Fonchito became serious and reflected for a moment before answering.
“I’d like to know more about religion, because I was never taught.” He avoided answering with a reproachful tone. “That’s why Chato Pezzuolo and I have joined a Bible-study group. We meet on Fridays after classes.”
“An excellent idea.” Don Rigoberto was pleased. “The Bible’s a marvelous book that everyone ought to read, believers and nonbelievers. First of all, for their general culture. But also to better understand the world we live in. Many things that happen around us come directly or indirectly from the Bible.”
“Is that what you wanted us to talk about, Papa?”
“No, not really,” said Don Rigoberto. “I wanted to talk to you about Ismael and the scandal we’re caught up in. I’m sure it’s all over your school too.”
Fonchito laughed again. “I’ve been asked a thousand times if it was true you helped him to marry his cook, as the papers say. You’re on all the blogs that cover that mess.”
“Armida was never his cook,” explained Don Rigoberto. “More like his housekeeper. She cleaned and managed the house, especially after Ismael lost his wife.”
“I’ve been to his house two or three times and don’t remember her at all,” said Fonchito. “Is she pretty, at least?”
“Presentable, let’s say,” Don Rigoberto conceded in a Solomonic way. “Much younger than Ismael, of course. Don’t believe all the nonsense in the press. That he was abducted, that he’s senile, that he didn’t know what he was doing. Ismael’s in his right mind and that’s why I agreed to be a witness. Of course I didn’t suspect that the uproar would be so awful. Well, it’ll pass. I wanted to tell you that they’ve held up my retirement in the company. The twins have accused me of alleged complicity in an abduction that never happened. And so for now I’m tied up here in Lima with summonses and lawyers. That’s what it’s about. We’re going through a difficult period, and until this is resolved, we’ll have to tighten our belts a little. Because it’s not a good idea to liquidate all the savings our future depends on. Yours especially. I wanted to keep you up to date.”
“Of course, Papa,” said Fonchito, encouraging him. “Don’t worry. If you have to you can suspend my allowance until this is over.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Don Rigoberto said with a smile. “There’s more than enough for your allowance. At school, the teachers and students, what do they say about all this?”
“Most are siding with the twins, naturally.”
“The hyenas? It’s obvious they don’t know them.”
“The thing is they’re racists,” Fonchito declared. “They can’t forgive Señor Ismael for marrying a chola. They believe nobody in his right mind would do that, and that the only thing Armida wants is to keep his money. You don’t know how many boys I’ve fought with defending your friend’s marriage, Papa. Only Pezzuolo backs me up, but more out of friendship than because he thinks I’m right.”
“You’re defending a good cause, son.” Don Rigoberto patted his knee. “Because even if nobody believes it, Ismael’s marriage was for love.”
“Can I ask you a question, Papa?” the boy said suddenly, just as it seemed he was about to leave the study.
“Of course, son. Whatever you like.”
“It’s just that there’s something I don’t understand,” Fonchito ventured uncomfortably. “About you, Papa. You always liked art, painting, music, books. It’s the only thing you seem passionate about. So, then, why did you become a lawyer? Why did you spend your whole life working in an insurance company? You should have been a painter, a musician, well, I don’t know. Why didn’t you follow your calling?”
Don Rigoberto nodded and reflected a moment before answering.
“Because I was a coward, son,” he finally murmured. “Because I lacked faith in myself. I never believed I had the talent to be a real artist. But maybe that was an excuse for not trying. I decided not to be a creator but only a consumer of art, a dilettante of culture. Because I was a coward is the sad truth. So now you know. Don’t follow my example. Whatever your calling is, follow it as far as you can and don’t do what I did, don’t betray it.”
“I hope you’re not annoyed, Papa. It was a question I’d been wanting to ask you for a long time.”
“It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for many years, Fonchito. You’ve forced me to answer and I thank you for that. Go on, that’s enough, good night.”
He went to bed in wonderful spirits after his conversation with Fonchito. He told Doña Lucrecia how much good it had done him to hear his son being so judicious after an entire afternoon sunk in bad humor and unpleasantness. But he didn’t tell her about the last part of their conversation.
