilian. They’ve given him a two thousand soles raise as a bonus, but that doesn’t make up for anything. As you can see, Chichi, for money for food, poor Pochita is screwed. (That came out like a poem. It can’t be so bad if I haven’t lost my sense of humor, right?)

  Imagine, they have Panta dressed up like a civilian day and night, while the uniforms he likes so much are being eaten by the moths in a trunk and he’ll never get to put them on. And we have to make everybody believe that Panta’s a merchant who’s come to Iquitos on business. The funny thing is that some awful mix-ups come up with the neighbors and my mother-in-law and me because sometimes we invent one thing for them and at other times another, and suddenly some military memories of Chiclayo slip out that must just intrigue them, and all over the neighborhood we already have the reputation for being an odd, rather suspicious family. I can see you bouncing up and down on your bed asking what’s going on with this idiot that she just doesn’t tell me right away why there’s so much mystery. But it turns out, Chichi, that I can’t tell you a thing, it’s a military secret, and so secret that if they found out that Panta had said anything, they’d court-martial him for treason against the country. Just think, Chichita, they’ve given him a very important mission in the Intelligence Service, a dangerous assignment and so nobody is supposed to know that he’s a captain. Oh, what a dope I am, I already told you the secret and I’m too lazy to tear up this letter and start over. Swear to me, Chichita, that you’re not going to say one word to anyone, because I’ll kill you, and besides, you wouldn’t want them to put your brother-in-law in the guardhouse or shoot him because of you, would you? So keep quiet and don’t run around telling the story to your gossipy Santana friends. Isn’t it funny that Panta’s turned into a secret agent? Let me tell you that Mother Leonor and I are dying of curiosity to know what he’s spying on here in Iquitos, and we’re eating him up with questions and we try to get it out of him but he wouldn’t let one syllable escape even if he was going to be killed. We’ll have to see about that, your sister is as stubborn as a mule, so we’ll see who wins. I’m only warning you that when I find out what Panta’s mixed up in, I don’t plan to tattle to you even if you’re wetting your pants with curiosity.

  It’ll be very exciting now the Army’s given him this assignment in the Intelligence Service, Chichita, and maybe it’ll help his career a lot, but I tell you I’m not one bit happy with this business. In the first place because I hardly ever see him. You know how reliable and fanatic Panta is about his work, he takes everything they give him so seriously that he doesn’t sleep or eat or live until he’s finished with it, but at least in Chiclayo he had his duties on a regular schedule and I knew when he was coming and going. But here he spends his life outside the house, you never know what time he’s coming in and (this will knock you off your feet) not even in what condition. I’m telling you, I’m not used to seeing him as a civilian, wearing sport shirts and blue jeans and the little jockey cap they’ve given him, it seems to me I’ve switched husbands and not just because of that. (Oh, I’m so embarrassed, Chichi, so much I really wouldn’t dare tell you.) If only he worked during the day I’d be happy. But he also has to go out at night, sometimes till very late, and he’s shown up three times falling-over drunk, he had to be helped out of his clothes and the next day his mama had to put compresses on his forehead and make tea for him. Yes, Chichi, I can see the surprised look on your face, even though you don’t believe it, Panta the teetotaler, who only drank pasteurized milk ever since he got hemorrhoids—falling-down drunk and with a thick tongue. Now it makes me laugh because I can remember how funny it was to see him stumbling over things and hear him complain, but at the same time I was in such a fit I wanted to cut off his you-know-what too. (No, I’d be cutting off my nose to spite my face, ha ha.) He swears to me and double swears that he has to go out at night on account of his assignment, that he has to search for some guys who only live in the bars, who make their appointments there to throw you off the track, and maybe it’s the truth. (Just like the spy movies, right?) But listen, would you be so calm if your husband spent the night in bars? No, well, my dear, not even if I was fool enough to believe you can only see men in bars. There have to be women there who come up to him and start conversations and God only knows what else. I’ve made a few terrible scenes, and he’s promised me not to go out at night anymore except when it’s a case of life or death. I’ve gone through all his pockets and shirts and underwear with a fine-tooth comb, because let me tell you if I find a shred of proof that he’s been with women, poor Panta. It’s not so bad because his mama helps me with all this, she’s horrified at his going out at night and his binges—her little boy, who she always thought was a church saint and who it now turns out isn’t quite that. (Oh, Chichi, you’d die if I told you.)

