“Will I have to see him?” Felícito spoke so quietly, the policemen had to lean their heads in to hear him. “Miguel, I mean.”
“At the trial, absolutely,” the captain said. “You’ll be the star witness. You’re the victim, remember.”
“And before the trial?” the trucker insisted.
“The investigating judge or the prosecutor may ask for a face-to-face meeting,” the captain explained. “In that case, yes. We don’t need to do that because, as Lituma said, Miguel confessed to all the charges. His lawyer may decide on another strategy and deny everything, claim that his confession is invalid because it was forced out of him through illegal means. You know, the usual story. But I don’t think he has any out. As long as Mabel cooperates, he’s a goner.”
“How much time will they give him?” the trucker asked.
“That will depend on the lawyer who represents him and how much he can spend on his defense,” said the chief, looking somewhat skeptical. “It won’t be much. The only act of violence was the small fire at your office. Extortion, false abduction, and conspiracy to commit a crime aren’t all that serious under the circumstances. Because they didn’t result in anything, they were all faked. Two or three years at most, I doubt he’ll get any longer. And since he’s a first-time offender and has no record, he might even avoid jail altogether.”
“What about her?” the trucker asked, wetting his lips with his tongue.
“Since she’s cooperating with the law, the sentence will be very light, Don Felícito. Maybe nothing will happen to her. After all, she was the white guy’s victim too. That’s what her lawyer might argue, and he wouldn’t be wrong.”
“Do you see, Adelaida?” Felícito Yanaqué said with a sigh. “They put me through weeks of torture, they burned my place on Avenida Sánchez Cerro—the losses have been big: A lot of customers left because they were afraid the extortionists would throw a bomb at my buses. And those two crooks will probably go home free and live the good life. Do you see what justice is in this country?”
He stopped talking because he saw that something had changed in the holy woman’s eyes. She was staring at him, her eyes wide, very serious and concentrated, as if she saw something unsettling inside or through him. She grasped one of his hands between her large, callused hands with their dirty nails. She squeezed it with great strength. Felícito shuddered, dying of fear.
“An inspiration, Adelaida?” he stammered, trying to free his hand. “What do you see, what’s going on? Please, dear friend.”
“Something’s about to happen to you, Felícito,” she said, squeezing his hand even harder, staring at him insistently with her deep, now feverish eyes. “I don’t know what, maybe what happened to you this morning with the cops, maybe something else. Worse or better, I don’t know. Something tremendous, very strong, a jolt that will change your whole life.”
“Do you mean, something different from everything that’s already happening to me? Even worse things, Adelaida? Isn’t my cross heavy enough?”
She moved her head like a madwoman and didn’t seem to hear him. She raised her voice.
“I don’t know if it’ll be better or worse, Felícito,” she shouted, terrified. “But I do know it’s more important than anything that’s happened to you so far. A revolution in your life, that’s what I see.”
“Even worse?” he repeated. “Can’t you tell me anything concrete, Adelaida?”
“No, no I can’t.” The holy woman freed his hand and slowly began to recover her usual appearance and manner. He saw her sigh and pass her hand over her face as if she were brushing away an insect. “I only tell you what I feel, what the inspiration makes me feel. I know it’s confusing. For me too, Felícito. It’s not my fault, it’s what God wants me to feel. He’s the one in charge. That’s all I can tell you. Be prepared, something’s going to happen. Something that will surprise you. I only hope it isn’t for the worse, baby.”
“For the worse?” the trucker exclaimed. “The only thing worse that could happen to me now would be to die, run over by a car, bitten by a rabid dog. Maybe that would be the best thing for me, Adelaida. Dying.”
“You’re not going to die yet, I can promise you that. Your death isn’t something the inspiration told me about.”
The holy woman looked exhausted. She was still on the floor, sitting on her heels and rubbing her hands and arms slowly, as if brushing away dust. Felícito decided to leave. Half the afternoon was over. He hadn’t eaten a thing at midday but wasn’t hungry. The mere idea of sitting down to eat filled him with disgust. With an effort he got up from the rocker and took out his wallet.