“It made me happy to see him so calm, so mature, Lucrecia. Involved in a Bible-study group, imagine. How many kids his age would do something like that? Very few. Have you read the Bible? I confess I’ve read only parts, and that was a long time ago. Wouldn’t you like it if, as a kind of game, we started to read it too and talk about it? It’s a very beautiful book.”
“I’d be delighted. Perhaps this way you’ll reconvert and come back to the Church,” said Lucrecia, adding, after a few seconds’ thought: “I hope reading the Bible won’t be incompatible with making love, Ears.”
She heard her husband’s mischievous laugh, and almost at the same time, she felt his avid hands running up and down her body.
“The Bible is the most erotic book in the world,” she heard him say eagerly. “You’ll see, when we read the Song of Songs and the outrageous things Samson does with Delilah and Delilah does with Samson, you’ll see.”
XIII
“Even though we’re in uniform, this isn’t an official visit,” said Captain Silva, making a courtly bow that swelled his belly and wrinkled the khaki shirt of his uniform. “It’s a friendly visit, señora.”
“Sure, all right,” said Mabel, opening the door. She looked at the police in surprise and fear, blinking. “Come in, come in, please.”
The captain and sergeant had arrived unexpectedly, just as she was thinking to herself once again that she had been moved by the old man’s demonstrations of affection. She’d always been fond of Felícito Yanaqué or, at least, even though she’d been his mistress for eight years, she’d never felt an aversion toward him, the physical and moral dislike that in the past had led her to break off abruptly with transitory lovers and benefactors who gave her headaches because of their jealousies, demands, and whims, their resentment and spite. Some breakups had meant a serious economic loss for her. But the feeling was stronger than she was. When she became sick of a man, she couldn’t keep sleeping with him. She’d get allergies, headaches, chills, she’d start thinking about her stepfather; she could barely control the urge to vomit each time she had to undress for him and cater to his desires in bed. That’s why, she told herself, though she’d gone to bed with a lot of men since she was a kid—she ran away from home at the age of thirteen and went to live with an aunt and uncle after that thing happened with her stepfather—she wasn’t and never would be what’s called a whore. Because whores knew how to pretend when it was time to go to bed with their clients and she didn’t. Mabel, in order to make love, had to feel at least some affection for the man, and also had to get the goods, as the vulgar Piuran saying went; he had to follow the particular forms—invitations, dates, little gifts, gestures, manners—that made their going to bed decent and gave it the appearance of a sentimental relationship.
“Thank you, señora,” said Captain Silva, raising his hand to his visor in imitation of a military salute. “We’ll do our best not to take up too much of your time.”
“Thank you, señora,” Sergeant Lituma echoed.
Mabel had them sit in the living room and brought in two cold bottles of Inca Kola. To hide her nervousness, she tried not to speak; she only smiled at them and waited. The police removed their kepis, settled into the armchairs, and Mabel noticed that their foreheads a
nd hair were soaked in perspiration. She thought she ought to turn on the fan but didn’t; she was afraid that if she got up from her seat, the captain and sergeant would notice the trembling that had begun in her legs and hands. What explanation would she give if her teeth began to chatter too? “I don’t feel very well and have a little fever because, well because of that thing we women have, you know what I mean.” Would they believe her?
“What we’d like, señora”—Captain Silva sweetened his voice a little—“is not to question you but to have a friendly conversation. They’re very different things, you understand. I said friendly, and I’ll repeat it.”