  And besides, because of that damned mission, he has to get together with people who’d make your hair stand on end. Just imagine, the other afternoon I’d gone to the matinee with a neighbor I’ve become friendly with, Alicia, married to a boy who works for the Bank of the Amazon, a very nice woman from Loreto who helped us a lot with the moving. We went to the Excelsior to see a Rock Hudson movie (hold me up while I pass out), and after getting out we were taking a little walk in the fresh air, when passing by a bar called the Camu Camu I see Panta at a table in the corner and what a pair he’s with! I nearly had a stroke, Chichi, the woman so covered with make-up there wasn’t room for a drop more, not even on her ears, with such tits and an ass spilling over the chair, and the guy was a little half-pint, so short his feet didn’t reach the floor, and what’s more, with an incredible ladykiller look. And Panta between the two of them, talking as lively as could be, as if they had been friends all their life. I said to Alicia, look, my husband, and then she grabbed me by the arm, very nervous, come on, Pocha, let’s go, you can’t go in there. So we left. Who do you think that pair was? The woman decked out like a parrot has the worst reputation in all Iquitos, Enemy Number One of home life, they call her Chuchupe and she has a brothel on the road to Nanay, and her lover, the dwarf, it’s enough to make you break out laughing, imagining her making it with that clown, she’s depraved and he’s worse. What do you think? Later I mentioned it to Panta, to see what his reaction would be, and of course, he choked on that bone so much he started to stammer. But he didn’t dare deny it to me, he admitted that this pair lead a bad life. And that he had to go find them for his assignment, that I should never go up to him if I see him with them and his mother even less
so. I told him right then and there you can get mixed up with whoever you want to but if I ever find out you went to the parrot’s house in Nanay, your marriage is in trouble, Panta. So, my dear, imagine the reputation we’re going to get here if Panta begins to be seen on the streets with those people.

  Another of his pals is a Chink. I always thought that all Chinks were very delicate, but this one’s Frankenstein, even if Alicia does think he’s very handsome; these people in Loreto have cockeyed taste. I caught him one day when I went to visit the Moronacocha aquarium, to see the tropical fish (very pretty, let me tell you, but I thought I’d touch an eel and he let out with an electric shock from his tail that nearly knocked me over), and Mother Leonor has also caught Panta in a restaurant with the Chink, and Alicia spied them walking across the Army Plaza and from her I found out that the Chink is well known as a big hood. He exploits women and he’s a parasite and a bum. Imagine your dear brother-in-law’s friendships. I’ve put it to him squarely and Mother Leonor more than me, because her son’s bad companions make her sicker than they make me, especially now that she believes the end of the world is near. Panta has promised her he won’t be seen on the streets anymore with either the woman or the dwarf or the Chink, but he’ll have to go on seeing them on the sly because it turns out that’s part of his work. I don’t know where it’s all going to lead with this assignment and with that sort of connections, Chichita, you’ll understand my nerves are upset and I’m very jumpy.

