Mangoes

by El Peregrino

translated from Spanish by Yulia Monrroy López

A gigantic, dazzling jungle. Branches, greedily green, extend above the earthy and stony path, giving the impression that they will swallow it forever at any moment. Except for the wind and chirping of strange birds, the silence is crushing. If it were not for the path itself, mapped by human hands or technology, I could see myself in any geological era, I could be the only human being on Earth. After several days of loneliness, I feel tired and hungry. However, the sound of the wind and the endless greenery give me a joy that is very hard to describe. The loneliness is tangible, and yet I do not feel alone. I have not spoken for days, and I do not know where I am, and yet I do not feel lost. Maybe it is this greenery, aggressive and infinite, that calls me and keeps me accompany. I walk slowly along the earthy path. It is in a poor condition but it is clear that it is used. It is wide enough to place a vehicle. It must be around noon, and it is quite hot. The bag on my back feels heavy, even more so when I have not eaten for many hours (or days?), and I hear an engine in the distance. The noise grows closer and closer, until I have no doubt that it is some vehicle approaching. I do not know whether it is coming in the same direction in which I'm walking or the opposite, but considering I do not know where I am, I really do not care; I can ask to be taken wherever It is going. A few moments later, I see a battered truck go by, heading by coincidence in the same direction as I was wearily walking.  When it reaches me, I raise my hand in the classic gesture of asking for a ride—a gesture I have use so many times throughout my life. The truck, already moving very slowly, comes to a stop. The driver, without saying a word, nods to signal me to get in the back. This was a very old vehicle, that had surely seen a lot stories over the years, worlds that I would deeply like to know. In a way, I think this truck knows so much more about life than me. It has high wooden railings, and as I climb, I realize that, unexpectedly, it is full of people, all of them locals. There are men and women, most of them carrying the weight of many years, even though I must admit that life under the sun and the working of the soil may carve many grooves in the skin; perhaps they are not as old as I first assumed. Most of them are seated, but a few stand, holding on to the railings. The one closest to me helps me to climb up, with a radiant smile on his face. They look at me curiously, and I can see friendly smiles in most of them. No one seems to speak my language. I can hear conversations in what seems to be Quechua. Many are drinking from glass bottles. At the end of the truck, beneath an awning, there is a significant amount of mangoes, some in cardboard boxes, others loose and rolling around. Maybe something in my expression betrays my hunger, or maybe it is simply  the natural kindness of these people, but one of them, with an unforgettable smile, beautiful, gentle, infinite, and toothless, takes a mango and cuts it with a small knife, offering me its tender and beautiful pulp. Another one of them offers me a drink from his bottle—a transparent liquid that, to me, looks like water. I take the pieces of mango in my hands while drinking from the bottle. I realize it was not water—it was corn chicha, which had a non-negligible alcoholic content—and as I tasted it, something in my expression provokes friendly laughter from everyone around me. The taste is bittersweet, not unpleasant at all. In fact, it was not the first time I have drunk it... curiously, though, I had never tried mango before. Its sweet scent already captivates me, but when I taste it, the world changes. It was probably due to the beautiful circumstances, lost in a jungle, in a truck surrounded by ancient and wise people whom I would love to comprehend, but I can't because of language and traditions; it was perhaps because of the many days I have gone without eating, or maybe it was a combination of both things, plus who knows what other chaotic factors. But at that moment my feeling was that I was tasting the most delicious food that I had ever tried. A delicacy of the gods, ambrosia, soma, or something far beyond my human nature. The expression on my face surely reflected this because I could hear their laughs multiplying. After I had satisfied my hunger with one, two mangoes, and that I had drunk a lot of chicha, I sat beside a smiling man, who placed his hand on my shoulder as a gesture that went beyond friendship. It was devotion, it was an understanding between our cultures, it was the forgetting of differences, it was the sharing of lives and worlds so distant, all joined in a single hug. It was his memories and mine intertwined, his life and mine bound together. I smiled at him and hug him back with tears in my eyes—appreciation for his kindness, for the devotion of everyone towards an extraterrestrial being like me, gratitude for the taste of mango, for the intoxicating feeling of the chicha, for the jungle, the path and the old truck, for life itself for giving me moments like this, moments that I knew even then would be unforgettable.  Even today, many years later, the taste of mango is inseparable from this memory. And through this memory, I still feel connected to those unknown lives. It is possible that most of them are no longer in this world. It is possible that their lives and memories have vanished —along with the memory of that strange being who once shared chicha and mango with them on a truck—and it is very possible that a part of me went with them. Yet my memory feel as real as the sun I see today through my window, as real as the breeze on my face or the sound of the leaves, and I cannot avoid the feeling that maybe part of them remains here, with me, reflected in the same mirror, clinging with each other to the same railing.