Don Rigoberto, his eyes closed, had just asked himself this desperate question when, as his lips murmured the amorously vocative “Ah, Lucrecia!” his left arm knocked one of the notebooks to the floor. He picked it up and glanced at the page it had opened to in the fall. He gave a start: chance provided marvelous details, as he and his wife had often had occasion to discover in their flirtatious pursuits. What had he found? Two notes, written many years ago. The first, a forgettable reference to a small, anonymous, turn-of-the-century engraving of Mercury ordering the nymph Calypso to free Odysseus—with whom she had fallen in love and whom she was holding prisoner on her island—and allow him to continue his voyage back to Penelope. And the second, how marvelous, an impassioned reflection on: “The delicate fetishism of Johannes Vermeer, who, in Diana and Her Companions, pays plastic tribute to that scorned member of the female body by showing a nymph given over to the amorous task of using a sponge to wash—or rather, caress—Diana’s foot, while another nymph, in sweet abandon, caresses hers. Everything is subtle and carnal, imbued with a delicate sensuality masked by the perfection of the forms and the soft mist that bathes the scene, endowing the figures with the magical unreality that you possess, Lucrecia, every night in flesh and blood, as does your phantom when you visit my dreams.” How true, how real, how relevant.
And if he were to answer her anonymous letters? And if he actually were to write to her? And if he were to knock on her door this very afternoon, as soon as he had completed the last turn on the treadmill of his insuring and managerial servitude? And if, as soon as he saw her, he were to fall to his knees and humble himself, kissing the ground she walked on, begging her forgiveness and calling her, until he made her laugh, “My beloved nursemaid,” “My teacher from New Zealand,” “My Franchette,” “My Diana”? Would she laugh? Would she throw herself into his arms and, offering him her lips, make him feel her body, let him know that everything lay behind them, that they could begin again to build, all by themselves, their secret utopia?
Tiger Stew
With you I have a Hawaiian romance in which you dance the hula-hula for me on nights when the moon is full, wearing little bells on your hips and ankles, imitating Dorothy Lamour.
And an Aztec romance in which I sacrifice you to coppery, avid gods, serpentine and feathered, at the top of a pyramid made of rust-streaked stones, surrounded by the teeming, impenetrable jungle.
An Eskimo romance in freezing igloos illuminated by torches burning whale blubber, and a Norwegian one in which we love each other on skis, racing a hundred kilometers an hour down the slopes of a white mountain erupting in totems with runic inscriptions.
My conceit tonight, beloved, is modernist, bloodthirsty, and African.
You will undress before the mirror, keeping on your black stockings and red garters, and conceal your beautiful head beneath the mask of a wild animal, preferably the tigress in heat in Rubén Darío’s Azul…, or a Sudanese lioness.
You will thrust out your right hip, flex your left leg, rest your hand on the opposite hip, in the most savage, provocative pose.
Sitting in my chair, and lashed to its back, I will be looking at you and adoring you with my customary servility.
I will not move even an eyelash, I will not scream as you sink your claws into my eyes and your white fangs tear out my throat and you devour my flesh and slake your thirst with my enamored blood.
Now I am inside you, now I am you, beloved who feeds on me, your stew.
IX
The Date at the Sheraton
“Just so I could, just to find the courage to do it, I had a couple of whiskeys neat,” said Doña Lucrecia. “Before I started to put on my costume, I mean.”
“You must have been good and tight, Señora,” Justiniana remarked in amusement. “We know you have no head for liquor.”
“You’re shameless, you were right there,” Doña Lucrecia scolded her. “All excited at what might happen. Pouring the drinks, helping me dress up, laughing out loud while I was turning myself into a tart.”
“A hooker,” the maid echoed, touching up her rouge.
This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life, thought Doña Lucrecia. Worse than what I did with Fonchito, worse than marrying a madman like Rigoberto. If I do this I’ll be sorry till the day I die. And yet she was doing it. The red wig suited her perfectly—she had tried it on in the shop where she had ordered it—and its high, ornate piles of curls and ringlets seemed to be aflame. She barely recognized herself as that incandescent woman in her curled false eyelashes and tropical hoop earrings, heavily made up with fiery red lips larger than her real ones, and the beauty marks and blue eye shadow of a femme fatale in the style of a Mexican movie from the 1950s.
