Conversation in the Cathedral (28 page)

“When you make some money and support yourself, when you don’t depend on your daddy’s pockets anymore, then it’ll be all right.” Softly, he thinks, savagely. “Communist, anarchist, bombs, whatever you want. In the meantime you study and obey.”

He thinks: which I didn’t forgive you for, papa. The garage in the house, the lighted windows, Teté’s profile in one of them, here comes Superbrain, mama!

“And was that when you broke with Cahuide and your buddies?” Carlitos asked.

“You go in, Skinny, I’ve got to get this mess fixed up.” Sorry now, he thinks, trying to make friends with me. “And take a bath. God knows how many lice you brought back from Police Headquarters.”

“And with Law School and with my family and with Miraflores, Carlitos.”

The garden, mama, kisses, her face with tears, couldn’t he see what had happened to him for being so crazy? even the cook and the maid were there, Teté’s excited little shouts: the return of the prodigal son, Carlitos, if I’d been in for a day instead of a few hours, they would have welcomed me with a brass band. Sparky flew down the stairs: you gave us quite a turn, man. They sat him down in the living room and surrounded him, Señora Zoila rumpled his hair and kissed his brow. Sparky and Teté were dying with curiosity: in the penitentiary, at Headquarters, had he seen thieves, murderers? The old man had tried to call the Palace, but the President was sleeping, but he called Headquarters and gave them hell, Superbrain. Some fried eggs, Señora Zoila said to the cook, a glass of chocolate milk, and if that lemon tart is left. He hadn’t done anything, mama, it had been a mistake, mama.

“He’s glad he was arrested, he feels like a hero,” Teté said. “Now there’ll be no holding him.”

“Your picture’s going to come out in
El
Comercio
,” Sparky said. “With your number and a hoodlum face.”

“What’s it like, what did they do to you in jail?” Teté asked.

“They undress you, put a striped uniform on you and shackle your feet,” Santiago said. “The dungeons are crawling with rats and there aren’t any lights.”

“Hush up, you fibber,” Teté said. “Tell us, tell us what it was like.”

“So you see now, you crazy boy, you see what’s come of wanting to go to San Marcos so much?” Señora Zoila said. “Will you promise me that next year you’ll transfer to the Catholic University? That you won’t ever get involved in politics again?”

He promised you mama, never mama. It was two o’clock when they went to bed. Santiago got undressed, put on his pajamas, turned out the lamp. His body felt dull, hot.

“Didn’t you ever look up the Cahuide people again?” Carlitos asked.

He pulled the sheet up to his neck, but sleep fled and fatigue beat on his back. The window was open and a few stars could be seen.

“Llaque was in jail for two years, Washington was exiled to Bolivia,” Santiago said. “The others were released two weeks later.”

A restless feeling like a thief prowling in the darkness, he thinks, remorse, jealousy, shame. I hate you papa, I hate you Jacobo, I hate you Aída. He felt a terrible urge to smoke and he didn’t have any cigarettes.

“They must have thought you got scared,” Carlitos said. “That you betrayed them, Zavalita.”

Aída’s face, Jacobo’s and Washington’s and Solórzano’s and Héctor’s and Aída’s again. He thinks: a desire to be small, to be born again, to smoke. But if he went to ask Sparky he’d have to talk to him.

“I was scared, in a way, Carlitos,” Santiago said. “I did betray them, in a way.”

He sat up on the bed, dug in the pockets of his jacket, got up and went through all the suits in the closet. Without putting on his bathrobe or slippers, he went down to the first landing and into Sparky’s room. The pack and the matches were on the night table and Sparky was sleeping face down on the sheets. He went back to his room. Sitting beside the window, anxiously, deliciously, he smoked, flicking ashes into the garden. A while later he heard the car stop at the door. He saw Don Fermín come in, saw Ambrosio on his way to his small room in back. Now he must have been opening his study, now turning on the light. He felt for his slippers and bathrobe and went out of his room. From the stairs he saw that the light in the study was on. He went down, stopped beside the glass door: sitting in one of the green easy chairs, the glass of whiskey in his hand, with his late-night eyes, the gray hairs on his temples. He only had the floor lamp turned on, as on nights when he stayed home and read the newspapers, he thinks. He knocked on the door and Don Fermín came over and opened it.

“I’d like to talk to you for a minute, papa.”

“Come in, you’re going to catch cold out there.” No longer angry,

Zavalita, happy to see you. “It’s very damp, Skinny.”

