LOST AND FOUND .
It is not much what I know about her, but I am sure that she existed once upon a time in Guatemala because I have witnesses.
I never put down the author's name, nor the title of a book which I leafed through in the new arrivals section of the Chicago Public Library. Now that the years have passed, I don't know how to find it. And I need to read at least a few pages where a nickname struck me. My problem is that such nickname is no more in my memory.
I remember that the author was a Jew, born and raised in Guatemala City, and his book was published in the eighties in Wisconsin.
With time it should have slipped without notice if not because in the last years I tried hard to recall to my mind the nickname which the main character in the book said was used for the purpose of intimidating him so he finish eating his breakfast of oatmeal.
The forgotten nickname was for a woman called Julia Castellanos, who at times used to dress like a man and seated down on a bench in the Central Park of Guatemala City practiced as a
lawyer with success because everybody believed that she was a cousin of the President of the country. The author, who is the main character of the book, suggested that she had sympathy for the Nazis because the grown ups used to freighten the Jew children saying: "If you eat not your oatmeal the (nickname) will carry you away." It was at the time of de Second World War.
Mr. Roberto Chinchilla, an old friend, come recently from Guatemala and, because we chated before about this, I asked him for the nickname of Mrs. Julia Castellanos, and he, smiling, said: "La Maciste."
I put it down immediately so I don't forget it again. A short time later I found an Anthology of Latin American Jew writers and there it was something of "Rites: Memoirs of a Guatemalan Childhood" by Victor Perera. Finally I had found the book and the man.
After that I searched the Web looking for him, and with great sorrow I read that he died in the year 2003 somewhere in California. Victor Perera was a descendant from the Sephardim who banned from Spain at the time of Columbus, went to live for centuries in Constantinopla. He researched and wrote about this too. And because he wrote three books about Guatemala,
I feel the Guatemalan people in a sense like an orphan.
Mrs. Julia Castellanos, "La Maciste", was a beautiful and tall woman who used to ride a horse when traveling with the President by the countryside of Guatemala. "La Maciste" on horseback is in the memory of Mrs. Martina Mendez Moreira, who was a little girl at that time. Now I can imagine that there is a link between Mr. Roberto Chinchilla, Mrs. Martina Mendez Moreira and me with Mrs. Julia Castellanos "La Maciste" and Mr. Victor Perera.
These are matters of the memory, the history and our synchronization.
I never put down the author's name, nor the title of a book which I leafed through in the new arrivals section of the Chicago Public Library. Now that the years have passed, I don't know how to find it. And I need to read at least a few pages where a nickname struck me. My problem is that such nickname is no more in my memory.
I remember that the author was a Jew, born and raised in Guatemala City, and his book was published in the eighties in Wisconsin.
With time it should have slipped without notice if not because in the last years I tried hard to recall to my mind the nickname which the main character in the book said was used for the purpose of intimidating him so he finish eating his breakfast of oatmeal.
The forgotten nickname was for a woman called Julia Castellanos, who at times used to dress like a man and seated down on a bench in the Central Park of Guatemala City practiced as a
lawyer with success because everybody believed that she was a cousin of the President of the country. The author, who is the main character of the book, suggested that she had sympathy for the Nazis because the grown ups used to freighten the Jew children saying: "If you eat not your oatmeal the (nickname) will carry you away." It was at the time of de Second World War.
Mr. Roberto Chinchilla, an old friend, come recently from Guatemala and, because we chated before about this, I asked him for the nickname of Mrs. Julia Castellanos, and he, smiling, said: "La Maciste."
I put it down immediately so I don't forget it again. A short time later I found an Anthology of Latin American Jew writers and there it was something of "Rites: Memoirs of a Guatemalan Childhood" by Victor Perera. Finally I had found the book and the man.
After that I searched the Web looking for him, and with great sorrow I read that he died in the year 2003 somewhere in California. Victor Perera was a descendant from the Sephardim who banned from Spain at the time of Columbus, went to live for centuries in Constantinopla. He researched and wrote about this too. And because he wrote three books about Guatemala,
I feel the Guatemalan people in a sense like an orphan.
Mrs. Julia Castellanos, "La Maciste", was a beautiful and tall woman who used to ride a horse when traveling with the President by the countryside of Guatemala. "La Maciste" on horseback is in the memory of Mrs. Martina Mendez Moreira, who was a little girl at that time. Now I can imagine that there is a link between Mr. Roberto Chinchilla, Mrs. Martina Mendez Moreira and me with Mrs. Julia Castellanos "La Maciste" and Mr. Victor Perera.
These are matters of the memory, the history and our synchronization.
posted by Carlos Munoz at 6:53 PM
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