“I would like us to be two gorillas,” whispers my beloved as we are hugging in bed. And then she asks: “What would your gorilla name be?” “Ranko,” I answer at once, “like the gorilla in one of Tintin cartoons.” She had not heard of the cartoon character, and so I googled it as soon as we got out of bed. She laughed when she saw it. Indeed, the angry gorilla is amazing to behold. Georges Prosper Remi, the Belgian cartoonist who went by the pen name of Hergé, obviously thought that my name fit a gorilla perfectly. He must have searched for it for a while, too.

But then I searched for Ranko the gorilla in my Residua, and was stunned not to find any mention of it. I also discovered that Tintin appears in five of my pieces only. This stunned me for true. Written between 1985 and 2011, these pieces span many a year, but there is no mention of the importance of the cartoon character in my life in any of them. At first, I read the cartoon it in French, which I was studying in highschool. My mother thus subscribed me to a French cartoon magazine that brought Tintin stories in regular installments.

Over the years, Tintin has been popping up my mind so often that I think of the cartoon character and his white dog, Snowy, as members of my family or the closest circle of friends. In fact, I cannot imagine myself without Tintin. Which is perhaps why I have failed to mention the connection for so many years. It was too obvious even to mention. But that blind spot is behind me now, and I feel no less than relieved. Returning to my gorilla name, Ranko it definitely is. What is more, I am aware of that particular connection since my childhood. If I remember correctly, I was thirteen or fourteen when I came across Ranko the gorilla for the first time.