Trinity Journal of Literary Translation
Online: Wouldn’t You Believe It?
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61
trans. Andrés Alfaro
In the north of Costa Rica, nearing Nicaragua, there is a town called La Fortuna. To
get there you take roads wending left and right, roads trailing up and down mountains. You graze the clouds and shiver from the cold. Sometimes the waterfalls tremble; other
times the width of a river will with its clear, bubbling waters; occasionally, the depths of a riverbed quiver, barely visible from the tippy-top of a narrow bridge lined by rows of crosses that memorialize traffic deaths.
Whenever you go downhill you’re bound to cross a bridge over a river. Whenever
you go up you’ll inevitably happen upon some cloud clinging to the mountain. It may even stretch out and take the form of fog making for several kilometers of squinty vision.
More than just a town, La Fortuna is an urban center that caters to many farms both
big and small. These farms have workers who begin at the crack of dawn. They take care
of the livestock, the sowing of plantains and yucca, the viper that turned up (how awful!), poor old don Albino (who died from how awful he looked), and the story to be told at the start of each evening.
The most famous storyteller in La Fortuna is don Fulminante. That’s the reason for his
nickname: The Fulminant Fibber.
He lives on a ranch exposed to the winds and to the sheets of rain that fall year round.
These rains start very early, before lunch, and often last all day.
He has two milk cows, three ordinary dogs he’s trained to hunt, a small cornfield
surrounded by coconut trees and a hammock where he takes his siesta and daydreams
the night away. Many animals happily pass by his ranch including butterflies, lizards, cicadas and, at times, even the occasional toad.
Never snakes, however, as don
Fulminante has an amulet around his neck to protect him from any poisonous creatures.
He is a lively, affectionate, neighborly man who is capable of always doing right. He
is a sharp observer and a skillful orator. He knows how to tell a story with the dexterity of
a trained bullfighter who courts the bull and skirts it as if it were never there. He’s simply
good at everything. He’s able to fix a leaky pipe, build a house, repair a machine, cure a hangover, relieve indigestion and even deliver a baby should the emergency arise. He
can turn his hand to just about anything. He’s been an electrician, mechanic, bricklayer, and has even crafted beautiful, comfortable, and durable furniture as he knows how to choose quality wood resistant to moths and other such pests.
He became famous as a miracle-worker when someone brought an old, broken-down
