Conversation in the Cathedral (2 page)

He jogs to the pharmacy on Porta and San Martín, asks to use the telephone and calls
La
Crónica,
Solórzano the court reporter answers: how in hell would he know where the dog pound was, Zavalita.

“Did they take your dog away?” The druggist puts his solicitous head forward. “The pound’s by the Puente del Ejército. You’d better hurry, they killed my brother-in-law’s Chihuahua, a very expensive animal.”

He jogs to Larco, takes a group taxi, how much would the trip from the Paseo Colón to the Puente del Ejército cost? he counts a hundred eighty soles in his wallet. On Sunday they wouldn’t have a cent left, too bad Ana had left the hospital, they’d better not go to the movies that night, poor Rowdy, no more editorials against rabies. He gets out on the Paseo Colón, on the Plaza Bolognesi he finds a taxi, the driver doesn’t know where the pound is, sir. An ice cream vendor on the Plaza Dos de Mayo gives them directions: farther on a small sign near the river, Municipal Dog Pound, there it was. A broad yard surrounded by a run-down, shit-colored adobe wall—the color of Lima, he thinks, the color of Peru—flanked by shacks that mix and thicken in the distance until they turn into a labyrinth of straw mats, poles, tiles, zinc plates. Muffled, remote whining. A squalid structure stands beside the entrance, a plaque says Office. In shirtsleeves, wearing glasses, a bald man is dozing by a desk covered with papers and Santiago raps on the table: they’d stolen his dog, they’d snatched it out of his wife’s hands, the man sits up, startled, by God, he wasn’t going to leave it at that.

“What do you mean coming into this office spouting goddamns?” The bald man rubs his stupefied eyes and makes a face. “Show some respect.”

“If anything’s happened to my dog I’m not going to leave it at that.” He takes out his press card, pounds the table again. “And the characters who attacked my wife are going to be sorry, I can assure you.”

“Calm down.” He looks the card over, yawns, the displeasure on his face dissolves into beatific weariness. “Did they pick up your dog a couple of hours ago? Then he must be with the ones the truck brought in just now.”

He shouldn’t get that way, my newspaper friend, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. His voice is bland, dreamy, like his eyes, bitter, like the folds of his mouth: fucked up too. The dogcatchers were paid by the number of animals, sometimes they committed abuses, what could you do, it was all part of the struggle to buy a little something to eat. Some muffled blows in the yard, whines that seemed filtered through cork walls. The bald man half smiles and, gracelessly, lazily, gets to his feet, goes out of the office muttering. They cross an open stretch, go into a shed that smells of urine. Parallel cages, crammed with animals who push against each other and jump in place, sniff the wire, growl. Santiago leans over each cage, not there, he explores the promiscuous surface of snouts, rumps, tails stiff and quivering, not there either. The bald man walks beside him, his look far away, dragging his feet.

“Take a look, there’s no more room to keep them,” he protests
suddenly
. “Then your newspaper attacks us, it’s not fair. The city gives us almost nothing, we have to perform miracles.”

“God damn it,” Santiago says, “not here either.”

“Be patient,” the bald man sighs. “We’ve got four more sheds.”

They go outside again. Earth that had been dug up, weeds, excrement, stinking puddles. In the second shed one cage moves more than the others, the wires shake and something white and woolly bounces, comes up and sinks back into the wave: that’s more like it, that’s more like it. Take a snout, a piece of tail, two red and weepy eyes: Rowdy. He still has his leash on, they had no right, a hell of a thing, but the bald man calm down, calm down, he’d have them get him out. He goes off with sluggish steps and a moment later comes back followed by a
Negro-Indian
half-breed in blue overalls: let’s see, he was to get that little whitish one out, Pancras. The half-breed opens the cage, pushes the animals apart, grabs Rowdy by the scruff of the neck, hands him to Santiago. Poor thing, he was trembling, but he turns him loose and he takes a step back, shaking himself.

“They always shit.” The half-breed laughs. “It’s their way of saying we’re glad to be out of jail.”

Santiago kneels down beside Rowdy, scratches his head, lets him lick his hands. He trembles, dribbles urine, staggers drunkenly, and only outside does he start to leap and scratch the ground, to run.

“Come with me, take a look at the conditions we work under.” He takes Santiago by the arm, smiles at him acidly. “Write something for your paper, ask the city to increase our budget.”