“Well, I’ll be darned, I can’t believe it, nobody would know it’s you.” An astonished Justiniana, her hand covering her mouth, examined her. “I don’t know who you look like, Señora.”
“A hooker, I guess,” declared Doña Lucrecia.
The whiskey had its effect. The doubts of a few moments before evaporated and now, intrigued and amused, she observed her own transformation in the mirror in her room. Justiniana was more and more amazed as she handed her the articles of clothing laid out on the bed: the miniskirt that clung so tightly she could hardly move; the black stockings topped by red garters with gold ornaments; the glittering blouse that exposed her breasts down to the nipples. She helped her, too, to put on the silver spike-heeled shoes. Stepping back to look her over from top to bottom, bottom to top, she exclaimed again in stupefaction, “It’s not you, Señora, it’s someone else, another woman. Are you really going out like that?”
“Of course,” Doña Lucrecia declared. “If I’m not back by morning, notify the police.”
And without another word she called for a taxi from the Virgen del Pilar station and said to the driver, in an authoritative voice, “Hotel Sheraton.” Two days ago, yesterday, this morning, as she prepared her outfit, she’d had her doubts. She had told herself she wouldn’t go, wouldn’t lend herself to this kind of spectacle, to what was surely a cruel joke; but once in the taxi she felt absolutely sure of herself, and determined to live out the adventure to its conclusion. And whatever happened would happen. She looked at her watch. The instructions said to come between eleven-thirty and midnight, and it was only eleven; she’d arrive early. Serene and somewhat removed because of the alcohol, she asked herself, as the taxi sped down the semideserted Zanjón expressway toward the center of the city, what she would do if someone recognized her at the Sheraton despite her disguise. She would deny what they saw, making her voice higher, using the honeyed, vulgar tone those women used: “Lucrecia? My name’s Aída. She looks like me? A distant relative, maybe.” She would lie with utter brazenness. Her fear had vanished totally. You’re under a spell and have to play a whore for one night, she thought, pleased with herself. She noticed that the cabdriver was constantly raising his eyes to the rearview mirror to look at her.
Before going into the Sheraton, she put on the dark glasses with pearly-white frames that ended in a kind of trident, which she had bought that afternoon in a little shop on La Paz. She had chosen them for their coarse bad taste and because they were big enough to seem like a mask. She hurried across the lobby toward the bar, afraid that one of the uniformed bellboys, eyeing her scornfully, would ask who she was and what she wanted, or throw her out no questions asked because of her tawdry appearance. But no one approached her. She walked up the steps to the bar at an unhurried pace. The dim light restored the confidence she had almost lost in the glare of the entrance, that vast hall under the oppressive rectangle of the hotel, a prisonlike skyscraper of floors, walls, corridors, balustrades, and bedrooms. In the half-light, through a haze of cigarette smoke, she saw that only a few tables were occupied. She heard an Italian tune sung by a prehistoric singer—Domenico Modugno—that reminded her of an old movie with Claudia Cardinale and Vittorio Gassman. Silhouettes stood at the bar against a bluish-yellow background
of glasses and rows of bottles. At one table voices rose in the strident early stages of drunkenness.
Once again she felt self-assured and certain of her ability to confront any unforeseen turn of events, and she crossed the room and claimed a bar stool. The mirror in front of her showed a grotesque figure that deserved tenderness, not revulsion or laughter. She could not have been more amazed when she heard the mestizo bartender, his hair stiff with pomade, wearing a vest several sizes too large and a string tie that seemed to be strangling him, say with loutish familiarity, “Order or get out.”
She was about to make a scene, but thought better of it, and said to herself with satisfaction that his insolence proved the success of her disguise. And, testing her new affected, sugary voice, she said, “A Black Label on the rocks, if you don’t mind.”