He took his arm, led him in, went back to the easy chair, Santiago sat down across from him.

“Have you all been up till now?” As if he’d already forgiven you, Zavalita, or had never quarreled with you. “Sparky has a good excuse not to go to the office tomorrow.”

“We went to bed a while back, papa. I couldn’t get to sleep.”

“Couldn’t get to sleep because of so many emotions.” Looking at you tenderly, Zavalita. “Well, that’s not so bad. Now you have to tell me everything in all its details. Did they really treat you well?”

“Yes, papa, they didn’t even interrogate me.”

“Well, the scare wasn’t so bad, then.” Even with a touch of pride, Zavalita. “What did you want to talk to me about, Skinny?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said and you’re right, papa.” Feeling your mouth go dry all of a sudden, Zavalita. “I want to leave home and look for a job. Something that would let me keep on with my studies, papa.”

Don Fermín didn’t joke, didn’t laugh. He raised his glass, took a drink, wiped his mouth.

“You’re angry with your father because he slapped you.” Leaning over to put a hand on your knee, Zavalita, looking at you as if telling you let’s forget about it, let’s make up. “As old as you are, a hunted revolutionary and all that.”

He straightened up, took out his pack of Chesterfields, his lighter.

“I’m not mad at you, papa. But I can’t go on living one way and thinking another. Please try to understand me, papa.”

“You can’t go on living how?” A bit wounded, Zavalita, suddenly distressed, tired. “What is there here that goes against your way of thinking, Skinny?”

“I don’t want to depend on handouts.” Feeling your hands trembling, your voice, Zavalita. “I don’t want anything I do to bounce back on you. I want to be dependent on myself, papa.”

“You don’t want to be dependent on a capitalist.” Smiling in an afflicted way, Zavalita, pained but without any rancor. “You don’t want to live with your father because he gets government contracts? Is that why?”

“Don’t get angry, papa. Don’t think I’m trying to … papa.”

“You’re grown up now, I can trust you now, isn’t that so?” Stretching out a hand toward your face, Zavalita, patting your cheek. “I’m going to explain to you why I got so mad. There’s something that was on the point of being wrapped up just now. Military men, senators, a lot of influential people. The phone was tapped because of me, not because of you. Something must have leaked out, that peasant Bermúdez took advantage of you so he could let me know that he suspected something, that he knew. Now we have to stop everything, start all over again. So you see, your father isn’t one of Odría’s lackeys, far from it. We’re going to get him out, we’re going to call for elections. You can keep the secret, can’t you? I wouldn’t have told this to Sparky, you can see that I’m treating you like a grown man, Skinny.”

“General Espina’s conspiracy?” Carlitos asked. “Your father was
involved
too? It never came out.”

“So you thought you could take off and your father could go to the devil.” Telling you with his eyes it’s all over, let’s not say anything more, I love you. “You can see that my relationship with Odría is precarious, you can see that you haven’t got any reason to have scruples.”

“That’s not why, papa. I’m not even sure whether politics interest me or not, whether I’m a Communist or not. It’s so I can be able to decide better what I’m going to do, what I want to be.”

“I was thinking in the car just now.” Giving you time to collect your thoughts, Zavalita, still smiling. “Would you like me to send you abroad for a while? Mexico, for example. Take your exams and in January you can go study in Mexico for a year or two. We’ll find some way to convince your mother. What do you say, Skinny?”

“I don’t know, papa, it hadn’t occurred to me.” Thinking that he was trying to buy you off, Zavalita, that he’d just made that up in order to buy time. “I’ll have to think about it, papa.”

“You’ve got plenty of time until January.” Standing up, Zavalita, patting your face again. “You’ll see things better from there, you’ll see that the world isn’t the little world of San Marcos. Agreed, Skinny? And now let’s go to bed, it’s already four o’clock.”

He finished his drink, turned out the light, they went upstairs together. By his bedroom Don Fermín leaned over to kiss him: you had to trust your father, Skinny, no matter who you were, no matter what you did, you were the one he loved best, Skinny. He went into his room and collapsed onto the bed. He lay looking at the piece of sky in the window until it dawned. When there was enough light, he got up and went over to the closet. The wire was where he’d hidden it the last time.

“It had been a long, long time since I’d stolen from myself, Carlitos,” Santiago said.

Fat, snouty, his tail curled, the pig was between the pictures of Sparky and Teté, beside his prep school pennant. When he finished getting the bills out, the milkman had already come by, the bread man, and
Ambrosio
was cleaning the car in the garage.

