Conversation in the Cathedral (35 page)

“All right, if you insist so much, I’ll have them watch him for a few days more,” Major Paredes said. “But I know it’s a waste of time.”

“Even though he’s retired and dumb, a general is a general,” he said. “I mean he’s more dangerous than all the Apristas and redtails put together.”

*

Hipólito was a brute, yessir, but he had his feelings too, Ludovico and Ambrosio had found out that time in Porvenir. They still had some time and they were going to get a drink when Hipólito appeared and took each one by the arm: he was inviting them to a snort. They’d gone to the dive on the Avenida Bolivia, Hipólito ordered three short ones, took out his oval cigarettes and lighted the match with a trembling hand. You could see he was nervous, sir, he was laughing listlessly, running his tongue over his mouth like a thirsty animal, looking behind, and the depths of his eyes were dancing. Ludovico and Ambrosio looked at each other as if to say what ails this guy.

“You seem to be carrying some problem around, Hipólito,” Ambrosio said.

“Did you catch the clap in some whorehouse, brother?” Ludovico asked.

He shook his head no, drained his glass, asked the Chinaman for another round. What was wrong, then, Hipólito? He looked at them, blew smoke in their faces, he’d finally decided to let the cat out of the bag, sir: he was bothered by that whoopty-do in Porvenir. Ambrosio and Ludovico laughed. There was nothing to it, Hipólito, the crazy old women would start running with the first whistle, it was the easiest work in the world, brother. Hipólito drained the second glass and his eyes popped out. He wasn’t afraid, he knew what the word meant, but he’d never felt it, he’d been a boxer.

“Fuck off, you’re not going to start telling us about your fights again?” Ludovico said.

“It’s something personal,” Hipólito said sorrowfully.

It was Ludovico’s turn to pay for another round, and the Chinaman, who’d seen that they were going along at full speed, left the bottle on the bar. Last night he couldn’t sleep because of that whoopty-do, you can imagine what it was like. Ambrosio and Ludovico looked at each other as if to say has he gone crazy? Talk to us straight out, Hipólito, that’s why they were friends. He coughed, he was just about to but he changed his mind, sir, his voice got stuck in the end but he loosened it up: a family affair, something personal. And without further ado, he poured out a mournful story, sir. His mother made mats and had her stand in the Parada market, he’d grown up in Porvenir, lived there, if you could call that living. He’d washed and polished cars, run errands, unloaded trucks at the market, picking up pennies where best he could, sometimes
sticking
his hand in where he shouldn’t have.

“What do they call people from Porvenir?” Ludovico interrupted him. “People from Lima are called Limans, people from Bajo el Puente are Bajopontines, what about people from Porvenir?”

“You don’t give a shit about what I’m saying,” Hipólito had said furiously.

“By no means, brother.” Ludovico patted him on the back. “That question just came to me all of a sudden. I’m sorry, go ahead.”

That even though it had been some years since he’d been back there, here inside, and he touched his chest, sir, Porvenir was still home to him: besides, that’s where he’d started boxing. That a lot of the old women in Parada knew him, that some of them were going to recognize him, maybe.

“Oh, now I get it,” Ludovico said. “There’s no reason for you to get upset, who’s going to recognize you after so many years? Besides, they won’t even see your face, the lighting in Porvenir is awful, the punks keep throwing stones at the street lights and breaking them. There’s nothing to worry about, Hipólito.”

He’d stood there thinking, licking his lips like a cat. The Chinaman brought salt and a lemon, Ludovico salted the tip of his tongue and squeezed half of the lemon into his mouth, drained his glass and
exclaimed
that the drink had gone up in quality. He’d started talking about something else, but Hipólito silent, looking at the floor, the bar, thinking.

“No,” he’d said suddenly. “I’m not bothered by somebody recognizing me. I’m bothered by the whole idea of the whoopty-do.”

“But why, man?” Ludovico said. “Isn’t it better to put a scare into old women than students, for example? All they do is holler and jump, Hipólito. Noise can’t hurt anyone.”

“What if I have to swat one of the ones who fed me when I was a kid?” Hipólito had said, pounding on the table, all worked up, sir.

Ambrosio and Ludovico as if saying here comes the crybaby stuff again. But man, brother, if they fed you then they’re good people,
religious
, law-abiding women, do you think they’d get mixed up in political fights? But Hipólito. He wouldn’t be convinced, he was shaking his head as if you can’t convince me.

“I’m doing this today, but I don’t like it,” he said finally.

“Do you think anybody likes it?” Ludovico asked.

