“Foncho, Fonchito, my dear son, I beg you, I implore you for the sake of all you hold dear. Tell me that everything you’ve told me isn’t true. That you made it up. That it hasn’t happened. Tell me Edilberto Torres doesn’t exist, and you’ll make me the happiest creature on earth.”
He saw the boy’s face become demoralized as he bit his lips until they turned purple.
“Okay, Papa,” he heard him say, with an intonation no longer that of a child but of an adult. “Edilberto Torres doesn’t exist. I invented him. I’ll never talk about him to you again. Can I go now?”
Rigoberto agreed. He watched Fonchito leave the study and noted that his hands were trembling. Rigoberto’s heart was icy. He loved his son very much but, he thought, in spite of all his efforts, he’d never understand him, Fonchito would always be an unfathomable mystery to him. Before facing the hyenas, he went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He’d never get out of this labyrinth, more and more passageways, basement chambers, turns, and switchbacks. Is this what life was, a labyrinth that, no matter what you did, brought you ineluctably into the clutches of Polyphemus?
In the living room, Ismael Carrera’s sons stood waiting for him. Both were dressed in suits and ties, as usual, but contrary to his expectations, they hadn’t come to do battle. Was the defeated, victimized attitude they displayed authentic or merely a new tactic? What were they up to? Both greeted him with affection, patting him on the shoulder and making an effort to display contrition. Escobita was the first to apologize.
“I behaved very badly the last time we were here, uncle,” he whispered, downcast, wringing his hands. “I lost my temper, I said stupid things and insulted you. I was upset, half crazy. I beg your pardon. I’m in a state of confusion, I haven’t slept for weeks, I take pills for my nerves. My life’s become a calamity, Uncle Rigoberto. I swear we’ll never disrespect you again.”
“All of us are confused, and no wonder,” Don Rigoberto acknowledged. “The things that are happening make us all lose our tempers. I feel no rancor toward you. Sit down and let’s talk. To what do I owe this visit?”
“We can’t stand any more, uncle.” Miki came forward. He’d always seemed the more serious and judicious of the two, at least when it came time to speak. “Life has become unbearable for us. I suppose you know that. The police think we’ve kidnapped or killed Armida. They interrogate us and ask the most offensive questions. Snitches follow us day and night. They ask for bribes, and if we don’t give them something they come in and search our apartments at any hour. As if we were common criminals, what do you think of that?”
“And the papers and the television, uncle!” Escobita interjected. “Have you seen the filth they throw at us? Every day and every night on all the newscasts. We’re rapists, we’re drug addicts, and given that background we’re probably responsible for the disappearance of that damn chola. It’s so unfair, uncle!”
“If you begin by insulting Armida, who’s now your stepmother whether you like it or not, you’re off to a bad start, Escobita,” Don Rigoberto reprimanded him.
“You’re right, I’m sorry, but I’m already half crazed,” Escobita apologized. Miki was again obsessively biting his nails; he did it finger by finger, unceasingly, unmercifully. “You don’t know how awful it’s become to read the paper, or listen to the radio, or watch television. They slander you day and night, call you a degenerate, a bum, a cocaine addict, and I don’t know how many other vile things. What a country we live in, uncle!”
“And it’s no use filing lawsuits or appeals for legal protection, they say those are attacks on freedom of the press,” Miki complained. He smiled for absolutely no reason, then became serious again. “Well, we already know that journalism survives on scandals. Worst of all is the police. Doesn’t it seem monstrous to you that on top of what Papa did to us, now they’re trying to make us responsible for the disappearance of that woman? We’re under a travel ban during the investigation. We can’t even leave the country, right when the Open is starting in Miami.”
“What’s the Open?” Don Rigoberto asked, intrigued.
“The tennis championships, the Sony Ericsson Open,” Escobita explained. “Didn’t you know that Miki is a wizard with the racket, uncle? He’s won a pile of prizes. We’ve offered a reward to whoever helps locate Armida. And just between us, we can’t even pay it. We don’t have the money, uncle. We’re flat broke. Miki and I don’t have a goddamn penny left. Just debts. And since we’ve become contagious, no bank, no moneylender, no friend is willing to cough up a cent.”