“You don’t need to give me anything,” said the holy woman from the floor. “Not today, Felícito.”
“Yes, I do,” said the trucker, leaving fifty soles on the nearest counter. “Not for that confused inspiration but for having comforted and advised me with so much kindness. You’re my best friend, Adelaida. That’s why I’ve always trusted you.”
He went out, buttoning his vest, adjusting his tie, his hat. He felt very hot again. The presence of so many people crowding the streets in the center of Piura oppressed him. Some recognized and greeted him with nods and bows while others were more secretive, merely pointing him out. Still others took pictures of him with their cell phones. He decided to stop by Narihualá Transport in case there were new developments. He looked at his watch: five o’clock. The press conference at the police station was at six. An hour until the news went off like gunpowder. It would explode on the radio and the Internet, to be spread by blogs and televised reports. He’d be the most popular man in Piura again. “Deceived by son and mistress,” “Son and mistress tried to extort him,” “The spiders were his son and his girlfriend, and on top of everything, they were lovers too!” He felt nauseated imagining the headlines, the caricatures that would show him in embarrassing poses, wearing horns that stretched to the clouds. What dogs they were! Ungrateful, thankless dogs! What Miguel had done angered him less. Because, thanks to the spider extortion, he’d confirmed his suspicion that Miguel wasn’t his son. Who could his real father be? Did Gertrudis even know? Back then, any patron at the inn fucked her, so there were plenty of candidates. Should he leave her? Get a divorce? He’d never loved her, but now, after so long, he couldn’t even feel rancor toward her. She hadn’t been a bad wife; in all these years her conduct had been exemplary, she’d lived only for her home and her religion. The news would shake her, naturally. A photograph of Miguel in handcuffs, behind bars for having tried to extort his father, the father he shared a mistress with, wasn’t something a mother would easily accept. She’d cry and hurry to the cathedral so the priests could console her.
What Mabel had done was worse. He thought about her and a hollow opened in his stomach. She was the only woman he’d ever really loved. He’d given her everything: house, allowance, gifts. A freedom no other man would have granted to the woman he kept. So she’d go to bed with his son! So she’d extort him in cahoots with that hateful wretch! He wasn’t going to kill her, or even punch her in her lying mouth. He wouldn’t see her again. Let her make her living whoring. Let’s see if she could find another lover as considerate as him.
Instead of walking down Calle Lima, at the Puente Colgante he turned toward the Eguiguren Seawalk. There were fewer people there and he could walk more calmly, free of the feeling of knowing that people were looking at him and pointing him out. He thought of the old mansions that had lined this seawalk when he was a kid. They’d fallen into disrepair one after the other because of the havoc caused by El Niño: the rains, the river overflowing its banks and flooding the neighborhood. Instead of rebuilding, the whites had made their new homes in El Chipe, far from the center of town.
What would he do now? Go on with his work at Narihualá Transport as if nothing had happened? Poor Tiburcio. He’d suffer a terrible blow. His brother, Miguel, whom he’d always been so close to, suddenly a criminal who tried to rob his father with the help of his fathe
r’s mistress. Tiburcio was a very good man. Maybe not very intelligent but decent, reliable, incapable of anything as low as what his brother had done. He’d be destroyed by the news.
The Piura River was very high, carrying away branches, small shrubs, papers, bottles, plastic. It looked muddy, as if there’d been landslides in the mountains. Nobody was swimming in it.
As he went up the seawalk to Avenida Sánchez Cerro, he decided not to go to the office. It was a quarter to six, and the reporters would swarm like flies around Narihualá Transport as soon as they learned the news. Better to shut himself up in his house, lock the door to the street, and not go out for a few days until the storm had calmed down. Thinking about the scandal sent chills up and down his spine.