He stared at her, dubious, trying to decide if she was serious. Finally he murmured, “On the rocks, right,” and moved away. She thought that her disguise would have been complete if she had added a long cigarette holder. Then she would have asked him for a pack of Kool 100’s and blown smoke rings toward the ceiling of winking stars.
The bartender brought the bill with the whiskey, and she did not protest this show of distrust either but paid, leaving no tip. She had barely taken her first sip when someone sat down beside her. She shuddered slightly. The game was turning serious. But no, it wasn’t a man but a woman, fairly young, wearing pants and a dark sleeveless polo with a high neck. Her straight hair hung loose, and she had an impudent, rather common face, the kind that Egon Schiele’s girls had.
“Hello.” The thin Mirafloran voice sounded familiar. “Haven’t we met?”
“I don’t think so,” Doña Lucrecia replied.
“I thought we had, I’m sorry,” said the girl. “I really have a terrible memory. Do you come here often?”
“Once in a while,” Doña Lucrecia said hesitantly. Did she know her?
“The Sheraton isn’t as safe as it used to be,” the girl lamented. She lit a cigarette and exhaled a mouthful of smoke that took some time to dissipate. “I heard they raided it on Friday.”
Doña Lucrecia imagined herself pushed into a police van, taken to the station, charged with prostitution.
“Order or get out,” the bartender warned her neighbor, threatening her with a raised finger.
“You go to hell, you stinking half-breed,” the girl said, not even turning to look at him.
“You’re always ready with the backtalk, Adelita,” the bartender said with a smile, showing teeth that Doña Lucrecia was sure were green with tartar. “All right, go on. Make yourself at home. You know I have a soft spot for you, and you take advantage.”
That was when Doña Lucrecia recognized her. Adelita, of course! Esthercita’s daughter! Well, well, so this was the daughter of Esther the prude.
“Señora Esthercita’s daughter?” Justiniana doubled over with laughter. “Adelita? Little Adelita? The daughter of Fonchito’s godmother? Picking up tricks at the Sheraton? I can’t swallow that, Señora. I can’t swallow that even with Coca-Cola or champagne.”
“Adelita in person, and you can’t imagine what she was like,” declared Doña Lucrecia. “Tough as nails. Using filthy language, moving as easily as a fish in water there at the bar. Like the oldest tart in Lima.”
“And she didn’t recognize you?”
“No, fortunately. But you haven’t heard anything yet. We were sitting and talking when this man appeared, out of the blue. Adelita knew him, apparently.”
He was tall, strong, a little heavy, a little drunk, a little of everything a man needs in order to feel fearless and in command. Wearing a suit and a loud tie with a pattern of diamonds and zigzags. Breathing like a bellows. He must have been about fifty. Placing himself between the two women, he put his arms around them both, and as if they were lifelong friends, he said by way of greeting, “Are you two coming to my suite? I have good booze and a little something for the nose. And lots of dollars for girls who know how to be nice.”
Doña Lucrecia felt dizzy. The man’s breath hit her in the face. He was so close to her that with the slightest movement he could have kissed her.
“You all alone, honey?” the girl asked flirtatiously.
“What do you need anybody else for?” The man sucked in his lips, touching the pocket where he must have carried his wallet. “A hundred green ones apiece, okay? Paid in advance.”
“If you don’t have tens or fifties, I’ll take soles,” Adelita said immediately. “The hundred-dollar bills are always counterfeit.”
“Okay, okay, I have fifties,” the man promised. “Let’s go, girls.”
“I’m expecting someone,” Doña Lucrecia apologized. “I’m sorry.”
“Can’t he wait?” the man said impatiently.
“I can’t, really.”
“If you want, just the two of us can go up,” Adelita interrupted, taking him by the arm. “I’ll be nice to you, honey.”
But the man turned her down, disappointed.
“Not just you, no. Tonight I’m giving myself a present. My ponies won three races and the daily double. Want me to tell you what the present is? I’m going to do something that’s been making me crazy for days. Know what it is?” He looked first at one and then the other, very seriously, loosening his collar, and then, without waiting for an answer, eagerly continued: “I’m going to fuck one while I eat the other. And watch them in the mirror, feeling each other up, kissing each other, while they sit on the throne. And I’ll be the throne.”