“We don’t have anything left to sell or pawn, Uncle Rigoberto,” said Miki. His voice trembled so much that he spoke with long pauses and blinked constantly. “Not a cent, no credit, and as if that wasn’t enough, we’re suspected of kidnapping or murder. That’s why we’ve come to see you.”
“You’re our last hope.” Escobita grasped his hand and squeezed it firmly, nodding, with tears in his eyes. “Don’t fail us, please, uncle.”
Don Rigoberto couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing. The twins had lost the haughtiness and certainty that had characterized them, they seemed defenseless, frightened, pleading for his compassion. How things had changed in so short a time!
“I’m very sorry for everything that’s happening to you, nephews,” he said, using that word sincerely for the first time. “I know somebody else’s suffering is no consolation, but at least think about this: With all the bad things happening to you, it must be much worse for poor Armida. Don’t you agree? Whether they’ve killed or kidnapped her, what a terrible thing for her, don’t you think? Then too, I believe I’ve also been the victim of a good number of injustices—your accusations, for example, of my complicity in the supposed deception that led to Ismael marrying Armida. Do you know how many times I’ve had to go to make a statement to the police and the investigating judge? Do you know how much lawyers are costing me? Do you know that months ago I had to cancel the trip with Lucrecia to Europe that we’d already paid for? I still can’t start collecting my pension from the insurance company because you two stalled the process. In short, if it’s a question of counting misfortunes, the three of us are neck and neck.”
They listened to him with heads lowered, silent, dejected, confused. Don Rigoberto heard strange music outside on the Barranco Seawalk. Was it the old knife grinder’s penny whistle again? These two seemed to summon him. Miki chewed his nails and Escobita swung his left foot in a slow, symmetrical motion. Yes, it was the knife grinder’s tune. It made him happy to hear it.
“We filed that complaint because we were desperate, uncle, Papa’s marriage drove us crazy,” said Escobita. “I swear we’re very sorry for all the trouble we’ve caused you. The matter of your pension will be resolved very quickly now, I imagine. As you know, we don’t have anything to do with the company anymore. Papa sold it to an Italian firm. Without even telling us.”
“We’ll withdraw the complaint whenever you say, uncle,” Miki added. “As a matter of fact, it’s one of the things we wanted to talk to you about.”
“Thanks very much, but it’s a little late now,” said Rigoberto. “Dr. Arnillas explained that when Ismael died, the suit you filed, at least as far as I’m concerned, was dismissed.”
“There’s nobody else like you, uncle,” said Escobita, displaying, Don Rigoberto thought, even more stupidity than it was reasonable to expect from him in everything he did and said. “By the way, Dr. Claudio Arnillas, that wimp in a clown’s suspenders, is the worst traitor ever born in Peru. He lived by sucking on Papa’s teats his whole life, and now he’s our sworn enemy. A servant sold body and soul to Armida and those Italian mafiosi who bought Papa’s company at bargain prices—”
“We came to straighten things out and you’re complicating them,” his brother cut him short. A contrite Miki turned to Don Rigoberto. “We want to hear you, uncle. Though it still saddens us that you helped Papa with that marriage, we trust you. Give us a hand, give us some advi
ce. You’ve heard the disastrous situation we’re in, we don’t know what to do. What do you think we should do? You have a lot of experience.”
“This is much nicer than I expected,” exclaimed Doña Lucrecia. “Saga Falabella, Tottus, Passarela, Dejavu, so on and so forth. Well, well, nothing less than the best stores in the capital.”
“And six movie theaters! All of them air-conditioned,” Fonchito applauded. “You can’t complain, Papa.”
“All right,” Don Rigoberto gave in. “You two choose the least bad movie and let’s go into a theater right away.”
