Debra Pickett

Parrado does not use the word cannibalism, though it is frequently applied to his story, made famous in Piers Paul Reed's 1974 book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (Avon: 416 pages, $7.99) and later made into a movie in which Parrado was portrayed by Ethan Hawke. The correct term, the word he uses if he uses one at all, is "necrophagy," which specifically refers to eating the flesh from corpses, rather than killing people for the purpose of eating them. Mostly, though, he makes allusions.

"What we did to survive," he'll say and you instantly understand what he means, "to us it was -- not unimportant -- but we had so many issues to deal with: the cold, the thirst. The mountains, they kill you."

No survivor's guilt

Parrado has just left the Borders bookstore on State Street and walked down the block to the bustling Atwood Cafe. He is dressed in a cashmere sweater and clutching a copy of Autosport magazine. He hates to be bored.

Explaining that he's just shaken 150 hands at the signing of his newly published memoir, Miracle in the Andes (Crown: 284 pages, $25), he quickly excuses himself to go wash up. You wonder about his fastidiousness. Was it always in him? Or, has his experience made the ritual of eating a meal somehow more significant?

When the waiter arrives, a slim European with an elegant accent, Parrado, who lives in Montevideo, Uruguay, orders his lunch in perfect French. He's having a Croque Madame, a grilled ham and cheese sandwich topped with a fried egg. You wonder if he ever had any trouble eating meat and you mumble something, trying to be light and funny but knowing you'll fail, about how you'd been trying to guess what he'd order. You decide to have the quiche.

He mentions that he's very hungry -- did he say "starving?" or did you just hear it that way? -- and hasn't eaten all day. He flew in from another bookstore appearance in Minneapolis this morning and, after oversleeping and then busting the zipper on his suitcase, didn't have time to grab breakfast before catching his plane. For anyone else, you figure, this would count as a bad travel day.

You ask if he is a nervous flier. He laughs.

"When I get around a beautiful woman, I get nervous," he says, "but no other times. No."

He tells you that only Americans ask this question. "And they always ask about survivor's guilt, too," he adds. "What is this, survivor's guilt? None of us have it. We're happy."

No counseling

All but one of the 16 survivors still live in Montevideo. Nine of them live in the same neighborhood. Their sons and nephews play for the same rugby club where they once played. They have not had counseling. Parrado sniffs with contempt -- a gesture you think of as particularly evocative of a certain South American machismo -- when he hears the word "closure."

Yes, he says, he has gone back to visit the site of the crash -- which requires three days on horseback to reach -- 11 times since the crash, but "just to put flowers on the graves of my mother, sister and friends."

"Now," he says, "I know a psychologist gets hold of this, they think all kinds of things," but Parrado is not interested in discussing those things.

For 20 years, he never spoke about the crash. "I was too busy," he says.

He recovered his strength, went to Europe, became a race car driver. He married Veronique, his wife, now, for 27 years, the mother of his two daughters. He started hosting a South American television show about auto racing and built his own production company.

In the aftermath of the crash, when a media frenzy surrounded the elated and shell-shocked survivors, they agreed that they would all cooperate with one journalist, Reed, to tell their story. Otherwise, they knew, there would have been dozens of books and dozens of competing versions of what happened.

Then, for the most part, they simply went on.

"Life goes on," Parrado says. "Life is simpler than it looks. . . . Everything we have faced after has seemed easy."

The 16 of them have a special bond, but they are not each others' only friends. Old friends re-connected with them after the crash. New ones have met them since, not always knowing their remarkable histories.

When they are together, though, there are certain things they can say to each other, things that other people might not understand.

Eat every sandwich, they say. Kiss every girl.

Parrado's escort has been hovering near the lunch table. He is due on the radio in five minutes.

But Parrado has just ordered some fresh strawberries and creme for dessert and he wants to stay to savor at least a few bites of it. The escort, though nervous, is not going to argue the point.

Finally, Parrado decides that he is ready to go.

"Eat every sandwich," he tells you as he leaves. And, strangely, it does not sound strange.