Sheds that were foul-smelling and falling apart, a gray steel roof, gusts of damp air. Fifteen feet from them a dark silhouette stands next to a sack and is struggling with a dachshund who protests in a voice too fierce for his minimal body as he twists hysterically: help him, Pancras. The short half-breed runs, opens the sack, the other slips the dachshund inside. They close the sack with a cord, put it on the ground, and Rowdy starts to growl, pulling on his leash, whining, what’s the matter, he watches, frightened, barks hoarsely. The men already have the clubs in their hands, are already beginning, one-two, to beat and grunt, and the sack dances, leaps, howls madly, one-two, the men grunt and beat. Santiago closes his eyes, upset.

“In Peru we’re still living in the stone age, friend.” A bittersweet smile awakens the bald man’s face. “Look at the conditions we work under, tell me if it’s right.”

The sack is quiet, the men beat it a little more, throw their clubs onto the ground, wipe their faces, rub their hands.

“We used to kill them the way God wanted, now there isn’t enough money,” the bald man complains. “You tell him, the gentleman’s a reporter, he can make a protest in his paper.”

He’s taller, younger than Pancras. He takes a few steps toward them and Santiago finally sees his face: oh my God! He releases the chain and Rowdy starts to run and bark and he opens and closes his mouth: oh my God!

“One sol for each animal, mister,” the half-breed says. “And besides, we have to take them to the dump to be burned. Only one sol, mister.”

It wasn’t him, all Negroes look alike, it couldn’t be him. He thinks: why can’t it be him? The half-breed bends down, picks up the sack, yes, it was him, carries it to a corner of the yard, throws it among other bloody sacks, comes back swaying on his long legs and drying his
forehead
. It was him, it was him. Hey, buddy, Pancras nudges him, go get yourself some lunch.

“You complain here, but when you go out in the truck to make pickups you have a great time,” the bald man grumbles. “This morning you picked up this gentleman’s dog, which was on a leash and with its mistress, you nitwits.”

The half-breed shrugs his shoulders, it was him: they hadn’t gone out on the truck that morning, boss, they’d spent it with their clubs. He thinks: him. The voice, the body are his, but he looks thirty years older. The same thin lips, the same flat nose, the same kinky hair. But now, in addition, there are purple bags on his eyelids, wrinkles on his neck, a greenish-yellow crust on his horse teeth. He thinks: they used to be so white. What a change, what a ruin of a man. He’s thinner, dirtier, so much older, but that’s his big, slow walk, those are his spider legs. His big hands have a knotty bark on them now and there’s a rim of saliva around his mouth. They’ve come in from the yard, they’re in the office, Rowdy rubs against Santiago’s feet. He thinks: he doesn’t know who I am. He wasn’t going to tell him, he wasn’t going to talk to him. Who would ever recognize you, Zavalita, were you sixteen? eighteen? and now you’re an old man of thirty. The bald man puts a piece of carbon paper between two sheets, scrawls a few lines in a cramped and stingy hand. Leaning against the doorjamb, the
half-breed
licks his lips.

“Just a little signature here, friend; and seriously, do us a small favor, write something in
La
Crónica
asking them to raise our budget.” The bald man looks at the half-breed. “Weren’t you going to lunch?”

“Could I have an advance?” He takes a step forward and explains in a natural way: “I’m low in funds, boss.”

“Half a pound.” The bald man yawns. “That’s all I’ve got.”

He accepts the banknote without looking at it and goes out with Santiago. A stream of trucks, buses and cars is crossing the Puente del Ejército, what kind of a face would he put on it? in the mist the
earthen-colored
hulks of the shacks of Fray Martín de Porres, would he start to run? seem to be part of a dream. He looks the half-breed in the eyes and the other one looks at him.

“If you’d killed my dog I think I would have killed all of you,” and he tries to smile.

No, Zavalita, he doesn’t recognize you. He listens attentively and his look is muddled, distant and respectful. Besides getting old, he’s most likely turned into a dumb animal too. He thinks: fucked up too.

“Did they pick this woolly one up this morning?” An unexpected glow breaks out in his eyes for an instant. “It must have been black Céspedes, that guy doesn’t care about anything. He goes into backyards, breaks locks, anything just so he can earn his sol.”

They’re at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to Alfonso Ugarte; Rowdy rolls on the ground and barks at the ash-gray sky.

“Ambrosio?” He smiles, hesitates, smiles. “Aren’t you Ambrosio?”