In these eight years she’d never felt disgusted by Felícito. No doubt because the old man was so decent. If, on the day he visited, she didn’t feel well because she had her period or simply because she didn’t want to spread her legs for him, the owner of Narihualá Transport didn’t insist. Just the opposite; he was concerned, wanted to take her to the doctor, go to the pharmacy to buy her medicine, hand her the thermometer. Was he really in love with her? Mabel had thought a thousand times that he was. In any case, the old man made the monthly payments on the house and gave her a few thousand soles a month just to go to bed with her once or twice a week. And in addition to all that, he always gave her presents, on her birthday and at Christmas, and also on the holidays when nobody gave anybody anything, like the national holidays or in October during Piura Week. Even in the way he went to bed with her, he always showed it wasn’t only sex that mattered to him. He whispered a lover’s words in her ear, kissed her tenderly, looked at her in ecstasy, as if he were a boy wet behind the ears. Wasn’t that love? Mabel often thought that if she insisted, she could get Felícito to leave his wife, that shapeless chola who looked more like a bogeyman than a human being, and marry her. It would be very easy. All she had to do was get pregnant, for example, turn on the tears, and drive him to distraction: “You wouldn’t want your child to be a bastard, right, old man?” But she’d never tried it, and wouldn’t try it, because Mabel valued her freedom, her independence, too much. She wasn’t going to sacrifice them in exchange for relative security; besides, she didn’t particularly like the idea of becoming, in just a few years, a nurse and caretaker for a very old man whose dribble she’d have to wipe away and whose sheets she’d have to wash because he peed in his sleep.
“You have my word we won’t take very long, señora,” the captain repeated, procrastinating, unwilling to explain clearly the reason for this unexpected visit. He looked at her in a way that gave the lie to his good manners, Mabel thought. “Besides, as soon as you grow tired of us, just say the word and we’ll clear out.”
Why was the captain exaggerating his courtesy to such a ridiculous extent? What was he up to? He wanted to reassure her, of course, but his affectations and syrupy manners and false smiles increased Mabel’s mistrust. What did this pair want? Unlike the captain, the sergeant, his assistant, couldn’t hide the fact that he was jumpy. He was watching her in a strange way, uneasy and cautious, as if he were a little frightened of what might happen, and he couldn’t stop kneading his double chin with fingers that seemed almost frantic.
“As you can see with your own eyes, we didn’t bring a tape recorder,” Captain Silva added, opening his hands and patting his pockets in a theatrical way. “Not even paper and pencil. So rest assured, there won’t be any record at all of what we say here. It will be confidential. Between you and us. And nobody else.”
After the week of her abduction, Felícito had been so incredibly affectionate and solicitous that Mabel felt overwhelmed. She’d received a large bouquet of red roses wrapped in cellophane with a card in his own hand that said: “With all my love and sorrow for the hard trial I’ve put you through, my dear Mabelita, the man who adores you sends you these flowers: your Felícito.” It was the biggest bouquet she’d ever seen. When she read the card her eyes filled with tears that fell on her hands and wet them, something that happened only when she had nightmares. Would she accept the old man’s offer that she leave Piura until all this was over? She wasn’t sure. More than an offer, it was a demand. Felícito was frightened, he thought they could hurt her, and he pleaded with her to go to Trujillo, Chiclayo, Lima, even Cusco if she preferred, wherever she liked, as long as she got far away from the damn spider extortionists. He promised her the moon: She’d lack for nothing and enjoy every comfort for as long as her trip lasted. But she hadn’t made up her mind. It’s not that she wasn’t afraid, nothing like that. Unlike the many fearful people she knew, Mabel had felt fear only once before, when she was a kid and her stepfather, taking advantage of the fact that her mother was at the market, came into her room, pushed her onto the bed, and tried to undress her. She had defended herself, scratched him, and ran out into the street, half undressed and screaming. That was when she learned what fear really was. She never experienced anything like it again. Until now. Because over the past days, fear, a great, deep, constant fear, was back in her life. Twenty-four hours a day. Night and day, afternoon and morning, asleep and awake. Mabel thought she’d never be rid of it until she died. When she went out, she had the unpleasant sensation of being watched; even in the house, with the doors and windows locked, she’d have sudden frights that chilled her body and took her breath away. Then she’d imagine that her blood had stopped circulating in her veins. In spite of knowing she was protected, and perhaps for that very reason. Was she protected? Felícito had assured her she was after he’d talked to Captain Silva. True, there was a guard in front of her house, and when she went out two plainclothes police, a man and a woman, followed her at a certain distance, discreetly. But it was precisely this twenty-four-hour-a-day vigilance that increased her nervousness, as did Captain Silva’s assurance that the kidnappers wouldn’t be imprudent or stupid enough to attempt another attack on her, knowing the police were guarding her day and night. In spite of that, the old man didn’t think she was out of danger. According to him, when the kidnappers realized he’d lied to them, that he’d placed the notice in El Tiempo thanking the Captive Lord of Ayabaca for the miracle only so they’d free her, and that he didn’t intend to pay protection, they’d be furious and would try to take their revenge on someone he loved. And since they knew so much about him, they’d also know that the person Felícito loved most in the world was Mabel. She had to leave Piura, disappear for a while, he’d never forgive himself if those bastards hurt her again.
