The Old Man Who Read Love Stories

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The tiny outpost of El Idilio

was so remote that it might

be said

it was at the end of the earth.

In truth, it was far up a river.

A distant tributary in the great

Amazonian system

deep in a jungle whose frontiers

may never be drawn.

Just upstream lived Antonio Bolivar,

alone in a hut of his own

making

on land of his own choosing.

Antonio guessed he was aged

more than 60,

but the few inhabitants

of El Idilio

simply called him "Old Man".

As a young man,

Antonio had left the mountains of

his birth with his wife, Dolores,

to help colonize the Amazonian

jungle.

The government was promising

large tracts of land

and plentiful technical help

to the would-be settlers.

After three weeks of travelling,

they were put ashore at a bend

in the river.

They were assigned two

hectares of jungle,

a couple of machetes and a bag,

empty of promises.

Antonio remained in the jungle

for almost 40 years.

Finally emerging from the jungle

and settling in El Idilio,

Antonio Bolivar discovered

he possessed the antidote

against the poison of old age.

"One final time..."

He could read.

"... the lovers joined together

in a tor-rid

embrace... torrid embrace...

holding...

squeezing,

clasping each other

desperately...

their hands...

sear-ching,

their mouths...

burning".

Their hands searching, huh?

Searching for what?

And why are their mouths

burning?

I can guess why.

"It was

a kiss

of im-pass-ioned

in-ten-si-ty".

"A kiss...

to re-mem-ber

their...

lives... by".

That's a strange way to end

a book.

"A kiss to remember their

lives by".

I don't remember my life

by any kisses.

Not even with my wife.

Antonio and Dolores

had known each other as children,

living in a mountain

village near the Embaboran

volcano.

They had been betrothed

as thirteen-year-olds.

Not that, Antonio.

Those kisses are sinful,

I can feel it.

In that green hell of the jungle,

Dolores didn't survive two years.

Not many kisses with you,

were there, Dolores?

She was carried off

by a burning fever,

racked with malaria.

"It was a kiss...

of impassioned intensity...

impassioned intensity...

impassioned...

intensity..."

No,

the people...

don't kiss at all.

That's the impassioned intensity,

but no kissing.

Antonio Bolivar...

you are not one of us.

But you are like us.

That's why we want you with us.

That's why...

you must go away some time.

So that... we can feel

the sadness...

of not being able to talk to you.

Josefina...

"It was a kiss

of impassioned intensity...

A kiss

to remember

their lives by".

I think I understand.

The rains were coming,

that time of year when El Idilio's

isolation was even more complete.

The riverboat that visited

every few months

wouldn't now return after this trip

until the wet season was over.

That left El Idilio's

only civil servant,

his Excellency the Mayor,

in a temper even more foul

than usual.

Zamora!

The Mayor's chief occupation

was managing his beer supply.

Tell Josefina to get me

another beer!

Seated in his office, he would

eke out each

bottle by taking a sip at a time,

for he knew that once his supply

was exhausted,

life would become even more

desperate.

Down on the wharf,

Doctor Rubicondo Loachamin's

twice-yearly

travelling dental clinic

was open for business.

Does that hurt?

The good doctor's portable

chair was quite

an institution along the rivers.

It's supposed to hurt.

And whose fault is that?

Mine?

Speak up.

Oh, of course, you can't.

Well, it's the government's fault,

get that into your thick skull.

All of you thick-skulled no-hopers,

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