This Owl is surprised by the public’s interest in the love life of our Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa. The new generations avidly read the incredible story of the writer who, when he was 19 years old and overcoming all kinds of vicissitudes, made his dream of marrying his Bolivian aunt, Julia Urquidi, 29, come true.
To achieve this, they had to make a clandestine trip to Chincha and face the persecution of Mario’s father, an animal in a suit and tie, who threatened to kill Julia, because at that time the age of majority was set at the twenty-one years
The hallucinatory circumstances of that crush were immortalized in his fifth novel, ‘Aunt Julia and the writer’ (1977). Upon entering San Marcos, Mario decided not to live with his parents, but in Miraflores with his grandparents, and he frequented the house of his uncle Lucho and his Bolivian wife Olga almost daily.
It is precisely here that her aunt’s beautiful sister, the Bolivian Julia Urquidi, recently divorced, lands, who “without mincing words” maintains that she comes to Lima to find another husband who has “a good economic position.”
The woman teases ‘Husband’, whom he knew as a child, but they begin to go out to the movies. From being so often in the dark of the audience, from long walks and conversations between Barranco and Miraflores, romance arises and the subsequent ‘madness’ of getting married in secret.
THE SEARCH FOR VARGAS LLOSA
But no municipality wanted to marry them. Then Mario he looks for other municipalities further away as he recounts in his book:
AUNT JULIA AND THE WRITER
‘The tour started very early. At the beginning I went to the most threadbare and remote municipalities from the center, Rímac, Porvenir, Vitarte, Chorrillos. One and fifty times (at first blushing, then with self-confidence) I explained the problem to mayors, lieutenant-mayors, trustees, secretaries, porters, document holders, and each time I received categorical refusals.
The touchstone was always the same: as long as I did not obtain notarized authorization from my parents, or was emancipated before the judge, I could not get married.
Then I tried my luck in the city halls of the central neighborhoods, excluding Miraflores and San Isidro (where there could be family acquaintances) with the same result. The bureaucrats, after reviewing the documents, used to make jokes that kicked me in the stomach: But how do you want to marry your mother? Don’t be silly, boy, what are you getting married for?
Faced with the bad news, Pascual, his assistant at the radio news station where he worked, tells him that his cousin is the mayor of Chincha and he can marry them… Providentially, the taxi driver who took them to Tambo de Mora told them that the mayor of Grocio Prado could marry them, he was a farmer friend.
“In addition, they will marry in the land of Blessed Melchorita.” ‘We arrived at Grocio Prado at around eight (…) We saw a more illuminated house, with a great crackling of candles among the reeds, and Pascual, crossing himself, told us that it was the hermitage where the blessed had lived. He greeted her and me with a mournful bow. I calculated that at the rate he was writing it would have taken him more than an hour to write the minutes. When he finished, without moving, he said: Two witnesses are needed.
Javier and Pascual went ahead, but only the latter was accepted by the mayor, since Javier was a minor. I went out to talk to the driver, who was still in the taxi; he agreed to be our witness for one hundred soles. He was a slim zambo, with a gold tooth; he smoked all the time and on the return trip he had been mute.
At the moment that the mayor indicated where he should sign, he shook his head sadly: What a calamity, he said, as if repenting. Where has a wedding been seen without a miserable bottle to toast the bride and groom? I can’t sponsor something like that. He gave us a sympathetic look and added from the doorway, Wait a second. Crossing his arms, the mayor closed his eyes and seemed to go to sleep.
Pascual, Javier and I looked at each other without knowing what to do. Finally, I set out to look for another witness on the street. It’s not necessary, he’s coming back,” Pascual cut me off. Also, what he has said is very true. We should have thought about the toast. That zambo has taught us a lesson… Later he handed us a certificate and told us that we were married. We kissed and then the witnesses and the mayor hugged us. The driver bit open the bottles of wine. There were no glasses, so we drank from the bottle’. A novel marriage. I turn off the TV.
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