He walked up Calle Arequipa toward his house, feeling anxiety pooling again in his chest and making it difficult to breathe. So Miguelito had a grudge against him, had hated him even before he forced him to do military service. The feeling was mutual. No, not true, he’d never hated his bastard son. That was different from never having loved him because he sensed they didn’t have the same blood. But he didn’t remember showing a preference for Tiburcio. He’d been a fair father, careful to treat them both identically. It’s true he’d made Miguel spend a year in the barracks. It was for his own good. So that he’d get on track. He was an awful student, he only liked to have fun, kick around soccer balls, drink in the chicha bars. He’d caught him guzzling drinks in seedy bars and restaurants with evil-looking friends, spending his allowance in brothels. Things would go very badly for him if he continued down that path. “If you keep this up, I’ll put you in the army,” he’d warned him. He kept it up, and he put him in. Felícito laughed. Well, it hadn’t really straightened him out if he ended up doing what he’d done. Let him go to jail, let him find out what that meant. Let’s see who’d give him work after that, with that kind of record. He’d come out more of a bandit than when he went in, just like everyone else who passed through the prisons, those universities of crime.
He was in front of his house. Before opening the large studded door, he walked over to the corner and tossed some coins into the blind man’s jar.
“Good afternoon, Lucindo.”
“Good afternoon, Don Felícito. God bless you.”
He went back, feeling the tightness in his chest, breathing with difficulty. He opened the door and closed it behind him. From the vestibule he heard voices in the living room. Just what he needed. Visitors! It was strange, Gertrudis didn’t have women friends who dropped in unannounced, she never gave teas. He stood uncertainly in the vestibule until he saw his wife’s broad shape appear in the doorway to the living room. He saw her come toward him, enclosed in one of those dresses that looked like a habit, speeding up that laborious walk of hers. What was with that expression on her face? Well, she must have heard the news by now.
“So now you know everything,” he murmured.
But she didn’t let him finish. She pointed toward the living room and spoke hurriedly.
“I’m sorry, I’m very sorry, Felícito. I’ve had to put her up here in the house. There was nothing else I could do. It’ll only be for a few days. She’s running away. It seems they might kill her. An incredible story. Come on, she’ll tell you herself.”
Felícito Yanaqué’s chest was a drum. He looked at Gertrudis, not really understanding what she was saying, but instead of his wife’s face he saw Adelaida’s, transformed by the visions of her inspiration.
XVI
Why was Lucrecia taking so long? Don Rigoberto paced back and forth like a caged animal in front of the door of his Barranco apartment. His wife still hadn’t come out of the bedroom. He was dressed in mourning and didn’t want to be late for Ismael’s funeral, but because of Lucrecia and her incorrigible dawdling, her ability to find the most absurd pretexts to delay their departure, they’d get to the church after the funeral party had already left for the cemetery. He didn’t want to attract attention by showing up at Los Jardines de la Paz after the burial service had already begun, drawing the glances of everyone there. No doubt there’d be many people, as there had been the night before at the vigil, not only out of friendship for the deceased but because of the unhealthy Limeño curiosity to finally see in person the widow in the scandal.
But Don Rigoberto knew there was nothing he could do but resign himself and wait. Probably the only fights he’d had with his wife in all the years they’d been married had been due to Lucrecia’s tardiness whenever they went out, regardless of whether it was to a movie, a meal, an art show, the bank, or on a trip. At first, when they were newlyweds, when they had just started living together, he believed his wife was late because of a simple dislike or contempt for punctuality. Because of it they argued, lost their tempers, quarreled. Gradually, by observing her and reflecting, Don Rigoberto realized that his wife’s dallying when it was time to leave for any engagement wasn’t something superficial, the negligence of a pampered woman. It was a response to something deeper, an ontological state of mind, because without her being conscious of what was happening to her, each time she had to leave a place (her own house, the house of a friend she was visiting, the restaurant where she’d just had dinner) she was seized by a hidden anxiety, an insecurity, a dark, primitive fear of having to leave, go away, change where she was, and so she invented all kinds of excuses (getting a handkerchief, changing her handbag, finding her keys, making sure the windows were locked, the television or the stove turned off, or the telephone not off the receiver), anything that would delay for a few minutes or seconds the terrifying act of leaving.