Feeling her heart pound, Mabel remained silent. Above the heads of the two police and at the foot of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she saw her face reflected in the mirror and was surprised at how pale she looked. She was as white as one of those phantoms in horror movies.
“I’m going to ask you to listen to me without getting nervous or scared,” Captain Silva said after a long silence. He spoke softly, lowering his voice, as if he were going to tell her a secret. “Because even though it may not seem like it, this private arrangement we’re going to make, I repeat, it’s for your own good.”
“Tell me once and for all what’s going on. What is it that you want?” Mabel managed to say, choking. The captain’s evasiveness and hypocritical circumspection were irritating her. “Say what you’ve come to say. I’m not a fool. Let’s not waste any more time, señor.”
“We’ll get to the point then, Mabel,” said the chief, transformed. Suddenly his good manners and respectful behavior disappeared. He raised his voice and looked at her now very seriously, with an impertinent, superior air. To make matters worse, he began to address her with the familiar tú. “I’m very sorry for you, but we know everything. Just what I said, Mabelita. Everything, every little thing, every last little thing. For example, we know that for a good long time you’ve not only had Don Felícito Yanaqué as a lover but someone else too. Better looking and younger than the old man in the hat and vest who pays for this house.”
“How dare you!” Mabel protested, turning a violent red. “I won’t permit it! What slander!”
“You’d be
tter let me finish before you get so mouthy.” Captain Silva’s emphatic voice and threatening manner stopped her dead. “Afterward you can say whatever you want and cry as much as you like and even stamp your feet, if the spirit moves you. Right now, just keep quiet. I have the floor and you button your lip. Understood, Mabelita?”
Maybe she’d have to leave Piura. But the idea of living alone in a strange city—she’d only left this city to go to Sullana, Lobitos, Paita, and Yacila, she’d never crossed the boundaries of the department either to the north or to the south, she’d never gone up to the sierra—demoralized her. What would she do all alone in a place without family or friends? She’d have less protection than she did here. Would she spend her time waiting for Felícito to come to visit her? She’d live in a hotel, be bored morning and night, watching television for hours on end, if there even was television, and waiting, waiting. And she didn’t like feeling that a police officer, a man or a woman, was always watching her steps, taking notes on whom she talked to, whom she said hello to, who approached her. More than protected, she felt spied on, and the feeling, instead of reassuring her, made her tense and insecure.
Captain Silva stopped talking for a moment to calmly light a cigarette. Unhurriedly, he exhaled a large mouthful of smoke that hung in the air and saturated the room with the biting odor of tobacco.
“You’ll probably say, Mabel, that the police aren’t interested in your private life, and you’d be right,” the chief continued, dropping his ash on the floor and adopting an air that was part philosophical, part bullying. “But what concerns us is not whether you have two or ten lovers, but that you’ve been crazy enough to conspire with one of them to extort Don Felícito Yanaqué, the poor old man who, besides everything else, really loves you. What an ungrateful girl you’ve turned out to be, Mabelita!”
“What a thing to say!” She was on her feet and now, quivering, indignant, she too raised her voice, as well as a fist. “I won’t say another word without a lawyer. Let me tell you, I know my rights. I…”