“I do,” said Ambrosio, laughing. “It’s like a rest for me, an
adventure
.”

“That’s because you only come along once in a while,” Ludovico said. “You’ve got a great life as the big boss’s chauffeur and this is just a game for you. Wait till you get your head split open by a stone, the way it happened to me once.”

“Then let’s hear you tell us that you still like it,” Hipólito had said.

Lucky for him nothing ever happened to him, sir.

*

How dared he? On her days off when she didn’t go to see her aunt in Limoncillo or Señora Rosario in Mirones, she would go out with
Anduvia
and María, two maids in the neighborhood. Because he’d helped her get that job, did he think she’d forgotten? They’d take walks, go to the movies, one Sunday they’d gone to the Coliseo to see the folk
dancing
. Just because you chatted with him did he think you’d forgiven him already? Sometimes she went out with Carlota, but not too often, because Símula wanted her to have her home before dark. You shouldn’t have treated him so well, dummy. When they left, Símula would drive them crazy with her instructions, and when they got back with her questions. She was really going to stand him up on Sunday, coming here all the way from Miraflores in vain, oh, she was going to get one up on him. Poor Carlota, Símula wouldn’t let her stick so much as her nose out onto the street, she worked hard to frighten her about men. All week long she was thinking he’s going to be waiting for you, sometimes it sent her into a rage that made her tremble, sometimes into laughter. But he probably wouldn’t come, she’d told him not in your wildest dream and he’d say to himself why should I go. On Saturday she pressed the shiny blue dress that Señora Hortensia had given her, where are you going tomorrow? Carlota asked her, to her aunt’s. She looked in the mirror and insulted herself: you’re already thinking about going, dummy. No, she wouldn’t go. That Sunday, for the first time, she put on the high-heeled shoes she’d just bought and the bracelet she’d won in a raffle. Before leaving she put a little lipstick on.

She cleared the table quickly, ate practically no lunch, went up to the mistress’s room to look at herself in the full-length mirror. She went straight to the Bertoloto Hotel, passed it, and on Costanera she felt fury and a tingling in her body: there he was at the streetcar stop, waving. She thought go back, she thought you won’t speak to him. He had a brown suit, white shirt and red tie on and was wearing a handkerchief in his jacket pocket.

“I was praying you wouldn’t stand me up,” Ambrosio said. “I’m glad you came.”

“I came to get the streetcar,” she said, indignant, turning away from him. “I’m going to my aunt’s.”

“Fine,” Ambrosio said. “Let’s ride downtown together.”

*

“I was forgetting one detail,” Major Paredes said. “Espina’s been seeing a lot of your friend Zavala.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “They’ve been friends for years. Espina got his laboratory the concession to supply the army commissaries.”

“There are a few things about that big shot that I don’t like,” Major Paredes said. “I keep an eye on him from time to time. He’s had meetings with Apristas.”

“Thanks to those important Apristas he learns lots of things and thanks to him I learn about them,” he said. “Zavala’s no problem. You’re wasting your time on him.”

“I’ve never been convinced of the loyalty of that big shot,” Major Paredes said. “He’s with the government in order to do business. Strictly a matter of convenience.”

“We’re all with the government out of convenience; the important thing is for it to be convenient for people like Zavala to be with the government.” He smiled. “Can we take a look at the Cajamarca
business
?”

Major Paredes nodded. He picked up one of the three telephones and gave an order. He was thoughtful for a moment.

“At first I thought you were only posing as a cynic,” he said then. “Now I’m convinced you really are. You don’t believe in anything or anybody, Cayo.”

“I’m not paid to believe, I’m paid to do my job.” He smiled again. “And I’m doing a good job, right?”

“If you’re only in this out of convenience, how come you haven’t accepted other offers a thousand times better than what the President has offered you?” Major Paredes laughed. “You see, you are a cynic, but not as much as you’d like to think you are.”

He stopped smiling and looked at Major Paredes wistfully.

“Maybe because your uncle gave me an opportunity that no one else gave me,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe because I haven’t found anyone who can serve your uncle in this job the way I can. Or maybe because I like the work, I don’t know.”

“The President is concerned about your health and so am I,” Major Paredes said. “In three years you’ve aged ten. How’s your ulcer?”

“Healed over,” he said. “I don’t have to drink milk anymore, thank God.”

He reached for his cigarettes on the desk, lighted one and had a coughing attack.

“How many do you smoke a day?” Major Paredes asked.

“Two or three packs,” he said. “But dark tobacco, not that crap you smoke.”

“I don’t know what’s going to do you in first.” Major Paredes laughed. “Tobacco, the ulcer, amphetamines, the Apristas, or some resentful army officer like the Uplander. Or your harem.”