He doesn’t start to run, he doesn’t say anything. He looks with a dumbfounded and stupid expression and suddenly there’s a kind of vertigo in his eyes.

“Don’t you remember me?” He hesitates, smiles, hesitates. “I’m
Santiago
, Don Fermín’s boy.”

The big hands go up into the air, young Santiago, mister? they hang in the air as if trying to decide whether to strangle or embrace him, Don Fermín’s boy? His voice cracks with surprise or emotion and he blinks, blinded. Of course, man, didn’t he recognize him? Santiago, on the other hand, had recognized him the minute he saw him in the yard: what did he have to say? The big hands become active, I’ll be goddamned, they travel through the air again, how he’d grown, good Lord, they pat Santiago on the shoulders and back, and his eyes are laughing at last: I’m so happy, son.

“I can’t believe you’ve grown into a man.” He feels him, looks at him, smiles at him. “I look at you and I can’t believe it, child. Of course I recognize you now. You look like your papa; a little bit of Señora Zoila too.”

What about little Teté? and the big hands come and go, with feeling? with surprise? and Mr. Sparky? from Santiago’s arms to his shoulders to his back, and the eyes look tender and reminiscent as the voice tries hard to be natural. Weren’t coincidences strange? Who would have thought they’d ever meet again! And after such a long time, I’ll be goddamned.

“This whole business has made me thirsty,” Santiago says. “Come on, let’s go have a drink. Do you know someplace around here?”

“I know the place where I eat,” Ambrosio says. “La Catedral, a place for poor people, I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“As long as they have cold beer I’ll like it,” Santiago says. “Let’s go, Ambrosio.”

It seemed impossible that little Santiago was drinking beer now, and Ambrosio smiles, his strong greenish-yellow teeth exposed to the air: time did fly, by golly. They go up the stairs, between the vacant lots on the first block of Alfonso Ugarte there’s a white Ford garage, and at the corner on the left, faded by the inexorable grayness, the warehouses of the Central Railroad appear. A truck loaded with crates hides the door of La Catedral. Inside, under the zinc roof, crowded on rough benches and around crude tables, a noisy voracious crowd. Two Chinese in shirtsleeves behind the bar watch the copper faces, the angular features that are chewing and drinking, and a frantic little man from the Andes in a shabby apron serves steaming bowls of soup, bottles, platters of rice. Plenty of feeling, plenty of kisses, plenty of love boom from a
multicolored
jukebox and in the back, behind the smoke, the noise, the solid smell of food and liquor, the dancing swarms of flies, there is a punctured wall—stones, shacks, a strip of river, the leaden sky—and an ample woman bathed in sweat manipulates pots and pans surrounded by the sputter of a grill. There’s an empty table beside the jukebox and among the scars on the wood one can make out a heart pierced by an arrow, a woman’s name: Saturnina.

“I had lunch already, but you have something to eat,” Santiago says.

“Two bottles of Cristal, good and cold,” Ambrosio shouts, cupping his hands to his mouth. “A bowl of fish soup, bread and stewed vegetables with rice.”

You shouldn’t have come, you shouldn’t have spoken to him, Zavalita, you’re not fucked up, you’re crazy. He thinks: the nightmare will come back. It’ll be your fault, Zavalita, poor papa, poor old man.

“Taxi drivers, workers from the small factories in the neighborhood.” Ambrosio points around them as if excusing himself. “They come all the way from the Avenida Argentina because the food is passable and, most important, cheap.”

The Andean brings the beers, Santiago fills the glasses and they drink to your health, boy, to yours, Ambrosio, and there’s a compact, undecipherable smell that weakens, nauseates and wipes the head clean of memories.

“What a stinking job you’ve got for yourself, Ambrosio. Have you been at the dog pound a long time?”

“A month, son, and I got the job thanks to the rabies, because there hadn’t been any openings. It certainly is stinking, it squeezes you dry. The only relief is when you go out on the truck to make pickups.”

