Lituma: British or American?

I'll start out with something we heard in class.

There are two kinds of detectives: British, like Sherlock Holmes who use their extraordinary skill to follow "clues" and solve crimes almost in a couple of days and the second, American ......
( I don't know any really famous American detectives but you get the point.....)

As the book comes to an end you will notice that Lituma is slightly better defined as a person that say Rufus.
He's honest, crass and cannot easily get forget grave injustices committed to the powerless.
But was he always like that? Was he always this perfect? Was he too a Tomasito once with his own Mercedes?

To find out I've revisited Mario Vargus Llosa's book. No, not Death in the Andes! but
"Who killed Palomino Molero?", another book that features Lituma but hey! this time he's a chicken.

At a glance

So a little about the book.
The two cops this time are Lieutenant Silva and our own Lituma. Lituma plays second fiddle to Silva and we get valuable insight into Lituma's character as the book progresses. And yes, they are solving the murder of Palomino Molero. Molero enlisted though he was exempt to be close to a woman living close to an air base. Colonel Mindreau is the commander of the air base.


"I just can't stop thinking about that skinny kid. I have nightmares. I think someone's pulling off my balls like the way they did to him. His balls were hanging down to his knees, smashed as a pair of fried eggs."


Thats the compassionate Lituma we know. (Sob!)




“Why do you hate us?” thought Lituma. “And why are you such a bully, asshole?”
Lituma wondered whether the colonel’s peremptory, unwavering tone would intimidate his boss and make him back down. But Lieutenant Silva stood firm.

Mindreau turned to Lituma. “You did? What was it?”

Lituma cleared his throat to answer, but the colonel’s sardonic expression silenced him. Then he blurted out: “Palomino Molero was deeply in love and it seems . . .”

“Why are you stuttering?” asked the colonel. “Not feeling well?”

“Where did you get that stuff about Palomino Molero having an affair with a lady from the Piura Air Force Base?”

“I have no proof, Colonel,” stammered Lituma, frightened out of his wits. “I found out that he would give serenades around here.”

Lituma isn't exactly the epitome of courage and determination here now is he?

“He really put us through the ringer, didn’t he, Lieutenant?” Lituma dried his brow with a handkerchief. “I’ve never met a guy with a worse temper. Do you think he hates the Guardia Civil just because he’s a racist, or do you think he has a specific reason? Or does he treat everybody that way? Nobody, I swear, ever made me swallow so much shit as that bald bastard.”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about this business, Lituma,” said the lieutenant, laughing. “It was a bitch of an interview, let me tell you. Unbelievably useful.”

“That means I didn’t understand a thing, Lieutenant. It looked to me as though the colonel was treating us like scum, worse than the way be probably treats his servants. Did he even give us what we asked for?”

‘Appearances are tricky, Lituma.” Lieutenant Silva once again burst into laughter. “As far as I’m concerned, the colonel yakked like a drunken parrot.”

Ah, seems you've a lot to learn Lituma!

It was a kind of waking dream, again and again he saw the happy couple enjoying their premarital honeymoon in the humble streets of Amotape: he a half-breed cholo from Castilla; she a white girl of good family. There are no barriers to love, as the old waltz said. In this case the song was correct: love had broken through social and racial prejudices, as well as the economic abyss that separated the two lovers. The love they must have felt for each other had to have been intense, uncontrollable, to make them do what they did. “I’ve never felt a love like that, not even that time I fell in love with Meche, Josefmo’s girl.” No, he’d fallen in love a couple of times, but they were passing fancies that faded if the woman gave in or if she put up such a strong resistance that he finally got bored. But he’d never felt a love so powerful he’d risk his life for it, the kind the kid had felt, the kind that had made the girt stand up to the whole world. “Maybe I’m not the kind who gets to feel real love,” he thought. “Probably it’s because I’ve spent my life chasing whores with the Unstoppables, my heart’s turned whore, and now I can’t love a woman the way the kid did.”

WHOOPS! HE HAD IT FOR MERCEDES TOO

Ok, alright I'll finish the book and the blog now...

“What was Palomino Molero like, miss?” A chill ran down Lituma’s spine, he was so surprised to hear himself. He’d spoken without premeditation, point-blank. Neither the lieutenant nor the girl turned to look at him. Now Lituma walked just behind them, occasionally stumbling.

“The nicest boy in the world. An angel come from heaven.”

“That’s right, the guitar. His mother, Doña Asunta, from Castilla, is a little crazy on the subject of her son’s guitar. She wants to get it back. Who could have stolen it?”

“I have it,” said Alicia Mindreau. Her voice broke suddenly, as if she hadn’t meant to say the words she’d just spoken.

“The poor old lady said, When they find the guitar, they’ll find the killers. Not that she knows anything. Pure women’s or mothers’ intuition.”

He felt the lieutenant turn to look at him.

“What’s she like?” said the girl. Now she turned, and for a second Lituma saw her face: dirty, pale, irascible, and curious.

“Do you mean Doña Asunta, Palomino Molero’s mother?”

“Is she a chola, a half-breed?” specified the girl impatiently. It seemed to Lituma that his boss guffawed.

He wished he were there with them instead of here listening to these things. And, nevertheless, he heard himself whisper: “And what about your other boyfriend, miss?” As he spoke, he felt he was balancing on a high wire.

“You must mean Miss Mindreau’s official boyfriend,” said the lieutenant, correcting Lituma. He sweetened his tone as he spoke to her: “Because since you came to love Palomino Molero, I would imagine that Lieutenant Dufó could only be a kind of screen to keep up appearances in front of your father. That’s how it was, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So your dad wouldn’t catch on about your love for Palomino Molero. Naturally, it wouldn’t exactly make your father happy to find out his daughter was in love with an ordinary airman.”

“The one who brought me the revolver and told me to kill him was Daddy. What will you do to him?”

So now the story's over, what do you think about the other side of Lituma.
I sure as hell got to see Lituma as he grew into the man he is.

Seems like he has experienced a lot and with his Lieutenant and cracked a high profile case involving the colonel. What now? How'd he meet Tomasito?

“Bad news for you. You’ve been transferred to a little station as imaginary as those stories, somewhere in Junín Province. You’ve got to get there right away. They’ll pay for the bus ticket.”

“Junín?”

“I’m being transferred, too, but I still don’t know where. Maybe the same place.”

“That’s got to be far away.”

“Now you see, asshole,” the lieutenant teased him affectionately. “You were so eager to solve the mystery of Palomino Molero. Well, now it’s solved, and I did it for you. So what do we get for our trouble? You’re transferred to the mountains, far from your heat and your people. They’ll probably find a worse hole for me. That’s how they thank you for a job well done in the Guardia Civil. What will become of you out there, Lituma? Your kind of animal just doesn’t grow there. I feel sorry just thinking about how cold you’re going to be.”

“Sons of bitches.”