Since it was still early in the afternoon and the heat outside was intense, there were almost no people in the elegant installations of the Centro Comercial Open Plaza. But the air-conditioning was a blessing, and while Doña Lucrecia looked in some shopwindows and Fonchito studied the films on the billboard, Don Rigoberto amused himself by looking at the yellow tracts of sand that surrounded the enormous expanse of the Universidad Nacional de Piura and the sparse carob trees scattered among those tongues of golden earth where, though he didn’t see them, he imagined fast-moving lizards peering all around with their triangular heads and gummy eyes, searching for insects. Armida’s story was incredible! She ran away from scandal, lawyers, and her irate stepsons, only to seek refuge in the house of a man who was at the center of yet another monstrous scandal, complete with the tastiest ingredients of yellow journalism: adultery, extortion, anonymous letters signed with spiders, abductions, false abductions, and apparently even incest. Now he really was impatient to meet Felícito Yanaqué, to listen to Armida, to tell her about his last conversation with Miki and Escobita.
Then Doña Lucrecia and Fonchito came up to him. They had two suggestions: Pirates of the Caribbean II (his son’s choice) and A Fatal Passion (his wife’s). He opted for the pirates, thinking they would lull him better than the tearful melodrama the other title foretold and that he might manage to take a nap. How many months had it been since he’d set foot in a movie theater?
“When we come out, we could go to this tearoom,” said Fonchito, pointing. “What delicious-looking pastries!”
“He seems happy and excited about this trip,” Don Rigoberto thought. He hadn’t seen his son so cheerful and lively for a long time. Ever since the appearance of the wretched Edilberto Torres, Fonchito had become reserved, melancholy, absentminded. Now, in Piura, he once again seemed the good-humored, curious, enthusiastic boy he used to be. There were barely half a dozen people inside the brand-new movie theater.
Don Rigoberto inhaled, exhaled, and began his speech.
“I have only one piece of advice to give you.” He spoke solemnly. “Make peace with Armida. Accept her marriage to Ismael, accept her as your stepmother. Forget about the foolishness of trying to have the marriage annulled. Negotiate a financial compensation. Don’t deceive yourselves, you’ll never be able to seize everything she’s inherited. Your father knew what he was doing and tied things up very nicely. If you insist on this legal action, you’ll burn all your bridges and won’t get a cent. Negotiate in a friendly way, agree on an amount that may not be what you wanted but could be enough so you can live well without working, having a good time and playing tennis for the rest of your lives.”
“And suppose the kidnappers have killed her, uncle?” Escobita’s expression was so pathetic that Don Rigoberto shuddered. In fact, what if they had killed her? What would happen to that fortune? Would it remain in the hands of bankers, managers, accountants, and international law firms, which now kept it beyond the reach not only of these two poor devils but of tax collectors all over the world?
“It’s easy for you to ask us to be friends with the woman who stole Papa from us, uncle,” said Miki, with more grief than anger. “And who has kept everything the family had, even the furniture, my mother’s dresses and jewelry. We loved our papa. It hurts us very much that in his old age he became the victim of such a filthy conspiracy.”
Don Rigoberto looked him in the eye and Miki didn’t look away. This little scoundrel who’d embittered Ismael’s last years, and for months had kept him and Lucrecia on a tightrope, stuck in Lima and smothered in judicial appearances, allowed himself the luxury of a good conscience.
“There was no conspiracy, Miki,” he said slowly, trying not to let his rage show through his words. “Your papa married because he cared for Armida. Maybe it wasn’t love, but he cared for her very much. She was good to him and comforted him when your mother died, a very difficult time when Ismael felt very alone.”
“And how well she comforted him, getting the poor old man into bed,” said Escobita. He stopped talking when Miki lifted an energetic hand, indicating that he should shut his mouth.
“But above all, Ismael married her because of how terribly disappointed he was with the two of you,” Don Rigoberto continued as if, unintentionally, his tongue had been unleashed all by itself. “Yes, yes, I know very well what I’m saying, nephews. I know what I’m talking about. And now you’re going to know it too, if you listen without further interruptions.”
He’d been raising his voice, and now the twins were quiet and attentive, surprised by the gravity with which he spoke to them.
“Do you want me to tell you why he was so disappointed in you? Not because you’re bums, playboys, drunkards who smoke marijuana and snort cocaine as if it were candy. No, no, all this he could understand and even excuse. Though, of course, he would have preferred his sons to be very different.”