  Even though I really shouldn’t be like this, I mean about tomcatting and cheating, because—should I tell you, Sis?—you can’t imagine how Panta’s changed in regard to such things, the intimate ones. Do you remember how he’s always been so formal ever since we got married so you always joked a lot and told me I’m sure with Panta you must be doing without, Pocha? Well, you can’t laugh at your brother-in-law anymore in that respect, you bad-mouth, because since he stepped foot in Iquitos he’s become a savage. Something terrible, Chichi, at times I get scared and wonder if it isn’t an illness, because imagine that before, I’ve told you, I only got him to tend to his business once every ten or fifteen days (how embarrassing to talk to you about this, Chichi) and now the little bandit’s excited every two, three days and I have to put the brakes on his passion, because it isn’t right, no, really, with this heat and sticky humidity. Besides, it occurred to me it could hurt him, it seems it affects the brain. Didn’t everybody say that Pulpito Carrasco’s husband went out of his head from doing it so often with her? Panta says the climate’s to blame, a general already warned him back in Lima that the jungle turns men into blowtorches. I have to tell you it makes me laugh seeing your little brother-in-law so horny. Sometimes he’s itching to do a little business during the daytime, right after lunch, with the siesta as an excuse, but of course I don’t let him, and sometimes he wakes me at dawn with that craziness. Picture this, the other night I caught him with a stopwatch timing how long our business took us. I asked him about it and he got very confused. Later he confessed to me he had to know how long a little business like that took for a normal couple. Do you think he’s turning into a pervert? Who’s going to believe that he has to check that dirty business for his assignment? I tell him I don’t recognize you, Panta, you who were so very, very educated, it makes me feel I’m doing it with some other Panta. Well, my dear, enough dirty talk, since you’re a little virgin, and I promise you I’ll fight with you forever if it gets into your head to mention this to anybody, especially to those crazy Santanas.

  Sure, it half calms me down that Panta has gotten to be such a pest about doing his duty, it means his wife pleases him (ahem, ahem) and he doesn’t have to look for excitement out in the street. But after that, nothing doing, Chichi, because here in Iquitos women are taken very, very seriously. Do you know what’s the big excuse your brother-in-law has invented for doing a little business whenever he’s horny? Pantita Junior! Yes, Chichi, you heard right, at last he’s eager for us to have a baby. He promised me we would as soon as he got his third stripe and he’s keeping his promise, but now with this change in temperament, I don’t know anymore if doing our business morning and afternoon is to please me or just him. I tell you it’s enough to make you die laughing, he comes off the street like a little wind-up mouse and he circles and circles around me until he dares, can we take care of the little cadet tonight, Pocha? Ha ha, isn’t that cute? I adore him, Chichi. (Listen, I don’t know how I can tell you all these dirty things when you’re single.) Up till now, don’t breathe a word, Skinny, in spite of working at it, just yesterday my period came, what a pain, I thought this month for sure. Will you come take care of your sister when she’s got a big belly, Chichi? Oh, if only it was tomorrow you’d come, what a pleasure to have you here to gossip as much as we want. Of course, you’ll wear a dress for the men in Loreto, to find a handsome guy you have to search for him like a needle in a haystack, I’ll start giving anyone who’s worth it the once-over so you won’t get too bored when you come. (Have you noticed how this letter is pouring out of me by the mile? You’ll have to answer with the same number of pages, O.K.?) It’s not possible that I can’t have babies, is it, Chichi? It scares me so much that every day I ask God for any punishment but that one, I’d die of grief if I couldn’t have at least one little boy and one little girl. The doctor says I’m perfectly normal so I’m hoping it’ll be next month. Did you know that every time a man does his business millions of sperms come out of him and only one gets into the woman’s egg and makes the little baby there? I was reading a pamphlet the doctor gave me, explaining everything so well you could go crosseyed with the miracle of life. If you want me to I’ll send it to you, so you’ll learn about those things for when you get wise, marry, lose your virginity and learn what a soufflé is, you skinny little kid. I hope I don’t get too ugly, Chichi, some women look terrible when they’re pregnant, they puff up like toads, varicose veins pop out, really disgusting. I won’t please your horny brother-in-law anymore and when you least expect it he’ll be out looking for his fun on the street, I tell you I don’t know what I’ll do with him. I’ll bet with all the heat and humidity here pregnancy must be awful, especially not living on the army base but instead where we unlucky people do. I’m telling you, another worry gives me gray hair, I’m glad to have the baby, but what if on the excuse that I got fat that miserable Panta gets tangled up with some woman in Loreto, especially since now I let him have his way about doing a little business even when I’m asleep? I’m dying of hunger, Chichi, I’ve been writing you for hours, Mother Leonor’s already serving lunch, you can picture to yourself how happy my mother-in-law’s going to be with the idea of the grandchild, I’m coming, lunch and later I’ll continue, so you don’t kill yourself, I’m still not ending, ciao, Sis.