Had she always been like this? Even as a girl? He didn’t dare ask. But he’d confirmed that as the years went by, this urge, mania, or calamity became more pronounced, to the point where Rigoberto sometimes thought with a shudder that the day might come when Lucrecia, with the same mildness as Melville’s character, might contract Bartleby’s metaphysical lethargy or indolence and decide never again to move from her house, perhaps her room, even her bed. “Fear of leaving behind her being, losing her being, being left without her being,” he told himself again. It was the diagnosis he’d made of his wife’s delays. The seconds passed and Lucrecia still didn’t appear. He’d already called to her three times, reminding her that it was getting late. Undoubtedly, given her distress and nervous upset since receiving the call from Armida announcing Ismael’s sudden death, her panic at losing her being, forgetting it like an umbrella or a raincoat if she went out, had gotten worse. She’d keep delaying and they’d be late for the funeral.
Finally Lucrecia came out of the bedroom. She too was dressed in black and wearing dark glasses. Rigoberto hurried to open the door for her. His wife’s face was still contorted by grief and uncertainty. What would happen to them now? The night before, during the vigil in the Church of Santa María Reina, Rigoberto saw her sob as she embraced Armida beside the open coffin where Ismael lay with a handkerchief tied around his head to keep his jaw from hanging open. At that moment Rigoberto himself had to make a great effort to control his desire to cry. To die just when he thought he’d won all his battles and felt like the happiest man in creation. Had his happiness killed him, perhaps? Ismael Carrera wasn’t used to it.
They went down in the elevator directly to the garage, and with Rigoberto at the wheel, drove quickly toward the Church of Santa María Reina, in San Isidro; the funeral party would leave from there for the cemetery, Los Jardines de la Paz, in La Molina.
“Did you notice last night that Miki and Escobita didn’t go up to Armida even once during the vigil?” Lucrecia remarked. “Not once. How inconsiderate. Those two are really mean-spirited.”
Rigoberto had noticed and, of course, so had most of the crowd who, over the course of several hours, until close to midnight, had filed past the funeral chapel covered in flowers. The wreaths, arrangements, bouquets, crosses, and cards filled the area and spread into the courtyard and then all the way to the street. Many people loved and respected Ismael, and ther
e was the proof: hundreds saying goodbye to him. There would be as many or more this morning at the burial. But last night there had been, and would be now as well, people who viciously condemned him for marrying his servant, and even those who sided with Miki and Escobita in the lawsuit they’d brought to have the marriage annulled. Like Lucrecia’s and his own, people’s eyes at the vigil had been focused on the hyenas and Armida. The twins, dressed in mourning and in dark glasses they hadn’t removed, looked like two movie gangsters. The dead man’s widow and his sons were separated by a few meters that the twins never attempted to cross. It was almost comical. Armida, in mourning from head to toe and wearing a dark hat and veil, sat close to the coffin, holding a handkerchief and a rosary and telling the beads slowly as she moved her lips in silent prayer. Now and then she wiped away tears. Now and again, helped by the two large men with the faces of outlaws directly behind her, she stood, approached the coffin, and bent over the glass to pray or weep. Then she would receive condolences from recent arrivals. After that the hyenas would move, approach the coffin, and remain for a moment or two, crossing themselves, in distress, not turning their heads, not even once, back toward the widow.
“Are you sure those two brawny men who looked like boxers and were beside Armida all night were bodyguards?” asked Lucrecia. “They could have been relatives. Don’t drive so fast, please. One dead body is enough for now.”
“Absolutely sure,” said Rigoberto. “Claudio Arnillas confirmed it, because Ismael’s lawyer is her lawyer now. They were bodyguards.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little ridiculous?” remarked Lucrecia. “Why the devil does Armida need bodyguards, I’d like to know.”
“She needs them now more than ever,” replied Don Rigoberto, slowing down. “The hyenas could hire a killer and have her murdered. That kind of thing happens now in Lima. I’m afraid those two degenerates will destroy that woman. You can’t imagine the fortune the brand-new widow has inherited, Lucrecia.”