|
Chasing Nostalgia
by Katacha Diaz I was eight when my grandparents’ invited me to move from the children’s table to sit at the grown-ups silver-laden table with the exotic floating flower centerpieces, during our family’s formal Sunday luncheon at their home in Miraflores, a suburb of Lima where I grew up. Their invitation that spring was part of my family’s on-going etiquette training for a soon-to-be señorita in polite Peruvian society. Following our “Amen” response to the priest’s final blessing at Mass, my grandfather and I made our way around the corner to a hole-in-the-wall café where our family had a standing order for several dozen banana leaf-wrapped tamales filled with spicy pork, boiled eggs, olives, peanuts and a thin slice of aji pepper. Looking back I get the feeling Papapa looked forward to our weekly after-church ritual not only because he loved the tamales, but he also loved meeting up with the small group of jovial caballeros who gathered there, his life-long childhood friends from the elite intelligentsia, who assembled weekly for a quick men-only catch-up with pre- lunch Pisco sour cocktails. Happily sitting in the bar on straw-seat bar stool, I sipped Inca Kola, and listened with great amusement to Papapa and his cronies’ lively banter until it was time for us to take our leave with our family’s handmade tamales. Brimming with anticipation, I helped my grandfather carry packages into the kitchen where my grandmother and the cook waited for us. Mamama took my package, and asked me to feed the goldfish in the backyard pond. When Papapa was the Peruvian ambassador in Paris, my grandparents went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes; a small village nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees, where they left our family’s prayer requests at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. As a memento from this deeply inspirational Catholic pilgrimage, Mamama had brought back a small stone from the beloved grotto in Lourdes; it was placed between stones in the family’s newly built rustic stone grotto, complete with a recently blessed statue of Mary, and a small pond my grandfather stocked with colorful, exotic goldfish. When lunch was announced, Papapa escorted me into the formal dining room where my proud parents’ and our extended family warmly welcomed me. Glancing out the window I saw the children’s tables strategically set-up under the back porch where my mother and aunt could keep a watchful eye on the children and their nannies; and, where planned in advance seating arrangements were de rigueur to keep the rowdy boy cousins apart from some of my highly spirited sisters. Now, I don’t remember who said it, but when I walked by en route to meet my grandfather, I overheard one of the children saying how awfully boring it would be to sit inside with the grown-ups! Quite the contrary, I thought to myself, having eavesdropped on the adult conversations during cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, I overheard my great-uncle Oscar, our family’s entertaining raconteur, reminiscing about a safari adventure where he’d acquired the most unusual souvenirs. I never did hear what my great-uncle had traded for the Amazon shrunken heads or arrowheads that the indigenous people used for hunting purposes after dipping tips in a powerful venom from a tiny, brilliant color poison dart frog. Along with the eclectic art and specimen collection, the arrowheads and shrunken heads with long stringy hair, distorted faces, and eyes and lips sewn shut were displayed in a locked antique vitrine curio cabinet in the parlor, where the jaguar skin rug, complete with head and tail from my great-uncle’s dangerous jaguar hunt safari was casually spread on the exotic hardwood floor. The jaguar hide was expertly cleaned by the indigenous guides in the Amazon, and brought back to Miraflores, where it was converted into a rug for the parlor. Letting my imagination run on the wild side, I pictured my handsome great-uncle, a middle-age banker who I always saw dressed in a finely tailored suit, starched white shirt, silk tie and hat, striking a manly pose in the lush, verdant jungle clad in safari khaki’s, knee-high leather boots, and pith helmet. In my ongoing Technicolor reel-to-reel fantasy, Tío Oscar held the blowguns along with several long tip arrows decorated with bright color macaw and parrot feathers, while the indigenous longhair male guides wore a loincloth and held my great-uncle’s rifles. Filled with curiosity and eager to see the spooky shrunken heads and arrowheads that I had somehow missed seeing on my visits to my Tío Oscar’s house, that night with the help of my nanny and the telephone in the bedroom, I called my godmother, Tía Mechita, and asked, at the earliest opportunity, to spend the day with her and my great-uncle. During that summer, my mother dropped me off for weekly visits at their Spanish colonial style house with a lovely custom-carved wooden balcony, reminiscent of the old Moorish balconies of Lima’s colonial period, where I would sit with my Tía Mechita while she taught me patiently to embroider because, as she would say with a twinkle in her eye, that’s what proper señorita’s do! After my embroidery lesson, and having already satisfied my curiosity looking at the Amazon shrunken heads and poison arrowheads in the parlor’s vitrine, my godmother and I rode the trolley, a forbidden mode of transportation in my family, to visit with her friends in Barranco, the bohemian and romantic district in Lima, where we’d listen to Chabuca Granda’s recently released records that were all the rage that summer. Ms. Granda, a composer, singer and poet, was from a well-known aristocratic family; and, she’d caused quite a stir in Lima’s Catholic conservative social circles when she divorced her Brazilian-born husband. During these pre-lunch Barranco excursions, I entertained myself studying chirping birds in their fancy little cages that hung in the courtyard, while I tuned in on my great-aunt and her artist friends’ conversations that were filled with laughter and juicy tidbits about the art world. Everyone in our family knew Tío Oscar was a refined caballero, a man of many interests, and a patron of the arts. During my summer weekly visits, my great-uncle enthusiastically shared stories about his passions in life – traveling adventures, collecting objet d’art, and reading good literature that he said, was time well spent because it enriched the mind. One afternoon when the three of us gathered in the solarium for our customary tea and pastries, I noticed a small beautifully wrapped package with a pink silk bow on the wicker table the butler had set-up for tea. Carefully unwrapping the package, like a proper señorita in training, I was thrilled with the beautiful leather bound edition of Juan Ramón Jiménez’ Platero y yo that my Tío Oscar had acquired on a recent trip to Spain. The little book, he said smiling, was the perfect companion for a señorita to carry in her purse and pull out to read at the right time. Sixty years later, Platero y yo is still the perfect companion and amongst my most prized possessions. My great- uncle and great-aunt not only opened their hearts and home, but they gave me so much more – a treasure trove chock full of loving memories. These were among the happiest times of my summer vacation. In the years since, I have had occasion to travel around the world and go on many of my own adventures, including eco-safari trips in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. And, like my Tío Oscar, I came across the exotic and highly toxic tiny amphibians, the size of a small paperclip, sitting on leafs and fallen tree branches on the rainforest floor. Interestingly, our indigenous safari guide and a naturalist told us medical researchers studying the biochemistry of various poison dart frog species have successfully used its venom to create painkiller drugs. Today, scientists continue to explore other potential uses in medicine. Looking back on that Sunday luncheon at my grandparents’, it was special in so many ways. Even before I wrote anything down, I learned that I knew how to tell a story, and used my imagination freely to invent characters and create settings in my mind. I became skilled at tuning in and eavesdropping on adult conversations and these were useful skills for a writer-in-the-making to hone. Later, I’d feel compelled to dissect the conversations ad nauseam because there were stories to be written about real people. I did not know it at the time, but that special luncheon at my grandparents’ in 1953, when I was invited to join the adult table, and listened with amazement to my great-uncle’s tales of his adventures in the Amazon jungle, was a life- changing event. |
Katacha Díaz grew up in Miraflores, a suburb of Lima, Peru. She is the author of more than fifty children’s fiction and nonfiction titles for educational publishers. Her essays, short stories, poetry, and plays have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Katacha Díaz lives in Astoria, Oregon.
|
|
|
✕