Egon Schiele’s mirror, thought Señora Lucrecia. She felt less repelled by his vulgarity than by the pitiless glint in his eyes as he described his desire.
“Your eyes will pop out of your head if you look at so many things at once, honey.” Adelita laughed, pretending to punch him.
“It’s my fantasy. Thanks to the ponies, tonight it’ll come true,” he said proudly, by way of farewell. “Too bad you’re busy, babe, I like your looks, even with all the war paint. Ciao, girls.”
When he had disappeared among the tables—the bar was more crowded than before, the smoke denser, the sound of conversations louder, and now the music on the loudspeakers was a merengue by Juan Luis Guerra—Adelita leaned toward her with a dejected look on her face.
“Do you really have a date? With our friend there it would have been a bargain. What he said about the horses is a lie. He’s a dealer, everybody knows him. And he comes right away, a hundred miles an hour. Premature ejaculation, they call it. So damn fast he hardly gets started sometimes. It was a present, honey.”
Doña Lucrecia tried without success to put on a knowing smile. How could any daughter of Esther’s be saying such things? A woman so fastidious, so rich, so vain, so elegant, so Catholic. Esthercita, Fonchito’s god mother. The girl went on with the self-assured remarks that astounded Doña Lucrecia.
“What a pain in the ass missing a chance to earn a hundred dollars in half an hour, more like fifteen minutes,” she complained. “Going up with you to do that guy sounded good to me, I swear. It would have been over one two three. I don’t know about you, but what I can’t stand is doing those damn couples. The husband bug-eyed while you make the little woman hot. Honey, I hate those bitches! Dumb cunts always dying of embarrassment. They giggle, they’re ashamed, you have to give them booze and plenty of stroking. Shit, I tell you it makes me sick to my stomach. Especially when they start to cry and feel sorry for what they did. I swear I could kill them. You waste half an hour, an hour with those broads. First they want to, then they don’t, and you lose a lot of money. I don’t have any patience for it, honey. It’s happened to you, hasn’t it?”
“Sure it has,” Doña Lucrecia felt obliged to say, having to force each word out of her mouth. “Sometimes.”
“Now, what’s even worse is two guys, bosom buddies, pals, know what I mean?” Adelita said with a sigh. Her voice had changed and Doña Lucrecia thought that something awful must have been done to her by sadists, madmen, m
onsters. “They feel so macho when there are two of them. And they begin to ask for all the crazy shit. Blow jobs, the sandwich, up-the-ass. Why don’t you ask your old lady for that one, babe? I don’t know about you, honey, but as far as I’m concerned, up-the-ass is something I won’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I don’t like it. It’s disgusting. And it hurts too. So I won’t do it even for two hundred dollars. What about you?”
“The same goes for me,” Doña Lucrecia declared. “It makes me sick and it hurts, just like you said. Up-the-ass is a killer, not for two hundred, not for a thousand.”
“Well, for a thousand, who knows?” The girl laughed. “See? We’re alike. Well, there’s your date, I think. Let’s see if next time the two of us can do that moron with his ponies. Ciao, have fun.”
She moved away, leaving her seat free for the slender figure who was approaching. In the dim light Doña Lucrecia saw that he was young, with dark blond hair and boyish features and a vague resemblance to…to whom? Fonchito! A Fonchito with ten years added, whose eyes had hardened and whose body had lengthened and toughened. He wore an elegant blue suit, and the pink handkerchief in his jacket pocket was the same color as his tie.
“The inventor of the word ‘individualism’ was Alexis de Tocqueville,” he said by way of greeting, in a harsh voice. “True or false?”
“True.” Doña Lucrecia broke into a cold sweat: what was going to happen now? Determined to see it through to the end, she added, “I am Aldonza, the Andalusian from Rome. Whore, sorceress, and mender of maidenheads, at your service.”