Chapter 5

A Peruvian Name for Charly

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TOCAYO
Part 1
Prologue
Playa Norte
Charly the American
A Catholic Education
Cold Showers
A Peruvian Name...
Tossing Armando...
Bob Cousey's Shorts
Inside Immaculada
Warming the Bench...
A Little Socrates...
Running From Lola
Ping Pong Politics
A Perfect Basketball Day
A Man Needs His Friends
A Pig In a Hole
Condors Over Ticlio
Wrestling in the Plaza
Handcuffs and Curfews
Rochabus
A Hero Hiding
Hitting A Brick Wall
Part 2

L ima is an old city with old families. Old families know much about each other. At that age I did not understand how that knowledge was transmitted from one family to another because they never talked about it in front of the children. Nevertheless, as I would find out later, it was common knowledge amont the adults that the minute Charly's grandmother Zoila met her daughter's foreign suitor, she knew he would break her daughter’s heart. She tried, but she was unable to exorcise the spell cast by the conspicuous wealth and personal charms of "The American." Zoila firmly believed that If her husband Ricardo had still been alive, her daughter would have never married The American. The fault of her eldest daughter’s impetuousness and of the torment it created in the soul of her grandson, lay with the politicians behind Ricardo’s death. “Coup or no coup, I will not be an exile in my own country,” he said after he was warned not to return to Lima. Three days later he was dead. With the long arms of history those politicians continued to choke her heart. When her daughter at long last returned to Lima with the grandson she had given birth to in America, Zoila welcomed them with the dignity their struggle deserved and gave them two rooms in the upstairs of her home.

Like many of the homes in that neighborhood, Zoila's house was a fortress. Its walls were built to withstand. Slapping them with the palm of your hand hurt, and made a flat sound, as if you were slapping the granite walls of the Inca fortress of Sacsahuaman. The rooms on the first floor were three and a half meters tall, the windows rose almost to the ceiling, and where they began, near the floor, the walls were so thick you could sit down comfortably and lean against the glass.

Outside, wrought iron bars, a common sight in Lima, extended six inches beyond the windows. The great front door had a little door at eye level that the maid could open to see who was knocking. A wrought iron grill in an attractive arrangement did not permit the large muscular arm of a bandit from reaching in and choking the maid. A garden wall, four meters high and half a meter wide, with a base that was even wider, secluded the old shady garden from the street. Sharp pieces of broken glass had been cemented point-up into the top of the wall, where they were supposed to slash the bare palms and forearms of Lima’s wall-scaling burglars. In reality, they only slashed the palms and forearms of the wall scaling burglars who did not have the foresight to bring along several very thick wool blankets.

As you might expect with all that protection, the only burglary the house ever suffered had been perpetrated by the inhabitants. Zoila never doubted it. It had been a sad event because it removed from the house not only the family silverware, but also her wedding ring and the pendant of Brazilian emeralds her husband Ricardo had given her for their twentieth wedding anniversary, their last one together. The police interrogated both maids, but they refused to admit their guilt. Upon being released, however, both resigned. That was proof enough for Zoila, who condemned their betrayal for days, but the chauffeur, gardener, and cook wondered if it was not proof instead of the humiliation the police were capable of inflicting upon servants suspected of robbery.

So Charly the American had a Peruvian grandmother, I thought, climbing the stairs to his room. And a Peruvian grandfather. And a Peruvian mother. Only his father was not Peruvian. According to my calculations, Charly was 3/4 Peruvian. I would have to give Charly the American a new name. After I had something to eat.