It smells of sweat, chili and onions, urine and accumulated garbage and the music from the jukebox mingles with the collective voice, the growl of motors and horns, and it comes to one’s ears deformed and thick. Singed faces, prominent cheekbones, eyes made drowsy by routine or indolence wander among the tables, form clusters at the bar, block the entrance. Ambrosio accepts the cigarette that Santiago offers him, smokes, throws the butt on the floor and buries it under his foot. He slurps the soup noisily, nibbles on the pieces of fish, picks up the bones and sucks them, leaves them all shiny, listening or answering or asking a question, and he swallows pieces of bread, takes long swigs of beer and wipes the sweat off with his hand: time swallows a person up before he realizes it, child. He thinks: why don’t I leave? He thinks: I have to go and he orders more beer. He fills the glasses, clutches his and, while he talks, remembers, dreams, or thinks he watches the circle of foam
sprinkled
with craters, mouths that silently open up, vomiting golden bubbles and disappearing into the yellow liquid that his hand warms. He drinks without closing his eyes, belches, takes out cigarettes and lights them, leans over to pet Rowdy: the things that have happened, Jesus. He talks and Ambrosio talks, the pouches on his eyelids are bluish, the openings in his nose vibrate as if he’d been running, as if he were drowning, and after each sip he spits, looks nostalgically at the flies, listens, smiles, or grows sad or confused, and his eyes seem to grow furious sometimes or frightened or go away; sometimes he has a coughing spell. There are gray hairs in his kinky mat, on top of his overalls he wears a jacket that must have been blue once too and had buttons, and a shirt with a high collar that is wrapped around his neck like a rope. Santiago looks at his
enormous
shoes: muddy, twisted, fucked up by the weather. His voice comes to him in a stammer, fearful, is lost, cautious, imploring, returns,
respectful
or anxious or constrained, always defeated: not thirty, forty, a
hundred
, more. Not only had he fallen apart, grown old, become brutalized; he probably was tubercular as well. A thousand times more fucked up than Carlitos or you, Zavalita. He was leaving, he had to go and he orders more beer. You’re drunk, Zavalita, you were about to cry. Life doesn’t treat people well in this country, son, since he’d left their house he’d gone through a thousand movie adventures. Life hadn’t treated him well either, Ambrosio, and he orders more beer. Was he going to throw up? The smell of frying, feet and armpits swirls about, biting and
enveloping
, over the straight-haired or bushy heads, over the gummy crests and the flat necks with mange and brilliantine, the music on the jukebox grows quiet and revives, grows quiet and revives, and now, more intense and irrevocable than the sated faces and square mouths and dark
beardless
cheeks, the abject images of memory are also there: more beer. Wasn’t this country a can of worms, boy, wasn’t Peru a brain-twister? Could you believe it, Odríists and Apristas, who used to hate each other so much, all buddy-buddy now? What would his father have said about all this, boy? They talk and sometimes he listens timidly, respectfully to Ambrosio, who dares protest: he had to go, boy. He’s small and
inoffensive
there in the distance, behind the long table that’s a raft of bottles and his eyes are drunken and afraid. Rowdy barks once, barks a hundred times. An inner whirlwind, an effervescence in the heart of his heart, a feeling of suspended time and bad breath. Are they talking? The jukebox stops blasting, blasts again. The thick river of smells seems to break up into tributaries of tobacco, beer, human skin and the remains of meals that circulate warmly through the heavy air of La Catedral, and
suddenly
they’re absorbed by an invincible higher stench: neither you nor I was right, papa, it’s the smell of defeat, papa. People who come in, eat, laugh, roar, people who leave and the eternal pale profile of the Chinese at the bar. They speak, they grow silent, they drink, they smoke, and when the Andean appears, bending over the tabletop bristling with
bottles
, the other tables are empty and the jukebox and the crackling of the grill can no longer be heard, only Rowdy barking, Saturnina. The
Andean
counts on his darkened fingers and he sees Ambrosio’s urgent face coming toward him: did he feel bad, boy? A little headache, it would go away. You’re acting ridiculous, he thinks, I’ve had a lot to drink, Huxley, here’s Rowdy, safe and sound, I took so long because I ran into a friend. He thinks: love. He thinks: stop it, Zavalita, that’s enough. Ambrosio puts his hand into his pocket and Santiago puts out his arms: don’t be foolish, man, he was paying. He staggers and Ambrosio and the Andean support him: let me go, he could walk by himself, he felt all right. By God, boy, it was to be expected, he’d had a lot to drink. He goes forward step by step through the empty tables and the crippled chairs of La Catedral, staring at the chancrous floor: O.K., it’s all gone. His brain is clearing, the weakness in his legs is going away, his eyes are clearing up. But the images are still there. Getting tangled in his feet, Rowdy barks impatiently.