“We didn’t come here for you to insult us, uncle,” protested Miki, turning red.
“He was disappointed because he found out you were impatient for him to die so you could inherit his money. How do I know? Because he told me so himself. I can tell you where, what day, what time. And even the exact words he used.”
And for several minutes, with absolute calm, Rigoberto reported the conversation of several months earlier at lunch in La Rosa Náutica, when his employer and friend told him he’d decided to marry Armida and asked him to be a witness at his wedding.
“He heard you talking in the San Felipe Clinic, saying stupid, immoral things beside his deathbed,” Rigoberto concluded. “You precipitated the marriage of Ismael and Armida because you’re insensitive and cruel. Or rather, because you’re fools. You should have hidden your feelings at least for those few moments and let your father die in peace, believing his sons were sorry about what was happening to him, and had not begun to celebrate his death when he was still alive and listening to you. Ismael told me that hearing the two of you say those awful things gave him the strength to survive, to fight. You were the ones who revived him, not the doctors. Well, you know that already. It’s the reason your father married Armida. And so that you’d never inherit his fortune.”
“We never said what you say he said we said,” was Escobita’s confusing reply, and his words turned into a tongue twister. “My papa must have dreamed that on account of the strong medications they gave him to get him out of the coma. If you’re really telling us the truth and haven’t invented that whole story to fuck us over even more than we’re fucked already.”
He looked as if he were going to say something else but thought better of it. Miki said nothing and continued to bite his nails tenaciously. His expression had soured and he seemed dejected. His face had turned even redder.
“We probably said it and he heard us,” Miki corrected his brother abruptly. “We said it often, that’s true, uncle. We didn’t love him because he never loved us. To the best of my memory, I never heard him say an affectionate word. He never played with us or took us to the movies or the circus the way our friends’ fathers did. I don’t think he ever sat down to talk to us. He barely spoke to us. He didn’t love anybody except his company and his work. Do you know something? I’m not sorry at all that he found out we hated him. Because it was absolutely true.”
“Shut up, Miki, anger is making you say damn fool things,” Escobita protested. “I don’t know why you told us that, uncle.”
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br /> “For a very simple reason, nephew. So that once and for all you’ll get rid of the ridiculous idea that your papa married Armida because he was doddering and had senile dementia, or because he was given potions or was the victim of black magic. He married because he found out that the two of you wanted him to die as soon as possible so you could have his fortune and squander it. That’s the absolute, sad truth.”
“We’d better leave, Miki,” said Escobita, getting up from his chair. “Now do you see why I didn’t want to pay this visit? I told you that instead of helping us he’d end up insulting us, like last time. We’d better go before I get angry again and punch this dirty slanderer in the face.”
“I don’t know about you two, but I loved the movie,” said Señora Lucrecia. “It was a little silly, but I had a good time.”
“More than an adventure movie, it’s a fantasy,” Fonchito agreed. “I thought the best things were the monsters, the skulls. And don’t say you didn’t like it, Papa. I watched you and you were totally absorbed by the screen.”
“Well, it’s true I wasn’t bored at all,” Don Rigoberto admitted. “Let’s take a taxi back to the hotel. It’s getting dark and the big moment’s approaching.”
They returned to Hotel Los Portales, and Don Rigoberto took a long shower. Now that it was almost time for their meeting with Armida, it seemed to him that everything he was experiencing was, in effect, as Lucrecia had said, a fantasy as amusing and silly as the movie they’d just seen, with no bearing on lived reality. But suddenly a shudder chilled his spine. Perhaps at this very moment, a gang of killers, international criminals, aware of the huge fortune left by Ismael Carrera, were torturing Armida, pulling out her nails, cutting off a finger or an ear, gouging out an eye, to force her to give them the millions they demanded. Or perhaps they’d gone too far and she was already dead and buried. Lucrecia showered too, dressed, and they went down to the bar to have a drink. Fonchito stayed in his room watching television. He said he didn’t want to eat; he’d order up a sandwich and go to bed.