He gave a touch of a smile. There was a knock on the door, the captain with the little mustache came in with a file folder: the photostats were ready, Major. Paredes spread the map out on the desk: red and blue marks at certain intersections, a thick black line that zigzagged along many streets and came to an end in a square. They leaned over the map for some time. Danger points, Major Paredes was saying, troop
concentrations
, the route of the movement, the bridge to be inaugurated. He was taking notes in a small book, smoking, asking questions in his
monotonous
voice. They went back to their chairs.

“Tomorrow I’m traveling to Cajamarca with Captain Ríos to take a last look at the security precautions,” Major Paredes said. “There’s no problem on our side, security will function like clockwork. What about your people?”

“I’m not worried about security,” he said. “I’m worried about
something
else.”

“His reception?” Major Paredes asked. “Do you think they’ll do something unpleasant?”

“The senator and the deputies have promised to fill the square,” he said. “But promises like that, you know. This afternoon I’m going to meet with the reception committee. I had them come to Lima.”

“Those uplanders would be ungrateful shits not to receive him with open arms,” Major Paredes said. “He’s building them a road, a bridge. Who ever remembered there even was a Cajamarca before that?”

“Cajamarca’s always been an Aprista hotbed,” he said. “We’ve done some cleaning up, but something unforeseen could happen.”

“The President thinks the trip will be a success,” Major Paredes said. “He says you’ve assured him there’ll be forty thousand people at the rally and no trouble.”

“There will be, and there won’t be any trouble,” he said. “But those are the things that are aging me. Not the ulcers or the tobacco.”

*

They’d paid the Chinaman, gone out, and when they got to the courtyard the meeting had already begun, sir. Mr. Lozano looked angrily at them and pointed to the clock. There were some fifty there, all dressed in civilian clothes, some were laughing like idiots and what a stink. This one on the regular list, this one a hired hand like me, the other one from the list, Ludovico was pointing them out, and a police major was talking, potbellied, half-stuttering, who kept repeating “so that.” So that there were assault guards on the outskirts, so th-th-that there were patrol cars too, so that the c-c-cavalry was hidden in some garages and c-c-corrals. Ludovico and Ambrosio looked at each other as if to say c-c-comical, sir, but Hipólito kept a funeral face. And then Mr. Lozano came forward, all very quiet to listen to him.

“But the idea is that the police won’t have to intervene,” he’d said. “It’s something Mr. Bermúdez has asked about especially. And there isn’t to be any shooting either.”

“He’s bringing in the big boss because you’re here,” Ludovico had said to Ambrosio. “So you’ll go back and tell him.”

“So that that’s why they didn’t issue pistols, just c-c-clubs and other h-h-hand weapons.”

A sound of stomachs, throats, feet had arisen, they were all protesting but without opening their mouths, sir. Quiet, the Major said, but the one who settled things in an intelligent way was Mr. Lozano.

“You’re a first-class bunch and you don’t need bullets to break up a handful of crazy women. If things get rough the assault guards will go into action.” Very smart, he made a joke: “Anybody who’s afraid raise your hand.” Nobody. And he: “Fine, because otherwise you’d have to give your drinks back.” Laughter. And he: “Carry on with your
instructions
, Major.”

“So th-th-that understood, and before you get your weapons take a good look at each other’s f-f-faces so that you won’t be hitting each other by m-m-mistake.”

They had laughed, out of politeness, not because his joke was funny, and where the weapons were they had to sign a receipt. They gave them clubs, brass knuckles and bicycle chains. They returned to the courtyard, mingled with each other, some were already so bashed they could barely speak. Ambrosio got them into conversation, where they were from, if they’d been chosen by lot. No, sir, they were all volunteers. Happy to get a few extra soles, but some were scared at what might happen to them. They were smoking, fooling around, pretending to hit each other with the clubs. That’s the way they were until around six o’clock when the Major came to tell them that the bus is here. On the square in Porvenir half of them stayed with Ludovico and Ambrosio, in the center, by the swings. Hipólito had taken the others over near the movie theater. Broken down into groups of three, four, they’d gone into the amusement park. Ambrosio and Ludovico looked at the flying seats, wild for lifting up women’s skirts, right? No, sir, you couldn’t see a thing, there wasn’t enough light. The others were buying Italian ices, mashed yams, a couple of them had brought their flasks and were taking their drinks beside the Ferris wheel. It smells as if Lozano had been given a bum steer, Ludovico had said. They’d been there a half hour already and not a sign of anything.