ILONA COMES WITH THE RAIN (Ilona llega con la lluvia)
This Álvaro Mutis novella, the second in a series of seven forming The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, could carry the subtitle: A Tale of Freedom and Fate. And the more we turn the pages, the deeper we dive into this tale, the progressively more gripping. Since the storyline is simply too good and loaded with too many unexpected twists, I’ll steer clear of plot and offer comments on the following people, places and things:
Frame: The narrator, author of the six chapters we are about to read, recounts his many conversations with Maqroll wherein he would revisit key episodes of the Gaviero’s tale again and again until they were fixed in his memory so he could write in a way that would allow “our friend” to speak directly to the reader. One thing the narrator (who might or might not be Álvaro Mutis himself) takes pains to make clear is the past and future held little consequence for Maqroll; rather, the adventurer gave the impression “his exclusive and absorbing purpose was to enrich the present with everything he happened upon.” To my mind, one of the glories of the human experience: storytelling as enrichment.
Globetrotting Gaviaro: Our protagonist is an adventurer, a radical individualist, which ultimately boils down to life as a solo journey – lovers and friends are embraced at the next port or on the next barge, but when it's time to move on, you travel alone. If there is any one of the seven Álvaro Mutis novellas placing Maqroll's wandering philosophy in bold capital letters, it is Ilona Comes with the Rain.
Colorful Portrayals: Maqroll looks out at the dock in Cristóbal; he’s under the command of a luckless Captain of a dilapidated freighter painted the garish yellow of a yellow-tailed parrot, a captain who is about to have his boat taken away and who goes by the name of Witto - thin, of medium height with bushy brows covering his eyes, a man of slow, precise speech and who bares the mark of defeat, one with a secret emotional disorder who moves through life as if needing to hide a deep, painful psychic wound. Reading Álvaro Mutis is a literary feast – characters, landscapes, city streets, everything described in vibrant, memorable detail.
Panama City: Once in this bustling metropolis, his first time ever, all blaring car horns and howling sirens, Maqroll knows in advance he’ll never encounter anyone he will recognize. All new faces – just the way he likes it. First off, after making arrangements at a not so rundown hotel, he locates an ideal bar, quiet, attentive but not overly talkative bartender and returns to his hotel room drunk that night.
I’ll never forget the Gaviero’s shock the next morning at finding an enormous, naked black woman with Zulu warrior hair asleep beside him. He gives her some money and kicks her out. Ditto the next morning after yet again another drunken night at the bar, only this time she’s a terrified bleach blonde. No money exchanged, Maqroll simply kicks her out and goes down to pay a visit to the concierge. He assures Maqroll it will never happen again. The next week the rainy season hits like a tornado, turning the city streets into impossible to cross rivers. Our adventurer hunkers down in his hotel room and reads. Ah, books to the rescue! Then it happens: paying a visit to one of the city's casinos, he recognizes a past love: the alluring, captivating Ilana.
Ilona: Tall, blonde, athletic, age forty-five, spirited Ilona has a comparable sense of life as an ever expanding adventure. Ilona the Vivacious and Maqroll the Gaviero – quite a team; their common adversary: boredom and monotony. Ilona and Maqroll have rousing success in Panama City (a ton of loot and a ton of fun) operating their new, creative business venture (unique upscale house of prostitution). But they reach a point, surprise, surprise, for restless adventurers, where an added infusion of energy is called for – and they get what they’re after in the form of a beauty with long jet black hair and mysterious past – Larissa.
The Fourth Dimension: At this point Álvaro Mutis kicks his tale into what some might term magical realism or the fantastic or the supernatural. Gripping is understatement. Maqroll is unhinged, as is Ilona; she confides in the Gaviero: “Something in Larissa awakens my demons, those ominous signs in me that I learned to tame when I was a girl, to keep anesthetized so they don’t come up to the surface and put an end to me.”
Coda: As noted above, this novella hits squarely on the philosophical dimensions of fate and freedom. Good luck and bad luck could be added to the mix. With Larissa the stakes are raised. All of a sudden our two adventurers are caught in an episode of life and death. A tale not to be missed.
Columbian author Álvaro Mutis, 1923-2013
“Life with Ilona was invariably lived on two levels, or rather in two simultaneous and parallel directions. On the one hand, your feet were always on the ground, you were always intelligently but not obsessively alert to what each day offered in response to the routine question of surviving. On the other hand, imagination and unbounded fantasy suggested a spontaneous and unexpected sequence of scenarios that were always aimed at the radical subversion of every law ever written or established. This was a permanent, organic, rigorous subversion that never permitted travel on the beaten path, the road preferred by most people, the traditional patterns that offer protection to those whom Ilona, without emphasis or pride but without any concessions either, would call "the others.” - Álvaro Mutis, Ilona Comes with the Rain
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