  I’m back at last, Chichi, I took years, it’s nearly six, I had to take a nap because I ate like a boa constrictor. Just think, Alicia made us a present of a plate of tacacho, a native dish here. Isn’t she friendly? It’s better that I’ve found a friend here in Iquitos. I’d heard so much about this famous tacacho, it’s mashed green bananas with pork, I had to go to the Bethlehem Market to have some, to a restaurant called Aladdin Panduro’s Lamp where there’s a great cook, so I pestered Panta until he took us there the other day very early, the market is open at dawn and closes early. Bethlehem is the prettiest place here, you’ll see, an entire neighborhood of little wooden houses floating on the river, people get from one side to the other in little boats, I’m telling you, it’s so original, they call it the Venice of the Amazon, even though you see a lot of poverty. The market’s very good to get to know and to buy fruit, fish or the necklaces and bracelets the Indians make, very pretty, but not to go and eat, Chichi. We nearly died when we entered Aladdin Panduro’s, you can’t imagine the filth and the hordes of insects. The plates they brought us were black with flies, you frightened them and they came back right away and got in your eyes and mouth. In the end, neither Mother Leonor nor I tasted one mouthful, we were sic
k to our stomachs, that barbarian Panta ate three platefuls and also the dried meat that Mr. Aladdin insisted he had to have with the tacacho. I told Alicia about how disappointed we were and she told me one of these days I’ll make you tacacho so you can see how good it is and this morning she brought us a platter. Delicious, Sis, it’s like a dish of chifles from the North, although not quite the same, the banana tastes different here. The only trouble is it’s heavy as lead, I had to force myself to get it down, and my mother-in-law is bent over with stomachaches and gas, green with embarrassment because she can’t control herself and little farts keep popping out in front of me, soon she’ll explode from it and go straight to heaven once and for all. No, how mean I am, poor Mother Leonor, deep down she’s good, the only thing that annoys me is that she treats her son as if he’s still a baby and a little saint, isn’t she a stupid old thing?

  Did I tell you that the poor woman is finding her amusement in superstition? She’s turned the house into a garbage dump. Imagine, after we were here only a few days, there was a big commotion in Iquitos over the arrival of Brother Francisco, you’ve probably heard about him, I hadn’t until I got here. In the Amazon he’s more famous than Marlon Brando, he’s founded a religion that’s called the Brothers of the Ark, he goes everywhere on foot and wherever he goes he hangs up an enormous cross and dedicates Arks that are his churches. He has a lot of followers, especially among the working people, and it seems the priests are furious about the competition he’s giving them but until now there hasn’t been one peep out of them. Well, my mother-in-law and I went to hear him in Moronacocha. There were lots of people and the surprising thing was that he spoke crucified like Christ, believe it or not. He was announcing the end of the world and asking people to make offerings and sacrifices for the Last Judgment. I couldn’t understand him very well, he speaks a very difficult Spanish. But the people listened to him hypnotized, the women were crying and got down on their knees. I got caught up with the emotion and even burst out crying, and you can’t imagine my mother-in-law, she was sobbing loudly and we couldn’t calm her down, the witch-doctor had really gotten to her, Chichi. Later, back at home, she was praising Brother Francisco and the next day she went back to the Ark of Moronacocha to talk with the “brothers” and now it turns out the old lady has become a “sister” too. It’s like a bolt out of the blue: she who never paid much attention to true religion ends up a pious follower of heretics. Just imagine, her room is full of little wooden crosses, and if it was only to distract herself, fine, but the dirty part of the business is that this religion has a mania for crucifying animals and I don’t like that because every morning I find cockroaches, butterflies, spiders nailed to her little crosses and even a mouse the other day, what a horrifying, disgusting mess. Every time I come across one of those dirty things I throw it into the garbage and we’ve already gotten into some good fights. It’s screwy because as soon as a row breaks out, and there’s one every minute here, the old lady starts to tremble thinking it’s the end of the world and every day she begs Panta to get a big cross made for the front door. Just look at how many changes in such a short time.