Fireflies of the Night

 

FIREFLIES OF THE NIGHT

Representational image: Fireflies in the night

The fireflies flecked the darkness of the night with their brilliant glitter. Along my path, they flickered like sparklers suspended in the shadows. The dirt track cut through dense vegetation, winding between the brush of Tres Cabezas. The smell of stagnant marsh water saturated my senses. And in the nocturnal gloom, my youthful steps advanced toward La Casa Rosada... a legal establishment in my native port of Chimbote where a group of women engage in the world’s oldest profession.

More than three decades have passed since those walks. It was 1978 when I first ventured on foot through the eneales of Tres Cabezas; I was seventeen years old then. Shortly before, my visits to La Casa Rosada had begun, but I would make the trip using the regular collective taxi service.

At night, on the third block of Gálvez Avenue, you could find the line of colectivos that provided exclusive service to that place. It was a ghostly stop, lost among the shadows of the night, unnoticed by the common folk—except, of course, for those who knew where they wanted to go.

Two reasons discouraged me from continuing to use the taxi service.

Sometimes, in the cars, I would run into an unexpected surprise. For instance, while waiting for the car to fill with passengers, a shadow would climb in, sit next to me, and turn out to be one of my high school teachers. Then I would stammer, “Good evening, profe.” And the response was usually: “Hello Quevedo, I imagine you already have your school assignments ready.”

The second reason was economic: the taxi fare was high. I was barely saving enough for the other fare... and it was hard for me to scrape together money for both. Until one fine day, a friend more experienced than I gave me an idea.

He told me: “The taxi line is five times more expensive than the minibuses. Better take your José Gálvez or Ramón Castilla bus, get off at the Pensacola stadium, and walk to the place from there—but you have to go with someone because the totorales are dark and dangerous.”

And so I did. Usually, I went with my friend Jorge; together, we shared a few coins and endless adventures at the San Pedro school. We would take our bus in downtown Chimbote and get off at the stadium. We crossed to the other side of Pardo Avenue, where the great white wall enclosed the Special Education Center for Exceptional Children. And from that corner, we walked about two miles through the marshlands of Tres Cabezas.

In the darkness of the night, nothing could be seen except the dense undergrowth and the impressive spectacle of the fireflies. We knew the area contained swamps and ponds where, by day, one could fish for lifes and monengues. There were willows and pájaro bobo trees. Eneales and totorales abounded, used for making woven cattail mats. And wild ducks and gallinules lived there.

We walked with a mixture of fear and expectation. It was said that ill-intentioned people could lurk in the cattail beds, but the thought of soon being at the Casa Rosada emboldened our steps. Every now and then, we were struck by the flash of headlights from cars making the return trip, and there was always some satisfied passenger who would shout at us: “Hey, you broke kids, pay for a collective!”

Inside La Casa Rosada, other fireflies were at work. Less brilliant but equally active during the night. Unabashedly, they displayed themselves at the thresholds of about fifty rooms, silhouetted against the dim light of electric bulbs covered in red cellophane. They made their arrangements with the clientele in low voices, almost swallowed by the music of Lucho Barrios, Pedrito Otiniano, and José Feliciano coming from an amplifier powered by a generator.

The first time I visited this place, my timid steps did not have to wander far. In the first corridor, I found a young, beautiful woman with Oriental eyes, whose long hair rested upon the curve of her lovely figure. She went by the name “La China Margot.” From then on, I only visited her, until one day I found her no more. She was gone, and for the first time, I felt a bit lost in the labyrinth of La Casa Rosada.

“Are you looking for someone?” an unknown voice asked, pulling me out of my tribulations. It was a somewhat older woman; what life had taken from her in beauty, it had compensated with charm. Her smile seduced me. And she had a name for which I had felt a weakness ever since I heard the duo José y Manuel sing the beautiful song “Teresa” back in 1972. We became friends. One day in late 1981, I told her I would not be coming back, and I gave her my reason. Teresa told me: “Take care of her, and be a good man.”

Thirty-one years later, I went back in search of the fireflies' route. It happened three months ago, during my last visit to Peru. I wanted to take a photo of La Casa Rosada to illustrate this story. And I went with an old friend from my adventures: Bernardo Cabellos Sabino.

We hired a car and took a drive through the Tres Cabezas area. The fireflies' route no longer exists. Today, cars travel along a dirt road with mounds of rubble along the way. I climbed onto one of these mounds with my camera in hand. And from a distance, at the foot of the legendary Tres Cabezas hill, I spotted La Casa Rosada, founded long ago by Don Germán Farro García and managed by “La Tía Silvia.”

I was taking the photos when suddenly we were surrounded by three vehicles carrying characters with unfriendly faces. It was the establishment’s security personnel. There was a moment of tension, but my friend Bernardo’s silver tongue provided a good explanation, which was backed up by the driver of the car we had hired. The guards retreated.

I am about to finish this story. It is almost midnight in the small, wooded, semi-rural town where I currently live. Before closing the curtain, I take one last look through the window. I cannot see the tree to which I confess. The shadows have taken over New Hampshire. The only things visible are the fireflies flickering in the darkness.

I smile to myself. This has been a perfect night to write about the fireflies of my youth.

New Hampshire, USA

November, 2012

La Casa Rosada. Chimbote, Peru

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