“How long after that did you come to work on
La
Crónica?
”
Carlitos asked.

“Two weeks later, Ambrosio,” Santiago says.

I’
M BETTER OFF THAN AT
S
EÑORA
Z
OILA’S
, Amalia thought, than at the laboratory, one week when she wasn’t dreaming about Trinidad. Why did she feel so content in the little house in San Miguel? It was smaller than Señora Zoila’s, also two floors, elegant, and the garden, how well taken care of, it really was. The gardener came once a week and watered the lawn and pruned the geraniums, the laurels and the vine that climbed up the front like an army of spiders. In the entrance there was a built-in mirror, a small table with long legs and a Chinese vase on it, the rug in the small living room was emerald green, the chairs amber-colored and there were cushions on the floor. Amalia liked the bar: the bottles with their colored labels, the little porcelain animals, the boxes with
cellophane
-wrapped cigars. And the pictures too: the veiled woman looking out on the Acho bullring, the cocks fighting in the Coliseo. The dining room table was very strange, half round, half square, and the chairs with their high backs looked like confessionals. There were all kinds of things in the sideboard: platters, silverware, stacks of tablecloths, tea sets, glasses that were large and small and short and long and wineglasses. On the tables in the corners the vases always had fresh flowers—Amalia change the roses, Carlota buy gladioli today, Amalia glads today—it smelled so nice, and the pantry looked as if it had just been painted white. And the funny cans, thousands of them with their red tops and their Donald Ducks, Supermen and Mickey Mice. All kinds of things in the pantry: crackers, raisins, potato chips, slippery jellies, cases of beer, whiskey, mineral water. In the refrigerator, enormous, there was an abundance of vegetables and bottles of milk. The kitchen had black and white tiles and opened onto a courtyard with clotheslines. That was where the rooms of Amalia, Carlota and Símula were, their small bath and toilet, their shower and their washbasin.

*

A needle pierced his brain, a hammer was beating on his temples. He opened his eyes and squashed the button on the alarm clock: the torture was over. He lay motionless, looking at the phosphorescent sphere. A quarter after seven already. He picked up the telephone that was connected to the entrance, ordered his car for eight o’clock. He went to the bathroom, spent twenty minutes showering, shaving and getting dressed. The bad feeling in his head grew with the cold water, the toothpaste added a sweetish taste to the bitterness in his mouth. Was he going to vomit? He closed his eyes and it was as if he saw small blue flames consuming his organs, the blood circulating thickly under his skin. He felt his muscles garroted, his ears buzzing. He opened his eyes: more sleep. He went down to the dining room, put aside the boiled egg and the toast, drank the cup of black coffee with revulsion. He dropped two Alka-Seltzers into a half-glass of water, and as soon as he swallowed the bubbling liquid, he belched. In the study he smoked two cigarettes while he packed his briefcase. He went out and at the door the policemen on duty lifted their hands to the visors of their caps. It was a clear morning, the sun brightened the roofs of Chaclacayo, the gardens, and the bushes along the riverbank looked very green. He smoked as he waited for Ambrosio to get the car out of the garage.

*

Santiago paid for the two hot meat tarts and the Coca-Cola and went out and the Jirón Carabaya was aglow. The windows on the Lima-San Miguel trolley reproduced the advertising signs and the sky was also reddish, as if Lima had changed into the real hell. He thinks: the shitpile turning into the shitty real one. The sidewalks were boiling with
well-groomed
ants, pedestrians invaded the streets and went along among the cars, the worst thing is to get caught downtown just as the offices are letting out Señora Zoila said every time she came back from shopping, worn out and grumbling, and Santiago felt the tickling in his stomach: one week already. He went into the old doorway; a spacious
entranceway
, heavy rolls of newsprint up against the soot-stained walls. It smelled of ink, old age, it was a hospitable smell. At the gate a doorman dressed in blue came over to him: Mr. Vallejo? The second floor, in back, where it says Editorial Offices. He went up uneasily, the broad stairway that creaked as if gnawed by rats and moths since time immemorial. A broom had probably never swept there. What had been the use of having Señora Lucía go to the trouble of pressing his suit, wasting a sol to have his shoes shined. That must be the editorial office: the doors were open, there wasn’t anybody there. He stopped: with voracious, virgin eyes, he
explored
the empty office, the typewriters, the wicker wastebaskets, the desks, the photographs hanging on the walls. They work at night and sleep by day, he thought, a rather bohemian profession, rather romantic. He raised his hand and knocked discreetly.