muckefuck | Life in the tropics (Reply)

In honour of

caitalainn's recent tribulations, an off-the-cuff translation of an excerpt from the story "Història natural" by Catalan writer Pere Calders.

Anyone who's read four books knows that in the tropics there are nice cities which are comparable to the veritable cities of the West. But, before forming a definite judgement of the matter, one must be thoroughly familiar both extremes, and I am in a position to furnish data which place the question in a new light.

Because one time, in order to rest up from I don't recall which fatigue, I went to live in a tropical city. It was a paved city, with Latin American-style constructions and stoplights at every corner, beat cops, some trams which ran well, and cultural services that amply fulfilled the necessities of the inhabitants and the people who visited them.

I let a modern apartment, all of cement reinforced with iron, with sanitary services that--according to the explicit declaration of the landlord--had been selected from the most recent catalog of a factory he said had some reknown. One had the impression that, in this place, one would have to live well.

But it wasn't true at all. The first day I stayed there, insects began to come out from all the cracks and chinks and surrounded me and watched me, waiting for me to go to sleep so they could sting me. Against them I had the defences which modern industry puts at the service of the lodger in homes like this, and it gave me the impression that I wouldn't have to worry too much.

But the next day I discovered some strange worms that I had to kill (by smashing them, to be precise) and then mice, a tropical reptile which sang at night, scorpians, the dangerous Mimeola allequis which eats the ears of children and--when it has eaten those--those of adults, white termites, etc. I had the sensation of being a survivor in this place; effectively, every glance produced a view full of the retreats of one of these little beasties.

But you know how we Europeans are: We don't give in, we go our own way, and we have a bellicose temperment. I decided to keep a stiff upper lip and went fighting from morning to evening, hiding in the corners with a piece of wood in my hands, awaiting the approach of whatever animal.

Then one day, a Wednesday, I found a tiger in the kitchen...

[to be continued]